http://luo-shu.com/book/illuminated_books_carpenters_square
(I gave the wrong URL before, this one will work)

Scroll to the very bottom, Appendix I.

I have a start date of the Third Century, BC from Nibley’s book, Temple and Cosmos, p. 112.

I am most interested in the cross cultural use (and more time line info). So far, beginning in the Third Century BC thru the Seventh Century AD (one thousand years) , the use spread from Egypt to Judea, China, Egypt, Italy, and Egypt.

I am most interested in the Meso-American usage of the carpenter’s square and a start date.

http://luo-shu.com/book/part_one/chapter_eight/illuminated_books_symbols_carpernter%E2%80%99s_square_circle

Thanks for the informative web site and the great references.

There’s an illustration in The Code of Kings. I’ll give you the web site and you can arrow to the page before.
http://books.google.com/books?id=QRxr0uuxw3kC&pg=PA127&lpg=PA127&dq=cube+sphere+pakal+schele&source=bl&ots=MTd3ger6Xh&sig=GwX4GmdmXEJ7Y23VxENGSsdlvAg&hl=en&ei=1vLYSYSOMaPNlQecpZneDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1

If you have trouble bringing it in, Google: cube sphere pakal schele

There is a photograph of the sphere and square, but I’ll have to find it in my library. They were laying next to the hands of the skeleton of Pakal, so they know he was holding these objects.

I’m working on a paper entitled “Paradise Themes,” and I will download it to you shortly. It has a lot to do with the four streams and four trees at the corners of the earth. You can give me your opinion as well.

Diane

Dr. Robert Dickter

Here’s what I wrote at FPR.

I think the problem is that there are compelling reasons to think though that temple parallels in the near east tell us something significant. That's because (1) the temple purports to have some genealogical connection to that era; (2) our western tradition including masonry, hermeticism, etc. traces to that area and era; (3) there were people with the gospel in some form in that place.

When one moves to China and the surrounding locals things become more tricky because (1) there is no purported revelation of the temple there; (2) it is far more alien to the western tradition; and (3) we don't know how many had the gospel as we understand it.

In addition to all this though are what for lack of a better term I'll call the psychological structuralists. This would include Jung, Campbell, and others. (Roughly the scholarship from the 40's through the 60's) These people see the parallels because they believe they reflect some cognitive structure (ignoring for the moment what they considered the mind to be). I've long thought Nibley ought be taken in that category both because of the period of his training but also his methodology is similar. While I don't think these figures are taken that seriously anymore – often due to big methadological problems (decontextualizing) there is something to be said for the stance. That is if there are common cognitive structures in human beings we ought expect those to be reflected in our oral narratives, rituals, etc.

From and LDS stance though if there is a spirit with some level of a veil of forgetfulness then the notion of this collective unconscious found in the psychological structuralists will manifest itself as a kind of repressed remembrance of a premortal life manifesting itself in human behavior. Now making the move from the general claim to the claim that this structure is significant will be much more problematic. But I think one should be careful here.

I should also note that while a lot see Nibley's parallels as evidence a perhaps too naive and optimistic diffusionism I think this more Freudean like element is at least as present. Indeed if you look at his writings on the Manic vs. Sophist you'll see that provides the philosophical ground for his structuralism and ends up being fairly similar to Freud or Jung with even more of a Platonic thrust. (Hardly uncommon in the structuralism of the era) Even if Nibley ultimately has a different ontology.