God restored the doctrine of exaltation through the Prophet Joseph Smith, as part of the restoration of the church of Jesus Christ.  Some have thought that Joseph’s teaching of this concept was a rather late invention of the prophet, near the end of his life.  However, the doctrine can be found even in the Book of Mormon, which was published before the church was formally organized.

I recently came across two great articles that were published that discuss this topic.

• Daniel C. Peterson, “Defending the Faith: Exaltation isn’t a new doctrine,” Deseret News, 8 November 2012.  Peterson shows in this article how the doctrine of exaltation, or theosis, was not a late revelation in the restoration of the Church, but is found throughout the teachings of Joseph Smith.
• Elder Tad R. Callister, Presidency of the Seventy, “Our Identity and Our Destiny,” BYU Devotional Address, Campus Education Week, 14 August 2012.  Elder Callister fantastically presents five witnesses of the truth of the doctrine of deification: the testimony of the scriptures, the witness of the early Christian writers, the wisdom of poets and authors, the power of logic, and the voice of history.

I highly recommend these two articles.  If you want even further in-depth study, then I also suggest William J. Hamblin’s excellent recent publication in the Interpreter journal, “‘I Have Revealed Your Name’: The Hidden Temple in John 17,” where Hamblin discusses the chapter of John 17 in fine detail, revealing the strong temple concepts embedded in the text, including theosis.  He also includes an appendix with a bibliography of twenty-three recent scholars’ books on the subject of deification, published just in the last decade, all of them Christian, that you may dive into to learn more about this very Christian teaching.

The Doctrine of Exaltation, Godhood or Deification

A group that gathered to discuss temple studies on October 28, 2012. L to R: William Hamblin, Dave Butler, Gary Anderson, Steve Densley, Gordon Thomasson, Debbie Peterson, Daniel Peterson, Laurence Hemming, Le Grande Davies, John Fowles, George Mitton, Jacob Rennaker, Bob Smith, Margaret Barker, Bryce Haymond, Danel Bachman, Philip Barlow, John Welch, Jeff Bradshaw. (Click to enlarge)

William Hamblin and Daniel Peterson have written a column in the Deseret News entitled “Understanding the centrality of temple rites,” which gives a great introduction to what has become known as “temple theology,” which is essentially the centrality of the temple in the Bible and in Christianity.  Most of modern Christianity believes the temple to be quite foreign to their worship, and yet it pervades the Bible in both the Old and New Testaments.  Why is that?  Professors Hamblin and Peterson help give us a brief introduction to that topic, as well as the scholarship of Methodist scholar Margaret Barker, the newly formed Academy for Temple Studies, the Temple Studies Group in England, and the temple conference in Logan Utah this past week for which Margaret Barker was the keynote speaker.  It is an exciting time for temple studies!

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765614556/Understanding-the-centrality-of-temple-rites.html

An Introduction to Temple Theology

Omo 1 skull remains, considered the oldest Homo sapiens fossils discovered, scientists date to 200,000 years old

This is a follow-up to “The Age of the Earth” post, although I suppose that one was really laying the groundwork for this one.  This is where everything comes to a head (like the one shown here).  Was there death before the Fall of Adam and Eve?  It is a very delicate question, because there are very strong feelings on many sides of the issue, some of which may have tremendous gospel implications as well.  So here we will tread lightly, and attempt to not make any dogmatic conclusions.  I’m not sure I have any besides.  These are simply some first impressions on the subject.  Because that is the case, we will ask more questions here than we attempt to answer in any substantial way.

This is a point of presumed doctrine in LDS belief that causes consternation for many members.  Similar to the age of the Earth question, it causes cognitive dissonance for some, insofar that some even lose their faith in the Church, and even leave the Church.  I perceive that this should not be.  There are answers, even if preliminary, to most of these difficult questions.  It should also be noted that questions such as these are not necessarily central to the gospel, nor to our salvation, but they do affect some people’s ability to function in the Church because of the cognitive dissonance it causes them.

The belief, as I introduced above, is that there was no death before the Fall of Adam and Eve.  No death, period.  On the other hand, the world and its legions of scientists of all stripes inform us that there were dinosaurs, dating back 230 million years, with bones scattered in all parts of the world (one of the largest caches is located right here in Vernal, Utah).  There were trilobites, perhaps the most common fossil, dating back 526 million years (again, one of the richest quarries is just west of Delta, Utah, where you can actually “farm” for trilobites to take home.)  There were ancient forests, plant life, zooplankton, and algae, dating back millions of year, which helped give us the crude oil that powers much of our world today.  There are even bones of hominids that used stone tools that most scientists concur died a couple million years ago.  Indeed, there are even bones of anatomically modern humans that have been dated to up to 200,000 years old (see the image above).

So something is going on here.  There are several options: either the majority of scientists are just plain wrong (which is not likely), or the Church is just plain wrong (which is not likely), or there is another explanation somewhere in the middle.  I don’t usually like to side with extremes, as the truth usually falls somewhere in the middle.  For these, there must be other answers.  But before answers, questions.

First of all, I think we need to parse the question about Adam and Eve a little better, if we have any hope of coming to answers:

• What is death?
• To whom did it apply?
• What is the Fall?
• When did the Fall happen?
• Who are Adam and Eve?
• What was the Garden of Eden?

I don’t propose to have all the answers to these questions, but present them as points of pondering when we come upon this issue.  Also notice that most times the conclusion is not simply that there was “no death before the Fall,” but much more specifically that there was “no death anywhere on Earth, ever, in any species of life, animal or plant, prior to Adam and Eve partaking of the forbidden fruit and thereby causing the Fall of all life on planet Earth from an immortal to mortal state, as well as other changes, which happened nearly precisely at 4000 B.C.”  There is quite a difference between those two conclusions, but we don’t often talk about it in those terms.  So another question could be, which question are we asking; is it the former or the latter?  Unless we know the question, it’s hard to find answers.  I perceive the latter proposal includes many details that are not part of Church doctrine (e.g. what if we find existence of life on Mars?  Did the Fall include other planets in our solar system, or our Earth only?), and there may be interpretations of the former that also have no part of Church doctrine.  Factoring these things in, we may be able to come to tentative answers to the question that allows for science to exist alongside faith.

As I noted in my last post, the prophet Brigham Young declared:

In these respects we differ from the Christian world, for our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular… whether the Lord found the earth empty and void, whether he made it out of nothing or out of the rude elements; or whether he made it in six days or in as many millions of years, is and will remain a matter of speculation in the minds of men unless he give revelation on the subject. If we understood the process of creation there would be no mystery about it, it would be all reasonable and plain, for there is no mystery except to the ignorant. (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses 14:166, May 14, 1871.)

I think this is key, and will come back to it several times.  Of course, Brigham Young is not the only one that has said such things, but he did often expound on the relationship between religion and science.  ”Our religion will not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular.”  That’s a profound statement, and one that should prompt us to search for answers in the present question.  In step with President Young we might add this statement by Elder James E. Talmage, which is even carved upon his grave’s headstone:

Within the gospel of Jesus Christ there is room and place for every truth thus far learned by man, or yet to be made known. The Gospel is not behind the times, on the contrary it is up-to-date and ever shall be… Believe not those who assert that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is in any way opposed to progress or inconsistent with advancement. (“The Earth and Man“)

Of course, we may not know the true facts, but as it stands there is much that we do know to say we have very plausible evidence to support the conclusion that there has been life and death on this planet for a long time, a very long time.  But how to square that with the Church?

Let’s start with the dating of the Fall.  Do we know when the Fall took place?  I conceive that we don’t, and that there is no Church doctrine or revelation that says we know this.  If you turn to the chronology of dates in the Bible Dictionary, for instance, you will note that it shows the Fall of Adam at 4000 B.C., but there is a big disclaimer that goes along with it:

For the earliest parts of O.T. history we rely entirely on the scripture itself; but the Hebrew Bible, the Septuagint or Greek translation, and the Samaritan Pentateuch do not agree together, so that many dates cannot be fixed with certainty. (Those desiring calculated dates on these events may wish to consult published chronologies.)

There is no consensus on these very early dates.  They cannot be fixed.  There is even a note to consult third-party chronologies to get a better picture.  Once we go back that far, dates and times and years all become very symbolic of time periods, eras, and divisions, not of exact years, as we saw in the age of the Earth post.  There were not historians keeping precise calendars that we can turn to (or if there were, we have not found them yet).  The Fall of Adam and Eve could have taken place in 40,000 B.C. or even 400,000 B.C. for all we know (although that does bring up more questions about genealogical lines and lineages mentioned in scripture).  God has not revealed the date of the Fall, as the Bible Dictionary notes, “we rely entirely on the scripture itself.”  And the scripture itself we know does not need to be taken at literal face value in these things.

One reason for the 4000 B.C. dating may be the simple fact that we only have recorded history that dates back to about 4000 B.C.  But just because we don’t have extant writing from before that doesn’t preclude man’s existence.  The scripture we have today, from Adam all the way down until about the time of David, is all very vague and uncertain when it comes to dates and times, and that particular time period supposedly covers about 3000 years of history!  How long things took during that time, we just don’t know.

Let’s turn for a moment to the scriptures, those in particular where we believe that we are taught that there was no death before the Fall.  Let’s begin by looking at 2 Nephi 2:22–25, probably one of the most cited scriptures on this issue:

And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. (verse 22)

This is the great hypothetical.  If Adam had not transgressed, he would not have fallen.  That makes sense; it was the transgression which caused the Fall.  He would have remained in the garden otherwise.  He was kicked out of the garden because of the transgression.  Here is the kicker: “and all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.”  That’s quite a mouthful.  But what does it mean?  Well, as we’ve seen, many have taken it to believe that there was no death before the Fall of Adam.  This is an interesting conclusion, however, for a number of reasons.  The verse doesn’t talk about life or death.  It doesn’t even mention those words.  It says that “all things” which were created would have stayed in the “same state” in which they were after they were created, forever.

What are “all things”?  And what does “same state” mean?  I perceive that there are no clear answers to these questions.  All things may be that which pertained to Adam and Eve only, which to them included the Garden of Eden, and nothing more.  They knew nothing else.  That was their world.  It was everything they knew, and which God concerned himself most particularly.  Once the creation is completed, it is only the garden we are told about, as the scriptures focus us in.  It doesn’t say “all things on the Earth” or “all things in the whole of God’s creation.”  Furthermore, what does “same state” mean?  There were a lot of things going on in the Garden of Eden before the Fall.  It was not a frozen static place.  It was quite dynamic, with life abounding (perhaps more than anywhere else on earth since), and Adam and Eve were tending to it, and taking care of it all.  So in some sense, being in the “same state” does not include activity, life, and change.  Yes, Adam and Eve may certainly have been immortal in that place, for the Fall brought mortality.  But was it mortality for them only, or the whole of creation?  Where does one thing end and the other begin?  We know that God has made worlds without number, so at some point this change from immortality to mortality was confined to a localized region.  But we are not told to what, in this scripture.  This scripture seems to be only telling us about Adam (and presumably Eve), and what was going on with them in the garden.  The garden is what’s on stage.

And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. (verse 23)

Continuing the hypothetical situation presented to us, of Adam not having transgressed, here we learn that Adam & Eve would not have had children in that condition.  Procreation, at least for “they,” Adam and Eve, was conditioned on their becoming fallen and mortal; we’re not told why.  Again, this seems to be specific to Adam and Eve; we are not told about the procreation of other life, even other life in the garden.  Next we are told they “would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.”  There’s that word “state” again.  I wonder if there is a connection to the previous verse of “remaining in the same state,” and if this is an explication of that preceding verse.  Perhaps this is telling us what “same state” means; whether this is the full extent of what it means, we are not told.  In any case, we are told that Adam and Eve would have remained in a state of innocence, including joylessness, stagnancy, and ignorance.

But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. (verses 24-25)

God had a plan.  He knew what to do to set things in motion.  Adam’s transgression was a necessary step in the plan of salvation to get all the wheels turning.  It is because of the Fall that Adam and Eve were able to have children, the posterity of all mankind, and that we might ultimately experience a fullness of joy.

These are the main scriptures that most point to as evidence of no death before the Fall.  As we’ve noted, they don’t necessarily talk about life, death, or what came before the Fall, although they might allude to those things.  Specifically, they teach us that Adam and Eve were in an innocent state within the garden, and they would have continued in that state if they had not fallen.  But they did fall, and that was the tipping point for the plan of salvation of God’s children to proceed forward.

There are other scriptures on this subject:

And he said unto them: Because that Adam fell, we are; and by his fall came death; and we are made partakers of misery and woe. (Moses 6:48)

Here we are told much the same thing, that because Adam fell, we came into being.  Additionally, we are told that by his fall came death.  But we are not told to whom death came.  It likely applies to Adam and his posterity, as the balance of the verse alludes, “we” are made partakers of misery and woe.  But we don’t know if it is more widespread than that.

For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. (1 Cor. 15:21–22)

Here again, we are talking about Adam, and by his becoming fallen he became subject to death, as did we.  And it is by Christ that we will be resurrected from the dead to live again.  It doesn’t say anything about anything outside of Adam and his posterity.

In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Gen. 2:17; Moses 3:17)

If Adam partook of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, he was told that we would surely die.  This is true.  Note he is told “in the day” he partook, he would die.  Again, days to the Lord are not the same as to man, and this is most likely a period of time, or symbolic of a passage of time, rather than a 24 hour day, as I discussed in my previous post.  Adam (and Eve) would die, eventually.

And death hath come upon our fathers; nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam. (Moses 6:45)

Again, death came upon Adam, and those children who followed after him, because of the Fall.  Nothing is told to us outside of that.  Nothing is mentioned about the animals, or trees, or plant life, etc.

And now behold, I say unto you that if it had been possible for Adam to have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life at that time, there would have been no death, and the word would have been void, making God a liar, for he said: If thou eat thou shalt surely die.  And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead. (Alma 12:23–24)

This is a very interesting scripture.  It tells us that if Adam had partaken of the fruit of the tree of life (the other tree) that the effects of the Fall would not have taken place, there would have been no death.  No death to whom?  The scripture continues to say it is because God told Adam that if he partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that he would surely die.  So the “no death” in the first of the verse seems to be limited here to Adam, and what he began.  Adam, and he only (and perhaps Eve), it seems would not have experienced death.  Indeed, in the next sentence we are told that “and we see that death comes upon mankind.”  Mankind.  Death came upon the men and women that proceeded forth from Adam and Eve.  Nothing is noted here about other life on Earth, either before or after Adam and Eve.  This is focused within the scope of Adam and his people, his progeny.

There may be other scriptures, but these are most of them that pertain to this subject of Adam and death and the Fall.  As you might see, there is nothing really specific here about what was going on with life outside the garden, before or after Adam.  We simply are not told those things.  They are off stage, so to speak, even in a different sphere of time and space.  These scriptures seem to be focused on Adam, and the effects of the Fall on him, and his descendants, only.

It is interesting to note that after Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden they entered a very different place, with very different rules.  There was a significant transition to this sphere.  Here they were to till the ground (Moses 4:29; Gen. 3:23), something which they had previously not done.  Life was quite different than that which they had experienced in the garden.  Cursed would be the ground for their sake, they would experience sorrow, child bearing would become an ordeal, they would encounter thorns and thistles, and by their own sweat would they eat their daily bread (Moses 4:22–25; Gen. 3:16–19).  The question arises, what was life like outside of the garden while Adam and Eve were still in it?  We are not told.  All we know is that the Garden of Eden was a localized space, a region, a place that Adam and Eve could be inside, and then had to leave.  There must have been some sort of demarcation, limit, or border to Eden, outside of which was a different world.

What about official publications of the Church which teach there was no death before the Fall?  The Bible Dictionary, for example, notes that there was “no sin, no death, and no children among any of the earthly creations,” before the Fall.  Additionally, “After Adam fell, the whole creation fell and became mortal.”  Furthermore, it notes that death was “introduced into the world by the fall of Adam… Latter-day revelation teaches that there was no death on this earth for any forms of life before the fall of Adam. Indeed, death entered the world as a direct result of the fall.”  Again, in the Guide to the Scriptures that “The Fall brought mortality and death to the earth.”

These seem to be conclusive on the subject, and we might stop here.  But they’re not.  In the introduction to the Bible Dictionary it is noted:

[The Bible Dictionary] is not intended as an official or revealed endorsement by the Church of the doctrinal, historical, cultural, and other matters set forth.

It is a guide, but not a final word.  It is not “official or revealed” word.  Robert J. Matthews, who was involved in the development of the study aids for the scriptures in the 1970s, said much the same thing:

The new Bible dictionary is not intended as a revealed treatment or official version of doctrinal, historical, cultural, chronological, and other matters found in the Bible. (Robert J. Matthews, ”Using the New Bible Dictionary in the LDS Edition,” Ensign (June 1982), 48.)

Elder Bruce R. McConkie also noted this about the ”Joseph Smith Translation items, the chapter headings, Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, footnotes, the Gazetteer, and the maps”:

None of these are perfect; they do not of themselves determine doctrine; there have been and undoubtedly now are mistakes in them. Cross-references, for instance, do not establish and never were intended to prove that parallel passages so much as pertain to the same subject. They are aids and helps only. (Mark McConkie (editor), Doctrines of the Restoration: Sermons and Writings of Bruce R. McConkie (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1989), 290.)

These study aids provided with our scriptures are not part of the scriptures themselves.  As Elder McConkie noted, they do not determine doctrine, and there may be mistakes.  They are to be used as “aids and helps only.”  So even though these statements from the Bible Dictionary and elsewhere may sound conclusive, they simply are not.

What about what is included in the Gospel Principles manual, an official publication of the Church?  The Gospel Principles manual repeats, almost word for word, what is found in the scriptures which we’ve already cited.  It says that before the Fall, “there was no death.”  Interestingly, this is included in the section speaking of the Garden of Eden.  Furthermore, it is said, quoting the scripture from 2 Nephi, that Adam and Eve “would have had no children,” and that the Fall brought them mortality and physical death.  As we’ve seen above, these things can certainly be true, but mean different things.  In another part of the manual it notes that “The Fall of Adam brought two kinds of death into the world: physical death and spiritual death.”  Here it says that these types of death were were brought “into the world.”  That seems to connote the entire earth again.  But again, the scriptures which speak of these things do not talk about the entire earth, but are localized to speaking of Adam and Eve.  We are not told, explicitly, about the rest of creation.

In the introduction to the Gospel Principles manual it notes:

Gospel Principles was written both as a personal study guide and as a teacher’s manual… The most important things you will ever teach are the doctrines of Christ as revealed through the scriptures and modern prophets and as confirmed by the Holy Ghost.

It does not say the doctrines are revealed through the manual, although the manual might be used to help us learn the doctrines:

Before you teach from a chapter, study it thoroughly to be sure you understand the doctrine… Teach only what is supported by the scriptures, the words of latter-day prophets and apostles, and the Holy Spirit… Stay true to the scriptures and the words in the book.

I take this to understand that much of our doctrine can be found in the Gospel Principles book, but it isn’t revealed there.  Doctrine is revealed through the scriptures, and the words of latter-day prophets and apostles, and through the Holy Spirit.

Ok, so what have prophets and apostles taught us?  There have been many things said by Church leaders, mostly by apostles, to the effect that there was no death before the Fall for any living organism on Earth.  Members of the Quorum of the Twelve, and even the First Presidency (apostles), such as President Harold B. Lee, President Marion G. Romney, Elder Bruce R. McConkie, and Elder Boyd K. Packer.  On this I would simply refer to what the Church itself has said regarding the words of individuals in Church leadership:

Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency…and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles…counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted. (LDS Newsroom, “Approaching Mormon Doctrine,” lds.org (4 May 2007) http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/approaching-mormon-doctrine)

The teachings that the individual members of the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles give us can be considered “personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church.”  Furthermore, “with divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine.”  Not everything that is said by each of our leaders should be construed to be incontrovertible doctrine, binding upon us as a whole people, as members of the Church.  That which is established as doctrine will come as divine inspiration which is agreed upon in counsel together by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, and which is found in the scriptures, official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith.  Of course, these individuals can expound doctrines that have already been revealed and found consensus, and they often do.

At this point, lets look into some hints that we don’t truly know exactly the order of operations in the garden, or outside of it, before the Fall of Adam and Eve, views which have been forwarded by members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as well as trusted Church scholars, which gives us comfort in believing that we do not have all the answers as of yet on this issue.  The jury is still out.

First, let’s look again at the scriptures themselves, one of the very sources of our doctrine, as we’ve noted above.  Here we find some interesting details:

And I, the Lord God, commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat… (Moses 3:16; Abraham 5:12; Gen. 2:16)

Furthermore, Eve is noted as saying:

And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden… (Gen. 3:2; Moses 4:8)

In another place it is noted:

And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food… (Gen. 2:9; Abraham 5:9; Moses 3:9)

Furthermore:

And the Gods said: Behold, we will give them every herb bearing seed that shall come upon the face of all the earth, and every tree which shall have fruit upon it; yea, the fruit of the tree yielding seed to them we will give it; it shall be for their meat.

And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, behold, we will give them life, and also we will give to them every green herb for meat, and all these things shall be thus organized. (Abraham 4:29–30; Gen. 1:29–30; Moses 2:29–30)

All of these scriptures seem to make it clear that there was food in the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve to eat, even the fruit of trees and herbs (likely including vegetables).  Indeed, they could, and likely did, partake regularly of the fruit of the tree of life.  The odd thing is, we don’t understand how this eating could have happened. Today, when we eat of fruit or vegetables, that flesh dies within our gut, so that it may be broken down into its life-sustaining parts, and absorbed by the physical body. Fruits and vegetables cannot live through the digestion process, inasmuch as we understand it. So the big questions are, did the fruit and vegetables die that Adam and Eve were eating within the garden before the Fall?  Why did they need to eat if they were immortal?  Why did Christ show he could eat fish and honeycomb after his resurrection (if there were any other reason than showing his corporeality)?  Do immortal beings still eat, and if yes, why, how, and what do they eat?  Did the fruit trees and vegetable plants continue to produce fruit and vegetables unending in the garden, or did new fruit trees and vegetable plants (especially in the case of vegetable plants where most of the plant is destroyed in order to be eaten) grow up in their place to continue to provide food to Adam and Eve?  If Adam and Eve were eating them, then it sounds like the plants would need to procreate to continue to make as much in the stead of the eaten ones.

So what about procreation?  Consider these scripture:

And I, the Lord God, planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there I put the man whom I had formed. And out of the ground made I, the Lord God, to grow every tree, naturally, that is pleasant to the sight of man… And I, the Lord God, planted the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and also the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (Moses 3:8–9; Gen. 2:8–9; Abraham 5:8–9)

These are very agriculturally-oriented verses of scripture.  It sounds like God came down, and went to work planting seeds in the ground.  He didn’t make the trees to suddenly appear, but allowed them to grow, even “naturally,” suggesting that there was a lengthy process involved.  It should be noted that the word “naturally” is an addition in Joseph’s revelation of the Book of Moses, and is not present in the Genesis record, nor in the Book of Abraham.  Were these seeds, and their subsequent plants, immortal?  Or could they multiply (i.e. procreate)?

And the Gods said: Let us prepare the earth to bring forth grass; the herb yielding seed; the fruit tree yielding fruit, after his kind, whose seed in itself yieldeth its own likeness upon the earth; and it was so, even as they ordered.

And the Gods organized the earth to bring forth grass from its own seed, and the herb to bring forth herb from its own seed, yielding seed after his kind; and the earth to bring forth the tree from its own seed, yielding fruit, whose seed could only bring forth the same in itself, after his kind; and the Gods saw that they were obeyed…

And the Gods said: Behold, we will give them every herb bearing seed that shall come upon the face of all the earth, and every tree which shall have fruit upon it; yea, the fruit of the tree yielding seed to them we will give it; it shall be for their meat. (Abraham 4:11–12, 29; Gen. 1:11–12, 29; Moses 2:11–12, 29)

Trees yielding fruit yielding seed sounds like procreation.  Indeed, all of creation is told, nay commanded, to multiply, be fruitful, and fill the earth (Gen. 1:22; Moses 2:22; Abraham 4:22).  But the jury is still out in what this means, for Adam and Eve were also told they could also multiply, be fruitful, and replenish the earth (Gen. 1:28; Moses 2:28; Abraham 4:28), but this was before they had fallen, so they could not have children, as discussed above.  All of these questions have answers that have not been revealed, but the questions are present nonetheless, which allow much room for varying belief.

Where there is no revelation, there is no doctrine.  It is my current opinion that there is no official doctrine that outlines in precision all the details of whether there was no life and death before the Fall of Adam and Eve.  There are no definitive answers to the questions presented above, in the gospel, in the revelations that have heretofore been given.  This means that there is a range of belief that is allowed within the gospel plan as we currently have it.  One of the things that is perhaps the most comforting in all of this is that there has been significant disagreement even among the highest counsels of the Church on these issues.  What does that tell us?  As we learned above, it is only where the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together with divine inspiration and there is consensus that they can establish “doctrine.”  Issues where there is not a consensus among the brethren may often “represent a personal, though well-considered, opinion” of that Church leader.

Some time ago, there was a debate between Elder Brigham H. Roberts and Elder Joseph Fielding Smith on the subject of “pre-Adamites,” and part of their discussion also focused on whether there was death before the Fall.  It was brought to the attention of the First Presidency, who asked Elder James E. Talmage of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles to give a talk in the Tabernacle on the subject, entitled “The Earth and Man,” on a Sunday, August 9, 1931, was published in the Deseret News in 1931, and as a Church pamphlet in 1931, and later re-published again several decades later in The Instructor in 1965-1966.  I highly recommend this talk to those who may be interested in these issues.  In it, Elder Talmage asks many of the same sorts of questions as I have above, indicating as I have that we do not have their answers.  Elder Talmage also addresses some of the questions I talked about in regards to the age of the Earth.  But as to the present subject, Elder Talmage gave his opinion on the matter, over the pulpit, even in the Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, as an apostle and under the direction from the First Presidency:

…for by the scriptural record itself we learn of stage after stage, age after age of earth processes by which eventually this planet became capable of supporting life — vegetable, animal and human in due course…

But this we know, for both revealed and discovered truth, that is to say both scripture and science, so affirm — that plant life antedated animal existence and that animals preceded man as tenants of earth.

According to the conception of geologists the earth passed through ages of preparation, to us unmeasured and immeasurable, during which countless generations of plants and animals existed in great variety and profusion and gave in part the very substance of their bodies to help form certain strata which are still existent as such. [This was written before the introduction of radioactive isotope dating techniques.]

The oldest, that is to say the earliest, rocks thus far identified in land masses reveal the fossilized remains of once living organisms, plant and animal. The coal strata, upon which the world of industry so largely depends, are essentially but highly compressed and chemically changed vegetable substance. The whole series of chalk deposits and many of our deep-sea limestones contain the skeletal remains of animals. These lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation.

This is profound.  Here is an apostle, even a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, knowing everything about science and the gospel as he did, who believed that there were plants and animals who lived and died, age after age, before man ever was placed on the Earth.  Indeed, he speaks of the creation of simple forms of life before more complex ones.  Furthermore, Elder Talmage agreed as Brigham Young did, that science cannot be diametrically opposed to the gospel:

In due course came the crowning work of this creative sequence, the advent of man! Concerning this all-important event we are told that scientists and theologians are at hopeless and irreconcilable variance. I regard the assumption or claim, whichever it be, as an exaggeration. Discrepancies that trouble us now will diminish as our knowledge of pertinent facts is extended. The creator has made record in the rocks for man to decipher; but He has also spoken directly regarding the main stages of progress by which the earth has been brought to be what it is. The accounts can not be fundamentally opposed; one can not contradict the other; though man’s interpretation of either may be seriously at fault.

This is also fascinating.  Do we have irreconcilable differences between science and religion?  Elder Talmage doesn’t think so.  It is not irreconcilable or hopeless!  Those who believe as much are exaggerating.  Discrepancies will diminish as our knowledge is extended.  The records in the rocks and the records given by inspiration through prophets cannot be fundamentally opposed, they cannot contradict each other.  But, man’s interpretation of either (the scientific record, or the revelations given through prophets) may be seriously at fault.  We may not understand the science, or we may not understand the revelations.  One of these is the source of the dissonance, or perhaps a little of both.

Elder Talmage notes that the scriptures are not meant to be a scientific text book, as I also noted in my previous post:

Let us not try to wrest the scriptures in an attempt to explain away what we can not explain. The opening chapters of Genesis, and scriptures related thereto, were never intended as a text-book of geology, archaeology, earth-science or man-science.

Elder Talmage also makes some comments about evolution as well, but that is outside the scope of this present discussion.  Again, I highly recommend his talk to anyone who wants to delve deeper into these subjects, or who may be struggling to reconcile these issues.  Elder Talmage was one of the best scientists the Church has had in leadership, and his thoughts on these subjects are worth studying, as are all Church leaders before and after him.

A year after this talk, Elder Talmage wrote a letter in which he again explained his views:

I cannot agree with your conception that there was no death of plants and animals anywhere upon this earth prior to the transgression of Adam, unless we assume that the history of Adam and Eve dates back many hundreds of thousands of years. The trouble with some theologians—even including many of our own good people—is that they undertake to fix the date of Adam’s transgression as being approximately 4000 years before Christ and therefore about 5932 years ago. If Adam was placed upon the earth only that comparatively short time ago the rocks clearly demonstrated that life and death have been in existence and operative in this earth for ages prior to that time.

These are some of the same views we’ve explored in this post, views with which Elder Talmage, as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was quite comfortable.

At the time Elder Talmage made his remarks, the First Presidency issued this instruction to the General Authorities:

Both parties [i.e., Elders Smith and Roberts] make the scripture and the statements of men who have been prominent in the affairs of the Church the basis of their contention; neither has produced definite proof in support of his views… Upon the fundamental doctrines of the Church we are all agreed. Our mission is to bear the message of the restored Gospel to the people of the world. Leave geology, biology, archaeology and anthropology, no one of which has to do with the salvation of the souls of mankind, to scientific research, while we magnify our calling in the realm of the Church. We can see no advantage to be gained by a continuation of the discussion to which reference is here made, but on the contrary are certain that it would lead to confusion, division and misunderstanding if carried further. Upon one thing we should all be able to agree namely, that presidents Joseph F. Smith, John Winder and Anthon Lund were right when they said: “Adam is the primal parent of our race.” (First Presidency, Memorandum to General Authorities, April 1931, 6–7. Emphasis added.)

Elder Talmage upon receiving this memorandum noted in his journal:

 …Involved in this question is that of the beginning of life upon the earth, and as to whether there was death either of animal or plant before the fall of Adam, on which proposition Elder Smith was very pronounced in denial and Elder Roberts equally forceful in the affirmative. As to whether Preadamite races existed upon the earth there has been much discussion among some of our people of late. The decision reached by the First Presidency, and announced to this morning’s assembly, was in answer to a specific question that obviously the doctrine of the existence of races of human beings upon the earth prior to the fall of Adam was not a doctrine of the Church; and, further, that the conception embodied in the belief of many to the effect that there were no such Preadamite races, and that there was no death upon the earth prior to Adam’s fall is likewise declared to be no doctrine of the Church. I think the decision of the First Presidency is a wise one in the premises. This is one of the many things upon which we cannot preach with assurance and dogmatic assertions on either side are likely to do harm rather than good. (James Edward Talmage, Personal Journal (7 April 1931) 29:42, Archives and Manuscripts, Harold B. Lee Library, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah (emphasis added).)

A more recent survey on the subject was presented by Church scholar Hugh Nibley, who is considered one of the best scholars of the Church in the past century.  He once wrote a paper on “Before Adam,” which you would do well to read, in which he gives some of the same perspectives as Elder Talmage:

Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God’s affection or even a right to exaltation — for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine — a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: “For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me.” (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins.

One of my family, who strongly believes there was not any kind of death anywhere before the Fall, framed the issue very well, I think, and is a view I wholeheartedly agree with.

I don’t need to know the “How” of creation right now.  What processes of life took place before the Fall I do not know, but I do believe that those processes were different before the Fall than after the Fall otherwise there was no Fall.  I choose to believe that there was a Fall and important processes of life changed after the Fall.  I believe if I am true and faithful to the principles of the gospel that I do know I will someday be allowed to know the “How” of the things I don’t know.

While we may not need to know the particulars of “how” the creation took place, it is good to know that the gospel may in fact “not clash with or contradict the facts of science in any particular.”  These two views, sometimes which appear so diametrically opposed to one another, will someday be completely at one, and we will understand perfectly how it all fits together.

(Thanks to FAIR for providing many of the references used in this post.)

Death Before the Fall? First Impressions

Above is a film portrayal of the prayer of Jesus from John 17, which is a conclusion of his Last Discourse given to his disciples on the eve of the Passover. This discourse stretches from John 13 through chapter 17, with the prayer at the end, comprising chapter 17. This scene comes from a 2003 film entitled “The Gospel of John,” and takes it’s text from the American Bible Society‘s Good News Bible, which loses some of the intricate meaning in Christ’s words, but otherwise I think it is well done. I’m looking forward to the Church’s version when it is added to the collection of Bible Videos, which will use the King James Version directly (here you can see the Last Supper, which is the beginning of the discourse from John 13).

I just finished reading Professor William Hamblin‘s recent paper in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture entitled, “‘I Have Revealed Your Name’: The Hidden Temple in John 17.”  It is an excellent commentary on John 17 viewed in the light of the temple. This chapter represents what is often called Jesus’ Intercessory Prayer, but also Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer, suggesting the temple theology that is central to it.

In Hamblin’s paper he discusses six temple themes that are exhibited throughout John 17:

1. “My Father’s House”
2. Revelation of the Name of the Father (John 17:6, 11)
3. Christ as the Manifestation of God’s Glory (John 17:4–5)
4. Expulsion of the Evil One (John 17:15)
5. Sanctification or Consecration of Christ and the disciples (John 17:17–19)
6. Celestial Ascent and Unification (or Deification) (John 17:20–24)

The entire paper is an excellent read about how this whole event and surrounding events symbolized the temple in so many ways. One of the points that stood out to be was in the end about unification and deification. Here Hamblin notes, “I believe it defines the ultimate purpose of his mortal ministry.” He was namely talking about John 17:20–24. That’s quite a statement!

What was the ultimate purpose of Christ’s mortal ministry? Later Hamblin says, “As I understand it, this glorification, ascent and unification language in John 17 and elsewhere in the New Testament is describing the ultimate goal of Christian theōsis. But that is another paper.” I hope, as I’m sure Professor Hamblin does, that this paper is written!

It reminded me of some similar statements from Christian theologian C.S. Lewis, where he likewise made some strong assertions on this wise (most of which are found in his classic book Mere Christianity):

“The Son of God became a man that men might become sons of God.”

“But supposing God became a man – suppose our human nature which can suffer and die was amalgamated with God’s nature in one person – then that person could help us.”

“He came to this world and became a man in order to spread to other men the kind of life He has – by what I call ‘good infection.’ Every Christian is to become a little Christ. The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

“The command ‘Be ye perfect’ is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were ‘gods’ and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him – for we can prevent Him, if we choose – He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.”

“Finally, if all goes well, turning you permanently into a different sort of thing; into a new little Christ, a being which, in its own way, has the same kind of life as God; which shares in His power, joy, knowledge and eternity.”

Such language mirrors some of the teachings of the early Christian Saints on divinization, or theosis. These quotations also connote the idea that the deification of man was Christ’s ultimate mission:

• St. Irenaeus of Lyons stated that God “became what we are in order to make us what he is himself.”
• St. Irenaeus said, “if the Word has been made man, it is so that men may be made gods.”
• St. Clement of Alexandria says that “he who obeys the Lord and follows the prophecy given through him… becomes a god while still moving about in the flesh.”
• St. Clement of Alexandria says “Yea, I say, the Word of God became a man so that you might learn from a man how to become a god.”
• St. Athanasius wrote that God “became man so that men might become gods.”
• St. Athanasius wrote: “The Word became flesh… that we, partaking of his Spirit, might be deified.”
• St. Athanasius wrote: “The Word was made flesh in order that we might be made gods… Just as the Lord, putting on the body, became a man, so also we men are both deified through his flesh, and henceforth inherit everlasting life.”
• St. Cyril of Alexandria says that we “are called ‘temples of God’ and indeed ‘gods’, and so we are.”
• St. Basil the Great stated that “becoming a god” is the highest goal of all.
• St. Gregory of Nazianzus implores us to “become gods for (God’s) sake, since (God) became man for our sake.”
• St. Augustine said, “To make human beings gods, He was made man who was God.”
• St. Symeon said, “He who is God by nature converses with those whom he has made gods by grace, as a friend converses with his friends, face to face.”

You can read Professor Hamblin’s paper on John 17 here:

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/i-have-revealed-your-name-the-hidden-temple-in-john-17/

Jesus’s High Priestly Prayer: A Temple Discourse

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture. (Click on graphic to go to MormonInterpreter.com)

I have been through quite a range of emotions the last few weeks. I’ve felt utter despair, grief, and sorrow, as well as bitterness, confusion, and great disappointment. Through it all I’ve been blessed with comfort from our Heavenly Father beyond measure, and by experiences too sacred to share. It’s been a roller coaster of a time with everything that has happened at the Maxwell Institute. I make no bones about it—FARMS had an immense impact on my life, most particularly as it relates to my testimony and faith in the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

Recently one of our dear readers asked me what so inspired me about Hugh Nibley, what so captivated me emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually about his scholarship and writings? Here was my response:

What captivated me about Nibley is that he gave a reason for the restored gospel to be (1 Peter 3:15). In the words of Austin Farrer:

“Though argument does not create conviction, lack of it destroys belief. What seems to be proved may not be embraced; but what no one shows the ability to defend is quickly abandoned. Rational argument does not create belief, but it maintains a climate in which belief may flourish.”

By reading Nibley, the gospel became a very real thing to me, and gave a climate in which my faith grew and flourished beyond what I thought was possible. It was like seeing the words on a page suddenly spring to life. The gospel became not only a spiritual mode of living, or a moral code, but Nibley gave a real place for it in the larger worldview of history, literature, economics, culture, languages, peoples, religions, morality, and theology. He brought everything together, and made connections no one else had. He gave a much deeper purpose and meaning to the gospel which I hadn’t found elsewhere, teaching me in ways I hadn’t encountered before of the true reasons for the Atonement of Jesus Christ, and His gospel. Nibley heightened my awareness of myself, and gave me grander views of life, what it means to seek after true joy, and the purposes for which we’re all here. In a sense, Nibley brought me out of Plato’s cave.

FARMS became synonymous with Hugh Nibley throughout the 80′s and 90′s. I remember on my mission in El Salvador hearing through the grapevine about a book by none other than one Hugh Nibley entitled something like The Egyptian Endowment, and some of what it contained, and it absolutely fascinated me. I was floored that such a book could even be written! Did the Egyptians have a ceremony and ritual similar to our modern day temple rites? And if so, what an amazing vindication of the prophet Joseph Smith! These ordinances really are “as old as the human race”! It peaked my interest for along time, since I did not have access to such materials on my mission, and oh how I longed for the day when I would be able to read it when I returned home.

Indeed, when I returned home from my mission, I went immediately to work tracking down that book. It was out of print, and I’m sure I could have picked it up somewhere for a few hundred dollars, but I heard rumors that the Second Edition of the book was being prepared for publication by the Maxwell Institute (at that time it was known as ISPART, for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts). So the waiting began anew! I waited for three more long years until the The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (2nd edition) was published by Deseret Book. It was Christmas morning for me (which is quite accurate since it was published on December 30, 2005), and I was a schoolboy all over again.

I devoured that book. Well, let me rephrase that. I placed my pinky toe into the deep end, and did my best to pick it apart. I was excited beyond belief to read about the rituals of the Egyptians, about their coronation rituals, their mummification rituals, their cleansing and purifying rituals, and afterlife rituals. It opened up my understanding of the temple to levels I thought not possible. I still return quite frequently to that book, and glean amazing insights and knowledge from its pages. And I still haven’t finished reading it!

Of course, along with all my excitement about the Egyptian Endowment, I began looking into this prodigious figure by the name of Hugh Nibley down at “the BYU.” I found that he had become one of the Church’s most prolific scholars and defenders of the gospel. I started picking up his other books and writings, such as Brother Brigham Young Challenges the Saints, and I ate it up. This was a whole new world of scholarship and becoming acutely aware of and understanding the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Even before I got my hands on The Egyptian Endowment, my in-laws gifted me Approaching Zion for my 24th birthday in May 2005. All I can say is, “Wow!” That book has done more for me, save the scriptures only, than any other book. It is one of the best books I’ve ever had the opportunity to lay my eyes on. It fundamentally shifted my worldview, my goals in life, and my understanding of why we are here. What is it all for? Why did our Father put us here in the first place? What are we supposed to be doing? What is consecration? What is our duty to God, to ourselves, and to each other? Through that book I learned this sublime lesson, which I had not found anywhere else, or if I had I did not understand it — there is more to life than going to work every day for the man. There’s more to life than building up capitalism and worrying about the daily riffraff of politics. We’re here for more than just making money, buying a bigger house, or owning a better car. This is our – mortal – life, and we only get one chance at it. What can we do, in our limited sojourn here, as Brigham Young said, “to be useful while we live”? Indeed, we are divine sons and daughters of an eternal God, and as such we should live every day as if that is precisely who we are. Nibley once taught:

…above all the two things we can be good at, and no two other things can we do: We can forgive and we can repent. It’s the gospel of repentance. We’re told that the angels envy men their ability both to forgive and to repent because they can’t do either, you see. But nobody’s very clever, nobody’s very brave, nobody’s very strong, nobody’s very wise. We’re all pretty stupid, you see. Nobody’s very anything. We’re not tested on those things; but the things the angels envy us for, we can forgive and we can repent. So three cheers, let’s start repenting as of now. (“Faith of an Observer,” film documentary.)

I believe I remember reading in his biography (and this is from memory) that Hugh Nibley once broke into a fit of laughter while doing his research at BYU, and someone stepped in to his office to ask what he was up to. “I just found an error in the Book of Mormon!” he shouted. Feeling a bit concerned at the gravity of the situation, the visitor cautiously replied, “Oh really, what’s that?” Hugh quipped back, “The prophets speak of man being carnal, sensual, and devilish. But they forgot stupid!”

I love that man. I love him. As deeply as I love my best friends. And I never had the chance to tell him so, I never had it. I bemoan that to this very day. The closest I ever came to him was attending his funeral in the de Jong Concert Hall, with video broadcast from the Provo Tabernacle. With heartfelt emotion, I look forward to the day when I can walk up to Hugh Winder Nibley, shake his hand and give him a hug, and with tears in my eyes thank him for everything he has done, for me, in facilitating my lifelong conversion to our Savior Jesus Christ, and His eternal gospel and the kingdom of God on the earth. “And if it so be that you should labor all your days… and bring, save it be one soul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!” (D&C 18:15). What a celebration that will be!

My emotions have been very close to the surface these last few weeks with everything that happened to the FARMS component of the Maxwell Institute. It ripped me at my core to see this organization dry up and vanish, forcefully so, seemingly in an instant. It shocked me to think that some thought the Church didn’t have a need for this kind of scholarship, which had done so much for me, and so many others. Where would I have been without FARMS and Hugh Nibley? I honestly don’t know, and I fear just thinking of the vision. There have been several times over the past few weeks when I’ve honestly wept tears of sorrow over what’s happened. A couple of those times, as silly as it might sound, were when I heard a couple songs on the radio, and my emotion spilled over. Go ahead and laugh. I did!

When I look into your eyes
It’s like watching the night sky
Or a beautiful sunrise
There’s so much they hold
And just like them old stars
I see that you’ve come so far
To be right where you are
How old is your soul?

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up

And when you’re needing your space
To do some navigating
I’ll be here patiently waiting
To see what you find

‘Cause even the stars they burn
Some even fall to the earth
We’ve got a lot to learn
God knows we’re worth it
No, I won’t give up

I don’t wanna be someone who walks away so easily
I’m here to stay and make the difference that I can make
Our differences they do a lot to teach us how to use
The tools and gifts we got yeah, we got a lot at stake
And in the end, you’re still my friend at least we did intend
For us to work we didn’t break, we didn’t burn
We had to learn how to bend without the world caving in
I had to learn what I’ve got, and what I’m not
And who I am

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up
Still looking up.

I won’t give up on us (no I’m not giving up)
God knows I’m tough enough (I am tough, I am loved)
We’ve got a lot to learn (we’re alive, we are loved)
God knows we’re worth it (and we’re worth it)

I won’t give up on us
Even if the skies get rough
I’m giving you all my love
I’m still looking up

(Jason Mraz, “I Won’t Give Up.”)

Of course, a friend and I didn’t just want to sit around, we wanted to do something about it, and hence we started the Restore FARMS support movement, with a website at RestoreFARMS.com. We wanted to show our support, and gather others who also showed their support for traditional FARMS. What is likely to be profound for some is that we are young; I’m in my early thirties, and I believe Tevya Washburn is too. We have young families. We are Generation Y, born of baby boomers. We did not grow up with Nibley, per se, or were involved in the golden days of FARMS in the 80′s and 90′s. Yet we were fundamentally moved by the work it produced, when we discovered it at a later date, and desired deeply to see it continue on in some form.

And now for the reason you’re reading this post in the first place, if I’ve teased you long enough. Early last week I was approached by William Hamblin (whom I’m friends with) and Daniel Peterson (who I haven’t met personally before) early last week. They wanted to do something too. I couldn’t have been happier to hear it. Once more, they wanted my help to make it happen. Me. Disbelief. Can I just say that I’m unsure I’ve ever received a greater honor in my lifetime. These great scholars, who have dedicated the better portion of their lifetimes sustaining and defending the Church and its gospel, and whom I’ve privately admired from a distance as filling the vacuum and vacancy left by Nibley’s passing, were coming to me, looking for my help, to help an organization that I dearly loved and wanted to live on. Words can’t express the thoughts and emotions. I was deeply, fundamentally moved, and still am.

They asked for my help to put together a website and the technological solutions for a new journal that would serve much the same purposes that the FARMS Review had in the past, and the Mormon Studies Review in more recent days. And they wanted to do it fast too. Since Br. Peterson had just returned from his trip out of the country and things hadn’t been moving forward on any fronts elsewhere, they wanted to see if it could be ready to go by the 2012 FAIR Conference, on August 3rd, if possible. That conference, if my scheduling this blog post goes as planned (since I’m writing this on Wednesday evening, August 1st), is just now coming to an end, and Daniel C. Peterson has just concluded his remarks as the final speaker. At the end of his remarks it was his opportunity, as former editor of the FARMS Review for 23 years, to take the center stage and announce this new venture, as a new age in Mormon apologetics is revealed, and we move forward into the 21st century of technology and scholarship in the Church. How exquisitely humbled I am that I had the opportunity to be a part of this historic occasion.

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has now been announced. This independent journal has the following mission:

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture is a nonprofit educational journal focused on the scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: the Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, the Bible, Doctrine and Covenants, and related subjects. All publications are peer-reviewed and are made available as free internet downloads or through at-cost print-on-demand services.

Our goal is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ.

Although the editors of the journal fully support the goals and teachings of the Church, the journal is an independent entity with no affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, nor with Brigham Young University. The Board of Editors is alone responsible for its contents.

I had quite a task before me, to understate. I was asked to build the mechanism that would help serve this great mission. I do find it providential the circumstances that have come together in recent years, months, and days to bring me to this point where I could be in a position to help in this way. I was invited to come to a meeting last week, on Thursday, July 26th, to meet with the Board of Editors. The hyperbole is probably becoming excessive by now, but what an opportunity! Here I was, an amateur, sitting with seasoned veterans, people I’ve admired for a long time, and who have written dozens of books, with alphabets suffixed to their names, and I counseled with them about the best way to go about launching this new publication. I’ll never forget it.

I went to work that same day, last Thursday, July 26th, to begin building what would become MormonInterpreter.com. What you see today, August 3rd, are the results of that eight day effort, with some amazing guidance and collaboration and work by many on the entire Board of the new journal (which I was invited early on to join), including Alison Coutts who worked tirelessly to edit and typeset the inaugural paper by David Bokovoy. My brother also worked, sometimes into the early morning hours, on the website server and hosting technologies behind the scenes.

We actually had a significant server bug which was a severe technological problem that we didn’t solve until late Monday night, July 30th, and into the early morning hours of Tuesday. This problem prevented many of the most important development on the site until it could be resolved, which I credit wholly to my fantastic and beloved brother, Brad Haymond, for finally finding the solution after many hours of picking through source code line by line and talking with technical support reps. Thank you, Brad, for being patient with me.

Because of this troubling hangup, which very well could be attributed to an antagonist from the unseen world trying to put the brakes on this work, I wasn’t able to get to the majority of the work until about 1:00am Tuesday morning, July 31st. I’ve worked almost nonstop since that very time on the clock, almost 43 hours ago, to finalize the Interpreter website and technologies by this morning, Wednesday, August 1st. I haven’t gone to sleep, at all, of my own free will and choice. I have consecrated my everything to help this be the absolute best it could possibly be by today’s announcement. And I couldn’t be more proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish. I have been immensely blessed and sustained in body and spirit these last couple days to finish this, for which I am supremely grateful to our Father in Heaven (D&C 84:33; D&C 89:18–21). You could say we had our own “First Vision” experience, when the mists of darkness suddenly cleared, and we saw the light. Providence prevailed, as it always does in the end (D&C 18:5).

Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, website homepage. (Click on graphic to go to MormonInterpreter.com)

Here are some of the features of the new Interpreter journal website. It is unique among anything that has been done in the past:

• Great lengths were taken to make the text on the website mirror the look of the printed journal as much as possible, up to and including the fonts used. This was to keep the professional feel throughout, and consistency between mediums.
• We have short biographies and photographs of all the Board of Editors, on which I have also been invited to be a part. Take a look.
• We’ve applied a Creative Commons license to the website and the journal, with no derivative works, nor commercial use allowed. But the materials can be shared as widely and freely as possible with attribution. This is known as a CC BY-NC-ND license.
• There are 9 different ways of subscribing to our publications (see along the top edge of the site). This is more than I’ve seen at most other websites, and should give readers and supporters plenty of opportunity to “follow” us in whatever venue suits them best, including email, RSS, Google+, Facebook, Twitter, Audio podcast, PDF podcast, ePub podcast, and printed copy feeds (for easy ordering of a hard copies).
• The three podcast feeds will soon be listed in Apple’s iTunes podcast directory, for ease of access on your Apple iDevices.
• The journal will also soon be available for access and reading from Amazon’s electronic Kindle Store, under “Kindle blogs.”
• We also have 7 different formats of offering the scholarly papers for download – HTML (what you see on the site, which can be easily printed from your browser), PDF format, ePub format (works on most e-readers including iPad, Barnes & Noble’s Nook, etc.), Amazon’s Kindle .mobi format, and MP3 audio reading (thanks to my brother Brad, again, for offering his great voice). A How-To page on the site describes the best ways of using these formats and feeds. If you’d like to print out a copy, you can do that directly from the webpage, and it will print out a cleanly formatted copy from your printer. We are also including an option for ordering a bound printed copy, for those who don’t like to read on screens, directly from an innovative service called MagCloud. Think of it as printing “in the cloud.” This service from Hewlett-Packard takes care of all inventory, printing, binding, shipping addresses, ordering, processing, taking payments (for cost of printing), and shipping worldwide, so we don’t have to! This will help tremendously to keep costs associated with our operations to a minimum. MagCloud will print as few as just 1 copy at a time, and ship it direct to your doorstep. Each of the journal’s papers will be available for about $4-5/each (including shipping), covering cost only (we are a nonprofit). Later, once we have accumulated several papers, we will make it available in a bound volume too, which will be available for ordering the same way.
• The footnotes are all hyperlinked in the papers, so you can click on the superscript number, and it will jump directly to that footnote. Then you can click on the return arrow at the end of the footnote, and it will return you right back where you left off in the paper. Don’t you love technology?! Where was this back in the days we read Nibley?
• Because we are a nonprofit organization, yet we have operations that cost money, we have provided the option of making donations simply through PayPal. We are preparing for 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, which we hope to achieve at a later date. Donations now are non-tax deductible.
• All the biographies of our editors and authors will be linked to lists of the papers written by those scholars.
• The website is completely mobile-ready, and displays very nicely on iPads, iPhones, Androids, and other smartphones and tablets, for reading on-the-go.
• We will be able to track in a very precise way all the traffic that the website gets, down to the number of times each format is downloaded, and the number of subscribers we have on each feed, to better fine-tune our offerings.
• There is a News page that will include site announcements, news, blog posts, etc. that are separate from the scholarly papers that are front and center on the homepage.
• There is full search capability throughout the site, accessible from the navigation bar, on the right edge.
• We also have the InterpreterJournal.com domain name, which just redirects to MormonInterpreter.com, but just in case it’s easier for some to remember.

This has been a chance of a lifetime to work with these scholars in putting this together, and a work that is some of the finest I’ve ever accomplished. No, I consider it the finest work of my professional career thus far, all done without any pay. I wouldn’t have had it any other way. My best work, I’ve found, is done by consecration.

The entire Board of Editors is very excited for this launch, and we are really looking forward to what we will be able to do going forward. It’s going to be a whole new world, a new stage in life, appropriately given a “new name,” which I think Hugh Nibley would appreciate, if he were here today.

At this point, I’d like to take special note that David Bokovoy’s inaugural article about 1 Nephi 11 is 100% related to the temple. In all my formatting, and exporting, and tweaking, and wrangling of the text, I haven’t actually been able to sit down and read it thoroughly yet, but I believe we will find some very good insights in there from a temple perspective. Thank you David! Perhaps a future post will be a review of this article, and some things that stood out to me.

That’s all for now. Thank you again, my colleagues on the Interpreter Board of Editors, William Hamblin, and Daniel Peterson, for this one-of-a-kind opportunity to be a part. I am also, once again and forever, thankful to our Father in Heaven, for the confidence He has in me. I now need to go home to my wife, who has been so patient with me through this time of tremendous focus, eat dinner, relax while watching our U.S. Olympic swimmers win some gold medals, and finally get a good night’s sleep.

All is well, brothers and sisters. All is well!

The New FARMS – Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture

Ancient Israelite temple ceremonial clothing worn in the Mosaic Tabernacle, and succeeding Israelite temples of Solomon, Herod, et al.

I’m very pleased to welcome another guest post by Matthew B. Brown.  Some of his writings, particularly his book The Gate of Heaven, are what inspired me to study the temple more in depth.  He offers a wealth of insight and learning for the Latter-day Saints. ~Bryce

Matthew B. Brown holds a degree in history from Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. He is the author of ten books and has published articles with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU (aka FARMS). Matthew has served as a volunteer researcher, editor, and respondent for The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR) and has spoken at several of their annual conferences. He is one of the directors of the upcoming EXPOUND symposium on May 14, 2011, and will also be a presenter (expoundlds.com).

~~

It is publicly acknowledged that Latter-day Saints who participate in the central temple rites of their faith dress in several layers of ceremonial clothing, consisting of a “white undergarment” (which is worn as part of everyday life) and “other priestly robes” (which are only worn during times of temple service).¹ The undergarment is properly referred to as the “garment of the holy priesthood”² and the robes are likewise referred to as the “robes of the holy priesthood.”³ A proclamation written on 6 April 1845 by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles in Nauvoo, Illinois clarified that these are the “garments and royal robes of the high priesthood.”⁴ The garment bears “several simple marks of orientation toward the gospel principles of obedience, truth, life and discipleship in Christ.”⁵ The First Presidency of the LDS Church stated in a 1988 administrative letter that one of the functions of the garment is to serve as “a reminder of the sacred covenants [which temple patrons] have made with the Lord” and another is to serve as “a protection against temptation and evil.” Yet, these Church leaders emphasize that such protection is conditional in nature.⁶ The temple garment is bestowed by an officiator prior to the commencement of the main temple ceremonies (in connection with washing and anointing rituals⁷) and is to be worn for the remainder of the recipient’s mortal life.⁸ A proclamation circulated by President Joseph F. Smith on 28 June 1906 stated that “the pattern of endowment garments was revealed from heaven.”⁹

The priests of ancient Israel were invested (see Lev. 8:7) with layers of “holy,” white linen clothing (some of which included other colors) in order to qualify them for service in the tabernacle precincts (Ex. 28:2, 4, 39–40). It is known that the Israelite kings donned similar vestments (see 1 Chron. 15:27). This clothing was bestowed in connection with purification by water and anointing with perfumed oil (see Ex. 40:12–13). All of the priests were commanded by the Lord to wear the white undergarment while serving within temple space so that they would be protected from lethal harm (see Ex. 28:42–43) and the high priest was instructed to put on an additional piece of clothing for the very same reason (see Ex. 28:31–35). The wearing of the priestly undergarment was “a statute forever” for temple ministrants (Ex. 28:42–43). All of the Israelites—whether priestly or not—were required to have four prominent markings upon their clothing in order to remind them to be a “holy” people: to seek not after their own eyes and hearts but to stay within the limits established by the Lord’s commandments (Num. 15:38–40; Deut. 22:12). In one respect, these symbols were meant to help the wearer “to bridle the passions.”¹⁰ A prominent scholar of biblical texts has taught that the marks on the ancient Israelite garments were constructed in such a way so as to make each one of them “a symbol of both priesthood and royalty, thereby epitomizing the divine imperative that Israel become ‘a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’”¹¹

In the New Testament book of Revelation the Lord Jesus Christ promises that His disciples who overcome will be “clothed in white raiment” (Rev. 3:5). In this same biblical volume it is specified that “white raiment” is given to people in the heavenly realm who hold the status of “kings and priests” (Rev. 4:4; Rev. 5:8–10). The apostle John says at the beginning of his Apocalypse that the mortal disciples of the Savior achieved an identical status—“kings and priests” (Rev. 1:6)—implying that sometime previously they had been invested with the ritual clothing connected with those two offices.

From all of the information that has been presented in this short paper’s main text and endnotes it is possible to summarize the points of similarity between the temple clothing of the Latter-day Saints and that of the Covenant People of the Bible.

• Pattern revealed by God
• Bestowed in God’s temple
• Bestowed during initiation rituals
• Bestowed by an authority figure
• Associated with priesthood
• Associated with royalty
• Associated with Primeval Man
• Connected with holiness
• White in color
• Constructed of linen fabric
• Worn on a perpetual basis
• Associated with protection
• Consisting of multiple layers
• Markings displayed upon it
• Markings serve a reminding function
• Markings associated with specific principles

There is much more that could be said with regard to the connection between these two sets of sacred vestments but this list should suffice to demonstrate that what Joseph Smith gave to the Latter-day Saints in 1842 has clear correspondences with ancient patterns which are preserved in the Old and New Testaments. As noted in D&C 124, the Lord restored through His Prophet “that which was lost” (D&C 124:28)—things pertaining to the tabernacle constructed by Moses and the temple built by Solomon (see D&C 124:37–38).

———-

NOTES

1. Daniel H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 2:534.

2. Ensign, August 1997, 20. On 8 August 1966 Assistant to the Twelve Theodore M. Burton made the following remarks: “Adam was given a garment of the Holy Priesthood as a sign of [an] endowment of power which he received from God [see Gen. 3:21]. Eve, his wife . . . . also was clothed in a garment of power” (BYU Speeches of the Year [Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press], 4). One Jewish midrashim calls Adam’s God-given clothing “the garments of the high priesthood” and a commentator on this and related documents points out that “while no single text explicitly says so, the tradition seems to have been that the holy garment [of Adam] went from Jacob to Joseph, to the Israelites who left Egypt, and eventually to the priests of the tribe of Levi” (The Harvard Theological Review, vol. 90, no. 2, April 1997, 172).

3. Ensign, November 1979, 43.

4. James R. Clark., comp., Messages of the First Presidency (Salty Lake City: Bookcraft, 1965), 1:260. In this official text the vestments are described as being “fine linen . . . glorious and beautiful,” which is directly parallel to Exodus 28 verses 2 and 39 (Ex. 28:2, 39) where the temple clothing of ancient Israel is said to be made of “fine linen” and is designed to provide the wearer with “glory and . . . beauty.” A connection between Hebrew and Mormon sanctuary raiment is thus unmistakable.

5. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 2:534.

6. First Presidency Letter, 10 October 1988, cited in Ensign, August 1997, 22. “The blessings that are related to this sacred privilege [of wearing the temple garment] depend on your worthiness and your faithfulness in keeping temple covenants. . . . When you wear it properly, [the garment] provides protection against temptation and evil” (First Presidency, True to the Faith: A Gospel Reference [Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004], 173). Elder Robert D. Hales: “In the temple . . . sacred covenants are made. These covenants, together with the wearing of sacred temple garments, strengthen and protect the endowed person against the powers of the adversary” (Ensign, November 1995, 34).

7. Ensign, October 2007, 20. “A commemorative garment is given with [the] ordinances” of washing and anointing (Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4:1444).

8. First Presidency, True to the Faith, 173.

9. Clark, comp., Messages of the First Presidency, 5:110.

10. Jacob Blumenthal and Janet L. Liss, eds., Etz-Hayim: Study Companion (New York: The Rabbinical Assembly, 2005), 268. There is at least one Jewish, Midrashic tradition—in tractate Bavli-Menachot 43a—stating that the temple priests and Levites were obligated to wear these marks on their garments as well as all the other Israelites, including women (see Judith Z. Abrams, Torah and Company [Teaneck, NJ: Ben Yehuda Press, 2006], 74).

11. Blumenthal and Liss, eds., Etz-Hayim: Study Companion, 268–70.

Sanctuary Vesture: A Brief Overview and Comparison

This can be seen in the way the Bible is written in Hebrew, one of the oldest languages in the world.  In Hebrew, particularly the Hebrew Bible, there are cantillation marks that specify how the text should be sung: 

Hebrew text, vowel points in red, cantillation in blue

Cantillation marks are described by Wikipedia:

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) to complement the letters and vowel points…

A primary purpose of the cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word…

Even the name of the symbols themselves, cantillation marks, gives us a sense of what they are and were used for, the cant- prefix meaning “to sing.”

Michael Ballam

A few weeks ago my wife heard some interesting commentary on this subject on a radio show on Classical 89 called “On Stage with Michael Ballam”.  Michael Ballam is the general director of the Utah Festival Opera, a professor of music at Utah State University, and a very accomplished operatic singer.  He also does some acting.

In his commentary on that program, Br. Ballam said that back in the 1990s he took a sabbatical to go to Israel, and one of the things he wanted to study was the art of cantillation, the way the scriptures are sung in the Jewish synagogue.  This is an ancient tradition, one that Br. Ballam says the Jewish tradition dates back to Moses:

How did Moses, the author of the Torah or The Law, the first five books of the Bible, convey the message to the children of Israel?  He wrote it down on stone or metallic plates of copra, gold etc; he sang the law to them. He couldn’t pass around the law in those plates or in those stones. He would have to communicate orally and he did it by singing. The holy writings or scriptures were conveyed in an oral tradition from generation to generation by chanting. That tradition is called Hassan or hassanot in plural. That’s why I went to Israel. I wanted to understand that tradition. Not having been brought up in that tradition I wanted to understand its derivation. Moses, Aaron and ultimately the Rabbis in the synagogues and temples would convey God’s will through the means of singing his will. It is Jewish tradition that Moses was commanded of God to sing the scriptures to impress upon them their meanings, into their minds and into their hearts.

Br. Ballam wanted to be able to read, hear, and sing those scriptures the way they would have been sung by Moses, and the ancients, before they were written down:

Now, the tradition of chanting the Holy writings were passed down in an oral tradition per centuries until a group of Rabbis in Tiberius, on the Southern shore of the sea of Galilee, determined it was time to write it down, so that it could be more stable. There are a series of marking called Chantalatian markings, there is the prefix Chantalatian, are found in most credible Hebrew Bibles. They are written directly under the words and moved from right to left, remember Hebrew goes from right to left, English goes left to right. They indicate when the pitches go up, when the pitches go down, when they come to a stopping point and when they need to be embellished, given special emphasis. They are supposedly as close to what the children of Israel heard from Moses in the wilderness as possible. One of my goals in going to Israel was to find someone who could read those Chantalatian markings and tell me the authoritarian sound that went with them. I found such an expert, Israel Vault, in a Hebrew University. He began by chanting for me those first lines of the Torah, the Bible. “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets.” The pitch goes up on the word Eloh-im. Why? The name of the Supreme Deity. “ve’et ha’arets”. There is a punctuation there. It comes to a conclusion. That is we hear a cadence. It comes to an end, a period there.

To hear what those first lines of Genesis 1:1 sound like sung in Hebrew, press play in this audio clip:

Genesis 1:1 sung in Hebrew (click here)

This is where things got interesting for Br. Ballam.  The expert, Israel Vault, told Br. Ballam an amazing story, and asked him if he could explain it:

He came to America a number of years ago and was asked to speak in a university in New Mexico. He began to chant the Torah: “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets”. As he began to chant, he noticed a segment of the audience becoming very interested, even agitated by it. At the conclusion of the class was met by a group of students all of whom were Native Americans from a Tribe and they asked him a question. Where did you get that music? He said: well, I got it out of the Bible its right there; it has been there for centuries. Why do you ask? And the spokesperson for this group of Navajo students said: It’s fascinating to us that, though the words are in a different, it’s the same tune that our fathers used to explain the creation to our tradition. Then Israel said to me: I don’t understand this. How could this group in another continent, from another separation of time have this same melody to describe creation from the same perspective that ancient Israel did? He asked me if perhaps, those Navajos could be part of the lineage of the tribes of Israel. Would they in fact be one of the lost tribes? I didn’t have a definitive answer for him but it is very interesting that the same tune that described the creation of the world in ancient Israel is also the same tune that describes the same story in ancient and modern Navajo.

Hugh Nibley would probably explain the synchronicity by telling about the universality of the creation song:

The word for poetry, poiema, means “creation  of the world.”  The business of the Muses at the temple was to sing the creation song with the morning stars. Naturally, because they were dramatizing the story of the creation, too, the hymn was sung to music (some scholars derive the first writing from musical notation). The singing was performed in a sacred circle or chorus, so that poetry, music and dance go together. (Lucian’s famous essay on the ancient dance, among the earliest accounts, takes it back to the round dance in the temple, like the prayer circle that Jesus used to hold with the apostles and their wives — Jesus standing at the altar in the arms of Adam, and the apostles’ wives standing in the circle with them. Some have referred to this as a dance; it is definitely a chorus.). So poetry, music, and dance go out to the world from the temple — called by the Greeks the Mouseion, the shrine of the Muses.

The creation hymn was part of the great dramatic presentation that took place yearly at the temple; it dealt with the fall and redemption of man…

I don’t have a definitive answer either for why the sung Hebrew Bible would be familiar to Navajo Native Americans, but Nibley gives us a good candidate.  Music was used in the earliest of temples to convey the ritual to the initiates.  It was one of the only modes of transmission the people had to pass the story and rites on from one generation to another.  Might the music contained in the Hebrew Bible be the same music sung by the Native Americans to describe the creation story?  Might it be the same creation song that was heard in the temple anciently?  It’s possible.

~~~~~~~~

In other more personal news, I resigned from my job today.  I am a designer by profession, and unfortunately I became overqualified for my position.  If anyone is aware of design work or open designer positions available, I would appreciate any leads.  I do all kinds of design – product design, graphic design, web design, etc.  You can contact me here.

Here’s a link to my design portfolio:

http://brycehaymond.com/Bryce_Haymond_Portfolio.pdf

Thank you!

The Universal Creation Song

Book Cover

I just finished Dan Brown’s latest thriller, The Lost Symbol, which was published a few days ago on September 15th.  There has been a lot of anticipation surrounding this book, since 6 years have passed since the publication of his bestseller The Da Vinci Code, with 80 million copies sold worldwide to date.  Many wondered if Brown would repeat his success with this book, and while the jury is still out on the answer to that question, I must say that I’m personally fascinated by the material that Brown discusses in this novel.

As was predicted, the story centers around the subject of Freemasonry (or simply Masonry), which most people have heard of but know little about.  This is perhaps the reason Brown chose to explore this subject, one that was ripe for novelty in historical fiction.  However, as before, Brown branches out into a myriad of related subjects and connections, weaving a web of mystery and puzzles which must be solved once again by his favorite character, Robert Langdon.

But this is not going to be a review of the book.  There will be ample time for that, with more qualified critics analyzing the merits and faults of Brown’s work.  In addition, I don’t want to spoil anything while the pages are still wet.  I do quote some brief excerpts from the book below, but they are mostly circumstantial details, and won’t give much away about the plot, if anything.

What I do want to point out are some interesting general impressions I had while I read, particularly as they relate to me, my studies, and the LDS (Mormon) faith.  Call them synchronicities or coincidences, or just interesting tidbits, either way they have called my attention. 

The Apotheosis of Washington

Three months ago, on June 27, 2009, I wrote a short post about the painting that adorns the interior side of the dome of the U.S. Capitol Building rotunda.  That painting is called The Apotheosis of Washington, which surprisingly figures quite predominantly in Dan Brown’s book.  I had been watching a show called Secret America on Discovery, when they had mentioned the painting.  I immediately went online to find out more about it, and wrote about it on TempleStudy.com.  The strange thing is that it was a pretty obscure painting that not many people had heard about.

What’s even more interesting is that I mentioned the painting again just two weeks ago, on September 3.  A friend had told me about an ebook that had been written about the U.S. Capitol, and the painting of Washington filled the front cover.  It’s quite possible that people have been getting wind of the subject matter of Brown’s book for a while, making programs and books about the more esoteric aspects of Washington, D.C., and I picked up on some of that because of their relationship to the temple.  But it still surprised me to find that prior to The Lost Symbol‘s publication, I had written specifically about a painting which bookends and frames the plot of Dan Brown’s novel.

Why is the painting so predominant?  The book does a good job of explaining that, as well as my previous posts.  The painting depicts George Washington, one of our Founding Fathers, and first President, ascending into heaven to sit amongst the gods and becoming deified as one of them.  As theosis is a major theme of the book, man’s potential to become like god, it is no wonder that Brown used this painting as a central motif.

Theosis

Theosis, or deification, has always been a sticking point with critics of the LDS Church.  To these seemingly erudite scholars, a belief in theosis is likely the most heretical and blasphemous doctrine Mormonism could have possibly come up with – the idea that fallen and sinful man could rise to the stature of our God in heaven.  And to many modern-day Christians, it probably seems that way.  Fortunately, with some homework, you will quite literally find a plethora of references to the doctrine of theosis in the ancient world, including in Judaism and Christianity.  Indeed, even Jesus Christ himself declared that man had divine potential when he repeated the Psalm, “ye are gods,” to teach the Jews it was not blasphemous for him to call himself the Son of God (John 10:31–36; cf. Ps. 82:6).  Indeed, even the idea of “fallen” man indicates that he was once at a higher state, a state to which he can return through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  The Latter-day Saints believe that we are literally children of God, our Father in Heaven, and as His children we have the potential to become just as He is.

Dissertations and books have been written on the subject of theosis, and much more could be said.  Suffice it to say, for the present, that even Christianity’s most oft-quoted and beloved modern theologian, C. S. Lewis, once said the following:

It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship. . . 

The command “Be ye perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. He said (in the Bible) that we were “gods” and He is going to make good His words. If we let Him—for we can prevent Him, if we choose—He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, dazzling, radiant, immortal creatures, pulsating all through with such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to Him perfectly (though, of course, on a smaller scale) His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what he said. 

Morality is indispensable: but the Divine Life, which gives itself to us and which calls us to be gods, intends for us something in which morality will be swallowed up. We are to be remade. . . . we shall find underneath it all a thing we have never yet imagined: a real man, an ageless god, a son of God, strong, radiant, wise, beautiful, and drenched in joy. 

Moreover, even entire semester university courses have been designed to teach on this particular, that there is a common theme throughout the works of C. S. Lewis, and that is “theosis… Christianity’s ultimate end is the deification of a person”.  One of my favorite lines in The Lost Symbol on this subject was a simple statement from Peter Solomon:

“A wise man once told me,” Peter said, his voice faint now, “the only difference between you and God is that you have forgotten you are divine.”

Mormon References

I want to take note of the two references to Mormonism in The Lost Symbol.  The first is on page 79:

“As are many equally improbable beliefs.” Langdon often reminded his students that most modern religions included stories that did not hold up to scientific scrutiny: everything from Moses parting the Red Sea . . . to Joseph Smith using magic eyeglasses to translate the Book of Mormon from a series of gold plates he found buried in upstate New York. Wide acceptance of an idea is not proof of its validity.

This is somewhat of a backhanded compliment.  On the one hand, Langdon is saying that the stated origins of the Book of Mormon are improbable based on scientific scrutiny.  On the other hand, he compares the belief to Moses parting the Red Sea, quite a miracle and one which many millions of several different faiths believe was a literal reality.  What is interesting is that even though the stated origins of the Book of Mormon may not hold up to “scientific” scrutiny (and they probably never will), neither has science, or anyone else, been able to determine and explain the supposed actual origins of the complex book of 588 printed pages, produced in 60 some-odd working days, if it wasn’t translated as it claims.  It is like Dan Brown producing The Lost Symbol in 60 days, instead of 6 years, and that’s giving him extra time with 79 less pages to write.  Furthermore, there are references later in The Lost Symbol that indicate that the always incredulous Langdon might have began to think differently after his experiences.  Warren Bellamy teaches him:

“I’ve learned never to close my mind to an idea simply because it seems miraculous.”

The other reference to Mormonism is on page 438:

…all spiritual rituals included aspects that would seem frightening if taken out of context—crucifixion reenactments, Jewish circumcision rites, Mormon baptisms of the dead, Catholic exorcisms, Islamic niqab, shamanic trance healing, the Jewish Kaparot ceremony, even the eating of the figurative body and blood of Christ.

The exquisite irony here is that even Dan Brown took Mormon practices out of context by misstating our ritual.  Mormons practice baptisms “for” the dead, not baptisms “of” the dead.  It is precisely these kind of mistakes that make rituals appear frightening.  There are many who do not understand this LDS practice because they believe we somehow baptize literal dead corpses – “of” the dead.  I’m not exactly sure how the logistics of that would work, and it would require a host of exhumation permits, but it is far from actuality.  We baptize for, and in behalf of, people who have died without the opportunity of baptism.  Members of the Church research their own line of genealogy, and take names of ancestors to the temple so they themselves can perform proxy vicarious baptisms, in name only, for their deceased forebearers who did not have that chance in life.  We believe that those people have the opportunity to accept or reject the baptism performed for them in the afterlife.

Intelligences

I now want to take note of a few intriguing references to subjects that I did not know were thought about outside of the LDS Church; indeed, I have not heard them discussed outside an LDS context.  The first is “intelligences.”

After their discussion, Katherine had a strange notion. Her brother had mentioned the Book of Genesis and its description of the soul as Neshemah—a kind of spiritual “intelligence” that was separate from the body. It occurred to Katherine that the word intelligence suggested the presence of thought.

This was something that I thought was unique to LDS belief, the idea that the spirit is an “intelligence.”  Indeed, the Book of Abraham in the LDS canon teaches about intelligences:

21 I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen.
22 Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;
23 And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. (Abraham 3:21–23)

Here, the Book of Abraham makes clear that intelligences, souls, and spirits, are all inter-related, and may be one in the same thing.  They are the “minds” of men and women before being born on the earth with physical bodies.  Interestingly, a few verses earlier the scriptures suggests that God is God because he is “more intelligent than they all” (Abr. 3:19).  This is a related theme to theosis taken up in the book, that it is the enlightened mind and exalted intelligence that eventually deifies man to become like God.  Katherine in the book goes so far as to say that “it was our minds that were created in the image of God”.  As far as the pre-mortal life is concerned, LDS belief would agree with her, but we also take it to the next logical conclusion, that what man now is, God once was, and that as God now is, man may be.  Consequently, we believe that God has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s, albeit exalted and perfected (D&C 130:22).

Spirit Matter

Directly after discussing intelligences, Katherine explains her conclusion:

Noetic Science clearly suggested that thoughts had mass, and so it stood to reason, then, that the human soul might therefore also have mass. Can I weigh a human soul?…

Katherine recalled writing in her lab notes with a trembling hand: “There seems to exist an invisible ‘material’ that exits the human body at the moment of death. It has quantifiable mass which is unimpeded by physical barriers. I must assume it moves in a dimension I cannot yet perceive.”

Again, LDS scripture indicates that spirit has mass:

7 There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes;
8 We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter. (D&C 131:7–8)

This was a revelation received by the Prophet Joseph Smith in May of 1843.  I don’t know of any other religious faith that believes that spirit is matter, finer and more pure matter, but nonetheless has a mass.  Also notice, however, that the scripture says “spirit,” not “spirits,” and is therefore not necessarily exclusively describing spirit bodies.  It says “all spirit.”  Other early Mormon prophets taught that all space has life, and therefore all space has energy.  Another scripture tells us that “light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space – The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things” (D&C 88:12–13; cf. D&C 88:37).  All space has light.  All space has energy.  All space has matter.  All space has mass.  When our bodies (and minds) are purified we will see that it is so.

Ancient Mysteries

Of course, one theme mentioned time and time again throughout the book is the ancient mysteries.

“The Hand of the Mysteries is a formal invitation to pass through a mystical gateway and acquire ancient secret knowledge—powerful wisdom known as the Ancient Mysteries . . . or the lost wisdom of all the ages.”

I’ve written about “the mysteries” before.  Suffice it to say that the mysteries spoken of in early Christians texts use the word to indicate certain initiation rites or sacraments.  Joseph Smith used the term “mysteries” to describe the ordinances of the temple, in association with the authoritative keys of the priesthood.

Plurality of Gods

The Lost Symbol also briefly notes:

God is found in the collection of Many . . . rather than in the One.

“Elohim,” Langdon said suddenly, his eyes flying open again as he made an unexpected connection.

“I’m sorry?” Katherine was still gazing down at him.

“Elohim,” he repeated. “The Hebrew word for God in the Old Testament! I’ve always wondered about it.”

Katherine gave a knowing smile. “Yes. The word is plural.”

Exactly! Langdon had never understood why the very first passages of the Bible referred to God as a plural being. Elohim. The Almighty God in Genesis was described not as One . . . but as Many.

“God is plural,” Katherine whispered, “because the minds of man are plural.”

On this subject, President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote:

It is perfectly true, as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price and in the Bible, that to us there is but one God. Correctly interpreted God in this sense means Godhead, for it is composed of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This Godhead presides over us, and to us, the inhabitants of this world, they constitute the only God, or Godhead. There is none other besides them. (1 Corinthians 8:5–6.) To them we are amenable, and subject to their authority, and there is no other Godhead unto whom we are subject. However, as the Prophet has shown, there can be, and are, other Gods.

Have we overlooked the fact that the scriptures, ancient and modern, hold out the promise to all those who are faithful and true to every covenant and obligation which the gospel places upon them that the reward will be that they shall become gods? Jesus taught this doctrine to the Jews. It is interwoven throughout all of our Standard Works. The promise has been made to all who are just and true, that they shall become sons and daughters of God, members of his household, (Ephesians 3: 14–15) “joint heirs with Jesus Christ,” (Romans 8:17) and entitled to the fulness of exaltation.

Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting, because they continue; then shall they be above all, because all things are subject unto them. Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them. (D&C 132:20)

A Modern Worldview from Plato’s Cave

Lastly, four years ago, long before I started TempleStudy.com, I wrote a paper for Dr. Brent Strong’s History of Creativity course at Brigham Young University.  The final assignment of the course was to either do a project or write a paper that would exhibit big “C” creativity.  Big “C” creativity was contrasted with little “c” creativity.  Little “c” creativity was described as something that is creative on a personal level, something that gives you many personal “firsts.”  Big “C” creativity was something else entirely, something big enough to be creative on a world-wide level, something that was unique, valuable, had intent, and implementation excellence and continuance.  While this is not the place to explain fully what those terms meant, suffice it to say that big “C” creativity needed to be something other than your home-made weekend papier-mâché project.  It needed to be creative to the world.

I took the project seriously, and thought of many things I might be able to do.  Finally I decided to try to follow in the footsteps of my mentor, Hugh Nibley, and write something of real worth.  I’m glad I did, as it is probably one of the major catalysts that drove me to build this website.

What I wrote was “A Modern Worldview from Plato’s Cave.“  For a long time I had the impression that the world is not exactly as we see it.  Reading certain books on quantum mechanics, in particular, opened my eyes to a new level of reality.  Something else is going on in our world that we are just beginning to try to grasp, yet remains mind-boggling.  The interesting thing is that there were many parallels of the same theme manifest in many times, cultures, religions, and locations around the world.  The diversity of the theme I wanted to explore, to see if I could come to any conclusions of “why.”

The reason I bring this up now is that after having read The Lost Symbol, the subject of my paper four years ago bears upon some of the same subjects as the novel, namely Noetics, quantum mechanics, the power of the mind, enlightenment, and hidden secrets in the world.  Some of my paper almost reads as an extension of one of Katherine’s or Peter’s sermons from the book.  As I read The Lost Symbol, I couldn’t help but notice that I had studied some of these things before.

I have never published the paper I wrote, but today seems as good a day as ever, particularly in light of this new novel that will surely generate conversation on the topic for the foreseeable future.  Below is a link to a PDF of my paper.  I’ve also embedded it below for easy viewing.  It is about 50 pages in length. Please let me know your thoughts.

There will be much more to discuss about Dan Brown’s latest book. Do you have any insights about The Lost Symbol you’d like to share? Please discuss with us in the comments.

A Modern Worldview from Plato’s Cave (PDF)

Mormon Impressions of Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’

Video Tour of Solomon’s Temple, Reconstructed for Nova

One of the excavated enclosures at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, with massive T-shaped megaliths forming ancient stone circles thought to be up to 12,000 years old. (Click for a larger view)

Grandpa Enoch over at Pronaos wrote a few days ago that Archaeology Magazine‘s latest issue has a cover article by Sandra Scham entitled “The World’s First Temple”.  The magazine Science also did an article on the same subject back in January 2008.  There are many articles that are being published, all focused on one archeological dig in southeast Turkey (see this map) which has come to be known as Göbekli Tepe, a Turkish name meaning “navel hill/mountain” or “hill with a belly”.

What makes this excavation so unique?  Why all the hype?  Because evidence is showing that this may be the world’s first man-made monumental structure ever built, even before agriculture developed.  Archeologists didn’t believe that Neolithic hunter-gatherers were capable of building such an enormous complex at such an early date, but this site is starting to redefine our understanding of the beginnings of mankind.  What else is interesting is that this appears to have been some sort of ritual center or ceremonial complex – a temple. 

An artist's rendering of what Göbekli Tepe may have looked like.

The site was first noted as a serious archaeological interest in 1994 when a German archeologist, Klaus Schmidt from the German Archaeological Institute (DAI), began digging there.  Since that time Schmidt has led a team of archaeologists in unearthing parts of what has been determined was an enormous complex of stone circles formed into rooms dating back nearly 11,500 years ago, and intentionally buried in dirt around 8,000 B.C. (which is interesting in and of itself, since that preserved the site for ages instead of destroying it).  Only about 3-5% of the site has been excavated so far, which has yielded several of these stone circle rooms, only one of which has been dug down to the floor.  As many as 20 such structures are thought to exist under the ground at the site, detected by radar scans.

When we mention “stone circles” people usually immediately think of Stonehenge, which we’ve written about before here.  Göbekli Tepe, however, dates to even 7,000 years earlier than its more famous counterpart.  That’s right, it is twice as old as any other ritual complex found on the planet.  Jacob, in the Bible, is noted for having raised a pillar of stone at Bethel, a name which means “House of God” (Gen. 35:14).

But why do the archeologists think it was a temple?  We still don’t know much about the religious practices at this site, but here are some of the things I’ve found.

Probably the biggest indicator that this may have been a temple lies in the fact that there has been no substantial evidence of any settlement at the site – no homes, no trash pits, etc. – the usual markers of human habitation.  In other words, this wasn’t a site where people lived, so they must have been doing something else.  The dating of the site indicates that the people were nomadic hunter-gatherers, so many archaeologists think that what was likely going on here was some sort of ritual – it was a shrine, or place of worship.  This has changed many archeologists’ theories about the beginning of mankind.  The history books have stated for a long time that people did not gather together and establish communities or centers of gathering (cities) until agriculture developed, sometime after 9,000 B.C.  But this complex shows otherwise, which has provoked lead archaeologist Klaus Schmidt to say, “Our excavations also show it is not a domestic site, it is religious – the world’s oldest temple”.  The interpretation is that “first came the temple, then the city”.  I think Hugh Nibley would have agreed with that argument.  Furthermore, Schmidt gives another Nibleyesque statement on the “terrible questions” which these temples were made to answer: “In my opinion, the people who carved [the pillars] were asking themselves the biggest questions of all… What is this universe? Why are we here?”.  It may have been the very rituals that these people were gathering to perform that led them to develop agriculture.  Andrew Curry in Science Magazine notes:

Archaeologists once hypothesized that agriculture gave early people the time and food surpluses that they needed to build monuments and develop a rich symbolic vocabulary. But Göbekli Tepe raises the alternative possibility that the need to feed large groups who gathered to build or worship at the huge structures spurred the first steps toward agriculture.

The site is on the top of a hill/mountain, which is the highest point in that area.  We learn from the scriptures and modern revelation that mountains are synonymous with temples.  People always ascended to their sanctuaries.  As Nibley often said, the temple is the cosmic mountain, the primordial mound or hill.  Moses ascended Mount Sinai.  Nephi was caught away to a high mountain.  The temple has even been referred to as “the mountain of the Lord’s house” (Isa. 2:2).  So it is not surprising to find a temple on a high hill.

Evidence indicates that people traveled from great distances to come to the site.  Many bone remnants have been found at Göbekli Tepe, indicating that animal sacrifice was performed.

Klaus Schmidt, lead archaeologist on Göbekli Tepe.

Klaus Schmidt suspects another reason why this might have been a temple:

Though he has yet to find them, he believes that the first stone circles on the hill of the navel marked graves of important people. Hauptmann’s team discovered graves at Nevali Çori, and Schmidt is reasonably confident that burials lie somewhere in the earliest layers of Göbekli Tepe. This leads him to suspect the pillars represent human beings and that the cult practices at this site may initially have focused on some sort of ancestor worship.

Indeed, Sean Thomas has said that “human skeletons have been found, in telling positions, which indicate that Gobekli was possibly a funerary complex, a shrine that celebrated the life and death of the hunters”.

Schmidt has also noted that this was not only the first man-made monument, but “the first manmade holy place” ever built.  Gary Rollefson, another archaeologist from Washington, also agrees – “Certainly it was a major focus for regional celebrations or ritual activity”.  While there are several such ritual sites in the region, Rollefson notes, “Göbekli Tepe’s really the only one with that megatemple approach”.  Schmidt continues, “Here we have the religious center for settlements at least 50 kilometers away… Those were village churches; this is the cathedral on a hill”.  Andrew Collins likewise agrees: “Göbekli Tepe can be described as sacerdotal, in that it was clearly utilised as a place of veneration and perhaps communication with supernatural entities and domains”.

Another interesting note from Science Magazine is that this site has been deemed by some to be the original Biblical Garden of Eden.  Why?  Well, there are several reasons for this.  The location is generally the same as what is thought to be the beginning place of civilization – Turkey.  It also seems to follow the latest theories about the origin of the Garden story.  The online news magazine The First Post reports:

Historians have long wondered if the Eden story is a folk memory, an allegory of the move from hunter-gathering to farming. Seen in this way, the Eden story describes how we moved from a life of relative leisure – literally picking fruit from the trees – to a harsher existence of ploughing and reaping.

This site seems to depict that transition from hunter-gathering to agriculture.  But it goes further than that.  Even the landscape seems to match the Bible story.  The site is in the “fertile crescent,” right between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, purportedly the rivers that flowed down from the Edenic paradise.  Even the vegetation at that time points to a paradise-like environment:

Animal and plant remains suggest that 11,000 years ago this place teemed with gazelle, aurochs, and deer. Groves of fruit and nut trees lined the rivers, and flocks of migrating birds paused here regularly. “It must have looked like a paradise, ideal for hunter-gatherers,” says Angela von den Driesch, an emeritus archaeozoology professor at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, Germany, who has classified animal remains at the site. The region was so rich that people could have settled down while still supporting themselves with hunting and gathering…

While it is highly suspect that this was actually the original Garden of Eden, particularly from an LDS point of view, just the fact that people are describing this “temple” as such is fascinating.  The Garden of Eden story has endless connections and parallels with the temple.

The Göbekli Tepe excavation has only just begun.  It will be interesting to watch and learn as more is discovered about this site, particularly if they can uncover in more detail the rituals and ceremonies that occurred there.

Klaus Schmidt has written several books on his finds at Göbekli Tepe, which can be found here on Wikipedia.  His latest book published in 2006 is entitled Sie bauten die ersten Tempel. Das rätselhafte Heiligtum der Steinzeitjäger, which is German for “They Built the First Temple. The Mysterious Shrine of Stone Age Hunters.”

There are also two great YouTube videos which show Göbekli Tepe, both the excavated ruins, and what they think the complex looked like.  The narration is in German, I believe. If you know the language, be sure to let us know if they say anything else interesting in the videos. I’ve embedded them below:

The First and Oldest Temple in the World? – Göbekli Tepe