I came across a talk today by Elder Neal A. Maxwell which he gave at a BYU devotional on October 10, 1978, entitled “Meeting the Challenges of Today.”  Some of the things he said are especially relevant “today,” particularly in the midst of all the turmoil over Proposition 8.  Here is some of his talk:

Discipleship includes good citizenship; and in this connection, if you are careful students of the statements of the modern prophets, you will have noticed that with rare exceptions–especially when the First Presidency has spoken out–the concerns expressed have been over moral issues, not issues between political parties. The declarations are about principles, not people, and causes, not candidates. On occasions, at other levels in the Church, a few have not been so discreet, so wise, or so inspired.

But make no mistake about it, brothers and sisters; in the months and years ahead, events will require of each member that he or she decide whether or not he or she will follow the First Presidency. Members will find it more difficult to halt longer between two opinions (see 1 Kings 18:21).

President Marion G. Romney said, many years ago, that he had “never hesitated to follow the counsel of the Authorities of the Church even though it crossed my social, professional, or political life” (CR, April 1941, p. 123). This is a hard doctrine, but it is a particularly vital doctrine in a society which is becoming more wicked. In short, brothers and sisters, not being ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ includes not being ashamed of the prophets of Jesus Christ.

We are now entering a period of incredible ironies. Let us cite but one of these ironies which is yet in its subtle stages: we shall see in our time a maximum if indirect effort made to establish irreligion as the state religion. It is actually a new form of paganism that uses the carefully preserved and cultivated freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as it rejects the value essence of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage. . . .

Brothers and sisters, irreligion as the state religion would be the worst of all combinations. Its orthodoxy would be insistent and its inquisitors inevitable. Its paid ministry would be numerous beyond belief. Its Caesars would be insufferably condescending. Its majorities–when faced with clear alternatives–would make the Barabbas choice, as did a mob centuries ago when Pilate confronted them with the need to decide.

Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted. M. J. Sobran also observed, “A religious conviction is now a second-class conviction, expected to step deferentially to the back of the secular bus, and not to get uppity about it” (Human Life Review, Summer 1978, p. 58). This new irreligious imperialism seeks to disallow certain of people’s opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions. Resistance to abortion will soon be seen as primitive. Concern over the institution of the family will be viewed as untrendy and unenlightened.

In its mildest form, irreligion will merely be condescending toward those who hold to traditional Judeo-Christian values. In its more harsh forms, as is always the case with those whose dogmatism is blinding, the secular church will do what it can to reduce the influence of those who still worry over standards such as those in the Ten Commandments. It is always such an easy step from dogmatism to unfair play–especially so when the dogmatists believe themselves to be dealing with primitive people who do not know what is best for them. It is the secular bureaucrat’s burden, you see.

Am I saying that the voting rights of the people of religion are in danger? Of course not! Am I saying, “It’s back to the catacombs?” No! But there is occurring a discounting of religiously-based opinions. There may even be a covert and subtle disqualification of some for certain offices in some situations, in an ironic “irreligious test” for office.

However, if people are not permitted to advocate, to assert, and to bring to bear, in every legitimate way, the opinions and views they hold that grow out of their religious convictions, what manner of men and women would they be, anyway? Our founding fathers did not wish to have a state church established nor to have a particular religion favored by government. They wanted religion to be free to make its own way. But neither did they intend to have irreligion made into a favored state church. Notice the terrible irony if this trend were to continue. When the secular church goes after its heretics, where are the sanctuaries? To what landfalls and Plymouth Rocks can future pilgrims go? . . .

© Greg K. Olsen

It may well be, as our time comes to “suffer shame for his name” (Acts 5:41), that some of this special stress will grow out of that portion of discipleship which involves citizenship. Remember that, as Nephi and Jacob said, we must learn to endure “the crosses of the world” (2 Nephi 9:18) and yet to despise “the shame of [it]” (Jacob 1:8). To go on clinging to the iron rod in spite of the mockery and scorn that flow at us from the multitudes in that great and spacious building seen by Father Lehi, which is the “pride of the world,” is to disregard the shame of the world (1 Nephi 8:26-27, 33; 11:35-36). Parenthetically, why–really why–do the disbelievers … watch so intently what the believers are doing? Surely there must be other things for the scorners to do–unless, deep within their seeming disinterest, there is interest.

If the challenge of the secular church becomes very real, let us, as in all other human relationships, be principled but pleasant. Let us be perceptive without being pompous. Let us have integrity and not write checks with our tongues which our conduct cannot cash.

Before the ultimate victory of the forces of righteousness, some skirmishes will be lost. Even these, however, must leave a record so that the choices before the people are clear and let others do as they will in the face of prophetic counsel. There will also be times, happily, when a minor defeat seems probable, that others will step forward, having been rallied to righteousness by what we do. We will know the joy, on occasion, of having awakened a slumbering majority of the decent people of all races and creeds–a majority which was, till then, unconscious of itself.

Jesus said that when the fig trees put forth their leaves “summer is nigh” (Matthew 24:32). Thus warned that summer is upon us, let us not then complain of the heat.

(Neal A. Maxwell, “Meeting the Challenges of Today,” BYU Devotional, October 10, 1978)

Elder Maxwell Comments on Proposition 8… 30 Years Ago

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

An ancient painting of Nüwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang, holding the tools of creation - compass and square.

Hugh Nibley gave a lecture in 1975 on “Sacred Vestments” which was later transcribed and included in the collected works volume Temple and Cosmos (pgs. 91-132).  The entire paper is fascinating, and highly recommended reading.  One of the things he wrote about were certain Chinese artifacts which had been found depicting two mythological gods, Nüwa and Fuxi, and the tools they hold:

Most challenging are the veils from Taoist-Buddhist tombs at Astana, in Central Asia, originally Nestorian (Christian) country, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in 1925… We see the king and queen embracing at their wedding, the king holding the square on high, the queen a compass. As it is explained, the instruments are taking the measurements of the universe, at the founding of a new world and a new age. Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe. Among the stars depicted, Stein and his assistant identified the Big Dipper alone as clearly discernable. As noted above, the garment draped over the coffin and the veil hung on the wall had the same marks; they were placed on the garment as reminders of personal commitment, while on the veil they represent man’s place in the cosmos. (pg. 111-12)

Nibley included drawings of this depiction found on veils in the Astana Tombs in Xinjiang, China, with a caption that reads:

In the underground tomb of Fan Yen-Shih, d. A.D. 689, two painted silk veils show the First Ancestors of the Chinese, their entwined serpect bodies rotating around the invisible vertical axis mundi.  Fu Hsi holds the set-square and plumb bob … as he rules the four-cornered earth, while his sister-wife Nü-wa holds the compass pointing up, as she rules the circling heavens.  The phrase kuci chü is used by modern Chinese to signify “the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square. (pg. 115)

See the photos at the end of the post for more examples of this icon.  The veil redrawn in Temple and Cosmos is shown photographed in the second row, fourth from the left. 

Wikipedia notes, “Nüwa and Fuxi were pictured as having snake like tails interlocked in an Eastern Han dynasty (206 – 220 A.D.) mural in the Wuliang Temple in Jiaxiang county, Shandong province.”  It also notes the various roles of Nüwa (and sometimes with Fuxi) in Chinese mythology:

• Creator
• Woman/Man
• Mother
• Goddess
• Wife
• Sister
• Tribal leader (emperor)
• Maintainer
• Repairer
• Sun god/moon god
• Adam and Eve

Some have even suggested that “Nüwa” might be related to “Noah” from the Genesis account, with some parallels between the accounts, such as Nüwa’s sealing of the sky with five colored stones connected with Noah’s rainbow.

Another description of Nüwa and Fuxi and their tools is found in a book entitled The Magic Square: Cities in Ancient China by Alfred Schinz:

It appears from these legends that civilization, i.e. ordered human life, begins with two personages, both portrayed as being semi-human and with mermaid tails.  Nüwa and Fuxi, originally sister and brother, later became wife and husband after they had invented proper marriage procedures and family names to prevent marriages between people from the same family.  Nüwa, in her own legend, had restored order between heaven and earth after a horrible catastrophe had caused heaven to tilt to the north so that it no longer covered all of the earth.  This may refer to the first observation of the oblique elliptic and the angle of the pole star.  Nüwa found it necessary to reestablish the four cardinal points, which she did, thereby creating the prerequisites for further observations.  In the oldest pictures of her she carries a compass, the instrument related to heavenly observations.  Her brother Fuxi became the first legendary emperor, which also implies the establishment of government, of law and order… On another, more practical level he is said to have invented axes for splitting wood, the carpenter’s square, ropes for hunting and fishing nets.  It is worthy of special attention that the two words for compass and square, gui ju, used together denote -the rule, custom, usage- and -good behavior-, i.e., keeping order.  Furthermore, it should be observed that the male-female system, the yang-yin philosophy, is expressed here in a complex manner, first as Fuxi and Nüwa, second as compass (male) and square (female), and third as Nüwa (female) with compass (male) and Fuxi (male) with square (female).  The compass-square dichotomy is similar to the heaven-earth, yang-yin, relationship, which in this case means that man (Fuxi) establishes harmonious order between heaven and earth.  This is also expressed in the Chinese character for king, wang, the upper and lower line indicating heaven and earth and the middle line man, all three connected by the vertical line.  This represents the position and function of the ruler; it is he who establishes and keeps order by placing himself in a balanced and harmonious position between heaven and earth, so that yang and yin cooperate in a beneficial way.

[Caption] Fuxi and his sister Nüwa, he with the carpenter’s square and she with the pair of compasses.  From the decoration incised in the wall of the Wu Lang tombs in Jiaxiang, Shandong, second century AD.  The Chinese words for carpenter’s square, ju, and a pair of compasses, gui, together form the expression to establish order.  This is what, according to their legends, Fuxi and Nüwa did.  The carpenter’s square also stands for the square that is the symbol of the earth, while the pair of compasses represent the circle, the symbol of heaven.  Fuxi, the male (yang), gives order to the earth (yin), and Nüwa, the female (yin), gives order to the heaven (yang).

A book entitled The Mathematics of Egypt, Mesopotamia, China, India, and Islam by Victor J. Katz and Annette Imhausen relates a practical tradition about the use of these tools in Chinese history:

Here Fu Xi – the first of the “Three Sovereigns” – is shown on the right holding a ju or carpenter’s square.  In some versions of this legend Fu Xi is said to have invented both the carpenter’s square and the compass, or gui – which is held in the above depiction by his consort Nü Wa (on the left).  According to the Chronicles of the famous Chinese historian Sima Qian, the Emperor Yu of Xia (who reigned in the twenty-first century BCE), when attending to floods, carried with him “a plumbline in his left hand and a gnomon and compass in his right” in order to do the surveying required to bring the floods under control [Li and Du 1987, 3].

The Silk Road by Susan Whitfield and Ursula Sims-williams connects the concepts of the compass and the square with the circle and the square:

In traditional Chinese cosmology the earth was square and the heavens round and thus Fuxi holds a set square to draw the former, and Nüwa a pair of compasses to draw the circle of the earth.

Noted by Mark Edward Lewis in Writing and Authority in Early China, these symbols were used to represent cosmic order, a link between heaven and earth, and a favorable environment for the deceased:

This role of linking Heaven to Earth also figures in the depictions of Fu Xi and Nü Wa.  First, in Han tombs their elongated, serpent bodies stretch from the bottom of the register to the top, and in later depictions this vertical ascent becomes even clearer.  In Sichuan sarcophagi they play the iconographic role of the dragons on the Mawangdui banners who physically link the earthly realm to that of Heaven.  This idea is reinforced through the regular inclusion of two other iconogrpahic traits.  Fu Xi and Nü Wa are often depicted with the sun and moon, and they are shown holding a carpenters square (Fu Xi) and a drawing compass (Nü Wa).  The former are metonyms for Heaven and the celestial equivalents of yin and yang.  The latter suggests the linking of square Earth to the round Heaven.  Most scholars agree that the role of the intertwined Fu Xi and Nü Wa was to depict the interaction of yin and yang that underlies cosmic order and thereby secure an auspicious environment for the denizen of the tomb.

Santillana and Dechend offer more explanation for the figures of Nüwa and Fuxi:

The Chinese picture illustrates in true archaic spirit (which means that only hints are given, and the spectator has to work out for himself the significance of the details) the surveying of the universe.  The two characters surrounded by constellations are Fu Hsi and Nu Kua, i.e., the craftsman god and his paredra, who measure the “squareness of the earth” and the “roundness of heaven” with their implements, the square with the plumb bob hanging from it, and the compass.  The intertwined serpent-like bodies of the deities indicate clearly enough, although in a peculiar “projection,” circular orbits intersecting each other at regular intervals. 

In another place some Chinese commentators have noted the uses of these tools in construction or building:

All “great instruments” were invented by the ancients to help lesser men “first rule the self and then rule others.”  Although all are needed in construction, by no means do all these tools work in the same way.  Level and line determine straight horizontal and vertical lines, while compass and square are needed to form perfect circles and corners.  By analogy, each of the social institutions, including ritual, has its own function in building civilization, with each addressing a separate human need.  It is characteristic of the sage-ruler that he always knows which tool to apply to the specific problem at hand.

There are probably hundreds of other sources which describe these symbols in Chinese tradition and mythology.  You can find more by doing a Google Books search for “nuwa square compass.”

I’ve done some image searching and these two figures are almost always depicted holding the same symbols in their hands, and which have been described by many different scholars as the tools of creation and divine order.  See the images below.

Nüwa and Fuxi in Chinese Mythology: Compass & Square

Professor Hugh Nibley often taught that the temple was the source of many of the institutions, forms, and trappings of our modern-day society. He once remarked:

There is no part of our civilization which doesn’t have its rise in the temple.

Nibley also made the comments:

So poetry, music, and dance go out to the world from the temple-called by the Greeks the Mouseion, the shrine of the Muses.

And:

All the arts and sciences began at the temple. Dance, music, architecture, sculpture, drama, and so forth-they all go back to the temple.

The more I study the temple the more I am convinced of these statements. I have found evidence for the temple in language, literature, poetry, dance, music, theater, drama, education, custom, astronomy, architecture, art, science, politics, and of course in the many religions of the world. Even our daily personal patterns of awakening, opening our eyes, arising, washing ourselves, getting dressed, eating breakfast, working out our salvation while the day of probation lasts, then going to sleep and awaiting to arise the next morning clearly has connections with the temple.

In what patterns of our civilization do you see the temple?

Temple the Source of All Civilization