If you’re new here, you may want to sign up for email alerts or subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for reading!As someone recently quipped, “I’m so glad Nibley’s not letting a little thing like being dead slow down his publishing schedule!”
Another volume in the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley series is being officially [...]
The scholarly world is aflutter over the latest discovery of a 3-foot tall tablet being called “Gabriel’s Revelation,” “Hazon Gabriel,” or the “Vision of Gabriel.” It contains 87 lines of Hebrew text written in ink on stone, and has been dated to the first century BCE. The tablet was found near the Dead Sea in [...]
(Continued from Part 3)
In the last parts of our series on the Egyptian hieroglyph of the ankh, and other related symbols, I’d like to look at where these symbols are found on the extant portions of the Joseph Smith Papyri, related documents, and the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham, to see if Joseph Smith [...]
Since tomorrow is Independence Day, I thought I might say a word about our Founding Fathers. We are deeply indebted to all the noble men and women who sacrificed their lives to establish this country of the United States of America some 232 years ago, and to make this country a free land. Through their [...]
Note: This was going to be the next part of the series on the Egyptian ankh, and its relationship with the papyri and Book of Abraham, but I thought an intro to these first would be a better place to start.
Let’s return again to the subject of the ankh, and related symbols, that we’ve briefly [...]
As I was researching for the posts on the ankh, I came across some information which was interesting, describing the Egyptian concept of “time” and “eternity.” These concepts almost seem repetitive and redundant to our modern way of thinking, but to the Egyptians each of these terms represented something concrete and distinct, and both were [...]
(Continued from Part 2)
The ankh symbol appears frequently with several other hieroglyphics in certain formulas and invocations that immediately call our attention. These are wedja, seneb, djed, & was.
This table summarizes the different possible explanations for these hieroglyphics that I have been able to find:
(Continued from Part 1, which has been updated)
As I mentioned in Part 1, the more interesting aspects of the Egyptian ankh are not necessarily what it means standing alone, but how the Egyptians used it in their texts and illustrations.
There are three principal ways that the Egyptians used the ankh symbol, by itself, in their [...]
Egypt figures a central role in the religion of the ancient Near East, where much of our canon of scripture owes its narrative and existence to this locale. Even the Book of Mormon tells us it was written in “reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32). The most interesting aspect, to me, is the adoption into Egypt of [...]
There are a couple good firesides/lectures coming up, for those of you who are in the Salt Lake/Provo area.
First off, there will be a lecture given by John Gee this Thursday, June 19th, at 7:00pm at the Olivewood Bookstore in Provo (3330 N. University Ave., Suite C). He will be speaking about the message of [...]
One of our readers, Dr. Kathy Larsen, pointed out a scripture yesterday that intrigued me. It is Leviticus 21:10:
And he that is the high priest among his brethren, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, and that is consecrated to put on the garments, shall not uncover his head, nor rend his clothes;
There [...]
First of all I’d like to thank all those who have participated in the TempleStudy feedback that was posted yesterday. I have received a good number of responses, and most were very positive. Some even compared my methodology, albeit detrimentally, as similar to Hugh Nibley’s, for which I could not be more flattered. [...]
On this bright Easter morning I thought we might reflect on the glorious resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, and particularly how this miraculous gift and triumph over death by the Savior has a very central theme and part of our temple. I don’t think we recognize just how inseparably tied are the realities [...]
For the last few decades Brigham Young University has been involved in the excavation and study of ancient ruins and tombs in the Fayum region of Egypt, particularly in the Fag El Gamous cemetery. Some of the remains there have been noted as early Christian. One of the reports of these findings was [...]
For those who may have missed it the first time when this blog was in its infancy, have a look over at at the 6-part series I posted entitled “The Genesis of the Round Dance.” I’d like to get your take on the paper. I didn’t receive much commentary the first time round. (No pun [...]
This morning I heard an excellent 50-minute interview on KSL News Radio on the program “People of Faith with Carole Mikita.” Today, Mikita interviewed Professor Andrew Skinner, Excecutive Director of The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, on his recent publication of the book entitled Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your [...]
I attended an endowment session in the Mount Timpanogos temple early this morning. It was a marvelous experience. I loved walking into the temple while it was dark outside, lights illuminating the angel Moroni, and then later walking out in the early light of the morning, a haze blanketing the ground. In [...]
The Encyclopedia Britannica reports what is speculated to be the origin of the letter “E” in our modern alphabet:
The letter E may have started as a picture sign of a man with arms upraised, as in Egyptian hieroglyphic writing (1) and in a very early Semitic writing used in about 1500 BC on the Sinai [...]
Since the first day I picked up a book by Hugh Nibley I have been fascinated by the parallels which he taught exist between our practices and those of the ancients. Many critics of the Church claim that Joseph Smith made this all up, that he was a charlatan, a deceiver, and a con-man. However, [...]
The handshake has become a common form of communication all around the world. It is used to say “hello”, “goodbye”, “we agree”, as a greeting upon first acquaintance, and as a mutual sign of goodwill and peace. A handshake can establish a first impression with someone, whether it be good and firm, or [...]
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