If you’re new here, you may want to sign up for email alerts or subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for reading!Dr. Kathy Larsen has been a regular reader, commenter, friend, and selfless supporter of TempleStudy.com and many others, and has sadly been recently told that her cancer is returning. It sounds like it [...]
An ancient cave discovered under one of the world’s oldest churches in Rihab, Jordan, may be a site of the earliest Christian worship to ever be found. Archaeologists have dated the cave to between 33 A.D. and 70 A.D.
The Associated Press reports that the Rihab Center for Archaeological Studies says that this cave “shows evidence [...]
Mark Greene posted a comment a few days ago on my multi-part paper The Genesis of the Round Dance that I thought was very insightful:
In thinking further about your interesting paper on the genesis of the ring dance, I remembered that there is a marvelous example of a prayer circle and therefore a type of [...]
A group of researchers has just begun a two-week excavation at the well-known Stonehenge site in England in an attempt to discover, once and for all, the meaning behind the mysterious ruins. According to current scientific dating, Stonehenge dates back to about 3000 B.C., but it has perplexed archaeologists for years as to the [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
The word orant, or latin orans, is a noun form of the verb orare, to pray, and describes an early mode of prayer practiced by the first Christians. From Wikipedia we read:
Orant is a type of gesture during prayer in which the hands are raised, set apart, and the palms face outward. It was [...]
Round dances, through all ages of time and all locations of the world, display striking similarities in structure and theme. This is strong evidence that they share a common origin. These dances are usually quite religious in nature and I propose that round dances, like other widespread yet similar ritual motifs found scattered across the [...]
Hugh Nibley had a fascination with the Hopi Indian tribes of northeastern Arizona. He believed that the Hopi captured something about life that the rest of the world had missed. Their culture, traditions, and ceremonies were stable and permanent. They did not look to the conveniences of the day, and yet had [...]
I want all people to know that I know that President Thomas S. Monson is God’s prophet, seer, and revelator on the earth today. He has been called just as all prophets have been called since the beginning of time, and that is by God. God calls prophets, such as Adam, Enoch, Abraham, [...]
(Continued from Part 5)
Dancing in Worship
If this round dancing in the prayer circle seems peculiar, recall Lehi’s vision at the beginning of The Book of Mormon, where he sees God on his throne “surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God”. Nibley comments:
Surrounding concourses are concentric circles, and [...]
(Continued from Part 4)
Religion and Dance
Many scholars have described dance in terms of religion. Kraus describes it among the ancients as being used “as a means of communication with the forces of nature - for becoming one with the gods,” and as “a major form of religious ritual . . . a means of worship”. [...]
(Continuation from Part 3)
Middle Ages
The ring dance was also present throughout the Middle Ages in the Reigen, or round dance of the peasants, and in the entertainment of the troubadours in the courts. At this time, there was still a cosmic element associated with the round dance pattern as Honorius states, “In their ring dances [...]
(Continuation from Part 2)
Greece
The ancient choruses, dances, and songs of the dithyramb of Greece displayed the familiar pattern of a dignified, circular dance around the altar of Dionysus in the theater’s orchestra. In fact, the term orchestra originally meant the circular dancing place of the theater. In addition, the terms carole and chorus, also originally [...]
(Continuation from Part 1)
The Genesis of the Round Dance
Bryce Haymond
“Then shalt thou dance in a ring together with the angels, around Him
who is without beginning or end, the only true God . . .”
—Clement of Alexandria
Introduction
Round dances, through all ages of time and all locations of the world, display striking similarities in structure and theme. [...]
Background
During my senior year as a student at Brigham Young University, the Fall 2006 semester, I enrolled in Dance 260 which was an “Introduction to Dance” course. The professor was Susanne Davis, a World Dance Division Administrator. In the class we learned about the history of dance, from the beginning of time down [...]
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