If you’re new here, you may want to sign up for email alerts or subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for reading!A few days ago I wrote about a post I read over at Lehi’s Library which quoted a paper by Kevin Christensen in which he referenced Margaret Barker. The subject was the use [...]
I came across some references to early Christian ritual vestments this morning in Matthew Brown’s The Gate of Heaven. He cited The Awe-Inspiring Rites of Initiation by Edward Yarnold, and The Archæology of Baptism by Wolfred N. Cote. I looked up these references and they were intriguing in describing an early Christian practice of face [...]
As most people know, it is a tradition in many parts of the world to bake up a birthday cake for a friend or family member celebrating a birthday. Typically this cake is decorated nicely and topped with birthday candles, one for every year of the celebrant’s life. When the time comes to eat the [...]
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 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 [...]
Some of our critics have been quick to contend that our modern temples and practices have no relationship whatever to the temples of ancient Israel. This is a quick judgment indeed. If one is willing to open their eyes that they may hear, and their ears that they may see, then many marvelous [...]
Last night a reader referenced me to what appears to be a new blog by Bill Hamblin, a well-known LDS scholar and Associate Professor of History at BYU, and particularly about a post of his of a couple week ago. Dr. Hamblin talks about early Byzantine veils, and especially one that he has photographs of [...]
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!
Shades of the prison-house begin to close
Upon [...]
(Continued from Part 1)
Justin, a reader of Temple Study, brought to my attention that there may be more temple imagery in Matthew 25 than just the parable of the ten virgins. Indeed, the parable of the talents has some striking shadows and allusions to the temple too. In the same spirit Elder Robbins [...]
In a recent June 2007 Ensign article entitled “Oil in Our Lamps” Elder Lynn G. Robbins of the Seventy wrote an excellent commentary on the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25 and its connection with our latter-day temple worship and worthiness. As Elder Robbins notes, one way to “liken [these parables] unto [...]
On my tour through Ukraine a couple years ago I became familiar with what is known as the iconostasis (plural iconostases) that is found in almost every Eastern Orthodox Church. This is a thin wall or partition that separates the nave, where the lay worshipers reside, from the sanctuary in the church, where the [...]
There is an old church in Ravenna, Italy, called the Basilica of Sant’ Apollinare Nuovo. It was built in the late fifth or early sixth century, and was originally dedicated to Christ. One of the most singular and unique things about this church is the appearance of gammadia on many of the vestments of the [...]
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 [...]
The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship website has shared a quote from Hugh Nibley on their homepage today:
The word atonement appears only once in the New Testament, but 127 times in the Old Testament. . . . In the other Standard Works of the Church, atonement (including related terms atone, atoned, atoneth, atoning) [...]
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 [...]
The great intercessory prayer of John 17 is one of the great treasures in all of holy scripture. Dr. Hugh Nibley has given us a pearl of knowledge concerning a reinterpretation of John 17:11 when Christ prayed to the Father, going back to the Greek text in which this verse originally came to us:
As [...]
Not only do the graduation ceremonies of universities have interesting ritual qualities, but the matriculation ceremonies do also. The commentor Jonovitch on the Times and Seasons blog also made a reference to one of the opening scenes from the movie Mona Lisa Smile. This scene is from a 1953 matriculation ceremony, or a [...]
This first scripture is, no doubt, the most read scripture in all the Church, and possibly the most read from the LDS canon outside of the Church. Members of the Church have all read this scripture over and over as they begin reading the Book of Mormon and recommit to daily scripture study and finishing [...]
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