7 Comments

  1. Great site! Two comment here:

    1) There’s a wonderful post over at Times and Seasons by Ben Huff drawing parallels (and distinctions) between the Temple ceremony and Catholic Mass as an aid to helping outsiders understand what goes on in the temple (see http://www.timesandseasons.org/?p=4350).

    2) Drawing upon the Jewish concept that the increasing levels of holiness and approach to God in the tabernacle/temple represents a reversal of the fall of Adam (including the tree of life — the menorah — in the Holy Place), there is a striking amount of temple imagery and concepts in the tree of life visions that Lehi and (especially) Nephi have. ..bruce..

  2. Thanks for the comment.

    I have read Ben Huff’s post over at Times and Seasons about the parallels between the LDS and Catholic rites. Generally I think it is pretty good. But I think we walk a fine line when we start describing the modes and methods of our own temple directly. Members of the Church will recognize the parallels of other traditions (as will the critics) without us having to make them explicitly known. We must be careful to talk about our temple in terms that have already been published by the Church, or describe other practices while holding constraint on our own.

    I hadn’t realized the patterns between the increasing levels of holiness as a reversal of the fall, with the tree of life imagery, menorah, etc. That is very insightful. Indeed, the table of shewbread, with its breadplates and liquid offerings, were partaken by the priests in the tabernacle as a type of sacrament, in parallel with the partaking of the forbidden fruit by Adam in the garden. Adam partakes of the fruit, and falls. The priests partake of the bread and liquid in similitude of the Atonement of Christ, and live. And the tree of life imagery is fascinating.

    Your post over at your blog about the flaming sword is great.

  3. I think it is great that we have such parallels between temple ceremony and modern life. I was thinking about what temple ritual must be like as I sat clothed in my cap and gown during a pre-graduation ceremony, and it struck me how there were some interesting, albeit small, similarities between the two.

    Of course, I’m just going off what I have learned about the temple from proxy baptisms and reading material such as that of Elder Packer on temple worship.
    Great post.

  4. You said that we don’t normally think of the Book of Mormon as having Temple-ness in it. I would disagree. I think it is PACKED with Temple references.

  5. I agree Emily. What I meant is that in the Church we don’t usually discuss the temple themes in the Book of Mormon. At least I haven’t seen that in my experience.

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