Month: February 2008

The Ancient Pentagram – A Christian Symbol

15 Comments
Pentagrams on the Nauvoo Temple

Pentagrams on the Nauvoo Temple

One of the more well-used and worn-out attacks from our critics has been the Church’s use of the symbol of the pentagram (a 5-pointed star) on some of our temples, most particularly on the early temples of this dispensation such as the Nauvoo Temple. In an sweeping gesture they pass these symbols off as absolute proof that Mormonism is a Satanic organization. They cannot imagine why a so-called Christian faith would even think to use such symbols when it is so clear to them that they are evil and of the devil.

Why do these critics always assume the worst, and ignore the simple evidence? It didn’t take me more than a few minutes of Googling to find the following information on the symbolism of the pentagram from several different sites: [Read more…]

The Genesis of the Round Dance – Part 5

2 Comments
Left - Prearchaic dance circle, 9th c. BC. Olympia. Right - 5th-3rd c. BC circle of dancers, with avlos player inside.

Left - Prearchaic dance circle, 9th c. BC. Olympia. Right - 5th-3rd c. BC circle of dancers, with avlos player inside.

(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” ((Kraus, Richard G., Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, 19, 28)). Curt Sachs tells us that dance was a way to “bridge the chasm between this and the other world” of the Gods ((qtd. in Ellfeldt, Lois. Dance, from Magic to Art. Dubuque, Iowa: W. C. Brown Co., 1976, 14)). Ellfeldt states that there is no primitive group in the world that does not have a strong ceremonial culture, and very few of these ceremonies that do not have dances associated with them ((ibid., 32)). Why do we not know more about these ritual dances? With the Egyptians, Ellfeldt tells us that it is because of the extreme secrecy “with which the priests guarded their dances . . . transmitting their rules by word of mouth” ((ibid., 55)). These dances were sacred, deeply symbolic rituals which were purposefully kept esoteric, only revealed to those “initiates” which participated in them. [Read more…]

The Intercessory Prayer – Back to the Greek

1 Comment

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 Jesus himself prayed on the eve of his crucifixion: “Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24.) They are going back to that premortal glory. “And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may bein them, and I in them.” ( John 17:26.)

“Holy Father, keep [tereo] through thine own name those whom thou hast given me,” reads John 17:11 in the King James Version; but in the Greek text, there is no direct object “whom,” and the word tereo can mean to “test by observation or trial” ((Liddell and Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, p. 1789)). Instead, we have an instrumental dative, so in the spirit of Article of Faith 8, this verse could read, “Holy Father, [test them on] thine own name [with which] thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are one.” This takes us back to the kapporet, for only the high priest knew the name which he whispered for admission through the temple veil on the Day of Atonement. ((Nibley, Hugh W. “The Atonement of Jesus Christ, Part 1”, Ensign, July 1990, 18))

The Genesis of the Round Dance – Part 4

1 Comment
Detail from “The Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico - “The Dance of the Angels”

Detail from “The Last Judgment” by Fra Angelico - “The Dance of the Angels”

(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 ((Kraus, Richard G., Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, 62; qtd. in Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, and Clare Goodrick-Clarke. G.R.S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 2005, 153)). At this time, there was still a cosmic element associated with the round dance pattern as Honorius states, “In their ring dances they thought of the rotation of the firmament; in the clasping of their hands the union of the elements” ((qtd. in Taylor, Margaret Fisk. A Time to Dance: Symbolic Movement in Worship. Philadelphia: United Church Press, 1967, 90)). Maypole dancing or May Day feasts with their ring dancing around a festooned pole or tree is said to have come from this age ((Kraus, Richard G., Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, 62)). [Read more…]

The Genesis of the Round Dance – Part 3

1 Comment
Ring Dance performed in legend by Apollo and the Muses

Ring Dance performed in legend by Apollo and the Muses

(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 ((Sticklor, Susan. “Primitive and Sacred Dance.” The VRI Slide Library of Dance History: Survey. Visual Resources, inc., et al. New York: Visual Resources, inc., 1976)). In fact, the term orchestra originally meant the circular dancing place of the theater ((Kraus, Richard G., Sarah Chapman Hilsendager, and Brenda Dixon Gottschild. History of the Dance in Art and Education. 3rd ed. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 1991, 43)). In addition, the terms carole and chorus, also originally Greek, meant a sacred ring dance, men and women holding each others hands ((qtd. in Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, and Clare Goodrick-Clarke. G.R.S. Mead and the Gnostic Quest. Berkeley, Calif.: North Atlantic Books, 2005, 153)). LDS scholar, Dr. Hugh Nibley reminds us that the creation was often acted out in these Greek dance dramas: [Read more…]