Month: April 2011

Radically different views of Death

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A couple months ago I received an email from someone who stumbled onto TempleStudy.com.  It read in part,

[The Bible] is purely a creation of man to placate the ego’s fear of death and nothing more. All religion was invented to buffer the ego against the fear of death.

That’s certainly one way to think of death.  Another way to think of it is that religion gives meaning to life and death.  Hugh Nibley often quoted a poem by A.E. Housman about man’s preoccupation with death:

. . . men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts. ((Qtd. in Nibley, “Prophets and Glad Tidings,” The World and the Prophets, 259-67,http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/bookschapter.php?bookid=54&chapid=515))

The prominent literary scholar Harold Bloom once said,

What is the essence of religion? … Religion rises inevitably from our apprehension of our own death. To give meaning to meaninglessness is the endless quest of all religion. ((http://newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/commentary/what-is-this-thing-that-men-call-death))

I recently came upon two vastly different modes of thinking about death.  The juxtaposition of these two starkly different views is very interesting.   [Read more…]

Seeing the Face of God in the Temple – Part 2

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Moses Seeing Jehovah, by Joseph Brickey

Moses Seeing Jehovah, by Joseph Brickey

(Continued from Part 1)

In the last part of this post we explored what it means to see the face of God in the temple.  Seeing the face of God is promised to us in the scriptures, and as we showed, it was one of the foremost purposes of the prophet Joseph Smith in building up temples.  Such a witness was key to what was called the endowment.  As Joseph described the endowment,

All who are prepared, and are sufficiently pure to abide the presence of the Savior, will see him in the solemn assembly. ((DHC VII p. 308-310))

In the first part we discussed one interpretation of seeing the Lord – in a physical sense.  Many early members of the Church literally saw the Lord, Jesus Christ, and even God the Father, within the walls of the temple on several occasions, and have seen Him since in the temples of the Lord.

What else might “seeing God” mean?  [Read more…]

Does the Parable of the Ten Virgins Represent Endowed Members Only?

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The Parable of the Ten Virgins

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

I had a reader ask me:

I have tried to find a statement or quote about the parable of the 10 virgins that says the parable is about endowed members of the church.  [Some General Authorities] say it has to do with members, not necessarily endowed.  On the web there are a few folks who say this is about endowed members, but don’t back it up with a reference.  Any thoughts?

This was my response.   [Read more…]

Seeing the Face of God in the Temple – Part 1

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The Israelite high priest sees God face-to-face upon the Ark of the Covenant

The Israelite high priest sees God face-to-face upon the Ark of the Covenant

The Doctrine and Covenants section 93 verse 1 reads:

Verily, thus saith the Lord: It shall come to pass that every soul who forsaketh his sins and cometh unto me, and calleth on my name, and obeyeth my voice, and keepeth my commandments, shall see my face and know that I am; (D&C 93:1)

This superlative promise was one of the foundations of Joseph Smith’s restoration, and whose revelations repeated throughout his calling as God’s prophet:   [Read more…]

Authentic Ancient Metal Plates

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Since the recent events surrounding the seeming forgery of the Jordan Lead Codices, I thought it would be good to bring back to mind the authentic discoveries made within the last century of ancient writings on metal plates. There are literally hundreds of examples of such plates all around the world.  I’m indebted to William Hamblin and John Tvedtnes for there scholarship on these findings.

Of course, in Joseph Smith’s day, such discoveries had not been made yet, and so Joseph was mocked for his story of having discovered gold plates with the writings of ancient people inscribed on them.

Today it is becoming commonplace to find such ancient texts, which is why in the dozens of media reports on the emergence of the lead plates this past week, not one questioned the fact that the writings were on metal.  In fact, one scholar specifically noted that there were examples of ancient metal tablets made out of copper, bronze, and gold.

Here is a summary of only some of the most prominent findings.   [Read more…]