Scholarship

The Poet’s Obsession with Death

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Billy Collins, two-term U.S. poet laureateJesse Gunther reported in an article on BYU Newsnet today about a speech given at BYU by a prominent poet:

English majors are essentially “majoring in death,” said Billy Collins, an acclaimed poet laureate in the Joseph Smith Building auditorium on Friday.

“If you have an anthology and take out all poetry on death, you would end up with a pamphlet of what is left,” Collins said, a two-term U.S. poet laureate.

I’ve posted before on another literary scholar, Harold Bloom, that also had some thoughts on death and the unique views of the LDS Church on the subject.

Why the obsession by poets through the ages on the theme of death? [Read more…]

Baptism “of” the Dead in Eastern Christianity

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St. Michael’s Monastery in Kiev, Ukraine

I have a certain affinity or appreciation for Eastern Orthodox Christianity, having visited Ukraine two years ago where I had the opportunity to visit many of the beautiful cathedrals all across the country.  I found many of the practices, architecture, and artifacts of the faith to be intriguing from an LDS standpoint, showing parallels to our own traditions and beliefs.  From the structure of the cathedrals, to the mosaics and frescoes, to the belief system, many things stood out to me.  Could it be that the apostasy has had less of an affect upon the Eastern tradition than other sects of Christiandom?

This morning an article by Marvin R. VanDam on Meridian Magazine was brought to my attention.  VanDam most recently was the director for temporal affairs of the Eastern European and Central Asian Area of the Church.  In his article VanDam explores the studies of a well-known Russian religious scholar, Sergey Antonenko, who finds many striking parallels between Eastern Orthodoxy and the LDS Church.  Antonenko finds that, like the Latter-day Saints, Eastern Christianity has a tradition of “taking care [concerned] about the deceased, instead of forsaking [them].”  Such a concern, he says, can be traced back to early Christianity.

Most particularly, VanDam informs us that Antonenko finds that the practice of baptism for the dead has its roots in ancient Christianity, citing Paul in Corinthians as evidence:

Those who are advanced in the religious studies may conclude that vicarious baptism existed in the history of the Christian Church. . . . Direct [literal] meaning of the verse implies that “baptism for the dead” for the ancient Christians was confirmation of their confession [faith] – of their belief in resurrection.

VanDam then cites striking examples that Antonenko gives of the practice of baptism for the dead in Kiev, medieval Russia, an area which is now part of Ukraine.  In contrast to the Latter-day Saint practice of vicarious baptism “for” the dead, these baptisms were very literally baptisms “of” the dead, where the bones of deceased relatives were exhumed, baptized, and reburied, such was the overarching concern of these people for the salvation of their dead, but citing precedence and reason for doing so from the early Christians.

Read the entire article at Meridian Magazine.

Stephen Ricks On The Ancient Sacred Marital Handclasp

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Grave stele of Philoxenos with his wife, Philoumene, about 400 B.C.The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU posted a short featured article on their homepage yesterday by Dr. Stephen Ricks on the subject of the dexiosis (Greek) or dextrarum iunctio (Latin), which was a peculiar Greek, Etruscan, Roman, and Early Christian practice of joining the right hands in a solemn and ceremonial handclasp. In antiquity such a practice was often associated with marriage and fidelity. It is often seen in artifacts and art dating from these time periods.

Dr. Ricks explains what this practice of clasping the right hands meant to the Romans:

In the Roman world, the right hand was sacred to Fides, the deity of fidelity. The clasping of the right hand was a solemn gesture of mutual fidelity and loyalty at the conclusion of an agreement or contract, the taking of an oath of allegiance, or reception in the mysteries, whose initiates were referred to as syndexioi (“joined by the right hand”). ((“Dexiosis and Dextrarum Iunctio: The Sacred Handclasp in the Classical and Early Christian World,” <http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=616>.))

Why is this practice so common among the early Christians? Dr. Ricks informs us:

They did so in part because they agreed with the non-Christian Romans that “fidelity and harmony are demanded in the longest-lasting and most intimate human relationship, marriage.” But they also did so because they accepted, perhaps, the ancient Israelite view that marriage was a sacred covenant and, further, because they understood “marriage,” in the words of the Protestant scholar Philip Schaff, “as a spiritual union of two souls for time and eternity.” A sacred handclasp-the dextrarum iunctio-was a fitting symbol for the most sacred act and moment in human life. ((ibid.))

Dr. Ricks’ article is entitled “Dexiosis and Dextrarum Iunctio: The Sacred Handclasp in the Classical and Early Christian World.” Read the full study here. The PDF version contains several more illustrations of the dextrarum iunctio.

I have found additional material in conjunction with this practice that I will share in a future post.

Anglican Bishop Offers LDS-Like Perspective on Heaven

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Bishop Wright on Nightline

Bishop N.T. Wright is the Bishop of Durham in the Church of England. He is considered one of the world’s foremost theologians. Last night he was interviewed by Martin Bashir on ABC’s Nightline program about his new book “Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church,” in which he gave his perspective on death and what heaven is like. Borrowing a Niblyism, Latter-day Saints will “hear the ringing of familiar bells” in what Bishop Wright has to say. [Read more…]

Three Divisions of Enoch’s Heavenly Temple

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God took Enoch - Illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733)

God took Enoch - Illustrated by Gerard Hoet (1648-1733)

A reader emailed me last night and introduced me to the work of Dr. Andrei Orlov, a professor at Marquette University, who has done much work on Enoch pseudepigraphal material. As I was perusing some of his research I came upon one of the excerpts from his book The Enoch-Metatron Tradition that interested me. It is an account from the book of 1 Enoch which tells of Enoch’s vision of his ascension to the throne of God:

And I proceeded until I came near to a wall (t[eqm) which was built of hailstones, and a tongue of fire surrounded it, and it began to make me afraid. And I went into the tongue of fire and came near to a large house (be4t (a3biy) which was built of hailstones, and the wall of that house (was) like a mosaic (made) of hailstones, and its floor (was) snow. Its roof (was) like the path of the stars and flashes of lightning, and among them (were) fiery Cherubim, and their heaven (was like) water. And (there was) a fire burning around its wall, and its door was ablaze with fire. And I went into that house, and (it was) hot as fire and cold as snow, and there was neither pleasure nor life in it. Fear covered me and trembling, I fell on my face. And I saw in the vision, and behold, another house, which was larger than the former, and all its doors (were) open before me, and (it was) built of a tongue of fire. And in everything it so excelled in glory and splendor and size that I am unable to describe to you its glory and its size. And its floor (was) fire, and above (were) lightning and the path of the stars, and its roof also (was) a burning fire. And I looked and I saw in it a high throne, and its appearance (was) like ice and its surrounds like the shining sun and the sound of Cherubim. ((http://www.marquette.edu/maqom/enochpriest))

I believe I’ve come across this reference before, perhaps in Nibley’s writings, but it was good to go over it again. This type of psudepigrapha is full of symbolism and can be intimidating unless we have a guide. Dr. Orlov helps us in this regard:

Commenting on this passage, Himmelfarb draws the readers’ attention to the description of the celestial edifices which Enoch encounters in his approach to the Throne. She notes that the Ethiopic text reports that, in order to reach God’s Throne, the patriarch passes through three celestial constructions: a wall, an outer house, and an inner house. The Greek version of this narrative mentions a house instead of a wall. Himmelfarb observes that “more clearly in the Greek, but also in the Ethiopic this arrangement echoes the structure of the earthly temple with its vestibule (Mlw)), sanctuary (lkyh), and the Holy of Holies (rybd).” ((ibid.))

So in order to reach the highest level of the heaven, Enoch had to pass through three stages or levels of progression on his ascent. As Dr. Orlov notes, this has also been shown to follow the very structure of many ancient temples themselves, that of three levels of separation or partition from the most sacred interior, the Holy of Holies, where God dwells. Such a structure can be seen in Moses’ tabernacle, as well as Solomon’s temple and those that followed its pattern.