Scholarship

The Joseph Smith Papers

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The Joseph Smith Papers website

The Joseph Smith Papers website

Every once and a while something comes along that strikes you as absolutely remarkable. The Joseph Smith Papers that will be published by the Church is one of those things. The Church announced the establishment of The Church Historian’s Press today, the first publication of which will be a 25-30 volume series of all extant documents written by or about Joseph Smith. It will be one of the greatest historical projects that has ever been conducted by the Church. This should help lay to bed our critics’ charge that the Church hides its history. All the documents that the Church has found that have been written by Joseph Smith or about him, including journals, revelations, minutes, history, or otherwise will be published in this series, beginning in 2008 and which will take years to complete. The publication will include copies of the actual documents themselves, textual annotation, and contextual annotation. In other words, you will be able to read Joseph Smith’s words and revelations as they were written by the Prophet himself.

These documents will be invaluable to scholars studying Mormonism and its singular history, and strengthen the faith of members learning more about our faith. More particularly, it will also help us learn more about the development and revelation of the temple principles, ordinances, edifices, and importance throughout Church history. I can’t wait.

The website introducing this new publication project is similarly remarkable. See it at www.josephsmithpapers.net.

Interview with Professor Andrew Skinner on “Temple Worship”

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Temple Worship

Temple Worship

This morning I heard an excellent 50-minute interview on KSL News Radio on the program “People of Faith with Carole Mikita.” Today, Mikita interviewed Professor Andrew Skinner, Excecutive Director of The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, on his recent publication of the book entitled Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life available at Deseret Book.

The interview spanned a wide range of subjects relating to Skinner’s new book, including what temples are, their purpose, ancient temples throughout the world, the restoration of temples in the latter days, temples in Church history, and many other points of interest from his new book. While I have not yet read the book, this interview has peaked my interest substantially. There is a great introduction to the book at this link.

I highly recommend this interview. You can listen to it here on the website (you’ll have to scroll to about the 8 minute mark to get to the beginning of the program):

http://pandora.bonnint.net/audio/2008_02_24_people_of_faith.mp3

What is a Temple? – Andrew Skinner

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Dr. Skinner

Dr. Skinner

Dr. Andrew C. Skinner, currently executive director of The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU, gives a good and succinct definition and description of what an LDS temple is over at the MormonChurch.com blog. Such an answer would be good for those who question us what the temple is all about.

Here is an excerpt:

Latter-day Saint or Mormon temples are holy edifices or buildings wherein the most sacred ordinances, rites, and ceremonies are performed that pertain to full and complete salvation in the Kingdom of God, usually referred to as exaltation. Because Latter-day Saints believe that life continues after this mortal existence, and that all men and women deserve and need to participate in these saving ordinances instituted by God, members of the Church who have participated in these ordinances for their own salvation are encouraged to return to the temple often to act as proxies for ancestors who have passed on. . . .

Read the rest here.

What Good are the Scattered Fragments?

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Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley

Since the first day I picked up a book by Hugh Nibley I have been fascinated by the parallels which he taught exist between our practices and those of the ancients.  Many critics of the Church claim that Joseph Smith made this all up, that he was a charlatan, a deceiver, and a con-man.  However, making that broad claim that Joseph invented it all from his fantastic mind (for even our critics offer him that), or that he plundered the practices from others, still fails to explain why parts and pieces of the gospel structure are to be found scattered around all the world in almost every time, place, and culture.

But what good does it do us in studying the ancient practices?  Why is it so interesting and pertinent to our modern-day Church?  Why does looking back help us look forward?  Nibley gave a good explanation:

Latter-day Saints believe that their temple ordinances are as old as the human race and represent a primordial revealed religion that has passed through alternate phases of apostasy and restoration which have left the world littered with the scattered fragments of the original structure, some more and some less recognizable, but all badly damaged and out of proper context. . . .

Among the customs and religions of mankind there are countless parallels, many of them very instructive, to what the Mormons do. . . . But what about the Egyptian rites? What are they to us? They are a parody, an imitation, but, as such, not to be despised. For all the great age and consistency of their rites and teachings, which certainly command respect, the Egyptians did not have the real thing, and they knew it. . . . in the words of Abraham, “Pharaoh, being a righteous man,” was ever “seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign” (Abraham 1:26), for he “would fain claim [the priesthood]” (Abraham 1:27). If the Egyptian endowment was but an imitation, it was still a good one, and we may be able to learn much from it, just as we may learn much about the early church from the vagaries of the gnostics. But it is not for a moment to be equated with the true and celestial order of things. . . . What these few bits of added information do is to supply a new dimension to . . . [our temple] experience, along with the assurance that a wealth of newly found records confirms the fundamental thesis of its antiquity and genuineness. (Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, xxvii-xxix)

Gammadia at Ravenna

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Gammadia at Ravenna

Gammadia at Ravenna

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 ((Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilica_of_Sant’Apollinare_Nuovo)). One of the most singular and unique things about this church is the appearance of gammadia on many of the vestments of the religious figures in the mosaics. John Welch and Claire Foley have described the gammadia thus: [Read more…]