book of mormon

Listen to The Book of Mormon (and other books or blogs) from your Phone

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Do you ever find yourself away from a computer with a lot of time on your hands?  Maybe your eyes are just tired from reading too much from the computer screen.  Jott Networks has just recently introduced a new service called Jott Feeds that allows any RSS feed to be read to you over your phone.  It’s very simple:

  1. Sign up for a free account with Jott.
  2. Walk through the simple steps of adding an RSS feed to your Jott Feeds.
  3. Call the Jott number from your phone – 1-866-JOTT-123.
  4. When it asks “Who do you want to Jott?”  Say, “Jott Feeds.”
  5. When it asks “Which feed?” say the name of the feed that you assigned in step #2 (i.e. “Book of Mormon,” or “Temple Study”).
  6. In just a few seconds you will have the feed read to you over the phone by an excellent text-to-speech engine.
  7. To advance to the next post in the feed press 3.  To go back press 1.  To select another feed press 0.

I have added a TempleStudy.com Jott Feed badge in the right-hand sidebar for easily adding a Jott Feed of this site to your Jott account.  Now wherever you are at you can listen to TempleStudy.com with just your phone.  It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty good.

The excellent thing about this service is that it works with any RSS feed.  This means that you could listen to any of the following from your phone from wherever you might be:

This works best with feeds that have full content, otherwise it will just read a summary.  Also, make sure you have plenty of minutes on your phone plan if you plan on using this very much, or use it during your unlimited off-peak hours.

King Benjamin and the Temple

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King Benjamin's Farewell Address - Minerva Teichert, 1935The other article that impressed me from the latest Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 16/2 (2007), was Donald W. Parry’s “Service and Temple in King Benjamin’s Speech.” Why did it impress me? Because it related subjects in the Book of Mormon to the temple, something that we haven’t seen a lot of yet, but is becoming more common in recent days. Some of our detractors like to criticize the fact that the Book of Mormon appears to have little content related to the temple, while on the other hand the Church emphasizes the importance of the temple and the ordinances that occur therein. It is articles such as this one in the JBMS that clearly show otherwise. The temple plays a central role in the gospel, even in the text of the Book of Mormon, but we must be willing to look for it, and search a little deeper. I can attest that once you have this focus, the temple appears everywhere in this book of scripture as it does in all scripture. [Read more…]

Temple Worship among Post-Exile Jews

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Excavation of Jewish settlement on Elephantine Island, Egypt

First of all I’d like to thank all those who have participated in the TempleStudy feedback that was posted yesterday. I have received a good number of responses, and most were very positive. Some even compared my methodology, albeit detrimentally, as similar to Hugh Nibley’s, for which I could not be more flattered. If I am able, in the least measure, to be compared to Dr. Nibley, I am very grateful. I also received many ideas for topics and directions which will help to continue charting the course here. I’m glad to see that there is so much support for this site, however inadequate my research or conclusions may be. Mostly we are trying to sit at the feet of some of the greatest LDS scholars here, and learn as we go along. And just to quell some uncertainties, I have not entertained any thoughts of quiting TempleStudy anytime soon. We’ve just begun!

I’d like to draw some attention to the great research on the temple that was presented in the latest Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, 16/2 (2007). Two articles in particular in this issue have the temple as a major theme, namely, “A Tale of Three Communities: Jerusalem, Elephantine, and Lehi-Nephi” by Jared W. Ludlow, and “Service and Temple in King Benjamin’s Speech” by Donald W. Parry. We’ll review Ludlow’s study today. [Read more…]

Priestly Initiations in the Testament of Levi

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Detail from A Levite Priest holds up Holy Hands - James Tissot (1836-1902)

The Testament of Levi is one of the books in the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, and is an apocryphal and pseudopigraphal work so we do not know its original author or source. The Testament of Levi, as we have it today, was composed in its final form in the second century B.C. It is also considered an apocalyptic work, relating visions similar to John’s book of Revelation. Fragments of this text have also been found among the Dead Sea Scrolls, lending more credibility to them than some of the other “testaments.”

One particularly interesting passage is about Levi’s vision of his priestly ordination in heaven, including washings, anointings, and investiture: [Read more…]

Temple Imagery in Psalm of Nephi

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I recently came across a quote by Hugh Nibley in which he said,

It has often been claimed that the Book of Mormon cannot contain the ‘fullness of the gospel,’ since it does not have temple ordinances. As a matter of fact, they are everywhere in the book if we know where to look for them, and the dozen or so discourses on the Atonement in the Book of Mormon are replete with temple imagery. (Nibley, Approaching Zion, 566-67)

There are probably many more references to the temple in the Book of Mormon than we initially realize. Over the last few days I’ve pondered that, and wondered how many times I might see temple imagery in the Book of Mormon as I read. [Read more…]