margaret barker

William Hamblin Video Interview with Margaret Barker – Part 1

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I just received an email from Dr. William Hamblin who is currently studying at a seminar in Oxford, England, and he said he had the unique opportunity to have a lunch today with Methodist scholar Margaret Barker about her intriguing and in-depth research into temple studies.  Barker graciously permitted him to film the conversation, and he has nearly two hours of tape.  Since YouTube has a 10 minute limit on length, he is going to post these piecemeal over the next few days.  This looks quite fascinating and enlightening, and I will post the next parts here on TempleStudy.com as soon as Bill publishes them.  Dr. Hamblin also blogs at Things Unutterable.

An interesting side-note by Dr. Hamblin about this conversation:

We ate at the “Eagle and Child” pub in Oxford, where the Inklings (C S Lewis, Tolkein, etc.) used to meet.

New TempleStudy.com Store!

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I’ve built an online store for TempleStudy.com using Amazon.com, and today is its grand opening!  I did this primarily for three reasons:

  1. Readily available Temple-related Products:  All the products that I’ve been able to find that have to do with LDS temples or ancient temples from Amazon.com I have individually selected and gathered together, sorted, and categorized.  They include temple products from many categories including books (44 items), home & garden (191 items), office (18 items), toys & games (29 items), music (22 items), apparel (8 items), jewelry (32 items), DVD (6 items), and miscellaneous (26 items).  If you are looking for a temple-themed book, tie tack, stationery, photograph, music, game, or other such item, the TempleStudy.com store is a great place to start looking because I’ve already narrowed down the search for you.  The store itself currently includes a total of 376 temple-related products, but there are also many more products available from the “Listmania!” or “Similar Items” links on the right-hand side of the store which change and rotate automatically as you browse the store.
  2. No Anti-Mormon Material: You can browse the entire TempleStudy.com store without a worry of running across any critical propaganda, which can often become a distraction from the positive, faith-promoting material that you’re looking for, and many times it is hard to detect from the cover or description alone.  I have hand-picked every item here, and have filtered out all of that diversion.  Have peace of mind when you are looking for just the right temple product.  Note, however, that I can’t choose what appears in the Listmania! or Similar Items lists.
  3. Supporting TempleStudy.com:  A portion of each sale from this store will go to help support TempleStudy.com.  [Read more…]

Heavenly Ascents – A New Blog by David Larsen

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David J. LarsenOur long-time reader and commenter at TempleStudy, David J. Larsen, has begun a terrific blog – “Heavenly Ascents.” David received his BA from BYU in Near Eastern Studies in 2001, and is a current graduate student in Theology at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, studying under Dr. Andrei Orlov who is a prominent Enoch scholar. David’s background includes Biblical studies, Sociology, Anthropology, Christian Studies, and Apocalyptic Literature. His language study has included Greek, Hebrew, Portuguese, Spanish, and French. In other words, he is well-qualified to speak on the topic he has chosen (but he’s still a non-authoritarian like the rest of us). The subject matter of his blog looks very interesting:

This blog . . . will cover a wide range of topics that have to do with theological/religious studies, based on what I am studying in school and other ventures into my own related interests. . . . Some of my research interests include Temple studies, Temple roots of early Christian beliefs, apocalyptic writings, intertestamental literature, and pseudepigrapha. . . .

It will focus on insights I learn in my graduate program in Theology at Marquette University and will include my reviews of books by authors such as Margaret Barker and other religious scholars of interest to LDS readers. ((Heavenly Ascents blog, and email communication June 2, 2008.))

Discussions such as these will be very helpful for Latter-day Saints and others to learn more about our religious traditions, and the symbolism and origin of our temple practices.

One of his first posts talks about the insights he’s gained from reading Margaret Barker’s recent book “Temple Themes in Christian Worship.”

To begin her study of “temple themes in Christian worship,” Barker begins by giving evidence that there was, in fact, a “secret tradition” of beliefs/practices that had its roots in the ancient Temple of Solomon. Many of the early Church Fathers knew of “authentic Christian traditions not recorded in the Bible” (p. 1). ((Insights from Margaret Barker’s “Temple Themes in Christian Worship”, Heavenly Ascents.))

Examples are given from early Church Fathers about the a tradition of unwritten, guarded, and secret practices or mysteries in the early Church, handed down from Christ to his apostles.

John Welch on Margaret Barker’s Temple Studies

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John WelchThere is an interesting post at The T&T Clark Blog with a transcription of an address that BYU’s John Welch gave on March 5th in London at a conference about Margaret Barker’s latest book, Temple Themes in Christian Worship, and her scholarly work on temple subjects in ancient Christianity and Judaism. FARMS lists Welch as serving on the executive committee of the Biblical Law Section of the SBL, but in this review he also mentions that he has been selected as one of the organizers of a new section on Temple Studies in the SBL. I am not very familiar with the SBL, but this sounds like a fantastic leap forward in temple studies among biblical scholars.

Some highlights from this address are: [Read more…]