melchizedek – Page 2 – Temple Study

The Seal of Melchizedek – Part 2

September 9, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 6 Comments

Detail from a mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

Detail from a 6th century mosaic in the Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy.

As you might have imagined, the first thing I did when my parents told me the story of the “seal of Melchizedek” on the San Diego temple, and of the connection with Hugh Nibley, I immediately did some searches to see if I could find if it was referenced in LDS literature. The only reference I found was an image caption in the article “Sacred Vestments” in the book Temple and Cosmos:

Another Ravenna mosaic, c. A.D. 520, shows the priest-king Melchizedek in a purple cloak, offering bread and wine at the altar (Genesis 14:18-20). The white altar cloth is decorated with two sets of gammadia, as well as the so-called “seal of Melchizedek,” two interlocked squares in gold. Abel offers his lamb as Abraham gently pushes Isaac forward. The hand of God reaches down to this sacred meeting through the red veils adorned with golden gammadia on either side. The theme is the great sacrifice of Christ, which brings together the righteous prophets from the past as well as the four corners of the present world, thereby uniting all time and space. (Nibley, “Sacred Vestments,” Temple and Cosmos, 109.)

The drawing of the mosaic by Michael Lyon shown in Temple and Cosmos is from a basilica in Ravenna, Italy, called Sant’Apollinare in Classe. This is the best color photograph of this mosaic I could find: [Read more…]

The Seal of Melchizedek – Part 1

September 8, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 24 Comments

San Diego California Temple exterior (click for larger view)

A week ago my parents took a trip down to California to see my younger brother dance with the BYU Ballroom Dance Team at the Embassy Ball in Irvine, California. As part of their trip they had the chance to do some fun things, like go to Disneyland. Whenever they are on a vacation during the sabbath, however, they try to do things appropriate for that day, such as visit any nearby temples. The San Diego California Temple was only about 80 miles away, and so they made their way down I-5 last Sunday afternoon to see it.

They enjoyed their visit at this unique temple, but by and large the most interesting thing that they experienced there that day was a story that the service missionaries told them who serve there. [Read more…]

Levi Rightmyer on “Kings and Priests of the order of Melchisedec”

September 6, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 5 Comments

Title Page

I was doing some research this morning when I stumbled upon a very interesting passage from a book published in 1916 by Levi Rightmyer entitled, The Light of Truth as Revealed in the Holy Scriptures. The entire text of the book is available for perusal on Google Books here. The author is not LDS, although he appears to have known something of the Church (see page 482 for his reference to “Joseph Smith and the Mormons of Utah”).

What I found was a passage which discusses Christ, a priest after the order of Melchizedek, and that “all who are called to God’s kingdom and glory are called to fill the positions of Melchisedec kings and priests in the ages to come under the Lord Jesus Christ…” and if this truth is not so today it is because of apostasy:

…mankind have been deceived by false and ignorant teachers who in the early days of the church corrupted the way of the Lord as the antediluvian sons of God did before the flood, who walked after the vain imaginations of their own evil hearts even as it is now. The world is full of religion, but nearly empty of the true knowledge of God. There are many great revivals in which are developed a high degree of religious feeling, but unfortunately they are attended with a very low degree of scriptural knowledge and true religious intelligence. (p. 740)

[Read more…]

Keys of Authority in the Book of Mormon

July 29, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 34 Comments

Detail from "Alma Baptizes in the Waters of Mormon" - Minerva Teichert - 1935 ca.

Note: This is a comment I made on my last post, but I thought it was pertinent enough to make it into a post of itself.

The concept of “keys” is not absent from the Book of Mormon. Whenever God has chosen to give authority to man to perform ordinances in His name, it has been by ordination and a dispensation of keys.

Taking the example of Alma, where did he get his authority? President Joseph Fielding Smith said this:

We should take into consideration in the study of the Book of Mormon the fact that it is an abridgment taken from the records or history that had been kept by the prophets among the Nephites. Therefore, many of the details are lacking. This is equally true of the history of Israel as it has come down through the years to us in the Bible. We are left to accept the fact that Lehi, when he left Jerusalem, held divine authority and that this divine power was handed down from generation to generation until the time of the visitation of the Savior. Moreover, while the detail is lacking, the evidence is very clear that the Melchizedek Priesthood was possessed by the Nephites. [Read more…]

Why Don’t we Find Our Modern Temple in the Old Testament?

May 1, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 16 Comments

I used to ask myself that question, and I believe that many others probably still do. We believe that our current temple ordinances as revealed by the prophet Joseph Smith are as old as the human race, and were first revealed to Adam, the Ancient of Days ((TPJS, 237)). So why don’t we read more about temple practices similar to our own today in the Old Testament? It can get very confusing trying to compare our modern-day temple ordinances to those of Moses in the Tabernacle, or Solomon’s temple, or even Herod’s temple at the time of Christ. And our critics also love to point out the dissimilarity.

The ordinances just aren’t the same. We might initially think that it is because of the sacredness of the temple that it was kept from being written about much by the ancient patriarchs. But this is not the case. Many details are given about the Tabernacle of Moses in the first books of the Bible. While there are still some similitudes in the structure of the temples, the priestly clothing, and even in the rites, if the ordinances were the same or very similar as we have them today we would find many more allusions to them. But they just aren’t there.

So where are they? [Read more…]