To continue our discussion on whether God may dwell in temples on earth, and whether there exists a need for further temples after Christ, we might look again to the Bible to see if God dwelled in those sacred edifices which He commanded to be built in ancient times.
The first example that we might look at is Paul’s own theophany, which he experienced in the temple of Jerusalem shortly after his conversion: [Read more…]
While there is undoubtedly an abundance of temple allusions in the whole of Enoch apocryphal literature, I came across a good example today. I will certainly add more as I learn about them.
This example is from 2 Enoch. This apocrypha text is a pseudepigraphon, meaning its authorship is unknown, but is considered part of ancient Jewish literature. The oldest extant manuscripts of this text are in the Slavonic language, but was probably translated from Greek. The text probably was originally written sometime during the Second Temple period (Herod’s temple), between 516 BC and 70 AD. You can read an English translation of the text at Pseudepigrapha.com (which is an LDS site).
This text is unique in its depiction of Enoch, as Wikipedia notes:
For the first time, the Enochic tradition seeks to show Enoch, not simply as a human taken to heaven and transformed into an angel, but as a celestial being exalted above the angelic world.
There 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…]
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…]
The temples on earth are reflections of the temple in heaven. They mirror each other both in form and content. Consider the following points that I pull from Matthew Brown’s exceptional and classic book on the temple, The Gate of Heaven: ((Matthew Brown, The Gate of Heaven: Insights on the Doctrines and Symbols of the Temple, 6-7))
There are many more examples, both ancient and modern, that could be given which illustrate the existence of the heavenly temple, and most of them focus on the ascent one takes on their journey from mortality back to and through that temple to return to the throne of God.
The the last few days I’ve been pondering the existence of this temple and its role in our premortal life and journey into mortality. I have found that what we do on earth in the temple has striking parallels and resemblances to what occurred in the heavenly temple before the creation and our passage to this earth: [Read more…]