osiris – Temple Study

“The Temple as a Place of Ascent to God” – Notes from Dr. Peterson’s Fireside

July 15, 2009 by Bryce Haymond 43 Comments

View of Salt Lake Valley from the Draper Temple on July 10, 2009. The Jordan River and Oquirrh Mountain temples are in the distance.

On Sunday I had the opportunity of going to the Daybreak Stake Center in South Jordan and listening to a wonderful fireside given by Dr. Daniel C. Peterson about the temple. I audio recorded the fireside, and have a digital copy. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to get a hold of Dr. Peterson to ask permission to post it on TempleStudy.com. But as I said previously, I also took notes as well as I could, and I hope that they might reproduce some of the excellent thoughts Dr. Peterson conveyed. [Note: Not all of the images below are the exact same as Dr. Peterson used, but I have tried to use similar ones.]

One of the first things he said was that the dedication of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple (which stands only a few blocks from the stake center) would be, in a way, a fulfillment of prophecy.

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The Egyptian Ankh, “Life! Health! Strength!” – Part 2

June 22, 2008 by Bryce Haymond 1 Comment

(Continued from Part 1, which has been updated)

As I mentioned in Part 1, the more interesting aspects of the Egyptian ankh are not necessarily what it means standing alone, but how the Egyptians used it in their texts and illustrations.

There are three principal ways that the Egyptians used the ankh symbol, by itself, in their drawings:

Probably the most common depiction of the ankh is being clutched in the hand by the gods and goddesses on the upper loop portion of the symbol. Wikipedia notes:

The ankh appears frequently in Egyptian tomb paintings and other art, often at the fingertips of a god or goddess in images that represent the deities of the afterlife conferring the gift of life on the dead person’s mummy… ((http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ankh))

In other words, the Egyptians believed that their gods “held” eternal life in their hands, and could bestow it upon certain persons at their pleasing. Chevalier and Gheerbrant note: [Read more…]