scholar

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 3b (Christmas)

1 Comment

“It’s things like that, you know, reading through Matthew as well, all sorts of things, there’s such many stories, and when you stop and read them, you think, ‘Oh, my goodness!’  You know.  ‘I’ve been looking at that for fifty years, and it just never dawned on me what I was reading.’  It is amazing.” —Margaret Barker

“I’ll be interested to see how the public reacts to it, because, the Christmas story is something that’s got a lot of emotional capital tied up in it.  I think if I were to write radical book about Obadiah, no one would worry as much.  But when you’re doing a Christmas story people […], oh hands off, […] don’t touch.  But I hope I have set it in its real historical and cultural sensing, so that people can glimpse maybe what the authors were really writing…” —Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 3a (Christmas)

2 Comments

Book entitled “Christmas: The Original Story” due to be released in September 2008.

“It’s a lovely early [Christmas] icon, because it shows the three wise men coming, dressed as three high priests.” —Margaret Barker

“Those three gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, the old tradition was, that Adam, the original high priest, the angels had given him those three gifts as souvenirs to remind him of the paradise that he had been expelled from, the paradise was code for the temple.  So gold, frankincense, and myrrh were symbols of the temple that had been lost, and the three wise men were bringing those symbols to the new Adam, talking about building the new temple.  I mean it’s all there.” —Margaret Barker

Margaret Barker Interview – Part 2 (Temple Studies)

1 Comment

“It’s very interesting, isn’t it? There’s something called the SBL [Society of Biblical Literature] that’s existed all this time with nothing about the central theme of the Bible, which is the temple. I mean, that should make everyone stop and rub their eyes in amazement, I think. But here we are.” —Margaret Barker

From MargaretBarker.com:

Margaret Barker and others are setting up a Temple Studies Group, to convene one-day symposia on temple themes. These are open to anyone interested in Temple Studies. The first, Melchizedek in Scripture, Liturgy and Tradition, will be held on Saturday 8 November 2008, 10am-4pm, in Oxford.  Speakers so far are Crispin Fletcher Louis, Robert Hayward, Laurence Hemming, Margaret Barker.  Details of venue and cost to be announced here soon.

William Hamblin Video Interview with Margaret Barker – Part 1

4 Comments

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.

The Joseph Smith Papers Volume 1 Available for Pre-Order!

3 Comments

Book cover

“The Joseph Smith Papers, Journals, Vol. 1: 1832-1839” is available for pre-ordering at Deseret Book.  The description reads:

“The Joseph Smith Papers project is the single most significant historical project of our generation.”  —Elder Marlin K. Jensen, LDS Church Historian

Joseph Smith is known to history as the founder and first prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The publication of his papers, 200 years after his birth, will open a window on a life filled with what he called “marvelous experience.”

For one who had little schooling, Joseph Smith left an extensive legacy of letters and other written records. Now, the full collection of that documentary heritage is being made widely available.

The Joseph Smith Papers is not a “documentary history” project composed only of important documents relating to Joseph Smith. Instead, it is a comprehensive “papers” project that will publish, according to accepted scholarly and documentary editing standards, all documents created by Joseph Smith and by those whose work he directed.

The Joseph Smith Papers Project will eventually constitute approximately 30 volumes, organized into six series. This first volume is a part of the Journals Series.

Volume by volume, you can build and enhance your personal library with these crucial studies of the life, leadership, and legacy of Joseph Smith.

In the works for several decades, The Joseph Smith Papers will be the largest, most authoritative collection of original Smith documents in the world, replacing and transcending many earlier published works.

With access to texts not previously available, and certainly never in one collection, the Papers project provides new information and insights about Joseph Smith, early Mormonism, and nineteenth-century American religion.

Documents include correspondence, journal entries, revelations, translations, discourses, official histories, court cases, and business dealings—qualitatively researched and carefully annotated.

Although vast in scope, the aim of the Project is relatively simple: to make available to general readers and scholars the sources essential to the study of Joseph Smith—the religious leader, the city builder, the pioneer, the husband and father—a truly visionary man.

The ambitious Joseph Smith Papers is the inaugural publishing project of The Church Historian’s Press and sets new standards for the organization and editorial presentation of historical documents by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

In recognition of the high scholarly standards being employed in all phases of this project, The Joseph Smith Papers Project has earned an endorsement by the National Archives’ National Historical Publication and Records Commission (NHPRC).

For more information on The Joseph Smith Papers Project, visit JosephSmithPapers.org.