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The First and Oldest Temple in the World? – Göbekli Tepe

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One of the excavated enclosures at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, with massive T-shaped megaliths forming ancient stone circles thought to be up to 12,000 years old. (Click for a larger view)

One of the excavated enclosures at Göbekli Tepe, Turkey, with massive T-shaped megaliths forming ancient stone circles thought to be up to 12,000 years old. (Click for a larger view)

Grandpa Enoch over at Pronaos wrote a few days ago that Archaeology Magazine‘s latest issue has a cover article by Sandra Scham entitled “The World’s First Temple” ((Archaeology Magazine, Volume 61 Number 6, November/December 2008, abstract)).  The magazine Science also did an article on the same subject back in January 2008 ((Science, Vol. 319. no. 5861, p. 280, abstract)).  There are many articles that are being published, all focused on one archeological dig in southeast Turkey (see this map) which has come to be known as Göbekli Tepe, a Turkish name meaning “navel hill/mountain” or “hill with a belly” ((Wikipedia – Göbekli Tepe.)).

What makes this excavation so unique?  Why all the hype?  Because evidence is showing that this may be the world’s first man-made monumental structure ever built, even before agriculture developed.  Archeologists didn’t believe that Neolithic hunter-gatherers were capable of building such an enormous complex at such an early date, but this site is starting to redefine our understanding of the beginnings of mankind.  What else is interesting is that this appears to have been some sort of ritual center or ceremonial complex – a temple.  [Read more…]

The Fall of Adam and Eve in the Armenian Aprocrypha

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Detail from The Temptation by William Strang. 1899. Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery.

Detail from The Temptation by William Strang. 1899. Oil on canvas. Tate Gallery.

The account of the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Bible is relatively succinct, particularly in the vocal exchanges between the serpent, Eve, and Adam (bolded below).  What details we know of the Fall come primarily from chapter 3 of Genesis:

1 Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?
2 And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden:
3 But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.
4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.
7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. (Gen. 3:1-7)

Some Armenian Apocrypha manuscripts have been translated into English in recent decades which expand on the Fall narrative substantially, and which are enlightening to compare and contrast with the Genesis account and the account as presented in the temple ((As suggested by Dr. Tvedtnes in his FAIR presentation below)).  [Read more…]

Preview: “The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple,” by John Welch

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Detail from Sacrament, by Minerva Teichert (ca. 1935). On display in the JSB at BYU.

Detail from Sacrament, by Minerva Teichert (ca. 1935). On display in the JSB at BYU.

Last night at the Third Nephi conference held at BYU, Professor John W. Welch gave the keynote address.  His topic was “New Insights Into the Temple Setting of the Sermon on the Mount in Reference to the Sermon at the Temple.”  It was an excellent address, after which Paul Y. Hoskisson, the director of the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies, remarked that he was overwhelmed by what he just heard.  You can read my notes on the conference last night here.

One of the things Professor Welch did was give a free handout to all those who were in attendance to outline some of the things he was going to cover, and topics he has written about in an upcoming book.  I have included this handout embedded at the end of this post.  Professor Welch has been studying this topic since about 1988 when he first wrote a FARMS Update article entitled “The Sermon at the Temple,” in which he wrote of 3 Nephi 11-18 as a text which “offers clues to connect the [Sermon on the Mount] with the making of covenants at the temple” ((FARMS Update, March 1988.)).  [Read more…]

Nüwa and Fuxi in Chinese Mythology: Compass & Square

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An ancient painting of Nüwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang.

An ancient painting of Nüwa and Fuxi unearthed in Xinjiang, holding the tools of creation - compass and square.

Hugh Nibley gave a lecture in 1975 on “Sacred Vestments” which was later transcribed and included in the collected works volume Temple and Cosmos (pgs. 91-132).  The entire paper is fascinating, and highly recommended reading.  One of the things he wrote about were certain Chinese artifacts which had been found depicting two mythological gods, Nüwa and Fuxi, and the tools they hold:

Most challenging are the veils from Taoist-Buddhist tombs at Astana, in Central Asia, originally Nestorian (Christian) country, discovered by Sir Aurel Stein in 1925… We see the king and queen embracing at their wedding, the king holding the square on high, the queen a compass. As it is explained, the instruments are taking the measurements of the universe, at the founding of a new world and a new age. Above the couple’s head is the sun surrounded by twelve disks, meaning the circle of the year or the navel of the universe. Among the stars depicted, Stein and his assistant identified the Big Dipper alone as clearly discernable. As noted above, the garment draped over the coffin and the veil hung on the wall had the same marks; they were placed on the garment as reminders of personal commitment, while on the veil they represent man’s place in the cosmos. (pg. 111-12)

Nibley included drawings of this depiction found on veils in the Astana Tombs in Xinjiang, China, with a caption that reads:

In the underground tomb of Fan Yen-Shih, d. A.D. 689, two painted silk veils show the First Ancestors of the Chinese, their entwined serpect bodies rotating around the invisible vertical axis mundi.  Fu Hsi holds the set-square and plumb bob … as he rules the four-cornered earth, while his sister-wife Nü-wa holds the compass pointing up, as she rules the circling heavens.  The phrase kuci chü is used by modern Chinese to signify “the way things should be, the moral standard”; it literally means the compass and the square. (pg. 115)

See the photos at the end of the post for more examples of this icon.  The veil redrawn in Temple and Cosmos is shown photographed in the second row, fourth from the left.  [Read more…]

The Seal of Melchizedek – Part 2

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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.

(Continued from Part 1)

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…]