temple worship

Fireside Discussion Part III on Wednesday Evening

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We are planning our third fireside discussion at TempleStudy.com using Google Hangouts on Air, live online, for tomorrow night, Wednesday, August 22nd, at 7:30pm (get reminded by Google+ here).  Our discussion last week was great; we discussed the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Essenes, Qumran, the Temple Scroll, Jacob at Bethel and the symbolism of Jacob’s Ladder, and some thoughts from Elder Carlos E. Asay.  We should have a great chat this week too, with Professor William J. Hamblin leading the discussion.

In these discussions we talk about the history, principles, and reasons for the LDS temple, and temple worship antecedents in antiquity. Springboarding the discussion will be Andrew Skinner’s book, Temple Worship (chapter 1), which is also available as an ebook for Kindle.  If you would like to be a contributor, or “panelist,” in our discussion, and you have a webcam (or have an iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad or Android), please let me know.  Otherwise you can simply watch the discussion as it takes place here at TempleStudy.com, on the Google+ event page, or the recording later which will be here at TempleStudy.com or on YouTube.

The Next Temple Fireside Discussion

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I have received several comments from people who said they enjoyed the temple fireside discussion we had this past Sunday. If you were not able to watch the discussion, it is available for viewing as a recording from that post.

Our next discussion was tentatively planned for Sunday tomorrow. We have pushed that back to this coming Thursday evening, August 16th, at 7:30pm. This will facilitate some of the panelists in participating with us.

As some of you know we were only able to make it through about three paragraphs of the introduction of Andrew Skinner’s book Temple Worship. I hope to move a bit faster than that through the text, or it will take an eternity to get through the text (which might be fitting, given the subject matter). Our first discussion also ran a little long at 1 hour 38 minutes. We had some technical difficulties that we believe we’ve ironed out. I hope to keep the discussions to around 1 hour, to be considerate of our panelists’ time, and to help more people find the time to watch live or the recording later.

Please let me know if you have any questions. We’ll see you on Thursday.

TempleStudy.com Fireside Discussion – Introduction

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Welcome to our first fireside discussion at TempleStudy.com!  This discussion is taking place with a new innovative tool from Google called Hangouts, and specifically Hangouts on Air.  This allows up to ten panelists to take part in a discussion with full video/audio of each participant.  The “on air” portion means that it is streamed live to the world, and will be recorded also for later for viewing.  It will be streamed live on TempleStudy.com, and wherever else it is embedded.  See the original post about the idea.

The text we will be using as a springboard for our discussion in these firesides is Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life, by Andrew C. Skinner.  Deseret Book and BYU Religious Education note Dr. Skinner’s background:

Andrew C. Skinner is a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, was dean of Religious Education and the first executive director of BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. He holds master’s degrees in Biblical Hebrew and Jewish Studies and a Ph.D. in Near Eastern and European History, specializing in Judaism.  He is the author or co-author of over 100 publications.

We will have several great panelists participating in our discussion tonight, including myself, Frederick M. Huchel, Gary N. Anderson, Steve Reed, and Tevya Washburn. I thank them sincerely for participating in tonight’s discussion.  Thank you for coming!

The Text for our Google Hangout Discussion

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After some debate, I’ve decided to go forward with Andrew C. Skinner’s book Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life for our live Google Hangout this coming Sunday evening, August 5th at 7:30pm.  I think this is a great book, and I hope it will lead us into a great discussion.  We’ll start right at the beginning, with the introduction.  If we get through that, we may go into the first chapter.

I’m still looking for people who would like to contribute to the discussion (i.e. be “panelists”).  Please let me know if you are a Google+ user, and have a webcam, and would like to participate.  (Note: An unlimited number of you may watch and listen in on the conversation simply by visiting TempleStudy.com on Sunday at 7:30pm, or may watch the recorded version later.  The “panelists” will actually actively participate in the discussion.)

I’m looking forward to it!

Google Hangout Temple Discussions Update

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After talking with a few people, I have decided that the Temple Prep manual that the Church has published is probably not a good choice to serve as a springboard for our Google Hangout temple discussions, for a number of reasons.  One of those reasons is that we do not want to appear to be supplanting the Temple Prep course, as it is taught under the guidance of a bishop.  There is no replacement for that course, offered by the Church’s local units, and it should be taken with care by every individual preparing to go to the temple for the first time.

So I’ve turned to considering other texts as guides for discussion.  Again, I don’t want the text to be the focus, but serve as a springboard for discussion.  To achieve this end, I think the book should be relatively short, concise, but broadly consider many aspects of the temple, both modern and ancient.  It should also come from a trusted author.

One book I read recently that seems to fit these qualifications well is Temple Worship: 20 Truths That Will Bless Your Life by Andrew C. Skinner.  It is relatively short at only a couple hundred pages, it is divided between 20 different concise chapter-topics that cover a wide spectrum of temple studies, and it’s a relatively easy read because it was written for a wide audience, and in a clear and forthright manner.  Dr. Andrew Skinner is a trusted religion scholar from BYU.  I also enjoyed the book.

Have you read this book?  What were your impressions?  Is there another text that you think might be better as a guide for our discussions?  Please share your thoughts with us in the comments below.