Jeff Roundy, Author at Latter-day Saints Q & A

May 6, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Doctrines, Opinions, Practices: Sorting It All Out

This video explains tools for distinguishing between core eternal doctrines of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and practices and policies that may change according to revelation. The video also discusses that not everything a prophet utters is considered doctrine.

Okay. So today’s video I’m going to be talking about doctrine. What is doctrine and does it change? Some of the challenges or criticisms that are made of the church have to do with this topic. For example, things that prophets or apostles said, often long ago, that may seem crazy to us. For example, Brigham Young once said that people lived on the moon, which actually was a common thing. They called them moon men. Many in the 19th century did believe that. But today, you look back at that and say, “Well, that’s a crazy man. That couldn’t have been a prophet,” for example.

Or you’ll have prophets that did certain things that were then changed by prophets down the road, for example, who could hold the priesthood. Brigham Young made a change, and later President Spencer W. Kimball made a change to that. So, you could say, “Well, one of the prophets was wrong.” Or polygamy. Joseph Smith introduced polygamy and Wilford Woodruff stopped polygamy. So again, confusion over this, possibly, that somebody could criticize that things are changing with different prophets.

Another is teachings by different prophets that can contradict. And a great example, Brigham Young taught that we could progress after the Resurrection and the Judgment. After we are assigned to a Kingdom of Glory, there was such a thing as eternal progression. We can continue to progress. J. Reuben Clark taught the same thing. We also had James E. Talmage that taught this. On the other hand, you had people that taught just the opposite, that said once we were signed into a degree of glory, that was it. It’s Spencer W Kimball, Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie. So which is it? So I’m going to talk about that. I will give the answer to that or the way to think of that here in just a minute. But first I’d like to start with a quote here from, this is actually on the Mormon Newsroom website under the topic of Approaching Mormon doctrine.

It says here, “Not every statement made by a church leader past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but it is not meant to be officially binding for the whole church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four standard works of scripture, official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted.”

Now, one of the best things I’ve ever heard on trying to define what is doctrine, was a podcast. This is a podcast called the LDS Perspectives Podcast, and there’s an interview with Mike Goodman, who’s a professor down at BYU, religion professor at BYU, and he teaches his students about this topic.

So here’s a couple of my favorite quotes from there. “It’s absolutely crucial that we learn to differentiate between that which is meant to never change and that which may change. Oft times we look at something that has happened in the past in the church, which has changed in the present day, and we make a value judgment saying that means that they were wrong then, and that they’re right now. But when you do that, you end up in a situation where there’s no way of knowing if what they’re saying now will change, which ultimately means you’re in a bind where you can’t move forward. You don’t know what to hold on to, and as a result, what I found with my students is that I can effectively help them understand how to evaluate whether something is meant to be doctrine. Then they are able to go through their own revelation and their own intellectual efforts, come to understand whether that thing can or may change in the future.”

And then he went through and described how you can recognize these doctrines, and he had, really, three key steps. Number one, is it eternal? Are the prophets claiming it’s eternal? Has it always been taught as essential? Number two, are the current prophets, seers, and revelators unitedly teaching it? Notice it says current prophets, seers, and revelators unitedly teaching, not a one off.

If they’re not teaching it, that we can see evidence for it to be doctrine. Three, is it salvific or necessary for salvation, or is it only a process, a pattern of practice? Many things we get caught up into are not necessary for salvation. For example, how the earth was created. That’s not necessary for our salvation. It’s not salvific. Now, one other thing that is really interesting is if you say, well, is there a place where we can find our basic doctrines? There actually is a list in summary fashion of some key basic doctrines on LDS.org. What are the things that, to you, are critical to your testimony?

For example, some of mine are that God exists, that He lives, that Jesus Christ performed the Atonement, was crucified and was resurrected. That the Book of Mormon is divine and it is the witness of the Restoration in these latter days. That the priesthood, the power to act in the name of God and to perform ordinances in the name of God was restored to the earth. That we have modern day prophets, that there is a plan of salvation, that families are eternal through the sealing power that was restored to the Earth. Those are some of my non-negotiables there and I love the way Anthony Sweat talked about that. He says if you have those, you can be a lot more flexible on some of the other things that really aren’t as important, really, and it dovetails back with what Mike Goodman was talking about here.

He also talked about, really, that in the history of the Church Joseph Smith did not want to have a creed for the Church. He did write the 13 Articles of Faith and the Wentworth Letter and that was the closest time to maybe ever labeling out our doctrines in some fashion, some of our key beliefs, but there is not a lot of things that have been spelled out in black and white as far as any kind of a feeling of a creed. And Joseph loved that. He says, “we believe in truth wherever we find it and as it is revealed from time to time.”

Fast forward over a hundred years, we had different starving for answers, essentially, many latter day saints, and you started to have prophets and apostles starting to speak in a little bit more of a declarative fashion. Joseph Fielding Smith did a book called Answers to Gospel Questions and it was fairly a black and white statement. Bruce R. McConkie put out a book Mormon Doctrine and this is the doctrine of the church type of thing.

And it was again kind of more dogmatic, black-and-white thinking there. And today, if you fast forward to today, people want answers and they feel like they should have that immediately. You can ask Alexa anything or Google anything, and so it is a more challenging atmosphere to accept ambiguity. But if you look at many of the things there that are not critical to our salvation as an example, or top topics there, we don’t have answers on them necessarily. And we’ll share quotes from people that have said things that are prophets and feel like that’s the in the answer, but as I shared in the beginning, eternal progression, the Church came out and said, the Church has no position on this, and recognize people have made comments on both sides of this issue, but the Church has no official statement. And a few other quotes,

here’s Elder Oaks in April, 2014 General Conference. “Just because something is a policy or practice does not mean that it does not come from God or that the prophets are free to change it. It simply means that it can or may change without bringing into questions, prophetic reliability.” Mike Goodman again at BYU, he said, “I want to emphasize this. Whether something is a doctrine or not does not indicate: A, whether it is true or not. There are things that are not doctrine that are true; B, whether it came from the Lord. The Lord is able to give policies, practices, and things that aren’t doctrines just as much as he’s able to give doctrine. For instance, the sacrament is a practice based on a doctrine instituted by Christ. God can institute that which isn’t doctrinal, to say that somethings that isn’t doctrinal is not important, will be a gross error because often those things may be salvific. These may be things which the Lord requires us to do.” Those are the last few quotes I wanted to share. Hope this was helpful. Hope you’ll subscribe to the video channel. Please listen to that podcast to go deep onto this topic. Thanks.

Resources:

What Is LDS Doctrine – Interview with Michael Goodman – LDS Perspective Podcast: http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2017/0…

Approaching Mormon Doctrine – Mormon Newsroom https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/articl…

Latter-day Saints’ Q&A is a video series not produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but by me, an ordinary member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, an independent voice, with a passion for studying Church history and defending the faith. In this series, I provide evidences for the restoration, and address tough questions posed by critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, offering faithful answers based on accurate research and historical references which will be posted at the end of each video.

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 68 Comments

Latter-Day Saints’ Q&A Trailer

This is my new channel trailer introducing this project, Latter Day Saints’ Q&A.

Hello, everyone. My name is Jeff Roundy, and welcome to the Latter-Day Saints’ Q&A. My goal with this project is really to build a library of content addressing all the criticisms leveled against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints while also simultaneously producing videos addressing all of the evidences of the Restoration. I have a passion for this. I’ve been doing really the working on research on this for 30 plus years. Ever since my mission, I’ve had a real drive for this, so it’s great to be able to share some of these thoughts.

One of the things that inspired me actually was at the FairMormon Conference last year. Elder Pearson of the Seventy spoke and he asked for help from members truly to help, he said, “to create and promote online content that effectively communicates what the Church believes in clear, authentic, and engaging ways, especially in some of the most prevalent search topics.” He says, “access to understandable answers to critical questions and concerns and help correct misunderstandings about the Church and remove stumbling blocks to faith. It can also level the playing field for the sincere truth seeker to find and recognize truth in a world increasingly hostile to faith.”

What I’m trying to do with the videos too is do it in a Cliff Notes fashion. So if somebody just wants to get a brief introduction to the topic and get faithful answers to addressing these different issues. They’re well sourced, documented.

The description. I’ll list all these resources if anybody wants to go deep. I’ll share many of the great resources that I’ve used there as well. With the evidences, one of the reasons why I wanted to do this was actually a talk from an Elder Holland at BYU in 2017. He said, “My testimony to you tonight is that the gospel is infallibly true, and that a variety of infallible proofs supporting that assertion will continue to come until Jesus descends as the ultimate infallible truth of all. Our testimonies aren’t dependent on evidence. We still need that spiritual confirmation in the heart, but not to seek for and not to acknowledge intellectual, documentable support for our belief when it is available is to needlessly limit an otherwise incomparably strong theological position. We ought to be more assertive than we sometimes are in defending our testimony of truth.” That’s what I’m trying to do, and I hope you enjoy Latter-Day Saints Q&A.

Resources:

Video:

Elder Holland’s talk at BYU in 2017 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pS3X9ciItLo

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 1 Comment

Book of Abraham! – Evidences

This video discusses many items that are in the Book of Abraham that Joseph Smith could not have known when he published the record.

On this Evidences video I want to talk about the Book of Abraham. I did another video talking about how critics attack the Book of Abraham. I also want to address there’s some fascinating evidences that we have, also, of the Book of Abraham. I love this quote from Elder Maxwell in his book, Plain and Precious Things. He says, “It’s the author’s opinion that all the scriptures, including the Book of Mormon, will remain in the realm of faith. Science will not be able to prove or disprove holy writ. However, enough plausible evidence will come forth to prevent scoffers from having a field day, but not enough to remove the requirement of faith. Believers must be patient during such unfolding.”

These videos are cliff notes version. I’m going to give you a sampling of a lot of great stuff that’s out there, and I’ll put lots of links in the show notes that you can see as much as you’d like to explore on this. First of all, this is on the Church website, the Gospel Topics Essay on the Book of Abraham. Egyptians at the time of Abraham actually were thought of, until just in the last few decades, as a very peaceful people, were not involved in human sacrifice. It’s interesting, here it says, “The Book of Abraham speaks disapprovingly of human sacrifice offered on an altar in Chaldea. Some victims were placed on the altar as sacrifices because they rejected the idols worshiped by the leaders. Recent scholarship has found instances of such punishment dating to Abraham’s time. People who challenged the standing religious order, either in Egypt or in the regions over which it had influence, such as Canaan, could and did suffer execution for their offenses. The conflict over the religion of Pharaoh as described in Abraham 1:11 and 12 is an example of punishment now known to have been meted out during the Abrahamic era.”

This is just in the last few decades, I have to say. This one is stunning. If you look closely at this picture, the Facsimile 1, which Joseph interpreted as Abraham on a lion couch, critics say this was Osiris on a lion couch, nothing to do with Abraham. It’s very fascinating to find that this was discovered in 1975, and it’s from the same time and place that the papyri were found in Thebes, Egypt, that same general timeframe as well. So, “In 1975 Janet Johnson translated and published a newly discovered Greco-Egyptian vignette depicting an individual on a lion couch identified in the text to be Abraham.” You can see right on the picture there where it identifies the the man on the lion couch as Abraham. Stunning that “The papyrus known as Leiden 1 384 was produced just two centuries after the Book of Breathings and in the same part of Egypt–Thebes”, where the scrolls were found. Fascinating.

Ancient texts verify an attempt to kill Abraham for not worshiping idols. This was translated in 1892 from Aramaic to English. The Targum Jonathan, which was dated to the 2nd century AD, here’s a quote. “It came to pass when Nimrod cast Abram into the furnace of fire because he would not worship his idol, the fire had no power to burn him.” Fascinating 1892 translation. The next one here, Abraham ended human sacrifices, claimed in the Book of Abraham. “Something fundamentally changed in relation to man’s attitude toward human sacrifice. Together with the elaboration of the notion that it could be replaced by animal sacrifice, just when and why this change took place cannot be answered satisfactory in Egypt or elsewhere. Our strongest textual evidence that something had indeed changed in Egypt, dates to the Middle Kingdom beginning around 2055 B.C.”, which is about the time of Abraham.

Another one here. The Book of Abraham “Speaks of the Plain of Olishem, Abraham 1:10. It’s a name not mentioned in the Bible. An ancient inscription was found recently dated to 2250 B.C. It was discovered in the 20th century. It mentioned a town called Ulisum.” Sounds very close to Olishem, thought phonographically in the language it’s almost exact, and it’s located in northern Syria, which is where most scholars today believe that Abraham’s Ur was most likely located. That’s on that Gospel Topics Essay there for the Church.

Now, many scholars thought Abraham was illiterate, and now we see a number of books that have been attributed to Abraham. So, “Many books written by or about Abraham have been discovered. The Book of Abraham claims Abraham wrote books, even though this detail is not found in the Bible, or anything Joseph Smith had access to. Archaeologists once thought Abraham was not literate, but now archaeologists have found many books that claim to have been written by Abraham: Apocalypse of Abraham, Testament of Abraham, Book of Jasher, Jubilees, 10 Books of Abraham, Book of Abraham, mentioned by Firmicus Maternus, and Abraham’s Treaty on Astronomy.

On the Church website, Gospel Topics Essay on the Book of Abraham, in the Facsimile 1 you can see here 117 mentions the idolatrous god Elkanah. This deity is not mentioned in the Bible yet modern scholars have identified it as being among the gods worship by ancient Mesopotamians. Let me take a minute on this picture here, too. These were considered funerary texts that were a part of the Book of Breathings that would be deposited with these, and this is not a typical funerary text at all. Normally there’d be an embalming scene and they would either be naked or fully wrapped up, mummified if you will. You can see here that neither of that applies. Some have said this is Osiris being resurrected, but if you look close it’s actually, if you look at the legs there’s a struggle going on here. Actually, look at the hands. This is also a form, if you were to tilt at 90 degrees it would be the exact replication of how they would’ve drawn prayer or supplication to deity there. So very fascinating with how we understand this from Joseph Smith’s interpretation of all of that in Abraham 1.

Next here, if you look on the Gospel Topics Essay, as well, they talked about this. On Facsimile 2, if you look closely at the bottom left you’ll see four hanging pieces there. It’s labeled as figure 6, and these represent the earth in its four quarters, as Joseph wrote. A similar interpretation has been argued by scholars who study identical figures in other ancient Egyptian texts. Next, Joseph’s Smith’s interpretation of pharaohs, that symbol correct here, this crocodile. This is again in Facsimile 1 at the bottom, which is not typically drawn on these scenes like this, but is referred to as a crocodile god. “King Unas would be referred to as the crocodile god in Egyptian text.”

Joseph Smith, likewise, interpreted the crocodile god in Facsimile 1 as god of Pharaoh. Utterance 317 says, “Unas has come today from the overflowing flood. Unas is Sobk, crocodile god, clean, green-plumed, wakeful, alert … Unas has come to his streams.” If you look closely at that picture, too, those lines, the way that they’re drawn there is they kind of zigzag, represented reference waters of the sky in ancient Egyptian literature, which the ancient Egyptians can see the sky as the heavenly ocean. Joseph Smith interpreted the symbol very correctly. There’s no way he could have known about that symbolism at that time. Also he talked about the pillars of heaven right underneath that number 11 there, which was also a correct interpretation.

Also discovered after the death of Joseph Smith, a key part of this, and Bruce Porter brought this up in his book The Threshing Floor of Faith, too. “Two texts are found in volume one of the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, one being the Testament of Abraham, considered an Egyptian text in origin, and the other being the Apocalypse of Abraham. Each of these texts, unavailable to Joseph Smith, have many of the same concepts: the creation, Abraham seeking further light and knowledge from God, the blessings of the Fathers, angels taking him away as depicted in the Facsimile 1 explanation, discussions of spirits before the world was created, some spirits were more prepared to become the leaders on earth after the creation of the earth.” Fascinating.

Gospel Topics Essay also mentions two things here. “The Book of Abraham is consistent with various details found in non-biblical stories about Abraham that circulated in the ancient world around the time that the papyri was likely created. In the Book of Abraham, God teaches Abraham about the sun, the moon, and the stars. ‘I show these things to thee before you go into Egypt,’ the Lord says, ‘that you may declare all these words.’ Ancient texts repeatedly refer to Abraham instructing the Egyptians in the knowledge of the heavens. For example, Eupolemus, who lived under Egyptian rule in the 2nd century BC, wrote that ‘Abraham taught astronomy and other sciences to the Egyptian priests.'” In the second paragraph here, “Other details in the Book of Abraham are found in ancient traditions located across the Near East. These include Terah, Abraham’s father, being an idolater, a famine striking Abraham’s homeland, Abraham’s familiarity with Egyptian idols, and Abraham’s being younger than 75 years old when he left Haran, as the biblical account states.”

“Some of these extra-biblical elements were available in apocryphal books or biblical commentaries in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, but others were confined to non-biblical traditions, inaccessible or unknown to 19th century Americans.” The Book of Abraham reports … Now, this was Daniel Peterson in the Deseret News, a piece, He said in 2012, Defending the Faith: How could Joseph know all this? He said “The Book of Abraham records that as Abraham was about to enter Egypt, the Lord advised him to claim Sarai was his sister, not his wife. The Bible mentions the same tactic, but omits the divine counsel that authorized it. However, the Genesis Apocryphon, found just seven decades ago among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, also testifies that the patriarch’s behavior was divinely ordained and with good reason. The Pyramids Texts’ tyrannical crocodile god/king liked to steal wives from their husbands, exactly what Abraham feared Pharaoh would do to Sarai.”

Daniel Peterson went on to say, “Abraham’s account describes creation as the organization of preexisting materials, which contradicts traditional doctrines that God made the universe from nothing.” Ex nihilo. “… But creation from nothing doesn’t appear in the Bible. Ancient Jewish writings teach that God created the universe by forming preexisting matter. Christian thinkers, influenced by Greek philosophy, began to teach creation from nothing only in the second century.” Then, “Abraham 4 and 5 records the patriarch’s vision of creation, unknown in the Bible. Though the Bible says nothing of a heavenly counsel that planned the creation of man, several ancient documents first published in the 20th century, describe it.” I would just refer you also to the preexistence video that I did an entire video on that. This is where we get the strongest development of that doctrine of the preexistence in Abraham 3 there.

Last, the very last thing here, and I’m not going to read this. It’s somewhat lengthy, but I will read just the caption at the top and then if you want to freeze the screen to see that there’s about 15 things here. Jeff Lindsay put this together on his website and I’ll link it in the show notes, but he says “The Book of Abraham is remarkably consistent with numerous ancient traditions about Abraham, as one might expect if, in fact, it derived from the ancient writings of Abraham. One of many interesting examples is the ancient Jewish text Jubilees, first published in Latin in 1861 but dating to the second century B.C. or earlier, and used by some the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In Jubilees, here are some relationship to the Book of Abraham.”

I hope you enjoyed this Evidences video. I think it’s exciting to see a lot of the things, like we’ve talked about Elder Maxwell said at the beginning, enough to thwart away any scoffers of the Book of Abraham. I think it’s fascinating to see all of these types of little evidences that are out there, as well. Watch the other Book of Abraham video where I address a lot of the critics’ issues of it and together I think it’s a magnificent view of everything. Thank you.

Resources:

Websites:

https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2020/…

https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral….

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/…

https://interpreterfoundation.org/blo…

https://journal.interpreterfoundation…

https://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/bo…

https://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSFAQ/FQ…

https://www.fairmormon.org/evidences/…

http://www.conflictofjustice.com/evid…

Articles:

Daniel Peterson article in Deseret News: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/7…

Ensign Article: https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/1994…

Another Ensign Article:https://www.lds.org/study/ensign/1997…

Videos:

Bruce Porter on the Book of Abraham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F19d5…

Fairmormon produced video on the Book of Abraham (‘A Most Remarkable Book – Evidence for the Book of Abraham’): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_jGad…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Mountain Meadows Massacre- Clarifications

This video discusses the somewhat incomprehensible Mountain Meadows Massacre, what led up to it, if Brigham Young ordered the massacre, the aftermath and some lessons we can take from this stunning and horrific event.

So in this video, I want to talk about the Mountain Meadows Massacre. Really one of the, probably the most challenging period in the Church’s history. It’s a tragedy. There was a recent memorial service at 150 year anniversary of the massacre, and to pause for a minute, the massacre itself, if you’re not familiar with the specifics, there were 120 unarmed men, women and children who were massacred by 50 to 60 militia men, Latter-day Saints in the Mountain Meadows area, which is about 35 miles southwest of the Cedar City area. Seventeen children were not killed, they were considered too young to to tell down the road, and they were those that were under seven and they were kept alive.

President Eyring shared this at the memorial. This was approved by the First Presidency. This was Elder Eyring at the time in 2007, “What was done here long ago by members of our church represents a terrible and inexcusable departure from Christian teachings and conduct. We cannot change what happened, but we can remember and honor those who were killed here. We express profound regret for the massacre carried out in this valley 150 years ago today and for the undue and untold suffering experienced by the victims then and by the relatives to the present time. A separate expression of regret is owed to the Paiute people who have been unjustly borne for too long the principal blame for what occurred during the massacre. Although the extent their involvement is disputed, it is believed they would not have participated without the direction and stimulus provided by local Church leaders and members.”

There was a recent Gospel Topics essay that was written on this. One section of that essay refers to a recent book published. In the essay it says, “In recent years the Church has made diligent efforts to learn everything possible about the massacre. In the early 2000s, historians in the Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints scoured archives throughout the United States for historical records; every Church record on the massacre was also opened to scrutiny. The resulting book by the authors Ronald Walker, Richard Turley Jr., and Glen Leonard was published by Oxford University Press in 2008.”

This is the book “Massacre at Mountain Meadows” and there will be a part two. This deals with the crime. The second book, which will be coming out soon, deals with the aftermath and the punishment period. I wanted to talk about how this could have happened, if Brigham Young was involved or gave the order, and then some lessons that that can be learned from this.

First of all, to set the stage, this was during the Utah War. There was concern as this was part of now the U.S. territory. President Buchanan was concerned with an uprising here in Utah, and with Brigham Young being the governor and the prophet of the people, they wanted to put it in a non Latter-day Saint governor, so they were sending Alfred Cummings here and escorting him here with a 1,500 troops from the U.S. Army. They were led by someone named William Harvey, who terrified the saints because of his reputation for brutal violence. He was replaced after two months by Johnston. That’s why we call it Johnston’s army there. Brigham declared Martial Law. He told people to keep their grain, do not sell any of their grain to the immigrants. They were coming through on the wagon trains for people passing through to California on the trails. Also to save your ammunition, to get your guns in good working order, to get the militia ready to protect the territory. That was the environment.

This wagon train, the Baker-Fancher party that was coming through. They were not able to to get their supplies in Salt Lake. As they traveled down to Cedar City, things were getting to a boiling point, and Cedar City was the last stop before you traveled to California. Things really were boiling over with this party, and they were making threats saying they were going to go and join the U.S. Army to battle the saints. Somebody even said they had a gun that killed Joseph Smith. There were rumors of poisoning that had happened up in Fillmore of poisoning of the water streams up there. That may have been fictitious, but these rumors were floating around. Parley P. Pratt had been murdered in Arkansas about a month after this party had had left that area. That may have been news that was involved there. There are a lot of things, a lot of confusion, very heightened tensions that were happening at this time.

Now I want to talk a little bit about what led up to the the attacks. So Isaac Haight was the stake president in Cedar City. He was furious with the behavior of this immigrant train that had come through and wanted to punish them for their threats. He was also the mayor and the militia leader there so ultimate theocracy, a position of power there, and that was part of the problem in what happened here. But he had to go to the militia leader of the overall area, which was William Dame he was down in Parowan. William Dame held a council there. This council came to the conclusion to not do anything. This was the dispatch they sent back to Isaac Haight in Cedar City, “Do not notice their threats, words are but wind-they injure no one; but if they (the emigrants) commit acts of violence against citizens inform me by express, and such measures will be adopted as will ensure tranquility”.

Well, he was still intent on punishing them so he came up with a new plan with John D. Lee, who was the militia person of where the train had gone to now, this Mountain Meadows area 35 miles southwest of Cedar City, and also he was the liaison with the Indians, and they came up with a plan to have Indians be involved in sending a message to them and doing a small attack, creating some pain and taking some of their livestock, et cetera. They presented, and any of the militia that would be involved would be dressed up as Indians. So they presented this plan to a council that Haight organized. The council was stunned and had a ton of resistance to it, and they said, we need to approach the prophet Brigham Young and get his recommendation on what we should be doing. They sent a dispatch, a three day express, that was the quickest to get it up to Salt Lake from Cedar at the time. That went up on September 7th. Well on that very day, Lee and some of the Indians, and you know, any militia that were dressed up as Indians did some small attacks.

It did start a five day siege and essentially the immigrant camp formed a circle to protect themselves and were buckled down there. Then there was a critical issue that happened. There were several immigrants that had wandered off. There were two militia men on horses that saw them and went and attacked them. A shot killed one of them. The other escaped and came back to the camp. That created sheer paranoia because now they knew that the immigrants would know that the saints were involved in this. It wasn’t just the Indians. They were fearful that when they got to California, they would tell this to the federal government, which would then come in. They were already on their way, so they thought this would create a very serious situation for everyone in Utah with the impending army approaching. That sent Haight back. He actually went to Parowan to visit Dame again.

They had a second council there in Parawon, and they actually had the same response. No, let them go if they’ll go in peace. Haight later lamented. He said, “I would give a world if I had it, if we had abided by decision of the council.” Here is where the Mountain Meadows Massacre was basically decided at this moment. Haight and the counselor that he brought with him met with William Dame after the meeting, pulled him aside, got him alone and told him two things they had not told the council. One was that they knew that the saints were involved now, that the white man was involved in this. Two, that most of the immigrants had already been killed, which was a complete fabrication, but this got Dame to change his mind, and Haight viewed it as the opportunity now to call in the militia.

He got John D. Lee to to go in on September 11th, a bad omen day. We’ve had another tragedy in our history of this country on that day. September 11th John D. Lee goes in with a white flag of surrender, essentially saying a peace treaty. They’ll let them come back to Cedar, they’ll escort them past the Indians and protect them if they’ll leave all their weapons, so they were unarmed. Then a pre-designed signal after about a mile, there was an ambush. All the militiamen and the Indians that were hiding came in and wiped out everybody but the youngest children, those who were under seven. There were 17 of them that were actually adopted then by the local people there. The government, federal government, several years later got them back to their extended families in Arkansas. The sheer, very challenging situation. Brigham Young’s letter arrives. It was written on September 10th. It arrives on September 13th two days after the attack.

Let me share with you the letter. His letter reported recent news that no U.S. Troops would be able to reach the territory before winter and then here’s the quote. “So you see that the Lord has answered our prayers and again averted the blow designed for our heads. In regard to emigration trains passing through our settlements, we must not interfere with them until they are first notified to keep away. You must not meddle with them. The Indians we expect will do as they please but you should try and preserve good feelings with them. There are no other trains going south that I know of. If those who are there will leave, let them go in peace. While we should be on the alert, on hand and always ready, we should also possess ourselves in patience, preserving ourselves and property ever remembering that God rules.” When Haight read Young’s words, he sobbed like a child and can manage only the words “Too late, too late.”

Those invovled realized, especially after this letter that they had to provide a cover up, and there were lies and stories that were told. John D. Lee actually went up to meet Brigham Young 18 days later, came in, panting essentially as though he was reporting on what had just happened and said there were no white men involved. It was all the Paiute Indians that occurred with this massacre, but slowly over time, lots of details on this video I can’t get into, but things began to unraveled and the real story did come out eventually. Isaac Haight and John D. Lee were both ex-communicated. There were nine that were indicted. John D. Lee did get executed for the crime and I will say on the excommunication there has been a lot of controversy about this. There were no records in the local area there. Juanita Brooks wrote a famous book on this back in the 50s and said that the excommunication was a sham. It’s because it happened at the general church level. It was actually by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. The minutes actually were burned up in a fire that in the 1880’s, but this was recorded in three different journals of the participants in the council, the excommunications. It’s very clear evidence that it did in fact happen.

Now as far as some lessons just to close a couple of lessons. There was an interview that was done with Richard Turley Jr., one of the authors in the book here, but I’ll link in the resources for the video here. At the end he gives a couple of lessons from the writing of the book and thinking about this. First of all, if you want to just pause the screen, you can look at the full quote, but he talks about the slippery slope.

“… otherwise good people can end up committing an atrocity unless they make decisions that pull them off the slippery slope and back onto firmer ground.” There was bad judgment after bad judgment, cover up after cover up that happened throughout this process that led to the great atrocity. The second lesson he talks about, and I’d love for you to pause it and read this quote, but basically it’s that there is safety in councils. If they had followed the advice from any of the councils, none of this would’ve happened. No matter how bad the people were or if any of the rumors were true, even if they were all true, it wouldn’t have justified what happened there at the Mountain Meadows Massacre. That’s it for this one.

Resources:

Books:

Massacre at Mountain Meadows by Glen Leonard by Richard Turley Jr and Ronald Walker

Church Statements:

Church statement read by then Elder Eyring at 2007 memorial service recognizing 150 yr anniversary of the massacre: https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/articl…

Gospel Topics Essay discussing the Massacre: https://www.lds.org/topics/peace-and-…

Articles:

Ensign Article on the Massacre: https://www.lds.org/ensign/2007/09/th…

Podcasts:

Interview with Harold Turley Jr on LDS Perspectives Podcast: http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2017/1…

Websites:

Mountain Meadows Massacre website with excellent resources: https://mountainmeadowsmassacre.com

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 3 Comments

Kirtland Safety Society- Dispelling the Myths

The failure of the Kirtland Safety Society in 1837 was one of the darkest times in the history of the Restored Church with a third of Church leadership apostatizing, along with an eighth of the Church membership.

In Q&A format, this video dispels unfounded rumors hurled against the Prophet Joseph Smith and clarifies the circumstances leading to the failure.

Okay. On this video, I wanted to talk about the Kirtland Safety Society. There’s a lot of misconceptions about this, even members of the church are really confused by this period in our history that was a very dark time. Tremendous apostasy that occurred, especially with the leaders of the church and we’ll talk about that. But there’s four big things that are often talked about with this. The failure to prove that Joseph was not a prophet, that Joseph was trying to deceive by doing this, that Joseph operated an illegal operation and knew he was doing that, and then that the failure was due to Joseph recklessly printing bank notes.

We’ll be talking about that. And I wanted to do this video, maybe more of a Q&A kind of format. Here’s a question and then I’ll give some thoughts on it. First of all, why did the saints set up a bank in the first place? Well, this was in the infancy of the economy in the United States. There were frontier banks popping up in different places to help the economies move. There was really a lot of illiquid assets with land being the main asset. Kirtland was growing like crazy. It had doubled in the last two years, so they really needed to have some currency to help the economy to flow and be out of a barter type of system.

I do want to share one quote from the Paynesville Republican Ohio newspaper about the opening of the Kirtland Safety Society in January of 1837. Here it from the paper says, “It is said they have a large amount of specie on hand and have the means of obtaining much more, if necessary. If these facts be so, its circulation in some shape would be beneficial to community, and sensibly relieve the pressure in the market so much complained of.”

Was it legal? Well, they tried to get a charter twice. They were denied. There was some religious persecution, but there was also some fear of banks by some of the people in the legislature at the time, some hard money people that wanted just coins to operate without banks. There’s different things. But even the second time they went back with non members, they weren’t able to get it. They changed it to an anti bank, that’s why you may have heard it referred to an anti bank before, and operated as a joint stock company. Here’s the interesting thing. Critics will point out Joesph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were convicted of operating an illegal bank, or operating a bank without a charter. They were both fined $1000. So, that proves they were guilty, correct?

Well, let me share this with you. This is from R. McKay White and I’m going to put a paper that he did. He is an economist and an attorney. Great combination for addressing this. He did a great paper on the Kirtland Safety Society. I’ll put the link in the resources. But listen to this. He says, “The Committee of Revision [which is in the Ohio legislature] drafted a statute to replace the 1816 Act, and that was what Joseph was convicted under, which was adopted by the government in 1824. This act did not make banking without a charter illegal. The only legal consequence of circulating notes from a bank without a charter was that such notes were deemed null and void in the courts. There is no prohibition against issuing and circulating these notes, and no penalty for officers of unchartered banks. Under the 1824 Act, the Safety Society was legal.”

The prosecutor and the judge actually were both tied to an antagonist of the church, so that can give you a little bit of insight there. The appeal was not heard because the saints were fleeing to Missouri and so it probably would’ve been overturned if it was brought up.

Okay. Was it a wildcat bank? These were banks, no it was not. These were banks that were set up as a makeshift operation and they were a redemption spot for you to redeem, was set out in the sticks somewhere where the wildcats are and it was a fictitious location, essentially it was a defrauding operation. Joseph, the Kirtland Safety Society was set up in the middle of town. Clearly not a wildcat bank. How was it organized and funded? Well, there weren’t any MBAs at that time. Nobody could really have the skills to run the bank, so Joseph and Sidney were just as good as anybody else really to run the bank. It was set up as a joint stock company. There were over 100 shareholders. Even some non members were involved because they thought it was a great idea there, to help the economy there in Kirtland.

Okay. So, was a revelation involved in the founding and was Joseph acting in his capacity as a prophet? Now, this one’s really critical and the answers to both of those are no and no. Let me read these two quotes here. This is an interview with … Or excuse me, this is McKay White in his paper. He says, “The Safety Society wasn’t based on revelation. There was no direction from the Lord to establish it. Joseph Smith did not start it in his capacity as a prophet. The Safety Society was there for like any other business establishment in Kirtland and quite capable of failure. Secondly, Latter-Day Saints do not believe their leaders are infallible. Given the Safety Society was not directed by God and that Joseph Smith was subject to mortal weaknesses and failings, there was always a chance that the Safety Society would not succeed. Failure, however, would have no bearing on his calling as a prophet. Furthermore, as will be established, the failure had nothing to do with Joseph Smith or Sidney Rigdon. The Safety Society failed because of the poor use of agency of others.”

Then I wanted to share this from an LDS Perspectives podcast and I’ll link this, Episode 64, Religious and Financial Panic in Kirtland. This is an interview with a historian Elizabeth Kuehn. The question is posed to her, “Is it correct that Joseph Smith prophesied that the Kirtland Safety Society would be successful?”

And she said, “That’s a really interesting question. Technically he did not. Wilford Woodruff records in his journal that on the first day that the notes were available in exchange that Joseph has said that he had a revelation that the bank would be successful if executed on righteous principles. Later in a meeting on September 3, 1837 when John F. Boynton will bring up this very question of, ‘Well, the bank was founded on revelation, how could it fail?’, Joseph will correct him and say, ‘I never said that. I said that it had to be conducted on righteous principles and it was not.’ There is this sense that he’s not only defending the failure of the bank, but also limiting the revelation. This isn’t a continuation of the United Firm. This isn’t something that we have a revelation laying out exactly what they should do. It seems more as if he’s receiving direction to try something out that he, Sidney Rigdon, and others have said. A bank looks really promising. Let’s move forward with this. You kind of get the revelation after the fact saying, ‘Okay, this is what you want to try? Try it. If you function in the way that it’s supposed to, it can be successful.'”

One last quick little side note, it’s kind of interesting, Joseph did say optimistically one time, he thought that notes would be as good as gold someday. Today they actually are. If you go onto eBay and try and buy a note of the Kirtland Safety Society, it’s multiples of the price of gold today. Anywhere typically $3000 to $12,000 depending on different factors for a single note. Okay. Did Joseph try to deceive the people about the amount of coin reserves? Absolutely not. There was a story that’s continued to pass around that they had the chest on banks within the vault that had sand in the chest with silver coins on top. Well, the problem is the vault itself was two foot by two foot by about two and a half feet. It couldn’t have even happened.

Did Joseph recklessly print bank notes? Well, they printed 100,000 bank notes to fund the Safety Society. They had $21,000 in reserve of gold and silver coins. That would be a reserve ratio of 21%, which was considered very good capitalization for a bank. In fact, today the only requirement in the US is 10% there. They also had a lot of land as collateral as well, so absolutely not. Why did it fail then? Well, some people point to them not having a formal charter and others operated banks without that and many … They weren’t persecuted or prosecuted like Joseph was, we already talked about. But I would say that had a limited impact. It might’ve created a concern for using the notes by people.

The panic of 1837 in the US, the land values plummeted. It was a depression. One third of the banks in the United States failed. This, if you talk to people that don’t know a lot of the details about this story, this is what they pin it on. It certainly helped to finish off the bank, but the bank really fell apart before this took hold and it fell apart in the first few months particularly. The biggest components was an antagonist and an apostate. Those two. The antagonist was Grandison Newell. He was a competitor of lots of different businesses with those in Kirtland, the neighboring town of Paynesville. He went out and they were trying to buy up every note that they could get on this and then they would go in and try and redeem it for … they call it specie, but for the coins to try and wipe out their reserves.

This was driving down the value of the notes and so they could buy up even more. Sidney Rigdon panicked, closed the bank literally for 24 hours, didn’t know what to do. Joseph was out of town at this moment. And that helped also to lower the confidence in the bank. You had the saints then, John Johnson panicked. He sold a bunch of the land that was being used for collateral. The saints wouldn’t take, many of the merchants wouldn’t take the notes for doing business. Many of the people that had pledged to contribute for the stock to fund the company would not pay their commitments for this. So, it was really, it was a domino effect that started from Grandison Newell. He accomplished was he was trying to do. There was another very bad thing that happened within the bank and it was from Warren Parish who became a bitter apostate and he later admitted to Heber C. Kimball that he actually had embezzled $20,000. Joseph claimed that he noticed that whenever Warren was involved with just … if it was just Warren involved with the money, that money would come up missing.

And there was trunk there, and by the time he was able to get a search warrant to look in the trunk, the trunk disappeared and was gone. So, that also helped to wipe out the reserve. So, those are the reasons why it really did fail. Did Joseph lose anything? Well, look at the screen here. Joseph Smith was, along with three others, the largest shareholder of the Safety Society. All else equal, he would stand to lose the most if the Safety Society failed. He also paid more per share than 85% of the shareholders. If he was in it for the money, he would have gotten out at the first signs of trouble. Instead, while the Safety Society was really struggling, he increased his subscription in order to try to help the Safety Society succeed. That wasn’t all. He took out three loans on behalf of the Safety Society to give some added liquidity and then finally he even sold additional $5000 in personal property in order to give more rescue help.

Okay. How many apostatized from this? Well, this could be a whole nother story on its own, but this was a nightmare. I won’t go into all the detail, but Joseph wrote in his journal, “It seemed as though all the powers of earth and hell were combining their influence in an especial manner to overthrow the church at once and make a final end.” One third of the leaders of the church apostatized through this. In fact, they tried to start up their own organization, which failed. And then about an eighth of the church members failed. It was in this point that Joseph sent out some of his best brethren out to mission to Britain. That really saved the church as they moved later to Nauvoo and brought in a lot of new members and leaders there. I talked about that in a separate video, too.

Why would Joseph send off some of his greatest when he needed them the most? Okay. What are some lessons from this? Well, Milton Backman wrote in the Ensign an article called A Warning from Kirtland. I’ll link to this. But he said, “Saints who look back on this period learned some compelling lessons on which we today need to be aware. One of the pointed lessons we learned from the Kirtland apostasy is that no one should consider himself secure from the loss of faith, pride, criticism, speculation, envy, greed. These are enough to cause the most faithful to stumble. Parley P. Pratt, for example, declared that envyings, lying, strife, and divisions caused trouble and sorrow in Kirtland. He admitted that he was a victim of these failing.

But the lord knew his faith, his integrity of purpose, and helped him in his victory against an opposing spirit. Orson Hyde recalled that because he acted foolishly during this period of darkness, he temporarily lost the light of the Holy Ghost. Luke S. Johnson admitted that his mind became darkened and he neglected his church responsibilities after he had partaken of the spirit of speculation.

So, in conclusion I wanted to just put on the screen three paragraph summaries of almost everything I talked about here that you can look at if you like. I hope you enjoyed the video and subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Podcasts:

LDS Perspectives Podcast Episode 64: Religious and Financial Panic in Kirtland – Elizabeth Kuehn http://www.ldsperspectives.com/2017/1…

Articles:

Fairmormon responses about Kirtland Safety Society: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

Ensign Article, Apr 1989 – A Warning From Kirtland, by Milton Backman Jr https://www.lds.org/ensign/1989/04/a-…

Miscellaneous:

Kirtland Safety Society paper by R McKay White- The Kirtland Safety Society: The Myths, the Facts, and the Prophet’s Good Name: https://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 9 Comments

Ancient Temple Rites Restored- Evidences

This video discusses how the temple practices found in the Church of Jesus-Christ of Latter-day Saints have significant parallels to religious ancient history.

I’m super excited to do this Evidences video. I feel like I’m going to explode. I love this topic. I love the temple and I love symbolism. The last video I did was on the restoration of temples themselves, physically. Now I want to talk about temple worship, temple rites and their ancient ties. I’m going to save eternal marriage and sealing for a separate video, but also I’m going to say there’s a lot of visuals in this video, so I’m hoping that you can watch and not just listen.

Let’s start with President Nelson, a quote, a couple of quotes, “The antiquity and modernity of temple activity blend and bridge the gulf of time. Even the newest temples closely relate to ancient times.” He also said, “Temple patterns are as old as human life on earth. There, we are taught the Master’s way. His way is ancient and rich with symbolism. We can learn much by pondering the reality for which each symbol stands. Ancient scripture is even more enlightening after one is familiar with the temple endowment. Those books underscore the antiquity of temple work.” I want to play a quick 20-second snippet from the October 2018 General Conference, and you can hear it in his own words, the antiquity of temples.

President Nelson:
Consider the great mercy and fairness of God, who before the foundation of the world provided a way to give temple blessings to those who died without a knowledge of the gospel. These sacred temple rites are ancient. To me, that antiquity is thrilling and another evidence of their authenticity.

I love that. Elder Bednar talked in April 2019 about how we should be talking about the temple a lot more than we do. He reminded us about the sacred nature of things we’re not to disclose, but there’s much that we can talk about and we should be talking a lot more about. First of all, I want to share Richard Draper and Donald Parry talked about how the Garden of Eden was the first temple in Genesis two and three, “is composed of several powerful symbols directly connected to Israelite sanctuaries, including the Mosaic Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple, such as the tree of life, cherubim, sacred water, sacred vestments, Eden’s eastward orientation and divine revelation.”

The Pyramid Texts, which are from 2600 to about 2200 B.C., is the oldest large body of religious writing. If we take all the topic headings assigned to the text by Raymond Faulkner in 1969, we find they fall into six major categories: One, primordial written documents in which the rites are based; two, purification, including anointing; three, creation; four, garden; five, travel; six, ascension texts, victory, coronation, admission to the heavenly company. Very interesting. I’m going to link to a program that you can watch. It’s about an hour long and fantastic. There’s just a few segments I’ll identify of the Latter-Day Saint Near Eastern scholar Bruce Porter, who does a fantastic job in showing correlations on the ancient Egyptian temples that will sound very familiar. If you remember, Hugh Nibley wrote a great book on the Egyptian endowment.

Now, dozens of books on my shelf on temples, but my top two that I’m going to be talking about here, Alonzo Gaskill I love. He’s the symbol master. If you ever go to Education Week, he’s a standing room only speaker there, and then Robert Line, Endowed With Power. He also spoke at Education Week the last couple of years on this topic. I’m going to be sharing that towards the end, which is fascinating stuff, but along with Gaskill, I do want to share this, The Creation and The Fall, “From antiquity, certain stories have been retold. Creation and The Fall, specifically the Creation drama, was acted out as a teaching device. Temple scholar and symbologist Margaret Barker suggested that the story of the Fall was commonly enacted in ancient temple rites. Though it is hard to say what role the Fall played in Solomon’s Temple, she notes, ‘the walls of both the inner and outer rooms were decorated with carved figures of cherubim and palm trees, representing the Garden of Eden.'”

Ann Madsen in BYU Religious Studies compared the Solomon’s Temple to the Salt Lake Temple. She talked about the Holy Place symbolic to the garden rooms in our modern temples; the celestial room, the Holy of Holies compared in the ancient temples where it symbolized God’s presence. “The lack of a one-to-one correlation of rooms in the temple of Solomon when compared to the Salt Lake Temple shows the distinctly different function of the two buildings. Most strikingly, perhaps, there is no killing of animals to be sacrificed on an altar outside the Salt Lake Temple.” We’re told to sacrifice a broken heart and a contrite spirit.

D&C 128:18, the last dispensation, there would be things revealed that had been kept hid from the beginning. D&C 124 talks about the Nauvoo Temple that would specifically relate to that and the building of the Nauvoo Temple itself. Also, if you look at the Aaronic … the priesthood functioning, in the top, Solomon’s Temple was the Aaronic priesthood, the temples today, the Melchizedek priesthood. Ann Madsen did a fantastic job kind of comparing the two. It’s really quite fascinating. I do want to really point out proxy work, specifically that may be a big part of this saving for the last days. That’s the big work of our time that is happening.

Okay. Now, this is in the second century B.C. Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, part of the biblical Apocrypha. “Seven men in white clothing put on the vestments of the priesthood, the crown of righteousness, the robe of truth, the miter for the head, the apron, anointing me with holy oil, washed me.” Cyril of Jerusalem, in 350 A.D., “As soon then as you entered, you put off your tunic; and this was an image of putting off the old man with his deeds. Having stripped yourselves, you were naked; in this also imitating Christ, who was stripped naked on the Cross, for truly ye bore the likeness of the first-formed Adam, who was naked in the garden, and was not ashamed.”

Then he went on to say, this is fascinating, “Then you were anointed with exercised oil from the very hairs of your head to your feet, and were made partakers of the good olive tree, Jesus Christ, and you were first anointed on the forehead, that you might be delivered from the shame; then on your ears, quick to hear; then in your nostrils; afterwards on your breasts, breastplate of righteousness, stand against the wiles of the devil.” Very fascinating. Okay. Praying with uplifted hands. It was common in ancient times for those who were petitioning to God to do so with their hands raised high above their head. 1 Kings 8:2, “Solomon stood before the altar, spread forth his hands towards heaven.”

Lots of other examples they list there. On numerous occasions, the early Christian father Tertullian spoke of the Christian practice of praying with upraised hands. Even a couple of crazy ones here. The extracanonical text, The Book of Adam and Eve from the sixth century A.D. suggests that Adam and Eve often prayed with upraised hands. The pseudepigraphical text, Second Book of Enoch, talked about Methuselah praying with hands stretched to heaven while standing at an altar of temple, clothed in designated garments of the priesthood.

Okay, take a look at this visual here. “In Christian art, the garment and robe were marked with signs at right angles, the gamma or square. The marks had some …” This was scholar Erwin Goodenough said that “…these marks had some religious significance or symbolic force.” You can see it there in the picture. Actually, it’s on Christ’s robe too. You can’t see it, I think, quite clearly on the picture, but there.

Okay, compass and the square. Look at these ancient paintings here. First rulers of China holding the tools of creation, the compass and the square. Look on the right. One of the earliest images of squares, a carpenter from the tomb of Rekhmire in Egypt, a New Kingdom official from the 18th dynasty. Okay. Now Alonzo Gaskill in the book, The Sacred Symbols, the book that I showed, he goes through clothing rituals and ties them back to ancient parallels, fascinating. These are the subtopics he goes through: changing clothing, vestments, aprons, head coverings, robes, sashes, footwear, undergarments.

He goes on to say, “To change clothes is to change identity, status and nature. Among most religious peoples, there was something very sacred about the symbolism behind articles of ritual attire. One who changed into such clothing was making a covenant to be different. The very act of disrobing from one’s street clothes and robing in priestly apparel suggested transition and empowerment. One was symbolically putting on robes of righteousness. The more completely clothed the initiate was, meaning the more priestly articles donned, the more priesthood power was ceremoniously being received until the initiate was in possession of a fullness of priesthood power.”

There was a fascinating discovery several decades back. BYU has been involved in the excavation study of ancient ruins in the Faiyum region of Egypt, particularly in this … It’s called the Fag el-Gamous cemetery. Some of the remains there have been noted as early Christian. They’ve actually found even robes on some of these with complex knots which were believed to be sacred knots or bows common in Egypt, indicating priestly power of some kind. Eight were on the right shoulder, two were on the left shoulder, but even more fascinating, look at this picture here. “Clothing closest to the body is not usually well preserved due to the destructive influence of fluids and chemicals remaining in the body. In this specific burial they found, however, the woolen garment next to the skin is sufficiently well preserved for us to observe. The small rosettes have been woven into the material in particular locations. There is one rosette over each breast and one on the right leg near the knee, but there is no corresponding rosette on the left leg. Across the lower abdomen, the material also has a hem slit about six inches long.” Very interesting.

Okay. Donald and Jay Parry shared this in their book, Symbols and Shadows, “The making of ritual gestures or signs during the covenant making process was common to most ancient and many modern religions. Religious rituals or ties are sacred actions or ceremonial movements. Some scholars refer to these rites or transition as gestures of approach because they are religious gestures or acts or movements that worshipers make as they approach God during sacred worship. The ancient temple especially included sacred gestures that enabled and empowered worshipers to move through the outer gate inward to the most holy place of all, the holy of holies. The gestures of approach are vital to a temple society because they symbolically cleanse and repair worshipers for entry into and movement through sacred space as they transition from the profane world into the sacred temple.”

Now take a look at this, ancient temples of Egypt. This picture here, “The Egyptian has one hand in cupping shape, demonstrating he is giving an offering, while the other hand is raised, demonstrating that the Egyptian is also swearing an oath.” Take a look at this one of the Buddha, “Big Buddha located in Hong Kong. Tiantan means temple of heaven. The Buddha is making a ritual gesture, often referred to as a mudra. These gestures can help one to make contact with the gods, while dispelling the influence of the evil. This particular mudra is said to mean the cessation of affliction comes through generosity.” It’s also interesting to note that the Hebrew word for ordain is literally to fill the hand.

Tokens. Gaskill goes through and talks about, “The early Christians had what some have referred to as tokens of recognition. These were hand clasps utilized for a number of reasons and which carried a number of symbolic meanings. Hand clasps for covenant making or reconciliation were common in ancient cultures and religions. A solemn and ceremonial hand clasps, known by the Greeks as dexiosis, which means joining the right hands, commonly used when taking an oath or when receiving the mysteries.” That was also symbolic for the word ordinance, for receiving the ordinances. “One dictionary of symbols from 1962 suggests that in esoteric doctrine, the position of the hand in relation to the body and the arrangement of the fingers convey certain, precise, symbolic notions.”

Passwords. Gaskill says, “Frequently accompanying the signs and tokens anciently were certain secret words or phrases. They are found in specific Catholic rites, in some rare rites associated with Judaism, and even in certain branches of Islam. These secret words or passwords symbolize fidelity to covenants if they were kept secret. They represented an endowment or gift, thus to receive them implied both that God had endowed you, but also that God had entrusted you. In some cases they functioned as keywords or passwords and thus enabled the one in possession of them to know friend from foe; demons from the divine.”

Okay, fascinating, knocking three times on the Holy Door. “On Jubilee, every 25 years, the Pope performs a rite, knocking 3 times with a golden hammer on the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica. A commemorative medal shows people on one side of the door and the Lord on the other. The ceremony represents entry into God’s temple.” Matthew Brown said, “The tradition of the Holy Door is also found in the Russian Orthodox church. These Christians view this door as the entrance into the Holy of Holies, the Sanctuary.” Then Hugh Nibley, actually … Look at this Egyptian hieroglyphic there. He says, “When the Egyptian king enters the sanctuary at the temple’s completion, he performs an act exactly resembling what’s done at Easter in the Eastern Orthodox rites. He knocks three times on the door with his white mace and then enters.” That is fascinating.

All right, a mural of the extended hand of God, you can see on the right, from the 12th century, Sant Climent de Taull church in Catalonia, Spain. “God’s hand reaching out from behind a cloud or veil was a common symbol in the Medieval Period. Among other things, it represented fellowship, acceptance, God’s willingness to reveal, and God’s omnipotent power to save. In the intertestamental period, God’s extended hand was sometimes a symbol of testing and examination.”

Okay, about to share a couple of crazy things here. These are gnostic things and I almost hesitate doing this. There’s a lot of craziness in gnosticism. They were declared as heretics by the early Church. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a little like the Apocrypha. Do you remember how the Lord told Joseph that there’s much truth in it, but also much for man? Study with the Spirit to benefit there, but I will share this because I just think it’s so fascinating, some of these nuggets that have come out of some of these things. This was a paper written by David Wiley. I’ll link to it in the show description, The 40 Day Teachings of Christ in the Books of Jeu and the Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Endowment.

Now the books of Jeu were found in 1769 and translated to English in 1848. The Pistis Sophia found in 1773, translated in English in 1869. Both of these after Joseph Smith died, after the endowment was established. First of all, the respected early Church Father and scholar Clement of Alexandria said this, “To James the Just and to John and Peter after the resurrection of the Lord conveyed the gnosis, these handed it on to the rest of the Apostles, and in turn, to the Seventy.” Hugh Nibley responds, “So we have a true gnosis, a certain knowledge entrusted to the general authorities of the Church after the Resurrection, and as far as we know, to no one else. This was precisely the knowledge which the so-called gnostics later claimed to have. From the titles and contents of recently found gnostic writings, it is plain that their special boast was to possess what Christ taught to the Apostles after the Resurrection.” Remember, He spent 40 days with the apostles and we have really basically no idea of what was said, but this was the foundation of gnostics. They believed they had the special knowledge there.

Here are the things that he shares. “To summarize this process, outlined in the first section of the teaching includes: number one, being stopped by angels, tested for certain knowledge, identifying ourselves using a special sign, verifying ourselves by a token in the hand, giving a name as kind of password, coming to a veil, learning new information from the Father, passing through the veil into the presence of the Father, God is an exalted man.” A lot of fascinating things there. He goes on to talk about prayer circles. If you look at the art on here, these are ancient, very old paintings showing prayer circles. It was practiced in the early Christian church.

He says, “A special manner in which Christ teaches the disciples and women to pray, gathering up all the bits and details from these varying accounts makes for an interesting picture. One, all are robed in linen garments. They are standing in a circle. Jesus receives the special sign from the disciples and women. He has those in the circle, have in their hands one of the special tokens. Jesus is before an altar. He opens his prayer with coded words or phrase, which he repeats three times. The opening of Jesus’ prayer translated is, ‘Hear me, my Father,’ and those in the circle repeat the words of the prayer.”

Those are just too many fascinating things to just disregard and say … This is fascinating to consider some of that. Matt Brown presented at the FairMormon Conference in 2008. I will put this also in the link. He talked about “a large collection of really Christian initiation texts that was updated in 2003 by Dr. Maxwell Johnson of Notre Dame. It’s called the Documents of the Baptismal Liturgy. Throughout these texts are references to temple terms such as labor, altar, sacrifice, incense, priest, Levite and high priest. There are even statements in these documents that initiates are going to enter into the temple of God to receive certain ordinances and also enter into the Holy of Holies.

He also said in his presentation, “There’s a distinct pattern in the book of Revelation which suggests that the offices of king and priest were not simply bestowed upon the first century Christians by verbal decree. This pattern is found among 12 statements made by Deity regarding those mortals who overcome the world. Let us briefly examine each of these 12 statements in the order they appear in John’s apocalypse in Revelation, and make comparisons between them and the initiation rites of ancient Israel’s kings and priests.”

I’m not putting that in here. I’ll suggest that you can watch it on YouTube. It’s fascinating. They were promised by the Lord Himself, after the Atonement had taken place, that the faithful could receive the same temple-related blessings that were experienced by the kings and priests of Israel. Liturgical practices of the Israelite temple found expression in some of the rites of the early Christians and some of those practices are echoed among the orthodox followers of the Master even today.”

Okay. Now, Endowed With Power. This is going to get really fascinating, in my opinion. I loved this, the ancient coronation ceremonies of monarchs. “The temple uses sacred symbols. These symbols not only reveal God’s doctrine, they conceal it as well. John the Revelator once spoke somewhat cryptically of our eternal potential as follows, ‘To him that overcome will I grant to sit with me in my throne.'” This is from Revelations three, “Even as I overcome and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith.”

D&C 93:53, “And to obtain a knowledge of history and of countries and a knowledge of laws of God and man, and all this for the salvation of Zion.” “Perhaps the Lord wants us to study these earthly kingdoms and systems, not just so we will avoid the mistakes of history, but perhaps to enlighten and instruct us as well. Perhaps He wants us to unlock the symbols of our sacred theology through the preserved, albeit tainted, allegories of antiquity. Although we cannot discuss specific details of certain aspects of the temple endowment ceremony due to their sacred nature, when you draw parallels between the endowment and the coronation ceremony of monarchs, by so doing, we will hopefully better understand and appreciate the beauty, purpose, and symbolic meaning of this sacred ordinance.”

He says, “Various countries have established coronation ceremonies to proclaim the reign of earthly kings and queens. Interestingly, many of these ceremonies claim precedents from the holy scriptures. The following is a basic summary of the most common elements of the coronation of kings and queens. As you can acknowledge also of countries and of kingdoms herein, it is hoped that you will be able to relate to the statement made by Joseph Smith as it applies to the holy temples and their associated system of gospel instruction.” In Joseph Smith History 1:74, “Our minds being now enlightened, we began to have the scriptures laid open to our understandings and the true meaning and intention of their more mysterious passages revealed unto us in a manner in which we never could attain to previously, nor ever had before thought of.”

It starts with procession of guests into sacred rooms or edifices as procession. There’s British coronation here. Psalms 121 verse 1 said, “I was glad when they said unto me, let us go into the house of the Lord.” Receiving a new name. “Kings, queens, popes and other sovereigns commonly receive a new name when they ascend to the throne or are elected to office. Often this new name is referred to as their reign name. In ancient Egypt, pharaohs received the throne name as opposed to the temple name, as it’s often referred to in East Asia. And remind the monarchs and those they served of their change in title, status and function.

Washing and anointing. These “are often performed in the beginning of the coronation ceremony. This part of the coronation or enthronement rite claims ancient roots dating back to the biblical times. Exodus 29, ‘ And Aaron and his sons, thou shalt bring unto the door of the tabernacle, and shalt wash them with water … anointing oil poured upon his head, anoint him.’ While the British coronation ceremony involves anointing three places, the French coronation has five places of anointing. The French monarch removes all clothing except for a long shirt and stands barefoot to receive the anointing. Alonzo Gaskill surmised that ‘the washing with water cleanses the initiate and prepared him or her to receive the Holy Spirit, which was typically symbolized among the ancients by the act of anointing with oil from a horn which represented power.'”

Okay, preliminary clothing and plain white garments. “After the washing and anointing portion of the enthronement or coronation ceremony, the monarch receives and is clothed in a simple white linen undergarment called the colobium sindonis. This unadorned garment symbolized divesting oneself of vanity, eschewing all things worldly, and standing bare before God.” Then kneeling before the altar, taking of oaths and promises. “At this point, the monarch is brought before the altar where upon is placed a Bible or other holy text and often are other various items of familial significance. Solemn oaths are taken and entered into, often prefaced with the following phrase as the charge is given to the royal initiate, ‘Will you solemnly promise and swear to, and will you to the utmost of your power, maintain the laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?’ The charges and oaths administered and entered into are numerous and sacred, often involving commitment to God’s laws, service to one’s fellow beings, and one’s own self comportment.”

Then clothing and royal robes. “The monarch receives royal robes, which depending on the point in the ceremony, are often placed on a particular shoulder, sometimes being switched later in the ceremony to the other shoulder. During the coronation of Elizabeth II, the words of instruction were given by the archbishop, ‘Receive this imperial robe and the Lord God endow you with knowledge and wisdom, with majesty and power from on high. The Lord clothe you with the robe of righteousness and with the garments of salvation, amen.'” Parsing on the words of Isaiah.

Okay. Holding various items of regalia, this is fascinating. “During a coordination, various items of regalia are given to and received by the monarch. Typical items include an orb, the sword of state, the royal ring, the scepter, and a crown. The sword of state, also known as the sword of justice and mercy, is one of the first items received, and is sometimes lifted and held forward in the right hand with the right arm to the square. The orb, usually surmounted, but with a cross, typifies Christ’s reign over the earth, thus symbolizing the bestowal and reception of celestial reward. The orb is received by the monarch by placing a cupped hand underneath the orb. At the beginning of the coronation ceremony, the orb is delivered into the monarch’s right hand. The orb is then placed on the altar where it remains until the end of the ceremony.

At the conclusion, the monarch holds the orb in the left hand while holding the scepter in the right hand. The ring is a symbol of the authority and power of the monarch and is received by placing the right hand forward with the palm turned down. The archbishop places the ring on the fourth finger of the monarch’s right hand.” Then the culmination, the crowning of the monarch. “The culminating act is the reception of the crown. In the British coronation, the archbishop holds the crown with both hands high above the head of the monarch, then places the crown on the monarch while the congregation exalts in a united voice three times, ‘God save the king.’ The congregation immediately follows the crowning of the monarch by placing coronets and caps on their heads. In some enthronement ceremonies, the monarch receives the crown with both hands outstretched high above their head, lowering the crown three times on their head.

Often in the coronation and enthronement ceremonies, the scripture in Psalms is recited as follows, ‘Let my prayer come up into thy presence as the incense, and let the lifting up of my hands be as an evening sacrifice.'” Fascinating stuff. Robert Line concludes this then, “Most, if not all the symbols of the temple deal with one of two things: Christ and His Atonement or the outcome of His Atonement, even eternal life and exaltation. Every place we sit, every action we make, everything we see and say, all of it combined in one way or another, symbolically points us to one of these two realities. The coronation ceremony can help us better understand our belief to one day become kings and queens, priests and priestesses for our Lord through the infinite Atonement of Jesus Christ.”

I just love this closing thing from President Nelson, October 2018 Conference, “My dear brothers and sisters, the assaults of the adversary are increasing exponentially in intensity and in variety. Our need to be in the temple on a regular basis has never been greater. I plead with you to take a prayerful look at how you spend your time. Invest time in your future and in that of your family.” I hope you felt the spirit testifying of the truths shared during this video. I’ll see you next time.

Resources:

Books:

Endowed with Power – How Temple Symbols Guide Us to Christ’s Atonement by C. Robert Line

Understanding the Symbols, Covenants, and Ordinances of the Temple by Amy Hardison

Sacred Symbols – Finding Meaning in Rites, Rituals & Ordinances by Alonzo Gaskill

The Truth About Eden by Alonzo Gaskill

The Savior & The Serpent by Alonzo Gaskill

The Lost Language of Symbolism by Alonzo Gaskill

The Gate of Heaven: Insights on the Doctrines and Symbols of the Temple – Matthew Brown

Articles:

The Israelite Temple and the Early Christians https://www.fairmormon.org/conference… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsbZ… (Video)

Matt Brown – Ancient Temple Patterns in D&C 124 https://www.fairmormon.org/archive/pu…

Early Christian and Jewish Rituals Related to Temple Practices – John Tvedtnes https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

FairMormon – The Temple as a Place of Ascent to God – Dan Peterson https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

FairMormon – A Case for Ancient Temple Ordinances – Oliver Mullins https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2016/…

TempleStudy.com – The Relationship Between the Ancient Israelite Temple and the Endowment https://www.templestudy.com/2013/04/0…

Avoiding Temple Blindness: Tips for Latter-day Saints on Appreciating the Ancient Aspects of the LDS Temple – Jeff Lindsay https://www.jefflindsay.com/lds/templ…

The Temple Roots of the Liturgy – Margaret Barker https://www.marquette.edu/maqom/Roots…

What similarities are there between Egyptian and Israelite Temples? The Interpreter Foundation KnoWhy OTL14A https://interpreterfoundation.org/kno…

Solomon’s Temple Compared to the Salt Lake Temple – Ann Madsen; BYU Studies https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/eye-fait…

BYU Archeology dig in Egypt – BYU Studies Quarterly https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/6bc7…

The Forty Day Teachings of Christ in the Books of Jeu and Pistis Sophia: A Gnostic Endowment – David Wiley https://davidwiley.org/papers/40_days…

Why Symbols? – Feb 2007 Ensign https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Videos:

Burce Porter on the Book of Abraham – Particular Ancient Egyptian Temple Segment of Note – 34:31 to 38:07 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F19d5…

Websites:

ldssymbols.com

Jeff Roundy

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