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January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Changes in Book of Mormon Text

This video discusses the 5 types of changes that have occurred with the text of the original Book of Mormon translation and why they should not be of any concern.

Okay. So, in this video, I want to talk about textual changes to the Book of Mormon and why they are not a concern whatsoever. Let’s go through these.

Now, I do want to start out by showing something on Joseph Smith talking about the Book of Mormon being the most correct book on earth. If you look at this slide here, his concept of correctness had nothing to do with accepted standards of grammar, spelling, or punctuation. Webster’s 1828 dictionary defines correct as being “literally, set right, or made straight. Hence, right: conformable to truth, rectitude or propriety, or conformable to a just standard.” According to this concept, the Book of Mormon certainly meets the test of correctness, for its principles coincide with truth. As Joseph Smith explained, “the ultimate test of its correctness is in the lives of those who use its principles.” Indeed, he promised that we can get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than by any other book.

Sometimes we think of Joseph as a fax machine for the Lord. He translated the Book of Mormon at about a pace of about eight pages a day. Now, that’s a very rapid pace to be creating a text like this. However, how long does it take you to read eight pages? So, thinking about the process, there’s this process of studying it out in your mind that happened.

I love a couple of these quotes here I want to share from Joseph. D&C 1:24, this revelation: “Behold, I am God and have spoken it; these commandments are of me, and were given unto my servants in their weakness, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding” and Joseph said, “This is the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted– by revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the kingdom are placed.”

And this quote from Richard Bushman, in BYU Religious Educator, The Little Narrow Prison of Language: The Rhetoric of Revelation, he said, “Joseph recognized the limits of his language in a November 1832 letter to W. W. Phelps, the editor of the Church newspaper in Missouri. Joseph ended the letter with a prayer for the time when the two of them should gaze upon eternal wisdom engraven upon the heavens, while the majesty of our god holdeth up the dark curtain until we may read the round of eternity. Then at last he hoped they might be delivered from the little narrow prison, almost as it were total darkness, of paper, pen, and ink, and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language.”

And Bushman went on to say, “The words suggested Joseph envisioned more than he could express and wanted language that was straight and whole rather than crooked and broken. He seemed to feel the same constraints as Moroni causing stumbling because of the placing of their words. The revelations to the elders of the November 1831 conference when the question of Joseph’s language was raised and his language you have known, quote, “and his imperfections you have known, not denying Joseph’s imperfections in writing, but only rebuking the elders for looking upon them.”

And I do love that Ether 12, just a quick couple of snippets from that, That the gentiles … this is Moroni saying it, “The gentiles will mock at these things because of our weakness in writing, but thou hast not made us mighty in writing. When we write we behold our weakness and stumble because of the placing of our words, and I fear lest the gentiles shall mock at our words.” And I what the Lord says, “Fools mock but they shall mourn, and my grace is sufficient for the meek that they shall take no advantage of your weakness.”

Look at the introduction of the Book of Mormon, the title page I should say, not the introduction, the title page which is actually from the plates it says, “Now if there are faults they are the mistakes of men, wherefore condemn not the things of God that you may be found spotless at the judgment seat of Christ.” And last, Nephi says, “Nevertheless I do not write anything upon plates save it be that I think it be sacred and now if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh I would excuse myself.”

Okay now there are five major types of changes to the text of the Book of Mormon: punctuation, spelling, grammar, typesetting or transmission errors, and clarifications, and I want to spend a decent time on some of the key clarifications that critics hone in on. So punctuation, the Book of Mormon itself was a single run on sentence. Even the printer’s manuscript that was taken in there was no punctuation. So, John Gilbert who was E. B. Grandin’s assistant and was the typesetter is the one that added all the punctuation, and there was over thirty thousand “changes” to the Book of Mormon if you consider a change just to be adding punctuation.

Okay spelling, spelling was not standardized at the time. In fact, look at the screen here, here are four main dictionaries available on 1828 when Webster’s was putting out his dictionary that same year. Look at these words, creature, look at the four different ways you could spell creature. Scripture, closure, look at the four different ways you could spell these words, really quite interesting compared to today. Many in the U.S. were pushing for an English that would be uniquely American, and Webster was actually leading this movement, proposing many new rules, and one of the big ones was using phonetics in spelling.

So as a great example is the word theater, in Britain it was “T-H-E-A-T-R-E” and then they changed it to “T-E-R” for the American. It was more of a phonetic way to say the word theater so that was an example of that. Now spelling changes in the KJV all over the place from the original 1611 edition of the King James’ version of the Bible. Here’s some examples of sins. Three different versions of it. Majesty, three different versions. Spirits, three different versions as you can see there.

Okay now, as far as grammar changes, here are a bunch that happen in the Bible as an example back to the original 1611 King James version. “Towards” has been changed to “toward” 14 times. “Burnt” has been changed to “burned” 31 times. “Amongst” has been changed to “among” 36 times. “Lift” has been changed to “lifted” 51 times. “You” has been to “ye” 82 times. Now, the Book of Mormon? Grammar Changes? The big one was “which” to “who” 891 times, “exceeding” to “exceedingly” 177 times, “was” to “were” 162 times, and “is” to “are” 74 times. So those are the big four if you will. Sometimes grammar was to improve through deletions or additions. Top deletions were the word “that” 188 times, “the” 48 times, “it came to pass” 46 times, “a” and “and” 40 times, “had” 29 times. Top additions, “of” 12 times, and “is” and “the” 7 times.

It is interesting there definitely was some parts of the Book of Mormon that were very tightly controlled. The spelling of names we know and also some Hebraisms. I’ll do a whole video on that, but it wasn’t typed that way, Joseph would have said words like, we would have said “iron rod” instead it’s “rod of iron.” We’ll go into a video on that and chiasmus, some of these ancient things that have their fingerprints on the Book of Mormon there as well.

So it was a combination of loose and tight controls in different spots it looks like. If you look here another issue was with typesetter. So sometimes there would be errors, the biggest one that was found was actually the typesetter left off 35 words of Alma 32 verse 30, the last 35 words. The beginning of the sentence was, “And now behold,” and that was the actual beginning of the very next verse, verse 31, but that 35 words left off there. So that was an error that was caught, but another example would be Oliver’s handwriting. Sometimes it was hard to read his R’s can look an N and his B’s can look like an L. So the craziest example of this was the Gadianton robber was mislabeled in a spot as nobler by the typesetter and you still knew that they were evil based on their actions, but it is interesting to note that the typesetter sometimes would be confused and those were corrections that needed to be made.

Also the Book of Mormon was printed in bulk of 37 copies at a time, 16 pages that they would do and print, if they found an error they wouldn’t actually go back and change the one, so lots of the original edition of the Book of Mormon that was printed that came out had lots of different varieties of errors or changes that needed to be made even amongst the issues themselves. Now, changes to the Book of Mormon that are not doctrinally significant, this is a very key point, and this was at the 2006 Sidney Sperry Symposium, Daniel Judd and Allen Stoddard said, “While there have been a number of editorial changes in the Book of Mormon over the years, even those who criticize it’s authenticity acknowledge that the changes are not of a major doctrinal significance. However many of the errors in the translation, transmission, and editing of the New Testament are of significantly greater consequence.”

This goes back to the very beginning of the compilation of the New Testament as an example. I’m going to do an entire video on this of some very key things in the Bible as a comparison that are of doctrinal significance there. So now let’s talk about some of the clarifications and this is the area that the critics hone in on a lot. So “white and delightsome” to “pure and delightsome.” So in 2 Nephi 30 verse 6 the 1830 edition, it’s seen in the 1837 edition said, “They shall be a white and delightsome people.” Joseph changed this in the 1840 edition to, “They shall be a pure and delightsome people.”

Well the future editions of the Book of Mormon were off of the 1837 edition which had been used over in Europe, the European editions, and so 1981 was when they went back and made sure to tie in a lot of the changes that maybe had been made even in the 1840 edition that had been missed, this was one of them. So when the 1981 edition came out critics said, “Hey this is political expediency to be making this change here, and it wasn’t the prophet that made it back in 1840, he didn’t make other changes that he could have back then if that was an issue he was trying to get to.” And if you look at Webster’s Dictionary of what the word “white” meant, it looked like Joseph was just using a synonym and maybe a better descriptive term for “white”.

Here it is, “Having the color of purity; pure, clean,” or the word, “pure, unblemished,” “in a scriptural sense, purified from sin; sanctified, see Psalms 51.” So I think Joseph saw that as much better and had inspiration to make that change there. So Benjamin was changed to Mosiah in later editions. So this is in Mosiah 21 verse 28 and Ether 4 verse 1, and this was on the, who could read the plates that Limhi found up in the north, the Jaredite Plates, and the 1830 edition said it was King Benjamin, 1837 Joseph changed this to Mosiah, King Mosiah on there.

So there was a subsequent in Ether 4:1 refers to the same episode and that was picked up in 1849, they figured if Joseph had changed that he had missed changing Ether 4:1 so Orson Pratt was involved in recommending fixing this error to change it to Mosiah. Well what was going on there? There’s multiple things that this could be, if you look here the reason for both, this is from Fairmormon.org. “The reason for both of these changes was never recorded. The use of the proper name Benjamin in the two instances described may represent either an abridgment error on the part of Mormon and Moroni, or it may be a legitimate description of what Ammon actually said to King Limhi based upon his current knowledge of the situation in Zarahemla. The Prophet apparently noted a possible discrepancy based upon his reading of the text, and changed the name Benjamin to Mosiah. Both Mormon and Moroni acknowledged that the record they had created was not perfect.”

And then I love this, Royal Skousen actually goes through, and you can pause the screen to read this if you’d like, but he shows how this actually maybe wasn’t an error and it didn’t need to be changed or corrected on there. So it’s kind of a fascinating thing and he goes through the description of how that’s potentially possible, but I will say also if you look at one of the major evidences the Book of Mormon, is the internal consistency of the places, the names, it’s staggering on there.

So this is one that you could say, “Oh this was maybe an error in there from one of the things.” One of the abridgers or whatever, but maybe even not. Like I said, read Skousen’s point there. Okay, 1 Nephi 20 verse 1 the word “or out of the waters of baptism” were added. This is Isaiah 48 being quoted here essentially, and this is basically, you could say, prophetic commentary by Joseph Smith in the 1840 edition. He did not put this in the Joseph Smith Translation. He had done the inspired version at that point. Maybe he just wanted to add this in there as a commentary. It’s very unlikely that that was even on the plates when Joseph was translating that, and it’s just commentary on the waters of Judah, it says “or out of the waters of baptism” there. The critics hone in on that one.

Another one that they talk about is the changes Joseph made to the word “God” to “Son of God” in 1 Nephi 11 and 13. On there is four times, God and the Son of God are synonyms throughout the scriptures and this may have been just a point of clarification. Some say that Joseph was changing his view of the trinity or of the nature of the Godhead which is ridiculous, but they will read that into the text. If that was the case he would have made tons of other changes on there. I think there could be a case that it was the Catholic sounding phrase, “The Mother of God” so he changed it to, “Mother of Son of God” and there was a lot of that rhetoric that was going on by critics of the Book of Mormon even, saying this specific verse, calling it out. There may have been just a clarification that Joseph wanted to make on that. It doesn’t change the meaning at all. It was Jesus Christ anyway regardless, and this is just a further way to clarify that.

And then last the 2006 Doubleday printing of the Book of Mormon made a one word change that got a lot of attention. I did a whole video on DNA in the Book of Mormon, on how when Lehi’s crew landed here that science today says that most likely, the researchers, that there were millions of people here. Previously to that, I think a lot of members growing up over the last hundred and fifty plus years felt like the Book of Mormon, the people were the original people of the continent and were the entire continent population. The Book of Mormon does not say this anywhere so we’re reading something into the text that’s not there and the introduction was actually added to the Book of Mormon in 1981, it’s not part of the Book of Mormon plates or the translation, and it wasn’t part of any of the prior editions before 1981, but it said, “… were destroyed, except the Lamanites, and they are the principal ancestors of the American Indians.” And the 2006 printing from Doubleday says, “are among the ancestors of the American Indians.”

Church spokesman Mark Tuttle says, “The changes takes into account details of the Book of Mormon demography which are not known. The change will be included in the next edition of the Book of Mormon printed by the Church.”

So I hope that that video is helpful and this is certainly something that’s not a concern in any way shape or form. I think it’s kind of ridiculous critics even bring this topic up, but it’s worth doing a video to discuss the things they bring up. Hope you enjoy.

Resources:

Articles:

Richard L. Bushman, “The Little, Narrow Prison of Language: The Rhetoric of Revelation,” Religious Educator 1, no. 1 (2000): 90-104: https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-1…

Understanding Textual Changes in the Book of Mormon – Ensign Article by George Horton, Dec 1983: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon.org. – Book of Mormon Textual Changes: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Bo…

Book:

Shaken Faith Syndrome, Michael Ash, Chp 17 – Book of Mormon Textual Changes

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 1 Comment

Temples Restored: Evidences

This video discusses the history of temples on the earth, including confusion over the future of temples after the death of Christ, and how the building of temples today is a strong evidence of the restoration. If you don’t have enough time for the full video, would highly recommend the slideshow of modern day temples set to music from 11:00 to 15:45.

I’m excited to do this Evidences video on the temple and modern day temples and ancient temples. So we’ll talk about this as we get into this, but it’s definitely an evidence of the restoration, the restoration of temples. I’m excited to show actually a presentation my wife put together to music on modern day temples that is absolutely stunning in my opinion. At the end, I have this crazy connection I want to talk about between Salt Lake Temple that you may have not heard with the Great Salt Lake and the Dead Sea with the temple in Jerusalem, future temple in Jerusalem. It’s fascinating.

So first of all, talking about the beginning of temples really could even, you could say start with Adam building an altar to offer sacrifice. We learned that in Moses 5 there and he didn’t even know why. The angel came and explained why, it was similitude of the sacrifice of our Savior. The earliest temple mentioned in the Bible is actually the Tower of Babel. It was an anti-temple, anti-temple polemic, essentially. This was 4200 years ago. The word “bab” is a gate and “el” represents deity. So the gate of deity. They were trying to get there for selfish and materialistic reasons, but it’s interesting to note that.

Now Hugh Nibley shares this, Common Themes in Ancient Temples Throughout the World. Five big themes: Dwelling place of God on earth, gateway to God’s dwelling in the heavenly temple, Garden of Eden imagery: trees, living water, cherubim, gradated sacred space creates for worshipper a journey to God, and the journey mediated by priesthood and consists of prayer and sacrifice. Temples back to the beginning. This is Richard Cowan, the gospel scholar presenting at the 2013 Sperry Symposium. “Temple worship is not unique to the present dispensation. The Lord directed His people in Old Testament times to construct these holy structures, and even from the beginning of this earth’s history, mortals have felt the need of establishing sacred sanctuaries where they can get away from worldly concerns and receive instructions pertaining to the eternities.”

He goes on to say, “Elder John A. Widstoe believed that all people of all ages have had temples in one form or another. There is ample evidence, he was convinced, that from the days of Adam, there was the equivalent of temples, and in the patriarchal times, temple worship was in operation in sacred places, the ordinances of the temple were given to those entitled to receive them. Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, likewise explained that the Lord taught the fullness of the gospel to Adam and his posterity and gave them the law of sacrifice as a means of pointing their attention forward to His own infinite atonement.” And this is fascinating from Josephus. He actually recorded a Jewish tradition that Melchizedek, not Solomon, had built the first temple in Jerusalem.

Here’s the quote right here. “He who first built it was a ruler among the Canaanites, and is in our tongue called Melchizedek, the righteous king. He was the first priest of God, and first built a temple, and called the city Jerusalem.” That’s fascinating. All right, some of the earliest temples. Now this, if you want one book on the history of the temple, this is phenomenal. The history of the temples in the world, Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History, written by two members of the church, William Hamblin and David Seely, it’s absolutely fantastic. The next few quotes are going to be from that book. So, “One of the most dramatic temple related theophanies occurred when Jacob stopped at a place to sleep, taking a stone for his pillow. There Jacob dreamed he saw a ladder or stairway reaching from the grounds to the heavens upon which angels were ascending and descending, with the Lord standing at the top in the celestial temple.”

“When Jacob awoke, he exclaimed, ‘How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.'” This is in Genesis. “Taking the stone under his head, he set it up as a pillar, anointed it with consecrating oil, and named it Beth-El, meaning the house of God. While there were no formal temples at the times of the patriarchs, these altars and ritual pillars continue to function as sacred sites. Shechem, which is where the Abrahamic covenant was made for example, became the place where Joshua would renew the covenant. Bethel, this place that Jacob has this experience, became a great temple pilgrimage center of the northern kingdom, while Mariah”, this is where Abraham was asked to sacrifice Isaac, “would become the site of Solomon’s temple.”

“Although Solomon’s Temple remained the great central national shrine of Judah from its construction, 950 B.C., until reforms of Hezekiah and Josiah in the seventh century B.C., Israelites also worshiped the Lord at other holy places such as Ramah, where Samuel led the people in sacrifice. The Bible describes at least 11 buildings that can be identified as shrines dedicated to the worship of Yahweh, including …” and he gives a bunch of the names there. ” … the most prominent of these was Shiloh were the Ark was kept, and where Eli the priest is depicted sitting beside the door post of the temple of the Lord.” That’s in 1 Samuel. “Shrines at Dan and Bethel also existed from very early times.”

There’s apparently a statue of Yahweh in a temple at Dan. You can read that in Judges. Okay. The temple was not merely a place of ritual sacrifice. God considered it His house. It was where the word of the Lord came from. It was the center of Israelite life. It was a spiritual focal point. In the Old Testament, the phrase “before the Lord” means quite literally in the temple. Above all, it was a place of holiness set apart from the rest of the world, and God never said He was done with holy places. And then I love, this is the complete statement in the book in their conclusion section. It says, “For 3000 years, the idea and image of the temple have represented a principle religious paradigm for the Near Eastern and European monotheistic traditions. In countless permutations, the idea of the temple has manifested itself in ritual, music, art, architecture, literature, poetry, mysticism and politics.”

Remember also, God gave very specific instructions for some of the first temples, the Tabernacle, very specific details of how it was to be built. Solomon’s temple with great meticulous detail and the finest materials. The first temples in this dispensation, if you remember the phenomenal experience Joseph Smith had. The First Presidency actually saw the Kirtland temple in a vision come hover over them in the air. They saw the exterior. It came over their head. They could look inside of it. Frederick G. Williams tells of this experience, who he later apostatized, never denied this experience happened. You can see that in my video called How Could They Have All Lied? But phenomenal, kind of exciting. The Nauvoo temple, Joseph testified that the basic plan of the Nauvoo temple had been given to him by a revelation, and the Salt Lake temple, I’m holding out on this one for the end where I talk about Brigham Young’s experience and some fascinating correlations with that to Jerusalem.

Okay. On the Church website, this is what we read about temples. “For members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the temple is the most sacred place of worship on earth. It is the house of the Lord. It is a place set apart from the rest of the world where members seek to draw closer to God. Modern temples have purposes similar to those of biblical temples. They are places of peace, learning, and inspiration. They are also where sacred ceremonies called ordinances take place. Through temple ordinances, members feel closer to God as the covenant to live the gospel of Jesus Christ. The phrases ‘holiness to the Lord’ and ‘the house of the Lord’ are found near the entrance of every temple and remind us that each is a sacred place.”

Now, there’s a video I’m going to recommend. I’ll link to it on the description, called Between Heaven and Earth, made in 2002. Fantastic video. The next few slides, we’ll have some quotes from that. Now Lawrence Schiffman was the director of Judaic Studies at New York University. He said, “The ideal covenant people are people who realize they have an agreement with God and that agreement obligates them and the obligation cannot be thrown off when it’s inconvenient, when it’s difficult. For example, Jews were persecuted and gave their lives rather than give up their religion. To a great extent, the temple is the spiritual center, or for us, the synagogue today, of such a covenantal community. So covenant is realized through action, ritual action, but remembering also the ritual action is designed to teach moral and ethical action.”

Now, I love this. This is from Professor Stehndal who was the Dean of the Harvard Divinity School, later became the Lutheran Bishop of Stockholm, the state religion there in Sweden at that time. “In antiquity, a temple with its altars and its big basins for libations, the Jerusalem temple was a place you went to carry out holy acts, sacrifices, and the like, and I feel that the Mormon experience of the temple has sort of restored that meaning of the word temple.” Then back to a quote from Lawrence Schiffman at NYU. “When it comes to the temple, I think one of the ideas is that a person that comes into the structure is overcome spiritually to feel that he or she is in the presence of God. God is there. He has made this the indwelling of His presence and therefore when we wish to communicate with that presence, all we have to do is enter into that especially holy place. And in Judaism, some part of that is rubbed off on the synagogue, but it is generally understood the real presence of God dwells at a much higher level, you might say in a temple structure.”

Elder Holland, he said on the strength that comes from the temple, “I can go to the temple and feel close to God. I can feel holiness, and if I’m lacking in that for whatever reason on a given day, I can go and do a little better as a result of that. I can go and try to mend my ways and improve and promise and repent and fortify, and I can leave strengthened for the journey.” And I love this from Elder Packer on the comfort from the temple, “Temple is a great comfort. Another thing a temple is, it’s quiet. Pretty hard to find a place that is quiet in the world anymore. Members will often go to the temple when they are in stress, when they are mourning, when they have challenges. They go there and the place is totally sacred. Reverence is a reverence that allows you to ponder and meditate and think and feel, and so it’s the source of great comfort. Often members of the Church will go to the temple with a very vexing problem, and they have no idea of what they will do with it. And as they go to the temple and go through the ceremonies there, then it is as the scripture say, the voice of the Lord comes into their mind, and what was not solvable become solvable.”

And then I love this to launch this video section that my wife did. Professor Stehndal again at Harvard Divinity School said, “The temple was the house of God. It was where the divine and human touch.” And look at this symbol, you’ll find this all over the place on the temples, the square and the circle. The square representing the earth, the four corners of the earth, and the heaven as a circle. It’s never ending. You combine those together and that’s where the divine and human touch there. And with that, I want to show this presentation my wife put together, set to music. Ponder over these words as you view this. Remember each temple is very different, made with the best materials. And it’s also a representation of the creativity of God with each of these different temples, and many temples have these individual themes or motifs running throughout them as well. So please enjoy this presentation.

(music)

Okay. I hope you felt the Spirit in that video and the power of temples today. Some scriptures, Malachi 3:1 says, ” … and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple.” This is in the last days, and this happened April 3rd, 1836, the Lord appeared to Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery dual witnesses there of Him, and the Savior said He accepted the temple. And they described Jesus Christ in great detail. You can read that in D&C 110. I again found it fascinating that later Oliver apostatized and never denied any of these things happening. He did come back the last 18 months of his life. Malachi 4:5-6, “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to the fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse,” which leads to our latter-day work.

Obadiah 1:21, “And saviours shall come up on mount Zion.” Think about the unique aspect of the latter-day temple work compared to ancient temple work. This proxy service. It was done on a very limited scale in early Christianity. I have a video on that about baptisms for the dead. It is mentioned in I Corinthians 15, but that’s a big part of the work that we’re doing. And I love this quote from the professor, the Dean of Harvard Divinity School again, Krister Stehndal. He says, and this is told in this video by Truman Madsen, Between Heaven and Earth video I mentioned early. He goes, “Let me give you an example of my holy envy for the Latter-day Saints. We Lutherans, when we lose our loved ones, we have funerals, we have cemeteries, but that ends our concern with those that have gone before. But the Latter-day Saints care about their forbearers to the point that they want to bring the blessings of Christ’s atonement to them, so they build temples, and according to Paul’s instructions in 1 Corinthians, they perform baptisms for the dead.” Then he smiled and said, “I have holy envy for that.” I just love that.

Okay. Now let’s talk about some of the issues here with first of all, the veil of the temple. So if you recall the veil of the temple was rent at the Savior’s crucifixion, and many Christians today say, “Well, that was the symbol, the sign that the temple is not needed anymore there.” So, Hebrews 10:20, what was the veil of the temple symbolic of? It is very interesting. It tells you exactly in Hebrews 10:20. “By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh.” His flesh was the veil. Now, He paved the way through the atonement. Through the atonement of Jesus Christ, that allowed us all to be able to come back to God. So, there is great symbolism of this as well, but the key aspect is that the flesh was torn. Three days later, Christ was resurrected. The veil was mended. The temple did not go out of existence there. That’s a misinterpretation there.

And in fact, here’s some great examples from the apostles involved in the temple after the Resurrection. New Testament apostles continued to worship in the Jerusalem temple after Christ’s ascension. I’ve given you all the verses. You can look them up here if you want. Even Paul worshipped there. Paul is explicitly said to have performed purification rituals. Paul prayed in the temple. Paul claims he has not offended against the temple, implying he accepted sanctity. Paul also offered sacrifice, prosfora, in the temple. Paul had a vision of Christ in the temple. I think about Christ Himself, His last week is talked about Him daily teaching the temple. But importantly, He even cleansed the temple, really showing His Father’s house and the sanctity, the state of sanctity that was needed to be retained in that site there.

Okay. Now, the next three slides are from the late LDS scholar Matthew Brown, and he spoke at the 2008 Fair Mormon conference. He had this paper he put together, The Israelite Temple and the Early Christians. He said, “It can be seen that the first-century disciples of Jesus Christ attended the temple often, experienced purification rites there, prayed there, taught there, and received revelation from the resurrected Lord there. Notice that all of these things happened after the tearing of the temple veil, which occurred during the crucifixion. It is obvious that the destruction of that particular curtain did not signal to the first-century Christians that the temple had become obsolete and should therefore be abandoned.”

“Another argument made by the critics is that since Moses built the temple and the rituals of priestly initiation where practiced inside the Tabernacle, they must’ve been classified as part of the Law of Moses. Therefore, when the Atonement abolished the Law of Moses, the initiation rights of the priests become obsolete, or so the argument goes. But as anyone who reads the Old Testament should know, the office of priest, as recognized by God, predated the Law of Moses, and so did the office of king. Melchizedek was both a king and a priest in Genesis, and as indicated in the Psalm 110 coronation text, the king of Israel was by divine decree a priest after the order, not of Aaron in the Law of Moses, but of Melchizedek, because the offices of king and priest existed prior to the Law of Moses. There was no reason for the abolishment after the Atonement had eliminated the old law.

Some other key biblical verses. So the destruction of the temple by Titus in 70 A.D., not leaving a stone unturned is a prophecy fulfilled. Further evidence that God was rejecting the temple, some may say. Well, look at these. Some key biblical verses of future temples. Ezekiel 40 through 44 records a vision of the gathering of Israel and of another great temple, which will be built at Jerusalem in the future. Isaiah 2 prophesizes of a temple that will be built in the last days, and the tops of the mountains and all nations shall flow into it. Revelation 6, it’s indicated that some people who once dwelt upon the earth had ascended to the heavenly temple and were invested there with white robes. And then Revelation 7:15, the apostle John saw during his vision, God’s throne was still located inside of His heavenly temple after the Atonement had taken place, and that those who had overcome through the blood of the Lamb were before the throne of God and served Him day and night in His temple. And He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

Okay, and then here, Matt Brown. “The text of the New Testament suggested the orthodox Christians who lived in the area of Jerusalem at the time of Jesus Christ did not abandon the Israelite temple after the Atonement had been wrought; they were forced to leave it instead. The book of Revelation indicates that these Christians held to a belief in the existence of and relevance of the heavenly temple of God, and they also believed in the ideologies of kingship and priesthood as connected with that temple. In addition, they claimed that as mortals they had, like their heavenly counterparts, been made kings and priests unto God. Jesus Christ gave a series of promises to His faithful disciples in the book of Revelation, which all have connections to Israelite temple concepts, and most of them have connections to the actual initiation rituals of the Israelite kings and priests.”

This is actually the next video I’m going to do is tying many of these ancient and even primitive Christianity ties with symbolism in the temples today. Okay. And then I’m excited to finish with this last interesting aspect. So in Isaiah 2, as I mentioned, it says, “And it shall come to pass in the last days that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the tops of the mountains and shall be exalted above the hills. And all nations shall flow unto it. And many people shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths.'” This is the Salt Lake Temple.

I love what Brigham said about seeing the Salt Lake Temple in vision. This was four days after arriving in the valley, so July 28th, 1847. This is Brigham Young saying, “I scarcely ever say much about revelations or visions, but suffice it to say five years ago, last July,” which is 1847, “I was here, and I saw in the spirit, the temple, not 10 feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was represented before me. I have never looked upon that ground, but the vision of it was there. I see it as plainly as if it was in reality before me.”

And all of the symbolism, you know with the Melchizedek priesthood and Aaronic priesthood, the spires, the middle spire to be higher representing the First Presidency also and the Presiding Bishopric, which is the lower spires. But all of the great symbolism there. Now, if you were to actually look, so Ezekiel talked about this temple in the last days in Jerusalem would have water flowing out of it that would come down to the Dead Sea and heal the Dead Sea. Phenomenal symbolism with this. What’s fascinating is look at this picture here and if you want to go on Google Earth, you can actually see this and measure it. If you were to look at where Brigham Young pounded his cane into the ground, where the temple was to be built, the distance from that spot to the Great Salt Lake was similar to the distance from the Jerusalem temple to the Dead Sea. So very interesting aspect to that. And to take it even a step further, and I’m going to mention that City Creek coming out of where the Salt Lake temple is in a minute, but to continue the parallels, look at this.

The Jordan River, so if you were to go back and do an overlay of the Holy Land to the Salt Lake Valley, you’ll see a fresh body of water, Utah Lake, and a river flowing into the Great Salt Lake and it’s virtually the same distance approximately that you will see in the Holy Land between the Sea of Galilee freshwater and the Jordan River flowing there to the Dead Sea there. Kind of a fascinating overlay to that. And also I thought, well the last shall be first, the first shall be last. There’s some there because in the Holy Land, it’s north to south, but the the river flows in Utah south to north, but the exact same setup. And then you see where the temple is and this leads to this quote.

Salt Lake Temple President 2012, President Alldredge shared this at the LDS Business College Devotional. He says, “What is interesting is to compare the latter-day temple in Jerusalem with the Salt Lake Temple. Do you know that there is one place on the face of the earth where a river flowed from where the Salt Lake Temple is out of the Jordan River and then to the Great Salt lake, which is comparable to the Dead Sea, a very salty body of water. There is only one place in the world that could be like it. It is in Jerusalem. The Salt Lake Temple was built right over what is called City Creek, a little stream flowing out of City Creek Canyon. The stream originally came out of City Creek Canyon and divided into two forks and what is now where the Brigham Young Park is. One stream flowed down through what is now the City and County building. The other flowed right through what is now temple square.”

“Did you know that? It flowed out North Temple and eventually went to the Jordan River and then the Great Salt Lake. It’s an interesting parallel between the temple that Ezekiel saw, which would be built in Jerusalem, and the Salt Lake Temple.” I love the symbolism of the healing that comes from those waters that Ezekiel talked about, and if you think about the Atonement of Jesus Christ. That’s what the whole thing that the temple is about and the power to heal and this healing power that came through Elijah. It says that the whole earth, Malachi says that the whole earth would be wasted in its coming if Elijah had not come in. The power that comes through all of those ordinances in the temple and the atonement of Jesus Christ makes it possible. Hope you enjoyed this video. It’s such a thrilling, exciting part of the Restoration. Subscribe for more.

Resources:

Book:

Solomon’s Temple: Myth & History by William Hamblin and David Seely

Videos:

David Seely and William Hamblin 2007 FairMormon Conference: Solomon’s Temple: Myth & History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCovs…

Matt Brown – 2008 FairMormon Conference The Israelite Temple and Early Christians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agsbZ…

And the transcript: https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

Between Heaven & Earth (2002) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4TbEN…

Articles:

Ancient Temples and Their Functions – Sydney Sperry Ensign Article in Jan 1972 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

LDSBC Devotional with Salt Lake Temple President, Mar 2012 – Salt Lake Temple Fulfills Biblical Prophecy https://www.ldsbc.edu/salt-lake-templ…

5 Incredible “Coincidental” Similarities Between the Holy Land and Utah Valley – Thirdhour.org: https://thirdhour.org/blog/faith/5-si…

Hugh W. Nibley, “What Is a Temple?” in The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives: https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/selected…

Richard O. Cowan, “What Old Testament Temples Can Teach Us about Our Own Temple Activity,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament (2013 Sperry Symposium) https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/ascendin…

Inside Temples – ChurchofJesusChrist.org: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/t…

Temples After Christ – Fairmormon.org: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 1 Comment

Temples & Masonry

There are a limited number of similarities between the temple endowment and freemasonry – this video discusses how to make sense of these and why they are not a cause for concern.

Okay. So, in this video I want to talk about the temple and the impact that Freemasonry may have had or may have not had on the temple. I will say, please watch the video I just released in conjunction with this, in a sense, on the ancient ties to temple ritual. If you watch that, you almost don’t need to watch this video specifically, in my opinion, but let’s go into it.

So, what is Freemasonry? Well, it’s one of the oldest and largest fraternal organizations in the world. Four million members today. Its origins are from the medieval stone guilds. A first reference you can find is in 975 A.D. in York, England. They started to collapse in the late 1600s though with the tough economy, and so they decided to open it up to non-stonemasons in a sense and attract other members. It really got its start though in 1717, when the first Grand Lodge was formed in London, and then some craziness really started to develop. In 1737, there’s a lot of stories where we’re told there’s a lecture in France, Chevalier Ramsay talked about elaborate story of the Crusaders and the Knights Templar helping to preserve the craft with secrets that were recovered from the Holy Land, and so there’s just a lot of interesting things.

It was a very controversial group. It still is because of the secrecy. In fact, Joseph Smith said that the secret of Masonry is to keep a secret there, but that was part of their practice and to show fidelity to the covenants essentially. Also, there was concern that they replaced religion without salvation. There it required belief in God, but there was no focus on Christ and no focus on any kind of salvation in there. It’s a focus on ritual drama of teaching through active participation, focused on a man named Hiram Abiff. That’s the legendary name, but it is an actual person in 1 Kings 7, Hiram of Tyre, the widow’s son of the tribe of Naphtali. He is essentially murdered, and you participate in this in Masonry for not sharing the secrets, the secret passwords, in a sense that was there.

And he was in 1 Kings 7 instructed to help build the temple. In fact, even the mason with the 12 oxen, he was given instruction to do that there. The act of participation is to reinforce moral and social values, especially fidelity there, and they believe he was the master architect of the temple.

So, why did Joseph want to join? Well, Joseph and the Saints in Nauvoo, this is when this happened. If you think about it, they’ve been driven out of several states now, and any kind of brotherly kindness through a fraternal organization, and that was the focus is brotherhood would’ve been very attractive, especially with non-members possible and help protect them in a sense.

Also, the thought of going back to Solomon’s Temple. That was the very solid understanding everyone had of this at that time, and so there would have been a desire I think to learn their line upon line, which had happened throughout the Restoration. And so, the Nauvoo Lodge was built at the end of 1841. Joseph Smith went through it in mid-March, March 15th of 1842, and he received the initiation and went through the three degrees, main degrees of Masonry, to become the Master Mason. And then, he introduced the Endowment about two months later on May 4th in the Red Brick Store.

So, huge problems started to develop because there were just a number of Masons in Nauvoo, 1,200. There were 2,000 in the United States, 1,200 in Nauvoo, so it created a lot of strains. There are concerns of power. In fact, Joseph actually is believed were killed in the martyrdom by fellow Masons. In fact, his cry, “Oh, Lord, my God,” was viewed by many as the Masonic call for distress, which did no good if those were his Masonic brothers in a sense.

So, okay, comparing it to the temple, Masonry and the temple are so dramatically different if you think about, again, a belief in Christ, salvation. No women are allowed. It’s just for men. They can become Masons. There are some auxiliaries that will allow women now, but no women initiates. There’s no baptism, no ordinances in that sense. There’s salvation, no washings, anointings that we do in the temple. Sealings to children or to spouses, no proxy work, no priesthood. So, there’s just tremendous differences foundationally. The place where there’s some similarities that come about are in the Endowment in the ritualistic format of the way that the Endowment is done, and then some symbols also that I’ll go through.

So, a few great quotes here. Non-member, even anti, Fanny Stenhouse said, ‘It has always been commonly reported, and to a great extent believed, that the mysteries of the Endowment House were only a sort of initiation of the rites of Masonry; but I need hardly say that this statement, when examined by the light of facts, is altogether ungrounded and absurd.” The Catholic scholar, Massimo Introvigne’s writes, “Anti-Mormons often read too much into similarities between the Endowment and Masonic ritual. Smith had used the Masonic language of the rituals for the purpose of confirming his followers familiar with Freemasonry into a doctrine which had no similarities with anything they had heard in the Masonic lodges.”

Now, in the Endowment, the Masonic imagery or ritual teachings, there are four possibilities for believers in my mind. This is my own slide, just the way I’ve put it together, but Masonry, Freemasonry, ties directly back to Solomon’s Temple, 100%, or number two, Masonry ties back to early Christianity, which was influenced by ancient temples. Number three, Masonic rituals are not ancient, but Joseph and everyone of his era thought they were, and God was able to use this as a catalyst for the full revelation on the temple endowment. Remember, God speaks in the language of his children and in their circumstances or for some combination of the above. And that’s my guess is number two and three would be my guess of the combination here, and I’ll show that as we go through hopefully.

Okay. There’s actually in 2008 a Deseret News interview with the new Grand Master of the Utah Grand Lodge of Masons. It’s a member of the Church, and he said here in the interview, “Freemasonry is not a religious practice, but confusion about what it stems in part from the fact that the fraternity is believed by many historians to have originated in the ancient world because its symbols and rituals bear some similarity to sacred ceremonies that existed among the Egyptians, Coptic Christians, Israelites, and even the Catholic and Protestant liturgies– all thought to have some common biblical source.” I’m going to come back to that.

“Many believe it originated with some stone masons who worked on Solomon’s Temple in Jerusalem, though no definitive evidence of that legend is known to exist. Others speculate that its tenants were had by Enoch and possibly by Adam. Scholars have documented evidence that institutional Masonry dated back only to the Middle Ages when great European cathedrals were being built by guilds of stone masons who practiced the craft.” Okay. The official Church website on the topic of Masonry says, “The emphasis on the similarities between the teaching styles and outward forms of Masonry and the temple endowment obscure significant differences in their substance. Masonic ceremonies promote self-improvement, brotherhood, charity, and fidelity to truth for the purpose of making better men, who in turn make a better society. During temple ordinances, men and women covenant with God to obey His laws for the purpose of gaining exaltation through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Masonic rituals deliver stage-by-stage instruction using dramatization and symbolic gestures and clothing with content based on Masonic legends. The Endowment employs similar teaching devices, but it draws primarily upon the revelations and inspired translations given to Joseph Smith for its content.”

If you look here in the … I love what was said in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism by Kenneth Godfrey. He said, “Resemblances between the two rituals are limited to a small portion of actions and words,” and I would add some symbols, which I’m going to go through.

“Indeed, some find that the LDS Endowment has more similarities with the Pyramid texts and the Coptic documents than with Freemasonry. Even where the two rituals share symbolism, the fabric of meanings is different. In addition to creation and life themes, one similarity is that both call for the participants to make covenants. Yet, the Endowment alone ties covenants to eternal blessings and to Jesus Christ. The Masonic ceremony does not emphasize priesthood or the need to be commissioned by God to represent Him. The active participation of God in the world and in men’s lives is a distinctly LDS temple motif, while Masons believe in an undefined, impersonal God. Everything in the LDS Endowment emanates from, or is directed to, God who is a personage and man’s eternal Father. The Endowment looks to the eternities and to eternal lives, but Freemasonry is earthbound, pervaded by human legend and hope for something better.”

And he goes on to say, “Freemasonry is a fraternal society, and in ritual all promises, oaths, and agreements are made between members. In the temple Endowment, on the other hand, all covenants are between the individual and God. In Freemasonry, testing, grading, penalizing, or sentencing accords with the rules of the fraternity or membership votes. In the Endowment, God alone is the judge. Within Freemasonry, rank and promotions are of great importance, while in the LDS temple rites, there are no distinctions. All participants stand equal before God. The clash between good and evil, including Satan’s role, is essential to and vividly depicted in the Endowment but is largely absent from Masonic rites. Temple ceremonies emphasize salvation for the dead through vicarious ordinance work such as baptism for the dead. Nothing in Masonic ritual allows for proxies acting on behalf of the dead.”

“Women participate in all aspects of LDS temple rites. Though Freemasonry has women auxiliaries, Masonic ritual excludes them. The Endowment’s inclusion of females underscores perhaps the most fundamental difference between the two rites: LDS temple rites unite husbands and wives and their children in eternal families. Latter-day Saint sealings would be completely out of place in the context of Masonic ceremonies. Thus Latter-day Saints see their temple ordinances as fundamentally different from Masonic and other rituals, and think of similarities as remnants from an ancient original.” Absolutely love that.

Okay. And then if you want to pause the screen, you can read this. This is Matt Brown. This book is the book I would highly recommended if you want a big read on this, Matt Brown, Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons. In here, he does a great summary of what temple activities are centered on, what masonic activities are centered on, dramatic difference, and it kind of parallels to a lot of the stuff we just read there in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism.

If you go, Joseph’s command to build the Nauvoo temple. The revelation in 1841, January, talks about washing household built to my name, Moses, the tabernacle, to build a house in the land of promise that those ordinances might be revealed, which had been hid from before the world was, your anointings, your washings, your baptisms for the dead, memorials for your sacrifices, and listen to this. “for your oracles.” Now in 1833, that meant divine statements and commandments. So, think of divine statements and commandments, “… in your most holy places wherein you receive conversations and your statutes and judgments.”

“An endownment … house be built … kept hid from before the foundation of the world, and I will show unto my servant, Joseph, all things pertaining to this house and the priesthood thereof.” Fascinating there, and so this was well a year plus before Joseph went through and became a Mason there. The Lord was preparing his mind and what was going to happen there.

So, if you will look again in this book for Matt Brown, he talks about the connection between early Christianity. So, if you look here, “Orthodox Christianity is the place to start looking when it comes to the question of Masonic origins. The Encyclopedia Britannica goes so far as to state that up until the Grand Lodge Era, 1717, Freemasonry was wholly Christian in nature. Robert Cooper, the curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library, puts it plainly. ‘Freemasonry adopted much Christian symbolism and iconography. Freemasonry doubtless used other sources and invented some, but the majority were adopted from Christianity.'”

“How far did the borrowing of the Masons extend? According to John Hamill, ‘None of the symbolism employed in Freemasonry is peculiar to Freemasonry. It has all been borrowed.’ With this perspective in mind, it seems prudent to look at Orthodox Christianity as a source for the setting of practice of the Freemasons.'” Now it’s fascinating he does this. Look at this. He compares the Masonic lodges to the early Christian churches, and he goes through this in the book in detail and shows these specific things. The lodges, the altar, the chair settings for leaders, the Mosaic floor, the candlesticks, the shiny icon for God seen in the east, and how these tie to early Christian churches.

Then, he goes even deeper. This is fascinating. He goes into the early Christian rites and their ties to these in Masonry. These are the subsections of this long chapter. He goes through temple, guard, three degrees, drama, manner of presentation, prayer, darkness and light, oaths and obligations, mysteries, circumambulation, almsgiving, investiture, regalia, death and immortality, and catechism. He says, “An important clue about the origins of Masonry rituals can be found in the writings of one Masonic historian from the late 19th century. He notes that in the year 1870, he traveled to Rome and witnessed the initiation of a Benedictine monk at St. Paul’s Basilica,” and then he actually gives in the book, the actual description of this initiation.

And then, he says, “Those who are familiar with the initiation rites of Freemasonry cannot fail to recognize the parallels between this Orthodox Christian ritual and that used for the induction of speculative Masons. Indeed, the further back in time one looks, the closer the connection between Masons and the Christian faith becomes.” Then it gets really crazy fascinating. He includes in his book, “Another Masonic author who took an interest in this line of thought in modern times was a reverend by the name of Neville Cryer. ‘I think I know where we came from,’ he said. ‘The real basis of Freemasonry is Christian understanding and the purpose of the rites is to place a man on a figurative pilgrimage to God’s heavenly temple.’ Reverend Cryer’s studies led him to the conclusion that some of the legendary material of the craft came from a world history composed by a Roman Catholic monk.”

In addition, he concludes that Masonic signs originated with the set of gestures utilized by a few of the orthodox monastic orders. He felt that the catechetical instruction of Masonry was rooted in the method of monastic worship, i.e. the chanter and deacon statement and response routine performed in the choir. Allegory coupled with symbolism according to Cryer can be traced to the monk known as the Venerable Bede, 673 to 735 A.D., who wrote about the Israelite temple. His work even became part of the monastic curriculum. Finally, Cryer thought that the Jesuit monks employed symbols that the Freemasonry had adopted.” So, my next question is where did these monks get it from way back then? So, fascinating thoughts.

Okay, so let’s look at, actually various comments from early Church leaders on Masonry. Willard Richards said, “Masonry had its origin in the priesthood. A hint to the wise is sufficient.” Heber C. Kimball, “There is a similarity of priesthood in Masonry. Brother Joseph Smith says, ‘Masonry was taken from priesthood.'” Benjamin F. Johnson, “Joseph Smith told me Freemasonry as at present, was the apostate endowments, as sectarian religion was the apostate religion.” Joseph Fielding, “The LDS temple ordinances are the true origin of Masonry.”

Now, the Church website actually says, “Joseph and his associates understood Masonry as an institution that priests preserved vestiges of ancient truth. They acknowledged parallels between Masonic rituals and the Endowment but concluded, based on their experiences with both, that the ordinance was divinely restored.” Remember, the Lord speaks to them in their understanding and their circumstances, and they were going through both and viewed it this way. How would they see this in their time and experience?

Okay. Dr. Mark Rivera is a Latter-day Saint, and a Mason. He actually has written a lot. He presented at a Worldwide Freemasonry Conference, and I’m going to share a couple of fascinating comments he shared there. I’ll link it in the program. “I believe that this pattern is key to understanding the emergence of the LDS temple ceremonies. As we have seen, Joseph Smith came to his Masonic initiation in 1842 with years of experience that gave his initiation a unique context. For over 20 years, Smith had shown a pattern of encountering sacred texts, pondering them prayerfully, and then receiving major revelation.”

Now, if I can say as an example, James 1:5, pondering that text led to the First Vision. As they pondered baptism, and translating the Book of Mormon, led to the experience of receiving the priesthood restoration. As they ponder the Resurrection, that’s when he and Sidney Rigdon had this hour-long vision of the three degrees of glory in the upper room of the John Johnson Farm. The Book of Abraham, as he pondered the Egyptian scrolls, receiving that revelation there.

So, “For seven years, Smith had been in possession of ancient Egyptian texts that dealt with ritual initiation. Smith had been involved in the development of rituals for temple worship for over a year. Based on other revelations he had received, Smith had been expecting to receive major revelations involving the bestowal of temple rituals. With these sorts of concerns on his mind, Joseph Smith received the first three degrees in Masonic initiation in March 1842. Those who have been through the craft degrees of Masonic initiation know that when the ceremonies are conducted well, they are solemn occasions that can make a long lasting impression upon the candidate. It is my belief that the three Masonic ceremonies of ritual initiation constituted for Smith another sacred text for him to ponder and meditate upon. In turn, I believe this pondering and contemplation over the weeks following his initiation became a context for Smith to receive a major revelation consistent with the pattern in which Smith had received some major revelations before.”

And then, the Endowment came about several months later. And in fact, the official Church website says this, similar thoughts. “There are different ways of understanding the relationship between Masonry and the temple. Some Latter-day Saints point to similarities between the format and symbols of both the Endowment and Masonic rituals and those of many ancient religious ceremonies as evidence that the Endowment was a restoration of an ancient ordinance. Others note that the ideas and institutions in the culture that surrounded Joseph Smith frequently contributed to the process by which he obtained revelation.

In any event, the Endowment did not simply imitate the rituals of Freemasonry. Rather, Joseph’s encounter with Masonry evidently served as a catalyst for revelation. The Lord restored the temple ordinances through Joseph Smith to teach profound truths about the plan of salvation and introduce covenants that would allow God’s children to enter His presence.”

So then, Dr. Rivera continues, and he says, “I believe Joseph Smith’s Masonic initiation was a sort of catalyst and event that prepared Smith’s mind to receive the major, temple-related revelation that he had been awaiting for over a year. Smith’s Masonic initiation also provided him with a sort of ritual vocabulary, something that his general Protestant upbringing in upstate New York had not provided to him. According to this interpretation of events, Joseph Smith neither violated his obligation as a Freemason by revealing Masonic ritual, nor plundered Masonic ritual for the LDS Endowment ceremony. The experience of Masonic initiation prepared Smith’s mind to receive through revelation an extensive body of ritual for the LDS temple Endowment. However, the one was not stolen from the other. A direct comparison of important aspects of the Masonic ritual of initiation with the LDS temple Endowment ceremony is highly instructive.”

And I love this, by the way, because he is a Mason and a Latter-day Saint. He says, “Symbolic meaning of the gestures is paramount as I believe that they are symbols of the specific covenants that the temple patron has made. There are those who would say that the very existence of ritual gestures in the LDS temple ceremony raises suspicion of some Masonic origin. The example of history says otherwise. One may find ritual postures and gestures,” watch what the other video I mentioned, “illustrated within the art of many religious and spiritual groups across the earth and through the centuries.”

“For example in Egyptian sacred artwork, one may see what seemed to be ceremonial postures and gestures. Some people have claimed that these seemed similar to postures and gestures found in the LDS temple ceremony. As another example, dozens of symbolic gestures or mudras are to be found within the religious traditions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. Some people have claimed that some of these seem similar to gestures in the LDS temple ceremony, and it’s obviously senseless to claim that Joseph Smith stole his temple ceremonies from the ancient Egyptians, the Hindus, the Taoists, or Japanese Buddhists. There was little in the way of literature on these traditions available to general readers on the American frontier during the 1830s and 1840s.”

Then, he finishes, “The fact of the matter is that symbolic postures and gestures are part of the symbolism of spiritual and initiatic traditions throughout the human history; our present Western culture being relatively uneducated in matters of serious and esoteric spirituality, is relatively unfamiliar with the aspect of spiritual symbolism, but the Masons are not unfamiliar with it and neither are the Mormons. Of course, all of this raises the question of why such things as symbolic postures or gestures should have any spiritual significance at all.”

“It makes sense for human spirituality to be expressed in physical ways. The use of ceremony and body postures and gestures serves to involve the body quite directly in a spiritual endeavor. Adopting a certain posture or making a certain gesture sends a message to the mind that now we are doing something different, something special, something meaningful.” I love this.

Donald Parry and Joseph Fielding McConkie said this on symbolism. “Symbols are the universal tongue. Symbols bring color and strength to language while deepening and enriching our understanding. Symbols enable us to give conceptual form to ideas and emotions that may otherwise defy the power of words. They take us beyond words and grant us eloquence in the expression of feelings. Symbolic language conceals certain doctrinal truths from the wicked and thereby protects sacred things from possible ridicule. At the same time, symbols reveal truth to the spiritually alert. Symbols are the language in which all gospel covenants and all ordinances of salvation had been revealed. From the time we are immersed in the waters of baptism to the time we kneel at the altar of the temple with the companion of our choice in the ordinance of eternal marriage, every covenant we make will be written in the language of symbolism.”

And then, John Widtsoe said, “The Endowment is so richly symbolic that only a fool would attempt to describe it. It is so packed full of revelations to those who exercise their strength to seek and see, that no human words can explain or make clear the possibilities that reside in temple service. The Endowment which was given by revelation can best be understood by revelation, and to those who seek most vigorously with pure hearts will the revelation be the greatest.”

Okay. Now, let’s talk about some symbols. The compass and the square symbol used in Masonry and in Latter-day Saints. Matthew Brown talks about this in the book. He says, “Parley P. Pratt reported in his autobiography that in the year 1830 he was shown shapes that correspond to these particular instruments, the compass and the square, in a heavenly vision, and they were not displayed to him in a Masonic fashion either. The compass and square are biblical symbols in the sense that they were actually mentioned in the 1599 Geneva Bible in a footnote for 1 Corinthians 3:3.”

But take a look at this slide going way back. There’s ancient paintings showing the first rulers of China holding the tools of creation, the compass and the square, and I talk about this in the other video. One of the earliest images of a square is a carpenter from the tomb of Rekhmire in Egypt in the 18th dynasty there. So, interesting things there. The Royal Arch degree, which is an optional advanced degree in Masonry, also. Joseph did not participate in that, but some people point to that as also a source of the temple because it involves robes and going through a veil to the Holy of Holies. Well, that’s exactly what the Bible says, too. That was what happened in Solomon’s temple. So again, interesting things there.

So, a hand clasp. Look at the dates on here. First of all, this goes way back. Anyway, watch the other video on that, but look at these dates. 1832, the right hand of fellowship was given by Elder Partridge. 1836, the First Presidency and Twelve took each other by the hand in confirmation of their covenant with each other. 1839, I love this one. Joseph taught the members of the First Presidency, this is D&C 129, one of the keys of the kingdom, which was how to detect the nature of an otherworldly visitor by means of a hand clasp.

“Holiness to the Lord.” That appears on the wall in the Masonic Lodge. It’s also on every temple. It’s also in Exodus 28. “Thou shall make a plate of pure gold and engrave upon it the engravings of signet, ‘Holiness to the Lord,’ and that’s to be worn upon the forehead of the high priest and be consecrated for the ordinances.'”

Bees and the Beehive. This is kind of used by lots, but it was also in the Book of Mormon. In Ether 2:3 it talks about the honey bees called deseret. 1832, we had this comment here, “Industry like the bees.” In 1841, working on the temple, “Busy as bees,” there.

Another one is aprons. The stonemasons wore aprons, so they wear aprons there. The Latter-day Saints wear aprons to represent Genesis 3 where it talks about Adam and Eve wearing aprons, and that was this symbolic reference to those. Totally different meanings.

The Eye of Providence, or the all-seeing eye, Book of Mormon verses, here, you can see them there talking about the all-seeing eye. That’s there. Look at this Christian painting, back to 1525. Fascinating. Proverbs 3, “The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good.” “The light of the body is the eye. If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.” Now, this has become a big symbol of the Illuminati, which is just conspiracy theories. The Illuminati was squashed. Anyway, centuries ago, but it was started in 1776 in Bavaria by Adam Weishaupt. He established the Order of the Illuminati. And then a year later he became a Mason, and he tried to start recruiting people into this order from the Masons, so that’s why it ended up that the Illuminati often being tied to the Masons. Their goal was actually to replace the monarchy there in Bavaria with a Republican government. The police destroyed them eight years later, demolished the order. Everyone was kicked out of Bavaria and all Masons as well, but rumors continue to persist to this day as you well know, I’m sure. And this all-seeing eye is often used as a symbol of the Illuminati.

I love this. Look at this screen here. This Eye of Providence is on the $1 bill. If you look at it there and look when it happens, 1782. Now Freemasonry, they adopted this in their iconography in 1797, so it wasn’t from the Masons. This already existed well before that, and I showed you the painting from the 1500s, but I love this, this Latin “annuit coeptis”, He approves our undertakings or has approved, and it says, “God knows 13 steps,” there representing the original states, and then the future growth, the unfinished pyramid, there. So, kind of cool.

Then, the Pentagram. So, take a look at all these pictures of pentagrams here. The bottom left is from ancient Israel. It was viewed as the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Pentateuch, and the middle one is from the Masons. The top right is the pentagram pointing down. This was thought of as Christ and the five points of the wounds of Christ and coming down to earth often was the way that that’s why we put it on the Nauvoo Temple, pointing down. Christ coming down to Earth.

But then this was adopted and changed into a symbol of the occult. It’s crazy, but it happened in 1856. A Catholic Deacon, Alphonse Constant, he changed his name to Eliphas Lévi. He became … He was a Mason, a Catholic Deacon, but he became very involved in an occult and magic, and he adopted the symbol. He said the inverted Pentagram specifically meant evil there, and that was in 1856. So again, it’s sad how, but not surprising, Satan would want to try and turn some of these beautiful symbols in there.

Now, I love the aspect of this symbol, by the way, of Venus, the Morning Star. Jesus Christ himself in Revelations 22 refers to himself as the Morning Star, and that was looked at as that is the star. Venus is the closest planet to Earth, and when it’s on the other side of the Sun, it leads the Sun up in the morning. It appears several hours before, and it’s the bringer of light. The Greeks called it there. They referred to it as the Morning Star. If you look at the pattern that Venus forms over eight years in rotating around the Sun, it is a pentagram. I just love that symbolism. It’s beautiful. It’s all there, and again, desecrated by Satan with trying to make this a symbol of the occult.

And Truman Angell actually wrote a letter to the prophet John Taylor, addressing symbols on the temple and informed him in writing that none of the symbols on the building’s exterior were meant to be Masonic.

And then, last I want to finish with this. Scott Gordon in 2017 FairMormon Conference gave a phenomenal presentation on Mormon temples and Freemasonry. I put it in the show notes. You can watch it or read it. But, I love the way he ended with a Q&A, and I want to share these key things. He says, “Did Joseph simply copy the temple ceremony from the Masons? No. There is too much in the temple that isn’t related to what goes on in Masonry.” Question, “Are there elements in the Endowment ceremony that are found in Masonry? Yes. There are a few, but they have been completely repurposed. Certainly, the temple ceremony contains some of the phrases, wording, and symbols that exist within Masonry, but these things, both Masonic and biblical, are part of the world Joseph Smith lived in. Just as we use movie language in our speaking, it’s not surprising to have some Masonic language in the world of Joseph Smith.”

Question, “Does Freemasonry go back to the time of King Solomon, or is it a modern creation?” Answer, “We don’t know, and we have no way of knowing. While members of the Church like the idea of Masonry from the ancient temple and it is what early Church members believed and taught, currently, thought leans towards a more modern origin of Freemasonry. Nevertheless, even if there were a more modern origin, Masonry included Biblical temple themes and ancient symbols.”

Question, “Did Joseph copy those similar elements from modern Freemasonry, or do they stem from Solomon’s temple and other ancient temples?” Answer, “We don’t know, and we have no way of knowing.”

Question, “Did Joseph Smith simply believe something was ancient that was really modern and copy that into a fake temple ceremony? No. Even if you stripped out all the elements that overlap with Masonry, the temple ceremony is surprisingly in alignment with ancient temples.” Watch my other video. “The Lord wanted to give us a gift or endowment. He directed Joseph Smith to create a ceremony where we would make covenants with God and received promised blessings. The teachings, covenants, and promises within that temple ceremony do not come from Masonry. Even if we were to take the position that Joseph Smith took the revealed covenants and designed a ceremony himself to remind us of those covenants on a regular basis, Joseph Smith would still be a prophet acting within his calling. We take the sacrament each week to symbolically reenact the Last Supper while we make covenants. In the temple, we are symbolically reminded of our purpose in life and how we should follow God. I know that that theme comes from God and is ancient in origin.”

And then, he concludes by saying, “Masonry focuses on man’s relationship to man, while the temple endowment focuses on man’s relationship to God. While there may be some passing similarities between some Masonic rituals and the temple ritual endowment, the teachings, the covenants, and the purpose are completely different. Did Joseph Smith use some of the words and symbols from Masonry to create the temple ceremonies? Probably, but only a very small amount that he repurposed for a different meaning.”

“Did the Masons use words and symbols from Solomon’s temple to create their Masonic ceremonies, or were they purely 17th century creations? I don’t think anybody knows that answer for sure, but it really doesn’t matter. Because the claim Joseph Smith borrowed the endowment ceremony from Masonry, whether created in the 17th century or not, is clearly false. While there are a few similarities, the entire purpose and intent is different. Instead of believing that Joseph Smith copied the ceremony from the Masons, it makes much more sense to say that Joseph Smith received the promises and covenants of the temple from God and from scriptures. But, he also adapted and repurposed some things he was exposed to in Freemasonry to assist in that temple ceremony. Whether those few repurposed Masonic elements are of ancient or modern origin, I will leave up to you.”

And I will leave it up to you as well. Hope you enjoyed the video. Subscribe for more.

Resources:

Book:

Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons – Matthew Brown

Videos:

Fairmormon 2017 Conference – Temples and Freemasonry – Scott Gordon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsbsG… and written transcript https://www.fairmormon.org/conference…

Masonic Initiation Rituals and Mormon Temple Ceremonies – Dr Mark Koltko-Rivera https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCu0d…

Articles:

Deseret News Article, Mar 29,2008; A Mormon Mason: New grand master is the first in a century who is LDS https://www.deseretnews.com/article/6…

Church Website – Topic: Masonry https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

FairMormon – Mormonism & Freemasonry: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

Encyclopedia of Mormonism – Freemasonry and the Temple; Kenneth Godfrey https://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Freemas…

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

The Cross: Enhancing Interfaith Dialogue

This video discusses the history of Latter-day Saints’ treatment of the cross symbol, the meaning this symbol holds for other Christian religions, and how our understanding of these differences can increase respect and interfaith dialogue.

Okay. So, in this video I want to talk about the cross, using the cross as a symbol. Hopefully it’ll help us with some of our interfaith dialogue with our fellow Christian brothers and sisters. And also talk a little bit about our history. It’s a lot more complicated and complex and lesser-known, many parts of it, in relation to this and from the 19th century. So I think it’s helpful to have some of that background, as well.

So let’s start out with a fairly well-known statement from President Hinckley about how we view the cross and why we don’t use it in our worship as a symbol here. There’s been many quotes from church leaders and articles in the Ensign, but this is one of the most classic ones here that you may be well familiar with. So let’s play that now.

President Hinckley:
I do not wish to give offense to any of my Christian brethren who use the cross on the steeples of their cathedrals and at the alters of their chapels, who wear it on their vestments, and imprint it on their books and other literature. But for us, the cross is the symbol of the dying Christ, while our message is a declaration of the living Christ. The lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith. And in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship.

Okay. If you note on that particular phrasing he said, “For us, the cross is a symbol of the dying Christ.” For most Christians, it’s not. For them, it’s actually more of a symbol of His life and overcoming death. That would be the way that they look at it. So we can give offense to them with the way that we maybe have dialogues about this. Or maybe you’ve even heard people use the analogy, would you wear a gun around your neck to honor Martin Luther King, Jr that was assassinated, as an example? And that’s just not the way we should talk about these kinds of things in the way that they would view the cross as a symbol. So we can be offensive in the way that we say that. We need to understand how we view the cross is not the way that our our fellow Christian brothers and sisters view the cross.

So I want to talk about the three main types of crosses in Christianity. You’ve got the Roman Catholic cross, the Orthodox cross, and the Protestant cross. The first two crosses are called crucifixes because they’ve got the body of Christ on them.

So let’s first talk about the Roman Catholic cross. If you look, here’s an example here. This is to really show Christ dead or dying, and to illustrate profound suffering that was required for our redemption. We do this through partaking of the emblems of the sacrament every week, but this is one way that they do it. I want to share some beautiful words from a Catholic scholar on the history of using the cross in the Catholic Church. And I thought this was beautiful.

And I will say, the early Christians also struggled in using the cross, the very first Christians, in the sense that they were threatened with death and so they had to be very secretive. Also, it wasn’t a good symbol to be proselytizing the Jews and the Gentiles in the Roman Empire. And really it was also fear of it breaking the second commandment, viewed as an idol possibly. All that went out the door with Constantine later, but here’s this quote. This is from the Catholic scholar Steve Ray, The Cross and The Crucifix. He wrote, “The Christians of the first centuries did not actually add the figure of Christ to the cross. The crucifix is a Latin cross with the body of Christ attached to it. In early Christian art, the crucifixion was represented by the Latin cross alone, but by the fifth century, the body of Christ was painted on the cross and later became a sculpture attached by four nails, one in each hand and foot. The Church added the figure of Christ to remind the faithful of the great suffering that brought about their redemption.”

“During most ages of the Church, Christians were illiterate. In fact, in the Roman Empire, only 10% of the population could read and write. The great and beautiful symbols in the Church, including the Crucifix, were the gospel for the illiterate. Bibles were not available because the printing press had not been invented. The great images and stained glass windows gave the poor and illiterate the opportunity to gaze upon the Christ and the gospel and tell the stories in picture to their children and the unbeliever. These images also inspired adoration and faith in the believers as they worshiped their Savior.”

Isn’t that beautiful when you think about visiting some of these ancient cathedrals and how beautiful they are? But to think about this as the gospel for the illiterate, those that couldn’t read, inspired adoration and faith in their believers.

Now let’s take a look at the Orthodox cross, or I should say the Orthodox crucifix, here. The focus of this is typically on Christ being alive, shown being alive, sometimes shown looking up, showing that he has overcome death there.

And if we look here at the Protestant cross, it doesn’t have a body on it. This is to symbolize Christ has conquered death, and it’s also a symbol of the Resurrection, because He left the cross behind. I think that’s very cool. So again, good reminders of how they view the cross very different than the way we do, in a sense.

Now getting to some of our own history. And I will recommend if you want to go deep into this, this is a fascinating book written by a member of the Church. He’s got a PhD in Christian History, Michael Reed, called Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo. And in fact, it started by, he actually was writing a master’s thesis with this concept that the influence of Protestants joining the Church and coming into the Church, very few Catholics coming in, and that that was probably why we didn’t use the cross in the Church as a symbol. And what he found was a very different message, in a sense, and it was so fascinating and so much history there, he decided to write a book on it.

And it was really interesting because the Protestants really rejected the cross as part of the reformation, in fact, tore down different buildings and art and things. Martin Luther did not. That was the the exception, but they really protested the cross, essentially, as Catholic and even talked about it as idol, as well. So in the United States, very Protestant nation, essentially, at the start. So in 1820, there were 195,000 Catholics. By 1850, there were 1.75 million. It was a ninefold increase. Now the population also increased, but it went from 9.6 million to 23.2 million. That was about two and a half times in growth. So the Catholics were growing at a much higher rate. It did create some consternation about this high growth, increased the anti-Catholic feeling, still very much a minority there.
And so the cross, again, was not used here except for the Latter-day Saints had some use of the cross. And there were several reasons, but the one that really persisted, and this flip-flopped, actually in the next coming century, the Protestants began to adopt the cross. And today it’s used throughout Christianity of all types, except the Latter-day Saints in the mid-1950s and I’ll get to that, essentially banned using the cross, basically, as a symbol.

But prior to that, one of the reasons we did, one of the big reasons was the pre-Columbian crosses that had been found and the evidence we felt like it had towards the Book of Mormon in ancient America. In fact, take a look at this picture here. This is an example of a pre-Columbian cross found in Chiapas, Mexico at the Temple of the Cross Complex here, and it’s called the Tablet of the Cross. So you can see the cross very well there.

Take a look at this. So Quetzalcoatl was an ancient deity in the Mesoamerican culture, and here’s the apostle John Taylor, he is talking about this and the discovery of this. In Lord Kingsborough’s Antiquities of Mexico, published in 1831, he observed, “The 73rd plate of the Borgain codex is the most remarkable of all, for Quetzalcoatl is not only represented there as crucified upon a cross of Greek form, but his burial and descent into hell are also depicted in a very curious manner.” So the crucifixion part is the one you’re seeing here in the symbol.

So another great example of … these crosses made the members feel like, “Hey, there was Christianity at some point in ancient America. That’s what the Book of Mormon says.” So it was a very powerful aspect of validating for these early saints, the Book of Mormon and the historicity of the Book of Mormon happening in ancient America. Well, it also gave them good vibes about the cross, in that sense, as a symbol. And so there was some of it that was being used in various forms.

So here are some pictures just to give you some ideas. Here’s some jewelry here. These are two members of Brigham Young’s family here. One wearing a brooch, another wearing an earring, both crosses.

Okay, here’s another one, Benjamin F. Johnson, wearing a cross on a watch chain, if you look there. On the right, the daughter of John Whitaker wearing a cross necklace. And then on the right, the daughter of John Whitaker Taylor wearing a cross necklace. You can see that.

Okay. Some building examples. Here’s the Salt Lake Liberty Ward building, stained glass with crosses. If you look there on both sides.

Here’s the building up in Ogden, the Utah Deaf Branch Meeting House, with crosses there. Also in Salt Lake City, the Whittier Ward Chapel stained glass cross rosette. There’s three there.

Okay. How about some floral arrangements at funerals. On the left here, the anchor cross, this was in 1887, President John Taylor here. In fact, that anchor cross was used in early Christianity, even, to disguise the cross a little bit. And it was also that Hebrews 6:19, the anchor of hope for the soul. And then Joseph F. Smith speaking at a funeral in Brigham City, and you can see there’s a cross-shaped floral arrangement there.

Okay. How about this? Here’s some other examples, an early pioneer quilt with crosses on it.

Here’s an actually fascinating early edition from Europe of the Doctrine and Covenants, crosses on the spine of the Doctrine and Covenants.

Here’s a temporary cross monument in Immigration Canyon, which read, “This is the place,” Brigham Young.

Here’s a headstone, B. H. Roberts, the apostle B. H. Roberts. Note the date here, 1933. Even that late using the cross there.

And now, if any of that was surprising, this one will be a big shocker. So B. H. Roberts really pushed for a massive cross to be put up as a monument to the pioneers on Ensign Peak, wanted it to be seen throughout the city. That’s how big they wanted it to be. And in fact, the Church agreed to send the petition to the Salt Lake City Council to erect this.

And here’s the actual quote here, this was in the Deseret Evening News in May, 1916, this is the Presiding Bishop with the petition. He says, “Your petitioner, in behalf of the Church he represents, requests the privilege of erecting on Ensign Peak a suitable cross, the symbol of Christianity, as a memorial to the Mormon pioneers who first established here that which the cross implies. We would like to construct it of cement reinforced with steel of sufficient dimensions that it can be readily seen from every part of the city. Your petitioner believes that it will add to the interest of strangers who are visiting our city and constitute one more work of art or memorial, which will emphasize the fact that this is the place.”

Okay. And it was received and did create a bit of a controversy. Here’s a positive one, Karl Sheid, Commissioner of Public Affairs and Finance, said, “It has the potential to do more to remove prejudices and create harmony among fair-minded people than all of the drafting of statues and ordinances, the preaching of sermons, or the publishing of newspapers can ever do in this city and state. That the Mormon church, which has so frequently and so unjustly been accused of not being a Christian church at all, should volunteer to place Christianity’s most sacred emblem on Ensign Peak, that place so hallowed by the memory of pioneer days, should be and doubtless will be heralded to the four corners of the globe. The cross is a common heritage. It belongs to all of us.”

But there was a lot of controversy, also, that came along with it. The biggest thing was Ensign Peak was owned by the state, so there was this conflict between church and state. And at the end of the day, that’s really what drove this down where it just didn’t get get through, the problem there.

There was also a big uproar that had happened actually down in Mexico. We actually had a very sad story. This was during the Mexican Revolution, it was happening about this exact same time, and there were two converts down there that were murdered. And it was very sad. Branch president named President Monroy and his cousin Vincent Morales. As an excuse to persecute these new converts, President Monroy had been falsely accused of being a leader of a revolutionary faction. And they were given one last chance and they had to do two things. They had to renounce their religion, and they had to confess before the Virgin Mary. They wouldn’t do it and they were shot and murdered. So that created a huge firestorm, also, about the same time. So a lot of those things were happening.

Well, next few decades things bounced around. Interesting story with Spencer W. Kimball, when he was called to the Twelve in 1943, he had six days, very restless, he felt overwhelmed, inferior, not worthy of the call. He went on a hike to seek peace. And this is what he actually says that happened to him. “As I rounded a promontory, I saw immediately above me the peak of the mountain and on the peak a huge cross with its arms silhouetted against the blue sky beyond. It was just an ordinary cross made of two large, heavy limbs of a tree, but in my frame of mind and coming on it so unexpectedly, it seemed a sacred omen.” Quite fascinating.

So then in the late 1940s, 1948, J. Reuben Clark debated on KSL the Catholic Bishop Duane Hunt. And it went back and forth, and Bishop Hunt was saying, “We need to follow the pope,” and members were really upset. “This was on KSL. Why are we allowing this?” But really, this was the straw that broke the camel’s back, in reality, was a publication of a pamphlet. Bishop Hunt’s assistant published a pamphlet that was lamenting the poor living conditions of the Catholics in Utah. The pamphlet said nothing about proselytizing the LDS, but it was entitled A Foreign Mission: Close to Home. That was the title of it. And mission, obviously, had radically different connotations between the Latter-day Saints and the Catholics.

In fact, listen to this, this was in David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, Prince and Wright wrote this. “In the Catholic vernacular, and certainly in the context of the pamphlet, mission meant a rudimentary, underfunded parish. In the LDS vernacular, however, mission meant only proselytizing. A Mormon who saw the pamphlet without reading its content could thus easily have concluded that it was the first foray of a new initiative to lure Latter-day Saints away from their own faith into Roman Catholicism. One such Mormon was David O. McKay. Speaking to local church leaders in his hometown of Huntsville, ‘I presented to them the avowed activity of the Catholic Church here in Utah and called their attention to a leaflet that designates Utah as a foreign mission close to home.'” So that’s really what started the institutionalization of banning the use of the cross in the Church.
McKay had some firsthand experience as a mission president in Europe and saw very few Catholics joining the Church, a significant number of Protestants joining, had some different experiences with the Catholics in Europe there. And so here is really when this became final in the book here, Banishing the Cross. And McKay wrote in his journal, “Bishop Joseph L. Wirthlin called me by telephone and asked me the Church’s position on the following question. He stated that he had been asked today if it would be proper for LDS girls to purchase crosses to wear. It is Bishop Wirthlin’s understanding that there is a company downtown which is pushing the selling of these crosses to girls. I told Bishop Wirthlin that this is purely Catholic, and Latter-day Saint girls should not purchase or wear them. I stated further that this was a Catholic form of worship. They use images, crosses, et cetera. Our worship should be in our hearts. Bishop Wirthlin said that this had been his opinion, but he felt that he should check with me before making a statement. Thus began the formal church policy banning use of the cross among Mormons.”

So it was never a revelation, per se, but it has became a practice entrenched for what? Six and a half decades or so now there. I don’t see it changing or anything, but the point is, if we understand, particularly be a lot more sensitive, maybe, to how we talk about the cross with others and understand how they view it in particular. I hope this video is helpful for that and subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Book:

Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo by Michael Reed

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy 1 Comment

Eternal Marriage – Evidences

This video discusses the restoration of sealing power, which allows for marriage to continue after death. Malachi, in the closing two verses of the Old Testament, prophesied of the coming of Elijah in the last days. This sealing power was restored by Elijah when he came to the Kirtland Temple on April 3, 1836. The incredible significance & symbolism of why it happened on that particular day is also reviewed, as well as the many scriptures reinforcing the blessing of eternal marriage. Although many Christians feel in their heart that their marriages won’t end with death, their church teaching of ‘until death do we part’ is based on a highly misunderstood Biblical passage which is also reviewed in this video.

Speaker 1:
So in this video, I want to talk about eternal marriage and sealing of families. It’s this tremendous blessing that we enjoy in the Church. The peace of mind it brings in this life and the hope for the life to come is part of the gospel plan. Many Christians struggle with this because in their mind and their heart, they feel this. They’ll talk about it, but yet it is not the doctrine of their church. Now, let’s watch a brief clip from Elder Holland describing the feelings he has about this.

Elder Holland:
I don’t know how to speak about heaven in the traditional, lovely, paradisiacal beauty that we speak of heaven. I wouldn’t know how to speak of heaven without my wife or my children. It would not be heaven for me. Now, you can say that’s wishful thinking, or you can say that’s just because you love each other and you’ve gotten cozy here on earth and you like each other’s company. It’s a lot more than that. There is something eternal in the statement that neither is the man without the woman nor the woman without the man in the Lord. That isn’t just good sociology. That is theology. It’s eternal.

Speaker 1:
Okay, so let’s look at some scriptures in the Bible. So first of all, the classic Genesis 2, Adam and Eve, they’re married here in the Garden of Eden. Look at this. “Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they shall be one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.” The question is who married them? Obviously, we know who: God, with His power, and he could not say until death do you part. There was no death, so marriage in the beginning was forever and it was by God’s power.

Speaker 1:
It is interesting to note that we view the term marriage as part of the Abrahamic covenant, and the religions that are considered part of the Abrahamic religions, in a sense, tying back to Abraham, the three strands, you’ve got Islam through Ishmael, and then Judaism and Christianity through Isaac and Jacob. They all have semblances and beliefs through their history. And I’ll go through a little bit of this. Not necessarily Islam, but they do believe in eternal marriage, so marriage in heaven. So kind of fascinating, a little side note of that.

Speaker 1:
But a few more scriptures, some other Bible verses. Matthew 19:6. “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” Okay, how about Paul in 1 Corinthians 11? “Nevertheless, neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man in the Lord.” You just heard Elder Holland say that. 1 Peter 3:7. “Likewise, ye husbands, dwell with them according to knowledge, giving honor unto the wife and as being heirs together of the grace of life; that your prayers be not hindered.”

Speaker 1:
Okay, and then the power, by how, is in Matthew 16, verse 19. “And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” We’ll discuss this a little bit more in a second, the restoration of that power.

Speaker 1:
Now, including children. Isaiah 65:23. Understand this is a verse about the millennium, so this is to come. It says, “They shall not labor in vain, nor bring forth for trouble, for they are the seed of the blessed of the Lord and their offspring with them.” So Malachi talks about this in the last days, Malachi 4. “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.” That’s how important it was there.

Speaker 1:
Now, Elijah did come in 1836. This was a very special time. Let’s read it in D&C 110 and then talk about the critical nature of this. So after the vision, this is D&C 110, “Another great and glorious vision burst upon us, for Elijah the prophet, who was taken to heaven without tasting death, stood before us and said, ‘Behold, the time has fully come, which was spoken of by the mouth of Malachi,’ testifying that he, Elijah, should be sent before the great and dreadful day of the Lord come, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, the children to the fathers. Therefore, the keys of this dispensation are committed into your hands, the keys. And by this, ye may know that the great and dreadful day of the Lord is near you, even at the doors.”

Speaker 1:
I love this picture too. Think Oliver Cowdery’s there as a second witness. And he left the Church. He apostatized. He came back the last 18 months of his life, but when he was gone, sometimes, those are the most powerful witnesses, I think, because he didn’t deny this experience whatsoever. So a very, very powerful witness.

Speaker 1:
Now, this could really be a separate video on its own. It’s so powerful, the timing of when this happened during Passover in 1836. Now, just to give you a little snippet, and I would suggest, I’m going to link to this, but if you’ll go to the Church’s website and look in this article, The Restoration of Priesthood Keys on Easter 1836: Symbolism of Passover and of Elijah’s Return by John Pratt. It’s fascinating. Very detailed and scientific article.

Speaker 1:
But if you look on the left hand side, you’ll see there the correspondence of the Atonement to the Passover in dates, in the study going back to A.D. 33. And if you look there, at the very bottom, Sunday, April 3rd, 1833, was 16 of Nissan to the Jews. “The Passover event was the first fruits of the harvest presented to the Lord. And the event of the Savior’s life was the Resurrection.”

Speaker 1:
It was the first fruits of the Resurrection come forth, the first real Easter essentially. So look at this here. “The origin of the tradition that Elijah would return at Passover seems to have been lost in antiquity. It has been suggested that Elijah’s return was associated with Passover, the feast commemorating the redemption of Israel, because it would herald the coming of the Messiah, the Redeemer of Israel. Whatever the origin of the associating of Elijah with Passover, the tradition was proved correct when Elijah did return at Passover in 1836.”

Speaker 1:
Now you remember the Jews set a place for Elijah during Passover and that’s part of their tradition, that Elijah would come during Passover. “However, he did not return to the Passover meal when the cup was offered on the evening of Friday, April 1st. Instead, he returned on Easter Sunday, the second day of Passover”, the way that they would measure it, “the day of the presentation of the first fruits of the harvest. The long awaited return of Elijah occurred in the Kirtland Temple on Easter Sunday, 16 Nissan, April 3rd, 1836.”

Speaker 1:
Now, this really will blow your mind, “So how often does Easter Sunday occur on both April 3rd and 16 Nissan as it did in A.D. 33? It happens less than once every century on the average. The year 1836 was the only such occurrence in the 19th century. Interestingly, the accuracy of the calendar alignment between A.D. 33 and 1836 is even more precise than to the very day. To understand this added precision, a new concept called a realignment interval will be defined and applied to the lunar solar calendar.”

Speaker 1:
Now this goes crazy in science and some of these things and they go into it. They have a whole sidebar really going into this realigned intervals. I’m just going to read this bottom thing. I think you’ll get the point. This kind of blows your mind. Says, “To the very day, the Easter of 1836 completed a Jewish calendar realignment interval of 1803 years since the Easter of A.D. 33. This fact has two consequences. First, the Jewish calendar would begin to repeat for several years. Secondly, it means that the Easter of 1836 was calendrically the most similar in history to the Easter of 33 A.D., the resurrection of Christ. And if the earth’s orbit continues unchanged, that Easter should retain this distinction for another 3000 years when a better realignment interval is due.”

Speaker 1:
That blows my mind. That’s fascinating stuff. Just love it. Maybe we should have done a separate video just on that whole tidbit, but just fascinating stuff. Okay, some other interesting tidbits here. This is from the FairMormon.org website about ancient Jewish understandings and early Christian’s beliefs regarding marriage. “The Jews seemed to have believed in eternal marriage from at least second temple times since they posed a question about the woman with seven successive husbands”, we’ll talk about that in a minute, “asking which of them would be her husband in the Resurrection. The concept of eternal marriage is well-attested among Jews in the medieval period and is frequently mentioned in the Zohar which also notes that God has a wife, the Matrona, mother, and is known in the Talmud.”

Speaker 1:
“In the Falasha, which is the Jewish Ethiopian text, 5 Baruch, it has Jeremiah’s scribe, Baruch, being shown various parts of the heavenly Jerusalem, with different gates for different heirs. The text then says, ‘I asked the angel who conducted me and said to him, ‘Who enters through this gate?’ He who guided me answered and said to me, ‘Blessed are those who enter through this gate. Here the husband remains with his wife and the wife remains with her husband.'”

Speaker 1:
Okay, now some interesting tidbits here from … Now, if you remember in the last video I did, talking about a couple of videos on ancient Christianity, the gnostics, or the sect that claim the early secret teachings of Christ when he came for the 40 days after His resurrection. And that secret knowledge that they had many different splinter groups of gnostics, and there’s lots of crazy writings. They were eventually condemned as heretics by the church that remained. But a lot of these findings of the Nag Hammadi texts were found in 1945. the Gospel of Philip, which was dated to the third century, was one of those gnostic texts. And I’m going to share a couple of interesting tidbits from that.

Speaker 1:
First of all, the early Church Father, Irenaeus, said, “Some of the gnostics prepare a bridal chamber for those who are being consecrated, and they claim that what they are affecting is a spiritual marriage after the image of the conjunctions above.” Okay, here’s the Gospel of Philip I mentioned, “There were three buildings in Jerusalem. The one facing west was called the holy. The one facing south was called the holy of holies, and the third facing east was called the holy of the holies, the place where only the high priest entered. The holy of the holies is the bridal chamber. The redemption takes place in the bridal chamber, but the bridal chamber is in that which is superior to it and the others because you will not find anything like it.”

Speaker 1:
And then look at this last point, “The woman is united to her husband in the bridal chamber. Those who have united in the bridal chamber will no longer be separated.” So that’s worth, I think, at least sharing from that gnostic text. So, some interesting symbolism here, correlating threads with the Latter-day Saints that you’ll recognize in different practices. Here’s Roman Catholic marriage. “In Roman Catholicism, the marriage of the bride and groom has traditionally been performed while the couple kneels at an altar holding hands. The ordained priest performs the ordinance while two witnesses view the holy rite, thereby fulfilling the scriptural law of witnesses.”

Speaker 1:
“Eastern Orthodox, the bride and groom at their wedding don the traditional wedding crowns, known as stefana, from the Greek word stephanos, meaning a wreath crown. These are placed upon the head of the bride and groom as a symbol of their role as king and queen before God.” Okay, even the Hindus. Fascinating. They don’t believe in eternal marriage because they believe in reincarnation, but this is fascinating, powerful symbols in here. “The Hindu bride and groom clasp hands as they are married, their hands being tied together. The binding of the hands is a standard symbol for marriage and the unity that should exist between a bride and groom. The act of binding the hands highlights the permanence of the relationship.”

Speaker 1:
Okay, now Christians today, they hang their hat on one passage in the gospels. They say, “This is the proof that marriage doesn’t exist in heaven. So even though I want it very badly, it doesn’t exist because of what Christ, how he answered this question from the Sadducees.” So here it is. Matthew 22: 23-30. “The same day came to him, the Sadducees, which say that there is no resurrection.” Note that they point that out. The Sadducees which say there is no resurrection and asked him, saying, “Master, Moses said if a man die having no children, his brother shall marry his wife and raise up seed unto his brother.”

Speaker 1:
“Now there were with us seven brethren, and the first, when he had married a wife, deceased, and having no issue, left his wife unto his brother. Likewise, the second also, and the third unto the seventh. And last of all, the woman died also. Therefore the resurrection, whose wife shall she be of the seven? For they all had her. Jesus answered and said to them, ‘You do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God, for in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in Heaven.'”

Speaker 1:
Now think about all the scriptures that we just read and the many other things. This doesn’t jive with that. So you have to look at that in whole and say, “There must be some other things that were missing here, understanding.” So there are four quick things I’ll go through. Most members know, the most common way to say is, “Well, the Sadducees didn’t believe in the resurrection.” So to them, obviously then this doesn’t exist. Marriage wouldn’t exist because the Resurrection, they’re not going to be resurrected on there. And interesting, the gospel writers really make a point to point out that these are the Sadducees that don’t believe in the Resurrection asking this question. And right after Christ answers this, He goes into some things about the Resurrection. That was what he wanted to focus on with them.

Speaker 1:
So that’s kind of an interesting point. But it could also simply been stating a straight up fact of how things work without the sealing power. Remember, they were under the Law of Moses, this was the Aaronic priesthood. So without that sealing power, the “they” that they’re referring to in this would just be like exactly like we read in D&C 132. Here it is, D&C 132: 15 and 16. “Therefore, if a man marry his wife in the world, and he marry her not by me nor by my word, and he covenant with her, so long as he is in the world and she with him, their covenant marriage are not of force when they are dead, and when they are out of the world, therefore they are not bound by any law when they are out of the world. Therefore, when they are out of the world, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are appointed angels in heaven.”

Speaker 1:
Does that sound familiar? It’s exactly what Christ said, so I do think that that may be a good part of understanding that aspect of this and the way that he addressed it. Now, the third thing could be that the word that he’s using here is a Greek word that talks about the action of getting married. He says nothing about the Greek word that would be used for being married, actually being married there, just not going into marriages, which is something we also have some foundation on of maybe things being done before the Resurrection, and that was the point he was making is that these things will not happen after the Resurrection.

Speaker 1:
Look at this quote from James E. Talmage, the Apostle James E. Talmage in Jesus the Christ. He says, “In the resurrection, there’ll be no marrying or giving in marriage; for all questions of marital status must be settled before that time, under the authority of the Holy Priesthood, which holds the power to seal in marriage for both time and eternity.” Remember the great proxy work that we are doing in this last dispensation, and will go through the millennium, so all of this will work out somehow with with those principles and how that works.

Speaker 1:
Okay, one last option to share. This one’s a little bit less well known and a bit esoteric. I think this is really kind of fascinating because it is puzzling that Christ says to them, “You do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God.” What is He talking about? So there’s an interesting thought and I’m just going to share this straight from FairMormon.org. I thought this was great, the way they put this. And it was actually using something from the Catholic Bible actually, in the Book of Tobit, which is in the … We look at as the Apocrypha. The Catholics actually have it as part of their Bible. So let’s look at it here.

Speaker 1:
It says, “The source of the story of the Sadducees told by Jesus comes from one of the books of the Apocrypha Tobit, where a woman named Sara was married to seven men, each of whom died on the wedding night. The text also notes that Raphael, the Archangel, was sent to give Sara, the daughter of Raguel, for a wife to Tobias, the son of Tobit, because she belonged to Tobias by right of inheritance. Jesus probably had this account in mind when he told his Sadduceean interrogators, ‘You do err not knowing the scriptures nor the power of God.’ They had neglected to note that she had married an eighth husband and that God had sent an angel to arrange the marriage.”

Speaker 1:
So they didn’t know the rest of the scripture, He’s maybe saying, and the power of God that they had to do it, and this would have been before the Resurrection by the power of God. And so that worked out. But others, they would be angels in heaven if this didn’t happen this way. So anyway, kind of a fascinating a possibility there as well. So now finally, Paul mentions some things about confusing comments about marriage. They were related to temporary and unusual things, often dealing with missionary situations. And I’m just going to link to Fair Mormon. They do a great job addressing some of those questions.

Speaker 1:
But just remember, Paul’s the one that said in 1 Corinthians, “Neither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man in the Lord.” He’s the one that talked about the qualities of bishops to look for. One of them was to be married. And then he’s also the one that talked about … warned the latter-day apostasy would include the forbidding of marriage. So very interesting, that was Paul himself.

Speaker 1:
Now I want to conclude with this powerful message from President Kimball, First Presidency message. “The greatest joys of true married life can be continued. The most beautiful relationships of parents and children can be made permanent. The holy association of families can be never-ending if husband and wife have been sealed in the holy bond of eternal matrimony. Their joys and progress will never end, but this will never fall into place of its own accord. The way is well-defined and clear, eternal marriage was known to Adam and others of the prophets, but the knowledge was lost from the earth for many centuries. God has restored the truths and has provided the way. With the restoration of the gospel came also the genuine priesthood, and God has given to his prophet all keys, powers, and authorities held by Adam and Abraham and Moses and the early day apostles.”

Speaker 1:
“God has restored the knowledge of temples and their purposes. On the earth this day are holy structures built to the special work of the Lord, and each is the House of Lord. In these temples, by duly constituted authority, are men who can seal husbands and wives and their children for all eternity. This is a fact, even though it is unknown to many. It is inconceivable that otherwise intelligent, astute, and highly educated people should ignore or willfully disregard this great privilege. The doors can be unlocked, the gap can be bridged, and men can walk safely, securely to never-ending happiness, making their marriages timeless and eternal.”

Speaker 1:
I just love that, and I love the temple. I love the sealing power and the joy that it brings of having that knowledge of eternal marriage that I enjoy in my marriage to my sweet wife. I’m glad I could share these thoughts with you. Take care. Subscribe for more. Thanks.

Resources:

Talks & Articles:

The Restoration of Priesthood Keys on Easter 1836, Symbolism of Passover and of Elijah’s Return by John P. Pratt on churchofjesuschrist.org: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Temples and Eternal Marriage by President Spencer W. Kimball – First Presidency Message on churchofjesuschrist.org: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon.org dealing with marriage questions related to comments by Paul: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

Inasmuch as Latter-day Saints believe in marriage for eternity, how do we explain Jesus’ teachings in Matthew 22:29-30, David Yarn,Jr BYU in churchofjesuschrist.org: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/s…

Fairmormon response to the same Biblical passage: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Qu…

Fairmormon on Eternal Marriage: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Mo…

*See all resources from other temple related videos

January 21, 2020 By Jeff Roundy Leave a Comment

Discovery & Stats of Chiasmus in Book of Mormon – Evidences

The story told in this video, of the 1967 discovery of Chiasmus in The Book of Mormon by missionary John (Jack) Welch, is a miraculous evidence of the restoration by itself. But, together with recent stats showing that chiasmus, a literary device used heavily in ancient Hebrew writings, was purposefully woven into The Book of Mormon, rather than there purely by accident, is a strong evidence of the book’s Hebrew roots.

So this Evidences video, I want to talk about chiasmus, and particularly about the discovery of chiasmus and some fascinating recent statistics on its use in the Book of Mormon. But the discovery itself is a phenomenal witness of the Restoration in my mind. But chiasmus, the technique is used in writing to help to really stress a point that you’re going to make.

So this was used lot by the ancient Hebrews. And it would basically be a, they call it inverse parallelism. So you’d start out with the key point that you want to put in the middle, and then you would build to that point, and then boom, and then you would go down away from that point in the same fashion going back. A, B, C, D, E, E, D, C, B, A, that type of thing.

So okay, so I want to tell the story of the discovery of chiasmus that happened in 1967, and it is a witness to the Restoration. It was done by Jack, John Welch, he goes by Jack, Jack Welch when he was serving on his mission in southern Germany. So leading up to it, there’s these little nuances, little tiny aspects to this, and you can see the divine thread going through.

But he went to BYU, had Hugh Nibley as a Book of Mormon professor, really installed in him this deep desire to study the scriptures deeply, and especially the Book of Mormon. He went on a semester abroad to Salzburg in Austria and actually learned German there, read German, learned how their universities work, the European universities, which came in handy in the story.

So he’s called to the Southern German mission. While he’s serving, he ends up going to this area called Regensburg, and it’s in Southern Germany, but it happens to be different than most of Germany. Germany’s a very Lutheran country. This was a part of a counter-reformation. It was a very Catholic city, and also a very academic center focused part of the country.

But so one day, he just happens to be walking by and sees on a bulletin board a advertisement for a lecture series that was going to be held at, it’s called the Priesterseminar, but it was at the university, and it was just a few blocks from their home, but at this European local university, that’s where young men go to learn to be Catholic priests, this Priesterseminar. But the topic was going to be on the New Testament, and it was going to be on a Friday morning, which was actually their P-day, they call it their diversion day, their day off essentially. That morning they would be available to go, and I do think how interesting. How many missionaries would choose to do that on their P- days. So again, another, keep thinking these divine threads going through this.

But so they go and they don’t wear badges at this time, and they’re there, kind of incognito. It’s okay, it’s open to the public, but the professor was really excited to talk about a book that he had just read by a Jesuit priest named Paul Gaechter, and it was called the Literary Art in the Gospel of Matthew. And he talked about how Matthew was written to a Hebrew-reading audience, and they would have appreciated this literary style.

And Hebrews used this a lot because they memorized a lot of things and it helped them to memorize things, quite frankly. So it was definitely a big part of this oral tradition that they had. It would help them in the memorization aspect. But so he said you can see this in the Book of Matthew. Even the big structure of Matthew itself, there was this big macro structure, and they called it chiasmus. He had never heard of that term, Jack Welch hadn’t. And thought it was really quite fascinating. It was maybe something they could even talk to people about as they went about their missionary work.

So on the way home, he stopped at a bookstore, and they just happened to have this rare book, it had been published a few years prior. I think it was 65, but it was a rare book, but they happened to have it at the bookstore. So he got the copy of it and here’s the interesting thing. 10 days later, so this date will become extremely important in a few minutes when I mention it again. August 16, 1967, at four in the morning, he is woken up to a voice.

And here’s exactly what the voice says, “If chiasmus was anything like evidence of Hebrew style in the Bible, it must be evidence of Hebrew style in the Book of Mormon.” So he’s really excited, as he has this experience he’s like, “Well, okay. I’m going to start looking for it.” And he says, “Where should I start? Well, I’ll open up to where I last closed the book”, which was Mosiah 4. He opens it up and he starts reading in King Benjamin’s speech there and he gets to the address in Mosiah 5.

And he goes in here to this section verses 10 through 12, and if you look on the screen here, you’ll actually see what he saw. And the thing that’s interesting is it was in German. If it had been in English, he might not have seen it as clearly. But in German, the word transgression and transgress were translated as the same word, and the typesetter in German had put it, stacked it right on top of each other so it really jumped off the page.

And so he then looked at it and said, “Wait, so there’s an opportunity possibly.” So he went and looked at the verse above and the verse below, and then again. And he saw this pattern, you can see it on the screen here. From the middle down to the Cc, Bb, Aa, the central message was that the only way the covenant could be broken is through transgression, the covenant that they had made in this King Benjamin experience.

So then he even looked at the whole King Benjamin speech and saw this chiastic repetition in the middle. In Mosiah 3:18 and 19, the natural man and the atonement of Christ, and this is the most quoted passage in general conference, by the way statistically. And computers now show, it’s fascinating how central this is in King Benjamin speech. It’s kind of this macro chiasm, it’s just kind of where it falls in King Benjamin speech. So look on the screen here. 2,467 words above, 2,476 words below that passage, quite fascinating.

Okay, so he returns home, and as he’s going home from his mission, he’s actually able to meet Paul Gaechter at the University of Innsbruck in the monastery. Remember, he’s a Jesuit priest. In this meeting he says, Paul Gaechter tells Jack Welch that’s he a lucky man and that he has a life’s mission here. So really fascinating.

He comes home, he’s super excited to go meet, and the first time he’s in Provo, he goes to meet Hugh Nibley at his house, 10 p.m., at night, and Hugh Nibley is ecstatic, very excited. Nobody’s looked at this at all in the Church at this point, chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. And Jack had really spent the next part of his mission really getting deep into all the examples in the Book of Mormon.

And so Hugh Nibley agreed to be his mentor, and he started to publish some things there right away, BYU Studies in 1969, the Church magazines is 1972. He wrote a book called Chiasmus in Antiquity. And one fascinating thing several years after he had returned home from his mission, this is one of the greatest divine signatures I saw in this story.

He went back and looked at his missionary calendar, journal, and schedule, and he found that on August 17th, his one-year anniversary of his mission, he realized when that voice woke him up at four a.m. in the morning on August 16th, it was the exact ending day of his first year of his mission. It was literally the chiasmus of his mission. It was the midpoint. That’s a phenomenal witness of this story, also the divinity of this whole thing.

Now just going forward now, we just celebrated the 50-year anniversary. BYU had a big conference. Elder Holland spoke, there. Just fascinating, just on the chiasmus. And he runs a website now of resources, chiasmusresources.org. Jack became a great scholar in the Church, founded FARMS, which is now the Maxwell Institute, Jack is the editor of BYU Studies today. It’s just been fascinating to see his influence in the Church over the years.

Just to show you, the greatest chiasmus of all, Alma 36. Look at the screen here. I think this is one of my favorite parts of the Book of Mormon, but you just look at that chiasmus structure there, as Alma the younger, is telling his son Helaman of his conversion experience and how he had gone through this. And look in the center, “I remembered Jesus Christ, a Son of God. I cried, Jesus, Son of God.” And then look at how magnificent this structure is. And in a minute, I’m going to share how statistically unlikely this could have happened by chance and it’s phenomenal.

Now I want to share some quotes. Jack Welch actually spoke at the 2012 FairMormon Conference on the 45-year anniversary of chiasmus being discovered. And I’d love to share some quotes from him at that conference.

He says, “Too many people looking at chiasmus only wonder if it proves the Book of Mormon is true. It’s an important aid to us in taking the book seriously, and yes, it shows that the book is consistent with some ancient style that Joseph Smith probably had no idea of. But does it prove the Book of Mormon? Only by circumstantial arguments, yes. But it’s very valuable and one of the strongest arguments that we have. But beyond that, I’m much more interested in other things that it proves.”

“It proves that the book is not chaotic or devoid of form, it’s orderly. It appears to be carefully written. One may assume that planning went into that. Chiasmus may also show that a text is more profound, logical, or creative than some have assumed. It shows that the Nephrite records are consistent with the claim made by the book that it was translated from a Hebrew-based original. As one of the few literary forms that can easily survive translation, chiasmus may give us some clues about how the Book of Mormon was translated.”

He goes on to say, “Of course, chiasmus, broadly understood, is not used exclusively in Hebrew, but far and away, scholars find it to be more prevalent, more purposeful, and more demonstrable in Hebrew than in any other language or literature. The vast majority of articles and books in the chiasmus bibliography deal with chiasmus in the Bible. If it were found in comparable frequencies in other literature, one might expect to find a great deal more written on that subject in other literature.”

“Critics have said that, ‘Chiasm loses all of its persuasiveness as evidence for the divinity of the Book of Mormon when one realizes that it is a literary device which can occur quite naturally in non-divine writings, as well.'” I’m going to refer to this statistical study in a minute to tackle this. “But the point of chiasm in the Book of Mormon is not that it is exclusively found in divine writings or Hebraic writings, but rather that it is there at all: It is something that Joseph Smith wouldn’t have known about, and yet something that properly belongs in a text with ancient Hebrew roots.”

And think about, too, if Joseph Smith had known what he was doing and it was there, wouldn’t he have marketed the heck out of this, in a sense, and shown these parallels with the Bible and this chiastic approach in the Hebrew writings? So anyway, so he goes on to say, what are the odds that Joseph Smith would have known chiasmus was around?

He says, “As I show in detail there (FARMS Review in 2003), chiasm was not completely unknown in 1829, but I see no evidence that Joseph Smith actually knew of it. One cannot say, and we don’t need to say, that there was no chance at all that Joseph knew chiasmus, or that he couldn’t have somehow intuitively sensed it from the Bible, but this all seems extremely unlikely to me. On the one hand, it is always going to be impossible to prove a negative, but on the other hand, at some point the likelihood becomes small enough that the burden of proof or of persuasion shifts to those who deny an unlikely point.”

“Some people have suggested that Joseph Smith read extensively and knew the literature in his neighborhood. But his mother always said that he was not bookish, and even if he wanted to check books out in the Palmyra Library, he left Palmyra in 1826 to live in Harmony, Pennsylvania, or Fayette, New York, where I do not think there were any local libraries. Moreover, I have kept looking for evidence that John Jebb’s Sacred Literature, published in London in 1820, or either of the two books published by Thomas Boys in London in 1824 and ’25, all three of which deal boldly and innovatively with the idea of chiasmus in biblical literature, ever made their way to the United States before 1830. To what I have already written, I add the following: The evidence is extremely minimal.”

Then he goes on with the a bunch of details in this conference, and I’ll link to this if you’re interested. It concludes, “While further checking is still in order, only a few of these libraries were in existence in the 1820s, and it appears that they all acquired subsequent editions of these books at a later time. And even if Joseph had in some way learned about chiasmus, it assumes a great deal to think that he could have created these chiastic subtleties in the text of the Book of Mormon, as he went translating without notes and references back to previous portions of a passage or book. Some have blithely dismissed the idea that these literary structures are remarkable. One blogger suggests that Joseph Smith could easily have sat with his face in his hat and produced such chiasmas. But then I think of the monumental task of dictating in Ether.”

“Emma said he not using any notes as he is dictating this material. Think of the task. This isn’t really a chiasm, but it’s a type of reversal, a mere image. The beginning of the Book of Ether, Joseph goes through that Jaredite king list. 30 names starting with Ether and going back, back, back, back to Jared. And then what does the rest of the book do? It starts with Jared and goes through, tells a lot of things along the way, but interspersed is a reference to every one of those 30 names in exactly the opposite order. Somebody knows that king list and is using it as the background of the Book of Ether. That is pretty remarkable. I think it’s the same with a lot of these chiasms. Are you going to remember exactly the order and exactly how this worked? Not too likely.”

Now there was this study that I referenced the statistical studies. A father and son team, physics professors at Utah State University, did a study. I think it was in 2004, they updated it in 2010. And this was published in the BYU Studies Journal, I’ll put a link to it here.

It says, “An anonymous similarly suggests that chiasms in the Book of Mormon are the, ‘Result of the incredible amount of repetition contained therein, and are well within the bounds of probability.'” That person maintains that it should not be surprising to find chiasmus in the Book of Mormon because unintentional chiastic structure can be found in almost any passage of text, as long as it involves some repetition of literary elements. The author illustrates this claims with a four-element ‘chiasm’ found in the introduction to a computer manual, the INFORMIX-OnLine Database Administrator’s Guide.”

So yes, chiasm can certainly appear by chance in literature, and so they said let’s develop a statistical study and program of how to determine the odds of it happening by chance. And I will link to this study. You can see a video going through a lot of detail on this.

But here’s the table. So if you look at this, first of all, what they found was, statistically they said, “The odds for it to have been done intentionally should be at 1 out of 20,” so 0.05 probability there. So that would be their threshold. So if you look at the top here of that INFORMIX computer manual, the odds of it appearing by chance are almost perfect. Yes, you can definitely say that this is by chance.

Notice in Abraham 3 and also D&C 88, these are some of the top chiasms in other scripture, they’re not the Book of Mormon. Those are also by chance. So some critics will even to point to that, “See, here it is. This shows Joseph knew of chiasmus.” No, these were by chance.

Look at the four strongest in the Book of Mormon. Look where it falls on there on the scale. It’s below where it would be the 0.05 on there. So these would look to be very, very strongly intentional. Then if you look at Leviticus, this is the strongest in the, one of the strongest in the Bible, there. Very, very small likelihood that it happened by chance.

And then the last is phenomenal. Look at Alma 36. The chances of this happening are extremely small. In fact, statistically, it’s 1 out of 5,600. So evidence that this was extremely intentional, not by chance.

So I think this is a fun topic, fascinating evidence of the Book of Mormon, and of the Restoration. I hope you enjoyed the video. Subscribe for more.