Avoiding Temple Blindness: Tips for Preserving Healthy Vision
by Jeff Lindsay
I
am pained to see Latter-day Saints get carried away in cynicism over
the temple because some elements are linked to modern sources such as
Masonry. This is an important theme in some attacks that have gained
publicity recently, where it is argued that the temple is a fraud
because it does not contain elements from Solomon’s temple but
from modern Masonry.
As
I explain on my LDSFAQ
page on the LDS Temple and Masonry,
neither Masonry nor any other modern source explains the ancient
majesty of the LDS temple concept, which is completely foreign to the
modern world and to Joseph Smith's world.
Numerous
aspects of the LDS temple concept such as washings and anointings,
baptism for the dead, and the sealing of families have no
relationship to Masonry or and/or predate Joseph's exposure to
Masonry, making Masonry a completely inadequate source to explain the
content of the temple.
The
LDS temple is much more at home in a very ancient setting and offers
strong evidence for an actual Restoration. As for Solomon’s
temple, the relationship might be stronger than blind critics could
ever see, as I'll explore below.
The
modern charge that the temple was just plagiarized from Masonry
didn't occur to Latter-day Saint Masons in Joseph's day, including
those who left the Church for various reasons. They knew they were
dealing with something quite different, though it shared some
superficial elements.
As
discussed in more detail on my LDSFAQ
page,
John Tvedtnes has pointed out that there is "a corpus of
documents from the second century B.C. through the fifth century A.D.
that deal with elements of the endowment as it is taught in LDS
temples and which demonstrates the antiquity of the ordinance."
There
I further discuss a few specifics and provide links for more detailed
information. But for now, rather than getting caught up in minute
details such as whether a particular symbol is used in modern Masonry
or not, let's consider some broader issues.
The
real issue is not whether the temple has any elements in common with
Masonry or other modern sources. There can be many reasons for shared
elements, and they may not be significant.
A
more meaningful question might be "Can significant aspects of
the LDS temple be viewed as a restoration of ancient concepts?"
While the LDS temple is part of a modern dispensation, adapted for
modern participants, there is a strong case that it is part of a
Restoration of ancient truths and concepts.
Let's
begin with a review of the big picture of what the temple is,
beginning with its very existence, and then looking at its role and
purpose.
The
modern Christian world has given up on temples. The ancient temple is
gone and is no longer necessary, it is said. In a religious world
that denied the need for and importance of temples, Joseph Smith
provided revelations teaching that the temple was to play a central
role.
Modern
scholars in looking at the Bible and other ancient writings now
increasingly recognize that the temple and temple concepts were at
the heart of not only Judaism but also Christianity. Simply reading
the New Testament with an awareness of temple concepts, one can see
that Christ was constantly at or near the temple. He defended its
sanctity.
Though
early Christians would be cast out from the temple, at least
initially they gathered there often as read in Acts 2:47: "And
they [the followers of Christ], continuing daily with one accord in
the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, did eat their
meat with gladness and singleness of heart."
The
temple is where Christ was frequently during his mortal mission. It
is where He will return at the Second Coming, according to Malachi
3:1-2. And after His return, the Lord's temple is where Christians
will labor night and day during the grand Millennium (Rev. 7:15).
And
yet we are supposed to be believe that the temple just doesn't matter
any more? I can understand why the argument of convenience and
necessity, for the ancient temple was lost, along with the knowledge
and authority required to operate it. But the answer is not to give
up on the temple, but to look for and welcome its Restoration.
Scholars
like Margaret Barker are now showing us that temple worship and
related concepts were central to early Christianity. Her works such
as Temple Mysticism argue that one reason why the message of
Christ spread so well among the early Jews was that many were aware
of the ancient traditions going back to the first temple, before the
reforms that would stamp out much of the original temple concept.
These
traditions made the temple a place of ascent into the presence of
God, and taught the ancient Jews that the Divine Council included
Jehovah, a son of the Most High God. It was a place of covenants and
revelation where angels were involved and where human priests
represented divine beings.
Yes,
like the ancient temple, the restored LDS temple is a place of
covenant-making.
It restores the
ancient primacy of covenants
in the relationship between man and God.
In
fact, it employs a
full covenant pattern (the "covenant formulary")
from the ancient Middle East that was not recognized by scholars
until the 19th century. This pattern is also found in the Book of
Mormon, particularly in King Benjamin's covenant-making speech given
at the Nephite temple (Mosiah 2-4).
The
temple teaches an anthropomorphic God and Son of God who created man
with the intent of bringing them into their presence where they will
participate in their glory and joy. Theosis, becoming like God in some way,
is an essential aspect of the LDS temple and one that is strongly
attested in ancient sources — evidence of a Restoration.
The
temple is based on the concept of sacred teachings that are not
publicized but kept unwritten or secret. This flies in the face of
religion in Joseph’s day but recently has been strongly
confirmed in early Christian worship. Again, this is evidence that
the broad concepts of the LDS temple are consistent with a
restoration of ancient elements.
The
temple also prepares us for the journey back to God's presence in a
series of steps. The Endowment involves three rooms, Telestial,
Terrestrial, and Celestial. This is related to a variety of ancient
concepts, including the three major sections of Solomon's Temple.
The
most obvious aspect of the temple in Jerusalem involved the levels of
sacredness, increasing from the inner court to the holy place and to
the holy of holies. According
to Mircea Eliade, the three parts of the temple at Jerusalem
correspond to the three cosmic regions.
The
lower court represents the lower regions ("Sheol," the
abode of the dead), the holy place represents the earth, and the holy
of holies represents heaven. The temple is always the meeting point
of heaven, earth, and the world of the dead.
Lehi's
cosmology saw the world in these three realms (heaven, 1 Nephi 1:8;
the earth, 1 Nephi 1:14; and the realm of the dead, 2 Nephi 1:14).
King Benjamin, speaking from his temple, also sees the cosmos in
terms of heaven, the earth, and the realm of the dead (Mosiah 2:25,
26, 41), with entrance into God's presence as the ultimate joyous
state (Mosiah 2:41).
Considering
3 Nephi as a whole, we can also find these three distinct levels of
sacredness: (1) darkness/separation (3 Nephi 8–10), (2)
preparation/initiation (3 Nephi 11:1–17:23; 18:1–37;
19:13; 20:1–28:12), (3) apotheosis/at-one-ment (3 Nephi 17:24;
18:36–39; 19:14, 25–31; 28:10–18).
Josephus,
who was himself a priest (Life 1), says that the tabernacle
was a microcosm of the creation, divided into three parts: the outer
parts represented the sea and the land but ‘...the third part
thereof... to which the priests were not admitted, is, as it were, a
heaven peculiar to God’ (Ant. 3.181).
Thus
the veil which screened the holy of holies was also the boundary
between earth and heaven.
Josephus
was writing at the very end of the second temple period, but texts
such as Psalm 11 ‘The LORD is in his holy temple, the LORD's
throne is in heaven’, suggest that the holy of holies
was thought to be heaven at a much earlier period, and the LXX of
Isaiah 6, which differs from the Hebrew, implies that the hekhal
was the earth3.
The
Glory of the LORD filled the house in v. 1, and the seraphim sang
that the Glory filled the earth , v. 3.
The
LDS temple likewise progresses from creation to the fallen world, and
then ultimately to the Celestial Room after passing through the veil,
consistent with the ancient Jewish temple.
The
Ancient Temple: Not Derived from Masonry
Temple
themes and subtleties in LDS religion cannot be explained from
Joseph’s brief encounter with Masonry because a) Masonry does
not contain most of these elements, and b) many temple themes are
found in LDS scriptures predating Joseph’s brief exposure to
Masonry in 1842.
Examples
of ancient elements in the LDS temple not derivable from Masonry or
other sources accessible to Joseph Smith include:
The
covenant formulary:
a detailed pattern used in ancient Middle Eastern covenants that is
fully present in the LDS temple. The steps of this pattern were not
recognized by scholars until the 20th
century.
The
prayer circle, which has ancient roots. According to non-LDS scholar
E. Louis Backman, "If you are inducted into the Christian
mysteries, then you must perform a ring-dance round the altar ...
not only with the other novitiates but also with the angels! For
they are present and participate in the mystery." Religious
Dances in the Christian Church and in Popular Medicine,
trans. E. Classen (1952; reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,
1977), 19; see also Hugh W. Nibley, "The
Early Christian Prayer Circle,"
in Mormonism
and Early Christianity, 45-99,
originally published in BYU
Studies,
vol. 19 (1978).
Baptism
for the dead,
a practice that does have roots in early Christianity —
certainly not Masonry. Numerous documents since Joseph’s day
strengthen the case for baptism for the dead as an authentic
practice of at least some early Christians. This
practice clearly has no relationship to Masonry and is clearly at
odds with the religious environment Joseph grew up in. It cannot be
explained as a product of his environment.
Some of the symbols commonly ascribed to Masonry such as the square and the compass are ancient and may have common origins with Masonry. For example, both of these symbols are found together in a ritual context on Facsimile 2 (figure 7) of the Book of Abraham, on an Egyptian drawing involving the passage of man into the afterlife dating back roughly 2,000 years. Many other ancient sources provide support for these symbols as ancient, meaningful symbols that have been imbued with at least some of the meanings and applications found in the LDS temple. Since I am in China as I write this, I wish to also mention that ancient China offers further evidence for the antiquity of the square and compass symbols in the LDS temple, where the very common and ancient word for order and rules (especially those of a community or organization) is guiju (规矩), which literally means compass and square (the carpenter's square is depicted in right side of the ju character: 矩, which also an important element in many other characters). In the Third International Handbook of Mathematics Education by M. A. Clements et al., p. 527, we read:
In ancient Chinese mythology, there were demigods Nuwai and Fuxi who were the progenitors of mankind and shapers of human society. Legends say that Nuwa and Fuxi invented gui (compasses) and ju (set-square) to shape the world. On an ancient stone carving found inside a tomb from the East Han dynasty (25 to 220 CE) there is an intertwined image of Nuwa and Fuxi with Nuwa holding a gui and Fuxi holding a ju. For the ancient Chinese, the basic concept of the world was "heaven is round, earth is square" and there was an ancient motto that "without guiju [rules], there are no square and circle." This geometrical intuition about the physical world became metaphoric in the human world. The connotative usage of the word guiju refers to orderliness according to underlying rules, and even applies to human affairs. Hence for the Chinese, circle and square were elemental shapes and rules of the universe and they were embodied and symbolized by the tools that produced them.
See also "Nüwa and Fuxi in Chinese Mythology: Compass & Square" at TempleStudy.com. Note that the compass and square have meaning in the context of Creation as well as in establishing order for humans, reminding them of rules and boundaries for behavior. This is a good fit for the LDS concept and points to ancient roots for these symbols and their usage in the LDS temple.
Much of the evidence for the LDS temple as a restoration of at least some ancient elements comes from documents from antiquity that Joseph typically would not have read (often because the documents weren't discovered or available until years later). On the other hand, some of the most important evidence is in plain sight in the Bible, yet long overlooked or denied by modern Christians. The single verse mentioning baptism for the dead is of that variety. That verse is certainly not enough material to guide Joseph in creating that majestic doctrine and the vibrant concept of family history work that blesses so many lives today, yet that verse stands as one of several important strands of evidence that some early Christians did have this practice in some form. Likewise, the book of Revelation in the Bible is infused with temple themes that many overlook.
Ancient
and Restored Temple Themes in the Book of Mormon
The
Book of Mormon is rich with references to concepts related to temple
worship. For example, it makes reference to esoteric teachings or
mysteries that are not made public as we read in Alma 12:9-11.
Nephi
refers to the Savior as the keeper of the gate in 2 Nephi 9:41, the
gate that is at the end of the path that leads to the Savior, and
where there is no other way but by the gate to reach the Lord.
As
keeper of the gate, "he employeth no servant there" (a
possible reference, though, to the use of servants along the path
prior to the gate). A test of some kind at the gate is also implied
with the statement that the Lord as keeper of the gate "cannot
be deceived."
Then
in verse 42, "whose knocketh, to him will he open." King
Benjamin's discourse at the temple is infused with covenant making
themes and imagery.
However,
some of the most temple-centric aspects of the Book of Mormon have
been attacked as being evidence of fraud. Since 1831,
when Alexander Campbell published "Delusions"
attacking the Book of Mormon, critics have charged that it is
pathetically anachronistic in depicting early Hebrews who worshipped
Christ.
Campbell
was particularly outraged that the Nephites would engage in temple
worship outside of Jerusalem ("contrary to every precept of the
law"), and rely on a priesthood other than the Levitical
priesthood.
Such
arguments lost some of their sting with the revelations from the Dead
Sea Scrolls, where we find pre-Christian Hebrews in what has been
called a church of anticipation, engaging in practices that were once
thought to be uniquely Christian.
Other
documents confirmed that Jews outside of Israel such as those in
Elephantine,
Egypt had no trouble in building their own temples patterned after
Solomon's temple, as did the Nephites.
More
recently, Barker's work helps us appreciate the ancient significance
of the Melchizedek Priesthood and the primacy of early temple
concepts in preexilic Jewish religion, remarkable consistent with the
flavor of religion Lehi brought to the New World.
What
looked like silly anachronisms in 1830, now appear as impressive
evidences that the Book of Mormon is an authentic ancient text, and
that temple-related concepts in it and in the LDS temple are fruits
of a Restoration, not just ignorant blunders.
Further
scholarship continues to shed temple-related insights into the Book
of Mormon in ways that further confirm not only its authenticity as
an ancient Semitic record.
For
example, subtle Hebraic wordplay on the structure of Solomon's temple
even appears to play an important role in Lehi's vision in a way that
Joseph Smith surely could not have fabricated, as
I discuss at Mormanity
and here at the Nauvoo
Times.
The
Hebrew word ulam for the first part of the temple is very
close, almost identical in sound, to olam, a word that means
“world.” In Butler’s view, there is a Hebrew play
on words linking the great and spacious field, “a world,”
to the temple’s ulam.
It’s
one of many clues that we are on a temple trip — but not the
happy place of light and joy we normally associate with the temple.
In Lehi’s dream, it’s a temple gone dark. Dark and
dreary, filled with wicked priests representing the corrupt religions
establishment of his day.
After
the ulam comes the hekal, the “great building.”
Recall Lehi’s words of what he saw after the field/world/ulam:
…
a great and spacious
building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth.
And it was filled with people, both old and young, both male and
female; and their manner of dress was exceedingly fine; and they were
in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those
who had come at and were partaking of the fruit. (1Nephi 8:26-27)
The
word “fine” is used repeatedly in the Old Testament to
describe the clothing of the priests in the temple, not secular
clothing. The people with the fine clothing in the great and spacious
building include the priests of the temple in a sinister hekal,
part of Lehi’s dark temple experience.
Butler
also compares the fumes of incense that are part of the hekal
with the mists of darkness that lead people astray. The waters of
life that are part of many temple scenarios in ancient literature are
replaced with filthy waters that lead people astray.
Only
those who resist the corrupt religious establishment of his day and
the temptations and pressures of the adversary, clinging to the word
of God (the iron rod) can make it past the dark ulam and
sinister hekal and arrive safely to debir and the tree
of life, rich in temple imagery also.
Thus,
Lehi's dream also appears to use Semitic wordplay to refer to the
thee parts of Solomon's temple, with a twist highlighting the forces
of apostasy that he was opposing. Its references to a tree of life,
waters of life, the Son of God, and so forth are consistent with
Barker's reconstruction of early temple theology prior to the Exile —
again, evidence of a Restoration.
Temple
Themes in Other LDS Scriptures Prior to 1842
The
Book of Moses, published in 1831, contains many elements relevant to
the LDS temple. It begins with a classic heavenly ascent scene, which
is related to the core concept of bringing man into the presence of
God.
Instead
of taking place in a temple, this “Endowment” takes place
in the natural substitute for a formal temple, a high mountain. There
Moses sees God “face to face” and is able to “endure
his presence” (v. 2).
He
is shown the world that God has created and learns more of God’s
works, and is told he has been created in the image of the Son. After
God departs, Satan comes telling Moses to worship him, and Moses
casts him out in the name of the Son, and Moses departs, ranting and
shaking the earth (v. 12-22).
God
then visits Moses again after this scene, and is shown more details
of the Creation, including the first man, “Adam, which is many”
(v. 34). Moses is commanded to write what he has learned and also
writes the detailed Creation story.
The
Book of Moses contains other elements that are integral to the LDS
Endowment ceremony, including information about Satan’s
rebellion and the premortal existence, and Adam’s faithfulness
in offering sacrifices that were a similitude of the sacrifice of the
Son of God.
The
Book of Abraham, published 1835, contains related temple themes.
Abraham desires priesthood blessings. He is rescued from a human
sacrifice and encounters God, and later has God appear to him (2: 6).
In
this second encounter God offers the Abrahamic covenant (2:8-11). He
appears another time (2:19) and makes further promises. God reveals
to Abraham details of the creation via preserved records from the
fathers (1: 31) and also via vision aided by the Urm and Thummim
(3:1-2), and he also shares the story of the Creation and also of the
premortal existence.
There
is so much more to say on this topic, including much more from early
Christianity. The LDS temple and related topics are worth a lifetime
of study. The temple and its teachings go deep into antiquity and
bring together many of the most interesting aspects of the Gospel and
of ancient religion.
Read
Eliade, read Levenson, read Barker, and read the many LDS scholars
who have furthered our understanding of the ancient world, of early
Christianity and Judaism, of the scriptures, of the modern
Restoration, and of the ancient and restored temple.
Anachronisms
and blunders are becoming subtleties and evidences for plausibility.
Our ability to learn from the temple and intellectually appreciate
its majesty is greater than ever. There is no need to be ashamed of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this era, though the temple is further
than ever from the dark comfort zone of the world and its
fine-clothed intellectuals.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.