The Goodness and the Mysteries

Thursday, March 14, 2013

And Blessed Is the Fruit

The repetition of the phrase "blessed art thou among women" strengthens the impression that we have here to do with ritual language, words that are repeated and answered. "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb" appears to be the response.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Behold the Handmaid of the Lord

Mary submits by identifying herself as the Lord's handmaid. Similarly, Ruth identifies herself as Boaz's handmaid. So does Hannah, before she conceives Samuel. Psalm 116 identifies the servant in the courts of the Lord's house as the son of the Lord's handmaid.

Looking at these passages together, "handmaid" reads like a temple-priestly title.

Tuesday, March 12, 2013

The Power of the Highest

The Melchizedek priest acts with power. This same language occurs in a similar context, and appears to refer to a sacred marriage ordinance, in Matthew's story of the woman who marries seven brothers.

Monday, March 11, 2013

The Lord Is with Thee

This greeting from Gabriel sounds liturgical; in other words, if there is a Threshingfloor Marriage, this sounds like it might be language taken from the performance of it.

Also, if Gabriel is alone, this language suggests that he is the Lord, El Gibbor.

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Of the House of David

Joseph matters. Not only is he betrothed to Mary, his genealogy is Davidic and Luke seems to imply that Jesus inherits through him.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

His Wife Elizabeth Conceived

Elizabeth is childless and barren, a state Philo (not a Christian, as we understand the term) associates with symbolic virginity. John the Baptist's conception is therefore also a sort of virgin birth, and arises from a temple appearance of the Melchizedek priest.

Friday, March 8, 2013

I Am Gabriel

The angel who brings the news to Zacharias is the Melchizedek priest -- he has come from the presence of God and he bears the name Gabriel = El Gibbor, the mighty God.

Was the giving of curses as signs a special power of the Melchizedek priest? I am reminded of Abinadi and Alma. Maybe this is how we should read Isaiah 10-14, as a curse/sign from the rightful and righteous Melchizedek priest.

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By Way of Explanation

This blog started as an email list, to which I sent daily updates of my Book of Mormon reading, as I promised my Elders Quorum I would do. Then it came to this URL as a private blog, and then to a Drupal-powered site. I wanted to invite people to join a private community that talked about the Book of Mormon.

The Drupal site, tragically, has crashed (probably nothing to do with Drupal), so I brought the blog back here. In the meantime, I've also published a couple of books -- Plain and Precious Things: The Temple Religion of the Book of Mormon's Visionary Men and The Goodness and the Mysteries: On the Path of the Book of Mormon's Visionary Men.

As of year end 2013, I've been called to teach Gospel Doctrine in my ward. So I'm leaving up all the old posts and comments, and I'm now going to use this blog to post class outlines, book recommendations, and so forth. Please feel free to share and comment!

Here I Stand

Here are some things I think about the Book of Mormon, the Bible and the origin of the Nephite community. This is not systematic, but intended to explain what might seem like idiosyncratic perspectives.

A) I believe the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be.

B) I believe the Bible is a collection of books recording the experiences and thoughts of Israel and the early Christians.

C) I think both halves of the Bible have been doctored by people who didn't like the true ancient religion of Israel and the true doctrines of Christ, and wished to conceal them beneath their own teachings.

D) I think Lehi left Jerusalem during one of the great moments of conflict in Israelite religion, when reformers (often called "Deuteronomists" by Bible scholars) were changing the way religion was practiced in Israel and rewriting the holy documents to prove themselves right.

E) We read these reformers as heroes in the Bible, because they won, and got to tell the story the way they wanted it. Lehi belonged to the other party, the "prophets" or "visionary men", who lost. This "loser's view" of the sixth century B.C. makes the Book of Mormon an invaluable resource that secular Bible scholars would kill to have. Ironically.

F) This is gross simplification, but: the visionary men went underground, but didn't cease to exist. 1 Enoch is one of their books, along with much of what we call Second Temple or Intertestamental literature or the Apocalyptic Books or the Pseudepigrapha or the Apocrypha. The Dead Sea Scrolls people inherited many of their ideas. The first Christians were Israelites of the traditional religion, more heirs of the visionary men, who recognized Christ as the Messiah who had been promised by the ancient faith.

G) Lehi and his people carried the practices of the visionary men into the promised land. They loved the temple, and its rites were the sources of their prophesies. Crucially, they had visions, the imagery of which was derived from temple furniture, architecture and ritual (1 Nephi 8 and 1 Nephi 11-14 are showcase examples of this). I think it is demonstrable that the Nephites knew an endowment rite, which is expressed both in 1 Nephi 8 and in the Sermon at the Temple (and elsewhere, as I discuss in Plain and Precious Things). That and the Day of Atonement rite were the "rock" and the "salvation," the two ordinances central to the doctrines and prophecies of the visionary men.

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