In fact, TT, perhaps this is a wedge you could use to help make your point: no Mormon I’ve heard of today actually likes all 128 temples equally. It certainly seems plausible that equally devout early Christians could have widely differing views of the Jerusalem temple and temples in general.

Not that both of you are saying the same thing, but these thoughts came about from reading your responses. Personally, I think the most fruitful approach is to bracket the question of origin, neither assuming that things are necessarily historically or psychologically related, and investigate the way in which what ever people we are studying constructed a meaningful world. Without presuming that these people are undercover Mormons–preserving some glimpse of truth they gained from an earlier dispensation–we can seek to see the world in their context and then pose meaningful questions about how that might enrich our world-view. We might then, for instance, find Chinese burial rituals interesting, not because the compass and square appears in tombs (a la Nibley), but because they have a more developed means of expressing the grief that occurs when a parent dies (among other things).

It’s clear that the author of Hebrews focuses on the original tabernacle as described in the Pentateuch, but this is hardly surprising given the penchant for interpreting Mosaic legislation as an allegory of the New Covenant. I don’t think it’s necessary to see a polemic against the Second Temple here.

But, upon review, I suppose you could be right. And if you are, I don’t think it particularly changes the rather negative implications of the passage for Latter-day Saint pan-templism, do you? To the extent that temples were phony successors to the tabernacle, they aren’t of any use to Saints. And to the extent that they are true successors to it, Hebrews implies that they are abrogated. So either way, it seems there’s a problem here.

To get back to the OP, TT, I went ahead and check my notes on “temples” and found some references that might be interesting to fit into your schema:

In the Bible, Matthew 6:28; Luke 12:27; Matthew 26:61; John 4:20-24; Acts 7:48; 2 Chronicles 6:7-10, 18, 20 and 7:11-22; Revelation 21:22.

And in the church fathers,

Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, 32 – “For indeed the temple, which is called the temple in Jerusalem, He admitted to be His house or court, not as though He needed it, but in order that you, in this view of it, giving yourselves to him, might not worship idols.”

Epistle of Barnabas, ch. 3 – “For almost after the manner of the Gentiles they worshipped him in the temple. But learn how the Lord speaks, when abolishing it: ‘Who hath meted out heaven with a span, and the earth with His palm? Have not I?’”

Recognitions of Clement ch. 37 – Jesus is the new temple, he rejected the old one.

Lactantius bk 4 ch 4 – believers are temple, Christ is priest

- timelessness of the arguments: the point is not to contrast what is actually happening right then (or recently) in the second temple, but instead to focus on the differences between the old and the new covenant as revealed by the Son

- the explicit (in Heb 8:5) mention of how the tabernacle’s pattern came directly from Moses, and therefore was the Old, rather than the New, testament. This fits well into the overall theme of contrast between the old way and the (superior) new way

There are other possibilities, including that the middle Platonic views of the time saw the timeless ideal of the tabernacle as superior to any one physical instantiation (eg the second temple); or the Rabbinic teaching that one of the five ways the second temple differed from the first was the absence of the shekinah, something that could be viewed as a distraction from Hebrews’ main arguments.

Most commentators I’ve read strongly disagree with your interpretation that there is any allusion to the destruction of the temple in Hebrews. It is hard for most interpreters to believe that given the many arguments that Hebrews marshals to point out the superiority of the new revelation over the old revelation, leaving out the temple destruction — as evidence that God was displeased with the Jews — would be something the writer would have done had the temple actually been destroyed at the time of writing. Josephus saw the temple’s destruction as evidence of God’s disfavor, so it is hardly a difficult argument to make.

I do agree, though, that we and the original readers naturally think of the temple, and not just the tabernacle, in reading Hebrews. Even though Hebrews assiduously avoids the mention of the temple, and always talks about the tabernacle (or at least the tent), we Mormons easily (and in my view appropriately) quickly see temple language in Hebrews. Indeed, I don’t know if any other religion so literally accepts the idea that Jesus’ sacrifice opens a new and living way through the veil as Hebrews states in Heb 10:19-20.

As for whether Judaism saw the two as continuous, I have read many statements that suggest that many Jews contemporaneous with Herod’s temple did not see them as continuous, but again I defer to others more knowledgeable about the totality of Judaic thought to weigh in. Thanks again for your comment.

On the first, there are many of Margaret Barker’s theories that I do not agree with either, but there are quite a few of her insights that have proven remarkably useful, especially coming from a non member, but you are right to caution us to not accept everything she says. I have less to say about the second…. but would like to address your side criticism of the comparative temple approach where I believe that you were overly harsh.

I agree with your interpretation of symbolism as a language, and I have written extensively about that here: The Language of Symbolism. I also agree that the comparative approach can be problematic. C.S. Lewis was converted to Christianity partly by Tolkien’s comparative approach, while Joseph Campbell seems to have taken the same set of evidence and de-converted himself from Christianity with it. It all depends on why you believe that the ritual similarity that we find all around the world exists. This understanding will colour how you deal with the comparative evidence. What we can’t deny is that the degree to which religious ritual is similar all over the world is remarkable.

Among the diffusionists there are several approaches:
*The traditions are man made, and their copying from each other shows that there is no revealed religion.
*The traditions go back to Adam, and represent “doctrinal debris” and thus show the opposite hypothesis, that there was indeed an original revealed religion from which all these fragments come.

Among the spontaneous generationists we get:
*Satan imitates truth
*Satan teaches lies everywhere (these are the people who think that it is all a big conspiracy, and that everyone but them are worshipping the devil without knowing it)
*God gives many people as much truth as we are ready for (the opposite view to the one above, this view sees all these similarities as evidence of a loving God teaching people all over the world just as much as they can handle)
*Similarities in our psychological make-up (Psychologists love this one, even when we are making things up, we all make up the same things because the rituals we invent tell us something about ourselves)
*Memories from our pre-earth life (sort of a Mormon variation of the above)
*God speaks to us according to our own language (This one says that revealed religious rituals are similar to the Pagan rituals around it because those Pagan rituals provide the language and vocabulary in which God chooses to reveal his message)

There may be some truth in most of the above theories, and the truth is most likely a combination of them all, but whatever you believe, there can be no doubt that studying the various temple systems around us can teach us much about the meaning of our own ritual system. Whichever set of theories you hold, there would have to be useful information in the Pagan temple systems that would apply to the Israelite and LDS system. These ideas are also at the heart of the LDS-Masonry debates.

My own understanding of what was really happening in the Endowment only really took off after I took the “Temples and Texts” class at BYU taught by Dr. Stephen Ricks, a follower of the very school of thought that you seem to be downplaying. I can only say that the experience was life changing for me, and that there is a vast amount of very useful information that can be gained from this sort of comparative approach. We should understand its weaknesses and drawbacks, but I don’t believe that we should downplay the entire school of thought, because there is much of value there if it is appropriately applied.

I think it’s a real stretch to apply Heb. 9:1-10 to the tabernacle but not the temple. The two were largely seen as continuous by Judaism, and the term “sanctuary” is broad enough to encompass both. Moreover, it seems plain enough to me that 9:8 is an allusion to the destruction of the temple in 70 AD, even though the term “tabernacle” is used. Only the 70 AD destruction coincides with the new covenant. To interpret this passage as inclusive of the original tabernacle only strikes me as prejudicial.

Best,

-Chris

Yes, more hyperbole. However, the FARMS people are the ones carrying on his tradition and he is still highly respected in that crowd. They also probably make up a big chunk of the pan-templism crowd.

I guess I’m more wondering if you think now that line was overly hyperbolic or if you stick with it.