On “The Sôd Of Yhwh And The Endowment”

Eta Carinae 1 — An optical image of Eta Carinae made in 1998 by the Hubble Space Telescope reveals two spectacular bubbles of gas expanding in opposite directions away from a central bright region at speeds in excess of a million miles per hour. The inner region visible in the Chandra image has never been resolved before, and appears to be associated with a central disk of high velocity gas rushing out at much higher speeds perpendicular to the bipolar optical nebula.
(NASA Hubble public domain image)

This is an interesting article, but it’s also a melancholy reminder of the talent and the insights that we lost when Bill Hamblin passed away, far too young, in December 2019:

Abstract: Most scholars agree that sôd, when used in relationship to God, refers to the heavenly council, which humans may sometimes visit to learn divine mysteries or obtain a prophetic message to deliver to humankind. Biblical texts on this subject can be compared to passages in Latter-day Saint scripture (e.g., 1 Nephi 1:8-18; Abraham 3:22-23). In this article, William Hamblin succinctly summarizes this concept and argues that the Latter-day Saint temple endowment serves as a ritual and dramatic participation in the divine council of God, through which God reveals to the covenanter details of the plan of salvation — the hidden meaning and purpose of creation and the cosmos.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See William J. Hamblin, “The Sôd of Yhwh and the Endowment,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of The Expound Symposium 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 189–94. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-temple-worship/.]

And here’s a short piece from Hales Swift:

“Korihor and the Self-Refuting Argument (Alma 30)”

A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 27 “The Virtue of the Word of God” (Alma 30-31)

Also relatively new on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

Book of Moses Insights #010: Enoch’s Teaching Mission: Enoch Reads from a Book of Remembrance (Moses 6:46–47)

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Finally, I close with a trio of links from the essential Neville-Neville Land blog and with a distinct but related fourth link of which I was only recently made aware:

“Neville compares “M2C” to communist brainwashing of POWs”

““You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.””

“A subject on which Jonathan Neville and I completely agree”

“Why the Heartland Model of the Book of Mormon is Incorrect”

On “The Sôd of Yhwh and the Endowment”