Here’s another book from the Interpreter Foundation that you might want to consider as a Christmas gift (even to yourself!): The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs: Proceedings of the Sixth Interpreter Foundation Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference: Temple on Mount Zion Series 7: 4–5 November 2022, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, published by The Interpreter Foundation and Eborn Books:
Now Available
“THE ANCIENT HEBREWS did not believe that the temple concept originated in the time of Moses. Rather, they taught that temple rituals and doctrines originated with Adam and were handed down among the biblical patriarchs. This is precisely what the Prophet Joseph Smith tried to teach the world during the early 1800s, that the gospel of Jesus Christ is eternal and has been on the earth since the beginning.”
— Matthew B. Brown, The Gate of Heaven
Eborn Books
Table of Contents
- The Sacred and the Temple in Ancient Christianity — C. Wilfred Griggs
- The Lead Books — Margaret Barker
- Comments on Margaret Barker’s Presentation — Samuel Zinner
- She Took the Veil and Covered Herself — T. K. Plant
- Temple Themes in the Book of Abraham — Stephen O. Smoot
- The Cosmic Temple of Divine Names: Sapiential, Nomistic, and Numerical Properties — Samuel Zinner
- Qumran Reflections on the Coming Messiah and the “True Service” of the Temple — David J. Larsen
- Jacob’s Temple Journey to Haran and Back — Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Matthew L. Bowen
- “Eastward” in Genesis 2–4: An Exercise in Visual Discovery — Rebecca Stay
- From Jared to Jacob: The Motif of Divine Ascensus and Descensus in Genesis, the Book of Moses, and the Enochic Tradition — Matthew L. Bowen and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw
- Temples beyond Jerusalem — Stephen D. Ricks
- Ancient Israelite Temple Ritual through the Telescope of Restoration Scripture — David Calabro
- “That I May Lift Up My Eyes”: Bartimaeus as a Temple Petitioner before the Veil — Spencer Kraus
- How Luke’s Gospel Portrays Jesus as the Exodus or Way of the Temple — John S. Thompson
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)
In connection with my blog entry yesterday (“Notes on Latter-Day Saints and the Third Reich, Then and Now”), in which I suggested that it’s extreme, uncharitable, unjust, and unhelpful to attempt to associate all of those who voted for Donald Trump with Nazism — noting, along the way, that I myself voted for neither Mr. Trump nor Kamala Harris — I provided a link to Mormonr’s “Latter-day Saints and Nazi Germany.”
For some reason, at one place that I watch, there has recently been a distinct uptick in efforts to portray Latter-day Saints as having been particularly fond of Hitler and his National Socialist regime. With that in mind, I call attention yet again to the Mormonr link and, now, I want to suggest two additional links that are likewise relevant to this matter:
- This article appeared in the Deseret News just before 10 PM last night: “Newly published Nazi archives reveal the regime’s disdain for the Church of Jesus Christ: Nearly 500 pages of Gestapo files detail Nazi surveillance on Latter-day Saints and the quiet resistance of German members.”
- And this article, written for Meridian Magazine by Jacob Z. Hess (who is always worth reading), appeared yesterday: “Really wonderful people voted for that other candidate. Are you okay with that?”
I will continue to resist efforts to divide the Church along political lines. (If you have the stomach for reading through them, the comments following the Deseret News article are sadly revealing, as people on both sides of the political aisle attempt to reinterpret a piece of historical writing about the Third Reich as an article [and perhaps the result of a conspiracy] that’s “really” about Mr. Donald J. Trump.) I also reject and resist efforts to portray Republican voters in the recent presidential election — and, specifically, Latter-day Saints who voted Republican — as, for that fact alone, essentially Nazi sympathizers or proto-fascists. They are not, and it’s a disservice to our society and a serious offense against civility to suggest otherwise.
Here is something that seems to me very worthy of support and that, I think, some readers will find interesting: “Woman’s gift of comfort, joy outlives her, finished by friends: The Holiday Quilt Show will benefit fetal medicine center, help pay for cutting-edge ultrasound machine”
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)
Every single year, without fail, theists and theism try to hijack Christmas for their obnoxious ideas and their offensive schemes. And it’s clear that Christmas 2024 will be no exception. Here, to illustrate my point, are a couple of links from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™ to a project that is especially irritating because of its plainly global reach:
But, of course, theistic aggressions aren’t limited only to the season of the Winter Solstice. Here’s a representative specimen of the sort of thing that, sadly, goes on throughout the year:
And then there’s this. It pertains to the state that some wits call Utard, which is home to a large number of the people that some wits call either Morgbots or Mor(m)ons: “Utah ranks 2nd among most charitable states in 2024: Women are also responsible for 64% of all charitable donations in the United States”
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