{"id":107124,"date":"2024-09-28T18:14:54","date_gmt":"2024-09-29T00:14:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=107124"},"modified":"2024-09-28T18:14:54","modified_gmt":"2024-09-29T00:14:54","slug":"from-the-morning-sessions-of-todays-superb-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2024\/09\/from-the-morning-sessions-of-todays-superb-conference.html","title":{"rendered":"From the morning sessions of today’s superb conference"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>
The Laie Hawaii Temple \u00a0(LDS Media Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Today, I attended the Seventh Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference. \u00a0The overall theme of these conferences, as befits Matt Brown\u2019s interests, is \u201cThe Temple on Mount Zion.\u201d \u00a0The theme of this particular 2024 iteration of the conference was \u201cSeership, Craftsmanship, and Fellowship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The conference was not live-streamed, but it was recorded, and I presume that the conference videos will eventually be made public. \u00a0In the end, too, the proceedings of the conference, perhaps including (in at least some cases) longer versions of the papers delivered, will be issued as an Interpreter Foundation book. \u00a0I\u2019m looking forward to it.<\/p>\n

The conference\u2019s first speaker was Don Bradley,<\/a> and the title of his presentation was \u201cAcquiring an All-Seeing Eye: Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision as Seer Initiation and Deification Ritual.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019s paper argued an interesting thesis, that, although other claims to visions that were superficially comparable to Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision can be found from roughly the same period \u2014 he explicitly referred to the case of the famous Protestant evangelist \u00a0Charles Grandison Finney \u2014 the theology implicit in Joseph Smith\u2019s First Vision is not that of the revivalists of the Second Great Awakening. \u00a0Alhough it clearly parallels a good deal of their doctrine, including conviction for sin, divine mercy, and the redemptive role of Jesus Christ, it rejects the ontological gulf between the human being and God. Even the traditional Latter-day Saint understanding that the vision reveals a God who is like human beings, Don contends, understates its theological radicalism. The First Vision is not only the revelation of an anthropomorphic God, but also of theomorphic man. For Joseph Smith, the visitation of God did not reveal human beings as hopelessly \u201cother\u201d from him, nor as creatures who must shatter in his presence, but as fit vessels for his power and attributes, to be filled up with divinity.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The second presentation of the morning, given by David Calabro<\/a>, was titled \u201cAbraham on the Bishop\u2019s Throne: Egyptian Christianity and the Book of Abraham\u201d:<\/p>\n

David\u2019s paper is part of his larger project to investigate the historical and ritual context of the Book of Abraham. Several elements of the Book of Abraham, including its occasional use of New Testament phraseology and concepts (Abraham 2:9-11; 3:21-28), point to an early Christian hand in what may have been a complex textual history. At the same time, he says, the Book of Abraham shows evidence of being oriented to a ritual context, possibly one having to do with priesthood initiation (after all, Abraham\u2019s obtaining of the priesthood is a major theme of the book). The paper focused on comparisons between the Book of Abraham and the Coptic enthronement rite of the Patriarch of Alexandria as it is described in liturgical books. \u00a0Dr. Calabro argued for the thesis that a text like the Book of Abraham probably influenced the Coptic rite. The evidence discussed in the paper, he said, may also suggest that the Book of Abraham functioned liturgically in an early Egyptian Christian enthronement ritual, although \u2014 as he expressly mentioned in the paper\u2019s conclusion \u2014 other explanations are possible.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The third speaker was Jeffrey M. Bradshaw<\/a>, who addressed the subject of \u201cThe Abrahamic Covenant: Then and Now.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Jeff gave a very lucid exposition of the Abrahamic covenant, asserting that the wealth of insights that ancient and modern scholarship can shed on the relevant scriptural accounts is generally underappreciated. \u00a0He argued, too, that Abraham\u2019s spiritual journey of covenant-making and covenant-keeping provides the backbone of his story in both the biblical book of Genesis and the Book of Abraham.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fourth in the line-up of speakers was John S. Thompson<\/a>, under the title of \u201cOracles Against the Nations and Prophetic Imitation of Temple Liturgy.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

The Major Prophets, Brother Thompson explained, have a segment of their writings that prophesy the demise of several foreign nations. The Egyptians and other ancient societies also have texts containing curses against foreign nations or enemies and art depicting the demise of those enemies or nations. \u00a0Strikingly, however, these often appear in the context of temple\/tomb rituals. Prompted by the temple context for the smiting or destruction of enemies in antiquity, Brother Thompson explored the question of \u00a0whether the oracles against the nations found in the prophetic books are part of a larger temple structure in the text as a whole.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Breck England<\/a> was the fifth speaker of the morning. \u00a0His topic was \u201cThe Bright and Morning Star: The Book of Revelation through the Lens of the Temple.\u201d<\/p>\n

A wave of interest in a ritual<\/em> reading of the Apocalypse or the Revelation of John appears to have been gaining strength over the past few years. Some scholars argue that \u201cheavenly liturgies\u201d mirroring the rites and ordinances of the ancient temple make up the framework of the book. \u00a0Such scholars non-Latter-day Saint commentators as Leonard Thompson, Allan T. Georgia, Richard Herbert Wilkinson, and Margaret Barker seek, in Georgia\u2019s words, to make explicit \u201cthe implicit importance of temple ritual for conceptualizing the practices, expositions, and narratives\u201d of Revelation \u2014 which might understandably catch the interest of Latter-day Saints.<\/p>\n

In his project The Bright and Morning Star: Finding and Following Jesus Through the Book of Revelation<\/em>, Breck England has tried to combine the insights of these and other scholars with ancient and modern temple theology and apocryphal materials in order to \u201crecuperate\u201d the Apocalypse as a ritual text. In his presentation today, Brother England outlined very clearly how the Revelation of John depicts the sacred drama of the temple, from the initiatory stage through the primordial heavenly council, through the \u201cgreat tribulation\u201d of mortality to the \u201cunveiling\u201d (apokalypsis<\/em>) of the divine presence. He showed \u2014 persuasively, I thought \u2014 how redemptive temple ordinances mark the progress of the pilgrim John along the path to the idealized Holy of Holies that is the New Jerusalem.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There. \u00a0That takes the program up to the break for lunch. \u00a0This was a rich, rich day. And it didn\u2019t hurt at all that BYU defeated Baylor, at<\/em> Baylor, during our conference. \u00a0There was real meat in these presentations and, when the book appears, it will be well worth purchasing. \u00a0I\u2019ll return to the remainder of the conference presentations in tomorrow\u2019s blog entry.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 Today, I attended the Seventh Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference. \u00a0The overall theme of these conferences, as befits Matt Brown\u2019s interests, is \u201cThe Temple on Mount Zion.\u201d \u00a0The theme of this particular 2024 iteration of the conference was \u201cSeership, Craftsmanship, and Fellowship.\u201d The conference was not live-streamed, but it was recorded, and I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":39557,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[951,1561,446,2905,788,641],"class_list":["post-107124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-egypt","tag-israel","tag-jerusalem","tag-latter-day-saint","tag-mormon","tag-temple"],"yoast_head":"\nFrom the morning sessions of today's superb conference<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"  Today, I attended the Seventh Interpreter Matthew B. 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