Search the Community

I acknowledge the difference between Latria (the worship owed to God alone) and Dulia (the honor or "veneration" given to created beings) is a bedrock of how Catholics reconcile honoring the Saints or a King without it being guilty of "idolatry." A valid notion in modern Catholicism. However, I am suggesting that the "Royal Cult" proponents like Maragret Barker goes a step farther. Barker focuses heavily on 1 Chronicles 29:20, where the assembly "bowed their heads and worshipped the LORD and the king." Not prostrating to God as an act of worship and prostrating to the king as an act of political respect. But Barker argues that in the original Temple context, it's a conjunction of identity. It is a single act of prostration directed at a single presence, who is both the king and the LORD. The throne wasn't a piece of furniture owned by Solomon; it was a ritual seat that belonged to God. When the King sat there, he was merged into the divine identity. You aren't worshiping the man and the God; you are just worshiping God in the man. In Hebrew, the verb for "worship/prostrate" (shachah) is applied to both subjects simultaneously. Barker argues this is because, the King is the "Anointed One" (Messiah). The king's anointing oil was believed to literally transmit the Spirit of the Lord into the King's body. The King often took a "throne name" that identified him with the Lord. There was no separation during the rituals. On the day of coronation, the King was the Presence of the Lord. To honor the King was to honor the Lord, and to not worship the King was sacrilege against the Lord. If Jesus is a Royal Cultist of this tradition, we see he isn't asking for a lower degree of honor than God. The King was the focal point of worship intended for the Lord, they aren't worshipping Solomon, rather the Lord inside Solomon. I want to point out the reason I still prefer the traditional real Resurrection, I believe though it isn't a completely original idea, it's not 1:1 as there are many features that are very unique in Jesus, rendering Jesus supremely significant. Like the idea of being the last blood sacrifice, opening up the royal priesthood to anyone worthy from a non-Davidic line is a unique change, not a mere Restoration of the old ways of David, but more like "fulfillment". While not every concept is unprecedented, some are. It's not safe to deny a literal death and resurrection, just because the story could be read as a mere royal resurrection drama or liturgy, because it's not all a pure throwback.

There was a mortal king who died named Melchizedek. Yet he was often viewed by some as not just as a historical king, but as a heavenly being and a resurrected immortal figure. Hebrews 7 describes him as having been "raised up," or rather "resurrected", with "neither beginning of days nor end of life". In a royal cult context, this refers to his enduring office, not the biological man. When a Davidic king was anointed, he became "another" Melchizedek. He stepped out of linear time and into an eternal priesthood. Maybe Jesus successfully ascended into this very specific, pre-existing "immortal" royal office. In many ancient royal cults, the king underwent a symbolic death and rebirth during his coronation or high-holy-day rituals. When Jesus receives the "white and seamless robe," he is being ritually "clothed" in his resurrection body. Hence, in Philip's or Pseudo-Phillip's reckoning, the spiritual "Resurrection" had already happened before he died. If the disciples and Jesus were part of an older mystery tradition or a royal cult, their language was technically accurate within their framework. To the cultist, the ritual is a reality. If the ritual says you are now an immortal god of after the order of Melchizedek, then you are. Even if you died. The Roman Empire could kill the man, but they couldn't kill his status as another Melchizedek. It's a bit distasteful and a far less romantic notion. But it's difficult to parcel out the difference between an ancient king and Jesus. Technically, Jesus wasn't the only would-be incarnation of the Lord. Margaret Barker said Solomon was worshipped as an avatar of the Lord. The First Temple period, the King was the human presence of the Lord. Solomon was anointed and he didn't just represent God; he was "begotten" as the Son of God (Psalm 2:7), when he sat on the "Throne of the Lord" the people were "worshipping the Lord and the King" at the same time because the Lord was embodied inside the man Solomon (1 Chronicles 29:23).

Even the highly-respected scholar Matthew Black wasn't too bothered providing a speculative explanation over an extraordinary one: "[Matthew Black] then formulated a hypothesis, consistent with his lecture, that a member of one of the esoteric groups he had described previously must have survived into the nineteenth century, and hearing of Joseph Smith, must have brought the group’s Enoch texts to New York from Italy for the Prophet to translate and publish." (source) Given his expertise, I was intrigued by his suggestion, and poked around to find there was a lot of wild esoteric German, French and Italian material floating around in the 1820's. Anthon was putting some of it in a textbook he was working on in 1827. Since Anthon was also working with Edmund Barker on a compilation of Native American lore at the same time, I don't see it being totally impossible that the gold plate characters triggered a conversation of some of Anthon's wilder speculations on the origins of American Indians coming from Egypt. No proof for it of course, but since Harris did come back convinced that Anthon saw something authentically Egyptian in the characters, is it really so implausible?

The Seer named Joseph narrative was in the Book of Mormon first, a "choice seer" named Joseph, whose father would also be named Joseph (2 Nephi 3; JST Genesis 50). Messiah ben Joseph (Yosef) provides a massive historical weight to this. An anciently known prophecy, found specifically in the Talmud, Midrash, the Book of Zohar, of an anciently known figure from the tribe of Ephraim who prepares the way, gathers Israel, and often is killed in battle in the process before the final victory to come of the Messiah ben David. If Joseph Smith were just "writing himself in," he picked a remarkably specific and ancient Jewish archetype, a descendant of Joseph of Egypt, one that he likely had zero access to know about in the rural 1830s. A tradition that scholars like Margaret Barker suggest dates back to the First Temple period, long before the Talmud was compiled. Dead Sea Scroll fragments like 4Q372 and 4Q175 to show the roots of this tradition. These scrolls describe a "suffering Joseph figure" and a "Prophet like Moses" who would appear in the last days. "That Prophet" mentioned in John 1:21 priests asked John the Baptist if he is one of three prophesied figures, Elijah, the Christ, or "that prophet?", scholars like David Mitchell have argued that this represents the Messiah ben Joseph tradition. It could have been in Genesis or other texts before the Deuteronomic scribes removed it, like how the Masoretic Jews removed the "Messiah" from Isaiah 52:14, and the Deuteronomic scribes wrote-ins Cyrus the Great into Isaiah 150 years before he was born in Isaiah 44:28 because these scribes thought in their time that this Messianic prophecy was fulfilled by Cyrus, though it wasn't.

There seems to be a fair amount of indifference to Latter-day Saint scholarship about the foundational components Robert K. Ritner was willing to address The Book of Abraham. I found his commentary to be so-so, and also fairly flawed insofar as he often departed from scholarly norms. His unseemly treatment of John Gee was unfortunate. IIRC, Michael Coe rather embarrassed himself by exposing his ignorance of Latter-day Saint scholarship. Heh. Ritner and Coe were the same examples that came to mind for me. The field of non-LDS scholars who have seriously engaged Latter-day Saint scholarship about these matters is pretty barren. Yep. And I can't help but wonder if that rarity is attributable to deliberate and studied avoidance/indifference. An exception: Margaret Barker. Interestingly, I think she is perhaps the most well-versed in Latter-day Saint doctrines. The Church also has oodles of scientists, doctors, lawyers, businessmen, etc. whose livelihoods depend on their intellect, and who readily absorb data in their professional capacities and openly profess belief in the miraculous foundational events of the Restoration. I for one have no problem being both an attorney, whose day-to-day work is steeped in skepticism and evidentiary scrutiny, an a Latter-day Saint. Indeed, my experiences in the former field have had quite a supplementary and confirmatory effect on my experiences in the latter. Thanks, -Smac

On the Lucy Mack Smith passage about Joseph being a story teller sufficient to the task of explaining the production of the Book of Mormon, there are some crucial issues to address before anyone can responsibly claim that she provides evidence that Joseph could just imagine the Book of Mormon, based on story telling talent, rather than translating an actual record. First, remember this when considering whether the Book of Mormon screams a 19th century origin. Consider Bacon, the Father of the Scientific Method, and what strikes him as blindingly and unquestionably obvious: "Don't theorize" he says, and by so doing he unconsciously explains exactly where and why he goes wrong. "All data is theory-laden." Hence Jesus says, judgement, criticism, discernment begins by being self-aware, examining one's own eye for beams first. "Then shall ye see clearly." Galileo, unlike Bacon, makes the effort to imagine what the heavens would look like to an observer on a rotating, tilted earth, that obits a sun. And that in turn, provides a better explanation of planetary motion that did Ptolemaic astronomy. And now, issues with the source of the famous Lucy Mack Smith quote: So this is not a contemporary diary, a direct window into the past, but a later reminiscence that has been worked on by editors. Here is how Ann Taves uses it: She does not address the issue of the Book of Mormon and the reports of Joseph Smith's recorded discourses failing to back up the insinuations she makes. https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/playing-to-an-audience-a-review-of-revelatory-events And there is also the related issue of the original draft of the Wentworth letter being an adaptation by Joseph Smith of an 1840 pamphlet by Orson Pratt. See https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/msr/vol15/iss2/8/, page 98. Calm has mentioned Spackman's important essay on the Nephite Jewish Lunar Calendar. There is also Jerry Grover's recent approach. https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book/calendars-and-chronology-book-mormon Regarding the claim that the Book of Mormon prophesy after 1830 becomes much less detailed, I am presenting on the topic of the restoration of plain and precious things at the Interpreter Small Plates conference at the end of May. The paper came about when it occurred to me to collect all of the passages that describe particular teachings and ideas as "plain and/or precious" and not just stopping at the obvious passage in 1 Nephi 13:40: A key passage describing the restoration of the specific plain and precious things appears in the introduction to Margaret Barker's first book, The Older Testament: FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

More notes The Two Goats If the Atonement of Jesus Christ has anything to do with the Atonement rites of the Day of Atonement, the original rite had at least two parts, represented by two goats. One goat makes an atonement with is blood, the second goat is cast out of the city, ideally lead by the hand of a foreigner, in hopes it will die, eaten by a lion, away from Jerusalem and not wonder back with their sins. Sometimes it would come back, and so the Jews later resolved to push it backwards off a cliff. “On Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) a goat was thrown off a high cliff in the desert, to atone for the sins of the Jews. A red ribbon was hung up in the Temple on that day. When the goat was thrown off the cliff, the ribbon turned white.” (B. Yoma 67a) This description links the Temple with the exile of the scapegoat. Viewing it as a kind of remote Temple offering as signified by the transformation of the ribbon from red to white. The First Century Christian document, the Epistle of Barnabas, is attributed to the Biblical Barnabas the Levite, one of the Seven Assistants to the Apostles, and Paul’s Missionary Companion (Acts 4:36; 13:2). It was lost and then rediscovered in 1859 in the Sinai Codex. Now whether or not it was written by the Biblical Barnabas or another Barnabas, it is definitely a document from the apostolic era, with valuable insight. Barnabas has many quotes from Old Testament era texts we don’t have. Concerning the treatment of the scapegoat, “Spit on it, all of you, thrust your goads into it, wreath its head with scarlet wool and lead it be driven into the desert,” “when they see him coming on the Day, they are going to be struck with terror at the manifest parallel between him and the goat,” “they shall see him on that Day, clad to the ankles in his red woolen robe and will say, ‘is this not he whom we once crucified and mocked and pierced and spat upon?” (Epistle of Barnabas 7). Now, Isaiah had a similar vision of the Lord, on the Day (of Vengeance), come in a red robe and when he asked the Lord why he is red, He replies his robes are bloodstained red from when he had troddened the winefat “alone, and of the people, there were none with me” (Isaiah 63:2). Jesus Christ in the Second Coming has a bloodstained red venture (Revelations 19:13). Isaiah’s quote seems to describe Christ had stained his robes while alone in Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). Christ was not alone at Golgotha (Luke 23:39). Christ did customarily wear his High Priest’s expensive, seamless and brilliantly white robe before he went to Gethsemane. Christ was not wearing his robe when he was crucified, the Roman Soldiers took it from him (John 19:23-24; Psalm 22:18). Barnabas makes a unique claim that is contrary to Leviticus, he says that the first goat, the sin offering goat, in the Day of Atonement ritual was originally eaten. The people ate the carcass, and the Priests ate the fat and bloody sacrificial portions, unwashed, in vinegar (sour wine). Barnabas quotes from an unknown quote from Jesus Christ who is quoting an unknown Book of the Prophets (an Old Testament scripture), “What does it say in the prophet? ‘Let all the priests but nobody else eat of its inward parts, unwashed and with vinegar.’ Why was this? Because, ‘When I am about to give my body for sins of this new people of mine, you will give me gall and vinegar to drink’” (Epistle of Barnabas 7). The New Testament authors were careful to note that Christ was given “vinegar to drink mingled with gall” (Matthew 27:34, 48; Psalm 69:23), though they don’t explain the significance of this. Leviticus, seems to contradict Barnabas’s quote, saying in the Atonement, the High Priest did remove the fat and enthralls, kidneys and liver, but claims they were burned on the alter with the priests while the carcass was burned with the people outside, and does not say it was eaten (Leviticus 4:8-10). If it was eaten unwashed, Leviticus also says the consumption of blood is forbidden (Leviticus 3:17), as Jews of the first century say in the Mishnah (m. Yoma 6:7). Though the Mishnah doesn’t represent the views of all First Century Jews, the also Mishnah mentions there were Jews they refer to as “Babylonians” (presumed to be a derogatory term for other Jews, perhaps the Alexandrian Jews), who performed the Jewish Day of Atonement rites and did eat the sin offering, and if it was the Sabbath, they ate it raw, because they couldn’t cook (m. Menahoth 11:7). What is interesting about this is, if Barnabas is correct, and the sin offering was eaten unwashed, raw, and in vinegar/sour wine, then there was definitely blood consumption/drinking in the Temple by priests on the Day of Atonement. What Barnabas is implying is that by having Christ drink vinegar with gall mingled in it on the cross, which some think it as cruel mockery, or another act of mercy (an attempt at pain reliever or for hastening death). There were some First Century Christians, like Barnabus that saw this event as being foreshadowed by the Day of Atonement ritual. It gives Christ’s Sacramental cup more context. As the Sacramental bread and wine is believed to be the foretold new Temple bread and libations reestablished (Malachi 1:7, 11) Christ insisted that the contents of his cup of fruit of the vine was his blood, even though Leviticus forbids blood drinking (Leviticus 3:17). Blood drinking while not Kosher, may have been Kosher for priests during Atonement Day practice. Just how other Temple practices and objects were forbidden outside the Temple, like using the formula for temple incense, or the temple anointing oil, or possessing a seven branched lamp stand in a private house was forbidden for general use, but not for the Temple. It's possible that Leviticus maybe, as some think, an edited late document. Or it's merely intended to be the rules of Israelites, but not royal Melchizedek priests, and later self-imposed by Jews. Some scholars think this version of the Atonement practice eating of the sacrificial goat's inward portions in wine is valid and would explain the origin of the Christian traditions to remove the inner portions of the sacramental loaf (the inward parts of the Body of Christ) and mingle it with the sacramental wine (the Blood of Christ) of the Eucharist (M. Barker, The Great High Priest, pg70). One might question the authenticity of Barnabas’s unbiblical sources, merely because it is an unbiblical source. Though one of Barnabas' unbiblical sources ended up being discovered in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Book of Enoch. Barnabas quotes, “It will come to pass in this last days that the Lord will deliver up destruction, the sheep of the pasture, with their sheepfold and their watchtower [1 Enoch 89:56]” (Epistle of Barnabas 16). As a side note, the watch tower is the temple (Isaiah 5; Assumption of Moses 2:4; Shepherd of Hermas, Parables 3:2:4; 9:3:1; 9:7:1). The Book of Enoch is the most quoted book in the New Testament and has a lot to add to the meaning of Christ's Atonement. .... Proxies and Scapegoats There is no Biblical explanation of the theology behind the rituals of atonement. We do know under normal conditions, covenants made with blood oaths must mean the offended party must demand the blood of the oath breaker, the sinner. Fortunately for the many that have sinned against a merciful party, such as God, there arose a need to innovate a ritual system as the Atonement, so that just one person, the High Priest, could stand as proxy for the covenant people, the sinners, in the atonement ritual. The consequences of not atoning for sins when the Covenant broke meant that the earth went from created order to original chaos and the people suffered. A priest must atone with animal blood as the proxy for the sinners, or else the blood of the sinners themselves, human blood, was apparently accepted for the Covenant to be satisfied (Numbers 25:7-13). The priest hears the confessions of the people, he bears them as he takes the place of the people to offer up his own blood in their stead. Fortunately for the Priest, the ritual also accepted a goat as a proxy for the blood the priest is supposed to pay himself. This appears to be done by making a goat another proxy for himself, a priest, and then using its blood. We see details of an ordinance that seems to signify the transference of the priesthood from the Priest to the goat by the laying on of hands upon to the goat's head, and the goat is even given a priest's crown with the name of Lord upon it. The meaning behind such a crown is that the goat, like the Priest, is to stand as a proxy for the Lord God of Israel Himself when the goat atones for the sins of all the people of Israel with His own blood. Sounds like a type and shadow of the Christ. Again, blood was believed to be “life” of a creature (Leviticus 17:14), so this is an important distinction, a sin offering was not completed upon the death of the goat, but by a priest's offering of that goat's “blood” in a holy place (Leviticus 17:11). If a Priest had only sacrificed the goat and drained its blood, but then failed to deliver that blood to the temple, and by his hand sprinkle it there, nothing was achieved by the animal’s death. The smearing blood at the temple is what was important, or else the temple which represents the microcosm of all Creation, was not renewed and purified. Once the blood is sprinkled about the temple, and thus all Creation, it is then purified, and the High Priest absorbs and bears the sins of the people that has tainted all creation (Leviticus 10:17). Once the sins were all collected, he’d bore them and then confessed the sins of the people over the head of a second goat (as the previous one was dead), and thus he transfers the people's sin he absorbed on the head of that second goat, The goat referred to in King James English as the “scapegoat”. But the two goats were supposed to be identical (m. Yoma 6:1) that is supposedly because they were ritually the same goat. Two proxies for what was to be accomplished by one person who was to stand as a proxy for all. The scapegoat is lead from the Temple of Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives, then on a marked path out of the city, preferably by the hands of a gentile (Leviticus 16:21; m. Yoma 6:8).

From my study notes, many compiled from Margaret Barker: Traditionally Christians have interpreted Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Song as the prophecy of Jesus Christ's suffering. Despite the uncanny parallels, scholarship has long held this to be a purely Christian innovation, because nowhere does Isaiah call his subject the anointed Messiah. However, only by the chance discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has this Christian interpretation finally been vindicated. The Dead Sea Scrolls contains a pre-Christian version of Isaiah, the Isaiah Scroll. In that scroll, the Fourth Servant Song (Isaiah 52:14) is just one Hebrew letter different than the Masoretic text. The Bible usually translates the word into English as “marred [H#4893]” or “disfigured” but with the extra letter added the word becomes “[masahti (H#4888) anointed]”. We know that because that is the meaning of that word when it is used in Numbers 18:8, so the Isaiah Suffering Servant was originally a Messiah. The Isaiah Scroll says "I have anointed him more than any man in his appearance and he shall sprinkle many nations” (1Q Isaiaha 52:14). The Targums indicate the subject was a Messiah in the previous verse, “My servant the Messiah shall prosper” (Targum, Isaiah 52:13). ..... The Isaiah Servant, the Messiah, will suffer, become exalted, and will also perform an Atonement rite, as he says the Messiah shall “sprinkle [rhantise (H#5137)] many nations” (Isaiah 52:15) the same verb for the Atoning blood (Leviticus 16:19). The next chapter says the Servant will have “carried [yazzah (H#5445)]” our grieves and sorrows and upon him “laid” the “iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). He was “oppressed”, just as Christ was arrested, but "opened not his mouth” (Isaiah 53:7) just as Christ would not open his mouth to the High Priests or to Pilate (Mark 14:61; 15:3). The Servant shall be ‘taken from judgment… cut off from the land of the living, made his grave with the wicked and with the rich in his death” (Isaiah 53:8-9), just as Christ died amidst two criminals and was entombed in a rich man’s tomb (Luke 23:39, 50-53). The Servant was “wounded [hll (H#2490)]” (Isaiah 53:5), this word means to “‘pierce” (Isaiah 51:9), pierced for transgressions and the “chastisement [mwsr (H#4148)] for our peace” was upon him (Isaiah 53:5). Isaiah means the 'bonds (of the covenant) of peace', as it’s the same word in Ezekiel, “bonds of the covenant [msrt hbryt]” (Ezekiel 20:37; Jeremiah 2:20; Psalm 2:3). Which is also in parallel to the next verse, “with his stripes [hbrt (H#2250)] we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). This is the same word for “stripes” is in Exodus and there it meant to “join” or “unite” the curtains of the tabernacle, as “[hbr’]’s” primary meaning is to unite (Exodus 26:4). In Hebrew poetry, chiasmus, the literary style of the Bible, parallel chiasmus will put two different words with similar meanings together in a verse. Since the first part of the verse, one word means a type of bond, the other line also contains a word that also is a type of bond, though it also means a type of bruise caused by a bond, the results from wearing bonds. These “bonds” are references to the Everlasting Covenant. The Servant pours out his “soul [‘sm (H5315)] for a sin offering” (Isaiah 53:10), a “[sm’]” is something that redresses as “[m’l]”, which is a violation of the covenant. Christ, the Messiah is offering to repair the Covenant. ..... Didn’t Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Song describe the Messiah’s suffering as “Surely He hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4-5; Matthew 8:17)? When exactly during the Crucifixion did Christ suffer “sorrows for sin” or “carry” the weight of our grief? During his Passion Christ expressed no complaint of his burdens, or express his pain, or utter any words of sorrow, He mostly kept his mouth shut (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 14:61; 15:3). This is in contrast from when He was in Gethsemane, it was there He expresses how He was “sorrowful and very heavy” and “exceedingly sorrowful unto death”. Only there does the Bible say Christ was in “agony” (Luke 22:43-44). One could argue by these words about Jesus that Gethsemane might have been the scene of Christ’s greatest agony. We merely imagine that scourges and crucifixion must have hurt more than the act of simply praying in a garden, only He didn’t express His agony nor sweat blood during the crucifixion (Mark 14:61; 15:3). Unlike the prayers we've given, appears that for Christ, maintaining His effort to pray in Gethsemane became increasingly difficult, as he keeps asking for the cup’s removal, and an angel had to be sent to Him in order to strengthen Him to keep praying, and He was in such “agony” that “his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground” (Luke 22:43-44). .... The final rite of the first portion of the Atonement in the temple was to purge the holy place, the artificial garden temple, representing all creation, with blood, on the that sacred ground (Leviticus 16:15). As he purifies the sanctuary, the High Priest took upon himself the sins of the people who confessed to him, he became the sin bearer, at least until he has the chance to transfer them on head of the second goat. During that time, the High Priest, is like Christ who is to have borne the sorrows and sicknesses of His people (Isaiah 5:4, 10; Matthew 8:17). Interesting to note here that excess sacrificial blood from sacrifices was sold to gardeners to use as fertilizer in their gardens (Mishnah, Yoma 5:6). .... The event at Gethsemane must be something important, for no other reason than that it is even mentioned in the Gospels at all. .... Denominations such as The Baptist Church figures that the scene of Gethsemane was about Christ expressing fear in anticipation of the pains of the cross. However, I think this is wrong, for Christ to be afraid to be persecuted and crucified is outside of the character He has ever displayed previously and shortly thereafter when it concerned the subject of suffering and death. To interpret this as fear of death would place Christ below the heroism of the Christian martyrs, like Paul, who anticipated harsh persecution and death, even crucifixion, for Christ’s sake with joy. The point of the scene is not a mere display of Christ’s humanity, weakness or fears of death. Instead of Christ being fearful of death on the cross, I would here interject it was the custom for High Priest who approached God (such as during the Temple's atonement ritual) to do so with “fear and trembling” (Genesis 9:2; Psalm 55:6; Judith 2:28; 4 Maccabees 4:10; 1 Enoch 13:3; Narsai, Homilies 17A). When the High Priest preformed an Atonement ritual, the proper thing to do was to approach the Holy of Holies with the purposeful attitude of fear and trembling, thus showing reverence and respect. In an Atonement, it was then that the Atoning High Priest would then open his mouth, praying in devotion until He knows his prayer has been accepted. The details about what the content of the Atonement Prayer is unknown, however what little we do know is the prayer was repeated three times as some kind of formula (Exodus 30:10; Leviticus 8:15; 16:18; 17:18). It is with much interest that here, alone on a holy mountain, that Christ trembles and opens his mouth to pray, and does so three times as a formula, “O my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: never the less not as I will, but as thou will.” (Matthew 26:39-44). If Christ was cowering over the suffering of the crucifixion, why did Christ not fear or tremble, cower or even open his mouth to respond during the Passion of Christ, but He was brave, calm and was lead as a lamb to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7; Mark 14:61; 15:31). .... Since the purpose of Atonement in the past wasn’t just about forgiving sins but to purify and cleanse the holy ground of the Temple (Leviticus 16:9). If Christ’s Atonement is a final Day of Atonement Ritual, a temple is the proper venue for a temple rite. The Temple of Herod in Jerusalem was under the control of the Sanhedrin. Christians as a new upstart sect in Judaism, claiming to possess an extinct priesthood, did not have the clout to have free reign of that temple. However, a Temple quintessentially is an artificially constructed mountain with an artificial golden tree grove at its summit. In the past, before the temple was built, the Patriarchs built up many other more literally mountainous and arboreal types of temples, utilizing the more natural and rural features of the areas rather than creating artificial ones. They built an alter and pitched a tabernacle tent on top of actual mountains with an actual grove of trees in their midst (Bethel – Genesis 28:19; 35:8, and Sinai – Exodus 15:7; 3:2, etc). The Garden of Eden was a holy grove of olive trees (Zechariah 4:3). During the day light hours, Christ utilized the Temple of Jerusalem and could be found teaching the masses outside the Temple, while during the night, Christ taught only to his disciples on a mountain called the “Mount of Olives” (Luke 21:37-38) as was his “wont” or custom (Luke 22:39). While on the Mount of Olive’s western slope was an ancient grove of olive trees, the “garden of Gethsemane [(G#1068) Oil Press]” (Matthew 26:36). The olives that grew there were pressed under gigantic stones to extract its oils. Poetic as it was here that Christ would say that He had felt a “heavy” weight upon him (Matthew 26:17) and “blood” would be extracted from him. This Mount was always a holy and distinguished mountain, it is where King David himself worshiped (2 Samuel 15:30, 32). When the Temple of Jerusalem was razed to the ground by Babylon, Ezekiel had a vision during the Babylonian captivity in which, “the glory of the Lord” vacated the Temple mount and came to rest of the Mount of Olives (Ezekiel 11:22-23). In the future, the Messiah was prophesied to appear there to save his people, God will send the nations to Jerusalem, the Lord will stand on the Mount of Olives (Zacharias 14:3-5). After the Resurrection, this is this same mount that Christ ascended into a “cloud” and angels were frequently seen there (Acts 1:9-12; Luke 22:43). .... For the next 700 years, the Christians that lived there called the Mount of Olives, “the sanctuary of the Lord, that is, the Temple” which is to be built in the future. Thus, Emperor Constantine’s mother built a “sacred church and temple on the very summit”. On the Mountain of Olives was also a cave, “authentic history informs us that this very cave the savior imparted secret revelations to his disciples” (Philip Schaft, Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Eusebias [1994], pg 531). The narrative tells us that the Garden of Gethsemane even had a Temple-like Tripartite division, three main areas, just like a temple has. On the Day of Atonement, the Israelites stood outside the building in the Temple Courtyard, Priests were allowed to enter the Holy Place, and the High Priest was to go into the Holy of Holies alone (Leviticus 16:17). At other rural Temple-like sites like Mount Sinai, Moses, who was a non-Aaronic priest (Psalm 99:1) was attempting to renew the original covenant (before Israel sinned) and blood atoned there (Exodus 24:8). For this they triple partitioned Mount Sinai as a Temple, the Israelites stayed at the Bottom of the Mount, Aaron and the Seventy were able to go Midway Up, and Moses as a High Priest had to go to the Top alone (Exodus 19:17). Similarly, in Gethsemane on the Mount of Olives, the Disciples gathered in a main area of the garden where Christ instructs them to stay there (Matthew 26:36), only taking the Triumvirate, the three Chief Apostles; Peter, James and John, as the Priests, with Him into an Interior area of the Garden, that is until He asks them to wait there (Matthew 26:37), while Christ “went a little further” to be alone into a third Innermost area (Matthew 26:39). Being alone in a Holy Mountain Grove, Christ was in a position to act as a High Priest in an atonement ritual for a new covenant with his own blood and it was mentioned that there Jesus did appear to bleed (Luke 22:44). While Christ also bled on Calvary’s Hill, He was not alone on Calvary’s Hill as a High Priests should be, there were two crucified with him (Matthew 29:38).

And there is this observation by Methodist Biblical scholar, Margaret Barker in The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God: "there were many in first-century Palestine who still retained a world-view derived from the more ancient religion of Israel in which there was a High God and several Sons of God, one of whom was Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel. Yahweh, the Lord, could be manifested on earth in human form, as an angel or in the Davidic king. It was as a manifestation of Yahweh, the Son of God, that Jesus was acknowledged as Son of God, Messiah, and Lord." She also observes that "All the texts in the Hebrew Bible distinguish clearly between the divine sons of Elohim/Elyon and those human beings who are called sons of Yahweh. This must be significant. It must mean that the terms originated at a time when Yahweh was distinguished from whatever was meant by El/Elohim/Elyon. A large number of texts continued to distinguish between EI Elyon and Yahweh, Father and Son, and to express this distinction in similar ways with the symbolism of the temple and the royal cult. By tracing these patterns through a great variety of material and over several centuries, Israel’s second God can be recovered." That particular observation is very helpful in dealing with references to Christ, who has a father, also being a father to those humans who covenant with him. Brant Gardner wrote in his Second Witness commentaries that this distinction between Fathers works for all of the Book of Mormon references. See https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference_home/august-2003/monotheism-messiah-and-mormons-book A summary of Barker's approach is here: https://www.theway.org.uk/back/431Barker.pdf But her book, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel's Second God has far more detail. And in considering Latter-day Saint readings, I've read several supposedly objective and definitive commentaries on the evolution of understanding that do not mention some telling lines in some of the most popular hymns. "Jesus once of humble birth, now in glory comes to earth, Once a meek and lowly lamb, now the LORD the Great I AM." and "Praise to the man who communed with Jehovah, Jesus annointed that prophet and seer." Since these were composed by Parley P. Pratt at least 60 years before Jesus the Christ and the First Presidency Statement, it seems to me that some Latter-day Saint thinkers understood long before that. As to Psalm 110, it was a ritual Temple text, something to be performed, with layers of representation, of the LORD (who represents his Father, El Elyon, God Most High) speaking to the Melchizedek (where Melch Zedek means Righteous King) High Priest (often also the King), who represents the LORD in the Temple rituals). Also, Barker points out that in the New Testament, Jesus is always designated as the Son of El Elyon, and never the Son of Jehovah. He is recognized as LORD, not the son of the Lord. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

For the right questions and the best answer about the Bible, read this by Margaret Barker, "Text and Context", which tells the story of how we get the current canon. http://www.margaretbarker.com/Papers/TextAndContext.pdf Then read 1 Nephi 13. And also consider John Gee's chapter, "The Corruption of Scripture in Early Christianity" in Early Christians in Disarray. https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book/early-christians-disarray-contemporary-lds-perspectives-christian-apostasy And for afters, see The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, by Bart Ehrman. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

After reading The Hebrew Goddess by Raphiel Patai, and Margaret Barker, it stirs in me that the Catholic veneration of Mary as co-redemptrix or co-mediatrix is a mistaken identity, they've confused Mary with the other 'Mother of the Lord' who is indeed a divine feminine, co-redemptrix or co-mediatrix. Before Judaism's late official stance on monotheism, there was a persistent proto-Christian royal cult, angel cult, and a Mother Goddess cult or other female divine beings existing in ancient Israel. The Goddess of Wisdom, Asherah and her virgin daughter Anath, evolved into the Hokhmah the divine Wisdom, who is often depicted In Proverbs as the Lord's female co-worker, the Shekhinah, the Matronit (Matron), the Sabbath Bride, who is separated from and seeks reunification with the masculine aspect of God. She was originally central to the royal cult and early Israelite religion but was later purged from the official Hebrew texts (the Old Testament canon) in monotheistic reforms of King Josiah around 600 BC. But preserved in ancient non-canonical texts and eventually re-emerged in early Christianity as the Holy Spirit and morphed into the veneration of the Virgin Mary. These Marian titles of co-redemptrix and co-mediatrix are a misidentification, where the roles and attributes of the ancient, purged, divine "Mother of the Lord" have been transferred to the historical mother of Jesus, Mary. In the Dead Sea Scrolls, Mary is not the Mother of the Lord in Isaiah 7:11. The Masoretic Text says "Ask a sign for yourself from the LORD your God..." (Isa 7:11) (Hebrew: she'al-lekha 'ot me-'im YHWH 'Elohekha) The crucial word is me-'im, which means "from with" or "from the presence of" the LORD (YHWH). This directs Ahaz to ask for a sign directly from God. The Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa), "Ask a sign for yourself from the Mother of the LORD your God..." (Hebrew: she'al-lekha 'ot me-'em YHWH 'Elohekha) The preposition min [from] plus the noun 'em [mother]. The Gospel of the Hebrews, several Church Fathers like Origen and Jerome quote, "My Mother, the Holy Spirit, took me just now by one of my hairs and carried me off to the great Mount Tabor." Directly identifies the Holy Spirit as Jesus's Divine Mother. The Holy Spirit is the agent of Jesus's conception, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God." (Luke 1:35). Jesus saying He and John the Baptist are the children of Wisdom, "Wisdom is justified by Her children" (Matthew 11:19). Solomon equates "the Holy Spirit" with "Wisdom" (Wisdom of Solomon 9:17) The Mother of Christ of Revelation 12 is not Mary, it's the Holy Spirit matching the ancient concept of the Divine Feminine in Judaism and early Christianity. The Shekhinah that accompanied Israel in exile aligns with the Woman's flight to the wilderness. The mother of Jesus and mother to "the rest of her offspring, who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus" (Rev 12:17). The Holy Spirit is universally understood as the one who brings the "new birth" and sustains the Church, making her the mother of all believers. The Woman is not human, she has wings, she is "clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars", is the divine Wisdom (Hokhmah). The Spirit is portrayed as hovering/fluttering upon the sea like a bird in Gen 1:2, descending as a dove in Matt 3:16. King Josiah removed the Asherah Yam (She who treads upon the sea), the sun, moon and stars from Solomon's temple. When the Babylonian spirit of the temple of Herod is burned by Rome, the Woman comes back as the bride. The Catholic doctrines of Mary's cooperation in redemption and mediation of all graces grant her a status that critics and even the Vatican's recent guidance here say risks obscuring Christ's unique mediation because the terms imply a parallel, near-divine role. They mistake attributing the roles of the ancient, divine Lady Wisdom to the human Virgin Mary. Catholic Marian maximalism is an unconscious revival of the original Divine Feminine cult, but mistakenly focusing it on a human being, which elevates Mary beyond the traditional Christological boundaries. It very seems like a theological category error conflating the human mother of the historical Jesus with the ancient, cosmic Mother figure of the Lord who is a co-mediatrix.

Quick note, this video is mostly discussing three different presentations: The first is William's Schryver's presentation from 2010 dealing with the idea that the Egyptian Alphabet was an attempt to come up with a cipher. That was discussed on this board back then and he was involved. You can read an old posting from him at The second is Tim Barker's presentation in 2020 showing that Fascimile 2 includes characters from the papyrus that are also used to fill in gaps and that Joseph said that no translation was available. You can read his full presentation at https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference_home/2020-fairmormon-conference/the-answer-under-our-heads The third is a clip from an interview with Kerry Muhlestein where he discusses how the meaning of Egyptian images has changed over the 2000 years of its usage. He also talks about how Jewish ideas (such as the name of Abraham) do show up in Egyptian documents. I know this has been discussed here as well, such as

Do you understand the difference between normal science operating within the assumptions of a paradigm, and concious paradigm testing? Have read and understood The Structure of Scientific Revolutions? I find specificity in which examples a person uses to generalize from is an essential starting point. I have actually read all of Nibley's Book of Abraham apologetics. He does not pretend that he does not have a point of view. He is explicit that he has a perspective, and that no one is required to uncritically accept his arguments, nor does he presume to offer the last word. Indeed, Will Schryver and Tim Barker have offered important observations that Nibley did not make. Nibley read Kuhn and understands paradigm debate. All Nibley was trying to do was to make an argument that belief in the Book of Abraham is reasonable. Not on the basis of objective proof that coerces belief or unbelief, but on the basis of broad explorations that in his view invite belief, and that have not in fact been fully accounted for by skeptics. I recently pointed to Jeff Lindsay's observations that Vogel's survey of Book of Abraham apologetics failed to mention or address One Eternal Round, Will Schryver's FAIR presentation, or Tim Barker's Under the Head presentation. Indeed, I have noticed and called out in print several critics of LDS claims for premature ideological dismissal of Latter-day Saint scholarship. All scholars begin with a perspective. Some have the self consciousness and wit to be self aware and self critical, and are willing to openly state that they have one. Some are so pleased to be able to state that other people have an ideology that they don't stop to reflect on the implications of their own I can think of some Latter-day Saint writers who do not consciously in engage in paradigm testing, but who just present their puzzle solutions as though final and indisputable. Not just believers in Historicity. McMurrin famously told Blake Ostler that "I learned when I was younger than I remember that you don't get books from angels and translate them by revelation. It's just that simple." In terms of conscious paradigm testing of Joseph Smith's claims, McMurrin produced nothing. He died before he could have read Brant Gardner's work, or that of Brian Stubbs, or Jerry Grover, or anything in the Interpreter, or the LiDar surveys, or my work on Barker. So "better" does not enter into it. The point is that I know many top Latter-day Saint scholars who are consciously participating in paradigm testing. Alan Goff, Daniel Peterson, Brant Gardner, Jeff Lindsay, and literally dozens of others, if not hundreds. The generalization you offer does not account for my personal experience and observation. Again, I recommend Ian Barbour's Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Temporarily Mountain View, CA

Besides Steve Smoot, Jeff Lindsay also provided an important response to Vogel's take on Book of Abraham apologetics. https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/book-of-abraham-polemics-dan-vogels-broad-critique-of-the-defense-of-the-book-of-abraham/ The abstract has this: For a specific example of neglect: Besides ignoring One Eternal Round, Vogel also does not mention Tim Barker's revolutionary FAIR Presentation “Translating the Book of Abraham: The Answer Under Our Heads.” Barker shows that Joseph Smith directed Reuben Hedlock to fill in gaps in Facsimile 2 with characters from the Hor Book of Breathings and in the published facsimiles declares that he has not translated those characters, a significant obstacle for the long standing claim that Joseph Smith mistakenly thought or fraudulently claimed that he had translated the Book of Abraham from the Hor Book of Breathings. Vogel also fails to mention or engage Will Schryver's FAIR Presentation on the Kirtland Egyptian papers as an attempt to create a cypher, rather than a dubious approach to translation. At the end of his long response, Lindsay reports that: FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT