Heavenly Mother Appeared To Joseph Smith And Sidney Rigdon

[Peppermint Patty]

Apostle Abraham Cannon related the following appearance of Heavenly Mother to Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Zebedee Coltrin:

One day the Prophet Joseph Smith asked him (Zebedee Coltrin) and Sidney Rigdon to accompany him into the woods to pray. When they had reached a secluded spot Joseph laid down on his back and stretched out his arms. He told the brethren to lie one on each arm and then shut their eyes. After they had prayed he told them to open their eyes. They did so and they saw a brilliant light surrounding a pedestal which seemed to rest on the ground. They closed their eyes and again prayed. They then saw, on opening them, the Father seated upon a throne; they prayed again and on looking saw the Mother also; after praying and looking the fourth time they saw the Savior added to the group. He had auburn brown, rather long, wavy hair and appeared quite young." Abraham H. Cannon Journal, 25 Aug. 1880, LDS archives

As far as I know, this is the only recorded appearance of Heavenly Mother. I am fascinated. Does anyone have any more details regarding this purported appearance, or any other recorded appearance of Heavenly Mother?

Edited February 9, 2012 by Peppermint Patty

[DH]

That is fascinating. Unfortunately, I don't have any further details for you. Thanks for sharing that!

[Mike Reed]

Hi Patty. Great question. Zebedee Coltrin's journal records the event two years before Abraham Cannon's journal did. Coltrin said the man and woman were Adam and Eve. The following comes comes from my book that will be published soon:

According to Coltrin, he and Oliver Cowdery were walking with Joseph Smith outside one day when Smith stopped by some wild grape vines and said, “Let us kneel down here and pray.” After the completion of the prayer, “Joseph stretched himself on his back upon a grassy spot with his arms extended like one upon a cross. He told me to lie by his side with my head resting upon his arm, and Oliver in like manner upon the other side”.... “We did so,” said Coltrin, “all three looking heavenwards. As I looked I saw the blue sky open. I beheld a throne, and upon the throne sat a man and a woman. Joseph asked us if we knew who they were. We answered ‘no’, Joseph said, ‘That is father Adam and mother Eve.’”

Zebedee Coltrin, Diary Excerpts of Zebedee Coltrin (1878); as quoted in my book Banishing the Cross: The Emergence of a Mormon Taboo (John Whitmer Books).

Cannon says it happened with Rigdon, while Coltrin (who allegedly had the experience) says Cowdery. Cannon also says Father and Mother in Heaven and Coltrin reported Adam and Eve. Cannon evidently conflated two of Coltrin's visions into one. And in the context of the Adam God doctrine there is even less contradiction.

As you may know... Zebedee Coltrin reported all sorts of visions, another being of Jesus crucified on the cross in the Kirtland Temple.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Mike Reed

[Peppermint Patty]

Thanks Mike. So it appears that there are two versions of this appearance. In one, it is described as Heavenly Mother and in the other version it is Eve, but you feel this can be reconciled as Heavenly Mother in the context of the Adam God Doctrine. I look forward to your book.

Mike, I have read from different sources that it is believed that Joseph Smith revealed important doctrine regarding Heavenly Mother to Eliza Snow. Do you know of any source in which Eliza Snow may have discussed this doctrine?

[Mike Reed]

Thanks Mike. So it appears that there are two versions of this appearance.

At least two.

In one, it is described as Heavenly Mother and in the other version it is Eve, but you feel this can be reconciled as Heavenly Mother in the context of the Adam God Doctrine.

I think it perhaps *could*... but that is not to say that I think it *should.* I'd want to do more research on this before I take that position.

I look forward to your book.

Thanks. Fortunately... the book doesn't get bogged down over the Adam/God debate. The focus is on the development of Mormon attitudes toward the material/visual symbol of the cross.

Mike, I have read from different sources that it is believed that Joseph Smith revealed important doctrine regarding Heavenly Mother to Eliza Snow. Do you know of any source in which Eliza Snow may have discussed this doctrine?

Sorry. Not off the top of my head. I would need to do some searching around, and I really should get back to proofreading my galleys and doing homework. Hopefully others here can direct you to the sources. I will just quickly mention that some have argued that her hymn, "Oh my Father" (which mentions a "Mother" in heaven) was written with the belief of Adam God. Maybe this info will help in a google search. There is a good Dialogue article on Adam God, which you should be able to access online in the University of Utah digital collections.

Good luck!

--Mike (skipping out the door before he gets pulled into an Adam God debate)

Edited February 9, 2012 by Mike Reed

[The Nehor]

I also don't think it would be wrong to call Eve "the Mother".

I suspect there is something to Adam-God but I have not figured it out or been answered as to what.

If there is one thing that doctrine has helped me to remember it is that there are still mysteries in creation. Keeps me from being dogmatic and makes me happy.

Edited February 9, 2012 by The Nehor

[inquiringmind]

I also don't think it would be wrong to call Eve "the Mother".

I suspect there is something to Adam-God but I have not figured it out or been answered as to what.

If there is one thing that doctrine has helped me to remember it is that there are still mysteries in creation. Keeps me from being dogmatic and makes me happy.

I thought the Church officially declared it heresy?

[The Nehor]

I thought the Church officially declared it heresy?

McConkie declared the most obvious understanding of it heresy and I agree with him there. McConkie was too dogmatic in a lot of the things he said and wrote. Being dogmatic is wrong whether you are right or wrong because it prevents you from receiving correction or more truth (see the creed discussion). We all have our flaws though and I don't condemn him for his partly out of the selfish desire not to be condemned for mine.

[KevinG]

Adam/God boils down to God vs. gods to me. I don't think most people think what Brigham said was what Brigham thought he said.

[Robert F. Smith]

Apostle Abraham Cannon related the following appearance of Heavenly Mother to Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon and Zebedee Coltrin:

As far as I know, this is the only recorded appearance of Heavenly Mother. I am fascinated. Does anyone have any more details regarding this purported appearance, or any other recorded appearance of Heavenly Mother?

Only if you are interested in the arcane views of Dr. Margaret Barker and the powerful implications which they have:

Margaret Barker maintains that the reforms of King Josiah (and the dominant priestly class of Deuteronomists) included removal of the Lady of the Temple (Wisdom, the “Living One”) from the holy of holies of the temple of Solomon.[1] Even so, the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran still includes the reading at Isaiah 7:11, “Ask a sign of the Mother of the LORD your God.”[2]

Thus in the great visions of Ezekiel at 1:20-22, 10:15,17,20, the Hebrew ḥayyâ “Living Creature, Living One, Life Giver” is feminine sgl, but also appears in the plural elsewhere – suggesting divinity to Margaret Barker, who interprets it as the throne:[3] “the throne represented Isis the great goddess; she wore a throne as her headdress, and the throne was the hieroglyph of her name.” She quotes Henri Frankfort on this:

There is excellent evidence that the great goddess Isis was originally the deified throne . . . The prince who takes his seat upon it arises a king. Hence the throne is called the “mother” of the king.[4]

So “that when Ezekiel described the chariot throne leaving Jerusalem, he described the departure of a female figure on whom the glory of the LORD was enthroned.”[5] In both eastern and western Christianity, this very explicit interpretive tradition has continued to the present in a variety of ways – whether as Lady Wisdom or Mary the Virgin Mother of God, or both.[6]

This fits well with what we already know about an entire constellation of characteristics in common between Christianity and ancient Egyptian religion, a few of which I list here:

(1) both Mary and Isis were called Mother of God (Theotokos “God-bearer”),[7] Queen of Heaven (Regina caeli),[8] and Heifer.[9]

(2) both were presented iconographically throughout the Mediterranean world as the Mother (Maria Lactans) suckling young Jesus / Horus.[10]

(3) Gilles Quispel even argues that Revelation 12 is really a version of the Legend of Isis the Virgin fleeing with her son Horus from Seth (Typhon-Hydra)[11];

(4) the festal birth of the child-god who comes “to bring salvation into the world” through his legitimate kingship,[12]

(5) the very son of the Sun-god,[13]

(6) whose traditional birth date, like that of Jesus, is conceptually the very birthday of Reʿ at Winter Solstice,[14]

(7) and is associated with formal temple triads / the Holy Trinity[15];

( 8 ) the newborn child is blessed, “circumcised, purified, and” formally “presented . . . as the new king.”[16]

----------------------------

[1] Barker, Temple Mysticism (SPCK, 2011), 65.

[2] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 107.

[3] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 110.

[4] Frankfort, Before Philosophy (London: Pelican, 1949), 26, cited by Barker, Temple Mysticism, 109.

[5] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 109.

[6] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 114-115.

[7] Ancient Egyptian mwt-ntr “Mother of God” (= Greek Theotokos “Bearer of God”) can be either Mary, or the perpetually virginal Isis / Hathor-cow (= Demeter), E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians (London: Methuen/Chicago: Open Court, 1904/reprint N.Y.: Dover, 1969), I:xvi, II:220-221; E. Iversen in Harris, ed., Legacy of Egypt, 2^nd ed., 170; S. Morenz, Egyptian Religion, 253-257,351; Odes of Solomon 9; Vasiliki Limberis, “The Battle Over Mary,” Bible Review, 17/3 (June 2001), 22-23.

[8] Ancient Egyptian nbt pt “Lady of Heaven” (epithet of the cow-goddess Hathor; Sinuhe B,270) = Hebrew MT *Malkat haššamayim (Jer 7:18, 44:17-19,25) = LXX Basilissi tou ouranou “Queen of Heaven.” See the article on the “Queen of Heaven” by P. C. Schmitz in Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, V:586-588.

[9] Apocryphon of Ezekiel frag. 3 (Gregory of Nyssa, Against the Jews 3); cf. I Enoch 90:37.

[10] D. Redford, “Egypt and the World Beyond,” in D. Silverman, ed., Ancient Egypt, 57; R. Ritner, “The Cult of the Dead,” in Silverman, ed., Ancient Egypt, 135; Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, “Survivals of Pharaonic Religious Practices in Contemporary Coptic Christianity,” UCLA Encyclopaedia of Egyptology, version 1, April 2008, online at http://escholarship.org/uc/ item/27v9z5m8, 2.

[11] Quispel, Secret Book of Revelation (McGraw-Hill, 1979), 21-24. Indeed, Maryolatry is frequently seen as merely a continuation of pagan worship of the ancient Mother Goddess? For a discussion of this issue, see E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, II:205-240; Friedrich Solmsen, Isis Among the Greeks and Romans (Harvard, 1980); M. H. Pope, Song of Songs, Anchor Bible 7c (Doubleday, 1977), 311-318; C. H. Gordon in Ugaritica, IV:274-277; and M. W. Meyer, ed., The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook (HarperCollins, 1987), 159-160.

[12] Jan Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, trans. D. Lorton (Ithaca/London: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001), 119.

[13] Psalm 84:11, Isa 9:2 ∥ Luke 1:79 (Mat 4:16), Isa 60:1-3, Malachi 4:2 (MT 3:20) ∥ Luke 1:78. Assmann, Search for God, 118; James K. Hoffmeier,"Son of God: From Pharaoh to Israel's Kings to Jesus," Bible Review, XIII/3 (June 1997), 44-49, 54. Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 11. Even as late as the 4^th century, St. Ambrose refers to Jesus as the “true sun” who outshines the other gods (Bible Review, XVIII/6 [Dec 2002], 48).

[14] R. A. Wells in Anthony J. Spalinger, ed., Revolutions in Time: Studies in Ancient Egyptian Calendrics (San Antonio: Van Siclen Books, 1994), 1-37. Cf. Mithra / Sol Invictus, likewise born on Dec 25 (winter solstice in the Julian calendar).

[15] Assmann, Search, 116, 118; cf. Coffin Texts 80, II, 39, cited in Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 1^st ed., 133.

[16] Assmann, Search, 117; Luke 2:10-38; cf. Matthew 1:18 - 2:12.

Edited February 9, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[DH]

Hi Patty. Great question. Zebedee Coltrin's journal records the event two years before Abraham Cannon's journal did. Coltrin said the man and woman were Adam and Eve. The following comes comes from my book that will be published soon:

Cool! Thanks for that, Mike Reed.

[Maidservant]

Also it might do to ponder the Adam, Eve, Abel, Cain and Seth set up (with Seth as Christology); and even further into the Seth = Melchizedek set up.

[ebeddoulos]

I thought the Church officially declared it heresy?

It did:

“We warn you against the dissemination of doctrines which are not according to the scriptures and which are alleged to have been taught by some of the General Authorities of past generations. Such, for instance is the Adam-God theory. We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine.” [“Church News”, October 9, 1976, p.11-12]

[orion88]

It did:

"We warn you against the dissemination of doctrines which are not according to the scriptures and which are alleged to have been taught by some of the General Authorities of past generations. Such, for instance is the Adam-God theory. We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine.” [“Church News”, October 9, 1976, p.11-12]

I don't understand how Adam could ever be considered as Heavenly Father when he is currently

taught to be Michael the Archangel.

[inquiringmind]

I don't understand how Adam could ever be considered as Heavenly Father when he is currently

taught to be Michael the Archangel.

There are a lot of quotes from BY that could be used to "prove" that he taught this, and one or two that might be used to "prove' that he meant something more like the Adam Sr/Adam Jr thing (Adam Sr being Heavenly Father, and Adam Jr being Michael.)

Does anyone know if the Adam Sr/Adam Jr theory is heresy?

Edited February 9, 2012 by inquiringmind

[Ron Beron]

Only if you are interested in the arcane views of Dr. Margaret Barker and the powerful implications which they have:

Margaret Barker maintains that the reforms of King Josiah (and the dominant priestly class of Deuteronomists) included removal of the Lady of the Temple (Wisdom, the “Living One”) from the holy of holies of the temple of Solomon.[1] Even so, the Great Isaiah Scroll from Qumran still includes the reading at Isaiah 7:11, “Ask a sign of the Mother of the LORD your God.”[2]

Thus in the great visions of Ezekiel at 1:20-22, 10:15,17,20, the Hebrew ḥayyâ “Living Creature, Living One, Life Giver” is feminine sgl, but also appears in the plural elsewhere – suggesting divinity to Margaret Barker, who interprets it as the throne:[3] “the throne represented Isis the great goddess; she wore a throne as her headdress, and the throne was the hieroglyph of her name.” She quotes Henri Frankfort on this:

There is excellent evidence that the great goddess Isis was originally the deified throne . . . The prince who takes his seat upon it arises a king. Hence the throne is called the “mother” of the king.[4]

So “that when Ezekiel described the chariot throne leaving Jerusalem, he described the departure of a female figure on whom the glory of the LORD was enthroned.”[5] In both eastern and western Christianity, this very explicit interpretive tradition has continued to the present in a variety of ways – whether as Lady Wisdom or Mary the Virgin Mother of God, or both.[6]

This fits well with what we already know about an entire constellation of characteristics in common between Christianity and ancient Egyptian religion, a few of which I list here:

(1) both Mary and Isis were called Mother of God (Theotokos “God-bearer”),[7] Queen of Heaven (Regina caeli),[8] and Heifer.[9]

(2) both were presented iconographically throughout the Mediterranean world as the Mother (Maria Lactans) suckling young Jesus / Horus.[10]

(3) Gilles Quispel even argues that Revelation 12 is really a version of the Legend of Isis the Virgin fleeing with her son Horus from Seth (Typhon-Hydra)[11];

(4) the festal birth of the child-god who comes “to bring salvation into the world” through his legitimate kingship,[12]

(5) the very son of the Sun-god,[13]

(6) whose traditional birth date, like that of Jesus, is conceptually the very birthday of Reʿ at Winter Solstice,[14]

(7) and is associated with formal temple triads / the Holy Trinity[15];

( 8 ) the newborn child is blessed, “circumcised, purified, and” formally “presented . . . as the new king.”[16]

----------------------------

[1] Barker, Temple Mysticism (SPCK, 2011), 65.

[2] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 107.

[3] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 110.

[4] Frankfort, Before Philosophy (London: Pelican, 1949), 26, cited by Barker, Temple Mysticism, 109.

[5] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 109.

[6] Barker, Temple Mysticism, 114-115.

[7] Ancient Egyptian mwt-ntr “Mother of God” (= Greek Theotokos “Bearer of God”) can be either Mary, or the perpetually virginal Isis / Hathor-cow (= Demeter), E. A. W. Budge, Gods of the Egyptians (London: Methuen/Chicago: Open Court, 1904/reprint N.Y.: Dover, 1969), I:xvi, II:220-221; E. Iversen in Harris, ed., Legacy of Egypt, 2^nd ed., 170; S. Morenz, Egyptian Religion, 253-257,351; Odes of Solomon 9; Vasiliki Limberis, “The Battle Over Mary,” Bible Review, 17/3 (June 2001), 22-23.

[8] Ancient Egyptian nbt pt “Lady of Heaven” (epithet of the cow-goddess Hathor; Sinuhe B,270) = Hebrew MT *Malkat haššamayim (Jer 7:18, 44:17-19,25) = LXX Basilissi tou ouranou “Queen of Heaven.” See the article on the “Queen of Heaven” by P. C. Schmitz in Freedman, ed., Anchor Bible Dictionary, V:586-588.

[9] Apocryphon of Ezekiel frag. 3 (Gregory of Nyssa, Against the Jews 3); cf. I Enoch 90:37.

[10] D. Redford, “Egypt and the World Beyond,” in D. Silverman, ed., Ancient Egypt, 57; R. Ritner, “The Cult of the Dead,” in Silverman, ed., Ancient Egypt, 135; Saphinaz-Amal Naguib, “Survivals of Pharaonic Religious Practices in Contemporary Coptic Christianity,” UCLA Encyclopaedia of Egyptology, version 1, April 2008, online at http://escholarship.org/uc/ item/27v9z5m8, 2.

[11] Quispel, Secret Book of Revelation (McGraw-Hill, 1979), 21-24. Indeed, Maryolatry is frequently seen as merely a continuation of pagan worship of the ancient Mother Goddess? For a discussion of this issue, see E. A. W. Budge, The Gods of the Egyptians, II:205-240; Friedrich Solmsen, Isis Among the Greeks and Romans (Harvard, 1980); M. H. Pope, Song of Songs, Anchor Bible 7c (Doubleday, 1977), 311-318; C. H. Gordon in Ugaritica, IV:274-277; and M. W. Meyer, ed., The Ancient Mysteries: A Sourcebook (HarperCollins, 1987), 159-160.

[12] Jan Assmann, The Search for God in Ancient Egypt, trans. D. Lorton (Ithaca/London: Cornell Univ. Press, 2001), 119.

[13] Psalm 84:11, Isa 9:2 ∥ Luke 1:79 (Mat 4:16), Isa 60:1-3, Malachi 4:2 (MT 3:20) ∥ Luke 1:78. Assmann, Search for God, 118; James K. Hoffmeier,"Son of God: From Pharaoh to Israel's Kings to Jesus," Bible Review, XIII/3 (June 1997), 44-49, 54. Cf. Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, 11. Even as late as the 4^th century, St. Ambrose refers to Jesus as the “true sun” who outshines the other gods (Bible Review, XVIII/6 [Dec 2002], 48).

[14] R. A. Wells in Anthony J. Spalinger, ed., Revolutions in Time: Studies in Ancient Egyptian Calendrics (San Antonio: Van Siclen Books, 1994), 1-37. Cf. Mithra / Sol Invictus, likewise born on Dec 25 (winter solstice in the Julian calendar).

[15] Assmann, Search, 116, 118; cf. Coffin Texts 80, II, 39, cited in Nibley, Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 1^st ed., 133.

[16] Assmann, Search, 117; Luke 2:10-38; cf. Matthew 1:18 - 2:12.

Interesting post, but can I also suggest the Sumerian goddess Ninhursag which existed simulataneously as both Mother Goddess and first woman. In either situation the Mother Goddess is a symborepsresentation of God's creative force.

[Robert F. Smith]

I don't understand how Adam could ever be considered as Heavenly Father when he is currently

taught to be Michael the Archangel.

There are a lot of quotes from BY that could be used to "prove" that he taught this, and one or two that might be used to "prove' that he meant something more like the Adam Sr/Adam Jr thing (Adam Sr being Heavenly Father, and Adam Jr being Michael.)

Does anyone know if the Adam Sr/Adam Jr theory is heresy?

The heresy inheres in failure to understand the ancient terminology: In Hebrew, Ugaritic, Eblaite, and Old Akkadian adam (adm) is a generic and common noun meaning "man, humankind," along with wordplay on adama "earth." Cf. the Ugaritic phrase il ab adm "El the Father of mankind."¹Adam can also be used as a proper name, as in Gen 5:1, but not before.² So, of course, there can be several "men" with that sort of descriptive title, and any of us might find ourselves playing that role on occasion.

¹ Stan Segert in Journal of the American Oriental Society, 103 (1983), 304a; M. Dahood in Pettinato, Archives of Ebla, 274.

² G. Von Rad, Genesis, 70.

Edited February 11, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[Peppermint Patty]

Great comments. Can someone who is knowledgeable in Hebrew help me out with the following:

the Hebrew/Aramaic words for Heavenly Mother/Goddess [Eloahh and

Elahh] appear at least 131 times in the Old Testament. If the English and German

Bibles had first been translated by Catholic or Orthodox scholars, who have

always believed in a Mother in Heaven, perhaps she would be common knowledge

today.

I came across this "article" yesterday at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InhabitantsofZion/message/61. I am curious if there is any merit to the above assertion.

Volagadon?

[Robert F. Smith]

Great comments. Can someone who is knowledgeable in Hebrew help me out with the following:

I came across this "article" yesterday at http://groups.yahoo....Zion/message/61. I am curious if there is any merit to the above assertion.

Volagadon?

There is a chiropractor in Lexington, Missouri, who holds the same view as the publication you cite, but that is a minority view (David B. Clark, “Eloah. Goddess of the Bible – ‘You will pray and she will hear’,” Feb 4, 2010, expresses the view that Eloah means “Goddess,” at http://sahajapower.wordpress.com/2010/02/04/eloah-goddess-of-the-bible-you-will-pray-and-she-will-hear-”/ . See his book, Eloah: Our Mother in Heaven [CreateSpace, 2010]).

However, you might also want to read a reference in Marlene Elizabeth Mondriaan, “The Rise of Yahwism: Role of Marginalised Groups,” doctoral thesis (Univ. of Pretoria, Oct 2010), online at http://upetd.up.ac.za/thesis/available/etd-05162011-154113/unrestricted/04chapter4.pdf , on one of a couple of Classical Hebrew inscriptions on storage jars -- §4.3.9, pithos B at Quntillet ʿAjrud (a Negeb caravansarai) “Yahweh of Teman and his Asherah.” You might want to read that example of Jehovah and his consort along with Habakkuk 3:3 “’eloha from Teman,” and put that together with what Margaret Barker asserts about the Heavenly Mother in her book on Temple Mysticism (SPCK, 2011).

Edited February 13, 2012 by Robert F. Smith

[David T]

I don't understand how Adam could ever be considered as Heavenly Father when he is currently

taught to be Michael the Archangel.

According to the plain reading of the developed Adam-God teachings at the time (see Matthew Brown's Brigham Young's Teachings on Adam, from FAIR conference in 2009) , Michael the Archangel was the Father of Spirits, and the father of the first humans on eath, in order to give his spirit children appropriate bodies. Jehovah was HIS father, and Elohim, Jehovah's father, presided over both. Jesus was not included among the Gods of Creation, and not equated with Jehovah.

Of course, this is quite different than the way we generally understand the Temple drama today.

[David T]

Does anyone know if the Adam Sr/Adam Jr theory is heresy?

Not heresy, just really, really, really bad history, and unfortunate theology.

Those who want to believe that human bodies didn't evolve, but are the physical sexual offspring of God and Mother, without having to go along with the full Adam stuff that BY taught, however, tend to eat it up.

A lot of Mormons believe some form of it, without really thinking of it as Adam Jr/Sr. Probably several GAs do, too.

Edited February 13, 2012 by nackhadlow

[Damien the Leper]

For those who are better studied, is there a connection between Lady Wisdom (Hokhma) and the Gnostic Sophia (Wisdom)? Sophia plays a role of prominence specifically in The Sophia of Jesus Christ.

[Ron Beron]

For those who are better studied, is there a connection between Lady Wisdom (Hokhma) and the Gnostic Sophia (Wisdom)? Sophia plays a role of prominence specifically in The Sophia of Jesus Christ.

I made a brief study on this which can be found here.... http://archaiologia.wordpress.com/?s=sophia

[Damien the Leper]

I made a brief study on this which can be found here.... http://archaiologia....s.com/?s=sophia

Thanks...I'll give it a read.

[rpn]

I don't believe anything I read from Zebedee Coltrin. He knew of or actually did the ordination of Elijah Able to the priesthood in Nauvoo at the Prophet's instruction. Yet in the late 19th century when some apostles were assigned to explore the blacks and the priesthood basis, he denied that Brother Able had ever had the priesthood (which was proven wrong). Further in the D&C, he is spoken about as though he had some desire to say what he thought others wanted to hear. And does anyone really think that if people saw Heavenly Mother (an idea that the brethren came to protest after Eliza R. Smith wrote the song), what they would remember is the Savior's hair color? Heavenly Father and Jesus were part of their cultural heritage, and would not have been so astounding as seeing their Heavenly Mother would have been (though obviously quite astounding indeed.)

Edited February 14, 2012 by rpn