Celestial Visits In The Scriptures, And A Plausible Mesoamerican Tradition

[livy111us]

I just finished reading this article written by Diane Wirth and found it to be intriguing. She brings up some very interesting points and parallels between The Book of Mormon and Mesoamerica.

 

Scriptural accounts of celestial beings visiting the earth are abundant in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Whether a descending deity or angelic beings from celestial realms, they were often accompanied by clouds. In this paper a short analysis of the various types of clouds, including imitation clouds (incense), will be discussed. The relation between the phenomenon of supernatural beings, sometimes in clouds, may have had a great influence on descendants of Book of Mormon cultures. For these people, stories that were told from one generation to the next would have been considered ancient mythological lore. It may be plausible that future generations attempted to duplicate the same type scenario of celestial beings speaking and visiting their people. These events were sometimes recorded in stone.

 

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/celestial-visits-in-the-scriptures-and-a-plausible-mesoamerican-tradition/

 

What are your thoughts on this? Do you think that it is possible that Nephites influenced other people in Mesoamerica?

Edited February 2, 2015 by livy111us

[VideoGameJunkie]

I wonder if Thomas S Monson has had any visions or witnesses and if he'd tell us about them at General Conference.

[Uncle Dale]

..Do you think that it is possible that Nephites influenced other people in Mesoamerica?

 

I'm told that there are three of them still walking about in our midst;

so perhaps next time somebody encounters one of them, such

questions might be asked (along with directions to Zarahemla).

 

Why do folks assume that the realms of divinity must always locate

themselves up above the stratosphere? Why do supernatural beings

have to "descend" down to planet earth from anywhere else?

 

Do astronauts and cosmonauts residing aboard an international

space station have a better chance of glimpsing these flying

apparitions, before those of us kneeling in Manchester groves

catch sight of them?

 

 

Kukulkan was Lord of the Air -- a god of serpentlike divinity who 

literally flew above the MesoAmericans. The early 19th century

would-be novelist, Sol Spalding had his "Baska" version of the

Feathered Serpent literally produce a flying machine, in order to

jaunt about among the clouds and thus convince the gullible

light-skinned preColumbians of his godlike status.

 

 

YHWH and Baal Hadad travel through the heavens in chariots pulled

by winged cherubs. Apollo does the same, though his creatures of

propulsion are heavenly horses. Not to mention Rudolph the Red-nosed.

 

Seems to me a better tradition would be the divine visitor walking in

the dust on the road to Emmaus -- or at least residing in a burning

bush, (that did not have to be lifted off-stage via deus ex machina

ropes, when the godly morality play's curtain comes down).

 

"There are more things in Heaven and Earth,

Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy"

(Hamlet, Prince of Denmark)

"Before you can say 'come' and 'go,'

And breathe twice and cry 'so, so...'"

(Ariel, The Tempest)

 

UD

Edited February 2, 2015 by Uncle Dale

[Ahab]

Why do folks assume that the realms of divinity must always locate themselves up above the stratosphere? Why do supernatural beings have to "descend" down to planet earth from anywhere else?

Not always, but the super or supra people are usually thought to be those that don't live on this planet but instead on some other world, coming to this one through other space (outside the space of this world), and although space is all around us outside of this planet, when we see it we usually, but not always, need to look up to get an unobstructed view above the trees and other things that are usually around us.

Thank you for asking those questions.

[Uncle Dale]

Not always, but the super or supra people are usually thought to be those that don't live on this planet but instead on some other world, coming to this one through other space (outside the space of this world), and although space is all around us outside of this planet, when we see it we usually, but not always, need to look up to get an unobstructed view above the trees and other things that are usually around us.

Thank you for asking those questions.

 

In the old geo-centric notion of the cosmos, of course the

celestial hemispheres surrounded the flat earth, and any good

Christian would have known that hell was located under

the surface of that terrestrial plane. Beyond the firmament,

however, divine realms stretched out as far as they might

be expedient for godly purposes.

 

 

What might have been located below hell, nobody said.

 

Here in Hawaii I reside below the Pacific's Mount Olympus.

Since the locals never noticed the gods walking about, or

swimming from island to island, it seemed perfectly natural

that Pele herself could fly, if necessary. -- Maui, on the other

hand, was not so exalted, and could only hope to cast

objects up near the overhead sun -- and not go there himself.

There was no Polynesian Daedalus, let alone an Icarus.

 

But back in the Negev, Yah chose to dwell atop peaks less

snowbound than our Mauna Kea -- Moses could amble up

Horeb's slopes -- no need for snowshoes or wings.

 

How Yah moved from Horeb to Mount Zion is not stated --

but by the time the Midianite deity was adopted into the

family of Father El, He had already appropriated Baal's

sky-chariot. The Israelites naturally looked upward, to

reassure themselves that no cloudy wrath was delaying

the former and latter rains.

 

So borrowing from Israelite lore, I suppose we should not

be surprised that American Presbyterians, Methodists,

Baptists and Millerites (those upward-craned necks of 1843)

should suppose The Lord would come in THE clouds:

 

 

I read, some time since, of a revival in the State of New-York in which the Spirit of God was represented as being abundantly poured out, on Presbyterians, Methodists, and Baptists. I think the converts in the order of the names were about three hundred Presbyterians, three hundred Methodists, and two hundred and eighty Baptists. On the principles of Bellamy, Hopkins, and Fuller, these being all regenerated without any knowledge of the Gospel, there is no difficulty in accounting for their joining different sects. The spirit did not teach the Presbyterians to believe that "God had foreordained whatsoever comes to pass;" nor the Methodists to deny it. He did not teach the Presbyterians and the Methodists, that infants were members of the Church and to be baptized, nor the Baptists to deny it. But on the hypothesis of the Apostle James, viz. "Of his own will begat he us by the word of truth." I think it would be difficult to prove that the spirit of God had any thing to do with the aforesaid revival.

Enthusiasm flourishes, blooms under the popular systems. This man was regenerated when asleep, by a vision of the night. That man heard a voice in the woods, saying, "thy sins be forgiven thee." A third saw his Saviour descending to the tops of the trees, at noon day.

 

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/VA/harb1830.htm#030124

 

 

But there is another, older reading -- of YHWH appearing IN CLOUDS.

Here the obscuring fogginess is not cumulonimbus, but rather,the glorious

kavod -- the occluding clouds that both reveal and conceal Israel's God.

 

For, apart from Manchester farmboys, folks did not generally expect

to look into the unshielded face of The Most High and live to tell about it.

 

I wonder if it was not amid the vapors of burning copal, that those

mystical MesoAmerican divinities came and went?

 

That, or in a steamy sweat-lodge stacked with Lophophora...

 

Carlos Castaneda, wherefore art thou?

 

UD

Edited February 3, 2015 by Uncle Dale

[Kaleb Webb]

Keep in mind that a good portion of Mesoamerican literature (particularly Aztec and related groups) was originally translated by Christians. Not all of it, but quite a bit. 

[mfbukowski]

Carlos Castaneda, wherefore art thou?

Hanging out on a cloud talking to Isaiah and Joseph and Moses and all the other boys who understood that history was not relevant to spirituality.

 

I have always wondered if Paul actually had a vision. or why it matters if he did.

Edited February 8, 2015 by mfbukowski

[Sevenbak]

 

I have always wondered if Paul actually had a vision. or why it matters if he did.

 

Or maybe he just really wanted a good BLT without the guilt!

[mfbukowski]

Or maybe he just really wanted a good BLT without the guilt!

:rofl:

[Uncle Dale]

...

 

I have always wondered if Paul actually had a vision....

 

 

And I've wondered if there ever was a Paul.

But Josephus informs us that Saulus went off in

a quest for foreign aid, to save starving Judeans.

 

So now I merely wonder if there ever was a Josephus.

 

UD

[mfbukowski]

And I've wondered if there ever was a Paul.

But Josephus informs us that Saulus went off in

a quest for foreign aid, to save starving Judeans.

 

So now I merely wonder if there ever was a Josephus.

 

UD

And this is precisely why I stick to seeing religious beliefs as proven philosophies which bring me joy and answer my questions in a way that works for me.

 

I really don't care about the rest.  People take that to mean that I do not believe in BOM historicity, which is not the case.  It's just that historicity and history in general is mostly irrelevant to me. I take it all as a religious belief in itself, unproven and never able to be proven in any way whatsoever.

 

Her story, his-story- they are all stories anyway, so who cares?   Sure there are valuable lessons there, but that is true of Aesop's fables as well.

Edited February 8, 2015 by mfbukowski