Was Mary the Incarnation of Heavenly Mother?

[mfbukowski]

There were a couple of fascinating talks in last years Fairmormon Conference which implied this.

I just wanted to suggest the topic and put the idea out there.  I had never thought about it before that conference, and now I find the idea drawing me in more and more. I will let you look up the articles because I want people to read the articles more.  No hints.

To me, it makes perfect sense.  The Godhead is a family.  Some say the Holy Ghost is a feminine personage- the official church position is of course that He is male.

I think we need more revelation on these issues.

I would like the thread to be scholarly and respectful to Heavenly Mother and the human person, the mother of Jesus, Mary.

If the thread gets funky about the conception of Jesus, I will shut it down in a heartbeat.  All are welcome, but we need to have a respectful tone.  And I really do not want this to become an EV vs LDS thread about Biblical interpretations.

[Senator]

It would make more sense to me for Eve to be the Incarnation.

[JLHPROF]

2 minutes ago, Senator said:

It would make more sense to me for Eve to be the Incarnation.

Dingdingding...we have a winner.

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

There were a couple of fascinating talks in last years Fairmormon Conference which implied this.

I just wanted to suggest the topic and put the idea out there.  I had never thought about it before that conference, and now I find the idea drawing me in more and more. I will let you look up the articles because I want people to read the articles more.  No hints.

To me, it makes perfect sense.  The Godhead is a family.  Some say the Holy Ghost is a feminine personage- the official church position is of course that He is male.

I think we need more revelation on these issues.

I would like the thread to be scholarly and respectful to Heavenly Mother and the human person, the mother of Jesus, Mary.

If the thread gets funky about the conception of Jesus, I will shut it down in a heartbeat.  All are welcome, but we need to have a respectful tone.  And I really do not want this to become an EV vs LDS thread about Biblical interpretations.

I think reading the teachings of Joseph Smith on the Holy Ghost precludes Mary or Heavenly Mother being the third member of the Godhead.
(Of course, I've always liked the disavowed theory that it's Joseph Smith so who am I to say...)

Edited February 8, 2016 by JLHPROF

[volgadon]

I wouldn't see Mary as the incarnation of Heavenly Mother as much as an earthly symbol or representation of her.

[halconero]

Perhaps not of Heavenly Mother, but I do believe in the possibility of righteous-Israelite reverence of Asherah as being anticipatory of Mary.

[JAHS]

"Was Mary the Incarnation of Heavenly Mother?"

No. No obvious scriptural or prophetic support for this. Only some vague ides of what early Christians thought of her.

Our Heavenly Mother already had a body of flesh and bone the same as Heavenly Father. 

 

[Matthew J. Tandy]

Perhaps she was or is now a wife of God. Sealed to him as part of her faithfulness. There is nothing currently that would make this doctrinal though.

As JAHS mentioned, our heavenly mother (whether one or multiple) would have already been exalted before Adam and Eve.

[Freedom]

Perhaps this discussion should be merged with the reincarnation thread. 

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

Our Heavenly Mother already had a body of flesh and bone the same as Heavenly Father.

And scripturally, for most of the earth's lifespan the Holy Ghost is a personage of Spirit.
Whether the Holy Ghost is STILL a personage of Spirit or when will the Holy Ghost cease to be a personage of Spirit is much more up for debate.
Either way, that leaves Heavenly Mother out of that category, and Mary also.

[volgadon]

1 hour ago, Freedom said:

Perhaps this discussion should be merged with the reincarnation thread. 

Incarnation and reincarnation are somewhat different ideas.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Senator said:

It would make more sense to me for Eve to be the Incarnation.

Only if you accept the Adam God theory, which is a possibility though.

When you start thinking in terms of Divine Investiture and the principle of proxies, it gets linguistically confusing.   Remember even temple workers can "represent Eloheim" and effectively speak on his behalf.   So who was "Adam"?  Was Christ the "Second Adam"?  How many "Adams" are there??

If it is a name and a title both words fall short VERY quickly.  I suppose if one is acting "AS" an "Adam", one IS Adam.  !?  Dunno.

But I do not believe in "reincarnation" so I don't see how that could work.  Frankly, I see the Savior as the creator, for all practical purposes.  The line between Eloheim and the savior is so blurry as to be almost non-existent as I see it.  In religious experiences I feel that I am in direct communication with ONE person, I take to be the savior.  The savior is the Father of our salvation so I am not sure that it matters much frankly.  At a certain point, words and concepts just get in the way.  But I am confident there is a female personage out there as well.  I mystically feel her presence

Remember all this is based on the view that religious experience is as valid as any other way of receiving knowledge and intelligence in discussing religious matters, and that I put personal revelation above even scripture, because scripture is to be "verified" BY personal revelation by Moroni 10:4-5.

If personal revelation was not the primary channel, no one could know that the BOM was "true", because it is personal revelation that "verifies" that.

[mfbukowski]

13 minutes ago, volgadon said:

Incarnation and reincarnation are somewhat different ideas.

Exactly!

One time through is my opinion.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, volgadon said:

I wouldn't see Mary as the incarnation of Heavenly Mother as much as an earthly symbol or representation of her.

Could be definitely

And that fits with the proxy idea as well- kind of like "Divine Investiture"

Maybe this is the Catholic in me talking.

So in the Divine Family, how does the Holy Ghost fit in the family constellation?  I have never been comfortable in how that is explained, it seems like a loose end

Any parallels in Judaism to help out here?  I am fairly up on the ideas there of God's consort, but the Holy Ghost?

Then there is the Wisdom literature.  Just looking for a good way to make these various ideas cohere.  There may not be.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

"Was Mary the Incarnation of Heavenly Mother?"

No. No obvious scriptural or prophetic support for this. Only some vague ides of what early Christians thought of her.

Our Heavenly Mother already had a body of flesh and bone the same as Heavenly Father. 

 

Yeah I have to give you credit for that one.  Didn't think about that.  Duh.

Just trying to get the plot to the story straight.

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Matthew J. Tandy said:

Perhaps she was or is now a wife of God. Sealed to him as part of her faithfulness. There is nothing currently that would make this doctrinal though.

As JAHS mentioned, our heavenly mother (whether one or multiple) would have already been exalted before Adam and Eve.

I am glad you brought up "doctrine".

I see this as kind of fun speculation rather than any way doctrinal.

I suppose anyone could read this and decide this is what we believe.

For anyone in that category none of this is in any way "DOCTRINAL"

Thanks.

I am into philosophy and pretty much keep out of metaphysics as a philosophical principle.  I doubt it is possible for humans to know how it "really is" but I do like the idea of a consistent description that makes sense for thinking people.  

I like the idea that God tells his children a consistent story which describes principles that are probably beyond us to understand in detail.  I am just trying to fill in some theoretical blanks in my version of that story

[consiglieri]

3 hours ago, volgadon said:

I wouldn't see Mary as the incarnation of Heavenly Mother as much as an earthly symbol or representation of her.

Which would be a nice symmetry given the earth itself is a symbol of Heavenly Mother.

[JLHPROF]

3 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

I am glad you brought up "doctrine".

I see this as kind of fun speculation rather than any way doctrinal.

I suppose anyone could read this and decide this is what we believe.

For anyone in that category none of this is in any way "DOCTRINAL"

Doctrinal, as in part of the doctrines believed by a person or a religion or an organization?

To me some of these things absolutely are doctrinal.  To the Church, not so much.

Edited February 8, 2016 by JLHPROF

[JAHS]

31 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Yeah I have to give you credit for that one.  Didn't think about that.  Duh.

Just trying to get the plot to the story straight.

I was just thinking though, even though Heavenly Mother is probably an exalted resurrected being like the Father, it might help explain how they are able to make spirit children if one of them was still a spirit being. But I guess when it comes to making spirit children we probably have to get out of our heads the way mortals do it and consider that it is an entirely different process for them.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, halconero said:

Perhaps not of Heavenly Mother, but I do believe in the possibility of righteous-Israelite reverence of Asherah as being anticipatory of Mary.

Any insight on how to make a consistent idea of how the Holy Ghost fits into all this?

What direction would you speculate that "further light and knowledge" might lead us regarding the HG?

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

Holy Breath/Spirit = Pneumato Agion --> Acts 6:3, "seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom" (plerei Pneumato kai Sophia) = Ephesians 1:17, "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom (Pneuma Sophia) 

Quote

Maat is "the embodiment of every possible social relationship," male or female, and is immune to the slightest hint of scandal since she is honor, uprightness, and legality personified, representing truth, justice, and order in the corporate life - three ethical values which are a "reflection of the cosmic order." She represents things as they should be, the "perfect status quo," which, unfortunately, does not prevail in this world. She is Wisdom (hokhmah, Sophia), who plays a dominant role as the most vivid personification in early Jewish and Christian literature. She is the female component of everything, without which nothing can exist and without which nothing is complete: "kings and judges were nothing more than her representatives on earth," for "Maat ... is ... the female principle, analogous to the male ruler of the universe; ... for the contemplative consciousness it is all one and indivisible." Hence if Akhenaton brought the cult of Maat to a new high in Egypt, he also wanted everyone to know that he shared all equally with his darling wife. 

If, then, the subject of our Book of Breathings seems to have a love affair with Maat, we may be assured that everything is in proper order. In the waking of the sleeping sem, the role of the woman remains puzzling because "the texts give neither the rites nor the ceremonies in their completeness," Mayassis finds; in some versions it is the Lady herself who awakens the sleeper. In the Coptic Hypostasis of the Archons, the "spiritual woman" comes to the sleeping Adam and says, "Arise, Adam! and when he sees her he says: 'It is thou who hast given me life! Thou shalt be called the Mother of the Living!' She is indeed my mother, even the physician" - that is, she both gives life and restores it. In the Babylonian rites, it is "the queen of the dark room, ... Mother of the Temple," Innini, who enters "the chamber of Ea" and awakens the sleeper, crying: "Arise, thou sleeper! The gates of heaven are open!" 

The woman can be designated by any of the names of the great mother-goddess; as Isis, she is myrionymos, "the Lady of Countless Names."

(...) As Ludwig Keimer explains it, "the dead in his voyage in the other world was received by a good goddess who gave him food and drink. She usually bears the names of Nut, Hathor, and Isis but is often simply called 'Lady of the Sycamore,'" the sycamore being a type of fig tree. (...) The life-giving sycamore recalled the biblical tree of life to Eugene Lefebure, who identified it with the mfk3.t (turquoise)-tree, the tree of the Lady of the Land of Mafek that grew in the Field of Reeds. The tree that receives the travel-weary Osiris into its arms performs the function of the Lady, who is so often identified with that tree. W. M. Flinders Petrie noted that in Palestine holy trees are still called "Our Lady." It has often been suggested that the sycamore was the original form of Hathor herself, whose proper function as Lady of the Tree, whatever name she may go by, is to receive the newcomer to a strange land with refreshment after an arduous and dangerous journey.

(...) Divination by the sound of wind in the branches of sacred trees is among the oldest and most widespread of customs in the Near East ... Remembering that the wise lady Ma'at is in charge of the tree, we are reminded that "it has been maintained by some scholars" that the name of the Sibyl "is not a proper name but implies a sound issuing from a subterranean oracle conveyed either by the rustling of the wind, as in the case of the oaks of Dodona, or by the splash of water.

-- Hugh Nibley, Message Of The Joseph Smith Papyri 

Isaiah 11:2, "And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit (Ruach) of Wisdom (Hokhmah) and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD." 

Proverbs 2:2, "Incline thine ear unto Wisdom (Hokhmah), and apply thine heart to understanding; (...) when Wisdom (Hokhmah) entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. 

Proverbs 3:13, "Happy ('Asher) is the man that findeth Wisdom (Hokhmah), and the man that getteth understanding (...) She is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold upon her." 

Deuteronomy 16:21, "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove ('Asherah) of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee."

Abraham, however, was clearly not a Deuteronomist: 

Genesis 21:33, "And Abraham planted a grove ('Eshel = tamarisk) in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God."

Mother Goddess Asherah = Tree of Life and rustling leaves/wind = Breath/Spirit of Lady Wisdom = Hokhmah = Ruach = Sophia = Holy Spirit

               

Edited February 9, 2016 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[halconero]

I'm kind of brain dead, but are you asking how Asherah as the anticipation of Mary fits in with the Spirit?

[mfbukowski]

10 minutes ago, JeremyOrbe-Smith said:

Holy Breath/Spirit = Pneumato Agion --> Acts 6:3, "seven men of honest report, full of the Holy Ghost and Wisdom" (plerei Pneumato kai Sophia) = Ephesians 1:17, "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the Spirit of Wisdom (Pneuma Sophia) 

Isaiah 11:2, "And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, the Spirit (Ruach) of Wisdom (Hokhmah) and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD." 

Proverbs 2:2, "Incline thine ear unto Wisdom (Hokhmah), and apply thine heart to understanding; (... when Wisdom (Hokhmah) entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy soul; discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee. 

Proverbs 3:13, "Happy ('Asher) is the man that findeth Wisdom (Hokhmah), and the man that getteth understanding (...) She is a Tree of Life to them that lay hold upon her." 

Deuteronomy 16:21, "Thou shalt not plant thee a grove ['Asherah] of any trees near unto the altar of the LORD thy God, which thou shalt make thee."

Abraham, however, was clearly not a Deuteronomist: 

Genesis 21:33, "And Abraham planted a grove ['Eshel = tamarisk] in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God."

Mother Goddess Asherah = rustling leaves/wind of the Tree of Life = Breath/Spirit of Lady Wisdom = Hokhmah = Ruach = Sophia = Holy Spirit

          

Thanks, but that does not answer the question

We are talking about LDS doctrine here and how to make that sort of thing "fit" with the view that the HG is a male personage of spirit, or throw out one or the other.

And given the choice, I pick "doctrine"

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

My point was that the unquestioned culturally-inherited assumption that the Holy Spirit of (Lady) Wisdom is male is contradicted by the historical evidence.  

[halconero]

50 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Thanks, but that does not answer the question

We are talking about LDS doctrine here and how to make that sort of thing "fit" with the view that the HG is a male personage of spirit, or throw out one or the other.

And given the choice, I pick "doctrine"

I believe that the Holy Ghost is male. That Asherah is anticipatory of Mary, and in a separate Heavenly Mother(s).