When did Moses' first Temple/ Temple-like ordinances occur, pre- or post-Tabernacle?

[nuclearfuels]

The Burning Bush perhaps? Sinai? Ten Commandments?

[Fether]

40 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

The Burning Bush perhaps? Sinai? Ten Commandments?

I imagine the burning bush and mount Sinai were temple experience. I also imagine they were far more of a natural experience rather than an organized and scheduled experience like we have today.

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

The Burning Bush perhaps? Sinai? Ten Commandments?

The Endowment, covenants etc. has been around forever, the PRESENTATION changes culturally over time.

So Moses may have received the same knowledge and blessings we know as "the Endowment " without perhaps any theatrical, liturgical presentation etc., one on one.

I believe the present presentation has been adapted from Joseph's own culture of masonry. So imo it started with Joseph.

Think perhaps of the story of Romeo and Juliet in Shakespeare's Old Globe, vs the presentation of the new movie version of West Side Story.  Same story, different culture, different presentations.

Moses taken and seeing all history, vs perhaps the presentation how Adam and Eve represent Everyman/Woman.

Same lessons, applicable for all, different presentations as needed culturally.

So when did the Covenants and story start?

Unknowable.

Perhaps infinitely far in the ""past" along with the generations of Gods 

See Hymn "Hie to Kolob"

1. If you could hie to Kolob

In the twinkling of an eye,

And then continue onward

With that same speed to fly,

Do you think that you could ever,

Through all eternity,

Find out the generation

Where Gods began to be?

2. Or see the grand beginning,

Where space did not extend?

Or view the last creation,

Where Gods and matter end?

Methinks the Spirit whispers,

“No man has found ‘pure space,’

Nor seen the outside curtains,

Where nothing has a place.”

3. The works of God continue,

And worlds and lives abound;

Improvement and progression

Have one eternal round.

There is no end to matter;

There is no end to space..."

Edited March 6 by mfbukowski

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Fether said:

I imagine the burning bush and mount Sinai were temple experience. I also imagine they were far more of a natural experience rather than an organized and scheduled experience like we have today.

Yes, and a Jew might equate the burning bush with the eternal light (ner tamid) which was kept burning in the formal temple.  The tabernacle in the desert was merely a moveable temple --  a tent.  Israelites had many high places (bamot) at which they would worship and make offerings, always superintended by priests (Aaronides of the tribe of Levi), who knew the proper liturgy.  Priests did not just work at the temple, but did so in rotation throughout the year.  Meantime, they served in every village and city of ancient Israel, which is what they do today for all Jews.  All of that is formal in nature.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

The Burning Bush perhaps? Sinai? Ten Commandments?

Bear in mind that Moses himself was of the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe.

[longview]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I believe the present presentation has been adapted from Joseph's own culture of masonry. So imo it started with Joseph.

So how did he deal with William W. Phelps' original antagonism against masonry?  I don't think Joseph was involved with masonry from Palmyra to Far West.  He most likely attempted to build good will by joining hands with masons (both members and non-members) and improving the defenses for the Nauvoo church.  It was then he might have commingled a few elements of masonry in small ways for temple rituals.

[CV75]

30 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and a Jew might equate the burning bush with the eternal light (ner tamid) which was kept burning in the formal temple.  The tabernacle in the desert was merely a moveable temple --  a tent.  Israelites had many high places (bamot) at which they would worship and make offerings, always superintended by priests (Aaronides of the tribe of Levi), who knew the proper liturgy.  Priests did not just work at the temple, but did so in rotation throughout the year.  Meantime, they served in every village and city of ancient Israel, which is what they do today for all Jews.  All of that is formal in nature.

Hi Robert, at what point were these high places deemed suitable alternate locations to the tabernacle or temple proper for the purpose of offering sacrifices? I'm thinking of Deuteronomy 12; do verses 13 and 14 refer to the designation of these high places, or only to the tabernacle in Shiioh? Thank you!

[JLHPROF]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

The Endowment, covenants etc. has been around forever, the PRESENTATION changes culturally over time.

🙄

The covenants have literally changed repeatedly.  Even in the past couple of years.  That's undeniable.

As for the endowment proper...that depends on what you think you're given, ie endowed with.  I personally think most of that has been removed too.

Honestly, there's virtually nothing left from what Joseph restored.  Those are the elements Moses received on the mount.  Not just the creation story.

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

Hi Robert, at what point were these high places deemed suitable alternate locations to the tabernacle or temple proper for the purpose of offering sacrifices? I'm thinking of Deuteronomy 12; do verses 13 and 14 refer to the designation of these high places, or only to the tabernacle in Shiioh? Thank you!

Deuteronomy is the Book of the Law found by Hilkiah the High Priest in the temple archives in the days of King Josiah, contemporary with Lehi the Prophet.  Quite late, and part of the vast religious reform instituted by King Josiah -- shutting down any high places or unauthorized temples, i.e., anything other than the Jerusalem Temple, and prohibiting sacrifice anywhere but in the Jerusalem Temple.  Lehi himself is old school and immediately builds his own altar and sacrifices in the Valley of Lemuel down by the Red Sea coast.  His ancestors had various temples operating in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, and we know of two competing temples built by the Jews in Egypt later.  So not everyone was on board with the centralization of worship in Jerusalem.

Archeologically, we have small temples at Arad, Beersheba, Dan, Mt Gerizim, etc.  The reformers shut them down, but they and the high places had operated for centuries.

[nuclearfuels]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Bear in mind that Moses himself was of the tribe of Levi, the priestly tribe.

I'm sorry but I am not sure what this means other than he would be enabled to officiate and preside in the Tabernacle (which is where I imagine he presented what had been presented to him previously, no?)

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, nuclearfuels said:

I'm sorry but I am not sure what this means other than he would be enabled to officiate and preside in the Tabernacle (which is where I imagine he presented what had been presented to him previously, no?)

I was suggesting that he came from within the authorized priestly tribe, quite aside from being the Prophet of God.  He could obviously do pretty much whatever he wanted.  Bear in mind also that he was fully literate in Egyptian and fully familiar with Egyptian religion.  One special feature of Israelite cult was that it copied so much of Egyptian religious ritual, from the architecture of the tabernacle (tent of meeting) to the terminology for the utinsels, priesthood organization, etc.  That was no accident.

[JLHPROF]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I was suggesting that he came from within the authorized priestly tribe, quite aside from being the Prophet of God.  He could obviously do pretty much whatever he wanted.  Bear in mind also that he was fully literate in Egyptian and fully familiar with Egyptian religion.  One special feature of Israelite cult was that it copied so much of Egyptian religious ritual, from the architecture of the tabernacle (tent of meeting) to the terminology for the utinsels, priesthood organization, etc.  That was no accident.

You always provide the most interesting information.  But I have to ask.  When you make statements like the bold do you believe the law of Moses came by revelation from God or was just adapted from the surrounding cultures?

Like priesthood organization.  Did the Egyptians get it from Abraham or Joseph? Was it actually a dispensation to Moses?

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

🙄

The covenants have literally changed repeatedly.  Even in the past couple of years.  That's undeniable.

As for the endowment proper...that depends on what you think you're given, ie endowed with.  I personally think most of that has been removed too.

Honestly, there's virtually nothing left from what Joseph restored.  Those are the elements Moses received on the mount.  Not just the creation story.

Nope.

The PRESENTATION changes over time

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

• Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep God’s commandments.

• Law of Sacrifice, which means doing all we can to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.

• Law of the Gospel, which is the higher law that He taught while He was on the earth.

• Law of Chastity, which means that we have sexual relations only with the person to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.

• Law of Consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng

 

Edited March 7 by mfbukowski

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Nope.

The PRESENTATION changes over time

"During the endowment ordinance, you will be invited to make certain covenants with God. These covenants include:

• Law of Obedience, which includes striving to keep God’s commandments.

• Law of Sacrifice, which means doing all we can to support the Lord’s work and repenting with a broken heart and contrite spirit.

• Law of the Gospel, which is the higher law that He taught while He was on the earth.

• Law of Chastity, which means that we have sexual relations only with the person to whom we are legally and lawfully wedded according to God’s law.

• Law of Consecration, which means dedicating our time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed us to building up Jesus Christ’s Church on the earth."

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng

 

And the conditions of those covenants have been changed repeatedly.  You are covenanting to follow different rules than your grandfather would have.  Your wife makes different covenants than her grandmother would have.

[CV75]

2 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

And the conditions of those covenants have been changed repeatedly.  You are covenanting to follow different rules than your grandfather would have.  Your wife makes different covenants than her grandmother would have.

Do you think the Lord's fulfillment of His part of the covenant (the blessings of Abraham) changed accordingly? Or that wo we, by keeping our covenants ultimately realize, through Christ, a different kind of perfection than our ancestors who kept their covenants (or those who had their temple work done by proxy years ago vs. today)?

[Robert F. Smith]

10 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

You always provide the most interesting information.  But I have to ask.  When you make statements like the bold do you believe the law of Moses came by revelation from God or was just adapted from the surrounding cultures?

Like priesthood organization.  Did the Egyptians get it from Abraham or Joseph? Was it actually a dispensation to Moses?

High culture influences so much of what we do in all areas of life.  For Moses, as an Egyptian noble himself, Egyptian culture was high culture, and he thoroughly understood it better than any Hebrew.  This had no doubt been the case also for Joseph in much earlier times, when Joseph was Prime Minister of Egypt -- he even married the daughter of the most important High Priest of Heliopolis, and his twin boys were thus half-Egyptian.  And we all make much of that Manassite and Ephraimite heritage.

I wouldn't focus on all that were it not for Abraham Yehuda, The Language of the Pentateuch in Its Relation to Egyptian (Oxford Univ Press, 1933), who demonstrated just how deeply embedded Judaism was in that Egyptian heritage.  You might also be interested in John Gee's take on that notion in his “Edfu and Exodus,” Matt Brown Memorial Lectures at Provo City Library, 2012, Interpreter, 44 (2021):271-286, online at https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/edfu-and-exodus/.

Later when Solomon built his temple, he had Phoenician architects and craftsmen do the job.  They were the highest culture he knew of who spoke his language, and we know from archeology just how closely the Solomonic Temple follows the then prevailing ancient Near Eastern temple style, just as we know that the Mosaic tabernacle was a copy of the Egyptian Pharaoh's tent.  See my “Was the Tabernacle of Moses an imitation of the tabernacles back in Egypt?” Quora, May 25, 2020, online at https://qr.ae/pNySRZ .

Even the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has followed pre-existing religious forms for its own internal structure and temple building.  See Christopher C. Jones, “’We Latter-day Saints are Methodists’: The Influence of Methodism on Early Mormon Religiosity,” master’s thesis (Brigham Young University, 2009).  Late architectural historian Paul Anderson has detailed the architectural heritage of LDS temples.  See, for example, his “Mormon Moderne: Latter-day Saint Architecture, 1925—1945,” Journal of Mormon History, 9 (1982):71-84, online at  https://www.jstor.org/stable/23285918 .

What we should garner from all that (and much more a la Hugh Nibley) is that God doesn't reinvent the wheel.  He uses what is available and adapts it to His own ends.  There is nothing truly unique or new under the sun.  We've seen it all before.

Edited March 7 by Robert F. Smith

[the narrator]

23 hours ago, Fether said:

I imagine the burning bush and mount Sinai were temple experience.

Shouldn't it be that temple rituals are symbolic of real encounters with deity, and not the other way around?

[JLHPROF]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

Do you think the Lord's fulfillment of His part of the covenant (the blessings of Abraham) changed accordingly?

That is the million dollar question.

Quote

Or that wo we, by keeping our covenants ultimately realize, through Christ, a different kind of perfection than our ancestors who kept their covenants (or those who had their temple work done by proxy years ago vs. today)?

"A different kind of perfection".  That's a new one.

[Fether]

3 hours ago, the narrator said:

Shouldn't it be that temple rituals are symbolic of real encounters with deity, and not the other way around?

Yep! I only meant to say that those experience were equivalent to what we experience today. A temple experience doesn’t need to include scheduling an appointment, a dressing room, rows of chairs and old people that look like they are ready to croak at any moment.

[Durangout]

well worth the watch.

 

Edited March 7 by Durangout

[Robert F. Smith]

On 3/6/2022 at 10:06 AM, nuclearfuels said:

The Burning Bush perhaps? Sinai? Ten Commandments?

Your title is

"When did Moses' first Temple/ Temple-like ordinances occur, pre- or post-Tabernacle? "

I neglected to mention that back in Egypt, ordinary Egyptians would go to their temples and perform the ordinances of eternal life on a regular basis.  Much of the liturgy they used is on the walls of those temples, which made remembering it much easier.  Then when they died they would be buried with a Book of the Dead in order to be able to remember and perform those same ordinances.  Nibley laid out the nature of that set of ordinances in his The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, which is available in a second edition.  The ancient Egyptian endowment is pretty much the same as the one we Latter-day Saints are familiar with in our temples.  The Israelites living in Egypt for centuries before the Exodus no doubt were very familiar with the Egyptian rites of passage.  Many of them helped build Egyptian temples as Hebrew slaves.  Indeed, their fellow Canaanite rulers of Egypt known as Hyksos spoke Egyptian and adopted Egyptian ways -- until the great expulsion of the Hyksos in about 1540 BC (which Josephus considers to have been the actual Hebrew Exodus).

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

And the conditions of those covenants have been changed repeatedly.  You are covenanting to follow different rules than your grandfather would have.  Your wife makes different covenants than her grandmother would have.

Yes, isn't continuous revelation wonderful? How can we progress if everything remains the same?

[mfbukowski]

On 3/6/2022 at 4:16 PM, longview said:

So how did he deal with William W. Phelps' original antagonism against masonry?  I don't think Joseph was involved with masonry from Palmyra to Far West.  He most likely attempted to build good will by joining hands with masons (both members and non-members) and improving the defenses for the Nauvoo church.  It was then he might have commingled a few elements of masonry in small ways for temple rituals.

Virtually all the earliest leaders were masons, it was their culture.

Now we are shocked at hearing there are similarities between our rites and theirs, but at the beginning of the church everyone knew that, and found it routine.

[mfbukowski]

13 hours ago, Fether said:

and old people that look like they are ready to croak at any moment.

Thanks for your wonderfully sensitive description of temple workers. Sexism and racism are anathema but ageism is funny?

I hope you live long enough to get some wisdom, but few do. I find this truly insulting and highly offensive if you could not get the drift.

That displays your level of discourse

 

[mfbukowski]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your title is

"When did Moses' first Temple/ Temple-like ordinances occur, pre- or post-Tabernacle? "

I neglected to mention that back in Egypt, ordinary Egyptians would go to their temples and perform the ordinances of eternal life on a regular basis.  Much of the liturgy they used is on the walls of those temples, which made remembering it much easier.  Then when they died they would be buried with a Book of the Dead in order to be able to remember and perform those same ordinances.  Nibley laid out the nature of that set of ordinances in his The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, which is available in a second edition.  The ancient Egyptian endowment is pretty much the same as the one we Latter-day Saints are familiar with in our temples.  The Israelites living in Egypt for centuries before the Exodus no doubt were very familiar with the Egyptian rites of passage.  Many of them helped build Egyptian temples as Hebrew slaves.  Indeed, their fellow Canaanite rulers of Egypt known as Hyksos spoke Egyptian and adopted Egyptian ways -- until the great expulsion of the Hyksos in about 1540 BC (which Josephus considers to have been the actual Hebrew Exodus).

And then we have the Hindu annointing of the stone lingam

Any ideas on that connection?

Gotta be Egyptian I guess.

Edited March 8 by mfbukowski