I saw a video from Fr. Paul Truebenbach recently, who mentioned that he doesn’t allow people to be received into the church with enmity towards their previous faith. (This is probably b/c his parish is in SLC, and he likely deals with a lot of ex-Mormons. I know from speaking to a member of his parish that at least 30% of his parish are…

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Introductions

This article was co-created by a special guest writer: Danial Lemmon, a long-time reader of this publication. Danial has formal training in both Logic and Philosophy and is currently an orthodox catechumen. It was Danial’s comments on the debate between an LDS apologist and a catholic philosopher (GodHead vs Trinity) that led to the genesis of this article series. It is only fitting that he take over and carry us through the exploration of these issues to their conclusion.

In a world overloaded with conflicting information, clear thinking is crucial. We're bombarded daily, so we need to be sharp at evaluating claims, especially from biased sources, which includes this article (let’s be fair.)

This isn't about arguing, but about spotting compelling arguments versus fallacies. It's about knowing when to trust a conclusion and when to disregard it.

This article aims to sharpen your reasoning and critical thinking. We'll cover basic reasoning, common errors in reasoning, and key formal logic terms and concepts. Then, we'll apply these methods to LDS Godhead theology. This is Part 2, continuing from the last article where I only had space to address the issue of Monism, but there were other significant issues I glossed over. Please read Part 1 before continuing.

WARNING!

This article is intellectually dense and its LDS analysis is likely contentious. While I aim for a neutral tone, the logical conclusions regarding LDS Godhead theology are, in my view, unavoidable and devastating to the model. I will articulate these issues, conclusions, and implications clearly, also offering potential resolutions.

In the interest of being sensitive to my readers’ feelings. I sought to soften these conclusions, but found no reasonable way to "put lipstick on this piggy." (Likely, I lack creativity.) Doing so would require deception by selectively presenting/hiding information, a tactic I find distasteful and one commonly used by many LDS writers and apologists to obscure challenging topics. When familiar with a subject, I often see vital information omitted, which distorts understanding and undermines trust in such sources and the church. I prefer the approach of complete (and brutal) honesty to manipulated narratives.

I complain about some of these tactics in the following article: (so I’m not going to get into it too much right now.)

Frankly, I took no joy in writing this. It's a cerebral exercise for intellectuals and logicians, likely to bore most. If you don't value logic, this article probably won't impact you. All that to say, this article may not be for you.

Contention is not divine; no argument can change religious belief—only the Holy Spirit can convert. As I grow in orthodoxy and (hopefully) humility, I'm less inclined to argue to try to prove others wrong with “facts.” These highly cerebral arguments, lacking emotional impact, are often unpersuasive to the average person (so this one’s for you ortho-bros!) and require extensive research (pulling out textbooks from 28 years ago!). And despite checking my work, it is very possible that I have also made errors of logic and reasoning. (After all, I’m working with only a partially functional brain. After three strokes, there are just parts that don’t work anymore. Please forgive me if, after putting everyone through this monstrosity, I ended up making some critical mistakes.)

This is my first and only warning. Like I warned in the previous article, if you are sensitive to a critical analysis of your beliefs, including the metaphysical and theological models and frameworks on which they are built, then please stop reading now. Also, if you tend to view any criticism as a personal attack, please delete this email or close this browser tab (the shortcut is: control+w or command+w) - cause it’s just not worth it (for either of us.) Instead, wait for the next article in the section “My Journey.”

This article's critical LDS analysis isn't meant to insult, attack, or trash anyone's faith. I didn't write it to disprove Mormonism or destroy the LDS Church. Instead, it's a purely intellectual exercise for nerds interested in philosophy, logic, and rationalism. Like the last piece, I found the concepts fascinating and believe everyone should learn basic reasoning. The idea to do this came from a theological debate between an LDS YouTube theologian/apologist and a roman catholic philosopher. As we watched it, we noticed that there were logical issues that weren’t being addressed. Absolutely no emotions were involved in writing this. My engineer hat was on. It was written dispassionately, and it's best read dispassionately. If you are LDS and struggle with compartmentalizing your emotions, please stop reading now. This is your last warning: this article is not for you.

The fact that I need these types of warnings is another indication to me that I probably shouldn’t be writing these types of articles. I'm so sorry, guys! I think this one is my last one.

Why should you care about this Logic crap?

For the thick-skinned/cerebral types who have chosen to keep reading, I anticipate that one question you might have regarding deploying Formal Logic to analyze theologies, doctrines, or metaphysical models is, “ Why should I care about this? Why is this important? What difference can it make? Let me give you five reasons that I think these types of analysis can be important (or should at least be taken seriously.)

1. Truth Matters — and Logic Protects It

Logic is a tool used to preserve truth and guard against deception. Formal logic is simply the disciplined way of asking, “Do these ideas fit together? Are we being honest with ourselves about what we’re saying? Can we trust these conclusions?”

If you are a seeker after truth, and not content with relying on subjective emotional experiences, but want to be certain about the truth of the reality behind it, then logic is a tool of discernment that God has given us Humans to discern Truth from illusion or deception.

“God is not the author of confusion.” — 1 Corinthians 14:33

Rejecting logic is effectively the same as saying, “I don’t care if what I believe makes sense — I’ll believe it anyway.” That’s not faith. That’s willful blindness. If you do that, you’re building a house on the sand.

2. A Contradictory God Cannot Save You

When theological claims contradict themselves — like saying “God is the source of truth” and “truth exists apart from God” — then you are trusting your life and salvation to a system that cancels itself out. If your understanding of God rests on a contradiction, then it is possible that:

• What you are worshipping may not be God at all.

• You have no way of knowing if what He says, or if what you are being taught about what he has said, is trustworthy.

• You cannot be sure if His promises are real or merely a fantasy.

That’s not an abstract concern — that’s a direct impact on your soul. When you engage in a set of religious beliefs in a religious organization, you are trusting them with your eternal soul. That might sound like hyperbole, but if you are going to build your life around a specific belief system, invest time and money and effort into it, and pin your eternal hopes and dreams on it, you want to make sure that where you are investing your energy is worthy of that investment and has a reasonable chance of delivering on the promises being offered.

3. Love Requires Honesty

God gave us the faculty and capability to reason. That is part of being made in his image. This faculty is not meant to replace love or wonder, but to keep us from being deceived. As I see it, using logic in theology is an act of love, both for God (so we don’t say nonsense about Him) and for our neighbor (so we don’t lead them astray and jeopardize their salvation).

Just like we wouldn’t fully trust a doctor who dismisses logic and medicine in favor of voodoo, crystal balls, and incense to treat stage 4 cancer, we also shouldn’t follow a spiritual framework that abandons rational coherence for the sake of sentiment.

4. Because Orthodoxy Is Reasonable

The Orthodox Church has always affirmed that faith and reason are friends, not enemies. (A perspective not historically encouraged in the LDS faith. e.g., the Gang of 6 who were excommunicated by Hinckley in the early 90’s for digging into church history and Joseph Smith’s polygamy.) The Fathers of the Church — from St. Basil to St. Gregory Palamas — were deeply rational thinkers. They believed that truth is harmonious, not self-contradictory.

Faith doesn’t mean checking your brain at the door and just believing what you are told to believe. It means going beyond reason, yes — but never against it.

“The Spirit of truth … will guide you into all truth.” — John 16:13

5. Because Illogical/Incoherent Systems of Belief Lead to Abuse

Systems built on contradiction are ripe for manipulation. If you believe contradictions don’t matter, then religious leaders can say whatever they want, and you’re defenseless against the lived realities they will create for you.

It’s no coincidence that many spiritual abuse scandals occur in churches where logic is mocked or ignored, exposure to information is controlled, dissenters are expelled, and leaders engage in messaging aimed at controlling or influencing the thought processes of their members. If logical contradictions are allowed to flourish, the abuse of power is not far behind.

Finally

You don’t need to be a logician to follow Christ. But if you say “I love God,” and you claim to believe in truth, then you should care whether your beliefs make sense — and whether the God you trust is actually God, or just a confused idea propped up by emotion and “spiritual experiences.”

Logic is not cold. It’s not elitist.

It’s the language of coherence, the grammar of truth, and a gift from God to help us see clearly.

Part 1 - Logic and Fallacy

The Three Pillars of Reasoning

When we think, analyze, or try to solve problems, we primarily engage in three types of logical reasoning. If you go into a Philosophy department at a college to enroll in a logic course, their classes are likely going to be divided along these categories:

1. Deductive Reasoning:

   • The Structure: This reasoning goes from the general to the specific. If your premises (the starting propositions) are true, and your logic is valid, the conclusion is guaranteed to be true.

   • Classic Example:1

     • Premise 1: All humans are mortal.

     • Premise 2: Socrates is a human.

     • Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.

   • The Objective: Certainty. Deduction proves a conclusion based on established rules or facts.2 The strength lies entirely in the structure of the argument, the truth of its premises, and the rules of logical deduction that can lead you to a conclusion that you can be sure is true. The strength of deduction is the certainty of the conclusion (as long as you follow the derivation rules and the propositions are solid). The major limitation is that you cannot generate new knowledge or information that isn’t already embedded (in some form) in your initial set of propositions. You could uncover/tease out information that is maybe hiding in your propositions, but is non-obvious; however, you aren’t going to come up with new revelations.

2. Inductive Reasoning:

   • The Structure: This is reasoning from the specific to the general. You observe patterns or instances and make a generalization or form a hypothesis based on those observations. Unlike deduction, induction can lead to new information. That information is not guaranteed, but it may be probable.

   • Classic Example:

     • Observation 1: The sun has risen every morning of my life.

     • Observation 2: Historical records show the sun rising every morning in the past.

     • Conclusion: There is a good probability (a good reason to expect that) the sun will likely rise tomorrow morning.

   • The Goal: Probability. Induction doesn't guarantee the conclusion, but it makes it probable based on the evidence. It's the foundation of the scientific method, where observations lead to theories that are then tested. This is the primary way in which new knowledge is obtained.

3. Abductive Reasoning:

   • The Structure: This is reasoning to the best explanation. You start with an observation or set of observations and then seek the most likely explanation for why those observations occurred.

   • Classic Example:

     • Observation: I wake up, and my entire lawn is wet.

     • Possible Explanations: It rained; my neighbor was washing their car nearby.

     • Best Explanation (given no other information): It rained.

   • The Goal: Forming a hypothesis with a high likelihood of being true3. Abduction is what detectives, doctors, technologists, and mechanics do. They gather clues (observations) and infer the most probable cause. It's about finding the likeliest explanation that best fits all of the observations, not a guaranteed or the most probable one in the statistical sense of induction.

Understanding these three modes of thought is crucial for dissecting arguments. Is someone presenting a guaranteed truth (deduction), a likely generalization (induction), or just the most plausible explanation (abduction)?

Common Logical Fallacies and Faults in Reasoning

1. Underdetermined Arguments

• What it means: This happens when the reasons someone gives (the evidence or premises) aren't strong enough to force their conclusion. The conclusion might be a possible explanation, but the reasons don't rule out other possibilities. The evidence "underdetermines" or doesn't fully decide the outcome.

• Simply put, you jump to conclusions based on clues that could mean several things.

• Example:

  • Someone argues: "My car won't start this morning. It must be because the battery is dead."

• Why it's flawed: While a dead battery is one reason a car might not start, it's not the only reason. It could also be an empty gas tank, a problem with the starter motor, a security system issue, etc. The single piece of evidence ("car won't start") doesn't determine that the battery is definitely the problem. The argument is underdetermined because the premise could support multiple conclusions.

2. Circular Arguments (Begging the Question)

• What it means: This is when the argument assumes what it's trying to prove. The conclusion is already included or hidden within the reasons given for it. It goes in a circle, not actually proving anything new.

• In simple terms, You use your point to try and prove your point.

• Example:

  • Someone argues: "You should always trust me because I'm a trustworthy person."

• Why it's flawed: The argument is trying to convince you that the person is trustworthy. But their reason is simply that they are trustworthy. To accept their reason ("I'm a trustworthy person"), you already have to assume their conclusion (that you should trust them). They haven't given you any independent reason to believe they are trustworthy; they just asserted it differently.

Common Logical Fallacies

Recognizing these common fallacies helps you evaluate the strength of arguments you encounter every day, whether in discussions, advertisements, news, or political debates. A fallacy means the argument itself is weak, even if the statement being argued for happens to be true for other reasons.

Fallacies of Relevance

• Where the premises are irrelevant to the conclusions.

• Ad Hominem (Against the Person)

  • What it means: Attacking the character, motive, or other attributes of the person making an argument, rather than addressing the argument's substance.

  • In simple terms: Attacking the messenger instead of the message.

  • Example: "You can't trust anything she says about economic policy; she's never run a business herself."

  • Why it's flawed: A person's personal qualities, background, or motives usually have no bearing on the logical validity or truth of their claims. The argument stands or falls on its own merits. (We see this in political news coverage all the time. When you see this happening, by adding labels to a person, racist, misogynist, ablist, etc., you know that this type of argument is afoot and likely what they are saying to you is incorrect or they are trying to poison the well..)

  • Subtypes:

    • Abusive Ad Hominem: Direct insult. "You're too stupid to understand this complex issue."

    • Circumstantial Ad Hominem: Attacking circumstances/motives. "Of course he supports that law; he's a politician trying to get re-elected."

    • Tu Quoque ("You Also"): Claiming the arguer is a hypocrite. "You say I shouldn't smoke, but you used to smoke too!"

• Appeal to Authority (Ad Verecundiam)

  • What it means: Using the opinion of an authority figure as evidence in an argument when that authority is not an expert in the relevant field, when experts disagree, or when the authority is biased.

  • In simple terms: Believing something is true just because a 'smart' or famous person said it, even if they're not an expert on that topic.

  • Example: "My favourite actor endorses this new diet, so it must be effective for weight loss."

  • Why it's flawed: Expertise in one area does not transfer to others. Even legitimate experts can be wrong or biased. The argument should stand on its own evidence, not just who said it.

• Appeal to Popularity (Bandwagon Fallacy)

  • What it means: You claim that something is true, right, or good simply because a lot of people believe it or are doing it.

  • In simple terms: "Everyone's doing it, so it must be okay/true."

  • Example:

    • Someone argues: "Most people in my town believe that [Specific Conspiracy Theory] is true, so it must be true!"

  • Why it's flawed: The popularity of a belief does not logically determine its truthfulness. Millions of people can hold a false belief. Evidence and logic determine truth, not opinion polls.

• Appeal to Emotion (Ad Passiones)

  • What it means: Manipulating an emotional response (like pity, fear, anger, joy, etc.) in the audience to win an argument, instead of using logical reasoning or factual evidence.

  • In simple terms: Trying to make people feel a certain way so they agree with you, rather than giving good reasons.

  • Example: (Appeal to Pity) "Please give me an extension on my assignment; my dog is sick, and I've been so stressed I can't focus."

  • Why it's flawed: Emotions, while powerful, are not a reliable guide to truth or logical validity. An emotional response does not make a claim true or false, or an argument valid or invalid.

• Red Herring

  • What it means: Introducing an irrelevant topic into an argument to divert attention from the original issue and shift the focus.

  • In simple terms: Changing the subject to avoid the main point.

  • Example: "You're asking why I didn't finish my report on time? Well, let's talk about the impossible deadlines we're always given in this department."

  • Why it's flawed: The new topic, while potentially interesting or important, is logically unrelated to the original argument. It serves only to distract and does not address the actual claims being made.

• Straw Man

  • What it means: Misrepresenting, distorting, or oversimplifying an opponent's argument (creating a "straw man" version) to make it easier to attack or refute.

  • In simple terms: Twisting someone's words or argument into something they didn't say, then attacking that twisted version.

  • Example: Person A: "I think we should invest more in renewable energy sources." Person B: "So, you want to shut down all fossil fuel industries immediately, throw millions out of work, and plunge us back into the Dark Ages? That's ridiculous!"

  • Why it's flawed: The arguer is attacking a fabricated argument, not the actual one. Refuting a distorted version of an argument does not mean the original argument is false or weak.

The Straw Man and Anti-Mormon Arguments.

I’m going to break here for a bit and use this to highlight a common tactic used by anti-Mormons to attack Mormonism. (Typically, things you see coming from evangelical/protestant corners of the internet, where they not only engage in sloppy thinking, but rely on both sloppy thinking and false LDS cultural myths to be effective.) Let’s have a look.

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He raised some philosophical points from logic that I thought were very interesting. I took many university courses on Logic from the philosophy department. I thought this might make for an interesting article. I, however, did not spend so much time in the philosophy department on epistemology, which is undoubtedly part of this discussion. So, let’s break it down and define some relevant terms and concepts.

Warning: The article is long and technical. It’s not for the faint-hearted. If you are LDS and sensitive to a critical analysis of - not so much your beliefs, but the metaphysical and theological models and frameworks they are built on - then please stop reading now. The intention here is not to rip on you, on Mormons in general, or anyone’s faith in particular; it’s a purely intellectual exercise based on logic and metaphysics. It’s written by and for intellectual logic and philosophy nerds. No emotions were involved in (or sacrificed during) the creation of this article, AND it’s best read with a purely intellectual/rational and wholly dispassionate mindset where the emotions have been sent outside to play elsewhere (or temporarily put into a locked box.) To reiterate, if you are not very good at compartmentalizing your intellect and your emotions, and you are LDS, please stop reading here. Proceed at your own risk. You have been warned.

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What is Epistemology? (eh-pist-o-mology)

Epistemology is the study of how we know what we know. It's the branch of philosophy that asks big questions about knowledge: What is knowledge? Where does it come from? AND most importantly; How can we be sure that something is true?

Think about how you gain knowledge in your own life. You might learn things through your senses (seeing, hearing, touching), through reason and thinking, through studying scriptures or other texts, through personal experience, or through personal revelation from God. Epistemology examines all ways of knowing and tries to understand their nature and validity, while putting some guidelines and principles in place by which we can evaluate these different ways of knowing.

For an LDS person, epistemology is likely to include faith-based ideas about:

• Revelation: The belief that God reveals truth to individuals and prophets as a significant source of knowledge. This falls under the purview of epistemology – how do we validate and understand knowledge gained through spiritual means?

• Study and Faith: The scripture in Doctrine and Covenants 88:118 that encourages seeking learning "by study and also by faith" touches on epistemological ideas, suggesting that both intellectual effort and spiritual conviction are avenues to truth.

• Knowing Truth: The concept of knowing the "truth of all things" through the power of the Holy Ghost (Moroni 10:5) is a powerful epistemological claim – that spiritual (experience) can lead to certain knowledge.

Note: I’m not going to address or try to validate or refute the LDS-centric points above. Instead, I’m going to use concepts from Epistemology to look at the Theology of the LDS concept of the GodHead vs the Trinity particularly as it relates to what happens if you erase the Creator/Created distinction from both Judaism and Christianity and replace it with the LDS metaphysical model of Intelligence+Spirit+(optional Body) that makes all things, including God, Angels, Demons, Humans, Animal all essentially the same type of being. (Maybe I will address the LDS epistemological points above in a later article, but honestly, I’m just not that interested. If you believe that subjective emotion should occupy a significant and definitive role in your epistemological framework as an arbiter of truth, then I’d say there are larger issues to address first.)

What concepts from Epistemology are we using here?

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Introduction

Repentance is central to a Christian life, but different faith traditions may have very different lived experiences with repentance. Eastern Orthodoxy and the Latter-day Saint (LDS or Mormon) faiths (two I’m very familiar with) both emphasize the need to turn away from sin and return to God, but, in my opinion, their approaches and the resulting experience are quite different.

In this article I will attempt explore the concepts and approaches to repentance by looking at the teachings of two influential 20th-century religious figures: Saint Porphyrios (1906–1991), a beloved Eastern Orthodox monk and spiritual elder, and Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985), an LDS Church president and author of The Miracle of Forgiveness1.

I will delve into how each taught repentance, highlighting differences in tone, their understandings of the purpose of repentance, and the process believers undergo, while lending thoughts from my own experiences in both faiths. Each man saw repentance as essential to spiritual life, but their styles and approaches differ as a result of the underlying theologies, or doctrinal understandings, of each religion.

Views on Sin and the Unforgivable Sin

The differing views on Sin and, as a result, the differing approaches to repentance largely stem from differing understandings about what Christ achieved on the cross. What LDS might term “The Atonement.”

I’ve written about this in detail in the following article, which I recommend reading if you have not yet read it. It is illuminating and quite different from the Protestant/LDS view.

Different Approaches to Sin and Repentance

Let’s start by understanding how each tradition views Sin and Repentance as a result of their theological beliefs. The different attitudes and approaches to repentance are a direct result of these core beliefs. By doing so, we will see how important theology is. It’s not just an academic or intellectual exercise; it directly shapes the lived experiences of people within a tradition, and it is the life experience of people within a religion that will determine how much that tradition can affect their lives and ultimately their “salvation.” Theology and doctrines matter, A LOT! You can’t just sweep this under the rug and look only at lived experiences because the experiences are direct and unavoidable consequences of theology.

• In Orthodoxy, sin isn’t a crime or offense against God that needs punishment or restitution to satisfy a divine sense of justice. Instead, sin is a disease that needs healing.

  • The way we think about it is that as we become holier and more transformed by God’s Grace, we align ourselves closer to the image of God. This would be what is happening as you progress in “eternal progression towards Exhalation.” It’s a process, not a destination. The objective is to come closer to God by aligning ourselves with Him.

  • Sin is a disease that takes us out of alignment with the Image of God and needs healing. When we sin, our souls become afflicted, and we get off course in that journey to come closer to God. (That’s why sin means to miss the mark.)

  • All sin separates us from God to some degree, but in Orthodoxy, there are no classes of sin, such as “deadly vs. minor” as there are in Roman Catholicism. Orthodoxy is Mystical and not legalistic.

• In LDS/Mormonism (and Protestantism - I add protestantism because the LDS perspective on sin and the atonement is inherited from Protestantism, which in turn inherited it from Roman Catholicism.) Sin is an offense against God because you broke his rules or transgressed His Law. This mindset, based on a very different understanding of the “Atonement”, requires some form of payment or restitution. The very word Atone, means that you need to make amends for these transgressions of God’s will. Otherwise, God will be angry and you will ultimately be punished in some way. Thus, this view of Christ and what he accomplished on the cross is centered around him paying all of the penalties and punishments for our sins so that he is the one who satisfies all of God’s demands for Justice, creating the ability to provide us with Mercy.

Each of these approaches has a different effect on the soul and your resulting relationship with God.

They also have different implications for how you can interpret the nature of God, or what you can infer about God’s nature. In the first, God is envisioned entirely as a God of infinite love and mercy; he doesn’t seek to punish us, but to love us and gather us back to him.

In the second, God also loves us, but is open to being construed (but is not necessarily always construed) as an angry God who demands justice. In this view, Christ needs to “ransom” us from him so that Christ can show us Mercy since God the Father is mainly concerned with Justice. Effectively, this is not the Lord of the New Testament, but a kind of negotiation with the God of the Old Testament.

It’s difficult for me to articulate the difference regarding how this played out in my lived experience in a short statement, but let me attempt it before continuing.

The difference is like Standing before a Judge when you know you are guilty and trying to beg forgiveness to avoid punishment vs. stepping into a hospital for your soul, where healing is real but can be painful; Where the Physician himself meets you, soothes you, nurtures you and heals you, not with demands but with his own life.

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I was recently asked by a former LDS (post-mormon) now orthodox catechumen progressing towards baptism, to help them understand the Orthodox version of the Garden of Eden story. Thus the genesis (pun intended) of this article.

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Act 1 - The Setting

The story of the Fall in the Garden is really Act 2 of a larger narrative. To understand it in context, we need to set the stage (or at least build a framework for) the cosmology to understand this.

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Before reading this article, I strongly recommend that if you have not already read Part 1, that you do so. There is a lot of background information and context in Part 1 that you will need to make sense of Part 2.

Important Definitions and Acronyms

This article uses many acronyms to refer to different scriptural texts. Understanding a bit about those texts and how we refer to them will be important background information for this and a following article.

• Texts and Acronyms:

  • KJV (King James Version - 1769 edition) is the version of the bible used by the LDS church. It has been a seminal and enduring force in American Protestantism, shaping theology, worship, and cultural identity from the colonial era through modern times with its distinctive language, literary quality, and deep-rooted tradition. Created in the early 17th century by King James 1st for the Church of England, its Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew Masoretic Text (See below). The New Testament portion was translated from Greek manuscripts compiled during the Renaissance (called the Textus Receptus). It was created as a primarily Protestant Bible but has also been used by some Catholics. One would think that perhaps there are other or newer Bible versions that would be more accurate and could be used by LDS instead. Still, a quick check shows that the same protestant edits made to the KJV also exist in other Bibles produced by protestant groups in America, like the CBS (Christian Study Bible- including the Ancient Faith edition).

  • NKJV (New King James Version 1987) - a modern English translation of the KJV that updates the archaic language of the traditional KJV while preserving its underlying textual tradition, serving as a crucial bridge for contemporary biblical textual analysis and study.

  • LXX (Septuagint) is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE. It was created to provide a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, enabling Hellenistic Jews (Jews who were culturally Greek - predominantly Diaspora communities in Egypt) to access and maintain their religious traditions in their common language. The Orthodox and Latin Catholic churches still use the LXX. It is vital to biblical textual analysis for offering insights into early Jewish textual traditions and influencing early Christian scriptural interpretation. It is the version of the Old Testament used by early Christians and is centuries older than the MT.

  • DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls) - a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts found in caves near the Dead Sea, dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, and are crucial to biblical textual analysis because they contain some of the earliest known copies of biblical texts, offering insights into the evolution and transmission of the Hebrew Bible.

  • MT (Masoretic Text) - The authoritative medieval Hebrew version of the Jewish Bible, meticulously compiled and maintained by Jewish scribes (the Masoretes) from the 7th to 10th centuries CE, and it is pivotal to biblical textual analysis because it forms the basis for most modern Protestant translations while reflecting centuries of textual tradition and standardization.

  • OSB (Orthodox Study Bible) - A standard version of the Bible used by Eastern Orthodox, particularly in English-speaking countries. The OSB uses the Septuagint for the Old Testament and the NKJV (New King James Version) translation of the New Testament.

  • OT (Old Testament) - The first section of the Christian Bible, the OT is comprised of sacred Hebrew/Jewish scriptures that chronicle the history, laws, prophecies, and religious poetry of the Jewish people before the coming of Christ. This compilation of ancient scriptures documents the world's creation, the Hebrew people's history and laws, and their covenant relationship with God. The OT was primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

  • NT (New Testament) - The New Testament is the second section of the Christian Bible, comprising writings that recount the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the early Christian (Catholic) Church. The NT was primarily written in Koine Greek with some small parts in Aramaic. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the New Testament was not written in Hebrew.

TL;DR Summary

• Once the major differences between the LXX, MT and KJV were examined in Part 1, I got curious about how this compares to the JST (Joesph Smith Translation of the Bible.) My curiosity stems from Joseph Smith’s assertion that his Translation was to “restore” the bible to its original, uncorrupted form by correcting errors and omissions he saw as the result of centuries of faulty transmission and deliberate editing. JS believed, like most Protestants at that time, that the Bible had been altered—whether through lost passages in the Masoretic Text or doctrinal edits by the Protestant reformers. JS’s JST was meant to recover the “plain and precious” truths of scripture they assumed were lost/removed due to corruption over the centuries. I was curious about this because this belief is still present in the LDS church and, in some discussions about restoration, figured prominently. The result is the attitude and belief that the Bible is the Word of God only so far as it has been translated correctly; an attitude that results in LDS religion education for laity focusing more on unique Mormon scriptures such as the Book of Mormon, D&C, and POGP than the Bible.

• I proceed to use the AI Chat-GTP model to analyze Joseph Smith’s translation and highlight textual variants, focusing on how the JST altered the text. The purpose is to explore these discrepancies and what changes were made, especially in relation to the omitted and altered passages, and to see if any lost or corrupted textual variants between the KVJ, Septuagint, and Dead Sea Scrolls are actually “restored” by JS.

• I then critique Joseph Smith’s JST translation, arguing that over 99% of changes are theological expansions rather than textual restorations and that his changes are unsupported by ancient manuscripts.

• Finally, I present a modern LDS apologetic take on approaching the JST, and criticize their attempt to reframe the subject matter and talk about the how/why they are doing that so that readers who watch it will be aware of the games they play.

For the sake of continuity and to help you maintain some flow of the conversation, I’m reproducing a relevant part from Part 1 that leads into the JDST discussion. See below.

Question to the AI: Did those compiling the masoretic text remove parts of it that christians viewed as supporting the christian claim? If so, which parts?

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I’ve been reading scriptures tonight (Feb 16, 2025, 11:45 PM - part of my Exodus 90 daily Holy Hour discipline), and I’ve stumbled on something I didn’t expect. I have been reading Daniel in the OSB (orthodox study bible), and realized that the LDS KJV omits all of chapter 3:25 -90. I noticed this difference because I taught LDS Sunday school for quite some time, and the OSB has in Daniel 3:25-90 parts that I didn’t recognize as ever having seen before, so I started to compare. This article will give you a sense of how strong my ADHD rabbit hole tendencies are lol, but that also means it’s long, so a TLDR follows.

Important Definitions and Acronyms

This article uses many acronyms to refer to different scriptural texts. Understanding a bit about those texts and how we refer to them will be important background information for this and a following article.

• Texts and Acronyms:

  • KJV (King James Version - 1769 edition) is the version of the bible used by the LDS church. It has been a seminal and enduring force in American Protestantism, shaping theology, worship, and cultural identity from the colonial era through modern times with its distinctive language, literary quality, and deep-rooted tradition. Created in the early 17th century by King James 1st for the Church of England, its Old Testament was translated from the Hebrew Masoretic Text (See below). The New Testament portion was translated from Greek manuscripts compiled during the Renaissance (called the Textus Receptus). It was created as a primarily Protestant Bible but has also been used by some Catholics. One would think that perhaps there are other or newer Bible versions that would be more accurate and could be used by LDS instead. Still, a quick check shows that the same protestant edits made to the KJV also exist in other Bibles produced by protestant groups in America, like the CBS (Christian Study Bible- including the Ancient Faith edition).

  • NKJV (New King James Version 1987) - a modern English translation of the KJV that updates the archaic language of the traditional KJV while preserving its underlying textual tradition, serving as a crucial bridge for contemporary biblical textual analysis and study.

  • LXX (Septuagint) is the ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible from the 3rd to 2nd centuries BCE. It was created to provide a Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures, enabling Hellenistic Jews (Jews who were culturally Greek - predominantly Diaspora communities in Egypt) to access and maintain their religious traditions in their common language. The Orthodox and Latin Catholic churches still use the LXX. It is vital to biblical textual analysis for offering insights into early Jewish textual traditions and influencing early Christian scriptural interpretation. It is the version of the Old Testament used by early Christians and is centuries older than the MT.

  • DSS (Dead Sea Scrolls) - a collection of ancient Jewish manuscripts found in caves near the Dead Sea, dating from the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, and are crucial to biblical textual analysis because they contain some of the earliest known copies of biblical texts, offering insights into the evolution and transmission of the Hebrew Bible.

  • MT (Masoretic Text) - The authoritative medieval Hebrew version of the Jewish Bible, meticulously compiled and maintained by Jewish scribes (the Masoretes) from the 7th to 10th centuries CE, and it is pivotal to biblical textual analysis because it forms the basis for most modern Protestant translations while reflecting centuries of textual tradition and standardization.

  • OSB (Orthodox Study Bible) - A standard version of the Bible used by Eastern Orthodox, particularly in English-speaking countries. The OSB uses the Septuagint for the Old Testament and the NKJV (New King James Version) translation of the New Testament.

  • OT (Old Testament) - The first section of the Christian Bible, the OT is comprised of sacred Hebrew/Jewish scriptures that chronicle the history, laws, prophecies, and religious poetry of the Jewish people before the coming of Christ. This compilation of ancient scriptures documents the world's creation, the Hebrew people's history and laws, and their covenant relationship with God. The OT was primarily written in Hebrew and Aramaic.

  • NT (New Testament) - The New Testament is the second section of the Christian Bible, comprising writings that recount the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishment of the early Christian (Catholic) Church. The NT was primarily written in Koine Greek with some small parts in Aramaic. Contrary to popular misconceptions, the New Testament was not written in Hebrew.

TL;DR Summary/Overview and Context

As it was late at night and I was sitting in bed, I proceeded to ask questions/find answers using Chat-GPT as my preferred search engine (Instead of Google. A discussion about the uses of AI follows below. As a result, this article proceeds as a series of Prompts/Questions from me to the AI, with answers from the AI. To make it easier to read, I’m putting my questions in as section Headings labeled with “Question to the AI:”, after which the AI response follows, formatted in the substack blockquote style. In general, I proceed as follows:

• I start with a discussion on the AI used, explain the models I used and then discuss why I used an AI and what the benefits are over the “old” method of pouring over books and diving into internet article via Google.

• An investigation into how and why the protestant KJV OT omits Daniel 3:25-90 compared to the Orthodox OSB OT.

• I compare the omitted texts and textual variants and talk about differences with the KVJ as a high level look at the translation variations between the Septuagint (LXX), the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), and the Masoretic Text (MT).

• Briefly examine reasons why there are variations, specifically variations or omissions created by Jews in the MT and why. Since the LXX was translated hundreds of years earlier than the formation of the MT (Masoretic Text), the LXX was based on earlier versions of the Jewish texts and was the Greek text used by early Christians. Thus, I assume it to be more reliable and authentic from a Christian perspective because it was not subject to scribal anti-Christian tampering.

• I also have a look at the “Additions to Daniel” texts that the reformers considered apocryphal, and look at where they may have come from and why they are in our scriptures.

• I have the AI look at the significant variants and then focus on edits and omissions that specifically deal with messianic passages that early Christians would have used to support their message.

Can we trust the information ChatGPT is providing to us? Embracing AI for Religious Writing and Research: Why?

I lack formal training in biblical textual analysis, Greek, or Hebrew—and given that it was already late at night (and I was already in bed) —I used ChatGPT-4o to find answers to my questions. For reference, GPT-4o is the current default model for the Chat GPT tool created by OpenAI.

About AI LLM’s and Models

Many AI-powered large language models (LLMs), like ChatGPT, allow users to select from a variety of different models within the tool. These LLMs are trained on vast amounts of publicly available (and some non-public, copyrighted) data from the internet. This includes both pro-LDS and anti-LDS materials and more neutral perspectives—though all sources inevitably carry some bias. This broad dataset allows AI to present arguments and insights from multiple sides of an issue without being filtered through any single biased source (including myself).

Different models have distinct capabilities and performance. Changing the model is akin to swapping the engine in a car—in this case, altering the “brain” of the AI. Some models are optimized for speed and efficiency, while others require more computational power but provide deeper reasoning. My initial analysis, before compiling this article, was conducted using the GPT-4o model.

The 4o model represents a significant leap forward in language understanding and generation compared to previous iterations. It excels in advanced language comprehension, contextual awareness, creative and analytical generation, multilingual proficiency, problem-solving, and even has multimodal capabilities (processing both text and images). These capabilities are pretty amazing. After my stroke I had an EEG and put one of the images from the EEG into GTO-4-o and it was able to analyze the entire thing and tell me what was going on with as much detail as I needed. It also told me that it saw indications of ADHD and ASD (both true) and what some of the effects would be (also true.) Currently, GPT-4o is the best general-purpose model available from Open-AI (the maker of Chat GTP.)

At first, I had no intention of publishing my conversation with the AI—I was simply curious. However, after reviewing the discussion, I figured I may as well turn it into an article. That’s the thing with being on Substack, you always need to be looking forward to what you are going to write next. Publishing for an audience also has different considerations than personal inquiry and despite the fact that most of the analysis was done with AI, I’ve spent just as much time assembling this article and making it digestible as any other.

My first consideration was what people’s objections and questions would be regarding the efficacy of the information I received. I determined that GPT-4o has a hallucination rate of 1.5%. In AI terms, “hallucination” refers to fabricated or inaccurate information. While 1.5% is significantly lower than the first versions of Chat-GPT (which some estimates of hallucination rate were between 20-30%,) it still means the output may not be 100% reliable, but what is?

Intending to turn this into an article, I wanted to verify the accuracy of the AI-generated responses. However, I do not have the time, attention, or academic expertise to fact-check everything manually. I’m not a trained textual analyst, nor do I hold a Ph.D. in Koine Greek (the Greek of the Septuagint and New Testament) or Hebrew, making it impossible to assess translations against source texts manually.

To check accuracy, I ran the existing conversation through a newer AI model with advanced reasoning abilities, the o3-mini-high model. The “high” name indicates enhanced analytical capabilities, making it particularly well-suited for verifying complex information. This model reportedly has a hallucination rate of just 0.8%1, making it the most precise Chat-GTP model available.

The GPT-o3-mini-high model 2 is an optimized version that enhances reasoning and data analysis. Some users have noted its advantages3 in scientific research, algorithm development, advanced mathematics, and structured data processing. While it is slightly slower than GPT-4o, it provides greater accuracy by engaging in deeper, multi-step reasoning.

Although the hallucination rate difference between the two models is only 0.7%, using o3-mini-high to fact-check GPT-4o’s output would be far easier and much more feasible than attempting to verify manually (I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing the manual activity and trying to pass off the results as accurate or reliable.) I fed the entire conversation into the o3-mini-high model and asked it to check the accuracy of GPT-4o’s responses. It confirmed the original information but provided additional nuance and clarification in certain areas.

As a writer interested in religious and biblical studies, I approach Artificial Intelligence (AI) with curiosity and caution. I understand why some people are skeptical about using AI, particularly given all of the controversy (and misinformation) about it in the news, with Actors, Artists, and Writers up in arms. I have a background in Technology and studied an older type of AI in college, so I was not afraid to jump in and try it. My experience has shown me that AI, especially Large Language Models (LLMs), can be powerful research tools. Below, I’ll explain how AI assists me in gathering information, reasoning through complex questions, and uncovering insights with greater objectivity.

Understanding AI and LLMs

Before diving into the benefits of using Chat-GPT or an AI to do this research, let me clarify what I mean by AI and LLMs. Large Language Models (LLMs) are AI trained on vast amounts of text. In simple terms, an LLM is like a very well-read assistant with a photographic memory that never forgets, can understand questions posed in natural conversational English, and generates human-like responses. These models have learned from diverse sources – books, articles, historical documents, and more – to predict and form coherent answers. When I ask an LLM a question about a biblical passage or historical context, it uses its broad training to provide relevant information. Essentially, the AI acts as a research partner with a vast library of knowledge.

Unlike traditional computer programs that follow strict rules, modern AI can use logic to reason through problems. For example, the AI can compare different interpretations, summarize arguments, and point out logical connections instead of just fetching a specific verse or commentary. This ability to analyze and synthesize information makes it less like a search engine and more like a collaborator. Recent AI models don’t just parrot facts – they can actually “think” through questions by breaking down problems step by step and adjusting their approach if needed. Knowing this, I used AI to augment my research process and understanding, not to replace it. You’ll see me interject or provide my conclusions and thoughts throughout this article and the next.

Isn’t AI bad? Research Benefits

Because many reading this may not be well versed in modern AI and may be skeptical or even hostile to AI and its uses, I’d like to present what I see as some of the benefits of using this kind of tool (which is becoming ubiquitous and will soon be impossible to avoid.)

The noise you may have heard about AI coming from Journalists, Artists, and Writers are objections to having the LLM AI’s trained on publicly available news, art, and literature. First, news organizations and art/photography websites, chronically underfunded and facing declining revenues, want to be compensated for the work they may have paid for that has been used to train the AIs. Secondly, there is fear that AIs will replace the need for journalists, writers, and artists as they improve. People fear losing their jobs or income from freelance work (both valid concerns). AI can already produce fantastic works of art, but thus far, it’s not very good at creating art that follows your directions nor producing engaging, interesting, and readable literature. That will improve in time. AI could also be used for nefarious purposes (Fraud, blackmail, disinformation, media manipulation, etc.), so research is underway to create tools to combat this. Not like our media hasn’t been manipulated all along anyway, but now computers can do it faster and more effectively and spotting the fraud is getting very difficult.

• Natural Language Understanding: An AI can understand the nature of my inquiries and anticipate my wants and needs, which I can communicate in plain English. In contrast, Google or other search engines generally don’t understand the questions you may be asking them. Instead, search engines do sophisticated pattern matching on the text you enter into the search bar. There is a massive difference between the two, which is why OpenAI has released its own AI-based search engine and Google is racing to mature and integrate its own AI into its search engine product. The AI industry is hot right now; billions are being invested, the rate of progress is lightning fast, and it’s only going to accelerate.

• Access to Diverse Sources: AI can quickly gather and structure information from many sources. Instead of manually combing through countless books and articles, I can ask the AI, and it will find relevant information from different perspectives and scholars. I’m less likely to miss important data because it wasn’t on my bookshelf or was buried on page 2 (or deeper) of a Google search result where I would never find it.

• Efficient Reasoning and Analysis: Recent AI assistants can reason through complex data or conflicting viewpoints and provide nuanced answers quickly, often accomplishing in seconds or minutes what it would take an educated person hours or days to accomplish. I can also ask the AI to summarize interpretations and look for nuances and bias. It speeds up the analysis process because it can handle multiple tasks simultaneously (like comparing texts or checking cross-references). It is important to note that AI doesn’t just give shallow answers; it can break down problems logically. Modern reasoning-enabled AI systems actually “think” through problems by analyzing them step by step and self-correcting mistakes or asking clarifying questions, which is incredibly helpful when grappling with complex subject matter.

• Reduced Bias: One concern we might have is that because an AI may have been trained on biased information, it may inject bias into its answers. However, I’ve found that, in general, a well-trained AI helps reduce personal bias by providing nuance or correcting erroneous assumptions. It presents information from many viewpoints, forcing one to weigh evidence more fairly. By drawing on data from many voices (different theologians, historians, cultures, etc.), the AI offers a composite view that isn’t driven by a single ideology or agenda. In practice, I get a broader, more balanced understanding of a topic. Of course, I still have to use my judgment, but the AI serves as a check against my preconceived notions or implicit biases.

• Deeper Context and New Insights: Because an AI can process so much information, it often uncovers context I am likely to miss. For example, if I’m looking at a Bible verse, the AI might remind me of the historical context, linguistic nuances, or related passages elsewhere in scripture or ancient literature. This has occasionally led to new insights. In one research study on biblical interpretation, scholars found that AI has the potential to significantly enhance biblical hermeneutics by generating new insight and providing rich contextual analysis. I’ve seen this firsthand: AI has pointed out links between texts and interpretations I hadn’t noticed before, enriching my understanding.

Addressing Concerns and Ensuring Balance

I know that using AI in religious research may sound unsettling. Interpreting scripture is, after all, a profoundly spiritual endeavor. I do not hand over the role of interpreting meaning to a machine. Instead, AI is used to augment research and make it more efficient. Instead of spending hours pouring over books, making notes, and using Google to chase down online information and then correlating it together and weaving it into a narrative, AI can do almost all of that quickly and efficiently while understanding the language and complexities of my specific requests in a fraction of the time it would take for me to do it manually. When I make a request, the AI can understand the intentions and needs of my requests and act accordingly, whereas Google can only search for specific words or strings of words. Nobody would have an issue with me manually hunting through books and using Google; this is just an automated and vastly more intelligent way to do that. If the AI provides information or an interpretation, I can always cross-check it with trusted sources (like the Bible, commentaries, or books). AI often points in fruitful directions, but I must discern the truth and draw conclusions on my own, and you’ll see me doing that in the article with asides, commentary, and sometimes snarky comments.

It’s essential to handle AI’s suggestions critically. AI can sometimes make mistakes or present every perspective, including those I know to be less credible. Sometimes, I don’t want an AI to follow a particular line of inquiry or consider specific facts that I know are not relevant or that I believe are suspect. Fortunately, I can ask the AI to do that, and it will follow my guidance. AI also usually cites its sources or at least enables me to find the origin of the information it provides. This transparency is crucial to verify facts and ensure that the insights I’m getting are legitimate.

A Valuable Tool for Deeper Understanding

In my experience, embracing AI technology doesn’t mean compromising rigor or reverence for the subject matter. On the contrary, it allows me to approach issues from multiple perspectives with greater context. The AI’s ability to widen my research scope, provide logical analysis, and deliver balanced, evidence-based insights makes the work of researching and assembling these articles faster and more thorough.

Ultimately, using AI (like LLMs) is about enhancing human effort, not replacing it. I still rely on prayer, reflection, and discipline in my study of scripture, but now I have additional tools that can sift through massive amounts of data, highlight connections, and even suggest interpretations I might not have considered, all in a matter of seconds. For any anyone working with extensive historical and textual data, this capability is incredibly empowering.

I hope this helps demystify AI's role in producing this article. Rather than seeing it as a threat, I see it as a tool that, when used wisely, can lead to more informed, thoughtful, and unbiased explorations of religious topics. My experience shows we don’t have to choose between tradition and technology. With a balanced approach, we can have the best of both: the rich, reflective interpretation from human scholars and the expansive, data-driven support from AI.

<end preamble>

The Beginning of the Rabbit Hole, noticing that the LDS KJV is missing many verses in Daniel.

OK, deep breath. Now that we’ve gotten past the preamble, let’s get on with the meat of the article. The information presented in this short section did not use AI; I noticed this and did the manual work to check against the KJV.

I mentioned at the beginning that I had been reading my scriptures and stumbled on something I didn’t expect. I was reading Daniel in the OSB (orthodox study bible) and came across large sections of the text I had never seen before. Quickly comparing to the LDS KJV, I realized that the LDS KJV omits all of chapter 3:25 -90.

The LDS KJV goes to verse 23 in the narrative, similar to the OSB, but then omits the range mentioned above and picks back up in the KJV at verse 24, which in our bible (OSB) is verse 91.

The omitted verses appear to be liturgical-style texts and songs sung by Shadrach, Mishac, and Abednego while in the fiery furnace. i.e., they are singing liturgical-type songs in the fiery furnace. I recall one of my parish priests saying that the bible of the early church contained part of the church’s prayers and liturgical worship. I had expected this to be only in the New Testament (NT), but I was now reading something in the OSB that appeared to be stylistically liturgical. I haven’t been Orthodox that long, and I haven’t attended an Orthodox Seminary, so I could be mistaken in identifying it as appearing liturgical.

Our verse 91 says “now Nebuchadnezzar heard their singing and marveled and rose up in haste and said to his nobles, “did we not cast three men into the fire?” the KJV used in the LDS church has as its verse

24, “Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished, and rose up in haste, and spake, and said unto his counsellors, Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire”

In the KJV, there is no reason given for why the King is astonished. In the OSB, he’s astonished because he hears them singing. Makes sense to me. If I’d just thrown a bunch of people in a pit of fire to be burned alive, the last thing I’d expect is to hear them singing.

The KJV also omits a good explanation of why/how those standing near the furnace were killed by it (other than implying that it was exceedingly hot and that perhaps they weren’t being cautious.) The OSB verses 46-48 explain the statement in KJV Daniel 3:22.

22 Therefore because the king’s commandment was urgent, and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. - KJV

OSB 46-48 Below

46 Now the king’s servants who cast them in did not cease to stoke the furnace with naphtha, pitch, coarse fiber, and brushwood. (Note that the OSB provides and uses the Hebrew names for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.)

47 The flame shot forty-nine cubits above the furnace,

48 and it broke out and burned those it found around the furnace of the Chaldeans.

49 But the Angel of the Lord went down into the furnace to join Azariah and his companions, and shook off the fiery flame of the furnace.

50 He made the inside of the furnace to be as though a dew-laden breeze were blowing through it, so the fire did not touch them at all, or cause them pain, or trouble them.

Nelson, Thomas. The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World (pp. 1244-1245).

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Introduction

Communion— sharing bread and wine per Christ’s instructions at the last supper —holds deep spiritual significance for Christians. Communion refers to a deep connection or communication with God and the divine. While Latter-day Saints view communion as a symbolic remembrance, the historical Christian understanding reveals a deeper understanding and significance that dates back to the earliest days of Christianity.

Historical Origins of the Eucharist

The practice of the Eucharist originates directly from Jesus Christ's words and actions during the Last Supper. In the Gospel of Luke, Christ explicitly states

19 And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, This is my body which is given for you: this do in remembrance of me.

20 Likewise also the cup after supper, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood, which is shed for you.

Luke (22:19-20)

Early Christian Understanding

Early Christian writings demonstrate a consistent belief in the real presence of Christ (his body and blood) in the Eucharistic elements. Apostolic Church fathers from the first and second centuries—direct successors to the apostles—consistently taught that the bread and wine were not merely symbols but truly became the body and blood of Christ (in a spiritual sense.)

The act of bread and wine physically or meta-physically transforming into the actual body and blood of Christ is called by Roman Catholics transubstantiation. Transubstantiation is an attempt via a metaphysical explanation to rationalize how the real presence comes to be in the bread and wine.

Transubstantiation is not the same as a “real presence of Christ” as the latter only emphasizes the presence of Christ’s energies (remember the article on Grace where we looked at the energies/essence distinction) in the final product. Some, like Catholics/Orthodox, and some “high church” protestants, like Lutherans and Anglicans/Episcopalians also believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Some, protestant or protestant derived groups like Baptists, Pentecostals, Mennonites, Quakers, LDS, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Adventists, do not believe in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

The early Apostolic Church Fathers wrote extensively about the Eucharist, affirming the Real Presence of Christ in the sacrament. The term “transubstantiation” (defined in roman catholic scholastic theology after the great schism using Aristotelian philosophical concepts) is not explicitly used in these early writings; however their teachings support the belief that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ in a mysterious and profound way in which Christ is then found within the eucharist. Here are key quotes from early Christian leaders on the Real Presence:

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I mentally checked out when I left - happy to leave Mormonism and all of its craziness far behind in the rear-view mirror. The mental/emotional, and cognitive relief was tremendous. I’ve only recently, since starting this publication, begun again to pay attention to current theological developments. That said, I’m rapidly tiring of it and will be turning back towards where most of my energy is spent these days - increasing my depth of spiritual practice and knowledge of Christ’s church via Greek Orthodoxy.

It appears that since the latter part of the 20th century, a movement known as Neo-orthodox Mormonism (which I’ll shorthand as “Nemo” or “Nemoism”) has been taking shape. This movement seems driven by a desire within the LDS community to be seen as legitimately Christian and gain some measure of acceptance in broader Christian circles.1 I do not believe this is a top-down movement but instead more of a bottom-up endeavor, despite the fact that prominent mormons like J. Reuben Clark and Bruce R. McConkie were both identified as being part of this trend.

I suspect part of this shift relates to increased awareness of translation legitimacy issues with the “Pearl of Great Price (POGP)—particularly the Book of Abraham. Current scholarship and the Church’s own Gospel Topics Essays acknowledge challenges with the text’s authenticity as a translation. This conversation can be found easily on the Church’s official website, so I won’t rehash every detail here, but it’s important to note that this issue has encouraged some to re-examine foundational LDS claims and teachings. (I’m sorry, folks. I know I promised that I would not wade into traditional anti-mormon arguments, but it is impossible to avoid in this case - so what I’m going to do is present only material from the LDS church’s own website and position statements from the Gospel Topics Essays. I will not explore the entire controversy here - there are many other sources of information where you can find this with a simple Google search. The Gospel Topics Essays are formal position statements from the LDS Church on topics that have generated significant controversy - enough that the Church believed they needed to be publicly addressed. I would note that early LDS laity and scholars who raised these issues in the past were often rapidly excommunicated. Hence, an LDS person looking at the list of topics in these essays - from the LDS church’s own website - would likely recognize many things that they were previously taught were anti-Mormon.)

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The historic LDS understanding has been that J.S.'s prophetic power translated the Book of Abraham from the ancient Egyptian papyrus that the church obtained. At that time, the knowledge and understanding of the Egyptian language and how to read and translate it was not well known. Ancient Egyptian was deciphered in Paris in 1822 by Jean-Francois Chamollion using the Rosetta Stone. In his journals, Joseph Smith admits to having no knowledge of the Egyptian language, and the ability to translate ancient Egyptian did not exist in America at that time. The first Egyptologist in America who knew how to decipher or translate Egyptian hieroglyphs was Charles Wilbour, who was academically active from 1880 until 1896.

Joseph Smith (J.S.) began his “translation” in 1835 and worked on it until 1842. At that time, he attempted to decipher it and created a “Grammar” document that sometimes attributed a single Hieroglyphic symbol to entire paragraphs of English text. I knew about this grammar from my university days; from what I remember, it is wildly inaccurate and would be considered absurd by anyone studying linguistics. The apologetic argument is that we don’t know what role this Grammar played as it seems to try to match hieroglyphics to the Book of Abraham text. It is possible, and likely, that the Grammar came after J.S.’s translation.

The book of Abraham was the last of Joseph Smith’s translation efforts. In these inspired translations, Joseph Smith did not claim to know the ancient languages of the records he was translating. Much like the Book of Mormon, Joseph’s translation of the Book of Abraham was recorded in the language of the King James Bible. This was the idiom of scripture familiar to early Latter-day Saints, and its use was consistent with the Lord’s pattern of revealing His truths “after the manner of their [His servants’] language, that they might come to an understanding.”

Some evidence suggests that Joseph studied the characters on the Egyptian papyri and attempted to learn the Egyptian language. His history reports that, in July 1835, he was “continually engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.”²⁰ This “grammar,” as it was called, consisted of columns of hieroglyphic characters followed by English translations recorded in a large notebook by Joseph’s scribe, William W. Phelps. Another manuscript, written by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, has Egyptian characters followed by explanations.²¹

[…] Neither the rules nor the translations in the grammar book correspond to those recognized by Egyptologists today. Whatever the role of the grammar book, it appears that Joseph Smith began translating portions of the book of Abraham almost immediately after the purchase of the papyri.²² Phelps apparently viewed Joseph Smith as uniquely capable of understanding the Egyptian characters: “As no one could translate these writings,” he told his wife, “they were presented to President Smith. He soon knew what they were.”²³

LDS Gospel Topics Essays - Translation and the Book of Abraham

The original Book of Abraham papyri remains (major fragments were found after a museum fire in the 1960s.) Modern Egyptologists have now translated it. The result is that Joseph Smith's translations in the Book of Abraham have nothing to do with the Egyptian text found on the underlying Egyptian papyrus that Joseph Smith attempted to translate. Rumors are swirling in the ex-Mormon and post-Mormon communities that the church leadership is considering de-canonizing the POGP; however, doing so would have enormous theological ramifications.

The official LDS position can be found on their website under the Gospel Topics Essays. Most notably (emphasis mine):

The discovery of the papyrus fragments renewed debate about Joseph Smith’s translation. The fragments included one vignette, or illustration, that appears in the book of Abraham as facsimile 1. Long before the fragments were published by the Church, some Egyptologists had said that Joseph Smith’s explanations of the various elements of these facsimiles did not match their own interpretations of these drawings. Joseph Smith published the facsimiles as freestanding drawings, cut off from the hieroglyphs or hieratic characters that originally surrounded the vignettes. The discovery of the fragments meant that readers could now see the hieroglyphs and characters immediately surrounding the vignette that became facsimile 1.²⁶

None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the Book of Abraham. Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Latter-day Saint scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments.²⁷ Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts (called the Book of Breathings) that were [commonly] deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.

What is Neo-orthodox Mormonism?

Neo-orthodox Mormonism, or Nemoism, is a term for a theological shift within the LDS Church towards what appears to be a more traditionally “Christian” view—though by “Orthodox” here, they primarily mean something closer to mainstream American Protestant understandings rather than the Eastern Orthodox perspective. Crucially, Nemoism does not adopt full Trinitarian theology but tries to incorporate more widely recognizable Christian elements into Mormon frameworks, especially in Christology. It seems to me to be an attempt to roll back the theological innovations of the LDS Nauvoo period - particularly the King Follet Discourse. This has not officially changed traditional LDS doctrine, but thus far, it seems to be limited to how LDS theology is framed, preached, and understood among LDS members.

Origins and Development of Nemo Theology

Apparently, Mormon neo-orthodox thought has early roots dating back to the 1940s and 1950s. It borrows its name from the broader American Protestant neo-orthodox movement led by figures like Karl Barth and Reinhold Niebuhr, who rejected liberal theology and emphasized a Christ-centered, scripture-focused approach. Nemoism seems to have arisen as a strategy to counter the perception that Mormonism is wholly distinct and non-Christian, attempting to highlight the role of Jesus Christ and emphasize salvation by grace more prominently.

LDS Personalities in Nemo Theology

Several influential figures helped promote this movement within the LDS Church:

• J. Reuben Clark (Apostle and counselor in the First Presidency) emphasized the Grace of Christ and the need to balance human effort with divine mercy. As we’ve discussed, Grace is historically not a prominent LDS topic. The common understanding of Grace amongst laypersons is more analogous to mercy.

• Bruce R. McConkie (Apostle and author of the very controversial book Mormon Doctrine) presented a somewhat ultra-conservative version of this theology, highlighting the role of Christ as Savior and stressing obedience and adherence to commandments but acknowledging salvation through grace.

Influential LDS figures like J. Reuben Clark and Bruce R. McConkie contributed to this trend by stressing Christ’s grace and scriptural authority, moving LDS discourse incrementally closer to certain aspects of mainstream American Christian thought. They reframed aspects of LDS belief to sound more familiar to those outside the faith, playing down unique and controversial doctrines such as eternal progression or the exaltation of humankind.

How is Nemo Theology Different?

Nemo theology is more palatable to mainstream American Protestant Christian views while retaining some traditional LDS distinctiveness:

1. Increased Christ-Centric Emphasis: Christ’s role is highlighted to a degree that brings LDS rhetoric closer to what is found in many other Christian traditions, such as Christ as the sole means of salvation.

2. A Greater Focus on Grace Over Works: While traditional Mormonism always taught that both faith and works matter, Nemo theology leans towards Grace as the primary driver of salvation. This approach resembles American Protestant theology more than the historic LDS emphasis on the synergy of grace and works. Nemo theology emphasizes Grace as the only essential element of Salvation, presenting works as necessary but secondary to the grace of Christ. (This is not an Eastern Orthodox, perspective. Eastern Orthodoxy would probably be closer to the traditional LDS perspective IMO.)

3. Scriptural Primacy: Echoing Karl Barth’s neo-orthodoxy, Nemo theology often relies more heavily on scripture than on modern revelation, reducing the distance between LDS teachings and traditional Protestant approaches. This differs from traditional Mormonism’s reliance on modern revelation, as Nemo theologians tend to emphasize scriptural accounts of Christ’s life, mission, and teachings. This is probably helpful, as arguments can be made for the fallibility of LDS prophetic pronouncements and powers.2

4. A Revised View of the Great Apostasy: Instead of a complete apostasy, Nemo theology suggests only the loss of priesthood authority, acknowledging that important truths survived. This more moderate stance brings LDS views closer to other Christian narratives of historical Christianity. Traditionally, LDS doctrine held to total/universal view of apostasy, while this different emphasis is on a more limited apostasy.) I think we can see this in the recent emphasis on the loss of priesthood power, particularly when speaking about apostasy.

5. Selective Emphasis of Joseph Smith’s Teachings: Nemo adherents focus on teachings that resonate with broader Christian themes while minimizing those unique LDS doctrines that stand out too starkly from the mainstream Christian tradition. This is particularly true regarding Christ and Grace while downplaying teachings on unique doctrines like eternal progression or exaltation.

Effects on the LDS Church and Lay Understanding

This shift has been notable but nuanced. I did not recognize this was happening when I was LDS. It did seem to me that there was a growing emphasis on what I saw as Evangelical beliefs, with a subtle downplaying of traditional LDS perspectives, making them feel more in line with broader Christian customs. The greater emphasis on Grace and Christ’s central role may help LDS missionaries engage more smoothly with people from traditional Christian backgrounds. It might also open the door to more dialogue with other Christian groups, although acceptance and understanding across denominational lines are never guaranteed.

While the Church does not formally endorse Nemo theology as a replacement for traditional doctrinal positions, these perspectives are influencing teaching materials, conference addresses, and general church culture:

1. Teaching and Curriculum: Church manuals, talks, and seminary lessons have gradually shifted to emphasize Christ’s role more explicitly, moving away from a predominantly works-based salvation narrative to one that speaks more openly about the Grace and mercy of Christ. This shift impacts the day-to-day gospel understanding for many Latter-day Saints, often presenting a more mainstream American Christian view of Jesus than was common in 19th and early 20th century Mormonism.

2. Increased Ecumenical Openness: By aligning more closely with particular mainstream Christian views, the LDS faith has made inroads in ecumenical dialogues, creating a space where Latter-day Saints can engage with other Christians in ways that, due to stark theological divides, were previously impossible, or at least very challenging and rife with misunderstanding.

3. Influence on Lay Understanding of Salvation: For the laity, this shift has increased awareness that salvation cannot be “earned” by good works or obedience to commandments alone, something Nemo theology explicitly critiques. Many members now hear more about “faith in Christ” and less about strictly fulfilling commandments as the sole pathway to salvation. When I grew up in the LDS faith, up until the time I left it (50 years), discussions about Grace were almost entirely absent. “Faith in Christ” was generally seen as an admonishment to believing in LDS teachings and obeying commandments and leaders. It was certainly not meant in the way that a protestant would mean it. To most Mormons, Grace is just another word for the mercy of God. It lacks the distinction of essence/energies held in Eastern Orthodox belief and an understanding of how Grace works.

4. Changes in Missionary Messaging: Missionaries increasingly emphasize Jesus Christ in their teachings, aiming to communicate Mormonism’s Christian foundations to a broader audience. This change makes LDS doctrine more accessible to those with traditional Christian backgrounds.

How does Nemo change LDS Christology? Should we expect a return to Trinitarianism?

Nemo Christology in Mormonism is kind of a mid-way ecumenical compromise. It attempts to bring LDS beliefs closer to normative American protestant ideas without abandoning core Mormon doctrines. It’s a shift from what you might call the classic LDS theology, where God and Christ are more like perfected humans who achieved divinity, to a framework that positions Christ as the ultimate, divine figure whose grace and atonement are seen as central to salvation.

Within Nemo theology, Christ becomes less a teacher of principles to achieve exaltation and more the essential, divine means by which salvation is possible. My assessment is that what is happening is a de-emphasizing of traditional LDS perspectives and a subtle introduction and emphasis on the Reformation doctrinal principles of Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide3, including a (Calvinist) protestant philosophy that no amount of personal righteousness can achieve salvation without Christ’s intervention (total depravity of man.) Nemos do not entirely abandon the idea that works matter; instead, it treats them more as a natural outcome of true faith in Christ rather than a means to an end. Which is a very normative american protestant christian view.

In this way, Nemo Christology makes Christ the focus of salvation rather than just one part of a larger plan involving obedience and ordinances. It’s almost a reframing of the plan of salvation itself, putting Christ at the center and letting everything else flow from that central truth.

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I'm addressing this as this old Mormon objection, particularly by one of my kids, keeps coming up. This argument can be traced back to the whole Great Apostasy nonsense where some Mormons point to the Trinity as being a product of Greek Philosophy and the point at which the Apostasy began. This could not be further from …

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The conversation around feminism within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) has intensified over the past few decades. Many women in the Church have expressed a desire for greater recognition of their divine role, increased participation in sacred ordinances, and acknowledgment of the equal partnership between men and women within the Church structure. While the church has made strides, they are often seen as insufficient by feminists within the LDS faith, even leading to a decline in membership - particularly amongst those who are more progressively left leaning. Here I propose reforms aimed at resolving these tensions that lie in returning to early LDS practices and theological understandings—particularly regarding Heavenly Mother, the roles of women in blessing ordinances, and the original vision of the Relief Society. These reforms have roots in the earliest revelations and practices of Joseph Smith’s Restoration (particularly given that the current President of the Church has stated that the restoration is ongoing) and could bring much-needed spiritual and doctrinal fulfillment to many LDS women today.

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What’s in a Name?

Many readers may wonder at my propensity to use LDS instead of the name Mormon to refer to the religion of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I do it out of respect for the same reason that I don’t use the N-word for African Americans.

Many early converts to Joseph Smith’s new religion were brought to his faith through reading the Book of Mormon (BOM). The BOM was likely his most visible unique selling proposition, considering the competition from all the other preachers during his day and the revivalists roaming the countryside.

As a result, people began to refer to early LDS converts as Mormons, - but this was not meant to be a nice neutral descriptive label. The term Mormon was used primarily as a profoundly insulting pejorative meant to insinuate that you were low class, uneducated, poor, a heretic, and a moron (which was basically what people thought of Joseph Smith and his early converts at the time.) It was widely seen and used as a term of ridicule - and sadly, 200+ years later - nothing has changed. It was at the time quite similar to using the ‘N’-word - we all know which one - to refer to Americans of African descent. And like with African Americans, followers of J.S. internalized the name and used it themselves. Similarly, When used by another LDS member, it was not offensive, but when used by outsiders, it was considered offensive.

By the end of the 19th century, it would go on to pick up additional connotations such as:

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What is the purpose of this article?

The content in this series of articles come from notes I put together while I was LDS, trying to make sense of everything I was experiencing in the Temple. This was largely because I did not feel that I was properly prepared for the Temple, and the first time I went, I was totally freaked out. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was in the MTC on a mission the week after, I never would have gone back and likely would have left the LDS Church soon after.

THE LDS Temple is completely unlike anything else in the normal LDS experience. You could say it’s very Old Testament and filled with things that even most LDS don’t understand. I have literally seen new LDS members, after the 1 year waiting period, go to the temple and then leave the LDS church because they were so freaked out. (this is not the majority but it does happen.)

My hope is that these notes may help better prepare people going to the temple for the first time since, at the time I wrote this, I viewed the official “temple prep class.” as being close to worthless when preparing newbies for the ”shock value” of going to the Temple. I didn’t want to see other LDS members get freaked out and leave the church because of it. A simple Google image search obtained some of the images used below of LDS ceremonial clothing. Please don’t freak out.

Christ and the Tokens

From time to time, I have encountered the question, “Where is Jesus in the temple?” It is a good question. Jesus is in the presentation but plays little more than a middleman, conveying information from God the Father to the Apostles and back again. But Jesus does appear in the endowment beyond a Jehovah on screen as he is also in the audience.

The patrons represent themselves during their first endowment session and thereafter represent deceased persons. At the same time, the male patrons represent a fallen Adam, and the female patrons represent Eve.

But while these multiple levels of representation are occurring simultaneously, there is another level of representation.

All men and women individually work and interact with Jesus Christ during the ceremony. During the endowment, each temple patron symbolically participates in portrayals of Jesus's birth, death, and resurrection.

They do so through the tokens they receive. The third and fourth tokens are the most obvious in this regard and, taken together, represent the crucifixion of Jesus. All patrons are symbolically crucified through the third and fourth tokens and may say with Paul,

“I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus.”

(Gal. 6:17)

This gives us a clue as to the meaning of the first and second tokens, which should similarly be taken together in order to discern their meaning. The first and second tokens are almost identical. There is only one difference. It is the difference that is important. The difference between the first and second tokens represents the movement from a higher place to a lower place. They represent movement from heaven to earth. Taken in context with the third and fourth tokens, they represent the advent of the Savior from heaven into mortality. They represent the Savior’s birth. They represent “the condescension of God.”

(1 Nephi 11:16)

Through the four tokens, the patron symbolically participates in Jesus's birth and crucifixion and, by implication, the life Jesus lived between these two events.

After the crucifixion, the patron, still following the example of Jesus, ascends to heaven to be with the Father (represented by the Celestial Room) leaving behind the empty endowment room/tomb.

The Atonement of Jesus is represented at the veil, both as Jesus himself wrought it, as well as the atonement it provides his followers.

Symbolism of Signs

The signs viewed together have their own meaning. Whereas the tokens are Messianic, the signs are Sacerdotal in nature, or in other words, they relate to priestly functions.

It is important to begin by noting that the first three signs are sequential and cumulative (they connect with and build upon each other).

Signs are made with arms and hands held in certain formations. The first sign is made only with the right arm. In the second sign, the first sign is now made with the left arm, and a new sign is introduced for the right arm. In the third sign, the second sign shifts from the right arm to the left arm, and a new sign is introduced for the right arm.

The fourth sign departs from this pattern and represents God's blessings descending from heaven. When taken together, the four signs seem to represent priestly functions.

With that in mind, here is a quotation from the History of the Church 2:379-82, which describes the 21 January 1836 introduction of the Kirtland temple ritual prior to its dedication. The Kirtland temple ritual was a simple ceremony consisting of washing and anointing the body, blessing and sealing the individual, and washing the feet.  After washing and anointing each other in the attic of the printing office, Joseph Smith and his associates congregated in the unfinished temple where the First Presidency (early leadership of the LDS church) consecrated oil and progressively laid hands on each other’s heads, blessing and anointing each other to their offices. Now, the quote from Joseph Smith:

At early candlelight, I met with the Presidency at the west school room in the Temple to attend to the ordinance of anointing our heads with holy oil. . . . . I took the oil in my left hand, Father Smith being seated before me, and the remainder of the Presidency encircled him roundabout. We then stretched our right hands towards heaven, blessed the oil, and consecrated it in the name of Jesus Christ.

We then laid our hands upon our aged Father Smith and invoked the blessings of heaven.  I then anointed his head with the consecrated oil and sealed many blessings upon him.

The passage does not say if the oil was in a bottle or some other container, but if it were not, there are only so many ways Joseph could have held it.

During this meeting, which lasted until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, visions were seen (a part of which may be found in D&C 137), angels ministered to many, and “the spirit of prophecy and revelation was poured out in mighty power.”  The meeting was “closed by singing and invoking the benediction of heaven, with uplifted hands.”

Robes, Priesthood, and Gender

Temple patrons don certain clothing necessary to "officiate” in ordinances of the Priesthood. By this they mean the earthly temporal priesthood of Aaron (The Aaronic Levite Priesthood) and the Melchizedek Priesthood (The Eternal Priesthood fulfilled in Christ.)

Both male patrons and female patrons are vested in and wear this clothing. (A detailed look at the symbolism of temple vestments is discussed in the section Vestments, below.)

But where in the temple do the male and female patrons officiate in the ordinances of the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods? The answer may be found in the subsequent use of the signs and tokens as part of engaging in the true order of prayer and in the use of the tokens and names at the veil. In order to use all the tokens, names, and signs, one must officiate in both the Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods, and men, as well as women, receive the fourth and most sacred name from God and thereafter enter into the presence of God. LDS’s believe that in order to do this, they must possess the Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. (D&C 84:21, 22)

Elder Oaks recently (though somewhat obliquely) observed that temple matrons “officiate in a priesthood ordinance” when they wash and anoint female patrons prior to receiving the endowment. But this observation applies not only to temple matrons. It applies to every woman who receives her temple endowment.

This may account for why many early Church leaders, including Brigham Young, believed that women who had received their endowment held the priesthood.

Criticisms of the Endowment

There have always been criticisms of the endowment ceremony. Here are some that I’ve come across where I’ve found good answers:

• Gender Roles - The temple ritual has been criticized due to its handling of gender in a couple of ways.

a.     That women have to covenant to obey their husbands. (This was removed from the ceremony.)

b.     That women going through the temple for the first time get the name of the fourth token from their husbands, not God, giving the impression that the husband stands between a woman and god.

c. Men can know the new name of their wives but wives cannot know the new name of their husbands. This is based on the belief that Male LDS priesthood holders will be resurrected first, and that it will be the Man's job to call his wife forth from the grave by using her new name.

In my understanding, recent changes in the temple ceremony have resolved issues A and B. But C remains.

The best response to this that I’ve read is the following:

“Women have been charged with the sacred responsibility of bringing our Heavenly Parents’ spirit children into this world (including the son of God!) Men have been charged with the sacred responsibility of bringing these children safely home again.”

“When Adam partook of the fruit, he did it for Eve, in essence covenanting with his wife that he would support her in her role. Eve then covenanted that she would support him in his role. One cannot succeed without the other.”  

To address criticism B, it should be pointed out that the husband is acting in the place of the officiator (an Angelic Guardian), not God. A woman’s relationship with God is directly between her and God. Also, however, there is a practical reason why this is done. If the husband is going through with the wife for her first time in the temple, he needs to get her New Name so that he can use it to call her forth in the morning of the first resurrection. It is believed by LDS that Christ will raise the Men from the dead first and that they will raise their wives by using their “new" temple names to call them forth.

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Priesthood

The Endowment ceremony places a large focus on the Priesthood, after all if you are to be a Priest and King unto God in the next life, the ability to do that is connected with the Priesthood. I believe that the following, from the Orthodox Study Bible is instructive for this topic. Mormons believe in both the Priesthood of Aaron - the Levitical or what they call the Aaronic Priesthood, and the Melchizedek Priesthood. Part of the endowment provides knowledge and ability to officiate in the ordinances of the Melchizedek Priesthood.

Temple Vestments

In this article, I'm going to refer to LDS Temple ceremonial clothing occasionally as Vestments because Orthodox, Catholics, some High Church Protestants, and Jews are familiar with that term - that's what our priests wear. Like in the Endowment video - they are a symbol of priesthood authority.

Although the Endowment narrative, has what I believe to be a not-so-subtle dig at the vestments of Catholic and Orthodox priests. Lucifer at some point appears in what somewhat resembles priestly vestment. When Adam and Eve ask Lucifer what he's wearing Lucifer proclaims that his clothes are a symbol of *his* power and priesthoods. This, I believe, is intended to (subconsciously) create a distrust of non-LDS Clergy who wear traditional vestments (by building negative subconscious associations.) As an orthodox Christian now, I personally find the implications of this insulting.

Endowment or temple ceremonies almost always involve several articles of clothing that have religious and symbolic meanings. This section is dedicated to examining the symbolism of LDS temple vestments in comparison to the Levite High Priest's vestments.

Please note that there is no scholarship that has produced this information. This information is based soley on my observations, and sometimes speculations based largely on my understanding of Early LDS Church history, the early organization of Priesthood offices during the Kikland Temple period and my reading of Exodus 28, where God instructs Moses as to the building of the Tabernacle and the high priests vestments.

LDS temple vestments seem to be loosely patterned after the priestly vestments described in Exodus 28 (28:4) with some modifications. God instructed Moses to construct the temple ceremonial clothing of the high priest for Aaron. This included a Robe, an Ephod, a Girdle, and a Mitre.

And thou shalt make holy garments for Aaron thy brother for glory and for beauty.

4 And these are the garments which they shall make; a breastplate, and an ephod, and a robe, and a broidered coat, a mitre, and a girdle: and they shall make holy garments for Aaron thy brother, and his sons, that he may minister unto me in the priest’s office.

6 ¶ And they shall make the ephod of gold, of blue, and of purple, of scarlet, and fine twined linen, with cunning work.

7 It shall have the two shoulder pieces thereof joined at the two edges thereof; and so it shall be joined together.

9 And thou shalt take two onyx stones, and grave on them the names of the children of Israel:

10 Six of their names on one stone, and the other six names of the rest on the other stone, according to their birth.

11 With the work of an engraver in stone, like the engravings of a signet, shalt thou engrave the two stones with the names of the children of Israel: thou shalt make them to be set in (settings - ouches) of gold.

12 And thou shalt put the two stones upon the shoulders of the ephod for stones of memorial unto the children of Israel: and Aaron shall bear their names before the Lord upon his two shoulders for a memorial.

13 ¶ And thou shalt make settings of gold;

14 And two chains of pure gold at the ends; of wreathen work shalt thou make them, and fasten the wreathen chains to the ouches.

15 ¶ And thou shalt make the breastplate of judgment with cunning work; after the work of the ephod thou shalt make it; of gold, of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine twined linen, shalt thou make it.

16 Foursquare it shall be being doubled; a span shall be the length thereof, and a span shall be the breadth thereof.

17 And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.

18 And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.

19 And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.

20 And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their enclosings.

21 And the stones shall be with the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet; every one with his name shall they be according to the twelve tribes.

Exodus 28 2,4-21

Likewise, LDS initiates wear a Robe, an Apron (instead of an Ephod), a Sash (instead of a girdle), and, for men, a cap that represents the Mitre. In place of a cap, women wear a veil, which they use to cover their faces during prayer, a practice no doubt inspired by 1 Corinthians 11:5. Men and women alike wear slippers in the temple instead of shoes, recalling God's command that Moses remove his shoes on holy ground (Exodus 3:5). For the endowment, women wear white dresses, while men wear white shirts, white pants, and white ties; the temple vestments are placed over this basic clothing.

Before we continue to examine LDS temple clothes and possible symbolic meanings, it may be illustrative to look at examples of ancient temple clothing, starting with the Ephod.

The Ephod contains what is called ‘the breastplate of judgment.’ The breastplate contained 12 stones of different types, each to represent the 12 tribes of Israel. (Exodus 28:15) In the breastplate was contained the Urim and the Thummim (Exodus 28:30) These were essentially ‘seer stones’ that were to be worn over the heart. This clothing symbolized Aaron’s role as Judge over the children of Israel. In addition, there was very specific instruction given as to the shoulder pads and gold chains, which connected the various parts of the Ephod to the breastplate.

The shoulder pads were to include one stone each. Each stone had engraved upon it the names of 6 of the 12 tribes of Israel “as a memorial” (Exodus 28:12) These stones were to be set in gold ‘settings’ as can be seen below.

The shoulder pads were connected to the ‘breastplate of judgement’ via gold chains. (Exodus 28:25-27)  While the scripture does not elucidate the meanings of these chains, I hypothesize that there is symbolism that he carries the responsibility for all of Israel on his heart and shoulders - with the Gold representative of the Glory and Holiness of God. Responsibility for what? For Judgement, for officiating in the priesthood, and for serving in the office of a high priest. He bears the weight of exercising God's Judgement. Exodus 28:30: “And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart when he goeth before the Lord; and Aaron share bear the judgment of the children of Israel upon his heart before the Lord continually.” … 35 - And it shall be upon Aaron to minister….

I believe that these chains symbolize the connection of his priesthood office with his responsibility and right of office to serve as a high priest and act as a judge.

The following diagram shows the full temple clothing.

The meanings of the symbols expressed below are my opinion since there does not seem to be any authoritative LDS source that explains them. The meanings derived are from my own research and what I found in the scriptures. Note that I believe that some of these things may have multiple symbols attached. I.e., they have multiple meanings. This is quite normal in religious symbols and is called multi-vocality by anthropologists, which is a fancy way of saying that each symbol can be saying multiple things. Often, they are coordinated to present multiple levels of symbolism.

Here is a good link that reviews and describes the Orthodox Priestly Liturgical Vestments https://www.saintjohnchurch.org/orthodox-liturgical-vestments/

Endowment Ceremony Clothing Symbolism

The Mitre (Men’s Hat)

The camelaucum, the headdress from which both the miter and the papal tiara stem, was originally a cap used by officials of the Imperial Byzantine court. At the Roman rite of their Coronation, the Pope placed a miter on their heads before placing the crown over it.

In this way, the Mitre is a type of preparatory crown. It is the foundation upon which the final crown will sit. Recall that the Endowment ceremony is one in which participants have been anointed to become kings and high priests unto God and are being prepared to do so.

As a metaphor for the crown and hence a King, the Mitre can represent the Godhead, which directs the ‘body’ of the church. We’ll see this also connect with the Ribbon and the Blue Lancer (string) below.

If you are wondering what the LDS Temple Mitre looks like, it kind of looks like a white shower cap with a ribbon on one side and a longer string on the other. Personally, I always thought wearing it made you look like Chef Boyardee.

Bishops in the Orthodox church also wear a Mitre.

Men’s MItre Ribbon (Golden Plate)

On the ancient vestments of the High Priest there was ‘a plate of pure gold attached to the Mitre, graven upon it was [...] HOLINESS TO THE LORD.” (Exodus 28:36) The LDS version has a white ribbon on the side opposite the string. The ribbon on the LDS miter has three portions that may symbolize the composition of the Godhead (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.) We are told that it was fixed there so that Israel may be accepted before the Lord. Like the Mitre, there are 2 levels of meaning here:

1.     The Ribbon on the Mitre means that the Kingship only exists to represent and serve the Lord’s will.

2.     The Ribbon manifests the Godhead as being actualized in the present Kingship.

Attachment of the Ribbon to Robe

Also referred to as the “Blue Lance” (Exodus 28:37), The “blue lance” in the LDS version of the Mitre connects the Mitre itself to the Robe. The robe is a long, pleated white robe (Which you can see in the image below.) (It represents the right to officiate in the priesthood - which means both the ability to act in God's name and the ability to participate in an ecclesiastical government.) I believe that this string symbolizes a couple things:

1.     That the powers ruling over / leading and judging are inseparably connected to the offices of the priesthood.

2.     Revelation (explained further below in the discussion of the Top Loops)

According to a lecture on the Perl of Great Price, Hugh Nibley expounds that the ‘knot’ that connects the Ribbon to the Robe represents ‘the safe place’, The Chosen and the Saved, or the Eternal. It represents security and safety. ‘Sa’, is the name that was later given to the palace at Luxor, but it means the holy and safe place, the place where the Egyptian Gods were United in Brotherhood.

The Robe

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The following is a transcript of a speech given by Harold Bloom, Famous literary critic and Stirling Professor1 of Humanities at Yale (Their highest office/title.) One might say that this speech is a somewhat obscure document, but one that I think LDS readers will appreciate as faith affirming. (I spend so much time criticizing that I think it’s only fair that I put out some information that is on the nicer-side - particularly if I want to stay married!)

Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of humanities at Yale University.^[1] In 2017, Bloom was called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world".^[2] After publishing his first book in 1959, Bloom wrote more than 50 books,^[3] including over 40 books of literary criticism, several books discussing religion, and one novel. He edited hundreds of anthologies concerning numerous literary and philosophical figures for the Chelsea House publishing firm.^[4][5] Bloom's books have been translated into more than 40 languages. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1995.^[6]

Bloom was a defender of the traditional Western canon at a time when literature departments were focusing on what he derided as the "School of Resentment" (which included multiculturalism, feminism, Marxism, and other ideologies).^[7][8] He was educated at Yale University, the University of Cambridge, and Cornell University.

This one is for the LDS readers. Underlining and Exclamation marks were added by the person (Donna Neilson2) who published the transcription. I (LEE) have not edited it in any way.

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Transcript

PROF. HAROLD BLOOM, Yale University, The Annual David P. Gardner Lecture Kingsbury Hall, University of Utah, Nov. 15, 1990, (typescript from tape by Paul Cracroft)

It has become something of a commonplace to observe that modern Mormonism tends to reduce itself to another Protestant sect, another Christian heresy, while the religion of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, Parley and Orson Pratt and other leading early Mormons was a far more radical swerve away from Protestant tradition.

Nineteenth Century Mormonism in its deepest implications had the same relation to Christianity that early Christianity had to Judaism3. Such an assertion, made by many scholars of Mormonism, is unassailable, but I do not desire to explore its complexities here. Instead, I want to return to the imaginative origins of the Mormon religion, to the visions and conceptions of God experienced and thought by Joseph Smith.

As a Jewish Gnostic, I am in no position to judge Joseph Smith as a Revelator, but as a student of the American imagination, I observe that his achievement as national prophet and seer is clearly unique in our history. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman were great writers, Jonathan Edwards and Horace Bushnell major theologians, William James a superb psychologist and all these are crucial figures in the spiritual history of our country.

Joseph Smith did not excel as a writer or as a theologian, let alone as psychologist and philosopher, but he was an authentic religious genius and surpassed all Americans, before or since, in the possession and expression of what could be called "the religion-making imagination."

Even the force of Brigham Young's genius for leadership and the heroic intensity of the early Mormon people could not have assured the survival of the new religion. There had to be an immense power of the myth-making imagination at work to sustain so astonishing an innovation. That power, when it appears, invariably manifests itself in the phenomenon that the sociologist, Max Weber, taught us to call "charisma."

To ponder Joseph Smith's imagination we need to begin by considering the charismatic element in his personality, the singular aura that attended him. We have debased the word "glamour," as we have the word "charm," and so we fell back upon the word "charisma"... in English a rather odd blend of theology and sociology ... when we need a term for the element that marks a prophet and seer ... the element in which the marvelously gifted Joseph Smith lived and moved and had his being, until, at last and inevitably, he was martyred, not so much for having offended American democracy or our national sexual morality but for having been rather too dangerously charismatic.

In that one respect Smith resembled Aaron Burr, a purely political charismatic whose vision of a western empire in America paralleled the dream of power that Brigham Young only barely failed to make actual. But Burr is now part of the American picturesque, a kind of novelistic shadow hovering in our remote past. Joseph Smith is a vital part of the American sublime, very much here in the Mormon presence, even if his believers, for now, have chosen their own kind of patient version of what we might call "the Japanese option," deferring the imperial dream in favor of economic triumph. [Laughter]

If there is already in place any authentic version of the American religion, then, as Tolstoy himself surmised, it must be Mormonism, whose future as yet may prove decisive for the nation and perhaps for more than this nation alone. But that again returns us to the charismatic personality of Joseph Smith and to the religion-making genius that was his imagination and that gave his followers the design for their quest

Max Weber defined charisma as a supernatural or divine power that a prophet manifested in miracles, basing the word upon its' early Christian meaning of a gift or grace that healed or else spoke in tongues. Camille Paglia in her recent masterwork, Sexual Personae, questions Weber's reliance upon external deeds and sees charisma as a pre-Christian glamour, citing Kenneth Burke's point that "glamour" originally was a Scottish word meaning "a magical haze in the air around a favored person."

The powerful sexual reductiveness of this definition necessarily produces distortions when applied to the personality of any prophet whatsoever. Yet no one can study the portraits of Joseph Smith or read descriptions of him by his contemporaries, even his enemies, and avoid the sense of his mysterious charm.

Whatever account of charisma is accepted, the Mormon Prophet possessed that quality to a degree unsurpassed in American history. Despite his lack of formal education, this fierce autodidact might have achieved a considerable political career and be remembered now as we remember his contemporary, Stephen Douglas, had his genius not discovered itself in the problematical realm of religion-making.

Other Americans have been religion-makers down to Elijah Muhammed in the time just past. Smith's difference was not a question of success as such. We are, after all, surrounded still by Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists and Christian Scientists, as well as by Black Muslims, New Age Enthusiasts and such curiosities as Theosophists, Scientologists and Moonies. One studies these beliefs and seeks to comprehend their appeal for those to whom they appeal. But none of them has the imaginative vitality of Joseph Smith's revelation...a judgment one makes on the authority of a lifetime spent in apprehending the visions of great poets and original speculators.

Researchers have not yet established to my satisfaction precisely how much the Prophet Joseph knew about Jewish esoteric tradition, or Kabbalah, or about the Christian Gnostic heresies. One wants to know also just what Brigham Young had absorbed from these sources, since some of Young's extraordinary speculations about God and Adam and on the ascent of the soul after death are strikingly akin to ancient suggestions.

What is clear is that Smith and his apostles restated what Moshe Idel, our great living scholar of Kabbalah, persuades me was the archaic or original Jewish religion -- a Judaism that preceded even the Yahwist or "J" Writer, the author of the earliest stories in what we now call the five books of Moses. To make such an assertion is to express no judgment, one way or the other, upon the authenticity of the Book of Mormon or of the Pearl of Great Price, but my observation certainly does find enormous validity in Smith's imaginative re-capture of crucial elements in the archaic Jewish religion, elements evaded by normative Judaism and by the Christian. church after it.

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The Endowment as preparation for Exaltation

In my understanding, The LDS Endowment ceremony itself is not really about “Salvation,” as we think about it (although LDS leaders sometimes refer to temple rituals as “saving ordinances.” (But I think this is really saving for the dead, not necessarily the living.) For the living, it could be considered salvific in a few ways: 1) Increasing Sanctification, 2) the nature of the covenants you are making, and doing things to help us learn to keep those covenants. 3) Gaining knowledge necessary to make it to the highest level of heaven - LDS believe there are 3.) If you are not familiar with LDS Cosmology, please review the article below:

The Endowment is really about preparation for “Exaltation” or “deification/theosis.” You are endowed with the knowledge and make the Oaths necessary for you to become what you were previously anointed to in the Initiatory: a "King and High Priest in the Kingdom of Heaven." You could call it a type of King-making ceremony.

Endowment type ceremonies could be found anciently within many different religious groups and cultures. However, modern endowment ceremonies within Western traditions have largely disappeared as Monarchies have disappeared (but if you saw the enthronement of King Charles, you basically saw a King-making ceremony that had a religious framework attached to it.) An anthropologist would probably say that this is because ancient rulers were often seen as divinely appointed or actually divine. That "God and the King" or Queen are often mentioned together is not an accident, i.e., “God and the King” or “God and the Queen.”

Analogs still exist in Ancient Egyptian religions, in Christianity (Ordination of Clergy, Enthronements, etc.), Vodun (Fa Initiation), Orisha (Ifa Initiation or Coronation of a King or Oba), Santaria (Kariocha - the Making of a Saint or the Initiation of a Babalawo), Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar), Hinduism (Diksha), Tibetan Buddhism (Abhisheka), Shinto (Kanname-sai or Kannushi Ortination) and FreeMasonry, and other belief systems, religious and secular.

Although the patterns, frameworks, practices, clothing, symbols, oaths, covenants, and liturgies associated with these different practices may all differ, the major objective of the investiture of more significant roles and responsibilities, blessings, affirmations, oaths, covenants, and public acknowledgments are similar/common components. Many involve the addition of new or different vestments or garments as part of the process to visibly mark one as being set apart in a new and different role, emerging as a new "creation” with a new identity and even a new name.

• The Egyptians had an endowment that was part of the king-making (pharaoh-making) ceremony; apparently, ancient Israelite and LDS endowment ceremonies take general cues or themes from this.[2]

• Ancient religions in the Near East and Mediterranean had ‘endowment’ type ceremonies ranging from king-making to investiture and gnostic wisdom ceremonies.

• The LDS temple ceremony was built on a masonic framework. Although it differs greatly in the details, process, liturgy, and symbolism used, it is undeniable that Joseph Smith (J.S.) used the framework and structure borrowed from the masonic ceremony in the construction of the Mormon endowment, including the masonic hand/arm signs and tokens.

  • There is nothing inherently wrong with this, I suppose (Unless you believe the FreeMasons to be demonic.) It’s not like there was/is only one way to do an endowment temple ceremony. Being that the law of Moses has been fulfilled, we should not expect to recreate Old Testament/Old Law/Old Covenant Temple worship, complete with animal sacrifices. Under the New Law/New Covenant of Christ, any temple ceremony should be different from the previous law, and with the Gospel promise of resurrection, deification, and everlasting life, it makes sense that any new Temple ceremony should be closer to an investiture or king-making ceremony; after all, an LDS Endowment is about exaltation.

Discussion of the Endowment is a sensitive topic. You can relax a bit; this is not an exposé.

Don’t worry. I'm not going to divulge the things we promise not to reveal in the Temple (i.e., the names, signs, and tokens.)

This is not an exposé.

What I'm going to cover, I believe, is fairly mundane, especially considering that you can find full video recordings of the entire endowment with a simple Google search. (Thank your friendly neighborhood Evangelical protestants or vitriolic ex-Mormons, who felt it necessary to desecrate the sanctity and privacy of your temple to get their tabloid “Mormon-Exposé" because they apparently "love you” and want to "save you.” It totally has nothing to do with getting social media influencer fame or hate or intolerance. Right? (Translation without the hypocritical marketing propaganda fake-Christian-double-speak - they secretly hate and loathe you, believe you are an evil cult akin to Scientology, and want to destroy your religion completely and totally and subject it to ridicule. How Christ-like of them, right? Well, their religion tells them they just have to say they believe; they don't actually have to do anything Christ-like to be "saved.”1) Salvation is fast, easy, convenient, and requires no effort or sacrifice; in fact, it costs nothing, The McDonald’s of American religion. In their defense, I believe that the majority of the time, this is being done by disaffected Mormons who are on their way out of the church and have become affiliated instead with some local protestant anti-mormon ‘counter-cult’ HATE group (let's call a spade a spade. Will the real heretics please stand up?2)

Instead, we discuss how to understand the structure and purpose and some of the symbolism in the LDS Endowment ceremony. This is necessary as few LDS people understand the endowment symbolism today. This article may be most helpful for those who have gone through the Endowment ceremony multiple times.

The Temple Journey

The ordinances of the temple follow the trajectory of our eternal progression: from Adam's fall to mortality on Earth and then back into God's presence. It's meant to orient, direct, and reinforce the trajectory of one's spiritual life and practice.

To facilitate this, Temples are built as models of the cosmos for the purpose of religious instruction (i.e., The Why and the Purpose of God's plan of Salvation for mankind). They are not meant to mirror physical scientific processes (The How and the What of creation, astrophysics, physical cosmology, i.e., The Big Bang, Inflation, and Evolutionary Sciences.)

Taken together, the Temple rituals can be seen as somewhat analogous to ancient King-Making ceremonies and religio-cultural rites of passage. The major rituals/ceremonies performed in an LDS temple are as follows:

1. Baptisms and confirmations - represent the initiation into the Gospel. A symbol of the death and resurrection of our old lives and rebirth into our new life as a disciple of Christ and membership in his Church. This is the first step in the entrance to the body of Christ (although an LDS person wouldn’t necessarily phrase it that way, they would say membership in "The Church" or "The Gospel.")

   1. Your own personal Baptism and Confirmation usually do not happen in a Temple. It usually happens in your own Church (ward) building. As we covered a few weeks ago, baptism and confirmation in a Temple are usually reserved for performing these ordinances for the deceased. You can read that article here:

2. Washing and Anointing (aka the Initiatory) - This is a purification ritual of preparation and initiation for participation in the Endowment service. You emerge from this phase purified and anointed, with a new name and Identity. We covered this portion in the previous article part 1. The purpose of the initiatory is to help you understand the purpose of the Endowment and some of its blessings to prepare you to participate in the Endowment.

3. Endowment - Preparation/ for Exaltation, i.e. Deification through learning and instruction, as well as increasing your connection with God through the making and keeping of additional Covenants, followed by a "presentation to the Community” on you passing through the veil and ending up in the Celestial room.

   1. You can read more about Exaltation here:

4. Sealing - binding of a family unit together in the “highest order of the Holy Priesthood,” where the Husband and Wife can then be exalted together. You can read more about the significance of this here:

As mentioned above, the Temple endowment service proceeds in stages representative of our lives from the creation and fall of man all the to returning to the presence of God in the afterlife.

Many of these types of rituals progress through a pattern of phases such as:

1. Preparation / Initiation - (The Initiatory)

2. New Identity in the Community (Begins in the Initiatory which is capped by giving the participant a New Name.)

3. Seclusion and Ceremonial Instruction - where the participants learn things required for the next life and forge strong bonds with God by pledging to live in certain ways or uphold specific precepts required to fulfill their new role in the community.

4. Presentation to the Community - as a person with a new Identity. Other people welcome you with your new role and identity.

Temple Rooms - Progressing through the Ritual.

The Endowment ceremony represents a progression from Mortality to Deification; in some temples, this is played out by moving through different rooms representing different stages of progression from Human Mortality back to the presence of Divinity. It helps break up the monotony of the service while making this progression a lived experience.

In these older LDS temples (pre-1980s), the temple narrative was dramatized by temple workers (local volunteers tasked with working in the Temple - primarily retirees and young college students); this practice has been largely discontinued in favor of a film presentation. I was very fortunate to see it performed once with one of my adult children participating, but honestly, I found it as exciting as the film version unless my kid was “on stage" (and it took longer.) The Film versions have been around for decades.

The following pictures of Temple rooms are official images released by the LDS church (they show renderings of what the rooms in the Salt Lake Temple will look like after it is finished being renovated. - It is currently under renovation.)

The rooms are decorated with murals representing Creation, The Garden of Eden3, Earth, and Heaven.

The Creation room shows Earth in an unfinished form. This is where the recounting of the Creation as found in Genesis begins and represents the beginning of your journey and the phase of "seclusion and instruction." I call this "seclusion” because all of the participants are basically "locked away in time and space, separated from the rest of your LDS congregation for the duration of the ceremony and during this time, nobody else can spontaneously join it in progress or just randomly leave, unless you want to go to the bathroom, or decide that you cannot / refuse to, make the required covenants. The issue is that this invitation to leave is made before the participant has any idea of what the nature of these covenants will be, and after this point leaving seems not to be permitted.)

When the narration on the creation ends and the creation of Adam and Eve is to take place everyone moves to the next room, the "Garden of Eden room.” The presentation on creation continues here with the creation of Mankind. In this ritual, all the men represent Adam, and the women represent Eve.

The temple narrative adds to the Genesis account somewhat by dramatizing4 how God the Father put a plan into place to redeem mankind after the Fall, beginning with delivering his teachings to Adam and Eve via Angelic messengers while dealing with Lucifer who was immediately trying to lead them astray after the fall by mingling "scripture” with "the philosophies of men.” - reminiscent to me of a Charge against the Roman Catholic Church, by the Protestant Reformers.5

The Philosophies of Men - Mingled with Scripture

The "philosophies of men mingled with scripture” is a technique heavily emphasized by the Devil in the Temple ceremony numerous times. Lucifer talks about how he will lead the posterity of Adam and Eve astray using this method of deception.

The temple narrative and the way the information is presented also imply (at least to me) that the doctrines of all of the other churches of the world (particularly other Protestant denominations) have been corrupted by this deception and that the LDS church is the only true and living Church on the face of the earth.

The statement that "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the only true and living church on the face of the earth” is specifically made when participants make one of the temple covenants. This has the effect of creating a belief that the Devil has fully corrupted other religions and is a reinforcing message meant to keep people in the Faith through fear (my speculation and interpretation.)

This also creates/contributes to a common LDS cultural stigma that is applied to those who leave the LDS Faith. The connotation is that the Devil deceived you and led you astray into a belief system that he himself controls. This type of messaging is one of those things that leads to the accusation that Mormonism is a Cult.

I find the charge of "philosophies of men mingled with scripture” ironic, considering that this was used as an argument made by the Protestant reformers against the Roman Catholic church to advocate for non-biblical reformation philosophies such as Sola Scriptura and Sola Fide (Initially articulated by Martin Luther, and further developed by Zwingli and Calvin - which can accurately be described as "philosophies of men.”So -this charge was used to do exactly what it accused the Catholic Church of doing.) Moreover, Luther wanted to remove portions of the Bible (primarily the epistles of James) that conflicted with his philosophies (They did end up removing many books from the protestant bible - while running an effective marketing campaign to relabel the books they removed as apocryphal - and hence "not true” The LDS understanding of the Apocrypha is that they have some interesting and possibly faith promoting information, but that any truths in them were corrupted by human philosophical manipulation.)

It's also ironic to me because, during the Second Great Awakening, there were many popular religious "trends” and "theories”- you could say the "Philosophies” of Joseph Smith’s time such as “a Great Apostasy,” "Dispensationalism” and "restorationism” that Joseph Smith included in the fundamental theology and origin narrative of his new religion, which can be plainly seen in LDS Scripture: primarily the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants.

(Warning to LDS readers: the following few paragraphs wander into some traditional anti-mormon objections - without expounding on the apologetic rebuttals in the narrative, though I do link to them.)

There were also other popular (and problematic) 19th-century protestant theories that, unfortunately, made it into Mormon religious doctrine (because the founders and early members all came out of this cultural milieu.) One is the assertion that the Native Americans were a remnant of ancient Israelites, i.e., some of the lost tribes of Israel. Finding proof of that would be the 21st-century equivalent of finding life on another planet. Joseph Smith made several statements about the Book of Mormon and the Native American tribes of the United States. Here are some examples:

1. "The Lamanites are the Indians... [The Book of Mormon] tells us that our forefathers were a people who came from Jerusalem... The principal part of the Lamanites are the Indians." (Joseph Smith, "History of the Church" vol. 4, p. 461)

2. "The Book of Mormon is a record of the forefathers of the American Indians, containing a history of their origin, a description of their journeyings, their wars, their persecutions, their wanderings, and their sufferings." (Joseph Smith, "The Pearl of Great Price," p. 107)

3. "The Book of Mormon asserts that the Native American is a descendant of Lehi and his two sons, Nephi and Jacob... We are informed that God commanded Lehi, a prophet of the Jews, to leave Jerusalem and go into the wilderness with his family... They journeyed many hundred miles until they came to the sea, which they crossed, and arrived in America." Source:** "Lecture on Faith" (circa 1835), p. 144. This is the same source as above.

4. In recent years, some critics have alleged that research demonstrating considerable homology between modern Native American, Mongolian, and southern Siberian DNA, as well as a seeming lack of homology between modern Jewish and Native American DNA, provides conclusive proof that the traditional LDS view of Native American origins is false. Some LDS defenders have attempted to explain the data by invoking limited geography theories proposing that Nephite and Lamanite activity was restricted to a small area in Central America and that any trace of “Israelite” DNA was lost by intermixing with larger indigenous groups. A closer examination demonstrates that DNA evidence does not discredit traditional LDS beliefs and that the claims of critics are based on non-factual assumptions and unsupportable misinterpretations of genetic data. Full Apologetic response

Please read my articles on the Apostasy for more detailed information - starting here:

This room represents the Garden of Eden.6 The presentation on creation continues here with the creation of Mankind. At this stage in the ritual, all the men represent Adam, and the women represent Eve. The temple narrative adds to the Genesis account somewhat by dramatizing how God the Father put a plan into place to redeem mankind after the Fall, beginning with delivering his teachings to Adam and Eve via Angelic messengers.

At a certain point in the progression of the service (when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden of Eden), the participants are then ushered into a different room that represents the Earth (aka the Terrestrial Kingdom.) Here they receive the sacred knowledge required to return to God in Heaven, while also making promises to live their lives by certain precepts. Some of these may have changed over time (i.e., women no longer promise to obey their husbands), and there once was a time when the covenants included penalties or at least sworn acceptance of penalties should the covenants be broken.

These penalties appear to have been Masonic holdovers.7 The penalties were removed in the mid-20th century due to the discomfort they caused people. In my understanding, the penalties are the parts that modern Exorcists consider to be the dangerous/demonic parts as they could open you up to future retribution by a bad actor - granting them rights to have power over. (Small plug for one of my favorite podcasts - the Exorcist Files.) Since these penalties have long been removed, I think this is no longer a problem.

At a later point of instruction, when the participants have made the major covenants (promises to God to live by certain precepts) and received the required instruction, the participants may then be escorted into a third room (The "Terrestrial Kingdom") where there is a long temple "veil’ set up. The goal is to learn what you need to learn to pass through the Veil into yet another room called the Celestial Room. The formal end of the ceremony is when all participants use what they have learned to pass through the temple veil into the Celestial Room.

The Celestial Room is symbolic of Heaven with God our Father (If you go through with a group, this phase could be analogous to the Presentation to the Community phase.) It is separated from the Terrestrial Room by a veil (death) that all of us must pass through. If you are going through for your first time, your friends and loved one will be waiting to greet and congratulate you. As a TBM (true believing mormon) you have just taken a significant step in your LDS religious development!

Bursting the tabloid bubble….

As mentioned above, the Temple endowment service proceeds in stages representative of the journey of humanity from the creation and fall of man all the way to returning to the presence of God in the afterlife.

Contrary to popular opinion/belief, the LDS endowment ceremony is not set up in a room that in any way resembles a Masonic lodge. I know, sorry to disappoint you. Also, while I believe that the framework of this service may initially have been based on rites from Free-masonry (the first few degrees), I think that today, it likely bears little - if any, resemblance to the rites of Freemasonry, and nothing shocking or salacious happens there. Nothing gets sacrificed on an altar to Baphomet, there are no polygamous orgies There are no wiccan-like prayers to the devil or pentagrams on the floor. (FYI, modern mainstream Mormons (i.e. LDS members) do not practice polygamy - regardless of how many Sister Wives episodes you've seen, it's not a thing. 8

"Awwww!” …. Is that disappointment I hear? Sorry folks! Mormons and Mormon temple services are way, way more boring than social media and the internet have led you to believe. You don't need to see a video recording of this rite; these aren't the salacious, freaky-deaky polygamists you are looking for.

How frustrated would we be as Orthodox Christians if "protestant "Christians" and the media constantly misidentified us as Gnostics and misrepresented our beliefs as being Gnostic or Arian to the point where they create TV shows and YouTube channels dedicated to spreading these falsehoods and slandering our faith (Which does happen with ignorant 16th-century accusations like “You worship Mary and pray to Idols." We would be pretty angry and frustrated if that became what we were known for in mainstream society and people were blasting it over the airwaves at us 24/7. This kind of misrepresentation has been going on for Mormons relentlessly for over a century, and I can tell you - they are very, very tired of it.)

Reality Check

If you are really jonesing to experience this by watching some “expose online,” I would recommend against that for a few reasons. One it's really only personally/emotionally/spiritually meaningful if you are LDS and have been living an LDS life. Two, the LDS temple ceremonies are experiential. Watching it will just put you to sleep. It's something you need to experience (and even then it may still put you to sleep.)

I this is just something you *totally* have to do. Just imagine driving for hours to a movie theater that requires you to dress in a white suit, to watch a bad/boring B-movie about "the creation” presented in a rather creationist manner. Then you need to dress up in funny clothes; and once you start, you really can't leave (this is the seclusion and instruction portion.) Essentially locking you in for a couple hours of mind-numbing boredom. If you have ADHD or AuDHD like I do, it can be pure torture - esp. if you are going through it for someone else and not yourself.

There does come a point, however, where it can be kind of funny to look and see a room full of people who have been dressed up to look like how a 2-year-old might play dress up as Chef-boy-ardee. I always thought it looked like I was teleported to a Chef Boyardee look-alike convention.

Progressing through the Ritual

The rooms are decorated with murals representing Creation, The Garden of Eden, Earth, and Heaven. The Creation room shows Earth in an unfinished form. This is where the recounting of the Creation as found in Genesis begins and represents the beginning of your journey and the phase of "seclusion and instruction." I call this "seclusion” because all of the participants are basically "locked away in time and space, separated from the rest of your LDS congregation for the duration of the ceremony and during this time, nobody else can spontaneously join it in progress or just randomly leave, unless you want to go to the bathroom, or decide that you cannot / refuse to, make the required covenants. The issue is that this invitation to leave is made before the participant has any idea of what the nature of these covenants will be, and after this point leaving seems not to be permitted - although I don't think they'd really try to stop you at any point if you just got up and left - but I've never seen anyone try to do that.)

This room below represents the Garden of Eden. The presentation on creation continues here with the creation of Mankind. In this ritual, all the men represent Adam, and the women represent Eve. The temple narrative builds on the Genesis account somewhat by recalling how Adam and Eve fell and how God the Father put a plan in place to redeem mankind, beginning with delivering his teachings to Adam and Eve via Angelic messengers.

At a certain point in the progression of the service (when Adam and Eve are kicked out of the Garden of Eden), the participants are then ushered into a different room that represents the Earth (aka the Terrestrial Kingdom.) At a later point of instruction, when the participants have made the major covenants and received the required instruction, the participants may then be escorted into a third room (The "Terrestrial Kingdom") where there is a long temple "veil’ set up. The goal is to learn what you need to learn to pass through the Veil into yet another room called the Celestial Room. The Celestial Room is symbolic of Heaven with God our Father. It is separated from the Terrestrial Room by a veil (death) that all of us must pass through.

Modern Temples

Modern LDS temples (those build since the 1970's) do not have multiple rooms, with the exception of the Celestial Room (they all have one main Endownment room and a Celestial Room.) IN this case, which is now the vast majority, the ceremony happens all in one room with the presentation happening on Film. The film still has a number of “acts”if you will, which still take you through the same journey. (There's just less walking from room to room. I think this is unfortunate as the original layout does add to the experience, however, the LDS church is trying to be efficient with its use of space and capacity.)

The endowment film starts with the creation of the world. There are multiple versions of the film, with (by my recollection) some of the older ones being very creationist in approach and some of the newer ones being more scientific with how the creation of the solarsystem and the earth is portrayed with accretion disks, etc. As someone who is interested in cosmological physics and astronomy, I was happy to see this. They have not yet had any portrayal of the creation of life as evolutionary, however. I do hope that one day they'll drop the literalist approach to the creation of life, and embrace a more scientifically accurate and true approach by resolving the evolution question once and for all. But It is a ceremony that is primarily interested in teaching spiritual / religious truths, not scientific ones, so it's probably a moot point.

The service really get's into the main themes with the creation of Adam and Eve. At the end of the ceremony participants still end up at the "veil” of the temple, which they have to pass through to make it into the Celestial Room, passing through death and judgment into the glory of Heaven. Every Celestial room I’ve ever been in has been quite beautiful and peaceful. Celestial rooms are IMO, the pinnacle of LDS sacred architecture (interior to a building.) A Celestial room is probably the most sacred space in the LDS Faith.

The Temple Veil

Like Many things, the Veil in the temple is multi-vocal:

1. It's what separates us from the presence of God (in the Holy of Holies.) It's a demarcation point between the Fallen Sinful and Profane and the Sanctified, Holy, and Sublime.

2. As a symbol of the Eucharist. Hebrews 10:20

"By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;" Hebrews 10:20 in the King James Version (KJV)

• I interpret "By a new and living way” in a manner that connects with the Covenants made in the Temple. These Covenants lay out a pattern for life to help you live as a Christian in a "New and living way." (Because Mormons believe that you have to live a Christ-like life, you cannot just proclaim belief. As an Orthodox Christian, I would agree and add that, AFAIK, that is the primary way one can become Sanctified and grow in God's Grace. As I understand it, Without "works of faith,” sanctification and attainment of Grace are difficult. Which I think is Addressed by the apostle James when he says, “Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.” (James 2:24) and Paul says “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians 2:10)

What about the Covenants?

Perhaps the most important part of the Endowment is the making of sacred covenants. There are five covenants that participants make in the Endowment that I believe are fundamental to leading one to both Salvation and Exaltation. This also sets the expectations for LDS members regarding their LDS membership and how they are expected to live and behave.

• Obedience - to obey God's commandments and live according to his will.

• Sacrifice - Participants willingly covenant to sacrifice their time, talents, and resources for the building up of God’s kingdom on earth. This law represents a willingness to give up personal desires and comforts for the greater good and in the service of others.

• A commitment to Living the principles of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which include faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. It also encompasses the commitment to live a Christlike life, including the pursuit of charity, humility, and other virtues.

• Chastity: Participants covenant to maintain sexual purity and moral integrity. This includes refraining from any sexual relations outside the bounds of a legally and lawfully recognized marriage between a man and a woman, as defined by the Church. Chastity also contains prohibitions against pornography and masturbation.

• Law of Consecration: This is the most comprehensive covenant, wherein participants consecrate themselves, their time, talents, and everything with which the Lord has blessed them, or may bless them, to the building up of God’s kingdom on earth and the establishment of Zion. This covenant reflects a commitment to dedicate all aspects of one’s life to the service of God.

An Aside on Priesthood Roles

It is interesting - to me - to note that Female Temple workers are given limited "priesthood authority” to perform Initiatories, as it would be seen as indecent for men to be touching the bodies of naked women, and something that would invite abuse. This is the same rationale for the ancient practise of ordaining female Deacons in the early church.

Women who are temple workers are set apart by priesthood holders with the appropriate rights and authority to perform temple ordinances for other women. This is the only time/place in the LDS faith where women are granted priesthood authority to perform an ordinance or sacrament. Men do everything else - but that was not historically the case. In the days of Joseph Smith, women had more “priesthood” “rights.” i.e. they could give their children blessings in the name of their “husband’s priesthood.” That was considered a mother’s right and privilege. This changed later as the LDS Church became more codified and institutionalized, and the norms of American Society were imposed on them (as a result of the attempt to stamp out polygamy.) There was also an emphasis on the role of Fathers and the importance of Fathers living righteously and fulfilling their “priesthood” responsibilities in their families.

Temple Ceremonial Clothing / Vestments

Any Catholic or Orthodox Priest will be quick to say that they are a symbol of priesthood ordination or role but that the power is God's, not theirs.

Ironically, you hear this messaging, and then as a participant, not long after, you put on your own "vestments."

The Shield Garment Used During Initiatory

The shield during the initiatory is a symbol of the atonement. It is said to be are representation of what Christ used to cover the naked man - the night of His atonement in the Garden of Gethsemane (See Mark 14:51-52).

To be continued in part 3…….

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Don’t worry - LDS readers, I”m not going to divulge the things you promise not to reveal. Those can be found with a general Google search. Instead we will talk about how to understand some of the symbolism in the LDS Endowment ceremony as few understand it. This will be most helpful for those who have gone through the Endowment ceremony multiple times.

But how did this vicarious stuff begin in Mormonism. Well. like most everything else in the LDS faith it begins with a revelation to a Prophet, particularly Joseph Smith.

The Angel Moroni appears to Joseph Smith:   (Joseph Smith History) JSH 1:  38 And again, he quoted the fifth verse thus: Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

39 He also quoted the next verse differently: And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming.

John 3:5  - Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.

The development of modern LDS Temple worship was a process and there were some different initial versions of it created by Joseph Smith until he finally arrived at a structure similar to what is used today (Although it has undergone changes and “refinements.” over time.) The LDS Temple ceremonies were first introduced by Joseph Smith May 4 1842, before he introduced the concept of vicarious works for the dead.

What is the purpose of this article?

The content in this article and part 2, come from notes I put together while I was LDS, trying to make sense of everything I was experiencing in the Temple. This was largely because I do not feel that I was properly prepared for the Temple and the first time I went I was totally freaked out. If it wasn’t for the fact that I was in the MTC on a mission the week after, I never would have gone back and likely would have left the LDS Church soon after. I have to walk a fine line here - there are many (most really) LDS who view talking about the temple in any way-shape-or-form to be verboten; when in reality the only things you promise not to discuss are the particulars of the Signs and Tokens (but even mentioning that there are such things could offend some people.) Broaching this topic could end up being a lose-lose situation. Although I thought that about my article on are Mormons Christian, and I got a some appreciative feedback on that one, so let's see how this goes.

This attitude is typically why LDS Temple Prep classes have long been close to worthless - invariably the teacher will not end up saying anything of consequence for fear of saying anything at all and then when people get to the Temple, that they thought it was and what they experience are two very different things. I'm going to talk about a lot, with the exception of the details of the Signs and Tokens. If you think this will offend you, then please don't read this, or the parts 2 and 3 to come after it.

Before proceeding, If you are not and have never been LDS and are not familiar with the LDS Cosmology “ aka. the plan of Salvation.” I recommend reading the following article which will help you understand the article. Otherwise it may not make a lot of sense.

The purpose of Temples

The temple began as the tabernacle, and we are told that the tabernacle was “a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: “for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern that was showed thee in the mount.” Heb 8:5

Hugh Nibley, in his book the Temple and the Cosmos, says that:

“The Temple is a scale model of the plan of Salvation of the universe,” not of the matter in it (stars, nebula, black holes, planets, etc.) but of our journey of eternal progression through it. The LDS faith is one of very few, and is certainly [one of] the largest by far, of religious groups that believe in deification (The Orthodox do as well, and we ae much much larger than the LDS, but we call it Theosis.) That is the ability for one to attain the status of Deity by growing closer to God. In this context, the temple is a representation of our journey of progression from our humble infantile fallen mortal state to returning to God endowed with power and glory, ready to become deified as he is by his divine energies (which both faiths believe is the reason God created Humanity.)

Additional Facts

• Anciently, Temples were seen as a place to learn about higher religious truths

• Temples generally faced east to the rising sun

• Temples often replayed creation myths as a way of setting the context and orienting the purpose of our lives and the direction of God’s plan of Salvation. (Although I do not take the Eden mythology to be literal, it is an effective metaphor/allegory for religious/spiritual purposes.)

• It is believed by many scholars that Gardens like the Garden of Eden, were actually gardens in or depicted in the Temple.

Temples and Orthodoxy

All Orthodox Church's are laid out in the same pattern as the Jerusalem Temple with a Narthex, Nave and a Holy of Holies (behind the iconostasis) The Church and the Liturgy is arranged in such a way as to educate the common person in the life of the Church, including higher religious truths. The way that the Church's liturgical calendar is arranged is to follow and replay the life of Christ, orienting the purpose of our lives and helping the average person to understand the direction and trajectory of our lives in God's plan of Salvation - and to help its member live a Christian life. The Divine Liturgy and Sunday Services are performed in such as way as to help people experience a similitude of Heaven on Earth - effectively helping to make it real for us (As a "copy and Shadow” of the heavenly things) as we live our lives according to the patterns laid out for us by the Church.

Effectively I would say that in the Orthodox faith we do not need separate temples because our Churches are Temples and regular Church attendance, and the following of the services throughout the year instruct and guide us back into God's presence.

LDS Church vs Temple

LDS Church's are very utilitarian and sparse to the point of being unnecessarily ugly (in my personal opinion). The aim is for people to "feel the spirit” without confusing that feeling for the emotions you might get at a rock concert or through imagery.

Personally for me, I'd have to say that in my case, that aim totally and utterly failed. Perhaps I just need a bit more, but every Sunday during Divine Liturgy in the Orthodox Church, I get to feel the spirit in a way that I never did in an LDS Church or Temple.

My wife goes to the LDS Temple often and I believe that the kind of experience she has there in the "Celestial Room”is the same type of experience I get to have every Service.

In standard LDS Services - there is very little if any, symbolism or divine imagery. You might find a handful of religious paintings inside a standard LDS Church building. The services in an LDS Church on Sunday consist of an “ open communion”"Sacrament meeting” (their very protestant version of a eucharist - using Bread and Water - there is no "real presence”of the Savior or of Grace in this service, it is symbolic only of reaffirming the promise to follow Christ that you made at your baptism.) followed by Talks given by members of the congregation who have been asked to speak that Sunday and then either a joint (mens & womens) sunday school, or separated meetings tailored specifically to Men and Women - referred to as Priesthood and Relief Society. Visitors or those learning about the Faith may have a separate “ investigators class.”

The LDS Church has a common “ universal” lay-priesthood where every active male member is ordained to the priesthood and thus is empowered to give blessings, perform baptisms and confirmations, or act in an official capacity as on the local level it is a lay-ministry. Only the most senior leadership of the LDS Church is Paid - as it then becomes their full-time job.

Priesthood meeting lessons often focus on how to be good priesthood holders and Christians, how to live up to your responsibilities, and how to be good Husbands and Fathers.

Relief Society is the women's equivalent. Because of how these educational programs are setup and run, the average LDS person has a fairly in-depth understanding of their Faith - much more so than the average "christian.” Skipping these classes is culturally quite frowned upon without a really good reason. If you show up for "sacrament”meeting but then go home and skip the other meetings, it may almost looked upon by LDS Faithful - as if you didn't come to church at all.

In the Orthodox church this type of educational participation is probably something we could do better at. That said, my parish runs religion classes for adults every week throughout most of the year - but it's largely attended by catechumens, most "cradle” Orthodox (i.e. those born in the faith) do not attend them. Perhaps the Clergy should apply some pressure to the laity to be more diligent in attending? I don't know that the right solution is there. I also think we need an emphasis with the youth on marrying within the Faith. LDS youth are taught from a very young age to marry within the Faith (and marrying outside of it is frowned upon in LDS culture.) most active/faithful LDS youth do marry within the Faith and then proceed to have larger than average families.

LDS Temples on the other hand are much more beautifully decorated, with more imagery and services that are rich with symbolism. An LDS person who has never had a "high church” experience, may be totally unprepared for a Temple experience and may feel a bit strange - as I'm sure any LDS person who goes to a Catholic Mass or Orthodox Liturgy for the first time might feel. It's a totally alien experience from what they are used to in a normal weekly service.

The LDS Temple Experience is very different from the standard Sunday experience.

The gentlest thing I could say is that it is "Very Old Testament.”and that if you are preparing to go to the Temple that you should "brace yourself” for what will seem to be some "odd" stuff. That's to be expected! It's from a very different time and place compared to America circa 2024.

THE LDS Temple is completely unlike anything else in the normal LDS experience. You could say it’s very Old Testament and filled with things that even most LDS don’t understand. I have literally seen new LDS members, after the 1 year waiting period, go to the temple and then leave the LDS church because they were so freaked out.

My hope is that these notes may help better prepare people going to the temple for the first time since, at the time I wrote this, I viewed the official “temple prep class.” as being close to worthless when preparing newbies for the ”shock value” of going to the Temple. I didn’t want to see other LDS members get freaked out and leave the church because of it.

The Journey of the Temple

The ordinances of the temple progress in order through a trajectory of progression: from Adam's fall to mortality on Earth and then back into God's presence.

1. Baptisms and confirmations - represent our rebirth into the Body of Christ that we can take part in after mortal birth. (although an LDS person wouldn’t necessarily phrase it this way.)

2. Washing and Anointing (aka the Initiatory) - a purification ritual preparatory to participation in the Endowment service.

3. Endowment - Preparation for Exaltation, i.e. Deification

4. Sealing - binding of a family unit together in the “highest order of the Holy Priesthood,” where the Husband and Wife can then be exalted together - This is seen as a requirement for exaltation. One cannot be exalted without the other.

The Initiatory (Washing and Anointing)

The Initiatory is not part of the Endowment, it's preparatory to the Endowment.

This type of purification ceremony is historically relatively common (though differing in form) amongst many ancient religious group. Purification rituals have long been considered normal parts of the process of initiation into many religious rites. The purpose is to set aside the profane by making one ritually clean and thus ready to participate in sacred rites. The Jews at the time of Christ had many purification rituals. The Initiatory is separate from the Endowment ritual.

In the Initiatory, the initiate is brought in wearing a ‘shield.’ (not a literal knight’s shield, but kind of like a big heavy white poncho meant to cover you up because, when I first went through this, everyone who went through was naked underneath it. Today, I believe that they allow you to wear your temple garments or underwear underneath to make it a less uncomfortable experience, particularly for women.

During the initiatory, the initiate is sprinkled/wiped with holy/consecrated water or oil to cleanse them from the "blood and sins of this generation." After the washing, the officiator anoints the person’s head and other body parts with consecrated oil while declaring blessings upon certain body parts (touching those body parts with the oil while professing a specific blessing.), i.e., they may touch your hip to bless you with good health. At the end, the officiator then lays hands on the person’s head to seal the blessing of the washing and anointing upon them.

When I was baptized Orthodox, the Chrismation part of the service, with the anointing of oil on the different parts of my body, was familiar enough with the LDS Washing and Anointing that my family members mentioned the parallels, and we discussed it.

The officiator then declares that the person is anointed to become a "king and priest" or a "queen and priestess" in the afterlife. As one leaves the area where this rite is performed, they are directed to a “waiting” area for the next Endowment session. While waiting, new temple-goers will then be given a “new Name.” Once ushered into the Endowment service, participants will be taken into an Endowment room.

In an Orthodox Baptism and Chrismation, you are also given a new name.

Temple Garments

Once washed and anointed, the participant returns to the dressing room to get dressed in the temple garment, also called the garment of the “holy priesthood.” The temple garment symbolizes the clothing of skins given to Adam and Eve by the Lord in the Garden of Eden to “cover their nakedness.” The garments are considered sacred and not meant to be shown off in public or to those who have not been to the temple—even to other Mormons.

The garments look very much like conservative white cotton underwear that your Grandma and Grandpa might have worn (but they are not one piece.) The Garments contain certain symbols sewn into them; their meanings are explained within the endowment ceremony. The style and cut of the garments are intended to enforce modest dress as they are to be worn under your normal “street clothes,” and they would be visible if you were to dress immodestly. The bottoms go down to your knee (preventing the wearing of very short shorts, speedo's or mini-skirts.)

The temple garments are rather unflattering, to the degree that I've heard many LDS people joke that they serve a dual purpose as a form of Mormon birth control!

The purpose of wearing the garments is to remind people of the personal covenants made in the temple. It’s also believed that they confer a type of “spiritual protection from temptation.” I have also heard some fantastical, mythical tales where missionaries have been protected from physical harm, gunshots, or knives by the garment. In these tales, the outer clothes were pierced, but the garment held intact—but this is not the intention.

These garments are sometimes mockingly referred to by other protestants (typically Baptist and evangelical “Christians” as “Magic Mormon Underwear.” Which to a Mormon would be both blasphemous and insulting. ) As a missionary, I witnessed a Pentecostal anti-Mormon (part of the “Concerned Christians” “Counter-cult” movement) burn a set of temple garments on the sidewalk outside of the Temple that was in my service area, before stomping on them.

"Experiences like this have led me to believe that some individuals who identify as 'Christian' often exhibit behaviors that seem contrary to the teachings of Christ. While I'm expressing this sentiment strongly, I'm actually holding back. Their actions strike me as bigoted, including those who protest events like LDS General Conference or the Hill Cumorah Pageant. I've never witnessed Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Buddhists, Sikhs, or Hindus engaging in such behavior toward Mormons or other faith groups in America. Some individuals have even resorted to deceitful tactics, like faking conversion and lying, to gain access to LDS temples solely to film and “expose” the proceedings. This level of dedication to hate and disrespect is deeply troubling. Perhaps, in some cases, it's a matter of being possessed by the Devil. Remember, “If you have done this to the least of these, my brethren, you have also done it unto me.” 

Although, to be fair many previous “leaks” or “exposes of LDS temple rites have been done by disaffected Mormons who then also lied through their temple interviews to get “expose’s to put on the internet for their own fame and glory.”

This article will be different from some of my normal articles; I’m not going to criticize or attempt to debunk the temple Endowment. Instead, I’m going to attempt to respectfully explain it the best I can in an effort to foster understanding without revealing things I have previously promised not to reveal. (Despite the fact that I am no longer LDS and no longer believe the LDS faith to be "true.")

A New Name

Many initiation rituals across a wide array of religions involve naming ceremonies or the participants taking on a new name[1]. A New Name is often used to mark someone as taking on a new persona or a new identity as a result of having been initiated. In Orthodoxy, you take a new name as part of your Baptism and Chrismation. That name is the name of the patron Saint you choose.

I used to believe that everyone got an individual and unique “new name” but was later disappointed to find out that across the world, on any particular day, everyone got the same “name,” Like they have determined one for each day of the year and depending on the day, that’s the one they use. I don’t remember what mine was b/c the temple worker, when I went through, didn’t know how to pronounce it.

The concept of a New Name can also sometimes be combined with the concept of a True Name[2] This is another ancient concept in which knowing someone’s true name gives one power over them. In ancient Hebrew thought, this was one reason why the name of God was hidden and never used, and he was often referred to only through honorifics like Adonai or The Lord.

In the LDS temple, obtaining a New Name marks the transition between the end of the Initiatory and the beginning of the Endowment. Before moving on to the Endowment, the participant is given a "new name." which he or she is instructed never to reveal except under certain conditions in the temple. The "new name" is linked to Revelation 2:17, which states that God will give those who overcome "a white stone with a new name written on it, known only to him who receives it."

What is The Endowment[1]? A Sacrament of Preparation for Deification

The LDS Endowment ceremony is not really about “Salvation,” as we think about it (although LDS leaders sometimes refer to temple rituals as “saving ordinances.” (But I think this is really saving for the dead, not necessarily the living.) For the living, it could be considered salvific in a few ways: 1) Increasing Sanctification, 2) making covenants, and doing things to help us learn to keep those covenants. 3) Gaining knowledge necessary to make it to the highest level of heaven - LDS believe there are 3.) If you are not familiar with LDS Cosmology, please review the article below:

The Endowment is really about preparation for “Exaltation” or “deification/theosis.” You are endowed with the knowledge and make the Oaths necessary for you to become what you were previously anointed to in the Initiatory: a "king and high priest in the Kingdom of Heaven." You could call it a type of King-making ceremony.

Endowment ceremonies could be found anciently within many different religious groups and cultures. However, modern endowment ceremonies within Western traditions have largely disappeared as Monarchies have disappeared (but if you saw the enthronement of King Charles, you basically saw a King-making ceremony that had a religious framework attached to it.) An anthropologist would probably say that this is because ancient rulers were often seen as divinely appointed or actually divine. That God and the King or queen are often mentioned together is not an accident, i.e., “God and the King” or “God and the Queen.”

However, analogs still exist in Ancient Egyptian religions, in Christianity (Ordination of Clergy, Enthronements, etc.), Vodun (Fa Initiation), Orisha (Ifa Initiation or Coronation of a King or Oba), Santaria (Kariocha - the Making of a Saint or the Initiation of a Babalawo), Sikhism (Amrit Sanskar), Hinduism (Diksha), Tibetan Buddhism (Abhisheka), Shinto (Kanname-sai or Kannushi Ortination) and FreeMasonry, and other belief systems, religious and secular.

In terms of progression, in some older LDS temples, there are multiple rooms. In these cases, the ceremony starts in a room decorated as the Garden of Eden. Then the ceremony starts, with a presentation on the Creation, either by Film (most commonly) or with Temple Workers acting it out (this is being discontinued.) At a certain part in the ceremony, everyone then moves to a new room symbolizing the expulsion of Adam and Eve to the “telestial” world, before then moving to another world that symbolizes the “Celestial kingdom - Heaven) that contains the ‘veil’ of the temple. At the last point in the ceremony, the participants pass through the veil and into another room called the Celestial Room, which signifies passing through death and judgment and into the glory of Heaven. Every Celestial room I’ve ever been in has been beautiful and peaceful. Everyone in the room is typically very careful to behave reverently. Many people go through the Endowment just so they can enter the Celestial room to read, think or pray.

Although the patterns, frameworks, practices, clothing, symbols, oaths, covenants, and liturgies associated with these different practices may all differ, the major objective of the investiture of greater roles and responsibilities, blessings, affirmations, oaths, covenants, and public acknowledgments are similar/common components. Many involve the addition of new or different vestments or garments as part of the process to visibly mark one as being set apart in a new and different role.

• The Egyptians had an endowment that was part of the king-making (pharaoh-making) ceremony; apparently, ancient Israelite and LDS endowment ceremonies take general cues or themes from this.[2]

• Ancient religions in the Near East and Mediterranean had ‘endowment’ type ceremonies ranging from king-making to investiture and gnostic wisdom ceremonies.

• The LDS temple ceremony was built on a masonic framework. Although it differs greatly in the details, process, liturgy, and symbolism used, it is undeniable that Joseph Smith (J.S.) used the framework and structure borrowed from the masonic ceremony in the construction of the Mormon endowment, including the masonic hand/arm signs and tokens.

  • There is nothing inherently wrong with this, I suppose (Unless you believe the FreeMasons to be demonic.) It’s not like there was/is only one way to do an endowment temple ceremony. Being that the law of Moses has been fulfilled, we should not expect to recreate Old Testament/Old Law/Old Covenant Temple worship, complete with animal sacrifices. Under the New Law/New Covenant of Christ, any temple ceremony should be different from the previous law, and with the Gospel promise of resurrection, deification, and everlasting life, it makes sense that any new Temple ceremony should be closer to an investiture or king-making ceremony; after all, an LDS Endowment is about exaltation.

Signs and Tokens

The Idea of Signs and Tokens might seem silly on initial examination. However, the Lord gave Signs in the Bible. When Jesus was Baptized, the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a Dove was a Sign given to John the Baptist of Jesus’s identity and God’s approval and acceptance of the sacrament of baptism. After the Flood of Noah, the rainbow was a Sign from God of his Promise/oath/covenant (not to do something like that again.)

The idea of a Sign or Token as a handshake or a movement with your hand or arm may seem silly, but today, we do this to signify when making promises or taking oaths (i.e., making covenants).

When a US President is inaugurated, he raises his right hand (to the square) and puts his left palm down on the Bible while repeating an Oath (making a covenant). We do something similar if we are made to testify in court or when we are sworn into military service. That Gesture is a visible external “token” of our respect for and acceptance of the internal promise.

One gesture in the Bible that is a hand sign connected with the ancient Jerusalem temple is the sign of filling one’s Hand - represented as a cupped hand. In Hebrew, the word translated as “consecrated” is “male yad” which literally means to “fill the hand.” When the Lord consecrated Aaron and his sons as priests, he used this phrase to represent their calling. Priests may have used this hand gesture in the temple in the process of offering something to the Lord or receiving something from the Lord. Incense was often offered to the Lord, either in a cupped hand or in a hand-shaped cup. (See illustrations below. There are many examples of these in both ancient Israel and Egypt for offering incense to God.)

After the children of Israel left Egypt, Moses called for contributions to build the Tabernacle. The Lord had shown Moses on the mount the pattern of the Tabernacle, with its furnishings, vessels, and rituals. One commandment Moses received from the Lord was, “Thou shalt make the…spoons…of pure gold” (Ex. 25:29). In due course, each leader of the 12 tribes donated a golden spoon of 10 shekels weight, filled to overflowing with frankincense (Num. 7:84-86).

The spoon was named kaph in Hebrew, which means literally “hollow of the hand,” or the hand in cupping shape. Moses gave these 12 spoons to his priest-brother Aaron and to Aaron’s descendants, who used them for centuries in the Tabernacle and later in Solomon’s temple for the burning of incense before the Lord (1 Kings 7:50; 2 Chron. 24:14). It is evident from 2 Chron. 4:22 that King Solomon manufactured additional “spoons” of gold, as well as other temple vessels.

Ancient Examples of Signs/Tokens

Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest of the Levites entered the Holy of Holies of Moses’ tabernacle or, later, of Solomon’s temple by passing through the veil. He carried frankincense and the spoon, a hand in a cupping shape, as he passed through (Lev. 16:12-13). Later, a controversy arose as to where the incense was to be added to the fire in the spoon. The Sadducees held that the priest must add the incense to the fire before he entered the veil, lest he see the glory of God and die. The Pharisees insisted that he wait until after entering the Holy of Holies before igniting the incense.

It was considered especially difficult for the priest to take up the raw incense in the hollow of his hand, without dropping one small grain, and to pour it onto the fire (Lev. 16:12; also Yoma 1, 5, 47b). This important ceremony, including the complete incineration of the frankincense, along with the high priest shouting the sacred name “Yahweh” (Jehovah), had to precede immediately the roasting and burning of the flesh of the animal sacrifice outside on the large altar of burnt offerings. On some occasions, an altar of incense was used in the temple in lieu of the spoon to burn the incense.

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One of my subscribers asked me to write about Baptisms for the Dead, one of the more widely practiced and known LDS temple “sacraments,” also called “Vicarious works for the dead.”

It’s going to be impossible for me to cover this topic without a general explanation about these “ordinances” and without touching somewhat on the centuries-old argument for/against Sola-Fide.

Despite some of the critiques presented here, I think it is only fair to mention that I’m not opposed to these practices. This article is more of an exercise in critical thinking about them.

I should also reinforce that LDS people approach these rites with well-meaning, Christ-centered intentions, including love and sacrifice for both the living and the deceased. This article in no way means to take away from that. I still think these practices are beautiful expressions of love and devotion, and I appreciate the spirit in which they are performed. It was very moving for me when my son and I were able to perform these rites for my Grandfather after he passed away.

Salvation by Faith and Grace alone vs Works.

LDS vicarious works for the dead refer to religious practices performed by members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) on behalf of deceased individuals. These include baptisms, confirmations, and other ordinances (sacraments) performed in LDS temples. The belief behind these vicarious works is that deceased persons who did not have the opportunity to accept the gospel of Jesus Christ (as understood by Mormons) during their lifetime can receive these saving ordinances by proxy, allowing them the chance to accept or reject them in the afterlife. This practice is rooted in the LDS beliefs surrounding of the eternal nature of families and the opportunity for all souls to receive salvation. This may be difficult for many non-Mormons to understand as many protestants no longer even practice baptism - in fact, many teach that no sacraments are required at all - part of their historical belief in Sola Fide - that faith alone is necessary (A position that originates with Martin Luther.)

In fact, many online rebuttals against the LDS practice of baptism for the dead that I recently found contain some component of denying the need for baptism at all. Typically, these sacraments are rejected as worthless human “works.” However, From an Orthodox perspective, we would strongly argue against sola-fide as being non-biblical.

James 2:14-26 solidly refutes Sola-fide to the degree that Martin Luther wanted to remove the entire book of James from the protestant bible! Luther and other reformers removed other books from the Bible, so for him, this would have been just one more.

This video discusses why the Protestant Bible has so many fewer books than the Orthodox or Catholic Bibles. They also get into a discussion about Luther.

The vexing scripture from James is quoted below:

14 What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him?

15 If a brother or sister be naked and destitute of daily food,

16 And one of you say unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them, not those things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit?

17 Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.

18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.

19 Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble.

20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?

21 Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar?

22 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

23 And the scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God.

24 Ye see then how that by works a man is justified, and not by faith only.

25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified by works, when she had received the messengers, and had sent them out another way?

26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

James 2:14-26

"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven." The words of Christ as found in Matthew 7:21-23

"Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in.'" Matthew 25:21-46: The Parable of the Sheep and the Goats highlights the importance of actions (feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, etc.) in the final judgment.

In my opinion, while Luther strongly disliked the Papacy, he effectively established himself as the Pope of his own Church, a heretical schismatic sect, outside of the historical body of Christ. The other reformers did the same.

For the sake of fairness, Sola-Fide does have some scriptural support, but I believe that Martin Luther misunderstood it.

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Ephesians 2:8-9

"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit." Titus 3:5

The priest that taught my catechism pointed out that “Works” here specifically refers to the “Works” and legalistic observances of the Mosaic Law, not the things Christ commanded us to do—of which Baptism for the remission of sins is most certainly one.

How can one get from the one kingdom to the other (vv. 1–7)? By the unity of grace, faith, and works (v. 9). Not that these are equal, for grace is uncreated and infinite, whereas our faith is limited and can grow; good works flow out of authentic faith. Works cannot earn us this great treasure—it is a pure gift—but those who receive this gift do good. We are not saved by good works, but for good works.

Nelson, Thomas. The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World (p. 1610). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

The footnote for Titus 3:5 reads

The washing of regeneration, baptism, and renewing of the Holy Spirit, chrismation, form a unity in our salvation, clear throughout the NT. Jesus taught we are born from above through “water and the Spirit” (Jn 3:5); Peter preached salvation in Christ through being “baptized” and receiving “the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Now Paul calls us to the washing of the water and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.

Nelson, Thomas. The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World (p. 1649). Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition.

One analogy I’ve come across is that Grace is like sunlight and works are the things we do to put ourselves in a position that we can step into that light and be warmed by it.

For a longer and more detailed discussion on Sola Fide please see the following video

How do LDS Understand Baptism for the Dead and Why do they do it?

Let’s start by understanding the LDS mindset that begins with the premise that if you die without the proper sacraments (the LDS term would be - ordinances), particularly baptism and confirmation, then you cannot achieve salvation, and you will likely be separated from your family and loved ones in the next life if they do not end up in the same place you do. I’ve covered some of this before. If you are interested, I invite you to read the following articles below.

The other underlying understanding is that all of these sacraments can only be done by the living. The dead cannot perform them, but the living can perform them on behalf of those who have died.

The role of Genealogy

However, you can’t just head off to a temple to perform these rites for just anyone, you need some information so you know who you are performing these ordinances for. You typically need the person’s full legal name, date and place of birth, date of death, and sometimes the names of their parents, spouse, and children (to perform “sealings” of families together.) This is the reason that the LDS church and Mormons are so focused on genealogy. One goal for every Mormon is to make sure that all of their ancestors have had these ordinances performed for them so that their entire lineage can be saved, sealed together, and exalted. One should note that these rituals can only be performed in an LDS temple, which is completely different from an LDS church.

The LDS “vicarious works for the dead” include:

1. Baptism

2. Confirmation (i.e. Chrismation)

3. Washing and Anointing - Preparatory for the Endowment (1 & 2 are required for Salvation)

4. The Endowment ( 3-5 are required for Exaltation, i.e., deification or theosis.)

5. Sealings (also referred to as Eternal or Celestial Marriage) - A Husband and Wife must both be Endowed before they can be sealed.

   Understanding the Scriptural / Historical support LDS rely on

Many would ask, is this practice of Baptism for the Dead biblically supported? To which an informed, faithful LDS would point to 1 Corinthians 15:29.

“Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead?”
St. Paul - 1 Corinthians 15:29

Orthodox study bible footnote: “The meaning of baptized for the dead is much disputed. Many understand this as vicarious baptism of baptized Christians for deceased catechumens (investigators in LDS speak.) St. John Chrysostom considered it a derisive comment about the practices of the Marcionite heretics. Epiphanius says it refers to a practice of the followers of Cerinthus, another gnostic teacher.”

We should note that the Gnostics were declared Heretics, outside of the Body of Christ, and that an effort was made to stop their spread. Some, LDS scholars and apologists have pointed to the Shepherd of Hermas as lending Support to this practice. Note that this book of scripture was not included it in the New Testament as being Scripture appropriate for all Christians because:

1. Late Composition: While popular in the 2nd century, it was written later than the apostolic era (1st century), a key criterion for inclusion in the New Testament canon.

2. Questionable Authorship: The author, Hermas, is not identified as an apostle or someone with direct ties to Jesus, unlike the authors of most New Testament books.

   1. Shepherd of Hermas: Author, Dates, and Exclusion from the Bible - Bart Ehrman

1. Theological Concerns: Some early church leaders found certain theological aspects of the Shepherd of Hermas problematic or inconsistent with established doctrine.

2. Lack of Universal Acceptance: Although the Shepherd of Hermas was widely read and respected in some early Christian communities, it did not achieve the same level of universal acceptance as the books that were ultimately included in the New Testament.

3. Canonization Process: The process of canonization, through which the books of the New Testament were officially recognized and accepted, was a complex and lengthy one, spanning several centuries. The Shepherd of Hermas was ultimately not included due to a combination of the aforementioned factors.  

   1. Biblical literature - Canonization, Texts, History | Britannica

There is another statement from the Shepherd of Hermas that I think is relevant to this discussion. LDS Apologist John Tvedtnes uses this as evidence of the validity of these practices: (Here Stone’s refer to followers of Christ and the Tower they are building is Christ’s Church.)

Why, sir,” I said, “did these stones ascend out of the pit, and be applied to the building of the tower, after having borne these spirits? “They were obliged,” he answered, “to ascend through water in order that they might be made alive; for, unless they laid aside the deadness of their life, they could not in any other way enter into the kingdom of God. Accordingly, those also who fell asleep received the seal of the Son of God. For,” he continued, “before a man bears the name of the Son of God he is dead; but when he receives the seal he lays aside his deadness, and obtains life. The seal, then, is the water: they descend into the water dead, and they arise alive. And to them, accordingly, was this seal preached, and they made use of it that they might enter into the kingdom of God.”

Other ways to understand Paul’s statement.

Saint John Chrysostom (347-407 AD), who opposed a literal reading of 1 Corinthians 15:29, explained Paul's mention of people being "baptized for the dead" as a reference to the profession of faith they made in their own future resurrection before being baptized.1

Epiphanius of Salamis (between 310 and 320 – 403) reported that he had heard it said that, among followers of Cerinthus, if one of them died before baptism, another was baptized in that person's name:

For their school reached its height in this country, I mean Asia, and in Galatia as well. And in these countries I also heard of a tradition which said that when some of their people died too soon, without baptism, others would be baptized for them in their names, so that they would not be punished for rising unbaptized at the resurrection and become the subjects of the authority that made the world.2

The Marcionite practice seems to have been similar:

If one of their followers who was being prepared for baptism died before receiving baptism, the dead person's corpse was addressed with the question whether he wished to be baptized, whereupon another answered affirmatively and was baptized for the dead person.

LDS apologists will use the above as proof that this was a valid first century Christian practise that was lost due to some Great and Total Apostasy. (Which I think is tosh.) Proof that it existed is not proof that it was considered a valid Christian practise, nor that the LDS practise is a valid and legitimate “restoration” of this ancient practise, nor that it has efficacy, and particularly when LDS practise differs from the historical practise which was limited to Catechumens.

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When I studied religion and anthropology at university, we learned about the process of recontextualization - or reinterpretation- that happens in religions when events don’t turn out the way people expect. This is quite common in prophetic new religiou…

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I recently came upon information about Swedenborgianism, a now obscure sect originating during the First Great Awakening. I'm not an expert, but I found the parallels with LDS beliefs striking enough to write about. I did my best to follow up on primary sources and throw out information that I found to be inaccurate. I am, however, indebted to an article posted by Craig W. Miller - which can be found here.

Swedenborgianism, a restorationist denomination, finds its origins in the prophetic revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg. Born in 1688, Swedenborg was a unique blend of scientist, theologian, and mystic. Between 1741 and 1744, he claimed to have been visited by the Savior and other heavenly messengers, who commanded him to pen his revelations, expanding upon and interpreting the Bible. His theological works, notably “Heaven [and its Wonders] and Hell” (1758) and “The True Christian Religion” (1771), form the foundation of Swedenborgian beliefs1.

Following Swedenborg's passing, the New Church movement began to take shape, establishing congregations in Europe and North America. By the early 19th century, Swedenborgianism had made significant inroads in the United States. The first organized church, the General Convention of the New Jerusalem (or Church of the New Jerusalem), was formed in 1817, with churches built in several northeastern locations, including Baltimore, Maryland, Boston, Philadelphia, and New York. At that time, Swedenborgianism was a prominent Christian denomination known for its robust missionary activities, and the book “Heaven and its Wonders and Hell” became an American bestseller in the 1820s.2

Points of Contact

While the extent of Joseph Smith and the “New Church” 's interaction remains a matter of open inquiry, J.S. was familiar with Swedenborg’s writings. Here are just a few points of contact. There are many more I have not included.

Swedenborgians published their own pamphlets and tracts to spread their message to a rural audience in early-nineteenth-century America. Thus, it would be harder to argue against a familiarity with Swedenborgian teaching on the part of Smith than to argue for it. Indeed, he himself in the late 1830s was said to have admitted to a Mormon convert his acquaintance with the Swedish seer: ‘‘Emanuel Swedenborg had a view of things to come, but for daily food he perished.’’3

• Swedenborg was a household name in 19th-century upstate New York.4 It is claimed that his books “Heaven [and its Wonders] and Hell” and “Arcana Coelestia,” were both in the Palmyra public library, and the local bookstore offered copies of Swedenborg publications for as little as 37 cents.5

• Parley P. Pratt - an early LDS apostle, said that “Swedenborg’s revelations were received from unholy spirits.”6 His brother Orson Pratt - also an early LDS apostle - said, “Swedenborg […] taught doctrines in some respects true, and in other respects false.”7

• Jonathan Chapman, aka Johnny Appleseed, was a Swedenborg missionary who spread Swedenborg’s writings across the American frontier. Jonathan Chapman traveled extensively through Ohio from the early 1800s until his death in 1845. Chapman was in Ohio at the same time Joseph Smith was in Kirkland. J.S. and his followers moved to Ohio between 1831 and 1832.

Similarities and Differences

Doctrinal similarities between LDS and Swedenborg are astonishing and impossible for me to believe are coincidences, largely due to the specificity and uniqueness of the doctrines. I will start with the more unique doctrines and progress toward those that could have come from sources other than Swedenborg. Some readers may note that most of the similarities concern Eschatology, the major focus of Swedenborg’s most popular writings and the ones Joseph Smith most likely had access to.

The Three Degrees of Glory and Outer Darkness

Swedenborg describes heaven and hell in detail, detailing three Spheres of Heaven, a "World of Spirits” and Perdition. The LDS versions of these beliefs arose in Ohio in 1832, where Johnathan Chapman, the Swedenborg missionary, was very active during this time.

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There are a lot of labels floating around these days in the LDS/Mormon community, and I wanted to take a quick detour to explain what some of them are for those who, LDS or not, may not be aware of them.

It’s important to note that many of these labels are not official labels used or condoned by the LDS church, with the exception of the designations of Active, Less-Active, and Inactive LDS members and Part-Member families. Leadership typically uses those labels to identify members or member families that may need additional ministering or assistance.

True Believing Mormon (TBM)

This label gets used a lot - particularly on internet discussion forums, and typically by those who are outside of the LDS church or were formally part of the church. A True Believing Mormon is one who completely believes that the LDS church is true. They believe in the doctrines, the historicity of the Church and LDS scriptures, etc. It can sometimes be used neutrally, but it does carry the connotation of being insular and unquestioning.

Anti-Mormon

The term Anti-Mormon can have a variety of applications both inside and outside the LDS church. LDS people generally use the term Anti’s. An Anti is anyone who publicly criticizes or opposes the LDS church and its teachings. There is obviously a huge spectrum in what one may consider criticism or opposition, and so this term can be used fairly loosely. However, there has been quite a lot of toxic and vitriolic opposition to the LDS church in the public sphere, going back to the foundations of the LDS church. This opposition wasn’t just individual; it was institutional - with extermination orders being issued against Mormons by the state government, the US army marching on Utah, and the Edmunds Tucker Act that completely disenfranchised the church. As a result, this label carries a lot of emotional significance and connotations to LDS people. When a person uses the term Anti - it immediately conjures in the LDS mind a demonic, hate-filled, toxic person who will do anything to destroy the church and “steal” people’s testimonies. This can sometimes be associated with the “forces of the devil” that are being used to destroy “God’s true church.”

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