Thursday, January 10, 2013

The Creation and the Temple



In the video above you will notice that each day of creation is associated with a different furnishing of the temple. Regarding this Margaret Barker (on page three of her paper Creation Theology) has stated:

The Temple was a model of the creation, and the liturgy of the temple preserved the creation.Genesis 1 was not an account of the historical process of creation, but a record of the great vision granted to Moses and others of how the world is made. In the six days when Moses was on Sinai, before the LORD called to him (Exod. 24.16), he saw the six days of creation, and was then told to replicate these when he built the tabernacle. A few ancient sources say that Moses saw the heavenly temple; but most assume that he saw the process of creation, and that the tabernacle represented this. Ancient material such as this is sometimes difficult to read, but the last section of Exodus 40, describing how Moses assembled the tabernacle, corresponds well to the days described in Genesis 1.

To read the paper in it's entirety go here.

According to Margaret Barker the days of creation are represented by the temple furnishings as follows:
Day 1 - The Holy of Holies
Day 2 - The Veil
Day 3 - The Table of Showbread
Day 4 - The Menorah
Day 5 - The Altar
Day 6 - The High Priest

You'll notice that in the video the list is not exactly the same as the list given by Margaret Barker so they used different sources but the point is that the temple represented the vision of Moses which he had of the creation. The creation is also a central theme of modern LDS temples which is a testament to their ancient origin.

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Mormonism and the Temple Conference

The videos from the "Mormonism and the Temple" Conference held at Utah State are now online. Posted below is the video of the opening remarks from Margaret Barker and Laurence Hemming. I was very impressed with Laurence Hemming's remarks and I highly recommend watching them. They start at about 12:45.