Abraham and the “Promises” of the Temple—Part 4
- Stephen Fluckiger
- 7 hours ago
- 28 min read
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we explored the miraculous preservation of the Egyptian papyri and the scholarly debates surrounding them. In Part 3 we looked at the lives of Abraham and Sarah as revealed through the Book of Abraham and Joseph Smith’s inspired translation of Genesis. In this final blog about Abraham, and the next about Isaac and Jacob, we continue to consider how the Lord was tutoring and preparing the Prophet to restore temple ordinances as the capstone of his ministry.
Cosmic Vision of the Universe and Premortal Life (Abraham 3-5): Abraham’s decision to go to Egypt was not by happenstance or merely to avoid a famine. “Before ye go into Egypt,” the Lord told him, “I show these things”—meaning revelations related to our premortal existence or “first estate” and the purpose of mortality, the calling of a Redeemer, and the creation of the world —“that ye may declare all these words” to the Egyptians (Abraham 3:15). In other words, God called Abraham to preach the gospel to the Egyptians, including sharing certain astronomical[1] and possibly other knowledge the Lord wanted them to know.[2]
While much has been written and could be said about the grand scope of the truths revealed in Abraham 3-5, for purposes of this blog I focus on just two temple related themes that suggest how much Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham may have contributed to his understanding of temple ordinances—or possibly simply confirmed previous revelations the Lord had given him about those ordinances.[3] The first theme, already touched on previously, related to the numerous instances of ritual, or temple related, gestures in the Book of Abraham. The second theme relates to the truths the Lord revealed about the (i)premortal Council in Heaven, (ii) Creation and (iii) purpose of mortality.
Ritual Gestures in the Book of Abraham. In his examination of the Book of Abraham as “ritual literature,” David Calabro noted that “the Book of Abraham, including the facsimiles, contains no fewer than sixteen distinct instances of ritual gestures.”[4] These include—
Abraham lifting “his hands in prayer” in Facsimile 1 as he “lifted up” his voice in prayer (Abraham 1:15);
The Lord’s promise to “lead thee by my hand” (Abraham 1:18), a “characteristically Egyptian” gesture, as is shown by one of the participants in Facsimile 3 (the “Prince of Pharoah”) leading “the initiate [Shulem] by the hand” toward Figure 1, who is described as “Abraham sitting upon Pharoah’s throne . . . emblematical of the grand Presidency in Heaven” (in other words leading the initiate to have God’s name (or authority) “put upon” him, as described in Abraham 1:18, and admitted into the presence of God;
The Lord tells Abraham, “I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice” and “my hand shall be over thee” (Abraham 2:7-8), parallel gestures indicating the Lord’s “control over the cosmos” and His promise to bless or protect Abraham by the same power;
The Lord’s promise that in the “hands” of Abraham’s seed “they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations” (Abraham 2:9), evoking “the characteristically Egyptian ritual gesture for presenting objects, with the hand held forward in cupping shape, the object sitting upon the cupped hand. The hand not holding the object is typically also raised, the palm facing outward.”
While speaking to Abraham with his hand stretched out, the Lord says to Abraham, “My son, my son” and “he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many (Abraham 3:11-12). This intimate “contact gesture,” Calabro points out , the Lord putting His hand over Abraham’s eyes, "corresponds to the Lord's explicit avowal of a father-son relationship.” “In general, Northwest Semitic and Egyptian ritual gestures involving contact between the participants also include an element of kinship between them.” This “face-to-face encounter is the quintessential . . . moment, in which the two principal participants are directly at the threshold that divides mortal from deity in ritual space and ritual sequence.”[5] In other words, Abraham is having a veil-like experience in which the Lord parts the veil and reveals Himself through a vision of His creations.
Other “ritual gestures” Calabro examines are those depicted in Facsimile 2. “Most relevant to our purpose here is figure 7, which shows an enthroned personage raising his arm to the square with a compass-shaped object above the upraised hand. The flying creature in front of this personage presents an eye in one cupped hand while raising its other hand with the palm outward; [a] two-part gesture . . .. In this case, the flying creature presents the eye to the seated figure’s mouth, which agrees with the fact that the eye (both here and in figure 3) is said to represent ‘the grand Key-words of the Priesthood.’”[6]
Similarly, Calabro notes, “the main gesture” in Facsimile 3, “the raising of the hand with the palm facing outward, performed by figures 2, 4, and 5,” “very likely” serves the “function of taking an oath as part of a covenant.”[7]
While we do not know when or how the Lord revealed the ordinance of the endowment to Joseph Smith as he ultimately administered it in 1842,[8] Calabro’s and Stephen Smoot’s analysis of Joseph Smith’s explanations of these gestures suggests that his understanding of the ordinance may have been fairly complete at the time, and possibly well before, he “translated” or received by revelation the Book of Abraham.[9]
Smoot comments, for example, “as important and interesting as the ancient Egyptian understanding of these figures are and how that may converge with Joseph Smith’s explanations to the facsimile[s],” what is perhaps more significant for members of the Church are “the ways in which the Prophet, as an inspired syncretist and gifted seer, reappropriated this ancient Egyptian iconography to” both “provide graphic representation[s] for . . . the revealed text of the Book of Abraham and its temple themes” and to help illuminate the ancient nature of “the modern Latter-day Saint temple liturgy.”
For example, the Prophet described Figure 3 of Facsimile 2 as “representing” “God, sitting upon His throne, clothed with power and authority; with a crown of eternal light upon his head; representing, also, the grand Key words of the Holy Priesthood, as revealed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as also to Seth, Noah, Melchisedek, Abraham and all to whom the Priesthood was revealed.” Likewise, the Prophet described a similar-looking seated figure in Figure 7 as “representing” “God sitting upon his throne, revealing, through the heavens, the grand Key words of the Priesthood; as, also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove.”
In other words, Smoot notes, “the main operative temple element in both of these interpretations is that God is revealing the keywords of the priesthood,” which in each figure are represented by the Egyptian “wedjat (wDAt)-eye,” images of which are circled in the figures below:
This hieroglyphic, according to Smoot and other Egyptologists, “means ‘hale, uninjured,’ and ‘well-being’ . . . The word can describe the health or wholeness of the physical body, the soul, or even an individual’s moral character. In the Ptolemaic period the word meant ‘whole or complete’ and also ‘perfect,’ and appears in ritual settings where the ib (‘heart’) is said to be wDA when the words of the ritual are ‘spoken exactly’ (that is, properly executed). In Coptic, true to its Egyptian roots, the word ⲟⲩϫⲁⲓ̈ came to mean ‘healthy, whole’ and, significantly from a temple perspective, ‘salvation, saved’ in the Christian theological sense.”
Further, Smoot argues, the wedjat-eye was used in the Egyptian religion to symbolize “the divine restoration and renewal of the body,” “kingship and the offerings made to the gods and the dead,” and “in temple contexts” was “connected with ‘saving and protecting the body, or being saved in the temple,’” including its use in temple graffiti by petitioners for “eternal rejuvenation.” In short, “Joseph Smith’s syncretistic recontextualization of the iconography of the wDAt-eye for a Latter-day Saint temple setting is . . . entirely appropriate and finds solid grounding from both an ancient Egyptian and an ancient Christian perspective. . . . With this understanding, therefore, Latter-day Saints may better appreciate how the figure of the wDAt-eye in Facsimile 2 relates to their own expectation for eternal life and resurrection in God’s presence obtained through the keywords of the priesthood as revealed in the temple liturgy.”[10]
Divine instruction about the premortal Council in Heaven, Creation and purpose of mortality. In his theophany before entering Egypt, Abraham “talked with the Lord, face to face” (Abraham 3:11), as he had before leaving Haran (Abraham 2:6). We know that Enoch,[11] the Brother of Jared (Ether 3),[12] Jacob (Genesis 32:30) and Moses (Exodus 33:11; Moses 1:2, 31) all had or would have similar visions of the Divine.
In this vision, the Lord showed Abraham “the intelligences that were organized before the world was,” including “the noble and great ones” foreordained by God to be His “rulers.” “Thou art one of them,” the Lord told Abraham. “Thou wast chosen before thou wast born” (Abraham 3:22-23).
In the Grand Council, the Lord explained, God the Father laid out His plan to “go down, for there is space there, and [to] take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell.” “These” refers to the “intelligences” or spirits “that were organized before the world was,” among whom were the “noble and great ones.”
And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first [premortal] estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever (Abraham 3:24-26).
In Abraham’s vision we have one of the best descriptions of the Divine Council in all scripture. “We were all present” at this Council, the Prophet Joseph Smith taught. Moreover, as with Abraham, we “saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the plan of salvation made, and we sanctioned it.”[13] As the Lord reported to Abraham, the Father “said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first” (Abraham 3:27).
“The Temple Endowment,” Elder James E. Talmadge wrote in one of the Church’s definitive explanations of the endowment, “comprises instruction” about these “most prominent events of the creative period,”[14] events which the Lord revealed to the Prophet as he dictated the Book of Abraham.
Moreover, President Nelson testified of the relevance and importance of this revelation in his address about “Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings” when he “recommend[ed] that members going to the temple for the first time read . . . the books of Moses and Abraham in the Peal of Great Price.” For those of us who have been endowed, he added, “a review of ancient scripture is even more enlightening after one is familiar with the temple endowment. Those books underscore the antiquity of temple work.” A study of these “teachings of the temple,” he added, can both “be understood by the humble, yet they can excite the intellect of the brightest minds.” [15]
Reassurance in Canaan (Genesis 13:14–15): After returning from Egypt and magnanimously allowing Lot to choose his preferred grazing lands, the Lord again spoke to Abraham. “Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and eastward, and westward: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever. And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered” (Genesis 13:14-16).
Abraham asks the Lord, who will be my heir? Sarah again shows her obedience to God in accordance with the Covenant (Genesis 15-16): The Lord “comes” again “unto Abraham in a vision, saying, Fear not, Abram: I am thy shield [Protector],[16] and thy exceeding great reward” (Genesis 15:1).
While the account does not tell who initiated what apparently is another “visionary” or face-to-face “conversation,” clearly Abraham has a deep concern and question for His friend, Jehovah: “Lord GOD, what wilt thou give me, seeing I go childless, and the steward of my house . . . this Eliezer of Damascus . . . is mine heir” (Genesis 15:2-3). The Lord responded, “This shall not be thine heir; but he that shall come forth out of thine own bowels shall be thine heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them: and he said unto him, So shall thy seed be. And [Abraham] believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6).
While he believed, Abraham, like each of us, needs reassurance. When the Lord reminds Abraham that it was He who “brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it,” Abraham wonders. “Lord GOD, whereby shall I know that I shall inherit it?” (Genesis 15:7-8)
In answer, the Lord directs Abraham to perform a ritual in the context of renewing the Abrahamic covenant with him. While generally unfamiliar to modern readers, Abraham appears to be familiar with requirements of this ancient ordinance:
Take me an heifer of three years old, and a she goat of three years old, and a ram of three years old, and a turtledove, and a young pigeon. And he took unto him all these, and divided them in the midst, and laid each piece one against another: but the birds divided he not. And when the fowls came down upon the carcases, Abram drove them away. And when the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell upon Abram; and, lo, an horror of great darkness fell upon him. . . . And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces. In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates (Genesis 15:9-13,17-18).
In essence, the ritual requires the parties to create an aisle with the parts of the sacrificial animals. The “covenanting parties then ‘walked in a dignified procession down the aisle’” taking an oath to the effect, “If I transgress the terms of the covenant may my blood be spilled as the blood of this animal was spilled!”[17] A “fowl” or vulture who attacks the sacrificial animals and the “horror of darkness” each symbolize Satan’s effort to thwart the covenant. The “smoking furnace” and “burning lamp” [18] were euphemistic terms substituted by later scribes who objected to “anthropomorphic” or literal descriptions of God as a divine Person[19] walking through the aisle to meet Abraham. But this is, in fact, what happened—God met Abraham “face-to-face” in this covenant-renewal ceremony.
Immediately after this powerful example of God’s concern for and willingness to constantly strengthen, protect and reassure Abraham, the narrative returns to Sarah. Some 24 years earlier, [20] as she and Abraham approached Egypt, Sarah demonstrated that she was as faithful to her covenants with the Lord as Abraham was to his. Now the Lord again demonstrates that His covenant relationships with his daughters are as important to Him as His covenant relationships with his sons.
In Genesis 16, Biblical scribes tell the story of Sarah giving her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham to marry as if it were Sarah’s idea devoid of any divine inspiration or direction:
And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the LORD hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram hearkened to the voice of Sarai. And Sarai Abram's wife took Hagar her maid the Egyptian . . . and gave her to her husband Abram to be his wife (Genesis 16:1-3).
But the Lord, in His revelation answering Joseph Smith’s question about Abraham marrying plural wives, tells a much different story. Of course, people of Abraham’s era accepted plural marriage as an everyday cultural practice. God’s laws and ways, however, are “higher” than man’s constantly changing cultural norms (Isaiah 55:9).
His law of celestial plural marriage, as all His laws, is grounded in the overarching principle of obedience. “Verily, verily, I say unto you,” the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith, “if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things,” in other words the new and everlasting covenant of [plural] marriage (D&C 131:2), “then shall she believe and administer unto him . . .; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law.”
When God ordains that the principle of plural marriage be practiced, as He did in Abraham’s day, and when (1) a man was willing as directed by the Spirit (as Abraham was) “to espouse another” or second wife, and (2) “the first [wife] give her consent" as required by “the law of Sarah,” then (3) the Lord would magnify His “name,” or authority, on that couple (D&C 132:61, 64-65). This God did to both Abraham and Sarah, who, the Lord said, “administered unto Abraham according to [God’s] law when I commanded Abraham to take [and Sarah to give] Hagar to wife” (D&C 132:64).[21]
Covenant of Circumcision and New Names (Genesis 17:1–22; JST Genesis 17:1–11): When Abraham was 99 years old, Jehovah appeared again and “talked with him” (Genesis 17:3). The Lord expressed sadness that “my people” (indicating that there were group(s) of members of the Church presided over by Abraham and possibly other keyholders) “have gone astray from my precepts and have not kept mine ordinances which I gave unto their fathers and they have not observed mine anointing and the burial or baptism wherewith I commanded them, but have turned from the commandment and taken unto themselves the washing of children” (JST Genesis 17:2-3).
The Lord then again renewed His covenant with Abraham, giving him a new name—"Neither shall thy name any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be called Abraham; for a father of many nations have I made thee” (JST Genesis 17:4). To demonstrate that Sarah was Abraham’s equal partner, the Lord also gave Sarah a new name, telling Abraham, “as for Sarai thy wife, thou shalt not call her name Sarai, but Sarah thou shalt call her name.[22] And I will bless her, and I will give thee a son of her: yea, I will bless her, and she shall be blessed, the mother of nations; kings and people shall be of her. . . . And God said, Sarah thy wife shall bear thee a son; and thou shalt call his name Isaac: and I will establish my covenant with him also for an everlasting covenant with his seed after him.” (JST Genesis 17:15-16, 19).
To help His people remember that parents then and now were responsible to teach their children “to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of the living God, and of baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of the hands, when eight years old” (D&C 68:25), the Lord instituted the covenant of circumcision.
And I will establish a covenant of circumcision with thee and it shall be my covenant between me and thee and thy seed after thee in their generations that thou mayest know forever that children are not accountable before me until they are eight years old (JST Genisis 17:6).
Visit at the Plains of Mamre (Genesis 18): The Lord appeared to Abraham at his tent door in the plains of Mamre. In a remarkable display of intimacy, God spoke to Abraham on an equal footing, as one man to another, and Abraham interceded and pled for the inhabitants of Sodom.
The Trial at Mount Moriah (Genesis 22:1–18): As I have recounted elsewhere,[23] in the ultimate test of his faith, God commanded Abraham to offer “what Paul referred to as his ‘only begotten son’ (Hebrews 11:17), Isaac, in similitude of the offering by God the Father of His Only Begotten Son.”
Genesis 22:1–2—And it came to pass . . . that God did tempt [Hebrew for test or prove] Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.
Who can imagine his feelings as he surely recalled that his own father had offered him up as a human sacrifice? Moreover, was not this the son in whom the Lord had promised that the covenant promises would be fulfilled? Yet, in childlike humility, Abraham made the preparations required and early the next day “saddled his ass, and took two of his young men with him, and Isaac his son, and clave the wood for the burnt offering” and began their three-day journey to do as the Lord had commanded (Genesis 22:3).
President Spencer W. Kimball hints at the feelings and thoughts that might have passed through Abraham’s mind as “his undaunted faith carried him with breaking heart toward the land of Moriah with [his son,] who little suspected the agonies through which his father must have been passing.” Moriah [ is near] Golgotha, where the Father would momentarily withdraw His sustaining influence as His Only Begotten Son was sacrificed for all creation.
On the third day, . . . Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and [laid it upon Isaac’s back]; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.” Isaac, observing that they had “the fire and the wood,” asked his father, “but where is the lamb for a burnt offering? And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering” (Genesis 22:4–7).
Without further question, Isaac went with his father to the divinely appointed sacrificial site. The seminary Old Testament Student Manual points out that one of the important but often overlooked parallels between Abraham’s experience and the sacrifice of the Savior is that Isaac, who may have been in his thirties (“as was the Savior at the time of His Crucifixion”), submitted voluntarily to Abraham. “Abraham was well over a hundred years old, and Isaac was most likely a strong young man who could have put up a fierce resistance had he chosen to do so. In fact, Isaac submitted willingly to what his father intended, just as the Savior would do.”
Arriving at the appointed place on the mount, Abraham, probably with Isaac’s assistance, found and carried the large stones to build an altar and “laid the wood in order.” Abraham then “bound Isaac his son, and laid him on the altar upon the wood. And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.” We know the rest of the story. [Suffice it to say the Lord accepted Abraham’s offering: “For now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.” [24]
At the conclusion of this ultimate test of faithfulness, the Lord reconfirmed the blessings He had sealed upon Abraham and Sarah—“In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16–18).
In short, both Sarah and Abraham reflect the deepest of relationships with God as evidenced by their unfailing desire to let His will prevail in their lives and in their relationship with one another.
In my next blog about how the Lord may have been preparing Joseph Smith to better understand the substance and impact of temple ordinances in the lives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their wives, we will take a closer look at the divine encounters, and temple echoes, in the lives of Abraham’s son, Isaac, and his grandson, Jacob and their wives.
[1] For an overview of ancient sources describing Abraham as an astronomer, see Stephen O. Smoot, “Abraham the Astronomer,” in Abraham and His Family in Scripture, History, and Tradition, eds. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, John S. Thompson, Matthew L. Bowen, and David R. Seely, The Interpreter Foundation, https://interpreterfoundation.org/reprint-abraham-the-astronomer. In their overview of LDS scholarship about the astronomical information found in Abraham chapter 3, Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein and John S. Thompson summarize three different “models” or explanations for the astronomical information the Lord revealed and Joseph Smith published in the Book of Abraham. See “Abrahamic Astronomy,” BYU Studies Quarterly, vol. 61, Iss. 4, Article 23 (2022), https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol61/iss4/23 .
“The first model seeks to understand the astronomy in the Book of Abraham through a scientific lens. Those who accept this paradigm have offered arguments for how Abrahamic astronomy can be harmonized with modern science.” They cite as examples of this approach, Andrew Jenson, “Joseph Smith a True Prophet, III: Astronomy of Abraham,” Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 53, no. 16 (April 20, 1891): 241–44; J. E. Hickman, “Astronomy Attests the Truth of the Book of Abraham,” Improvement Era 19, no. 7 (May 1916): 591–96; Michael D. Rhodes and J. Ward Moody, “Astronomy and Creation in the Book of Abraham,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, ed. John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2005), 17–36; and Michael D. Rhodes, “The Scriptural Accounts of the Creation: A Scientific Perspective,” in Converging Paths to Truth, ed. Michael D. Rhodes and J. Ward Moody (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 123–49; and J. Ward Moody, “Times of Reckoning and Set Times in Abraham 3,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 38 (2020): 1–14.
“The second model works under the assumption that the astronomical concepts presented in the Book of Abraham are rooted in ancient cosmology. In particular, this model sees the Book of Abraham as depicting a geocentric (earth-centered) view of the cosmos, which differs from our modern scientific understanding that the sun is at the center of our solar system.” They cite as examples, John Gee, William J. Hamblin, and Daniel C. Peterson, “‘And I Saw the Stars’: The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, 1–16; William E. Dibble, “The Book of Abraham and Pythagorean Astronomy,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8, nos. 3–4 (Fall 1973): 134–38.
“The third model argues for essentially an inverse of the second model and puts forth a reading of the Book of Abraham’s astronomy that places Kolob, not the earth, at the center of the cosmos. This model argues that while the astronomy of the Book of Abraham may be ancient, the main focus should be on the spiritual truths that can be gleaned from the text,” citing Kerry Muhlestein, “Encircling Astronomy and the Egyptians: An Approach to Abraham 3,” Religious Educator 10, no. 1 (2009): 33–50. See also Lynn M. Hilton, The Kolob Theorem: A Mormon’s View of God’s Starry Universe, (self-published 2012). The authors conclude that “the astronomy revealed to Abraham was meant, in part, to take conceptions of the cosmos familiar to the ancient Egyptians and replace them with a proper gospel understanding. “Abraham was to teach not only astronomy but also gospel principles the Lord explained through astronomic means.” Citing Muhlestein, “Encircling Astronomy and the Egyptians.”
[2] Josephus, drawing upon records from antiquity, reported that “Pharaoh gave Abraham permission ‘to enter into conversations with the most learned among the Egyptians,’ . . . [who] admired [him] as a very wise man . . . [Abraham taught ] them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abraham came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans (by Abraham) into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.’” Skousen, First 2000 Years, citing Flavius Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, chapter 8:1-2. See also, Stephen O. Smoot, “Abraham the Astronomer.”
Nibley, who recounts “a passage in the Apocalypse of Abraham [that] reads like a modern description of the seething, ever-changing elements within a star,” gives an intimation of how intimate Abraham’s understanding of astronomy (or astrophysics) might have been:
Abraham was shown the stars. An angel comes and takes him on a journey . . . to watch a star in the process of transformation. What an effect it has on him! He says he sees an indescribably mighty light, and within the light a vast fire in which there is a host of tremendous forms, which are always changing and exchanging with each other, constantly changing their shape as they move and consume each other and alter themselves. First, the hydrogen goes into a helium cycle, then to the next cycle, the main phase within a star. . . . “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says [and] asks the angel, “Why have you brought me here? I’ve become weak, I can’t see a thing, and I think I’m out of my mind.” The angel tells him to stick close to him and not be afraid. But later they are both wrapped in something like flame, and the noise is as the voice of many rushing waters. . . . Abraham wants to fall on his face, but he cannot, “because there was no earth or ground anywhere to fall on.” Abraham is awfully glad to get back into his body again and feel solid earth under his feet. What a terrifying experience—to see this transmutation of elements within the fire within the body of a star, constantly changing from one element to the next.
Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond this Ignorant Present, in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol.12 (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1992), https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/74.
[3] In his recounting of the history of Joseph Smith’s translation of the Bible and how it served not only to educate Joseph about the content of the Bible but to ask questions that led to the restoration of “many” of the “words” “taken” from the Bible (Moses 1:41), Robert J. Matthews notes: “It is likely that [Joseph’s] question regarding the plurality of wives of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would have arisen during the translation of the book of Genesis, which took place in 1830 and 1831.” He quotes, for example, Brigham H. Roberts, a General Authority Seventy, who observed that “there is indisputable evidence that the revelation making known this marriage law [the new and everlasting covenant of marriage] was given to the Prophet as early as 1831. . . . He was doubtless struck with the favor in which the Lord held the several Bible Patriarchs of that period, notwithstanding they had a plurality of wives.” He further cites Orson Pratt of the Quorum of the Twelve who said to members of the Reorganized Church in Illinois in1878 (who denied the revelation on temple marriage) that “Joseph actually received revelations upon that principle as early as 1831.” Moreover, he related, “Lyman Johnson, who was very familiar with Joseph at that early date, . . . told me himself that Joseph had made known to him as early as 1831, that plural marriage was a correct principle. Jospeh declared that God revealed it to him, but that the time had not come to teach or practice it in the Church, but that time would come.” Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible, A History and Commentary (Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 1975), 257-58, https://archive.org/details/aplainertranslat0000matt/page/n11/mode/2up.
[4] David Calabro, “The Choreography of Genesis: The Book of Abraham as a Ritual Text,” in Sacred Time, Sacred Space, and Sacred Meaning: Proceedings of the Third Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference, “The Temple on Mount Zion,” 5 November 2016, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (Orem, Utah: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2020), 241–42, https://share.google/LpVfSTPrMqZa3Wwc4.
[7] Ibid. 252-53. As noted above and in my previous blog, “Abraham and the “Promises” of the Temple—Part 3, https://www.temple-spiritual-treasures.com/post/abraham-and-the-promises-of-the-temple-part-3, the repeated appearance of references to a “hand” in the Book of Abrham is consistent with ancient Near Eastern ritual uses of the hand. Additional references include Abraham 1:7 (Abraham’s father endeavored to take away his life “by the hand of the priest of Elkanah”), 17 (Jehovah comes down “to destroy him who hath lifted by his hand against thee”), 18 (“I [Jehovah] will lead thee by the hand”); 2:7 (“I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice”), 8 (“My name is Jehovah . . .; therefore my hand shall be over thee”); 3:12 (“My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out) behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw . . .”); Facsimile 3:1 Fig. 1 (“Abraham . . . with the scepter of justice and judgment in his hand”); Facsimile 3:4 Fig. 4 (“Prince of Pharaoh, King of Egypt, as written above the hand”); Facsimile 3:5 Fig. 5 (“Shulem, one of the king's principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand”). See generally Ricks, “Oaths and Oath Taking in the Old Testament,” in The Temple in Time and Eternity; Calabro, "Understanding Ritual Hand Gestures of the Ancient World: Some Basic Tools;" David Rolph Seely, “The Raised Hand of God as an Oath Gesture;” Calabro, “The Reach, the Handclasp, and the Embrace: Gestures of the Gods in the Ancient Egyptian Abydos Formula;” Smoot, “The Symbolism of the Cupped Hand in Ancient Egypt and Israel: Iconography, Text, and Artifact.”
[8] “Lesson 22: Joseph Smith Organizes the Relief Society and Administers the Temple Endowment,” Latter-day Saint History: 1815–1846 Teacher Material (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/latter-day-saint-history-1815-1846-teacher-material/lesson-22?lang=eng.
[9] See note 3 above. [10] Smoot, “Temple Themes in the Book of Abraham,” 230-33. Smoot also comments on Figures 8–11 of Facsimile 2, which Joseph Smith left untranslated (noting instead that these figures contain “writings that cannot be revealed unto the world” because they are “to be had in the Holy Temple of God”). He (and other Egyptologists) have translated these hieroglyphics as follows: “O noble god at the first time [referring to the Holy of Holies of the temple or the “sacred place of the first time” of creation] — great god, lord of heaven, earth, the underworld, the waters, [and the mountains] —may the soul of Osiris-Sheshonq live!”
“Although it may not be obvious at first glance how this [ancient ritual prayer] relates to the temple,” Smoot notes, “a closer look at the underlying context of this brief inscription and attested parallels reveals something significant. . . . The conceptual link between the ‘first time’ of creation [ie., the premortal Council in Heaven] and the temple is clear from the ancient Egyptian perspective. Then there is the benediction of the concluding line: ‘may the soul of Osiris-Sheshonq live!’ It is not difficult to suggest the appropriateness of this invocation for a Latter-day Saint temple context. ‘A common theme of all Egyptian funerary literature is the resurrection of the dead and their glorification and deification in the afterlife, which is certainly a central element of our own temple ceremony.’ By reconsidering this line from the perspective of the modern Latter-day Saint temple, we begin to see both the logic behind Joseph Smith’s explanation of these figures in Facsimile 2 as well as how the text may be brought to bear on temple ritual and vice versa.” Smoot concludes his discussion of the facsimiles with the interesting historical note that “Joseph Smith may have intended to display the Egyptian papyri and the published translation of the Book of Abraham in the Nauvoo temple upon its completion” to help the Saints better appreciate both the eternal significance and ancient provenance of this sacred ordinance.
[12] See Stephen L. Fluckiger, “The Brother of Jared “Within the Veil”—Parallels to the LDS Temple Endowment,” https://www.temple-spiritual-treasures.com/post/the-brother-of-jared-within-the-veil-parallels-to-the-lds-temple-endowment.
[13] “Chapter 17: The Great Plan of Salvation,” Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/teachings-joseph-smith/chapter-17?lang=eng, citing quotation by William Clayton, reporting an undated discourse given by Joseph Smith in Nauvoo, Illinois; in L. John Nuttall, “Extracts from William Clayton’s Private Book,” p. 7, Journals of L. John Nuttall, 1857–1904, L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah; copy in Church Archives.
[14] James E. Talmage, The House of the Lord: A Study of Holy Sanctuaries Ancient and Modern (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1912)(see chapter 4, “Modern Temple Ordinances”).
[15] Russell M. Nelson, “Personal Preparation for Temple Blessings,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2001/04/personal-preparation-for-temple-blessings?lang=eng. In its “Overview of the Endowment,” the Church states that “during the [endowment] ordinance, events that are part of the plan of salvation are presented. They include the Creation of the world, the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Apostasy, and the Restoration.” “About the Endowment,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/temples/what-is-temple-endowment?lang=eng.
[16] “Since a shield was the primary defensive weapon for a warrior in the Ancient Near East, it was an apt metaphor for protection. In this instance, God is promising not only to protect Abraham but also to be the ‘guarantor and protector of the covenant.’” Amy Hardison, Understanding the Symbols, Covenants and Ordinances of the Temple (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2016),166.
[18] A “smoking furnace” is a “firepot made of earthenware that functioned as an oven.” “Smoke and fire are both signs of the presence of God (see Exodus 19:18; Number 9:16; D&C 110:3; Revelation 1:14). Fire particularly represents God’s glory. . . .This ‘oath ritual rests on the “parallel fate of the animal and the one who takes the oath.”’ By this act, God binds himself, under punishment of death, to fulfill His covenant. Since an eternal being cannot die, God is stating in the strongest terms possible that He will fulfill His covenant with Abraham. To do otherwise is simply an impossibility.” Hardison, 168.
[19] This is yet another evidence of how the “great apostasy” from true doctrine about the nature of God as our loving, embodied Heavenly Father with a wife, our Heavenly Mother, began far before the Nicaean and other third-century creeds. See M. Catherine Thomas, “The Provocation in the Wilderness and the Rejection of Grace” in Sperry Symposium Classics: The Old Testament, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book 2005), 164–176, https://rsc.byu.edu/sperry-symposium-classics-old-testament/provocation-wilderness-rejection-grace (who “was the God who had stood before Moses upon the rock at Meribah? (see Exodus 17:6–7). That God had revealed Himself to our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as a glorified, exalted man, that is, as an anthropomorphic (in the form of man) God who had created male and female in the image of heavenly parents. . . . With the loss of the Melchizedek Priesthood, however, and the Jews’ resulting vulnerability to Greek and other cultural and philosophical influences, there arose among the Jews a resistance to the idea of an anthropomorphic God. At least by the intertestamental period (the period following Malachi, between the Old Testament and the New), the scribes and rabbis found the anthropomorphisms in the Hebrew Bible offensive and made small textual changes, which they described as ‘biblical modifications of expression’”).
[20] Abraham left Haran at age 62 (Abraham 2:14; Genesis 12:4’s statement that he was 75 thus would have been a scribal error). Because of the famine, he may not have remained long in Cannan before purposing to go to Egypt. Ancient Jewish traditions suggest Abraham and Sarah lived in Egypt for five years before Pharaoh discovered Sarah's beauty and took her “into [his] house” (Genesis 12:15). (Geza Vermes, trans., Scripture and Tradition in Judaism, bhporter.net, https://www.bhporter.net/_files/ugd/c71091_1390933179144023b6c4f1257cb3ea74.pdf). Pharaoh “entreated Abram well for [Sarah’s] sake: and he had [meaning Abraham received from Pharaoh] sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels” (Genesis 12:16).
Skousen, citing Josephus, indicates that “quite a period of time” elapsed before Pharaoh discovered that Sarah was married. No doubt the “great plagues” the Lord “plagued Pharaoh and his house” with because of Sarai” (Genesis12:17) caught Pharaoh’s attention. According to Josephus, “Pharaoh was embarrassed” and “promptly ‘excused himself to Abram’ and gave him ‘a large present of money.’” The Jewish sources (cited above) add that Pharaoh also gave his daughter Hagar to Sarah as a maidservant, supposedly declaring that it was better for his daughter to be a handmaid in their house than a mistress in another. “But by this time Abraham’s mission to Egypt had been successfully completed. Because of Sarai’s prestige he had been granted time and attention by the royal court of Pharaoh. He had taught them astronomy, mathematics and the gospel. Through it all the wisdom of God had not only protected the lives of Abraham and Sarai but it had also permitted Abraham to render a great service to the Egyptian people” (Skousen, First 2000 Years, 295).
In all Skousen calculates that 13 years elapsed from the time Abraham left Haran until he returned to Caanan from Egypt. Ten year later, as prompted by the Lord, Sarah gave Hagar “to her husband to be his wife” (Genesis 16:1-3; D&C 132:65). Abrahm was 86 when Hagar’s son Ishmael was born, almost a quarter century after being directed to leave his country for Canaan. (Genesis 16:16).
[21] See note 3 above. George A. Horton cites Robert Matthews in his discussion of the influence the Joseph Smith Translation had on the development of the Prophet’s (and the Church’s) understanding of doctrine. For example, he notes: “The Prophet was working on the Genesis portion of the translation on and off during the period of June 1830 to June 1835—the latter date including a period when an additional review was specifically made of Genesis 1 through 5. One will note that Genesis 5 gives the patriarchal line from Adam to Noah, indicating little more than the age of the patriarchs when the sons in the patriarchal line of succession were born. In this regard, we can see a similarity to eighteen verses in Doctrine and Covenants 107,” which gives a much more detailed description of the patriarchal priesthood from Adam to Noah.
“It is also well known,” Horton notes, “that after his review of Genesis in June of 1835, Joseph continued to make changes in the translation for almost nine additional years, when finally his work was cut short by martyrdom.” As another example of the JST’s influence on the development of doctrine, including most importantly for my purposes, temple doctrine, Horton adds that “the indications that at least part of [Section 132] was received while Joseph was studying the lives of these ancient patriarchs is very persuasive. Section 132 states, Horton note, that “’Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment’ (v. 29), which brings us back to Genesis. When introducing the covenant to Abraham, in the King James Version Abraham is instructed to ‘walk before me, and be thou perfect’ (Genesis 17:1). In the JST this is considerably strengthened: ‘I, the Almighty God, give unto thee a commandment; that thou shalt walk uprightly before me, and be perfect’” (emphasis in original). Horton, ”Insights into the Book of Genesis,” in The Joseph Smith Translation The Restoration of Plain and Precious Things, eds. Monte S. Nyman, Robert L. Millet (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1985).
[22] “The names we take on in our religious covenants are usually some form of the name of Christ. The difference between Abram and Abraham and Sarai and Sarah is in both cases the letter h. H is the dominant letter in the divine name of Yhwh. This may indicate that Abraham and Sarah, whose names are already pretty impressive (Exalted Father and Queen), are taking on another dimension of the name and nature of God.” Hardison, 138.
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