King Benjamin’s Temple Sermon—Part 1

In the Service of Your God, by Walter Rane. Copyright By the Hand of Mormon Foundation.

Joseph Smith’s unparalleled mortal achievements came only with Heavenly help. Two things about President Dallin H. Oaks’ social media post and 2025 Mission Presidents Seminar messages about the Prophet Joseph Smith stood out to me: (1) he reiterated that Joseph Smith’s unparalleled life-time achievements are only explainable by the “Heavenly help” he received and (2) he quoted from a book published by BYU Studies, suggesting how reliable scholarship can enhance our gospel study, including our efforts to understand, comprehend and gain insights about temple ordinances and doctrine. President Oaks posted:

Joseph Smith accomplished more than any mortal man could have accomplished in so short a time.

During his 38 and a half years of life, Joseph Smith was a man of the frontier—young, emotional, dynamic, and so loved and approachable by the people that they often called him “Brother Joseph.”

His comparative youth overarched his prophetic ministry. He was 14 at the time of the First Vision, 21 when he received the golden plates, and just 23 when he finished translating the Book of Mormon (in 65 to 75 working days).

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized when Joseph Smith was 24 years old, and over half of the revelations in our Doctrine and Covenants were given through this prophet when he was 25 or younger.

Additionally, “[He] founded cities, including Kirtland, Far West, and Nauvoo; called and trained hundreds of church leaders; studied Hebrew and the Bible;… ran businesses, alone and with partners; developed real estate and built temples; wrote and published articles and editorials;… served in several civil capacities, including commander-in-chief of a large legion of militia men, as well as the mayor and chief judge for the city of Nauvoo... attracted tens of thousands of followers, prompting waves of converts to immigrate to the United States” (Gordon A. Madsen, Jeffrey N. Walker, and John W. Welch, eds., Sustaining the Law: Joseph Smith’s Legal Encounters (Provo: BYU Studies, 2014), xi-xii).

The only possible explanation is Heavenly help.[1]

What “Heavenly helps” did Joseph Smith receive as God revealed to him through the sacred seer stones the text of the Book of Mormon that would prepare him eventually to restore the “fulness of the priesthood,” or fulness of the ordinances of God’s holy house? It turns out that in chapters 2-6 of the Book of Mosiah that Joseph dictated and Oliver Cowdery likely transcribed on April 7-8, 1829,[2] Joseph received plenty of help or tutoring about the role of temples and temple ordinances in the gospel message King Benjamin taught his people.

In Part 1we look at what kind of high priest, or Melchizedek Priesthood leader, King Benjamin was. We will then begin to list some of the parallels the eminent LDS scholar Hugh Nibley drew between Israelite and other Near Eastern “year-rite” festivals celebrated at their temples and the rituals described in Mosiah 2-6. In Part 2, in addition to completing Nibley’s fascinating description of how the ceremonies celebrated by King Benjamin and his people aligned with ancient Near Eastern “Great Assembly” or “year-rite” festivals, we look more closely at how the doctrines and covenants King Benjamin administered to his people align with modern-day LDS temple rites.

Who was King Benjamin? Benjamin was the son of the prophet Mosiah₁, who, as we reviewed in an earlier blog, was “warned of the Lord that he should flee out of the land of Nephi.” Like Lehi before him, Mosiah₁ led the righteous Nephites—“as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord”— “into the wilderness” “by many preachings and prophesyings,” “by the word of God,” and “by the power of [Jehovah’s] arm” to the land of Zarahemla (Omni 1:12-13).[3] When they arrived, Omni recorded, Zarahemla, a descendant of Mulek, the son of King Zedekiah (the Last [19th] King of Judah (Hel. 6:10; 8:21),[4] “greatly rejoiced.” In fact, the record states, all his people rejoiced. Why? “Because,” Omni recorded, Zarahemla and his people believed that “the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah” to the Mulochites, as evidenced by their possession of “the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews” (Omni 1:14).

In addition to the “records which were engraven on the plates of brass,” as the duly appointed successor to his father, Mosiah₁, King Benjamin became the custodian of all the other sacred relics brought from the temple of Nephi, including “the sword of Laban, and the ball or director, which led [their] fathers through the wilderness” (Mosiah 1:16).

Elder Neal A. Maxwell commented about King Benjamin’s character:

As for his own exemplification of discipleship, we begin to learn of Benjamin’s character well before his sermon. Just as this special king labored to produce his own necessities, he personalized his leadership in other ways. As a warrior-king, he “did fight with the strength of his own arm, with the sword of Laban” in putting down unrest (Words of Mormon 1:13), to which false Christs, false prophets, and false preachers doubtless contributed (see Words of Mormon 1:16). In this challenging context he was not alone, for there were “many holy men in the land” who assisted him (Words of Mormon 1:17). Thus, well before the great sermon, King Benjamin had been involved with typical single-mindedness in his successful efforts to deal with contention and dissension. He acted, as was his pattern, “with all the might of his body and the faculty of his whole soul” and established peace in the land (Words of Mormon 1:18).

Elder Maxwell in particular admired King Benjamin’s “meekness,” “submissiveness” and “consecration.”[5]

Mormon described King Benjamin as a “holy man” who spoke “the word of God with power and authority”(Words of Mormon 1:17-18). This description suggests that King Benjamin, like his father, Mosiah₁ before him, was a prophet who held the Melchizedek Priesthood.[6]

Why is knowing the source of King Benjamin’s authority important, particularly as we seek to understand the temple-related aspects of his sermon? Joseph Smith explained: “[The Melchizedek Priesthood] is the channel through which all knowledge, doctrine, the plan of salvation and every important matter is revealed from heaven.”[7] King Benjamin stood in the channel of which Adam “was the great prototype of priesthood holders who strove to bring their communities and their posterity into at-one-ment with the Lord Jesus Christ. Adam blessed his posterity because, the Prophet Joseph taught, ‘he wanted to bring them into the presence of God. They looked for a city ... “whose builder and maker is God” (Hebrews 11:10).’” [8]

Thus, Benjamin was following in the footsteps of other Melchizedek Priesthood patriarchs and prophets who sought to establish a holy, temple-worthy people, such as Adam, Enoch, Noah, Melchizedek (who possibly was Shem),[9] Abraham, Moses, Christ and even Joseph Smith.

Temple rituals observed in connection with King Benjamin’s sermon. Church leaders[10] and Book of Mormon scholars alike have commented on the many elements of temple ritual, doctrine and instruction found in King Benjamin’s sermon. These temple themes introduced in the earliest years of Joseph’s ministry—even before the Church was organized—foreshadowed and were an essential part of the Lord’s preparatory process of “revealing” to Joseph what He would later describe as “mine ordinances,” or the ordinances of “my holy house, which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name” (D&C 124:39-40).

As John A. Tvedtnes and other Book of Mormon scholars analyzing the ritual elements described in Mosiah 2-6 have noted, many parallels exist between “the biblical Sukkot,” or Feast of the Tabernacles, ritual, which was first celebrated at the foot of Mount Sinai, and King Benjamin’s assembly. The ritual celebration “began and ended with a day of rest, including a ‘holy convocation,’ . . .’holy reading,’ or ‘holy calling,’ and a ‘solemn assembly’ (Heb. caseret, “council”). During the week of the feast, the Israelites would gather together and build for each family a booth or tabernacle. Special sacrifices were also ordained (Numbers 29:12-38).”[11]

Indeed, the Church highlighted parallels that exist between the temple rituals King Benjamin’s people performed and ancient Israelite temple or religious festival practices in its 1957 Melchizedek Priesthood Manual, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, authored by Dr. Nibley. In chapter 23, “Old World Ritual in the New World,” Nibley examined over 200 separately documented descriptions of ancient Near-Eastern “Great Assembly or year-rite” ceremonies (including Jewish Feast of Tabernacle ceremonies).

The following are only the first 15 of over 30 parallels (the rest to be covered in Part 2) Nibley (and other scholars) catalogue between the temple and coronation ceremony King Benjamin presided over in the New World and the “typical” Great Assembly or year-rite ceremonies practiced in the Old World:

1.       Benjamin commissioned his son Mosiah₂ (“for it is always the new king and never the old king that makes the proclamation”) to “make a proclamation throughout all this land among all this people . . . that thereby they may be gathered together; for on the morrow I shall proclaim unto this my people out of mine own mouth that thou art a king and a ruler over this people . . .. And moreover,

2.       “I shall give this people a name, that thereby they may be distinguished above all the people which the Lord God hath brought out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I do because they have been a diligent people in keeping the commandments of the Lord.” (Mosiah 1:10-11).[12]

Note that Benjamin’s righteousness was declared by the angel who ministered to him as recorded in Mosiah 3:4. Moreover, in addition to being described as “diligent in keeping the commandments of the Lord,” Benjamin’s people were “highly favored of the Lord” (Mosiah 1:13).

In the context of this temple text, then, it is noteworthy that both the officiator (Benjamin) and the patrons (his people) are described as being worthy to participate in the sacred ritual about to unfold. Thus, one lesson that modern Book of Mormon readers could take away from this account (including Joseph as he dictated and Oliver as he transcribed the translation), is that, as Andrew Miller observed, “worthiness [is a] prerequisite” to receiving sacred temple ordinances.[13]

3.       King Benjamin then “gave [Mosiah] charge concerning all the affairs of the kingdom” and “concerning the records which were engraven on the plates of brass”; and, Nibley notes, “consigned the three national treasures to his keeping: the plates [of Nephi], the sword of Laban, and the Liahona, with due explanation of their symbolism (Mosiah 1:16-17).”[14]

4.       Mosiah₂, in response to his father’s commandment, issued a proclamation “unto all the people who were in the land of Zarahemla” “to go up to the temple to hear the words which his father should speak unto them.” Mormon mentions three times in his account of Benjamin’s sermon that the people went “up to the temple” (Mosiah 1:18; 2:1 & 5). Scholars note that this phrase mirrors Old Testament language where the faithful “go up to the mountain of the Lord” (Isaiah 2:3; 40:9; Micah 4:2), signifying “a ritual ascent,” even though the people likely descended from the sloping (possibly steep) banks of the Sidon River to the base of the river valley where the temple was likely situated.

Thus, the use of the phrase “go up to the temple” signals two important truths: first, that the temple was central to the Nephite’s religious and civic life, just as Jerusalem was for the Israelites; and second, that as faithful Book of Mormon peoples came to their temples, they, as do we, “ascend[ed] into the hill of the LORD” to “stand in his holy place” (Psalms 24:3) as they received and kept covenants made in temple-oriented gospel ordinances.[15]

The people, in response, then “gathered themselves together throughout all the land, that they might . . . hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them” (Mosiah 1:18; 2:1). “The [civil] State and the cult, [or state religion, were] inseparable in the ancient East,” Nibley observes, and both came together “in a single supreme rite, performed in its completeness only at a particular [time and] place.” That place, typically at a temple, symbolizing as did the Israelite temple, the “center [or navel] of the earth.” Moreover, Nibley added, “everyone was required by law to be present at the great event, to do homage to the king and receive his blessing” for the new year. “The result was a tremendous assembly.”[16]

5.       The number who gathered was so great “that they did not number them” (Mosiah 2:2). “This neglect of the census [required in Numbers 1-2] [was] apparently an unusual thing,” Nibley observes, as it is specifically mentioned in the record (verse 2).[17] Note, however, that this element of the ritual celebration was observed near the end of the ceremony, when King Benjamin took “the names of all those who had entered into a covenant with God to keep his commandments” (Mosiah 6:1).[18]

6.       “They also took of the firstlings of their flocks, that they might offer sacrifice and burnt offerings according to the law of Moses” (Mosiah 2:3).

In his detailed description connecting “the Nephites, the Temple, and the Law of Moses,” John Welch commented: “Three Nephite statements explicitly attest that the Nephites were strict in keeping the law of Moses [2 Nephi 5:10; Jarom 1:5; Alma 30:2-3], and each of these statements sheds light on Nephite temple practices. Spanning the times of Nephi (sixth century B.C), Jarom (fourth century B.C.), and Alma (first century B.C.), these statements connect the strict observance of the law of Moses with the building of the temple of Nephi, the observance of holy days, and the performance of the outward ordinances of the law of Moses.”

While “many prophets in ancient Israel understood the gospel and correctly anticipated the coming atonement of Jesus Christ,” “the people of ancient Jerusalem” clearly did not. Confirming this, Abinadi rhetorically asked, “did they understand the law?” (Mosiah 13:32). Thanks be to God, however, “above all else, the Nephites clearly [did understand] the gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrines of the Messiah.” Thus, the Book of Mormon is appropriately subtitled Another Testament of Jesus Christ. This “understanding [of the doctrine of Christ] was superimposed on their observance of the law of Moses to give even further meaning to this already profoundly rich system of symbolism and religious devotion to the Holy One of Israel.”[19]

7.       Nibley notes that the “‘firstlings’ mark this as a New Year’s offering.”

8.       Such offering also signaled their “thanks to the Lord their God, who had brought them out of the land of Jerusalem, and who had delivered them out of the hands of their enemies” (Mosiah 2:4). This ritual thanksgiving reflects the great Hag or Pesach (Passover) feast “celebrated after the Exodus in thanksgiving for the deliverance from the Egyptians.”[20]

9.       “And . . . they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family, consisting of his wife, and his sons, and his daughters, and their sons, and their daughters, from the eldest down to the youngest, every family being separate one from another” (Mosiah 2:5). “This is the Feast of the Tabernacles practice,” Nibley observed.

10.  “And they pitched their tents round about the temple, every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple, that thereby they might remain in their tents and hear the words which king Benjamin should speak unto them” (Mosiah 2:6). “This, then,” Nibley notes, “was the festival of the ‘booths’, . . . which everywhere [in the ancient world] have taken on a ritual significance.”[21]

11.  The multitude, which normally would have met “within the walls of the temple,” was “so great that king Benjamin” “caused a tower to be erected, that thereby his people might hear the words which he should speak unto them” (Mosiah 2:7). Such tower corresponds “to the wooden pulpit traditionally constructed for the king on the occasion of the Feast of Tabernacles” and, more specifically, the “pulpit of wood” Ezra “stood upon” to read the Law to the children of Israel and speak about the Creator (as did Benjamin) (Nehemiah 8:4).[22]

12.  Nibley then notes that King Benjamin’s “formal discourse begins with a silentium, that is, an exhortation to the people to “open your ears that ye may hear, and your hearts that ye may understand, and your minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to your view” (Mosiah 2:9). Andrew Miller describes this part of this temple ceremony as an “invitation to be alert and attentive,” an admonition that modern LDS temple-goers would recognize.[23]

13.  Such invitation—to be alert and attentive—is appropriate, Nibley comments, because “the people were there for a particularly vivid and dramatic form of instruction,”[24] which is commonly referred to in the scriptures as the “mysteries of God” (Mosiah 1:3; 2:9; see also 1 Nephi 1:1; 2:16; 10:19; Alma 12:9 & 10; 26:22; D&C 6:7; 8:11; 28:7;), or “mysteries of the kingdom” (Matt. 13:11; Luke 8:10; 1 Cor. 2:1; D&C 42:65; 63:23; 64:5; 71:1; 76:7 & 14; 84:19; 90:14; 107:19).

Andrew Miller explains that the origin of the English word “mystery” “lies in the ancient Greek word mysteria, which was used to denote esoteric teachings and secret rites not meant for public disclosure.” “The Book of Mormon seems to use mysteries in this ancient sense when Alma said, ‘It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart’ (Alma 12:9). Alma was not pointing to something actually unknowable or ineffable; otherwise, there would be no necessity for the ‘strict command’ to ‘not impart.’ Alma understood that ‘the mysteries of God’ referred to undisclosed things, not undisclosable things (1 Corinthians 2:6–7, 3:1–2; Doctrine and Covenants 107:18–19).

This understanding of mysteries suggests that there may have been certain aspects of King Benjamin’s teachings at the temple, like the ‘special symbols associated with the covenants we receive in sacred temple ceremonies,’ that would not have been ‘disclose[d] or describe[d]’ in the text of the Book of Mormon.”[25]

14.  While the “main purpose” of the Great Assembly generally throughout the ancient Near East was “to hail the king as a god on earth,” King Benjamin deliberately plays on this tradition to teach the true form of kingship under the King of Heaven: “I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind” (Mosiah 2:10-11).

15.  “Yet ,” Benjamin continues, “I have been chosen by this people, and consecrated by my father, and was suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over this people; and have been kept and preserved by his matchless power, to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me” (Mosiah 2:11). Consistent with ancient tradition, Nibley affirms, Benjamin had been “elected by acclamation of the people, as the king always must be at [any] Great Assembly.” [26]

What are we to make of these remarkable parallels (and many others to be covered in Part 2 of this blog) between the events and statements recorded in Mosiah 2-6 and known descriptions of analogous ancient “year-rite” or “coronation” festivals in the Near East? Brother Nibley concludes tellingly that they represent evidence “so good, and [that] can be so thoroughly tested” that they constitute “the most convincing evidence yet” concerning “the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.”[27]

For me, however, they demonstrate that in their temple rites, the Nephites may have had more than the “mere” “preparatory gospel” that many associate with the law of Moses (D&C 85:26). Just what that looked like to the ancient Nephites, and what it might meant to us today, we will delve into in my next blog.

[1] Facebook, Dallin H. Oaks, July 23, 2025, https://www.facebook.com/dallin.h.oaks;  Sydney Walker, “Why a testimony of Joseph Smith is vital to missionary work, President Oaks explains to new mission leaders,” Church News, June 21, 2025 (President Oaks tellingly testified that through “insights” gained “from researching and writing about Joseph Smith,” “I feel I know him, and I love him through what he revealed and taught”). [2] Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” 45. [3] In his 426-page Translation of the ‘Caractors’ Document - Revised and Updated (Self-published, 2019), https://bmslr.org/translation-of-the-caractors-document/, Jerry D. Grover Jr. argues that the first portion of the “Caractors Document,” which John Whitmer copied, presumably from the Book of Mormon characters Joseph Smith copied from the plates, constituted Mormon’s preface to the Book of Mosiah. He adds that this text “would have been part of the 116 lost pages” (p. 15). With extensive discussion and annotations as to how he arrived at his translation, Grover argues that the first four lines of Mormon’s preface should read:

In the nineteenth regnal year of Mosiah I, the Nephites exited over the mountains to the foreign speaking people of Mulek. These twenty thousand “children of Mosiah1” traveled over the mountains for eleven days and then downriver on the east side of the River Sidon [Grijalva River] for eighty days reaching Zarahemla. And then it came to pass that after eleven years thus began the Period of the Seven Tribes [the tribes designated as Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites in Jacob 1:13]. After the space of twenty-one more years had passed, Zeniff, with sixty of his people, departed. Fifty-three more years then passed; then the Limhites departed and obtained the Twenty-Four plates from the West in the Land of Desolation, returning upriver on the River of Lamanite Possessions [Usumacinta]. Seven years from the date of the departure to obtain the Jaredite plates, the Limhites traveled west, bringing the pure gold Jaredite plates to Mosiah₂, which he translated.

Previous to the arrival of the Limhites, Benjamin was made king in the second month of the four hundred and thirty-sixth year after Lehi left Jerusalem. At the age of eighty-three, king Benjamin ascended to eternity, which was four hundred seventy-nine years after Lehi left Jerusalem. King Benjamin’s death occurred one and one third years before the arrival of the Limhites. Four years before the arrival of the Limhites, the Period of the Seven Tribes ended in conjunction with the Jubilee Year.

For a facsimile of, and Historical Introduction to the Caractors Document, see Appendix 2, Document 1. Characters Copied by John Whitmer, circa 1829–1831, p. 1, JSP, accessed August 7, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/appendix-2-document-1-characters-copied-by-john-whitmer-circa-1829-1831/1?highlight=caractors%20document#historical-intro. For Grover’s description of the genesis and methodology of his study, see his Book of Mormon Archaeological Forum Book of Mormon Conference 2017 presentation at https://scripturecentral.org/archive/presentations/conference-paper/translation-caractors-document.    [4] Geni, “Zedekiah, Last (19th) King of Judah,” https://www.geni.com/people/Zedekiah-Last-19th-King-of-Judah/6000000000961704741#:~:text=Zedekiah%20was%20the%20third%20son,time%20tributary%20to%20Nebuchadnezzar%20II. [5] Neal A. Maxwell, “King Benjamin's Sermon: A Manual for Discipleship,” in King Benjamin's Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom,” eds. John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks, Maxwell Institute Publications, 1998, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/45/. [6] The Church’s Seminary Study Guide on the Book of Mormon, for example, states: “Book of Mormon prophets had the Melchizedek Priesthood and knew how it functioned.” “Alma 13,” Book of Mormon Study Guide for Home-Study Seminary Students, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Salt Lake City, Utah, 2012, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/book-of-mormon-study-guide-for-home-study-seminary-students-2013/alma/unit-16-day-3-alma-13?lang=eng (quoting Bruce R. McConkie’s statement: “Nephites, who were faithful and true in keeping the law of Moses, had the Melchizedek Priesthood, which means they had the fulness of the gospel,” The Promised Messiah: The First Coming of Christ, 1978, 421)(emphasis added). [7] Thomas, “Benjamin and the Mysteries of God,” in King Benjamin’s Speech Made Simple, 203, quoting Words of Joseph Smith, comp, and ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991), 38-39. [8] Thomas, “Benjamin and the Mysteries of God,” in King Benjamin’s Speech Made Simple, 203, quoting The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 159. [9] Fluckiger, 232 n. 16. [10] See, for example, Gary E. Stevenson, “Sacred Homes, Sacred Temples, “ Ensign, April 2009, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/04/sacred-homes-sacred-temples?lang=eng (like King Benjamin, who “directed the Saints of his time and place to gather, ‘every man having his tent with the door thereof towards the temple,’” “modern-day prophets” have given counsel, “which, if followed, will turn the doors of our homes more fully towards the temple”); Ronald A. Rasband, “Our Rising Generation,” Ensign, May 2006, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2006/05/our-rising-generation?lang=eng (“I love the imagery of [Mosiah 2:5–6]. Figuratively speaking, brethren, are the doors of our homes pitched towards the temples we so love? Do we attend as often as we can, showing our children through our example the importance of these sacred and special places?”); “Place Your Tents Facing the Temple: A message from the Young Women general presidency,” June 4, 2021, Church Newsroom, https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/place-your-tents-facing-the-temple (King Benjamin’s people “came as family groups consisting of husbands, wives, daughters and sons, from the oldest down to the youngest,” placing “their tents round about the temple, with each family having their tent with the door toward the temple,” a “powerful metaphor for our day”). For an overview of the use of King Benjamin’s speech in General Conference, see Bruce A. Van Orden, “The Use of King Benjamin's Address by Latter-day Saints,” in King Benjamin's Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom,” eds. John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks, Maxwell Institute Publications, 1998, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/45. [11] John A. Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles,” in By Study and Also By Faith, eds. John M Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies/Deseret Book, Provo/Salt Lake City, Utah, 1990). In their examination of “King Benjamin’s Speech in the Context of Ancient Israelite Festivals,” Terrence L. Szink and John W. Welch comment: “Of the three annual festival times in ancient Israel [Passover, Pentecost, and the “autumn festival complex that later developed into the composite two- or three-week-long observance of the three related celebrations of Rosh ha-Shanah (New Year and Day of Judgment), Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles”)], “the autumn festival complex was the most important and certainly the most popular in ancient Israel. In early times it apparently was called the Feast of Ingathering. According to many scholars, the various components of the autumn festival were celebrated as a single season of celebration in the earliest periods of Israelite history. Its many elements were not sharply differentiated until later times, when the first day of the seventh month became Rosh ha-Shanah (New Year), followed by eight days of penitence, then followed on the tenth day of the month by Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and on the fifteenth day by Sukkot (Festival of Tabernacles), concluding with a full holy week.” Szink and Welch argue “that Benjamin’s speech touches on all the major themes of these sacred days, treating them as parts of a single festival complex, consistent with what one would expect in a preexilic Israelite community in which the fall feasts were not sharply differentiated but were still closely associated as parts of one large autumn festival.” In King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom,” (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998), https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/welch/2019-10-17/john_w._welch_and_stephen_d._ricks_king_benjamins_speech_1998.pdf. [12] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 298-99. [13] Miller, “King Benjamin’s Sermon as a Type of Temple Endowment,” 6-7. [14] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 295-99. Nibley notes in his footnote 5 that “the transmission of three royal treasures, symbolizing the sacred origin and miraculous preservation of the nation, is found among widely separated peoples, including the Japanese and the ancient Norse. [15] Welch, “The Temple in the Book of Mormon,” 349-50. See generally John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., King Benjamin’s Speech Made Simple, (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1999), https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/welch/2019-10-21/john_w._welch_and_stephen_d._ricks_king_benjamins_speech_made_simple_1999.pdf, which is “a popular abridgment with the general reader in mind, of the expansive volume” King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom” referenced above. For a brief overview of the theme of temples in the Book of Mormon, see Scripture Central’s “What Does the Book of Mormon Teach about the Temple?” KnowWhy #309 (Springville, UT; Book of Mormon Central, May 5, 017),

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/book-mormon-central-staff/2017-05-05/knowhy_309.pdf . See also Gerald E. Smith, Schooling the Prophet: How the Book of Mormon Influenced Joseph Smith and the Early Restoration (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute, 2015), 144.

[16] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 299-300. While some commentators have assumed that Mosiah₁ (perhaps with his son Benjamin’s assistance), like his prophetic predecessor Nephi, built the temple in Zarahemla, “following ample Mesoamerican and ancient Near Eastern precedents” “it could have been a remodeled temple built on top of an old temple that had been used by the people of Zarahemla prior to the arrival of the Nephites in that land about 200 B.C.” Welch, “The Temple in the Book of Mormon,” 348-49. Compare Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 206 (“Mosiah₁ constructed a new temple in which to worship Israel’s God and receive higher truths, pointing them always toward their Messiah”).[17] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 299. [18] Welch, “The Temple in the Book of Mormon,” 350. [19] Ibid., 304. [20] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 299. [21] Ibid. [22] Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles.” [23] Miller, “King Benjamin’s Sermon as a Type of Temple Endowment,” 7. [24] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 300. [25] Miller, “King Benjamin’s Sermon as a Type of Temple Endowment,” 7-8. Other Book of Mormon commentators, Miller points out, have also observed “that King Benjamin’s reference to ‘the mysteries of God’ in Mosiah 2:9 ‘has at least partial reference to the esoterica of the temple and its rites (cf. Greek mysteria) that enabled one to . . . participate in the divine council—the sôd.’ The sôd can refer to both the divine council and their counsel or plans. When used to refer to the plans of the divine council, the Hebrew sôd is more or less synonymous with the Greek mysteria.” Miller goes on to explain that “in biblical writings, the divine council is often visualized as a royal, heavenly court with God as king ‘sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left,’ as he passes judgment (1 Kings 22:19; see also Psalm 82). Prophets, including those of the Book of Mormon, are often depicted as gaining access to the secrets of divine council through heavenly ascent. For example, Isaiah was commissioned as a prophet after seeing the Lord seated on a throne in the holy of holies of the heavenly temple deliberating with his divine council (Isaiah 6:1–8). Likewise, ‘In 1 Enoch 14,’ an ancient ascent text, ‘the dominant understanding is of heaven as a temple, and it is in the heavenly temple that the divine council meets.’ In this context, it is curious to note that like King Benjamin (Mosiah 2:9), other Book of Mormon prophets used the verb unfold in connection with “mysteries” (1 Nephi 10:19; Jacob 4:18; Mosiah 8:19; Alma 40:3). In 1828, unfold could mean ‘to open any thing covered,’ in the same sense as unveil. In fact, unfold is used precisely in this way in Doctrine and Covenants 88:95: ‘The curtain of heaven [shall] be unfolded . . . and the face of the Lord shall be unveiled.” Thus, King Benjamin’s wish for his people to ‘open [their] minds that the mysteries of God may be unfolded to [their] view’ (Mosiah 2:9) may be understood as an invitation to part the veil of the heavenly temple and observe the secret plans—the sôd or mysteria—of the divine counsel.” Miller, 7-9, citing Raymond E. Brown, “The Semitic Background of the New Testament Mysterion (I)”

39, no. 4 (1958), 426–48, esp. 429, https://www.jstor.org/stable/42637726 and Stephen O. Smoot, “The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship vol.27 (2017), 161, https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-divine-council-in-the-hebrew-bible-and-the-book-of-mormon/. [26] Nibley, Approaching the Book of Mormon, 300. [27] Ibid. 295.