Every so often I hear members of the church and critics confidently claim that the Book of Mormon contains nothing about the temple. This is not true at all, and the more I study the Book of Mormon, the more examples I find.
Given the highly symbolic nature of the temple, these examples are easiest to find when we look at the deeper meaning of the symbols involved. One of the best places to find this in the Book of Mormon comes from the sermons of Alma-2. I'll get to him later in this post.
First, let's look at some fascinating and insightful comments and diagrams from Orthodox Christian writer Matthieu Pageau, from his book The Language of Creation (hereafter LoC). He lays out the principles of an ancient symbolic worldview in order to help the reader find deeper meaning in the Bible. In order to discover this worldview, he states:
...we must pretend that our eyes are not geared with thousands of telescopes and microscopes and that we care little for quasars and quarks. Moreover, we will need to reposition ourselves within space and time by looking past the heliocentric and geocentric viewpoints towards an ancient cosmology. This archaic worldview may be described as tree-centric or “dentrocentric” for lack of a better word. (Pageau, Matthieu. The Language of Creation: Cosmic Symbolism in Genesis (p. 15). Kindle Edition, my emphasis added.)
Heaven and Earth in the symbolic worldview
If this topic interests you, I highly recommend reading his book for a more detailed dive into the concepts. I'll offer only a cursory overview in this series of posts.
Pageau begins with new definitions for 'heaven' and 'earth' which he says are necessary to properly understand the symbolic worldview. From a modern materialist worldview, earth is the planet we live and heaven is roughly everything else, including the atmosphere and beyond. By contrast, Pageau defines 'heaven' as spiritual meaning without corporeal existence and 'earth' as matter without meaning (LoC p. 22). Thus, the 'earth' contains all of the physical matter in the universe, and 'heaven' consists of the higher truths by which 'earth' is organized. The world in which we live represents a joining of these two essences, represented in this figure:
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| (LoC, p. 25) |
In this model, God organizes the 'earth' according to His 'word' in order to establish space and time wherein mankind may dwell and gain knowledge. Furthermore, knowledge is found wherever heavenly truth is established on the earth. Once organized according to spiritual truth, the creation praises its Creator.
Interestingly, Catholic scholar Bishop Bob Barron summarizes what he considers to be the "master theme" of the Bible (a theme he discovered through his study of the writings of the early church fathers) in this way (~1 minute clip):
What he says at the end of the clip is so important I'll type it out:
So now we know what human beings are for, they're for right praise. And not just for themselves, but on behalf of all creation. And there, as you say, Eden itself is a temple, an elevated place -- because the rivers run out from it so it's an elevated place -- and human beings are meant there to be priests, kings as well and all that, but priests leading creation in a chorus of praise.
Take a moment to let that sink in. That is the "master theme" of the Bible according to a Catholic priest who has spent a lot of time studying the writings of some of the earliest Christians. Notice how central the Garden of Eden is in this theme -- not to mention other major temple themes. Everything is focused on a return to the garden-like state of innocence wherein all creation exists in harmony -- rest -- with God, forever.
It is this state that the first commandment given by God to Adam and Eve is fulfilled (see Genesis 1:28), discussed here.
Alma-2 and the "experiment upon [the word]"
With that backdrop in place, let's now take a look at the the famous sermon of Alma-2 to the poor Zoramites on the Hill Onidah. He invites them to "awake" and "experiment upon [his] words" (see Alma 32:27). He likens the word to a seed and proceeds to lay out a very familiar analogy. I hear this seed analogy quoted frequently, and it has long been one of my favorite passages in all of the scriptures. Only recently, I have began to appreciate a deeper layer of meaning found in this agricultural language. He's laying out a pattern that clearly evokes temple symbolism:
- "give place for a portion of my words" in verse 27 will be discussed in more depth in the next post in this series. A similar concept is repeated multiple times in Alma 12 and is framed as an opening step in the series of spiritual rebirth. Making room within the portion of the creation which we occupy for the word of God is the opening step in gaining knowledge.
- The process which begins as a "swell[ing]" and "enlarg[ing]" and [enlighten[ing]" culminates in a "fill[ing]" as the fruit of the tree of life is finally plucked (see verse 42). This is as if the portion of the creation over which we have the ability to act grows as a result of our acceptance of the word. We become like Adam and Eve and help fulfill the commandment in Genesis 1:28.
- The process of gaining knowledge is gradual (see verse 29, 34-36). It does not happen all at once. This virtuous cycle of progressive bestowal of light and knowledge coupled with deeper commitment is a central temple theme. It can be seen as the gradual subduing of the microcosmic portion of the creation found in each of us.
- The result of the process is "everlasting life" (see verse 41).
It's clear to me that Alma-2 understood the purpose of mortality along the same lines as the master theme of the Bible gleaned by Bishop Barron from the early Christian writers. That's fascinating.
This symbolism is certainly ancient and poorly understood by us in modern times. I find very satisfying to study it and expand my worldview in the process.
And we're not done. We've only touched Alma 32 so far! We haven't even gotten in to Alma 12-13 yet. That'll be the starting point of my next post.