Cosmology

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God – The Greatest of Gardeners

September 23, 2012 in Cosmology | 2 comments

Some have noted that God may be the “Greatest of Gardeners”.1 In fact, the scriptures seem replete with the imagery of planting. In the beginning, God “didst plant the earth.”2 Following a similar pattern in the New Testament, Christ taught the parable of the wheat and the tares.3 Plant

Latter-day scriptures also use this imagery and include Jacob’s allegory of the olive tree4 and Alma’s extraordinary discourse about the necessity of planting a seed.5 At the founding of this dispensation, Moroni’s message to a young Joseph Smith contains an important reference to a planting.6

Taken together, many scriptures incorporate the concept of planting. Whether it is a new world that is being planted, the “sowing or begetting” of a race, or the elect who are called plants who must then “plant their own plants through marriage”, all draw upon a basic construct – God is the “’Greatest of Gardeners’, ‘the Planter’ par excellence.’”7

Sources:

  1. Nibley, Hugh W. “Treasures in the Heavens”. Old Testament and Related Studies. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1986. Footnote #98; hereafter Treasures.↩
  2. 4 Esdras 3:4; Bible, King James. 4 Ezra OR 2 Esdras, from The Holy Bible, King James Version (Apocrypha)”. Date unknown. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. 23 Sep 2012.↩
  3. Matthew 13.↩
  4. Jacob 5.↩
  5. Alma 32.↩
  6. Cf. Malachi 4:6 and Doctrine and Covenants 2:2.↩
  7. Treasures.↩

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Telestial: The Farthest Away or Lowest World

February 20, 2012 in Cosmology | 1 comment

At an address given in 1982, Hugh W. Nibley pointed out that the word telestial means the farthest away or the lowest world. Previous articles discussed Paul’s letter to the Corithians about the three degrees of glory as well as Joseph Smith’s vision of these glories.1 In context of these statements, the following may provide additional insight into the meaning of the word telestial:

The Telestial, Terrestrial, and Celestial RepresentedI was told that there were supposed to be three talks, and naturally I immediately thought of everything falling into three in the gospel and tradition. In the Old Testament there is the idea of the three degrees, which may rightly be designated as telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. For example, the ancient Gnostics, the early Christians, always talked about the pneumatic, the psychic, and the hylic types of human beings. The pneumatic is the spiritual, the psychic is the mixture of the two (body and spirit), and the hylic are those that are grossly and purely physical. But this actually reflects the early Jewish teachings of the neshamah, which is the highest of the spirit; the ruakh, which is in between; and the nefesh, which is the lower spirit in this world. We are taught in the Kabbalah a great deal about the three Adams. There is the celestial Adam, who was Michael before he came here; the terrestrial Adam, who was in Eden; and the telestial Adam, after he had fallen, who was down low. The Kabbalah also tells about Jacob’s ladder. Joseph Smith taught that it represented the three stages of initiation in the temple, the three degrees of glory, which are designated as telestial, that is, the lowest order; and then astronomical, or dealing with the physical world, which is higher up still; and then finally the world which is beyond. Particularly interesting is the designation in some of the newly discovered apocalyptic writings about the upper or hidden world, the Eden, and the lowest world. The only way you can translate it is to use Joseph Smith’s word, which is telestial (from the Greek telos), which means farthest removed, as distant as you can get, what the Arabs call the aqsa. Joseph Smith coined that word, and he couldn’t have used a better one—the telestial, the farthest away of all the worlds.2

While some may view this statement from a purely mechanistic point of view in relationship to Kolob, it could also be viewed in the context of organization, or, in the words of Joseph Smith, “government”.3

Sources:

  1. D&C 76: The Poetic Rendition.↩
  2. Nibley, Hugh W. “Three Degrees of Righteousness from the Old Testament”. Approaching Zion. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989. 308.↩
  3. Facsimile 2. Book of Abraham. See Explanations 1, 2, and 5.↩

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Joseph Smith and the Music of the Spheres

April 24, 2011 in Cosmology | 1 comment

The music of the spheres refers to an ancient “philosophical concept that regards proportions in the movements of celestial bodies — the Sun, Moon, and planets — as a form of musica (the Medieval Latin name for music). This ‘music’ is not literally audible, but a harmonic and/or mathematical and/or religious concept.”1 And so it is.

In February 1832, while Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were translating the Bible, the Lord revealed to them “the Vision” of the hereafter.2 Commonly referred to now as Doctrine and Covenants 76, “the Vision” shows that men and women receive their rewards based on faithful adherence to certain laws and principles that are likened to varying degrees of light in the orbs of heaven:

And the glory of the celestial is one, even as the glory of the sun is one.

And the glory of the terrestrial is one, even as the glory of the moon is one.

And the glory of the telestial is one, even as the glory of the stars is one;

For as one star differs from another star in glory, even so differs one from another in glory in the telestial world.3

In 1843, Joseph Smith recorded the poetic rendition of these verses in this way:

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  1. “Musica Universalis”. Wikipedia. 7 June 2009.↩
  2. Dahl, Larry E. “Degrees of Glory”. 1992. Encyclopedia of Mormonism. 7 June 2009.↩
  3. D&C 76:96-98.↩

Second Coming: A Planet or Comet

February 20, 2011 in Cosmology | 30 comments

In the April 1843 General Conference, Joseph Smith made reference to a planet or comet in relationship to the second coming of Christ. Following his references to the events that must precede this grand event, he reportedly said the following:

. . . then one grand sign of the son of the son of man in heaven. but what will the world do? they will say it is a planet. a comet, &c. consequently the sun [Son] of man will come as the sign of coming of the son of man; is as the light of the morning cometh out of the east.1

James Burgess also recorded Joseph Smith’s statement, albeit differently:

So also is the comeing of the Son of Man. The dawning of the morning makes its appearance in the east and moves along gradualy so also will the comeing of the Son of Man be. it will be small at its first appearance and gradually becomes larger untill every eye shall see it.2

In this second quote, Joseph Smith went on to suggest that Christ’s coming may be characterized by two planetary objects coming into contact with each other. So spectacular would this event be that “every eye shall see it”.

The quotes above are directly related to the Savior’s statement to his disciples while on the mount of Olives.  As part of his response following his statement concerning the destruction of the temple3, the Savior said:

For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together. Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken: And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven: and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.4

Although “. . . in the fourth century, early Christianity was stripped of anything resembling ‘cosmism’”, the Prophet Joseph Smith restored much about this ancient construct.5

Sources:

  1. “Joseph Smith Diary by Willard Richards, 6 Apr 1843”. The Words of Joseph Smith: The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph. Comp. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook. Orem, Utah: Grandin Book, 1991. 180; hereafter Words.↩
  2. “James Burgess Notebook”. Words. 181. See note 1 and 32 of this discourse for further explanation.↩
  3. See Matthew 24:2-3.↩
  4. Matthew 24:27-30.↩
  5. See Cosmology in Early Christianity.↩

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Mircea Eliade on Sacred and Cyclical Time

August 12, 2010 in Cosmology | 2 comments

Sacred time is cyclical in nature.1 It is reversible because time can move forward or backward. Micea Eliade, perhaps the world’s greatest comparative religionist, showed that to the ancients, returning to the first moments of creation were necessary to learn how to obtain power to create. He termed this concept “the myth of the eternal return… Significantly, ancient temple worship is replete with this pattern of an eternal return to sacred time.”

Brian M. Hauglid wrote the following:

Mandala - representative of cyclical time Before discussing what it meant to experience sacred time, it should be noted that sacred time is cyclical in nature and is distinctly different from our more modern conception of linear time. While cyclical time is best represented by an unbroken circle, linear time would be a horizontal line with definite beginnings and endings.

Linear time is a historical, chronological approach, in which what has happened has happened, and there is no going back. It is, in essence, irreversible. The Judeo-Christian tradition of time is also linear with definite historical occurrences and eschatological ramifications, wherein there was a beginning (creation) and there will be an end to the world as we know it, by virtue of the Second Coming, or as in the case with Judaism, a messianic figure. However, inherent even in this thinking is the idea that after death there will be a return to a higher state of existence. Perhaps this concept could best be portrayed by a circle with a horizontal line running through the middle, cutting the circle into two halves. This horizontal line would represent man’s linear move through mortal time, with one end being birth and the other death. Before birth and after death, however, man exists in a cosmological eternal time represented by the circle. Doctrine and Covenants 3:2 and 1 Nephi 10:19 explain that God’s work or time is one eternal round. Doctrine and Covenants 88:13 describes God as living in the “bosom of eternity” or “midst of all things.”

In contrast, sacred time is reversible because the clock can move forward or backward. Why would one try to go backwards in time? Because “the experience of sacred time will make it possible for religious man periodically to experience the cosmos as it was in principio, that is, at the mythical moment of creation.”2 In other words, in sacred time it was possible, and to ancient man necessary, to go back to the archetypal beginnings to relive those first moments of creation.

Eliade calls this universal concept “the myth of the eternal return” and defines sacred time in terms of an eternal return, or

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  1. For an introduction to this concept, see the post on Hamlet’s Mill.↩
  2. Eliade, Mircea. Willard R. Trask, tr. The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1959. 65.↩

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