Whether you’re just back or still hoping to go

No recording was made of Royal Skousen’s remarks at Utah Valley University last weekend.  But the paper on which his remarks were based is now available online at the Interpreter Foundation website, along with the slides that he used to illustrate his talk.  What he had to say was both important and interesting — enough so that I, practically fresh off the plane from Cairo and feeling not only profoundly jet-lagged but under the weather with some sort of demonstrably non-Covid respiratory bug, never even once felt like dozing off.  And now you can read a more formal version of what he said:  “Textual Criticism and the Book of Mormon”

Interpreter comes through for you, again.

And here is a 2012 talk from the Interpreter Foundation’s ever-growing video library:  Conference Talks: “A Torah Harmony,” delivered by Andrew Ehat.

My wife and I returned last Friday afternoon from accompanying tours to Israel and then to Egypt.  I regret that I didn’t offer as much of value during the Egyptian tour as I would like to have done, because I was sick throughout it (including laryngitis, or something very like it, which hindered both my ability and my inclination to talk).  In partial compensation for my Egyptian failure, I want to remind those who went with us to Egypt that the Interpreter Foundation sponsored a series of lectures on Egypt that are still available online.  They were intended to help prepare people who were about to go to Egypt with us for what they would be seeing and experiencing there, but I also think that they will make more sense for those who review them after having visited Egypt — and that they will help to organize and understand all of the massive firehose of information and impressions that were coming at them from early in the morning until nighttime, day in and day out:

“The Ultimate Egypt – Interpreter Foundation Tour Lecture Series”

Moreover, I’m scheduled to accompany three tours for Bountiful Travel next year:  “Turkey: Sacred Sites with the Interpreter Foundation” (beginning 9 October 2023), “Exotic Egypt” (beginning 22 October 2023), and “Holy Land” (beginning 29 October 2023).  The Turkey tour and the Holy Land or Israel tour are already sold out, although a waiting list is available for at least the latter — and I would suggest that any who are interested call and get themselves on that waiting list.  It’s not uncommon, this far in advance, for people to drop out for whatever reasons.  There are, however, evidently still spaces available for the Egypt tour.  It’s likely to fill up fairly soon but, in any case, the Interpreter lecture series to which I’ve called attention just above could prove a valuable orientation.  And some will probably find the lectures of interest whether they intend to go to Egypt with me in 2023, or with someone else, or later, or never at all.  Egypt is, well, just really interesting.  In every era.

Latter-day Saints interested in Egypt might also enjoy this article, by Dr. Andrew Skinner:  “3 Fascinating Connections Between LDS & Ancient Egyptian Temple Worship & Beliefs”  And Hugh Nibley is always worth consulting on this subject:

“The three motifs that confront us wherever we turn in temple and tomb are eternity, family, and cosmos. As to family, the gods themselves do not appear in solitary splendor in the great temples, but always have the rest of the family along, as the individual in his tomb wants to be seen in the intimate and loving company of his wife and children; whether gods, kings, or commoners, they hold hands and embrace in an easy and affectionate manner.” (“The Greatness of Egypt,” 14)

“An important feature of Egyptian architecture of temple, tomb, and even palace is a door, sometimes shown as a curtain or lattice, through which a spirit can pass, a means of communication between two worlds; and the literature is full of ceremonial and mythical doors and gates and instructions on how to pass them.”  (“The Greatness of Egypt,” 18)

“The archives were known in Egypt as the House of Life, housing the writings upon which the life of all things ultimately depended. It was a powerhouse humming with vital electricity, transmitting cosmic forces from heaven to earth, a place of deadly peril to any mortal not holding the necessary priestly credentials. . . .

“The House of Life where the books were copied and studied had from the earliest times the aspect of a university, a super graduate school. There it was that all questions relating to learned matters were settled. The place was always part of the temple, and the books contain the earliest poetry, for poiema means “creation” and the business of the Muses at the temple was to sing the creation song with morning stars.

“Naturally the hymn was sung to music, and some scholars would derive the first writing from musical notation. It was performed in a sacred circle or chorus, so that poetry, music, and the dance go out to the world from the temple, called by the Greeks the Museon, or shrine of the Muses.

“The creation hymn was part of the great dramatic presentation that took place yearly at the temple, dealing with the fall and redemption of man, represented by various forms of combat, making the place the scene of the ritual athletic contests sanctified throughout the world. The victor in the contest was the father of the race, the priest-king himself, whose triumphant procession, coronation, and marriage took place on the occasion, making this the seat and source of government (the king was always crowned in the temple rather than the palace).

“Since the entire race was expected to be present for the event, a busy exchange of goods from various distant regions took place, the booths of pilgrims serving as the market booths for great fairs, while the necessity of converting various and bizarre forms of wealth into acceptable offerings for the temple led to an active banking and exchange in the temple courts; the earliest “money” from the shrine of Juno Moneta at Rome is temple money. Since the place began as an observatory and all things were tied to the calendar and the stars, mathematics flourished and astronomy was a Muse.

“History was another Muse, for the rites were meant for the dead as well as the living, and memorials to former great ones (believed to be in attendance) encouraged the production of a marvelous art of portraiture, of sculpture and painting, which would have flourished anyway as architectural adornments, since the design and measurements (the middot) of the temple structure itself as a sort of scale model of the universe and cosmic computer were all-important; the architecture of the hierocentric structure was of primary concern.

“And since from that central point all the earth was measured and all the lands distributed, geometry was essential: “In the Beginning the One God promised Horus that he should inherit the land of Egypt, which was written in the Books by order of the Lord of All. . . . At the Division of the Lands it was decreed in writing.”

“The writings produced and copied in the House of Life were also discussed there, giving rise to philosophy but concerned largely with cosmology and natural science. In short, there is no aspect of our civilization that does not have its rise in the temple, thanks to the power of the written word. In the all-embracing relationships of the Divine Book everything is relevant. Nothing is really dead or forgotten; every detail belongs in the picture, which would be incomplete without it. Lacking such a synthesizing principle, our present-day knowledge becomes ever more fragmented, and our universities and libraries crumble and disintegrate as they expand. Where the temple that gave it birth is missing, civilization itself becomes a hollow shell.”  (“Genesis of the Written Word,” CWHN 12:469, 472-73)