Ancient temple theology in the Book of Mormon

In my last post, I wrote about the veil and its symbolism. Learning more about the first temple and associated theology from Margaret Barker\’s Book, \”Temple theology\”, I find it remarkable how well it matches temple imagery in the Book of Mormon. I mentioned in my last post that the first temple mirrored the creation account. This is one aspect of the creation-covenant connection that Lord Wilmore (the other blogger for those who are new to this blog) has posted extensively about. I also mentioned that the veil reflected the second day of creation. The holy of holies or the inner sanctuary of the temple, reflected the first day of creation. According to Barker

In the second temple, it was empty, yet the mystical and apocalyptic texts from that period were set in a richly furnished holy place, a place of fire where the great Holy One was enthroned before countless angels.

This can be seen in the Book of Enoch. In chapter 14, Enoch, a high priestly figure, has a vision

the vision caused me to fly and lifted me upward, and bore me into heaven

Here he enters into a heavenly temple 

And its floor was of fire, and above it were lightnings and the path ¹⁸ of the stars, and its ceiling also was flaming fire. And I looked and saw therein a lofty throne: its appearance was as crystal, and the wheels thereof as the shining sun, and there was the vision of ¹⁹ cherubim. And from underneath the throne came streams of flaming fire so that I could not look ²⁰ thereon. And the Great Glory sat thereon, and His raiment shone more brightly than the sun and ²¹ was whiter than any snow.

When Barker argues that Enoch\’s vision reflects ancient temple practice, it\’s very natural to conclude the same for Lehi

8 And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.
9 And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
10 And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. (1 Nephi 1)

The context is also interesting. Lehi was a prophet living in Jerusalem born in the mid-7th BC century, a few decades prior to the deuteronomic reform. I will not go into that in detail here, but this article provides more context. The main point is that Lehi probably came from the high priestly first temple tradition that Barker writes about. Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that the Nephite temples and theology corresponded to the high priestly theology associated with the first temple. In 2 Nephi 5:16, Nephi built a temple and wrote that he \”did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon\”.

With this background, I came to the surprising realization of a possible temple setting for King Lamoni\’s story. I touched upon this in a previous post with the heaven-earth theme but without making the temple connection. Since the holy of holies reflects the first day of creation, the creation of \”heaven and earth\”, we naturally associate it with the \”heaven\” part and the light that was created on the first day.

To recap briefly, in Alma 18, Ammon makes an allusion to the creation account when he asks King Lamoni if he believes in God who \”created all things which are in heaven and in the earth\”. Lamoni responds that he only knows the earth but is not familiar with heaven. In a temple context, the veil has blocked Lamoni\’s view of the holy of holies. He has not walked the covenant path through the temple that ultimately will allow him to enter, as I describe in the previous post that I linked to.

But this all changes at his conversion. In Alma 19:6, we read:

Now, this was what Ammon desired, for he knew that king Lamoni was under the power of God; he knew that the dark veil of unbelief was being cast away from his mind, and the light which did light up his mind, which was the light of the glory of God, which was a marvelous light of his goodness—yea, this light had infused such joy into his soul, the cloud of darkness having been dispelled, and that the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul, yea, he knew that this had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God

This seems like a temple setting. King Lamoni, who knew nothing about heaven (holy of holies) because of the veil, had the veil cast away from his mind. It permitted him to see the light that was created on the first day and that the holy of holies in Nephite temples would represent. Notice also the \”glory of God\” that was the name Enoch used in his temple vision quoted above. In my previous post, I also quoted Barker\’s statement about \”those who passed beyond the veil [who] found themselves outside time\”. This is the \”light of everlasting life\” that was lit up in Lamoni\’s soul. \”Carried away\” is another covenant/temple marker as Lord Wilmore explains in this post.

My guess is that an \”endowed\” Nephite reading this, would immediately recognize the temple allusions here as the author probably intended. Who knows, perhaps Lamoni, the king and first Lamanite convert, went on to become a high priest in a temple in the land of Jershon?