Margaret Barker Decimates Mormonism at its Core

[Apologeticsislying]

I suspect it is entirely unintentional on her part, but Margaret Barker seems to me to be a singular powerful source of giving Mormonism a stab in the heart with a saber. It didn't dawn on me until reading her truly intelligent analysis in her text "Temple Theology in the Gospel of John" why Mormons have more or less faded in their enthusiasm for her.

It was a good symbiotic relationship for a decade or so, with Mormons touting her books and helping sell many more tens of thousands of them to an audience she perhaps at first had no idea even existed. So, of course, she participated with them in several conferences, and symposia, writing articles which worked on themes related to Mormonism and enjoying the ride around the world of scholarship. This is not to say she is scheming, not at all. I see her as truly genuine in her endeavors to elucidate the Biblical World, and her scholarship is Mercea Eliade style only the focus for her is the First Temple as background to everything in the ancient Jewish, Early Christian world. She makes the Bible come alive again with her inclusion of extra canonical materials that are enjoyable to re-read, and compare.

But the cooling off has had to come about since she has no shied away from her most interesting theme of First Temple background for Jewish restoration religious spirituality. She has not wavered, and has demonstrated through historical exegesis and intriguing interpretation that the mission of Jesus Christ was for one thing. The restoration of First Temple Jewish truth and religion. And what was the actual temple restoration involved?

The bringing back of the Menorah, the budding rod of Aaron, the Holy Spirit, and the Worship of the Mother who gave birth to the universe. And this occurred in the Holy of Holies! The Heavenly Mother was the CORE of the Holy of Holies. What was her role? Giving birth to the universe in time and material which leads also to the birth of her Divine Son.

This demonstrates that, to the consternation of Mormonism, the temple ceremony of Mormonism is nothing like the actual original work/ritual in the ancient Jewish Temple. The Mormon temple materials are fobbing from Freemasonry, a rather modern (nothing more ancient of it than 1700) tissue of rituals literally having nothing in common with anything near ancient Jewish concern, ritual, religion, or history, except in name only. It is as much a guess concerning Hyrum Abiff as it is concerning Solomon's temple. Barker's materials are solidly in the line and arena of ancient Judaism, as we know of it with what sources we possess. The entire philosophy of the ancient Jewish mystical temple is not concerned with baptizing for the dead, or even marrying for eternity. The concept of marriage concerning a man and woman is concerned with the reconciliation and joining of opposites, not the solidifying of a man and woman in their own form for eternity as eternal male and eternal female. It is about the many becoming the one, such as Jesus prayed for mystically in John 17, a chapter Mormons continually misunderstand its true meaning concerning reality as Jesus was asking God for Him and the others. The eternal family, with parents and children is not Judaism's conceptualization, it is the actual mystical joining of all into the One. That is what is eternal. And it is the MOTHER who is central to that joining with power and love. This you will not find in Mormonism nor its temples. But that is the core of Jesus' religious work, the rejoining of the many into the One. Barker shows this from very many fascinating angles and use of ancient documents and comments from ancients' understanding.

Jewish First Temple Hopes and meaning and philosophy and religion is simply by no possible stretch of even a light year's imagination is anything similar to what Mormonism does, says, or claims about its own temple work. Barker demonstrates this consistently and rather powerfully. The power of her material is, she doesn't have Mormonism in her sights at all. It doesn't even concern her, even though dozens of Mormon scholars have used her work to further their own biased agenda, who now see "temple" in absolutely everything in any scripture they can possibly discuss! They have so overblown the parallels and theme that it is all lost in a hazy overall glaze of everything ever said, thought or written has to do with the temple anciently, a simply ridiculous line of thinking.

Barker has never joined Mormonism regardless of what the Mormon scholars wooing her have said to her or praised her work, because for her, it isn't about which religion is true (another huge difference with her work and Mormon scholars!). It is about what was the ancient Jewish world about? Can we learn about it using the ancient writings of Jews (whether canonical or not), Greeks, or whoever has talked religious philosophy, and realize what Jesus actually was about? That is the theme, and has she ever stuck to her guns on it.

There is a lesson in this. The agenda of Barker is truth. Interpretation takes her in paths no one else dares go, because she has no goal to reach no matter what... except... what is the truth, not worrying about who can I please, or which group shall I join and get along with. And her ideas are argued, properly so, as she herself has said.

Her ideas that Jesus and all who follow him, when he was baptized was at that moment also resurrected, as all are who are baptized is nothing close to the Mormon doctrine, temple or otherwise. This too is another way in which she is so different and non-usable for any Christian group to latch onto and say here is confirmation of our own views! The only view Barker wants to verify is God's. This shows in her materials, much to the consternation of pretty much every organized religion out there.

[Apologeticsislying]

I actually found further in Barker's other book "The Mother of the Lord, the Lady of the Temple," p. 267 that the temple had the Throne of Glory, the Cherubim, and the cloud surrounding the temple as the sign that the Glory (Mother) was present, it was her sign. None of these have ever been all together in any Mormon temple whatever. And the Glory was equated with the Mother, who WAS THE CHARIOT THRONE, i.e., The VIRGIN Mary... to be a real restoration of the temple which Jesus was going to restore (as per the Revelation he gave John, the Apocalypse!), it would have had all of this. Nothing in Mormonism is a genuine restoration of the real temple in Jewish history. Remember, Jesus was not a Christian, he was a fully integrated Jew living that culture, returning its temple to its former glory. Joseph Smith is nowhere near this at all in any manner.

[alas]

Going to look for her on my next trip to the library. I used to read quite a bit of stuff like that, but kind of quit about 30 years ago. But I have lots of thoughts, some come directly from the evidence in the Bible itself, and others I picked up in weird places.

Most people don’t understand that ancient Israel worshipped Mother God as well as Father God, as well as Son and Daughter. That was Elohim, not the first name of the father God. But the Godhead, or the Gods. But those “idols to pagan Gods” that were in the temple of Solomon which the prophet Jeremiah was out to get rid of, yeah God’s wife and children. The prophet Jeremiah did quite a bit to reform the religion of his time. He killed or demoted God’s wife and children, by declaring them pagan idols which I am not sure God was happy about.

And that statue of a serpent on a staff that Moses told the people to pray to, if they were bitten by an asp, yeah that was Wisdom the Mother god. When Moses came down from the mountain and found the people had built a golden calf, he wasn’t upset that they were worshipping a goddess, just that they were worshipping the wrong one. Now, if they had made a statue of a serpent, or a tree (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and tree of life which are also Her symbols) he would have been just fine. Believe there was a tree statue in Solomon’s temple.

My son took a class on the archeology of the holy land. The evidence that “Jehovah” (the father God, not the Mormon version of the son) was married to Ashera is quite obvious. So, all these Mormon feminists longing for more formation on the Mother God, should read in the Bible about the “horrible pagan Gods” that Jeremiah got rid of.

And if the Catholic fathers had studied a bit of Eastern religion they would have understood better what Christ meant be saying that he was one with the Father. He meant it just like “become one with the universe.” But the Catholic Fathers were Roman and only knew Roman and Greek thought, so they were confused. How can two people be one? But Jesus wasn’t Greek and he wasn’t Roman. While the Jews were in Babylon they picked up a lot of eastern philosophy, sort of a mixing of the two religions, some of it good and some not so good. But I suspect that Jesus was out to restore the religion to what it was before they were taken captive and before Jeremiah corrupted things. As well as getting rid of a lot of corruption and self righteousness.

[Apologeticsislying]

A small nit, it was not Jeremiah that got rid of the Mother, it was that culprit Josiah in his Deuteronomist reform. Jeremiah was lamenting the burning of the Asherahs and getting rid of the cherubim.

[alas]

A small nit, it was not Jeremiah that got rid of the Mother, it was that culprit Josiah in his Deuteronomist reform. Jeremiah was lamenting the burning of the Asherahs and getting rid of the cherubim.

Thanks for the correction. Like I said, it has been a long time since I really studied any of this.

[Apologeticsislying]

A small nit, it was not Jeremiah that got rid of the Mother, it was that culprit Josiah in his Deuteronomist reform. Jeremiah was lamenting the burning of the Asherahs and getting rid of the cherubim.

Thanks for the correction. Like I said, it has been a long time since I really studied any of this.

Not a problem you have a great start....

[Hagoth]

I haven't read Barker but I'm not gonna let that stop me!

When Mormons talk about our modern temples being based on Solomon's Temple I think they must not have any concept of what that temple was like, and what might have gone on in there:

We talk about our modern temple altars as symbolic of the ark (sans serafim - pun intended) but we overlook the elephant(s) in the room. Two big ones.

This was a very different religion that did not actually presage Jesus Christ in any way. The removal of feminine deity in Israelite religion seemed to be high on the agenda of the later monarchy, who got that lasts word when the books were written (but She slipped in through some cracks anyway).

Mormons pride themselves on being uniquely proud of their awareness of a Heavenly Mother and of their restoration of the true temple. Since we have all taken our vitamin pills as directed, maybe RMN's temple refinements might reintroduce Asherah and put the Big Guys back where they belong.

[iwanttotalk]

I haven't read Barker but I'm not gonna let that stop me!

When Mormons talk about our modern temples being based on Solomon's Temple I think they must not have any concept of what that temple was like, and what might have gone on in there:

We talk about our modern temple altars as symbolic of the ark (sans serafim - pun intended) but we overlook the elephant(s) in the room. Two big ones.

This was a very different religion that did not actually presage Jesus Christ in any way. The removal of feminine deity in Israelite religion seemed to be high on the agenda of the later monarchy, who got that lasts word when the books were written (but She slipped in through some cracks anyway).

Mormons pride themselves on being uniquely proud of their awareness of a Heavenly Mother and of their restoration of the true temple. Since we have all taken our vitamin pills as directed, maybe RMN's temple refinements might reintroduce Asherah and put the Big Guys back where they belong.

Yeah its a total farce that mormons think their religion is in ang way related to judiasm.

Judiasm is an ancient supremacist religion with a morality that modern mormon houswives would be appalled to be associated with.

But thats people for you. Thinkers they are not.

[Hagoth]

Judiasm is an ancient supremacist religion with a morality that modern mormon houswives would be appalled to be associated with.

I dunno, Mrs. Hagoth offered up a pretty amazing blood sacrifice for Christmas dinner.

[alas]

I have started reading some of Margaret Barker, and her theories contradict other theories. It defiantly got me thinking. But her interpretation was that the Goddess Ashera/Wisdom was represented by the tree of life. Um...that directly contradicts another interpretation of the whole Garden of Eden symbolism that “Wisdom = tree of knowledge” because, duh, wisdom is knowledge. So, the Goddess of Wisdom wanted to share her and the God’s wisdom with humans. But the male God wanted to keep “knowledge” to the Gods. Seeing as Wisdom was symbolized by the snake, duh, (see all pagan religions) the snake wanted Adam & Eve to eat of the tree of knowledge.

To me, this other interpretation is kind of straightforward with the symbols consistent with the symbols that were used by the pagan religions, while Margaret Barkers’s tries to twist some of them backwards. Yes, the Goddess’s symbol was a tree, but why assume that it must have been the tree of Life in the G of E story? Why not stick to the tree of Wisdom, or the knowledge of good and evil? She then has to twist the snake into an enemy of the Goddess of Wisdom, where elsewhere in the early Bible, flying snakes were the good guys.

Anyway, just my thoughts. Wish I remembered where I read the other version of the meaning of G of E story, but it was about 30 years ago.

[Corsair]

I suspect it is entirely unintentional on her part, but Margaret Barker seems to me to be a singular powerful source of giving Mormonism a stab in the heart with a saber. It didn't dawn on me until reading her truly intelligent analysis in her text "Temple Theology in the Gospel of John" why Mormons have more or less faded in their enthusiasm for her.very organized religion out there.

Good stuff, Apologeticsislying. I had seminary and Sunday School teachers quite fervently tell me that the LDS temple ritual was presented not only to Adam, but also the first century original Christian apostles by Jesus Christ, himself. I wonder if He kept in the oath to avenge the blood of Joseph Smith? And I wonder if Eve got the last word in the endowment ceremony like in the 2019 version.

[Apologeticsislying]

There just isn't any evidence at all that there was a "Mormon endowment" in the Jerusalem temple, either one of them actually. I remember those days also thinking that. We can somewhat piece together some ideas on what they were thinking but this means going to the pagan views as well, since the Christians WERE converted from there. They would have lambasted the temple after going to it if there was a lot different or missing. There is no lambasting so far as we are aware. Mormonism is simply trying to gain legitimacy is all, which makes sense, but the temples don't match from yesteryear in a lot of ways. It's fin investigating.