The Tree of Life as Nurturing Mother

Before moving on further into the contents of the Orphic Gold Plates, I would like to look with more detail into a motif touched upon in my last post in this series.  I described how the Orphic inscriptions instruct the soul that they are to pass by the guardians in order to be able to meet Persephone, the “Mother Goddess” who will help them through the rest of their journey through the Netherworld.  Although she was the mother of gods and mortals, her births were parthenogenic (virgin births). It seems that this Virgin Mother Goddess was an essential part of many ancient forms of initiation into the Mysteries, where she was seen as nursing the “newborn” initiate with milk. The Mother Goddess was often symbolically identified as the Tree of Life.

In an earlier post, I discussed the idea that the fountain of living waters (in the Orphic tablets identified as the waters of the goddess Mnemosyne), from which the soul must drink in order to secure its salvation, was also to be considered equivalent to the white tree, the Tree of Life. This connection is made explicit in the vision of Nephi (1 Ne. 11:25), where he explains:

And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God; and I also beheld that the tree of life was a representation of the love of God.

fountain_tree_of_life

In Egypt, the Tree of Life was often depicted as a goddess, or having a goddess within it, that nursed or poured forth living waters (or perhaps milk) to individuals.

Egyptian Milk Treetreegoddess3

In Nephi’s vision, remarkably, we also see this connection between the Tree of Life and the virgin mother.  In 1 Ne. 11, Nephi is shown the exceedingly beautiful and white tree that his father had seen in his dream. When Nephi asks the Spirit for the interpretation of the tree, he is immediately shown a rather unusual (to us) image — he is shown a virgin as beautiful and white as the Tree of Life.  This virgin, who we know as Mary, is presented to Nephi as “the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh” (1 Ne. 11:18).  Mary had the baby Jesus in her arms, and although we aren’t given this detail, was conceivably nursing the Child.  In response to his inquiry about the tree, this is what Nephi is shown — and he understands these images to represent the love of God.  It is amazing how this Book of Mormon vision fits so perfectly the ancient conception of what the Tree of Life represented.

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Items of Interest

Oldest Known Bible Goes Online

LONDON, England (CNN) — The world’s oldest known Christian Bible goes online Monday — but the 1,600-year-old text doesn’t match the one you’ll find in churches today.

The Codex also includes much of the Old Testament adopted by early Greek-speaking Christians.

Discovered in a monastery in the Sinai desert in Egypt more than 160 years ago, the handwritten Codex Sinaiticus includes two books that are not part of the official New Testament and at least seven books that are not in the Old Testament.

The New Testament books are in a different order, and include numerous handwritten corrections — some made as much as 800 years after the texts were written, according to scholars who worked on the project of putting the Bible online. The changes range from the alteration of a single letter to the insertion of whole sentences.

And some familiar — very important — passages are missing…

This article is from CNN.com and I don’t really agree with everything it says, but if you want to read more, see here.

The official website for the project is here.

Literature on Early Christian Priesthood

The FAIR Blog has a great post by Keller listing some of the best resources available on the internet regarding early Christian priesthood history and structure.  He provides links to a large number of articles and presentations that have been given by LDS scholars on the topic.  Much thanks to “Keller” for putting this valuable information together!

You can see the post here.

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Daniel Peterson: “The Temple as a Place of Ascent to God”

I just read on MormonConferences.org that Professor Daniel Peterson will be giving a presentation entitled “The Temple as a Place of Ascent to God” on Sunday, July 12. The location will be 4517 W. Mille Lacs Drive, South Jordan, Utah 84095 (the Daybreak Stake Center near the new Oquirrh Mountain Temple) .  For those of you in Utah, you won’t want to miss this!
Unfortunately, I will not be able to be in attendance, but I would love to hear about what Dr. Peterson has to say. If anyone is going to be there and taking notes, please let me know!

Update: I just read that Bryce Haymond, of www.TempleStudy.com, will be there taking notes. I highly recommend checking out Bryce’s site soon after the event is supposed to take place, as I’m sure he’ll have some great notes!

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The Orphic Gold Tablets: A “Ritual for the Dead”

In my last post on the Orphic Gold Tablets (“Arriving in the Afterlife and the Importance of Memory for Salvation”), I discussed the tablets’ instructions for the soul as it arrives in the Netherworld, and how the soul there encounters a scene very reminiscent of Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life and its surroundings.  The soul is to choose the fountain of living waters (of Memory) in order to progress towards immortal glory.  I also discussed the important role of Memory, both figurative and literal, in the soul being able to pass by the guardians in order to take the next step of their journey. (For more info on how to improve your own memory, check out www.4aBetterMemory.com)

We now move on to that next phase — a system the authors of Instructions for the Netherworld: The Orphic Gold Tablets call “a ritual for the dead.” Our understanding of this ritual and its place in the journey of the Afterlife comes principally from two tablets found at ancient Pelinna in Thessaly. According to Bernabé and San Cristóbal, these inscriptions are extremely important and have revolutionized what is known about the “Orphic” afterlife journey (p. 61).  I post here the text of the longer of the two inscriptions:

You have just died and have just been born, thrice happy, on this day.

Tell Persephone that Bacchus himself has liberated you.

A bull, you leapt into the milk.

Swift, you leapt into the milk.

A ram, you fell into the milk.

You have wine, a happy privilege

and you will go under the earth, once you have accomplished the same rites as the other happy ones.

I don’t know about you, but this text just didn’t do much for me when I first read it. However, the commentary of the authors greatly enlightens the significance of these rather enigmatic words. The authors initially reason that they must either be part of funerary rites or a part of the initiation. The rather odd references to milk and wine should probably be understood as referring to offerings/libations that accompany the utterance of the formulas (p. 63).  Whether these rites were performed at a funeral or at the initiation is not known.

A Death that is Life — Rebirth into Godhood

The inscription begins with a narrator addressing the deceased, proclaiming that their death is a happy experience in which the individual is at the same time reborn.  Others of the Orphic tablets go into greater detail concerning this rebirth and the initiate’s newly acquired status (p. 64):

–You have been born a god, from the man that you were.

–Happy and fortunate, you will be god, from mortal that you were.

–Come, Caecilia Secundina, legitimately changed into a goddess.

The authors note that the inscriptions, without a doubt, have to do with a “mystery ritual, in which happiness after death is promised” (p. 64). This happiness (trisolbie — “thrice happy”) is linked to the achievement of a particular knowledge, generally proceeding from initiation. Sophocles, with regard to the mysteries, declared (cited p. 64):

Thrice happy those mortals who, having carried out the initiatory rites head for Hades, since life is reserved for them, whereas the others suffer great evils.

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BYU Professor Donald Parry to Help with New Hebrew Bible

Some great news (news to me, anyways) about BYU’s Professor Donald Parry and his great new opportunity, from Professor Jim Davila’s PaleoJudaica.com blog, no less:

DonaldParry

Photo by University Communications, BYU

PROFESSOR DONALD W. PARRY has been named as one of about two dozen editors of Biblia Hebraica Quinta. He will be working on the book of Isaiah.

This article in TC gives background to Biblia Hebraica Quinta.

Congratulations to Dr. Parry! This new version of the Hebrew Bible will be a great contribution, as it will incorporate (or at least compare with) alternate versions of the text besides the Masoretic, including the Dead Sea Scrolls and other texts that don’t match up entirely with the later accepted versions.  I’m sure it will take years to produce, but I will be excited to see it when its done!

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