Joseph Smith Papers

We had a Spring Workshop at work last week and we had a guy names Steve Harper come and speak to us from the Church History Department. He had been working on the Joseph Smith Papers and had a few interesting things to say. He was a pretty dry speaker mostly because he just stood upfront and read his remarks. He jokingly said he tried to be a seminary teacher but the students hated him and he hated the students so he found himself in the Church History Department.

When he finished he opened it up for questions and he said a few things that I found interesting. People were interested in his connection to the Master Masons who claim that they have the original temple ceremony from the time of Christ. He said that our temple ceremony was not a microwaved version of the Mason's practices. He said that many men were Masons at that time and he said for a witness of the difference you should look to a quote from Heber J. Grant who would have been very familiar with the Mason's practices and who was also endowed in our temple. After his endowment he said in effect, I was endowed with power from on high, signifying that what he experienced in his endowment was very different from what he experienced with the Masons.

There were also some questions about how the temple ceremony has changed over time. When he answered this question he wanted to impress upon us that everything the Lord does among us has a human fingerprint on it. Just like the brother of Jared who had God light the stones for their journey across the ocean. He allows us to prepare lessons in the best way we see fit. He does not usually say, "This is the way it HAS to be done." This definitely helped me understand how our temple ceremony could have changed over time. There are messages we should be getting in the temple ceremony through words and symbols and there could certainly be different routes to get us there.  He also spoke about how when we receive revelation it comes through to us very clearly but we can not always translate that revelation into our imperfect fallen language for others to understand.