Jerusalem: Link to the past

For those of you who missed it here is the video on Jerusalem KSL showed between sessions during this past conference:

Jesus Christ on the Tree of Life

Burne-Jones' mosaic of the Crucifixion was unveiled in November 1894. It shows Christ on the Tree between Adam and Eve, for by his death on the Cross he undid their death from the Tree of Eden.

Acts 5

29 ¶Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to ^aobey God rather than men.

30 The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and ^ahanged on a tree.

31 Him hath God exalted ^awith his right hand to be a ^bPrince and a ^cSaviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and ^dforgiveness of sins.

32 And we are his ^awitnesses of these things; and so is also the ^bHoly Ghost, whom God hath ^cgiven to them that obey him.

The apostle Peter in this passage refers to the cross upon which Jesus Christ was crucified as a tree. Perhaps Peter's purpose in doing this was to equate the cross with the tree of life. When Nephi was shown his father's vision of the fruit bearing tree of life he asked to know the meaning of the tree. In response Nephi was shown a vision of Mary, the mother of Jesus, bearing the Christ-child in her arms. Ancient Judea had a tradition of an ancient mother goddess who was known as Asherah, Astarte and Wisdom among other names and who was the mother of the son of God. Her symbol was a tree. Nephi, who was a product of this culture, instantly recognized the symbolism and saw that the tree in his dream was a symbol of Mary (who was the earthly embodiment of the archetypical heavenly mother) and the fruit of the tree was a symbol of the son of God. Jesus, being depicted as hanging on a tree during his crucifixion draws upon this mother-goddess symbolism. He is the fruit of the tree of life. (For more on this I highly recommend a fascinating article by Daniel C. Peterson entitled "Nephi and His Asherah" published in the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.)

In Proverbs 8 this divine mother (Wisdom) speaks in the first person as the tree of life and teaches about her fruit:

19 My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver.

The name Asherah is the feminine Hebrew form of the word asher which means "happy" and Lehi in the account of his dream may have been engaging in word play when he said the following (1 Nephi 8:10):

10 And it came to pass that I beheld a ^atree, whose ^bfruit was desirable to make one ^chappy. (emphasis added)

Just as the fruit was partaken by Nephi and his faithful followers in his dream we as Latter-Day Saints also partake of emblems of Jesus Christ every week in our sacrament service. When we eat food we assimilate it and it becomes part of us (you are what you eat). Metaphorically the Lord intends for us to partake of the Savior's divine nature and take upon ourselves his identity.

Judean terracotta figurine

Additionally, it is interesting to note that anciently the mother-goddess was also associated with bread. Archaeologist in the Holy Land have found hundreds of terracotta figurines depicting females which scholars have identified with Asherah. They all date roughly to the time of Nephi and before and some have been found clasping a round object to their breast. This object is sometimes interpreted as a tambourine but William Dever has interpreted the objects as loaves of bread (see here for his statement regarding this. The discussion begins at about 17:45). Jeremiah 44 mentions that the people of his day were baking cakes to the queen of heaven and that they attributed their good fortune to this practice.

During the Savior's mortal ministry he associated himself with bread and identified himself as the "bread of life" in John 6 and associated the sacramental bread with his body during the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26). Likewise, its easy to see an analogy between bread baking in an oven and an infant in his mother's womb and this may have been part of the divine mother/son iconography.

Tree of Life = the Mother = the Cross

Plan of Salvation

Every missionary of my generation was at least aware of and probably used the familiar diagram which laid out in visual form the Church's teachings regarding our premortal, mortal and post mortal existence. The diagram is an attempt to simplify the Church's teachings and help investigators understand these new ideas.

While the diagram is very useful, especially in missionary work and when teaching children, and not inaccurate per se I do believe there is another way the diagram could be presented that is more consistent with the plan as it is presented in the temple. I have put together a diagram illustrating this alternative but I really want to emphasize that this is all very tentative and subject to revision. I do believe, however, that this diagram is consistent with the teachings of the Church and the teachings found in ancient and modern temples, so here is the diagram, let me know what you think:

You'll notice that the diagram is chiastic which I believe is significant and that it is consistent with this diagram which is fairly well known: