I'm curious about the temple rituals that were present in the time of Solomon (or whenever the temple was constructed).

Are there any similarities between the ancient rites and the ceremonies currently or recently practiced in LDS temples?

Where can I find information about this?

Thanks so much for your help.

But blame the Freemasons for that bit of boloney. They claimed their organization and ceremonies came from the time of Solomon's temple, but that yarn was made up. JS just appropriated the masonic ceremonies and put his own twist on them.

The ancient Hebrew temples were used only by the priests. The general population only came to hand over their sacrificial animals, not to dress up in special clothing, make covenants, do handshakes or utter special phrases. They didn't pass through the veil.

Not even close. Here's some info (check out linked sources for more in-depth info): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon%27s_Temple
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Temple

Oops, this was meant as a reply to the OP



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/09/2012 10:11AM by wittyname.

The answer to your question can be found quite readily in the physical design of the Temples. Ancient Temples tended to follow an east-west axis or other celestial alignment. The deity or arc of the covenant was kept in a Holy of Holies that only the priests approached. Semetic Temples to Yahweh, Ashera or Astarte often had two pillars flanking the entrance, symbolic of the left hand, right hand and center path of the Tree of Life or Kabbalah. Masonic Lodges and older Christian churches have preserved the east-west alignment, and Masonic Lodges have preserved the pillars at the entrance and a floor tesselation that delineates the 'limits of travel' of the Sun between the solstices, but Mormon Temples have preserved nothing of the ancient Temples.

Stray Mutt is right. The Jewish temple was all about making sacrifices to god, like what happened in public Greek and Roman religious rites. Read the Old Testament to see what kind of stuff occurred in the temple. Its not some great secret.

It was the ancient mystery cults that had secret initiation ceremonies, passwords, and gnosis that was revealed only to the elect. Mormon temples have more in common with those pagan mystery cults than with Jewish worship.

The sacrificial nature of ancient Jewish temple worship was passed on to early Christianity, except the ‘sacrifice’ was now the bread and wine associated with the reenactment of the Last Supper, which to the early Christians became the body and blood of Jesus (hence the frequent accusations of cannibalism that were leveled against them). Jesus was for them the true sacrifice, which was made present in the consecrated bread and wine, that did away with the need for the temple sacrifices. Those early Christians didn’t think it was a coincidence that the temple of Jerusalem was destroyed within a generation after Jesus’ death and never rebuilt.

The older Christian churches have preserved this notion of sacrifice in their liturgies. Hence, for example, the catholics refer to their worship services as the ‘holy sacrifice of the Mass’.

For a concise comparison of the ancient temples and the Mormon temples, see "The Jerusalem Temple vs the Mormon Temples" at http://packham.n4m.org/temples4.htm

The Temple of Solomon was very literally just a slaughterhouse and barbecue. Really no similarity with Mormon rituals at all. No handhakes, no movies, no "creation play." Just lots of blood and roasting meat.

As was already pointed out, the masons are responsible for the folklore surrounding Solomon's temple that feeds into the Mormon temple ceremony. You can actually read the Old Testament and get very detailed descriptions of what happened in the Old Testament temple. Basically lots of sacrifice, priestly washings, and maintenence of temple furniture. The function is completely different from that of the Mormon temple.

Another thing that I have seen some Mormon apologists do is claim that several ancient sects of Christianity (primarily the Cerinthians and Marcionites) practiced baptism for the dead. This claim is very misleading as well and requires a very selective reading of several passages from the Early Church Fathers. I can provide more info on this if you wish but, suffice it to say, that the "baptism for the dead" looks absolutely nothing like the Mormon version in both form and substance.

You can learn all about the ancient jewish temple in LDS Sunday School, Seminary, BYU classes... That's where I learned it, covering from the first moving tabernacle under Moses to the temple in Jerusalem at the time of Jesus. We studied its floor plan and all about the rituals performed therein, including the meaning of the rituals.

And the only similarity I can think of is the presence of an altar and a curtain hiding the most sacred room (that only one person ever got to enter in ancient days).

This is all very easy to clear up:

Everything the bible says about the temple was translated incorrectly. The evil catholic great & abominable church/whore didn't want people to know about the endowment. The devil truly is a cunning enemy.

He also influenced the printing press guy to omit anything relating to the endowment from Mormon's book. You know, the one that contains the fulness of the gospel? Yeah.. that one.

Oh, if only Lucifer weren't so gosh-darn smart all the time. He makes it seem like Joseph just ripped off freemasonry and made up a bunch of other shit that doesn't even make sense!

(jesus wept)

A devil who can make entire ancient American civilizations vanish from the archeological record wouldn't have much trouble snipping a few things from the bible here and there. I mean, we're dealing with someone who cunningly planted dinosaur bones and other fossils to mislead geologists about the true age of our 6000 year old earth. Its a marvelous work and a wonder that missionaries can convert anyone at all given Satan's web of lies.

"You put your left foot it, you take your left foot out; you put your left foot in, and you shake it all about...".

That's what it's all about.