Item Detail
-
7754
-
46
-
50
-
English
-
The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony
-
Dialogue : A Journal of Mormon Thought
-
Winter 1987
-
20
-
33-76
-
This article traces the endowment ceremony from the formative period in Kirtland through the 1980s. Joseph Smith left no direct statement of how the endowment ceremony came to be. In relating the ceremony to Masonry, Buerger observes that there are parallels, though not with reference to the rites practiced in Kirtland. He discusses the possible influence of friends on Joseph Smith , as well as Joseph Smith's own association with Masonry in Nauvoo. He notes the similarities in the ceremonies, particularly with reference to signs, tokens, penalties (though he does not discuss these three things), and prayer circles, but also notes that the creation and fall narrative, covenants, and washings and anointings have no parallel. The temple ceremony cannot be explained as wholesale borrowing from Masonry, but neither can it be explained as completely unrelated. Joseph Smith's associates interpreted the similarities as evidence that Masonry was a corrupt form of the endowment. The author notes, however, that recent research has shown that Masonry is not really of ancient origin, and therefore is not an ancient source for the endowment. One interesting set of statistics: in 1840, only 147 men in Illinois and 2,027 in the U.S. were Masons; by the time of the Mormon exodus, approximately 1,366 males in Nauvoo had been initiated into the Masonic order. After the exodus to Utah, endowments were recommenced in the Old Council House in Salt Lake City. No written version of the endowment was made, but in 1877 Brigham Young had it committed to writing. Brigham Jr., Wilford Woodruff, and John D.T. McAllister did the work. The concluding lecture in the St. George endowment included the Adam-God doctrine, but it is uncertain whether this was taught in all the temples. The endowment also, at one time, included an oath of vengeance. Negative publicity in connection with the Smoot hearings probably led to a deemphasis on this. The period from 1900 to 1930 was a transitional period, in which this and several other changes were made. These included certain changes in the style of the garments, such as shortening the sleeves. In recent times, advances in technology have also influenced the ceremony. The author also gives some quantitative trends, including several tables and charts.
-
A Frontier Life : Jacob Hamblin, Explorer and Indian Missionary
A Gift Given, A Gift Taken : Washing, Anointing, and Blessing the Sick Among Mormon Women
A Great Little Saint : A Brief Look at the Life of Henry William Bigler
American Apocrypha : Essays on the Book of Mormon
A Mormon Midrash? : LDS Creation Narratives Reconsidered
"A New Future Requires a Past"
An Intimate Chronicle : The Journals of William Clayton
Assimilation and Ambivalence : The Mormon Reaction to Americanization
Defending Zion : George Q. Cannon and the California Mormon Newspaper Wars of 1856-1857
Differing Visions : Dissenters in Mormon History
Disciplinary Democracy : Mormon Violence and the Construction of the Modern American State
Divine Providence : The Wreck and Rescue of the Julia Ann
Du Secret Dans Le Mormonisme
Eternity in the Ether
Freemasonry and the Latter-day Saint Temple Endowment Ceremony
Fundamentalist Attitudes toward the Church : The Sermons of Leroy S. Johnson
In Sacred Loneliness: The Documents
Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-making Heresy
Irish Mormons: Reconciling Identity in Global Mormonism
Joseph's Temples : The Dynamic Relationship Between Freemasonry and Mormonism
Junius and Joseph : Presidential Politics and the Assassination of the First Mormon Prophet
Kirtland, Nauvoo, and Zodiac : A Commentary on Early Mormon Temples
Kirtland Through the Christian-Masonic, Neo-Hebraic, Neo-Pagan Looking Glass : Architecture, Ritual, Gender, and Race
Masonry and Mormonism in Utah, 1847-1984
Mormonism's 'Anti-Masonick Bible'
Mormon Parallels : A Bibliographic Source
Mormons in Congress, 1851-2000
Old Mormon Nauvoo and Southeastern Iowa
"O My Mother": Mormon Fundamentalist Mothers in Heaven and Women's Authority
On the Problem and Promise of Alex Caldiero’s Sonosophy : Doing Dialogical Coperformative Ethnography; Or, Enter the Poetarium
People of Paradox : A History of Mormon Culture
Put On Your Strength, O Daughters of Zion': Claiming Priesthood and Knowing the Mother
Race and the Making of the Mormon People
Reconstruction and Mormon America
Restless Pilgrim : Andrew Jenson's Quest for Latter-day Saint History
'Similarity of Priesthood in Masonry' : The Relationship between Freemasonry and Mormonism
Solemn Covenant : The Mormon Polygamous Passage
The Angel and the Beehive : The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation
The Civil War Years in Utah : The Kingdom of God and the Territory that did not Fight
The Latter Day Saints in Ohio : Writing the History of Mormonism's Middle Period
The Millenarian World of Early Mormonism
The Mormon Temple and Mormon Ritual
The Oxford Handbook of Mormonism
The Windows of Heaven Revisited : The 1899 Tithing Reformation
What Jane James Saw
Your Sister in the Gospel : The Life of Jane Manning James, a Nineteenth-Century Black Mormon -
A Book of Mormons
A Comprehensive History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
After 150 Years : The Latter-day Saints in Sesquicentennial Perspective
A Journey to Great Salt Lake City, with a Sketch of the History, Religion, and Customs of the Mormons, and an Introduction on The Religious Movement in the United States
A Kingdom Transformed : Themes in the Development of Mormonism
A Strange Thing in the Land : The Return of the Book of Enoch
Brigham Young : American Moses
David O. McKay : Apostle to the World, Prophet of God
Deseret News Church Almanac
Harold B. Lee : Prophet and Seer
Heber C. Kimball and Family, The Nauvoo Years
Heber C. Kimball : Mormon Patriarch and Pioneer
'I'm Here for the Cash' : Max Florence and the Great Mormon Temple
James Adams : Early Springfield Mormon and Freemason
Jehovah as the Father : The Development of the Mormon Jehovah Doctrine
Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism
Joseph Smith and the Masons
Joseph Smith and the Presidency, 1844
Joseph Smith's Introduction of Temple Ordinances and the 1844 Mormon Succession Question
Latter-day Saint Prayer Circles
Life in Utah; or, The Mysteries and Crimes of Mormonism
Mormon Enigma : Emma Hale Smith
Mormonism and Freemasonry : The Illinois Episode
Mormonism and Masonry : A Utah Point of View
Mormonism in Transition : A History of the Latter-day Saints, 1890-1930
Mormonism : Its Leaders and Designs
Mormonism : Shadow or Reality
Mormonism Unvailed : Or, a Faithful Account of That Singular Imposition and Delusion From Its Rise to the Present Time
Mormonism Unveiled
Nauvoo : Kingdom on the Mississippi
No Man Knows My History : The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet
Taken From the Journal of Thomas Ashment, Sr.
The Adam-God Doctrine
The Earliest Reference Guides to the Book of Mormon : Windows Into the Past
The Endowment House 1855-1889
'The Fulness of the Priesthood' : The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice
The House of the Lord : A Study of Holy Sanctuaries Ancient and Modern
The Law of Adoption : One Phase of the Development of the Mormon Concept of Salvation, 1830-1900
The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri : An Egyptian Endowment
The Mormons
The Mormon Temple Experience
The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith
The Relationship of 'Mormonism' and Freemasonry
The Word of Wisdom : From Principle to Requirement
The Words of Joseph Smith : The Contemporary Accounts of the Nauvoo Discourses of the Prophet Joseph
The Writing of Joseph Smith's History
'They Might Have Known That He Was Not a Fallen Prophet' : The Nauvoo Journal of Joseph Fielding
Unpublished Revelations of the Prophets and Presidents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
Where Are the All-Seeing Eyes? The Origins, Use, and Decline of Early Mormon Symbolism
Wilford Woodruff's Journals