Philo Sofee wrote:I suspect it is entirely unintentional on her part, but Margaret Barker seems to me to be a singular powerful source of giving Mormonism a stab in the heart with a saber. It didn't dawn on me until reading her truly intelligent analysis in her text "Temple Theology in the Gospel of John" (2014) why Mormons have more or less faded in their enthusiasm for her.
It was a good symbiotic relationship for a decade or so, with Mormons touting her books and helping sell many more tens of thousands of them to an audience she perhaps at first had no idea even existed. So, of course, she participated with them in several conferences, and symposia, writing articles which worked on themes related to Mormonism and enjoying the ride around the world of scholarship. This is not to say she is scheming, not at all. I see her as truly genuine in her endeavors to elucidate the Biblical World, and her scholarship is Mercea Eliade style only the focus for her is the First Temple as background to everything in the ancient Jewish, Early Christian world. She makes the Bible come alive again with her inclusion of extra canonical materials that are enjoyable to re-read, and compare.
But the cooling off has had to come about since she has no shied away from her most interesting theme of First Temple background for Jewish restoration religious spirituality. She has not wavered, and has demonstrated through historical exegesis and intriguing interpretation that the mission of Jesus Christ was for one thing. The restoration of First Temple Jewish truth and religion. And what was the actual temple restoration involved?
The bringing back of the Menorah, the budding rod of Aaron, the Holy Spirit, and the Worship of the Mother who gave birth to the universe. And this occurred in the Holy of Holies! The Heavenly Mother was the CORE of the Holy of Holies. What was her role? Giving birth to the universe in time and material which leads also to the birth of her Divine Son.
This demonstrates that, to the consternation of Mormonism, the temple ceremony of Mormonism is nothing like the actual original work/ritual in the ancient Jewish Temple. The Mormon temple materials are fobbing from Freemasonry, a rather modern (nothing more ancient of it than 1700) tissue of rituals literally having nothing in common with anything near ancient Jewish concern, ritual, religion, or history, except in name only. It is as much a guess concerning Hyrum Abiff as it is concerning Solomon's temple. Barker's materials are solidly in the line and arena of ancient Judaism, as we know of it with what sources we possess. The entire philosophy of the ancient Jewish mystical temple is not concerned with baptizing for the dead, or even marrying for eternity. The concept of marriage concerning a man and woman is concerned with the reconciliation and joining of opposites, not the solidifying of a man and woman in their own form for eternity as eternal male and eternal female. It is about the many becoming the one, such as Jesus prayed for mystically in John 17, a chapter Mormons continually misunderstand its true meaning concerning reality as Jesus was asking God for Him and the others. The eternal family, with parents and children is not Judaism's conceptualization, it is the actual mystical joining of all into the One. That is what is eternal. And it is the MOTHER who is central to that joining with power and love. This you will not find in Mormonism nor its temples. But that is the core of Jesus' religious work, the rejoining of the many into the One. Barker shows this from very many fascinating angles and use of ancient documents and comments from ancients' understanding.
Jewish First Temple Hopes and meaning and philosophy and religion is simply by no possible stretch of even a light year's imagination is anything similar to what Mormonism does, says, or claims about its own temple work. Barker demonstrates this consistently and rather powerfully. The power of her material is, she doesn't have Mormonism in her sights at all. It doesn't even concern her, even though dozens of Mormon scholars have used her work to further their own biased agenda, who now see "temple" in absolutely everything in any scripture they can possibly discuss! They have so overblown the parallels and theme that it is all lost in a hazy overall glaze of everything ever said, thought or written has to do with the temple anciently, a simply ridiculous line of thinking.
Barker has never joined Mormonism regardless of what the Mormon scholars wooing her have said to her or praised her work, because for her, it isn't about which religion is true (another huge difference with her work and Mormon scholars!). It is about what was the ancient Jewish world about? Can we learn about it using the ancient writings of Jews (whether canonical or not), Greeks, or whoever has talked religious philosophy, and realize what Jesus actually was about? That is the theme, and has she ever stuck to her guns on it.
There is a lesson in this. The agenda of Barker is truth. Interpretation takes her in paths no one else dares go, because she has no goal to reach no matter what... except... what is the truth, not worrying about who can I please, or which group shall I join and get along with. And her ideas are argued, properly so, as she herself has said.
Her ideas that Jesus and all who follow him, when he was baptized was at that moment also resurrected, as all are who are baptized is nothing close to the Mormon doctrine, temple or otherwise. This too is another way in which she is so different and non-usable for any Christian group to latch onto and say here is confirmation of our own views! One does not die first in order to be resurrected. One is resurrected immediately during their own baptism. The only view Barker wants to verify is God's. This shows in her materials, much to the consternation of pretty much every organized religion out there.
I had a e-mail conversation with her years ago...I can't remember all the subject matter. I will go back through my old G-mail accounts and see if there is anything she wrote that might be interesting to this thread.