Margaret Barker Decimates Mormonism at its Core

[_Kishkumen]

One could say that I have no dog in this fight, but I will happily opine, on the further understanding that it is an opinion offered outside of my field.

First of all, let me say that I find Barker’s ideas really intriguing and loads of fun. She is creative and willing to go out on a limb to fit the evidence into her temple paradigm.

She also has her critics, who disagree with her methodology. As I said, no dog in this fight, and I like her ideas, BUT, that does not mean she is correct. I think she does have a kind of idiosyncratically Christian ax to grind, which, to differ with my esteemed colleague Philo Sofee, actually makes her nicely compatible with certain LDS apologists in method of not always in conclusions.

But I am unapologetically a temple enthusiast. I usually give temple interpretations the benefit of the doubt. My view is that there are many ways to read texts, and if LDS people want to make meaning with their temple cultus in mind, that’s their prerogative, and I actually enjoy it.

But that is not the same as history as most academic historians endeavor to practice it. Neither Barker nor LDS apologist-scholars who are looking in the mirror and the text at the same time are doing what many academic historians believe they are doing. That said, I see plenty of room for believers to read the world through their beliefs within their communities of faith.

So, I don’t give a fig whether Barker sees something in Solomon’s Temple that is different from Freemasonic or Mormon readings. While it is true that her reference point and data sets are different from LDS folk, I would argue that both are offering theological readings with questionable grounding in the early first millennium BCE.

Now, what I am saying is not based on my own reading if Barker’s book. It is coming from the little I have read of her other work, and the comments of both fans and critics. Let me reiterate that I love temple readings, and I love seeing the past through a particular theology so long as people are open about what they are doing in this endeavor.

[_grindael]

Excellent analysis Professor. Please keep us appraised. I have been commenting about Barker and the misuse of her views by the Mopologists for years. It's what they do, cherry pick anything they can find that sort of resembles what they want and then it's a "hit", oh... Smith restored it! It's a game perfected by Hugh Nibley and continues on to this day. Nibley has now been totally debunked, and this will be no different because the Ancient Semitic religions are not anything like what modern Christians think they were. (including Mormons) The "Israelites" borrowed much of their culture and evolved their gods from other cultures around them, the "mother god" being one of them. This is simply devastating to the Book of Mormon and other pseudepigrapha penned by Smith.

[_Gadianton]

I think this is a very interesting project, Philo. There is something very Nibleyesque in the Old School's affection for Barker.

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.

As a lad I became enthralled with Nibley, notably his reconstructing the Gospel from records crying up from the dust of the earth. He was excited about the Nag Hammadi library, and I bought the English translation of it to follow along from Deseret Book. I believe the home run was hit within the Gospel of Phillip, where a reference exists to "The mirrored bridal chamber."

"How could he have known!"

That appeared to me to be the depth of Nibley's fascination with the ancient world, regarding Mormon theology at least. I don't recall anything deeper than that in his temple research, but unfortunately, all of my Nibley books went back to the dust from which they came, in a landfill somewhere in San Bernardino probably, and so I can't go back and see if I'd missed something.

What did the mirrors represent? What was the marriage about? Well, the notes provided by the translators of that Nag Hammadi volume were more interesting than Nibley's comments, and not really congruent. I believe there was something about God having male and female natures with an emphasis on the female.

The apologists are on a scavenger hunt for superficial similarities between the ancient world and Joseph Smith, to demonstrate no more than Joseph Smith couldn't have been the author of his ideas. This, to reinforce a right-wing patriarchal order, without actually exploring the significance of the ideas in any kind of systematic way.

[_huckelberry]

I'd like to hear what other scholars say about Margaret Barker. She sounds flaky to me.

Is an ambiguous academic record really the equivalent of "flaky?" And is that record the only reason for your opinion?

I think I am reading Physics Guy well enough to say he has not determined that Margaret Barker is flaky, he is wondering. She is enough out of the mainstream to bring that question up. In saying that I do not mean to say she cannot be correct or making observations and interpretations of some value.
One could use some caution.

[_Physics Guy]

Yes, that's what I mean. Somebody outside the mainstream could certainly be onto something. And even that paragon of evangelical Christian thought, C.S. Lewis, had no earned degrees beyond the B.A. In those days you didn't need a Ph.D. to be a professor.

Jewish worship of the divine Mother in the Holy of Holies just sounds too good to be true, though. If feminism was enshrined in ancient Judaism so centrally then how the heck did we end up with such thoroughly patriarchal scriptures and traditions? I'd love to think that Judeo-Christian traditions had this overlooked but really strong feminist stream, but it really just sounds too good to be true, given how history has run. So that's what strikes me as flaky-sounding in what I've heard of Barker's theories. If Barker had had a thorough training in research then that would make me assume that she must at least have a plausible case no matter how much it surprises a non-expert like me, but as it is I can't help wondering.

Degrees do mean something. I wouldn't want to undergo an operation by a surgeon who lacked an M.D. If you're wrong in history or theoretical physics then usually nobody dies right away, the way they do in surgery, but it's not easy to be right in any of these fields. A smart person working hard for years has less chance to be right than a smart person who works hard after having learned from many other smart people who have worked hard for lifetimes.

[Guest]

Barker is creative but is regarded as very fringy by mainstream scholars. But as with evangelical apologists, Mormon apologists to a large degree rely on fringe scholarship. Mainline scholarship (academic Biblical studies) doesn't satisfy any of the various fundamentalisms that seem to think they need a veneer of scholarship to bolster their doctrines.

[_Philo Sofee]

Physics Guy
Jewish worship of the divine Mother in the Holy of Holies just sounds too good to be true, though. If feminism was enshrined in ancient Judaism so centrally then how the heck did we end up with such thoroughly patriarchal scriptures and traditions? I'd love to think that Judeo-Christian traditions had this overlooked but really strong feminist stream, but it really just sounds too good to be true, given how history has run. So that's what strikes me as flaky-sounding in what I've heard of Barker's theories. If Barker had had a thorough training in research then that would make me assume that she must at least have a plausible case no matter how much it surprises a non-expert like me, but as it is I can't help wondering.

Yep, can't blame you for having caution! Barker's main texts on demonstrating this are two, possibly three.
1. The Mother of the Lord
2. The Great High Priest
3. Temple Theology in the Gospel of John

Raphael Patai also wrote a book that went through 3 editions and enlargements "The Hebrew Goddess."

Eugene Seaich wrote a book dealing with this "The Mystery of the Jerusalem Temple, The Embracing Cherubim and the At-One-Ment" (or something close to that, I can't find my copy at the moment).

Other scholars have written many scholarly articles in the peer reviewed literature, Steve Wiggins, (The Myth of the Asherah: Lion Lady and Serpent Goddess) Mark Smith, ("The Early History of God," and "Untold Stories, The Bible and Ugaritic Studies in the Twentieth Century," both good solid standard scholarly items) William G. Dever wrote a book on it, "Did God Have a Wife?" He's good standard scholar. Frank Moore Cross, Jr., "Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic," another good solid scholarly standard peer review book, well published, quite famous.

There are literally from both male and female scholars hundreds (I don't exaggerate) of articles on the Asherah (the Mother Goddess) arguing both for and against it in the library stacks of BYU, or even better universities such as University of Chicago, or UCLA, or even Michigan State, and Wayne State.

John Day "Asherah in the Hebrew Bible," there is also J.S. DeMoor's "Asherah" in the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, as well as David Noel Freedman, "Yahweh of Samaria and His Asherah," in the Biblical Archaeologist. There is further Olan's "Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh," along with Ze'ev Meshel, "Did Yahweh Have a Consort?" in the BIblical Archaeology Review, and Geo Widengren "The King and the Tree of Life.

The list is rather huge, and the argument was intense there for a decade or so. I suspect the majority are too uncomfortable for the reality so they have opted out of accepting the actual evidence, archaeological and linguistic, and said no Mother Goddess. I think it's very powerful myself, and the scholars biases have gotten the better of them.

[_DonBradley]

Hey Kerry!

I think you'd enjoy my book on the lost 116 pages, brother.

If your read it, then regarding Aaron's rod that budded, see what is explicitly laid out in Chapters 8 and 11. Regarding the Menorah, look for the implications in Chapters 9 and 11. Regarding the Holy Spirit, see Chapter 14.

Regarding the Mother, read closely in Chapter 14, linking this back with the discussion of the interpreters and their sealing up in Chapter 3. There is material I want to add to a revised version of that Chapter 14, for a second edition, that gets at this more directly, but a close reading of Chapter 3 along with the Mosiah 8 discussion from Chapter 14 and the discussion of Mosiah the First's wife in Chapter 14 may offer a glimpse of what I'm seeing regarding the sacred feminine there. If that one's not clear, we should talk about it sometime.

In fact, I'd be delighted to discuss all of it with you. I think the esoteric elements would be very much up your alley!

Don

[_Philo Sofee]

Hey Kerry!

I think you'd enjoy my book on the lost 116 pages, brother.

If your read it, then regarding Aaron's rod that budded, see what is explicitly laid out in Chapters 8 and 11. Regarding the Menorah, look for the implications in Chapters 9 and 11. Regarding the Holy Spirit, see Chapter 14.

Regarding the Mother, read closely in Chapter 14, linking this back with the discussion of the interpreters and their sealing up in Chapter 3. There is material I want to add to a revised version of that Chapter 14, for a second edition, that gets at this more directly, but a close reading of Chapter 3 along with the Mosiah 8 discussion from Chapter 14 and the discussion of Mosiah the First's wife in Chapter 14 may offer a glimpse of what I'm seeing regarding the sacred feminine there. If that one's not clear, we should talk about it sometime.

In fact, I'd be delighted to discuss all of it with you. I think the esoteric elements would be very much up your alley!

Don

I'm going to go check and see if Deseret Book has it tomorrow. Thanks, and yes it will be interesting to see just what you are up to, because you are treading thin ice here. The First Temple materials Barker uses is not in the program of Mormonism, and is considered apostate, odder than all get out, but it is. So, yeah, I'll give your book a look. Then lets see where it takes us... hope you have a happy holidays.....good to see you again.

[_DonBradley]

I'm going to go check and see if Deseret Book has it tomorrow. Thanks, and yes it will be interesting to see just what you are up to, because you are treading thin ice here. The First Temple materials Barker uses is not in the program of Mormonism, and is considered apostate, odder than all get out, but it is. So, yeah, I'll give your book a look. Then lets see where it takes us... hope you have a happy holidays.....good to see you again.

Good to see you, brother!

Deseret Book probably doesn't have it yet. They're slow on acquiring non-Deseret titles this time of year. They likely will eventually.

It's readily available on Amazon, however.

Don