LDS Is Heavenly Mother God?

Resha Caner

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The word Elohim is a plural. However one should know when to make it singular when there is a singular pronoun in the sentence structure.

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:.... So God created man in his own image, in the image of the Gods created he him; male and female created he them.

That is the way the structure of the sentence reads, you may not like it, mankind has denied if for thousands of years but it is the truth.

The vagaries of language will always allow people to misinterpret as they please. I choose to believe that Margaret Thatcher is the reincarnation of Queen Victoria, hence her statement in 1998 that "We have become a grandmother."
 
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Daniel Marsh

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In both testaments, there is abundant feminine imagery of God within a monotheistic context. More relevant to the discussion here is the ancient Jewish colony at Elephantine, an island on the Nile River, opposite Aswan, about 400 miles south of Cairo. Their documents from the late 5th century BC show that they worshiped both Yahweh and the goddess Ana-bethel. ,meaning "Anath, the house of El." Since in Hebraic culture, a wife is referred to as the husband's "house,"...Anath was understood as the God of Heaven's consort...Anath is often referred to as "the Lady of Heaven," especially in Egyptian culture." Like the Jews in Israel, the Elephantine Jews had their own Temple. The fact that these Jews had a feminine symbol of ultimate power meant that in many ways they had an equality with men that was sorely lacking in Israel. [Source: Leonard Swidler, "Biblical Affirmations of Woman," esp. p. 29.]

There is an article on that temple, but no reference to a goddess. Full text of "The Jewish Temple at Elephantine"

The Origin of the Jews in Elephantine on JSTOR

ELEPHANTINE – Encyclopaedia Iranica

Jewish colony at Elephantine goddess - Norton Safe Search

"Religious reasons too might have encouraged the Egyptians to take action against the Jews. Elephantine was known as land of the god Khnub. Originally Nubian, this god is represented as a ram-headed man. The sacrifices of the Jews on religious holidays at the temple, which probably included rams, would have caused hatred on part of the Egyptian priests."Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review

"According to Egyptian mythology, here was the dwelling place of Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts, who guarded and controlled the waters of the Nile from caves beneath the island. He was worshipped here as part of a late triad among the Egyptian pantheon of deities. The Elephantine Triad included Satis and Anuket. Satis was worshipped from very early times as a war goddess and protector of this strategic region of Egypt. When seen as a fertility goddess, she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile, which was identified as her daughter, Anuket. The cult of Satis originated in the ancient city of Swenet. Later, when the triad was formed, Khnum became identified as her consort and, thereby, was thought of as the father of Anuket. His role in myths changed later and another deity was assigned his duties with the river. At that time his role as a potter enabled him to be assigned a duty in the creation of human bodies."Elephantine - Wikipedia

http://arthistory.wisc.edu/ah505/articles/Rosenberg,_The_Jewish_Temple_at_Elephantine.pdf

"For example, reference was made in one of the archives to "Yahweh the God who dwells in the fortress of Elephantine."-K 12:2. Holocausts, meal offering, and most of the other traditional sacrificial ceremonies performed at the Temple of Solomon were performed at the temple of Elephantine alike....
Fate of the Elephantine Jewish Community

During the reign of Darius II Egyptian rebels threatened the security of Upper Egypt. First, The Jews of Elephantine sent a letter to some Persian official in which they complained against the Egyptian priests of the temple of Khnub and some other military personnel named Vidranga for committing some acts of destruction in their fortress and for burying a well where the Jews were used to drink. The other document dealt with the final destruction of the temple in 410 B.C. According to the document, the Egyptian priests of Khnub cooperated with Vidranga who sent his son Nefayan in command of an Egyptian army and ordered "the temple of the God Yahweh in the Fortress of Elephantine to be destroyed"(C 30: 4ff)

The Jews of Elephantine greatly lamented the destruction of their temple, just as the Jews did when the temple of Solomon at Jerusalem was destroyed more than a century before. They wore sackcloth, went into fasting, refrained from sexual intercourse, stopped anointing themselves with oil, and prohibited themselves from drinking wine.

The reason for the Egyptian violence towards the Jews is probably social as well as religious. For centuries the Egyptians were suppressed under foreigner rule. People from other lands, including Judea, have emigrated and settled in Egypt occupying prestigious positions. The Egyptians felt that they were being downplayed, not only by their direct conquerors, but also by other foreigners.

Religious reasons too might have encouraged the Egyptians to take action against the Jews. Elephantine was known as land of the god Khnub. Originally Nubian, this god is represented as a ram-headed man. The sacrifices of the Jews on religious holidays at the temple, which probably included rams, would have caused hatred on part of the Egyptian priests."
Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review

Leonard Swidler, "Biblical Affirmations of Woman - Norton Safe Search

Other academic sources online does not confirm Jewish worship of a goddess at that fortress --- the above sources.

But, I found your quote below, which does not appear to be verifiable from the sources we have about that fortress because of biases of those your author refers to.

In Archaeology there are minimalists and maxi-mists(misspelled). The above sources are minimalists which are better scholars because they reframe from reading into texts what is not there. Below your source is a maxi-mist, who reads into texts what they want to be there. That alone among Historians like myself refutes the claims made below.

I. FEMININE IMAGERY OF GOD
BIBLICAL PERIOD


A. A FEMININE GOD

Although the Hebraic tradition early perceived God to be transcendent, beyond limitations, including sex, it nevertheless persisted in referring to God in terms and images that included sexuality. It is inevitable that this would happen, for so many things which humans value highest are found in other human beings (who normally are female or male)-such as being a knowing, loving person-that to speak of God as “It” would denigrate God. Thus the tradition often speaks of God in masculine-and feminine-images, although it also continues to affirm God’s transcendence of sexuality and all else, following the apophatic way, the via negativa, what the Hindus call the path of neti neti (not this, not that). The masculine images of God in the Hebrew Bible are well known (e.g., God as father, jealous husband, warrior). They are far more pervasive throughout the Bible than feminine imagery of God, reflecting that patriarchal, male-oriented society. But the feminine divine imagery is there too, albeit in a much lesser degree. A selection of it will be given below. In order to appreciate better the trajectory which some of the female imagery of God followed, examples of how this imagery developed into the early Christian as well as the early Jewish era will be presented below in their chronological places.

But first it would be helpful to spell out in a little detail something of the Goddess-worshiping culture that lay behind, around, and within the biblical religion.

§1. Goddess Worship
The earliest evidence we have of human religious activity in the Old World points to the worship of the Goddess-the divine would seem to have first been worshiped as female. The archaeological excavations at the upper paleolithic levels (25,000-8,000 B.C.E.) have produced innumerable female statuettes that appear to be either figurines of the Goddess or perhaps at least attempts at sympathetic magic, endeavoring to induce the fertility that all life depended on (see Edwin O. James, Prehistoric Religion, pp. 147, 153; Barnes & Noble, 1961; J. Edgar Bruns, God as Woman, Woman as God, pp. 8-10; Paulist/Newman Press, 1973). There would appear to have been no male God at this early period (see Edwin O. James, The cult of the Mother Goddess, pp. 21 f.; Frederick A. Praeger, 1959). As the paleolithic period gave way to the mesolithic (8,000-4,000 B.C.E.) and the neolithic (4,000-2,500 B.C.E.), the worship of the Goddess became even more vigorous and explicit. All of the Old World areas that cradled major civilizations (i.e., complex societies in which towns and cities, and the differentiation of culture that accompanies them, developed) show strong evidence of having initially been Goddess worshiping. That includes the Indus Valley, the Near East, Old Europe (i.e., the Balkans, Asia Minor, and the Eastern Mediterranean islands), and Egypt.

The gradual shift away from total dominance of the Goddess (except perhaps with Egypt, whose history is even more complex than the others) to the participation of a clearly subordinate male God seems to have been connected with the development of animal husbandry, whence the role of paternity became apparent. There never was any question about the female’s essential role in bringing new life into the world; but the role of the male and sex was not always so obvious. Still, even at this stage the male God played a vastly subordinate role vis-a-vis the Goddess.

The role of the God, however, in a number of instances advanced to that of an equal and even that of a superior of the Goddess, apparently under the impact of waves of attacks of patriarchal, male God worshiping, animal-herding Indo-Europeans who came down out of the northern mountains, perhaps originally from around the Caspian Sea (see James, Cult of the Mother Goddess, pp. 47, 99, 138). They appear, e.g., as Hittite conquerors of Anatolia, sometime before 2,000 B.C.E., ranging eventually down into Palestine. In the second millennium B.C.E. the patriarchal father-God worshipers swept into almost all the Goddess-worshiping civilizations, from the Indus Valley on the east through Mesopotamia and Asia Minor to Old Europe on the west (see H. R. Hays, In the Beginnings, pp. Calif.; G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1963). Perhaps only Egypt was unconquered by the patriarchal Indo-Europeans, though even it was dominated at times by Asian nations that were probably “carriers” of Indo-European patriarchal ideas, e.g., the Hyksos in the seventeenth and sixteenth centuries B.C.E. Marija Gimbutas describes in detail the world of the early Goddess worshipers in Old Europe and notes that “it is then replaced by the patriarchal world with its different symbolism and its different values. This masculine world is that of the Indo-Europeans, which did not develop in Old Europe but was superimposed upon it. Two entirely different sets of mythical images met.... The earliest European civilization was savagely destroyed by the patriarchal element and it never recovered, but its legacy lingered in the substratum” (Marija Gimbutas, The Gods and Goddesses of Old Europe, p. 238; University of California Press, 1974).

§2. Male-God Invaders
A little should be noted about the characteristics of the God of those Indo-European tribes who over a period of centuries, perhaps starting in earnest in the latter half of the third millennium B.C.E., invaded in waves all of the existing civilizations. He was a father God, a warrior God, a supreme God, a God who dwelt in light and fire, on a mountaintop (the Indo-Europeans came from a mountainous area and perhaps originally worshiped volcanoes). He took the Goddess of the conquered nation as his heavenly consort and soon (usually) totally dominated her, as the Indo-Europeans dominated the conquered peoples. The Indo-European dead were said to dwell in “realms of eternal light,” in “glowing light, light primeval.” Their God was described as “be whose form is light.” The Sanskrit word for God, dev, literally means “shining” or “bright.” And in Iran, God-Ahura Mazda-was a great father who was referred to as the Lord of Light, dwelling on the top of a mountain, glowing in golden light; this mountain is supposedly Mount Hara, the first mountain ever created. In Greece there was the Indo-European Zeus with his fiery lightning and thunderbolts on top of Mount Olympus; the Indo-European Hittites and Indo-European-ruled Hurrians bad storm Gods with lightning bolts in their hands standing on a mountain; Indra of India, glowing in gold, holding a lightning bolt, was called Lord of the Mountains. Almost none of this was characteristic of the Goddess (see, e.g., Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman pp. 72, 114; Dial Press, 1976).

§3. Yahweh, a God of Mountain and Light
Much of the imagery connected with the Hebrew Cod Yahweh is startlingly similar to the Father of Lightning, dwelling on a mountaintop, of the Indo-European patriarchal people. Consider the following:

[And Moses said to the people of Israel:] “Do not forget the things your eyes have seen; ... rather, tell them to your children .... The day you stood at Mount Horeb in the presence of Yahweh your God .... you came and stood at the foot of the mountain, and the mountains flamed to the very sky, a sky darkened by cloud, murky and thunderous. Then Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire; you heard the sounds of words but saw no shape, there was only a voice.... Since you saw no shape on that day at Mount Horeb when Yahweh spoke to you from the midst of the fire, see that you do not act perversely, making yourselves a carved image in the shape of anything at all, whether it be in the likeness of man or of woman* ... for Yahweh your God is a consuming fire.... Did ever a people hear the voice of the living Cod speaking from the heart of the fire, as you heard it, and remain alive? ... He let you see his great fire, and from the heart of the fire you heard his word.... These are the words Yahweh spoke to you when you were all assembled on the mountain. With a great voice he spoke to you from the heart of the fire, in cloud and thick darkness ... while the mountain was all on fire.” (Deut 4:9-12, 15-16, 24, 33, 36; 5:22-23)

*[In fact the Israelites did later make an image, a golden calf, a widespread image in Egypt of the Goddess.]

There are of course many, many other references to Yahweh as a pillar of fire (Ex 13:21), Father of lights (Jas 1:17), as “wrapped in a robe of light” (Ps 104:2), as one asked to “touch the mountains, make them smoke, flash your lightning” (Ps 144:5), and as a rock (Ps 18; 19; 28; 3 1; 42; 62; 7 1; 89; 92; 94); and it is on Mount Zion that he is to be worshiped, though the northern tribes of Israel argued for Mount Gerizim. Yahweh is very often imaged as a father, a warrior God who slays his enemies in battle, the supreme creator of all; and in Elephantine Judaism the goddess Anath was the consort of Yahweh (see § 5).

Exactly what connection there might be between the patriarchal Hebrews and their God Yahweh and the patriarchal Indo-Europeans and their Gods remains unclear. But whatever the direct connections may or may not be, it is clear that the stance of both patriarchal peoples and their theologies vis-a-vis the religion of the Goddess would be, and was, very similar-hostile.

§4. Hebrews Worship the Goddess
The Yahwists struggled for hundreds of years to suppress the worship of the Goddess among the Hebrews. In tracing the history of this struggle, it should be noted first that in the Land of Canaan the Goddess worship was quite diversified by biblical times, so that there were at least three names of the Goddess: Anath, Astarte, and Asherah, who were subordinate to the male god Baal. (These three were probably originally one; Asherah is the Canaanite name for the earlier Sumerian goddess Ashratum, the consort of the god Anu, who closely corresponded to the Canaanite god El-a name for God also used by the Hebrews in many forms, e.g., El, Elohim (see §22), as they were both the God of Heaven; see William F. Albright, Archaeology and the Religion of Israel, p. 78; Johns Hopkins Press, 1942. Astarte is related to the Babylonian goddess Ishtar, and she in turn to the Sumerian Inanna.)

There have been thousands of female figurines, many of which represent the Goddess, dug up all over Palestine at pre-, early, and middle biblical levels, though little in the way of male-God figurines (see Raphael Peter, The Hebrew Goddess, pp. 58-6 1; KTAV Publishing House, 1967).

Kathleen M. Kenyon (Archaeology in the Holy Land, p. 214; Frederick A. Praeger, 1960) in writing of the Late Bronze Age states that “the Astarte plaques ... are the most common cult object on almost all sites of the period .... Tell Beit Mirsim [in Palestine] itself provides clear evidence for the occurrence of such plaques or similar figurines right down to the 7th century B.C. The denunciations by the prophets are enough to show that Yahwehism had continuously to struggle with the ancient religion of the land.” Although biblical texts give us only a glimpse of the pervasiveness of the Goddess worship among all the Hebrews, mostly by way of condemnations of it by Yahwist prophets and destruction of Goddess images, etc., by reforming Yahwist kings, it is worth outlining this history briefly to gain some sense of the implacable fury vented by the Yahwists on the Goddess worshipers.

In the time of the judges (before 1000 B.C.E.) the people of Israel stopped worshiping Yahweh and served the Baals and Astartes (Judg 2:13). Later Solomon (961-922) “worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon” (I Kings 11:5). Then the prophet Ahijah said: “Yahweh the God of Israel says to you, ‘I am going to take the kingdom away from Solomon.... I am going to do this because they have rejected me and have worshiped Astarte, the goddess of Sidon’” (I Kings 11: 31-33). In the next generation Ahijah said to the wife of Jeroboam, king of Israel (922-901), that “Yahweh will punish Israel ... because they have aroused his anger by making idols of the goddess Asherah” (I Kings 14:15). Meanwhile in Judah the people “put up stone pillars and symbols of Asherah to worship on the hills and under shady trees. Worst of all there were cult prostitutes (sing. qadesh) in the land. And they imitated all the abominations of the people Yahweh had thrown out before the Israelites came” (I Kings 14:23f.). Then in Judah the next king, Asa (913-873), “expelled from the country all Temple prostitutes (qedeshim) from the land and removed all the idols his fathers had made. He removed his grandmother Maacah from her position as queen mother, because she had made an obscene idol of the goddess Asherah. Asa cut down the idol and burned it in the Kidron valley” (I Kings 15:12f.). In the next generation King Ahab (869-850) of Israel “put up an image of the goddess Asherah” (I Kings 16:33). “At that time there were at least four hundred prophets of Asherah” (I Kings 18:19) in Israel. Under King Jehoahaz (815-801) the people of Israel “still did not give up the sins into which King Jeroboam had led Israel, but kept on committing them; and the image of the goddess Asherah remained in Samaria” (2 Kings 13:6). The Goddess cult in the Northern Kingdom apparently continued, for in 721 when Israel fell to the Assyrians it was recorded that it fell “because the Israelites sinned against Yahweh their God. ... They worshiped other gods.... On all the hills they put up stone pillars and images of the goddess Asherah” (2 Kings 17:7-10).

The Bible redactors report somewhat more favorably on the attempts at reform led by some of the kings of Judah, but in the process indicate the pervasiveness and persistence of the Goddess worship among the Hebrews. After early reforms under King Joash (837-800) of Judah it was said that the “people stopped worshiping in the Temple of Yahweh, the God of their ancestors, and began to worship idols and the images of the goddess Asherah” (2 Chron 24:18). Goddess worship obviously continued until King Hezekiah (715-687) of Judah “broke the stone pillars and cut down the image of the goddess Asherah” (2 Kings 18:4). But his own son Manasseh followed as king and “made an image of the goddess Asherah” (2 Kings 21:3). Then came the last great reform efforts before the exile, under King Josiah (640-609) of Judah, who “removed from the Temple the symbol of the goddess Asherah, took it out of the city to the Kidron valley, burned it, pounded its ashes to dust.... He destroyed the living quarters in the Temple occupied by the Temple prostitutes. It was there that women wove robes for the Asherah” (2 Kings 23:6-7).

All three of the greater prophets mention the worship of the Goddess. The oldest, Isaiah, predicts around 735 B.C.E. that when Yahweh punishes Israel the people “will no longer rely on altars they made with their own hands, or trust in their own handiwork-symbols of the goddess Asherah” (Is 17:8). At another place he adds that “Israel’s sins will be forgiven only when the stones of pagan altars are ground up like chalk, and no more symbols of the goddess Asherah or incense altars are left” (Is 27:9). Ezekiel, who traditionally is said to have been active around the time of the fall of Jerusalem a generation after King Josiah in 586, reported being shown “at the inner entrance of the north gate of the Temple an idol that was an outrage to God” (Ezek 8:3). In line with most scholarship the New American Bible notes here that “this was probably the statue of the goddess Asherah erected by the wicked King Manasseh-cf. 2 Kgs 21:7; 2 Chr 33:7, 15. Though it had been removed by King Josiah-2 Kgs 23:6-it had no doubt been set up again.” In the same vision Ezekiel reported on a sight three times more abominable, namely, at the north gate of the Temple were “women weeping over the death of the god Tammuz” (Ezek 8:14; a part of a seasonal ritual in which the death of plants in fall was likened to the descent into the nether world by the subordinate male god Tammuz, to be triumphantly restored to life in spring by the source of life, the goddess Astarte-or Ishtar in Babylonian or Inanna in Sumerian traditions).

Some years before, Jeremiah complained that the people of Judah 41 worship at the altars and symbols that have been set up for the goddess Asherah by every green tree and on the bill tops and on the mountains in the open country” (Jer 17:2-3). Later the same prophet Jeremiah was taken with the remnant of Judeans, after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 586, into Egypt. He berated the people for having brought on the disaster by worshiping other Gods. Who the “other God” was is made clear by the people’s response:

Then all the men who knew that their wives offered sacrifices to other gods and all the women in the crowd ... said to me “We refuse to listen to what you have told us in the name of Yahweh. We will do everything that we said we would. We will offer sacrifices to our goddess, the Queen of Heaven,* and we will pour out wine offerings to her, just as we and our ancestors, our king and our leaders, used to do in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. Then we had plenty of food, we were prosperous, and had no troubles. But ever since we stopped sacrificing to the Queen of Heaven and stopped pouring out wine offerings to her, we have had nothing, and our people have died in war and starvation.” And the women added, “When we baked cakes shaped like the Queen of Heaven, offered sacrifices to her, and poured our wine offerings to her, our husbands approved of what we were doing.” (Jer 44:15-19)

*[Anath-Astarte was addressed as Queen of Heaven in Egypt-Patai, Hebrew Goddess, p. 55 .]

The Oxford Annotated Bible also links this Queen of Heaven with the Babylonian Ishtar and the Canaanite Astarte (likewise with the Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus), and states that “the cult was especially popular among women, who had an inferior role in the cult of the LORD [Yahweh]. . . . The cult persisted into the Christian centuries, and features of it were incorporated by the early Syrian church in the adoration of the Virgin.” It is clear from the Jeremiah text that the women too were “priests” in the ancient Hebrew cult of the Queen of Heaven.

§5. Hebrew Goddess at Elephantine
Probably from around this time onward a colony of Jews lived at Elephantine, Egypt, an island in the Nile river, opposite Aswan, about four hundred miles south of Cairo. From their papyrus letters and documents of the late fifth century B.C.E. we know not only that the Jewish women as well as men contributed money to the Temple, and that the women could divorce their spouses as well as the men could, but also that in the Temple along with Yahu (as Yahweh was addressed there) the goddess Anathbethel was also worshiped (Arthur E. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C., p. 72; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1923).

The name Anath-Bethel literally means “Anath the House of El [the God of Heaven]”-cf. Cowley, Aramaic Papyri, p. 72. Since in Hebraic culture a wife is referred to as the husband’s “house,” this name suggests that the goddess Anath was understood as the “God of Heaven’s” consort. This is further confirmed by the fact that Yahu (derived from a variant of an older spelling of Yahweh) is called the “God of Heaven” in the same Elephantine papyri (ibid., p. 114) and that Anath is often referred to as the “Lady of Heaven,” especially in Egyptian culture (see Patai, Hebrew Goddess, p. 55). Still further, the Jewish writings of Elephantine also include an oath to Yahu and to Anath, “consort of Yahu”: “He swore to Mesbullam b. Nathan by Yahu the God, by the temple and by Anathyahu” (Cowley, Aramaic Papyri, p. 148). (Alternatively, Kraeling suggests that Bethel in Anath-Bethel is simply an alternative name for Yahu, and offers reasons-Emil G. Kraeling, ed., The Brooklyn Museum Aramaic Papyri, pp. 88-90; Yale University Press, 1953.)

Moreover, it is likely that refugees from Bethel, some fourteen miles north of Jerusalem, played an important part in the development of this syncretistic worship in Elephantine Judaism, for Bethel was known not only as a place where Yahweh was early worshiped; Bethel was a place where later the Goddess was also worshiped, as indicated by the calf image there (cf. e.g., Hos 10:5-the cow, the calf, was a symbol of the Goddess, the source of life, fertility; see James, Cult of the Mother Goddess, p. 8 1). After describing temples of the Goddess and of Yahweh alongside each other at Tell-en-Nasbeb in Palestine, Edwin O. James goes on to state:

This equipment suggests that it was a centre of the Goddess cult where Astarte was worshipped, probably in later times alongside of Yahweh at the neighbouring shrine, possibly as his consort. If this were so, the goddesses under Canaanite names (e.g., Anath-Yahu comparable to Yo-Elat in Ugaritic texts) assigned to Yahweh in the Jewish community at Elephantine after the Exile can hardly have been an innovation. (James, Cult of the Mother Goddess, p. 80)

§6. Goddess Worship “Suppressed”
After the return of the Jewish people to Jerusalem from the Babylonian exile the public worship of the Goddess seems to have been successfully suppressed, being relegated largely to feminine manifestations of God as in the post-exilic Wisdom books’ praise of the feminine Hokmah (Hebrew) or Sophia (Greek), “Wisdom,” and the growing reference to God’s feminine Presence, Shekhinah, an Aramaic term first found after the beginning of the Christian Era in Rabbinic and Targumic writings. One of the high-cost ways this was accomplished was by the banning of intermarriage. By this time Jewish women in any case normally could not marry non-Jews; Jewish men also were not supposed to marry non-Jewish women, though in fact they did. The reason foreign wives were not to be taken is that they were seen as the source of corrupting Goddess worship, e.g., Jezebel and her worship of Asherah and Baal. This enforcement of the Deuteronomic prohibition (Deut 7:1-4) took the drastic form of the divorce and driving out by the Jewish men of their non-Jewish wives and children (Ezra 9 and 10; cf. Neh 13:23-28). Despite all the efforts, however, to eliminate the feminine dimension of the deity, it persisted in biblical writers perhaps far more than is often realized. Some examples follow.

§7. God a Seamstress
Already in the most ancient part of the Bible, the Yahwist’s story of the Fall, one finds Yahweh performing a customarily female task in Hebrew society (cf. Prov 31:10-31): Yahweh God acts as a seamstress:

And Yahweh God made tunics of skins for the man and his wife and clothed them. (Gen 3:21)

§8. God Mother and Nurse
When the Israelites in the desert complained of their problems to Moses, he in turn complained to Yahweh with rhetorical questions that by negative implication project onto Yahweh the images of a mother and a wet nurse-and this also in the ancient Elohist-Yahwist portion of the Bible.

Was it I who conceived all this people, was it I who gave them birth, that you should say to me, “Carry them in your bosom, like a beloved little mother with a baby at the breast?” (Num 11:12)

§9. God a Loving Mother
While the eighth-century prophet Hosea makes heavy use of the image of Yahweh as the husband of a faithless Israel, he also projects Yahweh in the image of a parent teaching a child to walk, healing its hurts, feeding it-all tasks a mother, not a father, normally performed in that society. Yahweh further frets and agonizes over the wayward child, but in the end declares in favor of mercy instead of deserved punishment by clearly rejecting any identification with the male-ish, meaning male, is the term used.

When Israel was a child I loved him, and I called my son out of Egypt. ... I myself taught Ephraim to walk, I took them in my arms; yet they have not understood that I was the one looking after them. I led them with reins of kindness, with leading-strings of love. I was like someone who lifts an infant close against his cheek; stooping down to him I gave him his food. ... I will not give rein to my fierce anger, I will not destroy Ephraim again, for I am God, not man (ish). (Hos 11: 1, 3, 4, 9)

§10. God Who Gave Birth to Humanity
In the last book of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy (possibly seventh century), in the Song of Moses, God describes herself in clearly feminine, motherly imagery (if the first verb is understood in the less likely paternal sense, then an androgynous parental image of God is projected):

You were unmindful of the Rock that bore you (yiladeka) and you forgot the God who writhed in labor pains with you (meholeleka). (Deut 32:18) [Note: yiladeka almost always means “that bore you,” and only rarely can mean “begot,” as it is almost always translated-see P. A. H. DeBoer, Fatherhood and Motherhood in Israelite and Judean Piety, p. 52; Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974.]

§ 11. Humanity in Yahweh’s Womb-I
In Hebrew, rechem means womb. The plural form, rachamim, extends this concrete meaning to signify compassion, love, mercy. The verb form, rchm, means to show mercy, and the adjective, rachum, means merciful. Thus to speak of compassion or mercy automatically calls forth maternal overtones. This motherly compassion is attributed to God in a number of places; it is especially striking in a passage from Jeremiah, a seventh-century prophet. After a careful, penetrating analysis, Phyllis Trible (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 45; Fortress Press, 1978) provides a translation of the passage that is much more accurate and sensitive to the Hebrew poetry in general and the words related to rechem in particular. In the last line Yahweh speaks of herself with the doubly uterine words rachem, arachamennu, “motherly womb-love.”

Is Ephraim my dear Son? my darling child?
For the more I speak of him
the more do I remember him.
Therefore, my womb trembles for him;
I will truly show motherly-compassion
(rachem arachamennu) upon him.
Oracle of Yahweh (Jer 31:20)

12. Humanity in Yahweh’s Womb-II
The above passage of Jeremiah is a key one in a larger poetic structure where the very form expresses a superiority of the female over the male in that the male came forth from the female’s womb, is “ surrounded by” the female, therefore. The passage Jer 31:15-22 reaches its climax with the statement: “For Yahweh has created a new thing in the land: female surrounds [tesobeb] man.” (v.22) This “female surrounding man” has manifold referents: Rachel the mother embracing her sons (v.15), Yahweh consoling Rachel about Ephraim (vs.16-17), Yahweh proclaiming motherly compassion for Ephraim (v. 20), the daughter Israel superseding the son Ephraim (v. 2 1).

[Words of a woman] A voice is heard in Ramah,
lamenting and weeping bitterly:
it is Rachel weeping for her children
because they are no more.
[Words to a woman] Yahweh says this:
Stop your weeping,
dry your eyes,
your hardships will be redressed:
they shall come back from the enemy country.
There is hope for your descendants:
your sons will come home to their own lands.
[Words of a man]
plainly hear the grieving of Ephraim,
“You have disciplined me, I accepted the discipline
like a young bull untamed.
Bring me back, let me come back,
for you are Yahweh my God!
Yes, I turned away, but have since repented;
I understood, I beat my breast.
I was deeply ashamed, covered with confusion;
Yes, I still bore the disgrace of my youth.”
[Words of a woman-Yahweh]
Is Ephraim my dear son? my darling child?
For the more I speak of him,
the more do I remember him.
Therefore, my womb trembles for him;
I will truly show motherly-compassion upon him
[Words to a woman-Jeremiah’s comma
Set up signposts,
raise landmarks;
mark the road well,
the way by which you went.
Come home, virgin of Israel,
come home to these towns of yours.
How long will you hesitate, disloyal daughter?
For Yahweh has created a new thing in the land:
female surrounds man. (Jer 31:15-22)

As Phyllis Trible notes (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 50): “The very form and content of the poem embodies a womb: woman encloses man. The female organ nourishes, sustains, and redeems the male child Ephraim. Thus our metaphor is surrounded by a cloud of witnesses.”

§13. God in Birth Pangs
This feminine divine imagery is, if possible, intensified in the middle of the sixth century by Second Isaiah through whom Yahweh God speaks of herself as crying out with labor pains-a ne plus ultra in feminine divine imagery.

Yahweh God goes forth.... “But now, I cry out as a woman in labor, gasping and panting.” (Is 42:13, 14)

§14. Israel in the Womb of God the Mother
Yahweh continues, in the mouth of Second Isaiah, to liken herself to a mother, describing her concern for exiled Israel as that of a mother for her own baby:

Listen to me, house of Jacob and all the remnant of the house of Israel who have been borne by me from the belly (beten), carried from the womb (racham), even until old age I am the one, and to gray hairs am I carrying you. Since I have made, I will bear, carry and save. (Is 46:3-4)

§15. God a Nursing Mother
Yahweh goes on, through Second Isaiah, to liken her loving memory of Zion to that of an affectionate mother with a child at the breast.

For Zion was saying, “Yahweh has abandoned me, the Lord has forgotten me.” Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the son of her womb? Yet even if these forget, I will never forget you. (Is 49:14-15)

§16. God a Comforting Mother
Third Isaiah expresses the words of Yahweh wherein she again likens herself to a mother consoling her son. As Phyllis Trible notes (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 67): “‘So I (‘anoki) will comfort you.’ The use of the first-person pronoun, ‘anoki, stresses the divine agent. Although the comparison stops just short of calling God mother, it does not stop short of this meaning. Yahweh is a consoling mother to the children of Jerusalem.”

For thus says Yahweh: . . . Like a son comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you. (Is 66:12-13)

§17. God a Mother and a Father
Elsewhere Third Isaiah projects Yahweh with both maternal and paternal imagery. This androgynous balance is lost in most translations, but Phyllis Trible’s analysis and translation makes the alternation between the God of the womb and God the Father clear (God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, p. 53):

Yahweh.... where is your ardor and your might,
the trembling of your womb and your compassion?
Restrain not yourself, for you are our Father. (Is 63:14-15)

§18. Yahweh the Midwife
In Ps 22:9, Yahweh is depicted in an intimate female role, that of a midwife:

Yet you drew me out of the womb,
you entrusted me to my mother’s breasts. (Ps 22:9)

§19. Mistress Yahweh
The psalmist projects an image that by association likens Yahweh to both a master and a mistress.

I lift my eyes to you,
to you who have your home in heaven,
eyes like the eyes of slaves
fixed on their master’s hand;
like the eyes of a slave-girl
fixed on the hand of her mistress,
so our eyes are fixed on Yahweh our God. (Ps 123:2)

§20. God Motherlike
In The Psalms there is also an image of a motherly Yahweh who comforts her weaned child, the psalmist, on her divine motherly lap:

O Yahweh.... I have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child, like a weaned child on its mother’s lap. (Ps 131:1, 2)

§21. God a Mother and a Father Even in Irony
In the early fifth-century Book of Job an ironic rhetorical question is put to Job. He is asked whether the dew and frost have a father and a mother. The answer is both, “no, for they come from God,” and “yes, they both come from God”: it is through human imagery that we come to a knowledge of the transcendence of God (see Trible, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality, pp. 67f.).

Has the rain a father?
Who begets the dewdrops?
What womb brings forth the ice,
and gives birth to the frost of heaven? (job 38:28-29)
Converted by FileMerlin
 
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I don't know how spirits are created we just know they are clothed.

Why is having a Mother in Heaven offensive?


Because there is only one God, Isaiah chapters 40 to the end of that book.
 
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The LDS heavenly mother is a god/goddess wife of the LDS heavenly father. She has an unknown name. She is not Mary, wife of Joseph.


What exactly is the adam god doctrine then?
 
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There is an article on that temple, but no reference to a goddess. Full text of "The Jewish Temple at Elephantine"

The Origin of the Jews in Elephantine on JSTOR

ELEPHANTINE – Encyclopaedia Iranica

Jewish colony at Elephantine goddess - Norton Safe Search

"Religious reasons too might have encouraged the Egyptians to take action against the Jews. Elephantine was known as land of the god Khnub. Originally Nubian, this god is represented as a ram-headed man. The sacrifices of the Jews on religious holidays at the temple, which probably included rams, would have caused hatred on part of the Egyptian priests."Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review

"According to Egyptian mythology, here was the dwelling place of Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts, who guarded and controlled the waters of the Nile from caves beneath the island. He was worshipped here as part of a late triad among the Egyptian pantheon of deities. The Elephantine Triad included Satis and Anuket. Satis was worshipped from very early times as a war goddess and protector of this strategic region of Egypt. When seen as a fertility goddess, she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile, which was identified as her daughter, Anuket. The cult of Satis originated in the ancient city of Swenet. Later, when the triad was formed, Khnum became identified as her consort and, thereby, was thought of as the father of Anuket. His role in myths changed later and another deity was assigned his duties with the river. At that time his role as a potter enabled him to be assigned a duty in the creation of human bodies."Elephantine - Wikipedia

http://arthistory.wisc.edu/ah505/articles/Rosenberg,_The_Jewish_Temple_at_Elephantine.pdf

"For example, reference was made in one of the archives to "Yahweh the God who dwells in the fortress of Elephantine."-K 12:2. Holocausts, meal offering, and most of the other traditional sacrificial ceremonies performed at the Temple of Solomon were performed at the temple of Elephantine alike....
Fate of the Elephantine Jewish Community

During the reign of Darius II Egyptian rebels threatened the security of Upper Egypt. First, The Jews of Elephantine sent a letter to some Persian official in which they complained against the Egyptian priests of the temple of Khnub and some other military personnel named Vidranga for committing some acts of destruction in their fortress and for burying a well where the Jews were used to drink. The other document dealt with the final destruction of the temple in 410 B.C. According to the document, the Egyptian priests of Khnub cooperated with Vidranga who sent his son Nefayan in command of an Egyptian army and ordered "the temple of the God Yahweh in the Fortress of Elephantine to be destroyed"(C 30: 4ff)

The Jews of Elephantine greatly lamented the destruction of their temple, just as the Jews did when the temple of Solomon at Jerusalem was destroyed more than a century before. They wore sackcloth, went into fasting, refrained from sexual intercourse, stopped anointing themselves with oil, and prohibited themselves from drinking wine.

The reason for the Egyptian violence towards the Jews is probably social as well as religious. For centuries the Egyptians were suppressed under foreigner rule. People from other lands, including Judea, have emigrated and settled in Egypt occupying prestigious positions. The Egyptians felt that they were being downplayed, not only by their direct conquerors, but also by other foreigners.

Religious reasons too might have encouraged the Egyptians to take action against the Jews. Elephantine was known as land of the god Khnub. Originally Nubian, this god is represented as a ram-headed man. The sacrifices of the Jews on religious holidays at the temple, which probably included rams, would have caused hatred on part of the Egyptian priests."
Ancient Sudan~ Nubia: Investigating the Origin of the Ancient Jewish Community at Elephantine: A Review

Leonard Swidler, "Biblical Affirmations of Woman - Norton Safe Search

Other academic sources online does not confirm Jewish worship of a goddess at that fortress --- the above sources.

But, I found your quote below, which does not appear to be verifiable from the sources we have about that fortress because of biases of those your author refers to.

In Archaeology there are minimalists and maxi-mists(misspelled). The above sources are minimalists which are better scholars because they reframe from reading into texts what is not there. Below your source is a maxi-mist, who reads into texts what they want to be there. That alone among Historians like myself refutes the claims made below.

Converted by FileMerlin

I also posted the long quote at the end of this post at what is true and false from this book? - Christian Discussion Forums | CARM Christian Forums

So, you can see how they do apologetics there. Expect the post there to be edited or deleted which is what they do, when they can not answer it.
 
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Biblically grace (sarah) is the heavenly mother seen in the New Jerusalem Ephesians 5:25-33, Galatians 4:26, Revelation 21:2, Revelation 21:9-10

Grace is the mother to the children of promise Genesis 21.1-8, Galatians 4:
27For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren woman, who bears no children; break forth and cry aloud, you who have never travailed; because more are the children of the desolate woman, than of her who has a husband.” 28Now you, brothers, like Isaac, are children of the promise. 29At that time, however, the son born by the flesh persecuted the son born by the Spirit. It is the same now.…
What does it mean that the church is the bride of Christ?
 
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LDS &quotAdam-God Doctrine&quot

It is rejected by Mormons and was never scripture; however, they believe a lot that isn't scripture. Mormonism is constantly changing.
Things in the LDS Church do constantly change. I'm not aware that the doctrine constantly changes. The scriptures definitely don't. I've only seen one change to the scriptures in my lifetime. I actually kind of wish the LDS Church would change the scriptures more than it has; I would really like to see the Proclamation on the Family added to the scriptures, perhaps as a 139th section to the Doctrine and Covenants. What do other Latter-day Saints think about that?
 
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What exactly is the adam god doctrine then?

Now that is a confusing issue because Brigham Young contradicted Brigham Young, no one really knows.

During a speech that was going right down doctrinal lines Brigham Young suddenly veer into a crazy statement that makes no sense in Mormon doctrine and then he swerved right back into appropriate doctrine.

He's saying God the Father is a being of tabernacle as Jesus is but the Holy Ghost is a spirit. God the Father created our spirits and Jesus created the bodies of mortal man. Then he talks about Adam.

" When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, ... He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do."

If we stop there it makes no scene at all, so I'll add a little more and then explain. You have to read it carefully and have a basic understanding of Mormonism

They (The Father,Jesus) came here, organized the raw material, ..... When Adam and Eve had eaten of the forbidden fruit, their bodies became mortal from its effects, and therefore their offspring were mortal. When the Virgin Mary conceived the child Jesus, the Father had begotten him in his own likeness. ...... And who is the Father? He is the first of the human family; and when he took a tabernacle, it was begotten by his Father in heaven, ....It is true that the earth was organized by three distinct characters, namely, Eloheim, Yahovah, and Michael, these three forming a quorum, as in all heavenly bodies, and in organizing element, perfectly represented in the Deity, as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost...... Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven."

1, God the Father is an immortal human and head of the heavenly family.
2,God the Father and Yahweh/Jesus come to create the earth. The Father directs the Son as the physical earth is made.
3,Michael is chosen to be the first man because he fought against Satan. He helps name the animals and tends the earth.
4, God the Father was in the Garden with Adam and Eve, he took a walk there, he begot the body of Jesus.

5,Elohim or El in our theology is the Father so Michael can't be the Father so what did he mean he is our God and the only God with whom we have to do????

I think he misspoke, it's almost like it's missing a whole line of thought.

BUT Young couldn't image he had misspoke and over time must have thought he was inspired and he began to develop his own theory around it.

To become actual doctrine he had to present it to the Council of the Twelve for a unanimous vote which never happened, so it never became actual doctrine. There was a struggle back and forth for years and then when he died the leaders tossed it aside.

So how could the Lord let BY teach something that was false? Well the thought is

"The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place, and so He will" Wilford Woodruff

While BY wandered off the Church did not.

I have some quotes for you;

Charles W. Penrose was serving as a member of the First Presidency he responded to a letter of inquiry which contained a long list of questions about the Church. Among them was this one: “Do you believe that the President of the Church, when speaking to the Church in his official capacity, is infallible?” His response was simple and clear. “We do not believe in the infallibility of man. When God reveals anything it is truth, and truth is infallible. No President of the Church has claimed infallibility.”

This goes back to having the 12 Apostles approve unanimously any changes to doctrine, that's why it was set up that way. With the Spirits guidance the 12 can over rule the Prophet, it prevents any one man from leading the Church astray. If the prophet and his 2 counselors agree and then the 12 come to an unanimous agreement then we know it is the will of the Lord.

After BY passed away Elder George Q. Cannon wrote the following:

“Some of my brethren, as I have learned since the death of President Brigham Young, did have feelings concerning his course. They did not approve of it, and felt oppressed, and yet they dare not exhibit their feelings to him, he ruled with so strong and stiff a hand, and they felt that it would be of no use. In a few words, the feeling seems to be that he transcended the bounds of the authority which he legitimately held. . . . ome even feel that in the promulgation of doctrine he took liberties beyond those to which he was legitimately entitled.”

and this;
"President Cannon informed attendees at the Church’s first Sunday School convention: “Concerning the doctrine in regard to Adam and the Savior, the Prophet Brigham [Young] taught some things concerning that; but the First Presidency and the Twelve do not think it wise to advocate these matters. . . . If we confine ourselves to the facts as they are written in the word that the Lord has given unto us, we will do well.”86 During all the time that the Adam–God Theory was being advocated there was never any consensus about it among the top two Priesthood quorums of the Church.87 Now, however, a consensus had finally been reached among those who presided over and administered the kingdom. And the consensus was against the Adam–God Theory. http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2009_Brigham_Youngs_Teachings_On_Adam.pdf

There are other numerous denouncement of the theory and it is not part of our doctrine.

Anyone want to tell me why there is a line running through this?
 
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The word shadday means almighty and is from the root shaddad which means destroyer, ravager, utterly lay waste.

Before 600 bc it was the Mother Goddess after that the meaning changed and over the years she was forgotten.
 
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Things in the LDS Church do constantly change. I'm not aware that the doctrine constantly changes. The scriptures definitely don't. I've only seen one change to the scriptures in my lifetime. I actually kind of wish the LDS Church would change the scriptures more than it has; I would really like to see the Proclamation on the Family added to the scriptures, perhaps as a 139th section to the Doctrine and Covenants. What do other Latter-day Saints think about that?

LDS believe lot more than their scriptures! You would like more of men's words added to your scriptures. That's unfortunate.

The temple ceremony which supposedly came from God and was not supposed to change, did change. No longer is a minister portrayed as a hireling of Satan. Why not? Did ministers change the creeds and doctrines of churches?

Joseph Smith History - 1
"18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
"19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.' "
Joseph Smith—History 1

Changes to the endowment ceremony occurred in 1990, following a 1988 survey of church members in the U. S. and Canada.

Some of the key changes were:
1. Protestant minister paid by Lucifer to preach false doctrine was eliminated.
2. All penalties (and gestures like throat slashing, chest slashing and bowel slashing) were eliminated.
3. Women's promise to be obedient to husbands was modified.
4. The intimate position at the veil (foot to foot, knee to knee, breast to breast, hand on shoulder and mouth to ear) was eliminated.
5. The strange words "Pay Lay Ale" (meaning "Oh God hear the words of my mouth") were eliminated...

...the endowment ceremony still depicts women as subservient to men, not as equals in relating to God. For example, women covenant to obey their husbands in righteousness, while he is the one who acts as intermediary to God... Some find the temple irrelevant to the deeper currents of their Christian service and worship of God. Some admit to boredom. Others describe their motivations for continued and regular temple attendance as feelings of hope and patience - the faith that by continuing to participate they will develop more positive feelings... Often they feel unworthy or guilty because of these feelings since the temple is so unanimously presented as the pinnacle of spiritual experience for sincere Latter-day Saints.... The endowment has changed a great deal in response to community needs over time. Obviously it has the capability of changing still further if the need arises.... From a strictly functional perspective, the amount of time required to complete a vicarious endowment seems excessive." (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Winter 1987)
Why the temple ceremony was changed in 1990
(non-LDS site)
 
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LDS believe lot more than their scriptures! You would like more of men's words added to your scriptures. That's unfortunate.

The temple ceremony which supposedly came from God and was not supposed to change, did change. No longer is a minister portrayed as a hireling of Satan. Why not? Did ministers change the creeds and doctrines of churches?

Joseph Smith History - 1
"18 My object in going to inquire of the Lord was to know which of all the sects was right, that I might know which to join. No sooner, therefore, did I get possession of myself, so as to be able to speak, than I asked the Personages who stood above me in the light, which of all the sects was right (for at this time it had never entered into my heart that all were wrong)—and which I should join.
"19 I was answered that I must join none of them, for they were all wrong; and the Personage who addressed me said that all their creeds were an abomination in his sight; that those professors were all corrupt; that: 'they draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me, they teach for doctrines the commandments of men, having a form of godliness, but they deny the power thereof.' "
Joseph Smith—History 1

Changes to the endowment ceremony occurred in 1990, following a 1988 survey of church members in the U. S. and Canada.

Some of the key changes were:
1. Protestant minister paid by Lucifer to preach false doctrine was eliminated.
2. All penalties (and gestures like throat slashing, chest slashing and bowel slashing) were eliminated.
3. Women's promise to be obedient to husbands was modified.
4. The intimate position at the veil (foot to foot, knee to knee, breast to breast, hand on shoulder and mouth to ear) was eliminated.
5. The strange words "Pay Lay Ale" (meaning "Oh God hear the words of my mouth") were eliminated...

...the endowment ceremony still depicts women as subservient to men, not as equals in relating to God. For example, women covenant to obey their husbands in righteousness, while he is the one who acts as intermediary to God... Some find the temple irrelevant to the deeper currents of their Christian service and worship of God. Some admit to boredom. Others describe their motivations for continued and regular temple attendance as feelings of hope and patience - the faith that by continuing to participate they will develop more positive feelings... Often they feel unworthy or guilty because of these feelings since the temple is so unanimously presented as the pinnacle of spiritual experience for sincere Latter-day Saints.... The endowment has changed a great deal in response to community needs over time. Obviously it has the capability of changing still further if the need arises.... From a strictly functional perspective, the amount of time required to complete a vicarious endowment seems excessive." (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Winter 1987)
Why the temple ceremony was changed in 1990
(non-LDS site)
If LDS members don't understand it why would you think you or any other critic would understand it?
 
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LDS &quotAdam-God Doctrine&quot

It is rejected by Mormons and was never scripture; however, they believe a lot that isn't scripture. Mormonism is constantly changing.

Are any of the following authoritative?

2nd President Brigham Young
“Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, Saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do” (Brigham Young, April 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses 1:50).
“What a learned idea! Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven. Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation” (Brigham Young, April 9, 1852, Journal of Discourses 1:51).
“I will give you a few words of doctrine, upon which there has been much inquiry, and with regard to which considerable ignorance exists. Br. Watt will write it, but it is not my intention to have it published, therefore pay good attention, and store it up in your memories. Some years ago, I advanced a doctrine with regard to Adam being our father and God, that will be a cause [curse?] to many Elders of Israel because of their folly. With regard to it they yet grovel in darkness and will. It is one of the most glorious revealments of the economy of heaven, yet the world holds it [in] dirrision [sic]. Had I revealed the doctrine of baptism from the dead instead [of] Joseph Smith there are men around me who would have ridiculed the idea until dooms day. But they are ignorant and stupid like the dumb ass” (“The Adam-God Doctrine,” David John Buerger, citing a discourse given by Brigham Young on October 8, 1861. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Spring 1982, p. 29).
66 ADAM-GOD
“How much unbelief exists in the minds of the Latter-day Saints in regard to one particular doctrine which is revealed to them, and which God revealed to me – namely that Adam is our father and God” (Brigham Young, Deseret News, June 18, 1873, p. 308).
4th President Wilford Woodruff
“Meeting Adjourned till evening when the House was filled again. Was Addressed…by Brigham Young…I will now preach you another Sermon. There is one great Master and Head in all kingdoms & g[overnment?]. So with our Father in Heaven. He is a Tabernacle. He Created us in the likeness of his own image. The Son has also a Tabernacle like the Father & the Holy Ghost is a minister to the people but not a tabernacle. Who begat the Son of God? Infidels say that Jesus was a Bastard but let me tell you the truth Concerning that matter. Our Father begat all the spirits that were before any tabernacles were made. When our Father came into the Garden He came with his celestial body & brought one of his wifes with him & eat of the fruit of the garden untill He could begat a tabernacle. And Adam is Michael or God And all the God that we have any thing to do with. They Eat of this fruit & formed the first Tabernacle that was formed. And when the VIRGIN MARY was begotton with Child it was By the Father and in no other way ownly as we were begotton. I will tell you the truth as it is in God. The world dont know that Jesus Christ Our Elder Brother was begotton by our Father in Heaven. Handle it as you please. It will either seal the damnation or salvation of m[e/a?]n. He was begotton by the Father & not by the Holy Ghost. When you go to Preach & believe that Jesus Christ was begotton by the Holy Ghost dont lay Hands upon the Heads of Females for the reception of the Holy Ghost lest it Beget her with Child And you be acused. I have told you nothing in this thing but what you have red in the Bible. I do not frame it” (Wilford Woodruff, Waiting for World’s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, Susan Staker, ed., p. 150. Recounting Brigham Young’s conference sermon from April 9, 1852. Ellipses, brackets, spelling, and punctuation in original).
“Some have said that I was vary presumptuous to say that Brother Brigham was my God & Saviour. Brother Joseph was his God. The one that gave Joseph the keys of the kingdom was his God which was Peter. Jesus Christ was his God & the God & Father of Jesus Christ was Adam” (Waiting for World’s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, Susan Staker, ed., p. 150. Recounting Heber C. Kimball’s conference sermon from April 10, 1852. Spelling and punctuation in original).
“Some have thought it strange what I have said Concerning Adam But the period will Come when this people of faithful will be willing to adopt Joseph Smith as their Prophet Seer Revelator & God But not the father of their spirits for that was our Father Adam” (Waiting for World’s End: The Diaries of Wilford Woodruff, Susan Staker, ed., p. 299. Recounting Brigham Young’s sermon from December 11, 1869. Spelling and punctuation in original).
10th President Joseph Fielding Smith
“SOURCE OF ADAM-GOD THEORY. President Brigham Young is quoted—in all probability the sermon was erroneously transcribed!—-as having said: ‘Now hear it, O inhabitants of the earth, Jew and Gentile, saint and sinner! When our father Adam came into the Garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him. He helped to make and organize this world. He is Michael, the Archangel, the Ancient of Days, about whom holy men have written and spoken—He is our father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do’” (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation 1:96. Italics in original).
12th President Spencer W. Kimball
“We warn you against the dissemination of doctrines which are not according to the scriptures and which are alleged to have been taught by some of the General Authorities of past generations. Such, for instance, is the Adam-God theory. We denounce that theory and hope that everyone will be cautioned against this and other kinds of false doctrine” (Spencer W. Kimball, “Adam-God Theory Denounced,” Church News, October 9, 1976, p. 11).
First Presidency
“That first man sent his own Son to redeem the world, to redeem his brethren; his life was taken, his blood shed, that our sins might be remitted. That Son called twelve men and ordained them to be Apostles, and when he departed the keys of the kingdom were deposited with three of those twelve, viz.: Peter, James, and John” (Heber C. Kimball, June 29, 1856, Journal of Discourses 4:1).
Apostles
“Brigham Young’s much-discussed sermon says that ‘Jesus was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the Garden of Eden and who is our Father in heaven.’ Enemies of the Church, or stupid people, reading also that Adam is ‘our father and our God.’ have heralded far and wide that the Mormons believe that Jesus Christ was begotten of Adam. Yet, the rational reading of the whole sermon reveals the falsity of such a doctrine. It is explained that God the Father was in the Garden of Eden before Adam, that he was the Father of Adam and that this same personage, God the Father, who was in the Garden of Eden before Adam, was the Father of Jesus Christ, when the Son took upon himself a mortal body. That is, the same personage was the Father of Adam and of Jesus Christ. In the numerous published sermons of Brigham Young this is the doctrine that appears; none other. The assertion is repeatedly made that Jesus Christ was begotten by God, the Father, distinct by any stretch of imagination from Adam. This is a well-established Latter-day Saint doctrine” (John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations, p. 56).
“There are those who believe, or say they believe that Adam is our father and our god. That he is the father of our spirits and our bodies, and that he is the one we worship. The devil keeps this heresy alive as a means of obtaining converts to cultism. It is contrary to the whole plan of salvation set forth in the scriptures. Anyone who has read the Book of Moses, and anyone who has received the temple endowment and who yet believes the Adam-God theory, does not deserve to be saved” (Bruce R. McConkie, “The Seven Deadly Heresies,” an address given at Brigham Young University on June 1, 1980. Transcribed from actual speech).
“Yes, President Young did teach that Adam was the father of our spirits, and all the related things that the cultists ascribe to him. This, however, is not true. He expressed views that are out of harmony with the gospel. But, be it known, Brigham Young also taught accurately and correctly, the status and position of Adam in the eternal scheme of things. What I am saying is that Brigham Young, contradicted Brigham Young, and the issue becomes one of which Brigham Young we will believe. The answer is we will believe the expressions that accord with the teachings in the Standard Works” (Bruce R. McConkie, Letter to Eugene England, February 19, 1981, p. 6).
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Seventies
“Some of the sectarian ministers are saying that we Mormons are ashamed of the doctrine announced by President Brigham Young, to the effect that Adam will thus be the God of this world. No, friends, it is not that we are ashamed of that doctrine. If you see any change coming over our countenance when this doctrine is named, it is surprise, astonishment, that any one at all capable of grasping the largeness and extent of the universe, the grandeur of existence and the possibilities in man for growth, for progress, should be so lean of intellect, should have such a paucity of understanding as to call it in question at all. That is what our change in countenance means – not shame for the doctrine Brigham Young taught” (B.H. Roberts, Mormon Doctrine of Deity, pp. 42-43).
Other Sources
“Our Father Adam.—The extract from the Journal of Discourses may startle some of our readers, but we would wish them to recollect that in this last dispensation God will send forth, by His servants, things new as well as old, until man is perfected in the truth. And we would here take occasion to remark, that it would be well if all our readers would secure a copy of the Journal of Discourses as it is issued, and also of every standard work of the Church; and not only secure these works, but attentively read them, and thoroughly study the principles they contain. Those of the Saints who fail to obtain the standard publications of the Church, will not be likely to prove very intelligent Saints, and will be very liable to wake up some day, and find themselves wonderfully behind the times, and consequently will not be able to stand the day of trial, which will come upon all the world. Without the intelligence that comes through the Holy Priesthood, the Saints cannot gain salvation, and this intelligence is given in the various publications of the Church. Who then will endanger his salvation by being behind the times? Not the wise, certainly” (The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 15:780. Samuel W. Richards, ed., November 26, 1853. Italics in original).
“The St. George endowment included a revised thirty-minute ‘lecture at the veil’ first delivered by Young. This summarized important theological concepts taught in the endowment and contained references to Young’s Adam-God doctrine” (David John Buerger, Mysteries of Godliness, p. 110).
“A classic example of an anomaly in the LDS tradition is the so-called ‘Adam-God theory.’ During the latter half of the nineteenth century Brigham Young made some remarks about the relationship between Adam and God that the Latter-day Saints have never been able to understand. The reported statements conflict with LDS teachings before and after Brigham Young, as well as with statements of President Young himself during the same period of time. So how do Latter-day Saints deal with the phenomenon? We don’t; we simply set it aside. It is an anomaly. On occasion my colleagues and I at Brigham Young University have tried to figure out what Brigham Young might have actually said and what it might have meant, but the attempts have always failed. The reported statements simply do not compute - we cannot make sense out of them. This is not a matter of believing it or disbelieving it; we simply don’t know what ‘it’ is. If Brigham Young were here we could ask him what he actually said and what he meant by it, but he is not here, and even expert students of his thought are left to wonder whether he was misquoted, whether he meant to say one thing and actually said another, whether he was somehow joking with or testing the Saints, or whether some vital element that would make sense out of the reports has been omitted” (BYU Professor Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? pp. 19-20).
“The point is that while anti-Mormons can believe whatever they want, the Latter-day Saints have never believed that Brigham Young taught the ‘Adam-God theory’ as explained in anti-Mormon literature, and that whether Brigham Young believed it or not, the ‘Adam-God theory’ as proposed and interpreted by non-Mormons simply cannot be found in the theology of the Latter-day Saints” (BYU Professor Stephen E. Robinson, Are Mormons Christians? p. 20).
“The identities and roles of the temple creation gods became the focus of a controversy between Bishop Edward Bunker and his counselor Myron Abbott in Bunkerville, Nevada, in 1890. This controversy culminated in 1892 in a St. George, Utah, stake high council meeting attended by church president Wilford Woodruff and his counselor George Q. Cannon. Bunker and his father, Edward Sr., felt that the ‘Lecture before the Veil,’ as it was then presented in the St. George Temple, contained false doctrine. This veil lecture, dictated by Brigham Young in 1877, clearly implied that Adam was God the Father by explaining that prior to coming to this earth, Adam and Eve had been resurrected and exalted on a former world. In their exalted state they begot the spirits of all humankind. Under the direction of Elohim and Jehovah, gods of the creation council, Adam then created this earth and brought Eve here with him to fall in order to provide their spiritual offspring with physical tabernacles” (Boyd Kirkland, “The Development of the Mormon Doctrine of God,” Line Upon Line: Essays on Mormon Doctrine, pp. 42-43).
“Pratt was not the only member unwilling to embrace certain of Young’s views. Yet his calling as Apostle placed him at the forefront of dissent. Following a strong Adam-God statement delivered by Young during the October 1854 general conference, one member observed, ‘[T]here were some that did not believe the sayings of the Prophet Brigham. Even our beloved Brother Orson Pratt told me that he did not believe it. He said he could prove by the scriptures it was not correct. I felt sorry to hear Professor Orson Pratt say that. I fear lest he should apostatize’” (Gary James Bergera, “The Orson Pratt-Brigham Young Controversies: Conflict Within the Quorum 1853-1868,” Dialogue, A Journal of Mormon Thought, Vol.13, No.2, p. 13; citing the journal of Joseph P. Robinson, October 6, 1854. Brackets in original).
“Four years later the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve again addressed the issue, in a pamphlet entitled ‘The Father and the Son.’ The purpose of this publication was to clarify title and role definitions of God the Father and Jesus Christ. The Presidency stated, unequivocally, ‘God the Eternal Father, whom we designate by the exalted name-tide ‘Elohim,’ is the literal Parent of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and of the spirits of the human race.’ This, notwithstanding some definitional imprecision, seems a clear rejection of at least part of Brigham’s understanding, for Mormons had always distinguished ‘Elohim’ from Adam (i.e., Michael). Despite the seeming finality of this language, questions still persisted. President Penrose, who had continued to speak regularly on the subject, again responded, this time in General Conference, April 6, 1916… A few years later Penrose was even more explicit as he affirmed that ‘Jesus of Nazareth, born of the virgin Mary, was literally and truly the Son of the Father, the Eternal God, not of Adam.’ Thus it was Penrose more than any of his colleagues who articulated the new, ‘official’ interpretation of or response to Brigham Young’s theological innovation. Indeed,
86 ADAM-ONDI-AHMAN
his logic and interpretation became the pattern for virtually all twentieth-century Mormon responses to Adam-God” (David John Buerger, “The Adam-God Doctrine,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Volume 15, Number 1, pp. 42-43. Ellipsis mine).
 
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KevinSim

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Bible not from direct inspiration word for word from God ? Try this ..

I've heard things like this refuted elsewhere. For example, a newspaper at one point printed the winning numbers for a lottery the day before the lottery. It turned out nothing extraordinary was involved; it's just a fact that if you deal with large numbers long enough, eventually bizarre coincidences are going to happen. See "Is there actually anything to this analysis of the NT and Mark 15:9-20? • r/theology" and "The “Strange” Ending of the Gospel of Mark and Why It Makes All the Difference - Biblical Archaeology Society" for reactions to the Chuck Missler youtube session.
 
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4x4toy

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4x4toy, you didn't answer Fatboys' question. How do you know that you're not the one that's being deceived?

I heard the Good news of the Gospel of Jesus , then believed , then acted in faith with baptism born again with both water and Spirit , spoke in tongues as an evidence of salvation with no strings attached .. What secret knowledge or works must you perform as a Mormon ?
 
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