what I do walk in my footsteps that's what we're doing the whole end of his
life is going through that Temple procession we go through a temple procession which is representation of exaltation for us overcoming the
[Music]
adversary very excited about this episode with Mike day you may know Mike from his podcast talking scripture or
from several appearances on the stick of Joseph he is currently working on his PhD dissertation on basically what I
call the Royal procession along with coronation Temple drama and really delving into the Psalms and showing that
these Psalms are full rich with these Temple dramas and and Royal procession
and and coronation and so much in there that don't really recognize when we
first read the Psalms this conversation really ends up great now this episode is brought to you by go and do travel of
course you know I am the official spokesperson for going do travel this episode is brought to you by gospel on
the Nile we have six different trips in 2025 fore gospel on the Nile with some
add-ons there like turkey the first three in the spring are all filled but we've got September October and November
of 2025 this is a bucket list trip really hope that you can make it there pick one of those three that are left in
2025 we're going to have a great time I'll put the link in the description box for gospel on the Nile here we go all
right welcome to Quick show my name is Greg Matson and I am your host in this episode we've brought on Mike day to talk about one of my very favorite
subjects the Royal procession and coronation Mike welcome to the show Good to be here Greg I'm so excited to talk
to you I've never done a show on quick media with you before I've seen some of your stuff so I'm excited to talk to you
in the flesh yeah well this this is nice you know I don't do many Studio shows
and so we're we're kind of testing this out and I like the vibe so far so uh
Mike you are working doing a lot of research on Royal procession coordination is that correct yeah I mean
okay a lot of work on the Psalms so there's a lot of Royal procession stuff happening in the Psalms and so when I
started the dissertation my chair said Mike I want you to keep it really specific and narrow the window down and
go really focused and so I've tried to do that but then in the process you know
as anyone when you do research you just start reading a ton of stuff and then you just realize I have all this but I
can say this yeah basically tles but you know what sometimes you can draw that other stuff in just a little bit to give
context and Rich yeah stick in the footnotes yeah a sentence here a sentence there but but I have a tendency
to ramble and get off track and so I I I keep getting rained in okay got it so
might do this here I might go way off track love tangents okay no problem at all this might be a huge tangent right
so I want to talk about the Royal procession I want to back up a little bit and talk about an ancient Temple
drama we've talked about this on the show several times but can you kind of talk a little bit about your perspective
on an ancient Israelite drama that we do not see implicitly in the Old Testament
but we know has to have existed most biblical Scholars agree that the creation narrative was the the
soundtrack and the the video of the temple drama that was portrayed annually
most of them are talking about this now and so if you're a latterday saint you've been endowed you you sit in a
good position because it's part of the ancient tradition so there's that going on but then the question is okay where
did this come from and why why did it exist and there's just a couple names that really pop and I don't know I don't
know if you've talked about this on your show so help me out if I'm just repeating something we like repetition
so there was there was a guy by the name of uh and I'm going to butcher his name if Dave was here he would correct me but
I'm going to call him gunkle yes GLE Herman gkl he basically said listen when
you read the scriptures you have to ask yourself okay what is it setting in life sits in laan for you German speakers but
essentially in the scriptures there's stuff in here that are there are stories there's poems there's laments there's
all kinds of different uh forms that the scriptures take and so he kind of coined the term form criticism to try to figure
out okay when I'm looking at the Old Testament what am I looking at and specifically I came prepared to talk
about the Psalms so there's 150 of them or you know is and depending on what
you're reading and in the 150 Psalms there's a bunch of stuff in here that has what you're talking about the
Ancient Temple drama Royal procession and it's repeated meaning
that it'll be in one spot and then it'll be in another and gunko looked at this and said there's something here now he
had a student named Sigman minkle I call him minkle because I live in Utah and he
determined that the setting in life was the temple and was the the drama that
was portrayed over a period of time in the fall uh about seven or eight days it
depends on who you read everybody has a different number but essentially it was a multi-day experience where we
celebrated the creation of the Fall the atonement believe it or not and the
Redemption of the king and of Israel and then an escal is a big word
eschatological or a last days of millennial experience where we celebrate
newness of life and like that a lot of times that's the eighth day and this was repeated annually and and starting also
with the council in heaven right right yeah day one would be Council in heaven you know the time before the creation
right which is interesting to look at this and say and compare it to what we see with a creation account of s
days right right it's like well wait you know we got something pretty close here to seven or eight days where we're not
just talking about the creation but there's still a seven or eight day event that encompasses the whole thing right I
like to look at it as the endowment on a cool level like one scholar and I'm sure
you've read it because we talked about this earlier when we were we met at the book launch of Jonah's book what's is
key to the Keystone excellent book by the way and the grand Baker step Ricks wrote a
really big study called uh who shall Ascend to the hill the Lord and they're quoting these Scholars and everything
for my research I had to do a lot of gunkle and mowinkle and read their stuff
but uh Baker and Ricks looked at this and said yeah this is a an endowment and it's so we go to in the church we go to
a two-hour endowment but imagine what would it look like if it was 8 days and so they kind of helped to
recreate how that might look and a lot of this is coming out of the Psalms and so the argument that Baker makes and
Ricks is that the Psalms are pre deuteronomistic reform so before the 7th
Century uh they're before the loss of the temple so this is the OG stuff like
the good stuff and their argument in who shall send to the hill of the Lord and it's a long title but it says something
in there about the Israelite Temple experience and the Book of Mormon their argument is that the Book of Mormon is
that the Book of Mormon is the original religion before it was edited
in the 7th Century which is a really provocative idea if you think about it and and if it's true it should say a lot
about Joseph Smith and his prophetic role and what where we sit as Latter-Day Saints so I wasn't planning on talking
about this but let's go there there now that you've said this what so if you look at the Book of Mormon The Stick of
Joseph uh you're pulling here from the Psalms which is from The Stick of Judah these in my mind as I've got
through all of this I do these are not the same thing to me not even close I
see the brass plates which is what the Book of Mormon is pulling from as a completely
different tradition than what the judah-ites gave us in the Old Testament right so when I
say that now obviously there are books that are in both records but but there
is a josephite record in the brass plates that does not go through the
massive I think the massive revisions that are found from the
deuteronomist Deuter deuteronomistic reforms and and that's why they've got
what they've got in the book of Mor all of a sudden you you you come in and and yes I understand the names revealed to them but they start talking about a
savior yeah immediately I mean Lehi in in chapter one of first Nephi sees a
vision with the Throne of God and then 12 around him right and then and then
you can see at the end that he is not killed necessarily just because and I always say this this is my little phrase
but uh Lehi like the other prophets aren't and Abad eyes the same way they're not
killed because they're telling everyone they're bad boys and girls they're killed because they're
preaching about Jesus Christ and if you look at the very last verses I think it's 19 and 20 in chapter 1 the last two
verses you'll see that he was killed because he was preaching of a redeemer so brass plates may be preaching
completely of a redeemer a Son of God and and the Old Testament omitting it
for whatever reason whether it's the dter deuteronomistic reforms or whether it's because they didn't have the
scribal tradition and they just started writing down oral oral history um what
are your thoughts on that wow okay talking about Jesus in the Old Testament that's what we're doing
okay uh I don't even know where to start okay let's go there let's go to
two Psalms Psalm 2 and Psalm 110 let's start with that so I'll pull up Psalm 2
and you pull up Psalm 110 and let's read a couple bits okay so I'm going to skip to wow we
we could really do the whole thing Psalm 2 verse two says the kings of the earth set themselves and the
rulers take coun together saying the Lord against the Lord saying let us break their bands ofender
and Cast Away their cords from us he that sth in the heavens shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision verse 6
I have set my king upon my Holy Hill Zion I will declare the decree the Lord has said unto me thou art my son this
day I have begotten thee ask of me and I'll give Thee the Heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of
the Earth for thy possession Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces is like a Potter's vessel
there's a lot going on here so one of the okay first of all the way this was
viewed in the drama the temple drama is that verse two the kings of the earth set themselves and take counsel together
this is reminiscent of Psalm 22 where the enemies surround the king the Bulls of Bashan the dogs and they're going to
part his vesture they're going to beat him up the king ritually we think in the first Israelite Temple would go through
a dramatic representation where he would be ritually killed not literally it's a play but think your audience is familiar
with Star Wars in act two of Star Wars Luke descends down that Abyss his hands been cut off he finds out his dad's the
worst prade of horribles in a sense he dies but then he's reborn and understands who he is and in the third
version he ascends well in act two is when the king is the bad guys get him
and that's what's going on in verse two but amidst all this we have verse 6 and 7 where the king the father of this son
says you're my son I've begotten you and so the Israelite king would be called a Son of God in the sense that he was his
authorized representative in the scholarship they call this sacral kingship so my contention would be that
this is clearly in my mind talking about Jesus now a Biblical scholar who doesn't believe in Jesus or a Biblical scholar
who wants to keep Jesus out of it would say this is sacral kingship to a t the
king becomes the Son of God mole would say verse two
people in this play would be set up as the rulers of the Earth or the princes of the earth taking counsel against the
king and the King had to ritually die so that he could be born again uh Frank
morross would say the king is a type of Baal Baal had to die and rise again and this is a fertility right right we crush
the wheat we plant the wheat it turns into wheat we crush it we eat the bread and the cycle repeats itself atheists
would see this and say this is just a fertility cycle and the Christians are just ripping this off of everybody else
this is just we're just rehashing this stuff everybody has a different view on this but I'm going to say they knew I
believe the first Israelites knew who Jesus was I know that's a bold contention it's absolute to me I think it's absolute I don't see how you can
get around it with Joseph Smith I I that that's what I see it as and I understand
that not I'm going to sound crazy to some people and they're going to say you can't say that but that's how I see it
and a big reason why I'm seeing it is because like you mentioned the Book of Mormon seeing it so there were people if
the Book of Mormon is true which I contend that it is there were prophets who knew this story and the story is in
here I mean it's right there it just depends on how you read it and so when people comment on the YouTube and
they'll get into uh the comment sometimes and say how can you say that my response is always it just depends on
how you read it so with that let's go to 110 do you want to read some of that sure Psalm 110 verse1 the Lord said unto
my Lord sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy foot stol that
would be in front of the throne the Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out
of Zion rule thou in the midst of thine enemies thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power and the beauties of
Holiness from the womb of the morning thou Hast thy the due of thy
youth the Lord hath sworn and will not repent thou art a priest Forever After
Forever After the order of mkdc okay and the the rest of it's
really interesting so he's promised that he's going to be invulnerable there's all these promises yeah the the there
are these promises of invulnerability and probably the classic one is the one in Isaiah where he says
to the king no enemy that thine enemies have made shall prosper against you and
it's quoted Jesus quotes it in the to the Nephites at Bountiful it's quoted in
Isaiah it's a big deal and it's a promise of invulnerability now my take on this whole psalm is this is the final
day when the King has been revived and he comes with his wife it doesn't say that in here but I'm going to view this
as there is no Kingdom without the queen they're both being enthroned in the holy of holies the veil has been parted and
the participants are watching this now you're saying then that not just the high priest on the day of atonement
enters into the holy of host right which is totally goes against what we read in the Old Testament so I know I'm going to get beat up on that so the participants
are watching this the king is being invested he's being anointed he's being pronounced a king and verse four says a
king and a priest after the order of mzc which ties into your procession bit because in the procession the King was a
king and a priest and the bible really has a difficulty with this there's some
struggle does the king act as a priest does he act as a king and it fights against itself so we could read verses
that say he's only a king we can read verses that show he's acting as a priest intention I'm going to pick aside is
that before the reforms before the destruction of the first
temple the King was a king and a priest now Benjamin's going to walk that line
if you if you read Benjamin's sermon he's going to walk that fine line where he's going to say I acknowledge this that the King was a king and a priest
and divine right of kings was a thing in our past but Benjamin's also going to say he's going to use this term in his
address where he says I've been suffered to be your king so I I see Benjamin walk in that line between sacral kingship
divine right of kings and we're going to shift more towards judges but then in mosiah it says the best government is a
king right I think that's mosiah 29 yeah so so with that the verse five and six are Prophecies of of invulnerability and
that's what verse 7 is therefore he shall lift up the head it's this image of the king striking his enemies through
and he can it depends on how you read it but he can lift up the head of his enemies in other words he has might he has power now why am I tying this into
the temple there's a lot I can't say but at the veil remember we're sacral Kings and
we are promised a promise of invulnerability that's about as far as I'll go but that image remember the
promise is given to us from the other side and so on the other side of the veil you are outside of time and the
promises and the things spoken on that side which is God's side they're true so when God says to
Joseph no weapon that is formed against you shall prosper and the enemies of the church say oh he was killed when he was
38 no yes he was killed but the promises still hold so there's I mean I'm I'm
mixing a lot of things here right we're talking about the endowment we're talking about Joseph we're talking about Kings but that's what I see here in
Psalm 10 and to me we're back to this it's all Jesus so the Lord said to my
Lord so adoni Adonai adoni the Lord said
to my Lord adoni the father said to Jesus you're going to sit at my hand and
this is the most quoted bit in the New Testament the New Testament authors are quoting this more than anything else yes
why yeah they're going back to the throne of God yes and and to the birth
of the king in the holy of Hol yes yes it is the so the number one quoted verse
in all the New Testament is Psalm 110 and it is a temple
reference yes I mean we're just we're just skimming the surface but I do talk about this in my dissertation but all in
scholarly gobbly G but but I mean not I'm not trying to diss it I'm just trying to say there's things I can't say
in an academic discussion that I can talk with you here more more myself in Academia a lot of times we have to write
with one hand tied behind our back there's no reference to the Book of Mormon my dissertation that's not going to happen but but clearly to me I see
this as this is about Jesus it was lost so the Book of Mormon is restoring that
which was lost the plain and precious thing What If part of the plain and precious things is Jesus that the Old
Testament 12200 pages of text what's more plain and precious than the Son of God it's got to be on the
list and this is in there and the New Testament authors understood
it yeah and I would say again I think that when you look back at these things Jeremiah has a really interesting term
who's a contemporary of Lehi he calls he calls the older way ways the
Old Paths it's very interesting he's talking about the people that knew something beforehand but now is not
known anymore and so the Old Paths of Jeremiah as I view it is the original
religion that is eventually lost and some probably hang on to that even
coming down to the time of Jesus is what I would guess and I think that's Jonah's book key to the Keystone he's showing
you there's a tradition that moves alongside the biblical TR ition of there
is a redeeming Messiah he is coming and those texts don't make the cut but some
of them do we have the four servant songs in Isaiah which kind of give this oblique reference to Jesus now the Jews
are going to say well those Ser songs are about us yeah yeah yeah yeah that uh
but I would go back and say speaking of the temple drama that that is those are
quotes from a ritual drama I believe the actual drama the temple drama so as
you're going through those Suffering The Suffering servent as an example I think that's part of the temple drama I don't
think it's just something Isaiah is just writing out I think he is writing this and putting this in as part of that is part of the temple drama speaking of the
one that is going to be beaten and and uh humiliated and and eventually dies
there's two Scholars that agree with you that I know for sure and one of them is a guy by the name of John Eaton and another guy is a guy by the name of K
clouse Balter and they come from different perspectives and different time periods but but what they're saying
is that and they call it second Isaiah durud Isaiah um dud Isaiah is essentially Isaiah
40-55 but they're both saying that the servant songs in there is part of a liturgy liturgy is a fancy word for a
right like the endowment and that Isaiah is using words to describe something
which is also a drama so we're reading the the lyrics of some of the drama and so clus Balter even goes so far as to
say part of these are stage directions and some is doing this suffering now think about what Jesus says to the
Nephites of all the stuff in the 1200 pages of the Old Testament what does he say to read MH yeah Isaiah and it's also
what abinadi goes over as he's trying to focus on Jesus Christ and and bringing in the Old Testament and the the law of
Moses as What It Looks forward to right he brings in he brings in uh the suffering servant um but I was going to
say something else on this um so what if it was portrayed dramatically now think about this other cultures are doing this
the Egyptian are doing this I know on your website you talk about the said Festival uh Henry Frankford talks about
this in kingship and the gods where he says babylon's doing this we with Marduk we know that the EG Egyptians are doing
this we know that the and you've talked about the ugaritic folks the people that followed Baal or Baal in Canaan they
have What's called the Baal cycle where we have the same story told the same stuff so why is this happening
everywhere and does that just mean CU this is the what you'd look at as let's call it a cultural
Evolution um view of history is that well the either in Canaan they are the
the Jews are absorbing all of this the Israelites are absorbing all of this and they adopt it just like they do
sometimes with ashra and baale worship Etc or they end up going to Babylon
where they absorb it there and they pull the stories in there when they are exiled to Babylon and then they come
back and that's actually as many scholars would say where it's the the the Bible is actually written right
after the Exile exilic script so um the other way would be um boy now I'm losing
the word on it what if the story is all over the place right and why would it be all over the place why is it the same story almost everywhere you can go to
the Americas and the Aztecs and the may you have very you have flood stories you've got creation stor you've got kingship rituals you've got it's it's
very odd that you see these things and and and the the cultural Evolution
people will say or the um evolutionary psychologists will say
well that's just the way anthropology works it's just all our minds are the same and we're all spotted over the Earth and we all kind of develop the
same way right because our minds are the similar but diffusionism is the word I'm
looking for is different right it says there's a central message that's given the truth the keys are dispensed
and and then from there it spreads and gets fractured yeah right out out in
different places and so you've got a little bit more of a secular View and then you've got a dispensational view um what if there's a little bit of
both just a thought yeah sure why not yeah yeah I think that there could be both but you talked about uh ugarit what
talk about that a little bit more because that's a lot they had something very similar to the Psalms yeah uh 1500
texts that were found uh I think 150 of them in this Temple text and this drama and they're looking through it and it's
like wait a minute this looks a lot like the Psalms here it's not perfect but it's it's very similar and it overlays
in a lot of ways the Psalms yeah so okay
so Brandon I'm going to send you a website for for the viewers if they want to not spend money and read a bunch of
books and they just want to see a website that that works so there's a there's a website by this fellow and I
found him in prep for this cuz I thought okay instead of giving everybody a bunch of books this this website is by Brendan
Graham Dempsey don't know the guy but he has a website called Brandon Branden
gram Dempsey dos subs.com and the title of it is God's fight with the Dragon part one the reason why I love it first
of all it starts off with this cool picture by uh Gustav Dior of the dragon
and the you know the deity with the sword fighting the dragon so I love it and then he starts off with the combat
that myth genre and all the stuff that he's quoting I had to read all this stuff for my dissertation so so as I was
reading I was like yep yep and there's pictures so this is really simplified for a normal audience but to be brief in
speaking about the the bail cycle as it's called Uh there's a couple good books you can read one is by Mark Smith
uh you know stories from Kanan he wrote that with with cougan essentially the idea is this every year baale which just
means husband or Lord is what it means he's this God that in the pre-earth life as it were before the creation uh the
gods had a counsil and they said what are we going to do there's chaos raining down there sea yam was kind of taken
over and he says I'm going to go down and steal the sea so he goes down and fights and he steals the sea beats yam
but then Mo which is the word for death this other God of chaos kind of comes up and kills him and the heavens weep
because Baal is dead and then his sister comes and says I'm going to fix this and she comes down and there it's fragmented
we don't have all the fragments but essentially osus yeah exactly it's the same story so essentially what she does
is she laments she weeps and the women in heaven weep and and then uh baale is revived and he comes back and he comes
to his dad which is really his dad's name is very similar to the father figure in the in the biblical text and
he says can I get a house made out of the Cedars of Lebanon on Mount zapon and
mount zapon in Hebrew Zone just means North but it also is the cosmic mountain
of Bal and so L says we'll make you a house out of the seedar of Lebanon so they make him a house out of the Cedars
of Lebanon and Baal rules and the idea is that we celebrate his resurrection his revocation his conquering of death
and chaos and we have fertility and we have joy so what do we have in the Old
Testament well we have well I should say what do we have in Mike's version of the Old Testament I believe that Jesus is
that God I believe that a title for him as husband or Lord is a good title he's called those things in the New Testament
he comes down and defeats e death and Hell there's some lamenting of the women in the New Testament accounts I believe
that the New Testament writers knew this stuff and so they portray him being revived in a garden in the Old Testament
Jehovah conquers yam conquers SE Psalm 74 talks about the he defeats the dragon
he smites its head and after he defeats it he has a house built on Mount seon
Zion out of the Cedars of Lebanon so there's there's so many like correlations that probably the number
one guy on this that I've read is a guy by the name of Frank Mor cross where he wrote uh what's the name of I can't it's
a long title but I I'll send it to you Brandon Frank Mor cross has written about this where he says you can't once
you see it you can't unsee it these are distinct parallels and there's enough of them that we're either talking about
borrowing or Shar tradition or some Scholars will say well what if the Canaanites were Israelites what if they
were you know it's kind of like our story of our origin of our country we all do thanks giving and we eat the
turkey but how many of our exact ancestors were on the ship but it's the collective story because we're Americans
it's a founding story yeah yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense so back over to Jesus again in the Old Testament back to
Jesus um okay so in your view then you see Jesus in Psalm 110 and other places
um I again I believe that that Jesus or whatever name is being used hamashiach or whatever it is and is being used in
the brass plates totally and I think it's all over the place it's twice in the Bible in the Old Testament I think
in Daniel that's it that's it and so you have to say
well what happened why why is it not there why do we not see Jesus look at
the Brazen serpent I love talking about the Brazen serpent um Brazen serpent is
mentioned in numbers what is it 21 it's an amazing Story the only other time we ever hear
about it is when they're destroying the nushan yeah and it's thrown out of the temple that's it yeah right take it to
John 3 yeah and then Jesus says hey it's me yeah it's me like reintroduces himself yeah right so so so what's
happening here okay so this is going to sound real the
reason I'm asking this is because I'm getting to Jesus's last week of his mortal life yeah and so I want to tie
him into all of these other things here yeah um so
I'm going to start and end with I don't know but I think so Isaiah is going to call him the Holy One of Israel all over the place that's what Isaiah calls him
and I think that's what Nephi is using a lot if I'm remembering correctly so
Jesus Christ just that idea right um Jesus is just we're morphing the word
we're we're tweaking the word for salvation and Christ is like you said Mia just it's the word for anointed
Christos in Greek it just means the anointed one so what we have is this term for salvation followed by the word
anointed one which we now say is king So I don't I'm not really hard the
king of Salvation right yeah I mean that works and I and I'm not really entrenched on their having to be the
words Jesus Christ anywhere in the Old Testament right but at the same time and I don't know the reference I'm sure you
can tell me I've read it before but there's this bit in first Nephi or second Nei where he says an angel
revealed to me that his name would be this and it would be Jesus Christ and it's your viewers could probably put it in the comments in 2 seconds but
essentially Jesus had to get it revealed so with that you know what about the son
MH and then that term is used yeah the Son of God you are my son and so the father says what does the father say
when he talks about him this is my son so I I like that and I also like the
word Father which Jesus calls heavenly father that more than anything father
and son so to me it's simpler mhm also it kind of splits
through some of the trinitarian arithmetic as Thomas Jefferson calls it we have a father we have a son it's pretty simple to understand well they're
also they're roles sense also I mean b goes over this he talks about how how how God is the
father speaking of Jesus the Savior the Redeemer is the father because we are
born again to him so to speak as we believe in his name but he's also the son because he descended and cond send
it down right so there's there's there's their roles right and that's what you look at with him and especially in
Isaiah and other places where you look at the Prince of Peace the counselor the Mighty God the Everlasting
father their roles when you have a coronation of a king today King Charles
last year he's going to have a ton of titles that go right along with it to me
this is the same thing that their their belief system is anchored and their
culture is anchored in their rituals right so they understand this all you we're looking at it like oh yeah okay
the counselor the this is they all mean something right and their titles is like
the Duke of Earl right it's like uh the Duke of edenburgh you know whatever it is it's these are titles that are given
to him that I think are very well understood including father and including son right that that
would go along with it like like any Royal would have there's a couple of bits of titles he still to understand
and every time I talk to Jackson and Hayden Paul I ask him cuz I don't understand the titles in the military
all the different ranks and I don't understand Royal titles Duke and it's over my head but I get father son I'm
really simple so in the drama you have the father you have the son the son gets
coronated your whole idea of the procession right the in the drama the son would come back to life or the king
and the King represents all of us and just for your viewers that have been in doubt I'm just going to say it when you
go to the temple they tell the guys Adam is you ladies Eve is you those are the
first king and queen we're told in Genesis the Lord says I make you Adam Lord over the whole earth what does that
make Eve she's the queen so those were the sacral king and queen and in the
procession just work with me here because when you contacted me and said I want you talk about the procession to me this is a big
deal do you remember when you first went to the temple way back in the day did you ever do Salt Lake mhm do you
remember when the boys would be on one side and the girls would be on other side and we go up the stairs that's the
procession you go up and then you go into the final room and then Adam and Eve go to the Altar and make covenants
those are the king and queen but remember they represent us and then the king and queen go into father's presence
so to me that's the procession now we've kind of taken some of that out in our temples I understand for Simplicity uh
to make it easier to to get people endowed but to me I always want to talk to my kids and my grandkids and say old
school you would Ascend upstairs in A procession and the procession is in the
Old Testament in Joshua where they circumnavigate the city seven times and
the Ark of the Covenant is in the front and joshu was in front and there's priests it doesn't say it in the text
but in my mind's eye the men are on the right the women are on the left and they're going around in a circle it's
Psalm 24 exactly that's where that was the first one on my list to talk about was Psalm 24 yeah yeah that's uh yeah I
there's another thing I want to bring up that I I just thought about a while back and that goes right along with this procession as well but uh okay so um I
just wanted to make sure I said that because I would kick myself if I didn't say that no that's cool I like that that's that's great imagery um all right
so backing up now I want to go back and say so in other words the other thing I want to say actually on this is
throughout the Book of Mormon several times and in the New Testament we are told
that the prophets died preaching about Jesus Christ yeah where is that in the
Old Testament okay I don't I can't find it the only thing I can off the top of my
head is the Ascension of Isaiah where Manasseh kills him and it's not in the Bible no right so it's taken out and so
I know what Jonah would say if he were here he would say well the people that killed those guys aren't going to tell
you about those guys right because it's the Deep state in Antiquity right yeah
yeah it's the deep Theocratic State there you go yeah exactly and so it's it's you look at that you say well wait
a minute and that's where you can see the this Restoration in the New Testament and and this
continuing truth in the Book of Mormon yeah and not the Old Testament right
that are both saying the same thing these prophets were killed and stoned
because they were preaching about Jesus Christ right and and then you look at Lehi say what was going to happen with
him and then you go throughout the Book of Mormon well what happened with abinadi what was he preaching about and if you go to mosiah 7 actually you will
see specifically that he was killed because he was preaching about the Redeemer that's exactly why they killed
him and and so it's there he's there he's everywhere I think I think he's he
was there everywhere in the Old Testament um all right so backing up then a little bit more to the the uh the
Psalms and going moving to the procession so yeah we get this story within the Psalms um um
uh you know Ricks and and uh Baker talk about three different acts that they're
going through I think they go with eight days yeah they go there's his eight days there's his eight days on this Temple
drama um a portion of this is the Royal procession and this is this fascinates me this whole royal procession because
what I believe is that the Royal procession and this is
studying other ancient Middle Eastern cultures as well is the last week of is
the beginning of the last week of Jesus's life totally and and it is also
the beginning of our Temple experience so so that what we are
actually doing when we go through the
temple is we're going through that last week of Jesus's life and because that's what is playing out from the temple
drama that we're we're talking about yeah it's not just well let me fulfill these prophecies the prophecies were given in
the drama no one hardly anyone had a copy of a scroll you know their quad
sitting on their they're an oral culture in their tent yeah right where are they
getting this by the way our kids or us growing up how many times would we quote our favorite movies we could quote them
or you go to a movie with your friend and you've seen it nine times and you're laughing while you're quoting it that's
how like you said they didn't walk around with quads but they knew the dramas they knew the dramas this is where the doctrine was dispensed this is
what they saw over and over and over again and they were able to bring back and so much of these the Psalms you've
got you've got poetry and you've got pros and you've got these chants and you've got these hebraisms and these
literary devices that could be used to memorize all of these things yeah and and take them back to your home for
family home evening and and cover them right and talk about them and teach your kids about all of this and so the drama
is Central and and so when you understand that and then you look at Jesus's last
week and you understand this whole drama is about this that has been lost all of
a sudden you know pun intended the whole thing gets resurrected and and and I think that a
number of people know about as Jeremiah calls it the Old Paths they know about this do you remember that bit in Luke
where they're walking to on the road to emus and Jesus they don't know it's Jesus and after Jesus leaves they say he
told us about the Psalms and how he was the Fulfillment of the Psalms in the scriptures I'm sure Jesus quoted parts
of Psalm 24 PS part of Psalm 22 Psalm 22 is big time in the New Testament that's
all the stuff where they part my ve they part my vesture they I'm just going to
read part of it I mean we're not going to read the whole bit but there's some good stuff in here uh in verse 16 dogs
have compassed me the Assembly of the wicked have enclosed me they pierce my hands and my feet verse 18 they part my
garments among them they cast lots upon my vesture deliver my soul from The
Sword I poured out like water I mean they see me and they laugh me to scorn I
mean there's so much in just in Psalm 22 that is just used by the New Testament
writers I'm like when would they what would Mo when would you know let's just go with with a consensus of of of
biblical Scholars when would they say the Psalms were written okay that's a mess and they're
going to fight so what mowinkle will say is this he says listen there's clearly stuff in here that's pre-exilic but it's
a it's a Minefield when you get into what Scholars say about the Psalms but
I've yet to read one that says that it's 100% post exilic and this is how this is
the OG form that it took that this stuff was clearly moved around there let me
give you like a two-minute explanation of what's Happening here so just two minutes I watch my timer so I don't
ramble too bad Okay so after gkl there was a a rise of What's
called the myth and ritual school and it wasn't just about the Bible but there was a bunch of Scholars that basically
said listen the great epics were actually put to rights rituals and plays
and there were a bunch of them one was Jane Harrison there there's a bunch of these guys and gals that assumed that
the the dramas of the ages even some of Homer stuff if or even Sophocles like
edus Rex that and by the way I had to do stuff on on Sophocles I think this is a
ritual play it ends with edus embracing his daughter they're in a temple setting and then he basically gets translated I
mean if you and even H nii would agree with me and say there's something going on here ritually speaking so the myth
and ritual School basically said listen these great epics were memorized bits and the chorus had songs and this stuff
was all a play it was all also tied into ritual and and mowinkle went with this
and said this stuff is first Israelite Temple drama now he doesn't use those exact terms but that's the term I'm going to use and as an endowed member of
the church I can't help but see this stuff you can't unsee it once you see it
and then it kind of went out of Vogue uh in the in the 70s 80s and 90s there were a bunch of people that said well you
know we we can't reconstruct it we don't have the form that says here was the right we don't have the temple uh layout
and so they kind of push back against it and then there's been a slight resurgence just in the last decade or so
of Scholars one's by the name of brown uh that said basically mowinkle is
sitting in center field his analysis is still center field and if you're going to discount it you have to show evidence
that he's wrong and so that's kind of where my dissertation takes off is I I
basically in 20 Pages or so look at the lay of the land in scholarship and say Here's Where it started started with
gole and mowinkle and then it shifted and then there's a slight push back and my dissertation is saying we need to
revisit this because uh it's it's clearly here and even the naysayers are
going to say things like uh and they use this term enthronement Psalm an enthronement Psalm is essentially where
they celebrate yahweh's enthronement and they're liturgically putting the Ark in the holy of holies in A procession and
even the naysayers are saying that was happening because it's in here and so I
I didn't know where we were going to go with this but I brought a series of Psalms where I'm like I could go in order we could talk about this there's a
lot of this stuff you can once you see it you can't unsee it so that's my two-minute introduction to your question
which I can't exactly remember because my brain is sketchy but the idea of how do we look at the Psalms I guess your
question was as to dating there's clear evidence that some of this stuff is pre-exilic there's clear evidence that
some of it is post-exilic there's a whole bit in there about how I think it's Psalm 130 131 where they're mad at
Babylon and they're clearly telling you hey we're writing this word and we're in Exile we're really mad so some of it is
easy to see I I don't remember if it's 131 I'm going to have to look that up right now you know one of the reasons I was bringing that up is because when you
read Psalm 22 Yeah it talked about was it his feet and his hands that were
pierced yes okay so I mean it's interesting because one of the criticisms of the Book of Mormon is that
they're talking at that time about Jesus being crucified right it's like no that's the Romans thing said well wait a
minute here what what what is this yeah so and and this is tough and so in the
Hebrew and and there's a lot of there's a lot of disagreement over how to translate that so Robert alter is going
to say listen we're not talking about pierced it's kind of like like a lion they've come at my hands and my feet
there's some there's some how shall I say this they're not 100% consensus here
I think some of the Jewish Scholars would look at Psalm 22 and say that the King James translators took Liberty with
it and I addressed some of this stuff in in some of my writings it's a little bit AC mic
but it's like all things in the Old Testament it's contested I you know Joseph feeling Maki one time said this
to his missionaries in Ireland he said to his missionaries take the Book of Mormon and preach Christ and the
restoration and leave your Bibles at home and a missionary said why and he held over the Bible and he said this is
Battle Ground and then he held over the Book of Mormon and he said this is sacred ground take your investigator
which we can't say anymore your friends take your friends to the sacred grove as fast as you can and stay there and drink
from the pure water and while I agree with him man I love the Bible yeah I do too and so I'm going to go with they
pierce his hands and his feet yeah yeah I I it's it's pretty coincidental I mean
but but anyway okay so I want sorry sorry to put water on that no that's good that's good so I uh there's a
couple of other interesting things you talk about how there seems to be drama instructions you know coming uh
somebody's observing or it's like Direct dire going on there you know the oldest
SC the oldest thing we have in uh in the
only the oldest written document we have it's actually a copy of the oldest written document is the shaca stone in
Memphis in in uh well it was founded in Memphis in in Egypt and it's the same
thing it's the whole thing all what we have of it is stage directions to a creation and a premortal existence for a
drama mhm I think that's so interesting it's the oldest thing we can find and it's it's about a temple drama stage
instructions uhuh so it's this is what they did everything went into a drama
and this is where you learned right I don't I don't know what the um L level
of of of uh what's the word I'm looking for here um oh um literacy literacy yeah
yeah what what the level of literacy is but I don't think it's going to be super high it used to be thought it was much a lot higher I think they've come down a
little bit in that recently I'm always shifting based on the last thing I've read but if you read Bart man nobody
could read Jesus couldn't read but then you read other Scholars that say you know we have uh shards of you know
ceramic stuff where they're writing things and some of this stuff is very mundane like hey Greg you delivered me
10 sacks of Wheat and I'm giving you this many shekels and so it's debated I
kind of think that there were more literate than maybe the standards but you have a phonetic alphabet with just a
was it 22 23 characters it's phonetic I think there were quite a few more than
you know the 2 3% that a lot of people say but at the end of the day yeah there was a scribal class like you and I back
then if we lived in a th000 BC we were probably out working we'd be lucky to be a scribe or be part of the Priestly
class right thank goodness for modernity we can we can read and make podcasts and
stuff but so I don't know I lean more towards more literacy than than most but at the end of the day we just don't know
okay so let's run through your Psalms here okay really fast okay and this is on the procession yeah for for the
audience we're talking about the time leading up to the coronation right yeah yeah totally yeah so before I go on I
just want to say the bit on the post exilic is Psalm 137 where they say by
the Rivers of Babylon we wept we wept we we hung our Harps upon the Willows in in Babylon so that's Psalm 137 so post
exilic but back to the procession I just had to say that go to Psalm
24 okay by the way Psalm 23 is awesome and the three act play is in those verses
the whole thing it ends with being anointed which is way cool but in Psalm 24 you know and it's basically the whole
bit but look at the question there who shall Ascend into the hill of the Lord who shall stand in the Holy place so a
lot of Scholars and by the way gol says this he says starting at about verse three this was an anti phal hymn that's
just fancy speak for I sing aart you sing aart I sing aart youing aart and so
uh you're coming up you're you're in a procession in your mind's eye what I want you to have in your mind's eye is this we're at the end of the drama so
day one was prear Council creation and then we talk about the king and Israel and they probably told the history of
Israel they probably talked about partying the Red Sea and this would be portrayed dramatically if you've ever been to a really cool musical you see
this can be done it's really awesome but then for 3 Days the king is is dead and he's in Shel and every time all I I
don't know any exception but when you read in the Psalms where it says the King has been rescued from the grave it
literally says he's been pulled out of shol that's important because shol is the underworld so after the king is
pulled out of the underworld after those three days now we get to the procession we see him here's the king he's coming
and he's coming with his angels and and my take on 351 when Jesus came there's
other bits where it says Angels but I think there were it was a procession then too we getting part of the story so
he's coming who's going to come verse four those with a clean hands and pure heart and by the way no vanity no no
deceit and then it says verse six this generation of them that seek him that
seek thy face oh Jacob verse 7 lift up your heads oh ye gates that's almost a direct quote out of the Baal cycle and
when Baal makes his procession it basically says close to the same thing
the king of glory is going to come in in verse seven who is the king of glory well it's the Lord the one Mighty in
battle uh lift up your heads oh ye gates even lift them up ye
Everlasting doors and the king of glory shall come in now in the Hebrew it's
really beautiful it's this idea and I'm it reads a little different lift up the gates of
eternity gungl says this mowinkle says this there's a lot of Old Testament Scholars that say this is symbolic of
two things and this is kind of a weird concept for us to get our wrap our brain around but I it shouldn't be too hard
and the idea is this this Earth is patterned after a Heavenly one Brigham
Young said this where he said the things that we see here are patterned in heaven as far as they are in order so the
temple on Earth is patterned after the temple in heaven so mowinkle and some of these guys look at this and say this
verse in verse 9 is the king of glory and he's coming in through the gates but
he's also coming into the gates of the temple in heaven so he's we're watching this live but it's also a future
entering when we will follow the king Glory into heaven because there's two temples the temple in heaven is replicated here and so who is the king
it's the Lord of hosts so my take on verse 10 is where it's explained to them
in the Liturgy and I think I think the the lyrics give me some free Freedom here to say this is that the king who's
been resurrected whoever the king is anciently in Israel everybody know knows this is not the
king he's an actor just like when you go to the temple the person who that's not really Adam but they're playing that
role and so the idea was that the king is going to bring us bring us home and take us into uh liturgically take us in
this procession into um into his presence there there's
a bunch of of uh procession texts that I have Psalm 30 is the return I just want
to say here Psalm 24 this is the jst he adds a coule couple things here about the Lord and the King he says read it
and he will not he will roll away the heavens and will come down to redeem his
people to make you an everlasting name to establish you upon his Everlasting
Rock he also adds in here the Lord of hosts the King of Kings so there's the
title right there the Lord of armies yeah all right and the king of kings and then he says uh even the king of glory
in verse 10 the last one shall come unto you and shall redeem his people and
shall establish them in righteousness yeah read that part about the rock again
yeah he says uh and he will roll away the heavens and will come down to redeem his people to make you an everlasting
name to establish you upon his Everlasting Rock okay there's a lot
going on there so the Everlasting name that's in Isaiah Isaiah says he's going
to give you a name and the rock is that we're in the holy
of holies the idea when you're standing on the Rock okay you you believe that too yeah see I think when they talk
about the rock that is what they're talking about I think that in the New Testament they're talking about the center of all priesthood and Authority
in Jesus Christ is the rock they have the Ark of the Covenant actually sits
inside a niche a niche yeah that's what red Meer says yeah red Meer says that
yeah yeah so it sits right in there it's like and and there are other references that to me seem very obvious that that's
what they're talking about I am the rock go to 2 Samuel 6 I'm so glad you brought it up so 2 Samuel 6 this is where David
comes in a procession and notice he's wearing the ephod so he's acting as a priest yep and it says you know he's
bringing the Ark in chapter 6 and where is it at it's in here the second Samuel
yeah 2 Samuel 6 verse1 14 he dances before the Lord verse 15 he brings the ark
and then verse 17 he brought the Ark of the Lord and set it in his place in the midst of the Tabernacle that David
pitched for it and David offered burnt offerings so now we get to where's the
bit where they go and they purchase the threshing floor from ARA is that not here is it in 24 maybe it's in 24 I
can't remember that is no I we got to look at it cuz it's really good that threshing floor is always Associated
there okay I found it go to chapter 24 2 Samuel 24
and by the way this is a pun in Hebrew so eron in in Hebrew is the ark and
Arona is the name of the guy he buys the threshing floor from and remember that's the stone where the holy of holies is
going to be so this is all punning but he buys it in uh you know he rears the
altar in verse 18 on the threshing floor of Arona and David goes in verses 19- 24
I'm not going to read it all he buys it they even tell you the price in verse 24 for 50 shekels of silver and David built
there an altar unto the Lord and he offered burnt offerings I'm reading verse 25 so the Lord was entreated for
the land and the plague was saved from Israel a couple thoughts David's acting as king he's acting as priest he stops
the plague he buys the spot where the holy of holies is it's a threshing floor that's where the rock is and so I'm
reading this guy's dissertation don't think I'm crazy I'm reading this guy's dissertation and his name is Moshe so
you know he's Jewish and he writes his whole dissertation is about the threshing floor and this is what he says
it's a mind grenade he says the threshing floor was the place where all the dramas of all the ages started it's
the beginning of all drama because we'd bring our we'd bring our wheat we'd pay our taxes I owe you taxes I pay it I pay
my bit to the state and that the rest is what I have and that's the settling of the books in Greek the term is katal
where we're settling the books that's the word that's translated as atonement interesting the atonement is at the
threshing floor where we're settling the book so what does the Savior say I want you hear we're going to settle it don't
worry Greg I got you I'm going to pay it f heard that and Jesus says it in third Nephi where he says I will gather you as
sheaves to the floor he's saying the same thing I'm bringing you to the threshing floor it's it's in uh it's
called the gorin the the chm it's translated in the Book of Mormon is to the floor but that's what he's talking
about it's all there it's like I'm a total nerd but like when I learn this and then when I read this guy's
dissertation who's not LDS and he's saying the same stuff right that the purpose of of all this drama of the ages
is it's once again at the it's at the fall we're settling the books and then they would portray the drama well what's
the drama it's always the rising and dying god well it's interesting too because the blood of the ox and the goat
is put onto the Ark of the Covenant right there at the Rock on the floor yeah and maybe even poured out I I I
have a feeling it's I maybe even poured out onto the floor there too but it's also you also have the Kipper it yeah
the covering the covering which is you know basically of the term that is used for atonement Hebrew that is the uh the
covering of the Ark of the Covenant right there yeah yeah that's fascina so in the Hebrew it would be the the kafar the covering kiet we're covering our
sins I need my sins covered you need yours covered or katal we're squaring up the books but both of those images
dramatically are portrayed in the Old Testament like you mentioned with the blood covering The
Mercy Seat covering the Aton Merc is the same thing right idea Mercy is is
uh I mean you think about in Spanish even right you've got marado it's a market or a mercenary is paid to fight
right Mercy is payment Mercy is payment so all of that
is just like brought all together there this Mighty spiritual economy sitting on
the Rock and like you said it's all dramatically portrayed and I think the Book of Mormon is just nailing the
stuff I I really do and that's really uh Dave's book where he talks a lot about
how the Book of Mormon is a liturgy where we can see some of this stuff so
okay so 24 is the procession 30 is the Return of the King from sh we can read that or not but then there's a victory
procession in Psalm 47 there's a lot of processionals and I don't know which ones we want to talk about but we can
definitely do that one uh then there's another Psalm 56 the king is delivered from shol he says you have delivered my
soul my nephesh from shol and then we have a Warfare processional and dancing and 68 we got it again in 98 we've got
entering in the gates in 100 we've got the Return of the King from shol in 118 and then the ark brought into the holy
of holies in 132 so that those are my the big ones so there's 150 Psalms but
we've got about 10 or 12 you know almost 10% of the Psalms are dealing with what you wanted to talk about today which is
this procession of the king his Redemption and glory and that's really
what the Book of Mormon does right we have the three days of Darkness but then Jesus comes and in the Book of Mormon we
have three days of instruction and then finally the fourth Nephi is kind of like this Eighth Day of millennial peace for
200 years until we mess it up yeah that's really interesting and again you think about well what are
the obviously there are new prophecies and New Revelations
that are given to prophets but they are pulling from traditions and rituals that
are in the brass plates they have so much of this already that they are drawing from and they would have that
Temple drama yeah they would know what this is and and so when they're writing they're going to be able to create the narrative not that they're changing
anything but they're going to go along with a narrative that would be uh that would make sure we saw the fruits of the
drama right that they're that they're all that they're all anchored in you can almost see The Book Of Mormon writer saying okay I'm going to write this
plain enough for an 8-year-old but when you're in your 60s and 70s and you to the temple hundreds of times you'll read
it and go how did I miss that and to me that's when you know you're reading something cool yeah right when you see
it again and you see it with fresh eyes and I know you've had that experience multiple times in your life which to me is a testimony that the 23-year-old
young man joose Smith did not write it m i mean that's one of the clues other than for me the main one is the spirit
when I first felt the spirit of it it blew me away and I knew this was not a
19th century production that that happened to me at the beginning but the academic Pursuit for me has been fun
mhm no it's candy it is that's the word I was thinking of candy yeah it's candy
that it's like yeah I need some of this too um okay so I want to move this now over to uh we've talked about the
procession here tie this in to the last week of Jesus's life and I
I I I there are a couple points here I want to make first of all I think as
Latter-Day Saints we do a disservice to our own Doctrine by
not referring more to Christ in the term in Royal
terms because we you know you have other episcopalians and others that that will
use these terms a lot more about the king yeah and the King of Kings right we
hardly ever do that we might have it in our hymns we certainly have it all over the place when you look at our Temple is
it our American culture coming through of like we don't like kings that could very well be it I don't know but the
problem is is that we we pull our minds I think away from the whole drama we
pull our minds away from this procession and the coronation of Jesus Christ and not understanding how Central this is to
the entire narrative and and the and the prophetic writings that we have in scripture yeah because if if you look at
the end of the gospels in that last week of Jesus's life all of a sudden he's referred to as the king and
the King of Kings over and over and over again why what is going on what what
what's the difference the difference is that we've already started now the procession we've already gone into this
now and we're going to start recognizing who he is based on the Ancient Temple
drama that has been given over and over and over and over again and this becomes
the the real thing right it's no longer a substitute King that is an actor as
you said you know playing the part we're watching the real King we're watching the real king and so if we see that and
then and then the idea of it is a triumphal entry but only if you
understand it in Royal kingly kingship terms and most people don't it's like
Triumph of what right this this is where he's supposed to be riding in triumphal
triumphantly to overcome the adversary and he's going to overcome death and he's going to overcome judgment and hell
and everything else and and it's like why I wish we just called it the Royal
procession because it your mind would all of a sudden shift into the events that are happening afterward and then
start making the the uh uh parallel of your own Temple experience
and and what you're about to go through right I I think it would help at least it helped me when I first saw Exodus 19
in color in Exodus 19 it's like verse 5 or 6 where MO is trying to get us to get
up the mountain but there's a line in there where it says God wants to make you priests and Kings yes and I always
like to add queens and Prest priests and Priestess yeah nation of of priests and and kings and then in the Book of
Revelation where it says he has made us priests and Kings is revelation one unto God speaking of Jesus and his father
which is the only reference to Heavenly father's father in the New Testament Revelation 1 so John sees it at the end
of the Bible Moses sees it in Exodus that's God's endgame is to make you a
king So to me when I see Jesus as king of kings the of Kings bit is us as as
followers of Jesus right sa Sac rulers Jesus the other thing it does is it separates the idea of come follow
me right which we don't want what it does is you know come follow me I think in we culturally look at that more like
well I'm going to follow the teachings of Jesus yeah no no what's wrong with that Greg what
wrong with that is that come follow me doesn't mean let me tell you what to
do come follow me means do what I do
okay walk in my footsteps that's what we're doing the
whole end of his life is going through that Temple procession we go through a temple procession which is a
representation of exaltation for us overcoming the adversary and and come follow me is
okay you're going to at baptism take upon you my name so are you going to do my
works by the way that that involves the dissent though we don't like that we don't like to hear about the the
negative but Psalm 22 is part of following Jesus so we're going to be attacked people are going to make fun of
us now this may not be literal they're not literally going to part my vestment but the idea of following Jesus involves
The Descent and that's the whole prayer remember Joseph in Liberty where he's like really how long his real question
was how long am I going to be here so I had a really bad Health crisis in 2013 that was brutal and I was in all this
pain and I told the Lord I said if you would just tell me how long I can deal with I can deal with it right and he
didn't tell me and that's part of following him right I'm willing to go
through the Descent uh and the glory will come the promises of invulnerability at the temple in Isaiah
and in the Psalms are real and the promise that's given you a special place at the at the temple where the Lord says
I'm going to give you invulnerability I'm going to take care of you and your kids those are true promises but to
think we're going to have this all fulfilled today it's not happening so I
I I try to remind myself of that like following Jesus is more than just the glory it's the whole it's the whole
package remember what Peter says and I I forget the exact phrase but it's at the end of John remember that where he's
like you're going to be carried where you don't want to be carried m and Peter's like I'm in man yeah I'm in but
and it's the other thing I think is really important to see is is you know the restored gospel gives us
just in an infinite level of purpose and
identity whereas the rest of Christianity and I'm not putting anybody else down here but I'm just saying it's
it's very different from what we believe there is this distance between deity and us where
we're in other we're in other and we are basically observers of his
plan right we don't believe that we we believe that we are
participants absolute participants in following him and doing
the same thing here's the problem with that responsibility the problem is
responsibility isn't that mosiah 29 where he's like you guys want this but there's also the responsibility part is
that is that where it is I think that's in mosiah 29 yeah and it's like okay well look what I did I took on the
responsibility of all mankind it's painful what are you going to do are you going to and this goes right along with
taking on his name at baptism are you going to Bear each other's burdens are you going to mourn with those that mourn
yeah can you can you be atas here a little bit and take on a little portion of the world and put it on your backs
and and act like me and be be saviors on Mount Zion along with me totally right and so that idea I think is us going
through the temple is following in Jesus's footsteps so John Walton
basically says this John Walton is a Biblical scholar where he says listen the creation story was told at the
temple and and I don't know if you've talked about this before in your show so I apologize if I'm repeating something
but Adam and Eve are told to dress and keep the garden and dress is uh is Eed
and keep is Shamar now those those words can be translated lots of different ways keep Shamar is the word that's used for
guard protect push back the chaos um keep it safe that's kind of where we get
the word for keep EET is the word that's used for serve it's used d as dress in
the Garden of Eden context but ebet is the word for slave or serve and so the priests in the Old Testament when
they're told to take care of the temple priests are told to do two things specifically to Abed and Shamar they're
told to Abed to serve the temple precincts to serve in other words to keep it clean to make sure the
sacrifices are done properly but they're also told to guard it or protect it and so Walton talks about this Michael
Morales a bunch of these guys never been in the temple not LDS they say listen the purposes of Adam and Eve they are
the first temple priests they're because Eden is the temple yes and then I can't remember
which one said it but I think it's John Walton but he says basically this and John if you didn't say this I apologize
it might have been somebody else but he says basically to follow Adam and Eve means we are to extend Eden outward we
are to create Eden in our lives by pushing back the darkness we're to Shamar it Shamar the Sacred Space and
the our prophets use this term where they say create Zion in your home you kneel with your wife you pray you
protect your kids you read scriptures with them you teach them not to hit each other this is a benedi right teach your kids don't hit each other don't steal
don't lie why we're trying to create Eden and if every family did that we created a little mini Edens pretty soon
these communities build into cities and then pretty soon the whole world becomes Eden in other words the whole story is
an invitation for where the Lord's like participate with me in creating this stuff but I think and I've heard and I'm
not trying to diss other Christians I've heard latterday Saints say this have you ever heard this before Oh I just can't wait till Jesus comes yeah cuz it's
going to get all fixed and you can see Jesus in heaven going bro I I need your
help you know what I mean like it's our job we need not to do it all but we need to do what we can and this is Elder
Maxwell he says your family and your people you work with are your clinical material to learn how to be like Zion
that's it and so if you pray to God give me a different wife Elder Maxwell would say you're doing it wrong she's
yours now go make it Eden yeah right effort responsibility yeah yeah don't
wish for other kids those are your kids now love them Jes um by the way how many kids do you
have I don't know anything about your family I've got four four kids how you have kids uh Wow Let's see uh
ages 34 to 24 okay we're about in the same boat I got one that's 28 and my
baby's on a mission in Oklahoma cool go go Max go Sooners uh but we're about in
that boat right you have all boys girls what do you got two of each okay I got all boys yeah okay by the way boys are
easy I don't know anything about raising daughters though so maybe daughters are easy I don't know yeah it's an individual thing you got grandkids none
yet none yet it's fun man so I want to go through uh Matthew 21 oh let's do it
talk about this and and and go through we'll finish up with this uh
um here again you start getting the word King all over the place and I I'm just going to go here and talk about let's
see we're going to go over to and by the way this is interesting they're coming from
Jericho in this right the the people have followed Jesus already he doesn't
just end up with this following all of a sudden at Passover at at Jerusalem he was in
Jericho which is you know the what's that called the that's that's the Underworld the lowest city on earth it's
also the city of oh well that's where Elijah Elijah makes his Ascent that's the story where
they circumnavigate it and Joshua wrecks it but what are you thinking of it's also called the city of Palms okay okay
which I think that's just kind of interesting because that's what ends up happening here but but uh so so Jesus is
going to go get the donkey or or his servants are going to go get the Donkey which again this is not some weird
prophecy yes Zechariah goes over it but it is this is what David did and told
Solomon to do go get my donkey okay do it right you are being rivaled in your
king the kingship Beth Sheba has come in to David on his deathbed and said and
and David says Solomon go get my donkey and come in from the East Gate and come
up to the temple and be oned and Crown you have to do it right because your rival is already uh uh initiated a coup
here in all's got to kill a lot of people that's for another podcast that's another podcast by the way we skipped that in Sunday school I'm just going to
say we skipped the Bloodshed The Godfather uh stuff in in Solomon but yeah so got to keep it G-rated so it's
already been done the Palms have already been done in the Old Testament you can see this another coronation rights it's already been done this is a royal
procession so Jesus comes in writing on the because he's the king that's why he's doing it right he's coming in as
The King The Palms are being put out because it's it's part of what you do in a coronation right and I know there's
other interpretations and bargar goes into the the what are the the lulofs or what do they call but the Rog yeah yeah
but it is it is it's already been stated in the Old Testament that this is what they do in Israel
um you know what else is interesting is the garments the robes that are thrown out
in front and you go and you read the book of Mormon and and you read about Captain
Moroni and he's out about and he says I'm going to rip this robe here and and
basically by ripping creating a covenant and tying it up it's the title
of Liberty he talks about it being the remnant of the you know like the remnant of uh Joseph's
coat and then the guys come up and they rip their garment and they throw it out
in front of them and they say well you know if we don't give it our all basically and everything
we need to do in this battle then may we be trotten over like the Garment is trotten over that's how you make a covenant yeah these people are doing the
same thing they're throwing their garment their robe out in front of the donkey where he's going to be trotten
over it and I like that interpretation I think that's cool and and it's like okay there's a covenant that's being made what is the Covenant I'm going to follow
the King right this is the king I am going to follow the king and by the way I think that what you have also is you
have a group of Jews that are converted to the Old Paths
or already or holding on to the old pth recognized it in Jesus and John the
Baptist and that's them right I these are not they're not the same Jews at the
trial with pilate it's not the same group of people and so he comes in on
the donkey riding in from the East Gate just like Solomon did moves up he's going to go to the Temple of course
that's where you get crowned but of course he's got to go through the whole drama yeah right and
so he goes through the whole drama he he he's going to instead be crowned by the
Romans and mocked given the the the thr the the thorny crown he's going to be
given the robe the staff they bow in front of him they beat him he goes through all the suffering servant issues
and and uh and then of course he's going to um this is uh after he goes to
Gethsemane of course he goes to Gethsemane then all of this happens this is what we do in the temple if you know
what you're looking for right the covenants that we make the way we make
them we're going through his last week right we're going through his last week
there as he goes through that of course he's going to come out triumphant as he comes out of the Tomb and he's after the
third day and by the way it Israel in that in that drama
the ancient uh Israelite drama the king would be put down into the basement of the temple and all of the lights in
Jerusalem had to be turned off for three days before he was brought back out in
new regalia vestures that uh of the King right so it it's it's the same thing you
know Mormon even constructs and you've read Baker where he talks about this Mormon constructs his narrative in that
framework so we have the three days of darkness and if you read the book of Mormon it almost looks like on the third
day Jesus shows up to the Nephites and I've had many conversations with people when they're surprised when I show them
well Mormon subtly sneaks it in there that a whole year had passed that they'd remodel the temple probably and they're
going to they're and this is uh I think RX talks about this and Hugh nibbly talks about this where they both say
they're rededicating the temple and at the rededication we're initiating the law the king comes in and this is Jesus
but back to my point with Mormon you're talking about when Jesus shows up yeah when Jesus shows up in third Nephi
um it's been a year since he's died and and Mormon shows you but he's careful the way he constructs it because that's
not the point Mormon a Westerner is like okay he died on April whatever when does he show up oh you know March of the next
year that's a western review but Mormon's not doing that Mormon's doing the temple drama so on the third day of
Darkness then the light then the star or then Jesus comes not the star but then Jesus comes and so my point is and and I
didn't know this till I read Baker's book that's because The Book of Mormons doing this again to show you on the third day the king arrives if that makes
I'm rambling but but I hope that makes sense but there is a book of Mormon reference where it says Hey guys listen
it's been a year so for your Western readers that are nitpicky about the details he puts it in there but you got
to dig it out well you got to figure it's a festival exactly they're out of you look at all of these it's like I
even think a bad is out of festival I think that most of these are this is where all the people are gathered this is where you're going to get up on your
soap box yes and preach to all the people uh your reference on that is 3i 85 and 3i 1018 if you look at those two
and you correlate them it's been a year but Mormon just kind of sneaks him he separates him because Mormon's focus is
we're doing the we're doing the drama I just wanted to get that out there so it would be kind of like I mean whether
it's a year or not there it's a a time period where you have another Passover or maybe A Feast of Tabernacles at that
time and that's when he's showing up yeah exactly yeah that's that's pretty interesting that's good stuff and I love
what you said about we're recreating in the temple and there's a lot we can't say but if you think about the temple
and you think about third Nephi I can talk about third Nei all day each individual on the day one there's 2500
of them and Mormon make sure to tell you one by one they touch him mhm one by one
that's the temple yes that's the temple and that I can say that yeah and and again I mean obviously he'd probably
mention that anyway but you know that they are picking these things out specific to the drama yeah and into the
ordinances right and and so when you understand the drama and how Central
that is to everything then you can start looking at the rituals or finding the rituals in scripture and tying them back
to a drama and then tying them to our Temple experience yeah and then and I don't know the reference but we could
find it it's just in my mind because I've been talking about it recently but it's in The Ether narrative where
says by the way I've seen him brother Jared's seen him and then he says and I commend you to seek this Jes Jus of whom
the prophets have written and then you have Nephi where he's like I've seen him Isaiah's seen him my dad's seen him and
you can too now whether I get to in this life or the next The Book of Mormon tells me yeah you're going to see him which is
really awesome a temple Vision yeah yeah so I'm not too caught up I know some people get caught up in seeing him in
this life and I always say man my clinical material my wife and my kids I got a lot on my plate but I'm going to
see him yeah and he's real he's a real person yeah um what else do you see in
the in the in the uh The Narrative of of the procession and and coronation here that goes along with what we see in
Jesus's last week of his life do you see anything else there any other
parallels okay wow um may be something you haven't really done no that's a that's a good question so say it again
uh in the procession and also in Jesus's life is that right yeah do you see any other any other uh correlations there
that are showing that Jesus's last week is a play out of the temple drama okay
um wow okay I'm going to butcher it it's in my
dissertation I wrote it so well and so what's left in my head is this idea of you have a three-part Ascent in there's
two of them there's one in Matthew there's one in Luke I think I can do the one in Matthew better but uh you've got
he he's in the courtroom in or in the court in the temple Court in Matthew right so after he goes He curses the Fig
Tree and then he gives the parable of the husbandman then he does the parable of the King's son but isn't it in 23
where is it where he gets into it with the Pharisees that's 23 right woe upon you guys you guys are Knuckleheads yeah
he kind of really gets on him so there's that where he's in the courtyard and then he tells them about the second
coming but then in
25 yeah okay okay so then in so 25 is good stuff where he talks about when do
we see the sick or in prison but if you go to 26 he's anointed uh in the upper
room and keeps the Passover so there's this idea that he goes from the courtyard to the upper room and there's
like a so in the temple right you have the courtyard and then you have the H call which is the main building and then
you have the holy of holies so we have concentric zones of Holiness is what the scholars would call it right and there's
a bunch more zones than three but I'm focusing on three so he's in the courtyard talking to is that the ulam
yeah well ulam is the uh is like the porch that's where we get Olam which is eternity but so we have the courtyard
but then we have the The Upper Room the hay call but then we have so so the courtyard is where he's talking to the
the enemies but then in 26 he's anointed and he's kind of in the upper room but
then he goes into um Gethsemane which could be a holy of holies type situation
where he's at a tree now it depends on how you read the text Luke does some same some similar things I'm butchering
it because it's in my written stuff I didn't know we were going to talk about I would have came prepared but the idea
one of the ideas that we think is happening in the the narratives of the the Christian authors who are writing
these is that they're showing Jesus in this ascent and finally I mean at the end he ascends from the Mount of Olives
right and then then the angel says he's going to come back the way you saw him leave and so I see it but not everybody
agrees but I I like it I think it's really kind of cool and another thing that we could do cuz you asked the
question okay what do we see in Jesus's life that's this stuff holy cow the anointing right in Mark where he says uh
blessed are you among women essentially this will be had in Memorial of her when they anoint him with that and he says
she's anointing me for my burial but she's also anointing him King like literally in front of them right there's
a lot going on there that's what it is the anointing is the kingship that's what it is and so again that's and
that's starting off before he starts moving into the procession right right right now in the procession and this
this is where it's reversed and so we don't know we weren't there but in the procession the scholars are basically saying listen after the procession we
put the Ark in the holy of holies the veil's been drawn we're all looking at this the king and queens sit enthroned
MH and then they're anointed now this is where it gets messy so I'm just going to give you my take but I I could be dead
wrong but this is how I see it I see the queen anointing the king and then I see
the king anointing the queen I see that's kind of how I Envision it in my mind but I don't know well I I know that
I know that Baker and RX also say that there were two anointings there was one
at the beginning yes which would have probably been the woman is do we know if that's uh do we know who that is there's
two accounts of that and they're actually at different times they are yeah uh one's in John I think yeah yeah
uh but but there's an anointing before it all happens and then there would be an anointing at the coronation yeah and
I think Baker Rick talk about this tooo the king would get anointed but then he would be anointed when he takes the throne right so the famous story you
know I don't know if your viewers have seen this show but there's a show where they tried to recreate the black and white filming of Queen Elizabeth's
anointing right and how they made this decision where they said hey we're going to televise this and it's really
interesting so I was talking about some of this stuff in one of my classes and I had a 28-year-old student come up and say look at this and he pulled up his
phone and he pulled showed me like a three-minute clip from that show and it was really interesting the parallels
between her anointing and what we see in sacred places very now they don't actually show the anointing no but they
show symbols of it behind a little veil or behind a canopy a little canopy or something oh you mean in the black and
white but I'm talking about the recreation on Netflix yeah okay I got you yeah oh in uh yeah it's called The
Crown Crown right he just showed me like a little three minute clip it was so interesting to me and so when I went to
England that's the first thing I wanted to see was show me all the stuff show show me the regalia show me the the
container of the oil and the spoon and the whole bit and they got it all there to to see of course they don't let you
take pictures yeah yeah well it's it's very similar because it's what it it's
well because it's coming from a th000 ad and where did they get us exactly right they're they're pulling it from the
right sources it's just not pure but it's super close it's super close it's unbelievably close if you look at all of
it it's unbel believably close and and if you back it up a little bit before she even gets in there or or Charles
even gets in there you have a procession right they come through and there's all
the they're holding the canopy over which is in the shape of a square and they have the whole uh
um you know they bring them in in a uh a I want to say a buggy what is it called
oh a carriage yeah yeah right it's it's it's it's a moving Throne it's a
chariot it's the Arc of the Covenant yeah being moved around and everybody is
all the Fanfare is there just like it was with Jesus it's all built the same way yeah right Jesus was going through a
royal procession and a coronation very very similar yeah and we get pieces in the New Testament I'm just
going to say it I personally think Jesus was married I think the apostles knew it I think that one day when we see all
things we're going to be like yeah cuz let's be honest can you really rule your house without your wife in other words
a household has this male female and maybe Rob K could talk about this better than I could but there's this male
female principle to running a kingdom sure and you got to have both that's just in my view how it is and the King
by the way you know you're a good King if you have like Mish Pat and zic right Justice or judgment and righteousness
and by the way we made covenants in the temple we make that Covenant to take care of our family to take care of our
spouse and that they call it an order of the priesthood that's literally what they call it and the doctrine covenants
and in the temple so marriage is part of priesthood power so I see all this
connected I know some of this is unpopular because the church doesn't have an official position procession so it's part of the procession so I just
say take it for what it's worth you don't have to believe it that's just in my mind how I see it yeah yeah anyway that's interesting
well Mike thanks so much for your time this is awesome stuff I want to do it again we've got to hang out bro cuz you are an interesting character yeah this
is fun this is really fun this is a lot of good candy very it's fun stuff you know what I don't know if you if you want but I'd be happy
to just send you a a PDF of this if your readers want to every time I do a podcast I'll say it's in the show notes
and I we only got to page two but I you know I just put some stuff together in preparation to say just in case yeah
we'll take care of it we'll cool thanks man appreciate it hey thanks for having me
