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The endowment ceremony has changed over the years. I think most are aware of the significant changes made to the endowment in 1990. There were also significant changes in 2019 that both streamlined the endowment and made the endowment more equal between the sexes. There were also changes made to the endowment a little over a year ago. I recently chanced upon a site that had a side-by-side comparison of the 2019 and 2023 endowments. I just wanted to highlight a few changes that I noticed. Note: I won’t be talking about anything that patrons are under covenant not to discuss.
The preface
In 2019 a preface was added to the endowment to ease members into the fact that the endowment had changed. There’s still a preface for the 2023 changes.
- They removed the portion about not discussing the changes outside of the temple. I don’t think it was an, “Oops, we forgot.” I think that might have been intentional. Either way, I found that interesting. Maybe this is an indication that there’s a relaxing of the hedges that have been built up around the very few things patrons are asked to keep private.
- They added a line about the covenants and ordinances remaining the same. I’ll agree to disagree with that but I get why they’d want to add that line. Historically, changing ordinances has been a touchy subject.
- Introduction –
Lot’sof language added to the intro. Too much to get into all of it, this is just the highlights A preview of the temple covenants. There’s not much detail about each one, it’s an executive summary.
- This is a direct quote in reference to garments. “It is a symbol of taking upon yourself the name of Jesus Christ and as a reminder of your temple covenants.”
This is new language, at least to me. I’ve never heard of the garment referred to as a representation of taking upon ourselves the name of Christ before. Here I’d point out that members that are baptized but not endowed have also taken upon themselves the name of Christ but aren’t instructed/expected to wear the garment.
- Added a council in heaven recap.
- The creation
Further tweaks to bring the sexes on more equal footing. E.g. helpmeets for one another as opposed to the prior language where Eve was the helpmeet for Adam. It’s an extension of changes made in 2019. Eve was presented as a possession of Adam, now the language reflects them being more on equal footing. Except…
- New line was added (in
red
Quote:Brothers and sisters, this is Michael, who helped form the earth. When he awakens from the sleep which Elohim and Jehovah have caused to come upon him, he will be known as “Adam”, and having forgotten all, will have become like a little child.
The priesthood was first given to Adam, and he holds the keys of it from generation to generation.
It feels odd to me. Such a strange place to shoehorn in language that Adam has the priesthood. Like… no one was talking priesthood, they were talking about Michael becoming Adam, and out of nowhere, “By the way, this guy has the priesthood.” Such a non sequitur.
(cont.)
nibbler wrote:
[*] Further tweaks to bring the sexes on more equal footing. E.g. helpmeets for one another as opposed to the prior language where Eve was the helpmeet for Adam. It’s an extension of changes made in 2019. Eve was presented as a possession of Adam, now the language reflects them being more on equal footing. Except…[*] New line was added (in
red
Quote:Brothers and sisters, this is Michael, who helped form the earth. When he awakens from the sleep which Elohim and Jehovah have caused to come upon him, he will be known as “Adam”, and having forgotten all, will have become like a little child.
The priesthood was first given to Adam, and he holds the keys of it from generation to generation.
It feels odd to me. Such a strange place to shoehorn in language that Adam has the priesthood. Like… no one was talking priesthood, they were talking about Michael becoming Adam, and out of nowhere, “By the way, this guy has the priesthood.” Such a non sequitur.(cont.)
It actually makes sense to me because from an organizational standpoint:
Male = priesthood holder (with overlapping categories of “Future”, “Present”, “Active”, and “Not Worthy”) = authorized to lead/preside/make decisions…
Basically to me it reads, “Michael = Adam (who doesn’t remember anything) AND Adam still has a ton of authority (because of holding “the priesthood”) so Adam will be leading generations of descendants for ages to come.”
[Tongue in cheek interpretation, “We have to equalize the language between Adam and Eve… but we can’t equalize it too much or else people will get ideas..(like that having the priesthood authority doesn’t mean that much and/or contesting that priesthood is gender-based).”
Garden of Eden
A line was removed that I feel is a result of an observation many have made about the endowment.
Quote:LUCIFER: See, you are naked! Father will see your nakedness. Quick! Hide! ADAM: Come, let us hide!
And the following line is a new addition that comes immediately after:
Quote:NARRATOR: The eyes of Adam and Eve were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.
I’ve heard many astute members point out, “Wait a second, Satan is commanding us to do something in the temple and we’re going along with it?” In the new endowment Satan doesn’t instruct Adam and Eve to make the apron, they do it of their own accord. This change actually brings the narrative more in line with what the scriptures say.- Removal of language like “the woman thou gavest me”
- The Law of Sacrifice covenant has changed significantly (IMO) and for the better. That’s treading in an area where I don’t feel comfortable discussing outside the temple, so I’ll just leave it at calling out the fact that the wording of the covenant has changed.
- The Telestial Kingdom
Changes to language to reflect that there’s less focus on the tokens and signs themselves and more focus on the covenants behind them.
- New line, direct quote:
Quote:NARRATOR: Brothers and sisters, through the ages Heavenly Father has sent messengers to communicate with His children. In the endowment, Peter, James, and John symbolically represent such messengers.
This feels like another change meant to address the common question, “Wait a second, how did Peter, James, and John high five each other if they were ghosts without bodies?” - Similar to the changes to the covenant of the Law of Sacrifice, there were changes to the covenant of the Law of the Gospel. Again, I think the new wording is better than it was before.
(cont.)
Terrestrial World
Minor changes.
- The Veil
This is a big change that’s being discussed now in relation to changes made to the temple recommend interview. New text highlighted in
red
Quote:Brothers and sisters, this is the veil of the temple.
The Book of Hebrews teaches that the veil of the temple symbolically represents the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Mediator with the Father. It is only through Him that we can return to the holy presence of God the Father.
This is another agree to disagree thing for me, irrespective of what the Book of Hebrews says. Personally, I interpret the veil as representing a barrier between man and god. In fact in some circumstances I’d go so far as to say that the veil is a barrier than man himself erected to form a barrier between man and god.When Jesus completed his sacrifice, the veil in the temple was rent in twain (torn in half), symbolizing that the barrier between man and god was no more. Man now had unfettered access to god.
Relating back to the temple, I saw the veil as a continued representation of a barrier between man and god. We go through the veil to enter the Lord’s presence. I get what they’re saying that it’s “through” Jesus that we return to the presence of god and people go “through” the veil, but it still prefer the interpretation that Jesus made it possible to traverse through what was otherwise an impassible barrier. In that interpretation, the veil is still a barrier. Jesus isn’t a barrier.
But it’s all Calvinball. I can’t complain about someone else’s rules.
- Old language had us conversing with “The Lord” through the veil. New language has us conversing with “Elohim.”
There are lots of changes I didn’t get into, these were only the highlights. All in all, they added quite a bit more than they removed with the 2023 changes.
Thanks for sharing this Nibbler. I am not a regular temple guy, and in fact I can’t remember the last time I did a session. I think the last two times I was in the temple were sealings of my children, most recently about 4 years ago. I am aware of changes mostly because of news articles or seeing it on boards like this. I do like the changes that make the endowment more gender equal, and my understanding is they have also increased mentions of Jesus by name, making it a bit more Christ centered. nibbler wrote:This is a big change that’s being discussed now in relation to changes made to the temple recommend interview. New text highlighted in
red
Quote:Brothers and sisters, this is the veil of the temple.
The Book of Hebrews teaches that the veil of the temple symbolically represents the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Mediator with the Father. It is only through Him that we can return to the holy presence of God the Father.
This is another agree to disagree thing for me, irrespective of what the Book of Hebrews says. Personally, I interpret the veil as representing a barrier between man and god. In fact in some circumstances I’d go so far as to say that the veil is a barrier than man himself erected to form a barrier between man and god.When Jesus completed his sacrifice, the veil in the temple was rent in twain (torn in half), symbolizing that the barrier between man and god was no more. Man now had unfettered access to god.
Relating back to the temple, I saw the veil as a continued representation of a barrier between man and god. We go through the veil to enter the Lord’s presence. I get what they’re saying that it’s “through” Jesus that we return to the presence of god and people go “through” the veil, but it still prefer the interpretation that Jesus made it possible to traverse through what was otherwise an impassible barrier. In that interpretation, the veil is still a barrier. Jesus isn’t a barrier.
- Old language had us conversing with “The Lord” through the veil. New language has us conversing with “Elohim.”
I’m with you on this one. There are several instances where the church takes an obscure scripture and makes it a central point of some part of the gospel or teaching. Baptism for the dead is another example of this. As you say, to me the veil represents a barrier between this world and the spirit world or afterlife. I believe Jesus and the atonement might be a key to passing through that veil, but not that Jesus is the veil. I don’t remember which talk, and I haven’t really paid a lot of attention to the most recent GC, but I seem to recall a reference to this idea of Jesus being the veil in one of the few talks I heard. From the point of view that everything in the temple is symbolic, I would suppose the interpretation of the symbolism is individual and it’s also likely that some symbols could have multiple meetings (like some scriptures). So if someone wants to somehow interpret the veil as Jesus, fine, but that’s not my interpretation. Sort of related, I know people who believe the signs and tokens to be the actual things one will need to pass through the veil, where I see them as only symbolic of how it might work.
I also think the conversing with the Lord through the veil thing is interesting. I did interpret the Lord in this case as being Jesus bringing us through the veil to the presence of God. Changing it to Elohim changes that interpretation, and in one way I think lessens the role of Jesus as Savior – Jesus isn’t bringing us through the veil, God (Elohim) is. Hmm. I guess I can see that if Jesus is the veil he can’t bring us through the veil.
:eh: ).DarkJedi wrote:
Sort of related, I know people who believe the signs and tokens to be the actual things one will need to pass through the veil, where I see them as only symbolic of how it might work.
I didn’t include this in the changes list because it looked like it was a simple rearranging of when it was said but I double-checked after your comment and saw that the wording had changed a bit.
before wrote:Your Endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and the tokens, pertaining to the Holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation.
after wrote:Brothers and sisters, your endowment in the house of the Lord includes all those ordinances necessary for you to return to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the tokens, names, and signs pertaining to the holy priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation.
There are subtle differences, most I find insignificant. If I strain at a gnat, the old language talks about “key words” and the new language either omits that or replaces it with “names.” I’m not sure whether that amounts to much. Maybe in their minds “key words” and “names” is interchangeable.
I do know that as an orthodox believer that I took this portion of the temple to heart and I interpreted it as me needing to have the entire veil approach memorized word for word to get into the CK.
Maybe “key words” was a reference to the entire veil exchange and removing that from the updated endowment means not all of the veil exchange is important? Meaning the only truly important thing are just the tokens, names, and signs and all the dialog surrounding exchanging them isn’t critical to know.
If they did intend to lessen focus on what I’ll call the exchange dialog, I’m sure that today if a patron flubbed a minor word in the exchange dialog that the patron would still be made to say it correctly. That correcting experience alone leads to the impression that all the dialog at the veil is crucial to memorize, not just the token/name/sign.
All that said, I think that paragraph in the temple introduction leads people to conclude that it’s literal.
nibbler wrote:
All that said, I think that paragraph in the temple introduction leads people to conclude that it’s literal.
Although I’m a temple-recommend-holding active member, I’m increasingly cynical about theliteralnature of anything at all in our version of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Too many concourses of disciples (think faith-filled individuals right back through time) have participated in absolutely nothing like our “true” version of the Gospel. We ascribe spiritual greatness to considerable numbers of groups and individuals mentioned in scripture, despite their having performed a religion we simply wouldn’t recognise as Christ’s church today. Suffice to say, I increasingly suspect that absolutely everything is symbolic.
If something increases our faith on an individual level, that’s great. If it sucks us down a rabbit hole of confusion, nitpicking, and Mosaic Law-style observance, it’s probably counterproductive.
On a related note, anyone who has ever studied foreign languages will understand that English is not God’s language; it’s a bastardised mishmash evolved from successive waves of invasion of the British Isles. Many faith-promoting constructs we find in English and the scriptures (like 16th-century prayer language) don’t even exist in other, purer languages. I suspect a hefty amount of the Emperor’s New Clothes syndrome is involved here, but you do you — as they say.
nibbler wrote:
Quote:Brothers and sisters, this is the veil of the temple.
The Book of Hebrews teaches that the veil of the temple symbolically represents the Lord Jesus Christ. He is our Mediator with the Father. It is only through Him that we can return to the holy presence of God the Father.
This is another agree to disagree thing for me, irrespective of what the Book of Hebrews says. Personally, I interpret the veil as representing a barrier between man and god. In fact in some circumstances I’d go so far as to say that the veil is a barrier than man himself erected to form a barrier between man and god.When Jesus completed his sacrifice, the veil in the temple was rent in twain (torn in half), symbolizing that the barrier between man and god was no more. Man now had unfettered access to god.
Relating back to the temple, I saw the veil as a continued representation of a barrier between man and god. We go through the veil to enter the Lord’s presence. I get what they’re saying that it’s “through” Jesus that we return to the presence of god and people go “through” the veil, but it still prefer the interpretation that Jesus made it possible to traverse through what was otherwise an impassible barrier. In that interpretation, the veil is still a barrier. Jesus isn’t a barrier.
I thought that I would look to see what the book of Hebrews says on the subject.
Chapter 10:20
Quote:New International Version
by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body,
New Living Translation
By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.
English Standard Version
by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh,
Berean Standard Bible
by the new and living way opened for us through the curtain of His body,
Berean Literal Bible
by a new and living way, which He dedicated for us through the veil that is His flesh,
King James Bible
By a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
New King James Version
by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh,
New American Standard Bible
by a new and living way which He inaugurated for us through the veil, that is, through His flesh,.
I suppose there is some symbolism between the way that the veil was torn and the way that the body of Jesus was torn. I think that we are leaning hard into the interpretation of Jesus being the veil because of how that relates back to garments. If the veil represent the body of Christ and I covenant to take the name of Christ upon myself – perhaps I can symbolically take his name upon me by symbolically wearing his skin.
Yeah, that sounds weird but not a whole lot weirder than symbolically eating and drinking the flesh and blood of Jesus.
From the updated TR interview:
Quote:Wearing the Temple Garment
The garment of the holy priesthood reminds us of the veil in the temple, and that veil is symbolic of Jesus Christ. When you put on your garment, you put on a sacred symbol of Jesus Christ. Wearing it is an outward expression of your inner commitment to follow Him
Still it seems like searching for a justification and/or explanation for why we wear garments after we already had been wearing them for generations if you ask me.
Carburettor wrote:I increasingly suspect that absolutely everything is symbolic.
I’m with you, Carb.
Symbolism can sometimes be powerful. It’s good if it is useful. Not always the same to everyone. That’s ok with me.
There is a statement now that says the endowment is a symbolic representation of our eternal life. I think it points directly to the common belief among literalists, encouraged by former literalists, that it is literal.
I like the statement a lot – as well as the comprehensive weight of the changes.
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