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I’m new here and after a quick search, I didn’t see the answer to this question. Is there anywhere that the current (JS time to present) ceremony and clothing requirements is recorded? Or, as I’m afraid, has it only been passed down by word of mouth? Is it in a vault in Salt Lake or maybe in a room in the Salt Lake temple, or is it just a mystery? As far as I am aware, yes, there are official versions at church headquarters. When I was a temple worker we had cards to help us memorize what we needed to say and these were given to us in a study room. When we didn’t have them in our hands they were kept under lock and key. Welcome. If I understand correctly you’re interested in seeing how the endowment has evolved over the years? Or when the endowment was first formally written down?
As far as I know the ceremony was first written down in the early part of 1877.
I’ve read that after the dedication of the St. George temple Brigham Young decided it was necessary to write the ordinance down, which implies that the endowment was an oral tradition up until that point. I’ve also heard that committing the ceremony to writing was a serious effort, several people were commissioned with creating the written version and it took a few months to produce. The process involved submitting drafts for approval. Supposedly the endowment only underwent minimal changes from when it was introduced in Nauvoo to the time it was written, though I suppose only the people involved in the effort to write it down and those that had photographic memories at the first endowment could say for sure.
Wilford Woodruff – Journal entry 21 March 1877 wrote:President Young has been laboring all winter to get up a perfect form of Endowments as far as possible. They having been perfected I read them to the Company today.
I’m sure as more temples came online there was a growing need to standardize the ordinance. Even after having been written down for the first time there was a period where the concrete was still drying.
There’s a lot of good information at http://www.ldsendowment.org .I guess should have researched a little before asking, but apparently Wikipedia has a lot of great information if you search for Temple Endowment. If I remember correctly, the Temple movies do not have a registered copyright. If they did, The church would have to submit a copy to the library of congress. Instead they choose to just keep it secret (or sacred). Just like the Coke-Cola company does not register the formula for Coke, they just keep is secret.
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