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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Recovering The World Of The Bible, Dana M. Pike
Recovering The World Of The Bible, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
The pillar of light that fell upon Joseph Smith in the woods near Palmyra, New York, in the spring of 1820 ushered in a new dispensation of the gospel.1 But that light, which shone “above the brightness of the sun” (Joseph Smith–History 1:16), did not just enlighten the world as far as religion is concerned. The light emanating from the pillar in which the Father and Son stood symbolically represents the latter-day, divine illumination of many aspects of life on this earth—past, present, and future.
The “Spirit” That Returns To God In Ecclesiastes 12:7, Dana M. Pike
The “Spirit” That Returns To God In Ecclesiastes 12:7, Dana M. Pike
Faculty Publications
Influenced by the Restoration doctrine of premortality, some Latter-day Saints have employed the KJV translation “the spirit” in Ecclesiastes 12:7 to support the doctrine that spirit personages leave their mortal bodies at death. Furthermore, Latter-day Saints have sometimes asserted, again citing Ecclesiastes 12:7, that a premortal spirit being can only “return” to God because it previously came from him. This verse has thus become one of several in the Old Testament that some Latter-day Saints have employed as support for premortal existence, a doctrine that is so important in the broader plan of salvation.