Temple names

[Surfah]

I have never (and still don't) understand the purpose of the 2nd name. Like many things with the church, I just roll with it.

It has to do with Christ as our kindred redeemer. He is our goel.

[FN Phat]

Sometimes I'm unsure if you are a funny guy or if you really believe what you say.

Thank you.

[Rosebud]

I think the answer is quite simple but IMO requires viewing husband/wife Adam/Eve not as male/female but as spirit/flesh. The endowment is the story of spiritual recreation that teaches us to forsake the physical(Eve or represented by the breasted participants) and to be reborn as spiritual Gods. So a question to your question, why does the spiritual 'new person' need to know the name of the carnal physical person? The names themselves are unimportant, the symbolism behind this practice is the purpose of the pageantry.y

I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to represent the physical that must be forsaken in your quest for exaltation. I can't think of a more divine role to play.

Please do answer your question.

[clackamascoug]

Sometimes I'm unsure if you are a funny guy or if you really believe what you say.

Thank You...

[SuperGabers]

I'm so thankful that I have the opportunity to represent the physical that must be forsaken in your quest for exaltation. I can't think of a more divine role to play.

Please do answer your question.

I love the role too. I am a temple slut.

[Solon]

Not sure if this is an OK topic to discuss. I'll try to be reasonable. I've always thought it strange than a man can know his wife's name, but not vice versa. I made a point of telling my name to both wives (ex-wife and new wife). Ex-wife was absolutely furious.

The other tricky thing is that sometimes I confuse my wives' names. Imagine what this is like for a polygamist!

Cardiac and my dad scared me half to death the first time I went to the temple because somehow they discovered my name. We were sitting in the endowment room, and Cardiac was saying: "I know SoonerCoug's new name." Then my dad said: "I figured it out too." I was already freaked out enough without that crap. Only later did I realize that everyone gets the same name on a given day. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of keeping it a secret?

I posted this on cougarguard a couple of years ago, and am too lazy to revise and resubmit here. So I'll copy-and-paste (although with a couple of additions):

Names were words of power in the ancient world - and gods/goddesses often had "secret" names that were not supposed to be spoken aloud except when you were invoking its power. Knowing a god's true name gave a person a degree of power over that god. Correspondingly, not knowing its true name let the god off the hook for any prayers or dedications it might not want to fulfill.

Keeping these names secret was very important. In Egyptian myth, Isis tricked Ra into revealing his secret name so that she could use that power to resurrect Osiris. The Roman-Republican poet Quintus Valerius Soranus was (supposedly) put to death for speaking the secret name of Rome. (It's "Amor" - Roma spelled backwards. Don't put me to death, pellegrino.)

Since some of these names were secret, ancient Roman prayer invoked a particular god by all the names they could think of "and any other name you wish to be called by" just to be sure that all their bases were covered. In this vein, Acts 17 tells of an altar dedicated to an unknown god - set up by the Athenians to placate a god whose name was unknown or secret, in an effort to appease, placate, and maybe even appeal to it.

In the New Testament, miracles are often (but not always) performed "by the name" of Jesus Christ - not by the power, or authority, etc. The name brought the power. (E.g. Acts 3.6-7). Arde'et, an Ethiopian book with gnostic roots claims to record the many secret names of Jesus that he taught his disciples. Among these names was the greatest name, "Bersabehelyos." In the book, Jesus instructs his disciples to write these names and wear them and invoke them to do good. In a more relevant context, LDS are taught that the "name of Jesus Christ" can overpower Satan.

Saying a god's name was serious business, not to be taken lightly. Like playing with handguns, there's a time and a place to use great power, and the power was not to be used idly.

Hence, Saying "Oh my god" is not taking the Lord's name in vain . . . that's not the Lord's name. It's more of a title. I understand LDS cultural norms today make this phrase taboo, but it's not a transgression of the third commandment, at least in the sense that Moses would have understood. We don't even know the name of the Old Testament God, so powerful was this word. The best we can do is the tetragrammaton YHWH, Latinized to "Jehovah." The commandment given to Moses is "Don't use this great power inappropriately."

LDS scripture suggests that two of God's names are "Ahman" (D&C 78.20; 95.17) and "man of holiness" (Moses 6.57). Elohim is more of a descriptive title (plural, but can act as a singular with extra oomph), but in LDS parlance has come to denote God-Father as opposed to Jehovah-Jesus. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead and in later Gnostic Christian belief, secret names and magic formulas also acted as passwords or tokens of recognition in the afterlife, and provide the initiate with special powers and the keys to defeat the powers of darkness.

[Surfah]

I posted this on cougarguard a couple of years ago, and am too lazy to revise and resubmit here. So I'll copy-and-paste (although with a couple of additions):

Names were words of power in the ancient world - and gods/goddesses often had "secret" names that were not supposed to be spoken aloud except when you were invoking its power. Knowing a god's true name gave a person a degree of power over that god. Correspondingly, not knowing its true name let the god off the hook for any prayers or dedications it might not want to fulfill.

Keeping these names secret was very important. In Egyptian myth, Isis tricked Ra into revealing his secret name so that she could use that power to resurrect Osiris. The Roman-Republican poet Quintus Valerius Soranus was (supposedly) put to death for speaking the secret name of Rome. (It's "Amor" - Roma spelled backwards. Don't put me to death, pellegrino.)

Since some of these names were secret, ancient Roman prayer invoked a particular god by all the names they could think of "and any other name you wish to be called by" just to be sure that all their bases were covered. In this vein, Acts 17 tells of an altar dedicated to an unknown god - set up by the Athenians to placate a god whose name was unknown or secret, in an effort to appease, placate, and maybe even appeal to it.

In the New Testament, miracles are often (but not always) performed "by the name" of Jesus Christ - not by the power, or authority, etc. The name brought the power. (E.g. Acts 3.6-7). Arde'et, an Ethiopian book with gnostic roots claims to record the many secret names of Jesus that he taught his disciples. Among these names was the greatest name, "Bersabehelyos." In the book, Jesus instructs his disciples to write these names and wear them and invoke them to do good. In a more relevant context, LDS are taught that the "name of Jesus Christ" can overpower Satan.

Saying a god's name was serious business, not to be taken lightly. Like playing with handguns, there's a time and a place to use great power, and the power was not to be used idly.

Hence, Saying "Oh my god" is not taking the Lord's name in vain . . . that's not the Lord's name. It's more of a title. I understand LDS cultural norms today make this phrase taboo, but it's not a transgression of the third commandment, at least in the sense that Moses would have understood. We don't even know the name of the Old Testament God, so powerful was this word. The best we can do is the tetragrammaton YHWH, Latinized to "Jehovah." The commandment given to Moses is "Don't use this great power inappropriately."

LDS scripture suggests that two of God's names are "Ahman" (D&C 78.20; 95.17) and "man of holiness" (Moses 6.57). Elohim is more of a descriptive title (plural, but can act as a singular with extra oomph), but in LDS parlance has come to denote God-Father as opposed to Jehovah-Jesus. In the Egyptian Book of the Dead and in later Gnostic Christian belief, secret names and magic formulas also acted as passwords or tokens of recognition in the afterlife, and provide the initiate with special powers and the keys to defeat the powers of darkness.

Excellent post. Thanks for sharing this again.

The temple name as I have come to understand it in the same vein in which you shared Solon, is literally a name for Jesus Christ. People talk about taking upon themselves the name of Christ at baptism, but I don't think that is wholly accurate. We covenant to take his name upon ourselves as Christians, but we haven't received His name. This doesn't happen until the endowment. Receiving this new name imparts great power as the endowment suggests and falls in line with what you suggest that the new name is even used as a token to give one access to God in the afterlife (and probably here in mortality).

Going back to what I also suggested as the new name is part of being redeemed by Goel. Again my understanding is that as part of being redeemed by Goel is that the freed/avenged/indebted accept the Goel as their redeemer and are received by among other things a covenant handshake , they share a covenant meal, and they take upon themselves the name of the Goel.

[Fiyero]

Solon I'm confused, Joseph Smith revealed the endowment while living in rural Nauvoo, after an extended stint in Liberty Jail. Where did he obtain this info? Surely the jail's library had extensive books concerning ancient Greek practices and key names as weapons of power, right? I bet he never really was in jail; he crossed the ocean and spent his time seeking what to plagarize next.

[Solon]

Solon I'm confused, Joseph Smith revealed the endowment while living in rural Nauvoo, after an extended stint in Liberty Jail. Where did he obtain this info? Surely the jail's library had extensive books concerning ancient Greek practices and key names as weapons of power, right? I bet he never really was in jail; he crossed the ocean and spent his time seeking what to plagarize next.

I'm pretty sure a flaming salamander revealed it all to him.

[pellegrino]

Keeping these names secret was very important. In Egyptian myth, Isis tricked Ra into revealing his secret name so that she could use that power to resurrect Osiris. The Roman-Republican poet Quintus Valerius Soranus was (supposedly) put to death for speaking the secret name of Rome. (It's "Amor" - Roma spelled backwards. Don't put me to death, pellegrino.)

I'm not the mafioso on the board. In all truth I wasn't familiar with anything in your post, thanks for bringing life to a thread I had given up on.

[I.J. Reilly]

I'm not the mafioso on the board. In all truth I wasn't familiar with anything in your post, thanks for bringing life to a thread I had given up on.

Why would you give up on a thread that starts out talking about a lesser known aspect of our religion, doesn't take long to turn to masturbation, is followed up with sexual innuendo, uncovers the eternal mysteries of heavenly computers and women's inability to follow directions, and then is capped of with the revealing of the institutional oppression of women?

Sometimes I don't get you.

[creekster]

I'm pretty sure a flaming salamander revealed it all to him.

That's sort of a cute answer (sort of), but in all seriousness, Fiyero raises an interesting question. Have you seen anything in the progression of JS's religious studies that would lead you to believe he was tuned into this secret name tradition that you described?

[jay santos]

That's sort of a cute answer (sort of), but in all seriousness, Fiyero raises an interesting question. Have you seen anything in the progression of JS's religious studies that would lead you to believe he was tuned into this secret name tradition that you described?

Did the masons use secret names in their ceremonies?

[creekster]

Did the masons use secret names in their ceremonies?

I don't know. That's an obvious possibility, but I would also find it interesting if there was something to suggest JS was tied into this ancient notion of the power of names. I am not enough of a scholar of either the ancient world or of JS to know.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I don't recall that post from CG, Solon. Fascinating stuff.