When Joseph Smith revealed the new Temple Endowment in Nauvoo, he believed he was restoring an ancient temple practice that dated to the days of Solomon. He borrowed heavily from the Masonic ceremonies, and Masons believed that Masons who built the Temple of Solomon had carried forth the ancient rites. (This isn’t true, as Mormon Heretic detailed in his transcript of a Mormon Stories podcast. Masonry dates back only to Medieval times.)
The church has published photos of Mormon temple robes, worn by both men and women, and they are not very similar to the ancient robes that Levites wore, complete with a breastplate. Is it safe to assume that Joseph restored an ancient temple practice, or are these temple practices highly adapted to a modern audience? Certainly no Levites were women.
What are your thoughts regarding the restoration of ancient temple practices?
Wheat & Tares 
Mormon ceremonial clothing and garments are together roughly analogous to the clothing the high priest would wear on the day of atonement.
Mormon:Jewish::
garments:breaches
robe:tunic
girdle:girdle
hat:turban
These are also the types of clothes the average priest would wear regularly. There are obvious departures from this pattern. The Mormon apron and the additional parts of clothing the high priest regularly wore do not have analogs. There are also differences in construction of the articles of clothing, but those differences would in some cases be smaller than is currently apparent if we were to consider the clothing that was used in the earliest Mormon ceremonies where fewer concessions were made to convenience.
I think the idea that our current practices are a “restoration” of ancient practices should be viewed with a huge grain of salt. I know many people who have found powerful ties between OT practices and our current rites, but I’m just not sold (these people have truly felt their lives enriched, though, so I don’t want to negate that in any way). Based on my studies of the Tabernacle and OT practices, I find very loose parallels that offer significance, but not the tight connections that some of my more conservative religion professors claimed. We understand revelation and eternal truths though the lens of our cultural and personal experience. I don’t really think that it’s necessary or appropriate for us to look our temples the same way ancient Israelites did.
As the ceremonial clothes go, I can’t figure out if it was seeing my grandfathers dressed for their funerals or if it was a familiarity with OT images, but the guys’ clothes didn’t really phase me. Seeing women in the same clothes and dealing with a veil that covered my face was much stranger. I get the whole head-covering thing, but I never had to cover my face even in the most conservative Muslim sites I visited in the Holy Land. It took me a bit to get used to.
The ancient equivalent of the endowment ceremony–for both men and women–would only have been administered in those times and places when and where men generally held the Melchizedec Priesthood, which is requisite both to administer and to receive the endowment. The Levitical Priesthood never would have administered or received those ordinances; so for starters anything to do with temples that is “Old Testament” but “post Moses” would, by definition, be something different (than today’s Endowment).
Therefore, the question, as posted, is moot.
ElZorillo,
During the Washing ritual, the administrators quote Exodus 40:12-13.
How can you say this is moot when they specifically quote that verse from Exodus? Isn’t Joseph Smith specifically trying to tie this back to Moses, Aaron, and the Temple of Solomon? And these “robes of the preisthood” are supposed to represent the same Levitical (Aaronic) Priesthood of Aaron, especially at first. About half-way through, the robes signify Melchizedek, but these robes represent both Aaronic and Melchizedek Priesthoods.
Old testament temple = Aaronic temple
Current temple = melchezidek temple
Different functions and rites.
I am of the opinion that it is an important *ceremony*. Ceremony makes an event more meaningful to us. It is made to feel more important (engender a deeper commitment) by making it seem very different from other ceremonies. This is aided, in the case of the temple ceremony, by making it seem ancient, mysterious, secret, attained by a select few–as with the Masonic ceremonies (or are we to believe that God inspired the original Masons in medieval times?
With or without it actually being true, or, in fact, imbued by God and the Spirit, it accomplishes its psychological purpose, and is praiseworthy.
The ancient ceremony had similar purposes. Whether or not ours is highly similar to theirs, it is the same in its ends. All of its effectiveness is solely within the participants.
Well I don’t know that I would say Joseph was “trying to tie this back to the temple of Solomon” or that he had any other “design”; but rather simply that he received the endowment by revelation and implemented it as instructed by the Lord. The Melchizedek Priesthood is requisite for both administration and receipt of the endowment, and that (higher) priesthood was not generally conferred upon the “men folk” of the congregation during the period of time that elapsed between Moses and Jesus Christ–except for a few prophets and high priests. In earlier Old Testament dispensations, and also to some degree in the Americas, the “fullness of the priesthood” was generally conferred; and during those times there very likely was some equivalent of the endowment. However, as Ron has pointed out, the temple existed for a completely different purpose, and completely different ordinances were practiced therein, during Solomon’s time.
“the temple existed for a completely different purpose, and completely different ordinances were practiced therein, during Solomon’s time.”
Yes, I think that is the point of the question above: “What are your thoughts regarding the restoration of ancient temple practices?”
A more succinct answer is this: Joseph didn’t restore ancient practices of the Temple of Solomon. He created new ceremonies altogether that have almost no resemblance to what happened in Solomon’s temple.
At the same time he tried to claim that he was restoring ancient “corrupted” practices taught by the masons. The claim is not at all justified, and scriptures like Exodus 40:12-13 are highly proof-texted to make current temple practices appear to have ancient origins when it simply is not the case.
I’m quite sure that Joseph simply received the Endowment by revelation and then implemented it as directed. That he claimed to be “correcting” something that the Freemasons had a “corrupted” version of, or even that he ever alleged that the Freemasons had a “corrupted” version of something true, are both conjecture.
Nibley quotes the 17 June 1842 letter from Heber C. Kimball (a long term Freemason) to Parley P. Pratt in which Kimball reported that the Prophet had said, “Masonry was taken from the Priesthood, but has become degenerated.” Nibley also quotes the Benjamin F. Johnson report that the Prophet had said, “Freemasonry, as at present, is the apostate endowments, as sectarian religion [is] the apostate religion.” Stephen D. Ricks, ed., Eloquent Witness: Nibley on Himself, Others, and the Temple (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 2008), 381.
The quote from Exodus 40:12-13 was added in 2005 at the same time the shields were sewn together on the sides and the garment began to be authorized instead of placed upon the initiate, so claiming that Joseph was trying to allude back to the Mosaic rites by quoting this is not accurate.
The article is misleading “levites” nor priest wore the breastplate as the article states. Only the High Priest did.