Temple Bound

Unveiling the Temple of Eden with Jared Lambert

• Will • Season 1 • Episode 77

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In this episode of Temple Bound, host Will Humphreys sits down with Jared Lambert, a historical linguist specializing in Persian and the Hebrew Bible. Jared’s journey is anything but typical, from failing high school Spanish to serving as a military linguist and eventually pursuing seven degrees in his quest to understand the "soft" conceptual language of the ancient world.

Jared breaks down how modern, rigid "hard" languages often flatten the deep, multi-layered meanings of scripture. He explains why the Garden of Eden is linguistically the "Temple of Eden," and why the restoration of the gospel is an ongoing process of returning to the beautiful, relationship-based worship of the First Temple of Solomon.

Key Discussion Points:

  • The Persian Influence: How the transition from an oral tradition to a written alphabet under Cyrus the Great shifted our understanding of the Hebrew Bible.
  • Hard vs. Soft Language: Why we struggle to understand symbolism because we treat ancient visionary texts like modern technical manuals.
  • The First Temple vs. The Second: Discovering the "Elohim"—the divine council and the worship of the relationship between man, woman, and family.
  • The "Women Weavers": The hidden history of priestesses in the First Temple who wove the veils and garments, and how Joseph Smith sought to restore this role in the Nauvoo Relief Society.
  • Covenants in Motion: A sneak peek into Jared’s upcoming book series on the evolution of temple ordinances from the Sacred Grove to the modern day.
  • Shammah: A linguistic deep dive into the word "hear" and why it actually implies a "covenant in motion"—to internalize and perform.

Resources Mentioned:

About the Guest:

Jared Lambert is a PhD candidate and a "Tommy Boy of Scholarship" who has spent 20 years in higher education. A former military linguist fluent in nearly nine languages (including Persian Farsi and Afrikaans), he focuses on bridging the gap between high-level historical linguistics and the everyday faith of Latter-day Saints.

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Eden As Temple In Persian

SPEAKER_01

What if the Garden of Eden was more than a garden? Today's guest is Jared Lambert, a former military linguist who speaks nine languages and has spent 20 years studying the ancient Persian roots of the Hebrew Bible. And what he's uncovered will completely change the way you experience a temple. We're talking about the role of women in ancient scripture and why the temple is even more profound than even most of us realize. This is one of those episodes you'll want to listen to twice. So you're a historical linguist who specializes in the Near East and Hebrew Bible, right?

SPEAKER_00

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And so you're a former, former military linguist.

SPEAKER_00

That's right. Yep. Middle Eastern languages, yeah, is my specialty. So I actually study, I'm actually a Persian linguist. I'm I am not a Hebrew scholar, I am a Persian scholar, and I study the Persian influence on the Hebrew Bible because people don't realize this, but it's like it is the Persian is the biggest influencer on the Hebrew Bible. It's because it is a it's an oral tradition prior to the Persians. It's it's Cyrus the Great who liberates the Jews from um Babylon. And then under that under Cyrus the Great, they create the alphabet that we know as Hebrew today. And so it's under this Persian influence. So then where we get all everything messed up is from this Persian influence. Like it's not the Garden of Eden, that is the Persian word paradeza, which is the Persian word for temple. It is the temple of Eden and has always been the temple of Eden. But because we have our Hebrew scholars who only do classical Hebrew, they don't understand that it's rooted in the Persian for temple. It's just so funny.

SPEAKER_01

Unreal. So okay, first of all, what got you into this in the first place? What got you into linguistics?

SPEAKER_00

Um yeah, so I uh so funny enough, I uh took a Spanish class in high school and I went, I was famous because I got uh I failed my Spanish class by getting zero out of a hundred on a scan try, which is which is statistically impossible. But that's how I went down in like like forever, like infamous glory in my high school as being the idiot who who cannot learn Spanish and just failed it horribly. But lucky enough, I uh I I served my mission in the islands of Cape Verde, and Cape Verde is, I mean, I just love it, it's the most amazing place in the world. It these are these are like small little islands off the coast of West Africa, completely uninhabited until the slave trade comes about. And then you have the three big slave traders, which is the Dutch, the English, and the Portuguese, and they bring all the slaves from mainland Africa and they use this as the final post before they head out to their respective areas. So even though it's born in the worst of circumstances, right? This country, it brought this crazy, it's a linguist dream. You have language influences coming from mainland Africa, from all the coastal, all western cultural areas of Africa, and then it mixes in with the Northern Islands are all British influenced, the the like um the Eastern Islands are all Dutch influenced, and then the Southern Islands are all Portuguese influenced. So it is a language, like a linguist would just could spend their whole life there analyzing the Creoles, the proto-languages, like all these new colloquialisms that are being formed there. So I fell in love with language because I had to, because you in order to live there, you have to learn languages rapidly. And and so it's just a survival technique. But then I saw from that just how important language is in our ability to understand what people are saying, our ability to communicate, how we process information, how you think. It's all about your language. So then I started studying linguistics nonstop. Um, I was then recruited into the United States Army because I was this little white boy, because I ended up staying there after my mission. I lived there for seven years. And um, where was it, by the way? You said that you said where it was, but I actually am not familiar with that. Oh, I know. Super tiny islands. It's the Cape Verde Islands, they're off the coast of West Africa. I see.

SPEAKER_01

Because you lived in Africa for seven years. I read. You were there for seven years, you fell in love with the area.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And so then um, that's why I was recruited into the military. They they loved this like white American boy who could speak all these languages, and and so then I was recruited in the military and they started teaching me uh Middle Eastern languages, and so I learned Persian Farsi there and continue my language studies, and then I kind of and then when I'm working with all these people in the military, um you find first of all, the greatest people in the country serve. And right now we're we're in such like a the the divisive country and state right now, right? Like we don't get along, and social media just makes it so easy not to get along. You can just troll people, you don't need to listen to them, and so it creates a problem, right? We we can't really grow in our differences. But when you're in the military, you're serving, you're bleeding, you're dying with these people, you love these people you're with, and yet they're all so different. You get people from all over the country, and so now you're approaching religion because religion is always at the top, like everyone talks about religion, right? Um, doesn't matter, you either hate religion or you love your religion, but it always comes up at some point. And um and so now you approach it when you're forced into these little tin cans that is the the little units of the military, to now like approach it from a more loving way, for being like, you know, I love this guy. I kind of want to understand why he believes what he believes and and what is it that makes it so just from my military experience, I realized like one, I I don't know a lot about like I was a returned missionary, I thought I knew everything about the gospel, right? And I realized, like, yeah, I don't know a lot about the gospel, really. And like, you know, for all the times that I read the Book of Mormon, I don't think I had ever read the Old Testament. And yet here I have these other people from other religions being like, you don't know the story of Jacob? And you're like, I mean, kinda, I kinda do. You know, and and I and so I I I left the military thinking, like, I yeah, I gotta, I gotta study more. Um, I need to, I need to, but but then because of my linguistic background, I was like, I need to study it linguistically. So that's all I've been doing ever since. And and I'm I just a lifelong student. I'm I'm not so much a scholar, I'm more of like the I'm like the Tommy boy of scholarship. Like I'm the guy who like I'm the guy who just like never left school, you know? Like they're all interesting. Yeah, I love that exactly, exactly. Yep, that's me. Um because I I just had too many questions, and so I would jump all over the place. And so I really have. I've been in edge higher education for 20 years. I used all my GI benefits, so that paid for a huge portion, but then I still racked up a hundred and eighty thousand dollars in student debt after that because I just couldn't let go and I'm still going, I'm I'm finishing my PhD now. Oh my gosh. But it's at seven degrees in total. But in all honesty, it probably could have equated to more like eight or nine degrees if I would just have focused a little better. But there's just too much to you know, there's just too much information that I needed to be able to wrap my head around all of these topics. So that's how I dived in. I kind of fell into it, I guess.

Literal Thinking Vs Symbolic Language

SPEAKER_01

Well, it's so inspiring, Jared, because look, like what you in in a few episodes that I've heard, like I am, I kind of think of you as like the doctor Andrew Huberman of our of like linguistics. Because like for me, like when you know, when you do research and you really get to the bare bones just facts of the elemental things, right? Larger things start to expand. Um you know, you said earlier in the Persian language, when we look at the actual root, it's not the garden of Eden, it's the temple of Eden. Right. For people who go into the temple who very normally, naturally start thinking of things as literal. How do you help them understand that like this isn't necessarily literal, it is symbolic. And where do you draw the line between the two? All those types of things.

SPEAKER_00

How do you exactly? Yeah. And so this is so funny. This is what we mean by like our language, this is like the is how it affects so much how we think about things, right? And and every language nowadays is is what's known as a hard language. It it hard languages are are very rigid, they're very precise. Like we always want a very clear definition to every single word that we have, this one-for-one ratio. Like, my dog is always a dog, and I can't call anything else a dog because that's what a dog is. And because our language does this, it is so difficult for us to understand these conceptual languages, these soft languages of the temple, which are, which are just um, you know, soft languages are give you images, give you scenes that carry a lot of emotion, that carry a lot of, you know, that that uh it's very um visionary, uh, but it does not define it as rigidly as we ever would. And that is our issue. We look at this and go, man, I I need to know where to draw that line. And and so frankly, all of us in our modern day and age, we are the Pharisees of like of all languages, because we are like, listen, I I can only see this literally. What does this actually equate to? It doesn't equate to anything specific, it equates to this very conceptual soft tone image of what it is, and then you're that's why the spirit has to convey that message to you. And but that's also the beauty of these proto-languages, is that there is great depth to us, there's great precision, but it's just in it's precision in a broad category, uh, you know, that has seven or eight definitions behind it, but they all connect in the most beautiful ways. Um, you know, early on in the age of the first temple, which the age of the first temple is where you find our religion, right? Um, the members of the Church of Jesus Christ Latter Saints, we don't really see our religion in the Old Testament because they are already monotheized by the time they write this down. But in the age of the first Temple of Solomon, the very first temple that existed, uh, that is where they believed in a monolatrist relationship that is God, right? They they worshiped what is known as the Elohim, which is not this singular male God who sits on a mighty throne. All of that is Persian influence, by the way. But like who sits on his mighty throne, the earth is his footstool. You know, that's all Persian, Persian language on the text. Um, you know, that is not the God they worship. The god they worship is what's known as um a uh etymological layering of words, right? So, yes, you have those singular male god, which is El, and then you have Elat, the female God, and then you have the Ilum, which is their children, and that is the word Elohim. It is the council of the gods that you see in Psalms 82, right? That you see all throughout the scriptures as referred to as God. So it's not that they are ever worshiping uh an individual God as God, they are worshiping the relationship that makes God, which is the union of a man and a woman and their family relationship, is what God is in the age of the first temple, which is so beautiful for Latter-day Saints because that is what our temple teaches.

SPEAKER_01

It is so different than traditional like thought processes and theologies that exist right now, because I love that that it's a worship of the relationship. Yes, like it's not the individual, it's the relationship between man, woman, and children.

SPEAKER_00

Family, and family is what makes you God. Yes, family is how you mimic God, yes, exactly. Uh, this is how you can be like God. Now, now what's so funny is that yes, we can see ourselves in the age of the first temple. What's funny is the age of the first temple is not a small portion of the Bible, it's majority of the Bible. Like it's every prophet down to Isaiah was worshiping in this monolatrous system, and it's all throughout your scriptures there plainly to see. But then, right, the editors come in and they try to like erase the role of the mother, erase the role of uh women in the priesthood, etc., throughout the text. But but yes, it's all there. No, I sorry, I completely forgot the question because we got off on the roll of it.

SPEAKER_01

The whole question, actually, you hit it really well because I think here's, and this is coming from someone I love very much. I told him about you and you were coming on, and and he's he's probably one of the smartest people I know. He's like, Can you ask Jared something? He says he was talking about the Old Testament, but we might as well be talking about the temple because the temple is so rooted in the Old Testament in the same way. He's like, you know, when you're talking about things like the creation, for example, or the Garden of Eden, he's like, what portion of those stories were actually meant to be historical, or what part were those were symbolic or theological? And like, how do you how do you know which is which or any of those elements? He's very left-brained, and he was just wondering, like, when he's reading those things, how does he do you have any recommendations on how to approach those things, knowing what you know what you know about the linguistics of it?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, and so what you need to see is that there is a great pattern all throughout, not just the scriptures, but we see it in our own dispensation as well, right? God does not uh come down and just give us pure revelation, right? He doesn't just reveal absolute truth. We little finite brain children of his, we cannot, we cannot fathom the truth that is God, right? So instead, God comes down to us, Doctrine of Covenants 124. He comes down to us in our weakness at the level that we are at, and then he gives us just a little bit that we can handle and pushes just us one line above from where we are, and now you have line upon line revelation. And so what we have in the creation accounts is God is showing up to the Israelites in their understanding at the time, which if you go and look at the A and E traditions, right, the ancient Near Eastern traditions at the time, there you have these 38 traditions that surround the Hebrew nation, and all of them carry the same creation narrative. That is, uh, I always use the Enuma Elish as the best version because it's very clear. Like they can get pretty muddled. But we know for a fact that the Hebrew scripture is drawing from the Enuma Elish because it pulls direct cognates from the Numa Elish and even direct lines from the Numa Elish right into the Hebrew scripture. Genesis 1, verse 2 is a direct pull from the very ending of the Enuma Elish. So if you're unaware of what the Numa Elish is, the Numa Elish is this narrative, a creation narrative of the earth, of all humanity, but it is this belief system that yes, you have a mother god and a father god, and they uh they so it's the uh Tiamat, right, who is the mother and she is the the uh salt waters of life. And then the father is the fresh waters, and the fresh waters and the salt waters, these polar opposites, come together, and now they create their children, right? And and then the narrative gets really wonky, right? And over time this narrative gets twisted into, you know, over a span of a thousand years, this narrative gets twisted and they kind of turn against the mother, which is a typical pattern we see from all this text, and they make the mother into something that is negative, that is bad. And and then they sacrifice the mother by they they go to war with the mother, they kill the mother, and the mother then creates this earth for us, for her children to dwell on, and it's from her body, and so this is where we get the notion of mother earth, right? We are in the we are in our mother earth because it comes from these earlier A traditions in which we are literally living in the the womb of our mother, that is the mother earth. Now, God is not bringing that exact tradition in and being like, yes, this is truth, but this is the tradition everyone understands at the time. So he pulls from it and says, That's great, you guys believe in this. Let me add a little bit to this. Let me let me tell you a little bit more about this. So this is not a literal retelling of it. This is the narrative they understood at the time. That then God is correcting things, he's showing you, hey, guess what? The mother is not evil. She loves you and she's here with you, she's she's guiding and protecting you. The father, he is also not dread. Because in the Numa Elish, the dad gets mad at the kids for being so loud. He drowns the world, right? He drowns everyone. And so he's like, and guess what? I'm not here killing you. I I love you as well. And so you see this. So, what you have to do with all Old Testament texts is look at where the source is, and then look how it's brought into the Hebrew Bible, and then look at the differences that are being added to it, and that's where the revelation lies, right?

SPEAKER_01

And that's where you need the spirit to help you discern. Because at the end of the day, I think this could be translated to the earlier revel, you know, the restoration of the gospel when the earlier saints were revealing the fullness of the gospel, we get really worked up, understandably in some cases, by the way, regarding you know the times that are, but all it was was the Lord took the best, those people at the time based on their beliefs, their structure, and he revealed line upon line to that. And so we look now with all that we've developed into, looking backwards, and we're seeing if we if we're not careful, if we make everything literal, I think that's where like you said, we become like Sadducees and Pharisees, and we start to really get into trouble around things.

How Joseph Smith Builds A Temple

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. And you see the same pattern, like even in our dispensation, right? When I I have a book coming out that's gonna show the evolution of our own temple from the earliest days of Joseph all the way to our modern uh times, uh uh, you know, that we that we see all these changes coming to our temple. And what I show in there is that like, you know, Joseph starts out, he's just told you need to build a temple. And Joseph's just like, oh, cool, cool, cool. What's a temple? Like, by the way, we're getting like card and feathered. Like, where do you want me to exactly, exactly? And so he he is desperate to try to figure this out because for him, like what we call the endowment, we see the endowment as just like this, you know, this portion of the temple. For him, it is the revelation of the endowment, it's the entire temple understanding. And for Joseph, it's this giant vision, right? It's this big revelatory moment. And he's like, How do I put this revelation into words or whatever I'm gonna do? I don't know what to do. So first he goes to Jackson, and in Jackson, he creates the plat of Zion, which is a giant city temple where he builds, he constructs this whole thing, and there's gonna be these 24 temples, and each temple is gonna teach one level of this very, and this is a word I use all the time for people, which is polysemic, right? It means many meanings, poly, many semic meanings, many meanings, and because that's what soft conceptual languages do. They have many, many meanings wrapped up into just like one phrase that for us rigid brain, hard language speakers, it's like does not compute. You're just like, ah, our brains break down, right? So, what Joseph's plan was in Jackson was to be like each temple will teach you just one level of this polismic message, and you'll go from temple to temple to temple, and they will ascend slowly up in this ascending power until you hit the highest point, and now you're gonna get all of it all brought together, right? This was his first plan. Now that just bombed because you can't even build one temple in Jackson, let alone 24 and this giant, especially with the persecution that's happening and everything. Right. So, so then he goes to Kirtlin, and in Kirtlin you see him completely change plans. And in Kirtlin, he's like, okay, how about instead of getting this plismic message into all these different layers, I just get take everyone through the process that I went through to get it as a kid, which which my process was kind of going through all these great motions, building up my faith, sanctifying myself so that I can get these visions. Because you know, Fiona Givens says it's best. She says, um, you know, Joseph Smith is the Henry Ford of prophets. Because Henry Ford wanted everybody in the country to have a model T. Or Joseph Smith wanted every single person in the country to have every single revelation that he had. And he is constantly just trying to push you to get the same revelations as him to the to this almost like ridiculous level. Like anytime Joseph is preaching, he's always like, Okay, guys, the first time you meet an angel, this is what you need to do. You need to do these steps. And you're just sitting there like, Joseph, I like, we don't see angels, Joseph. Like, this doesn't happen. But it's over his head. He's just like, come on, guys, I talked to angel, like I can't throw a rock without hitting an angel. Like, you guys need to step up your game. Now, for him, it's so easy, but us, we're so left in the in the dirt. But when you get to Kirtlin, Kirtland is very different. If you look at the Kirtland Temple, there's just pews, you know, there's there's no stage, there's no, there's nothing. It's just pews, and then you have these pulpits on both ends, which have all these cool represent, you know, uh um different significance to it, right? And then there's the upper court and the lower court. And so for Joseph, the the Kirtland Temple was supposed to be this experience of, I am preparing you guys, right? He would have people go through all these sacred motions. He, you know, they're very poor at the time, so he would have them anoint themselves with honey and whiskey, and they would go through different prayers and they would get together and confess sins together, and they would have, you know, speaking in tongues parties, and they would do their best to purify themselves inwardly, so that when the day came that the temple was done, you would have a pure revelation, just like him. You would come, you'd sing some hymns, and then everyone would get revealed to them this experience that is the temple in this awesome, you know, visual experience, right? Yeah, and in a way, it worked. Like it worked pretty well. Like there are great outpourings of this. If you've ever studied that time period, incredible miracles, angels are appearing. People think the Kirtland temple's on fire because angels are walking in the rafters, just amazing miracles are happening, but it doesn't quite work. Again, we are faithless dogs compared to Joseph Smith, right?

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_00

So, so then you finally get to Nauvoo, and in Nauvoo, you see the same pattern that we see in the Old Testament. Which is Joseph being like, okay, what do I do now? You know, we've tried this, we try, you know, we tried the 24 polismic lessons we've in in Jackson. We've tried uh Kirtlin's, you know, clean the vessel and get these cool outpourings of the spirit. We need to find maybe something in between here. And this is where Joseph then is is introduced to Freemasonry. And Freemasonry, which is not a religion, by the way, right? Freemasonry is a is a boys' club that is all about teaching you to be the best version of a man that you can be. Um, and it comes from all these different traditions. So you can be any religion and be a part of this, but it's it's this, you know, awesome um um gentlemen's club where you go through all of these different ritual dramas, is what they call them. They they LARP things out, they LARP out these narratives if you're familiar with that turn. So when Joseph sees this, he's like, This is perfect. I can we can do a combination of Jackson and a combination of Kirtlin, and we can now take the vehicle of Freemasonry, and I'm not gonna just steal this narrative. No, no, no. God speaks to us according to our language at the time. So I'm just gonna take this that is very popular at the time, right? This is the this the Freemasonry is the our founding father's gig. Like this is how you networked, this is how you did everything. And and so I'm gonna take this vehicle of ritual dramas and I'm gonna apply a whole new all this plismic messaging. I'm now gonna use inside of this very LARPing, this very acting out scene by scene, all of this stuff that I cannot express verbally, that I wish you could get by revelation, even though it doesn't seem like it's working too well for everyone. Um, this is a nice in-between, right? So this is now where we get that Navu endowment, and this is where it is now. Even today, right? When you go to the temple and you sit in that endowment, it tells you this can only be received through revelation, right? You need to receive this through revelation, right? And so this is just a way to kind of prep you for that revelation. And yes, it's symbolic, it's very, very symbolic. That your job is to sit there, is to kind of soak it in and let that spirit teach you the truth that's behind it.

Oral Tradition And The Power Of Shema

SPEAKER_01

Yes, it makes me. I love that connection that I'm so glad that you brought in Freemasonry to the discussion because that's where my head was before you mentioned it. When you were describing the the going back to Genesis and the original question, that what was the context? What was that book that you referenced that was used at the time? The Enuma Ellis, yeah. Okay, I'd never heard that before. That to me feels very paralleled to the Freemasonry element because I wonder what Joseph was thinking when he was doing the free the free uh masonry work, is like, wow, this is this is a way to learn exper through experience. I'm here exp because there's different ways to learn, right? There's the cognitive, the auditory, then there's like the the combination of all these things, which are experiential learning. I wonder if he saw that as a vehicle. And Mark Matthews, who was a guest on our show, who has a book out, he was telling me about how like he looked at the Freemasonry as like a stage. You can fill it with different plays, but like with a way of of communicating information that he was so gravitated towards that he pulled from that from because this is the this is how revelation works. He the Lord wants us, like the brother of Jared, to go find the stones and come up with the idea of like maybe you can touch these and they'll glow and that will solve my problem. He doesn't the Lord doesn't say, like, I want you to, I want you to build a boat, and here's how you're gonna solve a light problem that you don't know about yet. The Lord is like, go build a boat. In Joseph's case, go build a temple. And so Freemasonry was a rock that he brought to the table and said, Hey, maybe I maybe the Lord could touch this into a way of creating an experience for my people to receive a piece of the knowledge because the Lord doesn't break down the how-to's. That's where the faith comes in, that's where the growth comes in. And so as you go through that, you know, you mentioned something at the very beginning regarding the Garden of Eden, um, and and how with language we understand it's the temple of Eden. Are there any, I just have to ask, is there anything else like that that comes to mind that are that are in that same vein that that that would be very useful to for us to know?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, geez.

SPEAKER_01

Um, like cool linguistics for that. Um yeah, cool linguistics is what I was. And I don't want to get too far off the topic that you were on because that's I want to continue in that vein of like revelation, but is there any other linguistics elements like that that come to mind? If it's okay, if not.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, it it I there is, it's all adjacent, like it has a lot of background. Like, for example, the okay, in this oral tradition, right? Um, back when it's an oral tradition, you would have what is the oral tradition?

SPEAKER_01

Pretend like I don't know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00

What do you mean by oral tradition? Okay, so prior to them writing this down, okay, so it's not written down until after their release from captivity in Babylon. 638 King Josiah uh becomes king. At this point, he's like, hey guys, we are about to be attacked from all over. Babylon has grown in huge numbers, right? Um, we need to we need to unite the two kingdoms because basically the northern kingdom's dead and gone, and all of our tribes are failing. We're in big trouble. And so, how can we unify best? Well, one, we have this crazy practice where we have women with the priesthood inside of the temple. We need to get rid of that. Nobody cares about women, right? And also, we need to unify um gods, right? So, so the oral tradition is everything prior to this moment. You you would have these priests who are the Zadokes, right? The Zadokes are kind of like our state presidents, they their whole job is just to memorize these narratives that they get from the temple, um, you know, from the temple teachings and from the prophet himself. And they would do these sing-sangy um narrations of the scriptures. Now, this is where hymns come from, by the way. Like hymns used to be the scriptures in the oral tradition. You would sing out these Maserotic incantation uh um scripts, which are the scriptures, they would sing them out. It's not written down, it's illegal to write it down. Why? Because this is a soft conceptual language, as soon as you write it down, because even though they don't have their alphabet, they would use like a Phoenician script and they it's very precise, and they would write things down, right? But you were not allowed to write down the scriptures. Why? As soon as you write that down, you have flattened that meaning. All of a sudden, that polysemy is crushed in that in that language, and and writing that down then ruins all that polysemic messaging that comes from this oral tradition. So these dokes would sing this narrative out, and then when King Josiah says, Hey guys, we're not doing this anymore, like we're not gonna have women in the temple, we're not gonna have a heavenly mother, we're not gonna believe in Yahweh and L. We're gonna believe in one God. So they merge Yahweh and L into one God, they erase the mother the best they can, and then now you have this very simplified gospel that hopefully everyone will unite under and we can defend ourselves from our enemies. It doesn't work, right? Babylon comes in, takes over everyone, poor King Josiah dies in a very sad way, and then everyone is carried in captivity and they cut off the Zidoke's heads, and now your religion is lost. They just cut off all of your Zadok priests, all these all of these priests who know your scriptures are gone. And now for the next hundred years, you're in captivity worshiping their gods. Okay. So now in comes the great Persians. Persians come in, say, Hey, uh, conquer Babylon. What are you doing here, Jews? They're like, we've been in captivity for 100 years, and they're like, Well, cool, we've now taken everything over, so we'll let you go back to your land. And they're like, Hey, Cyrus the Great, buddy, we don't remember our religion. Can you help us out? And he's like, Here's the thing, guys. If you would create an alphabet and write this stuff down, you won't lose it anytime you're conquered, because you will have it written down in books. So why don't you build your alphabet, right? So they build this alphabet at that moment under this Persian influence using a Phoenician script, and then they they formulate this, and this is where the oral tradition now ends. And this is why our Bible, our Old Testament, is so fragmentary, right? They have took certain fragments from illegal scripts that existed, or even those Masorotic uh cantation markers, which is like, you know, prior to their alphabet, they would have this cuneiformic pictographic version of their scriptures that would help the Zadokes remember the near, remember the songs that are the scriptures. Right. So this is this is the kind of history behind all of that. Now, that oral tradition was so polismic and so beautiful that it would carry all these different meanings into it, that they would perform it in certain ways. And and one aspect of that is known as the you know the the song of the prophets, right? In which the prophet would do this like sing-songy thing, a sing-songgy version of scripture, where he would call out to the children of Israel, and then the is the Israelites would call back to the prophet. And this is called Shema, right? We flatten this in our scriptures as a term for uh I hear, like it'll say, hear the words of Yahweh is what the prophet will say. And then they say, We hear the words or we answer the call of Yahweh, right? Is is what this is. Now we we translate that as this kind of flat um process of just like, and you know, and the prophet said, hear the words of Yahweh, and then it says, and the children said they heard the words. That's not how this was. The word Shema isn't just to hear, the word shema is I hear, I internalize, I understand, and now I go and perform whatever it is that I do. So in this just one word that is Shema, this very polysemic word that then gets flattened in this tradition, you you completely lose how this how this temple experience would work, how these narrations would teach the children of Israel, because it really was a process. Like in that age of the first temple, in the holy room, right? After you would leave the outer courtyard and go into the holy room, it's very different from the second uh temple of Solomon, in which it's the only thing in the holy room in the second temple is just the the seven tables of shoe bread uh and and wine, the menorah, and then the the um basin for oil, right? Which was like a combination of like myrrh and these other things. That's all that exists in the second temple. In the age of the first temple, that room was decked out, right? They would have it was made to look like the garden, you would have trees and flourishes, and you would have a full band in there, and that full band with trumpets and tambrels and um whatever the S one is, the synods, the whatever they're called, but all this full band would be there, and they would do this kind of call of the prophets. This I I I call out to you, and then you would go through these motions. Now, what that is, we don't know. But Latter-day Saints, we kind of know. We kind of get this. It makes sense to us because we go through a very similar process in our temple. This this back and forth, this call to motion, this I understand what you're teaching me, and now I'm going through a motion to kind of show that I understand this, right? This is the pattern of the first temple that is really lost to us. But linguistically, it's all contained in these little tiny words, just this one word, Shema, which everyone goes, Oh, that's just the word for here. No, it contains this whole backstory that is this motion, this covenant in motion that God would bring his children under covenant. And that's all because of that Persian influence that we kind of lose that, right? That we that it gets flattened to us.

SPEAKER_01

There's something so beautiful, Jared, around this whole like connection. And it's almost like when you're describing the the way that we used to worship before the language started to really flatten it out, like you say, there was a beauty to it and this openness that just seems like we're reintroducing now with revelation. And and I think that's what gets attacked in the modern days a little bit too. Because it's like, why are you changing things? It's like, no, no, no, man. We're we say restoration for a reason. And it's so powerful because I I see how you understanding the root of, you know, we we learn that language is the foundation of all creation, right? Like psychologists now are now calling people out when they say, Oh, I'm stupid. It's like, stop doing that. Like, never don't be loose with your language because as sons and daughters of God, that's the foundational steps of actual organization of matter, right? Like it's a whole thing. So, like I do think about my my sons when I hear you talk, and I'm like, how when it comes to like scripture study, I'm getting like this idea opened of like feasting on the words of Christ the way you're talking about. Because like you're really feasting when you go to the linguistic level. For someone who doesn't have seven degrees who would like to like maybe get more out of their scriptures, do you have anything that you would advise them so that they can understand these things? How does someone start to develop that understanding the way that you have? You know, and it's so beautiful because you're up here. But when people are down here, what's their next line upon line to help maybe expand their understanding of the scriptures?

Simple Tools For Deeper Study

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, absolutely. So hopefully something other than getting$300,000 of debt, right? Yeah, seven degrees and$300,000 debt, exactly. Um, no, I'm all with you. That's I so I'm teaching these classes, and that's really my goal. My goal is to like walk everyone through these classes kind of step by step because there are really good sources like Robert Alter, Ziny Zebit, um, Kugel, Marcus Smith. The the highest scholarship right now in the last 30 years has done so much, has established so much of this. What's funny is the trickle-down effect for education in this field is not working. Because even though even though scholarship has already ruled that, like, yes, we know this is the way, it is not trickling down very well. And that that's what's blowing my mind. As I'm teaching these classes, I'll be like, okay, guys, today I'm really excited. We're gonna talk about the women weavers, the priestesses of the temple who would weave together the narrative life. And then it's just crickets. And everyone in my class is like, wait, what? Who are these weavers? And I was like, You've never heard of the women weavers of the age of the first temple? The priestesses who would weave together the narrative of life at the veil of the Holy of Holies? And everyone in my class is like, Jared, we have never heard of this. And my jaw is dropped because I'm like, this is the biggest news, but this isn't the biggest news today. This is the biggest news 30, 40 years ago. It's just not trickling stuff. It's not trickling down. It is not trickling down, which is why I'm trying to do these classes. Because I wish I could. I wish I could be like, you know what, we need to do. But here's the thing our prophets are already doing it for us. This year, notice our prophets are like, first of all, go to your student manual, and there's a whole new section in there where President Nelson has said, has made this awesome statement where he says, guys, do you want to understand the meaning of the scriptures? You have to understand it in the context in which the scriptures were given. And then this year in our studies, they're saying, guys, don't just read the King James Version. Why? Because it's horrible, guys. It's horrible. Anything in English is horrible. It's so bad. It's so limited to what's intended. Yes. It's got all of these traditional interpretations, all of this like uh uh medieval interpretation of that text is being projected into that King James version that is just like appalling to like historical linguists like me. I I I cringe every time that I have to I sit down with my girls and I'm like, okay, let's do this King James thing. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01

It's it's unteach them things that they're being taught as a result of that, like the role of women being lesser, like all these different elements of how it is. So can I ask, what do you study then? Like, what do you study if it's not King James?

Veiled Roots And Covenants In Motion

SPEAKER_00

So um the let's see, the NRSV-U-E. I mean, however you want to do it, I like the NRSV. Any version of the NRSV is great. I love that. This is a good scholarly consensus that exists there. This is the greatest tool, ready? This is the greatest free tool for everyone to use. Go to biblehub.com and then on biblehub.com, just click on the Hebrew tab. And then once you get in the Hebrew tab, this is now the Hebrew kind of side-by-side, interlinear scripture. Okay, so you see the English, you see the Hebrew. Already you get to see a really nice connection to the Hebrew right there. But then there's one more tab up at the top. You click the N-A-S B. Okay. When you click that N-A-S B, you're now gonna see like the general consensus from scholarship of what these words mean. And it's not easy. I'm you know, as I'm going through these classes with my students, I the problem is that like it really is difficult. Unless you're and I get it, if you're just gonna go every day, do a little bit like we're supposed to, right? We've been asked to study our scriptures every day, then yes, in a matter of like five to ten years, you're gonna be like, this is all coming together, you know. But I think that's really frustrating for most of us. And so I I think we do need a little more oomph in our in our studies. I think, I think we do, you know, for those of us that are really interested, I think we gotta lever up, level up a little bit and start reaching out to these scholars. Yeah, we gotta we gotta reach out to our scholars a little more and because they're doing great things and they're really they're really helping break it down. Um, like the age of the temple, age of the first temple work, like Margaret Barker's work that she does. I mean, she's not LDS, right? But she is, she might as well be. I mean, honestly, I have no idea why she's not. Because everything parallels so much of the latter day. I I know, and and she's already doing all of our conferences. Like if you go to any LDS version of like some, you know, some gathering, she's always there because yes, she's basically LDS. She just hasn't, she's yet assigned the paperwork type of a thing. You know, it's it's shocking that she she's not, and she's incredible. Her work is truly phenomenal. So using your teaching classes, what is that? Yeah, so so I'm running, I just started what's called Veiledroots.com. Yeah, Veiledroots.com. And the goal for this whole thing, it's just that it's at this, it's the baby stage, right? So all I have right now is you can sign up to do these classes, and we're gonna record them professionally and then we're gonna take it through. But my very first class that I'm offering that we're doing right now is taking everyone through the age of the first temple, and we watch that evolution from the first temple into the New Testament, New Testament into our modern dispensation, modern dispensation to today, and we watch the whole temple transform linguistically across every single era, right? And and so, yes, I'm I'm really excited, but but I and I wish we're gonna get more. I just now started uh a thing where we're gonna do come follow me, and we're gonna each week we'll have like a deep dive into the linguistics of come follow me. Um, so we'll have that up there starting this next week. But yeah, we're just starting to try to help bridge this gap um in in that regard. Um, but no, by all means, you don't need to you don't need to reach out to me, the Tommy Boy scholar of of linguistics. No, there are so many already incredible linguistics uh out there, right? Um, you know, Robert Alter's um, you know, the art of of the biblical narrative. I just I ruined his title. That's not even the title, but it's something like that.

SPEAKER_01

It's okay. Honestly, Jared, for me, the most I can do is go to a website. I'm like, I'm so funny. Like, I'm not like in any means might, as you know from our pre-call, like I am passionate about the temple and the blessings. I am your every man when it comes to understanding it. And this show is mostly about me because I'm so much. And so, like the veiled roots.com thing, I'm also gonna put in the links of this uh show in the notes. I'm gonna link the Faith Matters podcast and some of the other ones that you've done because um when we start to understand this element of how revelation works, it starts to empower us in a way that makes it to where scripture study isn't about checking a box, it's about un unraveling mysteries. You know, it's that scripture we read about the this the words of Christ will teach us all things that we should do. And so it's really wonderful to like connect to the old testament in a way that feels like it's it's it's relatable and not ancient. It's beautiful to think about these connections in a big way. So I'm very excited about veiledroots.com. I'm very excited about this book that you're writing as well. What is this book that you're writing?

SPEAKER_00

Uh so it's called Covenants in Motion, and it's actually uh a series. So uh volume one actually just takes you from Joseph Smith in the garden. Again, the grove, the sacred grove is our first temple experience, right? And so we break that down and then we take you from the grove and we take you all the way until Joseph's death, and that's book number one, and we show that process of evolution of the temple, you know, this kind of line upon line, this incredible revelatory experience, you know, the the process of how he creates the temple, how he brings women into it. Um, again, it's we don't have the time for it, but it's like when when we talk about the women, when I teach everyone about the weavers of the original age of the first temple and the and what they did, right? Their job is they would they would they would weave the textiles of the temple, which was they were the ones who made the veil for the Holy of Holies. They were the ones that taught you about the lesson of life before you could pass through that veil, and they were also the ones that made you the sacred garments of the temple and would teach you about those garments. And so one thing I show you in the Covenants of Motion is just how beautiful it is that Joseph, when he gets this understanding of the garments, he is limited in his understanding of it. Who does he turn to? He goes to the Relief Society, right? And he goes, I need you guys to help me make this. And he's in this process of restoring women into the role of the weavers, the one who are gonna create, yes, weave together literally the textiles of the temple, which is exactly what they did. They also made the veils for the Nau temple. They also made the veils, I mean, they also made the garments for us in those days, but more so to expound it. So I show you how, you know, we don't get the fullness of the Navu temple until the which the Holy Order is this organization Joseph created, which is this group that are going through the motions of the Nau temple before the temple is completed. This is where they're formulating the temple in the first place. And it's not until they invite the relief society into the holy order, when Joseph gets that revelation that we need to invite the women. And and the very first day they invite the women over to join the holy order. Is the day that we get the most beautiful ordinances of our temple experience is the day that they invited the women into the holy order. And now the temple is complete. Now we get the fullness of our temple experience only when they invited that women over. And you get beautiful accounts of Violet, um Violet Kimball giving certain blessings and ordinances to her husband, which is the highest portions of our temple. This is what gets adopted to be our highest ordinances in the temple, all from finally bringing women into the process. And it's beautiful, you know, this beautiful restoration of these original women weavers of the age of the first temple, you know, and and it's these beautiful notions that you see that just really, you know, as you can see as I start crying, it's these beautiful notions that for the longest time, right, when when we adopt this very traditional understanding of the scriptures, you feel so incomplete, right? You feel so, you know, it it's not everyone is there, right? You only see a certain portion of it. Um, but it's so beautiful when you see just how complete the gospel of Jesus Christ is in this restoration. And what's so funny is, you know, one of the greatest indicators of Joseph as our dispensational prophet is that he's not the smartest guy in the world. Like he doesn't know anything about these women weavers, he doesn't know anything about linguistics of the Hebrew Bible, and and it's so over his head. It is, it's the most awesome uh evidence of Joseph's prophethood is that he doesn't understand anything that he's doing. And yet he does everything so perfectly. He he aligns it so perfectly with this age of the first temple uh doctrine, it's just shocking, right? Um, and beautiful.

SPEAKER_01

I am so moved by everything you just said. I you know, one of the scriptures I read and had my own personal this is just the the gospel according to Will on this, but the first shall be last, the last shall be first. I've always felt that was a direct reflection of a lot of things. I don't think it's just one thing, but I think the restoration of women in their value and importance to the gospel of Jesus Christ is because the world has taken them out. And I think that was very, you know, we can le read historically how that happened and why, because that's how the culture was, but I believe that was intentional from the adversary because as we start to restore their their role, their value, it becomes this beautiful acknowledgement of like life isn't beautiful without women, like without their creative power, without their leadership, without all that they do. When you I'm gonna ask everyone listening to this to immediately go listen to the Faith Mattered podcast that Jared is on, where he talked about Eve. I was like sobbing listening to the Azair Kanandu.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

Line Upon Line And New Revelation

SPEAKER_01

It is, and I can't we don't have time to get into it here, but go listen. I know because it's like that's what really has taken me down this path of just realizing that like when the prophets are saying over and over, read your scriptures, read your scriptures, when we when my earlier stage of development, I heard that as like, yes, I know it's important because it's good to do. I didn't realize it was like unraveling the mysteries of the universe in a way that would help me get purpose so that I can be empowered to be one of the many family members to serve others. Because if if Joseph with no education can do it, if you know what I mean, if young men were young men and women ages 18 to 21 without any real formal training, by the way, go out across the world and and spread the word of God and it grows, or the church being run by a bunch of volunteers, imperfectly mixed around the world, doesn't give us some indication of the truthfulness of the gospel, nothing else will. I will tell you one quick thing that you said too. Um I highlighted, we spent some time in Africa. We're really big. Uh, we have a foundation called the Light on a Hill Foundation that's a charity organization that we go to Africa repeatedly, and we're partnered with other groups like Care for Life and different organizations. But um you saw this in Africa probably, but the leadership of women in those in those in those cultures are like the villages that we went to, it was the woman who was like the leader of the entire village, and she was the one who was able to balance love and challenge in a way that like and just when you're in that culture and they they haven't been filtered through some of the cultures that we have on the Western Hemisphere, you just realize like wow, it's such a beautiful connected piece. So it really is. So let me ask you. So in your book, what I would like to talk a little bit more about this since it's so temple specific. What other you said there was one section that you're going to, what other the future sections that you see developing over time?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so right after uh our first covenants in motion, then we it just is it's continuous. So we're going right from Joseph Smith in the Garden of Eden, or in the Garden of Eden, in the sacred grove, all the way until you know our modern times, even the most recent changes of the temple, we are gonna show you how it evolves over time and and why, right? The the circumstances surrounding it. So so book two takes it's basically Brigham Young's gospel uh and temple from you know when he takes over in in 1844 and then goes all the way until uh our 1875 changes, and then the 1875 until our modern times, and we just kind of break it down. There's always these fun little tidbits, like you know, that you get to throw in there, like you know, we our first film was uh we we produced with Disney, like part of Fantasia, right? We we reached out.

SPEAKER_01

I don't think people most people know that. Say that a little bit more clearly because I don't think most people are aware of that connection.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, there's these fun little connections where it's like we we helped produce Fantasia with Disney. We gave them a bunch of money where we said, but will you please help us create this creation portion of our first film? And Disney was like, Okay, yeah, if you got the money for it, we can do it for you. And so our we have Fantasia as our first film uh is our creation narrative, which is which is super cool, you know. There so there's all these fun little tidbits in there that you like, but then more so it's to help you see just how beautiful this line upon line revelation is, and that it's not ending, guys. We're not even close to the temple being complete. There is so much that is in the process of being restored that if you only knew books.

SPEAKER_01

So we're not even close to like being able to like, we're not even closer to have for the temple to be fully revealed. It's not like we're finished product right now.

SPEAKER_00

No, absolutely not. No, so much more is gonna come. So much, and it's that's just how line that's what our religion is, like our religion is line upon line or that is the one thing we believe in, right? That it will never end, that it will always continue, right? And we will forever grow in this understanding and knowledge. But what's so funny, and what I show as a historical linguist, is it only you only grow with it if you are ready for it to grow. Like you have to prepare yourself. Like I always use the example in the Old Testament where for the first 1,000 years of the Old Testament, there is there is only the notion of shool in the afterlife. And shool is this revelation that we would consider more like paradise in prison, where when you die, you just kind of wander the earth. But this is the only thing that they had no revelation of the resurrection. It didn't come for the first thousand years of of our prophets. Now, all of the prophets are there, but it's because the people are not ready for it. And it's not until the Persian influence comes in that the Persians go, you know, we believe in this crazy concept where you'll be raised again from the dead. And then the prophets are like, Shh, is that true? And they go to God and they're like, hey, God, is there something after Shaol? And at that moment, then you get Daniel writing and saying, You will live again, like we are going to raise from the dead. Only when they were ready, like only when they expanded their minds to this notion that there could be something more than just this Shaol, do they then get this revelation of there's resurrection and there's so much more beyond resurrection. This is how it works, guys. We have to prepare ourselves for what is coming next. We have to be ready for it.

First-Time Temple Preparation Advice

SPEAKER_01

Thank beautiful. Jared, let me ask you this if someone's getting ready for going to the temple for their first time and they're just like wanting to approach it in a certain way. I don't know if what you would offer is different than what the what other people would say, but I have to ask, what would you say to someone preparing to go to the temple for their first time in terms of understanding their their endowment experience? Or is it or is there anything specifically the symbology you'd want them, some symbolism? Symbol symbolism that you would want to figure? Like it's just what would you say to someone who's preparing to go to the temple for their first time?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you you have to prepare yourself. I I really encourage everyone to do their homework, right? To understand, if you can't get like a general understanding of the old testament text and how this is reverberated, which I get is a lot, that's fine. At least uh try to understand how it's evolved in our modern dispensation. Like, know that you are going through a ritual drama that has been then used to to convey this very symbolic message. And please understand that yes, it is symbolic. That yes, you are supposed to go in with your, you know, it's like those what were those old things called where like you'd have to blur your eyes to see the image. Yes.

SPEAKER_01

You know what those magic those griffs was like a blue ocean when you when you kind of convert your eyes, you would see a 3D picture pop out. Yeah, perfect.

SPEAKER_00

Whatever that is, right? We need to figure out whatever the name of that is. But that is what our temple is. Our temple is this thing you need to go into, and you I need you to not like don't be that left brain. Don't go in there and be like, hmm, you know, he said this literally. Go do that. Go in and just let it kind of soak over you the general feeling of what you're getting from this, and then go ahead and start diving in. I don't want to say, like, the whole point that that we have in the temple is is yes, we want you to study what's in there. Yes, it's so important to dive into it, right? We don't turn the lights down low anymore, right? We don't want it's not nap time anymore. We keep the lights up, we put words up on the screen there. We want you to be studying this. You need to be focusing on it. But when you're going the first time, there's no way you're gonna even like, I mean, you're gonna be in shock. You won't know what's going on. So instead, just kind of relax, soak in the general feeling, right? Like, um, yeah, just soak in the general sentiment that is this is the beautiful atonement of Jesus Christ laid out in a very personal way of how it applies directly to you, right? In the form of your first parents, your first covenantal parents, that is Adam and Eve, right? And so now see how generation after generation after generation has interpreted this atonement to be our salvation, so that we can return not just physically to our parents, but then ourselves transform into what our parents want us to become so we can now be an eternal family. And that is where the beauty is, right? If you can walk in and just get that big message, kind of that love message wave wave over you, then yes, you know, you you have successfully attended your first session.

SPEAKER_01

I love that advice. I love that because Jared, for me, what I what I one of the things I'm taking away from this discussion that is so powerful for me personally, is that when I go to the temple to be really open to the beauty of the concepts more than anything else, the overriding concept is the atonement of Jesus Christ. The overriding focus being that and letting everything else just kind of wash over me in a sense of like, what could this mean? What is that? And not be caught up in what's perceived as like, is this literal or is it not, and recognize that this is a presentation of a vision, a vision not unlike the many prophets of old who've been receiving information in a visual context. One thing I do when I teach people is I'll say, listen, you know, you've probably seen this. Everyone close their eyes and you say the word dog, what did you think of? And most people envision an actual dog that they they own, an animal they loved, and they have feelings connected to it. That's a great maybe connection, I'm hoping, to what you're talking about because using language, what we've done is we've we've rejoiced in religion over time, we've reduced the word dog to like three letters and seeing the pictures of those letters versus the image and the vision of what that could mean to me. And and at the end of the day, when people I do that in audiences, I'll say, okay, imagine the word dog, they pick they always pick a dog that they love. So the common link between everything is love and the individual nature of it is what they what they understand in their own world is love. And so for us, there's truth, and the truth is ultimately love. And so when we're in the temple, just being focused on that emotion, the connection, the vision, and then you know, not not sweating the details as much as just taking it all in.

SPEAKER_00

That is awesome. Okay, so the linguistic term for that is motivational semantic layering. It's all throughout scripture. Did you just come up with that? Is that like a thing that was just off the top of your head? What is this particular?

SPEAKER_01

Yes, it was, but I I can't take credit because I'm sure credit, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00

No, that is awesome. That is a perfect way of saying it because that is exactly what this is, right? It's motivational semantic layering. The scriptures do this all the time, right? Where it is this is you need to understand the context in order for this to be personably uh brought into your soul, right? Brought into your understanding. Um, I love that. I'm gonna steal that.

Scriptural Breadcrumbs About Women

SPEAKER_01

Can I steal that from absolutely I feel like so freak so honored? So blown away that you would take that. So yeah, thank you, Jared. I think you know, I wanted to see what you would say for someone coming in because that is a common link to what I've heard other people say, but there's something different about understanding from an expert who's a linguist expert who can just tell you, like, listen, there's so many great connections and there's so many answers that are coming. And but for now, at the end of the day, it's about that parent-child going back to the initial word that you did you you broke down for us, it's about worshiping the relationship between man, wife, and the child and how we can all come together. Um, I think that's so great. So, Jared, I've noticed in other episodes, including this one, that once we talk about the role of women, you tend to get emotional. What is that? What is that for you?

SPEAKER_00

Man, even you bringing it up, it just gets me. So I think for me, what's so beautiful, right? I have four daughters. Right? I'm a I'm a dad of four daughters. Um not being able to see and seeing from a historical linguistic um perspective, the number one agenda of uh there's different editors of the Bible, right? We have the Deuteronomists who are whose number one goal is yes, removing the role of women and erasing the mother. So when you see just how much effort has gone in to removing the role of women in scripture and our mother in scripture, um, and see how that singular move, right, that very successful uh move by Satan to just completely erase that other half, um, has affected our society for thousands of years in the most negative and her horrendous ways, to then see just how much is actually there behind the text, right? That as you study the linguistics, you then see it's not gone. It's there in the most beautiful way. And there's and the most beautiful part is there is this linguistic rebellion in the scriptures where they are supposed to be erasing it, but they leave these breadcrumbs for you to see that it was once there. And that is so like uh it it's it's just so obvious that they went out of their way to be like, but there is they're there. There it's not this whisper that is there all throughout the text. Okay.

SPEAKER_01

Anyway, yeah, so so Jared, you're you're saying that the role of women has been intentionally attacked in as as the scriptures have been recorded and translated over the over time, but there's whispers that women exist. What are some of those whispers that you see in the scriptures that like hint to that?

SPEAKER_00

Well, exactly, like the women weavers, exactly, like I brought up earlier in the message. Like nobody even knows of these women weavers, and yet they are all throughout the text there, right? What's so interesting is that, and what I showcase over and over again with the historical linguistics is that just look at the example from just last week's Come Follow Me. In last week's Come Follow Me, you have the story of Judah and Tamar. Tamar is identified as a prostitute of the temple. So there's this notion of that that the these women who were in the temple, there's no way women could have the priesthood. So, of course, the only reason they are in there is because they had to have slept their way to the top in order to infiltrate the temple and the priesthood. So they call them the prostitutes of the temple. Now, what's so funny about that is the word for prostitute there is zona. And you could easily call her a prostitute throughout the whole thing, but somehow linguistically, someone has, in one instance, yes, they write her down as the as the prostitute, but later in the text they refer to as the kadeshah, which is the Hebrew term for the priesthood. So it is literally, it's the feminine term for priesthood. She is the priestess of the temple. And that was not erased. It is still there in the text. That just doesn't make any sense, right? That makes absolutely no sense. If she if she's this prostitute, if she's this whore, then why do you then accidentally label her as the priestess of that temple later in the text?

SPEAKER_01

That would be all over. That was intentional to tell people. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00

It wasn't exactly special, she wasn't less than, she was more, she was the best. And and he even mits she is more righteous than I. And the word for righteous that he uses there, the Zalot, is the term for priesthood righteousness, right? It is covenantal righteousness in the context of a covenant. And so again, it is indicating there's this contradictory evidence. Is she a whore or is she a priestess that is more righteous than Judah himself, right? And you have to, you have to, and then you have to judge for yourself. Is she like which side is right? Well, I'm sorry, but given my understanding and my gospel, I know for a fact, yes, she is this priestess. Yes, she is this, you know, yes, she is a hundred percent equal to Judah in righteousness, power, and priesthood. That is what the text is telling you. And and it is not this huge speculative jump. It is all throughout the text over and over again. So that's that's what I do in these classes. I I kind of show that beautiful kind of Latter-day Saint theology that's there very clearly, you know. It's not this, it's not too obscure, it's pretty clear, right? Holda is identified as a prophet. Miriam is I literally gets the name of prophetess, you know, delivered to her in the text in that official capacity and role. And so, yes, it's all there. It's just you have to have the eyes to see it, right?

SPEAKER_01

I love it. Um, so Jared, that was beautiful. And I I really think one of the greatest takeaways I have, you know, I talked about experiencing the emotional connection and in the depth of the art of God's love and communication with us. The other thing I'm really clear on is just that it all boils down to family again. Like it's this man, woman, child worshiping the relationship within the family and the love and how Christ comes in and he just makes everything possible. And as I'm going through this experience, I just want to acknowledge you for the hard work you've done. I I've been humbled to do this show because I've met now you're gonna make me emotional. I have met the most consecrated men and women who are so dedicated to giving their lives to truth and God, and in ways that you know have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of of student loan debt or or taking jobs at institutes that honestly don't compensate at levels that make life very easy. But at the end of the day, to me, this is what connects us more than anything is this love and knowledge. If we can bring those things together. So I just want to thank you, Jared, for being that type of consecrated soul that who's dedicating your life to something eternal. And it better it's a rising tide that makes all of us a little bit closer to Christ.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's so nice. I really appreciate that. Yeah, I know. This is this is So Jared.

SPEAKER_01

So if I want to take a class, I go to VeilderRoots.com and I hit the registration button on the main page, right? Correct. Yes, that's correct. And then um, please, right now, the name of your first book that's coming out and whenabouts do we anticipate that being released?

SPEAKER_00

Yes, so covenants in motion, and here in the next month or two, we'll we'll get it out there. I will I'm getting right on it, so it'll be out here soon.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, Jared, we would love to have you back after the book is released, maybe a month or two later, to talk in depth that wonderful the wonderful book that you're producing in the way that we can you understand the concepts within. Is that something you'd be willing to do?

SPEAKER_00

Oh, amazing. Yes, I'd love it. Yes. Okay.

Rapid Fire Favorites And Closing

SPEAKER_01

Well, Jared, thank you so much for taking time to be on Temple Bound. And for all of you who are oh my gosh, I forgot my closing questions. I've got a rapid fire. Okay, rapid fire. Ready? Favorite temple on the earth.

SPEAKER_00

Ooh, uh Kate Verde, Kate Verde Temple.

SPEAKER_01

Ooh, because that's where you served your mission and live for seven years. Yep, yep. Okay. You uh how many you look you know seven languages, what are they?

SPEAKER_00

Okay, let's do this. So uh Portuguese, farcy, uh Badu, Sambaju, Bose, uh Chinese, but honestly, that's like my first degree, and I just don't do anything with it anymore. Um Afrikaans and tree. So and English makes nine. Oh, sure. And English, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That's how you know you're talking to a real linguist, is that they don't include English on I I speak two languages and one of them's English. Okay, so then um, what do you think is your favorite word that you've learned about in your linguistics journey? Is there a word that if you could say, well, that's the that's the most amazing word because of whatever reason, what would you if you had to pick one, what would it be?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it is Shema, right? It is the call of God, Shema, but a call that you must hear, internalize, and answer for it to be complete. Oh, I love that so much. It's my favorite word.

SPEAKER_01

Okay, Shema. I am gonna remember that the rest of my life. Last question. The show is all about temple and family history because they go together. So it's not lost on me that we're creating family history for your family right now, your four girls, their daughters, their sons, and this legacy that you leave. They'll listen, they'll see this video at some point. What do you want to tell them about what we've talked about today? What would be something you'd want to leave them as a message?

SPEAKER_00

Man, you just this is like you want me to cry so much on the show. So we've maybe crying a few times, so it's kind of funny. I know. Um yeah, I would tell them that, you know, actually, I had I had this beautiful experience with my you know third third daughter, where when I baptized her during her um confirmation, I I gave her a blessing. And it's weird that normally confirmations don't go like this. Like normally you give them just this kind of nice sweet blessing. But um, in that blessing, I told her you, I bless you above anyone else in this room, in your time and in your age, you will be able to come to understand the role that women have in the gospel so much clearer than any of us have today. And I love I love that blessing because when you know it didn't come from you, when you know that it was words like put into your mouth, it made me so happy. You know, it made me so happy to be able to give that blessing. So I I hope that by the time they watch this, which you know, many, many years from now, that that has come true. I hope that they watch this retrospectively and they see themselves so clearly in every aspect of the gospel in the temple that they can.

SPEAKER_01

Gosh, what a beautiful parting message. I, you know, Jared, I have to just say this. I hope they do too. I and I know they will. They'll uh there'll be such a great restoration of the understanding of how women play into this thing called existence, right? From beginning to end. And yet, I defy anyone to think of their mother for most people. I'm sure there's exceptions, but like when I think of love and I think of leadership, I think of my mom. Like, my I don't have to know what needs to be, you know, like I don't have to know anything else other than how that woman feels for me and how she serves me her whole life and how she's willing to give every last part of her being for the love of her children. And I I think as much as I as a dad, I'd like to say it's the same. I just don't think it is. I I personally, this is my personal take on it, but this wonderful feeling that we can understand using what you've talked about in terms of how to how to learn about the temple. I learned firsthand at the feet of my mom. And that's how I think we could maybe we should take some of that back to the temple and think of it as like our way to connect to our heavenly parents completely and recognize that we're we're in it together. Jared, this has been probably one of the most fun episodes I've ever had. Thank you so much for being part of the day.

SPEAKER_00

I appreciate it. Thanks, Will. It's so nice to do this with you. I'm so excited for for you, and I wish you the best. This is so fun. I'm I'm gonna go devour your episodes now. This is fun.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you for listening to today's episode of Temple Bound. If you enjoyed today's content, please leave a review and share the episode with others so that people who are looking for this information can find it. Thank you again for listening. Until next time.

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Will Humphreys

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