Review
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Title: Understanding Temple Symbols Through Scripture, History, and Art
Author: Jack M. Lyon
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Art & gospel interpretation
Year of Publication: 2016
Number of Pages: 151
Binding: hardcover
ISBN13: 9781639722443
Price: $24.99
Reviewed by Julie J. Nichols for the Association for Mormon Letters
A while ago, when I reviewed Brown, et al, eds., Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of the Expound Symposium 14 May 2011, I said that I had found official church publications about the background and meaning of the ceremonies enacted in the temple to be mostly unhelpful, “full of reverence but almost completely without substantial information.” However, I did concede that more solid material is being made available by Deseret Book—and I would like to say that Jack Lyon’s beautiful Understanding Temple Symbols falls into that category, not only “solid” but enormously attractive. Accessible and helpful, too. I wouldn’t call it scholarly and, if you’re hungry for the history of the endowment’s form or for explanations of original and accrued meanings of symbols, you won’t find them here. But if you’ve heard that reading the scriptures will open up the temple for you, but that hasn’t happened to you on your own; if you’ve been longing for permission to engage in a certain degree of discussion of the endowment outside of the temple; and if you love gorgeous art, then this is the book for you.
It is a beautiful volume. You’ll want to have it out on your coffee (Postum?) table just to let your visitors thumb through the full-color plates on every glossy two-page spread. From medieval frescoes and Michelangelo to William Blake and Thomas Cole, Lyon has selected a fine array of artwork to illustrate much that we see and hear in the temple. (Could these works be hung in temples worldwide to complement the Minerva Teicherts and Arnold Freibergs that already hang there? Why not?)
Lyon’s organization follows the structure of the endowment. Think about your experience in the temple: the preliminary instructions; the Creation story; the story of the Fall and expulsion; and then the making of covenants that enable a return to godliness through the Atonement. Lyon’s strategy is to present art that depicts aspects of each of these, alongside relevant passages of scripture from which both art and endowment are derived.
He begins by presenting ten keys for working with symbols. For a literalist, these can be frustrating. His second and sixth keys assert, respectively, that symbols can have more than one meaning and that different people can glean different meanings from symbols. How helpful is that, if you’re wondering about, say, robes and veils? Are you to decide they “mean” whatever you want them to mean?
The first key does stipulate that symbols resemble what they symbolize; bread couldn’t symbolize Christ’s blood nearly as well as water can, nor could water symbolize His body. Other keys remind us that “temple symbols can be explored through the scriptures” and that “a valid interpretation of a symbol is compatible with the scriptures and gospel teachings.” These are typical of the level of instruction in this book. Of course it’s good to be reminded of these “first principles” of symbol-working. But when Lyon says “we should not be overly concerned about how the Creation was accomplished” (41), some readers may be enlightened, while others hoping to find ways to connect faith and science through symbols may writhe in impatience, wishing for more meat.
But of course milk can be good, especially when accompanied by images and a perspective placing both image and symbol in a broader context. For example, there are reproductions of various art works showing the Creation as an act of God’s hand, dividing light from darkness, order from chaos. We see multiple depictions of a blessing gesture with the right hand upraised, two fingers and thumb extended. And sacrifices on altars, of lambs or of Christ—these repetitions assure us that what we experience in the temple has been known, acknowledged, and expressed throughout Christian history.
Juxtapositions of verses from the Old and New Testaments along with others from LDS scripture provide further perspective. Lyon’s own commentary is primarily transitional, leading the reader from one art work or one aspect of the temple ceremony to another. The scriptures are placed in those contexts and the readers are left to draw their own conclusions about “meaning.”
Maybe that’s my problem: when I see a book about symbols, I hope to find out what the symbols symbolize, some discussion of original meanings and layered significance. In this irrefutably lovely book, Lyon does more to show that temple symbols do appear in art and scripture than to illuminate the temple ceremony itself. (The KnoWhys at BookofMormoncentral.com attempt to do both when they discuss, for example, King Benjamin’s address as a temple sermon.)
Blurbs and advertising copy are joyfully enthusiastic about this volume’s design and intent, as they ought to be. But readers who seeks depth of understanding are admonished to find it on their own through thoughtful contemplation of art and scripture. Lyon’s list of additional reading is short, though useful; his list of sources is longer, almost completely LDS in origin.
This book will make a good gift, a lovely table display (especially at its modest price), but it may not satisfy some readers who seek definitive explication of the endowment’s origin and meaning.
Thank you for reviewing my book Understanding Temple Symbols. You’ve given a very fair and thoughtful review, and I’d like to respond to a few of your thoughts. You wrote, “When I see a book about symbols, I hope to find out what the symbols symbolize, some discussion of original meanings and layered significance.”
Yes, that would be good. But in order to do that, I would have had to discuss symbols that I’ve promised not to discuss outside the temple. Since that avenue was closed to me, I had to find an alternative way to communicate what some of those meanings might be. I’ve tried to do this by using art and scripture as parallels in their proper place in the endowment structure (as you discuss in your third paragraph). I hope that as readers ponder these parallels *within that structure,* some of those meanings will become clear, even though they’re not explicitly given.
As an example, please consider the last two paragraphs of the section “Above and Below” on page 77. If you ponder those paragraphs *in relation to the endowment at that point,* you may find meanings you hadn’t previously considered. But I won’t say more than that.
I believe that the book does make connections for those who seek them–something that is also true in the endowment itself. The endowment seems to teach mainly through induction rather than deduction, and part of my method was intended to help readers understand how such teaching works. I appreciated an observation from one of the reviewers on Deseret Book’s website: “The author consistently stops short of over-explanation, thus maintaining space for personal insight and revelation.” I hope that’s the case, but I also hope the book will help reveal meanings even for readers “who seek definitive explication of the endowment’s origin and meaning” such as yourself. Thanks again!
You wrote, ” Lyon’s list of additional reading is short, though useful; his list of sources is longer, almost completely LDS in origin.”
That piqued my curiosity, so I went back and counted. “Almost completely” overstates the case, I think: 57 sources are cited; of those, 17 are not LDS–about 30 percent.
Odd to have a book about symbols in the temple that doesn’t discuss the Freemasonic origins of many of the symols.