A great blessing of Restoration scripture is the restoration of lost accounts from the Bible. Such is the case of Enoch, a character who fascinates Bible scholars. There are three Books of Enoch in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha (this is a collection of writings similar to the Apocrypha—see D&C Section 91). Some critics have accused Joseph Smith of borrowing from the Book of Enoch, but only First Enoch, a translation by Richard Laurence, was published during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. 1 Enoch doesn’t closely resemble Moses 6 and 7, but there is an account that does, and it’s called the Book of Giants, which is among the Dead Sea Scrolls, recovered in 1948 at Qumran.
Hugh Nibley did a fascinating series of articles published in the Ensign in 1976 and 1977 regarding parallels between Moses 6 and 7 and the Book of Giants. Much of this centers around a character named Mahijah, who is not mentioned in the Bible, but is mentioned in the Book of Giants. There is this running dialog in Moses 6 and 7 that parallels a dialog in the Book of Giants. For example, Moses 6:38 tells of the peoples’ reaction to Enoch by saying, “there is a strange thing in the land; a wild man hath come among us.” Part of this dialog in the Book of Giants reads, “of the wild beast has come, and the wild man they call [me.]”
Oh, I forgot . . . this is a temple blog and I’m digressing here (my wife hates this). But this does come after a specific ordinance.
“And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see.” (Moses 6:35)
There is a washing and an anointing. We will examine this later with the topics of kings and priests (and queens and priestesses), who were also anointed. Truman Madsen observed that during the initiatory ordinances performed in temples, we are given “a patriarchal blessing to every organ and attribute and power of our being” (see Truman G. Madsen, The Temple—Where Heaven Meets Earth, p. 10). This post will deal specifically with the anointing of the eyes with the promise, “thou shalt see.” Immediately after this washing and anointing, Enoch “beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye” (Moses 6:36). He seems to see within the veil and is able to have a similar vision to the one Moses will have in Moses 1. It’s this grand and glorious vision of God’s creations! The people recognize that God had raised up a seer (or a see-er).
This washing and anointing of Enoch parallels other gospel ordinances, as well as miracles performed by Jesus. After Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery received the Aaronic Priesthood and were baptized, they were able to see and prophesy concerning future events pertaining to the Church, more fully understand scripture, and receive an outpouring of the Holy Ghost. Joseph Smith—History 1:73-74 records,
“Immediately on our coming up out of the water after we had been baptized, we experienced great and glorious blessings from our Heavenly Father. No sooner had I baptized Oliver Cowdery, than the Holy Ghost fell upon him, and he stood up and prophesied many things which should shortly come to pass. And again, so soon as I had been baptized by him, I also had the spirit of prophecy, when, standing up, I prophesied concerning the rise of this Church, and many other things connected with the Church, and this generation of the children of men. We were filled with the Holy Ghost, and rejoiced in the God of our salvation.
“Our minds being now enlightened, we began to have the scriptures laid open to our understandings, and the true meaning and intention of their more mysterious passages revealed unto us in a manner which we never could attain to previously, nor ever before had thought of.”
I mentioned in an earlier post that Jesus anointed the eyes of a blind man with clay and then told him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. The blind man “washed and came seeing.” (John 9:6-7). I often wonder what this blind man first saw after this washing and anointing. Did he see his own face for the first time in the reflection of the pool? One of the promises of the Lord is the blessing to “see as (we) are seen and know as (we) are known” (D&C 76:94). We will return to the Pool of Siloam for the next post dealing with one of my favorite verses in scripture that appears in Moses chapter 6.
Here are some questions to ponder:
How do you feel about the blessing of seeing yourself the way the Savior sees you? How can that change the way you feel about yourself? And how can that change your life?
When have you been able to see glimpses of heaven during temple worship? And how does temple worship help you to feel the Holy Ghost and God’s love for you?
