David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 30, 2012, 1:48 pm
Review of Crispin Fletcher-Louis, “The Revelation of the Sacral Son of Man: The Genre, History of Religions Context and the Meaning of the Transfiguration,” in Auferstehung – Resurrection (The Fourth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium Resurrection, Transfiguration and Exaltation in Old Testam...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 27, 2011, 9:00 am
A 2000 year-old seal with the inscription “Pure for YH (abbr. of YHWH)” was found in excavations of the foundations of the Western Wall at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem just recently. The directors of the excavation believe that it is an example of the type of seal thought to have been used in t...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 6, 2011, 4:56 pm
This has been quite long in coming, but I am happy that Tyler Livingston provided me with a copy of his new DVD that he made for FAIR (Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research), entitled “A Most Remarkable Book: Evidence for the Divine Authenticity of The Book of Abraham,” and I am ple...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 3, 2011, 5:19 pm
Jim Davila, my PhD supervisor, gave a paper at SBL for the new Esotericism and Mysticism in Antiquity section, entitled “Ritual Praxis in Ancient Jewish and Christian Mysticism.” The session, held jointly with the Religious Experience in Early Judaism and Early Christianity section, was presided...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Nov 10, 2011, 11:01 am
Friday, February 17, 2012 Purpose of Conference:   To provide a forum for students to research, write, and present papers  about religious subjects from a faithful perspective. Eligibility:   All full-time BYU undergraduate and graduate students attending BYU-Provo winter semester 2012 are...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Oct 27, 2011, 11:37 am
Last night I had the opportunity to listen to Professor Tom Wright (a.k.a. N.T. Wright) give his Inaugural Lecture as Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity here at the University of St Andrews. Professor Wright has actually been at the university a year now and has previously given majo...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Oct 24, 2011, 11:46 am
My thanks to Tyler Livingston for putting the following video together from my May 2011 Expound Symposium presentation.  The title of my paper was “Ascending into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple.” Tyler has nicely worked in the power-p...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Oct 7, 2011, 6:41 pm
Prolific and popular LDS author, Matthew B. Brown, was laid to rest today at the Orem City Cemetery at 1pm.  He passed peacefully through to the other side of the veil on October 5, 2011 after a brief and unexpected illness. I only met Matthew personally fairly recently, when I participated in the...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Sep 27, 2011, 10:41 am
You may have been wondering as I have not posted anything here for about two months!! I apologize to anyone who is actually still interested in reading this blog!  Over the Summer I was compelled by my financial situation here in Scotland to get a full-time summer job, so between that and my resear...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jul 8, 2011, 10:01 am
The following are my notes from the recent Temple Studies Symposium, held July 2, 2011 at the Temple Church, London.  As always, the event was a great success with many important insights imparted.  It was a pleasure to see my friends and colleagues there, including Margaret Barker, Revd Robin Gri...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jun 20, 2011, 6:19 am
Well, the first of what we hope will become an annual event here at the University of St Andrews took place the past week in the venerable College of St Mary’s.  The 1st St Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian Studies was held on the 15-16 June and included grad students f...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jun 14, 2011, 2:31 pm
Professor James Davila, of the University of St Andrews, shared some recent news today, on his PaleoJudaica blog, regarding the monumental More Old Testament Pseudepigrapha Project that he is directing, together with Professor Emeritus Richard Bauckham, and with Dr. Alexander Panayotov as co-editor....
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jun 11, 2011, 10:03 am
If you haven’t heard of Jared Calaway, he finished his PhD in Biblical Studies at Columbia University last year, writing his dissertation under the direction of the late (and great) Alan Segal. I have been following Jared’s work for the past few years and I have been intrigued by his insights i...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jun 11, 2011, 9:40 am
The time has come for another brilliant Temple Studies symposium, this one appropriately themed: “The Temple Hidden in the Bible” in light of this year’s commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. Symposium V will be held on Saturday 2 July 2011, 10am-4pm at the Temp...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jun 7, 2011, 2:23 pm
On May 17, 2011 (the day after I left Provo for my recent visit), Professor John W. Welch, Robert K. Thomas Professor of Law and editor-in-chief of BYU Studies, gave the 2011 Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Faculty Lecture at a Brigham Young University forum after having been awarded the 2011 Maeser Di...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - May 31, 2011, 8:29 am
The following are my notes on Matthew B. Brown’s presentation at the recently held Expound Symposium that I participated in on May 14th (see my initial report on the event here). Matthew’s paper was intriguing — a very insightful treatment of temple-related topics that readers of this blog wou...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - May 26, 2011, 6:49 am
The following is my presentation, entitled “Ascending into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms as a Key to Understanding the Rituals of the First Temple” from the Expound Symposium. Please note that this is a draft — it is in the format in which I presented it at the symposium — it has not yet ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - May 23, 2011, 11:30 am
On Saturday the 14th of May I had the opportunity to attend and participate in the 1st Annual Expound Symposium, which was held in Provo at the Brigham Young Academy building.  For anyone who was there, I hope I had a chance to talk to you — I met so many bright and interesting people there. If y...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 29, 2011, 8:09 pm
Just read about a conference being held on May 12th at Union Theological Seminary.  I would love to be able to be there!  Funny enough, I will be in the US for the Expound Symposium two days later, but have no plans to stop in New York (at least not outside the airport)!  The theme of this confer...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 27, 2011, 6:42 am
I just wanted to alert you, especially those who live or will be in Utah next month, to the imminent advent of the First Annual Expound Symposium, to be held Saturday, May 14th, at the Brigham Young Academy in Provo, Utah.  I will be coming all the way from Scotland to speak at this event — and i...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 18, 2011, 8:07 am
Rabbi Yehudah Glick has 300 sheep and goats on-hand and 20 trained slaughterers ready to lead the Jewish world in a renewal of the Pessach (Passover) sacrifice on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.  Now all they need is for the Messiah to come. While Jews, for many centuries now, have celebrated Passo...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 8, 2011, 6:43 am
For those disappointed that the recent “discovery” of those lead metal plates from Jordan has turned out to be bogus, Bryce Haymond’s recent post may cheer you up a bit! Bryce provides details of the many examples of inscribed metal plates found in the last century that have been deemed authe...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 8, 2011, 6:10 am
The Temple Studies Group website has just posted information regarding their next symposium, to be held July 2 at the Temple Church in London.  I will definitely be there!  Anyone else planning on going? The focus of this symposium will be on finding the Temple hidden in the Bible.  There are fou...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 5, 2011, 5:43 am
The following is from an email sent out by the Jerusalem-based The Temple Institute. This event is scheduled for today, April 5th. APRIL 5TH/ROSH CHODESH NISAN HAS ARRIVED! THE 2ND ANNUAL INTERNATIONAL TEMPLE MOUNT AWARENESS DAY: 6 HOUR LIVE STREAMING VIDEO EVENT This day is the anniversary of t...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 2, 2011, 4:39 am
I recently came across a blog post by Thomas Verenna that shares an email he sent to Margaret Barker about her recent quotes which have been appearing in the media.  According to this, Barker claims that she has been grossly misquoted. She says: “Alas, I was not quoted correctly. I am discoverin...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Apr 1, 2011, 5:47 am
From the latest updates I’ve seen, things aren’t looking good for our Jordanian lead plates. As more scholars gain access to photos of the plates and are beginning to be able to evaluate the inscriptions and images, there are some who are quite certain that they are forgeries.  I think it will ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Mar 28, 2011, 6:35 am
Just wanted to give you a brief update of some things I’ve been doing lately. I posted (a couple of weeks back now) some material over at The Millennial Star about the reforms of King Josiah and the Deuteronomists and how these reforms may have affected the theological themes found in the Old Tes...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Mar 25, 2011, 11:33 am
Another quick update on this topic. Many of you have probably seen this by now. A couple of press releases are now circulating related to the cache of metal plates. Bryce Haymond over at TempleStudy.com links to one, plus he give a great outline of the nature of the plates and what some people thi...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Mar 22, 2011, 8:40 am
Via Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica Just an update on my last post regarding the supposed discovery of a cache of ancient inscriptions written on metal plates.  This find continues to generate interest and a number of biblical scholars, including Margaret Barker, Philip Davies, and Jim Davila, have ex...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Mar 4, 2011, 5:27 pm
Via Jim Davila at PaleoJudaica; original article featured on The Jewish Chronicle Online. Heavy metal secrets from a Mid-East cave Israel’s archaeological establishment believes they are a fake. But could a collection of metal books be an early example of Kabbalah? By Simon Rocker, March 3, 201...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 21, 2011, 10:06 am
Via the Review of Biblical Literature Newsletter, 17 Feb 2011 ———————————— The following new reviews have been added to the Review of Biblical Literature and listed on the RBL blog (http://rblnewsletter.blogspot.com/): John J. Collins Beyond the Qumran Community: The Sect...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 20, 2011, 5:50 pm
For any of you who have followed the discussions surrounding the recent posts I have written for The Millennial Star, you may have noticed that many of the comments on my posts have come from authors of the blog Faith-Promoting Rumor. Although we do not see eye-to-eye on many topics, I was happy to ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 15, 2011, 5:22 am
I recently heard news that Professor Alan F. Segal, one of the giants in the field of Early Jewish and  Early Christian Studies, has passed away.  We have lost one of the greatest contributors to the advancement of these areas of study in recent times. I first became aware of Professor Segal’s ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 15, 2011, 4:44 am
If so, then maybe I should change the name of my blog!! A few people have been asking me whether I plan to do regular posts on New Testament Sunday School topics, as I had been doing with the OT.  I would have to say that my tentative answer is either “maybe” or “probably not.” While I wo...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 5, 2011, 7:23 am
The 1st St Andrews Graduate Conference for Biblical and Early Christian Studies: Authoritative Texts and Reception History Authoritative Texts and Reception History Aspects and Approaches 15-16 June 2011 With an emphasis on textual reception history, the first St Andrews Graduate Conference fo...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Feb 3, 2011, 6:18 am
I have written a new post over at The Millennial Star looking at Psalm 24 and the possibility that it describes an ancient temple ritual in which pilgrims to the temple engaged in a question-and-answer dialogue with priests that acted as gatekeepers at the temple gates. If interested, please check ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 29, 2011, 7:48 pm
About two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote a post for this blog that looked at the work of Sarah Hinze, an author that has written a number of books on the subject of “pre-birth experiences”: accounts of individuals who claim to have memories of their life before their birth or to have received com...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 29, 2011, 11:10 am
I got this nice list of articles on the Jewish concept of a priestly Messiah from Bill Hamblin’s blog: Mason, E. You Are a Priest Forever: Second Temple Jewish Messianism and the Priestly Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews (2008) Higgins, A . I. B. “The Priestly Messiah.” New Testam...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 22, 2011, 6:55 pm
I just wanted to alert you to a piece that I recently posted over on the popular LDS-themed blog, The Millennial Star, called “Should We Expect to Find the Temple Ordinances as One Coherent Whole in the Scriptures? Revisiting the Question.” This post was written as a response, or follow-up, to ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 17, 2011, 5:08 am
I found the following a while back and just recently looked at it again and thought it would be great to post here. British scholar Crispin Fletcher-Louis, in his book All the Glory of Adam, had the following to say about the early Jewish belief that all of humanity was meant to, and and eventually...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 12, 2011, 6:56 am
The title of this blog post is meant to catch your attention more than anything, and if you are reading this, then I guess it worked!! The purpose of this post is to simply announce, for those who haven’t seen them, a couple of papers that I have recently posted on my Scribd account. The first, ...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 6, 2011, 12:16 pm
I think some of us Western “low church” Christians (speaking for myself, at least) have always wondered what the “twelve days” of Christmas were all about. I admit that I used to think it must be referring to the twelve days leading up to Christmas. Well, lo, and behold, it is actually the t...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 3, 2011, 8:14 am
Just wanted to alert you to a couple of interesting blog posts that I recently read on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. Tony Burke at Apocryphicity shared the following regarding why he chose to study the Christian Apocrypha: Why am I such an advocate for the Christian Apocrypha? Have I been “b...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Jan 1, 2011, 7:44 am
Although I don’t necessarily agree with the presenters’ opinions, the people at CBN have put together a nice presentation on Jewish plans to build a new temple in Jerusalem. I thought this was a good item to post on New Year’s Day, as it was likely on this day (well, it would have been the au...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 31, 2010, 12:14 pm
Happy New Year!!! I posted this on Scribd a while back, but if you want an idea of what kind of commemorations may have been going on at the New Year celebrations in Ancient Israel, check out the outline that I shared at SBL this past November. You can see it here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/449186...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 28, 2010, 7:02 am
Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!! Just a little update regarding why I haven’t posted anything in the past couple of weeks (!!!!). We moved house (back into St Andrews after being out of town for last six months) the week before Christmas and, as a result, have not had internet acces...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 14, 2010, 4:51 am
Study of amazing artifacts from ancient Jerusalem Project by Shimon Gibson Incredibly important ancient treasures from first-century Jerusalem – from the time of the ancient Jewish Temple and from the time Jesus was crucified – were dug out of the ground of Mount Zion in the 1970s and put into...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 7, 2010, 7:15 am
I have not put up anything in the past few weeks from the Sunday School lessons, partially because locally we’ve had Stake Conference, then I was at SBL, and then the we were snowed in last Sunday — so I’m not really sure where everyone’s at in the curriculum.  I imagine that most people ha...
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 4, 2010, 7:03 am
I highly recommend checking out BYU Professor William Hamblin’s recent research on John 17 that he has posted on his blog, see here. He has some great insights on verse 3, focusing on eternal life and knowledge. His work on verse 4 is excellent as well, looking at the concept of glory.
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David Larsen posted an article on Heavenly Ascents - Dec 4, 2010, 6:51 am
In the first post that I put up with notes from SBL, I mentioned that a Festschrift in honor of Rachel Elior was presented to her at a gathering of the Early Jewish and Christian Mysticism group. The volume was edited by Daphna Arbel and my former Marquette professor, Andrei Orlov.  You can check i...
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