3

Melchizedek and Abraham at Salem, ca. 2000 B.C.

From the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament) and other historical documents we know only a little about Jerusalem before the fourteenth century before Christ—the approximate time of Israelite penetration into the land. Some scholars claim that the earliest occurrence of a city called Salim may be in commercial documents from Ebla in Syria about 2400 B.C. 1 The name Rushalimum or Urusalimum occurs in Egyptian Execration Texts (incantations against Egypt's enemies) between 1900 and 1800 B.C. 2 Half a millennium later the El Amarna Letters (diplomatic correspondence between local city-states and the ruling power in Egypt at the time, Amenhotep IV or Akhenaton) 3 mention the land of Jerusalem as a non-Israelite entity and, in fact, name the king, Abdi-Heba. Six of the El Amarna Letters were sent by Abdi-Heba from his city called Urusalim. Another half-millennium later the city is attested in an inscription from Sennacherib as Ursalimmu or Uruslimmu. 4 A Nabataean inscription shows the Aramaic form Ursalem; a Mandaic document preserves the form Urashalem; a Syriac, Urishlem; and an Arabic, Ursalimu. 5 For two thousand years, then, the texts, whether in Egyptian, Akkadian, or West Semitic languages, consistently present Jerusalem under the name meaning "City of Shalem," or "City of Peace or Perfection." 6 The city was known by the various linguistic adaptations of the name Jerusalem long before the Israelite incursion and settlement of the land.

There is an apparent connection between the name-title Shalem and Salem, where Melchizedek, a prince of peace, reigned as king in a city called "Peace." The toponym Salem seems to be a short form of the later Jerusalem. 7 Archaeological evidence from this period, which is usually identified as the Early Bronze Age (third millennium B.C.), consists of pottery, even painted ware, found in the earliest levels of excavation in the southeastern spur of Jerusalem. Remains of the eastern city wall and tower fortification at the city gate, all from the later Middle Bronze Age—the period of the Patriarchs—have also been uncovered in excavations. 8

Besides the meager archaeological remains from these early periods, the Bible provides scant details about persons and events of the time. Following is what we are told about an encounter between Melchizedek and Abraham, for example:

And the king of Sodom went out to meet [Abram] . . . at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale.

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God.

And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth:

And blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he [Abram] gave him [Melchizedek] tithes of all. (Gen. 14:17-20)

For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him;

To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all; first being by interpretation King of righteousness [i.e., the name Melchizedek], and after that also King of Salem, which is, King of peace. . . .

Now consider how great this man was, unto whom even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the spoils. (Heb. 7:1-4; emphasis added)

Modern revelation gives us essential instruction about the roles of Melchizedek in ancient Salem. Read, in particular, Genesis 14:25-40 in the Joseph Smith Translation; Alma 13:1-19; Doctrine and Covenants 84:6-26; 107:1-4.

Learning about Melchizedek and Abraham from Firsthand Experience

In October 1983 about twenty students with the Brigham Young University Jerusalem Study Abroad program and their instructor began a three-day journey in the footsteps of Abraham and Isaac from Beersheba to Mount Moriah in Jerusalem (see Bible Map 1). That first morning as we rode the bus to Beersheba to begin the fifty-three-mile walk, we asked ourselves, "Why did the Lord send Abraham (who was well over a hundred years old by this time) more than fifty miles away, and uphill? Why not send him to one of the nearby hills in the Negev? What was so special about Mount Moriah to the Lord or to Abraham?"

We thought it seemed likely that Moriah might have already been a significantly sacred spot in the days of Abraham. Maybe Melchizedek had a holy Temple or sanctuary at Salem there before, and perhaps Abraham knew something about the great expiatory drama that would unfold there in the meridian of time. The prophet Jacob in the Book of Mormon taught that Abraham's poignant trial, the offering up of his son Isaac, was a "similitude of God and His Only Begotten Son" (Jacob 4:5; see also Moses 5:7; D&C 138:12-13). Abraham and Isaac not only experienced a similar ordeal, with similar deep and agonizing feelings, but accomplished it at the same place—at Moriah, in Salem/Jerusalem—where the Father would later sacrifice his Beloved Son.

The first verse of Genesis 22 has God "tempting" Abraham. The Hebrew verb is nissah, which means "to test, try, or prove." What was the test? "Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of" (Gen. 22:2). Abraham himself had nearly been sacrificed earlier in his life to the idolatrous gods in his Chaldean homeland. He himself had been laid out on a sacrificial altar, with the cold blade raised to shed his blood, when the angel of the Lord appeared to rescue him (see Abr. 1:7-16). Abraham knew how repulsive human sacrifice was and how foreign such a practice is to the true worship of our Heavenly Father. But Abraham also knew that one of God's expressed purposes for his children during mortality is to "prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them" (Abr. 3:25; emphasis added).

Abraham was called on to sacrifice, to give up, the best he had, just as our Heavenly Father would give the best he had. Genesis 22 does not give many details of time or place; the message is most important. But there is one poignant detail: "thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest." God himself knew the magnitude of the trial. Paul wrote that "by faith Abraham, when he was tried, offered up Isaac: and he that had received the promises offered up his only begotten son" (Heb. 11:17; emphasis added).

Previous Events in the Land of Moriah

Abraham's instruction to go to the "land of Moriah" for the offering of his son is the first biblical reference to a place called Moriah. Numerous and long-standing Jewish and Christian traditions, as well as the historian Josephus, all support the thesis that Moriah is the same place as Jerusalem's Temple Mount. 9 The biblical record itself indicates that "Solomon began to build the house of the Lord at Jerusalem in mount Moriah, where the Lord appeared unto David" (2 Chron. 3:1).

Partly because of the sanctity of the place, David purchased the rock on Moriah to make an altar to the Lord (see 2 Sam. 24:18-25), and he instructed Solomon to build the holiest edifice in ancient Israel at that spot. But what about Abraham, a millennium earlier? Did he make the long strenuous trek to that same hill to enact one of the most stirring and emotional scenes in all of human history because there was something sacred about that place already?

We do know that Abraham had met with Melchizedek 10 sometime before "at the valley of Shaveh, which is the king's dale [identified in Bible times and today as the confluence of the Kidron, Tyropoeon, and Hinnom valleys on the southeast of the City of David—i.e., Old Testament Jerusalem]" (Gen. 14:17). 11

We know, too, that Melchizedek ruled over his people at Salem, later called Jerusalem. 12 An ancient Israelite psalmist used the names interchangeably in synonymous parallelism, "In Salem also is his tabernacle, and his dwelling place in Zion" (Ps. 76:2). Melchizedek was a type of the Savior: both are called "King of Righteousness" (the meaning of the name Malki-zedek or Melchizedek), and both are referred to as "Prince of Peace" (JST Gen. 14:33; Isa. 9:6). Melchizedek grew up as a prince and then reigned as king in Salem, reigning under or after his father (see Alma 13:18). Jesus too was of royal lineage and if the country had not been under Roman subjugation at the time, Jesus might have been king in Jerusalem; as it was, he was accepted by the righteous as their true King. Melchizedek converted his wicked people to righteousness and established such a great degree of peace and righteousness that they "obtained heaven"; they were translated to join the City of Enoch (JST Gen. 14:34); 13 Jesus provided the way for all humankind to obtain heaven and be exalted. And we suppose, therefore, that Melchizedek and the Savior both accomplished their mortal missions at the same place.

Melchizedek was both king and God's high priest ("Melchizedek was such a great high priest"; D&C 107:2). The holy priesthood of God was thus exercised in Jerusalem a thousand years before David established the priestly orders and Solomon built the Temple. Melchizedek was also keeper of the "storehouse of God" at Salem (JST Gen. 14:37). Abraham paid tithes to that storehouse. (Anciently, Israel's Temple also served as the storehouse and treasury of the kingdom.) How could a great high priest function in his priesthood without a tabernacle or Temple? Or how could a people establish such righteousness as to be transferred from this telestial world without first having the blessings of a Temple, where holy ordinances are performed? 14

The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that the main object of gathering the people of God in any age of the world is "to build unto the Lord a house whereby He could reveal unto His people the ordinances of His house and the glories of His kingdom, and teach people the way of salvation; for there are certain ordinances and principles that, when they are taught and practiced, must be done in a place or house built for that purpose." 15

It is possible that a Temple or sanctuary existed on Moriah during Abraham's early life. Josephus wrote that "[Melchizedek] the Righteous King, for such he really was; on which account he was [there] the first priest of God, and first built a temple, [there,] and called the city Jerusalem, which was formerly called Salem." 16 During the time Melchizedek was the Lord's presiding authority on the earth ("there were many before him, and also there were many afterwards, but none were greater"; Alma 13:19), he and Abraham lived not far from each other in Canaan. Abraham early in his life had wanted to be "a prince of peace" (Abr. 1:2) as was Melchizedek.

Abraham received the priesthood from Melchizedek (see D&C 84:14), though we do not know when or where. 17 Abraham tells us: "I sought for the blessings of the fathers, and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness [possibly a title, denoting God, and his Son, who is called "Son of Righteousness"; see 2 Ne. 26:9; Ether 9:22; recall that Malki-zedek means "King of Righteousness"], desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness, and to possess a greater knowledge, and to be a father of many nations, a prince of peace, and desiring to receive instructions, and to keep the commandments of God, I became a rightful heir, a High Priest, holding the right belonging to the fathers. It was conferred upon me from the fathers" (Abr. 1:2-3), by which we understand (with the help of D&C 84:14) that Melchizedek bestowed on him the priesthood either in the land of the Chaldeans or in the land of Salem. When Abraham "sought for [his] appointment unto the Priesthood" (Abr. 1:4), he either traveled to Canaan or else Melchizedek traveled to Mesopotamia. 18

We may conclude that for Abraham, Moriah was already a place with holy associations when he took Isaac there to be bound and offered up. Past, present, and future continually come together at this sacred space. To be sure, the mount was to be a place of centuries of sacrifices in anticipation of the Great Sacrifice that would be accomplished there in the future.

As with Bethel ("house of God") and Gethsemane ("oil press") and other toponyms that have particular meaning for the historical events that occurred at those places, so the name of Abraham's mount is significant. Moriah is composed of two words: mor, which comes from the verb ra'ah, meaning "to see" (and having also a host of other meanings, including "to provide"), and -iah, or -jah, which is a contraction of the Divine Name YHWH (Jehovah). The name of the place, Moriah, could have something to do with where the Lord himself would be seen or provided.

Abraham and Isaac: Three Days to Moriah

Three days was a lot of time for Abraham to think about what was going to happen. On day two they passed through the area where a future town would be called El Khalil or Hebron, meaning "the friend," referring to Abraham, "the Friend of God" (James 2:23). Then "on the third day" (cf. Luke 24:46) Abraham "lifted up his eyes [as one would do who is walking along], and saw the place afar off" (Gen. 22:4). The area of the Mount of Olives and Mount Moriah can be seen from the south on the Road of the Patriarchs, about ten miles away.

Abraham laid the wood upon Isaac to carry to the place of sacrifice; Jesus also carried the wood, the cross, to the place of his death (cf. John 19:17). Isaac then asked the heartrending question, "My father: . . . Behold the fire and the wood: but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Gen. 22:7). Abraham prophetically responded, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering" (v. 8). The Hebrew text is Elohim (God) jir'eh (again the verb ra'ah, "to see or provide"). That is, God the Father will provide a lamb for a burnt offering. "Burnt offering" in the Hebrew is olah (from the verb la'alot, "to go up"); literally, it means "that which goes up to heaven from the altar." The offering had to be a perfect male, or zakhar tammim. A male lamb without blemish was offered by individuals and the nation as a symbol of atonement for sins. According to Leviticus 1:11, when a lamb was slain on the great altar of the Temple, it was slain on the north side of the altar. Golgotha, the place of Jesus' crucifixion, was on the north side of the ridge of Moriah. 19

When they came to the designated place, Abraham built an altar, laid the wood on it, and bound Isaac; Jesus, too, was bound on wood on his altar of sacrifice. Isaac himself was willing to carry out the sacrifice, as later the Savior was willing to accomplish his Sacrifice. It was probably late in the afternoon when Abraham and Isaac arrived at Moriah and finished constructing their altar; Temple procedure later stipulated that passover lambs be slain later in the afternoon.

When Abraham had passed his test and the angel of the Lord was sent to stop the sacrifice of the son, a ram (not a lamb, as promised in Gen. 22:8) was substituted, and "Abraham called the name of that place Jehovah-jireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen" (v. 14). In Genesis 22:8, Elohim (the Father) had promised to provide a lamb for sacrifice; in verse 14 Jehovah (the Son) will appear: Jehovah will be seen or provided. This phrase in Hebrew is b'har YHWH jera'eh, and should read in English: "In the mount [many manuscripts read bahar hazeh, "in this mount," meaning Moriah] the Lord shall be seen, or, the Lord shall be provided." 20 All of this clearly signifies that Abraham knew something of the meaning of his similitude sacrifice. He had uttered prophetically—not unintentionally or accidentally—that our Heavenly Father would provide a lamb as a sacrifice or atonement for sin, and he knew that the Son would be that sacrifice, to be made at that very place. Said Jesus, "Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad" (John 8:56).

The Significance of Mount Moriah in Salem

It seems the mount of Moriah was already a spiritually important location to Abraham, and the similitude sacrifice he was commanded to make was to be carried out on the very mountain where Jesus would suffer in the meridian of time. Moriah is the mount of sacrifice. There have been altars on it from the days of Melchizedek, Abraham, David, and Jesus. All sacrifices offered from Moriah were supposed to be a type of the Great Sacrifice.

If a Temple and altar and holy place of offering existed on Moriah two thousand years before Christ and during the meridian of time, then what about A.D. 2000—our own day? Knowing how history, prophecy, and divine symbolism always come full circle (God's course is "one eternal round"), we cannot help believing that there will once again be a holy Temple at that place. 21

As the Prophet Joseph Smith taught, the object of gathering in any age is to build a Temple. Where father Abraham unwaveringly offered his beloved son, and where Father in Heaven offered his beloved Son, at that same mountain the Lord will again be seen, when "the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple" (Mal. 3:1).

Notes

^1. Harper's Bible Dictionary, 465; Mare, Archaeology of the Jerusalem Area, 20, 35.

^2. The Execration Texts are documents from the period of Egypt's Middle Kingdom that augment our knowledge of important people and settled places in Canaan during the biblical period of the Patriarchs. Execrations or imprecations were written on pottery vessels or figures and then smashed and buried, symbolizing the destruction of enemies. Such places as Jerusalem, Ashkelon, Shechem, and Beth-shan are mentioned by name as enemies of Egypt.

^3. Amenhotep IV (Greek, Amenophis; also Ikhnaton) instigated a profound religious revolution, which shook the foundations of the Egyptian New Kingdom, ca. 1400 B.C. Whereas Amon had reigned supreme among the gods of Karnak at Thebes, now Amenhotep abandoned the temple and the gods and the tens of thousands of priests and the capital city in favor of worshipping one god, the sun disk, Aton. Amenhotep changed his name to Akhenaton and changed his capital to Akhetaton, known today as Tel el Amarna, which lies on the Nile halfway between Thebes and Memphis. At his new capital, Akhenaton was preoccupied with his monotheism and with love poetry written to his beautiful wife, Nefertiti. Possibly more is written about Akhenaton than about any other pharaoh in all of Egypt's illustrious history, in part because of his dramatic abandonment of Thebes and Amon, to be sure, but also because of his artistic revolution, portraying himself and his family in statuary with grotesque features: long, emaciated face, pot belly, fat thighs, etc. Another reason for the attention given Akhenaton is the discovery in 1887 of three hundred seventy-seven letters at El Amarna. About half are letters of complaint and appeals for military help from kings in Canaan to Amenhotep III and Akhenaton about local problems with people called khabiru (or apiru) who were causing political commotion in Canaan. The letters were written in cuneiform script on clay tablets in the Akkadian language (thus showing not only Egyptian but also Mesopotamian influence in Canaan in the early second millennium before Christ). Akhenaton seems to have been too busy with his religious movement to respond to the letters; they apparently went unanswered onto the shelves of an archive in El Amarna. Archaeologist Yigael Yadin claimed that the El Amarna archive constitutes the most important source of information about the Holy Land before Joshua. The letters mention numerous city-states and their rulers by name, including Damascus, Acco, Megiddo, Shechem, Gezer, Ashkelon, Gaza, Lachish, Hebron, and Jerusalem. For details of the contents of the letters, see Pritchard, Ancient Near Eastern Texts, 483-90; Thomas, Documents from Old Testament Times, 38-45; Smith, Jerusalem, 2:10-14.

^4. New Encyclopedia of Archaeological Excavations, 698; Mare, Archaeology of the Jerusalem Area, 20.

^5. Clay, "Amorite Name Jerusalem," 28-32. Compare Smith, Jerusalem, 1:250-65.

^6. Assyriologists have long interpreted the first element of the name, Ur or Uru, as "city." More recently scholars have abandoned that translation in favor of "foundation," from the Hebrew root yarah, "to found." Shalem has customarily been assumed to be the name of some otherwise unknown local god, Shalem. It is most unlikely that Melchizedek, the king of righteousness and priest of the Most High God (whom the Latter-day Saints understand to be Jehovah, God and Creator of the world), would perpetuate the name of a pagan god as the name of his holy city. For reasons increasingly apparent in the text, the present writers hold to the interpretation "City of Peace." See also Bible Dictionary, s.v. "Salem," and Josephus, Antiquities 7.3.2. On Salem as meaning "peace" or "perfection," see Encyclopedia Judaica, 9:1559. The etymology of Jerusalem and the same conclusion about the improbability of reference to a pagan deity are discussed in DeYoung, Jerusalem in the New Testament, 5-12. Indeed, Shalem may actually refer to Jehovah, who is a God of peace. It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the City of Peace has probably seen more armed conflict, bloodshed, conquests, and internecine strife than any other city on earth. See Werblowsky, "Jerusalem: Holy City of Three Religions," 437.

^7. Simons, Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, 216. See also Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 1; Mare, Archaeology of the Jerusalem Area, 20. Compare Isa. 33:7b, in which the correct reading for "peace" is probably Shalem. Simons, Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, 440.

^8. Avigad, Discovering Jerusalem, 23; Bahat, Illustrated Atlas of Jerusalem, 22.

^9. Ginzberg cites several traditions to this effect. See Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 5:253. See also Josephus, Antiquities 1.13.2; 7.13.4. Eckardt writes: "For Jews and Muslims the Temple Mount is identified with Mount Moriah on which Abraham prepared to sacrifice his son Isaac (or Ishmael in Muslim tradition) in obedience to God's command." Jerusalem, 23. Rabbis Sherman and Zlotowitz write in Yechezkel, 674: "As explained by Rambam (Beis HaBechirah Ch. 2) the altar's location is of vital significance: The location of the altar is pinpointed with extreme precision and it may never be moved to another place . . . [for] we have a universally recognized tradition that the place upon which David and Solomon built the altar . . . is the exact place upon which Abraham built the altar and bound Isaac upon it." See also Yadin, Jerusalem Revealed, 6; Levine, Jerusalem Cathedra, 2:12; Ben-Dov, Shadow of the Temple, 33.

^10. Many rabbis over the centuries identified Melchizedek with Shem, son of Noah. See Delcor, "Melchizedek," 115-35; Jewish Encyclopedia, 8:450; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:686; 5:1195.

Other references equate Melchizedek with Shem, with Shem possibly being his name and Melchizedek his title. The Book of Jasher 16:11 notes that "Adonizedek, king of Jerusalem, the same was Shem, went out with his men to meet Abram and his people with bread and wine, and they remained together in the Valley of Melech [Hebrew, "the King's Valley"]." John Taylor wrote in "Ancient Ruins," Times and Seasons 5 (15 December 1844): 746: "And with the superior knowledge of men like Noah, Shem (who was Melchizedek) and Abraham, the father of the faithful, three contemporaries, holding the keys of the highest order of the priesthood. . . ." Joseph F. Smith made a list of the great and mighty ones whom he envisioned assembled in a vast congregation of the righteous in the spirit world; included were Adam, Eve, Abel, Seth, "Noah, who gave warning of the flood; Shem, the great high priest; Abraham, the father of the faithful," as well as others (D&C 138:41). We note that Melchizedek, without question one of the greatest of the "mighty ones," is not mentioned, and Shem is identified as "the great high priest," which is a title highly reminiscent of Melchizedek's. Some have questioned the identification of Melchizedek with Shem, however, because of Doctrine and Covenants 84:14, which indicates that Melchizedek received the priesthood "through the lineage of his fathers, even till Noah." The suggested plurality of generations between Melchizedek and Noah seems to preclude Melchizedek's being Noah's son. Others point out that if the reference to Melchizedek's fathers pertains to the fathers from Adam to Noah—in reverse direction of the customary reading—the identification of Melchizedek with Shem is still possible. (Cf. Abr. 1:3.) Nevertheless, the verses surrounding Doctrine and Covenants 84:14 clearly suggest lineage going back in time.

^11. See Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:1168.

^12. The identity of Salem, Melchizedek's city, with Jerusalem is presupposed in many rabbinic sources cited by Ginzberg (Legends of the Jews, 226), Theophilus, Clemens, and Jerome. Baring-Gould recorded a Jewish legend to this effect: "Melchizedek, priest of God, King of Canaan, built a city on a mountain called Sion, and named it Salem. . . . Salem, of which he was king, is that celebrated Jerusalem." Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, 205, 207. "They afterward called Salem Jerusalem," wrote Josephus in Antiquities 1.10.2; see also Josephus, Wars 6.10.1. Salem is identified with Jerusalem in the Genesis Apocryphon of the Dead Sea Scrolls. See Vermes, Scripture and Tradition in Judaism. The Targumim pointedly say, "Melchizedek [was] king of Jerusalem." Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, 205; Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:905; Emerton, "Riddle of Genesis XIV," 412-13; DeYoung, Jerusalem in the New Testament, 9-11.

^13. For some generations the posterity of Abraham or their messengers were sent to Mesopotamia for wives. They didn't go to Salem because Melchizedek and his people were no longer there; they had been taken up to the City of Enoch. "And men having this faith, coming up unto this order of God, were translated and taken up into heaven. . . . And his people wrought righteousness, and obtained heaven, and sought for the city of Enoch which God had before taken, separating it from the earth, having reserved it unto the latter days, or the end of the world" (JST Gen. 14:32, 34). Alma 13:12 notes that "there were many, exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest of the Lord their God." See also Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:686.

^14. See Alma 13:16. "We may assume that Melchizedek, as a holder of the Melchizedek Priesthood and builder of a temple, received his temple blessings—as one might also infer from reading Abraham 1:2-4." Derrick, Temples in the Last Days, 26. "Elder John A. Widtsoe believed that 'all people of all ages have had temples in one form or another.' There is ample evidence, he was convinced, that from the days of Adam 'there was the equivalent of temples,' that in patriarchal times 'temple worship was in operation,' and that even after the Flood, 'in sacred places, the ordinances of the temple were given to those entitled to receive them.'" Cowan, Temples to Dot the Earth, 1. Sidney B. Sperry wrote of Abraham's tithes: "Such income would be used in part for erecting houses of worship and for building or maintaining a temple 'which my people are always commanded to build unto my holy name' [D&C 124:39]. . . . Abraham was acquainted with the sacred endowment and hence a temple or its equivalent in which they would be administered." Sperry, "Ancient Temples," 814.

^15. Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 308.

^16. Josephus, Wars 6.10.1. Or, as Josephus wrote in Antiquities 1.10.2: "They afterward called Salem Jerusalem."

^17. "Abraham says to Melchizedek, I believe all that thou hast taught me concerning the priesthood and the coming of the Son of Man; so Melchizedek ordained Abraham and sent him away. Abraham rejoiced, saying, Now I have a priesthood." Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 322-23; emphasis added.

^18. The usual legends surround Melchizedek's instructing Abraham in the laws of the priesthood and blessing, consecrating, and clothing him with heavenly power. See Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:233, 274; Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, 189.

^19. In rabbinic sources where mention is made of the site of the altar, the word gulgoleth (meaning "skull") is used, which appears again in Golgotha, the place of the crucifixion of Jesus. See Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 5:126-27. Edward Robinson, the first great biblical geographer, and others since, have concurred that the Crucifixion could have occurred outside the northern gate of the city, at the north end of Moriah. Biblical Researches in Palestine, 2:80. See also Edersheim, Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, 134, in which he observes that the lamb was bound on the north of the altar, as Isaac was bound on the north side of the altar. In Spiegel, Last Trial, 74, the following is noted: "When Gentile or Jew, man or woman, male or female slave, recite this verse, 'Safonah [northward] before the Lord,' the Holy One, blessed be He, recalls the Akedah (the binding) of Isaac ben Abraham." Temple sacrifices were divided into two types: those of greater and those of lesser sanctity. Those of greater sanctity, such as an olah (a burnt offering), had to be slaughtered north of the Altar. See Reznick, Holy Temple Revisited, 93, 95; emphasis added. "Outside of the tripartite temple building itself, the most sacred area of the temple precinct was north of the sacrificial altar. Lesser sacrifices may be slaughtered in any part of the court, but the sacrifices of a higher sanctity must be offered on the north side." Parry, Temples of the Ancient World, 427. See also Talmud, Menahot 3a and Zevahim 55a. Smith, in his two-volume Jerusalem, documents the topographical and geological connection between the Temple Mount and its northern end, now outside the Old City walls (1:33ff). See also Simons, Jerusalem in the Old Testament, 25.

^20. When Abraham called the name of the place Adonai-jireh, he meant that "he will find the appropriate ransom—as if to say, This is the place destined for salvation and here the Lord in His graciousness will make Himself available." Spiegel, Last Trial, 68.

^21. When examining the cycle of history, it may also be asked if it is a mere coincidence that in the place where this world's history began—the Garden of Eden, in what today is called Missouri, USA—this world's history will also conclude, when the Lord appears at his great Temple in the New Jerusalem.