I generally consider myself pro-apologist. I think apologetics and apologists get a lot of undeserved grief in the Church (I see this as something of a pendulum swing from the 90s or so when Hugh Nibley types were rock stars that commanded huge fireside audiences). However, there have been a small handful of places where I personally found what I’ll call classical apologetics writ large to be a little coy (I’m making a distinction here between 2025 apologetics, which is more sophisticated by necessity, and, say late-20th century, “classical” apologetics). Well, actually really just two places, for all the other issues you can agree or disagree with their defense, but they actually do in fact articulate and address the issue head on, or in some cases the state of our knowledge was just super patchy to begin with (for example, Joseph Smith polygamy pre-Compton) and I don’t begrudge them having takes that haven’t really panned out.

The first issue is the Book of Abraham facsimiles. People may be able to find a disconfirming case, but it seems like classical apologetics really did dance around the simple issue of whether the hieroglyphics said what the PGP says they mean. Of course there are some intriguing hits and parallels that perhaps hint at Joseph trying to “study it out in his mind,” combined with some glossolalia and the assistance of the spirit on his part. For example, the creator God Amun-Re representing Kolob or the four cardinal directions (and no, contra Ritner and his patent inability to grant anything to the apologists he personally despised, this is a hit, the four sons of Horus were indeed the Gods of the four cardinal directions), but in classical apologetics it took a lot of reading between the lines to realize that most of the interpretations didn’t match up with their Egyptological meaning. 

Again, pretending the issue is not there is not a problem anymore, apologetics is more straightforward and frank, and in my experience this issue is the one that really triggers certain antagonistic communities. Joseph said it meant X, we know it meant Y, therefore Joseph is a fraud, and it drives certain sectors of the r/exmormon world nuts that this isn’t the nail in the coffin for the Church. 

There’s been enough ink spilled about Book of Abraham, more than perhaps any other critics/apologetics issue so I don’t have much more to say on that, I have a pretty typical 2025 apologist take on those issues, but the other issue where I think apologetics was a little coy was the endowment/freemasonry connection. 

So to be clear, there’s simply no way that the parallels between Masonry and the temple ceremony are probabilistic happenstance. If an endowed member were to witness a masonic ceremony the parallels are quite obvious and really beyond any doubt. In fact, “parallels” is putting it generously, in some cases they are almost carbon copies. So any apologetics discussion about masonry and the temple needs to start from that premise. 

Early apologetics material seemed to take advantage of the hesitancy of faithful members to engage details about the endowment ceremony in order to vaguely imply that the parallels were strained or superficial. I guess that’s true in the sense that the parallels are found in the mechanics instead of the deeper meaning, but that still raises the issue of why the connection between the mechanics. Also, as an aside, the temple ceremony and rhetoric is deadly serious about the importance of the mechanics themselves, so it’s a little misleading to imply that the technical details are superficial and are themselves bereft of deep meaning. As I have addressed elsewhere, the endowment is in the tradition of sacred sounds and sacred movements, so the technical aspects are indeed meaning-full. 

So where am I on this? Simply put, the most parsimonious explanation for Joseph Smith’s modus operandi is that, perhaps drawing on his glasslooking and Book of Mormon experiences, where God clearly didn’t just give him the answers, he drew on pre-existing materials as a catalyst and wrestled with what the right answer was. This explains the Book of Abraham. This explains Zelph. This explains Masonry. This explains the use of his seerstone in the Book of Mormon translation process. This explains all the weird names in the revelations. You don’t have to carve out a thousand little niche exceptions to the standard narrative, since this one explains it all. This explains the Book of Mormon aspects that speak to particular 19th-century contexts. And less you think that I’m a super vanguard, Liahona Mormon, postmodernist on this, Brigham Young implied the same thing. 

When God speaks to the people, he does it in a manner to suit their circumstances and capacities . . . I will even venture to say that if the Book of Mormon were now to be rewritten, in many instances it would materially differ from the present translation. According as people are willing to receive the things of God, so the heavens send forth their blessings.

In terms of the temple, the famous instruction to Brigham Young that the ceremony was “not arranged perfectly” and that it was his responsibility to “organize and systematize all these ceremonies,” (which, incidentally didn’t really happen until deep into the Utah era, with different temples having different ceremonies) is another explicit acknowledgement of the develop-across time, wrestle with it while seeing through the glass darkly operandi. Again, this is what the most reliable primary sources convey, it’s not an ad hoc apologetic explanation after the fact. 

However, in my opinion, it’s pretty clear in the historical record that Joseph Smith was sincere in using this modus operandi to divine the will of God. He wasn’t just making things up for fun, possibly like L. Ron Hubbard. Whether it’s consulting his Book of Abraham translation to help with the Kinderhook plates or keeping his seerstone, there was just too much that doesn’t add up if he was some non-believer that was just making it up. So we have this pattern of him sincerely drawing on pre-existing sources to make sense of the will of God, And it’s clear from D&C 9 that that’s the way God wanted it. He wasn’t just going to give Joseph a to-do list printed out every morning. It’s never that easy for Joseph or for us for that matter. 

So with that background framework the endowment aspects that were local to his environment fade in importance, and in its place we see a connecting common liturgical themes that pop up across time and space, from my Mormon Scholars Testify testimony. 

While the details and specifics are obviously masonic, the structure of the temple endowment ceremony reflects themes found all over the ancient world (e.g. Wikipedia “Eleusinian Mysteries”): concentric spaces of increasing holiness and decreasing profaneness, liturgical re-enactments of creation stories, the use of secret names, words, or tokens for admittance into areas of holiness and teaching, and most importantly, symbolic entry into the presence of God. God speaks to different peoples in their own ways and according to their own understanding, and I believe that for the early nineteenth century the masonic rituals were the most accessible framework through which Joseph Smith could be instructed that could tap into that archetypal temple theme found throughout the world. These connections aren’t parallelomania, and they aren’t grasping for straws. It’s clear that through the temple ceremonies Joseph Smith tapped into something more archetypal and ancient than was found in his immediate, largely low-Church Protestant surroundings and historical context.

The endowment is where our sacred space, sacred sounds, and sacred movements are found, and my Latter-day Saint worship experience is greatly enriched by it.