They brought with them the “Deseret” which means “honey bee” in the nomenclature of The Book of Mormon According to The Book of Mormon, the Jaredites made a miraculous 344-day voyage across the ocean to North America. The Book of Ether in The Book of Mormon (books within books) tells the story of the Jaredites, a tribe that lived at the time of the Tower of Babel in the Old Testament. Many early Mormons were also Masons, including one particularly important Mason/Mormon: Joseph Smith. “Many of the founding fathers were Masons, and America had become the new ‘promised land’ of opportunity,” says Staker. Freemasons also used the bee and beehive as symbols of cooperative work, and the images are found in early American art and literature.
So, they incorporated bees and the cooperative life of the hive into early Christian symbolism,” explains Staker. “The European monks whose scriptoria kept The Bible in print before Gutenberg came along had no way of knowing that Biblical honey was most likely date honey and had nothing to do with bees. “The Bible refers to the ‘Promised Land’ as ‘the land of milk and honey.'” Of course, there were no honeybees in the ancient Middle East. “The beehive has been used as a symbol for thousands of years,” according to historian Mark Staker, an expert on early Mormon anthropology at the LDS Church’s Family History Center. No wonder visitors ask, “Where are the bees?” But I’m surprised how few native and resident Utahns even know the reason Utah is called “ The Beehive State.” It has nothing to do with the proliferation of Apis mellifera, the scientific name for the western honey bee. There’s a beehive fountain in front of the Brigham Young Academy the Beehive Society is the oldest honor society on the University of Utah campus and each summer Salt Lake magazine rolls out accolades in our Best of the Beehive issue. Insurance companies, scooter sellers, clothing stores-all use the logo of a beehive, which is actually a coiled straw dome, called a skep, that hasn’t been used to house bees for over 100 years. Dozens of Salt Lake businesses begin their name with “beehive” - Beehive Bail Bonds, Beehive Auto, Beehive Elementary School, Beehive Credit Union, Beehive Title Insurance, Beehive Glass. They’re everywhere-on the state highway signs, on the Capitol building, on the state flag, on manhole covers.
0 kommentar(er)
