Transcription
You've probably seen this symbol on the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have to admit, I never thought much of these except geometrically, until recently. Heyone just put out a short video on them. Next time you're at the temple, keep an eye out for this fairly common symbol: the circle within the square.
As for their meaning, suffice it to say for the moment that the circle represents Heaven and the square represents Earth. I am starting to see some evidence that the Greeks may have understood at least part of this same symbolism, and I don't just mean their mathematical philosophy, geometry, and trigonometry. Rather, it has to do with the Greek origin story and deities. Much of this meaning has been lost over time, but we can still see some obvious vestiges of it.
On a related note, which I'll show in just a moment, this verse, Genesis 2:6, never made much sense to me: "but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground." I understood that God then formed man from the dust of the Earth, but why exactly a mist is mentioned here was unclear to me. The verse right before it has to do with God creating plants before he had even caused it to rain, but this is in the context of the need for a man.
So what do Greek theogony and mist have to tell us about the square and the circle combined? First, I know a lot of scholars love to point out that one of the Hebrew words for Earth is Adama, which sounds a lot like Adam. I think this is a great point that Adam was formed from a substance named for him, or maybe vice versa. But why is there a mist involved, and why did God need to water the ground before making human beings from dust? You might say, "Obviously, because we're made of clay, and you need water combined with dust to form clay."
I'm going to go out on a limb here and say I'm pretty sure this isn't just a hidden reference to the fact that human beings, although made from dirt, are usually at least 50% water. Although science points... If so, the passage had this image popping into my head of a little scout human being popping out of a head of clay that's just been watered. Instant humans! Just add water. Sorry for the weird imagery, but this could be where pagan origin stories come from.
Speaking of pagan origin stories, the Greek theogony, written by Hesiod, names the primordial deities from whom all life springs as Ouranos and Gaia. Literally translated, their names mean Heaven and Earth. Greek mythology gets a lot more convoluted than this, but the offspring of Ouranos and Gaia, who were themselves seen as human-like beings, formed man from clay, which is an extremely common theme in ancient origin stories. Ouranos is the same word as is used in the Greek New Testament for things like "the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand." Strong's concordance for the Bible gives further meanings as follows: the sky, heaven, as the abode of God, happiness, power, eternity, especially the gospel; also to cover or encompass. Gaia in Greek simply means Earth, and especially Arab land or the earthy material out of which a thing is formed. Most linguists further trace the Greek name Ouranos to more ancient words meaning fog or mist. Here's that word: mist. And also to rain or moisten.
Going back to that weird passage in Genesis, Ouranos and Gaia, those are literally words you would get in this passage if you were to translate the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek. Mist, Earth, and you have a man formed from the dust. And that's where the Greeks themselves say that all mankind originated from, right down to his being formed from the dust of the ground. So the Greek origin story, literally translated, is Genesis 2:6 and parts of 7. But tell me they didn't know anything.
Also, next time you go to the temple looking for symbols, have you noticed the palm trees?