Coat of Skins... kind of a strange name, and wasn't really what I was expecting to title this blog as. It kind of grew on me a bit, though, as I thought more on it. Something about it kind of encapsulates the types of things I am interested in thinking about in a few different ways.
In the biblical creation myth, God makes coats of skins for Adam and Eve after they are found naked in the Garden of Eden following their Fall.
It is a strange part of an already (probably) very convoluted and corrupted tale... God personally tailoring some clothes for Adam and Eve as they are sent packing out of the Garden to toil in the lonesome and dreary world. The story element becomes even stranger as it is literally lived out currently in the lives of temple-attending Mormons.
A quick aside: I am no longer what most Mormons would consider an active member, in that I don't attend their church, but I do consider myself to be more Mormon than anything else, both in culture and beliefs. I was raised as a Mormon, my family are all Mormons, and it is the group of people, both past and present, with which I have the closest affinity, if that is the right word. As such, I also don't want to get into a lot of temple things that Mormons in general don't really want people discussing outside of the temple, and frankly I don't really see the need to do that anyway. But, I will discuss a few things here that I think are common knowledge and aren't offensive to share in order to explain what I am thinking with regards to coats of skins.
Mormons who have been through a temple ceremony for themselves receive what is called a Garment. This is given as part of a ritual known as the Washing and Anointing, which precedes the more widely-known or referenced Endowment ceremony. As they receive the Garment, they are told first that it is meant to be worn throughout their lives, that it will be a source of protection from evil for them as long as they take care of it or do not defile it. As part of this, they are also told that the Garment represents the same coat of skins that were made for Adam and Eve as mentioned above.
Consequently, this strange part of an already strange creation myth - the coat of skins - is literally and symbolically lived and enacted by Mormons as they go about their lives, daily activities, etc., while wearing this clothing.
Why?
I am convinced Mormons, as a whole, don't really know. And not that I pretend to, but I do have some thoughts.
It can be interpreted, both from Mormon scriptures as well as other writings and traditions, that when we speak of Adam and Eve, we do not speak of just one man and one woman, but a (probably fairly large) host of men and women. Adam meaning "Mankind" or "Many". So, as we follow along in their allegory, we can try to remember that these two - Adam and Eve - actually stand in for or represent many others (a concept and practice that should be very clear to those who have participated in an Endowment ceremony).
In addition, these first Men were brought to Earth already possessing bodies - they came as living souls, and there was at that time no death for them (but not necessarily for other creatures that had been created up until that time). There are both Christian and Jewish sources that hold that these bodies were radiant, having a glory or light about them.
But their Fall brought about death, and the separation of Men from these bodies. In the Book of Mormon we have the unique teaching that it was God himself that brought about death, and that this death was an act of mercy. Again, why?
I believe it is because the Fall of Man involved Men making oaths to Satan and Evil, and that these oaths were unbreakable so long as these Men remained as souls. Death - the separation of spirit and body, or the literal fracturing of their souls, was the only answer or way in which to free them of these terrible oaths.
So, just as God had said (in the allegory), death did come upon Men as a result of their own choices, but this death was an act of mercy intended to free them from the consequences of those choices. And not just eventual death, somewhere down the road... I think that this death came fairly swiftly to this Host of Men, on the very day or period of their Fall.
Thus, if this is correct so far, we have a situation where Men would now have been rescued by God from their oaths to Satan (through death), but yet remain as spirits - the bodies that they had come to earth with no longer able to be possessed due to their connection to the oaths. And as spirits, not only would they be incomplete non-souls and not have a fulness of joy, but they would still not fully be free from Evil, being susceptible to their influence and falling under Satan's rule again.
The temporary solution, then, was that new bodies needed to be made for these now un-housed, naked spirits. It is these bodies that were the coats of skins that God made for Adam and Eve in their nakedness (naked meaning spirits not having a bodies). I say a temporary solution because, taken from the matter of this earth out of necessity and perhaps even derived from creatures already created, these bodies were susceptible to disease and death. God as Jesus would need to bring about the Resurrection of Men to ultimately pave the way for the permanent fix to this original, and catastrophic, problem of incomplete souls or spirits with ill-suited bodies.
Coming back to the Garments that Mormons wear, it is my belief that that they have it somewhat backwards or inverted, and they have taken something symbolic and made it literal, while taking other things meant to be literal and making them symbolic. For example, many Mormons take to heart and believe quite literally that the Garment is a source of protection, and from their various stories of Garment-provided divine aid you get significant ridicule from Anti-Mormons about 'Magical Underwear' and other things like this.
But such as this magic exists, Mormons are ascribing is to the wrong thing. The Garment given in the temple and worn afterward is a symbol of the physical body our own spirits are already 'wearing'. It is our own physical bodies that were made by God and given to us after the first death and when our other bodies could no longer be used, in order to be a means of protection to us, and which our spirits are meant to wear continually throughout our lives. The magic and protection for our spirits are in our bodies, not in the cloth adorning them, with the Garment also meant to remind Men of the covenants and promises given in conjunction with these new God-given bodies.
This different interpretation of the coats of skins, in my opinion, is one example of a twist or change in assumptions or understanding that is part of a exploring a different story or myth than is commonly understood or believed.
And it is for this reason that I titled this collection of writings thus.
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