A different take on the "Mountain of the Lord's House"

One of my all-time favorite computer games is Myst.  I have good memories of my dad and I staying up late and playing it together when I was growing up.  A couple years ago, I played the remastered version and it was just as good as I remembered.  I like these kind of puzzle/ adventure games, and they provide a positive outlet for my own tendencies which, when taken to extreme, can be less than helpful.

In any case, I bring up Myst because surprisingly the animation that Cyan (the company that developed the game) uses for their logo reminds me of or demonstrates in some way what I am thinking of with respect to Isaiah's commentary (also quoted by Nephi) regarding the mountain of the Lord's house that will be established in the top of the mountains.

Here is the animation from the original 1993 Myst:

 

And for good measure, here is an updated Cyan logo and intro that they used in later games which I am including because it actually introduces and visualizes the topic I am going into even better:

In both videos, one's perspective is drawn along a land below until you reach the base of a mountain, at which point your perspective begins to climb the mountain until you reach the peak.  From here, a globe (which I take as being a world) becomes stacked behind the peak of the mountain, viewed as now almost sitting on top of it.  In the second updated video, the perspective changes further and you find yourself at the very base of the mountain looking directly up as a second, smaller world or globe is inserted between the original world and the mountain peak.  We now have have 3 'worlds' stacked (the first world being the one we are standing on, and the other two now being directly overhead as if standing on top of the mountain).

So, yes, I am going to use a video game company's logo to give my opinion as to what the words in what we now call Isaiah mean.  Why not.

The Isaiah passage in question says:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.

And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.

First off, I tend to give Isaiah, particularly those passages quoted in the Book of Mormon, fairly high importance irrespective of anything else I write about the bible.  Jesus told those at Bountiful that "great are the words of Isaiah" along with the commandment that these people search Isaiah's words diligently.  Along with this, Jesus also said that everything that Isaiah has said has been and will be - it will all come to pass.  Moroni further emphasized Isaiah in the initial aftermath of his father's death and the entire destruction of his civilization, lamenting that he didn't have the ability (given his circumstances) of writing them.  In my own support, I am not saying that everything we have in what is now the bible is that is labeled as 'Isaiah' is perfectly credible, but we do have quite a bit in the Book of Mormon, and I figure those passages are a safe place to explore.  Nephi also captures this passage, and I therefore assume that what is written about mountains being established in tops of mountains will come to pass like Jesus said.

OK, with that out of the way, I will mention that Mormons have long interpreted this as referring to building temples on the earth, and specifically the building of the Salt Lake City temple in Utah.  Meaning, the Salt Lake temple is at least one, if not the, fulfillment of Isaiah's prophecy in LDS teachings.  There are plenty of talks and articles one can find that reference this belief.  Growing up in the LDS church, I remember watching many times a movie called "The Mountain of the Lord" which was about the 40-year process to build the Salt Lake temple.  That movie even concludes with a scene of Wilford Woodruff climbing the stairs of the temple while the reporter recounts how he found out that Utah means "Top of the Mountains".

My understanding is that last bit about the meaning of Utah is not true, but I bring it up not to refute it (I am not a linguist) but rather to bring home the point that the belief of the Salt Lake temple, specifically, and temples, generally, as the Mountain of the Lord has historically been well entrenched Mormon belief.

But I think it is not so.  Here is my line of thinking...

The phrasing in the KJV passage is confusing, but I will use it anyway as that is what we have in the Book of Mormon.  Parsing the phrase, I basically find a statement that a mountain will be established in the top of the mountains, and that this mountain is the one that has the Lord's house.  Meaning, that the mountain that has the Lord's house will be at the top of other mountains.  A mountain at the top of other mountains, which is strange, but that is what it says.  Thus, I don't believe this is talking about establishing or building the Lord's house, but rather about establishing the mountain that already has the Lord's house at the top of other mountains.

And this is where the Cyan animation comes in, and why I used it because I think it does a pretty good job of illustrating or at least visualizing how I think this plays out.  I actually think what is being described here when we talk of 'mountains' is something more like 'worlds'.  From the perspective of below, these worlds would be like mountains - lands high above us, and stacked on top of each other.  The world where the Lord's house is would be the world established at the top, thus literally being at the top of the other mountains.  In other words, Isaiah is talking of a last days event where worlds are joined - stacked or linked - together, with the world that the "Lord" calls home at the top of these worlds.

In further support of this potentially strange notion which might also seem like a reach if this is the first time coming across this concept, I turn to an equally strange circumstance and diagram drawn by a man name Philo Dibble.   We have to rely on Dibble's word here, by the way, as well as those who later obtained the drawing from him and published him.  Depending on your view, Dibble's claims might be dubious - at least, taken on their own, you wouldn't be blamed for being skeptical.

Dibble claimed that Joseph Smith made a drawing in 1842 which showed 3 worlds stacked on top of each other with some kind of link or connection.  It wouldn't be until 1884 that he would make a copy of it and give it to a man named Matthew Dalton, who then published it in 1906.  So, like I said, we are many years removed from Joseph by the time this thing is more public, and relying not even on Dibble but on Dalton, as I understand it, for any context as to what was meant by it.

I am attaching the drawing below:

Despite all of the reasons to maybe discount Dibble's drawing, I actually find in it the answer to Isaiah's riddle, as described earlier.  The future of this earth, at least as a next step, will involve the (re)-uniting of worlds in much the same fashion as show here in this drawing, and as illustrated in the Cyan logo animation, strangely.

Dalton's account I think is not accurate as to what people Joseph said were on which world, and so I won't go into it here other than to mention that apparently Joseph said one of these worlds was Earth, and the other was where the lost tribes of Israel are.  

My guess is that you will find Earth in the place of world "C", and Heaven or the mountain of the Lord's House on "B".  As to "A", I go back and forth as to whether this is the world that we would refer to as "Eressea" or if that is already included with "B" as a satellite or something.  If already included, I then think "A" represents the creation of a new world that acts in or performs the same function that Numenor played at the end of the first age.

I currently lean toward this latter option, with a Numenor-type world being established once again as part of a general restitution or restoration of all things.  An old way will be re-established, but it will also be an entirely new way in that the circumstances that caused the failure of this arrangement at the end of the first age will have been remedied (e.g., certain beings no longer present, resurrected beings with no death, etc.).  

This stacking of worlds also then represents the establishment of the 3 kingdoms of glory as seen and taught by Joseph.  This is the future arrangement of both worlds and beings, basically... at least for a time.  I am also inferring that this stacked world concept might also have been how this earth was arranged in the past,  with our earth (Middle Earth) stacked or linked to other lands or worlds into much of the second age.  I am not certain as to that historical arrangement - its form - however, and am still thinking through various scenarios and implications (perhaps another post on this).   I am certain, though, that both Tolkien and Joseph wrote of this earth once having lands that were present here, and were then removed - this being one of the strong links, in my opinion, between their writings.