Evidences of the Endowment

Michelle and I just got back from a fireside where a Prof. Porter spoke. He is heavily involved with egyption history and team taught and studied with Hugh Nibley. He was asked by the first presidency to recover the true story of the papyrus found with the mummies that Joseph Smith Jr. bought. The story is a bit dull with sprinkles of 'wows' here and there.
The neatest part was when he translated the papyrus for us, gave us views of writings and papyrus from pharos dating back to Pharo the son of Ham the son of Noah and that got interesting! I knew that the temple ceremonies were involved in so much of our culture such as education ceremonies and such, but with each government body in almost every country... I had no idea! Infact, the understanding of kingship ceremonies and their ties to the endowment gave greater understanding to the atonement and the reason the Jews crucified Christ. Long before Christ was born, the kings of all lands had a ceremony founded by the two sons of Ham, Pharo and Nimrod. The heir to the throne would have to fight for the throne and die, be buried in some sacred building (a temple) for three days during which time the priests of the burrial would slap and spit on the king's body, on the third day, they would wash him with oils, dress him in a new garment with new shoes, give him a new name, and he would then arise from the temple basement and have to greet his people giving riches and spoils away. This was done every year. The problem with this ceremony was the whole death/ressurrrection part so they would send a kings messenger to die (yes they actually were killed) in place of the king. The time Christ was crucified was this time of kingship ceremony for Ceasar and Christ was selected as the king's messenger.
He also taught of the embraces found through the papyrus. There are three types, the ritual, the sacred, and the mutual embraces. They are found throughout Egyption holy places (the highest most places of their sacred buildings) and in the Book of Mormon! Nephi, Mosiah, Alma, and others knew of these embraces through their culture and found their true meaning as they learned the endowment of God. The ritual embrace is seen with God's hand on Pharo's shoulder and Pharo's hand on God's shoulder, their feet together, and the words written: "I give to you to be like God with endurance through posterity, health, foods/beer, power of the priesthood of eternal life." The sacred embrace is spoken of by the prophets as the embrace of God, his wraping you in his garment (that is the literal translation of the word Atonement in many mid-eastern languages). The mutual embrace is the embrace of God to grant you his best gift, eternal life, or God's life.
This depicts a better view of the atonement. Salvation is brought about by obeying the will of God and exaltation is brought about when your will is God's will.
This really made me feel so far away from the Lord and my Father but it made me so excited to know that even Abraham (being taught the ceremonies many times by the egyptions and was once the one to be sacraficed as the 'king's messenger') saw truth in the demonic practices and sought to better himself until he found each embrace and became like God is! (read the first chapter of Abraham it is so inspiring!)
Anyway, I know this is way too long, but it is only a skeleton of the real message we gained. Love you all!