Origins of the Temple Books
The Temple Book
The Temple Book was an underground
book by an anonymous author that was privately passed around for many
years by individuals who were interested in discovering what the
endowment means.
The Temple book is reputed to have been written by Max Skousen many
years ago (1970's) and discusses the meaning of the pre-1990 endowment
ceremony. The Temple Book was converted into an electronic format in the early 1990's by someone who then gave it to
me. That electronic version was a raw text file that contained many typos and formatting
errors. I corrected the electronic version and placed it on
my website (an earlier generation of this one) in the mid
1990's.
As I understand it, Max came
across the online version of the Temple Book and admitted that he was
the original author. He took that version, added a few
corrections and additions, and
then republished it as a 'freebie' on his own website
(www.maxskousen.com) in the late 1990's. He also had a paperback
copy of the updated version printed which he made available to the
public. Unfortunately, Max Skousen died in 2002 and his website
disappeared. As far as I know, copies of Max's updated
(electronic) version
of the Temple Book still make it around privately. The paperback version of the Temple Book is very difficult to find.
For copyright reasons, I offer the
Temple Book on this website as it appeared (anonymously authored) in
the public domain prior
to Max Skousen making alterations and producing the updated versions.
By copyright law, the inheritors of Max Skousen's
estate would own copyright on the alterations he made to the Temple
Book in the late 1990's, but not on the original version that was
anonymously authored and distributed years earlier. Since the
version
offered here appeared long ago in the public domain, it is availabe to
the public without copyright encumberances.
The owner of this website is in
possession of both electronic and paperback versions of the Temple Book
published by Max Skousen in the late 1990's. In comparing these
updated versions of the Temple Book to the anonymously authored version that is
available on this website, I find that the changes to the original are
primarily along the line of minor additions with regard to Max's
contemporary view(s) of the temple endowment ceremony. After Max's first discovery of the Temple
Book on the internet in the late 1990's, he commented that the book had
survived as very
close to the original one that he wrote.
Temple Book II
It may be important for readers to
remember that the Temple Book II is not a continuation of the ideas
presented in the Temple Book written by Max Skousen. Each
of these books were written by different authors at different times and from
different perspectives. It might be more appropriate to
refer to Temple Book II as 'Another Temple Book'.
Copyright to Temple Book II is
retained by it's original author (the owner of this website). Permission
is granted to freely copy and distribute the Temple Book II to others as long as it
remains unaltered from the original. Monetary charge to cover
reimbursement of printing or copying expenses is allowed, but
profit-making from distribution or reselling is not allowed. Permission is
also granted to post the Temple Book II on other websites as long as
alterations are not made to it and a link to this website is provided.
Additional information about origins of Temple Book II can be found in the Author's Preface portion of the book.
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