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To Bee, or not to Bee: History in the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price Noting The Deseret Connection

Research by Kerry A. Shirts

C. Wilfred Griggs has noted that our acceptance of the BofM is a spiritual, not an academic, matter. (in Susan Easton Black, ed., "Expressions of Faith:Testimonies of LDS Scholars", Deseret Book, 1996, p. 201). This granted, it is important to also realize that our purposes of inquiring into historicity with the BofM is not to subject revelation to the constraints of reason or scholarship, but rather to use the techniques of scholarship as a limited means to a spiritual end. (John Welch in "Warfare in the Book of Mormon", Deseret Book, 1990, p. 17). There is a great need of blending both our faith and our knowledge. Of blending a healthy skepticism and doubt with a belief and desire to learn more. Balance is sought after, even though it is not always acquired and kept.

Noel B. Reynolds has perhaps said it best:

"...higher levels of religiousity among Latter Day Saints - as measured by devotion to private prayer, scripture study, tithe paying, church attendance, and other forms of religious observance - are directly correlated with higher levels of education. It may be an anomaly, but it is true of the Latter Day Saint community that the more educated a person is, the more likely he or she is to be fully observant and faithful... Mormonism is a religion of both the spirit and the intellect." (in Susan Easton Black, "Expressions of Faith", p. x)

That all said, it is a most amazing thing that we have in our scriptures one of the most unusual yet interesting historical aspects ever mentioned, learned of, or discussed, that of Deseret, the Honey Bee, the Jaredite interpretation (Ether 2:3). This Deseret also enjoyed a serious ritual importance and was quite prominant in the Egyptian Civilization, who likewise associated this Deseret with the *honeybee*.

Now the so-called authors of the Second Civilization, seems to have entered Egypt from the northeast as part of a great expansion of the peoples outward that sent the makers of the classical Babylonian civilization into Mesoptamia. So, we have the founders of the two parent civilizations of antiquity entering their new homelands approximately at the same time from some common center. The Egyptian pioneers carried with them a fully developed cult and symbolism from their Asiatic homeland. (Hugh Nibley - "Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites", Bookcraft, 1952, p. 184).

The chief cult object they had with them was the bee. In fact, the land that they first settled in Egypt was forever after known as "the land of the bee", and the designated hieroglyph was a picture of the bee. And every king of Egypt in his capacity as king of Upper and Lower Egypt bore the title "he who belongs to the sedge and the bee." Sir Alan Gardiner doesn't know how or where the connection with the bee comes in, but he acknowledges that it is certainly there. the title is "n-sw-bit", and one can readily see the bee in the hieroglyphic title that Gardiner uses here. (Alan Gardiner, "Egyptian Grammar", 3rd ed., 1994, p. 73).

Now the sound of the bee picture has been discussed for years, with no clear indications as to what it might be. In fact, the Egyptologist Sethe even says that the Egyptians themselves had forgotten the original word, and Grapow designates the bee title of honor as "unreadable". (Nibley - "World of the Jaredites", p. 185). But how could such a popular and very important yet quite common word be forgotten? Actually, it happens all the time in the history of cult and ritual, namely, the avoidance or even the prohibiting of the sacred word! The bee sign was not always written down, but in its place the picture of the Red Crown, the majesty of Lower Egypt was sometimes substituted for superstitious reasons. While we are lacking the name of the Bee symbol, we do know what the Red Crown was called. It is *dsrt*. When the crown appears in the place of the bee, it is sometimes called "bit bee". (Nibley, p. 185). "Bit bee" = "bi'ty" as we shall see in the hieroglyphic inscriptions below.

The crown has an antennae on it, such as in Margaret Bunson's "Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt", Facts on File, Oxford, 1991, p. 59. She calls it "deshret". In E.A. Wallis Budge's "Hieroglyphic Vocabulary to the Book of the Dead", we find that he also calls this crown "Deshret", the Red Crown, i.e., the Crown of Lower Egypt, p. 448. W.V. Davies in his text "Reading the Past: Egyptian Hieroglyphics", Univ. of California Press, 1987, p. 44f, notes that the most important name for the king in Egypt is "nswt-bi'ty, King of Upper and Lower Egypt". In the hieroglyph, you can see the bee. Also in the hieroglyphic inscription from a stela mentioning year nineteen of King Nubkaure (Ammenemes II). Twelfth Dynasty:

"h 3t-sp 19 hr hm n ntr nswt-bi'ty Nbw-k3w-r'"

The bi'ty is the bee in the hieroglyph, which Davies pictures at the top of the page. So while the crown can be the equivilant to the bee (usually having the antennae on it), the bee is never called "dsrt". Well this suggests particular avoidance, especially since "dsrt" also means "red", a word peculiarly applicable to bees. Well this correlates very well with the Jews refusing to give us the proper Hebrew name of God YHWH. It is not to even be pronounced, and in fact Adonai is the substitute for this name.

Now interestingly, the bee symbol spread out from its homeland into prominant places in the royal mysteries of the Hittites, and turning up in the Kalevala, and even into the Easter rites of other nations. The bee in all of these is the agent through which the dead hero or king is resurrected from the dead. Interestingly, the original "deseret" people, the founders of the Second Civilization, the intellectuals of On (Heliopolis) claimed that their king, and he alone, possessed the secret of resurrection. In fact, that was the cornerstone of their religion, it being nothing less than the king's secret, the power over death. So to summarize:

1. The Jaredites in their wanderings took with them the honeybee which they called in their language, "Deseret", as well as hives of bees.

2. The founders of the Second Civilization of Egypt had the bee as the symbol of their land, their king, and their empire, to all of which they applied the designation "deseret", or something very close to it.

3. Though they never called the bee itself "dsrt", the sign of which is often "for superstitious reasons" written in its place is so designated.

4. The bee sign was always regarded by the Egyptians as very sacred: As a determinative, according to Sethe, it is significant to note that it is always placed *before* any of the others. As is well known, such priority is the prerogative of the holiest objects only in the writing of hieroglyphic. Its extreme sacredness and its role in top-secret ritual imply, nay, all but demand, that suppression of its true name in the reading of texts.

Both the honeybee and "dsrt" seem quite at home in the twilight world of prehistory. (Nibley, "World of the Jaredites", pp. 188f). And what do we find in the Pearl of Great Price? Astoundingly, more of the same!

In the Book of Abraham, we are told that a woman found Egypt:

"The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the duaghter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden.

When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.

Now the first government of Egypt was established by Pharoah, the eldest son of Egyptus, the daughter of Ham, and it was after the manner of the government of Ham, which was patriarchal.

Sethe in his great work "Urgeschichte" has treated this very subject at length. He contends that the key to the whole affair is the bee and the red "Dsrt" Crown: The bee, he believes, is the sign of the LADY Neith, identified with Hathor, called "the Ruling Lady of the Universe," which Sethe says this figure must go back to the prehistoric rule of women in Egypt.

We have seen the bee, the red "Dsrt" (Deseret) Crown of Lower Egypt and the sacredness and tie in with resurrection were all part of the story, not only from the BofM Jaredite view, but the Ancient Second Civilization of Egypt as well. We also began to see the connection with the woman who founded the government of Egypt after she had found the country under water. We continue from there:

In the "Journal of Egyptian Archaeology", Vol. 9, Plate XX, Wainwright has shown a pot which has the Red Crown (Dsrt Crown) clearly depicted which is from Prehistoric Nakada thus showing this to be one of the oldest known symbols of royalty. It is the crown of the Lady Neith and is often substituted for the sign of the bee.

This indicates that the great shrine at Koptos, right across the river from Nakada, which is only a cemetary, may have been the original captial of the Lady. And most interesting for us, and especially the Facsimile 2, the Hypocephalus, of all things (!), this was the shrine of Min, the oldest God of Egypt, who later became Ammon (good BofM name!), and whose symbol was an arrow, as was Neith's. Neith was the prehistoric lady of Koptos. The bee comes in with the kings who actually bore the title of "the bee", but only, according to Sethe, AFTER they had usurped the authority of the Lady Neith. (the woman who discovered Egypt under water according to Joseph Smith's BofA! 1:23) In fact, Neith's name is actually the title "N.t", the SAME name as given to the prehistoric red crown, though it is usually called the Dsrt Crown. Actually the title "Queen-Bee" was originally given to the Matriarchal lines of rule until that was usurped by the lady's sons. Or in the BofA:

"Now Pharoah being of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood, notwithstanding the Pharoahs would fain claim it from Noah, through Ham [the son of Egyptus - the woman, vs. 25]..." (Abr. 1:27).

Note here there is nothing racist about it at all! The rule in Egypt was historically the Matriarchal rule, from which line the SON of Egyptus, the *daughter* of Ham, came through. The Fathers that Abraham is so obssessed with in the first 5 verses was the Patriarchal Priesthood. This was the priesthood that Pharoah was prevented from holding due to his authority coming through the Matriarchal lines. The BofA is exactly correct in depicting the entire HISTORICAL situation, based on current historical, philological, and archaeological discoveries in the last 50 years, long after Joseph Smith was dead. But I digress.....

However, it is quite possible that the bee symbol came from the invading migrants who united it with the Red Crown and other props of the Lady of Koptos. Interestingly, bee in Egyptian is a feminine noun, which cannot suit a king as its original possessor. The sedge-and-bee titles given to the Pharoahs does not designate them as being actually bees but rather as "belonging to the bee" or "descended from the bee". Geb, and Osiris were both guilty of usurping the bee-crown of the Lady, just as they usurped her throne. Cf. Robert Graves, "The Greek Myths," 2 vols., vol. 1, p. 15 where the king remained under the queen's tutelage. We also read that in ancient times "A princess of royal line is judged capable, in unsettled times, of being overcome by Ngame's lunar magic and bearing a tribal deity which takes up its reseidence in a shrine and leads a group of emigrants to some new region. The woman becomes queen-mother, war-leader, judge, and priestess of the settlement she founds." (Graves, p. 22). The king was deputized with the queen's power, and at ceremonial occasions dressed like her, and even wore false breasts! (Graves, p. 18 - Cf. Facsimile #3 in Book of Abraham where the women are identified as men). "The throne remained matrilineal, as it theoretically did even in Egypt..." (Graves, p. 19). Note it was Rhea's scepter which passed to Uranus, thus giving him his power. (Graves, p. 30)

So what do we have? Four things definitely go together at the beginning of Egypt's history.

1. The Bee

2. The Dsrt Crown

3. The derivation of Pharoah's authority from a woman

4. The identification of that woman with the lady of Koptos from which or whom Egypt got its name (NOTE: Every single item is also found in Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham, Ch. 1)

Egypt does not get its name from "Kmt" - "Black" as is traditionally maintained. The name comes from Koptos which is the oldest shrine and capital of Egypt. Many ancient cities are named after persons - hundreds of them in fact - but only when that person is the founder of the city. And it is basically agreed that the great invasions of Egypt in prehistoric times came by way of the Wadi Hammamat. From there, the first place one would settle down would be Koptos, the very place where the Wadi Hammamat opens on the Nile Valley. (keep in mind Abr. 1:23-25). (H. Nibley "There Were Jaredites", in the "Improvement Era", April 1956, p. 244f).

So lets get back to Min. Min was from prehistoric times the bee keeper. He even lived in a beehive house in Koptos. Of course, by now we are familiar with the principle parts here, the bee, the crown, and the honey incidentally, whose words are all read the same way, whether as n.t, bi.t or khb.t, all had the feminine endings, with the crown itself personified as the goddess, and at the same time identical with the bee.

The bee, we are told, is the inspiration and sponsor of the great migration. As a creature of the preexistent or preDiluvian world, and all but the sole survivor of the great catastrophes that desolated the earth anciently, the bee is the first to arrive on the scene and get things going again in the new world. In the first of all migrations we are told, Adam and Eve were accompanied and guided by the bees as they moved from the Garden of Eden and into the lone and dreary world. The bees brought with them the primordial creative divine power; their honey, made by the bees of paradise, which is the food of heaven. The Hittite version of the story has the bees helping guide Adam and Eve because they had lived in the Old world before it was destroyed and knew their whereabouts.

Most interesting, the traditions of the Old World are also matched by those in the New World, where the Mayan book the Chilam Balam, begins with the settling of the land by bee swarms of the four directions, each of a different color. The word for the bee is feminine incidentally with a feminine prefix! We are also told that the Bacabs, who hail from the four directions, (this number four being a most important number to the Egyptians as well Cf. Fac. #1, figs. 5,6,7,8 with Fac. #2, fig. 6; cf. Robert Graves, "The Greek Myths," 2 vols., vol. 1, p. 30, where Eros is described as having four heads; Francis Huxley, "The Way of the Sacred," Bloomsbury Books, 1989, p. 140, cf. p. 164!) who were representatives of the Gods. They were beekeepers as well and their name connects to bees of honey. (H. Nibley - "Abraham in Egypt", Deseret, 1981, p. 231).

BEES AND THE RESURRECTION:

The bees offer the most tempting and invigorating food from putrefying corpses, which was more than just a symbol in the mysteries. It was an actual process of resurrection! The bee "born from the ox" in sacred caves sets the scene fro the mysteries. Interestingly in an inscription from the Temple of Denderah, near Coptos (note this again!), we read "Osiris emulates the bee in the Temple, giving instructions for knowing the hsp (sacred garden) of the Bee in the Other World, in the House of Snhty", this last being written with the bee hieroglyph. The bee born from the skin of the animal is the sign of the resurrection. Everywhere the Bee is the preserver and restorer of life. Nut appears as the Bee, and in a Pyramid Text, the king, the lady and the bee are fused into one. On first awakening after he is resurrected, the King cries out "Bees!" They simply swarmed the place!

And these themes invaded the Christian church as well. They also became the dominant Jewish symbol. The original shrine of the mysteries at Delphi was constructed og beeswax by those devoted insects. St. Jerome was puzzled and disturbed by the way bees invaded the Easter Service of the Church. He commented in 384 A.D. that Nothing is harder to explain than why at the Easter service Christians are regaled by bee stories. They came from the monks in the Egyptian desert to be sure, who singing their hymns all the day long, gathering the sweets of religion from every bloom of scripture, coming off conquerors in the manner of Deborah, the Bee-Lady, and preparing honey for Christ. In fact, to support his theory that the Elusinian Mysteries came from Crete, A. Persson observed that the Greeks to this day hold their most solemn Easter Rites in the very bee cave in Crete in which Rhea gave birth to Zeus. And who isn't aware that Amalthea fed him with milk and honey even as Amitla fed the infant Abraham? (H. Nibley - "Abraham in Egypt", p. 233f).

Who is not also aware that Abraham's mother's name is Amitla? Abraham, in the legends is living in a cave and being fed milk and honey by her finger in fact. This is an exact parallel with the infant Horus from Ancient Egypt. The rites and mysteries are everwhere overlapping from Greek to Crete, Egypt, and Semitic. If the earliest traditions of migrations of peoples insist on harping on the bees - and even the Hebrew word for the migrating of the hordes is "Bee-swarms" - zibariah - see Exodus 23:28! Then Joseph Smith puts us right in the picture for he told us not of just one, but of *two* separate migrations taking place shortly after the flood, starting from about the same place, from the Tower, but moving in opposite directions. Both parties toiled through the deserts of a blighted earth under dark and violent skies, moving towards promised lands. And the intimate and peculiar link between the two migrations is the friendly bee. Interestingly, the Latter Day Saints, ever settling and ever on the move, adopted the bee symbol from the beginning. The beehive symbol was everywhere in their newly settled arid land of Deseret.

When Sirius and the sun combined their heat to destroy the world, the wandering hero Aristaeus sought out the all-wise Proteus at the end of the earth seeking an oracle concerning the exhausted state of things, and was told to make certain chthonian sacrifices, after which vast swarms of bees came forth and restored the fertility in the lands. This is Virgil's account in the Georgics. In Greece, as elsewhere, the oldest of all religious centers was established when the Bee-maidens, the daughters of Melissaeus and nurses of Zeus swarmed at the sacred oak of Dodona. The first oracular shrine in Israel was founded by Deborah, the Bee, where she died on the migration from Egypt at the sacred Oak of Deborah. The Bee-Mother was flourishing all over the Mediterranean in prehistoric times. The legends all speak of bee-led migrations (cf. the Jaredites) at the dawn of history, seeking not commerce but refuge from storm and starvation - survival.

What ties all this together is, of all people, is Asenath, the Queen of the Deseret hive. Then and now, as the mother of Ephraim and Manasseh by Joseph, whom she married in a swarm of bees, bringing her honey and uncovering her person to do her reference. She is the servant of the Goddess Neith (THE Bee-Mother!). Robert Graves in his epic "The Greek Myths", 2 vols., notes that Plato identified Athene with Neith. (vol. 1, p. 44). Interestingly, Graves also notes that Phanes is a loudly-buzzing celestial bee, and the beehive was studied as an ideal republic, while in the golden age, honey dropped from the trees. In fact, Rhea's drum was beaten to prevent the bees from swarming in the wrong place. (vol.1, p. 31) The temple at Delphi we are told was made from bees' wax and refers to the goddess as Bee. (p. 181).

Why has the bee been brought back into our consciousness in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ? Well repeated echoes from the remote past keep reminding us that the office and calling of the bee was to bring about the stirrings of life, reviving the biological cycle in a world that has been totally ravaged by the cosmic forces of destruction. Is, then, Deseret waiting in the wings, held in reserve against the day, soon to come, when its salutary services will be once again required?

From the first, the bee symbol captivated the imagination of the LDS in their migrations and settlements. The emblematic hive became the seal of the Territory and State and adorned every importance edifice within the vast expanse of "our lovely Deseret".

Finally by what strange coincidence does the "History of the Church" end with the sign of the bee? After the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, "The bodies... were removed.... at Emma's request, to near the Mansion House, and buried side by side, and the bee house was then moved and placed over their graves. (H. Nibley - "Abraham in Egypt", pp. 243ff)

The breathtaking and staggering amounts of correlations with history, the Book of Mormon and the Pearl of Great Price are nowhere surpassed than with this splendid thing.... Deseret, the honeybee. How on living earth could Smith have put it all together so well? Not only is bee mentioned ONLY in the correct place it could have been in the BofM, the Jaredites, i.e., back in ancient times, but having it in the BofA, with all the historical correlations with that text as well as the facsimiles is utterly mindboggling! Who has ever performed such sheer daring and incredible accurate restoration of history, myth, ritual, religion, and apocalyptic? The bee is in the only place it could be in the scriptures. With the migrations. With the ancient peoples. It is associated with the only people that Smith could have gotten away with. He gets this correct as well. Where is there error? Here is pure history in all its grandeur. Here is real restoration of ancient concepts long ago forgotten but resurrected to our consciousness with an eloquence and greatness that is only now being discovered. It is an incredible testimony that any of this fits. It is staggering that it all fits.