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Here’s a comment that I left at Sic et Non:
Fun article. I’ve always loved this topic. I find it interesting that some of our Latter-day Saint astronomers seem to have no problem relating Abraham’s vision to modern cosmology. You just have to approach it with the right hermeneutic–and it seems to match up pretty well with the current science. At least that’s the sense I get from what little I’ve read on the subject. And they could very well be right!
Even so, I can’t get away from the idea that Abraham 3 touches on realities that go beyond the visible universe. It seems to me that when the Lord speaks of the various reckonings having to do with the sun, moon, and earth, that he’s pointing metaphorically to divisions within the sacred cosmos–which (IMO) is a much larger quantity than the visible universe. I think the same may be true when Abraham is shown the stars which are closest to the Lord’s throne.
That said, I happily agree with all the faithful who have written on the subject–that his vision of the stars prepared him to teach the Egyptians — in a way that they could understand — that Abraham’s God was in order “above” or greater than any worshiped by the Egyptians.