[Page 293]Abstract: The ritual use of hand gestures in covenant-making in ancient times is a topic of peculiar interest to Latter-day Saints. In this article, David Calabro summarizes results drawn from his doctoral research, providing readers with some tools to evaluate ancient gestures. The questions he suggests are novel, as is the way they are couched in an organized scheme. The author concludes that Latter-day Saints, who belong to a tradition saturated with ritual gestures, should be among those most educated about them.

[Editor’s Note: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article is reprinted here as a service to the LDS community. Original pagination and page numbers have necessarily changed, otherwise the reprint has the same content as the original.

See David Calabro, “Understanding Ritual Hand Gestures of the Ancient Word: Some Basic Tools,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of The Expound Symposium 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Orem, UT: The Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2014), 143–58. Further information at https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/ancient-temple-worship/.]

The ritual use of hand gestures in ancient times is a topic of peculiar interest to Latter-day Saints. A book by Alonzo Gaskill on the meaning of gospel ordinances includes several sections devoted to ritual hand gestures.1 Gaskill explores the meaning of these gestures in ancient times in order to illuminate the meaning of these gestures for [Page 294]modern Latter-day Saints. In his discussion of ritual gestures used in covenant-making, he writes, “The meaning of such oath-making rituals is sometimes defined, and at other times left for the participant to discover. But each is clearly laden with symbolic meaning and, consequently, with a divine offering to the inquisitive participant who seeks understanding.”2 According to Victor Ludlow, the ordinances of the temple tune our minds to the significance of the hands as used in worship.3

From 2008 to the present, I have been conducting research on the use of ritual hand gestures in the ancient Near East. Much of this research was gathered in my 2014 doctoral dissertation on Northwest Semitic hand-lifting gestures and handclasps.4 Occasionally, in conversations with fellow Latter-day Saints, I am asked to summarize the findings of my research. Those who ask me this usually wish to gain insights about the ordinances of the Church, particularly temple ordinances, through understanding the ritual gestures of the ancient societies. The possibility of such comparisons is also of interest to me. Indeed, the deeper I delve into the ritual practices of ancient societies, the more I find these practices and those of the Latter-day Saint temple to be mutually instructive.

Nevertheless, like many people who have written a doctoral dissertation, the request to summarize my findings usually leaves me tongue-tied. One reason for this is that research in the humanities involves discovering questions as well as answering them; describing the answers is thus difficult without laying the groundwork of the questions that were asked. This is particularly true with ritual gestures, a topic whose complexity few realize. Discussion of sacred priesthood ordinances is subject to bounds of place and manner, which means that many members of the Church, even though they have reflected extensively on the meaning of ritual gestures, have not considered questions that arise from dialogue with those who hold alternate interpretat...