Joseph Smith’s Vision of Resurrection: Ancient Evidence for the Sacred Hand Clasp

This article is a written summary of an Informed Saints video featuring scholar Spencer Kraus, who explores a remarkable connection between Joseph Smith’s teachings about resurrection, sacred hand clasps, and ancient Christian temple traditions. The discussion examines Joseph Smith’s 1843 vision of the resurrection alongside biblical accounts, early Christian writings, ancient Jewish traditions, Egyptian imagery, and funerary art. Together, these sources provide fascinating context for Latter-day Saint teachings about the temple, resurrection, eternal families, and ultimately being brought back into the presence of God through Jesus Christ.

TL;DR: Joseph Smith’s Resurrection Vision and the Sacred Hand Clasp

In 1843, Joseph Smith said that God had shown him a vision of the resurrection in which the dead arose, took one another by the hand, and embraced their loved ones. Spencer Kraus explains that similar imagery appears throughout the Bible and early Christianity: Jesus takes the dead by the hand and raises them, Peter does the same with Tabitha, early Christian texts depict Christ taking Adam by the hand and raising him from the realm of the dead, and Christian artwork repeatedly portrays resurrection through this same gesture. For Latter-day Saints, these ancient parallels give additional context to Joseph Smith’s teachings about sacred hand clasps, temple worship, resurrection, and the joyful reunion of families through Jesus Christ.

Watch the Informed Saints Video on Joseph Smith, Hand Clasps, and Resurrection

What Did Joseph Smith See in His Vision of the Resurrection?

In 1843, while the Nauvoo Temple was under construction, Joseph Smith delivered a sermon concerning death and resurrection. He had recently learned of the death of Elder Lorenzo Barnes, a missionary serving in Great Britain, and death was an intensely personal subject for Joseph and the early Saints.

During the sermon, Joseph reportedly made a striking declaration:

“God hath shown unto me a vision of the resurrection of the dead.”

Joseph described the dead rising and taking one another by the hand. They embraced one another and joyfully recognized fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, and other loved ones.

This detail becomes the central question explored by Spencer Kraus: Why would Joseph Smith specifically associate taking someone by the hand with resurrection?

When that question is examined against biblical and early Christian traditions, the imagery becomes particularly interesting.

Jesus Raised the Dead by Taking Them by the Hand

One of the clearest biblical parallels appears in the New Testament account of Jesus raising Jairus’s daughter.

When Jesus arrives, the girl has died. Rather than merely speaking from a distance, Jesus takes her by the hand and commands her to arise.

The video emphasizes an important distinction: Jairus’s daughter was restored to mortal life rather than resurrected to immortality. Nevertheless, early Christians sometimes understood miraculous raisings from the dead as patterns or anticipations of the future resurrection.

The narrative therefore contains a striking sequence:

• The person is dead.
• Christ takes her by the hand.
• A verbal command is given.
• She is raised to life.

This combination of a spoken command, physical contact, and being raised from death becomes important when compared with other biblical and early Christian traditions.

Peter Takes Tabitha by the Hand and Raises Her

A similar pattern appears in Acts 9 with Tabitha, also known as Dorcas.

After Tabitha dies, the Apostle Peter comes to where her body has been laid. Peter prays, commands her to arise, and then takes her by the hand and lifts her up.

Once again, the imagery combines divine power, a verbal command, a hand clasp, and someone being raised from death.

Paul and the Sacred Embrace of Eutychus

Acts 20 contains a related example involving Eutychus, a young man who falls during Paul’s lengthy preaching.

Rather than a hand clasp, the account includes an embrace. Paul goes down to Eutychus and embraces him, after which the young man is found alive.

The discussion connects this with a broader ancient pattern in which both hand clasps and embraces can symbolize restoration, recognition, communion, and life.

Elijah and Elisha: Resurrection Imagery in the Old Testament

The same general motif reaches into the Old Testament.

Both Elijah and Elisha participate in miraculous accounts involving dead children being restored to life. In these narratives, the prophets stretch themselves upon or closely embrace the children before they are restored.

The physical nature of these accounts can seem unusual to modern readers, but Spencer Kraus explains that later Jewish traditions interpreted such stories in connection with the future resurrection.

According to the discussion, some Jewish traditions even describe the Messiah raising the dead through imagery involving lifting and embracing them.

This helps establish a larger ancient religious pattern: being physically lifted or embraced by a divine or authorized figure could become symbolic of being delivered from death into life.

Ancient Christians Depicted Jesus Raising Adam by the Hand

Some of the most striking parallels discussed in the video come from early Christianity.

An early Christian text commonly known as the Gospel of Nicodemus or Acts of Pilate describes Christ’s triumph over death and His entrance into the realm of the dead.

In the account, Christ extends His right hand to Adam and raises him up. Christ then leads Adam and the righteous toward paradise.

This became an influential image in Christian tradition.

Byzantine Resurrection Art Shows Christ Pulling Adam and Eve From Their Graves

The idea eventually appeared repeatedly in Christian artwork, particularly Byzantine depictions of the Resurrection.

Christ is often portrayed standing triumphantly over the broken gates of death or hell while taking Adam and Eve by the hands and pulling them from their graves.

Old Testament prophets and other righteous figures sometimes appear behind them, following Christ into life.

Some of these images are associated explicitly with the Greek word anastasis, meaning “resurrection.”

The visual message is powerful: Christ conquers death and then reaches down to humanity, takes the dead by the hand, and raises them into life.

For Latter-day Saints familiar with Joseph Smith’s teachings about resurrection and temple worship, the similarity in imagery is worth careful consideration.

The Gospel of Peter and Jesus Being Led From the Tomb

The video also discusses another early Christian writing known as the Gospel of Peter.

In its account of Christ’s resurrection, heavenly beings enter the tomb and emerge supporting another figure, leading Him forth by the hand.

Spencer Kraus identifies three broad ways in which this imagery appears in early Christian traditions:

• Someone is taken by the hand while being raised from death.
• A disciple receives instruction connected with raising the dead.
• Christ or another divine figure takes the dead by the hand and raises them into life, glory, or paradise.

These traditions provide a broader historical context for understanding why a sacred hand clasp could become associated with resurrection.

Joseph Smith, D&C 129, and Sacred Hand Clasps

Joseph Smith’s teachings about hand clasps were not limited to his 1843 resurrection vision.

In teachings now recorded in Doctrine and Covenants 129, Joseph discusses physical interaction as part of discerning the nature of heavenly messengers.

A resurrected being possesses a tangible body and can therefore physically interact with a mortal person. Joseph contrasted this with other kinds of spiritual manifestations.

The video explains that Joseph had discussed related ideas as early as 1839 and repeatedly connected fuller understanding of sacred things with the temple.

The argument is not that every ancient handshake represents the same ritual found in Latter-day Saint temple worship. Rather, the historical evidence shows that ritualized hand contact associated with divine presence, recognition, death, resurrection, and entering the presence of God has significant ancient precedent.

Sacred Hand Clasps and Embraces in Ancient Temples

The discussion extends beyond biblical and early Christian sources into the wider ancient Near Eastern and Mediterranean world.

Ancient Egyptian religious imagery sometimes portrays the king in a close ritual embrace with a deity. Such embraces could communicate ideas of divine acceptance, intimacy, kinship, recognition, and entrance into the presence of deity.

Egyptian funerary imagery also uses the language and symbolism of embracing in connection with death and the afterlife.

The presenters emphasize that ancient Egyptians should not simply be characterized as a civilization obsessed with death. Their elaborate funerary practices were ultimately concerned with something much more hopeful: life after death and continued existence in the divine world.

Ancient Funerary Art and Family Hand Clasps

Similar imagery appears in ancient Mediterranean funerary monuments.

Some Greek funerary scenes depict family members clasping hands, sometimes within architecture resembling a small temple or shrine.

The gesture can communicate recognition, relationship, reunion, and continuing family bonds.

That provides an interesting parallel with Joseph Smith’s vision. Joseph did not merely describe anonymous people emerging from graves. He described family members recognizing each other, taking each other by the hand, and embracing.

Joseph Smith’s Vision Was Ultimately About Eternal Families

One of the most meaningful parts of the Informed Saints discussion is its emphasis on why resurrection mattered so deeply to Joseph Smith.

Joseph lived in a world where death was much more visible than it is for many people today. Family members commonly died at home. Their loved ones helped prepare their bodies for burial. Childhood mortality was high, and families repeatedly confronted death firsthand.

Joseph himself experienced the deaths of children, siblings, his father, friends, and fellow Church members.

For him, therefore, resurrection was not simply an intellectual question about what happens to a human body after death.

It was deeply personal.

Would he see his loved ones again?

Would family relationships continue?

Could death really be overcome?

Joseph’s vision answered those questions with an image of extraordinary hope: the dead would rise, recognize one another, take one another by the hand, and embrace again.

How the LDS Temple Points Toward Resurrection and Eternal Life

The conversation eventually brings these themes back to the Latter-day Saint temple.

Temple worship is fundamentally concerned with covenants, entering God’s presence, eternal relationships, and the possibility of eternal life through Jesus Christ.

The presenters discuss the idea that ancient temples and tombs sometimes shared important symbolic themes. Both could represent movement from mortality toward divine life and from death toward resurrection.

Jewish scholar Jon D. Levenson is cited in the discussion for describing the temple in language that presents it as the opposite of the realm of death. Where death represents separation and oblivion, the temple points toward divine presence, worship, life, and immortality.

From a Latter-day Saint perspective, the temple can therefore be understood as symbolically anticipating the journey every faithful disciple hopes ultimately to make:

• Birth and mortal life
• Making covenants with God
• Faithfulness to Jesus Christ
• Passing through death
• Resurrection through Christ
• Entering the presence of God
• Eternal relationships with those we love

In this sense, temple worship continually points beyond mortality toward what Jesus Christ makes possible.

Why Ancient Hand Clasp Traditions Matter for Joseph Smith

The significance of Spencer Kraus’s research comes from the accumulation of parallels rather than any single example.

Joseph Smith connected several themes:

• Resurrection from the dead
• Being raised by the hand
• Sacred embraces
• Recognition of loved ones
• Family reunion after death
• Temple worship
• Entering God’s presence

Similar themes can be found across biblical accounts, early Christian writings, Christian resurrection artwork, Jewish traditions, Egyptian religious imagery, and Mediterranean funerary culture.

These parallels do not mean that every ancient hand clasp had precisely the same meaning or represented an identical ceremony. But they demonstrate that the relationship between sacred physical gestures, divine presence, death, resurrection, and eternal relationships has deep roots in the ancient religious world.

Does Ancient Christianity Support Joseph Smith’s Teachings About Resurrection?

For Latter-day Saints, the ancient evidence presented in the video can be faith-affirming because Joseph Smith taught about resurrection in ways that resonate with traditions extending far back into biblical and early Christian history.

Perhaps the most powerful parallel is also the simplest.

Jesus Christ reaches toward the dead.

He takes them by the hand.

And He raises them into life.

That ancient Christian image beautifully complements Joseph Smith’s 1843 vision of families rising from the dead, taking each other by the hand, and embracing again.

Spencer Kraus concludes the discussion by expressing his conviction that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God and that teachings like these represent truths restored through the Prophet.

The Sacred Hand Clasp Ultimately Points to Jesus Christ’s Victory Over Death

The deepest message of the discussion is not ultimately about an ancient gesture. It is about Jesus Christ and the reality of resurrection.

Ancient Christians portrayed Christ reaching into the realm of death and pulling Adam and Eve into life. Biblical prophets took the dead into their arms. Jesus took a dead girl by the hand and commanded her to arise. Peter took Tabitha by the hand and lifted her up.

Joseph Smith’s vision presents a similarly hopeful picture of what resurrection means for God’s children: death does not permanently separate families.

Through the Resurrection and Atonement of Jesus Christ, the grave is not the end. Parents, children, brothers, sisters, and friends can rise again.

For believers in the Restoration, the temple reinforces that hope. Its covenants point toward a future in which disciples can return to the presence of God and enjoy eternal relationships made possible through Jesus Christ.

Seen in that light, the sacred hand clasp becomes a beautiful symbol of the promise at the heart of the restored gospel: Christ reaches into death and raises God’s children into life.