Quetzalcoatl, ‘The white bearded descending God’, was the first and most important God worshipped by the Mayans. He had an April 6 birthday, he descended from the East, he promised to return one day and reign over the earth during a period… of 1,000 years of peace. Quetzalcoatl was worshipped throughout Mesoamerica. The Mayans build temples to this God. We visit two of these temples on our Book of Mormon Cruise.
President John Taylor said, “The story of the life of the Mexican divinity, Quetzalcoatl, closely resembles that of the Savior; so closely, indeed, that we can come to no other conclusion than that Quetzalcoatl and Christ are the same being. But the history of the former has been handed down to us through an impure Lamanitish source, which has sadly disfigured and perverted the original incidents and teachings of the Savior’s life and ministry.”
Some believe that the Mayan worship of Quetzalcoatl may have been introduced by the invading Spaniard. However, the worship of Quetzalcoatl started in ancient America around 2200 BC. Many Mayan religious beliefs and traditions resemble those uniquely found in the Book of Mormon.
The picture of the Feathered Serpent is a representation of Quetzalcoatl.
Tom Pettit
