From the “Sometimes, You Can Only Laugh” Department: As usual on such occasions, I didn’t sleep on the non-stop trans-Atlantic flight from Salt Lake City to London. Instead, I read Agatha Christie’s first novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, in which she first introduced the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot — I can’t recall having read it before — and then, to my shame, watched five episodes from the first season of the current television series Watson, followed by listening... Read more
Back in 2022, in preparation for the launch of our Six Days in August film project (which continues with our series of forthcoming Becoming Brigham documentary short features, currently in production), I reread Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980) and, as on my two previous readings of the book, really enjoyed it. As I’ve said before, I recommend Brother Brigham highly. If you can get hold of a copy of it, or find it online, I... Read more
I was browsing last night in W. H. Lewis, ed., Letters of C. S. Lewis (New York and London: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1966), when I came across the following passage, which I don’t recall having ever noticed before. It’s an excerpt from a letter “To a Lady” (otherwise unidentified by the editor) that is dated 28 October 1961, slightly more than two years before Lewis’s own death on 22 November 1963 (the same day on which Aldous Huxley and... Read more
Although I can’t honestly recommend the presentation that began at 1:35 PM this afternoon, I’ll make this overall comment otherwise: If you didn’t come to the Tanner Building at BYU today and you didn’t listen online, you missed some really interesting material. Here is the program for today’s second and concluding session — Saturday, 10 May 2025: Saturday Session 2 — of the Interpreter Foundation’s conference on “Abraham and His Family: In Scripture, History, and Tradition”: Keynote Session Chair: John... Read more
These four new items were posted today on the moribund website of the comatose Interpreter Foundation: Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms: Chapter 2 “Warfare in the Book of Mormon,” written by Matthew Roper [Editor’s Note: We are pleased to present chapter 2 from a book entitled Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms. It is presented in serialized form in this volume of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.] “Interpreting Interpreter: (Non-)Anachronisms... Read more
Newly posted on the blog of the perpetually unchanging, completely comatose website of the Interpreter Foundation: “My Favorite Chiasm in the Book of Mormon,” written by Mark Skousen The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs: “Jacob’s Temple Journey to Haran and Back,” written by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Matthew L. Bowen Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more... Read more
We spent another solid day today filming for the Interpreter Foundation’s forthcoming Becoming Brigham series of short documentaries, this time doing indoor “studio” conversations at a home in Pleasant Grove. I think that we captured some good discussions, and I’m looking forward to eventually making these materials public. I hope and I believe that people will find them interesting and helpful. I’m afraid that I’ve fallen a bit behind on alerting you to new posts on the website of... Read more
Details regarding the approaching 2025 FAIR conference can be found here. I hope to see you there, although it’s very likely that I won’t be speaking on the topic that’s currently listed for me online. I’m not even sure where that title came from. Did I suggest it? If I did, I don’t remember it. I also hope to see you at this coming Saturday’s second (and last) day of the Interpreter Foundation symposium on “Abraham and His Family... Read more
We conducted a very good series of lengthy and substantial interviews today at the Church History Library, which sits directly to the east of the Conference Center, directly to the northeast of Temple Square. The interviews, of course, are for the Interpreter Foundation’s forthcoming series of short video features, which are being produced under the title of Becoming Brigham. Our first was with Matthew Godfrey, the Senior Managing Historian for Outreach and Engagement in the Church History Department of... Read more
I wrote the other day regarding the approval of a temple in Texas about which considerable and acrimonious controversy has swirled. (See “Quick Thoughts Occasioned by the Fairview Texas Temple.”) I’ve received some email responses to my position and I’ve seen some online reactions to the agreement that has evidently been reached, and I think that I want to reply to them, very briefly and perhaps only on a single point. The Fairview city council has evidently suggested —... Read more
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