From the sublime to the monstrous

Last updated on: April 17, 2026 at 3:06 pm By Dan Peterson

A new article, written by Janet Ewell, went up today on the ne’er-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Gamma Marks: Recent Works Relevant to Their Study” (Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 68 [2026]: 311-370): Abstract: Many are familiar with the so-called gamma marks as they are portrayed on early medieval mosaics in Ravenna and Rome. They appear as right-angle marks, usually with toothed ends, or in a shape like a capital H on the corners of... Read more

Thoughts from the “Information Age”

Last updated on: April 17, 2026 at 1:41 pm By Dan Peterson

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Here’s some interesting food for thought from There is a God: How to Respond to Atheism in the Last Days, by Hyrum Lewis, who teaches history at BYU-Idaho: From the eighteenth to twentieth centuries, Western nations passed through an industrial era in which machines took over much of humans’ physical work. Accordingly, scientists saw the universe itself as a vast machine in which everything could be understood as matter in motion. Even our bodies were machines, and any talk... Read more

Feeling small? Just wait!

Last updated on: April 15, 2026 at 4:01 pm By Dan Peterson

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Newly up on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: “‘That Lineage’: Rival Priesthood Claims in Abraham 1,” in Abraham and His Family in Scripture, History, and Tradition,” written by Avram Shannon: Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Abraham and His Family in Scripture, History, and Tradition, edited by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, John S. Thompson, Matthew L. Bowen, and David R. Seely. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books/abraham-and-his-family. “The Book of Abraham is... Read more

Lighting the Cody Wyoming Temple

Last updated on: April 15, 2026 at 11:45 am By Dan Peterson

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A new item went up today on the still completely dead and perpetually unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Come, Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps (2026): April 20-26: Exodus 19-20; 24; 31-34 — “All that the Lord hath spoken we will do” And don’t forget to stay current with, or to catch up on, the series of weekly Becoming Brigham mini-documentaries that the Interpreter Foundation is producing in cooperation with Redbrick Filmworks. All of the... Read more

We definitely didn’t elect a mere choirboy.

Last updated on: April 13, 2026 at 5:51 pm By Dan Peterson

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“I did post it, and I thought it was me as a doctor, and had to do with the Red Cross, as a Red Cross worker there, which we support,” President Trump told reporters outside of the Oval Office. But isn’t it maybe reminiscent of Jesus Christ? “Only the fake news could come up with that one,” Mr. Trump continued. “I just heard about it, and I said how did they come up with that? It’s supposed to be... Read more

Our Need for a Savior

Last updated on: April 13, 2026 at 12:46 am By Dan Peterson

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This weekend was our stake conference. It was a big one, too: Our long-time stake presidency was released and a new presidency was announced. Our visiting authorities were Elder Michael Cziesla, a General Authority Seventy from Germany, and Elder Helton C. Vecchi, an Area Seventy originally from Brazil. Once again, I was struck by the increasing internationalism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I was younger, a Utah stake conference presided over — and a new... Read more

For my Mother, twenty-one years on

Last updated on: April 11, 2026 at 10:49 pm By Dan Peterson

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My mother died twenty-one years ago today, 11 April 2005, just one day after her birthday. We had strawberries and chocolate tonight, in her honor. And, conforming to my annual tradition, I repost here the remarks that I delivered (very, very poorly) at her funeral back in 2005. It’s not much. It’s not anything, really. But it’s an attempt, grossly inadequate, at a tribute to her. An utterly insufficient attempt to tell her “Thanks.” My very earliest memories of... Read more

Dangerous Idiocy

Last updated on: April 12, 2026 at 12:43 pm By Dan Peterson

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Yet again this morning I encountered the claim online that Islam isn’t really a religion. It’s actually, so today’s anonymous commenter said, a political ideology that seeks world domination. This is mere depressing nonsense, of course — although, it seems to me, there is method in the madness (at least in some iterations). The goal for some seems to be to prepare the ground for either stripping Muslims of the First Amendment rights that are constitutionally assigned to the... Read more

Unto the Isles of the Sea

Last updated on: April 10, 2026 at 4:36 pm By Dan Peterson

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A new article, written by Professor Matthew L. Bowen, went up earlier today on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation: ““The Travail of His Soul”: The Narratological Use of Isaiah’s Suffering Servant Typology in Mosiah 14–24” (Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 68 [2026]: 289-310): Abstract: The narrative account of Abinadi, king Noah and his priests, and Alma1—the lone believer in Abinadi’s words among Noah’s priests—ends with Alma1’s people being brought into bondage by the... Read more

Historical notes about England and Hawaii

Last updated on: April 10, 2026 at 3:35 pm By Dan Peterson

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Next month, along with Kristine Wardle Frederickson of the Interpreter Foundation’s board of directors and the well-known English Latter-day Saint tour guide Peter Fagg, my wife and I will be accompanying an Interpreter Foundation study tour in England: Church History and Great Britain with the Interpreter Foundation 2026. I’m pleased, in that light and just generally, to be able to note that Peter’s Standing on the Shoulders of Giants: Book 1: LDS Preston is now available as a Kindle... Read more

What does Hebrews say is sharper than any double-edged sword?