*** A new article, written by Taylor Halverson, appeared just a few minutes ago in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. I have very limited time at the current moment, but I can at least find a few minutes to call the article to your attention: “The Origin and Purpose of the Book of Mormon Phrase “If Ye Keep My Commandments Ye Shall Prosper in the Land”” Abstract: We are told in the Title Page… Read more
*** Dr. Kyler Rasmussen continues with his still-new series of Bayesian blog posts on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Estimating the Evidence: Episode 3: On an Improbable Dictation” *** Here at FreedomFest 2021, I chaired a session early this afternoon in which Professor Daniele C. Struppa, a professor of mathematics at Chapman University in Orange County, California, and, since 2016, the University’s thirteenth president, spoke under the title “God is a Mathematician.” It’s a… Read more
*** Here, for your entertainment and edification, are three new items that went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31 “The Power of Godliness” D&C 84 The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31, “The Power of Godliness” on D&C 84, featured Kris Fredrickson and Martin Tanner. This roundtable was extracted from the 20 June 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. (The complete program may be… Read more
*** The number of theaters in which Witnesses is appearing is slowly but unmistakably going down. This is inevitable. It happened to not only to Titanic and Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane and Avatar, in their day, but even to Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, and Mars Needs Moms. However, I’m happy to report that the film is still screening or available for showings in a number of places — mostly, but not quite entirely, in… Read more
*** A new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, this one by Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen: “Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement” Abstract: The authors begin by highlighting the importance of Book of Moses research that has discovered plausible findings for its historicity, rendering it at least reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to sacred premises —… Read more
[Owing, yet again, to a recurring technical problem at Patheos, I’m unable to share an image right now in connection to this post. Perhaps the problem will be fixed soon. I apologize to any beside myself who might care.] It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. So I thought that I would simply share some links from a prior issue of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship in case you missed them… Read more
*** This item went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Book of Moses Essays #64: Moses Witnesses the Fall: (Moses 4): The False Apron and the Tree of Death and Rebirth (Moses 4:13) *** Today was an exceptionally satisfying day, something that I had definitely not anticipated. One of my early memories goes back to just days before a Christmas nearly sixty-one years ago. My Aunt Nellie’s husband, Ernest A…. Read more
[A recurring technical problem at Patheos has once again blocked my ability to post images here. I’ll share the appropriate photographs when and if I’m able.] After I finished an article that was overdue and sent it off this morning, we headed up the road from Devils Lake to Rugby, North Dakota. A pillar there proclaims Rugby to be the geographical center of North America. One of my earliest memories — I think — is of my… Read more
*** The newest article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship was written by Noel B. Reynolds and appeared today (Friday): “The Goodness of God and His Children as a Fundamental Theological Concept in the Book of Mormon” Abstract: The phrase goodness of God does occur occasionally in the Hebrew Bible but has not been considered by Old Testament scholars to be an independent principle in Israelite theology. Rather, it has been interpreted as just another way of talking about God’s… Read more
*** In a 16 May 1767 letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, the French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) said “Je n’ai jamais fait qu’une seule prière à Dieu, une très courte «Ô seigneur, rendez mes ennemis ridicules». Et Dieu l’a accordé.” (“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”) Some of the things that I’ve read online over the past few days have… Read more
