Very recently, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issued three new sets of official resources to help Church members understand and answer their own questions and those of others on their respective topics. These three are focused on: Church Financial Administration Temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Religion vs. Violence There is much in these materials to learn and to ponder, and I think that members of the Church and the Church itself... Read more
Two new articles have just appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: The first of the two is “The Bands of Death, the Chains of Hell, and the Seed Motif,” written by Noel Hudson, Abstract: This article continues a discussion of the imagery, words, and phrases that make up a specific leitmotif, called the seed motif. Two instances of the seed motif found in Alma are discussed as a seemingly intentional diptych in which one narrative reflects... Read more
Here are two further sets of notes from John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book, 1992): “Nephi’s Bows and Arrows,” by William J. Hamblin (41-44) “I, Nephi, did make out of wood a bow, and out of a straight stick, an arrow.” (1 Nephi 16:23) “The symbolic message of the broken bow, first detected by Alan Goff, was highlighted in the March 1984 issue of the F.A.R.M.S.... Read more
We attended a matinee performance on Wednesday afternoon of the play Giant, which stars John Lithgow as the writer Roald Dahl. Running at the Harold Pinter Theatre, Giant focuses on issues of anti-Semitism and on Dahl’s fierce criticism of Israeli military violence against civilians in Beirut, which actually did engulf him in criticism in 1983 and which seem exceptionally timely in 2025. The play also stars Elliot Levey and Rachael Stirling (who, by the way, is the daughter of... Read more
It was odd to wake up this morning and to recognize nobody at breakfast. “Empty chairs and empty tables.” Our group were already dispersed by about 7 AM, but my wife and I chose to sleep in. However, we ourselves moved from the group hotel, which is located almost directly adjacent to the Gloucester Road Station of the Underground, to a hotel over near Marble Arch. We can stay in this one on points, which means that, in a... Read more
We were up early this morning for a brief visit to Winchester Cathedral, where Jane Austen is buried. Then we drove to Chawton, where Jane lived her last eight years. We walked over to Chawton House, one of the estates that belonged to her brother — that’s a slightly strange and complicated story, including his changing his surname from Austen to Knight — and saw there the graves of her mother and her sister, as well as a small... Read more
We attended church at the Hyde Park Chapel on Exhibition Road this morning. What a marvelous location! It’s very near to the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum, Royal Albert Hall, and the Albert Memorial. Every time I’ve attended sacrament meeting at Hyde Park, I’ve run into interesting people. One significant occasion was in 2012, which was probably the worst year of my life thus far. My parents were already gone by that time,... Read more
Yesterday, we did a walking tour in Southwark that focused on the dark and impoverished side of greater London in the nineteenth century. This morning, we walked through the Mayfair district, one of the most expensive areas in the world. (It’s also apparently the most expensive item in the London version of Monopoly.). Mayfair is a section of the City of Westminster, in Central London. Part of the West End, it lies between Oxford Street on the north, Regent... Read more
In the morning, we did a walking tour in the borough of Southwark, which lies at the south end of London Bridge. It’s where Shakespeare’s famous Globe Theatre stood in Southwark. But our focus was on the dark underside of the Victorian city, in which conditions for the poor were truly miserable. We had a local guide named Sue, because Peter Fagg was unable to be with us today. I wish that he had been, because, if I’m not... Read more
This new item has now gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: The Temple: Plates, Patterns, & Patriarchs: “From Jared to Jacob: The Motif of Divine Ascensus and Descensus in Genesis, the Book of Moses, and the Enochic Tradition,” written by Matthew L. Bowen and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. We left Cardiff this morning to drive to Oxford. En route, Peter Fagg shared some passages from Dylan Thomas’s 1954 BBC radio play Under Milk Wood, an interesting portrayal... Read more
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