Two new articles went up today on the perpetually unchanging website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of them is “Death by Chocolate: Considering the Wine Imbibed by the Lamanite Guards,” written by Noel Hudson
Abstract: This article examines two instances in the Book of Mormon in which captives escape through the negligence of drunken and sleeping guards. It suggests that details about the wine used to intoxicate the Lamanite guards in the city of Gid provide support for a candidate consumable, which, despite the impression the title may give, is not a piece of triple-chocolate cake, but is in fact an alcoholic drink brewed using cacao. The article briefly reviews the history of chocolate/cacao as it touches upon liberating captives from bondage and the use of deceptive practices in times of warfare. It briefly discusses the possibility of a Lamanite intelligence network driving some of the political events during the Lamanite wars narrated in the book of Alma.
The second of the articles is “Interpreting Interpreter: Debilitated by Chocolate,” written by Kyler Rasmussen:
This post is a summary of the article “Death by Chocolate: Considering the Wine Imbibed by the Lamanite Guards” by Noel Hudson in Volume 66 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.
A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/A2zYhXthAZc.
The Takeaway: Hudson argues that the substance used to inebriate Lamanite guards in the Book of Mormon may have been an alcoholic beverage made from cacao beans, one that is mild when made with mature beans, but that becomes near-toxic when made with green cacao. Such could explain how the guards could have been so easily tricked—and so readily incapacitated—by a simple offer of wine.
Having served my mission in Switzerland, where I failed miserably in my quest to try every kind of Swiss chocolate (and, for that matter, every variety of cheese produced in the country), I found these articles of special and particular interest. I can think of far worse ways to die than by some form or other of chocolate. How did anybody enjoy life before Columbus and the arrival of cacao into Europe? Would there be any real point to a life without it? Once in a while, I run into somebody who claims to dislike chocolate. I regard that as a serious personality defect or a moral flaw. It’s very much in the ballpark with disliking Mexican food.
Very occasionally, the good folks over at the Peterson Obsession Board attack people other than Y’r Humble Servant. For instance, although he doesn’t receive even five percent of the gentle ministrations that I do, my friend Louis Midgley is sometimes an object of their attention, which is always given with the same kindness and charity that they show to me. Once in a while, though, they even look beyond the Latter-day Saint community for people on whom to bestow their blessings.
A recent example is illustrative: Dr. James Dobson, for many years a very prominent Evangelical writer, lecturer, and radio personality who focused on issues relating to families and parenting, passed away yesterday, 21 August 2025, at the age of 89. Years ago, I listened to portions of his radio program a few times. I never really followed him much, and I hadn’t heard him or his name for a long time, but what I had heard from him seemed to me both reasonable and congenial. It was certainly always expressed in kind and calm terms.
Here is an article about his passing that appeared yesterday evening in Christianity Today: “Died: James Dobson, Who Taught Evangelicals to Focus on Family: The child psychologist answered hundreds of thousands of parenting questions and urged Christians to fight in America’s “civil war of values.””
I think it instructive to compare the tenor of that article with the announcement of James Dobson’s death — made by one of my own chief critics there, the pseudonymous poster who styles himself something like Dumb-Dud — over at the Obsession Board. Even though he wasn’t a Latter-day Saint, Dumb-Dud writes, Dr. Dobson was a principal figure
in creating and fueling the awful culture wars that Mormonism has embraced along with much of Evangelical Christianity.
Progress is made through the death of monsters like this. I am hopeful that the LDS church may one day cut its ties with the disgusting bigotry that men like him and his organization promoted.
Good riddance. And if there is a hell, hopefully Dobson is enjoying the fruits of his labor.
Dumb-Dud apparently disapproves of strife and of anything that savors, even remotely, of moral judgmentalism.
It’s so common as scarcely to draw attention but, at least here in Utah County, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints very actively supports regular Red Cross blood drives — and that fact is reflected in the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™. While I was serving as a bishop for a singles ward adjacent to Utah Valley University, for instance, we made a big deal of the annual stake blood drive and our ward always led the stake in donations. I think of this because I’ve just received email notice that my own home stake will be participating in such a drive on Friday, 5 September 2025. Alas, though, I am apparently ineligible to donate blood myself, since I contracted hepatitis in Egypt many years ago. I’m tainted.
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