Into Thin Air?

Last updated on: September 2, 2022 at 7:15 pm By Dan Peterson

I don’t know what to say about these new takes on the alleged incident of allegedly uncontested, unimpeded racist insults allegedly hurled by a non-student at a women’s volleyball game between Brigham Young University and Duke University. I wasn’t there. I assumed initially that the incident really occurred as described. And maybe it did. These articles do suggest, however, that those who immediately (and quite predictably) jumped from the specific alleged case to full-throated denunciations of BYU more... Read more

Controversies Past and Present

Last updated on: September 2, 2022 at 7:50 pm By Dan Peterson

I should call your attention to the 2022 annual meeting of IANDS — the International Association for Near-Death Studies — which begins today, 31 August, and runs through 4 September. It is convening in-person in the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, at 255 South West Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah, and will apparently also be available on-line. Other than saying the other day that I’m perfectly happy to see the jerk who evidently yelled racist... Read more

Thinking, from Dover back to Amsterdam

Last updated on: September 1, 2022 at 12:51 am By Dan Peterson

These three items went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Come, Follow Me — Old Testament Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 37, September 5–11: Isaiah 1–12 — “God Is My Salvation” Another note for teachers and students of the “Come, Follow Me” curriculum, kindly contributed by Jonn Claybaugh. Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 37: “God Is My Salvation”: Isaiah 1–12 The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 37, “God Is... Read more

Canterbury Tales

Last updated on: September 1, 2022 at 12:38 am By Dan Peterson

We landed very early this morning at Dover, with a clear view from the decks of the docked ship of both Dover Castle and the area’s famous white cliffs. But we actually spent the day walking around Canterbury, the heart of historic English Christianity, which is located fairly closely nearby. Peter Fagg, the Latter-day Saint tour guide who took us about Liverpool and the Ribble Valley area on Saturday, met us in Dover and led us around Canterbury,... Read more

“Why the ‘Witnesses’ Project?”

Last updated on: September 1, 2022 at 12:45 am By Dan Peterson

Obviously feeling increasingly desperate, with this one the Interpreter Foundation has reached a new low: “Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 19: Why the Witnesses Project?” What is the purpose of the Interpreter Foundation’s Witnesses Project, and all the related media: the Witnesses feature film, the Undaunted companion docudrama, and the Insights videos? This is the nineteenth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses film project. This series of mini-films is being released... Read more

Sacred and Anti-Sacred Sites

Last updated on: September 1, 2022 at 12:28 am By Dan Peterson

We landed at Liverpool this morning, where we were met by Peter Fagg, who is, to my knowledge, far and away the premiere Latter-day Saint tour guide in the United Kingdom. First, we walked about the dock area in Liverpool where the first missionaries to England, led by Elder Heber C. Kimball of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, arrived in 1837. This is also the port from which most British emigrants to America left in the nineteenth... Read more

County Cork, and Something That, Sadly, Didn’t Bob Like One

Last updated on: August 28, 2022 at 10:22 am By Dan Peterson

Two new items went up earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “There Is No Beauty That We Should Desire Him,” written by Loren Blake Spendlove Abstract: In two separate passages Isaiah appears to describe the mortal Messiah as lacking in physical beauty and perhaps as even having some type of physical disfigurement (see Isaiah 52:14 and 53:2–4). On the contrary, Joseph, David, Esther, and Judith — portrayed in the biblical text as physical saviors... Read more

A city reborn and a doomed ship

Last updated on: August 25, 2022 at 4:13 pm By Dan Peterson

I think that it’s perhaps time to call your attention again to some recent products of the Interpreter Foundation. Here are three of them: Undaunted Witnesses of the Book of Mormon Explore the history of the Three Witnesses as well as other witnesses of the Book of Mormon with Camrey Bagley Fox, Emma Smith in the movie Witnesses, and Dr. Gerrit Dirkmaat, Associate Professor of Church History at BYU, and other scholars. Were the eleven official witnesses—twelve if... Read more

“Ten Ways the AP Abuse Article Misrepresented the Evidence,” and Other Matters

Last updated on: August 25, 2022 at 3:31 pm By Dan Peterson

I failed to notice four new items that recently appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. So here they are: Nibley Lectures: Time Vindicates the Prophets — “Prophets and Philosophers” Between 7 March 1954 and 17 October 1954, Hugh Nibley delivered a series of thirty weekly lectures on KSL Radio that were also published as pamphlets. The series, called “Time Vindicates the Prophets,” was given in answer to those who were challenging the right of... Read more

“O ye’ll tak’ the high road, and I’ll tak’ the low road”

Last updated on: August 23, 2022 at 3:42 pm By Dan Peterson

I’m not at all sure why, but, although I’ve visited Scotland on several previous occasions (including that wonderful week in my early twenties at St. Andrews) and although I have an unaccountable affection for the Celtic cross, this is the first time that I’ve really felt the pull of my Scots ancestral line. I’ve long had a deep attachment to Norway, and I’m an Anglophile already, without regard to family heritage. I’m afraid that I’m still working on... Read more