Matthew 4:18-22 Mark 1:16-20 Luke 5:1-11 John 1:35-51   The accounts given by Matthew and Mark of the calling of the first disciples are quite similar, whereas the narratives of Luke and John offer rather different perspectives and details.   I’m struck by the fact that the disciples are said to have responded “immediately” (εὐθέως in Matthew 4:20; εὐθὺς in Mark 1:18) to the Savior’s invitation to follow him.   Latter-day Saints are sometimes criticized for inviting people to… Read more

    The invaluable John Gee has posted a second analytic and reflective installment in his treatment of why some young people become disaffected from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints:   http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/2015/01/why-do-they-leave-ii.html   This is important reading, on an important topic, for Church leaders, parents, scholars and writers, and Mormon young people themselves.     Read more

    Unfortunately, today’s new article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture is merely yet another installment in my decades-long series of characteristically mean-spirited ad hominem attacks on all who disagree with me:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/an-exhortation-to-study-gods-two-books/     Read more

      Shortly after the abrupt end of my nearly quarter-century long editorship of the FARMS Review/Mormon Studies Review and the sudden termination of my involvement with FARMS and the Maxwell Institute, Spencer Fluhman, who succeeded me as editor, kindly invited me to contribute to a roundtable concerning the nature of “Mormon studies.”   That roundtable was published quite some time ago, and it’s now accessible online.  Here’s a link to my portion of it:   http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=2402&index=8   I… Read more

    An interesting article by Taylor Halverson in yesterday’s Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865618775/Evidences-for-the-Book-of-Mormon-In-cover-of-darkness-and-the-turning-of-the-New-Year.html   I myself wrote a holiday article about Amalickiah back in 2011:  “May your New Year begin better than Amalickiah’s!”     Read more

    “I can’t give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: Try to please everybody all the time.” Herbert Bayard Swope (d. 1958), American journalist and editor     Read more

    Those who’re fans of Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, of Philip Marlowe, and of Humphrey Bogart movies, might find this little article interesting, about the resurgence of noir fiction . . . in Cairo:   http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2014/08/20/the-case-of-the-arabic-noirs/   Thanks to Jabra Ghneim for alerting me to it.     Read more

    Lighten up!  I’m just quoting the guy!   I came across this online, but haven’t yet checked or identified its ultimate source:   Question:  “Many prominent scientists – including Darwin, Einstein, and Planck – have considered the concept of God very seriously. What are your thoughts on the concept of God and on the existence of God?” Christian Anfinsen (1972 Nobel laureate in Chemistry): “I think only an idiot can be an atheist. We must admit that there exists an… Read more

    A few days ago, I posted a blog entry and a link under the title of “Catholic Higher Education in Ruins.”   We Latter-day Saints shouldn’t, though, feel complacent, let alone smugly superior.   Some of you may have missed this bracing article by my friend and BYU colleague Ralph Hancock that appeared in the March 2014 issue of the superb non-LDS magazine on faith and public affairs First Things:   http://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/keeping-faith-in-provo     Read more

    In Kurt Aland’s Synopsis of the Four Gospels, which I’m using as the structural basis (and the Greek text) for my ongoing commentary, Section 19 (Matthew and Luke’s genealogies of Jesus) is equivalent to Section 6, so, for discussion of those name-lists, I simply call your attention to my previous entry:   http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2014/12/16095.html     Let’s move on now to a couple of comments — many, many more could be offered! — on the temptation in the wilderness.   Matthew… Read more