Another help from Taylor Halverson for readers and teachers of the scriptures:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/james-exhort-and-encourage/     Read more

    This week’s Thursday Deseret News column hath appeared:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865640156/What-it-feels-like-to-be-a-Mormon-apologist.html   Thus far, the comments are uniformly negative and — dare I say it? — uniformly misunderstand the nature of Mormon apologetics (just as the column says).   Oh well.  One does what one can.     Read more

    http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/elder-cook-faith-values-quest-knowledge     Read more

    https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/comfortably-alone-universe   It may, of course, be the case that God has placed us, and perhaps all other mortal beings who may be out there, in some kind of cosmic quarantine, lest we contaminate each other or cheat on the test.     Read more

    Here’s an unexpected tale, kindly brought to my attention by Jabra Ghneim:   http://blog.palestine-studies.org/2015/10/28/the-untold-story-of-palestinians-who-learned-hebrew/     Read more

    The response of the men who were introduced into polygamy between 1841 and 1846 was anything but enthusiastic. The same was true of the women who were offered the chance of becoming plural wives. Apart from the fact that the new system collided with moral assumptions they had grown up with, there were practical difficulties that made polygamy less attractive. For the men to support additional wives was seldom easy. Leonard Arrington and Davis Bitton     Read more

    Is anybody else out there — especially any of the men — as uncomfortable with this as I am?   http://biblicalgenderroles.com/2015/10/03/7-ways-to-discipline-your-wife/   And I’m supposed to be an aging, oppressive, patriarchal Mormon troglodyte.   In fairness, though, I must say that there’s a distinct possibility that the site is a fraud — designed to mock (and perhaps to discredit) conservative Christianity:   http://unsettledchristianity.com/a-word-of-caution-on-biblical-gender-roles/     Read more

    Matthew 22:34-40 Mark 12:28-34 Compare Matthew 22:46; Luke 10:25-28; 20:40   It’s significant that, according to Jesus, the “first” or “greatest” commandment isn’t to affirm the ontological unity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, “neither confusing the persons nor dividing the substance,” but to love God.  And the second isn’t, say, to confess the hypostatic union of divinity and humanity in an uncreated Son who eternally proceeds from the Father, nor even to get the relationship of faith... Read more

    A critic of the Church, writing last night, has faulted a list of scholars formerly associated with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies and/or the subsequent Maxwell Institute because they’re all Latter-day Saints.   It’s not the first time I’ve seen such a thing.  Nor even the hundredth time.  This dismissal, on this basis, is very common among a certain type of critic.   So I’m going to cut to the chase.  Arguments — and I... Read more

    Matthew 22:23-33 Mark 12:18-27 Luke 20:27-40 Compare Matthew 22:46; Mark 12:34   The point of the exchange recorded in these passages is obviously not about marriage as such.  Rather, the Sadducees were using a highly unusual story (which happened to involve marriage) in order to demonstrate, by their lights, the absurdity of the idea of resurrection.   Still, critics of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have sometimes used this exchange, and specifically Christ’s comments in... Read more