http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-role-of-blacks-in-mormon-faith-topic-of-conference-2015-10     Read more

    Immediately after the closing session of the 2015 conference of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology early this evening, my wife and I hurtled up to Salt Lake City for the Utah Opera’s very good production of Puccini’s Tosca.   One of the most famous pieces from that opera is the aria “Vissi d’arte.”   Tosca, the title character, is an operatic diva who is faced with a horrible moral dilemma that has been cruelly and unjustly forced upon... Read more

    I have a guilty little secret.   And I feel especially embarrassed by it after hearing a very productive scholar, for whose output I have great respect, share the fact that he very seldom reads fiction.   My guilty little secret is that I like murder mysteries.   Very often, my wife and I will unwind late at night by watching a British mystery, or, lately, a Spanish or Australian one.   And we read mysteries, too.  ... Read more

    Kevin Taylor kindly brought this to my attention, and I thought that some of you might find it of interest:   http://www.amazon.com/Baptist-Preacher-Mormon-Teacher/dp/1462117023/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid&sr     Read more

    The invaluable Robert Boylan calls attention to a really interesting debate:   http://scripturalmormonism.blogspot.ie/2015/10/did-jesus-exist-debate.html   I’ve briefly addressed this question of the existence of Jesus in at least three Deseret News columns (here, here, and here).  I readily admit that I regard the claim that Jesus never lived at all as eccentric and as largely driven by ideology and by the internet rather than by solid academic argument.  To deny that Jesus was the divine, redeeming Son of God... Read more

    You may well be familiar with her, but I wasn’t:   https://cosmosmagazine.com/mathematics/emilie-du-chatelet-woman-science-forgot   I can easily imagine a Hollywood movie made about her, someday.  After all, her story contains two of the features that Hollywood values most, sex and female beauty, and it readily lends itself to the film industry’s overwhelming ideological agenda.   As a title, how about A Beautiful Mind?     Read more

    One of the many enjoyable benefits of academic conferences is spending time with old friends.  Sometimes, even when they’re at your own institution, you just don’t see them much.   Yesterday, during a break in the 2015 meetings of the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, I had lunch with Ralph Hancock and Noel Reynolds, the latter of whom had given a fine plenary paper the night before on the literary structure of 1 Nephi and 2 Nephi.... Read more

    Iran’s intervention in the Syrian civil war is beginning to cost significant Iranian casualties:   http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/09/politics/iran-general-killed-syria-isis/index.html   And Russia, too, may soon begin to pay a toll.   It’s difficult to know exactly for whom we should be rooting in the new Russo-Iranian- and ISIS-dominated Levant and Mesopotamia.     Read more

    “I was acquainted with Joseph Smith for years,” remarked John Taylor, the English Methodist convert who was seriously wounded in Carthage Jail when Joseph was assassinated and who ultimately became the third president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have traveled with him; I have been with him in private and in public; I have associated with him in councils of all kinds; I have listened hundreds of times to his public teachings, and... Read more

    Some of you may be aware that the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions will be held in Salt Lake City next week, at the Salt Palace Convention Center.   I was a quite active participant in the Parliament when it was held in Melbourne in 2009.  This go-around, my public participation will be considerably more modest, but I’ll be there.   Specifically, I’ll be joining with Drs. Brian Birch of Utah Valley University and Blair Van Dyke... Read more