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
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
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
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
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
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
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
A few folks out there in my audience continue to be deeply interested in my personal finances and, it seems, rather disturbed by my travels. So, yet again, I’m going to endeavor to set their minds at ease, even though it’s really none of their business: My wife and I like to travel. We love history and the humanities. And, accordingly, we’ve very deliberately configured our finances in order to be able to travel. We’ve set aside... Read more
A new short-video feature has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. Please watch it. And, if you like it, please share it with others: “Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 18: Is Eyewitness Testimony Reliable?” Eyewitness testimony is used around the world in courts of law. But there’s a movement today that calls into question the reliability of eyewitness testimony. Is it true that eyewitness testimony is unreliable—and thus invalid? This is... Read more
This article, written by Tad Walch for the Deseret News, provides extremely important background material for reflecting upon the controversial recent sexual abuse case in Arizona that has drawn a great deal of hostile attention to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: “Should a member of the clergy report sex abuse of the penitent? A look inside the priest-penitent privilege” Moreover, because I think the matter so important, and because accurate understanding of it... Read more
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