I spoke last night to a surprisingly large audience in little Panguitch, Utah. For various reasons, including yesterday’s very cold and snowy weather, I hadn’t expected many people to show up. But they did. I had a good time, and I hope that maybe at least a few of them did, as well. (One of the treats of the evening was to see Laura Behling Hamblin again. She was married to my sadly departed friend and longtime partner... Read more
*** I’ve just agreed to participate on the Interpreter Radio Show a week from today, on the evening of Sunday, 27 March 2022. Please don’t let that dissuade you from listening in. I won’t be doing all the talking, after all, and the other participants — Steve Densley, Mark Johnson, and Matt Bowen — are really quite good. The show starts just after the seven o’clock news. *** Cassandra Hedelius, a very incisive Latter-day Saint... Read more
*** I recently sat down for a “Come, Follow Me” podcast with Scot and Maurine Proctor. It’s now up online, and a few of you might perhaps find it more or less endurable: “Come Follow Me- Old Testament Podcast #13-God Remembers His Covenant to a Thousand Generations, Exodus 1-6” Tomorrow night — Sunday, 20 March 2022, at 6:00 PM — I’ll be speaking at a Latter-day Saint chapel in Panguitch, Utah. The address is 550... Read more
*** ““The Wind and the Fire to Be My Chariot”: The Anachronism that Wasn’t” Abstract: In the Book of Abraham, God tells Abraham in Haran, “I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot” (Abraham 2:7). While this initially might appear to be an anachronism, as the chariot is normally thought to have been introduced later, archaeological finds of chariots at the site of Harran predate Abraham by hundreds of years. “Interpreting Interpreter: Not-Actually-Anachronistic Chariots” This... Read more
*** Douglas Axe received superb training in engineering and molecular biology. After completing undergraduate work at the University of California at Berkeley and earning his doctorate at Caltech (the California Institute of Technology), he went on to post-doctoral work and then to a research scientist position, both at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. I’ll be extracting some notes from his book Undeniable: How Biology Confirms Our Intuition That Life Is Designed (New York:... Read more
*** Some time ago, I read an interesting book entitled The Lost World of Genesis One: Ancient Cosmology and the Origins Debate (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2009). In it, the author, John H. Walton, an Evangelical professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College, just outside of Chicago, argues that Genesis 1 isn’t talking about the material origins of life and the cosmos but about their “functional” origin as the celestial temple. I don’t even... Read more
*** I received an email yesterday afternoon from a former neighbor of mine from long ago, back when I was an unmarried BYU undergraduate. He had observed that all of the temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints bear an inscription, typically over the main entrance, announcing “Holiness to the Lord / The House of the Lord,” or whatever the equivalent might be in the predominant language of the area where the temple... Read more
*** Interpreter Radio Show — February 13, 2022 In the first hour of the 13 February 2022 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Terry Hutchinson and John Gee discussed a new book on the 1920 edition of the Book of Mormon as well as the Interpreter Foundation’s recent Ultimate Egypt tour. You can listen to or download the 13 February 2022 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show at the link included in the title immediately above. It... Read more
*** We had dinner with a long-time friend of mine — he was at our wedding in the Salt Lake Temple many years ago — tonight in Cedar City, Utah. We ate, by his choice, at Centro Woodfired Pizzeria. We’ve eaten there several times before. It’s very good. (I simply like to give compliments where compliments are due.) *** Some notes from John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City and... Read more
*** On Saturday night, my wife and I attended a very strong performance of Puccini’s Tosca by the Utah Opera. We thoroughly enjoyed it; there is little mystery about the fact that Tosca ranks among the most popular works in the standard operatic repertoire. Unexpectedly, though, just prior to the overture, a spokesman came out onto the stage in front of the curtain. I believe that it was Christopher McBeth, Utah Opera’s artistic director. Our hearts sank... Read more
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