More Linguistic Evidence Suggesting that Joseph Smith Didn’t Write the Book of Mormon

Last updated on: January 10, 2022 at 8:27 pm By Dan Peterson

*** A new article appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “A Comparison of the Book of Mormon’s Subordinate That Usage,” by Stanford Carmack Abstract: This paper compares the Book of Mormon’s subordinate that usage with what is found in the King James Bible, pseudo-archaic writings, and the greater textual record. In this linguistic domain, the Book of Mormon manifests as thoroughly archaic, and it surpasses all known pseudo-archaic writings in breadth and depth of... Read more

Inventing History

Last updated on: January 10, 2022 at 8:21 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Exactly a year ago today, a group of patriotic tourists who hoped only to make America great again decided to visit the seat of our federal government, the Capitol of the United States, in order to look around and, in some cases, to express their concern about the massive election fraud that was about to hand the White House over to one Joseph R. Biden, a Communist who had actually lost by a landslide to the... Read more

From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days

Last updated on: January 10, 2022 at 8:18 pm By Dan Peterson

*** I’m really excited to see the brand new book by Aaron P. Schade and Matthew L. Bowen, The Book of Moses: From the Ancient of Days to the Latter Days. Keep your eye out for it. Aaron, who earned his doctorate in Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations from the University of Toronto, taught at the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University for a number of years before joining the Department of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young... Read more

Man Mountain Dean

Last updated on: January 10, 2022 at 8:11 pm By Dan Peterson

*** As I was watching the CBS 60 Minutes special about the “Ritchie Boys” — please see my previous post — my attention was caught at about the 11:30 mark by a photograph of a former professional wrestler whose name was given as Frank Leavitt (1891-1953). He was a veteran of World War II and apparently an instructor at Camp Ritchie. (He was already fifty years old by the time of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor,... Read more

A “Ritchie Boy”

Last updated on: January 4, 2022 at 3:17 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Last night, we watched a special piece from the CBS 60 Minutes program that was first broadcast on Sunday evening. It was entitled The Ritchie Boys. It focused on the former Camp Ritchie, Maryland, an elite military intelligence school during the Second World War, and on four very old survivors from among those who were trained there. All four of them, as it happened, were German refugee Jews, whose language skills and cultural background made them... Read more

Linking the Past with the Present

Last updated on: January 11, 2022 at 8:04 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Just three days into 2022 and you’ve already run out of good things to read? That’s not our fault. Have a look at the books that the Interpreter Foundation has published this far: Books And here are some articles from a past but still relatively recent number of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “The Rise and Fall of Korihor, a Zoramite: A New Look at the Failed Mission of... Read more

A very satisfying defeat

Last updated on: January 6, 2022 at 11:20 pm By Dan Peterson

*** It was a heart-breaker. The University of Utah lost in the last twelve seconds of the Rose Bowl game, which was just completed, after having led Ohio State almost all the way. But they can be proud. No embarrassment whatsoever. Not even remotely. They played very well. And, had the game ended just a bit earlier, or perhaps if it had gone just a bit longer, they would have won. They have definitely established themselves as... Read more

Go Utes!

Last updated on: January 1, 2022 at 8:54 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Here are a couple of nice retrospectives that I’ve enjoyed: “Read the Church News staff’s favorite stories from 2021” “Meridian’s 15 Most-Read Articles in 2021” Have a look at the links. You might find something in them that you missed and that, it turns out, you really like. And some of you will probably watch the Rose Bowl game today. (Did you know that it’s today? Did you know that the University of... Read more

“If God Does Not Exist, Is Everything Permitted?”

Last updated on: January 11, 2022 at 8:14 pm By Dan Peterson

*** A new essay appeared at noon today, Utah time, in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. I regret to say that I wrote it. I don’t regret my authorship of the essay because I disagree with anything that it contains, but because I don’t like the fact that this is the second Interpreter essay in a row by, well, me. I hadn’t intended to author this year’s Christmas message, which was published last... Read more

Starting Over Again, New Year or Not

Last updated on: January 11, 2022 at 8:27 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Here’s a New Year’s article that I wrote for Meridian Magazine: “A Lesson from Two Great Leaders on Beginning Again When It Feels Like You’ve Failed” Here, perhaps relevant to my article above, are recent stories about a pair of Latter-day Saints that you might enjoy: “BYU’s Mikayla Colohan Named Country’s Top College Soccer Player Following Team’s ‘Magical’ Season” “Scott O’Neil’s next mountain: The NBA executive recently stepped away from the highest echelons... Read more