“This means something. This is important.”

Last updated on: July 20, 2021 at 9:29 pm By Dan Peterson

*** Here, for your entertainment and edification, are three new items that went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31 “The Power of Godliness” D&C 84 The Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Doctrine and Covenants Lesson 31, “The Power of Godliness” on D&C 84, featured Kris Fredrickson and Martin Tanner. This roundtable was extracted from the 20 June 2021 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show. (The complete program may be... Read more

Boise, Soda Springs, Kaysville, and Mt. Pleasant, it’s your turn!

Last updated on: July 20, 2021 at 12:12 am By Dan Peterson

*** The number of theaters in which Witnesses is appearing is slowly but unmistakably going down. This is inevitable. It happened to not only to Titanic and Gone with the Wind and Citizen Kane and Avatar, in their day, but even to Ishtar, Heaven’s Gate, and Mars Needs Moms. However, I’m happy to report that the film is still screening or available for showings in a number of places — mostly, but not quite entirely, in... Read more

“Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement”

Last updated on: September 3, 2021 at 11:45 pm By Dan Peterson

*** A new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, this one by Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen: “Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement” Abstract: The authors begin by highlighting the importance of Book of Moses research that has discovered plausible findings for its historicity, rendering it at least reasonable to give the benefit of the doubt to sacred premises —... Read more

Seven for This Next Week

Last updated on: September 4, 2021 at 3:13 pm By Dan Peterson

*** It’s been a long day, and I’m tired. So I thought that I would simply share some links from a prior issue of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship in case you missed them or need to be reminded of them Louis C. Midgley, “Marjorie Newton’s Account of the Faith of the Māori Saints: A Critical Appraisal” Abstract: Marjorie Newton’s Mormon and Maori is a version of her 1998 thesis in which she rejects key... Read more

An unexpected experience with family history

Last updated on: July 17, 2021 at 9:57 pm By Dan Peterson

*** This item went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Book of Moses Essays #64: Moses Witnesses the Fall: (Moses 4): The False Apron and the Tree of Death and Rebirth (Moses 4:13) *** Today was an exceptionally satisfying day, something that I had definitely not anticipated. One of my early memories goes back to just days before a Christmas nearly sixty-one years ago. My Aunt Nellie’s husband, Ernest A.... Read more

Retracing my father’s early footsteps

Last updated on: September 9, 2021 at 12:14 am By Dan Peterson

[A recurring technical problem at Patheos has once again blocked my ability to post images here. I’ll share the appropriate photographs when and if I’m able.] After I finished an article that was overdue and sent it off this morning, we headed up the road from Devils Lake to Rugby, North Dakota. A pillar there proclaims Rugby to be the geographical center of North America. One of my earliest memories — I think — is of my... Read more

On the Book of Mormon and the Goodness of God

Last updated on: September 17, 2021 at 8:06 pm By Dan Peterson

*** The newest article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship was written by Noel B. Reynolds and appeared today (Friday): “The Goodness of God and His Children as a Fundamental Theological Concept in the Book of Mormon” Abstract: The phrase goodness of God does occur occasionally in the Hebrew Bible but has not been considered by Old Testament scholars to be an independent principle in Israelite theology. Rather, it has been interpreted as just another way of talking about God’s... Read more

“Them boys was here alright!”

Last updated on: September 16, 2021 at 10:19 pm By Dan Peterson

*** In a 16 May 1767 letter to Étienne Noël Damilaville, the French writer Voltaire (1694-1778) said “Je n’ai jamais fait qu’une seule prière à Dieu, une très courte «Ô seigneur, rendez mes ennemis ridicules». Et Dieu l’a accordé.” (“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.”) Some of the things that I’ve read online over the past few days have... Read more

Anybody out there near Winchester, Virginia?

Last updated on: September 12, 2021 at 10:03 pm By Dan Peterson

*** For those of you within striking distance of northern Virginia (including parts of West Virginia and Maryland and even the area around Washington DC, and even perhaps south central Pennsylvania), Jason F. Wright has organized a special showing of the Interpreter Foundation’s film Witnesses this coming Monday, 19 July 2021, at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Winchester. Family Night! Here is a link to the theater’s announcement of the screening: “A Faith-Based Drama 200 Years... Read more

“Where Much is Given, Much is Required”

Last updated on: September 20, 2021 at 8:41 pm By Dan Peterson

*** A group of us met together last night to discuss the series of lectures that we intend to put on leading up to the Interpreter Foundation’s November tour of Egypt. More information on the lecture series will be forthcoming. We’re hoping to do occasional Interpreter tours to various significant locations. We’ll see how this one goes. Tonight, a different group of us met to discuss distribution options (including, but not limited to, possible broadcasting) for... Read more