In AD 632: Muhammad was dead. Now came the question of succession. The problem was that the founder of Islam left no clear instructions on this question. Some felt that he had designated Ali, his cousin and son-in-law and one of the earliest male converts to Islam, to be his successor, but most in the community, including many whose loyalty to the Prophet cannot plausibly be denied, seem to have known of no such thing. By the... Read more
Such sources as the writings of Josephus (ca. AD 37-100), the Mishnah, and the Babylonian Talmud demonstrate that Jewish writers and scholars were familiar with Jesus, and specifically with his death, his reputation as a worker of miracles, and the claim of his resurrection. They didn’t believe in his miracles or his resurrection, of course — or, to the extent that they did, they ascribed them to demonic agency — but they knew of them. Thus, they were... Read more
I share a few thematically related passages from William E. Carroll, Creation and Science: Has Science Eliminated God? (London: The Incorporated Catholic Truth Society, 2011). William Carroll is (or, anyway, was) the Aquinas Fellow in Theology and Science at Blackfriars, in the University of Oxford, and he unsurprisingly takes a very Catholic view of things. If one were to read the opening of the Book of Genesis without any reference to the history of Christian thought, it would not... Read more
So, the impatient reader is asking by now, just what are we to think of Muhammad? Was he a genuine prophet, or was he not? My answer to that is a clear and resolute “I don’t know.” Or perhaps a decisive “Yes and no.” Parley P. Pratt, who was enthusiastic in his praise of Muhammad and Islam, observed that the blessings of the priesthood were not intended to flow through the line of Ishmael, but rather through that... Read more
Sigh. A few folks have gone wild at my post about renouncing political comments here. It’s difficult to tell whether they’re being sincere or are merely feigning incomprehension — these are people who, for years, have earnestly striven to misunderstand just about everything I say and do — but, in order to avoid any misunderstanding among folks who aren’t trying to get it wrong, I offer some additional notes. They’re as clear as I know how to... Read more
A new article appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. It was written by Jared R. Stenson: “Temporal Mercies and Eternal Being: Using the Science of Time to Understand God’s Nature and Our Own” Abstract: How does God relate to time? How do we? Modern science and revelation offer distinctive and fascinating perspectives to these questions. Specifically, the physical mechanisms underlying time have doctrinal parallels, they appear to be operative at the Fall, and they correlate... Read more
Many years ago, during a meeting at Church headquarters with two members of the Twelve, the subject arose of my having delivered several papers at annual conferences of the Sunstone Foundation — a group of which some of you may still be aware. It once loomed larger on the Latter-day Saint intellectual landscape than I think it does now, and it was a place where liberal and sometimes downright “fringy” Latter-day Saints tended to congregate. Often, or so... Read more
In an entry that I posted here a few days ago, I commented that Latter-day Saint theological interactions with Muslims will be easier to the extent that we can say positive things about Muhammad, whom Muslims esteem very, very highly — or, at least, to the degree that we’re not obliged to say negative things about him. Here, I continue that discussion: Fortunately, we can say good things without cynicism or pretense. From its earliest years, leaders of... Read more
The latest installment of my bi-weekly Deseret News column went up earlier today (Thursday): “Israel may be the most studied archeological site in the world, but discoveries keep coming: Archeologists have found a temple, smaller than Solomon’s Temple, in Tel Moza, about 4 miles outside of Jerusalem.” *** A beautifully written and thoughtful little essay on living under the threat of the coronavirus in Israel/Palestine: “Covid-19 in the land where Jesus walked” ***... Read more
Sir John Polkinghorne, now in his ninetieth year, is both a Knight of the British Empire (KBE) and a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society (founded by, among others, Sir Christopher Wren and Sir Isaac Newton). Sir John was a professor of mathematical physics at the University of Cambridge until he resigned his professorial chair in order to study for the Anglican priesthood. He was ordained a priest in 1982 and, thereafter, served as the president of Queens’ College, Cambridge, from 1988 until 1996. Here is a passage from the text... Read more
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