This ought to settle the matter: “Church leaders ask Latter-day Saints in Utah to wear face masks to fight COVID-19: Church’s Utah Area Presidency says ‘please join with us now in common purpose for the blessing and benefit of all’” Please keep in mind that, according to a fair number of perhaps not altogether friendly observers, we’re Morgbots — which is to say that we’re mind-numbed robots, thoughtless and ignorant and unreflecting automatons. When our leaders... Read more
Paul Johnson well summarizes the catastrophic changes in the fortunes of world Jewry: In the short-term perspective of the second century AD, the Jews appeared to have been a powerful national and religious group which had courted ruin, and achieved it. During most of the first century, the Jews not only constituted a tenth of the empire, and a much higher proportion in certain big cities, but were expanding. They had the transcendent new idea of the age:... Read more
The last Jewish stronghold was the spectacular mountain fortress-palace of Masada, 1300 feet above the barren wilderness of the Dead Sea. It’s still possible today to stand upon Masada and see the outlines of the siege walls left behind by Flavius Silva and his Tenth Legion in the arid, hot soil. The Romans must have wondered just who was besieging whom. (Occasionally, the Jewish garrison on Masada would open up one of the cisterns of the fortress and... Read more
There hasn’t been a whole lot of really encouraging news about the coronavirus pandemic that has transformed our lives and ruined our economy and killed far too many, but here’s some potentially great news: “Area Seventy, Pfizer Head of Anti-Viral, Has Good News on COVID-19” In the meanwhile, these two items were published on 7 July: “Utah Hospital Association calls for statewide mask rule; Herbert expected to make decision this week” “Gov. Herbert considering... Read more
Two new pieces appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Missing Words: King James Bible Italics, the Translation of the Book of Mormon, and Joseph Smith as an Unlearned Reader” Stan Spencer Abstract: Chapters from Isaiah quoted in the Book of Mormon use the King James Bible as a base text yet frequently vary from it in minor ways, particularly in the earliest text of the Book of Mormon. A disproportionate number of... Read more
In Acts 17:31, Luke writes of God the Father that he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. The point that I want to stress from that verse is that, according to Luke — and, really, according to reason and common sense– God’s resurrection of... Read more
Among other things, Jerry D. Grover, Jr., Geology of the Book of Mormon (2014) supplies a good general background to the relevant elements of seismology and volcanology before entering into a specific discussion of the individual volcanoes that are located in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. And, once again, he offers some cautions: It is important to note that the historical volcanic eruption data will invariably be incomplete. It is clear after a review of the literature that the... Read more
The death of Herod the Great marked the end of the last period of stable Jewish rule in Palestine until, in the middle of the twentieth century, David Ben Gurion proclaimed the state of Israel. True, Herod had sons, but they proved unworthy and incompetent. Archelaus, to whom Herod left Judea, was deposed by the Romans in 6 A.D. For several decades afterwards, the province of Judea and its major city, Jerusalem, were ruled directly by a Roman... Read more
“South Americans may have traveled to Polynesia 800 years ago: DNA suggests people from the Americas had a role in the peopling of Pacific islands” *** But now, back to the most pressingly practical contemporary scientific, social, economic, and political issue, an issue that is affecting almost all of the others: “European Union says it will bar Americans when bloc reopens to international visitors July 1” “One graphic explains why Americans are facing... Read more
In 63 B.C., Judea became a client-state of the new superpower, Rome. Thus, as the Christian era dawned, the vast majority of the Jewish population—in Palestine and in other centers such as Alexandria—lived in areas under Roman control. At first, the Romans didn’t rule Palestine directly. They preferred rule through locals, such as the infamous Herod. Herod saw himself as something of a reformer, dragging a backward people kicking and screaming into the modern age. He sought to... Read more
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