Today marks the 176th anniversary of the 27 June 1844 murder of Joseph and Hyrum Smith in the jail at Carthage, Illinois. To commemorate that anniversary, I share here a column that I published in the Deseret News on 29 September 2016. A principal source for the column wasRichard Lloyd Anderson’s classic 1981 book Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses: Joseph Smith’s elder brother Hyrum was clearly well regarded by his Palmyra neighbors — at least until... Read more
My wife and I were delighted just this afternoon to receive the latest massive (“oversized”) volume to emerge from Royal Skousen’s ongoing Book of Mormon critical text project: Royal Skousen, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Part Six, Spelling in the Manuscripts and Editions (Provo: The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies and Brigham Young University Studies, 2020), vi + 590 pages. Royal and his wife, Sirkku, came by to present a copy... Read more
In response to something that I posted about a year and a half ago regarding Joseph Smith, a belligerent new individual appeared on my blog quite irrelevantly denouncing the use of religion “to demean, degrade, dismiss, demonize and dehumanize our fellow human beings.” When I suggested that there was nobody on my blog — certainly including myself — who favors demeaning, degrading, dismissing, demonizing, and dehumanizing other human beings, he assured me that religious people do precisely that... Read more
I share here a passage drawn for my notes from Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018). The background to this particular quotation is that, in mid-December 1869, Elder William H. Homer was returning to his home and family in Utah from a mission in England for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. En route, he stopped overnight in Kirtland, Ohio, where he visited that... Read more
It’s Friday, so nobody should be completely surprised that, for the 414th week in a row, a new article has just appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. This one is by Professor J. Ward Moody: “Times of Reckoning and Set Times in Abraham 3” Abstract: The third chapter of Abraham considers two types of times regarding the moon, the earth, and the planets: “times of reckoning” and “set times.” A straightforward... Read more
I share here some notes from Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018), regarding the period when, his wife Caroline having finally left him in order to gather with the Saints in the Great Basin (as she had been waiting to do for several years), Martin Harris was living a relatively isolated life in the old Latter-day Saint town of Kirtland, Ohio. The main body of the... Read more
Some passages that I marked in Alister E. McGrath, A Fine-Tuned Universe: The Quest for God in Science and Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009). First, an obvious but extremely important point: An empirical scientific method will always seek to inquire about natural causes; only a nonempirical metaphysical naturalism will insist that they can always be found. (112) Next, two passages about history that I will myself need to relate, and to get... Read more
I’ve now managed to locate the conversation (so to speak) about Holocaust victims and the Latter-day Saint practice of vicarious baptisms for the dead to which I alluded in yesterday’s post. It occurred on Tracing the Tribe: The Jewish Genealogy Blog, and it commenced on 17 December 2006. My participation there will serve to illustrate the old adage “Fools rush in, where angels fear to tread.” I post this not to rekindle discussion of the question of vicarious baptism... Read more
I offer three more items from Paul McFate, 52 Good Reasons to Go to Church, Besides the Obvious Ones (Chicago: ACTA Publications, 2004) — a little book or booklet that I commend to you (though it may be hard to find). Every single one of the three has been officially board-certified as appropriate for inclusion in your Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File: Survival of Cardiac Surgery (page 55) — Surviving heart surgery depends upon... Read more
Quite a few years ago — I wish that I could find the actual discussion, but I no longer remember where or exactly when it was — I entered into an online conversation on a Jewish message board about the Latter-day Saint practice of vicarious baptism for the dead. (A controversy had recently flared about such baptisms having apparently been performed on behalf of Jewish victims of Hitler’s Holocaust.) One person, who has been monitoring whatever I do... Read more
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