In response to my immediately previous blog entry, entitled “David Whitmer’s June 1829 journey from Fayette to Harmony and back,” I received the following comment and question: “If you zoom in on the actor’s (who is playing David Whitmer) lower back, you can clearly see an electronic device of some sort with a bundle of wires. What is this?” Now, I wasn’t on the set for the filming of the older David Whitmer in his livery stable. So,... Read more
Here are a few more of my notes from Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2014), 10-18: In June of 1829, David Whitmer travelled from his family’s farm in Fayette, New York, to the house in Harmony, Pennsylvania, where Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery had begun the translation and dictation of the Book of Mormon. It was a distance of about 135 miles, and David traveled over the... Read more
Here a few passages that I’ve drawn from John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007): I should have cited this first passage for Mother’s Day. But here it is, now, ready for Mother’s Day 2021: A famous hadith explains Islam’s reverence for mothers: A man asked the Prophet Muhammad who was most worthy of honor, to which the Prophet responded, “Your mother.” The man... Read more
Once more, I share a couple of extracts for my notes from Jeff Wynn and Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The Growing Convergence of Science and Religion (2019). Dr. Jeffrey C. Wynn, formerly an atheist, is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a research geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS). He works at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, one of the five USGS volcano observatories in the United States. His wife,... Read more
Some critics that I observe — most of them specimens of the type of detractor who finds fault, day in and day out, with virtually everything that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does — have derived a great deal of hostile mirth from President Russell M. Nelson’s admonition that we try to retire terms like Mormon and Mormonism from active use, or, at least, that we try not to sponsor them ourselves. And they’ve really... Read more
A discussion elsewhere reminds me of a passage that I really enjoyed writing several decades ago. Although I essentially wrote the words below, they appeared in William J. Hamblin, “An Apologist for the Critics: Brent Lee Metcalfe’s Assumptions and Methodologies,” in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/1 (1994): 434-523 (specifically pages 480-481): [Brent] Metcalfe and Dan Vogel would have us believe that Joseph’s cosmology is somehow related to ideas found in Benjamin Franklin’s private unpublished... Read more
As I mentioned in a previous post (“Acts 2, with an axe to grind”), the events recounted in the second chapter of Acts take place less than two months after Easter. That’s important to keep in mind. If Peter’s speech, given on the occasion, is at all accurately reported, its content is striking. Take 2:22-24, for example: 22 “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and... Read more
It’s time, perhaps, for some additional notes drawn from a couple of the accounts gathered by Lee Nelson, Visions from Beyond the Veil (Springville, UT: Council Press, 2014): When I had said this, I could see my body on the table, shaking violently. I was transported to the most beautiful place I had ever seen, so beautiful I cannot adequately describe it. . . I heard the most beautiful music I had ever heard. Everyone was wearing... Read more
This entry draws upon John W. Welch, et al., eds. Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017), 156-164: One of the single most famous chapters in the Book of Mormon is Jacob 5, which recounts a lengthy olive tree allegory that it credits to a pre-Lehite Old World prophet, unknown to the Bible, that it identifies as Zenos. (As a matter of fact, Zenos is cited elsewhere in... Read more
Three new items have appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation since yesterday (Friday). We hope that, as you’re still somewhat under coronavirus-imposed house arrest, these might entertain and edify you. Of course, if you’re a certain kind of critic, they’ll probably just convulse you with bitterly angry rage. But that, too, will help to pass the time: Interpreter Radio Show — May 3, 2020 The 3 May 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show featured Neal... Read more
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