I liked Charles Kurzman’s book The Missing Martyrs: Why There Are So Few Muslim Terrorists (Oxford: 2011) very much, and I think it an enormously important contribution. Here’s a passage that hit me personally, describing my own personal experience quite well: Many of us who chose to study Islamic subjects prior to 2001 find it somewhat disconcerting that our field is suddenly in demand. The more that non-Muslims fear Islam, the more that security threats are hyped, the... Read more
I’ve experienced just a bit of pushback since suggesting, a few days ago, that the design of the forthcoming Dubai United Arab Emirates Temple should, ideally, draw on the rich artistic and architectural heritage of the Islamic world in which it will sit. (See my “Designing a Temple for Dubai.”) I had thought that what I said was merely consistent with President Russell M. Nelson’s explanation in his General Conference announcement of eight new temples, including Dubai’s, that... Read more
I’ll share a passage here from Jeff Wynn and Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The Growing Convergence of Science and Religion (2019). Dr. Jeffrey C. Wynn, a self-described “recovering atheist” and convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, is a research geophysicist with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) who is currently based at the Cascades Volcano Observatory in Vancouver, Washington, one of the five USGS volcano observatories in the United States. His wife, Louise Wynn, is... Read more
Newly posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: In God’s Image and Likeness 2 Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel: Genesis 9: Glory, Fall, and Judgment Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in In God’s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel (2014) by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen. Abstract: The story of Genesis 6-9 is structured into a grand chiasm illustrating the themes of creation and... Read more
As I do every year at this season, I share a poem by the late Pulitzer-Prize-winning novelist, short-story writer, and poet John Updike (1932-2009) that I have long loved: “Seven Stanzas At Easter” Make no mistake: if He rose at all it was as His body; if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules reknit, the amino acids rekindle, the Church will fall. It was not as the flowers, each soft Spring recurrent; it was not... Read more
An apologetic that is sometimes used, particularly by Evangelical Protestants (such as William Lane Craig, Gary Habermas, and Michael Licona), to defend the idea of the resurrection of Christ is what is often called “the four proven or minimal facts argument.” I base the following notes on the summary of that argument given at Robert Hutchinson, Searching for Jesus: New Discoveries in the Quest for Jesus of Nazareth — and How They Confirm the Gospel Accounts (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,... Read more
Χριστός ἀνέστη! Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη! In Greek, which is the original language of the New Testament — and in equivalent phrases in other languages influenced by Greek Orthodox usage — it is customary to greet one another on Easter Sunday with the phrase Khristos anesti! To which the traditional response is Alithos anesti! Christ is risen! Truly, he is risen! I offer, yet again, part of an Easter reflection that I wrote back in 2012... Read more
Continuing with my temporary theme of the genuine historicity of Jesus, I reproduce here a column that I published in the Deseret News on 8 January 2015: On Christmas morning, I published a column here that discussed, among other things, whether Jesus really existed. But Christmas mornings are busy, and that column seems to have gone largely unnoticed. So I’m revisiting the topic. It’s urgently important — not only because Jesus is fundamental to the New Testament... Read more
I published this article in the Deseret News on Christmas Day 2014. So, for obvious reasons, it’s couched as a Christmas column. Nonetheless, since it is relevant to the question of the genuine historical existence of Jesus of Nazareth, which was raised by a reader earlier today, I reproduce it here: Jesus wasn’t born on Dec. 25. Pretty much everybody knows that. But the precise date of his birth scarcely matters, compared to the sheer fact that... Read more
I published this column in the Deseret News on Thursday, 21 April 2011. It would have been more appropriate for me to have re-posted it two days ago, but, to coin an entirely original phrase, better late than never. In any event, it’s mostly about “Holy Saturday”: Today is Maundy Thursday. The derivation of the word “Maundy” is disputed, but this is the fifth day of Holy Week or Passion Week — the term “passion” refers not... Read more
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