Several have urged me to comment on the Honor Code revisions at Brigham Young University with regard to homosexuality, and I suppose it’s time that I say at least something. Herewith, therefore, several propositions. They are neither exhaustive nor systematic, and I offer them here in no particular order: Although this topic has obviously inspired controversy in some circles, until today (when a student mentioned it to me and I heard news of a demonstration elsewhere on... Read more
I sometimes need to remind a few of my critics that I’m paid to profess Arabic and Islamic studies, not to do apologetics. That’s always been the case, and it remains so still today. For instance, I have just, within the past few minutes, finished grading a stack of student papers from my course on the Humanities of Islam, which focuses principally on literature, art, and architecture. Now, though, I need to get ready for tomorrow’s... Read more
Two new items went up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation today: “Teachings and Testimony of the First Vision: Orson F. Whitney’s Dream-Vision of the Savior (Part Twelve of a Series Compiled by Dennis B. Horne)” “Spiritual Anxiety,” with Debra Theobald McClendon About the Interview: In this episode of Latter-day Saint Perspectives, Laura Harris Hales interviews licensed psychologist, Debra Theobald McClendon, PhD. Anxiety is a normal emotion with adaptive functions that provides us with important data. For... Read more
I press forward with the notes that I’m primarily taking from an article written by my longtime friend Bart Kowallis about the natural catastrophe described in the Book of Mormon as having occurred in the New World at the death of Christ: Bart J. Kowallis, “In the Thirty and Fourth Year: A Geologist’s View of the Great Destruction in 3 Nephi,” BYU Studies 37/3 (1997-1998): I closed my previous entry in this series by noting the suggestion by John... Read more
William E. McLellin was chosen as one of the Twelve Apostles in 1835, but was excommunicated from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints 1838. However, he never abandoned his faith in the Book of Mormon, and one of the pillars of his faith rested upon his early, searching interviews with the witnesses to that book. He was a highly intelligent man (and, it seems, a rather irascible one), and he was very careful and intent upon... Read more
Three passages excerpted for my notes from Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov, unabridged, translated by Constance Garnett (New York: Signet Classics, Penguin Books, 1980): Father Zossima to Madame Hohlakov, who has expressed her religious doubts and anguish to him: “[T]here’s no proving it, though you can be convinced of it.” “How?” “By the experience of active love. Strive to love your neighbor actively and constantly. In so far as you advance in love you will grow surer... Read more
Many years ago now, with Gerrit Bos, who is now Professor Emeritus of Jewish Studies at the University of Cologne, in Germany, I launched the publication of a series of “The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides” as part of what was then called the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (METI), based at Brigham Young University and under the auspices of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.. In subsequent years, I was drop-kicked out the door of... Read more
On Friday night, we went to dinner with several friends at the Bombay House in Provo, one of Utah Valley’s great culinary treasures. Most of us had been associated with the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies and its successor, the pre-June-2012 Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, in their heyday. One or two I had not seen since the Purge. Tonight, before attending a performance of Roald Dahl’s Matilda: The Musical at the Hale Center Theater... Read more
I continue with notes that I’m drawing largely from an article written by my longtime friend Dr. Bart Kowallis, a Professor Emeritus in the Department of Geological Sciences at Brigham Young University, about the natural catastrophe described in the Book of Mormon as having occurred in the New World at the death of Christ: Bart J. Kowallis, “In the Thirty and Fourth Year: A Geologist’s View of the Great Destruction in 3 Nephi,” BYU Studies 37/3 (1997-1998): According to the... Read more
Newly available on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: In God’s Image and Likeness 2: Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel, Preface and Introduction 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: In the preface and introduction to Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen’s detailed commentary on the final chapters of the book... Read more
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