Mine has been a weekend full of transitions.  I’ve written here already about attending the funeral of our good friend Arnie Green.  One thing that I liked about it was singing a fourth verse of “How Firm a Foundation,” which I don’t believe that I’ve ever sung or heard before:   When through the deep waters I call thee to go, The rivers of sorrow shall not thee o’erflow, For I will be with thee, thy troubles to... Read more

    “Ifs, Ands, or Buts: A Reminder on the Origins of the Book of Mormon”   “Why Must We Beware Wolves in Sheep’s Clothing?”   ***   Latter-day Saints Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites, August 2, 2019   “Groundbreaking Announced for the Belém Brazil Temple”   ***   I want to call attention to a trio of related articles previously published in Interpreter that you might possibly find of interest:   Stephen D. Ricks, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day... Read more

    It was somehow appropriate to go up almost immediately from Arnie Green’s funeral to an interview in Salt Lake City for a film about not only near-death experiences or NDEs but experiences suggestive of a premortal existence.   The film project, apparently led by Tom Laughlin, appears to be built around or upon the work of Sarah Hinze, whom I met this afternoon.  She gave me copies of two of her books, which I look forward to reading:... Read more

    “The only way to take sorrow out of death is to take love out of life.”  (President Russell M. Nelson)   My wife and I spent the first half of today at the viewing and funeral for our friend Arnold H. Green. (His obituary can be read here.)  It was a wonderful and inspiring service.  The chapel and cultural hall were full of friends and colleagues and former colleagues.  It was a great reunion, though nothing like the... Read more

      The latest Deseret News column by William Hamblin and Daniel Peterson:   “An important early Italian Christian who survived a fiery furnace”   ***   New in the pages of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:   Duane Boyce, “Text as Afterthought: Jana Riess’s Treatment of the Jacob-Sherem Episode”   Review of Jana Riess, “‘There Came a Man’: Sherem, Scapegoating, and the Inversion of Prophetic Tradition,” in Christ and Antichrist: Reading Jacob 7, eds. Adam S.... Read more

    I published this article in the Deseret News on 7 November 2013:   With The Interpreter Foundation’s “Science and Mormonism”conference coming up this weekend, my thoughts have been focused on that topic. Thus, it’s scarcely surprising that I’ve been thinking about perhaps the most widely respected Mormon scientist in our history thus far. Henry Eyring, a theoretical chemist known primarily for his contributions to the understanding of chemical reaction rates, was born in 1901 in the Mormon settlement of... Read more

    New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation — which, by the way, will celebrate its seventh birthday a week from Saturday:   “The Visions of Paul”: A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Lesson 30: “A Minister and a Witness”   Also new on the Interpreter website:   Interpreter Radio Show — July 28, 2019 For the 28 July 2019 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, Steve Densley and Matt Bowen discussed the approaching FAIRMormon conference, recent Interpreter publications, and... Read more

    I’m very happy to say that I own complete sets — purchased during visits to Powell’s bookstore in Portland — of fairly early editions of both Sir Richard Francis Burton’s and Edward William Lane’s classic nineteenth-century translations of the Thousand and One Nights.  They are, both of them, deeply flawed masterpieces by remarkable men.   Edward Lane (1801-1876) is also deservedly well known for other works, such as his 1836 book Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians and his great... Read more

    My wife and I were really pleased, yesterday, to spot two black bears — though neither of them was actually black — in relatively quick succession along Alberta Highway 6 from Waterton Lakes to the Chief Mountain Border Crossing.  I think that brings our total for the trip to six.  Four separate sightings of black bears, plus a mama grizzly and her cub.   I published the article below in the Deseret News on 27 February 2014:  ... Read more

    Many years ago, though for several years, I was on the mailing list of Utah Missions, Inc., based in Marlow, Oklahoma.  Accordingly, each month, I received their grammatically fascinating free tabloid, the Utah Evangel.  The Evangel was a treasure trove of logical fallacies and of curious fundamentalist Protestant arguments against my faith, and I found it highly diverting.  Well worth the subscription price.  (I believe that both UMI and its monthly periodical are now defunct.)   One of... Read more