I published this article in the Deseret News on 14 February 2018:   Among the most valuable products of BYU’s former Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, known as FARMS, was a massive collection of “Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham,” published in 2005 as part of its series of “Studies in the Book of Abraham.)” Ancient lore about the patriarch Abraham — not only in Jewish sources, but in Christian and Muslim texts, as well... Read more

    We were rather depressed the other day to see the state of the forests in Glacier National Park, just south of the Canadian border.   Most of the trees on one side of Lake McDonald, for example, were dead.  A huge forest fire engulfed them in August of 2018.   Moreover, something called blister rust, a non-native fungus, has heavily impacted the whitebark pine forests there.  Within the park and in the surrounding areas, thirty percent of the whitebark... Read more

    This an extremely interesting article and I think that it makes a vitally important point:   “Religion Creates Community”   “[R]eligious adherents of all sorts are . . . far more connected and generous than their non-religious counterparts.”   ***   On the same topic — or, anyway, on a closely related one:   “Are Evangelicals More Empathetic?  Analysis on recent survey results may provide Christians with some encouragement—and reproof.”   ***   A couple of weeks ago,... Read more

    There is no question, it seems to me, that Earth’s climate is changing.  (The question of whether, or how much, human action is causing that climate change is, of course, a much more controversial one.)  Glaciers around the world — with the apparent and rather mysterious exception, I’m told, of two particular glaciers in the Himalayas — are shrinking.  My wife and I could plainly see the difference in the Athabasca Glacier (at the Columbia Icefield in Jasper... Read more

    Are the Arabian Nights great literature?   Opinions vary sharply about this question.  In the Middle East itself, the literary elites have tended to think that they aren’t, that they’re merely folktales, and have typically ignored them — although that attitude seem to have shifted in recent decades.  It’s analogous, perhaps, to the neglect shown by traditional Arab grammarians, lexicographers, and philologists toward the spoken Arabic dialects, collectively called ‘ammiyya, that are actually spoken on the street (by... Read more

    Athabasca.  Athabaskan.  For some reason, I like the sheer sound of the word.   I’ve been vaguely aware, for many years, of a family of native American languages called “Athabaskan” (or some variant spelling of that adjective).  It includes, as its most populous group of speakers, the Navajo, but it also includes the languages of the Plains and Western Apache.  Beyond those groups, though, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, its largest contiguous pre-Contact geographical region stretched across what is... Read more

    I’ve been on the road all day, so I’m a bit late in calling attention to the fact that, once again, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship has published a new article:   Brad Wilcox, Bruce L. Brown, Wendy Baker-Smemoe, Sharon Black and Dennis L. Eggett, “Comparing Phonemic Patterns in Book of Mormon Personal Names with Fictional and Authentic Sources: An Exploratory Study”   Abstract: In 2013 we published a study examining names from Solomon Spalding’s fictional manuscript, J. R. R. Tolkien’s fictional works, and nineteenth-century... Read more

    The frame story of King Shahryār and Shahrazād was known in Italy in the late Middle Ages.  Traces of it linger, for example, in a novel by Giovanni Sercambi (1347-1424).  Sometime thereafter, at the beginning of the sixteenth century, clear allusions to the story appear in the tale of Astolfo and Giocondo, which is featured in the 28th canto of Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso.  It isn’t known how the story reached Italy, but it’s likely that travelers who had... Read more

    Today’s installment of my bi-weekly column for the Deseret News has appeared:   “An opportunity to learn ‘by study and also by faith'”   ***   I recommend this blog entry by Jeff Lindsay to anybody who is interested in issues relating to the Book of Abraham:   “A Few Reasons Why Hugh Nibley Is Still Relevant for Book of Abraham Scholarship”   ***   I also commend this piece to your attention, by Stephen Smoot:   “How... Read more

    Some science-related links that caught my attention today:   “India’s first lunar lander is on its way to the moon: Chandrayaan 2 mission’s rover will explore closer to the moon’s south pole than any other rover”   “How today’s global warming is unlike the last 2,000 years of climate shifts: Previous cooldowns and warm-ups were regional, driven by natural forces, paleoclimate data show”   “Climate change: 12 years to save the planet? Make that 18 months”   “Did... Read more