I’ve paid very little attention to Jonathan Neville, an extremely vocal proponent of the so-called “Heartland model” of Book of Mormon geography, whether on this blog or anywhere else.  I’m not persuaded by his claims and I’m not overly interested in them.  But he’s lately been targeting me on his blog, making serious allegations about me.  He’s made some of them before, but he’s recently added one or two novelties, and I think that I need to respond... Read more

    Next year, for the first time in a very long while, I’m not scheduled to accompany a tour to Israel or anywhere else in the Middle East.  I’ll do it again the following year, 2021, presumably (and presuming that nothing serious intervenes), but my wife and I decided that we needed a break, a change of pace.   So . . .   In 2020, we’re currently scheduled to accompany two tours.  Neither one of them goes to... Read more

    Every once in a while, impelled by comments on my blog, by emails sent directly to me, and so forth, I feel that I need to share this column that I published in the Deseret News on 27 January 2011:   Trying to make their view seem merely a minor logical extension of my own, several atheistic acquaintances have assured me that there is little difference between us: They just happen to disbelieve in one more god than... Read more

    My mind has obviously been on Pre-Columbian America for the past week and a half, so I thought that I would call attention to this article, which I published in the Deseret News on 7 February 2018:   Many members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are excited about an exclusive National Geographic article that appeared online at news.nationalgeographic.com on Feb. 1, 2018, by Tom Clynes, titled, “Laser Scans Reveal Maya ‘Megalopolis’ Below Guatemalan Jungle: A vast,... Read more

    We’ve just arrived at Puno (at nearly nine o’clock at night) after a long drive that began early in the morning in Cusco.  We took several lengthy sightseeing breaks, and, anyway, the roads in this region of Peru are slow and only double-laned.  Not exactly superhighways or the German Autobahn.   Moreover, we have an early start tomorrow morning.  So my blogging may be limited tonight.   We stopped by several fascinating sites on which I’ll need to... Read more

    We began the morning by attending sacrament meeting at the Urubamba Branch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They meet in a moderately sized and very well maintained building right in the center of the town.   It was good to be with the Saints.  They badly needed an organist, though.  The opening hymn was confusing as to rhythm and off key, and there were points at which almost nobody was singing.  Fortunately, one of... Read more

    In my immediately previous post, I wrote very briefly about the Rev. Hiram Bingham, the very prominent early Protestant missionary to what were then called the Sandwich Islands, which we today know as Hawaii.   His son — Hiram Bingham II — also served as a missionary in the islands of the Pacific and eventually on Oahu, in the Hawaiian Islands.   That is where Hiram Bingham III, the future “discoverer” of Machu Picchu was born.  In Honolulu,... Read more

    The latest installment of the biweekly Deseret News column by Bill Hamblin and Dan Peterson has appeared:   “Viracocha and the gods of the Inca Empire”   ***   You might also find this recent ScienceNews article of interest:   “These knotted cords may hide the first evidence that the Incas collected taxes: Stringed devices called khipus are undergoing more research scrutiny, but most remain enigmatic”   ***   “In the variety of its charms and the power... Read more

    Several times, here and elsewhere, I’ve cited a quip from the late Pope St. John Paul II, whom I greatly admired and to whom I was once was fairly close during a meeting held in Rome’s Basilica of St. Paul-Outside-the-Walls:   When asked whether a Christian must believe in Hell, he replied that, yes, Christian faith necessitates belief in Hell.  “But,” he added, “we may hope that it will be empty.”   I’ve described myself on multiple occasions... Read more

    It being Friday, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship has again published a new article.  This one is by the very productive Matt Bowen, of Brigham Young University – Hawaii:   “‘And They Shall Be Had Again’: Onomastic Allusions to Joseph in Moses 1:41 in View of the So-called Canon Formula”   Abstract: Moses 1:41 echoes or plays on the etymological meaning of the name Joseph — “may he [Yahweh] add,” as the Lord foretells to Moses... Read more