An interesting meeting:   “First Presidency Welcomes Delegation from Vietnam’s Committee for Religious Affairs”   He’s gone from Israel now, but, for two days or so, we seemed to be about twenty-four hours behind him:   “In Jerusalem, Apostle Encourages Interfaith Listening and Learning: Elder Cook speaks at semiannual Jewish-Latter-day Saint Dialogue”   I’m inclined to agree with this:   “Mormonism is pro-environment”   ***     Today represented the culmination of this Israel tour that we’ve been accompanying.... Read more

    I thought that I would perhaps shift gears a bit from my recent (quite understandable) Near Eastern focus and repost this column that Bill Hamblin and I published in the Deseret News back on 2 March 2018:   In Hawaiian mythology, the great gods Kane (pronounced KAH-nay), Lono, Ku and (possibly) Kanaloa existed before the creation of the world. In the beginning, according to one tradition, nothing existed except a chaotic blackness called the “Po” (“night”). But Kane... Read more

    We’ve been staying in the King David Hotel, here in Jerusalem.   I’ve always wanted to do so, not so much because it’s a considered a five-star luxury hotel but because it is itself an important part of Jerusalem’s history and because it is, indisputably, the city’s most famous hotel.  We’ve stayed a couple of times just down the road in the very fine David Citadel Hotel (e.g., when we accompanied a wealthy family on a private tour... Read more

    “‘Yes, It’s True, But I Don’t Think They Like to Hear it Quite That Way’: What Spencer W. Kimball Told Elaine Cannon”   Abstract: Elaine Cannon, who was general president of the Young Women some four decades ago, had an interesting conversation with President Spencer W. Kimball in 1978. According to Sister Cannon’s firsthand account, President Kimball revealed important insight into how he thought about himself as the prophet as well as how he thought leaders should talk to the... Read more

    Bertrand Russell came up with the analogy of a celestial teapot — now, in his honor, often called “Russell’s teapot” — as a way of disparaging what he regarded as the irrationality of religious belief.   I cite a summary of it from the distinguished British journalist, author, and academic John Cornwell, who directs the Science and Human Dimension Project at the University of Cambridge:   If one were to claim that between Earth and Mars there is a teapot in... Read more

    We’re just back from a really fantastic evening at Brigham Young University’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies, put on especially for our group, which is the National Advisory Council for BYU’s Marriott School of Business.   After a brief tour of the grounds, we had an excellent evening meal out on the patio of the Jerusalem Center, with its incomparable view of the Dome of the Rock, the Temple Mount, and the Old City, toward the west... Read more

    I published the article below in the Deseret News on 19 April 2018:   A fundamental disagreement between Latter-day Saint Christianity and mainstream Christianity concerns the doctrine of the Trinity. Both outsiders and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints themselves commonly say Mormons reject the doctrine. But this isn’t quite true, and it’s important to be precise about where the actual disagreement lies. Traditional mainstream Trinitarianism rests upon five propositions: 1. The Father is... Read more

    John 21:1-25 Compare Matthew 16:28; 26:30-35; Mark 9:1; 14:26-31; Luke 9:27; 22:31-34, 39; John 8:51-52; 13:36-38; 16:32; 18:1   In this chapter, which some have called an “appendix” to the gospel of John, we see Peter’s threefold affirmation of his love for Jesus (which may have been intended to compensate for his threefold denial just after the arrest of the Savior), a prediction of his death as a martyr, an unclear allusion to the idea that John the... Read more

    The scriptures offer guidance on the troubling problem of how Israel should treat the Palestinians who live under its control. And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him. But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.[1] When injustices are perpetrated by... Read more