So why, if I’m not making any money from accompanying these tours, do I do them?   I have to admit that, during the 24 to 48 hours before I leave on such trips, I’m almost always asking myself why on earth I do it.  I have so many other things on my plate!  I’ve had to try to write several columns before this departure, for instance, knowing that I’ll have very little opportunity or energy to do... Read more

    I’m about to undertake another round of travel in (among other places) Israel and Egypt in order to (among other things) accompany tour groups there.  So, as regularly as Swiss clockwork, one of the most dishonest of my anonymous critics is accusing me of “priestcraft,” profiteering enormously from such tours — as he has also accused me of scheming to make money from a fraudulent film project, just as he and his cleverer and more cunning role model,... Read more

      John 11:54-57   “Many went out of the country up to Jerusalem.”   I published a column in the Deseret News back on 30 April 2015 — four years ago to the day — about the seemingly mundane but quite important concept of “going up” to Jerusalem:   https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865627563/Going-up-to-Jerusalem.html   Also:  Jesus knows what’s coming, but he intends to keep control of his timing.     Matthew 20:17-19 Mark 10:32-34 Luke 18:31-34   Luke’s comment, that the... Read more

    The hosts of the 14 April 2019 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show were Terry Hutchinson, John Gee, and Kevin Christensen, and, among other things, they interviewed John W. Welch and Jeannie Welch:   Interpreter Radio Show — 14 April 2019   A stand-alone Interpreter Radio (audio) Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 17, “I Am the Good Shepherd,”  covering John 7-10, has been extracted from the 14 April 2019 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show. The panelists for the... Read more

    In the aftermath of the attack on the Chabad synagogue in Poway, California, I’ve posted at least three connected items on either anti-Semitism or interfaith relations more generally.  Here’s another:   About five years ago, Dr. Matthew Bowen, of Brigham Young University-Hawaii, published an article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 12 (2014) titled   “‘What Thank They the Jews’?  (2 Nephi 29:4): A Note on the Name ‘Judah’ and Antisemitism”   Abstract:  The... Read more

    Here’s a piece on junk science, from the website of the American Council on Science and Health:   “‘Meat Kills’ Study Is Rotten To The Bone, But NYT Swallows It Anyhow”   An article from the extremely prestigious Nature: International Journal of Science, written by an experimental psychologist at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom:   “Rein in the four horsemen of irreproducibility: Dorothy Bishop describes how threats to reproducibility, recognized but unaddressed for decades, might finally be brought... Read more

    As most of you are already aware, violent religious bigotry claimed an innocent life — and significantly damaged the lives of others — in Poway, California, down near San Diego, on Saturday, 27 April 2019.  Poway is a community in which I had spent significant time just a couple of weeks before, as part of an effort (spearheaded by the Poway California Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) to further interreligious understanding and mutual... Read more

    John 10:40-42   John 11:1-44   1.   Bethany is just over the Mount of Olives from Jerusalem.  Jesus, who probably had little money, seems to have stayed there with his friends Mary, Martha, and Lazarus (= El‘azar or Eleazar) when he was in Judea.  Then he would walk over the hill to Jerusalem, along a road that still runs directly past (or through) the Garden of Gethsemane.   2.   When Jesus heard the news that Lazarus... Read more

    I’ve been delinquent in calling attention on my blog to one of the more interesting Latter-day Saint publishing ventures, Square Two, in which faithful members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints examine contemporary issues.  An email from Valerie Hudson reminds me:   Volume 12, Number 1 (Spring 2019) “Editors’ Introduction, Spring 2019,” by Editorial Board, SquareTwo Journal “The Eternal Heavenly Mother: Shattering a Sacred Silence Through An Examination of What Church Leaders Have Taught About... Read more

    On Saturday night (27 April 2019), although we’re facing numerous deadlines and really didn’t have the time to do it, my wife and I, after having shared a good dinner from Market Street Grill with her father, attended a Utah Symphony concert at Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City.   They played three pieces: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Symphony No. 31 in D Major, K. 300a [297] (“Paris”) Joaquin Rodrigo, Concierto de Aranjuez for Guitar and Orchestra Robert Schumann,... Read more