The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued a new, official Gospel Topics essay on the question of the geographical setting for events in the Book of Mormon: “Book of Mormon Geography” It’s very welcome. *** Not infrequently, I read comments from purportedly liberated ex-Mormons about the glories of churchless Sundays. Instead of attending mind-numbingly dull and repetitious meetings, they claim to spend most of their Sundays skiing, golfing, biking, reading classic... Read more
The 19 January 2019 issue of The Economist (pages 76-77) contains a very interesting article under the title of “Extending the genetic code: Adding new DNA letters make novel proteins possible: One such, a cancer drug, is now in development.” Here are some of my notes from it, the first two paragraphs being a first attempt (heavily dependent at this stage on the text of the article) to begin writing (and understanding) my own depiction, for use elsewhere, of the nature and... Read more
In fits and starts, I occcasionally work on revising my old Abraham Divided book — an introduction to the Arabs and Islam aimed principally at Latter-day Saints — for republication, probably under a different title (it will be a substantial revision, certainly in the last two chapters) rather than as a third edition. Here’s an example of the kind of thing that I now need to take into account, but which wasn’t really on my radar screen... Read more
Hales Swift continues to produce useful materials and make them accessible on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Who were the Pharisees and Sadducees? A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Lesson 5: “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord”” *** Here are three articles related by their focus on the matter of religious liberty and the increasing secularism of government power-elites: “As Religious Separation Increases, Religious Bigotry Will Abound: Reversing the cultural decline of Christianity... Read more
Some, I think, will find this article interesting: “Why do Muslim women wear a hijab?” *** I’m way behind, but I’m grateful to Matthew Wheeler for calling these items (as well as the photograph above) to my notice: “Rancho Cucamonga Muslims deliver food to police, city staff on Christmas Eve” “Muslim volunteers help feed Detroit’s homeless” *** The only known existing autobiography of a slave written in Arabic in America is now... Read more
I’ve posted some prior notes (see “The Exoplanet Next Door” and “Revisiting Venus”) from M. Darby Dyar, Suzanne E. Smrekar, and Stephen R. Kane, “The Exoplanet Next Door: What Venus can teach us about planets far beyond our solar system,” Scientific American 320/2 (February 2019): 56-63. Here’s my last batch of notes from that, to me, intriguing article: On Earth, volcanism — which now seems to be present on Venus, as well — is typically associated with plate tectonics.... Read more
Matthew 2:1-12 Luke 2:8-20 (John 7:41-42) The Greek term often rendered as “wise men” in Matthew 2:1 and 2:7 is μάγοι (magoi), which is sometimes Anglicized as magi. It entered into English ca. 1200 AD with the meaning of “magicians” or “astrologers,” from Latin magi, the plural of magus (“magician,” “learned occultist”), from the Greek word magos, which was used for the Persian learned and priestly class. The Old Persian term magush meant “magician.” These “wise men” came rather vaguely ἀπὸ ἀνατολῶν, “from the East,”... Read more
Long ago, I wrote the article on Allah for the Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003), and then I revised that article for the Encyclopedia‘s second edition, which appeared in 2016. The most fundamental change to that article was very short sidebar that accompanied my main entry. This is how it reads, including my translation of the verse that it discusses: The Throne Verse The Qur’an’s famous Throne Verse (2:255)... Read more
Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 5: January 28–February 3: Matthew 3; Mark 1; Luke 3: “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” *** And don’t miss tonight’s Interpreter Radio Show. It may be our last. *** After being repeatedly urged by multiple people whose opinions I value that I needed to read him, I’ve finally picked up a copy of Jordan B. Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Toronto: Random House Canada,... Read more
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New Testament Note 9
Luke 2:21-38 Regarding Luke 2:22, Kent Brown, in The Testimony of Luke, comments as follows: A woman is to pay a five-shekel tax and offer sacrifice for ritual purity after giving birth to her firstborn—forty days after a male child and eighty after a female. Until she does so, she is judged to be ritually unclean. The sacrifice is to consist of a lamb and either a young pigeon or a turtledove. For the poor, the... Read more