I’m not God. I’m not even slightly confused about that. And one of the implications of my not being God is that I’m not obliged to judge the eternal destination of the people around me or of the people about whom I read in history and hear on the news. I find that deeply liberating. When I consider many people that I’ve known who were genuinely bad in certain respects but remarkably good in others... Read more
In my previous post on this topic, I wrote the following: “Frankly, men tend to dominate apologetics because men are more inclined to be combative and more interested in certain styles of dispute. This really isn’t open to question, I think. It shows up in international politics, in crime statistics, in sports, and so forth. It appears already in children, when boys roughhouse and make weapons out of sticks while girls . . . play in other... Read more
Continuing with some thoughts on the subject: Frankly, men tend to dominate apologetics because men are more inclined to be combative and more interested in certain styles of dispute. This really isn’t open to question, I think. It shows up in international politics, in crime statistics, in sports, and so forth. It appears already in children, when boys roughhouse and make weapons out of sticks while girls . . . play in other ways. (I’m trying to... Read more
On Friday night, my wife and I attended a performance at Brigham Young University of the one-woman play The Other Mozart, which was created, written, and performed by Sylvia Milo. My wife had seen it with a friend on Thursday, and thought that I would like it. (I did.) The Other Mozart is about Maria Anna (aka “Marianne” or “Nannerl”), the elder sister of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791), a rather well-known eighteenth-century Austrian composer, and is based... Read more
Matthew 1:2-17 Luke 3:23-38 Most people simply skim or even skip over the genealogies provided for Jesus in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Those who don’t, however, frequently wonder about the differences between them. I draw here on S. Kent Brown’s important volume The Testimony of Luke (Provo: BYU Studies, 2015), which is part of the ongoing project of producing a multivolume, multiauthor “Brigham Young University New Testament Commentary” and which offers this comment: The first,... Read more
On Thursday, I posted some notes (“The Exoplanet Next Door”) 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. I continue with those notes: Most of the exoplanets that scientists have discovered thus far were found by what is called “the transit method.” Astronomers watch distant stars for fluctuations in their brightness that... Read more
On Thursday, in the Deseret News, I used my regular column to call the attention of my readers there — if I have any! — to an important recent publication: “A major new Latter-day Saint resource for New Testament study” Today, in the recently renamed Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scripture, Stephen Smoot reviews that significant new book: “Translating the New Testament for Latter‑day Saints” Abstract: A new translation of the New Testament... Read more
In my Middle East Studies (Arabic) 467R class, which is also listed as Philosophy 360R, we’re still reading the twelfth-century fable about a brilliant autodidact on a desert island that is the centerpiece of Lenn Evan Goodman, Ibn Tufayl’s Hayy ibn Yaqzan: A Philosophical Tale (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 2009). Here’s a beautiful passage from it: If there is a Being Whose perfection is infinite, Whose splendor and goodness know no bounds, Who is beyond perfection,... Read more
If it continues, the leftward lurch of the Democratic Party will pose a real threat to the liberty of American citizens and to the constitutional order of the United States — as well as to their economic well being and the prosperity of people around the world. Here are some recent thoughts on aspects of this remarkable phenomenon: “The Kulaks Must Be Liquidated as a Class: Elizabeth Warren is not proposing a tax; she’s proposing asset forfeiture.” ... Read more
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New Testament Note 7
Matthew 1:18-25 Luke 2:1-7 What can I possibly say here about this most familiar of stories that hasn’t been said both recently and eloquently? Not much, probably. Perhaps a few very quick notes will need to suffice. Matthew 1:21 — “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” This statement presupposes that readers understand the meaning of that name, Jesus. The English form of the name... Read more