This year’s special Interpreter Foundation Christmas message has now appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   “Christmas in Transition: From Figgy Pudding to the Bread of Life”   We hope that you’ll enjoy it.  Merry Christmas!   ***   I published the following words in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News on 24 December 2015:   As I write, I’ve just returned from a funeral. Snow covers the ground; the trees are barren, seemingly dead. It’s the season described by... Read more

    The capital of Egypt during the period of the Old Kingdom was Menefer, which the Greeks came to call Μέμφις (Memphis). In Arabic today, it’s called Manf (مَنْف‎).   It was located on the east side of the Nile, in the direction of the sunrise and, thus, of light and life.  On the west bank of the Nile, in the direction of the sunset, lay its cemeteries, including the great necropolis complexes of Dahshur, Saqqara, and most famously, Giza.... Read more

    On the evening of Sunday, 16 November 2018, Bruce Webster and Kris Frederickson were together in the studio and Mike Parker joined them by telephone for that night’s installment of the Interpreter Radio Show.  Among the topics they discussed were changes to the YM/YW programs, recent Interpreter articles, and the first Come Follow Me lesson:   https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-december-16-2018/   We’re about to conclude our first year of the Interpreter Radio Show.  We’ve gotten a little bit better at it, I... Read more

    Some of you may have missed an article by Dr. Gregory L. Smith that was published early on in the history of the Interpreter Foundation and of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture.  In case you’re interested, though, I recall it to your attention:   ““Endless Forms Most Beautiful”: The uses and abuses of evolutionary biology in six works”   To give you a flavor of it, here is the article’s opening paragraph:   For many, evolutionary biology ranks... Read more

    I understand the concern that many have about seemingly endless American commitments overseas.  We still have European military bases nearly three quarters of a century after the close of Second World War, for example, and we still have large numbers of troops in Korea more than sixty five years after the American “police action” concluded there with an armistice agreement.   (There was, of course, this little thing called the “Cold War.”)   But President Donald J. Trump’s... Read more

    I’ve already written here about the modern Egyptian city of Heliopolis, where Cairo International Airport is located and, consequently, where most international visitors first arrive on Egyptian soil.   Given the name, it’s easy to imagine that modern Heliopolis is identical with the ancient Heliopolis.  But it’s not.  The ancient city is about ten miles to the north of the modern one.   And ancient Heliopolis is very, very ancient.  It was inhabited already in Predynastic times —... Read more

    I published this column in the Deseret News on 15 December 2016:   The Book of Mormon is something worth noting at Christmas time: It’s a second witness for Jesus Christ. It begins, on its title page, by declaring that it comes forth “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God, manifesting himself unto all nations.” The magnificent chiasm of Alma 36 is literally centered on Christ. The most important event it records... Read more

    When weary travelers arrive at Cairo’s International Airport — often bleary-eyed and exhausted, and perhaps even somewhat intimidated the very foreign country to which they’ve just come — they’re probably not thinking at all about the actual city in which they’ve landed.   Because it isn’t Cairo.  It’s Heliopolis.  It’s located about five or six miles distant from the city center of Cairo.   Literally, its name means “The City of the Sun” or “Sun City.”  But in... Read more

    I fear that I may have failed to call your attention to this most recent installment, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, of Jeff Bradshaw’s report on his experience as a senior missionary in Africa:   “The Church in the DR Congo: A Personal Perspective: Part 8, The Temple 1: “Turning the Hearts of the Children””   ***   Here’s some redundant additional material to cram into your already bulging “Religion Poisons Everything” file:   “Global Response for... Read more

    I published this column in the Deseret News back on 21 December 2017:   Literally central to the worship and organization of the wandering camp of Israel in the wilderness of Sinai was what the King James Bible calls “the tabernacle of the congregation.” (The Jewish Publication Society translation terms it “the tent of meeting.”) According to Numbers 2:2-33; 3:21-38, the tribes of Judah, Issachar and Zebulon were to pitch their tents to the tabernacle’s east. The tribes of Reuben,... Read more