I will be introducing Royal Skousen in the Hinckley Center tomorrow (Tuesday) night, on the BYU campus, for the lecture that he will deliver, assisted by Stanford Carmack, on “The Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon.” Here’s the text of the introduction that I gave to his lecture in April 2017, when the second edition of his enormous six-part Analysis of Textual Variants appeared: I’m honored to introduce to you my friend... Read more
Continuing with some notes on the topic: Differences Islam and Mormonism conceive of God rather differently. Mormonism teaches an embodied God; at least officially (whatever ordinary, uneducated Muslims may believe, and though the Qur’an can easily—and, I think, should—be read otherwise), Islam teaches of a God without body or location. (There is overwhelming evidence that many early Muslims, probably including the Prophet Muhammad himself, believed in a corporeal deity.) The line of prophets in Islam... Read more
I expect that I’ll stop extracting notes from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010) fairly soon. But not just yet. Some people who have near-death experiences feel themselves pulled rather abruptly into a “dark space,” and about fifteen percent of them find it somewhat or very frightening. Here are two examples of that “dark space”: And then everything went dark, but to my mind I didn’t lose consciousness, because... Read more
In my previous post — creatively titled “Big Questions (A)” — I responded to a reader’s concerns about the Church’s numbers being small and about the fact that even its numbered members too often have a hard time holding on. I continue my reply to him in this post. Here’s a continuation of his comment to me: If we truly all passed the first estate with flying colors by following Christ’s plan why has this earth been... Read more
A reader of this blog sent me a heartfelt question, or complex of questions, last night, and I’ve chosen to respond to him here rather than on Facebook. Not because I have a decisive or overpoweringly persuasive answer to his concern — it will rapidly be all too obvious that I don’t — but because I think that the topic he raises is very significant and because I hope and think that others might have some helpful thoughts... Read more
Apparently I already posted this little collection of notes sometime last year. But some folks evidently didn’t see that posting, so I think that I’ll finish it: Similarities (continued) Both Islam and Mormonism see an end to history, which is moving in linear fashion toward a divinely-determined goal. There are many prophecies about the Last Days in both faiths, and these prophecies are, in a number of ways, rather similar. In Islam, Jesus will return and... Read more
Here, I offer two more reports of near-death or out-of-body experiences, both of them taken from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010). The first comes from the very famous Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), the founder of analytical psychology. In November 1944, he suffered a serious heart attack. Here is a portion of his account of what happened at that time: It seemed to me that... Read more
Last night, my wife and I enjoyed an elders quorum dinner, with a sizeable percentage of the quorum, at the home of the quorum president. (One of his counselors hosted another simultaneous dinner at his place.) As I’ve said many times here before, one of the things that I most appreciate about membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the genuine community that it provides. Our neighborhood is far more caring and cohesive... Read more
I don’t know for certain what happened — or what didn’t happen — nearly four decades back between teenage Brett Kavanaugh and teenage Christine Blasey Ford. Exactly what happened may be unknowable. Perhaps Dr. Ford really knows, although it’s possible that even she was too inebriated at that alleged party thirty-six years ago to be genuinely sure. It’s likely that Judge Kavanaugh really knows — although, if he was even present at all, he too may have only... Read more
Some notes that I threw together a number of years ago. I can’t recall whether I’ve shared them here before. If I have, please forgive me. Similarities Both religions worship the same deity. Allah is related to the word Elohim. Allah is simply the Arabic word for “God,” and is the term used in the Christian Arabic Bible as well as the Arabic Book of Mormon and other Latter-day Saint materials. [Incidentally, because it is in... Read more
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