I like to think that these editions will be important for many decades to come, and, indeed, that they won’t altogether lose their value for centuries.   1.   Modified slightly from the online description of Abu Hatim al-Razi’s The Proofs of Prophecy:   This book is the record of a debate that took place in the early tenth century between the famous Ismaili Shi‘i missionary Abu Hatim al-Razi and the even more celebrated Abu Bakr al-Razi , a... Read more

    According to the Venerable Bede’s extraordinarily important Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum (An Ecclesiastical History of the English People), which was written by that Anglo-Saxon monk and scholar in the early 700s AD, a man named Drythelm died one evening of a serious disease.  However, his grieving relatives were “terrified beyond measure” the next morning when he suddenly awakened and arose from his deathbed.  Drythelm first told his story to his wife and then to a monk, who related it, in... Read more

    Fairly commonly, I encounter the claim from disaffected member x or apostate former believer y that the Church of today is no longer the Church in which x or y was raised.  Or — a variant of that claim — that the “apologists” have so modified the claims of the Gospel that it’s no longer really Mormonism.  Or — in another slight variant that was once rather popular in a certain corner of the web — that “apologists”... Read more

    Some modified notes from a sketch, composed several years ago, of the origin and history of BYU’s Islamic Translation Series:   Conversations about the concept of what would become the Islamic Translation Series began in the early 1990s.  I had cherished the dream of such a project since his days in graduate school.  Accordingly, when officials at Brigham Young University began to inquire after ways to improve the University’s ties to the Islamic world, I proposed the idea... Read more

    From one of my many unfinished manuscripts:   Joseph Smith knew that he would die at the hands of his enemies. “He well knew that he must sacrifice his life for the principles God had revealed through him,” said Lucy Walker Kimball.  Yet “Death had no terrors for him although life was dear. I have often heard him say he expected to seal his testimony with his blood.”[1] “He was cheerful and comforting,” remembered Edward Stevenson. He said,... Read more

    “The Day a Latter-day Saint Saw Heaven—and Decided to Stay on Earth”   ***   Continuing with the line of thought mentioned in my entry titled “‘Anatomically and functionally impossible’?”, drawn from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010)”   On the basis of these findings, we are forced to conclude that the brain has insufficient capacity for storing all memories with associated thoughts and feelings or retrieving capacity for stored information.... Read more

    The following notice is now up on the Interpreter websites:   Coming Event: Lecture on a new publication, The Nature of the Original Language of the Book of Mormon We are pleased to announce the publication of another two volumes of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project by Royal Skousen, with the assistance of Stanford Carmack. Drs. Skousen and Carmack will present a lecture on the publication on Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 7 p.m., at the Hinckley... Read more

    My wife and I just returned from watching Operation Finale.  I won’t say that we enjoyed it — it’s not the kind of film that one should “enjoy” — but we’re both glad that we went.   As I’ve explained here several times before, I feel a strong moral and personal/familial obligation both to see such films and to encourage others to see them, as well.  My father enjoined upon me that I should never forget what happened... Read more

    New, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   “Da and Angélique Tarr: The Power of Faith: Stories of the Saints in the DR Congo, Part 1”   ***   28 August 2018:  “President Nelson to Visit the Caribbean Area: Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve and his wife Ruth, will accompany him”   2 September 2018:  “President Nelson Encourages Hurricane Survivors in Caribbean: Elder and Sister Renlund join visit to Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico”   I’m... Read more

    More notes from an uncompleted manuscript:   When, in late June of 1844, Governor Thomas Ford demanded that Joseph come to Carthage, Illinois, a hotbed of hostility both to Mormonism and to Joseph personally, in order to answer serious charges that had been leveled against him by his enemies, Joseph first decided to flee across the Mississippi and then, if possible, to make a personal appeal to U.S. President John Tyler.  But many, perhaps even his wife, accused... Read more