“The best data we have (concerning the Big Bang) are exactly what I would have predicted, had I nothing to go on but the five books of Moses, the Psalms, the Bible as a whole.” “If there are a bunch of fruit trees, one can say that whoever created these fruit trees wanted some apples. In other words, by looking at the order in the world, we can infer purpose and from purpose we begin to get some... Read more

    Just prior to visiting my parents’ graves at Rose Hills Memorial Park yesterday afternoon, my wife and I paid our respects to my brother’s grave in the San Gabriel Cemetery, adjacent to the Episcopal Church of Our Saviour.  He is my only sibling — though, strictly speaking, my half-brother — and I still feel his sudden loss acutely.  I very much agree with the inscription on his tombstone (“A Life of Service”) and, although it’s not actually quoted... Read more

    I’ve been slowly reading through Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, eds., Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (American Fork UT: Covenant Communications, 2009).  The book is, I presume, an at least slightly revised version of a much earlier volume (called, if I’m not mistaken, They Knew the Prophet) that the late Brother and Sister Andrus had published years before, and that I had already read.   I’ve extracted and posted a number of quotations from... Read more

      Rose Hills Memorial Park, in Whittier, California, is apparently the largest cemetery in the United States.  It’s also the resting place of many of my relatives, mostly on my father’s side — including my paternal grandparents, at least three uncles, an aunt, a niece, and a lot of the people that I knew growing up.  And my parents are buried there, too.   My wife and I visited my parents’ graves today.  The view from their burial... Read more

    Archaeology tends to be more difficult than some non-archaeologists appear to think:   “SOMETIMES THE PAST WANTS TO STAY BURIED —The lost standing stones of Devon are still hiding from archaeologists: The Yelland Stone Row remains lost, but new data could reveal an ancient landscape.”   ***   This is encouraging, although I would prefer that the United States, or at least the West, were taking the lead:   “China Is Spearheading the Future of Agriculture”   ***  ... Read more

    One of the two principal tasks that I need to take care of with regard to my manuscript on Islam aimed at Latter-day Saints is to expand it, at least somewhat, from its Arab and even Middle Eastern focus to a broader picture of the Islamic world.  Here’s a first step in that direction, some preliminary notes on Indonesia:   With a population standing today at well over a quarter of a billion people, Indonesia is the most... Read more

    It’s sometimes alleged by critics that Joseph Smith came up with the idea of a visit of two personages — the Father and the Son — rather late (say, in the 1838 “canonical” version now known as JS-History 1) and/or that he began to soup the story up from a mere vision of angels during, say, the collapse of the Kirtland Panic in the national Panic of 1837 (so as to shore up his personal prestige and authority).... Read more

    Well, I’ve finally finished my initial draft of the manuscript:   There is common ground between us, the Jews, and the Mus­lims. We should seek both to identify it and to build upon it. Indeed, we may have a special calling and responsibility to do so. “A cabinet minister of Egypt once told me,” Elder Hunter recalled, “that if a bridge is ever built between Christianity and Islam it must be built by the Mormon Church.””[1] We also... Read more

  The quotations below are drawn from Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, Personal Glimpses of the Prophet Joseph Smith (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 2009):   Jacob Earl knew Joseph Smith both in Missouri and then in Illinois: Naturally, he was of a cheerful disposition, and I remember when I was with a number of other boys that we caught a ball while Joseph knocked flies to us.  (147-148)   James Worthington Phippen was born in Springfield, Clark... Read more

    We knocked off yet another of our must-do traditions on Saturday night.  Well, one of mine, anyway.  We took our niece and a friend of hers to Ruby’s Diner, on the Pacific Coast Highway just south of Newport Beach, on the cliff overlooking the sea.  There, sitting on the bench, we enjoyed burgers and, most important of all, I enjoyed a date milkshake.  I’ve been enjoying date milkshakes at that Ruby’s since I can remember.   ***  ... Read more