From one of my myriad incomplete manuscripts: Oliver Cowdery was bedridden for most of 1849, probably as a result of chronic pulmonary tuberculosis, and died at Richmond, Missouri, on 3 March 1850.[1] A few months before his death, Cowdery was visited by Jacob Gates, a Latter-day Saint traveling eastward on a mission to England who had been a friend since before Cowdery’s 1838 excommunication. In the course of conversation, Gates asked him about his experience as one... Read more
Just when we thought we knew absolutely everything that there was to know about the Pre-Columbian New World! “Scientists discover ancient Mayan city hidden under Guatemalan jungle: Aerial laser mapping detects thousands of hidden structures in Peten region, suggesting its population was millions more than previously thought” “Laser scanning reveals ‘lost’ ancient Mexican city ‘had as many buildings as Manhattan’: Groundbreaking lidar scanning reveals the true scale of Angamuco, built by the Purépecha from about 900AD”... Read more
Moving a bit further forward in John W . Welch, et al., eds., Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017): “Is Anything Known of Zenos outside the Book of Mormon?” (158-160) This article summarizes suggestions that have been made toward identifying Zenos (who appears at various places throughout the Book of Mormon but who is best known for the olive allegory in Jacob 5) in sources beyond the Book of Mormon. A prominent candidate... Read more
From the British astrophysicist and theologian David Wilkinson, God, Time and Stephen Hawking: An Exploration Into Origins (London: Monarch Books, 2001), 166-167 (with some slight improvements in otherwise mysterious punctuation): Some scientists . . . try to resist any theological interpretation at all costs. An interesting example using aliens and other universes is given in a paper published in the reputable journal The Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society by Professor Edward Harrison of the University of Massachusetts. He... Read more
Continuing with my reading of John W . Welch, et al., eds., Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017): “Why Did Jacob Share the Allegory of the Olive Tree?” (156-157) One of the great chapters in the Book of Mormon is Jacob 5. One of the best efforts of the old FARMS in its heyday was the 1994 volume The Allegory of the Olive Tree: The Olive, the Bible, and Jacob 5. The little article... Read more
A short snippet from my manuscript-in-progress about Islam for a Latter-day Saint audience: With the conversion of Christians from Aramaic and Greek and Coptic backgrounds, with the entry into Islam of large numbers of Persians, and with the conquest of areas where Indian culture prevailed, the Arabs gained access to the unimaginable richness of world civilizations stretching from the Atlantic to the Himalayas. A great new world civilization was being formed, a distinctive one that drew upon... Read more
I continue on with my notes from and/or inspired by John W . Welch, et al., eds., Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017). While I haven’t been providing links, most if not all of the articles from which I’m drawing here are available, so far as I’m aware, at Book of Mormon Central, a site (and an organization) that I highly recommend. But I’ll be entirely candid: I’m hoping to inspire people out there... Read more
Another note, inspired by John W . Welch, et al., eds., Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017): “What Does It Mean to Speak with the Tongue of Angels?” (143-145) 2 Nephi 32:2 seems to suggest an implicit doctrine of human deification in the Book of Mormon — a text from which, critics have alleged, the Nauvoo-period teaching of human exaltation is wholly absent. To this, I would add 3 Nephi 28:10, where... Read more
From a British astrophysicist and theologian: Anthropic balances should not be dismissed. They are a significant factor of the way the world is, and we need to note that they have led a number of scientists to questions of religion. Of course, such insights cannot be used to prove the existence of God. In 1779 the philosopher David Hume attacked the logic of inferring the Christian God from the nature of the universe. Among a large number... Read more
Day in, day out, I’m going through the manuscript: Change was inevitable. The subject peoples began, slowly, to convert to Islam. There were good reasons for this, of course. Being Muslim was the key to social advancement. Even more tangibly, converts escaped the dhimmi taxes imposed by Islam upon non-Muslims in order to support the military and other institutions from which non-Muslims were exempt. (Such escape was permitted only after considerable Umayyad resistance. Far from forcing conversions,... Read more
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