Downloading a few more notes from my files:   Near-death experiences, while they do not directly demonstrate the existence of God, strongly seem to suggest that the universe is the kind of place in which it makes abundant sense to believe that God exists. The actress Jane Seymour would surely agree.  She says that her experience “confirmed her belief in God.”[1]  As one man, who survived a major automobile accident, told the Gallup researchers, “I now know, without... Read more

    Continuing with the question of whether Joseph Smith was sincere or cynically deceptive, a few notes from my files:   The spirit of Joseph’s private letters is much the same.  Detained at an inn in Greenville, Indiana, in June 1832, while his traveling companion, Newel Whitney, recovered from a badly broken leg, depressed at news that his brother Hyrum had lost a child and also by the fact that he had received no recent letter from his wife,... Read more

    A poignant passage about Jerusalem’s Church of the Holy Sepulcher from the late Reverend Dr. Jerome Murphy-O’Connor, O.P. (1935-2013), a Roman Catholic and a Dominican priest who was, for decades, a professor of New Testament at the illustrious École Biblique there in that city:   One expects the central shrine of Christendom to stand out in majestic isolation, but anonymous buildings cling to it like barnacles.  One looks for numinous light, but it is dark and cramped.  One hopes for peace, but the ear is assailed by a cacophony of warring... Read more

    Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture published a review last Friday of a book in which I actually have a chapter.  The review was written by Steven T. Densley Jr., and is titled “Should We Apologize for Apologetics?”   At one point, the review reads as follows:   A few positive articles appear in the volume, but these few essays do not entirely salvage what may have otherwise been a very important contribution to the study of Mormon theology. It would have... Read more

    Continuing the excerpts from my files and notes:   “Having been a boarder in General Smith’s family for more than nine months,” wrote John M. Bernhisel, a physician who later served as Utah’s delegate to the United States Congress, with abundant opportunities to contemplate his character and observe his conduct, I have concluded to give you a few of my “impressions” of him. General Joseph Smith is naturally a man of strong mental powers, and is possessed of... Read more

    One of the proposed explanations for Joseph Smith is that he was, simply, a conscious (and conscienceless) liar.  This wouldn’t, in my view, even begin to account for the facts of the early Restoration.  Beyond that, though, it seems to me unsustainable in and of itself.  Here’s a brief (and only partial) passage on the topic from one of my note files:   Joseph Smith’s honesty and sincerity shines in his personal writings.  (We’ll talk about his associates... Read more

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      From one of The Manuscripts:   Poetry and Poets Poetry was the sole medium of literary expression in pre-Islamic Arabia. In a real sense, it was the only form of art. This is related at least partially to the high Semitic reverence for the word that we’ve already mentioned. It’s also undoubtedly related to the fact that nomads, constantly on the brink of starvation and always on the move, are hardly likely to produce great architecture or... Read more