More notes:   It is certainly conceivable that a sensitive person might be able, consciously or unconsciously, to mimic such elementary rhetorical structures on the basis of exposure to the Bible. (Whether the semi-literate Joseph Smith of the 1820s would have been capable of such mimicry is perhaps a separate question, however.) But with the increasing subtlety and sophistication of literary forms, such mimicry becomes less and less plausible. And the Book of Mormon contains a wealth of... Read more

  I may be in the Holy Land, but my vicious and mean-spirited lies in the Deseret News continue unabated:   “The lady Sariah of Elephantine”   ***   From a work-in-progress, a brief passage on the Book of Mormon as literature:   Study of the literary character of the Book of Mormon is in its infancy, but it has already revealed the book to be far more sophisticated and complex than most readers—certainly more than most critics—have recognized. One of... Read more

    A bit more from my manuscript on Islam for a Latter-day Saint audience:   A couple of stories will make clear the power that poets were thought to enjoy [among the ancient, pre-Islamic Arabs]. The first concerns a man by the name of Maymun ibn Qays, who is generally known by the name of al-Asha. He was a profes­sional troubadour, to borrow a later term. He traveled from one end of the Arabian Peninsula to the other, harp... Read more

    At their request, we met with several of our group who were not otherwise obligated and took them over to al-haram al-sharif, the “Temple Mount,” where the line to get up onto the Mount was the longest I’ve ever seen it — extending out the Dung Gate and even somewhat down the hill.  Fortunately, though, when it moved, it moved fairly quickly.   So we took them up past Al-Aqsa Mosque, past what I believe is the largest... Read more

    Travelers arriving at Israel’s David Ben Gurion International Airport — which is relatively near to Tel Aviv but isn’t, strictly speaking, in that city — are often deadly tired and not feeling especially curious.  Even when their flight hasn’t been delayed several hours, as ours was, on top of a day of cancellations and delays.   And, truth be told, although the airport is far, far better than it was when I first began coming here, it doesn’t... Read more

    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