2017-10-19T07:56:17-06:00

    I listened late tonight (Monday night) to an interview with historian D. Michael Quinn, on the Mormon News Report.  I highly recommend the interview.  (It begins at just about precisely the 45-minute mark of the podcast.)   In the past, I’ve been critical of some of Mike Quinn’s writing, and I’ve published things that were critical of his some of his work.  But I’ve also liked a lot of what he’s done — especially his early articles — and... Read more

2017-10-16T19:49:11-06:00

    Dr. Ian H. Hutchinson is Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, with a primary research interest in plasma physics.  In this passage from his book Monopolizing Knowledge, he takes aim at “reductionism”:   It is the assertion, or more usually unspoken presumption, that when a satisfactory scientific explanation at a reduced level exists, such an explanation trumps, invalidates, or explains away understanding at higher levels: that the higher level descriptions lose their force... Read more

2017-10-16T12:27:19-06:00

    Closely related to the obligations felt by a host toward his guests is the notion of generosity, which was one of the leading vir­tues of a pre-Islamic Arabian hero. And, of all those heroes, there’s one whose name became virtually synonymous in subsequent Arab tradition with the idea of generosity—Hatim of Tayyi. He is once reputed to have said to his wife Mawiyya, The guest’s slave am I, it’s true, as long as he stays with me, / Although... Read more

2017-10-16T11:46:56-06:00

    As a former director of the Center for the Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts (CPART), a division of what was then FARMS but later became the Maxwell Institute, and as someone who was present at the very creation — indeed, as a former chairman of the board of FARMS who was closely affiliated with the organization for twenty-four years —  I’m saddened to see this:   “CPART’s season at the Maxwell Institute comes to an end”   Those... Read more

2017-10-15T19:03:30-06:00

    On 21 August 1883, James H. Hart, a Latter-day Saint journalist who was, at various times, editor of the Bear Lake Democrat (later the Southern Idaho Independent) and associate editor of the Paris [Idaho] Post, interviewed David Whitmer, the last surviving Witness to the Book of Mormon.   According to the late Professor Edward L. Hart, “James H. Hart’s Contribution to Our Knowledge of Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer” (BYU Studies 36:4 [1996-1997]: 118-124), James Hart used a form of Pitman shorthand... Read more

2020-07-12T20:58:15-06:00

    Another passage from one of my books in progress:   The new gospel preached by Jesus and Paul and the other apos­tles was, in a certain sense, the universal reformed Judaism of which Hellenistic reformers—at least those of the better sort—had long dreamed. The blessings of Abraham were now available to all, provided only that they accepted Jesus and his teachings. “There is,” wrote Paul, “neither Jew nor Greek . . .  for ye are all one in... Read more

2017-10-15T09:57:50-06:00

    I briefly cited Orson F. Whitney — a future member of the Council of the Twelve who would serve in that office from 1906 until his death in 1931 — in my previous post:   “‘How to Fight Loneliness'”   That set me to thinking just a bit about Elder Whitney.  So, in that spirit, I share a quotation from his memoirs that may already be familiar to most of my readers.  But it’s a  wonderful passage, and... Read more

2017-10-14T22:35:58-06:00

    We’re just back from a very good Italian dinner at the Chef Alfredo Ristorante Italiano in Cedar City with a friend who lives there in town.  Again, I’m amazed at the good restaurants and good theater that can now be found in southern Utah.   Before going to our friend’s house and then, with her, out to dinner, we watched a matinee performance of Neil LaBute’s play How to Fight Loneliness, directed by the Utah Shakespeare Festival’s longtime co-artistic... Read more

2017-10-14T11:06:20-06:00

    A bit more from what will likely be my next book:   Paul Johnson well summarizes the catastrophic changes in the fortunes of world Jewry: In the short-term perspective of the second century AD, the Jews appeared to have been a powerful national and religious group which had courted ruin, and achieved it. During most of the first century, the Jews not only constituted a tenth of the empire, and a much higher proportion in certain big cities,... Read more

2017-10-14T10:23:31-06:00

      The British educator and literary scholar Arthur Henry King was an adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Here is his candid report of his initial response to the Book of Mormon:   It took me a long time to appreciate the Book of Mormon. When I started to read it, I thought it was an awful bore. Then I gradually found (it took me about two years) that I was wrong. I... Read more

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