This blog entry is, to a considerable extent, a continuation of the thinking that I began yesterday. Considerable merriment has been occasioned among a handful of merry madcaps over at what I call the Peterson Obsession Board by my repeated invitations to an atheist commenter on my blog (whom we shall call “gemli”) that he read books and/or articles on the topics that he professes to address in his many comments here. He himself has steadfastly refused to look... Read more
An article in The New York Times Magazine for 26 April 1981 entitled “Rosetta Stones from Space” opened as follows: The first recorded meteorite fell in Phrygia in Asia Minor about 2000 B.C. The object was carried to a local temple and then later transported to Rome, where it remained for 500 years before being lost. Almost since the rise of civilization, meteorites have been regarded as objects of worship, and in Asia today a number of meteorites are... Read more
Traveling around Hawai’i — we went up and around to Princeville today, and out to the overlook by Kilauea Point Lighthouse — it’s interesting to see evidences of the forces that made its islands and that are now, in most places here, very slowly unmaking them. As the tectonic plate on which the Hawaiian Islands sit, the Pacific Plate, moves to the northwest at an annual rate of about 2.75 inches or seven centimeters — they leave behind them... Read more
Two new items appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation today: “Prophet or Loss: Mosiah1/Zeniff, Benjamin/Noah, Mosiah2/Limhi and the Emergence of the Almas,” written by Val Larsen Abstract: Mormon’s overwhelmingly dominant rhetorical purpose is to testify of Christ, which he and his protagonists often directly do. But he also communicates his testimony more subtly through carefully crafted historical narratives. His use of frame narratives is especially artful. In the Book of Mosiah, Mormon frames the dispiriting account of... Read more
Two non-new articles have newly appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. I hope that you will enjoy them: Conference Talks: Adam, Eve, the Book of Moses, and the Temple: The Story of Receiving Christ’s Atonement, was delivered at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2020 “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses Conference” by Elder Bruce C. Hafen (emeritus) and Sister Marie K. Hafen. Elder Bruce C. Hafen, an emeritus member of the Seventy and a former president of... Read more
A friend picked us up at our hotel early this evening and took us out to the grounds of the Sydney Australia Temple in Carlingford. I presented a fireside there on the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. It was good to friends here again. We’ve just returned. I share some notes from my reading of Consciousness Beyond Life: The Science of the Near-Death Experience (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), by the Dutch cardiologist and researcher Pim van Lommel: When heart... Read more
Well, our cruise ended this morning where it first began. We disembarked from our ship, the Ovation of the Seas, and made our way to our hotel in Sydney. Our group had said their goodbyes last night. Most of them are over the Pacific Ocean by now. The Australians who were among us are probably already home. I always find the end of such tours rather sad: You get to know new people quite well (or strengthen relationships with... Read more
If all goes according to plan and if my understanding is not mistaken, I will be speaking at Buckland House on the grounds of the Sydney Australia Temple this Thursday night, 22 February 2024. I don’t know the time yet, but it will be in the evening. I’m guessing that it will begin at about 7:00 PM or 7:30 PM, but I’ll try to get the time nailed down as soon as I possibly can. It has been a... Read more
For my own undoubtedly dishonorable purposes, I’m extracting here some more of the passages that I marked during my recent re-reading of Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer’s posthumously-published 2008 book Extraordinary Knowing: Science, Skepticism, and the Inexplicable Powers of the Human Mind. And, to reorient those who may be reading, I once again cite the brief biography that appears at the end of that volume: Known as Lisby by her many friends and colleagues, Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer was an internationally known... Read more
The Interpreter Foundation continues to generate substantial materials for interested audiences. Here are two recently posted specimens: (1) “Not by Bread Alone Episode 1: Stories of the Saints in the DR Congo,” by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw For more information on the “Not by Bread Alone: Stories of the Saints in Africa” series, go to https://notbybreadalonefilm.com/en/ For more information in French, go to https://notbybreadalonefilm.com/fr/ To see all of our posts about The Church in Africa, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/africa/ At last,... Read more
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