On Being “Perfect” (Part One)

Last updated on: April 2, 2023 at 2:30 pm By Dan Peterson

[Prefatory clarification: The title of this blog entry notwithstanding, it doesn’t actually constitute the first installment of my autobiographical memoirs.] The fifth chapter of the gospel of Matthew closes with one of the most daunting challenges in all of scripture: “Be ye therefore perfect,” says the Savior at Matthew 5:48, “even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:48) Perfection? Really? Once or twice, when I’ve been interviewing young adults as part of my Church... Read more

Easter Week and a Distant Beginning

Last updated on: April 1, 2023 at 12:10 pm By Dan Peterson

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I’ve thoroughly enjoyed General Conference thus far. The talks have been uniformly excellent, although I’m sad to hear that Elder Jeffrey R. Holland is home sick with COVID and also to realize, in that light, that he won’t be speaking this weekend. He is always a favorite, and not merely with me. I was absolutely delighted to hear the admonition from Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, the first speaker in this morning’s... Read more

“How Things Look from Here”

Last updated on: March 31, 2023 at 8:27 pm By Dan Peterson

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A new article went up today at noon in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “How Things Look from Here,” written (and, by the way, audio-recorded by) Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: Do defenders of the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ see themselves as fighting a desperate rearguard battle against the evidence, hoping to save at least a faint shred of credibility for its claims? Hardly. But, at the same time, we don’t pretend to be able to... Read more

“A very bright, keen, designing lot of fellows”?

Last updated on: March 30, 2023 at 2:47 pm By Dan Peterson

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I frequently read online comments, especially from former believers, claiming that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a corporation that cares only for its own interests and doesn’t care about the needs of its members. I must admit that I find such remarks baffling. Weird, even. It’s true, of course, that believing Latter-day Saints (presumably including their leaders) regard the Church as the Kingdom of God on the earth, and that they feel a powerful... Read more

“Frankenstein Mathematics” and the Unimaginable

Last updated on: March 29, 2023 at 3:01 pm By Dan Peterson

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I’ve begun to read Chris Ferrie and Geraint F. Lewis, Where Did the Universe Come From? And Other Cosmic Questions: Our Universe, from the Quantum to the Cosmos (Naperville IL: Sourcebooks, 2021) — a relatively brief book with a very long title. Chris Ferrie is a physicist and an associate professor of quantum software and information at the University of Technology Sydney; Geraint F. Lewis is a professor of astrophysics at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy. Here is... Read more

Rev. Sidney Rigdon, Rev. Solomon Spalding, and the Book of Mormon

Last updated on: March 28, 2023 at 4:51 pm By Dan Peterson

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For many, many decades until relatively recently, it was assumed by virtually everybody who rejected the Book of Mormon as an authentic work of ancient scripture — which is to say, by virtually everybody who ever gave the subject a passing thought — that, while it must have been written in the nineteenth century, it surely could not have been written by Joseph Smith. It seemed pretty clearly (and believing Latter-day Saints will overwhelmingly tend to agree) beyond... Read more

“Temples of the Imagination”

Last updated on: March 27, 2023 at 12:44 pm By Dan Peterson

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In cooperation with Verdant Press and Eborn Books, the Interpreter Foundation has just published an unusual new book by Jeffrey Thayne and Nathan Richardson under the title of Temples of the Imagination: AI-Generated Temples, Human-Generated Insights. It holds special interest for me because, at one very youthful point, I briefly dreamed of being an architect. I had fallen in love with the work of Frank Lloyd Wright and had been influenced by Ayn Rand’s novel The Fountainhead (not a... Read more

“Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake”

Last updated on: March 26, 2023 at 6:08 pm By Dan Peterson

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While, in terms of their form, Matthew 5:10 and 5:11-12 may seem at first glance to constitute two distinct “beatitudes,” it’s pretty obvious from their parallel, even synonymous, content that they’re really a single unit. The second portion doesn’t contain a specific statement of reward because it’s simply a restatement of the first portion , which does name the reward: Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are... Read more

One of the Restoration’s Greatest Contributions

Last updated on: March 25, 2023 at 6:25 pm By Dan Peterson

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I’m back to reading Richard S. Van Wagoner, Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1994). Here’s a passage that caught my attention, discussing the revelation on the three degrees of glory that is now included in the Doctrine and Covenants as Section 76. It highlights one of the great contributions of the Restoration: The three-tiered gradation of glory could only have been viewed by Rigdon’s and Smith’s contemporaries in 1832 as three... Read more

“Moving Beyond the Historicity Question”?

Last updated on: March 24, 2023 at 5:47 pm By Dan Peterson

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A new article went up today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: “Moving Beyond the Historicity Question, or a Manifesto for Future Book of Mormon Research,” written by Newell D. Wright: Review of Daniel Becerra, Amy Easton-Flake, Nicholas J. Frederick, and Joseph M. Spencer, Book of Mormon Studies: An Introduction and Guide (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2022). 184 pages. $19.99 (hardback), $15.99 (paperback). Abstract: Book of Mormon Studies: An Introduction and Guide by four... Read more