Herewith, I post another brief set of preliminary notes for (this time) a couple of chapters in my projected book on the Beatitudes. The first two entries in this littler series are “Introducing a Blog Focus for the Sabbath” and ““Blessed are the poor in spirit.”” So here, for whatever it’s worth, is my third installment: In the King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 5:4 reads as follows: “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall... Read more
I carry on now with my appropriation, for my own undoubtedly wicked purposes, of material drawn largely (though not quite entirely) from the online “List of Fine-Tuning Parameters” compiled by Jay W. Richards. (My first entry taken from his list, and explicitly dependent upon it, was this one: “An initial survey of the “four fundamental forces” and the “cosmological constant.””). My second was ““Initial Conditions and ‘Brute Facts.’”) As I said in both of those blog posts, I... Read more
Happy weekend! Two new articles appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: ““According to the Spirit of Revelation and Prophecy”: Alma2’s Prophetic Warning of Christ’s Coming to the Lehites (and Others),” written by Matthew Scott Stenson Abstract: Some students of the Book of Mormon have felt that while the coming of the Lord to the Lehites was clearly revealed to and taught by Nephi1, those prophecies having to do with the subject may not have... Read more
I already suggested here yesterday that Latter-day Saints should consider contributing to the humanitarian arm of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. They should do so in order to replenish (for the inevitable next disaster or crisis) the resources that, I trust, are already making their way to the Turkish victims, and perhaps also to the Syrian victims, of the recent Near Eastern earthquakes : “Humanitarian Programs: Church humanitarian work primarily helps those in need who... Read more
First, though, I offer links to three items that were recently posted on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: Conference Talks: “What Did Joseph Smith Know about Temple Ordinances by 1836?” This talk was given by Jeffrey M. Bradshaw on Saturday, 25 October 2014, during the Interpreter Foundation’s 2014 Temple on Mount Zion Conference The New Testament in Context: Lesson 8: “Blessed Are Ye,” Matthew 5 and Luke 6 In the 22 January 2023 Come, Follow Me... Read more
We really enjoyed attending sacrament meeting on both of our Sundays here. We met with a Tongan ward in Lahaina, on Maui. This past Sunday, we joined with the Kona 1st Ward, which meets directly adjacent to the Kona Hawaii Temple. One of the negatives in the Latter-day Saint reputation, at least in the United States, is that we’re white racists. And here in Hawaii, whenever I’ve gone swimming, I’ve been acutely aware that I am, indeed, very,... Read more
We briefly visited the Pu’ukoholā Heiau this afternoon. (The word heiau is typically translated as “temple.”) My wife and I paid it a longer visit several years ago, when we fairly systematically visited several heiaus. An excellent film at the visitor center, new since we were last here, explains very clearly the events surrounding the construction of the sanctuary during parts of 1790 and 1791 by King Kamehameha I (“the Great”) — who sometimes labored with... Read more
Herewith, a brief set of preliminary notes toward a chapter in my projected book on the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” reads the first of the Beatitudes (in Matthew 5:3 of the King James Version), “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” By the way, please note that the phrase “for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” also occurs at Matthew 5:10, which, by the traditional reckoning (with which I agree), is the last of... Read more
I’ve long had it in mind to do a brief book on the Beatitudes of the New Testament. I’ve made several starts on it, but — in a triumph of hope over experience — I think I’ll make a running leap at it once again, perhaps making it a special focus for the Sabbath. (Hawai’i very powerfully makes me think of “the Isles of the Blest.”) With that in mind, I share yet again some prefatory remarks on... Read more
Conditions for posting online haven’t been ideal in my case over the past several hours, so I apologize for my tardiness in drawing attention to these two new articles from the Interpreter Foundation: “Twenty Years After “Paradigms Regained,” Part 2: Responding to Margaret Barker’s Critics and Why Her Work Should Matter to Latter-day Saints,” written by Kevin Christensen Abstract: Here I address specific criticisms of Margaret Barker’s work. First, I set the stage by discussing Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of... Read more
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