The new finds just keep coming:   http://www.livescience.com/54252-egypt-silsila-newly-discovered-tombs.html   And I have no doubt that they’ll continue to come.   Even in Egypt, which is one of the most intensively studied (because it’s, by far, one of the most interesting) archaeological areas in the world.     Read more

    The latest installment of my Thursday Deseret News column has appeared:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865651683/Is-it-intellectually-honest-to-have-faith.html     Read more

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seth-adam-smith/mormon-church-responds-to_b_9610100.html     Read more

  Walker Wright takes an interesting approach to the problem of radicalization of European Muslims.  It warms my pro-free-market heart:   European Labor Laws and Radical Islam     My general viewpoint is that swollen state power is a bad thing on many levels.  This is a nice potential illustration of that principle.     Read more

    We’re surely entitled to hope so.   And, if he is, it will simply be Mr. Trump following his previous business trajectories:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/433739/donald-trump-wisconsin-loss-echoes-business-failures     Read more

    Today’s reading is Mosiah 24.   Perhaps the most important take-away from it is the lesson that the Lord doesn’t always immediately lift our burdens from us.  Often, though, as in this instance, he “eases” them for us — sometimes by increasing our capacity to bear them.   I’m reminded of psychiatrist Viktor Frankl’s observation, in his classic book Man’s Search for Meaning, based upon his experience as a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camps at Theresienstadt and Auschwitz, that those... Read more

    Here is the introduction that I gave tonight at the beginning of the program on “Editing Out the ‘Bad Grammar’ in the Book of Mormon” that was held at Brigham Young University:   We are here tonight to mark publication of the latest products of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project: The impressively massive and elegantly produced Parts One and Two of Volume Three (The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon: Grammatical Variation).  ... Read more

    In a big family the first child is kind of like the first pancake. If it’s not perfect, that’s okay, there are a lot more coming along.    What is a moderate interpretation of the text? Halfway between what it really means and what you’d like it to mean?   If I have brought any message today, it is this: Have the courage to have your wisdom regarded as stupidity. Be fools for Christ. And have the courage... Read more

    Very interesting food for thought:   http://qz.com/654521/dna-sequencing-shows-massive-collapse-in-native-american-population-with-arrival-of-europeans/         Read more

    You may perhaps have missed Senator Ted Cruz’s victory speech last night.  It can’t quite compare with Mr. Donald Trump’s statement following the Wisconsin primary, of course, but it’s interesting, nonetheless:   http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/ted-cruzs-victory-speech-wisconsin-38179409   Just after the 9:55 minute mark, for example, speaking in Wisconsin, Senator Cruz explicitly pledges to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will protect the religious liberty of Brigham Young University.   He has special interest in questions concerning judges and... Read more