Fred Donner is a very well-regarded scholar, and this is interesting:   http://news.stanford.edu/news/2015/march/early-days-islam-030315.html   Posted from Monterey, California     Read more

    You’ve probably heard, by now, of the controversy surrounding Elder David A. Bednar’s recent remark, during a question-and-answer session with young people in Chile, that “There are no homosexual members of the Church.”   It was, I think, a response deliberately formulated in order to arrest the attention of his audience and to provoke thoughtful reflection.   Thoughtful reflection, though, doesn’t serve the agendas of ardent and intellectually dishonest polemicists.   So they’ve ginned up a phony controversy... Read more

    It seems to me that it’s appropriate, on the Sabbath, to consider the sheer grandeur of the cosmos.   O Lord, our Lord,     how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens. 2     Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes,     to still the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers,     the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, 4 what... Read more

    It’s amusing to see Jarom, whose single-chapter book provides today’s reading, indicate that he won’t have much to say because, really, everything that needed to be said has already been said.  (See verse two.)   It seems, though, that a few things did remain to be written, since not only most of the Book of Mormon was composed after Jarom’s time, but also some of the Old Testament, all of the New Testament, and the Doctrine and Covenants.   In... Read more

    “The discipline of the written word punishes both stupidity and dishonesty.” John Steinbeck     Read more

    http://www.idahopress.com/members/trump-puts-idaho-mormons-in-tough-spot/article_8dc823df-6b35-553b-876f-e14482ae1499.html   Posted from Monterey, California   Read more

    If you’re not aware of the aids for study and teaching that Taylor Halverson has been putting up on the Interpreter Foundation website, take a look!  Here’s the latest: http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/jacob-1-4-seek-the-kingdom-of-god/   Posted from Monterey, California   Read more

    A powerful piece:   http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/04/opinion/donald-trump-the-great-betrayer.html?_r=0   On a closely related matter:   Most of the media talking-head reactions that I heard to Mitt Romney’s Thursday speech regarding Donald Trump were stunningly negative.  That’s been discouraging.  I’ve lost a lot of respect for people like Andrea Tantaros and Laura Ingraham, for instance, over their responses.   I think that Governor Romney’s remarks would have been even more effective had he acknowledged his own comments upon receiving Mr. Trump’s endorsement for the... Read more

    This somewhat speculative but exceedingly interesting article was brought to my attention by Jabra Ghneim:   http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/what-are-the-demographics-of-heaven/?ex_cid=538fb   Among other things, I find it oddly encouraging.  Why?  Because it suggests that (come the Millennium?) the task of redeeming the dead is actually practically possible, at least in terms of sheer numbers.  Given increasing populations, the ratio of the dead to the living isn’t all that high; ancient populations were much smaller.  If we convert enough people, build enough temples, work in them... Read more

    Kent Budge, who comments on my blog, has written a blog entry of his own, elsewhere, with which I completely agree.  So completely, in fact, that, at least on a first reading, there isn’t a single sentence that I wouldn’t happily have written myself:   http://www.jrganymede.com/2016/03/05/an-open-letter-to-trump-supporters-and-the-other-republican-candidates/#more-17045   Posted from Monterey, California   Read more