After breakfast, we visited the ancient Hippodrome, where chariot races were held in Byzantine days, and where the infamous massacre took place during the great Nika Riot of AD 532 (about which I hope to say more in a future entry). Two monuments are (to me) particularly notable in the Hippodrome: The Serpent Column—Originally, this was the sacrificial Tripod of Plataea, which was created to celebrate the victory of the Greeks over the invading Persians during the Persian Wars... Read more
From its conquest by the Ottomans in 1453 until the official end of the Ottoman Empire in 1922, Constantinople, renamed Istanbul, was their capital. The Ottoman Empire reach its zenith under Süleyman (or Suleiman) the Magnificent, who reigned from 1520 to 1566 (roughly overlapping with King Henry VIII of England, “Bloody Mary,” and Queen Elizabeth I, who, compared with his vast domain, were mere petty chieftains). The name Süleyman is the Turkish (and more or less the Arabic)... Read more
It’s good to be back in Istanbul, one of my very favorite cities. One of my favorite places on Earth. (We flew in just a few hours ago, via Amsterdam.) I’m not sure how long it’s been since we were here last, but it could possibly have been as long as eight years. And my last visit to Turkey beyond Istanbul was probably eleven years ago. So I’m very happy to be back. I love the setting of... Read more
Although we really didn’t have time last night – too many urgent things to do – we attended a performance of Puccini’s La bohème. I’m sad to report that Mimi died, once again. Every time we see La bohème, I root for her, hoping that she’ll make it. But she never does. *** We’re watching the situation in Israel with particular interest. We’re scheduled to be there, leading a tour, in about three weeks or so. By then,... Read more
The funeral services for a dear friend, Bianca Palmieri Lisonbee, were held this morning. Last night, too, along with a mutual friend who happened to be visiting from Orlando for meetings connected with BYU’s International Center for Law and Religion Studies (and whom we drove to the airport thereafter), my wife and I attended the viewing for Bianca. It was gratifying to see the large numbers of people who turned out to honor her and, thereby, to honor... Read more
Today is my brother’s birthday. He would have been eighty-one this year, which is very difficult for me to imagine. I’m sorry to say that, more than a few times while he was alive, I completely forgot it until three or four days had passed. No longer, though. Now that it’s too late, I have a pre-programed reminder on my cellphone. (I wish such things had come along a bit earlier.) His widow passed away a few months... Read more
A new article went up at noon today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. It is the Introduction to Volume 58 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: ““Signals of Transcendence,”” written by . . . well, by one Daniel C. Peterson Abstract: Hints of a different and better world — sometimes dimly remembered, often intuited, and commonly hoped for — and of a glorious, mighty power behind the world in which we... Read more
The teaching of the Book of Mormon on resurrection is clear and specific. Here, for example, is Alma 11:43-44: The spirit and the body shall be reunited again in its perfect form; both limb and joint shall be restored to its proper frame, even as we now are at this time; and we shall be brought to stand before God, knowing even as we know now, and have a bright recollection of all our guilt. Now, this restoration... Read more
“I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.” (1 Corinthians 14:15) I would like to share a random potpourri of passages that struck me (and that I marked) during my reading of Michael Guillen, Believing is Seeing: A Physicist Explains How Science Shattered His Atheism and Revealed the Necessity of Faith (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale Refresh, 2021). Dr. Guillen, who grew up in East Los Angeles (not too terribly far from where... Read more
With friends, we attended the open house of the newly renovated St. George Utah Temple this morning. I loved it. I loved the fact that the renovation restored the temple to an interior look that its nineteenth-century pioneer builders would have recognized. Renovations and extensions to early temples that were done a generation or two ago often incongruously mixed styles from the period of the modification (say, the 70s) with the original styles. Lately, though, and happily, the... Read more
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