Something wonderfully beautiful:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oqm-hf1LDV4   The lyrics vary.  (The song was originally written in French, too.)  But here’s one version:   1. Whence is the goodly fragrance flowing, Stealing our senses all away, never the like did come a-blowing, Shepherds, in flow’ry fields of May, Whence is that goodly fragrance flowing, Stealing our senses all away. 2. What is that light so brilliant, breaking Here in the night across our eyes. Never so bright, the day-star waking,... Read more

    http://news.byu.edu/archive15-dec-faith%20counts%2015.aspx   Enjoy!   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    “One of the categories of people I don’t like much are intellectuals.  People say, ‘Oh, you’re an intellectual,’ and I say, ‘No!’  What is an intellectual?  An intellectual is somebody who thinks ideas are more important than people.” Paul Johnson   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    It’s the time of the year for making retrospective lists.  So here’s one:   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428882/obama-violate-constitution-top-ten-2015   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    1 Corinthians 15:3-8   It’s often forgotten that there’s another early Old World witness to the Resurrection of Christ, quite independent from the accounts given by the four gospels: some of the early verses of chapter fifteen in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  (Notice, for example, that it omits mention of the women at the tomb — and, indeed, of any women at all.  Perhaps the omission can be explained by the fact that Paul was a... Read more

    I’m very excited about the approaching launch of Book of Mormon Central:   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/2015/12/book-of-mormon-central-new-online-study.html   Needless to say, the Interpreter Foundation is affiliated with and fully supportive of this effort.   I would like to have been there yesterday for the public event, but, well, it’s a fairly lengthy trip from Richmond to Provo.   Posted from Richmond, Virginia   Read more

    This is the column that I published last year just prior to the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Smith:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865617930/A-modern-witness-to-the-baby-born-in-Bethlehem.html   Posted from Richmond, Virginia     Read more

    John 21:1-14  Compare Luke 5:1-11   The curious comment in John 21:12 (“Now none of the disciples dared ask him, ‘Who are you?’  They knew it was the Lord.”) suggests, again, that Jesus’ appearance in his resurrected state was slightly altered from his mortal appearance.     Read more

    I suspect that most of my readers live in the American West.  It’s easy to imagine exciting archaeological discoveries in, for example, the exotic Middle East.  But the Western United States can provide interesting archaeological material, as well.  And, it seems, did so in 2015:   http://westerndigs.org/top-5-archaeology-discoveries-in-the-american-west-in-2015/   Posted from Richmond, Virginia (where there’s also a bit of history and prehistory) Read more

    Matthew 28:16-20 Compare Mark 16:14-18; John 14:23   1.   It’s difficult to imagine that “some doubted” even in the presence of the resurrected Lord.  But the fact of death is so universally well known and so widely understood as definitive, and wishful thinking so generally understood to be a dangerous spur to error, that some still wondered whether it was all too good to be true.  So much, I suppose, for the complacent modern notion that ancient... Read more