Yet another of the products of our overall “Witnesses” film project went up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation at 7 PM on Saturday evening, Utah time. You can view it, along with the other “Insights” videos in this series, at absolutely no charge. And we hope that you will share it with others. That’s the use that we’ve designed these short videos to serve. Please do share them with family members, aluminum siding salesmen, friends, office... Read more
Halifax, Nova Scotia, is sadly well acquainted with tragedy. In a blog entry that I posted yesterday, I mentioned the city’s connection with the sinking of the Titanic, which occurred seven hundred nautical miles away, and with some of the victims of that terrible event. About five and a half years thereafter, though, an even more horrible catastrophe occurred far closer to home: On 6 December 1917, the Norwegian ship Imo, a neutral relief vessel contracted to carry... Read more
Two new articles appeared today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of them is the latest article to appear in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship: ““Unto the Taking Away of Their Stumbling Blocks”: The Taking Away and Keeping Back of Plain and Precious Things and Their Restoration in 1 Nephi 13–15,” written by Matthew L. Bowen Abstract: In the latter part (1 Nephi 13–14) of his vision of the tree of life (1 Nephi 11–14),... Read more
As I’ve explained here several times before, one of the functions that this blog serves for me is as a kind of journal and even as a place for rough drafts of my life history. And a part of that, though a relatively minor part in terms of “bulk” or word count, is my use of it as a place to remember family and friends who have passed on. In certain cases, I’ve resolved that I will commemorate... Read more
Will religious universities continue to be permitted to set their own behavioral standards for students (and, for that matter, for faculty and administrators) if those standards conflict with Western society’s rising orthodoxy on gender and sexuality? Should they be permitted to do so? New York City’s Yeshiva University, an Orthodox Jewish institution, has recently become a battleground for different viewpoints on that question. A Catholic perspective: “Religious Liberty Must Prevail for Yeshiva University” Forward (implicitly taking a... Read more
Here are four new items that have gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation during the past twenty-four to thirty-six hours: Nibley Lectures: Time Vindicates the Prophets — “The Ancient Law of Liberty” Between 7 March 1954 and 17 October 1954, Hugh Nibley delivered a series of thirty weekly lectures on KSL Radio that were also published as pamphlets. The series, called “Time Vindicates the Prophets,” was given in answer to those who were challenging... Read more
I recently read Paul Alan Cox, “The Orchid and the Missile: Reflections on the MX,” BYU Studies Quarterly 61/2 (2022): 31-50. His entry on my Latter-day Saint Scholars Testify website can be found here, and I append immediately below the relevant portion of the little bio given for him by BYU Studies: Paul Alan Cox was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize, sometimes known as the Nobel Prize of the Environment, and was named one of TIME magazine’s eleven... Read more
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’ve lately been re-reading Eugene England, Brother Brigham (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), and thoroughly, thoroughly, enjoying it. I’m consistently amazed at the similarity of Gene’s opinion of Brigham Young to mine. But then, maybe the similarity shouldn’t be such a surprise. It may be that Gene’s view of Brigham Young was a formative influence on mine in the first place. After all, I first read it when it came from the press... Read more
I think that it was Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of the Twelve who, in the second to the last talk of the just-concluded October conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, knowing that the concluding speaker would be President Russell M. Nelson, bore his testimony that President Nelson is, in our time, the chosen prophet of God for the entire world. It’s a breathtakingly grand claim. And it powerfully reminded me of... Read more
But first, this new “Insights” video has just gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Witnesses of the Book of Mormon — Insights Episode 24: What was Joseph’s Witness?” When we discuss the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, we often overlook the first witness of the plates: Joseph Smith himself. What were his experiences with the plates? This is the twenty-fourth in a series compiled from the many interviews conducted during the course of the Witnesses... Read more
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