In 1999, my friend and long-time colleague at the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), John A. Tvedtnes, presented this interesting paper at the first annual conference of what was then called the Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research (FAIR), which was held in northern California:   http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/fair-conferences/1999-fair-conference/1999-early-christian-and-jewish-rituals-related-to-temple-practices     Read more

    Taylor Halverson offers some calming and reassuring words in the Deseret News:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865645137/When-should-we-be-afraid-of-the-future.html     Read more

    One of Hillary Clinton’s principal if implicit appeals to voters is that, because she’ll be the first female president, she’ll be a representative and a voice for women.   The trouble is, she’s a terrible representative for American women.   Does anybody seriously believe, for one thing, that she would have been a Senator, a Secretary of State, and the frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination had she not been the wife of Bill Clinton?  Is this really... Read more

    The proposal offered by some LDS scholars that the Book of Mormon’s “horses” might have been some other animal — perhaps Baird’s tapir — that the Nephites called “horses” because, although unfamiliar, they saw them as, in some salient way, “horse-like” can be counted upon to draw raucous derision from a certain species of ex- and anti-Mormon.   That’s the background for this item, from Stephen Smoot:   http://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2016/01/a-recent-experience-with-greek.html     Read more

    This certainly strikes a chord with me:   http://www.bps.org.uk/news/how-you-manage-your-emails-may-be-bad-your-health   Necessarily, given what I do, I spend a large part of my typical day on the computer, and it often seems that the priorities — or even the whims — of others take precedence over my urgent priorities.   In olden days, there was the problem of the interrupting phone call or the person who, idle and simply wanting to chat, dropped by the office just as you were beginning... Read more

    A resource that many teachers and students of this year’s Gospel Doctrine curriculum might find useful is being offered by Ben Spackman (on whom, see here and here).  He’s posting thoughtful entries keyed to the lessons in the class manual, and has already put up two:   Lesson 1   Lesson 2 (1 Nephi 1-7)   And, back in December, at another blog, he offered this list of helpful materials — which could, of course, be greatly expanded —... Read more

    The latest installment of the biweekly Saturday Hamblin/Peterson columns for the Deseret News is up:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865645127/A-musical-religious-and-historical-treasure.html     Read more

    I frequently see and hear statements to the effect, “Let’s just leave the Middle East to itself.”  “Let the Arabs deal with their own problems.”   And I get it.  I understand the frustration, the exasperation at a region that seems lethally self-destructive, that often seems not even to want peace.  The anger at people who squander their resources trying to kill each other and, if possible, to kill us.   But we cannot, in good conscience, simply... Read more

    Today’s reading is 1 Nephi 14.   I’m going to continue focusing on a topic that I raised yesterday, regarding 1 Nephi 13.  That topic is the “great and abominable church.”   I said yesterday that I don’t believe that the idea can be sustained that that phrase refers to the Roman Catholic Church.  I’ll go further, today, and say that it clearly cannot be referring to a specific denomination.   In 1 Nephi 14:10, Nephi reports   And... Read more

    “Do your little bit of good where you are; it’s those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.”  Archbishop Desmond Tutu     Read more