{"id":100308,"date":"2023-05-31T15:24:22","date_gmt":"2023-05-31T21:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=100308"},"modified":"2023-05-31T17:20:29","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T23:20:29","slug":"near-neighbours-to-the-royal-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/05\/near-neighbours-to-the-royal-family.html","title":{"rendered":"Near neighbours to the royal family"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Looking downstream along the River Dee from the Cambus O\u2019May bridge
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo by Stanley Howe)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But, first:\u00a0 It almost never happens anymore, but, well, something has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation \u2014\u00a0 Conference Talks: \u201cA theory! A theory! We have already got a theory, and there cannot be any more theories!\u201d<\/em><\/a>\u00a0 This presentation was originally given by Royal Skousen on Saturday, 14 March 2015, at the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s conference on \u201cExploring the Complexities in the English Language of the Book of Mormon\u201d:<\/p>\n

Three common views regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon, still held by some, can be summarized as follows: (1) as Joseph Smith translated, ideas came to his mind and he expressed those ideas in his own language and phraseology; (2) as a result, the original English language of the Book of Mormon is based on Joseph\u2019s upstate New York dialect, intermixed with his own style of biblical English; and (3) the Book of Mormon deals with the religious and political issues of Joseph\u2019s own time. In this paper I will draw upon the work of the Book of Mormon critical text project to argue that all of these views are essentially misguided and are based on a firm determination to hold to preconceived notions, no matter what the evidence.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Ballater<\/a>
Ballater Kirk in the summer of 1991, as shown in a Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Colin Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

You might be interested in this interview with Josh Coates, who founded and heads the B. H. Roberts Foundation<\/a>, one of the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s friendly sister organizations:\u00a0 \u201cCan we use AI to answer questions about faith?\u00a0 Computer scientist Josh Coates answers questions about a new \u2018faithful and friendly\u2019 Latter-day Saint chatbot\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a>
The Cambus O\u2019May suspension bridge near Ballater, Scotland, in a Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Sandy Gerrard<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

We spent part of today driving and walking along the River Dee, which runs through a beautiful hilly landscape of forests, meadows, cow pastures, and sheep paddocks.\u00a0 According to Wikipedia, the name Dee<\/em> goes back at least as far as<\/p>\n

the second century AD in the work of the Alexandrian geographer Claudius Ptolemy, as \u0394\u03b7\u03bf\u1fe6\u03b1<\/i> (=Deva), meaning \u2018goddess\u2019. This indicated the river had divine status in the beliefs of the ancient inhabitants of the area.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At one point, we crossed over the Cambus O\u2019May bridge , which was originally constructed in 1905 by the estate of a local boy who had once witnessed a drowning in the River Dee when he was a child and had vowed, as a result, that he would someday build a bridge over the river to prevent such tragedies.\u00a0 After having gone off to London and made a fortune, he actually built two<\/em> bridges, although this one was completed after his death.\u00a0 The original bridge having fallen upon hard times, the suspension bridge that stands on the spot now, a narrow structure for pedestrians, was opened in 1988 by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother.<\/p>\n

The Queen Mother, widow of King George VI and mother of Queen Elizabeth II, took a special interest in the area, of course, because Ballater and Cambus O\u2019May \u2014 which, in Scots Gaelic, means \u00a0\u201cCrook in the Plain,\u201d referring to a tight bend in the nearby River Dee \u2014 are very near to the entrance of the royal estate at Balmoral.\u00a0 (It\u2019s roughly seven miles from Ballater.)\u00a0 The royal consort Prince Albert bought the estate and its original castle for his wife, Queen Victoria, in 1852.\u00a0 The original \u201ccastle\u201d was soon deemed to be insufficient for the royal family and their entourage and the current Balmoral Castle \u2014 which is perhaps better described as a Victorian \u201ccountry house\u201d rather than as a real \u201ccastle\u201d \u2014 was completed in 1856.\u00a0 Successive members of the royal family have added to the Balmoral Estate, which is the private property of the British monarch and is not legally part of the \u201cCrown Estate,\u201d so that it currently covers an area of roughly 50,000 acres.\u00a0 It is an actually working enterprise that includes grouse moors, forestry, and farmland, as well as managed herds of deer, Highland cattle, sheep, and ponies.<\/p>\n

Queen Elizabeth II used Balmoral Castle as her summer residence and, after she died there on 8 September 2022, her coffin lay in repose in the ballroom of the castle for three days, in order to allow the royal family, Balmoral Estate staff, and neighbors to pay their respects.\u00a0 Upon her death, the Royal Standard of the United Kingdom was lowered over Balmoral Castle and then, because the new monarch, King Charles III, was present in the building, was raised again.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth II was the first monarch to die in Scotland since the passing of James V in 1542 at Falkland Palace in the County of Fife.\u00a0 On 11 September 2022, the cortege bearing Queen Elizabeth\u2019s coffin passed through Ballater on its way to the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, where her formal state funeral proceedings began.<\/p>\n

On a personal note:\u00a0 It was the 2006 biographical film The Queen<\/em><\/a> \u2014 in which Helen Mirren brilliantly played the title role \u2014 that helped me to understand (I think) why Balmoral is so important to the royal family.\u00a0 It\u2019s a place where Queen Elizabeth II could drive a Land Rover by herself (she was a military driver and mechanic during the Second World War), where Prince Phillip could do outdoor barbecuing, and where they could more or less forget for a little while the incessant ceremonials and crowds that otherwise dominated their lives.\u00a0 I can imagine how badly they would want that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"ds8fu8sv9hdqp\"<\/a>
A view of Ballater from the opposite end of the stone bridge over the River Dee, taken by Nigel Corby in 2008.\u00a0 (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

For the sake of the folks at the Peterson Obsession Board, I need to formally declare that \u2014 in company with Congolese and Bolivians as well as small furry animals of all kinds \u2014 No Scots Have Been Harmed During the Production of This Trip.\u00a0 At least, not yet.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never found driving on the lefthand side of the road especially difficult, but I must confess that yesterday, while we were passing through a smallish town between here and Dundee, a middle-aged woman who was out walking her dog along a sidewalk on the left side of the street may, for a second or two, have had occasion to consider the brevity of life and her place in eternity.\u00a0 Come to think of it, I may thereby have done her a vitally important favor.\u00a0 Perhaps she even turned to God in that moment, and her passing encounter with my driving may ultimately be discerned in retrospect as having been a pivotal incident for her eternal fate.\u00a0 It was a very narrow road, and I didn\u2019t think I came at all<\/em> that close to her.\u00a0 <\/em>But my wife did.\u00a0 And, of course, it\u2019s my wife\u2019s judgment that counts.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from just outside Ballater, Aberdeenshire, Scotland<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 But, first:\u00a0 It almost never happens anymore, but, well, something has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation \u2014\u00a0 Conference Talks: \u201cA theory! A theory! We have already got a theory, and there cannot be any more theories!\u201d\u00a0 This presentation was originally given by Royal Skousen on Saturday, 14 March 2015, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":100320,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36156,36159,36165,29477,36162,7269],"class_list":["post-100308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ballater","tag-balmoral","tag-cambus-omay","tag-elizabeth-ii","tag-river-dee","tag-victoria"],"yoast_head":"\nNear neighbours to the royal family<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    But, first:\u00a0 It almost never happens anymore, but, well, something has gone up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation --\u00a0 Conference\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, 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