![\"Lamborghini](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2026\/02\/IMG_6789-rotated.jpeg\")
<\/a>I\u2019m pleased to report that Episode 3 of our Becoming Brigham<\/em> series \u2014 Shorthand and Bloodstains<\/em>, Part 2 \u2014 has now appeared online<\/a>. \u00a0I hope that you\u2019ll enjoy it. \u00a0New installments of Becoming Brigham<\/em> will be posted every Monday over roughly the next year and a half.<\/p>\n And, incidentally, a new video has now gone up on the Interpreter Foundation\u2019s YouTube channel: \u201cBecoming Brigham<\/em> Fireside\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In other Latter-day Saint film-making news \u2014 I mentioned Emmaus Road Media in yesterday\u2019s blog entry<\/a> \u2014 Scot and Maurine Proctor, of Meridian Magazine<\/em>, are busily at work creating a series of documentaries focused on the Prophet Joseph Smith: \u00a0\u201cPacking our Cold-Weather Gear for the Joseph Smith Documentaries Project\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I voiced a bit of frustration in yesterday\u2019s blog entry about the difficulty of getting the word out about Becoming Brigham<\/em>. \u00a0Doing so reminded me of an experience that I had during each of my last two or three semesters of teaching at Brigham Young University. \u00a0For both the midterm exam and the final exam in my Humanities 242 class (\u201cThe Humanities of Islam\u201d), I always included a multiple choice question about the year AD 622.<\/p>\n Why? you might ask. \u00a0AD 622 is the year of the Prophet Muhammad\u2019s Hijra<\/em> or \u201cemigration\u201d from Mecca to Medina. \u00a0As such, it\u2019s commonly regarded as the year of his transition from prophet simpliciter<\/em> to prophet-statesman<\/em>, and as the year of the birth of the Islamic state, which is of pivotal importance not only to the evolution of the religion of Islam but to world history more generally. \u00a0It is so important, in fact, that it has become the base-year of the Islamic lunar calendar. \u00a0Not, interestingly enough, the year of Muhammad\u2019s birth, nor the year of his prophetic call, nor the year of his death, but the year in which he moved from Mecca to Medina. \u00a0In the so-called Hijri<\/em> calendar, years are calculated from AD 622 \u2014 but, since it\u2019s made up of lunar months, you can\u2019t arrive at the Hijri<\/em> date simply by subtracting 622 from the current Gregorian year. \u00a0(That would be too easy!<\/em>)<\/p>\n Anyway, I thought the date important enough that I began to emphasize it repeatedly in lectures, and to promise students that it would definitely be on both the midterm and the final.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, despite my repeated comments about the date, and despite the fact that the correct answer was always available there right before them in the multiple-choice format, out of a given class of forty to sixty students, five or six would always get the answer wrong.<\/p>\n So, my last several times, I would tell them that five or six students always got the question wrong and then I would have them chant the date two or three times and would ask several students to explain to the entire class why the date was significant. \u00a0I would write it on the board, circling and underlining it for emphasis. \u00a0I would promise them that it would absolutely, certainly, be on the exam. \u00a0I pointed out that there was nothing about the concept of AD 622 that was complicated or abstruse. \u00a0 I would crack jokes about the date. \u00a0I would suggest that maybe I should simply fail<\/em> anybody who couldn\u2019t answer the question, however well they did otherwise on the test. \u00a0I would do this every other week or so.<\/p>\n When the midterm exam was turned in, each and every time, five or six members of the class would be unable to answer my question about AD 622. \u00a0When we went over the midterm questions in class, I would single this one out for special attention and would then promise them that it would, without fail, be included in the final exam. \u00a0And then, when I graded the final exam, five or six members of the class \u2014 and not necessarily the same individuals as those from the midterm \u2014 would fail to recognize the date of AD 622. \u00a0I found it utterly mind-boggling.<\/p>\n My wife and I went up to an Italian restaurant in the Salt Lake Valley on Saturday night, in celebration of the birthday of a sister-in-law. \u00a0(Yes, I admit it: I ate food again. \u00a0Eating is a reprehensible habit \u2014 especially when the addict actually enjoys <\/em>it \u2014 but it\u2019s also a powerful one, and surprisingly difficult to overcome.) \u00a0However, I hasten to add that no Interpreter Foundation funds were used to pay for either the drive to and from the restaurant or the food itself.<\/p>\n I really enjoyed this recent BYU forum address by Dr. Francis Collins<\/a>, and I heartily recommend it to you: \u201cThe Road To Wisdom: On Truth, Science, Faith and Trust.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n I like to check in from time to time on construction photos from the site of the future Cody Wyoming Temple, to see how uncannily accurate the predictions made by its vocal opponents have proven to be. \u00a0The temple, they said, would block views of the night sky. \u00a0It would hide the surrounding mountains. \u00a0It would loom threateningly over the town of Cody itself, oppressing the residents of that quaint western. village with its sheer vast 9,950-square-foot bulk. \u00a0And now we have irrefutable photographic evidence<\/a> that their predictions were tragically correct. \u00a0The once-beautiful skyline of Cody is dominated by the temple, the sky has been completely hidden from view, and, for months now, nobody has been able to see either the Absaroka Range to the west, the Bighorn Mountains to the east, or the Owl Creek Mountains to the south.<\/p>\n\n
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(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n