{"id":28531,"date":"2015-12-05T00:35:34","date_gmt":"2015-12-05T07:35:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=28531"},"modified":"2015-12-05T00:35:34","modified_gmt":"2015-12-05T07:35:34","slug":"music-of-christmas-4-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2015\/12\/music-of-christmas-4-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Music of Christmas 4"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_28532\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28532\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/12\/st-george-temple-lds-149536-gallery.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-28532\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/12\/st-george-temple-lds-149536-gallery-300x211.jpg\" alt=\"Oldest functioning temple in the Church\" width=\"300\" height=\"211\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28532\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The St. George Utah Temple was dedicated in 1877<br>(Photo from LDS.org; click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When John Menzies Macfarlane, a Scottish convert to <a href='https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/library\/mormonism' target='_blank'>Mormonism<\/a>, needed a special song for Christmas 1869 for the choir that he conducted in St. George, Utah, he wrote one. \u00a0(St. George had only been founded in 1861, and it was still a very small and rough little settlement struggling to survive in an arid desert climate; its tabernacle and temple were still several years in the future.)<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Here is the song that he wrote, in a performance by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Orchestra at Temple Square:<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lds.org\/media-library\/video\/2013-12-0031-far-far-away-on-judeas-plains?lang=eng\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/www.lds.org\/media-library\/video\/2013-12-0031-far-far-away-on-judeas-plains?lang=eng<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFar, Far Away on Judea\u2019s Plains\u201d was first published in Salt Lake City\u2019s\u00a0<em>Juvenile Instructor<\/em>\u00a0twenty years later, in 1889. \u00a0Since then, it has become a popular Christmas carol well beyond the confines of the Latter-day Saint community \u2014 one of the relatively few Mormon hymns to travel across denominational lines.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_28533\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28533\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/12\/800px-Israel_Jud%C3%A4ische_W%C3%BCste_1.jpg\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-28533\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2015\/12\/800px-Israel_Jud%C3%A4ische_W%C3%BCste_1-300x138.jpg\" alt=\"In der jud\u00e4ischen Wildnis\" width=\"300\" height=\"138\"><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-28533\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">A modern road passing through the Judean wilderness, or, in the words of the carol, \u201cJudea\u2019s plains\u201d<br>(Wikimedia Commons; click to enlarge)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Brother Macfarlane\u00a0got \u201cJudea\u2019s Plains\u201d wrong, though. \u00a0There are none. \u00a0Judea is hill country.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 \u00a0 When John Menzies Macfarlane, a Scottish convert to Mormonism, needed a special song for Christmas 1869 for the choir that he conducted in St. George, Utah, he wrote one. \u00a0(St. George had only been founded in 1861, and it was still a very small and rough little settlement struggling to survive in an [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-28531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Music of Christmas 4<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"&nbsp; 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