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In a week during which we\u2019ve been encouraged to #GiveThanks by the man whom I sustain as God\u2019s chosen prophet, seer, and revelator in this time, I choose, today, to give thanks for certain of the Latter-day Saint scholars who influenced me at pivotal points in my life.\u00a0 These entries all need to be expanded, but here\u2019s a start on what needs to be said:<\/p>\n
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The first of them that I\u2019ll name is Truman G. Madsen<\/a> (1926-2009).<\/p>\n In roughly 1968, an older couple in the ward in which I grew up \u2014 Ted and Alice Simmons, if I\u2019m not mistaken, who were probably much younger then than I am now \u2014 mentioned something to me called BYU Education Week.\u00a0 It was coming up soon, they said, and was to be held in either Covina or West Covina.\u00a0 I can\u2019t remember which, but in either case not far away.\u00a0 They thought that I would enjoy it and they offered to take me.\u00a0 (I was too young to drive at the time.)\u00a0 I will be forever grateful to them for that invitation.\u00a0 Attending Education Week on that occasion permanently changed my life.\u00a0 My parents weren\u2019t academically inclined, my father wasn\u2019t even yet a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, and my mother was at most semi-active.\u00a0 It would never have occurred to me to attend.<\/p>\n Truman Madsen was one of the speakers there, for all four days.\u00a0 I had never heard of him.\u00a0 But his topics intrigued me.\u00a0 For a popular, non-specialist audience, he spoke about Marxism, logical positivism, and existentialism.\u00a0 Each day was a different topic.\u00a0 (I can\u2019t remember the fourth lecture topic.\u00a0 Possibly pragmatism.\u00a0 He had a strong interest, as I now do for my own reasons, in William James, and he had earned his Ph.D. from the philosophy department at Harvard, where James had famously taught a few generations before.)\u00a0 I found him a riveting lecturer.\u00a0 I bought his wonderful little book Eternal Man<\/em> and his pamphlet on \u201cJoseph Smith among the Prophets,\u201d and I devoured them.<\/p>\n In after years, he and his wife became friends \u2014 among other things, Ann and I served together for years on the Church\u2019s Gospel Doctrine writing committee, and Truman was the director of BYU\u2019s Jerusalem Center while I was leading an intensive Arabic program there \u2014 and his passing deeply saddened me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Also speaking at that particular Education Week was Hugh Nibley<\/a> (1910-2005).<\/p>\n In his case, I don\u2019t actually recall what he spoke about that week.\u00a0 But I was absolutely smitten.\u00a0 Thereafter, while I was still living in southern California, whenever I heard that he was speaking somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area I made every effort to go hear him.\u00a0 He opened my eyes to a field of study \u2014 essentially, of the premodern eastern Mediterranean, the classical world, and the Near East \u2014 of which I had never thought.\u00a0 And here I am.\u00a0 In one sense, indeed, I\u2019m somewhere between Hugh Nibley and Truman Madsen: My doctoral dissertation was on the Neoplatonic doctrine of God in an eleventh-century Arabic Shi\u2018ite Muslim philosopher.\u00a0 Even before that, though, hearing Truman Madsen and Hugh Nibley that year was the first thing that made me think about someday studying at Brigham Young University.\u00a0 And that has made all the difference.<\/p>\n Thereafter, Hugh also became a friend and a much senior and revered colleague.\u00a0 And, when he died, I felt forlorn.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I cannot fail to mention Richard Lloyd Anderson<\/a> (1926-2018).<\/p>\n His book Investigating the Witnesses of the Book of Mormon<\/em> may have had as much influence on me as any other book I\u2019ve ever read.\u00a0 In fact, that book and his other invaluable writings on the topic continue to influence me powerfully still today: For one thing, without it there would simply be no Interpreter Foundation film project on the Witnesses<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n His simple faith and his meticulous attention to detail continue to inspire me.\u00a0 Moreover, Richard was among the most gentle and Christlike men I\u2019ve known, and I counted him as a friend.\u00a0 I take deep satisfaction in the fact that our film crew and I were able to interview him for two days not long before his death.\u00a0 I would have been gravely upset had we missed the opportunity.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Arnold H. Green<\/a> (1940-2019) also belongs on this list.<\/p>\n Although he was a scholar, and an accomplished one, Arnie\u2019s pivotal influence on me wasn\u2019t solely or even mainly academic in nature.\u00a0 \u00a0He was a historian of the Middle East in the colonial and postcolonial period whereas I\u2019m a medievalist with inclinations to go even further back into antiquity, and I believe that I had only one class from him.\u00a0 He was teaching at the American University in Cairo when I arrived for study there; for at least part of that time, he was the head of the Center for Arabic Study.\u00a0 He was also the president of the Cairo Branch of the Church and, for a long time, the branch actually met in the Greens\u2019 home.\u00a0 He and his wife Lani and their kids became a model for what I came to regard as a wonderful Latter-day Saint family \u2014 bright, open and accepting, both good-humored and hilariously funny, mutually loving . . .\u00a0 I could go on, but I don\u2019t want to embarrass them.\u00a0Suffice it to say that we loved the Cairo Branch and the time that we spent in it.\u00a0 When I became ill with hepatitis just before my wife went into labor with our firstborn, Lani (a nurse) and our Relief Society president (Carol Naguib) were indispensable.\u00a0 The branch<\/em> was indispensable.\u00a0 And much of that was due to Lani and Arnie Green.\u00a0 When I decided to leave Cairo for UCLA, it was not without important discussions with Arnie.<\/p>\n His passing, after a period of horribly bad health, was probably a great relief to him<\/em>, but a terrible loss to his friends and family.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ll mention another crucial influence.\u00a0 This one is of my own generation: my late friend Bill Hamblin<\/a>\u00a0(1954-2019).<\/p>\n How it still shocks me to think of him as \u201clate\u201d!<\/p>\n We met in Egypt in 1980.\u00a0 I was a graduate student there, in Middle Eastern history.\u00a0 He was a graduate student at the University of Michigan, and he came over for a year at the Center for Arabic Study Abroad.\u00a0 We bonded almost immediately over our shared passion for the kind of study pioneered by Hugh Nibley.\u00a0 Many years later, after I myself had joined the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University and he was teaching (not entirely happily) at the University of Southern Mississippi after a stint at the Department of Defense, I was able to help him land a position in the BYU History Department.\u00a0 It was one of my few academic political schemes ever actually to turn out for me.<\/p>\n For years, Bill and I worked together at BYU and in the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, or FARMS, which then became the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts and, eventually, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.\u00a0 We wrote articles together.\u00a0 We wrote a column for the Provo Daily Herald<\/em> (his idea), and then, after an unpleasant and utterly weird experience there, eventually relaunched that column with the Deseret News<\/em>.<\/p>\n His global breadth of vision never ceased to amaze me, like the freshness of his insights and the fertility of his mind.\u00a0 He was always interesting, and he could be very, very funny.<\/p>\n Bill\u2019s sudden and quite unexpected death almost a year ago stunned me.\u00a0 It continues to feel unreal.\u00a0 (I published this column<\/a> about him on 2 January 2020.)<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve gone on long enough.\u00a0 I\u2019ve been playing it safe by sticking with influential friends who have passed beyond the veil.\u00a0 Let me, though, venture some very brief thoughts about three similarly influential friends who remain:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Incredibly, Jack Welch<\/a> has been a friend and colleague for most of my life now.\u00a0 By launching the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), he created an organization and a cause to which I would eventually devote a substantial part of my life for nearly a quarter of a century and which, when I was ultimately expelled from it (after Jack had himself been carefully and methodically eased out), inspired the creation of the Interpreter Foundation.\u00a0 More than that, though, his own unbelievably prolific output of brilliant scholarship has had a profound impact on me.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n S. Kent Brown<\/a> was the leader of the Jerusalem study abroad group in which I participated during the first half of 1978.\u00a0 It was my first time in the Near East.\u00a0 I had already graduated from BYU and had not yet been admitted to graduate school \u2014 whereby hangs a tale of its own \u2014 so I went with him to Jerusalem.\u00a0 He worked out some private tutoring with me, since I was the oldest, most \u201cadvanced\u201d student in the group.\u00a0 By the time I had gone back to the United States to marry my fianc\u00e9 and then come with her to Egypt, he and his wife were living in Cairo, where he met us at the airport.\u00a0 (That was unexpected and life-saving.)\u00a0 The Browns put us up in their apartment for several weeks while we looked for housing.\u00a0 Later, he put the chain of events in motion that resulted in my hiring at BYU (another tale to be told).\u00a0 He has been a colleague and a friend ever since.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Trained in archaeology and anthropology, which he taught for years at Brigham Young University,\u00a0John L. Sorenson<\/a> was also involved in the founding of FARMS.\u00a0 I recall reading his 1984 book, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon<\/em>, when it first appeared.\u00a0 I wrote in my journal that it was the best thing that I had ever read on the geography of the Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Then I corrected myself:\u00a0 It was, I wrote, the first<\/em> serious thing that I had ever read on the subject.\u00a0 A game-changer.\u00a0 To me, he has been for the Book of Mormon and the New World what Hugh Nibley was for the Book of Mormon and the Old.\u00a0 Closing in on his ninety-seventh birthday, he has finally withdrawn from public engagement on such issues, and no longer even participates in the meetings of our monthly reading group.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n My debt to these and many other people is enormous.\u00a0 I can never pay it back.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n In response to deafening popular demand \u2014 it must<\/em> have been deafening, because I didn\u2019t hear<\/em> any \u2014 here are links to some of the Thanksgiving columns that I\u2019ve written for the Deseret News<\/em> in previous years.\u00a0 I\u2019ve already shared three of them.\u00a0 It\u2019s possible that you might find something in one or two of them that might be helpful to you or someone you know:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n 2011:\u00a0 \u201cGratitude to our God is paramount\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2012:\u00a0 \u201cWe owe a debt to God, our predecessors\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2013:\u00a0 \u201cThanksgiving is for reflection, not just eating\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2013 (with William J. Hamblin):\u00a0 \u201cThanksgiving has very ancient roots\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2014:\u00a0 \u201cA day for grateful reflection\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2015:\u00a0 \u201cReasons for gratitude on this Thanksgiving Day\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2016:\u00a0 \u201cWe have more cause for thanksgiving than any previous generation\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2017:\u00a0 \u201cThe miracle of Thanksgiving pies\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2019(a):\u00a0 \u201cThe miracle of Earth\u2019s atmosphere design and the air we breathe: As the Thanksgiving holiday draws near, there is much for us to be thankful for \u2014 including the very air that we breathe\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n 2019(b): \u201c\u201cGratitude for the dirt beneath our feet: We can only live in a thin region, roughly 5 miles thick, within the combined area of Earth\u2019s nearly 3,960-mile radius and its surrounding 500 miles of atmosphere\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cChurch leaders respond to President Nelson\u2019s invitation to #GiveThanks\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s not a cure, of course.\u00a0 But what if, by engaging in a simple practice that has no serious downsides (beyond icky taste) while offering several other substantial and demonstrable benefits, you could reduce your risk of contracting COVID-19?\u00a0 Even if it were only by, say, even 10% or 5% or 1%?\u00a0 Why not do it?<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cNew Study Suggests Mouthwash Can Kill Coronavirus in Saliva in 30 Seconds\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Deseret News<\/em>:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cStatewide mask mandates help businesses stay alive, Utah study finds: \u2018When people feel more confident, they go out and they spend,\u2019 professor says\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n I occasionally look in on T<\/em>he Volokh Co<\/em>nspiracy, a legally oriented blog led by Eugene Volokh<\/a>, a brilliant professor of law at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), that leans libertarian\/conservative.\u00a0 Here\u2019s a recent entry from the blog:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Group Statement on the 2020 Election<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cA statement signed by multiple VC contributors calling on Donald Trump and the Republican Party to accept the election result and stop promoting unsubstantiated accusations of fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n ***<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n With this important precedent in mind, I\u2019m thoroughly revising my retirement plans.\u00a0 For one thing, I\u2019ve taken to making coffins in my backyard:<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n