Sic Et Non

  A new self-published book advocating a novel theory for the origin of the Book of Mormon has recently appeared — the previous theories having, umm, not exactly swept the field before them.  It claims to have found the sources that were used to create the text of the  Book of Mormon.  Alas, though, this […]

  For the 28 April 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, the hosts were Steve Densley and John Thompson, joined by their special guest Clifford Jones. They discussed Brother Jones’s recent article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, as well as Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 21. Their […]

  My wife noticed something this morning in one of our readings for today’s “Come, Follow Me” lesson.  Here is the relevant passage: 11 And again I say unto you as I have said before, that as ye have come to the knowledge of the glory of God, or if ye have known of his […]

  Those members of the board of the Interpreter Foundation who were able to do so spent most of today together (or, in one case, with us via Zoom) in a board retreat.  It was the first such meeting that we’ve ever had, and it was a good opportunity to discuss the strengths and weaknesses […]

  I published this article in Meridian Magazine on Wednesday, 1 May 2024.  But I have been so very busy over the past week or so that I neglected to call your attention to it:  “A Puzzling Mystery in the Last Chapters of Mark.” I hope that you might perhaps find it interesting, and maybe […]

  We spent several hours in the Kirtland Temple again this morning, and then we moved over to the Newel K. Whitney store in the “Kirtland Flats.”  I was filmed in conversations in the store’s upstairs, in the School of the Prophets and in the so-called “Revelation Room.”  I doubt that those conversations will appear […]

  We drove today from Rochester, New York, to Kirtland, Ohio, stopping off to gawk for a while at Niagara Falls.  In Kirtland, we drove immediately to the onetime Kirtland home of Joseph and Emma Smith.  It was acquired some years ago by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the Community of […]

  We were back in and around Palmyra today.  We filmed at the E. B. Grandin print shop, at the famed intersection that is marked by four large churches (strictly speaking, there are actually five, but there’s only room for four at the, well, four corners), again at the Smith family farm, and on the […]

  We had a long day today, including hours of driving (from Rochester, New York, to the site of early-nineteenth-century Harmony, Pennsylvania — in modern Oakland Township — and back up to Rochester).  It was mostly Casey Griffiths’s and Steve Harper’s day, but I was also there, managing to bring the quality of the discussion […]

  I was pleasantly surprised to run into the core Interpreter Foundation filmmaking team — Mark Goodman, James Jordan, and Russ Richins, along with their frequent collaborator Rhett Fernsten — in the lobby of our hotel this morning.  They’ve been down in Tennessee doing the final scene for Six Days in August, and I had […]

  It has been a fairly long day.  I’m back here with a film crew from Scripture Central who are working on an episode in their series A Marvelous Work. The series is hosted by Scott Christopher (who, by the way, played Peter Whitmer Sr. in the Interpreter Foundation films Witnesses and Undaunted: Witnesses of […]

  New today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Review of Two New Theories about the Lamanite Mark Recently Presented in Two Different Forums,” written by Clifford P. Jones: Abstract: T. J. Uriona has offered two new theories about the meaning of Nephi’s term “skin of blackness” in 2 Nephi 5:21. […]

  Some of the actors and crew for the Interpreter Foundation production of Six Days in August are back in Tennessee this week, working on the opening scene of the movie (which, for various quite good reasons, will actually be the last scene to have been filmed).  It turns out that filming in the right […]

  I would have found this remarkable at any time.  But it pleases me especially now, as open and unashamed anti-Semitism erupts on the campuses of several of my country’s elite universities:  “Jewish, Latter-day Saint friends found themselves singing together in the Taylorsville Utah Temple: ‘Chills were rising on our skin and tears were forming in […]

  As happens several times each week, something new has yet again been posted on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation:  Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 18, April 29-May 5: Mosiah 4-6: “A Mighty Change,” written by Jonn Claybaugh Editor’s Note: Four years ago, Jonn Claybaugh began writing the Study […]

  Some of you might find this interview of interest.  I did it with Ben Hancock, who is based in the United Kingdom, on his podcast “For All the Saints”:  “Latter-Day Saint Scholar Discusses Fasting, Muslims & Ramadan – Daniel C. Peterson”  If you can just get past all of my characteristic sneering, slandering, cruelty, […]

  In our sacrament meeting today, the ward choir performed “Be Still, My Soul.”  The words were translated by Jane Borthwick (1813-1897) from the original German of Katharina von Schlegel (b. 1697), and the exquisite music (from Finlandia) was written by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).  If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can listen […]

  This passage from somewhere came across my radar screen earlier today, and I think it worthy of sharing: “I asked an elderly woman once what it was like to be old and to know that the majority of her life was now behind her. She told me that she has been the same age […]

  “The Unwritten Debates in Moroni1’s Letter,” written by Morgan Deane Abstract: Moroni1’s letter in Alma 60 is not simply an angry and intemperate screed against the government; it also responds to arguments about just tactics (what modern readers would call ethics) taking place among Nephite leaders at this time. Moroni1’s letter argues for his […]

  Scott Gordon sent me a link yesterday to the video of a talk that I gave nearly a quarter of a century ago:  “The Divine Source of the Book of Mormon in the Face of Alternative Theories Advocated by LDS Critics,” presented by Daniel C. Peterson at the 2001 FAIR Conference Scott’s discovery is […]