Sic Et Non

  On the flight from Honolulu to Sydney, I watched the 2015 film In the Heart of the Sea, about the disastrous final voyage of the Nantucket whaling ship Essex, which served as the inspiration for Herman Melville’s great novel Moby Dick.  The movie was a box office bomb.  I honestly don’t know why that […]

  Here are some notes about certain of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon — both official and unofficial — that I’ve drawn from the fourth chapter of Richard Lyman Bushman’s book Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023): Emma viewed herself as one who had never left […]

  I sometimes encounter the complaint from some atheists that they don’t even desire immortality because, they say, eternal life would be unendurably boring.  I don’t take the complaint very seriously.  On any given day, if I were to be told that I could choose between my life ending at midnight, on the one hand, […]

  The standard view of the origins of the Polynesians, and specifically of the Māori of New Zealand, is that they derive from the Lapita civilization of Melanesia and Micronesia.  Here is a passage from Māori History: A Captivating Guide to the History of the Indigenous Polynesian People of New Zealand (2022), apparently written by […]

  “Temple Themes in the Book of Abraham,” written by Stephen O. Smoot Abstract: The Book of Abraham is replete with temple themes, although not all of them are readily obvious from a surface reading of the text. Temple themes in the book include Abraham seeking to become a high priest, the interplay between theophany […]

  Conference Talks: The Symbolism of the Cupped Hand in Ancient Egypt and Israel: Iconography, Text, and Artifact, presented at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2018 Temple on Mount Zion Conference by Stephen Smoot Stephen Smoot spoke on “The Symbolism of the Cupped Hand in Ancient Egypt and Israel: Iconography, Text, and Artifact” at the fourth Temple […]

  Two books particularly stand out for having opened my mind to the possible reality of such things as clairvoyance (aka “remote viewing”), telepathy, and even communication with the dead via mediums.  None of these is essential to my worldview or my faith.  (If anything, indeed, spirit mediums seem to be antithetical to my doctrinal […]

  A few days ago, I posted some quotations from an interesting paper that I had just read — Stephan A. Schwartz, “Nonlocality and Exceptional Experiences: A Study of Genius, Religious Epiphany, and the Psychic,” Explore 6/4 (July/August 2010): 227-236.  My doing so gave such extraordinary joy to the denizens of the Peterson Obsession Board […]

  Meridian Magazine has just posted a new article of mine entitled “The Problem of Unanswered Prayers.”  I hope that some of you will find it helpful or of interest or, at least, not objectionable. My new article could, I think, fittingly be paired with another piece that I wrote a while back, “On Choosing […]

  Somehow, I failed to call attention here to this little essay, even though it was published in Meridian Magazine a full week ago.  Incidentally, too, just to clear up any confusion, despite the title of the article (which, I admit, could easily mislead many readers) it is not an entry taken from my wife’s […]

  A reader of this blog by the name of Laralee Nelson shared a couple of links in a blog comment that, with her kind permission (and since they’re in the public domain over at FamilySearch), I’m now sharing here more generally. The first link is to the last will and testament of one Samuel […]

  These new items have appeared on the nearly comatose and virtually moribund website of the Interpreter Foundation.  Happy weekend!  We hope that you will enjoy them. “An Important Addition to the Library,” written by Kevin Christensen Review of Grant Hardy, The Annotated Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023). 912 pages; $37.95 (hardcover). […]

  Conference Talks: The Two Ways in Ancient Egyptian Religion and Israelite Temple Theology, presented at the 2018 Temple on Mount Zion Conference by John Thompson The fourth “Temple on Mount Zion” Conference was held on Saturday, November 10, 2018 in the Tanner Building at Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah. The presentations were filmed, and […]

  I’ve been reading a small collection of essays by the late Edward O. Wilson (1929-2021), the Harvard biologist,  ecologist, and entomologist who is best known for developing the field of sociobiology:  Every Species is a  Masterpiece (London: Penguin Books, 2021).  Wilson was also, by the way, an outspoken advocate of “scientific humanism” (a term […]

  I read an interesting paper this morning — Stephan A. Schwartz, “Nonlocality and Exceptional Experiences: A Study of Genius, Religious Epiphany, and the Psychic,” Explore 6/4 (July/August 2010): 227-236 — from which I’ll share a few quoted passages.  At the time that he published his article, Stephan Schwartz was Senior Samueli Fellow for Brain, […]

  Spencer Kraus, Martin Tanner, Hales Swift, and Brent Schmidt came together for the 7 January 2024 episode of the Interpreter Radio Show, which focused on Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon lesson 5 and on evidences for the Book of Mormon.  Their conversation is now archived, freed from commercial interruptions, and made available for […]

  We participated in the first dedicatory service for the new Orem Utah Temple this morning.  Elder Hugo E. Martinez, whom we came to know just a bit during a tour of Israel many years ago (prior to his call as a General Authority), conducted the meeting, which featured a pre-recorded video message from President […]

  We held our quarterly Interpreter Foundation board meeting today — technically, it’s our annual board meeting (so, among many other things, we voted to continue our officers as they had been constituted) — and our book committee met this afternoon.  There are, I’m happy to report, some very good things on the horizon.  I’m […]

  Newly published on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Heavenly Ascent in Jacob’s Writings in Second Nephi: Addressing the Question of What the Plan of Salvation is in the Book of Mormon,” written by Skyler R. Smith Abstract: Heavenly ascent describes the process of an individual (or community) returning to the presence of God. […]

  Conference Talks:  Bearing Testimony in Hebrew: A Comparison of Ancient Israelite Temple Worship with Modern Latter-day Saint Testimony Meetings, presented by Ryan Davis at the Interpreter Foundation’s 2018 Temple on Mount Zion Conference The fourth “Temple on Mount Zion” Conference was held on Saturday, November 10, 2018 in the Tanner Building at Brigham Young […]