Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1056

The Interpreter Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the 2015 Ruth M. Stephens Article Prize

    http://www.mormoninterpreter.com   Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois    

“A man that you could not help liking”

      Yesterday, I posted an item — part of a larger series of posts indicating his sincerity — to illustrate Joseph Smith’s apparent lack of affectation.   This was much the same impression that his contemporaries had of Joseph, even late in his career. “He is a man that you could not help [Read More...]

“A brief history of religious studies”

    It’s interesting to see this discussion of the history and nature of religious studies, and to reflect upon what the widespread (and, in some places, the rather sudden and imperious) adoption of the contemporary religious studies/Mormon studies paradigm might portend for the Saints and the Church:   http://fornspollfira.blogspot.com/201...   Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois [Read More...]

“Earthquakes could be triggered by sound waves that ‘fluidize’ faults”

    http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/n...   So please whisper, and turn your sound system down.   Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois    

Billionaire Saudi prince to give away his entire $32 billion fortune

      You want impressive?  Consider this:   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/world...   Thanks to Charles Steinman for bringing it to my notice.   Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois    

At Carthage Jail

    Solemn reflections today, as we visited Carthage Jail, due east of Nauvoo, and particularly as we sat in the room where Joseph and Hyrum Smith, respectively the President and Patriarch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were attacked along with John Taylor and Willard Richards of the Council of the [Read More...]

Joseph Smith and a religious litmus test for the American presidency

    I had to find just the right blade of grass to stand on, and then to remain absolutely motionless, in order to do an interview with KSL Radio’s Doug Wright yesterday on the continuing uproar about Ben Carson’s remark that a Muslim shouldn’t serve as president of the United States.   I’m frankly [Read More...]

Joseph Smith’s lack of pretense and affectation

    It was the palpable genuineness of Joseph Smith’s accounts of his experiences that brought the British literary critic and educator Arthur Henry King into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1966. “When I was first brought to read Joseph Smith’s story,” he wrote, I was deeply impressed. I wasn’t inclined [Read More...]

“Discovering Joseph Smith’s cave in Miner’s Hill, Manchester, New York”

    http://archival.link/mormoncave/story   Well . . .   There seem to me some real problems with the historical sources on this, such as they are.  But I suppose it’s not inconceivable that there’s some connection to Joseph Smith and, perhaps, to his activities as a treasure-digger.  Maybe.   I’ll be interested in feedback from [Read More...]

Dinosaurs living in a COLD environment? Hmmmm.

    Granted, Alaska then wasn’t like Alaska now.  But, still, it was scarcely tropical:   http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/b2f0c...   The notion that some dinosaurs may have been more bird-like, even more mammal-like, than we’ve long imagined is very interesting.  It’s certainly not what I was taught, back in my dinosaur-loving childhood.   Posted from Nauvoo, Illinois [Read More...]