Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1102

Two quotations from “Don Quixote”

    “Virtue is persecuted by the wicked more than it is loved by the good.” “The truth may be stretched thin, but it never breaks, and it always surfaces above lies, as oil floats on water.” Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (d. 1616), Don Quixote   Posted from Logan, Utah    

New Testament 214

    Luke 14:1-6   The question that Jesus poses to the Pharisees isn’t, strictly speaking, a trick one.   But they decline to answer it because they realize that any answer they’re likely to give will be problematic.   If they says that it’s illegal to heal or save people on the Sabbath, that [Read More...]

“The Deuteronomist Reforms and Lehi’s Family Dynamics: A Social Context for the Rebellions of Laman and Lemuel”

    It’s that day of the week, right?   So a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/the-...   Enjoy!   Posted from Logan, Utah    

“Evangelicals and Muslims together denounce Franklin Graham’s anti-Muslim remarks”

    I’m sure that he has many merits.  His “Samaritan’s Purse” charity seems to do a lot of good, for example.   But Franklin Graham has a hard edge that’s very different from his famous father’s graciousness:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...    

“Israeli researchers: Group of Colorado Indians have genetic Jewish roots”

    As currently understood and reported, this discovery doesn’t appear directly relevant to the Book of Mormon and it certainly doesn’t count as evidence for its claims:   http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/j...   But it’s intriguing.   And it does plainly suggest that there’s still a lot to be done and a lot to be discovered, and [Read More...]

Hugh Nibley and the “Heartland” model

    Some proponents of the so-called “Heartland” model of Book of Mormon geography have attempted to recruit the late Hugh Nibley as a supporter of their views and an opponent of the Mesoamerican “limited geographical model” most prominently associated with John Sorenson.   As Matt Roper shows, that simply won’t fly:   http://etherscave.blogspot.com/2015/0...   [Read More...]

“What happened when my rabbi told me to read the Book of Mormon”

    A very nice conversion story:   http://www.ldsliving.com/What-Happene...    

A flurry of Jenkins-Hamblin posts

    The Never-Ending Story:   Hamblin 34:  From Smoot   Jenkins 22:  Credible and Plausible   Jenkins 23:  Empirical and Objective   Jenkins 24:  Nahom Part Deux   Jenkins 25:  Answer on Nahom   Hamblin 35:  Time for Clear Thinking on Nahom   Jenkins 26:  Still No Evidence?   Jenkins 27:  Bigfoot?   Jenkins [Read More...]

“Mormon Tabernacle Choir announces its 2016 European tour”

      I’m pretty excited about the (familiar) places where the Choir will be performing next year:   http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article...   And here’s an interesting related piece:   “Mormonism in Pictures: Mormon Tabernacle Choir Expands Outreach”    

“A note on the limits of archaeology from a filthy post-modernist Mormon apologist”

    I received the following — which is quite relevant to the continuing . . . um, conversation between Dr. Phillip Jenkins, who is attacking the Book of Mormon, and Dr. William Hamblin, who is representing Truth and Goodness — in two separate emails from Stephen Smoot.  Brother Smoot plainly “gets it” where several [Read More...]