Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 1187

“The Theory of Everything”

    My wife and I went last night to see the British film The Theory of Everything, about the famous cosmologist Stephen Hawking and his remarkable first wife, Jane Hawking.  It’s a sad film in many ways — and not only for the obvious reason of Dr. Hawking’s horrific illness.  But it’s also something [Read More...]

New Testament 14

    Matthew 3:7-10 Luke 3:7-9   Two very quick observations about these short passages:   1.   I’m often accused by certain detractors of being vicious and mean-spirited.  They’re probably right.  I’m an extremely unpleasant person to be around.  But I’ve never said, written, or published anything remotely like unto what John the Baptist [Read More...]

“Getting ready to study the New Testament”

    The bi-weekly Hamblin-Peterson column in the Deseret News that appeared this morning was written with the 2015 Gospel Doctrine curriculum in mind:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   And, while I’m at it, let me mention a recent landmark of Mormon scholarship that should be more widely known:   My long-time friend Dr. S. Kent Brown, [Read More...]

St. Polycarp of Smyrna

    “But the proconsul urged him and said, ‘Swear, and I will release thee; curse the Christ.’ And Polycarp said, ‘Eighty and six years have I served him, and he hath done me no wrong; how then can I blaspheme my king who saved me?’” —from “The Martyrdom of Polycarp,” an account of his [Read More...]

The real jihad

    “Declare your jihad on thirteen enemies you cannot see — egoism, arrogance, conceit, selfishness, greed, lust, intolerance, anger, lying, cheating, gossiping, and slandering. If you can master and destroy them, then you will be ready to fight the enemy you can see.” Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. AD 1111)    

Threatened by change, I simply want to hunker down in denial and anti-intellectual obscurantism, or something like that.

    My attention has just been called to an interesting essay by Dr. David Bokovoy entitled “How to Save LDS Youth in a Secular Age.”   I may engage at greater length and detail with Dr. Bokovoy’s essay at some point in the near future — my hasty glance through it suggests much that [Read More...]

New Testament 13

    Matthew 3:1-6 Mark 1:2-6 Luke 3:1-6 John 1:19-23   In this passage, John’s clothing in camel’s hair and a leather girdle, his dwelling in the desert, and his subsistence on primitive fare available in the desert, are all reminiscent of the prophet Elijah.  It’s not at all surprising that, in John 1:19-23, those [Read More...]

“What Command Syntax Tells Us about Book of Mormon Authorship”

    Another intriguing — and subtly very significant — paper from Dr. Stanford Carmack:   http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/what...   With its publication, The Interpreter Foundation completes its journal articles for 2014.  The Foundation, which was launched slightly more than 128 weeks ago, has now published at least one article every Friday for 127 consecutive weeks.   [Read More...]

“Forbes” magazine reports on Provo’s world-record-setting live nativity

    Christmas is over for 2014, of course, but I thought that you might enjoy reading this item, nonetheless:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/kenkrogue...   Just this morning, I read the claim that, in Latter-day Saint sacrament services that fall on Christmas Day or just before, references to Joseph Smith outnumber those to Jesus by, on the [Read More...]

Two films, one funny, one sad

    I loved Laura Hillenbrand’s book Unbroken, and had high hopes for the movie adaptation of it that had its debut yesterday.  I intended to get to it yesterday, on Christmas, but, for various reasons, didn’t.  And I confess that my enthusiasm for the film has already waned somewhat, based upon what I’m hearing [Read More...]