Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 184

“The Handclasp, the Temple, and the King”

    I read just this morning that Latter-day Saint apologetics is literally soaked in hate.  Now, obviously, that’s true of me.  My perpetual rage and my  life-long consuming hatred of all who differ from me — and most especially of religious faiths other than my own (another observation that has recently been made) — […]

Addendum 1: A First Pass at Some Notes on Pre-Islamic Persia

    For the ongoing revision of my book on the Middle East for a popular, predominantly Latter-day Saint audience, I intend to expand its coverage beyond the Arabs.  Here are some preliminary background notes for Iran before the coming of Islam:   The ancient Iranians had entered into what is now the modern nation […]

The curious “assumption of intelligibility”

    I eagerly await vaccination against COVID-19 — not only for my own safety and that of my family, but for all of those around me, for my community, for the society in which I live:   “Pfizer’s vaccine appears to reduce coronavirus transmission: Vaccinated people tend to carry less virus in their bodies […]

Jaredites, Polygamists, and Political Activists

    While we wait to see how long it will be before the long-promised hammer comes down upon Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, here are two new articles that appeared in it just a few minutes ago:   Matthew L. Bowen, “Coming Down and Bringing Down: Pejorative Onomastic Allusions to the […]

For want of a butterfly the nail was driven into the tree with a cheetah in it. Or something like that.

    You may have heard of the “butterfly effect” in chaos theory, the notion that even a tiny change in initial conditions can result in a huge difference in a later state that follows from those initial conditions — e.g., a butterfly flapping its wings could ultimately affect the formation-time and the exact path […]

Take Two, “Tracing Ancient Threads in the Book of Moses”

    Yesterday, I mentioned that, after something on the order of eleven years, I will no longer be writing a column for the Deseret News.  (See “The End of a Personal Era.”)  In a way, this was no surprise.  Everybody knows that printed news media are in turmoil, going through a period of massive […]

The End of a Personal Era

    I’ve been writing regular newspaper columns for the Deseret News for roughly eleven years.  Over several of those years, I was writing three columns every two weeks — a weekly solo column, called “Defending the Faith,” on Latter-day Saint issues, and a biweekly column (co-authored, until his shocking and too-early death at the […]

“The Book of Mormon as a Resurrected Book and a Type of Christ,” and Royal Skousen on the Witnesses

      I published this little article last week in Meridian Magazine:   “The Making of “Witnesses”: The Fulfillment of a Persistent Dream”   This new piece from Royal Skousen is really, really good.  I encourage you to read it:   “A Pre-Print of a Discussion of the Book of Mormon Witnesses by Royal Skousen” […]

“Archaeologists in Turkey have discovered a major, previously unknown kingdom”

    On Friday night, my wife and I watched a new (2021) film called The Dig, which stars, among others, Carey Mulligan, Ralph Fiennes, and Lily James.  It will be just a bit slow for some folks, but I enjoyed it.  The movie tells the story — fairly accurately — of the 1939 discovery of […]

Revision 8.15. Looking Forward to a Glorious and Peaceful Future for the Middle East

    But, first:   Book of Moses Essays #41: Moses 1 in Its Ancient Context: Moses in the Presence of God (Moses 1:31, chapters 2-4)   ***   And this:   A couple of days ago, I posted an entry that was partly about anti-Semitism.  (Even the funny little pseudo-documentary video to which I […]