Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 193

Good reading, free, online

    I received this note yesterday from Valerie Hudson Cassler — see her 2010 testimony here — and I don’t think that she will be opposed at all to my sharing it:   Welcome, dear readers, to the Fall 2020 issue of SquareTwo! What a year it has been! It’s hard not to hope that 2021 will […]

Lifetime Honors Come to Two Former Colleagues

    I deem this announcement, which just came to my attention, to be worthy of a special blog post.  Why?  Because two of the three people mentioned below are friends and former colleagues of mine in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University and, as it happens, contributors to […]

Jeremiah 1:5, Premortal Existence, the Status of the EModE Hypothesis, Latter-day Saints, and Sexuality

    An article written by Dana M. Pike has now appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:   “Formed in and Called from the Womb” Abstract: Drawing on his deep knowledge of biblical Hebrew, Dana Pike gives us a close reading of Jeremiah 1:5, the most important Old Testament verse relating […]

Introductory thoughts for a natural theology, and dreams for a conference

    This morning, I was re-reading Joseph Smith’s 1832 account of his First Vision as it is transcribed in the extremely important book Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844, edited by John W. Welch with Erick B. Carlson (Provo and Salt Lake City: Brigham Young University Press and Deseret Book, 2005).  A revised […]

Revision 8.5.”David O. McKay, Hugh J. Cannon, and Joseph Wilford Booth”

    Carrying on from my last installment, Revision 8.4 A Latter-day Saint Presence in Palestine and the Near East? I continue the story where I left off:   The other mission entrusted by the First Presidency to Elders McKay and Cannon was to get in contact, somehow, with President Joseph W. Booth. They needed to reorganize […]

Brief Theological Introductions, the “Witnesses” Movie Trailer, and a Tender Mercy

    Two substantial new book reviews appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship.   One is by Ralph Hancock:   “Nephi’s Obsession, Or, How to Talk with Nephi about God” Review of Joseph M. Spencer, 1 Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020). 146 pages. $9.99 (paperback). Abstract: Joseph […]

Family, Temple, and Eternal Life #Give Thanks

    On this 2020 American Thanksgiving Day, I’m acutely aware of my inability to gather safely with members of my extended family.  Some are across the country.  Some are altogether out of the country. Some are close but are vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic. One of our grandchildren is now more than a year old, yet […]

Profound Thanks and Radical Orthodoxy

    In a week during which we’ve been encouraged to #GiveThanks by the man whom I sustain as God’s chosen prophet, seer, and revelator in this time, I choose, today, to give thanks for certain of the Latter-day Saint scholars who influenced me at pivotal points in my life.  These entries all need to […]

New from Interpreter #GiveThanks

    Here are some recent materials on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   “Videos Available for the 2020 Temple on Mount Zion Conference”   “Kent Jackson Interview”   Jonn Claybaugh, “Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 47, November 30-December 6: Moroni 1-6 — “To Keep Them in the Right Way””   Audio […]

Utah’s desert monolith and the God of the gaps

    Most of you have probably come across this strange little story already:   Deseret News: “Mysterious monolith discovered in remote Utah wilderness: People are freaking out over a monolith discovered in the middle of nowhere in Utah.”   CNN:  “Mysterious monolith found in remote part of Utah fuels speculation on how it got there: […]