Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 196

Revision 8.3 “On Early Apostles and Missionaries in the Holy Land and the Near East”

    This was, however, not the last time that apostles of the Lord would visit Palestine in this dispensation to dedicate the land for the return of the Jews. Altogether, there seem to have been at least ten separate dedications of the Holy Land under apostolic author­ity. (No clearer illustration than this could possibly […]

Saturday’s Temple Conference

    This is a last-minute reminder of the Interpreter Foundation’s imminent next conference.  As we commonly do, we offer this to all who are interested   The Fifth Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference Saturday, November 7, 2020 Presented by The Interpreter Foundation Brigham Young University College of Humanities Due to the COVID-19 situation, […]

Was the Book of Mormon the product of Joseph Smith’s own thinking?

    A new article — this one by the notoriously vicious and always angry proprietor of Sic et Non hisself, one Daniel Peterson — has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:   “It Came from Beyond” Abstract: The early Latter-day Saints viewed the Book of Mormon not only as a symbol […]

Hagia Sophia, Tenochtitlan, the Incas’ Golden Temple, and Jerusalem’s Temple Mount

    The latest installment of my bi-weekly column has appeared in the Deseret News, and this one is accompanied by some especially nice illustrations:   “When a religious building has been repurposed by another faith: From the ancient Aztec in Tenochtitlan, modern Mexico City, to the Dome of the Rock on the Temple Mount […]

A moral argument for the existence of God

    Please note that “The Temple on Mount Zion,” the Fifth Interpreter Matthew B. Brown Memorial Conference — jointly sponsored by the Interpreter Foundation and the Brigham Young University College of Humanities — will be held this coming Saturday, 7 November 2020, and will be streamed online, accessible at no charge:   2020 Temple on Mount […]

The Book of Mormon: Focus and Coherence

    I’m a bit behind on my self-assigned task of keeping you informed of new publications from the Interpreter Foundation.  Yesterday, we were driving back from St. George, and we took our time to do it.  We spent some time in the always-glorious Snow Canyon State Park, paid our sobered respect at the various […]

A vision through the veil, on Maui

    We had an enjoyable time last night with our monthly reading group (via Zoom, in our case from St. George), discussing R. Lanier Britsch, Moramona: The Mormons in Hawai’i, 2d ed., updated, revised, and enlarged (Laie, HI: The Jonathan Napela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies, Brigham Young University-Hawai’i, 2018), with its author, […]

Revision 8.2 “A further note on the rededication of Palestine”

    I continue my account of a party sent in 1872 by President Brigham Young to rededicate Palestine for the return of the Jews.  It included George A. Smith of the First Presidency, Lorenzo Snow and Albert Carrington of the Twelve, and the poet and Relief Society president Eliza R. Snow:   Their travels […]

Did life reach Earth from beyond the solar system? Has intelligent life made an appearance here yet?

    This passage in David Jewitt and Amaya Moro-Martín, “Everything Scientists Know So Far about the First Interstellar Objects Ever Detected: Strange bodies from beyond the solar system have defied predictions,” Scientific American 323/4 (October 2020): 42-49, caught my attention.  For one thing, it tacitly acknowledges that the origin of life on earth remains an unsolved mystery.  […]

An 1865 Vision of a Gathering Place for the Saints in Hawai’i

    R. Lanier Britsch, Moramona: The Mormons in Hawai’i, 2d ed., updated, revised, and enlarged (Laie, HI: The Jonathan Napela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Studies, Brigham Young University-Hawai’i, 2018), 131-133     In accordance with the doctrine of the physical gathering that was so prominent a feature of the nineteenth-century Church, early […]