Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 203

The Destruction in 3 Nephi: An Interim Retrospective

    I’ll share a passage here from Jeff Wynn and Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The Growing Convergence of Science and Religion (2019).  Dr. Jeffrey C. Wynn, who has described himself as a “recovering atheist,” is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a research geophysicist with the United States Geological […]

For heart and mind and soul

    Three new items went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Interpreter Radio Show — September 27, 2020 The 27 September 2020 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show featured Steve Densley, Matthew Bowen, Mark Johnson, and Daniel Peterson. In this episode, the discussion focused on humility and academic integrity, with some […]

Revision 6.2 “Meet the Middle Periods”

    Overall, it can be said that the principal characteristic of the Middle Peri­ods of Islamic history is political disintegration. Constantly shifting political boundaries made for instability and unceasing conflict. And the distinguishing mark of what Hodgson calls the Early Middle Period is, with the obvious exception of far-off Spain, Turkish domi­nation. The Arabs […]

Revision 6.1 “Decline and Response, ‘Party Kings’ and Crusaders”

    My manuscript now begins to treat what I call, following Marshall G. S. Hodgson, the “Early Middle Period,” which will last from AD 945 to AD 1258:   The so-called “Shiite Century” that followed the close of the High Caliphal period actually lasted for a little more than a hundred years, from 945 […]

“Janus Parallelism: Speculation on a Possible Poetic Wordplay in the Book of Mormon”

    A couple of new items are up on the website of the Interpreter Foundation.  The first is an article in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship that was written by my friend and former BYU colleague Paul Y. Hoskisson:   “Janus Parallelism: Speculation on a Possible Poetic Wordplay in the Book of […]

Of Elder D. Todd Christofferson and “Bitter Fruits”

    One of the many unattractive traits of our current debased public discourse is the unseemly enthusiasm with which tribal factions eagerly scan the words of those to whom their tribe is opposed, seeking occasions to take offense, express outrage, and justify indignation.  Too many zealously try to demonize those with whom they disagree, […]

“Even if we cannot prove them with absolute certainty”

    Yet another passage from Alister McGrath’s “Twilight of Atheism” talk as it appears, transcript, in Eric Metaxas, ed., Life, God, and Other Small Topics: Conversations from Socrates in the City (New York: Plume/Penguin, 2011):   Some of you may have read Terry Eagleton’s very interesting review of Dawkins’s The God Delusion in the […]

“And he became miffed with the Prophet Joseph”

    I share with you here another item culled from Susan Easton Black and Larry C. Porter, Martin Harris: Uncompromising Witness of the Book of Mormon (Provo: BYU Studies, 2018).  It is a statement from Theodore Farley, who, as a young boy, often greeted Martin Harris when, between his emigration to Utah in 1870 and his […]

Revision 5.21 “The End of the High Caliphal Period”

    I have tried, by means of this rather lengthy digression into word origins and word borrowings, to give some idea of the variety and richness of Islamic civilization at its peak. It was a remarkable human achieve­ment. Yet, like other human creations, the great Abbasid Arab empire was fated to perish. In AD […]

“Turning Gems Into Dirt”

    Up today, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Book of Moses Insights #23: Enoch, the Prophet and Seer: Enoch’s Prophecy of the Tribes (Moses 7:5–11, 22)   ***   Two recent items from Jeff Lindsay:   “Turning Gems into Dirt: The Case for Adam Clarke as a Source for the “Inspired […]