Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 224

On Invoking the “Gutzon Borglum” of the Gaps

    Humans always want to know “why.”  Especially children.  It seems that it’s an inherent part of the human mind.   At very young ages, kids ask why something is the way it is.  But when an adult answers the question with “because x,” the child will ask “But why x?”  And if that […]

Revision 2.15 “Arabia on the Eve of Islam”

    This is a vitally important point to understand:   The vast majority of the Arabs on the eve of the rise of Islam were pagans. But this statement, true though it is, requires some careful explanation. Not all Arabs were pagans. There were Christians and Jews in some parts of the peninsula who […]

Of ancient plagues and really, really ancient extinctions

    The latest installment of my bi-weekly Deseret News column went up yesterday.  I’m just really slow in posting a link to it.  But here’s the link:   “How ‘trivia,’ ‘alma mater,’ ‘liberal arts’ and religion are tied to the medieval roots of modern higher education”   ***   Here’s a bit of interesting […]

“Visions, Mushrooms, Fungi, Cacti, and Toads: Joseph Smith’s Reported Use of Entheogens”

    A new article by Brian Hales has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:   “Visions, Mushrooms, Fungi, Cacti, and Toads: Joseph Smith’s Reported Use of Entheogens” Abstract: An article recently published in an online journal entitled “The Entheogenic Origins of Mormonism: A Working Hypothesis” posits that Joseph Smith used […]

Revision 2.14 “The leader of the poets to hellfire”

    I pick up here with a brief allusion to the story that I told yesterday (Thursday):   Several observations can be made about this story. First of all, like the story before it, it illustrates the power of the pre-Islamic Arabian poet. But it also says a great deal about primitive Arab notions […]

What happened to the early apostles?

    Shortly before our departure for Colorado, a good friend — formerly our branch president in Cairo and, upon his retirement from government service in many parts of the world, an Arabic teacher in my department at BYU — brought over a gift that he and his family quite rightly knew that I would […]

Martin Harris, William Smith, and the quest for Colorado gold

    When we were out and about along the Blue River near Breckenridge, Colorado, the other day, this passage in Felicie Williams and Halka Chronic, Roadside Geology of Colorado, 3rd ed. (Missoula, MT: Mountain Press Publishing Company, 2014) struck me:   Glaciers flowing down this valley and its side canyons scoured the mountain walls, […]

Revision 2.13 “Ancient Arabia and the Power of Words”

    But first, the following item was called to my notice by a high school friend, who is married to a Ukrainian Orthodox priest.  On 24 July 2020, the magnificent church of Hagia Sophia — for centuries the cathedral of Constantinople and the largest church in the world, then an Ottoman mosque and then […]

A brief visit to the Vernal Utah Temple

    New materials from the Interpreter Foundation:   Interpreter Radio Show — July 26, 2020 Shorn of commercial breaks, the 26 July 2020 installment of the Interpreter Radio Show is now available online at no charge.  The participants that evening were Steve Densley, Mark Johnson, and Matthew Bowen. In this episode, they interviewed Dr. Jeffrey […]

A brief visit to Dinosaur National Monument

    On our way home this afternoon, we stopped by the fossil quarry at Dinosaur National Monument, not far from Vernal, Utah.  Approximately 1,500 dinosaur bones are embedded in a “wall” there in the Quarry Exhibit Hall.  Remains of various species are represented, including the thirty- to forty-foot-tall Allosaurus, dominant predator of its era; the […]