Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 229

“Bad men on paper”

    New on the website of the Interpreter Foundation, from Hales Swift:   “Prayer and Worship in Alma 32-34” A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 28 “Plant This Word in Your Hearts” (Alma 32-35)   ***   Back quickly to a passage that I marked while re-reading Richard Lloyd Anderson’s classic Investigating the […]

Setbacks, Archaeological and Epidemiological

    The latest installment of my bi-weekly Deseret News column appeared earlier today:   “The dramatic story behind one of the world’s greatest churches: The Hagia Sophia was rebuilt after riots, fires destroyed much of Constantinople”   For unusual reasons, I actually wrote the column a couple of weeks ago, before this news came […]

Revision 1.14 “Talmudic Judaism, Constantinian Christianity, and the ‘De-Judaizing’ of Palestine”

    The Babylonian Talmud became, by a considerable distance, the more important of the two works, partly because Palestinian Jewry was steadily on the wane while the Jews of Babylon were rela­tively well organized and prosperous. “It became,” as Israeli histo­rian Shmuel Safrai observes, the basic—and in many places almost the exclusive—asset of Jew­ish […]

Simple deception?

    I’ve made no secret of the fact that I regard Richard Lloyd Anderson’s Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1981) as one of the most important books ever written by a Latter-day Saint scholar. Brother Anderson (1926-2018) was a hero of mine and, for his last decades, a friend.  […]

“New Study Finds Some Polynesians Carry DNA of Ancient Native Americans”

    In case you missed this news, here’s a brief write-up from the Interpreter Foundation:  “New Study Finds Some Polynesians Carry DNA of Ancient Native Americans”   ***   And here’s a response to a gross misrepresentation that is still remarkably — and shamefully — common in some circles:   “What Does Richard Bushman […]

Revision 1.13 “The Mishnah and the Talmuds”

    What really interested the earliest rabbis was the collection and organization of the so-called “oral law,” the traditions that had already been gathering about the text of the Torah for centuries. This was the next layer, the next level of sediment in the mounting deposit of what would come to be modern rabbinic […]

Ancient geology and really ancient geology

    I continue with some notes from Jerry D. Grover, Jr., Geology of the Book of Mormon (2014).  (See this and other works by him and by others at Brother Grover’s Book of Mormon Scientific and Linguistic Research site.).  He is talking here, of course, about the New World catastrophe described in the Book of […]

Revision 1.12 “Philo and the Intellectuals”

    The scholars now reigned supreme within Palestinian Judaism. Family, social standing, and wealth no longer mattered. All that mattered was learning. Study, the scholars said, was even more important than keeping the commandments.[1] They did not claim revelation themselves, and they did not recognize revelation to others. This is well illustrated by the […]

“Human Wrecks”

    Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps: Lesson 29, July 20-26: Alma 36-38 — “Look to God and Live” A brief discussion by Jonn Claybaugh   Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 29 “Look to God and Live” Alma 36-38 This Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Book of Mormon Lesson 29, “Look to God and Live,” on […]

Revision 1.11 “Yohanan ben Zakkai”

    Furthermore, the ruling classes of Jewry, including the chief families of hereditary priests, had perished along with the temple and the state they had served. Roman administrators were busily monitoring, harrassing, and persecuting descendants of the Davidic line, including the leaders of the Sanhedrin, in order to prevent them from serving as the […]