Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 251

David Whitmer’s June 1829 journey from Fayette to Harmony and back

    Here are a few more of my notes from Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (Independence, MO: John Whitmer Books, 2014), 10-18:   In June of 1829, David Whitmer travelled from his family’s farm in Fayette, New York, to the house in Harmony, Pennsylvania, where Joseph Smith and Oliver […]

Islam, Love, and Violence

  Here a few passages that I’ve drawn from John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think (New York: Gallup Press, 2007):   I should have cited this first passage for Mother’s Day.  But here it is, now, ready for Mother’s Day 2021:   A famous hadith explains […]

3 Nephi: Another Volcanological Perspective (2)

    Once more, I share a couple of extracts for my notes from Jeff Wynn and Louise Wynn, Everyone is a Believer: The Growing Convergence of Science and Religion (2019).  Dr. Jeffrey C. Wynn, formerly an atheist, is a convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a research geophysicist with the United States Geological […]

On “Mormon” and “Mormonism”

    Some critics that I observe — most of them specimens of the type of detractor who finds fault, day in and day out, with virtually everything that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does — have derived a great deal of hostile mirth from President Russell M. Nelson’s admonition that we […]

Immanuel Kant and the Book of Abraham

    A discussion elsewhere reminds me of a passage that I really enjoyed writing several decades ago.  Although I essentially wrote the words below, they appeared in William J. Hamblin, “An Apologist for the Critics: Brent Lee Metcalfe’s Assumptions and Methodologies,” in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/1 (1994): 434-523 (specifically pages […]

A few more thoughts on Acts 2

    As I mentioned in a previous post (“Acts 2, with an axe to grind”), the events recounted in the second chapter of Acts take place less than two months after Easter.  That’s important to keep in mind.  If Peter’s speech, given on the occasion, is at all accurately reported, its content is striking. […]

Two Reports from Paradise?

    It’s time, perhaps, for some additional notes drawn from a couple of the accounts gathered by Lee Nelson, Visions from Beyond the Veil (Springville, UT: Council Press, 2014):   When I had said this, I could see my body on the table, shaking violently.  I was transported to the most beautiful place I […]

Some notes on olive cultivation and the Book of Mormon

    This entry draws upon John W. Welch, et al., eds.  Knowing Why: 137 Evidences That the Book of Mormon Is True (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2017), 156-164:   One of the single most famous chapters in the Book of Mormon is Jacob 5, which recounts a lengthy olive tree allegory that it credits […]

Insights into the Book of Moses and other relevant topics

    Three new items have appeared on the website of the Interpreter Foundation since yesterday (Friday).  We hope that, as you’re still somewhat under coronavirus-imposed house arrest, these might entertain and edify you.  Of course, if you’re a certain kind of critic, they’ll probably just convulse you with bitterly angry rage.  But that, too, […]

Some notes on Wahhābism

    At least once, and perhaps twice, I used Daniel W. Brown, A New Introduction to Islam, 2d. ed. (Malden MA and Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009) as the principal text for my own introductory course on the religion of Islam.  Along the way, I marked a few passages that reminded me of points that I […]