Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 277

“The Raven and the Snake”

    I thought that I would share with you another charming little eighth-century animal fable (in my translation) from Munther A. Younes, Tales from Kalila wa Dimna: An Arabic Reader (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989):   A raven was living in a tree, and near the tree was the hole of […]

Geology and Third Nephi (5): Evidence from Ice Cores?

    I’ve begun to publish a short series of notes extracted from an article written by a longtime friend of mine, the Latter-day Saint geologist Dr. Bart Kowallis, about the natural catastrophe described in the Book of Mormon as occurring in the New World around the time of the death of Christ in the […]

Art and Architecture and Really Good Fast Food

    With my wife and a couple of Utah friends, I made yet another pilgrimage yesterday to Frank Lloyd Wright’s winter home and desert laboratory and architectural school at Taliesin West, in Scottsdale.   Then we met up with old friends who now live in Gilbert, and they suggested that we visit the Zelma […]

Geology and Third Nephi (4): An Explosive Volcanic Eruption?

    I continue with some notes from Bart J. Kowallis, “In the Thirty and Fourth Year: A Geologist’s View of the Great Destruction in 3 Nephi,” BYU Studies 37/3 (1997-1998).  He identifies twenty-one specific elements or events that are expressly mentioned in the account of natural catastrophe described in 3 Nephi 8-10:   A great storm (8:5) […]

ἦθος ἀνθρώπῳ δαίμων

    As I continue to read David Brooks, The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (New York: Random House, 2019), I’m struck by how much of his discussion about “commitments” seems to mirror Latter-day Saint thinking about “covenants,” and by how well a committed Latter-day Saint life matches the kind of life (on his “Second […]

“I want to hear them ring again.”

    “‘We were one people today — the people of Jesus Christ,’ says Elder Rasband at Durban temple dedication”   “South Africa’s Second Temple is Dedicated: Durban South Africa Temple becomes continent’s fifth temple”   I rejoice every time a new temple is dedicated.  Each new temple seems to me to represent one more toehold of […]

“The Merry Minuet”

    New, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:   Science & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man Life Sciences Panel Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in Science & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man (2016). Abstract:This panel, comprised of five Latter-day Saint scholars in the Life Sciences (Emily […]

“The Raven’s Gait”

    I’m using portions of Munther A. Younes, Tales from Kalila wa Dimna: An Arabic Reader (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989) as material for one of my classes.  The Kalila wa Dimna is a collection of animal fables, the core of which derives originally from India.  It was translated into Middle […]

A note on the Mennonites

    I published the column below in the Provo Daily Herald around 29 April 1999:   “Among the existing heretical sects,” wrote the Catholic scholar Franz Agricola in 1582, “there is none which in appearance leads a more modest, better, or more pious life than the Anabaptists.  As concerns their outward public life, they […]

“The whole purpose of becoming a Christian is simply nothing else.”

    We and our visiting friends attended church this morning and then had lunch today with friends who live here in Phoenix and dinner with family who live in Mesa.  It was, in other words, a very good day.   My wife and I have lately been reading a passage every night from a […]