Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 3

Entering into Conference Week

  For whatever little it’s worth, I published a piece in Meridian Magazine about President Russell M. Nelson.  Many tributes to him have appeared over the last couple of days, but I was happy to be invited to contribute one of them myself. It was a very difficult weekend for Latter-day Saints, and President Dallin […]

A sad day for Latter-day Saints

  This has been a sorrowful day for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While my stake conference was beginning here in Orem, we learned of a deadly attack — apparently using first a vehicle, then an assault rifle and incendiary devices — on a Latter-day Saint sacrament service in Grand […]

Crossing Over

  I recently read the 2024 book Lucid Dying: The New Science Revolutionizing How We Understand Life and Death (New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2024), written by Sam Parnia, M.D., Ph.D.  I found it both enjoyable and fascinating.  I may even re-read it, and I heartily commend it to the notice of anybody who is […]

Comparing Masonic Rites with the LDS Temple Endowment

  This new article appeared earlier today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “A Textual Comparison of Masonic Rites and the LDS Temple Endowment,” written by David Eddington: Abstract: Numerous discussions of the similarities between the LDS temple endowment and Masonic rites exist, which give the impression that the two overlap considerably. […]

From Beside “The Father of Waters”

  Although the website of the Interpreter Foundation is supposed to have died many years ago, new materials mysteriously continue to be posted there.  Today offered yet another example:  Seek Ye Words of Wisdom: “The Symbolism of Two Sons in the Parable of the Prodigal Son,” written by John W. Welch: Part of our book […]

A brief note on one way of thinking about life after death

  A piece that I wrote for Meridian Magazine went up this morning;  “DNA and the Book of Mormon: Putting the Science in Perspective.”  It might perhaps be worth a look. In other news: We filmed today at three locations outside and around the North Visitors Center in Nauvoo — the red brick one — and […]

“You really ought to give Iowa a try” (from “The Music Man”)

  At one point, the city of Nauvoo, Illinois, was well on its way to someday having its own international airport.  But the events of late June 1844 and those of the two years that followed blocked that pathway, and Nauvoo is now a small and very remote town, and quite hard to reach.  I […]

Is there seeming evidence against the Restoration? Sure!

  My Monday was exceptionally long and very busy, and I had no time whatever, none at all, to do any writing today.  Not even on my blog.  But I’ve made it a practice to post a daily entry on this blog, and I’m going to be traveling almost all of Tuesday.  Which means that […]

Perhaps I should just let sleeping dogmatists lie?

  This column in the Deseret News is worth a look: “Perspective: Online influencers aren’t accurately representing Latter-day Saint reality: Disaffected influencers might be leaving a religious movement, but they’re not leading one” So is this piece, from the Deseret News Editorial Board: “Opinion: Regaining trust in vaccinations” And this, too:  “Ready to join the new […]

Herman’s Hermits and the Screwtape Letters

  It’s late tonight, so I think that I’ll share three passages that I marked during my reading, some time ago, of Richard Lyman Bushman’s book Joseph Smith’s Gold Plates: A Cultural History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2023): John’s mother, Mary Whitmer, another plain-spoken witness, said she saw the plates when she went to […]