Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 52

From the cradle of the Restoration

  It has been a fairly long day.  I’m back here with a film crew from Scripture Central who are working on an episode in their series A Marvelous Work. The series is hosted by Scott Christopher (who, by the way, played Peter Whitmer Sr. in the Interpreter Foundation films Witnesses and Undaunted: Witnesses of […]

Race and the Church, Reprised

  New today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:  “Review of Two New Theories about the Lamanite Mark Recently Presented in Two Different Forums,” written by Clifford P. Jones: Abstract: T. J. Uriona has offered two new theories about the meaning of Nephi’s term “skin of blackness” in 2 Nephi 5:21. […]

Marching onward and upward

  Some of the actors and crew for the Interpreter Foundation production of Six Days in August are back in Tennessee this week, working on the opening scene of the movie (which, for various quite good reasons, will actually be the last scene to have been filmed).  It turns out that filming in the right […]

On dwelling together in unity

  I would have found this remarkable at any time.  But it pleases me especially now, as open and unashamed anti-Semitism erupts on the campuses of several of my country’s elite universities:  “Jewish, Latter-day Saint friends found themselves singing together in the Taylorsville Utah Temple: ‘Chills were rising on our skin and tears were forming in […]

“Wow! What a wipeout!”

  As happens several times each week, something new has yet again been posted on the never-changing website of the Interpreter Foundation:  Come, Follow Me — Study and Teaching Helps (2024): Lesson 18, April 29-May 5: Mosiah 4-6: “A Mighty Change,” written by Jonn Claybaugh Editor’s Note: Four years ago, Jonn Claybaugh began writing the Study […]

A “Fiddler on the Roof” or “Sound of Music” of Our Own?

  Some of you might find this interview of interest.  I did it with Ben Hancock, who is based in the United Kingdom, on his podcast “For All the Saints”:  “Latter-Day Saint Scholar Discusses Fasting, Muslims & Ramadan – Daniel C. Peterson”  If you can just get past all of my characteristic sneering, slandering, cruelty, […]

Two Funeral Requests

  In our sacrament meeting today, the ward choir performed “Be Still, My Soul.”  The words were translated by Jane Borthwick (1813-1897) from the original German of Katharina von Schlegel (b. 1697), and the exquisite music (from Finlandia) was written by the Finnish composer Jean Sibelius (1865-1957).  If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can listen […]

What persists?

  This passage from somewhere came across my radar screen earlier today, and I think it worthy of sharing: “I asked an elderly woman once what it was like to be old and to know that the majority of her life was now behind her. She told me that she has been the same age […]

Yes to Heavenly Reunions

  “The Unwritten Debates in Moroni1’s Letter,” written by Morgan Deane Abstract: Moroni1’s letter in Alma 60 is not simply an angry and intemperate screed against the government; it also responds to arguments about just tactics (what modern readers would call ethics) taking place among Nephite leaders at this time. Moroni1’s letter argues for his […]

How would I have acted?

  Scott Gordon sent me a link yesterday to the video of a talk that I gave nearly a quarter of a century ago:  “The Divine Source of the Book of Mormon in the Face of Alternative Theories Advocated by LDS Critics,” presented by Daniel C. Peterson at the 2001 FAIR Conference Scott’s discovery is […]