Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 819

“The Imperative for a Historical Book of Mormon”

    I think that it may be time to call attention again to this important statement:   The Imperative for a Historical Book of Mormon   Posted from Newport Beach, California    

“The Most Important Movie to See Before You Vote”?

    http://www.nationalreview.com/sponsor...   We might as well enjoy this year’s presidential campaign horror show . . .   Another appropriate film, of course, would be Seeking a Friend for the End of the World.   Posted from Newport Beach, California    

“Does This New Bill Threaten California Religious Colleges’ Freedom?”

    The onslaught continues:   http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2...   Posted from Newport Beach, California    

“What Really Caused the Voices in Joan of Arc’s Head?”

    Oddly, I’m perfectly open to considering the possibility that St. Joan’s voices were real.  Plainly, though, some folks aren’t.  Nobody in this article, for example, seems even to recognize it as an option:   http://www.livescience.com/55597-joan...   I thoroughly enjoyed the docudrama on Joan of Arc that was produced a few years back by [Read More...]

“Perhaps Close Can Count in More Than Horseshoes”

    A group of us made the decision to establish the Interpreter Foundation over lunch at Provo’s Olive Garden restaurant back in July of 2012.  It has been approximately 204.5 weeks since that lunch meeting.  Today marks the 203rd consecutive Friday on which the Foundation’s principal publication, Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, has published [Read More...]

“Islamic fundamentalists have a special loathing for Christianity: Now the persecution of Christians is coming to Europe”

    We need to be completely honest and accurate in our understanding of the challenge we face.  This article is a step in that direction:   Islamic fundamentalists have a special loathing for Christianity   Posted from Newport Beach, California  

“‘How Thankful We Should Be to Know the Truth’: Zebedee Coltrin’s Witness of the Heavenly Origins of Temple Ordinances”

    It being Friday, there’s a new article up in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture:   “How Thankful We Should Be to Know the Truth”: Zebedee Coltrin’s Witness of the Heavenly Origins of Temple Ordinances   One of the co-authors is Dr. Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, who leaves in just a few days, with [Read More...]

“This Mormon engineer’s utopian community is Vermont’s nightmare”

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/...   First of all, the headline seems a bit exaggerated.  Is this really a “nightmare” for the state of Vermont as a whole?  Do most residents of the state even care?  There are perhaps at least some Vermonters who don’t or wouldn’t regard the establishment of a 20,000-person town near Tunbridge as apocalyptically [Read More...]

Sense and Sensibility and No Sea Monsters

    “Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.”  (Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility)   We attended a performance last night — in the Old Globe in San Diego’s Balboa Park — of the still-relatively-new musical adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility.  (I’ve confessed before that I’m a [Read More...]

BOM Alma 55

    My comments yesterday about Moroni and Plato’s “auxiliaries” were also meant to apply to today’s reading, Alma 55.   Beyond that point, a couple of simple observations specifically targeted for today:   1.   Some Latter-day Saints — particularly of past generations — have claimed that “wine” in the scriptures simply means “grape [Read More...]