Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 884

“Shulem, One of the King’s Principal Waiters”

    It’s Friday.  So you have no real reason to be surprised at the fact that Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture has published yet another article:   Shulem, One of the King’s Principal Waiters   Posted from Tiberias, Israel    

“An agnostic’s argument that Jesus did exist”

    Sitting here on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee, I think it appropriate to consider this topic:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/76...   Posted from Tiberias, Israel    

For some reason, this reminded me of some of my internet critics

    Heckling is an act of cowardice. If you want to speak, get up in front of the microphone and speak, don’t sit in the dark hiding. It’s easy to hide and shout and waste people’s time.  Billy Connolly Posted from Tiberias, Israel    

Crossing over Jordan, Part II

    As I’ve noted, the Palestinian River Jordan isn’t very impressive, physically.  We’re in a historical drought, of course, and enormous growth of population and consumption of water for agricultural and culinary use has made that drought even worse.  Still, though, Mark Twain joked that, growing up an occasional church-goer along the Mississippi, he [Read More...]

Crossing over Jordan

    Today involved a lot of driving.  A lot.  We hit the road at 5:45 AM, leaving our hotel at Petra.  We had to reach the border crossing between Israel and Jordan by about 10 AM, because that crossing was closing early today.  (It’s the tail end of the Passover holiday.)   We arrived [Read More...]

“Taking a ‘Leap of Faith’ in Bennett’s book on the origins of the Book of Mormon”

    Today’s Deseret News column is about a book that I really liked, and that I intended to write a column about but apparently never did:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...   Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel    

“The divinity of Christ is absolute”

    Truth be told, I never knew what the title meant that was given by the Deseret News to this late 2012 column:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/76...   But I stand by the column.   Posted from Tel Aviv, Israel    

On genius and hard work

    I suspect that this is true in more fields than just military generalship.  It’s the difference between good artists and great ones, between good musicians and great ones, between competent writers and geniuses, between craftsmen and original creators:   Nine-tenths of tactics are certain, and taught in books: but the irrational tenth is [Read More...]

“What is the strongest force in the universe?”

    I was going to guess that it was stupidity.   But it seems that I was wrong:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/startswit...   Posted from Petra, Jordan    

Our last full day in Jordan (and it was quite full)

    A quite long but very interesting day.  At least, I hope (and believe) that the people in the group found it so.     We spent the first part of the day walking in and around the ruins of Petra.  Then we drove to Wadi Rum, where much of the story of Lawrence [Read More...]