Daniel C. Peterson's Blog, page 914

“Gay rights activists target ‘religious colleges’ with letter asking NCAA to ‘divest'”

    In recent decades, activists of various stripes have demanded that American businesses “divest” from South Africa because of apartheid and from Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza — though, notably, I don’t recall these folks as calling from divestment from China, Russia, Libya, Zimbabwe, Syria, and other such tyrannous [Read More...]

Good stuff from Book of Mormon Central

    One of the principal missions of Book of Mormon Central is to make some of the material generated about the Book of Mormon over the past sixty or seventy years or so much more accessible, in nicely-packaged form.   Sidney Sperry, Hugh Nibley, John Sorenson, the old Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon [Read More...]

“How to Spot Research Spin: The Case of the Not-So-Simple Abstract”

  I will, once again, be accused of attacking science in the service of my irrational religious beliefs.   That, of course, is both false and unjust.   But I do think it important to remember that science is done by humans, and that scientists, like all other humans, are fallible, prone to fads, inclined [Read More...]

Utah has a chance to do something great.

    I ran across this little item on page 68 of the April 2016 issue of the superb conservative magazine of religion and public affairs First Things:   “A friend’s son bought a Trump ‘Make America Great Again’ baseball cap.  The tag on the inside reads: ‘100% Cotton.  Made in China.”   That is [Read More...]

“Easter and the At-one-ment”

    A nice Easter-oriented article in the Deseret News from Taylor Halverson and Lisa Halverson:   http://www.deseretnews.com/article/86...    

BOM Mosiah 8

    Two brief observations about today’s reading, Mosiah 8:   First, Mosiah is a book in which several different groups are traveling here and there, and several stories interweave, overlap, divide, and rejoin.  The story of the party sent out to find the land of Zarahemla, but that stumbles upon the remains (and the records) of the [Read More...]

Hoping for a “new and more perfect edition”

    In 1728, when he was still just a young man of twenty-one or twenty-two, Benjamin Franklin composed his own mock epitaph.  It was never actually used, but it seems not entirely inappropriate to mention it as we approach Easter:   The Body of B. Franklin Printer; Like the Cover of an old Book, Its [Read More...]

“Names and Meaning, Part 2: Zoram Revisited”

    Neal Rappleye describes a nice new contribution to Book of Mormon studies   http://www.studioetquoquefide.com/201...    

“And What Is It We Shall Hope For?”

  I still have melodies from The Redeemer coursing through my mind.  This is one of them, with a text drawn from Moroni 7:41, 48, in the Book of Mormon:      And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of [Read More...]

Hosanna!

    Today is the vernal equinox, which means that it’s the first day of spring.   It’s also Palm Sunday, commemorating Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem and the beginning of his last week in mortality.   Palm Sunday is, I’m afraid, to some extent a reminder of the fickleness of crowds.  Most of those [Read More...]