Author Archive

I fell in love almost simultaneously, as a junior in high school, with historical linguistics and Hugh Nibley. 10 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Glenn Beck, the soapbox orator of cable television, has done more, save Sheri Dew only, for the greatness of Mormon literature, than any other person that ever lived. 3 people like this post.Like  Read More »

While the occurrence of a general apostasy is a matter of belief and not observable by historical inquiry, dispensations are born with a burst of documentary evidence. 4 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Each anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a bit embarrassing for me. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If we accept, at least for the moment, that 1 Nephi has a textual history, that it drew on older sources or underwent expansion at various times, then we might wonder what could be considered the oldest layer of the text 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

My basic problem with Blake Ostler’s expansion theory is that it approaches via intellectual history what is at heart a problem in textual history 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

In How to Kill a Dragon, the Indo-Europeanist Calvert Watkins defines formulas as “set phrases which are the vehicles of themes.” 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If you’re interested in an oral-formulaic theory of Mormon prayer, or if you want to observe a formula in its natural habitat, a good place to start would be Sunday dinner 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

A brotherly reader writes: I recently had a chance to watch the new French film Banlieue 13: Ultimatum, which as far as these things go is a pretty good action flick 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

If you want to find a unique Mormon tradition of verbal art, you should listen to Mormons pray 1 people like this post.Like  Read More »

With Brandon Sanderson’s Warbreaker, we have another Mormon writer of speculative fiction with something to say about marriage. Warbreaker manages to capture some ironies that won’t be lost on readers who have noted the discrepancy between the ideal of eternal marriage, and the reality of the dating scene at BYU. 0 people like this... Read More »

From the air, the German neighborhood where we lived until last year seems decidedly un-American 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

One of the things people find odd about Mormons is our claim to be led by a prophet. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Mormon Church does not want even its own members to know how to pronounce Shimnilom 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The Book of Mormon is a reliquary in prose. In some extensive sections and at some critical moments, what drives the narrative is the question: how did a set of golden plates, a steel sword, a ball of curious workmanship, a breastplate, and two translucent stones end up inside a stone box buried in... Read More »

What will it be like for a marriage to continue past death into the eternities? What does it mean to have a perfected body, or to love an eternal being? Stephenie Meyer has an answer. Breaking Dawn, the last novel in her Twilight series, presents a sustained and vividly imagined view of one of... Read More »

One of the subterranean threads running throughout the Book of Mormon is the mystery of whose bones are heaped upon the land northward. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

On the issues I care about (and therefore not including the topic addressed from various perspectives so eloquently by my esteemed colleagues), I prefer the positions of the Democratic Party platform and candidate. I directly benefited from Barack Obama’s work as a state senator while I lived in Illinois, he seems to know what... Read More »

Most online discussions of gay marriage are not worth the effort, because no actual discussion takes place 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

I’m very happy to see this year’s Nobel Prize in economics going to Paul Krugman, whose columns in the New York Times helped me see the importance of the discipline of economics as nothing else ever had. I think Mormon scholarship could use more scholars like Paul Krugman (quite apart from the Nobel and... Read More »

Every medium has an inherent vice. While any form of media can be misused, there is a flaw lurking in the fundamental nature of each medium. Television exaggerates fear, as it transmits the worst events or most scandalous entertainment from the outside world into our homes. Movies indulge our self-deluding fantasies of escape or... Read More »

One unique aspect of the missionary experience, quite distinct from life before and after, is the feeling that someone is always watching you. It’s probably the one aspect of my mission that I could have done without, although I wouldn’t say that it was entirely unproductive. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

From Steven Vanden Broecke, The Limits of Influence 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

What if the historical evidence for the foundation of the early Christian church is indistinguishable from evidence for its apostasy? What if the early church and its scriptures only arose through processes of decay? 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

According to an article in the New York Times today, evidence of Jewish belief in a resurrected Messiah decades before Christ’s birth may have been discovered. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

The temple plays a role in the social life of European Mormons that is significantly different in a couple of ways from the usual American experience. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Unless I’m carrying boxes, I’m probably not actually helping anybody. 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

Comments are now open Is a Mormon universalism possible? Or in other words, is it possible for Mormons to envision their faith as one of many efficacious paths to God? I have my doubts, but maybe there is an argument to be made 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

At the end of my junior year of high school, I caught a glimpse of my graduating student body president one last time 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »

There are advantages to attending a ward too small for fixed wooden benches in the chapel 0 people like this post.Like  Read More »