Recent Posts
An Overlooked Example of the Book of Mormon’s Surprising Use of Book of Moses Material
While Noel Reynolds and I felt like we had pretty well mined all the relevant connections between the Book of Moses and the Book of Mormon when we published our list of nearly 100 connections, there’s an important one that we missed. Missing the connection may have been easy to do since the related Book of Mormon verse uses different wording that succinctly summarizes a longer Book of Moses passage, and at first glance appears to just be referring to a familiar story from Genesis. This connection involves Satan’s influencing Cain to slay Abel in Helaman 6:27 and Moses 5:25.
The Light of Christ and the Birth of Christ
This is the short message I gave near the end of the musical Christmas Devotional for the Appleton, Wisconsin Stake on Dec. 24, 2022 in Neenah, Wisconsin. The Light of…
A Key Book to Understand Nahom and Bountiful is Now Free Online: Warren Aston’s Lehi and Sariah in Arabia
A thorough and valuable book on Lehi’s Trail and the Arabian Peninsula evidence for the Book of Mormon is now available free online, thanks to the generosity of the author,…
The Church Announces Support for a Bill Supporting Same-Sex Marriage
The Church has spoken in favor of a federal bill supporting same-sex marriage, while still maintaining the position that homesexual activity is inconsistent with the teachings of the Gospel. Here…
Joshua Berman’s Ani Maamin: An Orthodox Jewish Scholar Provides Help in Keeping the Faith in the Face of Secular Bible Scholarship
During a recent trip to Atlanta, my wife and I connected two of our Latter-day Saint friends with dear Jewish friends there. Among the many topics of the evening, we…
A Catholic Family Gets a Visit From the FBI: A Time to Carefully Follow Stories on Threats to Religious Freedom
The opening talk of the October 2022 General Conference, “Caring for the Poor and Distressed” by Elder Dallin H. Oaks, asked us to not only do more to help to…
A Tough Question: What’s the Single Most Impressive Evidence for the Book of Mormon?
A critic recently asked me a tough question: what’s the single most impressive piece of evidence for the Book of Mormon? I think he wasn’t looking for evidence that might change open his mind, but perhaps was looking to simplify his goal of attacking the Book of Mormon. But for those who really want to understand more, what evidence is most important and impressive? Here I offer a few thoughts and several possibilities for the “one best” issue to consider.
Finding Michael: Coping with the Improved Search Engine in the Gospel Library App and the Church Website
The home page of ChurchofJesusChrist.org, the generally very useful and professional website for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, currently touts the improved search feature in the Gospel Library app. However, if you’re trying to use it for research in the scriptures, there are some serious gaps that need to be understood. I’ve made multiple efforts over the past few weeks to point these problems out to the IT team responsible for the app, but I think they have been swamped with the roll out, so I’ve only received standardized responses so far. Until the bugs are recognized and fixed, users need to be aware of what can go wrong. There are some major gaps that can lead you to miss the things you are searching for. Any scholarly work requiring accurate search results may be impaired.
AP’s Narrative-Based Reporting on the Church’s Handling of an Abuse Case in Arizona
The Associated Press recently published an article about a case of abuse in Arizona that sharply criticized the Church. In “Seven years of sex abuse: How Mormon officials let it…
Nahom/NHM: Only a Tribe, Not a Place?
Executive summary: Discoveries from the Arabian Peninsula supporting the existence of a place called Nahom (see 1 Nephi 16:34) face recent criticism for only showing that the NHM tribal name…
