Category: language
Can We Have an Honest Chat About Abortion and Race? Not With ChatGPT
Curious about the knowledge of the impressive new Artificial Intelligence tool, ChatGPT, I started my day with a question about abortion and race. This tool, now owned by…
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…
Trying to Take the Shine off Shinehah: Vogel’s Response to a Commonly Cited Evidence for Book of Abraham Authenticity
This morning I was reading from what may be the premier work of Latter-day Saint scholarship on the Book of Abraham, the far-ranging magnum opus of Dr. Hugh Nibley with…
Geocentric Astronomy in the Book of Abraham? Dan Vogel’s Refutation of LDS Scholars
Circumpolar star trails in a long-exposure photo of several hours, showing that stars closer to Polaris move on shorter trails, thus moving more slowly. The circumpolar stars always stay…
A Gift from Biblical Reproductions: Alma the Son of Judah on a Bar Kochba Letter
There’s an interesting business, Biblical Reproductions, selling authorized reproductions of artifacts and documents related to the Bible. One of the products is a reproduction of 5/6Hev 44 Bar Kokhba, a…
Why Does the Book of Mormon Say the Nephites “Had Come Down to Believe in Their [the Gaddianton Robbers’] Works”?
No, I’m not saying anything in this post about secret combinations and how to identify them, but rather pointing out a minor detail that is part of a massive pattern…
The Jewish Copper Plates of Cochin, India and a Hint of an Ancient Jewish Tradition of Writing on Metal Plates
A recent post here critiqued an attempt to explain the origins of the book of Ether based on inspiration from a rare book, A Key to the Chronology of the…
Turning Gems into Dirt: The Case for Adam Clarke as a Source for the “Inspired Translation” of the Bible
John Dehlin with his podcasts and videos criticizing the Church has recently stirred up a lot of interest in the “amazing” and “historic” case of “plagiarism” against Joseph Smith based…
Some Sources for the Kirtland Egyptian Paper’s Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, Part Two
In Part 1 of this topic posted earlier this week, I reviewed several pages of entries in the first part of the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, one…
Some Sources for the Kirtland Egyptian Paper’s Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, Part One
One of the vital issues in Book of Abraham debates is the role of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, including the large and mysterious work, the Grammar and Alphabet of the…