Daniel C. Peterson is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University, and editor-in-chief of BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative.
I want to focus on an element of our regular…
Here is a curious story that I came across while…
Christianity Today has an interesting article up, written by Gordon Govier,…
It is well known that Latter-day Saints teach a doctrine…
“If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch,”…
Human potential is never fully realized in mortality. Too often,…
“We are but a moment’s sunlight, fading in the grass,”…
Here is a little-known story from the pioneer trek west…
Yes, there can be valid criticisms of the Church. Both…
After spending a great deal of time with Brigham Young’s…
Until recently, at least, Americans have likely taken the orderly…
Several years ago, after I had posted a blog entry…
Bound within the January 1972 issue of “The New Era,”…
Here are a few of the things that, I hope,…
One or two folks have shown up on my blog…
Mark Goodman, James Jordan, Russ Richins, and I had already…
I notice that there are some who are ginning up…
Writing on his Patheos blog, called Sic et Non, Daniel…
Understandably, many readers of the Book of Mormon simply assume…
The former president of the United States Theodore Roosevelt, slightly…
Very recently, Sebastian Junger published a new book entitled In My…
In 1854, to mark the tenth anniversary of the martyrdom…
So, we’ve launched a free online series of film shorts…
This passage, from the remarks that were delivered at the…
One day, after plunging over a twenty-five foot waterfall, the…
Well, our new Interpreter Foundation theatrical film, "Six Days in August",…
I’ve just finished reading Keith A. Erekson and Matthew J.…
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints takes no…
One of the most consequential meetings in the history of…
The two oldest reasonably complete ancient manuscripts of the Bible…
On the time-honored principle that I rush in where angels…
I want to share a few more passages that I…
It seems clear to me from President Holland's recent remarks…
I’ve made every effort that I could over several decades…
Joseph Smith was famously shocked, while he was translating the…
Over the past few decades, a number of physicists, philosophers,…
The announced topic of the meeting was “Innovations and Initiatives…
Paradigm shifts are not and, of course, should not be…
"The claims made by the research I was reading were…
Here are some notes about certain of the witnesses to…
The sixth chapter of Richard Lyman Bushman’s book Joseph Smith’s Gold…
One of the most challenging issues for believers in the…
William E. McLellin was chosen as one of the Twelve…
Many people will say, “Well, you know, they were not…
Three decades ago, I sat on the Mount of Olives…
It’s certainly true that, from a Latter-day Saint point of…
Some have been commenting on Elder Patrick Kearon’s call to…
The Woman’s Exponent, which was published from 1872 to 1914, was evidently…
Serious “biblical archaeology”—to use a term that, although in common…
In Revelation 1:4, the apostle John announces his intent to…
Interpreter has undertaken another major film project under the title…
Some skeptics, responding (rather defensively, I think) to the accounts…
“If your arguments are really so good, why isn’t everybody…
Not infrequently, I encounter complaints that Latter-day Saint temples are…
Earlier this year, in preparation for sitting down to interview Professor…
I understand that some altogether without pioneer ancestry – recent…
Quite a loud controversy has apparently erupted about the proposed…
Dr. Jenet Erickson has recently published a solid summation of…
If a person is determined to disbelieve in the proposition…
The Mountain Meadows Massacre is perhaps the single ugliest episode…
Here are some quotations expressing Brigham’s attitude toward the founding…
I feel like sharing some quotations that I’ve previously gathered…
While Dr. Krister Stendahl was serving as Lutheran bishop of…
The story of Lazarus, told in John 11 is rarely…
In our effort to understand Matthew 5:48, we should certainly…
No other planet in our solar system has plate tectonics,…
In all four of the New Testament gospels, Jesus is…
I share here one of the many striking accounts contained…
The Interpreter Foundation has now very nearly completed its work…
In February 1849, when the Saints were still relatively new…
What story, exactly, do the Gospels tell? Do they even…
It’s astonishing how often, when the subject of near-death experiences…
As I write, there are only twenty-five shopping days remaining…
Slightly more than four years ago, I posted two back-to-back…
Hugh Nibley was a pivotal influence on my early life…
According to Acts 10, the apostle Peter received a revelation…
“By scientifically studying the more than 1,300 cases shared with…
It was, some say, the largest human-caused explosion prior to…
Suppose that, one day, you hear a shockingly negative report…
I’ve been following the coverage of the passing of Queen…
For anybody who is actually interested in the truth, the…
Eyewitness testimony is used around the world in courts of…
I hope that, by now, you’ve had the opportunity to…
Saints who were faithful to the vision of Joseph Smith…
The name of Merneptah (or Merenptah) doesn’t appear in the…
Important lessons were learned from the devotion of the pilgrims…
My unexpected victory was followed by an unexpected sight. I’ve…
Jens Amberts contends that “is beyond astronomically likely and hence…
Quite naturally, most readers of the Book of Mormon probably…
Orson F. Whitney had apparently been a rather indifferent and…
I expect that at least some of you have seen…
How did such a man as Simon bar Jonah, from…
Here, I share again some excerpts from Pim van Lommel, Consciousness…
Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints…
At this Easter season, our faith is sustained not by…
By just about any measure, Western society has grown much…
Now, I don’t always know, in any given instance, whether…
Aristotle's prestige in the ancient and medieval periods was so…
In an 1850 debate with several Christian ministers, John Taylor…
Even when old age and disease begin to steal a…
“Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” The three names roll off our…
Latter-day Saints first arrived in Hawaii on 12 December 1850—just…
Isn’t the Hebrew Bible sometimes difficult to understand? Isn’t it…
Richard Smalley came from a religious background, but he evidently…
These are two figures from history who are considered truly…
What can explain the appeal of Christmas to people well…
I thought that, at this Christmas season, some of you…
Lacking revelation and prophetic leadership amid a lethal, worldwide pandemic—and…
Marriner W. Merrill — who served as both the first…
Most if not all religions are saturated with exhortations to…
Unfortunately, for many centuries our society fostered a dark image…
There are relatively few genuinely new arguments against the Restoration…
Many of us can name a handful of books that…
A friend of mine, doing his postgraduate study at Oxford…
Among the many things that Moroni said to Joseph Smith…
What Elder Holland had to say to the University as…
A parable from the Philosophical Fragments of Søren Kierkegaard sheds…
Those who confront their own suffering or that of a…
Many people live in areas where “Witnesses” wasn’t shown, or…
Widespread interest in what are nowadays typically called “near-death experiences”…
Some critics, realizing that the Book of Mormon was beyond…
A passing thought to find the site of a tragic…
In these latter days, we are sending missionaries to more…
An aggressive atheist showed up on my blog and claimed…
Our dramatic film “Witnesses”—the first of our films, which is…
Witnesses film is being “review bombed” over on the “Rotten…
I found this article, by Musa al-Gharbi, Paul F. Lazarsfeld…
There is certainly truth and value in non-attachment, at least…
Latter-day Saints who visit Hawaii today are aware, of course,…
Martin Harris' alleged experience with Jesus visiting him in the…
One of the addresses that struck me most powerfully during…
The usual response of critics to the witnesses of the…
When she first heard of the “Mormons,” the very first…
"Witnesses", a new feature film about the witnesses of the…
In my judgment, the accounts of the witnesses to the…
Mistrustful of Joseph and skeptical of Joseph’s claims about the…
Latter-day Saints are often criticized for their conviction that faith…
I'd like to treat the question of whether Orson Hyde’s…
Later estimates of the weight of the gold plates of…
The cosmological theory of the “Big Bang,” overwhelmingly dominant in…
The problem of the unreliability of eyewitness testimony is a…
I firmly believe that there are things that are far…
John C. Whitmer was exceptionally well placed to know two…
"Every man and woman of integrity, scholar and non-scholar alike,…
David Whitmer said, “I have been visited by thousands of…
"The pressing need of the age is a system of…
Many who have experienced near-death experiences share a similar memory…
I’ve occasionally been asked, when I’m at academic conferences, what…
Near the end of Sidney Rigdon's life, as his health…
When we include both biblical and nonbiblical sources, “what we…
Such sources as the writings of Josephus (ca. AD 37-100),…
“Christianity has eleven credible witnesses to its fundamental claim, the…
I was heartbroken at what happened to the Latter-day Saint…
And here, cited in “The Near-Death Experience,” is a lesser-known…
Careful to make sure he was tipsy first, several old…
The Book of Mormon cautions us powerfully against racism and…
"If the Christian claim that Jesus rose from the dead…
Are there any candidates for the actual volcano that caused…
In his classic 1952 book Mere Christianity, C. S. Lewis…
As the great Yale historian Jaroslav Pelikan remarked, “If Christ…
One of the criticisms often leveled against the Book of…
"I’ve never seen anything, no light, no shadows, no nothing.…
Back in 2015, a controversy erupted at Wheaton College in…
Paul Davies does not appear to be a Christian or…
A veteran of World War Two, my father had served…
The relationship between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day…
Many people in the West quite confidently discuss Muslim attitudes…
The great Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) took…
One of the favorite arguments deployed against the claims of…
Some critics like to use this quotation attributed to Joseph…
One of Christ's inner circle of 12 apostles betrayed him,…
In June 1863, the passenger ship Amazon set sail from…
Many of the messages of the prophets deal with Israel’s…
While working as a nurse in a British hospital for…
Joseph Smith, the founder and first president of The Church…
Two passages from a biography of the apostle Paul lend…
The earliest Christians didn’t believe in the New Testament. They…
Let’s assume, for the sake of discussion, that the declarations…
In April 2006, Dallin H. Oaks, in unpublished remarks at…
Mere words are wholly inadequate in the face of great…
I published a Deseret News column back in 2015 entitled “The Mystery of…
Here is the account of a near-death experience of Captain…
Here are four passages taken from near-death experiences reporting a…
Back in April 2015, the following figures, drawn from previous…
In 1838, Phoebe Woodruff, the wife of Mormon apostle Wilford…
We talk often about the events of Joseph Smith's life…
In a notarized statement dated 29 October 1921, George Godfrey,…
Near-death experiences interest me for a wide variety of reasons.…
“According to Benjamin Stokely, Lyman Johnson testified that an angel…
It seems that Muhammad bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince,…
Often we see science and religion as being at odds…
This doctrine is generally referred to as deification, and the…
Jedediah M. Grant, a counselor to Brigham Young in the…
Something said in the temple that I heard again on…
The departure of Justice Anthony Kennedy from the Supreme Court…
Get to know the prophet Joseph a little better by…
Suppose that, one day, you hear a shockingly negative report…
A new film on Winston Churchill portrays him as having…
During my mission in Switzerland, we showed the German version…
Faith or non-faith. We cannot escape the decision. Not to…
Many years ago, I received an angry note from a…
What transformative event could lead a casual, almost indifferent Latter-day…
Hear firsthand accounts of the prophet of the restoration from…
With regard to matters of ancient history, and particularly with…
Such headline-grabbing studies as this should never be taken simply…
Watching a beautiful sunset or looking out over majestic mountains,…
For many unbelievers — both those who regret their inability…
Sometimes, we face unavoidable decisions without the hard data to…
“The advantageous effect of religious belief and spirituality on mental…
Excuse us if we are underwhelmed at the big news…
Since I’m not an expert historical/comparative Semitic linguist and know…
William E. McLellin was chosen as one of the Twelve…
Many people in the West quite confidently discuss Muslim attitudes…
If bias and dishonesty can mar sciences that rely upon…
Christopher Hitchens famously declared that "religion poisons everything." Should he…
Too much pretense harms us and prevents the Church from…
Defending Mormonism when it is declared to have "no intellectual…
Reflections on the 35th anniversary of the revelation that granted…
Does this election mean that political conservatism cannot win a…
President Barack Obama decided to attend, and, on balance, although…
There is not even the slightest warrant for representing early…
The scholars who first brought you the FARMS articles on…
Several scientists, among them a Utah university professor, see evidences…
It only makes sense that the reason the earth is…
A fascinating book marshals little known facts and a clear…
In their personal lives, Elder Haight and Elder Maxwell, had…
A landmark DVD and its companion book that detail Lehi's…
There will always be some stress between the historically Christian…
A rough contemporary of Jesus, Philo of Alexandria has had…
Militant atheists have recently been making the case that "religion…
A fascinating book marshals little known facts and a clear…
It only makes sense that the reason the earth is…
A landmark DVD and its companion book that detail Lehi's…
The beloved hymn "Amazing Grace," recently featured in a feature…
Several scientists, among them a Utah university professor, see evidences…
Latter-day Saints have long been fascinated with Oliver Cowdery, who…
Although the religion founded by Mani-known as Manicheism-is dead, its…