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.
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,…
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…
With regard to matters of ancient history, and particularly with…
Such headline-grabbing studies as this should never be taken simply…
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…
A fascinating book marshals little known facts and a clear…
In their personal lives, Elder Haight and Elder Maxwell, had…
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…
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…