Benjamin
April 23, 2018What is it that a father finds in one
to favor over others?
Did Isaac know what grace was his
in primogeniture
while Ishmael wandered?
DiaBLOGue
A Ford Mustang
April 23, 2018High school boys with big dreams, I was one of them; I longed for freedom, for a Ford Mustang with meats and headers and dual glass-packs. And then too, I suppose I was tired. John…
Peripheral Mormondom: The Frenetic Frontier
April 23, 2018A concept called the “center periphery dichotomy” is sometimes used by social scientists to illustrate and analyze regional disparities.[1] Center or core usually refers to those areas so richly endowed in population and resources that…
The Orson Pratt-Brigham Young Controversies: Conflict Within the Quorums, 1853 to 1868
April 22, 2018Brigham Young and Orson Pratt are both regarded as valiant leaders during the first generation of the restored Church. Both worked mightily in the missionary field and showed themselves stalwart defenders of the faith. Yet…
Two Poets: Their Travels, Their Moods | Emma Lou Thayne, Once in Israel, and Marden J. Clark, Moods: Of Late
April 22, 2018The scene was just past the gate at summer’s end. The pine trees brushed against the two-story mountain house. The poet’s study, all windows, looked out over a luxuriant mountain range, yellow and purple with…
Torah! Torah! Torah! | Jacob Neusner, The Glory of God is Intelligence: Four Lectures on the Role of Intellect in Judaism
April 22, 2018This is a Festschrift of four lectures given by Jacob Neusner at Brigham Young University in 1977: “The Glory of God is Intelligence: A Theology of Torah-learning in Judaism,” “Cultic Piety and Pharisaism Before 70,”…
Joseph Smith and Thomas Paine? | Robert N. Hullinger, Mormon Answer to Skepticism: Why Joseph Smith Wrote the Book of Mormon
April 22, 2018Thirteen years ago a heavily publicized and startling book called The Passover Plot, by Dr. Hugh J. Schonfield, daringly asserted that Jesus Christ planned his own arrest, crucifixion and resurrection; that he had beforehand arranged…
Mormonism: From Its New York Beginnings
April 22, 2018That the handful of early Mormon converts decided to migrate from New York only nine months after their church was organized has led some scholars to suppose that the basic influence on Latter-day Saint doctrines…
An Hour in the Grove
April 22, 2018I have visited this spot before—in my youth, in art, in my thoughts—so often that it has become cliche. The grove, a ripe symbol extending back through time and myth, has become too ripe in…
Somewhere Near Palmyra
April 22, 2018He saw something that morning
deep among the delicate leaves
burning against the Eastern sky