Posted in Book of Abraham Evidence history Origins Scholarship Scripture

Moses Stuart or Joshua Seixas? Exploring the Influence of Hebrew Study on the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language

Update, June 16, 2019: After searching in many places (Hebrew texts, Masonic literature, and sources on ciphers and scripts) for alternate sources for the archaic Hebrew letter beth that W.W….

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Posted in Book of Abraham history Scholarship Scripture

Two Important, Even Troubling, Clues About Dating from W.W. Phelps’ Notebook with Egyptian “Translation”

Update, May 3, 2019, and more on May 8, 2019: In yet another frustrating turn as I explore the convoluted issues of the Book of Abraham, I need to add…

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Posted in Book of Abraham Critics history Scripture

Digging into the Phelps “Translation” of Egyptian: Textual Evidence That Phelps Recognized That Three Lines of Egyptian Yielded About Four Lines of English

Update, April 30, 2019: Today I noticed there is another document from Oliver Cowdery mentioning Katumin and giving the same English text that Phelps provides. The document is listed as…

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Posted in Book of Abraham history Scholarship Scripture

Wrong Again, In Part! How I Misunderstood the Plainly Visible Evidence on the W.W. Phelps Letter with Egyptian “Translation”

Update, April 23, 2019: Doubly wrong! When I wrote this post earlier today, I was examining the very light “ink” with the words “in part” on a key manuscript by…

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Posted in Book of Abraham Critics history

The Pure Language Project

To understand the strange Kirtland Egyptian Papers, we may need to understand the fascination with “pure language” that was found among some early Latter-day Saints. Brian Hauglid wrote this in…

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Posted in China Industry Miracles Stories Surviving The Church

Tender Mercies: How the BYU Management Society and a China Moment Turned Gloom into Contentment

Monday morning was gloomy. Perhaps my most depressing day over my 8 wonderful years of ups and downs in China. This was a day of confronting some painful suspected realities….

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Posted in health Word of Wisdom

Maybe We Should Remember the “Hot” Part of the Prohibition on “Hot Drinks”

Some recent hot news points to the risks of drinking very hot beverages. A new study suggests that drinking piping hot tea regularly can nearly double the risk of esophageal…

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Posted in history Policies

Big News in Newly Published Details About Elijah Able

Over at Ardis Parshall’s valuable blog, Keepapitchinin, there is an important new guest post by W. Paul Reeve: “Newly Discovered Document Provides Dramatic Details about Elijah Able and the Priesthood,”…

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Posted in Education government history Society

Pro-Choice for Education

I am dismayed that some people who pride themselves on being pro-choice stand for choice when it comes to the decision of a parent to terminate a young human’s life,…

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Posted in Doctrine and Covenants health Industry Revelation Scholarship Science Society Word of Wisdom

Update on “Healthy” Alcohol Consumption: Massive New Study Reveals the Optimum Daily Dose is ZERO

My previous post discussed the $100 million government study on “moderate” alcohol consumption that the alcohol industry was furtively funding and designing to give favorable results, a study that fortunately…

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