Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Latter-day Saint
Mind-Brain Dualism, Rocks in Upstate New York, and Two New Scriptural Editions

Mind-Brain Dualism, Rocks in Upstate New York, and Two New Scriptural Editions

Last updated on: November 23, 2018 at 8:00 pm by Dan Peterson

Mind-Brain Dualism, Rocks in Upstate New York, and Two New Scriptural Editions 2018-11-23T20:00:45-07:00 Dan Peterson

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New York (LDS.org)

The latest installment of the biweekly Hamblin-Peterson column has been published in the Deseret News. It’s not entirely coincidental that the article has something of an Australian connection:

“Two knights, the self and its brain”

***

The newest article in Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture — yes, yes, as soon as I can get to it I’ll make the final decision and we’ll change that subtitle! — has also now appeared. In it, Benjamin Jordan and Warren Aston (an Australian from Brisbane, by the way) consider

“The Geology of Moroni’s Stone Box: Examining the Setting and Resources of Palmyra”

Here’s the article’s abstract:

The story of Joseph Smith retrieving gold plates from a stone box on a hillside in upstate New York and translating them into the foundational text of the Restoration is well known among Latter-day Saints. While countless retellings have examined these events in considerable detail, very few have explored the geological aspects involved in this story. In particular, none have discussed in detail the geological materials that would have been required by the Nephite prophet Moroni ca. ad 421 to construct a sealed container able to protect the gold plates from the elements and from premature discovery for some fourteen centuries. This paper reports the outcomes from a field investigation into what resources would have been available to Moroni in the Palmyra area. It was conducted by the authors in New York state in October 2017.

***

The 18 November 2018 broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show is now available online for your listening convenience. In this episode — which I didn’t hear live as it was broadcast because I was in the air over the Pacific at roughly that time — Bruce Webster and Mike Parker apparently discuss BYU professor Thomas Wayment’s newly published annotated translation of the New Testament and the FIRM Foundation’s newly published annotated edition of the Book of Mormon.

Interpreter Radio Show — November 18, 2018

***

On a quite distinct topic:

I’m occasionally mystified not only by the obsessive fascination among a few of my critics with my personal finances — arguably, I don’t pay enough attention to my own finances, and I certainly pay far less to anybody else’s — but by the inside knowledge that at least a few claim to have regarding my income, and so forth.

The issue of my supposedly “all-expenses paid” junket here in Australia continues to intrigue a few, so here goes again with an explanation that should be (more than enough) for anybody who is actually concerned and who isn’t just playing vacuous games. I don’t want honest people to be misled on this:

I earn no money from public lectures — well, that’s not quite fully accurate since, over the past three decades or so, I’ve actually, each time to my surprise, received a grand total of a few hundred dollars in such cases — but I don’t typically fly across North America or internationally in order to deliver lectures without somebody else picking up my expenses for the trip. I can’t afford to do so. Alas, I wasn’t born wealthy and I can’t simply jet continually off to distant states and foreign countries on my own tab in order to deliver speeches at the request of others. Accordingly, to the indignant horror of decent people everywhere, my airfare to and from Australia, along with one bit of domestic airfare and small portions of my lodging, is being covered for me. However, the leisure portions of this Australian trip come out of my own pocket, as do all of my wife’s expenses. How immoral!

The latest puzzlement, though, comes from a podcast interview that I haven’t heard but to which my attention has been called by someone who has. In it, the interviewee rather oddly announces that half of my salary continues to come from BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship. (I’m not sure why this should be a topic in such an interview. I can only guess that it might be intended to demonstrate that my well-known pose of victimized martyrdom at the hands of the Maxwell Institute is bogus. Or something like that.)

Sigh.

I was hired at Brigham Young University in 1985 to teach Arabic and Islamic studies in the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages. That’s what I still do. For several years, though, I was on loan to what is now called the Maxwell Institute, with my salary coming through the Institute but, as I understand it, from the same Department that has always been my campus home.

Technically, as I understand it, my faculty “slot” (to use BYU parlance) belongs to the Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies. When that building was moving toward completion, the University hired a small handful of additional faculty to provide an expanded curriculum, in both Provo and Jerusalem, that would support that overseas campus and its programs. I was a beneficiary of that expansion.

Why somebody who has never even — so far as I know — held a full-time position at Brigham Young University would feel moved or qualified to comment on the details of its salary-accounting as they pertain to me is, from my perspective, rather mysterious. Anyway, I have no connection whatever with the current leadership or staff of the Maxwell Institute. Since 2012, I haven’t so much as crossed the threshold of the essentially off-campus and out-of-the-way building where the Maxwell Institute is housed. My yearly salary is set by my department and my college in connection with the office of BYU’s Academic Vice President. As it has always been.

Good grief, folks.

Posted from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Uncategorized

Previous Post

November 23, 2018

In and above the real Pandora

Next Post

November 24, 2018 In Australia but not even remotely of Australia

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 March 2014 August 2013 February 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

According to Jesus, what should you do if someone asks you to go one mile with them?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Go two miles Refuse Go halfway Demand payment