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“Turning Gems Into Dirt”

“Turning Gems Into Dirt”

Last updated on: October 4, 2020 at 10:06 pm by Dan Peterson

“Turning Gems Into Dirt” 2020-10-04T22:06:02-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A felucca on the River Nile at sunset. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph by Ian Pudsley.). We took many such rides on the Nile — it was, for example, a Cairo Branch tradition to load every member onto one or two large boats for Easter sunrise gatherings — and we still love to include such an evening cruise for guests on our tours to Egypt.

Up today, on the website of the Interpreter Foundation:

Book of Moses Insights #23: Enoch, the Prophet and Seer: Enoch’s Prophecy of the Tribes (Moses 7:5–11, 22)

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Two recent items from Jeff Lindsay:

“Turning Gems into Dirt: The Case for Adam Clarke as a Source for the “Inspired Translation” of the Bible”

“No, B.H. Roberts Did Not Abandon Belief in the Book of Mormon”

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Last weekend, my wife and I enjoyed an outdoor, physically-distanced, partially potluck dinner in the backyard of the widow of our good friend and former branch president in Cairo, my eventual colleague on the faculty at Brigham Young University (on whom, see “Arnold H. Green [1940-2019]” and “Bidding Farewell to Arnie Green”). Also there, with their wives and a daughter, were my former mentor, colleague, and department chair Dil Parkinson, now retired, and Joey Green, Arnie and Lani’s son, who was a very young boy when we first met him in Egypt and who has somehow managed to combine a passion for jazz guitar and the novels of Jane Austen with a highly successful and still unfolding career in the military. (See “Joseph Green: Fully Committed.”)

We had a very enjoyable time, not only eating and reminiscing but, well, discussing such subjects as film adaptations of Jane Austen’s novels and Dil’s challenging work on a not yet complete new translation of the Book of Mormon into Arabic.

A couple of weeks ago, the anonymous perennial detractor whom I’ve dubbed my “Mini-Stalker” was shedding his usual crocodile tears about my sad hate- and anger-driven career, which has brought such shame on my church and my university. His specific theme, this time, was my ever-accelerating descent into obscurity. irrelevance, and loneliness. There can be no doubt that he’s right, of course, and that my depressing fate is richly merited and entirely just. Still, I take comfort and satisfaction in the fact that I’ll be accompanied to my solitary and disgraced exile by such good friends.

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I hope that you enjoyed General Conference today as much as I did. I’m looking forward to the Sunday sessions.

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Adam Clarke

American University in Cairo

Brigham Henry Roberts

Cairo

Cairo Branch

Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

Joseph Smith Translation

Shannon Caldwell Montez

Thomas Wayment

Tom Wayment

UCLA

University of California

Wayment

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