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
Travel and Religion
“Records, Writing, and Language”

“Records, Writing, and Language”

Last updated on: June 14, 2025 at 6:42 pm by Dan Peterson

0 Comments

“Records, Writing, and Language” 2025-06-14T18:42:05-06:00 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 replica of the Book of Mormon plates used in the Interpreter Foundation’s “Witnesses” film project (still photograph by James Jordan)

This new piece went up today on the website of the Interpreter Foundation: “Interpreting Interpreter: (Non-)Anachronisms – Writing,” written by Kyler Rasmussen:

This post is a summary of the article “Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms — Chapter 7: Records, Writing, and Language” by Matthew Roper in Volume 65 of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship. All of the Interpreting Interpreter articles may be seen at https://interpreterfoundation.org/category/summaries/. An introduction to the Interpreting Interpreter series is available at https:/interpreterfoundation.org/interpreting-interpreter-on-abstracting-thought/.

A video introduction to this Interpreter article is now available on all of our social media channels, including on YouTube at https://youtube.com/shorts/goEdwNmVEVw.

The Takeaway: Roper continues his examination of claimed Book of Mormon anachronisms, looking at 19 items related to records, writing, and language presented in the text. He concludes that 58% of these purported anachronisms have received subsequent confirmation in the archaeological record, with 5 items that are yet to trend toward confirmation (New World evidence of metal plates, inscriptions of Book of Mormon names and texts, and Hebrew and Egyptian inscriptions).

Incidentally, the socialist rulers of Venezuela didn’t INHERIT poverty. They’ve ACHIEVED it.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

My wife and I first heard of Brent Ward when his parents were serving in Egypt as representatives of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and he was, or was about to become, the United States Attorney for Utah. I might be mistaken, but I believe that he came through Cairo to visit his parents there. Anyway, I noticed that he had written an article for the Deseret News and, after having read it, decided to call attention to it here: “Opinion: Will we stand idly by as a son is torn from his Utah family and deported to one of the world’s most inhumane prisons? Illegal deportations can never in good conscience be brushed off as mere administrative errors or excusable violations of law. They are matters of life and death.”

I’ve been deeply disheartened by a few of the responses to the article that I’ve seen over at the Deseret News. They have reacted by saying that the government is simply enforcing the law, and that the Venezuelan family in question should have obeyed the law. I hope that I will receive no such comments in answer to my posting of Brent Ward’s article here. I know nothing of the case beyond what Brother Ward writes but, if his account of the matter is accurate, the family did obey the relevant law and in this case, the government is neither enforcing the law nor obeying it. That’s pretty much the basic point. If anybody writes to me declaring that the government is merely applying the law and that Uriel David and his family are simply criminals, I will instantly know that that person didn’t trouble himself or herself to read the article before disagreeing with it. Which is, by the way, very bad form.

Uriel David should not be forgotten.

Goose-stepping soldiers during a military parade in North Korea (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

I’m not a particular fan of Kristi Noem, who is currently serving as the United States Secretary of Homeland Security. That said, I think that the outrage over the forcible removal of Senator Alex Padilla (D-CA) from a press conference that she was holding in Los Angeles is somewhat overblown.

Obviously, tackling a United States Senator, forcing him to the ground, and placing him in handcuffs for merely asking a question would seem reminiscent of a fascist dictatorship. And recent crazy suggestions that California Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass ought to be arrested provide an appropriately suggestive background for such reminiscences. But the actual situation doesn’t appear to be so simple.

Senator Padilla didn’t merely ask a question in his turn. He interrupted a press conference. Rather aggressively. And, although he did apparently identify himself as a member of the United States Senate, it’s possible, even likely, that, in the chaos of the moment, that his self-identification wasn’t heard by everybody. Did he really lunge toward Secretary Noem? Apparently not. But, while it’s pretty easy to reach that judgment on the basis of repeated careful viewings of multiple video recordings from various angles, arriving at a snap judgment on the matter within a split second is rather more difficult.

I’m willing to cut security personnel a little bit of slack — not an infinite amount, but some — when they’re trying to protect a cabinet secretary against somebody whom they don’t recognize but who has just shown up rather suddenly and is making a disturbance. And (let’s be honest here), the controversy that has given rise to the protests and the unrest in Los Angeles mostly centers on federal treatment of Latin Americans and their resentment of what they see as mistreatment, and here was a Latin American male coming in hot who probably seemed to be angry.

I think that both sides need to apologize for what appears to me to have been an unfortunate but not wholly mysterious misunderstanding. There are, I think, genuine grounds for concern about the centralization of power in the hands of the federal executive. There are even legitimate reasons to be worried about elements of the execution of MAGA priorities that genuinely seem (not only to others, but to me) to come uncomfortably close, in appearance if not (thus far) quite so much in substance, to the fascism of the 1930s. But the unfortunate recent incident involving Senator Alex Padilla doesn’t appear to me to rank very high among those concerns.

Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1806) (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Here, for reference now and in the future and for those who may not be familiar with them, are the standard lyrics to “God Save the King.” They are sung to the same tune as “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”:

God save our gracious King!
Long live our noble King!
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King!

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On him be pleased to pour;
Long may he reign.
May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the King!

Travel and Religion

History and Religion

Previous Post

June 13, 2025

She would have been eleven years old today

Next Post

June 15, 2025 Is our reasoning ability overdeveloped? A biological error?

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"In a meeting today, I learned another important reason why accurate (or at least as ..."

the PROBLEM

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

"PL: "Let's hope he doesn't have your address..."I have to frankly confess that a few ..."

DanielPeterson

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

"Let's hope he doesn't have your address..."

Phil Leaning

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

"PL: "The layers are peeling back."He appears to be suffering under an odd but powerful ..."

DanielPeterson

From Serbia’s “White City,” Belgrade

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

Who declared, "Choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve"?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Joshua Gideon Moses Aaron