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Tintagel

Tintagel

Last updated on: May 21, 2026 at 2:02 pm by Dan Peterson

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Tintagel 2026-05-21T14:02:24-06:00 Dan Peterson

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A view from Mount Nebo captured by Pastor Carter Conlon in 2017. The ever-shrinking Dead Sea is visible to the left and Jericho is a dark patch. (Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

This little article of mine appeared in Meridian Magazine a few hours ago: “Stepping into Moses’ Shoes and Joshua’s Divine Commission.” It’s striking that, even many centuries after the passing of the great leader of the Hebrew exodus out of Egypt, Jesus described the leaders of Israel of his own day with reference to Moses: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat,” he said at Matthew 23:2 — though not exactly with approval.

A portion of the Provo, Utah, campus of Brigham Young University by night
(Image from the BYU website)

I want to remind you yet again of the 2026 Interpreter Foundation conference on the Small Plates of Nephi, which is approaching rapidly:

“For a Wise Purpose in Him”
The 2026 Small Plates of Nephi Conference
In Honor of President Jeffrey R. Holland

The conference will be held on the Provo campus of Brigham Young University on Friday, 29 May 2026, and Saturday, 30 May 2026. All are welcome and, although we would appreciate prior registration, there is no charge for attending. Further details about the conference, including the program and information on the presenters, are available here.

A sunset view toward the west from atop Mt. Pisgah, Iowa (taken with my cellphone), near to the grave of Joseph Knight, Sr.

I call your attention, as well, to the Joseph Knight Sr. Family Reunion, which will be held this year on 19-20 June 2026 in American Fork, Utah. Among many other and better features of the gathering, I will be speaking at it, on the evening of Friday, 19 June. My topic will be “A Time of Decision: The Knights Follow Brigham and the Twelve into the West.”

Describing the developments and the stresses and the strains in the Church and with its enemies that the Knights faced, the Church-historical context in which they lived their own individual and family lives. They, like many others, made the choice to go West. How well do we know that general story?

Dr. Peterson is BYU Professor Emeritus, Exec Producer and Creator of the new Docu-Series Becoming Brigham and executive producer of the following movies: Witnesses, Six Days in August, Undaunted: Witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and a Knight Cousin. To learn more before the reunion, please visit https://becomingbrigham.com.

Political map of Africa (public domain, Central Intelligence Agency)

The look and the demographics reflected in this story and in the photographs that accompany it are very different from, say, when I was a young missionary, and I couldn’t possibly be more pleased to see the change: “Elder Edward Dube of the Presidency of the Seventy Visits Africa Central Area: Elder and Sister Dube minister in Kenya, Uganda, and the DRC during visit to the Africa Central Area”

I was delighted, too, at the recent announcement of a temple for Otavalo, Ecuador, and at the delight shown by members of the Church there when they heard the news. Here, too, the demographic change is wonderful: “Temple Planned for Otavalo Reflects Church Growth in Ecuador’s Andes”

A view of the ruins of Tintagel Castle on the western coast of Cornwall (Wikimedia Commons public domain photograph)

The major effort of the day for us — a brisk but beautifully sunny day — was a visit to Tintagel, the site of the thirteenth-century Tintagel Castle and, centuries prior to that, the location (according to the Historia Regum Britanniae written by Geoffrey of Monmouth) where Igraine conceived the future King Arthur, son of King Uther Pendragon. (The wizard Merlin also figures in that story.) There is a good video of Tintagel on the relevant English Heritage website that will provide a sense of what the ruins and the place look like.

Being in King Arthur country, I can’t help but think of a short segment — chosen somewhat at random, since it’s just one of many favorite portions of mine in this classic of historical-documentary filmmaking — from Monty Python and the Holy Grail: “Monty Python- A Lesson in Anarcho-Syndicated Commune Living”

I’ve always loved the Arthurian legends, though. For that reason, the very name of Tintagel has always seemed somewhat magical to me. One of my favorite assigned readings back in high school English was Alfred Lord Tennyson’s Idylls of the King. And this is very much the land of King Arthur, whether he ever really existed or not. (I’m inclined to think, though I wouldn’t swear to it and nothing much really hangs on it for me, that there may be at least an element of genuine history at the foundation of the Arthur legend.) Part of the famous story of the doomed lovers Tristan and Iseult (or Isolde) occurs at Tintagel; Tristan was a knight of Arthur’s famed “Round Table,” and he is said, in some accounts, to have been the son of the king of Lyonesse, a legendary Cornish land that is reputed to have stretched once from today’s Land’s End to the Isles of Scilly but that, owing to some great unspecified sin against God, was suddenly submerged beneath the sea. (It’s thus a British analogue to the lost continent of Atlantis.)

The grain silo at Salt Lake City’s Church-owned “Welfare Square” has been around for a long time. But Church humanitarian and philanthropic efforts have increased dramatically in recent decades, thanks in large part to the financial capacity that has been generated by the careful stewardship and investment of funds that have been donated over many generations. (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

Finally, I make no pretense of being able to keep up with it all but, by means of samples drawn from the inexhaustible Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™, I hope to provide at least some sense of the incalculable harm done to humankind by religious believers and theism. Here is yet another example of such harm: “Church Contributes $25 Million to UNICEF Child Nutrition Fund: Part of a collaboration with UNICEF that began in 2013, the effort will improve nutrition for millions of children and mothers worldwide”

Posted from Newquay, Cornwall, England

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