Caspar David Friedrich, Der Mönch am Meer (1807). The sea is calm tonight. The tide is full, the moon lies fair Upon the straits; on the French coast the light Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand, Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay. Come to the window, sweet is the night-air! … Read more
Alexander Louis Leloir, Jacob Wrestling With the Angel (1865). This evening I (finally) finished reading Terryl Givens’ excellent Wrestling the Angel: The Foundations of Mormon Thought: Cosmos, God, Humanity. (Before I say anything else, may I express my delight in Givens using a story from the Hebrew Bible to symbolize his treatise on Mormon theology?) … Read more
“O Marduk, you are the most important among the great gods!” In my recent paper on the cosmology of the Book of Abraham I draw attention to the similarities between the Book of Abraham and the Mesopotamian myth Enuma Elish. Also significant for Latter-day Saints is the Enuma Elish’s depiction of the primeval theomachy in the … Read more
The new issue of the Student Review has been printed. For this issue I interviewed none other than Terryl Givens on his thoughts concerning the academic discipline of Mormon Studies cropping up at a number of institutes of higher education. You can read it on pages 8 and 10. Also, this is really embarrassing, but … Read more
Elder John A. Widtsoe (1872–1952). Elder Widtsoe, an Apostle and a scientist, is a personal hero of mine for his example of one who could commingle faith and reason in a remarkable way. [I wrote this paper for my history class as part of having recently read Milton Steinberg’s excellent novel As a Driven Leaf. … Read more
Der Meister – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832). I am currently taking a senior seminar on the life and writings of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. My professor, Hans Wilhelm-Kelling, has an article comparing some of Goethe’s (often enigmatic) religious convictions with Latter-day Saint theology. According to Kelling, some of Goethe’s religious thoughts that intersect with … Read more
Der Wanderer über dem Nebelmeer “The wanderer over a sea of fog” (1818), by Caspar David Friedrich. I had a chance once to view a large selection of similar Romantic landscape paintings in the Belvedere in Vienna. Anyone who knows me knows that I’m a sucker for Romanticism. One of my favorite books of all time … Read more