By Common Consent, a Mormon Blog

Some of you may notice that the blog Millennial Star is no longer operating. I’ve received word that the site officially shuttered this morning. Read the rest of this entry »

Seven posts beneath this one is a little paper I wrote, Kevin L. Barney, “On the Etymology of Deseret,” BCC Papers 1/2, November 2006, in which I argued for a possible Semitic etymology of the word deseret. In the comments, Matt W. mentioned that his father-in-law, Walt Cowart, had written Hugh Nibley asking about a similar idea back in December of 1981, and had received a response. I assumed Matt had misunderstood the nature of the correspondence, but he produced it, and indeed Walt had posed basically the same idea I put forward in my paper. So this is an amazing opportunity to see Nibley critique this idea, from beyond the grave, as it were, in a letter he wrote 25 years ago. As a long-time Nibleyophile, I thought this was incredibly cool, so rather than bury it in the comments to the original thread, I am posting a new thread here.

Walt’s original letter to Nibley may be read here.

Nibley’s response may be read here.

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Okay folks, aren’t we all just a little tired of talking about the ugly aspects of religious life (Mormon and otherwise)? Aren’t we all having trouble remembering why we began blogging? Oh…is it just me? Okay then. Read the rest of this entry »

In the run up to the election today, an individual that was not pleased by Pastor Ted Haggard’s political positions publicly detailed some of Haggard’s embarrassing activities. These activities are inconsistent with Haggard’s professed and outspoken beliefs. My exposure to Haggard is limited to an interview by Barbara Walters where he explained an Evangelical view of Heaven. He was the president of the National Association of Evangelicals (no doubt he has a fondness for Mormonism). Read the rest of this entry »

As a relatively new member, there are still tons of things I don’t understand. I was one who was very pleased to see the new member issue of the Ensign last month- and I hope Stakes keep back issues of it on hand for new converts.

Since we joined the Church, there have been many time where questions have come up, from the mundane, such as “What’s a Bishopric?”, to the more esoteric, “Why was the atonement necessary?”- Still waiting on answers for some, by the way. The Bloggernacle has been a stellar source of information for a new member- sometimes maybe too much information, and sometimes information I wish the Church addressed on its own, so new members wouldn’t have to find things out on the playground, such as it were. (I’m thinking specifically of Church history…)

Recently something happened that I don’t know what to do with- where to file it away, or if I have some sort of moral responsibility. So, I come to you, great and mighty Oz. Read the rest of this entry »

Time to get ready for November 23rd, folks. Here are a few recipes for the season; please post your own! Read the rest of this entry »

Mostly I was looking at an excuse to share this marvelous cartoon from two years’ back. Some things never change, eh?

Before we believe V, let’s decide whether Mr. Fawkes (pronounced “forks”) was a hero or not.

On November 5, 1605, Guy (also, Guido) Fawkes attempted to blow up the Houses of Parliament during the State Opening. The aim was to kill the members of both Houses and the king, James I, who would have been in attendance.

Why? Fawkes and his pals were Catholic and wanted to undo the Protestant reformation in England and install a Catholic monarch.

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I was just cleaning out my papers and found a review I had written of the captioned book and submitted to one of the print journals (I forget whether it was Sunstone or Dialogue). I never heard back, so the review was never published. Rather than just stick it back in the closet, I thought I would go ahead and publish it here. Your thoughts and attitudes on the Lectures on Faith in general are on topic for this post. Please note that this review predated the excellent work of Noel Reynolds on the authorship of the Lectures, attributing them primarily to Sidney Rigdon. I agree with Reynolds and highly recommend his articles on this subject.

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A couple nights ago, I went to see a showing of Boys Don’t Cry. The producer Christine Vachon was in town and had a Q&A after the show. I hadn’t seen the movie before and in fact didn’t even know what it was about. It came out during my no R movies days and when it got a lot of attention, I filed it away, remembered that if I ever did start watching R rated movies this was one to see. My piety/movie philosophy did not last so long and when I read about this screening I decided to go.

It deserved its R rating. It knocked the shi* out of me. Read the rest of this entry »

Childhood was the stuff of dreams- golden, ephemeral Maxfield Parrish dreams. Our home was built on old orchard land, in the California that used to be the fruit-basket of the state, but is now paved over and has a heart of Silicon.

Our property had plum, apricot, pear, cherry, avocado, almond, walnut, tangerine, orange and grapefruit trees- all of which found their way into my mother’s baked goods and preserves. We had chickens, rabbits, a goat (who once tried to eat my snarled mess of curly blonde hair) and a dozen dogs, which my dad used for hunting, as well as our pets. From the trappings of nature, my brothers’ and I created entire worlds in the yard. My aunt and her family lived one house down and my grandma only a few minutes beyond. Doors were always open; it was the upbringing many of us hope to give our children.

Since I have joined the Church, my family barely tolerates my presence. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, Oct 31st, President Hinckley spoke at a devotional at BYU. I got into the Marriott center just a few moments before the devotional itself began and wound up sitting high in the stands on the southern side of the center. I firmly believe that these types of meetings are the reason the Marriott center is so big; I simply cannot imagine the basketball team ever pulling in as many people as I saw there yesterday. I imagine there were probably only about 200-300 empty seats in the arena.

We never actually sang anything particularly “prophet”-y. The opening hymn was Teach me to walk in the light. After the prayer, we all sang Have I done any good in the world today? It was an unusual arrangement. Normally, this is a really upbeat song (I imagine both it and Called to Serve as having been written by very enthusiastic gym-teachers). The arrangement today was slow and thoughtful. It was very downbeat and I really didn’t enjoy it. That said, it was very fitting considering the speech that was to come.

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My friend, John A. Tvedtnes, who is a senior scholar at the Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at BYU, spent 8-1/2 years in Israel, from 1971 to 1979. During that time he was attending classes and doing doctoral work at Hebrew University, and he was also teaching BYU study abroad classes. During his first six years there he was first counselor in the Jerusalem branch presidency to David Galbreath (the second counselor would rotate every semester and would be a BYU professor who had brought the students over from Provo), and then his last two years there he was the Elders Quorum President.

Some time ago we were having a conversation and he mentioned visiting a poor, abandoned family in Bethlehem. I told him that that sounded incredibly “Christmassy” to me, and asked him if he would care to share his thoughts on what it was like to celebrate Christmas in the Holy Land. Below is his responsive message to me, which I share here by permission.

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France, the eldest daughter of the Catholic Church, takes its feasts very seriously. I remember my first All Saints Day (la Toussaint) spent in France.

(Image on left: All Saints by Albrecht Dürer)

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I was just looking at one of the cuneiform tablets I am using for my dissertation and saw the following notation:

eshru sha Marduk u Nabu

It means that for the goods recorded on the tablet, the tithe of the gods (i.e. the temples) has been paid. It was, in effect, a temple tax.

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