On July 25, 1994, near the end of my summer term in Jerusalem, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Jordan’s King Hussein signed a momentous declaration to begin peace negotiations between the two countries. A week later, as we students were outside enjoying a barbecue dinner at the Jerusalem Center, a Jordanian airplane, accompanied by...
A favorite teaching moment for me happened in Shepherds’ Field. It was late in fall semester. I think we were getting into December and it was early in the evening. The wind was blowing enough to be noticed, and purple clouds were rolling in over the horizon. The lights were coming on from the top...
It was early December of 1993. The memory is vivid. I have considered the circumstances of that morning often throughout my life. I stood in my room at the BYU Jerusalem Center, overlooking Gethsemane and the old city of Jerusalem as I wept and plead with my Father in Heaven to help me understand the...
Beginning in August of 2011, my wife, Elaine, our children, Rachel and Samuel, and I lived in the Holy Land for a year while I taught at the Brigham Young University–Jerusalem Center. Experiencing that land and being able to teach the Bible in many of the very places where its events took place was a...
