Daniel Peterson
Daniel C. Peterson is a prominent Mormon apologist and retired professor of Islamic Studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University. He is the founder and editor of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture.
Peterson was born and reared in southern California. He received a bachelor’s degree in Greek and philosophy from BYU. After several years of study in Cairo and Jerusalem, he earned his PhD in Near Eastern Languages and Cultures from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). In addition to the courses he teaches at BYU, he has authored several books and numerous articles on Islamic and Latter-day Saint topics.
During his employment with the Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), he founded BYU’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative (METI), which includes the Islamic Translation Series, the Medical Works of Moses Maimonides, Eastern Christian Texts, and the Library of the Christian East. He served as editor-in-chief of METI until August 2013. He was released from other capacities at BYU’s Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship (formerly FARMS) in June 2012.
Although no longer editor of the FARMS Review (now retooled as the Mormon Studies Review), a well-known apologetic periodical produced by FARMS (and its successor, the Maxwell Institute), Peterson regularly participates in online fora about Mormonism, or the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. He has been a columnist for the Deseret News and writes a blog, Sic et Non, for Patheos. He contributes to Meridian Magazine. He also developed a website featuring the testimonies of Latter-day Saint scholars, Mormon Scholars Testify, which is now part of FAIR. He also mentors The Interpreter Foundation.
In 2014, Peterson took a year’s professional development leave from BYU to write two books, one a complete rewrite of his second edition of Abraham Divided: An LDS Perspective on the Middle East.
Peterson served in the Switzerland Zurich Mission and on the Church’s Gospel Doctrine Committee. He and his wife, Deborah, have three sons.
