Latest Numbers from the Interpreter Foundation

[Doctor Scratch]

And don't forget, the non-delivery of his two promised books, due back in 2014, is particularly rich, considering DCP is fond of saying, "I hate disingenuousness."

He hates looking in the mirror.

At the moment, he’s busy getting his butt kicked by ABC on the matter of his ideological myopia with regards to the National Review. He sounds like one of the Joseph Smith polygamy deniers: “That’s not the Joseph I know!!!”

[drumdude]

He hates looking in the mirror.

At the moment, he’s busy getting his butt kicked by ABC on the matter of his ideological myopia with regards to the National Review. He sounds like one of the Joseph Smith polygamy deniers: “That’s not the Joseph I know!!!”

Which is hilarious because he consistently gaslights ex-Mormons about their lived experiences in the church. He even claims to know why they leave, despite ex-Mormons saying he is wrong.

I’m not rushing to take DCP’s word for anything when he can’t do the same for others.

[I Have Questions]

Did I read that right? The Interpreter has spent, in just 2 years, $3 million on a disastrous movie project and on sending Jeff Bradshaw on regular junkets to Africa to write down some stories?

Yes. Please see here.

I’d be interested in seeing a detailed accounting of the “Not By Bread Alone” expenditure. Specifically Bradshaw’s expenses.

[Tom]

Thanks very much for the update, Tom. Those expenditures are certainly remarkable. Interpreter really is a strange organization, isn't it? They have dumped millions of dollars into the "holy trinity" projects of "Not By Bread Alone" (no kidding, eh?), Six Days in August, and the Skousen project. As for the "journal"/blog--it's striking that so little of the content is original. It's almost like Interpreter is the Mopologetic equivalent of "Nick at Nite," where they just show re-runs constantly. Sure: there is the (mostly) weekly "peer-reviewed" piece, but so much of what they are slapping up each day is a retread of something that has already been published elsewhere. And then there is the "Interpreting Interpreter" thing, which is really just a summary of the article de jour, and, which, again, just seems like "padding" meant to create the impression that Interpreter is actually producing a lot of content.

I note a very recent example of the situation you’ve identified. Today, an article titled “‘His Secret is with the Righteous’: Instructional Wisdom in the Book of Mormon” was published in Interpreter. An editorial note acknowledges that the

article originally appeared as Alyson Skabelund Von Feldt, “‘His Secret Is with the Righteous’: Instructional Wisdom in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Occasional Papers 5 (2007): 49–83. As this important paper is not currently available online, it is reprinted here for the benefit of our readers. It has been updated and edited by the author.

The Foundation decided to reprint an eighteen-year-old FARMS paper (with some unspecified updating and editing) because the paper is “important” and “is not currently available online”? That’s a thin justification. Is Interpreter running low on submissions? The Proprietor’s regular refrain that “Interpreter has published x weeks in a row” (whatever the number happens to be) is rather hollow given that the journal fills some weeks with reprinted articles and old sacrament meeting talks.

The Foundation’s Thursday book chapter reprint series is also a retread because the Foundation is posting the text of articles that are already available online at BYU’s ScholarsArchive.

Ecclesiastes 1:9 comes to mind here.

Posted from Swig, Utah