Blake Ostler Erupts with Rage on Faith-Promoting Rumor

[_Doctor Scratch]

Wow, Blake Ostler seems to have come unhinged. Just look at this Comment from him:

And here we go again with the DCP hate club where the “interlocutors” do their best to hide and pretend to be saying something that has merit while bad mouthing DCP. Please grow up, get the hell off of these personal attacks and get a life. This kind of invective is beneath even SmallAxe. Jensen and Hauglid’s treatment of the KEP and related papers is abominable and the fact that only one POV is expressed — a rather Dan Vogel like POV that any responsible scholar should know better than to parrot — tells us everything we need to know about their “scholarship”.

And Dr. Scratch — really? Airing your petty jealousies in public is just childish. Your antics here are pathetic and explain why I stayed as far away from academia as I could. You do know that Dr. Midgely has passed, right? Truly you are disgusting.

And as iffy as some of the stuff published by the Interpreter may be, at least it isn’t totally insomnia curing drivel that we get here.

A few thoughts:

--I dunno: if *I* had insomnia, I reckon I'd *want* a cure for it. If that was the case, go ahead and give me the "drivel"!

--Louis Midgley is dead? They why/how on Earth is he still posting viciously cruel posts aimed at Gemli each day? I'm willing to be corrected if I'm wrong, but... Wow. I mean, is this really Ostler? Or some sock puppet that intends to make him look like a drooling idiot?

--"petty jealousies." Lol. What is it that I'm supposed to be jealous of, exactly? Pissing away my life on a fruitless venture? Not getting to experience the "Heaven" of Added Upon?

[_Gadianton]

I think if Blake really feels that way, he should step back, read Sic et Non extensively for a few weeks, and then let us know if he feels the same disparity exists that he had assumed, regarding the "antics" of critics vs. apologists.

He's really stretching credibility to speak as if it's a given that anyone in academia who knows anything knows that Jensen and Hauglid's work is abominable.

He admits Interpreter has published some iffy stuff. Okay, I for one would love to see Ostler register here, and discuss the work of Interpreter. Pick the very best example of credible scholarship that he feels Interpreter has published and let's discuss it.

[_Dr Moore]

Dr Midgley posted a comment on SeN just 26 minutes ago. It appears Blake posted his comment nearly 3 hours ago. Why would he write that? I can’t think of a single good reason. If that is his way of trolling you, it is in very poor taste.

What exactly is Blake’s problem with Dan Vogel?

[_Gadianton]

Maybe he just really thought he had died? Maybe he's not really up on what's going on in the world of Mopologetics? If you only ever know one side of the story, that kind of outburst happens.

Honestly, I've always kind of liked Blake. I enjoyed his contributions on Clark's blog. I think if he gave us a chance he'd see things differently.

[_Philo Sofee]

I have some trouble believing that was Blake Ostler actually. But every now and again he has been known to blow his cork... Maybe he's mad because Midgley died and we just havent heard about it yet?

[_Lemmie]

Maybe he just really thought he had died? Maybe he's not really up on what's going on in the world of Mopologetics? If you only ever know one side of the story, that kind of outburst happens.

Honestly, I've always kind of liked Blake. I enjoyed his contributions on Clark's blog. I think if he gave us a chance he'd see things differently.

Did he somehow post Midgley when he meant Goble?

[_Maksutov]

I have never understood why Blake Ostler is treated with respect. Everything I've read from him is crap.

[_I have a question]

Smallaxe writes...

Not even at BYU, where professors must publish research to be promoted (and gain BYU’s version of tenure), does publishing with the Interpreter count toward their research requirements. And even the College of Religious Education’s new Continuing Faculty Status guidelines rule out places like the Interpreter as an academic publishing outlet. The Interpreter might be run by faithful men (where are the women?) who on occasion publish decent scholarship, but “scholarship” such as Boyce’s (and Gee’s) serve as a reminder why the Interpreter is not considered scholarship by the larger community of scholars. Bad scholarship is not, indeed cannot be, faithful scholarship

Ouch!

[_Shulem]

I have never understood why Blake Ostler is treated with respect. Everything I've read from him is crap.

Has Blake-boy offered an idea on who might be the king of Egypt in Facsimile No. 3? Has Blakey offered an opinion on Anubis's missing snout?

Hello? Blakey-boy? Where are youuuuu!

This is SHuuuuuulem!

(give me kissy)

[_Symmachus]

I hope not to derail the topic, but I just have a factual question. SmallAxe makes the following comment in his review of Gee's review:

None of this is surprising given that the founder of the Interpreter has barely published any peer-reviewed work in his field over his 40+ year career (I can’t find more than six articles and one book). This would not meet the standards at any institution that BYU sees as a peer; and it is an embarrassment for many at BYU.

I don't think that's necessarily true. A scholarly monograph and six peer-reviewed articles are quite enough to get tenure in most humanities fields at probably all but a handful of schools. Doing nothing else after that won't get you promoted to full professor likely (although all kinds of factors are involved there and it's a little less formalized than tenure in my observation), but even so, given that he's referring to Daniel Peterson, my question is: what are the six scholarly articles that Peterson has published? The one book is the popularizing Muhammad biography published by an evangelical scholarly press (Eerdman's, I think) long after he'd received BYU's version of tenure, but I have never been able to find a single peer-reviewed article in a non-Mormon scholarly journal. My understanding is that he's had no scholarly monograph and no scholarly articles, though he has obviously published a significant amount of work in another genre.