Interpreter is now reprinting old content

[Moksha]

Is there anything wrong with the Interpreter reprinting seminal LDS information like Dinosaur bones being planted by Satan or Joseph being commanded by an Angel with a drawn sword to proposition and marry as many women as possible to keep from being run through with that angelic sword?

These were formative works for the Saints and should be reprinted as often as it takes for them to fervently storm the town hall of Fairview Texas and demand their Temple Tower!!!

[drumdude]

On Thursday — which alert members of the public will recognize as a wholly different day than Friday — an article that had previously appeared in print form was published on the website of the Interpreter Foundation website. Discerning readers will quickly discover that it is completely distinct from the articles by Brian C. Hales and Kyler Rasmussen that are mentioned above. It even has a different author:

The Temple: Past, Present and Future: ““That They May Be Purified in Me”: Ritual Purification in 3 Nephi 19 and the Implications of Holiness as “Purity,”” written by Matthew L. Bowen

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article originally appeared in The Temple: Past, Present and Future, edited by Stephen D. Ricks and Jeffrey M. Bradshaw. For more information, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/books ... nd-future/. For video and audio recording of this conference talk, go to https://interpreterfoundation.org/confe ... eos/bowen/.

“Using a close reading of 3 Nephi 19, I will examine the interrelated and additive nature of each of the rituals in their temple context as described in 3 Nephi 19, culminating in Jesus’s high priestly intercessory prayer and discuss Mormon’s possible authorial intent in his presentation of these rituals. I will further explore the relationship of ritual purification and sanctification in the Hebrew Bible (and elsewhere in scripture) and the previous lexicography of q-d-š. I will compare the high priestly prayers of Jesus in John 17 and 3 Nephi 19, and analyze the results of Jesus’s prayer in 3 Nephi 19 on the worshipers at the temple in Bountiful. Lastly, I will explain the aforementioned implications q-d-š—sanctification and holiness—as a state of divine belonging (cf. qdš lyhwh = ‘a state of divine belonging to the Lord’) for ordinances and temple worship and our identity as ‘Latter-day Saints.’”


Well, the initial claim (in this most recent cycle on the Peterson Obsession Board) was that I’m a liar. And what is the proof that I’m a liar? It is that Interpreter’s long and unbroken record of publishing at least one article in our journal every single Friday since early August 2012 has only been achieved by (on Thursdays) stealthily substituting book-chapter reprints for genuine articles (which always appear on Fridays). But that claim was quickly and easily shown to be false. So, without missing a beat, a new allegation was instantly devised to replace it. Now, it seems, I’m a liar. And what is the proof that I’m a liar? It is that what we’ve published every Friday has sometimes included book reviews and personal essays, which, they say, don’t really count as articles. The important thing, obviously — the Prime Directive of the Obsession Board, as it were — is that I be exposed as a liar. Merry Christmas!

Here is a related email exchange (from Wednesday and Thursday) between two of those who are responsible for the production and regular appearance of the Journal. It was copied to me, and I reproduce it here with their permission. My point is to share the attitude felt by those who actually know what’s going on at Interpreter:

The idiots (or, if you prefer, “obliviots”) over at the GSTP [the “Great and Spacious Trailer Park” -DCP] are still ranting and raving that Dan is being dishonest in his claims of unbroken Friday publishing. They are basing it on this:

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... e/?journal

This URL, they are claiming, because of the title “Journal Articles,” lists everything considered a Journal article. And, there are gaps in the listing.

The discrepancy is that we, in-house, consider book reviews to be Journal articles, as well. But they don’t show up in the list at the above URL because they aren’t categorized as “Journal articles.”

In their puckered, clenched, and condensed world, a book review doesn’t count as a “Journal article,” and therefore we don’t publish a “Journal article” every Friday, as Dan claims. The category list on our website proves it. It is a smoking gun, to their way of thinking, that proves Dan is a liar. Period. End of story.

Who would have thought that such great minds could parse categories so carefully and brilliantly?

Idiots.

To which a colleague responded:

So, none of Dan’s essays are articles, either.

And here is a reply from the first writer, which I’ve redacted slightly (and as indicated):

[The pseudonymous Obsession Board cast member whose moniker approximates “Dumb Dud”] is, I think, cognitively challenged. Yesterday he/she rightly said that we “categorize postings into 3 groups: articles, essays, and reviews.” He/she then counts up what appears in each category and concludes “Interpreter can easily be seen as a ‘junk journal’ in almost half of the ‘articles’ aren’t even original research . . . I think they would struggle to proffer a single example of one of Interpreter’s articles being cited in another journal.”

Obviously, [“Dumb Dud”] (and the other denizens of the GSTP/POB) haven’t read Newell Wright’s article back in 2023. It is technically a book review (gasp!), but it also includes original research. (Two things! In one article! Perish the thought!) To quote Wright:

“Articles in Interpreter are likely to be cited twice as often as articles appearing in the [Maxwell Institute’s former] Journal of Book of Mormon Studies. Using Harzing’s Publish or Perish software, I pulled all articles that have citation data from Google Scholar from 2012 to 2018 from the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies and compared them with articles about the Book of Mormon published in the Interpreter during the same period. Newer articles are cited less frequently than older articles, so I did not include anything newer than 2018. Also, older articles are cited more frequently, as they have been around longer, so I did not look at articles published before 2012.

“The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published 35 articles of all types that were cited at least once during that time period, for a total of 91 citations, or 2.68 citations per article. Interpreter published 69 articles focusing on the Book of Mormon that were cited at least once during that time period, for a total of 391 citations, or an average of 5.75 citations per article — more than double the citation rate of the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies.”

In the course of comparing citations to articles in two LDS-oriented academic journals, Wright easily disproves [“Dumb Dud’s”] gleefully hyperbolic conclusion that Interpreter would “struggle to proffer a single example” of citations to our articles.

The inability of people at the GSTP/POB to grasp anything outside of their myopic worldview is breathtaking.

But enough of that bunch! They can keep the Christmas holidays in their way; I’ll keep Christmas in mine.

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

A couple observations: in my completely unscholarly experience, the weaker someone's argument is the more slurs and slanders they use.

Also, the current claim (that Dan still hasn't wrestled with or attempted to rationalize) is that his reposting an old blog entry is something not even a "junk journal" would publish. His unbroken record has a very distinct asterisk on it. We know it, he knows it.

But those will be the questions we don't answer, as Elder Ballard famously said.

[I Have Questions]

They seem obsessed with this board, and take seriously the points and objections being put forward by its posters. Look at the extent they’ve gone to in responding to your analysis of Interpreter’s “output”. Several emails which Dan devotes a large chunk of his daily blog to publishing. Why are they so bothered by what happens in the Great & Spacious Trailer Park?

[Doctor Scratch]

Ah, yes—it’s Friday! A fine day to celebrate the fact that the President of Interpreter has misinformed the public for 646 weeks in a row that the blog has maintained a streak of posting “journal articles” every Friday. (Though in this week’s announcement, I see, he merely says “article.”) Look, sorry Bros. Wyatt and Lindsay, but Interpreter’s own categorization convention makes a distinction between “essays,” “reviews,” and “articles.” So, every time that DCP has triumphantly exclaimed that Interpreter has published a “journal article” for X number of weeks in a row, he has been dead wrong. Spectacularly wrong, in fact. And he’s been wrong per Interpreter’s own definitions. Don’t blame *us* for your intellectual insecurities. It’s not our fault that you can’t manage to drum up original “research” week after week.

And I certainly had to chuckle about that tidbit concerning citations of Interpreter’s…well, “articles”? “Essays”? “Reviews”? Tell us: how many of these citations appeared in *other* Interpreter articles? How many citations appeared in non-Mopologetic publications?

[Gadianton]

Are you saying that if Interpreter posted a gingerbread recipe for the holidays, that the staff at SeN would count this as an article?

[Tom]

"Two new articles went up today (Friday) on the website of the Interpreter Foundation. The first of them represents the 646th consecutive Friday on which a new article has appeared in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship."

Implicitly categorizing a reprinted blog post/text of a sacrament meeting talk as a "new article" is a major stretch.

If we check some early issues of Interpreter, we find articles that are essentially reprints of previously published work. Here is an example: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... ostle-paul. The Interpreter article makes no mention of the nearly identical 2007 Meridian Magazine article titled "Variants in the Stories of the First Vision of Joseph Smith and the Apostle Paul.”

I will say that nothing puts me in the Christmas spirit more than wading through Bro. Wyatt's vituperation. I am surprised that the Proprietor would share it on his blog.

[drumdude]

Interpreter isn’t a “junk journal” because it gets cited by other “junk journals!”

This is great news for the Journal of Flat Earth. They only need their articles to be cited by the Disc Earth Journal. Then everyone will see them as completely legitimate. Checkmate, atheists!

[Doctor Scratch]

Are you saying that if Interpreter posted a gingerbread recipe for the holidays, that the staff at SeN would count this as an article?

Yes, they would. Our posts could conceivably “count” as “articles,” and guess what? I just “reviewed” your post, and I am your “peer,” in a sense….Right?

Incidentally: has Rasmussen done his “Interpreting Interpreter” even for things like the recycled sacrament meeting talk? I.e., does he “interpret” everything? Or only the items that Interpreter designates as “articles”?

[Moksha]

Why are they so bothered by what happens in the Great & Spacious Trailer Park?

This board is interesting because it mentions Dr. Peterson in a non-rerun manner.

[High Spy]

Are you saying that if Interpreter posted a gingerbread recipe for the holidays, that the staff at SeN would count this as an article?

Only if it made exactly 48 gingerbread men observing the April 8th eclipse and explained the significance of events occurring in that approximate timeframe, of which the particulars escape me now, but are known to be well documented.