Twenty Years Later, an Old Chestnut gets the Review

[_Mister Scratch]

In all likelihood, the "friendly" texts on Mormonism do not get reviewed in FROB because the FROB Mopologists (and the editorial staff) don't know how to do anything other than rip into people.

The gullible Master Scartch, who has recently revealed that his knowledge of FARMS publications is severely limited and very superficial, illustrates that here by exhibited his lack of awareness of the fact that the FARMS Review has often reviewed "friendly" texts on Mormonism and has often been critical of them -- e.g., of works by Hugh Nibley and Jack Welch and yours truly.

Well, clearly I placed the word "friendly" in quotes for a reason. A "critical" FARMS Review article on a work by DCP? Um, yeah. Real "critical," all right. If this is true, then it should be relatively easy to supply a few quotes demonstrating that these texts are dealt with in the same vicious, bellicose manner as the texts discussed by Dr. Robbers.

In any case, I think DCP's logorrhea on this thread demonstrates (yet again) why he cannot be trusted to accurately represent or describe the contents of FARMS. His mind has been too thoroughly polluted by the noxiously polemical atmosphere of l-skinny, online Mopologetics, and the FARMS crowd. This is further confirmed by his appalling smear campaigns against Mike Quinn, Robert Ritner, Grant Palmer, and GoodK, among others. He is all about picking fights and protecting his "baby"---i.e., apologetics. Sadly, this includes destroying believing LDS as well. The three-fold mission of the Chuch has been thrown under the bus in order to feed DCP's "hubris-drunken" ego.

The day that the Good Professor provides an honest, unbiased, non-spin-doctored account of the FROB is the day that I unmask my identity and go to lunch with LoaP.

[_Daniel Peterson]

the . . . vicious, bellicose manner . . . discussed by Dr. Robbers

Master Scartch still hasn't freed himself from Gad's well-baited hook.

In any case, I think DCP's logorrhea on this thread demonstrates (yet again) why he cannot be trusted to accurately represent or describe the contents of FARMS.

With which the Scartchmeister is, as he has both expressly admitted and decisively demonstrated, at best superficially acquainted.

His mind has been too thoroughly polluted by the noxiously polemical atmosphere of l-skinny

Of which the Scartchmeister has effectively no direct experience or knowledge, since it's a private e-mail list and he isn't a member.

This is further confirmed by his appalling smear campaigns against Mike Quinn, Robert Ritner, Grant Palmer, and GoodK, among others.

At this point, Master Scartch commences ambling nostalgically down Memory Lane, reprising his favorite Golden Oldies.

The three-fold mission of the Chuch has been thrown under the bus in order to feed DCP's "hubris-drunken" ego.

Some have doubted that Master Scartch's obsessive campaign of defamation and character assassination over the past few years has been motivated by personal hostility . . .

The day that the Good Professor provides an honest, unbiased, non-spin-doctored account of the FROB is the day that I unmask my identity and go to lunch with LoaP.

Well, I take that as my license to go public with what I know: Master Scartch's actual name is not PeeWee Herman, as some have suspected, but Oscar Zoroaster Phadrig Isaac Norman Henkel Emmannuel Ambroise Diggs -- a name with powerful resonance in American literature, as befits a prose stylist of his peerless eminence. He and LOAP had cheeseburgers at McDonalds. Br'er Diggs asked them to hold the pickles. His mouth is already, he explained, perpetually puckered.

[_Trevor]

Come to think of it, a Wes Anderson or Coen brothers film about FARMS would be a real hoot!

[_Daniel Peterson]

Come to think of it, a Wes Anderson or Coen brothers film about FARMS would be a real hoot!

I wish that Marlon Brando were still around to play my role. Maybe Christopher Lee would do an okay job . . .

But, in order to capture something of the complexity of my character, the actor playing me (even the great Brando or the sinister Lee) would have to wear a red clown nose. I would insist on that.

[_Gadianton]

and now this very important obvservation of Gad's that the apologists are very choosy in terms of which books get "the treatment." In all likelihood, the "friendly" texts on Mormonism do not get reviewed in FROB because the FROB Mopologists

It's all according to a set of calculations. Hugh Nibley, well, he's the first great apologist, but later apologists for a long time both recognize his importance, value his contributions, but also want to distance themselves from him a little. I think it's high time that Sorenson's "Ancient Setting" book gets a through reviewing. I say, ask Beastie to review Sorenson, and give her 100 pages to do so (not 5 pages for 5 books as handed to Compton, if Hauck gets 60 etc..), include four or five damage control pieces in addition that only praise the work. But let a critic have 100 pages.

For years and years now the apologists have been citing an unreviewd book as if it's scripture.

[_Ray A]

It's all according to a set of calculations. Hugh Nibley, well, he's the first great apologist, but later apologists for a long time both recognize his importance, value his contributions, but also want to distance themselves from him a little. I think it's high time that Sorenson's "Ancient Setting" book gets a through reviewing. I say, ask Beastie to review Sorenson, and give her 100 pages to do so (not 5 pages for 5 books as handed to Compton, if Hauck gets 60 etc..), include four or five damage control pieces in addition that only praise the work. But let a critic have 100 pages.

For years and years now the apologists have been citing an unreviewd book as if it's scripture.

One review long in print (1993) is Deanne G. Matheny, "A Critique of the Limited Tehuantepec Geography", in New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology, Brent Lee Metcalfe, editor, Signature Books, 1993, pp. 269-328. (I'm afraid I can't find this online.)

Sorenson's reply.

[_Daniel Peterson]

It's all according to a set of calculations. Hugh Nibley, well, he's the first great apologist, but later apologists for a long time both recognize his importance, value his contributions, but also want to distance themselves from him a little.

An excellent move, Gad! When an anomaly threatens your proposed rule, mind-read!

This is Scartchianism in action, and I congratulate you on your ability to mimic the Scartchmeister himself. It's really a bit uncanny.

I think it's high time that Sorenson's "Ancient Setting" book gets a through reviewing. I say, ask Beastie to review Sorenson,

You're actually going the Scartchmeister one better with this gambit. Unless I'm mistaken, he's never actually fantasized himself the editor of the FARMS Review.

Wonderful!

and give her 100 pages to do so (not 5 pages for 5 books as handed to Compton, if Hauck gets 60 etc..),

Actually, as Todd and anybody else who has ever written for the review can confirm, I never stipulate a length for any review. Todd could have written sixty pages had he chosen to do so. He chose not to do so.

For years and years now the apologists have been citing an unreviewd book as if it's scripture.

That's a nice touch, Gad. You're actually, in some important ways, more innovative than the Scartchmeister.

I like the visual image you conjure up. I imagine an edition of Ancient American Setting with elegant thin paper and leather binding, printed in two columns and divided into verses and shorter chapters: "As the Master hath said, in Ancient American Setting 15:1-2 . . . "

And the notion that an unreviewed book should not be cited in answer to a question or to suggest a way of thinking about an issue is positively revolutionary. I'm really not absolutely sure that Plato's Republic or Aristotle's Eudemian Ethics or Maimonides' Guide of the Perplexed or Aquinas's Summa theologiae has ever really been "reviewed" in the standard sense of that word. Nor, possibly, for that matter, has Darwin's Origin of Species.

In centuries to come, it may well be that scholars will point to Saturday, 13 September 2008, as marking the birth of a whole new age in the intellectual history of humankind.

[_Ray A]

Ray, I should make my citations a little more clear, sorry, I haven't been feeling well this week and sort of fiddling with this a little everyday. The quotation comes from paragraph four which starts, "Hauck also makes some grandiose, but..." I just edited my OP to eliminate confusiong about this.

I see it now that my reading glasses have been adjusted. It is kind of ironic.

[_Ray A]

As for Ray:



Well, then, was it an "accidental" effort to alienate him? This was Issue No. 1 of FROB, and thus it is very telling in terms of the apologists' tactics and methods. There is overwhelming evidence demonstrating the deeply "cliquish" nature of FARMS apologists: l-skinny, the Yale conference, the "stacked deck" peer review process, and now this very important obvservation of Gad's that the apologists are very choosy in terms of which books get "the treatment." In all likelihood, the "friendly" texts on Mormonism do not get reviewed in FROB because the FROB Mopologists (and the editorial staff) don't know how to do anything other than rip into people.

The Review can no doubt be acerbic. So can people like Simon Southerton.

So how do we end the cycle? I'm not sure.

Any suggestions?

[_Trevor]

In centuries to come, it may well be that scholars will point to Saturday, 13 September 2008, as marking the birth of a whole new age in the intellectual history of humankind.

Stop! Please! Some folks are trying to breathe around here.