But first, let's examine something that David himself recently said on the board. Some here may remember that I started a thread in April entitled, "From My Informant: Stormy Weather Ahead for Brant Gardner?" in which I speculated that Bokovoy could potentially have been tapped to pen an aggressive critique of Gardner's work. Well, this speculation turned out to be misguided as Bokovoy himself appeared to clarify. I went ahead and asked him whether or not he had been hired to teach at BYU, and this was his response:
Enuma Elish wrote:Doctor Scratch wrote:How are things going for you these days, by the way? Did you wind up getting hired at BYU?
This is my final semester teaching at BYU. It's been a great experience. I loved the students, but I'm moving in a different direction.
Best,
--DB
Though I had asked him this, the truth is that I already knew the answer, because I had been told early in 2010 that Bokovoy would never, ever teach at BYU. In January of 2010, I received a pair of PMs that neatly explained the reasons behind this. At that time, of course, Bokovoy was something of an "insider," as most here will recall. He was still subject to criticism from Kevin Graham, and he often put up stout, apologetic defenses of the Church at MAD/MDD. He also tended to reference his own experience in CES as a means of establishing his authority. As I was told by an "informant," though, his confidence in his "insider" status was extremely misguided:
Agent D wrote:[Bokovoy] obviously believes that he is an “insider.” Nothing could be further from the truth. [He has a] deteriorating status in the eyes of the real [people in power]...
When I inquired further into this, I was given an account that was simultaneously intriguing and very trouble. This informant explained to me that Bokovoy was warned by people at the Maxwell Institute to avoid studying Hebrew Bible; the "Powers that Be" were apparently worried that scholarly study in this field would undermine his testimony. He ignored this advice, though, and went off to Brandeis, where he came under the tutelage of the well-known apostate, David P. Wright. Obviously, this would have raised enormous amounts of suspicion amongs the paranoid Maxwell Institute "Old Guard," who would fear that Wright would be privately scheming to destroy Bokovoy's testimony.
My informant went on to elaborate further:
[U]nbeknownst to him, people have been watching him very, very closely. Even his participation on message boards is being monitored. That’s why he will never, in a million years, work at BYU. He just doesn’t know it yet.
Now, bear in mind that I learned this information in January of 2010. Cut to two weeks ago, when Bokovoy clarifies that, indeed, he has been working at BYU, but he will not continue at BYU. Why, one wonders, was this the case? Was my informant correct? Bokovoy is clearly an effective scholar, having published in some of the top journals in his field. So why would BYU be cutting him loose? By his own description, it seemed as if BYU had simply decided not to hire him.
It turns out things were more complicated then that. Thanks to a variety of sources, I've been able to learn that Bokovoy was effectively blackballed by "Old Guard" forces connected to the Maxwell Institute--people who dislike the "Vanguard" generation of younger Mopologists--people who absolutely cannot tolerate any notion of orthodoxy other than their own.
According to my source, Bokovoy was excluded for precisely the reasons listed above: because of his connection to David Wright, and also because of his somewhat "NOM"-ish views on things like the Book of Abraham, anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, and so forth.
What is most disturbing, however, is this:
Agent C wrote:Some of the higher-up old guard of the [Maxwell Institute had] one or more people to do an extensive review of Bokovoy's [Internet] posts and prepared some kind of summarized listing....that supposedly demonstrated "what Bokovoy really thinks."
So they supposedly put together a "creepy dossier" on Bokovoy as a means of blackballing him. But there is yet another, even more upsetting detail. Per my informant, rumors are circulating that Bokovoy was summoned to a meeting in front of the entire BYU Religion Department, and he was grilled for over an hour by the faculty, who relied on this "creepy dossier" to formulate their questions. It's as if the Maxwell Institute has its own, private, special brand of the SCMC within its ranks.
In any case, I thought this was both very powerfully sad, and incredibly disturbing. As always, I advise readers to treat this with skepticism. Hopefully some kind of confirmation or denial will be forthcoming.