Radio Free Mormon: The David Bokovoy Interview, Parts 1, 2, 3

[_Kishkumen]

Just finished the first installment of RFM'S interviews with Dr. Bokovoy. BYU really missed on this guy. He was ahead of his time on the catalyst hypothesis for the Book of Abraham, was way ahead on how to fit biblical scholarship and Mormonism together in a workable fashion and I assume from listening to him that the youth would really have loved him as their professor. He should have been put on the E. Holland/Pres. Oaks track in addition to being made a BYU Prof if the brethren were really in tune with something other than hiding the money and the truth. Instead, the prized asset is out of the church when he should be on track to lead it some day.

I agree. BYU really missed out, and yet how hard would David’s life and the lives of his family members have been if he had been at BYU when the infamous November Policy came down? The Bokovoy family really dodged a bullet.

[_Shulem]

I really enjoyed the podcast. Bokovoy is well spoken and well mannered and on top of that has a very pleasant demeanor. He looks like a mean man who would just as well pull a switchblade on you if you crossed him -- looks like a Hells Angel without a jacket!



You can't judge a man by his looks, that's for sure. Aaaand, since he has that long beard it's a sure indicator that he never really was faithful in the church but was disgruntled at heart and simply wanted to sin -- probably started out by sipping Pepsi and advanced to instant decaffeinated coffee. I'm sure David has always had a Word of Wisdom problem. Just look at him! David and Kerry Shirts are two peas in a pod -- bearded apostates.

But, what a great podcast. I'm sure that I'll be giving it a second round. I can't wait for the Book of Abraham stuff in the next episode. It does seem that Mormon scholarship is generally abandoning the Missing Roll theory because it's been thoroughly disproved and any attempt to maintain a belief in it is simply cartoonish -- silly. So that leaves the Catalyst theory. Where else can today's poor Mormons run? The problem with the Catalyst theory is that Smith and the Mormon Church BACK then would have vehemently denied it and would have gone after anyone in the church for sponsoring heretical ideas that question the legitimacy of Smith claims. Smith and his cohorts thoroughly embraced the Actual Abrahamic Roll theory that was written by Abraham's own hand and translated into English by the gift and power of God. The faith and claims of the early Latter-day Saints were also backed by the Holy Spirit that testified to them that what they believed was true.

So, the bottom line is: The Holy Spirit is the real culprit. The buck stops with the Spirit. That is where the lie begins! Once you get rid of that damn Spirit you can start thinking for yourself and start living the kind of life you were meant to live. Be gone Spirit! Go way and never come back!

[_Gadianton]

This is hard to listen to. Maybe I'm a pessimist, because the story seems to be about a guy who is a hopeless optimist, who does what he loves despite the opposition, yet what I hear is a guy with all kinds of talent who puts all this effort into something, and then never really gets anything out of it.

This interview could lead many different discussions. I wonder if the story could be called "the making of an apostate". When James Faulconer and Kathleen Flake sold Mormonism as a "narrative theology," while they may have been on to something, if that something was meant to be positive, here is an example of the downside: a sprawling bureaucracy with twelve heads all looking around at each other, confused about what the hell they're supposed to be doing. I can't tell from the story what David did to get black-balled. The way this is supposed to work with a narrative theology is that okay, there is no systematic theology, so we don't know what doctrine from the creed David violated, but our years of experience as Mormons should point us to an unwritten rule. When you hear the story of Grant Palmer, horribly as he was treated, you can readily pick up clues of non-orthodoxy.

The fact that David had such an enviable degree and was happily teaching seminary with it, even after all the crushing blows from his lessors, and with zero complaints about his curriculum, is proof that he was a dyed-in-the-wool, hopeless TBM. I even remember when he posted here, I don't think I was super nice to him because he frustrated me in the same way as Clark G. did, you know that he knows something is wrong, but he's not going to give an inch. He even argued "the paradigm should shift around the Church".

So why didn't it shift around the Church for the 2015 policy? Why was that the final blow? I understand from what he revealed in the interview about his family, but the Church has done a lot of dumb, insensitive things. And I have to give David more credit than simply caving on that one thing that got too close to home personally. David is the type of guy who takes injustices to others as seriously as those to himself. I think had his other experiences been different, he may not have caved. I think the Church may have made him an apostate. Nothing the Church ever does is written in stone, and half the Brethren may not have even been aware of the policy.

BYU really did miss out. "Critical study" is a bridge too far only for the person who can't cross it. David may have crossed it. Somebody has to be the first to cross any bridge, no wonder if the journey made him weary. The apologists have spent their careers doing similar things. Inoculation is main Mopologist defense. Anti-lit or anything close to it, is locked up at BYU. We've been counseled not to read it. Yet, DCP brags about family home evening showing the Godmakers because it was such a non-big deal. The solution for critical Bible studies is finding the way to introduce it in the right way to stimulate a tolerance, which is exactly what David appeared to be attempting. He was doing what most other adventurous apologists had done before him.

The articles David was given to read by Mark E. Peterson and Boyd "KKK" Packer argued for extreme Chapel Mormonism. It's ludicrous. David gets ousted at BYU because Muhlestein and others measured orthodoxy in terms of obedience to the missing-scroll theory, which the Brethren and far-right conservatives absolutely do not care about. That sends him spiraling down, where he gets picked up by the COB conservatives and lectured on a global flood and evolution, which Muhlestein and the broader cadre of Mopologists don't care about. Everyone has their signals crossed, and it's like a panic sell-off, where David's stock is going down for no reason, no matter what he does.

The things he'd said online were triggers only for a narrow community. I honestly give his letter of recommendation from Bill Hamblin just as much credit for damaging his reputation at BYU as anything. His enviable degree was certainly a factor (jealousy). But none of these things on their own or in aggregate explain what happens, because all of these things could have happened with a drastically different outcome. None of them even give a clue that we're dealing with a wolf in sheep's clothing. There is not the slightest hint that David ever took pleasure in shaking someone's faith. He seemed bound and determine to withhold information just as any good cog in a police state should.

[_Kishkumen]

So why didn't it shift around the Church for the 2015 policy? Why was that the final blow? I understand from what he revealed in the interview about his family, but the Church has done a lot of dumb, insensitive things. And I have to give David more credit than simply caving on that one thing that got too close to home personally. David is the type of guy who takes injustices to others as seriously as those to himself. I think had his other experiences been different, he may not have caved. I think the Church may have made him an apostate. Nothing the Church ever does is written in stone, and half the Brethren may not have even been aware of the policy.

BYU really did miss out. "Critical study" is a bridge too far only for the person who can't cross it. David may have crossed it. Somebody has to be the first to cross any bridge, no wonder if the journey made him weary. The apologists have spent their careers doing similar things. Inoculation is main Mopologist defense. Anti-lit or anything close to it, is locked up at BYU. We've been counseled not to read it. Yet, DCP brags about family home evening showing the Godmakers because it was such a non-big deal. The solution for critical Bible studies is finding the way to introduce it in the right way to stimulate a tolerance, which is exactly what David appeared to be attempting. He was doing what most other adventurous apologists had done before him.

The articles David was given to read by Mark E. Peterson and Boyd "KKK" Packer argued for extreme Chapel Mormonism. It's ludicrous. David gets ousted at BYU because Muhlestein and others measured orthodoxy in terms of obedience to the missing-scroll theory, which the Brethren and far-right conservatives absolutely do not care about. That sends him spiraling down, where he gets picked up by the COB conservatives and lectured on a global flood and evolution, which Muhlestein and the broader cadre of Mopologists don't care about. Everyone has their signals crossed, and it's like a panic sell-off, where David's stock is going down for no reason, no matter what he does.

The things he'd said online were triggers only for a narrow community. I honestly give his letter of recommendation from Bill Hamblin just as much credit for damaging his reputation at BYU as anything. His enviable degree was certainly a factor (jealousy). But none of these things on their own or in aggregate explain what happens, because all of these things could have happened with a drastically different outcome. None of them even give a clue that we're dealing with a wolf in sheep's clothing. There is not the slightest hint that David ever took pleasure in shaking someone's faith. He seemed bound and determine to withhold information just as any good cog in a police state should.

So, my two cents on all of this from the perspective of someone who knows LDS academics at BYU and someone who did apply for a job as a BYU faculty member:

Academic hiring is already pretty looney outside of BYU. There are few jobs, and there are far too many PhDs to fill them. This means that any department that is hiring can make just about any unreasonable, secret demand and dare the applicants to satisfy their contrived need to fill it. One result of this madness is a lot of imposture. There are even people who fake a minority identity of one kind or another in order to secure a job. Some pretend to be gay; some pretend to be people of color.

Now think of BYU. This madness will take its own peculiar form on BYU campus. We can demand that you believe something incredibly stupid because that is what we require of you. Anyone can have credentials. Anyone can be qualified. But will you commit to believe in a universal flood? Will you declare undying fealty to the missing scroll? With people like Kerry Muhlestein running the show, you damned well better. And that is what we have going on here. It is political. It is a matter of meeting the idiosyncratic, unspoken needs of whoever is across that desk asking you questions.

The more I learn about David Bokovoy's situation, the clearer it becomes to me why he thought he had a shot. Only an insider of his particular kind could have been so wildly misled and misinformed as to think he had a shot. Truth is, he never did. I am sorry to be blunt about it, but it almost always comes down to the bizarre internal politics of the place that is hiring, not the qualifications of the candidates.

It's a buyer's market, and BYU Religious Education is in the market for people who are in denial of contemporary scholarship. It wants people who believe the stupid things Packer and Petersen said decades ago. Only by affirming these moronic mantras endlessly to each other do they assure themselves that they will never teach the youth of BYU anything that will ever enlighten them of the outside world or anything that could not be found in a correlated manual, at least to the point that they might question the retrograde, approved narrative of decades past.

Let me tell you how bizarre it is from my small experience. I have a friend in Religious Education. Very bright person. Excellent degree from an Ivy. One day I ran into him at the annual conference for the Society of Biblical Literature. He was going to the book sale, so I followed him around. I watched him pick up various books and pronounce his judgments upon them, "Oh, this is a good one; it was written by a believer." I was flabbergasted. Really? Good because it was written by a believer? This was not the professor I had studied with. This person was someone quite different.

Or, perhaps, he was exactly the person, but I had never known him. This is what he valued and why he had moved from his first department to Religious Education. Now he could feel comfortable. He had found his home. Well, BYU was always neurotic and unsettling, so maybe this was the closest thing to refuge that could be found. A place where you knew everything was OK so long as you adopted the right party view and constructed everything you said and wrote around that.

Is there a place at BYU Religious Education for David Bokovoy or anyone like David Bokovoy? A person as full of honesty, courage, integrity, and independence? I don't think so. As soon as people figure out what is what, they have to choose to toe the party line or choose to leave. Look at Brian Hauglid. When he saw with blinding clarity what Gee was up to, he was dying to fly out the coop. BYU Religious Education is death to the person who really wants to know what's what and sees how everything is arranged to prevent everyone else from discovering it.

[_Philo Sofee]

Excellent little essay Kish. I say your ending applies precisely to apologetics as well. It isn't about the truth, it is about following the party line, but dressing it up in academic slobber to make it appear more impressive than it is. The ground completely crumbled from beneath my feet, and I am SO GLAD I am free of the slavery of apologetic "truth" as taught by the BYU and the Brethren. That being said, the "truth" itself no longer looks all that beautiful to me, since I have grave concerns about such a thing being real. Perhaps I really am just detritus and debris floating around in arcane space imagining I am relevant, or anything else is either..... the crazy thing? I have this overwhelming enthusiasm.... whatever for I don't know, but I have it.

[_Gadianton]

Damning insights, Reverend.

Rev: "Academic hiring is already pretty looney outside of BYU. There are few jobs, and there are far too many PhDs to fill them. This means that any department that is hiring can make just about any unreasonable, secret demand and dare the applicants to satisfy their contrived need to fill it."

check.

Rev: "It's a buyer's market, and BYU Religious Education is in the market for people who are in denial of contemporary scholarship. It wants people who believe the stupid things Packer and Petersen said decades ago."

check.

yeah, er, this is sounding all too familiar. It's the realization of a popular principle of Mopologetics that David and Consig obliterated near the end of the interview. The idea that everything is bias through and through. The apologists accept evidence for Book of Abraham because they want to believe while the critics reject it because they don't want to believe. Go for the stalemate when you know you can't win. I experienced an example of this outside of apologetics this morning. I met up with my two right-wing friends and they both independently made the same play. "Boy, I wish there was a third option, we're in big trouble with these two numbskulls. What an embarrassment!"

Basically, they were saying, "wheh! Biden made personal comments also, and so they are both equally bad, and I guess we're just going to vote by our preconceived beliefs!" And I'll bet when I left them alone, that they didn't make this same concession to each other, but rather affirmed that Trump destroyed Biden. I'm just as certain that the apologists, when having lunch together, most certainly do not admit they arrived at their beliefs by their bias toward belief. Most certainly, they hang the debt of bias upon the critics entirely and blast them, while maintaining their own purity. The argument for their own purity is that only they have spent the requisite time studying the minutia of the apologist's side of the argument. And so whatever flaws they may concede they have, it's a concession just for show because they really believe their deeper exposure to the works of FARMS over the years puts them in the best position to objectively judge.

If you point out to them the bias of Mormon academia, they'll quickly agree with the Rev. here, and say that all of academia is biased. Yes, Joseph Smith made mistakes, prophets aren't perfect!

Rev: "Is there a place at BYU Religious Education for David Bokovoy or anyone like David Bokovoy? A person as full of honesty, courage, integrity, and independence? I don't think so."

It sounds like there are two forces at work. 1) The protection of Mormon testimonies. Once these sharp students who graduate top of their class in high school hear the truth in college, they're done for immediately. 2) the in-group protecting their own employment. Even if a study came out proving that BYU students would be more faithful in the long run if they learned the truth, the present staff would have an incentive to preserve their own style of education, lest they be replaced.

[_Shulem]

PART II is up!

Happy Friday!

Radio Free Mormon: 200: The David Bokovoy Interview, Part 2

PS. I bear you my solemn testimony that I know the Book of Abraham is NOT true.

[_Shulem]

John Gee attests that Abraham visited Egypt and was befriended by kings of the 14th Dynasty -- hence Facsimile No. 3 and the ridiculous Explanations. That time period is dated (although flexibly argued) by Egyptologists to be about 1705–1690 BC. This is way too late for Abraham to have visited Egypt and keep biblical chronology on track. Gee no doubt is trying to put Joseph in a Hyksos setting for obvious reasons. But what to do about Moses? That is Gee's nightmare!

Who is the Pharaoh of the Exodus, JOHN GEE?

Folks, there was no Exodus as recorded in the Bible. It's a nonsense story. I'm afraid that Cecil DeMille's movie (Ten Commandments) is the biggest joke to ever hit Hollywood.

Also, Abraham didn't live to be 175 years. That's just so stupid that it insults everyone's intelligence.

Abraham did not sit on the throne of the king of Egypt. That is a lie! Pure fiction concocted out of the mind of Smith who didn't know jack about Egypt.

[_Shulem]

Radio Free Mormon does a great job!

Love it!!

After 1 hour into the podcast you'll graduate from Abr 1:1 and receive your diploma for verse 1!

Now on to verse 2.

[_Shulem]

You're right, Bokovoy; you and RFM have only scratched the surface in this podcast. There is no question that the Book of Abraham is a 19th century text. Smith produced the book and it's a fabrication of his mind using the Bible as a prop.

More please. Chapter 3!? Keep them coming. Keep writing -- organize your notes.

Would love to hear a podcast on Joseph and Moses in Egypt and how that fits into a historical context.

So, who was the pharaoh of the Exodus? That's the second best question following the first which is what's the king's name in Facsimile No. 3?

Who was the pharaoh of the Exodus, John Gee?

Checkmate. You bastard.