All things considered, this seems remarkably gracious. Neville wraps up with some (admittedly far-fetched) hopes for the future:
What I hope to see as a result of this clown fiasco is a change among the M2C citation cartel specifically and LDS scholarship generally.
First, Dan Peterson should own up to his own complicity in accommodating and promoting the entire charade.
Second, any legitimate scholars associated with the Interpreter, Book of Mormon Central, BYU Studies, or any other publication/organization that employs, publishes, or works with this crew should seriously reconsider.
Third, LDS scholars should embrace in practice, and not just give lip service to, the basic principle set forth in the recent issue of BYU Studies, along with the “no more contention” theme of the recent General Conference.
It’s interesting: one of the more recent angles of attack from “SeN” was to treat Neville as being “guilty by association” due to appearing on th Backyard Professor’s podcast, but that’s obviously a very bad thing for DCP to be doing now that Robert Boylan’s hardcore DezNat/Alt-right sympathies have come to light. I mean, what’s worse: hanging out with a jubilantly cheerful ex-Mo, or promoting the work of a dour and embittered white nationalist?
And Neville’s description is interesting, too: “clown fiasco.” Yes—that’s no doubt accurate. My question is: If the Heartlanders are as bad as DCP and the Mopologists claim, then where are the Heartlander versions of, e.g., the 2nd Watson Letter? Or the “Two Inks” fraud? Or “Metcalfe is Butthead”? Or this “Nygren Affair”?
I have to say: the Mopologists really may have outdone themselves this time in terms of the scope and gravity of their screwup. I’m betting that we still haven’t seen the last fallout from this issue.
Speaking of Nygren, I didn't realize how far back Boylan's distain for Neville went. From August 2017:
Reviews of Jonathan Neville's Works
Jonathan Neville is a proponent of the Heartland Model of Book of Mormon geography. He has a reputation of lacking intellectual integrity as he tends to distort facts to suit his agenda of propping up the indefensible (the Heartland model) as well as his attacks on those who hold to Mesoamerica being the lands of the Book of Mormon. One recent example is his article “Elder Holland’s powerful talk to a room full of unbelievers” where he clearly distorts the talk given by Jeffrey R. Holland's talk The Greatness of the Evidence at the Chiasmus Jubilee celebrating the 50th anniversary of John W. Welch's discovery of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.
Today I read a book by Neville, Whatever Happened to the Golden Plates? While I am unaware of any review of this particular volume, his works have been refuted rather soundly by competent LDS scholars:
Gregory L. Smith, “From the Sea East Even to the Sea West”: Thoughts on a Proposed Book of Mormon Chiasm Describing Geography in Alma 22:27
Matthew Roper, The Treason of the Geographers: Mythical “Mesoamerican” Conspiracy and the Book of Mormon
Idem, John Bernhisel’s Gift to a Prophet: Incidents of Travel in Central America and the Book of Mormon
Matthew Roper, Paul Fields, and Larry Bassist, Zarahemla Revisited: Neville’s Newest Novel