moksha wrote:Doctor Scratch wrote:You are probably right, Moksha. The thing is: there were other Powers-that-Be that allowed this to happen, no?
If I remember right, Schryver was booted out within a week of MsJack making her Schryver posting compellation into a thread here at MD. I think the thread was scrutinized by both the Maxwell Institute and the BYU administration. I doubt any of the Brethren were aware of this scandal or the remedy.
Dearest Moksha:
I appreciate your generous reading. You are right that it is seemingly impossible to know the full truth. But I think we may be conflating two separate incidents--i.e., (1) the incident in which Rev. Kishkumen's Sunstone notes were inadvertently "peer reviewed," and (2) the fallout resulting from MsJack's reporting on Schryver's online persona. My comment was meant to refer to Incident (1): i.e., someone on FAIR's board made it "okay" for Schryver to review the Reverend's "notes."
All that being said, there is evidence--
in the form of testimonial from Schryver himself--that he *was* "juiced in" with the Brethren**:
Schryver, in his own words wrote:Therefore I prepared a detailed research proposal of my own, in which I described my findings to date and specifically requested to receive my own complete set of the digital scan images of the Joseph Smith Papyri and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. I mailed this research proposal, dated November 18, 2009, to the Church Historian, Elder Marlin K. Jensen.
In late December 2009, I was notified by Glenn Rowe, Director of Special Projects for the Church History Library, that my research proposal and request to receive the images had been received favorably by Elder Jensen, but that it would require the authorization of his supervisors in the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (at the time, Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Russell M. Nelson), as well as the First Presidency.
In January 2010, Elder Jensen notified me via email that the First Presidency had approved my request. The first week of February 2010 I traveled to the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, and after affixing my signature to a detailed research contract, I was permitted to download to my laptop hard drive the image files of the Joseph Smith Papyri and the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.6
So: Elders Jensen, Oaks, and Nelson allegedly "knew" about what Schryver was doing. Whether this was all just some run-of-the-mill, "pro forma" type of "approval" in the midst of their evidently very busy schedules, or whether they truly did take this seriously, is up for debate, I suppose. But Schryver himself insisted that he required this level of Church approval, and I see no reason to dispute his claims. Given the free reign he was given by other high-ranking Mopologists--such as DCP--I'm inclined to believe him.
**True historians of Mopologetics should archive and save Schryver's blog. If history is any guide to us, this thing will be blasted off the Internet before long.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14