Boylan the Beggar

[Moksha]

I thought there were specific Utah laws against "Patristic" literature. Wonder if he purchased it in Nevada.

[Bill_Billiams]

He either doesn’t know how or is to lazy to introduce his post’s point in the first sentence. Every post just starts in as if in the middle of a paragraph. Half the time the reader is left to guess what is his writing and what he is quoting. It’s a mystery how he managed to graduate past grade 9.

When I read his blog I get the impression that he is unable to organize or clearly communicate his thoughts. He comes off the same way when he speaks on his podcast.

[MsJack]

I thought there were specific Utah laws against "Patristic" literature. Wonder if he purchased it in Nevada.

It looks like he may have a Logos account (some of the citations on his blog bear the "Logos edition" tag). Logos makes it easy to purchase apostate Christian books on the downlow and raid them for copy pasta that sounds vaguely like Mormonism but in actuality, isn't.

Also, Logos users are like crack addicts who compulsively have to purchase their next hit, which would explain the begging for money.

Source: am a Logos user.

[Bill_Billiams]

Logos makes it easy to purchase apostate Christian books on the downlow and raid them for copy pasta that sounds vaguely like Mormonism but in actuality, isn't.

You really captured the essence of Boylan's "work."

[Physics Guy]

Boylan's blog seems to consist almost entirely of long quotations from other people's writings. The quotations appear to be duly attributed, but in my quick sample of posts I didn't find any original commentary by Boylan at all. Is his idea of scholarship nothing but typing out texts? He doesn't seem to be scanning. There are too many typos.

His selections may count as curated, but for me they could use a lot more editing than he provides. A lot of his quotations are long, and not worth reading at the quoted length. Summaries in modern language, with a few short quotations of highlights, might be worth having. Boylan's blog doesn't give us those.

If I want to read that much unedited Origen or Arrington or whomever, I'll buy their books for myself. If their texts are out of copyright, it's already easy enough for anyone to find them online in many places, and Boylan is just pasting his "Scriptural Mormonism" label onto a free public good. Insofar as he's trying to get any reward or support for his blog, he's selling canned air. If any of what he's transcribing at such length is under copyright, he's pirating.

[Bill_Billiams]

Boylan's blog seems to consist almost entirely of long quotations from other people's writings. The quotations appear to be duly attributed, but in my quick sample of posts I didn't find any original commentary by Boylan at all. Is his idea of scholarship nothing but typing out texts? He doesn't seem to be scanning. There are too many typos.

His selections may count as curated, but for me they could use a lot more editing than he provides. A lot of his quotations are long, and not worth reading at the quoted length. Summaries in modern language, with a few short quotations of highlights, might be worth having. Boylan's blog doesn't give us those.

If I want to read that much unedited Origen or Arrington or whomever, I'll buy their books for myself. If their texts are out of copyright, it's already easy enough for anyone to find them online in many places, and Boylan is just pasting his "Scriptural Mormonism" label onto a free public good. Insofar as he's trying to get any reward or support for his blog, he's selling canned air. If any of what he's transcribing at such length is under copyright, he's pirating.

Boylan recently celebrated his 9000th blog post. Of those 9000 posts at least 8800 of them have to be copy pasted or poorly transcribed walls of text. He started the blog 9 years ago. That means he been copy pasting stuff onto his blog 3 to 4 times a day for almost a decade. When he does make original content it's either begging or hit pieces against people he doesn't like. The hit pieces usually contain copy pasted walls of text too. Apparently, he thinks this is scholarship.

[drumdude]

The standards of Mormon apologetics scholarship are about as low as they get so he fits right in.

[Doctor Steuss]

I thought there were specific Utah laws against "Patristic" literature. Wonder if he purchased it in Nevada.

It looks like he may have a Logos account (some of the citations on his blog bear the "Logos edition" tag). Logos makes it easy to purchase apostate Christian books on the downlow and raid them for copy pasta that sounds vaguely like Mormonism but in actuality, isn't.

Also, Logos users are like crack addicts who compulsively have to purchase their next hit, which would explain the begging for money.

Source: am a Logos user.

I'll wash your car for hit of that Methodius.

[MsJack]

You really captured the essence of Boylan's "work."

In fairness to Boylan, that's actually the essence of most Mormon apologetics in terms of trying to retrieve traces of Mormonism from antiquity and/or the Christian tradition (minus the use of Logos). It's almost all vague "bullseyes" and comparisons that contextually don't hold up (like Holland invoking Karlstadt at the last fall General Conference ).

Real exegetical historians make fun of that "history of ideas" sort of approach.

What surprises me is Boylan's complete disdain for Protestantism as a whole. I took two religion classes on non-LDS Christianity in undergrad at BYU, one on general church history and one on American church history. Both taught that the Protestant Reformation was a necessary forerunner to the Mormon Restoration and a step in the right direction; both professors showed respect and fondness for Protestant theologians. I have no doubt those professors would have been appalled at Boylan's antics.

(Logos has not made much effort to cater to Mormons, so I'm not surprised few Mormons use it, but it is a powerful resource for doing historical theology and biblical research, at least to start out with.)

[Bill_Billiams]

You really captured the essence of Boylan's "work."

In fairness to Boylan, that's actually the essence of most Mormon apologetics in terms of trying to retrieve traces of Mormonism from antiquity and/or the Christian tradition (minus the use of Logos). It's almost all vague "bullseyes" and comparisons that contextually don't hold up (like Holland invoking Karlstadt at the last fall General Conference ).

Real exegetical historians make fun of that "history of ideas" sort of approach.

What surprises me is Boylan's complete disdain for Protestantism as a whole. I took two religion classes on non-LDS Christianity in undergrad at BYU, one on general church history and one on American church history. Both taught that the Protestant Reformation was a necessary forerunner to the Mormon Restoration and a step in the right direction; both professors showed respect and fondness for Protestant theologians. I have no doubt those professors would have been appalled at Boylan's antics.

(Logos has not made much effort to cater to Mormons, so I'm not surprised few Mormons use it, but it is a powerful resource for doing historical theology and biblical research, at least to start out with.)

Karlstadt was kind of all over the place but I don't see how any Mormon could rightly appeal to him. But equivocation is the name of the game, like you said. I remember reading this article https://www.equip.org/articles/Mormons- ... c-studies/ which does a pretty decent job of laying out the basic issues with the LDS approach to patristics. They have the same issue with modern scholars as well. If you talk to a mopologist long enough they'll try to make you believe that Bercot, Heiser, Schaff, Kelly and every other Christian scholar is LDS.

I've noticed a popular level distain for Protestantism among the Mormons I've interacted with. The younger ones don't seem to have much regard for the Reformation. They especially hate Calvinism (that isn't exclusive to Mormons) which would be consistent with Smith who, if I remember correctly, hated Calvinism. Maybe the more scholarly Mormons say one thing while they teach something else in the wards? Or maybe the Mormon view of the Reformation is being restored lol.