“Our Great God Has in Goodness Sent These”: Notes on the Goodness of God, the Didactic Good of Nephi’s Small Plates, and Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s Renaming

There are 4 thoughts on ““Our Great God Has in Goodness Sent These”: Notes on the Goodness of God, the Didactic Good of Nephi’s Small Plates, and Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s Renaming”.

1. Following up on my previous reply to Jerry:

   Writers who submit a research article to Interpreter may have a wide range of experiences with the review process. We have nearly 200 reviewers reflecting a diverse range of backgrounds and approaches to peer review. Some provide extensive, detailed reviews that help authors with all aspects of the papers, while others focus on a few major issues. Some can be very frank and direct, others are gentle. The number of reviewers selected will depend on the complexity and uncertainty of the paper and its subject matter, and dealing with the divergent views of the group can be quite challenging for us.

   It’s not uncommon for authors to be frustrated with some reviewers and for reviewers to be frustrated with papers. Our double-blind peer review process also means that a writer can doubt the qualifications of the reviewer and vice versa, when there might have been much more appreciation of the other party had the person known who they were dealing with.

   In spite of the ever-present possibility that some errors may be overlooked, I don’t think it’s fair to characterize our peer review system as a bogus one requiring the scare quotes you applied. For a perspective from some other respected authors who have been through our process, you may wish to consider the comments made in response to Allen Wyatt’s reflective essay last year, “A Long and Winding Road” at https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/a-long-and-winding-road/. Allen reveals some of the workings of our editorial work including a few details regarding peer review. (Since that article came out, we’ve expanded our list of peer reviewer candidates to about 190 rather than the 134 past reviewers he mentions, though not everyone on our list has completed a review for us, while a number of past reviewers are not on the current list.)

   The comments to Allen’s article can be accessed at https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/comments-page/?id=71387.
   In response to Wyatt’s essay (the opening essay for a new volume), Val Larsen made this comment on Jan. 24, 2024:

   I have been publishing academic articles in the disciplines of English Literature and Marketing for more than 40 years. I have Ph.D.s in English and Marketing. I must say (and I am not always pleased about this) that the Interpreter has by a considerable margin the most onerous review process I have encountered, either as an author or reviewer. It is the only journal in which I have ever had an article go through more than three rounds or review and revision. And the only one in which an article has been rejected after four revision rounds. (I should add that the rejected article improved dramatically as it was redrafted in those revision rounds and was accepted with minimal further revision at another journal after final rejection at the Interpreter.) No other journal I have ever published in required authors to submit copies of cited material. (Again, I am not particularly pleased about that requirement.) So whatever critics may credibly say about the Interpreter, lack of review rigor is not a valid criticism. Let me add kudos to the many volunteers whose many hours of devoted service have been apparent in the review of articles I have submitted to the Interpreter.

   On Dec. 29, 2023, Newell Wright made this comment:

   This was a great description of the editorial process. I’ve been engaging in academic publishing for 30 years in the academic study of marketing (I am a business professor by training), and the Interpreter review process was the most brutal I have ever experienced. Godfrey Ellis sent both papers out to seven (seven!) reviewers and five of the seven reviews contained very substantive critiques. This resulted in rebuilding one of the papers from the ground up, but ultimately produced a MUCH better paper, thanks to the review process and the editorial input. Then after acceptance, I had to submit electronic copies of all sources in the footnotes, so they could be independently vetted for accuracy. This does not happen in my home academic discipline. So yes, the review process, though brutal, actually helped immensely, perhaps more so because I am a new Book of Mormon scholar.

   These are just two perspectives from the hundreds of authors we deal with, but from my perspective we do put our papers through a serious and challenging process that results in over 50% of our papers being rejected and almost every published paper being refined, often significantly. But flaws are inevitable. Unfortunately, there are also negative side effects to our efforts to provide high-quality papers that can frustrate good scholars, often due to my own gaps in knowledge and project management in this volunteer role as co-editor.

   I would like to talk with you about the other major flaws that you have noted to see if we can do anything to repair them or to prevent such things from happening again. I hope you’ll…

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2. Jerry, thanks for the input. The authors may wish to respond, but I’m not sure I understand your concern. Joseph Spencer’s excellent An Other Testament: On Typology (Salem, OR: Salt Press, 2012) does compare 1 Nephi 1:1 to Mosiah 9:1-2 on p. 126, both in a table and in a comment about “the obvious similarity” in the opening words of both writers. Bowen and Olavarria also compare these two verses, but for different purposes. Spencer is offering the interesting and original theory that Zeniff’s allusions to the small plates throughout his text might be intended to imply that his group’s return to the land of Nephi may be a fulfillment of prophecy about returning to Zion. In contrast, Bowen and Olavarria are showing potential relationships and wordplay involving the word “goodness.” I can’t see any inappropriate building on the work of Spencer.

   If your concern is that this paper compares the opening words of Nephi and Zeniff, as does Spencer (or that both use tables to highlight these verses, but different tables), then I would suggest that the “obvious similarity” noted by Spencer has been obvious to many others as well and doesn’t require attribution to Spencer. I recall other works over the years, including works from Hugh Nibley, discussing similarity in openings words of early Book of Mormon authors. One example is from Hugh High Nibley in his Teachings of the Book of Mormon series, Semester 2, Lecture 32, “Mosiah 8-10” (Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988-1990), available at https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/71/. On pp. 23-24 of the PDF, Nibley writes:

   We also learn that Zarahemla was bilingual because he says, “I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites.” Notice how he starts out with a formal introduction, which is required. We have hundreds of Egyptian autobiographies. The most popular form of writing in Egypt is autobiography, believe it or not. This is a formal beginning: “I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites.” That’s [very much] like what Nephi says in the beginning: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father.”

   From my perspective, the similarity of 1 Nephi 1:1 and Mosiah 9:1 is one of those ideas that can be considered part of Book of Mormon common knowledge and need not be accompanied with a footnote. If so, we might also complain that Spencer failed to quote Nibley or perhaps still earlier writers.

   I’m also sorry that you feel negatively about our peer review process. If there are other more serious gaps that you’d like to discuss with me, please contact me at jlindsay at interpreterfoundation.org. We have what I and others consider to be a serious and challenging review process, but we do make mistakes — and strive to correct mistakes, when feasible, so please let me know the issues that you see. I’d also be happy to have a call.

   Unfortunately, I must admit that we are currently constrained to only using mortals with limited time and finite knowledge for peer review, but I am hoping to upgrade the process in the near post-millennial future.

   Thanks again for the input.

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   • “If so, we might also complain….” should be “Otherwise, we might also complain….”

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3. Just wondering why you lifted Joseph Spencer’s research and publication on the Zeniff/Nephi comparison without attestation. Anyone familiar with Book of Mormon studies would know that. And wondering why the Interpreter “peer review” missed yet another major issue in a paper.

   Reply ↓

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