Thanks for the very thorough notes. It sounds from your report like this presentation was actually quite a bit better than Gee's recent FR publication, which accords well with my experience of the difference between his spoken and written personalities. A few quick comments:
Dr. Shades wrote:[*]Continuing with the above, he described how Egypt was conquered shortly after this and was thereafter ruled by foreign dynasties, so when Abraham returned through Caanan there were no Egyptians left--at least none in power is what I think his gist was. That's the reason Abraham was able to receive the promise from God that he'd inherit the land; there was a power vacuum (my words, not Gee's).
It sounds like Gee is dating Abraham's return to Canaan to sometime after 1648 BC, when the Hyksos conquered Egypt. (The Hyksos were Canaanites who ruled Egypt for about a hundred years.) This is a bit later, I think, than the traditional dating.
Gee discussed why Abraham would've come into such conflict with the Egyptians. The Code of Hammurabi (as an example) proscribes death as the penalty for switching religions,
Hammurabi was a Babylonian king. I thought Gee placed Ur under Egyptian dominion in Syria? Curious that an Egyptologist is citing evidence from Babylon in order to show that Egyptians practiced religious persecution.
QuESTION: "Why do Egyptologists the world over say that Facsimile #1 is something other than what Joseph Smith said it is?" ANSWER: "The first question to ask them is, 'How do you know that it says something other than what Joseph Smith said it is?'" Gee then went on to describe how non-Mormon Egyptologists will accept any explanation other than the church's explanation.
Somehow I doubt that the Egyptological world revolves around the Book of Abraham to such an extent that Egyptologists tailor their work on lion-couch vignettes specifically to refute Mormonism. This accusation seems just a little narcissistic.
Someone asked who did the woodcuts. Gee said it was (Reuben?) Hedlock. This person asked about Hedlock, and Gee said that after Nauvoo Hedlock was a mission president in Europe, then a bishop, then was later excommunicated for absconding with tithing funds.
This is a very Mormon assessment of the Hedlock scandal. For a different take, click here.
Another person, a rather young guy, asked: "When are the KEP going to be published?" Dr. Gee responded that you'll have to ask "the KEP people" (i.e., the people working on it--Brian Hauglid among them, I'm 99.9% sure, although he didn't specify). He said it was a slow process since Joseph left behind 30 volumes worth of KEP material. I MAY EASILY BE MISTAKEN ABOUT HIS POINT; perhaps he merely meant that the final analysis would take up 30 volumes. He said that at the rate of two volumes a year--I'm sure that was only his estimate on what it would take, not some sort of set reliable timetable for the future--it would be slow going.
He's referring to the Joseph Smith Papers project, of which the KEP critical edition will be a part. (Don Bradley pointed out to me the other night that including the KEP in the Joseph Smith Papers is as good as a tacit admission that the "scribes did it" theory is a load of crap. I found that amusing.)
Dr. Gee said that the term "Book of Breathings" is a phrase only used by anti-Mormon Egyptologists. He then listed some names that would be more accurate, but I can't remember them accurately enough to do them justice.
I presume "Breathing Permit" and "Document of Fellowship" would be his suggested alternatives. As far as I know, though, Gee and his Mormon devotees are the only ones presently using the latter.
All in all, a fairly interesting presentation. Thanks again, Shades.
-Chris
