Has John Gee Been "Booted" from the Maxwell Institute?

[_Doctor Scratch]

Searching BYU news two past entries on Gee :2004 named Associate Research professor in the Ancient Text restoral dept; 2009 named Professor there- no othet entries so he has been a full professor 10 Years.

Just addin to the timeline

k

Thanks for that, Kairos. Links are always welcome, too! If what you say is correct, then it means that the score has been evened. Score one to starsshine for being correct about no "CFS" for Gee; score one for DCP for correctly indicating Gee's promotional rank. So, they are tied.

[_moksha]

BYU I guess can do things there own way.

As the doyenne of the Mormon D&D board, Juliann put it, "We are private so we can do whatever we want".

[Guest]

I've checked around for information about the Gay Research Chair.

Dr. Gee's blog includes reports on his activities as occupant of the Gay Research Chair back to 2003. The Maxwell Institute's annual report for 2013 states that Dr. Gee has occupied the chair since 2002.

A FARMS newsletter published in 2004 provided some background on the Book of Abraham project:

In 1998 FARMS’s longtime interest in advancing research supportive of the Book of Abraham as an ancient text found new emphasis and direction as a formalized FARMS project, an impetus made possible by a farsighted donor: the Robert Gay family. Soon a working group of scholars was convened to exchange research and ideas on the text. The resulting exchange of information led to FARMS-sponsored public lectures and a scholarly conference in 1999. The next year saw publication of John Gee’s Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri and, fortuitously, an enlarged edition of Hugh Nibley’s Abraham in Egypt (a project years in the making). Following in short order were the first two volumes in the Studies in the Book of Abraham series—Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham (2001) and The Hor Book of Breathings (2002)—and a “World of Abraham” symposium and scholarly conference in 2002.

Of course, Dr. Gee received his doctorate in 1998 and began working at FARMS shortly thereafter as "an assistant research professor [who] "coordinate[d] research on the book of Abraham" (see Insights, August 1998, p. 4).

In 2007, the Institute published a note on the death of William Gay:

Frank William (Bill) Gay, in whose name two Maxwell Institute research funds were endowed, passed away May 21, 2007. … The William (Bill) Gay Research chair at the Maxwell Institute was created and endowed in his honor. John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Associate Research Professor. This endowment supports all of the projects and publications done by Gee and others on the Book of Abraham and related studies. As mentioned in the last issue of Insights, the Russel B. Swensen Endowed Mentorship Fund was created as a result of a generous gift from Robert (Bob) Gay in honor of his father William (Bill) Gay.

It seems reasonable to assume that Robert Gay also provided funds for the Gay Research Chair, but I haven't seen a direct statement to that effect on the Maxwell Institute website.

Note that Robert Gay is a member of the Presidency of the Seventy and is also a member of BYU's Board of Trustees.

[_Kishkumen]

Excellent work, Tom. Robert Gay is the person who supports this endeavor, and he is probably in a position to persuade BYU to move the Gay chair from MI to ANEL.

[_Tom]

John Gee is now listed as full-time faculty in ANEL's Hebrew section. Professor, William Gay Research Chair, ANEL.

[_kairos]

Hebrew- I thought Gee was an Egyptologist!

[_Gadianton]

Hebrew- I thought Gee was an Egyptologist!

Even if they did teach an Egyptology class, it would be very interesting to me if they'd allow him to teach it, given the conflict of interest with the Chair to do apologetics. BYU has never taught "scholarly" classes on the Book of Mormon or Abraham, except in an extremely limited 1-off fashion.

As long as he can handle Hebrew better than Old Norse, he should be fine. And like I said, it's a free course for the university -- bill to the chair.

Tom's revelation is stunning. I think we've (Tom) identified our "one person who matters" to the chair's continuance and any and all GA communication and intervention in one fell swoop.

[_Shulem]

BYU has never taught "scholarly" classes on the Book of Mormon or Abraham, except in an extremely limited 1-off fashion.

BYU would have to totally discredit the Book of Abraham and its Facsimiles if it were to teach it on a scholarly basis. Same goes for the Book of Mormon being historical. For the record:

After nearly two centuries, though, nobody has ever produced a single site, object, or document that in any way supports any single line of the Book of Mormon.

In 1972, esteemed Meso-American archaeologist Michael Coe gave his opinion that “The bare facts of the matter are that nothing, absolutely nothing, has ever shown up in any New World excavation which would suggest to a dispassionate observer that the Book of Mormon, as claimed by Joseph Smith, is a historical document relating to the history of early migrants to our hemisphere.” We are now forty years on from that statement, with vastly more evidence at our disposal, not least the translation of extensive Maya texts and inscriptions. The last twenty years, indeed, have been a Golden Age of New World archaeology. Nothing, though, has come to light to change Coe’s assessment.

No academic at a mainstream scholarly conference would dare cite the Book of Mormon as an authentic source on pre-Columbian conditions. No such academic has ever presented an archaeological paper concluding “and thus we see that the finds at site X must be taken to confirm the description of the conflicts described in the Book of Alma.”

If a New World archaeologist ever found anything as anomalous as that suggested in the Mormon story, such as a confirmed Semitic inscription on American soil, he or she would be partying for days to celebrate a career-making find. That has, though, never once happened.

As a historical source on the ancient Americas, the Book of Mormon is worthless.

Yeah, it's worthless as are the Explanations of the Facsimiles.

[_Symmachus]

Hebrew- I thought Gee was an Egyptologist!

Is he teaching Hebrew or just in the same department as Hebrew? And anyway, you're forgetting that Nephitish Hebrew is basically interchangeable with Egyptian, as well as Akkadian, Eblaite, all forms of even modern Arabic, Amorite, and every dialect of Aramaic, even that of the tiny of villages of Maaloula and Jubbaadin in modern Syria. Mormon apologistics is the flux capacitor that makes dialectical time-travel possible.

As long as he can handle Hebrew better than Old Norse, he should be fine.

Tom's revelation is stunning. I think we've (Tom) identified our "one person who matters" to the chair's continuance and any and all GA communication and intervention in one fell swoop.

Yes, thanks for your digging about, Tom. I can't say that it is strictly corrupt, but, wow, a situation where a board member has endowed a chair to help the career of his favorite professor is not exactly a model of ethical administration. Daniel Peterson is right, then: in this case, BYU is a just the stage on which Gee performs for his patron.

After a few false hits that violated the innocence of my eyes, I learn that Robert Gay "served as chairman of the Self-Reliance Services/Perpetual Education Fund Committee with responsibilities for worldwide self-reliance services and as the President of the Asia North Area."

I wish I had the kind of self-reliance that Gay offers Gee.

[_Analytics]

Yes, thanks for your digging about, Tom. I can't say that it is strictly corrupt, but, wow, a situation where a board member has endowed a chair to help the career of his favorite professor is not exactly a model of ethical administration. Daniel Peterson is right, then: in this case, BYU is a just the stage on which Gee performs for his patron.

After a few false hits that violated the innocence of my eyes, I learn that Robert Gay "served as chairman of the Self-Reliance Services/Perpetual Education Fund Committee with responsibilities for worldwide self-reliance services and as the President of the Asia North Area."

I wish I had the kind of self-reliance that Gay offers Gee.

LOL