Ritner passes-Sad!

[Doctor Scratch]

It occurs to me that the passing of an “adversary” really exposes the deeply rooted “us vs them” mentality and a gross kind meanness bred from Mopologetics. They expend so much energy making things personal, while swearing it’s not personal and nit picking if a word or phrase fits the proper definition of ad hominem. But then someone dies and they can hardly offer one genuine, unqualified nice thing to say. Gee’s words are an embarrassing capstone to decades of ugliness over Book of Abraham research. So are Peterson’s. They couldn’t just say nice things because they never have.

Honest academics engaged in honest academic debate should not feel the need to toss barbs at the passing of a contemporary. It should come as a privilege to share words of gratitude, admiration and sadness at the loss. Gee and Ritner could have gone down as an epic collaboration that elevated LDS participation in Egyptology. Instead Gee chose the low road every time, even at the end. Hopefully this reminds all of us to do better - to try harder to take the person out of the debate.

Great points, Dr. Moore. I don't think I've ever seen a Mopologist concede anything, admit to wrongdoing, or say something nice about a critic. If something nice is said, it's always "counter-balanced" with some kind of swipe or nasty aside. I guess being decent and Christ-like towards other people would count as an "uncontested slam-dunk" in their eyes?

[kairos]

Gee had to crawl out from under a very slimy rock to add the "until Yale university removed him from my dissertation committee"- that statement which i think is mostly correct from my memory, has Gee implying that Ritner left the committee because Ritner was somehow unqualified or was dealing with Gee in such a manner that Gee was the victim of Ritner's vindictiveness. That is what Gee wishes readers to understand-that he Gee was wronged and Gee was the victim of Ritner but Yale made it right. You, Dr John Gee do not have any credibility to have you play the victim as you spit on Ritner's grave with your false, did i saw false, lying comment. Dr Gee took the low road with his comments, so low that only one or two like woody and danny boy will praise Gee. Actually John Gee is not in the same league as Dr Ritner as an accomplished Egyptologist and Gee's Phd has no value except to mopologetics where they attempt for it to provide cover for the lying and deceitful articles and papers trying to defend the Book of Abraham which is as we all know has no defense since it is Joseph Smith myth making .

To John Gee I can hear the Lord saying in the judgment day " I never knew you - your lying and deceitfulness on the Book of Abraham gets you a special place in OD"

[Brack]

Dr. Ritner's book is still available on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Joseph-Smith-Egy ... 1560852321

[Alf'Omega]

Very sad indeed. Ritner's contribution to Book of Abraham studies is paramount to understanding the issue at large.

[Tom]

An associate drew my attention to Dr. Gee's "updates" to his original blog post (I've highlighted them in blue):

I just learned that Robert Kriech Ritner, Jr. passed away yesterday. Professor Ritner served as my dissertation advisor until Yale University removed him from the position. [This was not at my request.] An official obituary has been posted. This is very sad.

I do not think I ever held Professor Ritner in the contempt or disdain in which he came to hold me. Still, I will share some positive memories of Professor Ritner.

I met Professor Ritner for the first time at my first international conference. It was devoted to magic in the ancient world and was held in August 1992 in Kansas. I had already been accepted to study under him at Yale.

One of the essentials I learned from Professor Ritner was demotic paleography. When he was a graduate student, Ritner worked on the Chicago Demotic Dictionary. One of his jobs was to take an exacto knife to photographs of papyri and to separate every demotic word. From that, he learned to account for every speck of ink on the papyrus and he taught us to do the same.

I appreciated how he tried to integrate the archaeology, texts, and art of Egypt. Too many disciplines fail to do so, and Egyptology is not as good as it once was in doing so.

Professor Ritner was an engaging lecturer. He knew how to entertain an audience. Professor Ritner was very skilled at turning a phrase. While this mostly came out in his more vituperative passages, he occasionally turned it with felicitous results into his translations. [Some of us have some measure of appreciation for well-crafted vituperation.]

Professor Ritner was very ambitious. Twenty-five to thirty years ago he intended to publish a number of unpublished texts, such as OIC 25389 and another manuscript of the Bentresh Stele, along with the definitive study of tribalism in the Libyan period and a demotic paleography. [I do not know what the publication status is, but one can always be hopeful that the manuscript is waiting at the editors.]

[It was always an informative experience to read a demotic text with Professor Ritner. I had previously had a class in demotic but not from someone who did paleography; there was a huge difference. The readings of the text would be accompanied with an erudite commentary on secondary literature related to the passage in the text. He also generously shared with the class Edgerton's Chicago House copies of the Setna I text, which were generally easier to read than photocopies of the photographs in Spiegelberg's edition.]

My condolences to his family.

[Updates in brackets]

[drumdude]

What a worm. Here's the various smears apologists have put forward, of which this is just the latest most tasteless one.

The fact is that Professor Gee went on to earn a doctorate from Yale in Egyptology after successfully petitioning for the removal of Professor Ritner, his appointed advisor, from his doctoral committee. (Aug 2 2006, 10:45 AM)

Perhaps you’re unaware that Professor Gee (successfully) petitioned his department at Yale to have Professor Ritner replaced as chairman of his doctoral committee. Such requests are not commonly made. And they are not commonly granted. Do you think they’re best buddies? (Jun 10 2006, 04:56 PM)

Professor Ritner was once Professor Gee’s dissertation chairman at Yale University, until he was removed from that position and replaced by another professor. There is a personal history here (of which I was aware as it played out, since Professor Gee had been a student of mine before he went off to graduate school at Berkeley and then Yale. (Mar 22 2006, 08:43 PM)

“I also will not comment on his removal from my dissertation committee other than to note that it was the department’s decision to do so. There is much more to the story than what Professor Ritner has chosen to tell.” (John Gee, Mar 23 2006, 07:47 PM).

My response to Gee’s relevant academic output will be contained in the book edited by Brent [Metcalfe]. Gee has been increasingly visible, but not increasingly respected, at meetings. I do not know [one of his critics], nor how he would have any knowledge of my involvement with Gee’s dissertation (except through misrepresentations by Gee himself), but I am the one who rejected further participation in Gee’s work, and I signaled many errors in his work as a reason. If [said critic] continues to make false allegations, I may have to consider a slander or libel lawsuit. In any case, whoever he is, he is neither competent nor legally authorized to discuss the private matter. I have retained my dated correspondence and may put it on-line if such misrepresentations continue.

Sincerely, Robert Ritner

If you gave John Gee an enema, you could bury him in a matchbox.

[Kishkumen]

Here I thought the reason he left Gee’s committee was his new job at the University of Chicago.

[Chap]

Here I thought the reason he left Gee’s committee was his new job at the University of Chicago.

The note from Ritner about his decision to leave Gee's committee appeared in a thread on this board some years ago, I think not long after the time in 2006 that the misleading statements by Gee and Peterson were noted, suggesting that Ritner had been removed from the committee for reasons hinted to be not to Ritner's credit.

I spoke to a young Egyptologist a while back, and asked him if he had ever met Gee at a conference. He said he had. I asked what he thought of him. The substance of his reply as I recall it was "He seemed to be quite an angry person".

Figures. I'd be angry if I was in his situation.

[Kishkumen]

The note from Ritner about his decision to leave Gee's committee appeared in a thread on this board some years ago, I think not long after the time in 2006 that the misleading statements by Gee and Peterson were noted, suggesting that Ritner had been removed from the committee for reasons hinted to be not to Ritner's credit.

I spoke to a young Egyptologist a while back, and asked him if he had ever met Gee at a conference. He said he had. I asked what he thought of him. The substance of his reply as I recall it was "He seemed to be quite an angry person".

Figures. I'd be angry if I was in his situation.

I prefer the version of the story that seems more likely: He left Yale and did not want to leave loose ends there. Now, had he been really enthusiastic about Gee's work, he might have made an effort to stick with the committee. As it was, he was probably relieved to be done with a person he found off-putting and was primarily working with out of a sense of duty. This is not me saying that Gee sucked, or that Ritner is a bad guy. This is me reading Ritner's pretty regular expressions of annoyance with Gee, from the time Gee was in his class bloviating about Nibley and wearing his "Hugh Nibley fan" t-shirt (be it literal or metaphorical). I think Gee was a smart guy who rubbed Ritner the wrong way and had a motive to his studies that was decidedly at odds with Ritner's entire philosophy. So, when Ritner had a natural out from Gee's committee, he took it. Had he not left Yale, he probably would have stuck with Gee's committee because it was part of his job.

[Chap]

I prefer the version of the story that seems more likely: He left Yale and did not want to leave loose ends there. Now, had he been really enthusiastic about Gee's work, he might have made an effort to stick with the committee.

Ritner said:

... I am the one who rejected further participation in Gee’s work, and I signaled many errors in his work as a reason.

If Ritner was telling the truth when he wrote that, it is just about compatible with the version you prefer (taking him as having said "I'm not going to go to the trouble of staying on Gee's committee after I leave Yale, because I think his work is no good"). But only just, I'd say.