It seems I was mistaken. He still identifies as "Mormon" and has only ended all "professional" ties with the LDS church. I'm going to edit my earlier post. Please forgive the reading error.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
Video of Gee’s rather weak and distasteful address is posted here.
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
Gee: “Now, by comparison, there’s more archaeological evidence for the Book of Abraham than there is for the Documentary Hypothesis, which is so prevalent among Old Testament scholars.” 34:14-26
(I can’t hear any immediate response on the video.)
“A scholar said he could not read the Book of Mormon, so we shouldn’t be shocked that scholars say the papyri don’t translate and/or relate to the Book of Abraham. Doesn’t change anything. It’s ancient and historical.” ~ Hanna Seariac
Tom wrote:Gee: “Now, by comparison, there’s more archaeological evidence for the Book of Abraham than there is for the Documentary Hypothesis, which is so prevalent among Old Testament scholars.” 34:14-26
(I can’t hear any immediate response on the video.)
Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham (he pretended to translate) is a fabricated story built on lies.
The Explanations of Facsimile No. 3 are total lies.
CULT MEMBER Mormons LOVE TO LIE. THEY LOVE TO LIVE IN LIES. THEY GLORY IN LIES.
GO TO HELL, JOHN GEE! GO TO HELL YOU BASTARD LYING Mormon!
Tom wrote:Gee: “Now, by comparison, there’s more archaeological evidence for the Book of Abraham than there is for the Documentary Hypothesis, which is so prevalent among Old Testament scholars.” 34:14-26
(I can’t hear any immediate response on the video.)
Hmmm. Well, someone who was present claimed to have heard Midgley say it, but it could be the case that it was not said loudly enough to be picked up by the mic recording Gee. It kinda depends on the mic and the volume of the utterance. I may have been mistaken about the volume. I don’t think, however, that the incident was fabricated.
In any case, our friend churchistrue attended Gee’s lecture and found the experience most discouraging. Hopefully he will pop by and share his thoughts. Maybe he, too, heard Midgley.
"Petition wasn’t meant to start a witch hunt as I’ve said 6000 times." ~ Hanna Seariac, LDS apologist
Like Tom, I would prefer to have either corroborating or audio evidence, but I think that the Hon. Rev. Kishkumen is correct that the microphone is doing a poor job of recording the crowd's reactions. Towards the end of the video, John Gee reads aloud from a question that inquires about this opinion on one of Robert Ritner's pieces, and I am pretty sure that you can very faintly hear people laughing in the audience.
Whatever the case may be, this was a dismaying performance. Gee looks pained and disheveled in the video; there are times when he seems short of breath and red in the face, and I thought I could see a sheen of sweat developing on his temple. This is bad: if it is that uncomfortable and painful to be a Mormon apologist in front of *this* audience, what does that tell you?
But Gee's comments on Ritner towards the end were both stunning and disappointing. (This comes roughly at the 53:00 mark.) It looks to me like he was handed (by Scott Gordon, looking somewhat like the actor Noah Emmerich) a list of questions that were written / submitted beforehand--evidently, candid question-asking simply will not do for this Mopologist--and he reads aloud a question asking if he intends to respond to some of the recent Ritner criticism. First, Gee compares Ritner's work to a "non-Catholic" criticizing a Papal Bull. "Why does he care?" Gee asks. He goes on to say that he's not going to respond because Ritner's review was "in poor taste" and "rather weak." His final answer to the question posed to him--i.e., the question of whether he will pen a response or not--is, no, he will not be, because: "As far as I can tell, who cares?" Well, at minimum, the person who asked the question "cares."
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
