Peterson and Gee's libel against Ritner?

[_Trevor]

Wade,

You got a straight answer from Kevin, so what is your objection to it? Do you have some inside information that contradicts what he has said here? Can it be verified?

[_Danna]

Is this fracas the reason for Ritner's footnote in “THE BREATHING PERMIT OF HÔR” AMONG
THE JOSEPH SMITH PAPYRI?:

Nibley’s tactic has been adopted by his followers. The earlier version of this article produced internet discussions devoted not to the translation, but to scurrilous remarks concerning my own religious and personal habits. Let the scholar be warned.

Edit: add link

[_wenglund]

Uh, this part: "...no one is disputing that Ritner was removed from Gee's doctoral dissertation committee, nor that his removal was the department's decision. Right?"

Ritner was not removed by anyone but himself, if we can even call it a "removal" at all. He urged Gee to find another advisor and he did. Why is this so hard to comprehend?

I'm confused. Are you saying that Ritner removed himself by suggesting the Gee find another advisor?

Does this make sense to you? (I understand that you have to phrase it this way in order to maintain some semblence of consistency between what you reported from Ritner in your OP and what Ritner is now saying in the email you summarized above.)

Whatever the case, if Gee did find another advisor, then wouldn't that mean the Gee, in a sense, got Ritner removed as his advisor?

Yet, you also said this statement from me wasn't right: "no one is disputing that Ritner was removed from Gee's doctoral dissertion committee". If Ritner doesn't dispute that he was removed, and if Peterson and Gee don't dispute that he was removed, then who in your mind does dispute that he was removed? It has to be somebody that disputes that Ritner was removed in order for my statement not to be right.

Also, if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting the it wasn't the department who replaced Ritner as Gees advisor, but Gee himself. In other words, you are saying that the department wasn't involved in choosing Gee's advisor replacement. If so, this means that as a student, Gee somehow, without the authority of the department, assigned his own faculty advisor. Right?

Sorry wade, but you don't get to demand simplicity just because it is easier for you to do whatever it is you have up your sleeve.

Putting your paranoid insinuations aside, my questions aren't just intended for simplicity, but also to vet the general context of the issue prior to delving into the specifics. My questions are intended to avoid confusion, and to move the discussion logically and efficiently through the various points of contention.

Now, I understand your discomfort in having your arguments nailed down (particularly before your home crowd), and I understand that you have your talking points to iterate and reiterate, but I am trying to have a conversation with you, which necessitates some responsiveness on both our parts.

I am just as exited as you are to get down to the nitty gritty details, but if what has occured so far in the discussion is any indication, then I think it very wise to proceed in an intelligent and organized manner, rather than just unresponsively throwing accusations out at each other willy nilly. Okay?

With that in mind, since we have already set the foundation for the dispute over who requested the removal, perhaps we can get into the specifics of the dispute over the reasons behind and for the removal? To your understanding, what are the different reasons being suggested for Ritners removal?

Once that is resolved, then perhaps we can examne the relevance of this tempest-in-a-teapot to the Book of Abraham issue.

Finally, you may be right about Ritner and Peterson and Gee not talking much about this of late, but here you are spouting off about it. I am simply questioning your perception of the events. Do you have a problem with that?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_wenglund]

Wade,

You got a straight answer from Kevin, so what is your objection to it?

See above.

Do you have some inside information that contradicts what he has said here?

No. I am questioning Kevin's denigrating spin. I question his perception that Peterson and Gee are liars and libelous. From what I have read quoted from these men on this thread, their statments seem perfectly reasonable and honest to me--whether one agrees with them or not. I intend to find out if my perception is right or not.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Trevor]

I'm confused. Are you saying that Ritner removed himself by suggesting the Gee find another advisor?

Does this make sense to you?

Yes, it does. Sometimes an advisor will disagree with his or her student to the point that the only way out, without throwing away the student's chance at a degree and a career, is to bow out of the process. It happens all of the time. In fact, I am personally aware of other cases. So, yes, on the face of it, this does make sense.

At the same time, discussing what went wrong between professor and student is often like discussing what went wrong in someone else's marriage. Bystanders are unlikely ever to get the full story. Each party has its own interest in spinning things in their favor. So, while both sides may present what seems to their friends to be a reasonable story, you can't ever be quite sure you got to the bottom of it.

In such cases, the best policy is to leave it alone. Support your friends and keep it private. My guess is that we will never get to the bottom of what happened. All I can say about both men is that they are brilliant and probably do excellent work in their respective scholarly fields. I am not inclined to judge John Gee as a scholar based on his work on the Book of Abraham. In fact, I refuse to do so.

I have met John. I know he is brilliant, and I believe he is a good man. He is passing the muster of peer-review in his Egyptological work. As for Ritner, I don't know him. I have, however, cited his work in my own and found his interpretation of things that touch on my field to be very insightful and reliable.

[_Kevin Graham]

I'm confused. Are you saying that Ritner removed himself by suggesting the Gee find another advisor?

Does this make sense to you? (I understand that you have to phrase it this way in order to maintain some semblence of consistency between what you reported from Ritner in your OP and what Ritner is now saying in the email you summarized above.)

Whatever the case, if Gee did find another advisor, then wouldn't that mean the Gee, in a sense, got Ritner removed as his advisor?

Oh the tangled mess that is apologetic mental gymnastics. Wade, for the last time. Ritner is the one who was turned off by Gee, and urged him to find another advisor. Ritner was not pleased with the apologetics that consumed his scholarship. Gee followed his advice and found another advisor. The divorce between Ritner and Gee was entirely at the behest of Ritner. This is not what Gee and Peterson have been saying on the internet since 2003, hence the "dispute". Peterson said Ritner was removed by the department, noted how unusual ths was, and strongly insinuated that there was a "personal history" between Gee and Ritner than led to his "removal." The story is told in a way that leads to the conclusion that Ritner was in some way the bad guy, and Gee was just an innocent victim of some unknown discrimination. But Ritner said he was willing to post all the relevant email exchanges that would prove this version is pure fiction. In fact, I'm pretty certain he plans to address this in Brent's upcoming volume.

Whatever the case, if Gee did find another advisor, then wouldn't that mean the Gee, in a sense, got Ritner removed as his advisor?

No, moron. God, I totally remember thinking like you do. I hope one day you break free of the apologetic chains of stupid thinking. Since Gee sought after another advisor, only because he knew he would not be able to get his doctorate with Ritner, and only because Ritner advised him to do so, it is ludicrous to claim that Gee had Ritner removed. Ritner removed himself, period. Gee had no real choice but to go find another advisor. Gee was just a student with connections at BYU who were pulling for him to slide through the program as quickly as possible.

Yet, you also said this statement from me wasn't right: "no one is disputing that Ritner was removed from Gee's doctoral dissertion committee". If Ritner doesn't dispute that he was removed, and if Peterson and Gee don't dispute that he was removed, then who in your mind does dispute that he was removed? It has to be somebody that disputes that Ritner was removed in order for my statement not to be right.

This is a prime example where your silly "yes/no" demands don't do true justice to the actual answer. Ritner was removed, but he was removed by HIMSELF. Get it? Probably not. But Gee and Peterson have been saying Ritner was removed because of a "personal history" between them, when in fact Ritner was honest enough with Gee to let him know straight up that if he were serious about getting his doctorate, then he should go find an advisor that was willing to sign off on it. Ritner made it clear that John Gee's "scholarship" didn't meet what he felt to be Yale's standard, and he wasn't going to put his name on it.

So Gee did what he was advised to do, but this meant he had a lot of explaining to do back at BYU, so he twisted the story in a way that made him look like a poor persecuted vicitim, and Dan Peterson ate it up gladly. I mean who at BYU wants to accept the fact that the Church's only prospective Egyptologist (at the time), who was preordained to run the dept at BYU, was dissed by the world's authority in Egyptology at Yale? This is why you see Dan spreading this rumor online and not Gee. If there were any truth to what Gee had said, you'd probably see him mentioning it every time he responded to a Ritner criticism. But instead, it is Dan Peterson spreading the rumor, because he doesn't really understand that the story is bogus and he is all about defending BYU's integrity.

Also, if I understand you correctly, you are suggesting the it wasn't the department who replaced Ritner as Gees advisor, but Gee himself. In other words, you are saying that the department wasn't involved in choosing Gee's advisor replacement. If so, this means that as a student, Gee somehow, without the authority of the department, assigned his own faculty advisor. Right?

I don't know the process by which an advisor is to be replaced, but I suspect that there was some official paperwork and head-nodding from the governing body that was needed. But to say this means he was "removed" by the dept is like saying someone who resigns from a position is actually "removed" by a company, since the hiring dept had to actually get involved with the replacement process. It is a game of semantics and you know it, but the overall point is that contrary to Peterson's repeated falsehood, Ritner was the one who disowned Gee, not vice versa. but I don't expect you to address this point because you're too busy playing your game of yes/no answers, to loaded questions that require anything but.

Putting your paranoid insinuations aside, my questions aren't just intended for simplicity, but also to vet the general context of the issue prior to delving into the specifics. My questions are intended to avoid confusion, and to move the discussion logically and efficiently through the various points of contention.

Nobody is confused but you. Ever wonder why that's always the case?

Now, I understand your discomfort in having your arguments nailed down (particularly before your home crowd), and I understand that you have your talking points to iterate and reiterate, but I am trying to have a conversation with you, which necessitates some responsiveness on both our parts.

And you think you've nailed down my arguments by forcing me into yes/no responses to loaded questions that require far more explication? Yep, you're an idiot. The only discomfort I have with you is trying to give you the benefit of the doubt at times.

With that in mind, since we have already set the foundation for the dispute over who requested the removal,

Ritner. But you're probably thinking it was Gee, right?

perhaps we can get into the specifics of the dispute over the reasons behind and for the removal?

This is what you don't want to address, nor can you because you don't have any information. John Gee and Dan Peterson offer no reasons, but vague innuendo that Ritner was some anti-Mormon Evangelical. That's it! There are only two sides here, Ritner and Gee, and only Ritner has offered a reason behind this, and his reasons have everything to do with his refusal to attach himself to inferior scholarship. Gee's reasons are.... oh wait, he won't say. He'll just gloat about how his advisor was "removed" and let his followers run with that in whatever imaginative direction they choose.

Finally, you may be right about Ritner and Peterson and Gee not talking much about this of late, but here you are spouting off about it.

All I did was bump it your moron. You are the one trying to resurrect the nonexistent debate about it.

I am simply questioning your perception of the events. Do you have a problem with that?

I always have a problem trying to have an intelligent exchange with you wade, for the same reasons most people do. I think you bore the hell out of people with your eternal "beat about the bush" method.

I am questioning Kevin's denigrating spin.

My spin? I have the first hand testimony of the person who is the world's authority on this incident. Oh, did you forget that inconvenient fact? All you have are vague insinuations from a second hand email posted online, and treh repeated testimony of someone who wasn't even involved in the matter.

I question his perception that Peterson and Gee are liars and libelous.

Peterson was just assuming Gee told the truth. John Gee is the liar, and this has been proven on too many occasions to count.

From what I have read quoted from these men on this thread, their statments seem perfectly reasonable and honest to me--whether one agrees with them or not. I intend to find out if my perception is right or not.

This is the same kind of reasoning that leads you to believce Joseph Smith can totally mistranslate Egyptian characters, and yet still be a prophet who could translate ancient documents. You have no credibility on this side of the intelligence spectrum wade. Nobody cares what you think is "perfectly reasonable."

[_Simon Belmont]

Yet, in the end, Dr. John Gee did receive his Ph.D. from Yale. I imagine that disagreements with professors and doctoral advisors are not uncommon, especially when the student and the professor each have a differing agenda. The end result, however, is that others on the committee, even Yale University itself, saw fit to grant the doctorate to Gee; that is all that matters.

[_harmony]

Yet, in the end, Dr. John Gee did receive his Ph.D. from Yale. I imagine that disagreements with professors and doctoral advisors are not uncommon. Especially when the student and the professor each have a differing agenda. The end result, however, is that others on the committee, even Yale University itself, saw fit to grant the doctorate to Gee; that is all that matters.

Well, we know these 2 men had different agendas. Ritner was pursusing truth and Gee was pursuing apologetics. With Gee's next mentor, they both had the same agenda: get Gee out of Yale as quickly as possible.

[_EAllusion]

Yet, in the end, Dr. John Gee did receive his Ph.D. from Yale. I imagine that disagreements with professors and doctoral advisors are not uncommon, especially when the student and the professor each have a differing agenda. The end result, however, is that others on the committee, even Yale University itself, saw fit to grant the doctorate to Gee; that is all that matters.

DCP was spreading rumors through innuendo that Ritner was removed as Gee's advisor for untoward reasons. I've personally seen that. Supposedly Gee was doing the same, though I haven't seen it. Ritner, for his part, denies these rumors and claims that he requested Gee find a different advisor. According to you, it doesn't matter one wit if DCP or Gee was going around rumor-mongering and leading people's imaginations to believe defamatory things about Ritner? That's kosher?

I'm not sure why we should take what you have to say seriously given what you did that one night. I think we both know what you are talking about. I hope one day you have the courage to let the truth come out, but for now, I think it's safe to say we both know that it would be hard for anyone to trust your posts.

[_Simon Belmont]

Well, we know these 2 men had different agendas. Ritner was pursusing truth and Gee was pursuing apologetics. With Gee's next mentor, they both had the same agenda: get Gee out of Yale as quickly as possible.

Good morning harmony:

Neither of us, I suspect, have the necessary inside knowledge about the dynamics of the Gee/Ritner relationship to definitively determine if either one was pursuing "truth" or "apologetics." My assertion is simple: Dr. Gee, in the end received his Ph.D. from Yale University -- a private, Ivy League university. If, in fact, Yale wanted to "get Gee out as quickly as possible," I suspect that it would have only been a matter of suspending or expelling him for academic dishonesty (if such dishonesty actually took place). Yet, in the end, Dr. Gee was granted his doctorate, with all of the privileges and rights thereto.