Peterson and Gee's libel against Ritner?

[_Kevin Graham]

Now contrast this with Ritner's publication history, and tell me how many publications were designed to defend his religion: http://nelc.uchicago.edu/facultypages/ritner/

[_Trevor]

No I am just going by what those who are "in the know" have said. I mean look at David Bokovoy now, on the verge of getting his PhD. He's already working for the Church Education System from what I understand, and Dan Peterson and Bill Hamblin have gone on record referring to David with pride as their "investment" that has progressed as expected. I wouldn't be surprised if David ends up being the Chair of some dept at BYU in the near future.

I have known a number of BYU faculty, not a few personally, who attended BYU as undergrads and were hired back before they completed their degree. In fact, I was one of those hand-picked students who was nurtured along to be hired back at BYU. I received fantastic moral support and the hope of likely employment.

It was all that the more concerned and responsible faculty in my area could do to keep my mentor from hiring me back way ahead of schedule. Fortunately, when I went out for a job at BYU, I didn't get it. By the time BYU had a slot open, the situation had changed and I still wasn't really ready to do what they needed (language instruction rather than history). Instead, they hired a more seasoned language instructor who had finished his degree. Kudos to them, I say.

But time and again I watched ABDs years away from completing their degrees as they were hired and then spent twice the time getting the dissertation done than it otherwise would have taken. As a result, their development as scholars was compromised, and, in some cases, I would say almost fatally so. BYU is first and foremost a teaching institution, so in the past their priority may not have been in scholaship. They needed to find promising young people who could pass the torch. Strong members with brains to teach the next generation.

I think things are changing for the better. But when someone asks whether the story about Gee and BYU angling to get him matriculated expeditiously sounds plausible or not, I simply tell the truth from my own direct experience. I think great damage was done to some very promising young scholars, friends of mine, who were hurried through to their job at BYU. I can only think that such could have been my fate as well.

Instead, I have published several articles in the time it took some of these folks to complete their dissertation and graduate. Am I a smarter guy with a better degree? Nope. But I was not hired right after I passed my PhD exams and before I had started my dissertation, like some BYU faculty whom I know personally.

[_moksha]

Wouldn't these two publication demonstrate a predisposition against Professor Gee's intent?

2003 “The ‘Breathing Permit of Hôr’ among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” published in Journal of Near Eastern Studies, vol. 62, pp. 161-80 (Chicago), to be reprinted in the volume The Book of Abraham: Scholarly Perspectives, The Institute for Religious Research (Grand Rapids)

2002 “The ‘Breathing Permit of Hôr’ Thirty-four Years Later,” published in Dialogue 33/4 [Winter 2000], pp. 97-119 (Shaker Heights, OH)

Just look at those strange accent marks on Hor and you will see what I mean. Did Gee ever have a fighting chance against these clear symbols of Evangelism?!!!

[_Trevor]

I guess the best way to show how ridiculous it is to compare Ritner and Gee, is to line up their curriculums and compare to see what each one has puiblished. According to the wiki article of Gee

OK. If this is a CV put up by an apologist on Gee's behalf, probably a young LDS adoring fan or something, I would expect this kind of emphasis. So I really do not think that your comparison is very fair in some ways. And, it is obviously the case that Gee has engaged in apologetics, while Ritner has not. Different lives, different opportunities, different choices. What am I supposed to draw from this? Gee is no Ritner. But I am not sure this is the same as saying he is less smart than Ritner, or less talented than Ritner, etc.

On the other hand, I can tell you what impresses the heck out of me. John Gee, after being handpicked as a successor to the great Hugh Nibley to perform an impossible task, from an Egyptological perspective at least, has managed to publish articles in peer-reviewed journals and is currently involved in a prestigious project. That is wonderful, and I am so happy for him. Really.

Why? Because given the many liabilities his particular approach to a career in Egyptology conferred upon him, his intelligence and hard work have enabled him to succeed at real scholarly accomplishments where others surely would have failed. Nibley went from publishing peer-reviewed articles in reputable journals to publishing essays for the LDS Church. John Gee seems to be doing just the opposite, and I commend him for it. Well done, John.

[_Kevin Graham]

I'm bored, a little tipsy, and have some time to fart around with this. So I looked into this a bit further. Of the 6 papers Gee has published, 4 of them are apologetic in nature. (66%)

Of the 37 articles Gee has written, 26 of these are most certainly Apologetic. But of the remaining 11, many appear to have been written to serve an apologetic agenda as well, although the academic press that published it probably didn't recognize them as such. Consider the ones that are not published by the Church:

1. "Aramaic Funerary Practices in Egypt" - Ya think that has anything to do with the funerary text that is the Joseph Smith papyri?

2. "Towards an Interpretation of Hypocephali" - Again, a Hypocephalus is among the disputed material in the Joseph Smith Egyptian materials.

3. "Non-round Hypocephali" - Ditto above.

4. "Prophets, Initiation and the Egyptian Temple" - Yeah, no Mormon overtones there!

5. "On the Practice of Sealing in the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts" - Ditto above.

6. "Egyptian Middle Kingdom Contexts for Human Sacrifice" - Abraham was allegedly sacrificed in Facsimile #1 of the Joseph Smith papyri.

7. "S3 mi nn: A Temporary Conclusion" - According to Peterson, this is where Gee responds to Ritner's criticisms of Gee's apologetic claims.

So that is quite possibly 33 out of 37 published articles that directly relate to some LDS apologetic goal. (89%) The remaining five are:

1. "The Earliest Example of ph-ntr?" - Not sure what this was aboiut, but a google search pulls up only two links not originating from Mormon related domains, and the other two appear to be places where his publication history is listed. My point here is that apparently, we don't see this article being referenced by other Egyptologists in their own publications.

2. "Trial Marriage in Ancient Egypt? P. Louvre E 7846 Reconsidered" - Google pulls this up only eight times, none of which appear to be academic publications using Gee's article as a reference.

3. "A New Look at the ʿnḫ pɜ by Formula" - Only four results, three of which are BYU/Maxwell/wiki related, and the other is the same Pakistan database that listed the others above.

4. "Love and Marriage in the Ancient World: a historical Corrective" - Four results again, of the same hyperlinks mentioned above.

And for all I know, the information in these four articles might also touch on Mormon themes in a faith promoting manner that most non-LDS scholars would be totally unaware of.

And what about books published? Of the four books Gee has published, all of them are apologetic. 100%

So of the 47 publications by Gee, a whopping 41 or 87% of them are directly tied to his religious/apologetic agenda. So is it any wonder he doesn't advertise his curriculum on a website like most college professors do with pride? Any other Egyptologist who happened to stumble on his publication history would quickly realize what a crackpot he truly is and his credibility would be at further risk.

[_Trevor]

Kevin,

Is that his actual cv? If not, it is likely that some stuff has been omitted. And, by the way, there are numerous publications that Google does not cover. So, it is not as though we can know by looking at Google that Gee has not been cited by anyone else.

What does this prove about the relationship between Ritner and Gee?

[_Kevin Graham]

What am I supposed to draw from this?

I'm responding to Paul Simon's attempt to equate Ritner and Gee. And the attempt to assert Gee is gaining respectability rapidly in the field. I've heard Dan Peterson say this in the past, but Ritner disagrees. From my experience with respected scholars, they tend to be among those who are cited the most by other scholars. Showing up at conferences and offering your services to review obscure books might look nice in the publication section of a resume, but this doesn't necessarily translate to an increase in respectability.

I'm confident that if any non-LDS Egyptologist reads a single apologetic publication by Gee, that whatever "respect" they had of him would plummet.

And yes, I know Gee is involved in prestigious projects funded by BYU (the Church!). But I think this has more to do with his choice of religion than anything else.

[_Kevin Graham]

Kevin,

Is that his actual cv? If not, it is likely that some stuff has been omitted. And, by the way, there are numerous publications that Google does not cover. So, it is not as though we can know by looking at Google that Gee has not been cited by anyone else.

What does this prove about the relationship between Ritner and Gee?

The CV was available online before but it is not advertised and I don't have the hyperlink. But I remember seeing it a year or so ago, and it was a PDF file on a database at BYU. There might be a few extra papers he has published not to be found in the list above, but even if true, I doubt it makes much of a difference. It should be perfectly clear that his passion lies in defending the Church. Egyptology just seems to be a convenient means to serve that end.

[_EAllusion]

The short answer, Kevin Graham is that I do not know "what point Peterson was trying to get across;" I do not speak for Dr. Peterson, I cannot read his mind, and I do not know his intentions.

Apparently when DCP writes what amounts to blatant innuendo to damage Ritner's credibility in his audience's mind, it's impossible to figure out what he was saying or why he was saying it, because, after all, we can't read minds. One wonders how communication at all is possible with such barriers in place. Yet when it comes to virtually everything else, all of a sudden being able to figure out what people are saying and why they are saying it isn't destroyed by this mind-reading problem. Why, you even know that Ritner harbors religious bias towards Gee. Maybe you could use that mind-reading device that you had for him and apply it to other causes.

[_Trevor]

And yes, I know Gee is involved in prestigious projects funded by BYU (the Church!). But I think this has more to do with his choice of religion than anything else.

Wait...

Dr. Gee is currently the only Egyptologist from North America affiliated with the Totenbuch-Projekt of the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.

You're telling me that this project is funded by the LDS Church?