"2 Inks" Gee criticises scholarly standards of JSP Project

[_Symmachus]

I, for one, am grateful to Brother Gee for pointing out some typos in a book that has nothing to do with Egyptology. If his typographical insights don't establish him as the foremost apologeticist of his age, I don't know what will.

[_aussieguy55]

Brian Hauglid on Facebook response

"Brian Hauglid I think the biggest error in the two Interpreter reviews is mischaracterizing Revelations and Translations Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts as an Egyptology book when that is simply not the case. A small portion of the book (early on) does introduce the papyri fragments, in which cases we cited the appropriate literature from trained Egyptologists for those data. However, the core purpose of the book is to provide a documentary edition that offers photos and transcriptions of a variety of 19th-century documents related (albeit sometimes indirectly) to the book of Abraham and not to the Egyptian language, its history, or its culture. The volume primarily delves into what we can learn about and from these documents within the context of 19th-century American religious history."

[_Philo Sofee]

Brian Hauglid on Facebook response

"Brian Hauglid I think the biggest error in the two Interpreter reviews is mischaracterizing Revelations and Translations Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts as an Egyptology book when that is simply not the case. A small portion of the book (early on) does introduce the papyri fragments, in which cases we cited the appropriate literature from trained Egyptologists for those data. However, the core purpose of the book is to provide a documentary edition that offers photos and transcriptions of a variety of 19th-century documents related (albeit sometimes indirectly) to the book of Abraham and not to the Egyptian language, its history, or its culture. The volume primarily delves into what we can learn about and from these documents within the context of 19th-century American religious history."

So Gee still wants to try and get one up on Ritner for getting slaughtered mercilessly to the rest of the Egyptological world, and deliberately mischaracterized the book!?

Oh what infighting we get to behold....(grabs some popcorn)

[_aussieguy55]

Would the publications by the Joseph Smiths people have to be approved by leadership. Over on the MAD board they are even suggesting the current "What an unfortunate essay from the otherwise faithful Jeff Lindsay.

The JSP are an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As such, they are to be considered authoritative statements on history and doctrine. It troubles me to see Jeff so willingly criticize works that were published under the auspices of the First Presidency. Simply because the official Church position doesn't match a personal view, does not give one license to openly criticize official works of the Church.

I'm very disappointed to see this."

Is there a schism coming?

[_moksha]

I, for one, am grateful to Brother Gee for pointing out some typos in a book that has nothing to do with Egyptology. If his typographical insights don't establish him as the foremost apologeticist of his age, I don't know what will.

To be a foremost apologist there must be a series of personal attacks with personal and profession injury intended in the attacks. There must be blood on the knife and authenticated photos circulated among those who have sworn allegiance to the memory of FARMS. Pointing out typographical errors is a good start. Regular insightful reviews do not count.

[_I have a question]

This amount of errors in a book they spent seven years compiling and revising is shocking, and that’s without even going into the assumptions the editors have regarding the translation process and order. What a mess.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.o ... -stumbles/

This seems like a fair summation of the main point behind Gee's hit piece and the supportive comments. Gee et al seem to have forgotten the spirit of the message once given (and it is a principal maintained to this day) by Mr Oaks "It’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true." Given that the Joseph Smith Papers project is an official Church project, isn't public criticism of it tantamount to publicly criticising the Brethren? Shouldn't his note about his concerns about this project have been sent privately to the Church Historian? Isn't Gee now guilty of evil speaking of the Lords anointed?

Here's the Oaks quote in context, which makes it even more damning of Gee's petulant outburst.

I also said something else that has excited people: that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true, because it diminishes their effectiveness as a servant of the Lord. One can work to correct them by some other means, but don’t go about saying that they misbehaved when they were a youngster or whatever. Well, of course, that sounds like religious censorship also.

But not everything that’s true is useful. I am a lawyer, and I hear something from a client. It’s true, but I’ll be disciplined professionally if I share it because it’s part of the attorney-client privilege. There’s a husband-wife privilege, there’s a priest-penitent privilege, and so on. That’s an illustration of the fact that not everything that’s true is useful to be shared.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Dallin_H._Oaks/It’s_wrong_to_criticize_leaders_of_the_Church,_even_if_the_criticism_is_true

[_aussieguy55]

An now this - Robin Jensen responds on Facebook

Sorry, just getting around to this. I apologize in advance for the length.

Before directly speaking to John Gee’s review, I want to make sure everyone knows two things upfront: 1) I do not kid myself in thinking that the JSP volumes are free from error. I’m extraordinarily proud of our volumes and the team of people who make them as good as they are. I can only hope that the level of dedication that goes into these volumes is seen even in a small amount by the users of the volumes. But no published volume is perfect, and we’ve made some errors in the past. I welcome any and all corrections from any source, even if those corrections might be painful. 2) I know that John Gee gets some bad press from various places outside of the small circle of apologists to the Book of Abraham. The level of attacks he gets from both scholars and “liberal” minded Mormons is something I cannot and will not share in. I would venture to speculate that John Gee has done more for and prompted more research on or about the Book of Abraham than even Hugh Nibley and for that I’ll be grateful to him. Academia can often be a critical and cruel place and I try my hardest to recognize people’s contributions even if I might not agree with details of their scholarship.

So JSP volumes are not free from error and John Gee has done tremendous work in moving Book of Abraham scholarship forward. Whatever I say should be seen resting on that foundation.

I welcome any and all reviews of R4. I’m very proud of the volume, but fundamental to the JSP volumes is that they will prompt further research. The goal of documentary editing is to provide sources that other scholars can use to do their own research. I look forward to that future research.

John Gee is wrong about his specific claims of transcription errors. I’m not saying there are no transcription errors in the volume—I’m not naïve to believe that we did everything 100% accurate. What I’m saying is that I’ve looked at every one of John’s claims of where we’ve made mistakes and he’s not correct in saying we’ve made an error in any of his examples. How can this be? Easy. Transcription is not an exact science. If you give a 19th-century document to a dozen different scholars to transcribe, there will be a dozen different transcriptions. Anyone who is familiar with documentary editing will recognize this. Can there be a “right” and “wrong” way of transcribing? Sure. The word “dog” can be transcribed as “cat” and be wrong in everyone’s book. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. John’s idea of transcription and the JSP style of transcription is just so dissimilar. We have an editorial method at the beginning of each of our volumes where we carefully lay out our style and method of transcription. (The joke up and down the halls of the JSP is that it’s at the top of the list of pieces in our volume that no one reads.) It lays out details of our philosophy, but like any writing, it can’t lay everything out. Basically speaking, transcription involves hundreds of judgment calls for every manuscript page. Is this a comma or a period? Is that a capital P or a lowercase p? is that an unclosed “a” or is it a “u”? Is that writeover canceled before they wrote the second layer or was it canceled with the entire word later? Is that character that was partially knife erased and then written over a “d” or a “t”? Is that word squeezed into the line an insertion at the time or a later redaction? Etc. etc. Some scribes are better than others and familiarity with scribes certainly helps, but it’s not a simple matter of sitting down and typing what’s on the page. The very nature of representing 19th script into modern typographical form is impossible from the start. There’s a reason we feature the images in our facsimile volumes: images portray the documents better than the typescript—but even images are not perfect. Even access to the original doesn’t solve all the answers.

In other words, in every instance of John’s correction of our typescript, he’s not right in the sense that he’s got an entirely different transcription philosophy than ours. He might be right according to his philosophy, but he’s not right according to ours. For instance, we are not as strict in representing what’s on a page. If a scribe doesn’t fully close the top of an “a” we don’t actually represent that as a “u”. We “give” the scribe a bit of leeway in our transcription. When making a transcription, you have to understand what it is that you want with your documentary editing project. Are you worried about marks on the page? Are you interested in the meaning of the text? While simple questions, they have ramifications upon everything you do in the field of documentary editing. That he doesn’t understand this simple fact doesn’t worry me. It just shows me that he’s not familiar with documentary editing. Which is fine. I’m not trained in or familiar with Egyptology and I don’t pretend to be. When we had questions relating to Egyptology in our volume beyond our expertise, we consulted with those with that experience (including John Gee). It’s how good scholarship is done.

I don’t agree with John’s philosophy of documentary editing (such as I’ve gleaned and oversimplified it from his review of our volume. I’m likely wrong in many of the details). He seems to think there is certitude in the documents. He mentions that there are many, many places in our transcriptions where we use the open diamond to represent an illegible character. He states this as if it were a critique of the volume. I proudly cite to it as a strength of the volume (seriously, I’m happy to know the number. 213!). If there’s a reading that I can’t read in the document, I’m not going to pretend that I know what that reading is. I’m not going to represent a character in the transcription that is unclear to me. These documents are full of ambiguity. The transcriptions—with their illegible characters—represents some of that ambiguity. I’m not going to lead scholars down a particular path if I’m not sure of that path myself. Our job on the Joseph Smith Papers is to present the documents, tell them what we know, speculate about things we feel are responsible speculations, and to not relay things to our readers that is not supported by the evidence.

But to recap on the most important things that you should take from what I’ve written: Our volumes are not free from error and I don’t assume that they are. We already have an errata sheet of the corrections we have determined are accurate based upon the two latest reviews at the Interpreter (and other errors we’ve seen). I’m confident that there will be more with more reviews. And second, John Gee’s scholarship and writings have prompted a significant amount of scholarship on the Book of Abraham. I respect his dedication to the field. After all, he and I have the same goal in mind: Finding truth about scripture held sacred by millions of people throughout the church. And while we’re doing that in different ways, our shared vision of Zion (as broadly as people want to interpret that) is something that will forever unify us.

[_grindael]

I also said something else that has excited people: that it’s wrong to criticize leaders of the Church, even if the criticism is true, because it diminishes their effectiveness as a servant of the Lord. One can work to correct them by some other means, but don’t go about saying that they misbehaved when they were a youngster or whatever. Well, of course, that sounds like religious censorship also.

But not everything that’s true is useful. I am a lawyer, and I hear something from a client. It’s true, but I’ll be disciplined professionally if I share it because it’s part of the attorney-client privilege. There’s a husband-wife privilege, there’s a priest-penitent privilege, and so on. That’s an illustration of the fact that not everything that’s true is useful to be shared.

Yeah and this is the kind of thing that allowed abusers to run rampant at schools, colleges, etc. The Coach/player privilege... how did that work out for those who had this guy as a coach?

[_I have a question]

An now this - Robin Jensen responds on Facebook

John Gee is wrong about his specific claims of transcription errors. I’m not saying there are no transcription errors in the volume—I’m not naïve to believe that we did everything 100% accurate. What I’m saying is that I’ve looked at every one of John’s claims of where we’ve made mistakes and he’s not correct in saying we’ve made an error in any of his examples. How can this be? Easy. Transcription is not an exact science. If you give a 19th-century document to a dozen different scholars to transcribe, there will be a dozen different transcriptions. Anyone who is familiar with documentary editing will recognize this. Can there be a “right” and “wrong” way of transcribing? Sure. The word “dog” can be transcribed as “cat” and be wrong in everyone’s book. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. John’s idea of transcription and the JSP style of transcription is just so dissimilar. We have an editorial method at the beginning of each of our volumes where we carefully lay out our style and method of transcription. (The joke up and down the halls of the JSP is that it’s at the top of the list of pieces in our volume that no one reads.) It lays out details of our philosophy, but like any writing, it can’t lay everything out. Basically speaking, transcription involves hundreds of judgment calls for every manuscript page. Is this a comma or a period? Is that a capital P or a lowercase p? is that an unclosed “a” or is it a “u”? Is that writeover canceled before they wrote the second layer or was it canceled with the entire word later? Is that character that was partially knife erased and then written over a “d” or a “t”? Is that word squeezed into the line an insertion at the time or a later redaction? Etc. etc. Some scribes are better than others and familiarity with scribes certainly helps, but it’s not a simple matter of sitting down and typing what’s on the page. The very nature of representing 19th script into modern typographical form is impossible from the start. There’s a reason we feature the images in our facsimile volumes: images portray the documents better than the typescript—but even images are not perfect. Even access to the original doesn’t solve all the answers.

In other words, in every instance of John’s correction of our typescript, he’s not right in the sense that he’s got an entirely different transcription philosophy than ours. He might be right according to his philosophy, but he’s not right according to ours. For instance, we are not as strict in representing what’s on a page. If a scribe doesn’t fully close the top of an “a” we don’t actually represent that as a “u”. We “give” the scribe a bit of leeway in our transcription. When making a transcription, you have to understand what it is that you want with your documentary editing project. Are you worried about marks on the page? Are you interested in the meaning of the text? While simple questions, they have ramifications upon everything you do in the field of documentary editing. That he doesn’t understand this simple fact doesn’t worry me. It just shows me that he’s not familiar with documentary editing. Which is fine. I’m not trained in or familiar with Egyptology and I don’t pretend to be. When we had questions relating to Egyptology in our volume beyond our expertise, we consulted with those with that experience (including John Gee). It’s how good scholarship is done.

Ouch

[_Shulem]

Ouch

Robin Scott Jensen is posting over on the MORMON dialogue & discussion board.

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John Gee: "The Joseph Smith Papers Project Stumbles"