Yale University granted John Gee a doctorate in Egyptology.
So? Liars and hypocrites get degres all the time. You don't get to dismiss dishonesty just because someone went through the motions and got a doctorate.
It's rather amusing to see at least one person here trying to explain that fact away as insignificant.
It is amusing to see you trying to make this significant when in fact it is irrelevant to the point. No one every said Gee didn't get a doctorate from Yale. The only people who ever throw up Gee's credentials are you and Gee.
John Gee's "scholarship," as he puts it, is and was a joke, according to the local expert here.
As it relates to his apologetics, yes, absolutely. He is an apologist first, a scholar last. And I have proven it on many occasions. You're not in a position to refute it either, or else you would have done so by now. Instead, we get the usual bravado and chest thumping from the ivory tower. I know you think you are putting us down because we don't have doctorates, but what is more embarrassing here. Not having a doctorate, or having one and being refuted by someone who doesn't need one? It proves John Gee wasted his life studying Egyptian, thinking he could save the Book of Abraham for rational thinkers. But all he has done is produce one deceptive apologetic piece of garbage after the next.
And the easily-manipulated fools at Yale -- some kind of east coast diploma mill, apparently -- simply went along with it, perhaps bought out by Mormon money or leaned upon by Guido "The Fist," who directs the LDS Institute in New Haven
The fact is Gee was guaranteed a job at BYU before he ever got his doctorate. Ritner never said he wouldn't give Gee a PhD, as you and Stem seem to think. What he said was that he required more work that Gee had not completed to his satisfaction, within his time frame. Meaning, Gee would have to go back and do the necessary work required of him. But it seems Gee was in a hurry because he had a job waiting on him and Ritner was not willing to abide by Gee's timeline. So Gee probably got the Church involved, and the necessary strings were pulled. This is hardly astonishing news. How the hell do you think George Bush got into Harvard?!? It isn't what you know, it is who you know.
Again, according to this board's resident expert on such matters. (Which certainly seems a casually slanderous depiction of the person who replaced Robert Ritner as John Gee's dissertation chairman!)
If you think rules cannot be bents, standards relaxed, even in academia, then you're just being dishonest again. You of all people should know this is true. And it is especially true in the Church where political connections mean everything. Funny how the upper tier of LDS leadership seems to get passed down through the same families, and the same friends, huh? When I was active, the bishop was always trying to make phone calls to "facilitate" things a bit, whether it be school or job related. There were always Mormons somewhere in a position to influence those who could make things happen. It is the Mormon way.
Incidentally, BYU, at least, has fairly commonly hired people who were still in the process of writing their dissertations. I was hired in that fashion, and so, I think, were at least two of the other three Arabists in my department.
Ah, so it is something unique to BYU. Color me surprised.
That is to say that there is nothing particularly unusual in John Gee's having been hired before he had quite finished his Ph.D.
Oh of course not. It is entirely reasonable to assume someone who has spent the past decade banging away at Egyptology, suddenly has the required training to be a teacher at the university level. Exactly how many books had he published by the time he was hired? He had tons of publications as an apologist we know, but then again FARMS standards for apologetic publication requires a testimony and a zeal to spin the facts. But that's what they were looking for. Someone who would tow the party line faithfully. Someone who could pump out some apologetic nonsense about the Book of Abraham and because he went to Yale, we're just supposed to take it for granted. Someone they knew would defend the Church no matter what amount of evidence comes his way. Someone who could throw the weight of his Yale credentials behind it so people like you can trick others into thinking that this is all that's needed.
Oh, and don't think your audience didn't notice you ignoring the specific examples I pointed out where Gee's doctorate degree didn't prevent him from lying.