The Egyptian Test

[_The Dude]

I posted this just before Dunamis (called out of retirement, apparently) cut the comments off of Gee's OP and made them a "peanut gallery" thread that's now virtually ignored.



When Dr. Gee was a student at the University of Chicago, he was a student of Egyptologist Robert Ritner. Dr. Ritner has taken a lot of flack on this board since he wrote an article in the Journal of Near Eastern Studies. David Bokovoy has been one of the major critics.

From the thread "By His Own Biased Hand: Robert Ritner on the Book of Abraham" (This can also be found in David's blog.)

Though I welcome the insights offered by Ritner in his article, I do not appreciate the biased tone Ritner employed throughout his assessment. Unfortunately, Ritner’s bias against the beliefs of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints renders the article non-scholarly. His essay is unbecoming the Journal of Near Eastern Studies.

From the thread "Robert Ritner's article on the Book of Abraham: A major blemish for JNES"

I find it inconceivable that Robert Ritner, a trained professional, would choose to affiliate himself with a work and an organization that demonstrates such a clear lack of understanding regarding the Hebrew Bible and the ancient Near East.

David did invite Ritner to participate:

Since I posted a few highly critical comments of your affiliation with the Institute for Religious Research, I was encouraged to send you an email inviting you to respond. While I doubt that you would be interested in so doing, here is the link:

To my knowledge, Dr. Ritner has never posted here. But ask yourselves how it would have looked if Ritner had come here, and rather than address David's charge of bias and the characterization of Ritner's article as "non-scholarly" and "embarassing to the JNES", what if Ritner instead devised an Egyptology test for David and stated that anyone who couldn't pass it was incompetent and irrelevant. Wouldn't that seem like he was just avoiding the potentially legitimate issues David has raised? How many of you LDS would have screamed smokescreen!!!

Hmmmm?

[_Runtu]

I don't have a dog in this fight, but it seems to me that people are just talking past each other at this point. On the one hand, we have a group crowing that no one on the board has the expertise to answer Dr. Gee's questions, so everyone should just shut up. On the other hand are the critics saying that the expertise is irrelevant. I doubt anyone's going to come to an agreement anytime soon.

[_Blixa]

Just read the whole thing. Hilarious. Props to Dan Vogel.

[_skippy the dead]

Dan Vogel is totally my hero, along with Tarski.

The absurdity of the whole Gee challenge (while Bokovoy is getting "certified" for being about-to-be published, even though he doesn't know Egyptian!) continues to amaze me.

[_dartagnan]

Just a correction, Gee studied under Ritner at Yale, not the U of Chicago. Ritner has since moved to Chicago where is heads the dept.

[_CaliforniaKid]

CKSalmon was kind enough to open a new thread for substantive discussion. Aside from a few brief comments by Ben McGuire (to which I responded at length), the thread was been eerily quiet.

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... opic=25111

[_The Dude]

Kevin- thanks for the correction. I thought I remembered Yale, but then I saw someone said U of Chicago so I thought my memory was just off.

CaliforniaKid -- You've kept your cool. Way to go, man.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I answered some of Gee's questions and invited him to participate on the board. We'll see what happens.

[_Dan Vogel]

I answered some of Gee's questions and invited him to participate on the board. We'll see what happens.

I thought you made some very good points, and was sorry to see them get lost in the fray over accusations. At least it roused a response in him, so that perhaps we can get him involved in a legitimate discussion about the missing papyri theory.

[_CaliforniaKid]

He emailed me back and indicated that he appreciated my attempt to answer some of the questions and will get back to me on Monday.