John Gee leaves bizarre message as he steps down from editorship, also his inappropriate Ritner review

[Lem]

That's really not all Jenkins is doing. He is a Christian historian working at a sectarian institution who is going online to call the Book of Mormon pseudo-history. That's not a neutral activity. And, yes, he compared his more reliable Christian historical views to the fact-free Book of Mormon story. Now, it is true that Jesus existed whereas Nephi is a construct that Joseph Smith invented, but Jesus is not the Eternal God from before the creation of the world or the resurrected Lord and Savior who will come back to judge the living and the dead because of history. Christianity is not "true" because Jesus existed, and Jenkins really ought not passively to bootstrap this in even an indirect way.

I'm not sure what to even say to this. Are we being punked? This is a blatant misrepresentation of Jenkins' discussions with Hamblin .

Unless your readers read Egyptian too, what are they going to get from Ritner saying Nibley translated something incorrectly? Will they really benefit from that? All they will know is that scholar A says he is better at translating Egyptian than scholar B. Which of the readers of Dialogue learned better Egyptian because Ritner put the smackdown in Nibley's translations?

that explains why people buy grocery store tabloids with headlines of UFOs and Elvis sightings, I suppose. I didn't know Dialogue readers were considered to be that gullible and non-discerning. Seriously, though, there seems to be some other issue here, because these statements about factual academic offerings seem really beyond the pale.

[Kishkumen]

I think I still do agree with Lem, that when Jenkins was arguing with Hamblin he was indeed being fairly consistent, acknowledging that there were things people just took on faith but trying to get Hamblin to stop claiming to have a lot more substance than he did. Not everything can or should be math or physics, but it doesn't follow that all speculations and suppositions are equally valid. I think it's fair for scholars to argue that something has crossed a line and is claiming more legitimacy than it warrants. The people who try to hold that kind of line are likely to have their own debatable propositions that they uphold; people who just have no idea what's involved in weighing plausibility of untestable claims are not the right people for that kind of debate.

Yes, I am not saying that Jenkins does not have a valuable point. I am saying he has partisan motivations. Whether a person is comfortable with how he handles that or not is a matter of perspective. I have a problem with him, as a Christian professor teaching religious history at a Christian university, calling the Book of Mormon “pseudo-history” as though a work of American scripture should be called history at all. His framing is obviously prejudiced and prejudicial. The Bible is not history either. Neither book was written to tell us what happened in the past in factual terms. Both texts (or collections) are primarily theologically driven. So, him calling it pseudo-history is kinda dumb in the first place. What is pseudo-history, however, is Mopologetics. Anyone who treats the Book of Mormon as history or as pseudo-history is barking up the wrong tree. We know the Biblical texts are, in terms of genre, not history. They do mention some past events and figures, certainly Kings, Chronicles, and Judges are more about actual past events than, say, Genesis, Exodus, Job, or Daniel. But still, not history.

I view calling the Book of Mormon pseudo-history to be a combination of click-bait and being kind of a prick, and then pretending to be high-minded or philosophical. Then Bill Hamblin springs the trap set for him, and the rest is popcorn viewing. Hamblin was Jenkins’ perfect mark.

[Lem]

I think I still do agree with Lem, that when Jenkins was arguing with Hamblin he was indeed being fairly consistent, acknowledging that there were things people just took on faith but trying to get Hamblin to stop claiming to have a lot more substance than he did. Not everything can or should be math or physics, but it doesn't follow that all speculations and suppositions are equally valid. I think it's fair for scholars to argue that something has crossed a line and is claiming more legitimacy than it warrants. The people who try to hold that kind of line are likely to have their own debatable propositions that they uphold; people who just have no idea what's involved in weighing plausibility of untestable claims are not the right people for that kind of debate.

Yes, I am not saying that Jenkins does not have a valuable point. I am saying he has partisan motivations. Whether a person is comfortable with how he handles that or not is a matter of debate. I have a problem with him, as a Christian professor teaching religious history at a Christian university, calling the Book of Mormon “pseudo-history” as though a work of American scripture should be called history at all. His framing is obviously prejudiced and prejudicial. The Bible is not history either. Neither book was written to tell us what happened in the past in factual terms. Both texts (or collections) are primarily theologically driven. So, him calling it pseudo-history is kinda dumb in the first place. What is pseudo-history, however, is Mopologetics. Anyone who treats the Book of Mormon as history or as pseudo-history is barking up the wrong tree. We know the Biblical texts are, in terms of genre, not history. They do mention some past events and figures, certainly Kings, Chronicles, and Judges are more about actual past events than, say, Genesis, Exodus, Job, or Daniel. But still, not history.

I view calling the Book of Mormon pseudo-history to be a combination of click-bait and being kind of a prick, and then pretending to be high-minded or philosophical. Then Bill Hamblin springs the trap set for him, and the rest is popcorn viewing. Hamblin was Jenkins’ perfect mark.

I thought I remembered a very different opinion typically coming from our dear Reverend Kishkumen on this subject, so the above leaves me a little nonplussed. I thought maybe I was remembering wrongly, so I looked up the last discussion we had on this, on the old board. In July of 2020, ihaq started a remembrance thread for the 5 year anniversary of the Jenkins-Hamblin debates, and in that thread our dear Reverend posted this:

In my view the real significance of the Jenkins/Hamblin debate is that it constitutes the first time a non-LDS historian with real career gravitas told an LDS academic and apologist point blank: "The Book of Mormon does not meet the minimum evidentiary threshold even to be considered by scholars as a possible ancient work."

It is not as though other people, including the Reverend here, had not said the same thing before. Jenkins said it a lot better, and he said it as a non-LDS historian of some reputation (and debatably with no real dog in the fight).

http://mormondiscussions.com/viewtopic. ... 6#p1232326

Not that opinions can't change, and even rapidly, but I'm curious as to what happened to prompt what seems to be such a significant change in this view of Jenkins, in such a short time.

[Lem]

Going backtothe topic of the OP, IHAQ made an interesting point:

As for Gee: I agree with those who've already pointed out the similarities to his crashing-and-burning of this Egyptology journal versus Daniel Peterson's crashing-and-burning at the Maxwell Institute. Both of them had issues that were badly overdue; both of them were using the journals to exact revenge on critics. Both of them were sent packing as a consequence.

The timeline is interesting.
Gee "departs" as editor of the JESSA 2010
Peterson "departs" as editor of the FARMS review 2012

Has Gee academically published anything related to Egyptology since 2010 that was peer reviewed?

I don't necessarily think the events are connected, but they are certainly related in the sense that both journals were definitely determined to be in need of a different type of editorship.

[Kishkumen]

Yes, Lem, that is a different opinion, and one I stand by. What it is not is a contradictory opinion. If you recall, I said in my most recent opinion that I thought Jenkins had done something worthwhile. I described that something at greater length in the earlier post, which you have helpfully quoted. Presently, I am writing about the partisan motivations behind those services, which is really a different thing. Jenkins’ framing of the question reveals his bias, and I would add that it is an error of categories, in that he has assigned the Book of Mormon to the wrong genre, and probably on purpose.

But, yes, I am very happy he did advance the case against the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, as it is not an ancient work in the sense of being something written in antiquity. The difference between Jenkins and me is that he holds things made up thousands of years ago to be the word of God and inherently more worthy of reverence. I would ask what the difference is between made up then and made up some centuries later. The point about the degree of made up is valid and welcome, but then there are plenty of books in the Bible that are completely imaginary in origin.

[Lem]

Yes, Lem, that is a different opinion, and one I stand by. What it is not is a contradictory opinion.

We will have to agree to disagree on that.

The difference between Jenkins and me is that he holds things made up thousands of years ago to be the word of God and inherently more worthy of reverence. I would ask what the difference is between made up then and made up some centuries later. The point of degree of made up is valid and welcome, but then there are plenty of books in the Bible that are completely imaginary in origin.

I would have to disagree with the characterization that we are only talking about "what the difference is between made up then and made up some centuries later". Jenkins was very clear on that distinction:

As to his question about New Testament study, ...that is in no sense an analogy to the Book of Mormon stuff, where the whole goal has to be to establish, via empirical history and archaeology, whether any of those peoples or societies ever existed. Nobody but nobody doubts that the Jewish world existed in roughly the form described in the New Testament, nor that the Roman Empire existed much as it did.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/anxiousben ... l-hamblin/

[Kishkumen]

I would have to disagree with the characterization that we are only talking about "what the difference is between made up then and made up some centuries later". Jenkins was very clear on that distinction:

I never said that Jenkins does not know the difference between the Gospels and Job. What I am saying is that he would never publicly criticize parts of the Bible for being made up because that would be bad for his employment. He will casually insult Mormons because he can do so with impunity. Of course he will use history to make the fairly bogus point that Jesus being a real person makes the Bible better, but that is also tied up in his partisanship and bigotry. At the end of the day, Jesus’ existence does not make his resurrection real or make him the God who created everything. Yes, religionists believe in made up stuff. He is living in a glass house too. I don’t really admire his prejudice against Mormonism. He belongs to a tradition of Protestant bullies who pick on people who belong to non-Protestant religions.

[Lem]

...What I am saying is that he would never publicly criticize parts of the Bible for being made up because that would be bad for his employment. He will casually insult Mormons because he can do so with impunity.

What? Did you not read my quote about the difference between what Mormons claim and what is known??? Your statement that he casually insults Mormons in no way reflects the actual discussion.

Of course he will use history to make the fairly bogus point that Jesus being a real person makes the Bible better, but that is also tied up in his partisanship and bigotry. At the end of the day, Jesus’ existence does not make his resurrection real or make him the God who created everything.

I feel like we are not even in the same conversation. Jenkins is not talking about "Jesus being a real person" in his objections to Mormon truth claims.

Yes, religionists believe in made up stuff. He is living in a glass house too.

Now I know we are not having the same conversation. Jenkins is talking about history, archeology, and factual information.

I don’t really admire his prejudice against Mormonism. He belongs to a tradition of Protestant bullies who pick on people who belong to non-Protestant religions.

Ok. From my perspective, talking about factual issues in a truthful and consistent manner doesn't make one a bully or prejudiced. We will, again, have to agree to disagree on that point.

[Kishkumen]

As has always been the case in this series of posts in this thread, I am talking about the partisan motivations behind arguments, even valid and useful ones. I am not writing to criticize the arguments themselves. I am glad you recognize that we are not having the same conversation. I have not deviated from my position here in any way.

[Lem]

As has always been the case in this series of posts in this thread, I am talking about the partisan motivations behind arguments, even valid and useful ones. I am not writing to criticize the arguments themselves. I am glad you recognize that we are not having the same conversation. I have not deviated from my position here in any way.

Of course not.

Jenkins said it a lot better, and he said it as a non-LDS historian of some reputation (and debatably with no real dog in the fight).

Also Kishkumen about Jenkins:

He belongs to a tradition of Protestant bullies who pick on people who belong to non-Protestant religions.

Obviously there is some other "motivation behind arguments," as you mentioned. Clearly, if I start a thread, you will feel obligated to disagree regardless of your previous opinions, but your flip-flops are getting ridiculous. A new thread with your own objections to Jenkins' position would be welcomed, if only so that this thread can avoid a derailment.