Scholarship & Faith - John Gee interview

[hope_for_things]

I just listened to an interview with John Gee on this Mormon News Report podcast, and I'd like to discuss some comments he made around the book of Abraham and biblical source criticism.  The kind of thinking here by John Gee makes me question his objectivity, but I've heard this same kind of thinking espoused on this board in the past as well.  

Towards the end of the interview Mr. Gee talks for a few minutes about a conflict between a historical BoA and biblical source criticism, and specifically multiple authors for the OT, which is described in the the documentary hypothesis.   He essentially said you can't reconcile the two ideas, historicity for the BoA and source criticism. 

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

I would like to understand how a scholar of his training can just dismiss mainstream biblical scholars because he finds that they don't all agree on every particular.  To me, this is an example of someone taking their religious conviction (a belief in a historical BoA) and using that as evidence in a scholarly discipline.  This would be akin to someone in the field of biology assuming that their belief in the resurrection of Jesus can be used as evidence in the field of biology that we have proof that human bodies can be transformed into an immortal state.  They could then reject any scientific evidence to the contrary, no matter how strong the evidence otherwise.  

Can anyone who believes similarly expound on this kind of thinking, or maybe I'm misunderstanding Mr. Gee and those that think similarly.  This is one of those things that completely perplexes me, especially coming from someone who has the expertise that he does, it seems like a completely illogical and even dishonest approach to the scholarship.  Thoughts? 

http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/2017/10/09/mormon-news-report-podcast-episode-14-week-of-9-october-2017/

[CA Steve]

I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall in a room where David Bokovoy and Job Gee discussed source criticism.

 

 

[hope_for_things]

1 minute ago, CA Steve said:

I would love to be a fly-on-the-wall in a room where David Bokovoy and Job Gee discussed source criticism.

Gee is trying to dismiss biblical mainstream scholarship so it seems to me that he wouldn't even be able to have an intelligent argument to start with.  I don't see Bokovoy contesting the mainstream in Egyptology scholarship or something similar to what Gee is doing.  I just don't understand how someone who's trained in a discipline and understands the details of that discipline and the role of the academy can dismiss the mainstream of another discipline and do so with any intellectual integrity.  

[Danzo]

49 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

 The kind of thinking here by John Gee makes me question his objectivity, but I've heard this same kind of thinking espoused on this board in the past as well.  

Is there such a thing as objectivity?

I really haven't seen it.

[hope_for_things]

1 minute ago, Danzo said:

Is there such a thing as objectivity?

I really haven't seen it.

For religious convictions, I agree those are subjective, but for scholarly endeavors there needs to be as much objectivity as possible.  Do you think there is no distinction between the two?  

Are all the sciences just a matter of subjectivity?  Homeopathy is just as objective as the science of DNA sequencing?  All things are just a matter of subjective opinion in the scholarly disciplines?  

[pogi]

14 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

All things are just a matter of subjective opinion in the scholarly disciplines?  

I would say yes.  They are all a matter of subjective interpretation.  Some are simply more scholarly and careful in their conclusions, such as in your example of homeopathy vs DNA sequencing science.  

[Danzo]

20 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

For religious convictions, I agree those are subjective, but for scholarly endeavors there needs to be as much objectivity as possible.  Do you think there is no distinction between the two?  

Are all the sciences just a matter of subjectivity?  Homeopathy is just as objective as the science of DNA sequencing?  All things are just a matter of subjective opinion in the scholarly disciplines?  

I find that complete objectivity is an illusion. It is much better when someone states his view outright.

There are degrees to this, of course, but some of the sciences, especially the social sciences are heavily influenced but the opinions of the researchers.  

 

As an interesting hobby, I like to read history books written during different time periods.  For Just for fun, you should read a history of the US civil war written, say in 1900 vs 1950 vs Today (of course, we know the history books written today must be correct, and everything else is wrong and heavily biased).

About six months ago, I came across a history book for school children in Mexico written about fifty years ago.  Its version of the Mexican american war was a bit different than the version I learned in college.  

When I was younger I was a bit disappointed when I discovered the same event could be interpreted in so many different ways.  Now, I find it fascinating.  I believe that history books say more about the time they were written in than the time they are writing about. 

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2017 by Danzo

[hope_for_things]

19 minutes ago, pogi said:

I would say yes.  They are all a matter of subjective interpretation.  Some are simply more scholarly and careful in their conclusions, such as in your example of homeopathy vs DNA sequencing science.  

I think there is a huge different between the two, and I think that its important that we learn the critical thinking skills necessary to distinguish between things of substance and those without.  

https://www.alverno.edu/media/alvernocollege/library/pdfs/badscience.pdf

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

I just listened to an interview with John Gee on this Mormon News Report podcast, and I'd like to discuss some comments he made around the book of Abraham and biblical source criticism.  The kind of thinking here by John Gee makes me question his objectivity, but I've heard this same kind of thinking espoused on this board in the past as well.  

Towards the end of the interview Mr. Gee talks for a few minutes about a conflict between a historical BoA and biblical source criticism, and specifically multiple authors for the OT, which is described in the the documentary hypothesis.   He essentially said you can't reconcile the two ideas, historicity for the BoA and source criticism. 

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

I would like to understand how a scholar of his training can just dismiss mainstream biblical scholars because he finds that they don't all agree on every particular.  To me, this is an example of someone taking their religious conviction (a belief in a historical BoA) and using that as evidence in a scholarly discipline.  This would be akin to someone in the field of biology assuming that their belief in the resurrection of Jesus can be used as evidence in the field of biology that we have proof that human bodies can be transformed into an immortal state.  They could then reject any scientific evidence to the contrary, no matter how strong the evidence otherwise.  

Can anyone who believes similarly expound on this kind of thinking, or maybe I'm misunderstanding Mr. Gee and those that think similarly.  This is one of those things that completely perplexes me, especially coming from someone who has the expertise that he does, it seems like a completely illogical and even dishonest approach to the scholarship.  Thoughts? 

http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/2017/10/09/mormon-news-report-podcast-episode-14-week-of-9-october-2017/

   I hate podcasts because (1) my hearing is crappy and (2) because I cannot go back and reference any particular part to make or break a point. I did listen to the podcast though and I do believe that you have characterized Doctor Gee's position incorrectly. He does say that it is not possible to reconcile the Book of Abraham and source criticism, i.e. if you accept one you must pretty much discard the other. He notes that he has yet to observe any scholar (and I assume he meant LDS scholar) successfully or maybe rather logically bridge that gap. He does say that there are disagreements among the the different documentary hypothesis scholars as one of the problems that he has and he describes a couple of others. However he is actually talking about a new book that he has published on the Book of Abraham in which he discusses the problems he has with the documentary hypothesis. We probably have to read the book to get the full context of what he is saying and not just a few sound bites.

Glenn

[hope_for_things]

22 minutes ago, Danzo said:

I find that complete objectivity is an illusion. It is much better when someone states his view outright.

There are degrees to this, of course, but some of the sciences, especially the social sciences are heavily influenced but the opinions of the researchers.  

As an interesting hobby, I like to read history books written during different time periods.  For Just for fun, you should read a history of the US civil war written, say in 1900 vs 1950 vs Today (of course, we know the history books written today must be correct, and everything else is wrong and heavily biased).

About six months ago, I came across a history book for school children in Mexico written about fifty years ago.  Its version of the Mexican american war was a bit different than the version I learned in college.  

When I was younger I was a bit disappointed when I discovered the same event could be interpreted in so many different ways.  Now, I find it fascinating.  I believe that history books say more about the time they were written in than the time they are writing about. 

 

Surely you can see the difference between the evolution of a discipline moving towards better understanding, differing perspectives on historical events, and increased understanding of these perspectives, and someone just rejecting those ideas that run contrary to their religious convictions, independent of actually logical arguments. 

If Mr. Gee wanted to promulgate his ideas about source criticism and let those ideas win in the arena of ideas, he could do that, but it would require that his arguments could persuade and engage with the level of scholarship out there.  Just dismissing the mainstream because it doesn't align with a faith proposition seems to run contrary to the foundations upon which all our scholarship is built.  

[hope_for_things]

1 minute ago, Glenn101 said:

   I hate podcasts because (1) my hearing is crappy and (2) because I cannot go back and reference any particular part to make or break a point. I did listen to the podcast though and I do believe that you have characterized Doctor Gee's position incorrectly. He does say that it is not possible to reconcile the Book of Abraham and source criticism, i.e. if you accept one you must pretty much discard the other. He notes that he has yet to observe any scholar (and I assume he meant LDS scholar) successfully or maybe rather logically bridge that gap. He does say that there are disagreements among the the different documentary hypothesis scholars as one of the problems that he has and he describes a couple of others. However he is actually talking about a new book that he has published on the Book of Abraham in which he discusses the problems he has with the documentary hypothesis. We probably have to read the book to get the full context of what he is saying and not just a few sound bites.

Where did I mischaracterize his position, it sounds like you're agreeing with all the points I made.  Oh, and thanks for mentioning that he has a book coming out, there is a link to it on the web page.  

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Book-Abraham-John-Gee/dp/1944394060/

[Glenn101]

26 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Where did I mischaracterize his position, it sounds like you're agreeing with all the points I made.  Oh, and thanks for mentioning that he has a book coming out, there is a link to it on the web page.  

https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Book-Abraham-John-Gee/dp/1944394060/

When you said:

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

You are reducing several points he tried to make to one simplistic one, and that is not the case.

Glenn

[hope_for_things]

4 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

When you said:

You are reducing several points he tried to make to one simplistic one, and that is not the case.

Glenn

I was trying to summarize his position, not reduce anything.  Please feel free to clarify where you see it differently, you're saying I've reduced his position into a simplistic one, but you haven't explained how his position is different than my summary.  

[Glenn101]

I just would like to add a note that is related, in a way. When we listen to talks, interviews, etc. we, or at least I often get hung up on one thing that we (I) hear to the detriment of the rest of the audio. It is so much harder to go back and fact check ourselves because we have to find the spot by trial and error. I listened to the General Conference this weekend and one thing that one speaker said (quoting a cartoon character no less) has stayed with me and everything else has blurred and faded. That quote was "look beyond what you can see."

I am going to have to go back and read the talks as they are made available in order to pick up on the rest of the stories.

Glenn

[Glenn101]

5 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

I was trying to summarize his position, not reduce anything.  Please feel free to clarify where you see it differently, you're saying I've reduced his position into a simplistic one, but you haven't explained how his position is different than my summary. 

However your summary only took in one point. When I listened to the podcast that was only one of the points that Doctor Gee had as reasons to disagree with the documentary hypothesis. Now you are going to make me have to buy and read the book to fins out what arguments that he makes. 

Glenn

[juliann]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I just listened to an interview with John Gee on this Mormon News Report podcast, and I'd like to discuss some comments he made around the book of Abraham and biblical source criticism.  The kind of thinking here by John Gee makes me question his objectivity, but I've heard this same kind of thinking espoused on this board in the past as well.  

Towards the end of the interview Mr. Gee talks for a few minutes about a conflict between a historical BoA and biblical source criticism, and specifically multiple authors for the OT, which is described in the the documentary hypothesis.   He essentially said you can't reconcile the two ideas, historicity for the BoA and source criticism. 

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

I would like to understand how a scholar of his training can just dismiss mainstream biblical scholars because he finds that they don't all agree on every particular.  To me, this is an example of someone taking their religious conviction (a belief in a historical BoA) and using that as evidence in a scholarly discipline.  This would be akin to someone in the field of biology assuming that their belief in the resurrection of Jesus can be used as evidence in the field of biology that we have proof that human bodies can be transformed into an immortal state.  They could then reject any scientific evidence to the contrary, no matter how strong the evidence otherwise.  

Can anyone who believes similarly expound on this kind of thinking, or maybe I'm misunderstanding Mr. Gee and those that think similarly.  This is one of those things that completely perplexes me, especially coming from someone who has the expertise that he does, it seems like a completely illogical and even dishonest approach to the scholarship.  Thoughts? 

http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/2017/10/09/mormon-news-report-podcast-episode-14-week-of-9-october-2017/

You can't discuss the content, I see. It is so much easier to attack the person, isn't it.  He has an opinion on source criticism. If it is the wrong one, he is obviously subhuman. This gets so tiresome....and boring.

[hope_for_things]

5 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

However your summary only took in one point. When I listened to the podcast that was only one of the points that Doctor Gee had as reasons to disagree with the documentary hypothesis. Now you are going to make me have to buy and read the book to fins out what arguments that he makes. 

Glenn

More reading, hopefully is a good thing for all of us. 

[cinepro]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

That's an odd argument to make when he would probably admit that even with the original manuscripts scholars still can't identify all the scribes for the Book of Mormon! (See page 277).

[hope_for_things]

2 minutes ago, juliann said:

You can't discuss the content, I see. It is so much easier to attack the person, isn't it.  He has an opinion on source criticism. If it is the wrong one, he is obviously subhuman. This gets so tiresome....and boring.

Attacking the person, where?  Not discussing the content, how?   Please feel free to add some substantive response, if you don't want to participate in the thread, then no need to comment, just move along.  

[hope_for_things]

4 minutes ago, cinepro said:

That's an odd argument to make when he would probably admit that even with the original manuscripts scholars still can't identify all the scribes for the Book of Mormon! (See page 277).

Its a perfect solution fallacy, this idea that if someone points out a flaw in any process that we should reject the entire process, even if its the best explanation we have or the best process available.  

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Towards the end of the interview Mr. Gee talks for a few minutes about a conflict between a historical BoA and biblical source criticism, and specifically multiple authors for the OT, which is described in the the documentary hypothesis.   He essentially said you can't reconcile the two ideas, historicity for the BoA and source criticism. 

I don't have time to listen to a podcast. I'm not sure I trust off the cuff comments either since it's so easy to misspeak. But I'll confess I'm not sure how John see an intrinsic conflict between the Book of Abraham and source criticism.

Part of the problem is that "source criticism" is a pretty broad set of arguments and conclusions. Some seem pretty reasonable but nearly all the arguments involve pretty circumstantial evidence. Some are stronger, such as aramaic in Isaiah to date to the exile. Others seem very weak and the determinative factor seems persuading others in the field rather than strength of argument. i.e. if you convince enough people despite weak evidence it's accepted. 

The comparison I've often made is confirmation of scientific papers in the hard sciences being relatively low. That's with arguably the best kind of evidence. With the sorts of evidence Biblical scholars use it's hard to imagine most of the theories would hold were we to discover old texts - say pre-exilic. The field works simply because there's no real danger of forthcoming texts.

With the Book of Abraham it seems the main issue is much more that while there are real ancient parallels to the Book of Abraham most of them are from the later part of the 2cd temple period or even later than that. That implies certain dependencies. In particular the clear dependence of Abraham 4 & 5 on Genesis 1 & 2 raises lots of problematic issues. If John sees a conflict, I suspect it's that issue of Abr 4 & 5 that is the real problem.

[juliann]

12 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Attacking the person, where?  Not discussing the content, how?   Please feel free to add some substantive response, if you don't want to participate in the thread, then no need to comment, just move along.  

"dishonest approach to the scholarship." 

What is substantive about that? What would be the appropriate response? To argue that he is not a liar? And, no, you don't get a "move along" pass when you start with ad hominem.    

[hope_for_things]

3 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Part of the problem is that "source criticism" is a pretty broad set of arguments and conclusions. Some seem pretty reasonable but nearly all the arguments involve pretty circumstantial evidence. Some are stronger, such as aramaic in Isaiah to date to the exile. Others seem very weak and the determinative factor seems persuading others in the field rather than strength of argument. i.e. if you convince enough people despite weak evidence it's accepted. 

The comparison I've often made is confirmation of scientific papers in the hard sciences being relatively low. That's with arguably the best kind of evidence. With the sorts of evidence Biblical scholars use it's hard to imagine most of the theories would hold were we to discover old texts - say pre-exilic. The field works simply because there's no real danger of forthcoming texts.

Thanks Clark, yeah, he didn't get into this topic at great depth at all, but I imagine there is more to this in his book.  

With respect to the evidence, surely there are some areas where the evidence is stronger than others.  I don't think this is justification for dismissing the scholarship in favor of religious convictions, which is what I think Gee is doing, but I'm open to be corrected if this is not the case.  If he's purely looking for evidence to support his subjective assumptions and willing to dismiss mainstream scholarship whenever it comes into conflict with his personal beliefs, I don't find this to be intellectually responsible.  

[hope_for_things]

3 minutes ago, juliann said:

"dishonest approach to the scholarship." 

What is substantive about that? What would be the appropriate response? To argue that he is not a liar? And, no, you don't get a "move along" pass when you start with ad hominem.    

Oh please, read my entire OP, I qualified my statements with if I'm misunderstanding Mr. Gee to have someone please correct me.  You're cherry picking here, lets discuss the content of my questions and not take me out of context intentionally.  

[Gray]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I just listened to an interview with John Gee on this Mormon News Report podcast, and I'd like to discuss some comments he made around the book of Abraham and biblical source criticism.  The kind of thinking here by John Gee makes me question his objectivity, but I've heard this same kind of thinking espoused on this board in the past as well.  

Towards the end of the interview Mr. Gee talks for a few minutes about a conflict between a historical BoA and biblical source criticism, and specifically multiple authors for the OT, which is described in the the documentary hypothesis.   He essentially said you can't reconcile the two ideas, historicity for the BoA and source criticism. 

He then explained some problems with source criticism, after first stating that this is the operating paradigm for mainstream biblical scholars, he then criticizes it by saying that some scholars disagree about the specific passages about authorship, so this is evidence to him that source criticism can't be trusted.  

I would like to understand how a scholar of his training can just dismiss mainstream biblical scholars because he finds that they don't all agree on every particular.  To me, this is an example of someone taking their religious conviction (a belief in a historical BoA) and using that as evidence in a scholarly discipline.  This would be akin to someone in the field of biology assuming that their belief in the resurrection of Jesus can be used as evidence in the field of biology that we have proof that human bodies can be transformed into an immortal state.  They could then reject any scientific evidence to the contrary, no matter how strong the evidence otherwise.  

Can anyone who believes similarly expound on this kind of thinking, or maybe I'm misunderstanding Mr. Gee and those that think similarly.  This is one of those things that completely perplexes me, especially coming from someone who has the expertise that he does, it seems like a completely illogical and even dishonest approach to the scholarship.  Thoughts? 

http://www.theculturalhallpodcast.com/2017/10/09/mormon-news-report-podcast-episode-14-week-of-9-october-2017/

There are PhD biologists who espouse creationism. This kind of thing can happen when strong theological commitments are driving one's interpretation of data.