Scholarship & Faith - John Gee interview

[juliann]

1 hour ago, hope_for_things said:

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.  

Oh, sure. Let's just ignore the ad hom. It was all in fun, right? It's not like you could go edit it out or anything....

I'm just curious how much you know about textual criticism to begin with....which is why you are resorting to calling scholars liars rather than dealing with the issue itself.  I'm also not going to listen to a podcast. From what you describe, Gee is correct. There is disagreement. There always will be when it comes to the particulars in source theory because it is....theory. If you haven't noticed, scholarship goes through generations. To make your name you have to come up with something new and those that have made their name will hang onto their discoveries through hell and high water. Then they die and the next generation follows suit. That means there will  be a scholar here and there who even question the DH as it stands. And guess what....they aren't even Mormons! And they aren't dishonest either! They just have their own pet theories. It is called scholarship. 

So for anyone to be making any kind of judgement based on your few lines followed up with calling the guy dishonest, would be to see a run down of what Gee is substituting for the source theory he discards.

[hope_for_things]

26 minutes ago, Gray said:

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

Good point Gray, I guess I shouldn't expect intellectual consistency when humans are involved anything is possible.  

[hope_for_things]

15 minutes ago, juliann said:

Oh, sure. Let's just ignore the ad hom. It was all in fun, right? It's not like you could go edit it out or anything....

I'm just curious how much you know about textual criticism to begin with....which is why you are resorting to calling scholars liars rather than dealing with the issue itself.  I'm also not going to listen to a podcast. From what you describe, Gee is correct. There is disagreement. There always will be when it comes to the particulars in source theory because it is....theory. If you haven't noticed, scholarship goes through generations. To make your name you have to come up with something new and those that have made their name will hang onto their discoveries through hell and high water. Then they die and the next generation follows suit. That means there will  be a scholar here and there who even question the DH as it stands. And guess what....they aren't even Mormons! And they aren't dishonest either! They just have their own pet theories. It is called scholarship. 

So for anyone to be making any kind of judgement based on your few lines followed up with calling the guy dishonest, would be to see a run down of what Gee is substituting for the source theory he discards.

Summary of your comment:

• Hope is using Ad Hominim and calling Gee a liar
• You won't listen to the podcast, but are confident Gee is correct
• Scholars who disagree with the mainstream aren't dishonest, their pet theories are just as valid as the mainstream
• Remember Hope called Gee dishonest

[juliann]

4 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

Summary of your comment:

• Hope is using Ad Hominim and calling Gee a liar
• You won't listen to the podcast, but are confident Gee is correct
• Scholars who disagree with the mainstream aren't dishonest, their pet theories are just as valid as the mainstream
• Remember Hope called Gee dishonest

How can I be any more confident of your honesty in summarizing when you come up with something like this? All you said is Gee said scholars don't agree. I said he is correct. Scholars don't agree. Your words. 

I don't even know what to do with #3. You don't seem to know the difference between mainstream and what is commonly called consensus. Or that young scholars can't just keep parroting previous scholarship and get anywhere. 

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

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.  

It's been years since John was my roommate and honestly I've not spoken to him since then. Back then he was still looking to get hired at BYU so my memories likely don't reflect his current views. Back then though I seem to recall talking to him about the topic somewhat. There are similar issues in Egyptology, so I don't think one should say this is simply religiously motivated. It's just that there's more politics in the Biblical source criticism than there is in say debates about sources in Egyptology, Cannanite or even ancient Greek sources. So I'd be cautious assuming what type of argument he's making. He's certainly not at all unfamiliar with the issues even if his focus isn't Hebrew writing. But the same sort of logic is used in all ancient textual history scholarship.

[pogi]

Quote

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

2 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Good point Gray, I guess I shouldn't expect intellectual consistency when humans are involved anything is possible.  

This kind of drives the point that I was making earlier.  All data is subject to interpretation and it is impossible to interpret data without relying on previous personal experiences, be they religious, academic, or whatnot.  We can't escape it - there is no such thing as unbiased, objective interpretation.  Most scientists are not willing to go against popular consensus, even in light of new challenging information.  There are always social, monetary, political, professional, and other pressures always working on us.  Because of this, science is not as pure and unbiased as we like to believe it is, because (as you say) humans are necessarily involved.  This means that yes, even influence from the scientific community (in contrast to religious influence) can be a bad thing.  What I am saying is that personal religious experience can influence our interpretations, but I don't see why that is any less intellectually consistent than being influenced by any other imperfect human experience.

There is no good scientific explanation for genetic convergence in the theory of evolution, for example (phenotypic convergence, yes - genetic convergence, no).  The phenomenon flies in the face of the theory, yet people insist that the theory is THE truth without question.  To me, this phenomenon points to something else (an intelligent designer/coder is one possibility), but scientific bias will not entertain other possibilities at this time.  The fact remains, however, that something else is going on here that the theory of evolution can't explain.  This should shed at least some doubt on the theory itself which predicts genetic divergence rather than the convergence of genes through evolutionary processes.  People insist that even in light of this phenomenon, the theory of evolution remains the "best explanation".  That to me is a poor reason to continue believing in a theory!  That is equivalent to taking your car to a mechanic who performs a repair based on their "best explanation" of what is wrong.  If your car STILL doesn't work after their repair, is their "best explanation" worth holding onto?  Or are you going to ditch their explanation which simply doesn't work, and go in search of some new explanation at a different mechanic?  The first mechanic might have understood part of the problem, but  holding onto their theory because they got part of it right would just be silly wouldn't it?  (sorry for the tangent).  My point simply being that all human experience is intellectually inconsistent with all data that we interpret at some level - we simply can't see the big picture. 

Edited October 9, 2017 by pogi

[Glenn101]

7 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

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, there is a review of Doctor Gee's book at https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2017/10/04/book-review-introduction-book-abraham. The reviewer summarized some of Doctor Gee's for having reservations about source criticism. I am going to quote the relevant section, which seems to quote from the book.

“This theory has gained wide acceptance in certain quarters even though no manuscript evidence supports it…. Actual tests of source criticism – where scholars have used source criticism to predict sources for a text and then the actual sources have been discovered – have usually failed. Therefore, source criticism is less a scientific theory than a scholarly dogma…. If one accepts the historicity of the Book of Abraham, then one cannot accept the validity of source criticism…. The textual presentation of what might appear as two different creation narratives is actually standard in early Mesopotamian accounts of primeval times” (pages 137-138).

Thought you might be interested.

 

Glenn

 

[Calm]

9 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/

If you are going to make this significant of a claim about what he said, you at least should provide the time he said it so others can see if your paraphrasing matches their interpretation of his words.  Transcript would be even nicer.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours 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.  

Yeh, just use a Jedi mind trick rather than getting into the nitty gritty.

[Robert F. Smith]

10 minutes ago, Calm said:

If you are going to make this significant of a claim about what he said, you at least should provide the time he said it so others can see if your paraphrasing matches their interpretation of his words.  Transcript would be even nicer.

page 138 of Gee's new book was cited.  That should be our transcript -- the book itself.

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

page 138 of Gee's new book was cited.  That should be our transcript -- the book itself.

And at its price, pretty most who can spend time on the board pontificating about his views can afford it.

Putting this up because cheapest price I have seen:

https://bookstore.fairmormon.org/the-pearl-of-great-price/1809-an-introduction-to-the-book-of-abraham-978194439406

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

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.  

You are out of line, Hope.  I  know both Gee and Bokovoy well and consider them friends.  Both are brilliant and seasoned scholars, Gee an Egyptologist who also knows Akkadian and a bunch of other languages, Bokovoy a Hebraist who also knows Akkadian -- and a bunch of other languages.

I have mentioned Bokovoy's views on the source criticism of the BofM on this board (citing his book on Authoring the OT, volume 1), and recommended that people who don't accept that notion at least read his book so as to understand the theory.  He explains it well and gives good examples.  However, I have also commented on this board that Bokovoy was in error in his book in finding fault with the first person narratives in the Book of Mormon on the basis that such was rare in the Bible.  I noted that (1) the Book of Mormon was written in Egyptian, and that (2) first person narrative was quite common in ancient Egyptian.  Not being conversant with Egyptology, Bokovoy was unaware of this.

Gee claims in his interview that source criticism is incompatible with a historically authentic Book of Abraham.  I think that he is mistaken, and have discussed the way in which the two are compatible in my 1971 “A Documentary Analysis of the Book of Abraham,” which I updated for the 1975 Hugh Nibley Festschrift, copy in Marquardt Papers, Univ. of Utah Special Collections, Accession 900, Box 66, Folder 1, and placed online in 2013 at  http://www.scribd.com/doc/132279885/A-Documentary-Analysis-of-the-Book-of-Abraham .  Gee is correct to point out that some very knowledgeable scholars doubt key parts of the DH.  I simply see no problem applying it to the BofA.  I look forward to discussing this with Professor Gee when he returns next year from his sabbatical in Germany.

Edited October 10, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Darren10]

14 hours 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.

 

 

And I’d totally cheer Gee on. Maybe even buzz in Bokovoy’s ear a time or two. 

[Darren10]

9 hours ago, juliann said:

How can I be any more confident of your honesty in summarizing when you come up with something like this? All you said is Gee said scholars don't agree. I said he is correct. Scholars don't agree. Your words. 

I don't even know what to do with #3. You don't seem to know the difference between mainstream and what is commonly called consensus. Or that young scholars can't just keep parroting previous scholarship and get anywhere. 

These cats do.

 

[bluebell]

21 hours 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. 

 

 

 

This was something my history professors in college went to some lengths to teach us-that everything we learn in history classes is someone's interpretation of the evidence.  And when we read primary sources we are the ones doing the interpretation.

I was also disheartened at first because it made history seem like a fruitless endeavor where you never actually knew what had happened or why; you were just using evidence to make your best guess.  It is what it is and I learned to deal with that.  I am SO looking forward to learning all the true history some day though, after this life is over.  

[hope_for_things]

13 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Hope, there is a review of Doctor Gee's book at https://www.fairmormon.org/blog/2017/10/04/book-review-introduction-book-abraham. The reviewer summarized some of Doctor Gee's for having reservations about source criticism. I am going to quote the relevant section, which seems to quote from the book.

“This theory has gained wide acceptance in certain quarters even though no manuscript evidence supports it…. Actual tests of source criticism – where scholars have used source criticism to predict sources for a text and then the actual sources have been discovered – have usually failed. Therefore, source criticism is less a scientific theory than a scholarly dogma…. If one accepts the historicity of the Book of Abraham, then one cannot accept the validity of source criticism…. The textual presentation of what might appear as two different creation narratives is actually standard in early Mesopotamian accounts of primeval times” (pages 137-138).

Thought you might be interested.

 

Glenn

 

Thanks Glenn, appreciate the link and for bringing up this review.  It sounds like the author of this book review, Trevor Holyoak is in agreement with Mr. Gee, and willing to dismiss the mainstream scholarship as well.  I'm not familiar with Trevor or his training, so I can't really comment on that. 

Since this review is published by FAIR, I can say that I'm disappointed by this kind of dismissal of widely accepted biblical scholarship, however, I'm not entirely surprised for an apologetic organization to take a tacit like this.  Unfortunately, this isn't the kind of rigorous approach that I would hope that FAIR should aspire to.  

[hope_for_things]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

If you are going to make this significant of a claim about what he said, you at least should provide the time he said it so others can see if your paraphrasing matches their interpretation of his words.  Transcript would be even nicer.

It was towards the end of the interview, but unfortunately I didn't take notes, I was listening while driving to work.  A transcript would be nice, but I didn't see anywhere that they published a transcript.  

[cdowis]

34 minutes ago, bluebell said:

This was something my history professors in college went to some lengths to teach us-that everything we learn in history classes is someone's interpretation of the evidence.  And when we read primary sources we are the ones doing the interpretation.

It gets worse.  Events are often recorded long after the event itself and subsequent records do not always fit with earlier records. We then have the unpleasant duty of sorting it all out.

Look at the First Vision

Edited October 10, 2017 by cdowis

[bluebell]

Just now, cdowis said:

It gets worse.  Events are often recorded long after the event itself and subsequent records do not always fit with earlier records. 

Look at the First Vision

Very true.  That's part of the reason that history is subjective.

[hope_for_things]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You are out of line, Hope.  I  know both Gee and Bokovoy well and consider them friends.  Both are brilliant and seasoned scholars, Gee an Egyptologist who also knows Akkadian and a bunch of other languages, Bokovoy a Hebraist who also knows Akkadian -- and a bunch of other languages.

I have mentioned Bokovoy's views on the source criticism of the BofM on this board (citing his book on Authoring the OT, volume 1), and recommended that people who don't accept that notion at least read his book so as to understand the theory.  He explains it well and gives good examples.  However, I have also commented on this board that Bokovoy was in error in his book in finding fault with the first person narratives in the Book of Mormon on the basis that such was rare in the Bible.  I noted that (1) the Book of Mormon was written in Egyptian, and that (2) first person narrative was quite common in ancient Egyptian.  Not being conversant with Egyptology, Bokovoy was unaware of this.

Gee claims in his interview that source criticism is incompatible with a historically authentic Book of Abraham.  I think that he is mistaken, and have discussed the way in which the two are compatible in my 1971 “A Documentary Analysis of the Book of Abraham,” which I updated for the 1975 Hugh Nibley Festschrift, copy in Marquardt Papers, Univ. of Utah Special Collections, Accession 900, Box 66, Folder 1, and placed online in 2013 at  http://www.scribd.com/doc/132279885/A-Documentary-Analysis-of-the-Book-of-Abraham .  Gee is correct to point out that some very knowledgeable scholars doubt key parts of the DH.  I simply see no problem applying it to the BofA.  I look forward to discussing this with Professor Gee when he returns next year from his sabbatical in Germany.

Thanks Robert, I respect your comments and appreciate you adding to the discussion.  I'm not a trained scholar and have no where near the experience and expertise of you, Gee, Bokovoy, etc.  I'm merely an interested observer, and I'm trying to learn and part of how I learn is through having discussions on subjects like this.  I'm very open to persuasion and I'm constantly learning.  

I'm not sure where I was out of line with my comments, since it sounds to me like you're also saying that you believe Gee was mistaken about an incompatibility between source criticism and a historically authentic BoA.  If some knowledgeable scholars doubt key parts of the DH that seems different to me than dismissing source criticism as a whole, I'm aware that their are some disagreements about particulars especially when it comes to the dating and determining the specific source origins, but the overarching idea of multiple sources isn't being disputed in any credible way that I'm aware of.  

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, bluebell said:

This was something my history professors in college went to some lengths to teach us-that everything we learn in history classes is someone's interpretation of the evidence.  And when we read primary sources we are the ones doing the interpretation.

I was also disheartened at first because it made history seem like a fruitless endeavor where you never actually knew what had happened or why; you were just using evidence to make your best guess.  It is what it is and I learned to deal with that.  I am SO looking forward to learning all the true history some day though, after this life is over.  

While this is all true, this doesn't make everyone's best guess of equal probability or validity.  Learning to evaluate the evidence and come up with the most likely explanation is the challenge that we have, and the best historians we have today are more aware of their limitations and their biases and how those things influence interpretation, and they try to adjust for that as best as possible.  

[CA Steve]

For those that are dismissive of secular history as just our interpretation of what might of happened in the past, or that feel that true history is unknowable, do you apply that same standard to sacred history, or, as it is better known, scriptures?

[bluebell]

32 minutes ago, hope_for_things said:

While this is all true, this doesn't make everyone's best guess of equal probability or validity.  Learning to evaluate the evidence and come up with the most likely explanation is the challenge that we have, and the best historians we have today are more aware of their limitations and their biases and how those things influence interpretation, and they try to adjust for that as best as possible.  

The bolded is true, and is the main learning point in getting a degree in history.  The underlined part is where Juliann's post at the top of the page comes in.  

Occasionally, what is 'most likely' is obvious.  But a lot of the time, it isn't.  Sincere people, using valid (and most of the time the same) evidence can vehemently disagree about what the 'most likely explanation' is.  One of my history professors loved to tell stories about history conferences where reputable historians almost came to blows arguing whether or not the feudal system actually existed or is a modern day construct. Explanations go in and out of vogue all the time and the way that old evidence is interpreted changes with each generation.

That's because some of the time there really isn't a 'most likely explanation', as we tend to view that term.   The evidence is ambiguous enough that any number of explanations can be right, and can also be wrong.    

[bluebell]

2 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

For those that are dismissive of secular history as just our interpretation of what might of happened in the past, or that feel that true history is unknowable, do you apply that same standard to sacred history, or, as it is better known, scriptures?

Just to clarify, recognizing that history is our interpretation of the evidence to suggest what might have happened is in no way dismissive of history.  It's just a reality of that discipline.

History and scripture are two different things though.  History can show that a city called Jerusalem existed during the time that Jesus was purported to have lived.  History cannot prove that Jesus Christ did anything that the bible claims He did, nor that He was who the bible claims He was.  That is outside of history's scope.  

 

[Danzo]

17 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

For those that are dismissive of secular history as just our interpretation of what might of happened in the past, or that feel that true history is unknowable, do you apply that same standard to sacred history, or, as it is better known, scriptures?

 

If your primary purpose in reading scripture is to learn history, then you are doing it wrong.