Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

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_Gadianton
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Gadianton »

How many living Egyptologists around the world are there?

Is it conceivable that enough Mormon Egyptologists could infiltrate Egyptology to unite Egyptology and Mopologetics?
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.

LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
_Doctor Scratch
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Doctor Scratch »

Yes: lots of useful information in this thread, along with a terrific overview of Gee's career as a Mopologist, though I would like to gently remind my Cassius colleagues to not forget the so-called "two inks" fiasco. That provides useful context as well, in my opinion.
"[I]f, while hoping that everybody else will be honest and so forth, I can personally prosper through unethical and immoral acts without being detected and without risk, why should I not?." --Daniel Peterson, 6/4/14
_Manetho
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Manetho »

Gadianton wrote:
Tue Aug 25, 2020 3:31 am
How many living Egyptologists around the world are there?

Is it conceivable that enough Mormon Egyptologists could infiltrate Egyptology to unite Egyptology and Mopologetics?
I assume this question is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but to take it seriously for a moment:

I once heard that there are about (if I remember correctly) 400 Egyptologists who have permanent employment as Egyptologists, so not many. But Egyptology is a heavily European discipline, despite the sizable American presence. To take it over, you have to take over the British, French, and German Egyptological communities as well as the American. How easy would that be, given Mormonism's strong ties to the United States? (How many Mormons are there in those countries, anyway?) Besides, Gee and Muhlestein ended up at BYU instead of one of the major Egyptological centers, so they don't have influential positions to work from, and Gee's fight with Ritner would have damaged Gee's reputation with any non-Mormon Egyptologist who paid attention to it. While I don't know much about how academia works, I'd think a non-Mormon Egyptologist making hiring decisions would, all other things being equal, prefer to hire a non-Mormon than a Mormon for fear of ending up with another Gee. And there are a lot more people with Egyptological qualifications than there are job openings, so there are plenty of non-Mormons to choose from.

In other words, my unqualified non-academic intuition is that if there was ever a chance of this happening, Gee destroyed it.
_Philo Sofee
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Philo Sofee »

Manetho
Besides, Gee and Muhlestein ended up at BYU instead of one of the major Egyptological centers, so they don't have influential positions to work from, and Gee's fight with Ritner would have damaged Gee's reputation with any non-Mormon Egyptologist who paid attention to it. While I don't know much about how academia works, I'd think a non-Mormon Egyptologist making hiring decisions would, all other things being equal, prefer to hire a non-Mormon than a Mormon for fear of ending up with another Gee. And there are a lot more people with Egyptological qualifications than there are job openings, so there are plenty of non-Mormons to choose from.

In other words, my unqualified non-academic intuition is that if there was ever a chance of this happening, Gee destroyed it.


I'll bet that's why Smoot quit working on his Egyptological degree.....I'll bet his advisor pulled him aside and said, hey look kid, you're nice and all, but uh the Mormon thing and Egyptology thing don't work. Quit now and cut your losses......
Dr CamNC4Me
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_Symmachus
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Symmachus »

Philo Sofee wrote:
Wed Aug 26, 2020 2:51 am
I'll bet that's why Smoot quit working on his Egyptological degree.....I'll bet his advisor pulled him aside and said, hey look kid, you're nice and all, but uh the Mormon thing and Egyptology thing don't work. Quit now and cut your losses......
If he didn't come to his senses, then this is what a responsible factulty member should have done (see discussion here).

It's great to see Manetho taking a break from his Aegyptiaca! I wish such labors allowed this more frequently.

Gadianton provides us with evidence of what the Church has lost in not promoting him to member of the First Quorum of the Seventy. A $100 million (0.1 % of their Ensign Peak value) infusion into BYU in order to set up an Egyptological institute with a PhD program while also channeling money to secular Egyptology (digs, professorships, institutes, publishing ventures etc.) would have a real effect over a fifty-year span. They could endow professorships at universities throughout the world and, in the process of updating the field to the 21st century and preparing it for the ignorant 22nd, before you know it you'll have Egyptologists writing books about how traditional Egyptology is a western construct, and that de-legitimization of the field will call for a new evaluation of the Joseph Smith papyri. If Classics is any indication, the teaching of the Egyptian language will be seen as a tool of oppression which, once de-emphasized from the curriculum, will liberate the Church from the pesky text of the papyri. The Church would at least seize some quiet acquiescence throughout all of this.

Gadianton is a genius.
"As to any slivers of light or any particles of darkness of the past, we forget about them."

—B. Redd McConkie
_Gadianton
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Re: Connecting Some Apologetic Dots

Post by _Gadianton »

It took me a minute to realize what Symmachus was talking about, and so I better come clean on the full extent of my "genius" for the sake of truth (something the apologists care little for).

I thank Manetho for his response. On my mission, I listened to an apologetic tape where a second or third string apologist, I don't believe he had any FARMS association as he was an accountant or something, gave a fireside on a Dr. Dee Jay Nelson, who apparently had a DCP-esque speaking circuit, except it was with Evangelical Christians, where he pretended to be an Egyptologist and debunk the Book of Abraham. He brought fake mummies and everything along on his tour, apparently.

Quite honestly, in retrospect, I have to wonder if that is all actually true, but anyway, the reason why this was so memorable for me was that within weeks of listening to that tape, a couple "investigators" we had handed some photographed pages of Nelson's writings to me and I was elated to shut them down. (In the end, they had the last laugh, without even knowing it)

For some reason, I clearly remember the apologist on that tape saying that there were only fifty living Egyptologists. this was a while back, but that number is stuck in my mind. So I was thinking the other day, you've got Gee an Mul, and if whats-his-bucket (Smoot) got a masters in Egyptoology in Canada, then there's got to be maybe 3 more? So that's 10 percent of all living Egyptologists who are Mormon. And then, If I recall correctly, another number that stuck with me from somewhere, is that when Christianity was made the official religion of Rome, 10% of the population were Christian. That stuck with me because it never made sense to me why such a low number would cause a revolution like that. Perhaps, since we're on the subject, our resident Reverend who dabbles in Rome could shed some light? So, I was thinking, if Rome could be overturned by 10% then so could Egyptology, especially with a university and buckets of billions laying around -- that part that Symmachus brought up, did in fact make its way into the gerbil cage.

Sure, laugh at me if you must, but I sacrifice myself gladly upon the alter of truth (something no apologist would ever do).
Lou Midgley 08/20/2020: "...meat wad," and "cockroach" are pithy descriptions of human beings used by gemli? They were not fashioned by Professor Peterson.

LM 11/23/2018: one can explain away the soul of human beings...as...a Meat Unit, to use Professor Peterson's clever derogatory description of gemli's ideology.
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