Portrait of John Gee

BYU Egyptologist, missing-scroll advocate

John Gee

b. 1964

1 topic · 2 dated events · 1 source

Their part in each topic

The Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri

BYU Egyptologist, missing-scroll advocate

Gee argues from eyewitness descriptions and scroll geometry that a long roll of Hor once existed, later revising his estimate to roughly 314 centimetres, and that the surviving fragments are not the source. He reviewed the 2018 Joseph Smith Papers volume on the Book of Abraham under the title 'The Joseph Smith Papers Project Stumbles,' opening a public quarrel with the volume's own editors — one of the clearest cases of faithful scholars disagreeing with each other in print.

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In the timeline

2 events across 1 topics, chronological. Only events this person was actually part of — present at, responsible for, or the subject of — not every event where the name comes up.

2010

The scroll-length argument

Andrew Cook and Christopher Smith argued in Dialogue that no more than about 56 centimetres of the interior of the Hor scroll can be missing, closely matching Baer's earlier estimate. Gee, who had estimated a much longer roll, revised his figure to about 314 centimetres. Faithful commentators concede they cannot independently adjudicate the mathematics.

Disputed The length of the missing portion, and whether scroll geometry can settle it at all.
People: John Gee
2019

The faithful side splits in public

John Gee reviewed the volume under the title 'The Joseph Smith Papers Project Stumbles'; Jeffrey Lindsay charged bias; the series editors Matthew Grow and Matthew Godfrey replied that they read the evidence differently from Gee, holding that translation occurred in Kirtland and again in Nauvoo. Lindsay quoted Hauglid's own statement that he now rejects a missing Abraham manuscript and no longer agrees with Gee or Muhlestein.

Disputed Whether the Kirtland Egyptian Papers precede or follow the English text — the whole question, still unresolved among faithful scholars.
People: John Gee

Sources in their own name

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