Talk:Hugh Nibley

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Contents

[edit] Recollections

Excuse my personal note here: When I was still at BYU in the early 90s, I saw Nibley shuffling around the Lee Library a couple of times wearing a cardigan and sorting through 3x5 cards. If I remember well, the "Daily Universe" printed an interview where he stated he was currently teaching himself sanskrit. One of my roommates took one of his Book of Mormon classes...quite a trip...his class lectures went everywhere...forget about taking notes. He is one of a kind, a true gem. —B|Talk 02:50, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

When we lived in Utah, while my wife and I were at BYU, he lived in our ward. He never seemed to comment in sunday school except to share his testimony and short personal experiences to build faith. Never a long answer to doctrinal questions. He once said that he didn't comment or correct the teaching because he had plenty learn, and that many times you can learn from the intent of the teacher more than the doctrinal aspects. Whenever I went to his office (he shared with Wilf Griggs a teacher of mine that I became pretty close to) it was a mess.

[edit] Columbia University? and counter apologists

Still unsure on the columbia university reference. I could have sworn I had a reference for it, but can't find it. perhaps I'll delete it? -Visorstuff 14:24, 19 May 2004 (UTC)
The quote about reading all the books is vaguely familiar to me. Maybe give it some time. —B|Talk 15:57, May 19, 2004 (UTC)

Thanks 128.187.227.93 for the correction to content and your edits - we knew something wasn't quite accurate - but based on various notes we compiled various places, we couldn't confirm.

By the way, I've found a paper I've been looking for online - http://www.apologeticsindex.org/cpoint10-2.html - regarding Nibley's scholarship. -Visorstuff 20:21, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Excellent link Visorstuff! I would add to what the article concludes that not only have evangelicals failed to address the growing body of quality work by Mormon scholars on religious topics, but all Christian denominations in general have failed to address this growing body of work...all this despite the great body of work Mormon scholars have devoted to demonstrate their points whether in regards to post-apostolic fathers and Hellenized Christianity or what light the Dead Sea Scrolls or pseudepigrapha shine on parallels to early Christianity and Mormonism. —B|Talk 00:44, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Nice stuff. It's funny to see how few counter-apologetics exist in the face of all this evidence. Bruce 03:34, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] One Eternal Round

The manuscript for One Eternal Round was handed off to FARMS during BYU's Fall 2002 semester; I was in Stephen Ricks's NES 345 class at the time, and he reported that his wife had gone to the Nibley home to collect it. Regrettably I can't remember the date, but it was after early September and before mid-December. Probably that's specific enough, anyway. eritain 06:28, 24 August 2005 (UTC)


[edit] Latter-day vs. Latter Day

We need to be careful in using the term "Latter Day Saints" to refer to "Latter-day Saints." The hyphenated, lower-case D church is the church most of you are familiar with, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The no-hyphen, capital D church is the pre Salt Lake church, which nowadays is synonymous with the polygamists out in the desert. Hugh Nibley was always a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and was never a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We don't want some internal wikipedia link to associate him with the wrong church. -Colin 26 Jun 2005

This is a false distinction. Polygamy remained official doctrine and practice through the settlement in Utah until the last years of the nineteenth century, when the Supreme Court of the United States decisively upheld the law against the practice. Since then polygamy has been official doctrine but not official practice. The church headquartered in Salt Lake City can show continuity of leadership and of membership with the church that migrated from Iowa. J S Ayer 18:30, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

Your comment doesnt' make sense in the context of this talk page. There are at least two churches that claim the same name: the Church of JEsus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and one that hyphenates it - all claiming to be the legitimate successor of the Church Joseph Smith set up. Historians at large call the Mormonism movement "the Latter Day Saint movement" - as the hyphen was added to the LDS Church's name after the Utah-Illinois exodus (its a british spelling) and the original spelling in early editions of the D&C were non-hyphenated. So Hugh Nibley was a Latter-day saint. Colin's statement above is correct - the hyphenated name did not exist until after the Saints got to Utah. The Church may be the same, but the punctuation is different. I disagree with colin that the capital D is associated with polygamists - as the Strangites in Wisconson and Cutlerites both used this name at one point or still do. Anyway -this is all irrelevant to the page at hand, other than Nibley would be considered both a Latter Day Saint (as part of the broader movement) and a Latter-day Saint - part of the Church. -Visorstuff 18:48, 15 September 2005 (UTC)

You have summed up on my side, rejecting the claim that the original church is continued by the polygamists, not by the "official" church. J S Ayer 02:51, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nibley unknown outside of Mormonism

An anon editor User:67.186.207.85 keeps deleting (cenoring?) statements supporting Hugh Nibley being respected outside of the Mormonism community. Specifically the following:

"Nibley was praised by non-LDS historians and researchers for his ability to draw upon historical sources to give evidences for Latter-day Saint beliefs. In one study the authors argued—due to Nibley's reliability and celebrated scholarship—that most of Nibley's work is reliable, encouraging anti-Mormon writers to assess and counter Nibley's research, rather than dismissing it. [1]."

It is obvious that the editor either does not agree with the statement (doesn't like it) or has not examined it. Part of the paper on a "anti-cultist" site states:

"In light of the respect Nibley has earned in the non-LDS scholarly world it is more amazing that counter-cultists can so glibly dismiss his work. For many years Nibley may have been conservative Mormonism's only reputable scholar. However, due to Nibley's influence as a motivating professor, today there are many more. During the years Nibley taught at BYU several LDS students followed his example by going on to earn the degrees necessary to gain a hearing in the academic community."

Other accomplishements and widely read research include:

  • A sabbatical from BYU at Berkeley, where he taught on rhetoric, Coptic and Egyptian
  • A sabbatical at the Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago to study and teach Egyptian
  • He taught the classics at Claremont College in California
  • Because of his anthropoligical work it was requested for him to serve in military intelligence in World War II, and was heavily involved in the D-Day invasion of Normandy.
  • Awards including: Distinguished Service Award in 1979, an honorary doctorate in 1983 and the Exemplary Manhood Award in 1991.
  • An article called "The Rise of Rhetoric, The Decline of Everything Else."
  • "Many of his more important essays first appeared in academic journals such as the Revue de Qumran, Vigilae Christianae, Church History, and the Jewish Quarterly Review."
  • "Nibley has also received praise from non-LDS scholars such as Jacob Neusner, James Charlesworth, Cyrus Gordon, Raphael Patai and Jacob Milgrom."
  • "The former dean of the Harvard Divinity School, George MacRae, once lamented while hearing him lecture, "It is obscene for a man to know that much!"
  • he was known in utah as a democrat, an outspoken staunch environmentalist, one of the few in the world who could speak 13 languages

He authored more than 260 books and articles on a variety of Mormon and Non-Mormon topics. For more details, start with a Google search or see [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] and the book "Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life"

It is weird for someone to say Nibley was not respected outside of Mormonism. Yes, it was a large chunk of his life (and what he is best known for) - particularly from the 1970s until his death, but he accomplished a great deal in the 40s, 50s and 60s outside of Mormonism. It is interesting that the 20-something crowd and early 30-something crowd do not know him like those who are older, as they haven't seen him in action as others. It is an important point for this article, unless the anon has info to back up this deletion/censorship, that doesn't fit his world view of mormonism. -Visorstuff 19:05, 10 October 2005 (UTC)

I once worked with a woman who was dating a famous egyptology professor at UC Berkeley. I asked him once what he thought of Hugh Nibley. He said basically that everything Hugh Nibley wrote was more of less academically perfect, but to accept that aloud was to accept Nibley's conclusions of the church being true, and he wasn't willing to do that, so he just quit reading his books. But he was well aware of each book as it came out, and owned a great deal of them. --Mrcolj 19:38, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I would recommend providing a bibliography of sorts for Nibley's non-LDS-oriented work. I added a reference to his article on sparsiones, which I just ran across in a recent book (after 2000) on Roman spectacles. If non-LDS scholars working on non-LDS topics refer to any of his work, this demonstrates that he had respectable academic 'chops.'Tsluke 17:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Footnote accusations made by Martha Nibley Beck

In the section about his daughter's book, it quotes from a Mr. Kent P. Jackson. Jackson did indeed criticize Nibley's footnotes, but in his review of Martha Beck's Book, he explicitly states that while he found Nibley's footnotes to be somewhat sloppy, they in no way measured up to the level on inaccuracy that Martha claimed. Jackson's Review of "Leaving the Saints"

Also, Mr. Gregory Taggart wrote a review of her book and looked into Nibley's footnotes. His conclusiong was that 87% of his footnotes were accurate, 8% had typographical errors, and 5% were wrong in some way or another. Taggart's Review. See page 18 of the review. That is quite a far strech from Martha's claims that at best 10% of his footnotes were accurate.

Also, In Taggart's review, he CONCLUSIVELY proves many of the recollections of incidents and other information in Martha's book wrong. See the bottom of page 5 to the top of page 14 for specific examples of where Martha gave severe twistings of the truth and at times just outright lied. Martha often gave very twisted versions of events that unfortunately for her were documented and shown to have occurred quite differently. I am going to modify the statement concerning Jackson to reflect his official statement, and I will also add a link to taggart's review showing that Martha's book is an unreliable source. Jerubaal 23:53, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rape Allegations

There should be mention of his daughter's accusation that her father, Hugh Nibley, raped her from the age of 5 until she was 8. I doubt, however, that any attempt at portraying this will stay in the article given the LDS history of covering up its past (Mountain Meadows) and discrediting its critics (like Jerubaal is doing above). But, we can hope for the best...12.17.141.39 23:16, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

The Hugh Nibley article has not been edited since January 23rd, of this year. The information that you claim isn't there (because of cover-up) is there, at the end of the Biography section. Perhaps you are wrong about your other conspiracy theories as well. But, we can hope for the best ... Val42 02:01, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
Changed inflammatory section title. And yes, the allegations are already in the article and they link to another article that also deals with the subject. Rabidwolfe 02:12, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

I found no reference to the allegations in the current article, so I added them back in under the heading 'controversies.' I take care to note that the allegations are contested by family, which will hopefully satisfy anyone who would prefer the accusations didn't exist. Cheers! --Rogan 22:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for restoring and fleshing out the allegations, although I wonder why you had to be so snarky about it.... Rabidwolfe 23:02, 21 March 2007 (UTC)
Hmm - Looks like 71.119.100.52 took out the Martha Beck accusations on March 1st. Good catch, and I like the expansion you put in its place anyway. Rabidwolfe 00:08, 22 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow how arbitrary can you get. Inviting unsubstantiated allegations to personal bio's could open the floodgate to every figure in Wikipedia. Should we list what Ben Franklin's son thinks of him? Or how about what Monica Lewinski thinks of Bill Clinton. I mean lets be sensible. Otherwise let's just put up more allegation's that could come forward as more people learn "self hypnosis" to help us discover more witches. SentinelLion

Sure, the allegations are a bit odd and likely bogus. That isn't important here - they were widely publicized and are what the average non-Mormon, if they've heard of Nibley at all, is likely to be familiar with. To ignore it completely would be dishonest. What is in the article seems to be appropriate and balanced. Rabidwolfe 23:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Enoch

At present "Enoch" links to a disambiguation page. We're not supposed to do that if this is meant to link to Enoch (ancestor of Noah). Someone should fix the link so it's piped. If not go to the dab page, find the right article and link it. Either that or remove the link entirely. --Steven J. Anderson 05:31, 1 May 2007 (UTC) I piped it to Joseph Smith, Jr.. According to List of code names in the Doctrine and Covenants, Enoch was code for Smith. --Steven J. Anderson 05:53, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

  • However, the article specifies that he wrote about the historical Enoch, which is the ancestor of Noah. Not Joseph Smith. Fixed. 86.152.90.113 (talk) 14:47, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Merge Proposal

The following discussion is archived. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

The proposed target for the merge was changed, and this discussion was subsequently moved, so I am archiving this discussion. See Talk:Linguistics and the Book of Mormon#Egyptian Names Merge Proposal. --Descartes1979 (talk) 21:13, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I propose we merge Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon into this page. I am actually pretty surprised to see that article, it seems too specific, especially since Nibley is the only one advocating this theory. That in addition to the mainstream scholarly thought on the Book of Mormon, and the article just doesn't make sense. In fact, if I am not mistaken, there is actually quite a bit of linguistic criticism of the Book of Mormon, where the names are Latin etc. I actually think a lot of it can be deleted or summarized into a small section here called "Theory on Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon" or something like that.

It shouldn't be merged for the very reason that it is indeed specific. It's an article on Egyptian names in the Book of Mormon, NOT Hugh Nibley, and only mentions Nibley. It's well-cited, too. There's no compelling need to merge. The article makes a great deal of sense. You can't just say something doesn't make sense and without backing up that assertion. Why does it not make sense? I'm all ears. In the meantime, we should...

  • Refrain from the "M" word --Piewalker —Preceding comment was added at 07:23, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
"Well cited"? - the whole article is just a rehash of a single chapter in one of Hugh Nibley's books. If we keep this article, what stops us from creating a "Latin names in the Book of Mormon" article, or a "Swahili names found in Shakespeare" article? It seems rather spurious. I will look up WP policies later today when I have time, because I would wager that this article would fall under some category that would suggest it should be removed. --Descartes1979 (talk) 18:18, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The articles on Hugh Nibley and on Egyptian Names in the Book of Mormon are each long enough, and to combine them would make an article that is too long and bulky. The article on the Egyptian Names in the Book of Mormon is based on sound scholarship and actual irrefutable facts. The opposition to these facts comes from religious bigotry, ignorance and prejudice. That is so wrong. Das Baz, aka Erudil 18:32, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

Sorry Daz - but I believe that "actual irrefutable facts" is a gross misstatement, but perhaps you can point me to them. Your comments are very POV. Also remember that per Wikipedia guidance, Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia and as such "there is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover, or the total amount of content, other than verifiability and the other points presented on this page." I am also a little offended that you are calling me a religious bigot, ignorant, and prejudiced. Can't we elevate this discussion above petty name calling? --Descartes1979 (talk) 20:36, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

I did not say "you are a bigot." I said you have allowed yourself to be influenced by religious bigotry. Das Baz, aka Erudil 17:15, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The discussion also needs to be elevated above such petty silliness as that Swahilki in Shakespeare business. Sas Baz, aka Erudil 17:16, 8 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Das Baz (talk • contribs)

Perhaps this article is better merged with Linguistics and the Book of Mormon? I still am not persuaded that it should stand on its own...--Descartes1979 (talk) 20:39, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

OK - I just reviewed Linguistics and the Book of Mormon, and there is a section in that article that treats this topic - the information is duplicated. I am changing my proposal to merge with that article instead of this one. Please take a look at the discussion here. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Descartes1979 (talk • contribs) 21:05, 1 March 2008 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.