Latest Numbers from the Interpreter Foundation

[Kishkumen]

Where yours are now, mine once were. The one thing that you and I, and DCP have in common, is that none of us are going to read a Nibley book anytime soon. Now, this new book on Nibley's life? That's a different story. That's probably the best Idea Interpreter has had in a long time. It's ROI will blast the Critical Text project's back to the 15th century.

I don't know, Dean Robbers. I feel like I am being challenged to read One Eternal Round. You and Philo are both egging me on here.

We are in total agreement, however, that another Nibley book is an excellent idea. Where would Mopologetics be without Nibley? He gave them so much to work with. Other apologist-scholars had their good ideas and published a few interesting things here and there, but Nibley had a kind of vision that was otherwise in short supply. He also had a privileged kind of allowance in the eyes of the Brethren to say and do what others could not. I don't think there will be another like him, so his life is a wonderful object of interest to showcase.

[Kishkumen]

Hugh Nibley’s crankiness, gruffness and rude behavior are legendary. Let’s call a spade a spade and just admit that Hugh Nibley was a complete asshole to many people.

LOL! I wouldn't consider "asshole" to be le mot juste, as it were. Prickly? Surly? Aloof? Maybe still not exactly right, but I think closer to the mark.

It’s no wonder why he is held in such high regard by DCP and the Mopologists.

He certainly did model some of their bad habits in some of his work.

The kind and gentle Truman Madsen one commented to my father that Hugh Nibley could be very “unpleasant.” For Truman Madsen to criticize anyone was no small thing.

My recollection is that Nibley was pretty critical of Madsen, so it does not surprise me to find out that the negative view was mutual.

Maybe a more appropriate title for Nibley’s last book would have been, “One Eternal Frown.”

Genuinely funny.

[Kishkumen]

If one can ignore his apologetics in "One Eternal Round," (and you really ought to) I found his esoterics in it really decent. I rather liked the book and I have read it a few times through the years. It IS one of his better books. I say the same about his "Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri," the KEY is ignore his obvious Mormon bias and apologetics, and get to the cultural, and religious ideas on their own, and it is a good read. Gee, amazingly enough, in the 2nd edition even made it better. You read that right, it is better.
Nibley's apologetics are flawed, of course, but his esoteric, dare I say "spiritual" ideas are quite enjoyable to read. His cross cultural interpretations and parallels still cause me to go hmmmmm, not because they are supporting Mormonism, but because they legitimately exist as such in themselves, and I find them far more useful to broaden my view instead of into confirming Mormonism, of seeing other esoteric systems and how I can see them in a new view. For that, Nibley's broad range of parallels are quite interesting.

Look, for one thing, he actually did put 30+ years on that "One Eternal Round," (to say its just junk is simple stupid bias) and for the second thing, amazingly enough, he included many other views, Hermetic, Egyptian, Jewish, Jewish Kabbalah, Alchemy, etc. in an LDS book?!? He is one of the only scholars to do so, and in a positive manner. Perhaps it is because it was Nibley and he could get away with it without too much repercussion from the idiots in charge of the religion. But more, much more of this simply must happen in my opinion. There is vastly more... I mean vastly majorly more to religious ideas, variational themes, and multiple validities than what Mormonism looks at or sees or talks about.

It's own narrowness is its pure damnation as far as I am concerned. Nibley said take a look, all these others have some really great ideas too. It is precisely this that Mormonism stupidly down plays in order to imagine its own chosen specialness and priesthood magnificence, and it is this that will be its own downfall. God doesn't just wake up every morning, ignore the world, and go have coffee in Salt Lake City before he runs back home to his Celestial throne as so very ridiculously many Mormons imagine He does. Mormonism has never been the only game in town throughout all of history. Nibley was trying to show its more than just O.K., it is spiritually uplifting and delightful to look into all others esoteric materials also because they have something for us to learn also.

If you ignore "One Eternal Round," no worries. I am a better person for having read it from my point of view.

I want to read it, and you have given me even more reasons to do so. Thank you!

[Dr Exiled]

Hugh Nibley’s crankiness, gruffness and rude behavior are legendary. Let’s call a spade a spade and just admit that Hugh Nibley was a complete asshole to many people.

It’s no wonder why he is held in such high regard by DCP and the Mopologists.

The kind and gentle Truman Madsen one commented to my father that Hugh Nibley could be very “unpleasant.” For Truman Madsen to criticize anyone was no small thing.

Maybe a more appropriate title for Nibley’s last book would have been, “One Eternal Frown.”

I only have some anecdotes about the man from family and friends that had him as a professor. My brother says that Nibley would be talking to himself in the hall and continue to talk while entering the classroom, continue on throughout the class and then walk away still talking as he went out the door. Other friends said that he was unintelligible.

[Lem]

Hugh Nibley’s crankiness, gruffness and rude behavior are legendary. Let’s call a spade a spade and just admit that Hugh Nibley was a complete asshole to many people.

It’s no wonder why he is held in such high regard by DCP and the Mopologists.

The kind and gentle Truman Madsen one commented to my father that Hugh Nibley could be very “unpleasant.” For Truman Madsen to criticize anyone was no small thing.

Maybe a more appropriate title for Nibley’s last book would have been, “One Eternal Frown.”

I only have some anecdotes about the man from family and friends that had him as a professor. My brother says that Nibley would be talking to himself in the hall and continue to talk while entering the classroom, continue on throughout the class and then walk away still talking as he went out the door. Other friends said that he was unintelligible.

There was a retired Nobel prize winner in my department, whose behavior, on occasion, would have caused anyone else to be booted from the building. No one ever said a thing. I imagine Nibley had similar, albeit religious standing.

[IHAQ]

Wow, Tom. Is this the first quarter missed in six years since the Interpreter started paying for Volume 3? Do you think it is related to the multiple retractions recently posted? The planned parts of volume 3, including the official retractions, haven't all been published yet, If I recall correctly.

Lem, yes to your first question. I don't know the answer to your next question. There is a possibility that the Foundation is continuing to fund the Project but has simply reclassified the expenses as "Book Projects and Conferences" in the latest statement.

Do we know whose books are being funded under "book projects"?

[Gadianton]

I don't know, Dean Robbers. I feel like I am being challenged to read One Eternal Round. You and Philo are both egging me on here.

I think you'd be wasting your time to read it. I recommend that you don't. But if you do, then I propose a wager. I've never read the book nor any summary of it, but I'll take my best crack at what's in the book just from my memory of his other writings, and judging by the book's name. Namely, I reveal the most significant point the book tries to make. I feel like I have a good sense of where Hugh is going with something. Notwithstanding his vast knowledge, he tends to be predictable.

So let me know, and I'll make my prediction in this thread.

Then, after you read it, you tell me if I was right or wrong. If I'm wrong, I owe you a beer the next time we meet, and if I'm right, I'm sure you'll be honest about it, and the beer is on you.

Deal?

[Kishkumen]

I think you'd be wasting your time to read it. I recommend that you don't. But if you do, then I propose a wager. I've never read the book nor any summary of it, but I'll take my best crack at what's in the book just from my memory of his other writings, and judging by the book's name. Namely, I reveal the most significant point the book tries to make. I feel like I have a good sense of where Hugh is going with something. Notwithstanding his vast knowledge, he tends to be predictable.

So let me know, and I'll make my prediction in this thread.

Then, after you read it, you tell me if I was right or wrong. If I'm wrong, I owe you a beer the next time we meet, and if I'm right, I'm sure you'll be honest about it, and the beer is on you.

Deal?

Deal.

I have a lot more important reading to do at present, but I will definitely read it and let you know both what I thought and how on the money you were.

[Dr Moore]

If there happens to be an easter egg in the book about a dopey young student barging in his office while the book was being researched, then both beers are on me.

[Gadianton]

Okay great, here goes nothing.

First of all, Nibley will bring up at least once, but probably twice the fact that there are 3 versions of the Book of Enoch. One is the "Ethiopic". (I am forbidding myself from Googling any of this by the way, to make it fair)

You probably will struggle to understand why this is so important or wonder how is it relevant to anything he's talking about.

At some point, he will mention the existence of cave art displaying man as hairy and ape-like. This might be in passing, but it's critical, because it's his way of dismissing the theory of evolution. Even pre-historic man suspected the link, and so modern intellectuals are unoriginal. I give it 50% that he'll also take a pot shot at higher criticism, noting that Bible studies is a yawn-fest, all-consumed with who borrowed from who and its just a silly game.

Modern academia is a bunch of pointless bellyaching, which stands in sharp contrast to the thrill and importance of studying the gospel.

He'll get into the temple garment given to Adam, and passed down, and I'm pretty sure he'll follow that up with temple marriage as affirmed in the Gospel of Phillip of the Nag Hammadi Library.

So there's the basic tension between evolutionary theories and arrogance, which is one foot in Babylon, and gospel study, which is tracing successive waves of the gospel entering the world, apostasy, and restoration (it's a cycle). He will mention that we're to work the land with our hands and spend the rest of our time deep in gospel study.

The culmination of phony secular theorizing and idolatry takes shape in the God of this world, Carl Sagan. He'll take shots at Carl Sagan in his spaceship, denying Christ while puffing himself up as the greatest thing in the universe. If you want the real deal, then study Abraham, who was taken up to watch the creation and destructions of worlds (Apocalypse of Abraham) and greatly humbled if not disturbed by it (in contrast to Sagan's arrogance).

Finally, he will gush over the book Hamlet's Mill, which I think argues several major creation myths all coming from a single source, which is his deal and his main point with the phrase "one eternal round". Revelation in purity, corruption/apostasy, and restoration. The cycle.

Now Bought doesn't have to read it either if he doesn't want to.