Nibley: Footnote faker or not?

[_Kishkumen]

In other words a "hack?"

I appreciate and respect your honestly in reversing your opinion, I really do. I also understand I am short and to the point, I am a classic example of a good ole boy. LOL...If you saw my I tunes playlist you would never understand some of it. I do know what is right, and what is wrong, and what smells good and what stinks.

I now look forward to see how those that were agreeing with you, and adding to the adhoms about my assertions, respond to your change of thought on his scholarship?

thanks
MG

No, hack is not the word I would use. I would contend that Nibley's original vision of Mormonism, which was certainly informed by his training and knowledge of antiquity, disqualify him from the epithet "hack." In other words, despite the fact that the information Celestial Kingdom brought to my attention has changed my opinion regarding Nibley's ethics as a scholar, I still don't see him in the simple, black-and-white terms you and others do. You want a simple villain you can dismiss for your own partisan reasons. I think most of us who have been on the other side of the argument see a lot more there. Of course, they can speak for themselves.

[_Kishkumen]

What were Gee's activities?

His dubious methods in his defense of the Book of Abraham.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I assume this will all be on the postcard you're sending me?

[_Markk]

No, hack is not the word I would use. I would contend that Nibley's original vision of Mormonism, which was certainly informed by his training and knowledge of antiquity, disqualify him from the epithet "hack." In other words, despite the fact that the information Celestial Kingdom brought to my attention has changed my opinion regarding Nibley's ethics as a scholar, I still don't see him in the simple, black-and-white terms you and others do. You want a simple villain you can dismiss for your own partisan reasons. I think most of us who have been on the other side of the argument see a lot more there. Of course, they can speak for themselves.

In the real sense I was on the other side of the argument, in that what he lied, mis-remembered, hacked, played fast and loose with... helped confirm my testimony, whether directly, or indirectly. And not just Nibley but other LDS authors and teacher...many who put him on a high stump.

When I was questioning my faith, I met with my SMP...when I questioned HN and his take on the Book of Abraham, he called me satan and kicked me out of his house.

HN took footnotes, cut them up, diced them, sliced them, and put them in a blender...and then used them as a means to an end to create a false security that "all is well," to people like you and me.

Of all the names HN has been called on this thread...being a hack is maybe the least offensive and most likely the best example of what he did to the research in his end notes to make it all work for his preconceived ideology.

[_Chap]

I hear you, Chap. I am in no way copacetic with lying.

(my emphasis)

Kishkumen, don't do that to me! When a classicist like you uses a word I have never, ever, heard before, I frantically riffle through what Latin and Greek remains active in my skull, in the hope that I shall be able to find a plausible root. Nary a one came to mind. Now I find this in the Oxford English Dictionary:

U.S. slang.
Categories »

Fine, excellent, going just right.
1919 I. Bacheller Man for Ages iv. 69 ‘As to looks I'd call him, as ye might say, real copasetic.’ Mrs. Lukins expressed this opinion solemnly... Its last word stood for nothing more than an indefinite depth of meaning.
1926 C. Van Vechten Nigger Heaven 286 Kopasetee, an approbatory epithet somewhat stronger than all right.
1934 Webster's New Internat. Dict. Eng. Lang. Copacetic, capital; snappy; prime.
1934 J. O'Hara Appointment in Samarra (1935) i. 24 You had to be a good judge of what a man was like, and the English was copacetic.
1935 N. Ersine Underworld & Prison Slang 29 Copissettic, all right, okay.
1937 Amer. Speech 12 243/1 ‘Everything is copesetic’..is synonymous with ‘O.K.’, and I believe it is used by negroes in the South.
1947 Down Beat 18 June 4 (heading) Torme not all copa-setic.
1969 Down Beat 20 Mar. 18/1 We hear two city cops chatting. ‘Well, everything seems copasetic,’ says one. ‘Yeah, we might as well move on,’ the other agrees.

U.S. slang indeed!

This thread has forced me to reconsider my assessment of Nibley. While I still feel that his vision of Mormonism had a lot going for it, and his criticism of Mormon society and Mormon leadership was salutary, I can no longer say that I trust him as a scholar, even in his peer-reviewed articles. It is actually quite a blow.

I am sorry to hear that you had that experience. I gave up my religion simply because I thought it was probably not true. I never felt I had been tricked, deceived, or lied to. That cannot be a nice feeling.

In other words a "hack?"

One of the least interesting kinds of argument that takes place on this board is whether a particular denigratory epithet (a 'boo-word' as opposed to a 'hurrah-word') should or should not be applied to somebody or other - for example, is somebody a d**k or just an a*****e. But I shall stand out against 'hack' for Nibley. A 'hack', metaphorically applied to people from a term for a rather dull working horse that is OK for riding but not for hunting or jumping, refers in a literary context to an unoriginal person who just churns out what their bosses want. That was not Nibley, whatever else he may have been. He was an original, of a kind.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

I wonder if Mr. Nibley's pathos is the same one shared by many-a-Mormon in that lying, in order to preserve the Church as an idea and as an institution, is just something they do. I know I would do it often in context of Mormonism; making denials while knowing something was actually true, or adding a little twist to something I was saying in order to make it a little more valid. I wouldn't concretely think, "I'm going to do this one thing in order to achieve a desired result." Rather it would just... Happen. Perhaps it was from years and years of being lied to in this manner by people who they themselves had been lied to in that manner, so on and so forth until we get to the people who actually damned lied on purpose because they were sociopaths trying to carve out their fortunes through Mormonism.

- Doc

[_Chap]

I wonder if Mr. Nibley's pathos is the same one shared by many-a-Mormon in that lying, in order to preserve the Church as an idea and as an institution, is just something they do. I know I would do it often in context of Mormonism; making denials while knowing something was actually true, or adding a little twist to something I was saying in order to make it a little more valid. I wouldn't concretely think, "I'm going to do this one thing in order to achieve a desired result." Rather it would just... Happen. Perhaps it was from years and years of being lied to in this manner by people who they themselves had been lied to in that manner, so on and so forth until we get to the people who actually f*****g lied on purpose because they were sociopaths trying to carve out their fortunes through Mormonism.

- Doc

For instance, perhaps:

Interview with President Gordon B. Hinckley in the August 4 1997 issue of Time magazine:

Q: Just another related question that comes up is the statements in the King Follet discourse by the Prophet.

A: Yeah

Q: ... about that, God the Father was once a man as we were. This is something that Christian writers are always addressing. Is this the teaching of the church today, that God the Father was once a man like we are?

A: I don’t know that we teach it. I don’t know that we emphasize it. I haven’t heard it discussed for a long time in public discourse. I don’t know. I don’t know all the circumstances under which that statement was made. I understand the philosophical background behind it. But I don’t know a lot about it and I don’t know that others know a lot about it.

(My emphasis added to the interviewer's direct key question).

Hinckley probably didn't think 'Hey! Time to tell a whopper to stop the church looking weird!' in response to that question. Instead he automatically just blew smoke at the issue - even though he must have known that this would mislead his interviewer. Lying, certainly. But he was so used to doing it he probably didn't even feel a twinge as he did it.

[_Kishkumen]

The whole Adamic thing is interesting. I don't know much about Dee and Enochian, but if we're looking for parallels in the esoteric tradition - as the Herr Professor Nibley might have done - there also are the voces magicae that you find in texts like the Greek magical papyri. Unfamiliar, foreign-sounding words of inherent power.

I have a hard time with the thinking behind that because it seems to treat the English language as a mundane thing which is incapable of being theophanic or charged with power. You need to make up linguistic gibberish or else your religion isn't impressive enough. This can;t be right. God is an Englishman, after all.

I believe CaliforniaKid has done some work on glossolalia in early Mormonism. It could be the case Mormon examples were taken seriously to the point of trying to systematize them in the recovery of Adamic, If I recall correctly.

[_Kishkumen]

When I was questioning my faith, I met with my SMP...when I questioned HN and his take on the Book of Abraham, he called me satan and kicked me out of his house.

I can see why that might make a guy sore.

Of all the names HN has been called on this thread...being a hack is maybe the least offensive and most likely the best example of what he did to the research in his end notes to make it all work for his preconceived ideology.

You are entitled to your opinion, as am I. I don't agree with you.

[_Kishkumen]

I am sorry to hear that you had that experience. I gave up my religion simply because I thought it was probably not true. I never felt I had been tricked, deceived, or lied to. That cannot be a nice feeling.

No. I don't feel tricked, deceived, or lied to. I feel let down by a person I expected more from. As a younger person I truly admired Nibley. He seemed to me to be a moral voice against negative aspects of LDS society and the LDS Church. The fudging in his scholarship undermines my former estimation of his character.