Sefer Yetzirah, Kabbalah, and Hugh Nibley's Apolgetic

[_Philo Sofee]

Ummmmmm, O.K. then, having finished reading Hugh Nibley's final book again, One Eternal Round, I was truly and genuinely curious about his analysis of the Sefer Yetzirah in his chapter title "Kabbalah" where he truly has hypocephalus on the brain. He was so blinded by his obssessive compulsive desire to prove Joseph Smith knew Egyptian that he literally ignored all else and imagined that every ancient religious system in existence was all about the Egyptian hypocephali which were hidden in coffins under heads, not bandied about philosophized and analyzed by scholars.

If you want to know what the Sefer Yetzirah is about or what it teaches, you won't get that information from Nibley's analysis. His only singular concentrated focused and determined attempt was only to justify Joseph Smith's imaginary interpretations of the hypocaphalus in the Book of Abraham. To that end he produced the most singular shallow analysis of the Sefer Yetzirah anywhere in print.

How can I say such a nasty thing? Because this week I re-read the Sefer Yetzirah and compared what Aryeh Kaplan's magnificent commentary said it meant and compared it with Hugh Nibley's verbal masturbation of hypocephalus silliness supposedly linking the two, at least philosophically and religiously, together.

I shall do a detailed analysis in my book. If this is indication of how inspidly shallow, cheap, narrow, bigoted, and silly Nibley handles the Hermetic literatures and others in his over weaning desire to prove Joseph Smith a true prophet, then what else did he mess up? Literally everything. And that he leaves the impression that not only is the Sefer Yetzirah close in doctrine to the ancient Egyptians but also the Mormon doctrines is utterly over the top ridiculous. See ya all in the next Kabbalah thread.....

[_moksha]

See ya all in the next Kabbalah thread.....

Kabbaloha till we meet again Kimosabe.

[_Dr. Shades]

Okay, I'll bite. . . what in the Sam Hell is this "Sefer Yetzirah" of which you speak??

[_moksha]

The Sefer Yetzirah was a famous Reformed Egyptian cartouche that proclaimed its bearer as being from the House of Bednar. It also gave the mysterious command, "Avenge Parley at the high meadow".

[_Symmachus]

The Sefer Yetzirah was a famous Reformed Egyptian cartouche that proclaimed its bearer as being from the House of Bednar. It also gave the mysterious command, "Avenge Parley at the high meadow".

I love Moksha so much. So, so much.

[_Symmachus]

Philo,

First, let me say that I am enjoying your posts. Keep 'em coming. I have yet to read One Eternal Round, but I was wondering two things about it.

1. Is it really an apologetic work? I skimmed parts of it once at an LDS bookstore nearby, and it seemed to be more a wild view of Nibley's cosmic Mormonism.

2. How much of it do you think Michale Rhodes is responsible for? The preface, if I remember correctly, talked about how disorganized the project was at the time of NIbley's death: boxes of material, hundreds of files, etc. I was struck by the fact that Rhodes was listed as a co-author, not an editor, which suggested to me either that Rhodes was attempting to usurp some of the credit or that the work is the product of a genuinely authorial and not merely an editorial hand. If so, I wonder how much of you think can be disentangled from Nibley, and how much of it can be attributed solely to Nibley.

[_Philo Sofee]

Okay, I'll bite. . . what in the Sam Hell is this "Sefer Yetzirah" of which you speak??

Oh I am sorry, there I go again asuming folks know what this stuff is.

O.K. in a simple nutshell, it is what the Jews call the mystical Book of Creation. It is written in a cryptic style and legend says Abraham wrote the thing. Well, it is old, but not that very old! Legends are fun and they have ways of getting all kinds of things wrong, but it goes way back at least to the time of Christ.

It elaborates in a mystical sense on how each letter of the Hebrew alphabet played a part in the creation as if it had its own power, as if each letter is its own life. All under the rubic of God's authority however.

Hope that helps. It's a mystical Jewish cosmology so to speak, how did it all happen? It also relates the letters to the Kabbalah Tree of Life, a mystical diagram that we are supposed to tap into and use its powers, dealing with mercy, justice, goodness, etc. Each power is a sphere, hence the word sephirot (sphere) to describe them. There are ten of them and they are arranged in three columns vertically and all connected by lines, which are said to be paths of power. The mystic climbs this tree, this ladder if you will, as Jacob did, in order to ascend to God.

Hope that helps.