Time has not vindicated Hugh Nibley

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drumdude
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Time has not vindicated Hugh Nibley

Post by drumdude »

Interpreter has been publishing some of Hugh's audio tapes from the 1950s. They are an interesting insight into naïve Mormon apologetics before the era of the Tanners. Hugh and his listeners in the 1950s are completely unaware of the 1832 account of the First Vision, since it is still at this time being deliberately hidden by church leaders. Thus, time has not been kind to Hugh's arguments. In this audio recording, he lays out what he believes separates a false prophet, Muhammad, from a true prophet, Joseph Smith.

1) Hugh says Muhammad was full of self doubt, whereas Joseph was always completely confident. Well lo and behold, the 1832 first vision account revolves entirely around Joseph's inner turmoil. "My mind became exceedingly distressed, for I became convicted of my sins"

2) Hugh says Muhammad didn't have any miraculous translation ability, whereas Smith "read and translated the book, which he carried around with him from place to place. He actually copied out characters from the book and circulated them all around" This was the 1950s, when Mormon art was full of images of Joseph studying the golden plates, actively translating them. The rock in a hat, and the book of Abraham fiasco completely blows up Nibley's argument that Smith had any special gift/power of translation.

3) Hugh says that Joseph's reports are "clear, specific, and precise." Again, this was before even Hugh himself knew of the existence of the earliest account of the First Vision. The one where Smith doesn't see two personages. Because Smith hadn't come up with the idea of God and Jesus being two separate beings yet.

https://interpreterfoundation.org/nible ... preachers/


I'm a bit surprised that Interpreter is republishing these, because time has definitely not been kind to Hugh's apologetic arguments. I am definitely grateful to get a window into how confident he was, when his church was still hiding so many critical facts.
Fence Sitter
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Re: Time has not vindicated Hugh Nibley

Post by Fence Sitter »

To quote Nibley himself when Ed Ashment pointed out all Nibley's errors regarding the facsimiles.

"I refuse to be held responsible for anything I wrote more than three years ago. For heaven's sake, I hope we are moving forward here.... I would say that about four fifths of everything I put down has changed."

Since Nibley died in 2005 we can conclude that four fifths of everything he wrote is worthless. So throw away 15 of his collected works volumes I suppose. :D
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Moksha
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Re: Time has not vindicated Hugh Nibley

Post by Moksha »

Too bad, there were no computerized devices that would have allowed him to record his footnotes with accuracy. Back in the 1930s when Nibley was in grad school studying foreign languages, there was probably not much emphasis on methodology and evaluating evidence which could lead him to produce thousands of false positive claims.
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Symmachus
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Re: Time has not vindicated Hugh Nibley

Post by Symmachus »

Apart from the collection of personal essays entitled "Hugh Nibley Observed," this is the most original work published by the intrepid team at the Interpreter. That is a kind of vindication.
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