Nibley: Footnote faker or not?

[_Kishkumen]

He wrote mostly in a non-scholarly venue and was sloppy: those two facts explain everything without appeals to personal complexity, unsubstantial allegations of deception, and subjective appeals to something as meaningless and vague as "genius."

Amen.

[_Johannes]

Thanks for clarifying that, Rosebud. I think reasonable people can disagree on precisely what his motives were, given the state of the evidence and the obvious impossibility of accessing his thoughts. I readily admit that my own view is influenced by having encountered quite a few "Hugh Nibleys" in mainline churches who give every evidence of being completely sincere.

[_Kishkumen]

2. I don't think it's possible for me or Kish or anyone else here or anywhere to really know what Nibley believed or didn't believe about the veracity of Mormonism. It's a guessing game. My interpretation is based on my life experiences etc. and Kish's interpretation is based on Kish's life experineces, etc. Both of us are interpreting and neither of us (and no one else) really knows. It's silly, in my mind, for anyone to claim in surety that they know what Nibley really thought or believed.

I suppose that yes, ultimately, no one truly knows the inner life of any other person, including one's own spouse, beloved, child, parent, etc. We size people up the best we can and proceed on faith. My judgment based on personal experience and the experience of his friends, both those I knew personally and those who reported their experience of Nibley, is that he believed in Mormonism and was boosting it in the best way he knew how. I will go with those kinds of conclusions over psychological speculations and sensational memoirs every time.

[_Kishkumen]

Thanks for clarifying that, Rosebud. I think reasonable people can disagree on precisely what his motives were, given the state of the evidence and the obvious impossibility of accessing his thoughts. I readily admit that my own view is influenced by having encountered quite a few "Hugh Nibleys" in mainline churches who give every evidence of being completely sincere.

And I would grant that there are times a person can appear sincere while proving, in the end, to be insincere. I have seen scoundrels bear heartfelt testimony. The thing is, the phonys are often revealed to be phonys in time. The only suggestions I have seen that Nibley was lacking in character in some way came from Martha. There are also those who criticize his scholarship, as does Compton. The interesting thing about all of these people is that not one of them really concludes that Nibley was not a believer. At best, we might say that Martha believed her father was wounded by the cognitive dissonance of trying to defend the Book of Abraham, and that is not exactly the same thing.

[_Maksutov]

Kish, how do you think Nibley helped and/or hurt Mormon scholarship overall? I would probably place him below Roberts and Talmage and above all of the FARMS/BYU crowd most active in Mopology.

[_Johannes]

And I would grant that there are times a person can appear sincere while proving, in the end, to be insincere. I have seen scoundrels bear heartfelt testimony. The thing is, the phonys are often revealed to be phonys in time.

Yes, absolutely, and I would add that even those who aren't overtly revealed as phonies are often attended by a cloud of suspicion from their more perceptive colleagues.

[_Kishkumen]

Kish, how do you think Nibley helped and/or hurt Mormon scholarship overall? I would probably place him below Roberts and Talmage and above all of the FARMS/BYU crowd most active in Mopology.

That's an interesting question, Mak. I suppose I would come back with this: anything that moved people to obtain a broader education in the Humanities was probably an improvement over the historical amnesia of the LDS people. Simply by making people aware of the existence of a vast ocean of history, languages, cultures, etc., Nibley probably did something more valuable than Roberts or Talmage. Some of the value of Nibley's work may be the way that it highlights the profound ignorance of LDS culture. One may also see its value in its failure. Those who followed Nibley's bread crumbs and expected them to pan out were doomed to be disappointed. Yet, there is a way in which, I believe, the sensitive and reflective person can come to terms with what Nibley was trying to do, why it failed, and yet resonates with other forms of cultural appropriation and imperialism in the Western tradition.

[_Lemmie]

He wrote mostly in a non-scholarly venue and was sloppy: those two facts explain everything without appeals to personal complexity, unsubstantial allegations of deception, and subjective appeals to something as meaningless and vague as "genius."

Amen.

This, along with Kish's previous comments, fully address the issue I had as to whether or not the positive pressures of academic and/or in-house peer review were in evidence, so amen as well. Thanks, guys.

[_kairos]

What at the bottom line for me is why was Nibley "sloppy" in his scholarship? Ego? Or was he thinking he must stretch a source to make a believable point to his readers, mostly TBM who needed a hero scholar to help them believe or at least think " if Nibley found evidence then I trust him and his scholarship?

And was Nibley humble enough to accept correction to his work or did he find it necessary to defend it? I simply do not know.

k

[_Johannes]

Or was he thinking he must stretch a source to make a believable point to his readers

I suspect you could replace "his readers" with "himself".

Often, dogmatic believers are really trying to convince themselves. That's the true audience of many tub-thumping sermons and books. C.S. Lewis once said that no doctrine of the Christian religion seemed more uncertain to him than one that he had just defended in a public debate. That sort of insecurity can easily drive the sort of leaps of logic and distortions that seem to characterise Nibley's work.