Bizarre Story of Jacob Neusner Humiliating Louis Midgley

[DrStakhanovite]

I have to admit upfront that the phenomenological experience of reading Louis Midgley's 'Honoring Hugh Nibley — Again' is not unlike that of watching a Yung Gravy music video. The cadence of prose has a certain perkiness to it and proceeds along at a clip that can be described as enjoyable, much like the opening bars of ‘Opps!’. Once a consumer begins to digest the content of the delivery though, what was admirable becomes lost in a haze of an overly confident attitude presenting unethical behavior as acceptable. For me, Midgley gleefully reviewing an anthology for which he contributed to in an publication that resolutely insists that it maintains the editorial standards of contemporary scholarship, offends the moral compass much in the same way as Yung Gravy’s lyrics:

Oops, baby
Gravy hit my bitch, yeah, whoopsie daisy
I just tried to hit, it's my duty, baby
Sippin' on the Goose, like Boosie, baby
Yeah, I said oops, baby

Like so much Yung Gravy glibly taking credit for his romantic indiscretions, Midgley acknowledges that he requested this unusual state of affairs. What follows mirrors the aesthetic content of ‘Opps!’ in that there is a flurry of self-congratulatory montages riddled with ridiculous posturing. The highlight being an anecdote that involves the late Jacob Neusner:

Jacob Neusner (1932–2016) published essays in earlier Festschrifts to Nibley. He was by far the most widely published Jewish scholar, having written or published over 900 books. Neusner was interested in and knew much of the crucial facts about the Restored Gospel. Once, when he was at BYU giving lectures, a group of us met with him. I remember Neusner sitting directly opposite me, with Hugh Nibley on his right. Truman Madsen was on my right and Kent Brown on my left. There were also others sitting at that table in a comfortable room in the Wilkinson Center.

I must admit that I myself have a Neusner story. I was allowed to attend a lunch with him where an established jewish philosopher (primarily known for his work on Maimonides) floated the idea that the department he represented was thinking about extending to Neusner an offer to move from Brown University to their own institution. Somewhere in between shoveling food into his mouth Neusner replied that the institution in question could never afford him. There was an uncomfortable silence before the conversation moved forward and there was never again any talk of job offers. In fact I had shown up with a book that I was hoping he’d inscribe, but I thought better about asking him after seeing the man in action.

What Midgley doesn’t mention in his brief sketch of Neusner is that the man had a reputation for being unsociably mean. Sometimes the accusations speak of cruelty, but often they are framed as Neusner simply speaking and behaving with no regard for the other person. Most examples almost always occur when Neusner is delivering criticism. He simply pulled no punches and nobody was ever confused about what he really thought of someone else’s work.

For an example that might shock some Mormons and Ex-Mormons, there is Neusner’s assessment of the work of E.P. Sanders, formerly a biblical scholar at Duke University now in retirement. If you have read the popular works of Bart Ehrman then you have encountered the regurgitated positions of Sanders; I have often come across people within the parochial world of New Testament studies that afford Sanders a great deal of reverence. David Bokovoy is among such people.

In his book ‘Rabbinic Judaism: Structure and System’, Neusner makes the following remarks:

To my knowledge no one until Sanders has come to the facile judgement that anything any Jew thought has to have been in the mind of all the other Jews. That is to treat the religion as a function of the sociology and culture of an ethnic group. It is another way of saying that there was (and is) no such thing as a religion, Judaism. There are only Jews, and the sum and substance of their opinions, if any, on topics generally regarded as religious compromise “Judaism.” Then, for Sanders, all the Jews thought one and the same thing and what they all thought was this religion, Judaism. The result appears to present a caricature of both Judaism and the study of religion. (.p12)

On and on Sanders goes, introducing in the paragraph that follows references to Christian symbols (John 1:9; 15:1); the issue of whether “one God” meant there were no other supernatural beings (yielding a citation to Paul, who was a Pharisee, with reference to Phil. 3:2-6). And so he runs on, for five hundred tedious pages. This “harmony” yields chaos. (p.13)

If you were a modern author, Neusner did not spare you. So let’s get back to Midgley’s story:

The conversation began with Neusner asking Nibley what he was currently working on, to which he replied that he was at work on the Enoch materials. The two checked to see that they were talking about the same Enoch literature. They were, and Neusner said that this literature was “junk.” Nibley then indicated that in June 1830 Joseph Smith gave us a new version of the Enoch materials that was embedded in a new version of the literature on Moses.

This story is tracking well so far, I can totally imagine Neusner rudely dismissing the value of another scholar’s object of study.

Neusner demanded to know what was in this new Enoch text. He looked directly at me, and I must admit I was delighted when Madsen explained what was in this “new Enoch material” found in the Book of Moses. Nibley added one or two additional items to the conversation. In response, Neusner said he would now have to invent a mysterious rabbi from the East whom no one had ever heard about and who somehow turned up in Kirtland, Ohio, with information about Enoch that only he knew, and who then disappeared.

I’m genuinely perplexed by this inclusion. Here we have Neusner staring Midgley down, only to be rescued by Madsen and Nibley. Then by Midgley’s own account Neusner begins to make fun of them with this hypothetical Rabbi. Is Midgley unaware that Neusner was having a bit of fun at their expense with that? Did he enjoy the joke? It seems to be the exact kind of thing that would earn someone a prickly response from Midgley on DCP's blog.

Neusner then said that we “seemed like bright learned fellows but that Nibley stood far above all of us.” The exchange between Nibley and Neusner led Neusner to say to Nibley that he just had to be Jewish. Someone — I think it was Madsen — explained that Nibley was a descendant of Alexander Neibaur, the first Jewish convert to The Church of Jesus Christ and also one who knew Joseph Smith. Neibaur was born in Koblenz and educated at the University of Berlin. He was fluent in seven languages. Madsen also said that some of us, which included me, had tried to discover a Jewish ancestry.

I love that right on the heels of a backhanded compliment Midgley can’t help but immediately launch into one of those cracker barrel tropes about a Mormon suspected of being Jewish because of their virtue or quick wit. It is the perfect ending to a bizarre anecdote.

I gotta say the recent editorial choices over at the Interpreter have been very interesting.

[Symmachus]

Jacob Neusner told some of the top apologists-to-be that they were too stupid to be Jews: what a lovely story! Thank you, Dr. Stakhanovite.

I must admit that I myself have a Neusner story. I was allowed to attend a lunch with him where an established jewish philosopher (primarily known for his work on Maimonides) floated the idea that the department he represented was thinking about extending to Neusner an offer to move from Brown University to their own institution. Somewhere in between shoveling food into his mouth Neusner replied that the institution in question could never afford him. There was an uncomfortable silence before the conversation moved forward and there was never again any talk of job offers. In fact I had shown up with a book that I was hoping he’d inscribe, but I thought better about asking him after seeing the man in action.

Ha! A lot better than my Neusner story, which is that I spent much money on a handful of his books only to discover when they arrived that they were cut-and-paste jobs of his previously published History of the Jews in Babylonia, which I already had, and these had simply been re-titled and marketed as new books. I am going to guess that 300 of his books were in some form versions of another 300, and the other 300 were edited collections. And many books were very short. Several were pedagogical commentaries on texts meant for children in Hebrew schools (they were very helpful for me to in learning how to read Rabbinic literature).

Still, an undeniably great scholar. I was given a copy of the talks he gave at BYU called "The Glory of God Is Intelligence," published by BYU's Religious Studies Center. I might finally get around to reading it now to see if there is any subtext about Mormons not being clever enough to be Jews (although, in fairness, I don't get the impression that Neusner thought anyone was clever enough to be Jewish, except for himself maybe). Maybe there's a dig at Midgley in there.

I have often come across people within the parochial world of New Testament studies that afford Sanders a great deal of reverence. David Bokovoy is among such people.

I haven't met reverence but there is a parochialism for sure, which is why Sanders had such impact: there was W. D. Davies and before that, what, G. F. Moore? They were trying to address different problems, but I tend to have more sympathy with Neusner's fragmented approach because the fact is, we just don't have much evidence about how these texts come into being. It's all deduced or filtered from later stuff. "Quotation from the Mishnah. We have learned in another tractate that p and q are the case. Rabbi x says A, though, because B, but Rabbi y says C, because D. Ah, but remember: biblical quotation, which Rabbi z says shows E. What are we to make of this?" That's Talmud for you. Still, that's not too different from Justinian's Digest, and I don't know that anyone has said we can't reconstruct pre-Theodosian Roman law because of that or that Roman private law is really "Roman private laws" because different jurists had different views and interpretations of the law. On other other hand, only the work of a few jurists survives because their work was deemed authoritative enough to include in the Digest. Yes, but if their very authority is evidence of a cluster of followers. And already we read in Pomponius of a Proculian school, thus indicating at least one unified strand of jurisprudence. Yes, so we can say that Pomponius believed that, not that it was so. Etc. (you see why I enjoy Talmud?). Maybe someone should make that argument, if it hasn't been done.

I'm sure you have a much better grasp of what their long-running dispute was all about, so I welcome your further elucidation and correction of my cheap comparison, as well as my misapprehension, when or if you have the time and inclination.

To my knowledge no one until Sanders has come to the facile judgement that anything any Jew thought has to have been in the mind of all the other Jews. That is to treat the religion as a function of the sociology and culture of an ethnic group. It is another way of saying that there was (and is) no such thing as a religion, Judaism. There are only Jews, and the sum and substance of their opinions, if any, on topics generally regarded as religious compromise “Judaism.” Then, for Sanders, all the Jews thought one and the same thing and what they all thought was this religion, Judaism. The result appears to present a caricature of both Judaism and the study of religion. (.p12)

Ha! Well, there is one thing I learned about Judaism know from Neusner: it is whatever Neusner says it is.

Neusner demanded to know what was in this new Enoch text. He looked directly at me, and I must admit I was delighted when Madsen explained what was in this “new Enoch material” found in the Book of Moses. Nibley added one or two additional items to the conversation. In response, Neusner said he would now have to invent a mysterious rabbi from the East whom no one had ever heard about and who somehow turned up in Kirtland, Ohio, with information about Enoch that only he knew, and who then disappeared.

I’m genuinely perplexed by this inclusion. Here we have Neusner staring Midgley down, only to be rescued by Madsen and Nibley. Then by Midgley’s own account Neusner begins to make fun of them with this hypothetical Rabbi. Is Midgley unaware that Neusner was having a bit of fun at their expense with that? Did he enjoy the joke? It seems to be the exact kind of thing that would earn someone a prickly response from Midgley on DCP's blog.

Was Neusner at Brown when Midgley was a graduate student? One wonders if Neusner had a history with him.

[Doctor Scratch]

Great catch, Dr. Stak. The Mopologists have always had a very strange relationship with Jews and Judaism, ranging from DCP's mockery of the Jewish wedding ceremony, to his boneheaded comments in the wake of the proxy baptism for Simon Wiesenthal, to this tidbit regarding Midgley and the others who were attending this event. You sense a certain degree of admiration and jealousness, but also a whole lot of resentment and anger as well. I don't think it's any coincidence that "Gentile" is a synonym for non-LDS.

I do wonder what was going on in Midgley's head as this was happening, though. I suspect that he thought that Madsen and Nibley did an effective job of "sticking it" to Neusner--sort of like when he exults when DCP gives someone "the boot" off of SeN.

[Symmachus]

Great catch, Dr. Stak. The Mopologists have always had a very strange relationship with Jews and Judaism...

But their relationship with academic celebrity (all kinds of celebrity, actually) is a very clear: they want to be near it.

[Philo Sofee]

Great catch, Dr. Stak. The Mopologists have always had a very strange relationship with Jews and Judaism...

But their relationship with academic celebrity (all kinds of celebrity, actually) is a very clear: they want to be near it.

Interesting and significant detail here actually. They DO want to be near it, but NOT it. Scholarship simply won't bring 'em in all the way. It's too skeptical due to issues of evidence, and Mormons are too shy for the same reason. The evidence simply doesn't work from either direction. But being near it and every now and then getting a scholars words to the affect that something is there is all an apologist needs for a faith promoting story, or to attempt to demonstrate that the are on the inside and they have an inside track into things they can then point to to put skeptics in their place. They don't have much, but any bread crumb will do, which they can dress up in a tuxedo and claim they were at the Gold and Green Ball. Right in the middle of the action so to speak.

[Doctor Scratch]

Great catch, Dr. Stak. The Mopologists have always had a very strange relationship with Jews and Judaism...

But their relationship with academic celebrity (all kinds of celebrity, actually) is a very clear: they want to be near it.

Yes--agreed. And there is a great deal of resentment that they can't claim it via their connection to Mormonism. It's kind of unfair if you look at it from that perspective: this is God's One True Church, and yet they are denied wider academic respectability and/or fame? Meanwhile, there are undeserving people out there like Bill Maher, who deserves to have goulash poured on his head.

Perhaps Dr. Peterson will at last gain the fame he craves with the release of the "Witnesses" movie, though if that happens, it's going to come with a lot of consequences that he doesn't seem to be anticipating. If having his shortcomings pointed out on this messageboard is bothersome to him, what will he do if the mainstream press gets ahold of those sorts of things?

[DrStakhanovite]

For anyone lurking that wants to read a bit more about Neusner’s personal legacy, there was a short piece written by a former student of his. Laura S. Levitt’s comments mirror what other people have told me in conversations. The first paragraph is really good:

In the weeks since Jacob Neusner died earlier this fall, there has been a deafening silence from all of those whose lives he took into his hands, from those whose careers he crafted, whose books he published, whose lives he so fully encompassed. There were no words. Virtually all of these scholars in Neusner’s orbit have remained stunningly silent, as if virtually all of them—many of whom I knew as my teaching assistants at Brown, and later as senior scholars in Jewish studies—had made a collective vow. They would not speak of their teacher even at the moment of his death. They have neither spoken of his cruelty nor his gifts. They have simply allowed this occasion to pass without comment.

To be honest, I was immensely relieved that no accusations of sexual impropriety surfaced.

I haven't met reverence but there is a parochialism for sure, which is why Sanders had such impact: there was W. D. Davies and before that, what, G. F. Moore? They were trying to address different problems, but I tend to have more sympathy with Neusner's fragmented approach because the fact is, we just don't have much evidence about how these texts come into being.

You know how every discipline has a small family of subcultures attached to them? My experience in interacting with Christians getting M.Divs and/or their research M.T.S, is that they have this pantheon of scholars whom they hold in the highest regard from which everything else is judged. This usually includes guys like Bruce Metzger, F.F. Bruce, and E.P. Sanders.

That's Talmud for you.

I absolutely love it. I’ve never regretted the time I’ve spent at Harvard Divinity and Hebrew Union College getting immersed into the languages of the Torah, Onkelos, and Rashi. I’d make a poor yeshiva student, but I like being able to skip the usual modern reference works and go see what Ibn Ezra or Nachmanides had to say when I encounter something in the Hebrew Bible.

I'm sure you have a much better grasp of what their long-running dispute was all about, so I welcome your further elucidation and correction of my cheap comparison, as well as my misapprehension, when or if you have the time and inclination.

It was basically an issue on how one ought to study and write about ancient Judaism, starting from around the Second Temple period until the end of Late Antiquity. Neusner breaks down 4 different approaches: Nominalism (represented by Shaye Cohen there at Harvard), Harmonistic (represented by E.P. Sanders), Theological (represented by George Foot Moore and Ephraim Urbach), and finally Historical (represented by Neusner).

You can pretty much summarize the criticisms of the Nominalistic and Harmonistic approaches as not paying good enough attention to the documentary history of Judaism, while G.F. Moore is too Presbyterian in his reading and E.E. Urbach too much a talmudist in his.

Great catch, Dr. Stak. The Mopologists have always had a very strange relationship with Jews and Judaism, ranging from DCP's mockery of the Jewish wedding ceremony, to his boneheaded comments in the wake of the proxy baptism for Simon Wiesenthal, to this tidbit regarding Midgley and the others who were attending this event. You sense a certain degree of admiration and jealousness, but also a whole lot of resentment and anger as well. I don't think it's any coincidence that "Gentile" is a synonym for non-LDS.

This got me thinking about my own experiences with different Jewish communities, primarily Reform Judaism and the Chabad Lubavitch. I’ve been praised and accorded honors because of my interest and familiarity with topics close to Jewish religious life, but it has never manifested by way of “Are you sure you’re not Jewish?” type comments. My atheism didn’t even solicit the slightest bit of interest and nobody ever tried to sit me down and change my mind about anything at all. It was always “You are here, good. Now sit down and let's study.”

The way Mopologists interact with people from other religions is frankly strange and garish. I remember this youtube video that William Hamblin posted where he basically follows these Ethopian monks back to their place, knocks on the door, and starts chatting them up. He seems completely oblivious to their body language and mannerisms that suggest he is intruding, but hospitality being what it is in that part of the world they invite him in.

It is legit American tourist cringe, I really hope Daniel Peterson doesn’t act like that while abroad but...

[Tom]

Was Neusner at Brown when Midgley was a graduate student?

Dr. Midgley received his PhD in 1965, I believe, and Neusner arrived at Brown in 1968.

[Nevo]

Jacob Neusner was apparently a Sunstone subscriber through most of the 1990s and was a regular fixture in the Letters section. You can read some of them here:

• Criticism of David P. Wright
• Impressions of Sunstone
• Praise for BYU
• Criticism of BYU over treatment of Steven Epperson
• Criticism of "zealously contemporary" writing in Sunstone
• More criticism of BYU
• Thoughts on LDS prayers lacking a dimension of obligation

And here is his review of Steven Epperson's Mormons and Jews. Toward the end of the review, he talks about his visits to BYU over the years.
https://sunstonemagazine.com/wp-content ... -71-75.pdf

[DrStakhanovite]

I'm glad my OP could lure Nevo out of hiding and to register here!

Thank you for the links, I plan to immediately start reading them.