Nibley -- Again

[_Daniel Peterson]

Could be. I wasn't involved in the decision, and don't really remember. I suppose it depends upon your definition of "quite a while ago." If I told my son to clean up his room last year, that's quite a while ago. If it were somehow demonstrated that Julius Caesar actually lived on in an old folks' home in Little Italy until last year, that wouldn't be quite a while ago.

[_Rollo Tomasi]

FAIR has no message board, official or unofficial. The MA&D board doesn't belong to FAIR, and hasn't for quite some time. FAIR's official website is entirely distinct.

And, yet, I'm still banned from both. Go figure. ;)

[_harmony]

FAIR has no message board, official or unofficial. The MA&D board doesn't belong to FAIR, and hasn't for quite some time. FAIR's official website is entirely distinct.

And, yet, I'm still banned from both. Go figure. ;)

That's not so hard to figure out, Rollo.

MAD = Juliann
FAIR = Allan, Juliann, and others.

[Reflexzero]

Gadianton,

Thanks for hooking this thread up over here on the Dark Side (and thank you all for your insights thus far). It may be sort of a “false dilemma,” but as far as proving Nibley’s methods to be wanting, Jackson (in my opinion) is the only one who has successfully undertaken such a task; and that’s just for one of the volumes of Nibley’s work. The man evidently earned the respect of many outside of Mormonism, so basically I’m just wondering if they were bamboozled by his sophistry (while internet posters are much more apt to see through his smoke and mirrors than say… a former dean of Harvard), or if the flippant dismissals of him are altogether unwarranted.

I’m not advocating that Nibley be placed on an unchallengeable pedestal by any means. But, I don’t think his sloppiness with some sources/footnotes (and quite possibly his operating from memory entirely too much instead of re-consulting the primary sources) warrants his complete dismissal as a scholar. I see the same thing happen to the likes of Quinn and Bagley from the other side of the camp. If you can find some errors (especially errors that seem blatant), then you can summarily dismiss the entirety of their scholarship. I don’t think the likes of Quinn and Bagley deserve to be dismissed because their a priori assumptions get in the way on occasion any more than Nibley deserves such.

PS.
It’s Steuss, not Streuss… although Streuss is kind of groovy; like a rhyming pair of Levis.


[edited to fix my stupidity...]

[_Dr. Shades]

PS.
It’s Stuess, not Streuss… although Streuss is kind of groovy; like a rhyming pair of Levis.

It's "Stuess?" I thought it was "Steuss."

[_Doctor Steuss]

PS.
It’s Stuess, not Streuss… although Streuss is kind of groovy; like a rhyming pair of Levis.

It's "Stuess?" I thought it was "Steuss."

That's what happens when I post before my morning coffee... err... I mean milk.

[_Yoda]

FAIR has no message board, official or unofficial. The MA&D board doesn't belong to FAIR, and hasn't for quite some time. FAIR's official website is entirely distinct.

And, yet, I'm still banned from both. Go figure. ;)

Wow, Rollo! You're REALLY banned from the FAIR website a.k.a. this URL:

http://www.fairlds.org/webguide.html

Even I can access the FAIR site. They must hate you worse than they hate me. LOL

[Guest]

Hi Steuss,

I for one don't completely dismiss Nibley as a scholar. His article on the KEP, even though virtually every argument made therein was wrong, provided very valuable descriptive information about the documents as well as some of the best-quality photographs of some of the documents available to date. He also managed to be the author of pretty much every Book of Abraham apologetic paradigm still current, which in and of itself makes him an important figure in Book of Abraham studies. And he is still today one of the only apologists who was man enough to lay the argument-from-parallel out there for all the world to read and ridicule. And, at the end of the day, he makes some interesting points. The trouble is that in order to unearth these points one has to wade through a thousand pages of bad footnotes and bad methodology. The critics don't want to do that any more than the apolgists do. (Note that not even the apologists have given any specific examples from Nibley's book.)

I do think that when Book of Abraham apologetics moves beyond Nibley, it will be doing itself a favor.

-CK

[_Rollo Tomasi]

Wow, Rollo! You're REALLY banned from the FAIR website a.k.a. this URL:

http://www.fairlds.org/webguide.html

Even I can access the FAIR site. They must hate you worse than they hate me. LOL

I stand corrected. I can access the link above, but not the message board linked at the FAIR site. I guess there's still hope for me. ;)

[_Doctor Steuss]

Hi Steuss,

I for one don't completely dismiss Nibley as a scholar. His article on the KEP, even though virtually every argument made therein was wrong, provided very valuable descriptive information about the documents as well as some of the best-quality photographs of some of the documents available to date. He also managed to be the author of pretty much every Book of Abraham apologetic paradigm still current, which in and of itself makes him an important figure in Book of Abraham studies. And he is still today one of the only apologists who was man enough to lay the argument-from-parallel out there for all the world to read and ridicule. And, at the end of the day, he makes some interesting points. The trouble is that in order to unearth these points one has to wade through a thousand pages of bad footnotes and bad methodology. The critics don't want to do that any more than the apolgists do. (Note that not even the apologists have given any specific examples from Nibley's book.)

I do think that when Book of Abraham apologetics moves beyond Nibley, it will be doing itself a favor.

-CK

Word up my California brother from another mother,

I’ll take your word on this one, as the Book of Abraham is one of the areas on LDS apologetics that I have had absolutely no interest in entering. It’s one of those things that I’ve simply shelved because:

1) It is well beyond my limited intellect.
2) It seems (from my perspective) to be a lost cause.
3) I’ve never been all that interested in the Book of Abraham, even as “scripture.”

I don’t know where the field of Egyptology was when Nibley was examining the JSP, or Book of Abraham; but I imagine it has made leaps and bounds since then (akin to the advances made in Mesoamerican studies). Then again, maybe Egyptology was never one of his strong points, but he tried to be a renaissance man of sorts.

All I know is I am still impressed with his article “Christian Envy of the Temple” (I believe this is the one that was at one time published in the JQR), and I still refer people to his Commentary on D&C 89 whenever there’s a WoW conversation happening. In the end, I think the man is deserving of more respect than scorn.