Nibley -- Again

[_Blixa]

Here's my 2 cents, Steuss, for what they're worth:

I"ve spent most of life in academia and been exposed to all manner of scholars and scholarly work. Nibley is not well-known in academia in general. Whether he is better known to those of similar disciplinary interest (religious studies), I can't say, of course. I can give you my take on what I've read and seen of his work.

Its not that uncommon to run into people in academia who have a wide grasp of languages and several areas of scholarly expertise. I think that some "laymen," for lack of a better term, are overly impressed with Nibley's accomplishments on this score. To me, though, he hardly qualifies as "genius;" he certainly accumulated a large amount of information, but what he did with that information is the most important thing. He devoted a great deal of his career to Mormon apologetics and here I think he ended up making ever more specious claims and arguments; I think he was in a completely untenable position and the strain shows in the work, if not in his biography.

As for his non-apologetic work, it strikes me as middlebrow traditional scholarship. Most of the time he comes off as a
caricature, an anti-intellectual stereotype of a "professor:" convoluted verbiage, "big words," and allusions to classical literature dropped in every other sentence.

True, I haven't read a significant portion of his granted enormous output, but I also haven't yet read a single article or essay in which I didn't find multiple intellectual problems of varying severity.

[_Gadianton]

Dr. Steuss,

I think it's the introduction to Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless which put his layman admirers (myself included back then) on the wrong scent. We got this idea that Nibley, Paul Bunyan's intellectual counterpart, was possibly the smartest man on earth, and we could in fact, believe him. His non-LDS contemporaries both respected and feared him. And we probably thought that to the extent they didn't believe him, it was due to their prejudice against the Lord's true gospel. But the funny thing was, back when I was into Nibley, I became most interested in his work that was far removed from Mormon apologetics as it linked up with other things I was interested in. And I think most of those essays were published in journals. I'd follow up as I could on his 100 million footnotes which got me poking around a lot of books within the same genre. I think I had the same kind of question welling up inside me, unable to ask itself until years later, that I had as a kid never seeming to come across a Paul H. Dunn baseball card during 'baseball card season' at school. Nibley will quote 400 works in a twenty-page essay, but why isn't anyone quoting Nibley, the greatest scholar on earth? Well, surely I hadn't looked through every relevant book out there, but I'd looked through enough to find repeated reference to certain icons in the scholarly world, none of them being Hugh Nibley.

I'm not qualified to put a price tag on Nibley's scholarship. But those who are, don't seem to hold him up as the worlds greatest antiquarian as Mormons seem to believe he is. I'd still be interested as to what degree he's mentionable. Certainly, the fact that he was published puts him above what some critics think of him, but I have no trouble considering him a pseudoscholar for his attempts to use comparative religion and mythology in order to prove that Adam and Eve were Mormons, as was Enoch, and the history of the world being a series of apostasies and restorations. And further, for his attempts to prove 19th century documents to be ancient ones. And let's not forget his writings on politics and economics.

Similarily, I don't blame anyone for dismissing Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision or any of Noam Chomsky's political writings. About these two individuals I can say though, that Velikovsky's early work was acclaimed and Chomsky's linguistic work revolutionary. About Nibley I can say that his early work was published.

[_Doctor Steuss]

Would this be an acceptable summary then?

His vast knowledge is not in question; and it is his knowledge and intellect that most likely earned the respect of the likes of George MacRae, Jacob Neusner, Raphael Patai, and James H. Charlesworth. However; it is the way in which he applied his knowledge and intellect which is not worthy of admiration and respect, and which is why (other than his early publications [i.e. pre-1970ish]) that he is unknown within the general magistrates of academia.

Annehmbar?

[_Blixa]

That is a masterpiece of diplomacy, Steuss.

[_marg]

Ok, first off, yeah, I post here. It's just a matter of pride and self-deception that I didn't register this name or "Sidewinder" because see, I have this issue. Dramatic final posts. I exited rather dramatically a year ago and haven't quite been able to own up to the fact that I started lurking, and then posting. Though, in my defense, not nearly as much as I used to. Life has settled down a bit, so, why not enjoy things I like to do. Since most of my associates are already in the know on my hypocrisy, might as well just own up to the rest and be done with it.

What are you owning up to, that your associates know you have been posting on here? That's not exactly owning up, if they already know.

[_Gadianton]

What are you owning up to, that your associates know you have been posting on here? That's not exactly owning up, if they already know.

I said "most" (which turns out to be incorrect), so there are the ones who don't, plus there are those who post, who know me, and who aren't my associates.

[_marg]

I said "most" (which turns out to be incorrect), so there are the ones who don't, plus there are those who post, who know me, and who aren't my associates.

I see so you're owning up to most of your associates, and some of the people who post on this board who you already know, so all in all, it is to a select few of the board who read, it is only to those you know. Thanks, nice to know. You have a similar attitude to LD, you are not one and the same by any chance?

[_Gadianton]

I see so you're owning up to most of your associates, and some of the people who post on this board who you already know, so all in all, it is to a select few of the board who read, it is only to those you know.

This is not correct, particularily the bolded portion. Far more who post here and elsewhere know me than I know. And I didn't even mention the lurkers in my last response.

You have a similar attitude to LD, you are not one and the same by any chance?

I testify on the SEP that I'm not LD. Though sometimes I kinda like LD. Anyway, his/her understanding of gender studies goes far, far beyond my own which has been primarily informed by Tom Leykis.

[_Mister Scratch]

Believe what you like.

FAIR divested itself of the message board quite a while ago and exercises precisely no control over it. Few of the leaders of FAIR ever post on MA&D. And I certainly don't speak for FAIR.

I think the issue has more to do with whether or not MAD represents something resembling an "official" Mopologetic point of view, ala the old, ironically named FAIRboard. (I put "official" in scare quotes since some Mopologists---such as John Lynch---seem to be quite actually scared at the prospect of someone thinking that MAD/FAIR represents actual, "official" LDS views. In fact, I would go so far as to say that it seems likely that this fear played a strong role in FAIR's divesting itself of the messageboard.)

So, does the aptly named MADboard represent the "official" Mopologetic party line? Yes, it most certainly does.

[_Daniel Peterson]

So, does the aptly named MADboard represent the "official" Mopologetic party line? Yes, it most certainly does.

How would one go about demonstrating such a thing?

And what, exactly, would it even mean?

That MA&D represents the official point of view of an organization called the Mopologetic Party?

It's easy enough to understand what an official statement of the Democratic Party, or of General Motors Corporation, or of the National Organization of Women would be. But it seems to me rather difficult to understand what might be meant by speaking of an "official party line" in a case where no office, organization, leadership, or coördination exists. Or are you perhaps suggesting that "Charity," "Confidential Informant," "urroner," "Bsix," the various "Julianns," and all of the other "Mopologists" have an editorial meeting each morning, perhaps by conference call, in order to formulate and unify their plans for the day's threads?

But what about much more prominent "Mopologists," like John Welch, John Sorenson, David Paulsen, John Clark, Noel Reynolds, and the like, who never post on MA&D and very likely don't even know that it exists? How, precisely, does it represent them? Or do they, in fact, receive and follow the morning MA&D editorial directives, too?