Blixa wrote:Nicely done, CK, but your Nibley is wanting:
A Reese's is the same shape as the Shield of Achilles. How can all this be mere coincidence? 1 Anaximander of Miletus says that the Infinite (apeiron-absolute) is the source of all things; for out of it all things arise, and into it all things are dissolved---a striking parallel to the human digestion process when eating a peanut butter cup or any other comestible. 2 Zuckermann remarks, “The difficulty is not only that stories of human phylogeny can never be more than a series of probabilities largely based on guesswork. We also have to consider the fact that speculation clouds almost every single stage in the treatment of the physical evidence itself...we have all the ingredients necessary to produce endless speculation and controversy.” 3 Thus, while one can never determine the exact method Joseph Smith may have used to consume his Reeses, we can discount the wild speculations and controversy of so-called scientists and their guesses.
Furthermore, no subject has been more intensively studied over a greater number of years than that of primitive Semitic poetry, and nowhere could one find a more perfect illustration of the points that are now agreed upon as to temple rituals associated with the Reeses-as-sacrament. 4 According to the record of St. Nilus, the ancient Arabs used to consume their primitive patties of peanut butter and carob after having refreshed and washed themselves in some fountain of running water discovered in the course of a long journeying. 5
Ibn Qutayba, in a famous work on Arabic poetry, quoted a great desert poet, Abu Sakhr, as saying that nothing on earth brings verses so readily to mind as the eating of a combination of locusts and honey---which is merely an Arabic transliteration of "chocolate" and "butter of peanut." 6 Thomas recounts how his Arabs upon reaching the Umm al-Hait hailed "The Cup" with a song in praise of the "creamy yet solid composition" whose bounty filled the belly of the believer. In the most stirring episode of Saint-Exupery's Wind, Sand, and Stars, the Arab chiefs who view the wonders of Paris with stolid indifference burst into cries of devout rapture at the sight of a Reeses display located conveniently next to the cash register at the corner bodega. 7.
You scholars have spoken; why don't you do the honest thing and admit that you don't know a blessed thing about the history of ritual mixing of ingredients, that you haven't made even a superficial study of them either to examine the categories to which they belong or the peculiarities of the individual flavors? You can never say, and I will keep repeating everlastingly, that the final reports are in and we have heard from all the gourmands. The thing is full of surprises. 8
1. Pratt, John P., "Uranus Testifies of Christ," Meridian Magazine (14 Apr 2004). Note that Pluto is not considered to be in the set of time keeping planet.
2. Oaks, "Obsolescence and Displacement," 27 Jan. 1977, p. 6, BYUA; Truman Madsen, "The Joy of Learning," Outstanding Lectures (Provo, Utah: ASBYU Academics Office, 1979), p. 89; A.H. Bowher, "Quality and Quantity in Higher Education," Journal of the American Statistical Association, March 1965, pp. 1-15; Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, An In-Depth Study: Brigham Young University (Woodbury, New York: Barron's Educational Series, Inc., 1969), pp. 1-2; James Cass and Max Birnbaum, Comparative Guide to American Colleges for Students, Parents, and Counselors, (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), pp. 95-96; Edward B. Fiske, Selective Guide to Colleges (New York: Times Books, 1982), p. 45; Jack Gourman, The Gourman Report: A Rating of Undergraduate Programs in American and International Universities (Los Angeles: National Education Standards, Inc., 1980).
3. Truman G. Madsen, ed., Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Salt Lake City: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978), pp. 268-69.
4. ibid.
5. This is the traditional interpretation, that the Hebrew year from the autumn of AD 27 to AD 28 was the first year of the cycle. There has been a scholarly disagreement on the subject because there is some evidence that the following year might have been the sabbath at the time of Christ. Recent evidence from Blosser has tipped the scales to favor the traditional view. See Finegan, Jack, Handbook of Biblical Chronology (Peabody, Mass.: 1998), pp. 116-122.
6. "Self-Portrait: An Intellectual Autobiography by Hugh W. Nibley," BYU Today, Aug. 1978, p. 11.
7. Wilkinson, Introduction, Latter-day Saint Standards at Brigham Young University (Committee on Standards, 1957), p. 2.
8. Reese's Peanut Butter Cup label.
Bravo, Blixa!
Oh... Do me! "How does Mr Coffee eat a Reese's?"
I bet it involves a lot of booze and possibly explosives...