Hugh Nibley Dead At 94

[Guest JRodan]

http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=152650

Hugh Nibley Dead at 94

Feb. 24, 2005

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Noted Mormon historian, apologist and former Brigham Young University professor Hugh

Nibley died Thursday. He was 94.

A cause of death was not immediately announced, though he had been bedridden for about the last two years.

Nibley wrote more than 150 items, many of which are available in collected work published by FARMS, the Foundation

for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies housed at BYU.

His work was marked by "brilliance, unbelievable erudition," said Daniel Peterson, a BYU professor and FARMS review

editor.

In his work as a defender of Mormon doctrine, he made critical observations of the church and its faithful that,

if they had been said by an outsider, would have made people angry.

But Nibley's status within The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints instead made Mormons think.

"He was a real critic of materialism and greed, and social status," Peterson said. "And on more than one occasion, he

rebuked church members for doing that when they shouldn't. ... He was not only a scholar, but something of a social

gadfly, very outspoken."

Nibley and his wife had seven children.

"He was revered for his intellect, prodigious writing and integrity," son Alex Nibley said in a statement. "Hugh's wit and

deep affection for his family and friends were apparent to the end. He was a man who lived life intensely and died in

peace. He looked forward with eager anticipation to his journey to the other side."

One of his children, Martha Beck, has written a book, due in stores March 8, in which she claims Nibley sexually abused

her as a child. Beck's claims in "Leaving the Saints: How I Lost the Mormons and Found My Faith" were based on

recovered memories revealed in therapy sessions.

Nibley was aware of the accusations and adamantly denied them, family members said.

"Knowing our sister and the circumstances of our home, we agree that Martha Beck's portrayal of our family in `Leaving

the Saints' is false," Beck's six siblings said in a statement posted Tuesday on the FARMS' Web site. "We are saddened

by the book's countless errors, falsehoods, contradictions, and gross distortions."

(Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)

[Outshined]

I just heard about it on the 'net. It's a loss...

[Setheus]

He is my uncle. He died this morning in bed.

[Amillia]

I love his work and totally sad at the loss.

I wouldn't buy the book is daughter wrote for all the gold in fort knox! Anyone disaffected from the church always comes up with stories to cover their butts.

This scenario of parental abuse always comes in families where there is money and fame. They know they can make some money.

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Amillia@Feb 24 2005, 02:13 PM

Anyone disaffected from the church always comes up with stories to cover their butts.

I know a lot of people disaffected with the church who don't come up with any stories to "cover their butts." What an odd thing to say.

I read the family's statement about Martha's allegations and it sounds like she has always been a "drama queen." No one seems to deny her claims of physical abuse, but they are completely shocked at her claims of sexual abuse. I personally have 0% confidence in recovered memories through hypnotherapy.

[StrawberryFields]

Originally posted by Setheus@Feb 24 2005, 02:59 PM

He is my uncle. He died this morning in bed.

Setheus,

I am sorry for your loss. Do you have any good memories that you care tp share with us?

[StrawberryFields]

Originally posted by curvette+Feb 24 2005, 05:16 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (curvette @ Feb 24 2005, 05:16 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Amillia@Feb 24 2005, 02:13 PM

Anyone disaffected from the church always comes up with stories to cover their butts.

I know a lot of people disaffected with the church who don't come up with any stories to "cover their butts." What an odd thing to say.

I read the family's statement about Martha's allegations and it sounds like she has always been a "drama queen." No one seems to deny her claims of physical abuse, but they are completely shocked at her claims of sexual abuse. I personally have 0% confidence in recovered memories through hypnotherapy.

Maybe she is just bitter about being named "Martha".

It's too bad that the book will be released in just a few weeks following her fathers¡Ç death. I wonder how she feels now that he is gone. She will not have a chance to reconcile.

[Amillia]

Originally posted by Strawberry Fields+Feb 24 2005, 06:17 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Strawberry Fields @ Feb 24 2005, 06:17 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by -curvette@Feb 24 2005, 05:16 PM

<!--QuoteBegin--Amillia@Feb 24 2005, 02:13 PM

Anyone disaffected from the church always comes up with stories to cover their butts.

I know a lot of people disaffected with the church who don't come up with any stories to "cover their butts." What an odd thing to say.

I read the family's statement about Martha's allegations and it sounds like she has always been a "drama queen." No one seems to deny her claims of physical abuse, but they are completely shocked at her claims of sexual abuse. I personally have 0% confidence in recovered memories through hypnotherapy.

Maybe she is just bitter about being named "Martha".

It's too bad that the book will be released in just a few weeks following her fathers¡Ç death. I wonder how she feels now that he is gone. She will not have a chance to reconcile.

LOL! Martha isn't the best of names~

I wonder if she didn't get this book out this last couple of years while her father was bedridden, knowing he was bound to die sooner than later.

[Snow]

I stopped by a visited Dr. Nibley a couple years ago to talk about my dad, his friend. He was just finishing his last work, One Eternal Round, which he has spent more than the last two decades on. I saw him in the afternoon and he said that just that morning he had another insight and so wanted to rewrite one of the chapters.

I wondered if his editor were to finally pry the book from his finger, if he would finally die - as if he were holding on just to finish his most difficult work - a work defending the Book of Abraham. A few weeks later the editor convinced him to give it up - of course it wasn't long until he demanded it back to revise it (they refused). I wondered if the end was near and it wasn't long until he wound up in the hospital. I stopped by a couple times more to say hello and by then he was bedridden. By then he had his bed moved into a tiny space adjacent to his tumbled front room where he could look out the window and read. The last time I didn't even knock, I just took my daughter's picture in his front yard.

I remember visiting Dr. Nibley in his office on the BYU campus when I was 5 or 6 to ask him where Lake Bonneville had disappeared to. I remember camping with him Southern Utah and getting my first taste of "Mormon Tea." I remember being babysat by his sons. I remember him speaking at my family funnerals and especially at my dad's funneral. He and my dad would read a different book each month and then get together to discuss it. That month they were to discuss Kawabata's The Master of Go. Since my dad was now dead, Dr. Nibley discussed the book was us as a proxy for my dad. Mostly I remember the immense pleasure I have gotten trying to understand just what the hell he was talking about in most his books and articles.

[StrawberryFields]

Originally posted by Snow@Feb 25 2005, 12:26 AM

I stopped by a visited Dr. Nibley a couple years ago to talk about my dad, his friend. He was just finishing his last work, One Eternal Round, which he has spent more than the last two decades on. I saw him in the afternoon and he said that just that morning he had another insight and so wanted to rewrite one of the chapters.

I wondered if his editor were to finally pry the book from his finger, if he would finally die - as if he were holding on just to finish his most difficult work - a work defending the Book of Abraham. A few weeks later the editor convinced him to give it up - of course it wasn't long until he demanded it back to revise it (they refused). I wondered if the end was near and it wasn't long until he wound up in the hospital. I stopped by a couple times more to say hello and by then he was bedridden. By then he had his bed moved into a tiny space adjacent to his tumbled front room where he could look out the window and read. The last time I didn't even knock, I just took my daughter's picture in his front yard.

I remember visiting Dr. Nibley in his office on the BYU campus when I was 5 or 6 to ask him where Lake Bonneville had disappeared to. I remember camping with him Southern Utah and getting my first taste of "Mormon Tea." I remember being babysat by his sons. I remember him speaking at my family funnerals and especially at my dad's funneral. He and my dad would read a different book each month and then get together to discuss it. That month they were to discuss Kawabata's The Master of Go. Since my dad was now dead, Dr. Nibley discussed the book was us as a proxy for my dad. Mostly I remember the immense pleasure I have gotten trying to understand just what the hell he was talking about in most his books and articles.

Interesting post Snow.

I really enjoyed it until the last sentence.

Anyway, thanks for sharing some insight about Hugh Nibley and yourself. Writers have been people I have only been able to admire from afar. The closest I have ever come to "knowing someone" who writes is Traveler, Peace and yourself. I also know that you like to read and now I know that you may have gotten that from your father?

As children grow up it is interesting to see what has an impact on them into their adult lives. My husband followed the same line of work that his father was in. When he returned from his mission he needed a job and so my father in law suggested that he go and apply where his friend owned the company. My husband has been in the same line of work for 23 years. Our son now works for the same company.

BTW, what is Mormon Tea? Does it have something to do with the desert plant?

[Traveler]

Originally posted by Strawberry Fields@Feb 25 2005, 09:41 AM

BTW, what is Mormon Tea? Does it have something to do with the desert plant?

Mormon Tea - sometimes called Brigham tea was a mainstay of the early saints in Utah. It is made from a desert sage that looks more like a tubular grass than sage. It is quite bitter but was sweetened, usually with honey but I think it is still awful. It is an excellent source of vitamin C.

I did not know brother Nibly as well as some. I do remember the old Maniview ward (6th north between 4th and 5th east if I remember) building where he attended church. Others in my family knew him better. Hugh was my brother's home teacher. I took a Book of Mormon class from brother Nibly at BYU. I found him quite eccentric and a typical absent-minded professor. He always wore an overcoat and carried an umbrella, even in summer just in case it rained. In the winter he wore rubber boots. I think I remember him wearing those boots in class - not sure now.

I do remember the final exam he gave in the class. He wrote on the black board "explain page 237 of the Book of Mormon". He then walked out of the class. About 15 minutes later he came back into class and laughed and said something like - "you really think I would do this to you for a final exam - He He." Then he wrote a different page on the black board. The second page was the final. Strange sense of humor. The spirit world has gained a great and noble High Priest.

The Traveler

[Jason]

My only experience with Dr. Nibley was when I wrote a letter to him about his "Abraham in Egypt" book. I don't remember exactly what it was about, but I remember telling him he was wrong about something in it, but he never wrote back to explain or defend the defect. That was about 6 years ago.

Course, it doesn't matter now at all, as I don't subscribe to Mormonism or it's doctrines.

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Traveler@Feb 25 2005, 11:17 AM

I found him quite eccentric and a typical absent-minded professor. He always wore an overcoat and carried an umbrella, even in summer just in case it rained. In the winter he wore rubber boots.

Yikes! He sounds just like my mom!

[Snow]

Originally posted by curvette+Feb 25 2005, 11:35 AM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (curvette @ Feb 25 2005, 11:35 AM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin--Traveler@Feb 25 2005, 11:17 AM

I found him quite eccentric and a typical absent-minded professor.  He always wore an overcoat and carried an umbrella, even in summer just in case it rained.  In the winter he wore rubber boots.

Yikes! He sounds just like my mom!

Yikes! Bootsie is your mom?

[Guest curvette]

Originally posted by Snow+Feb 25 2005, 06:10 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Snow @ Feb 25 2005, 06:10 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by -curvette@Feb 25 2005, 11:35 AM

<!--QuoteBegin--Traveler@Feb 25 2005, 11:17 AM

I found him quite eccentric and a typical absent-minded professor.  He always wore an overcoat and carried an umbrella, even in summer just in case it rained.  In the winter he wore rubber boots.

Yikes! He sounds just like my mom!

Yikes! Bootsie is your mom?

No. Bootsie is my Aunt. My mom is Lois.

[Idacat]

Originally posted by Traveler@Feb 25 2005, 12:17 PM

I took a Book of Mormon class from brother Nibly at BYU.  I found him quite eccentric and a typical absent-minded professor...........

I do remember the final exam he gave in the class.  He wrote on the black board "explain page 237 of the Book of Mormon".  He then walked out of the class.  About 15 minutes later he came back into class and laughed and said something like - "you really think I would do this to you for a final exam - He He."  Then he wrote a different page on the black board.  The second page was the final.  Strange sense of humor.  The spirit world has gained a great and noble High Priest.

The Traveler

When was this?

I took a the full year of honors Book of Mormon from Nibley sometime in the dark ages (1963-1964 school year).

A few years later I when I was out of school, but my then husband was still in school, and I was home in Provo with the first of my boys he would often walk through our yard, sometimes with a small child and pick apricots from our tree.

This was 1967-1968 and the child, a girl, was a preschooler. I have always wondered if it were his child since at the time he was in his late 50's, or perhaps a grandchild, but if the daughter, Martha,who has written the book is "40-ish" as all the articles say, perhaps he and his wife had some of their seven very late in their lives.

I think he pulled the final exam trick on a regular basis. To call Nibley eccentric is a profound understatement; he was an aesthetic, unworldly scholar of an intellectual type rare in the world and essentially non existent, save Nibley, in the LDS Church.

I thought then, and I think now, that he did not live and think in the same world or terms as the rest of us; that his mind was that of a Sophocles, a Plato, an Einstein, or, perhaps on a darker note, a John Nash.

It would have been ineresting to see what direction and form his scholarship would have taken outside the aegis of the Church, or to hear opinions of his intellect from sources outside the church, perhaps peers at UCLA, Berkeley, Pomona, Scripps, and Claremont.