NIBLEY BIBLIOGRAPHY
CWHN = Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, published by FARMS between 1986 and 2000.
If a writing has been published in the Collected Works, the following will not be included here:
pagination for the original typescripts;
titles and pagination of individual articles published serially in The Improvement Era.
Writings marked * are unpublished manuscripts, or articles no longer in print in any form.
Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (CWHN):
Old Testament and Related Studies, Vol. 1
Enoch the Prophet, Vol. 2
The World and the Prophets, Vol. 3
Mormonism and Early Christianity, Vol. 4
Lehi in the Desert/The World of the Jaredites/There Were Jaredites, Vol. 5
An Approach to the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6
Since Cumorah, Vol. 7
The Prophetic Book of Mormon, Vol. 8
Approaching Zion, Vol. 9
Ancient State: The Rulers & the Ruled, Vol. 10
Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass: The Art of Telling Tales about Joseph Smith and Brigham Young Vol. 11
Temple and Cosmos: Beyond This Ignorant Present, Vol. 12
Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, Vol. 13
Abraham in Egypt, Vol. 14
Apostles and Bishops in Early Christianity, Vol. 15
The Message of Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, Vol. 16
*“Abraham,”18 p. unpublished typescript. Lecture at the LDS Institute, Utah Valley State College, on June 14, 1995.
Abraham in Egypt, CWHN 14.
*“Abraham’s Creation Drama,”
*“Acclamatio,”
*“Alaska: Joseph Smith’s Contributions– Scriptural, Institutional, Doctrinal and Historical” (post 3/83)
*“An Age of Discovery,” (G-2 report)
“Ancient Temples: What Do They Signify?” in The Ensign 2:9 (September 1972): 46-49; reprinted in Parry, Donald W., ed. Temples of the Ancient World (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994), 29-47; CWHN 8: 265-273.
The Ancient World, by Joseph Ward Swain, review in The Historian 13:1 (Spring 1951):79-81.
The Apocalyptic Book of Isaiah, A New Translation with Interpretative Key, by Avraham Gileadi, reviewed by Hugh Nibley (in BYU Today, December 1982): 23.
*“The Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon,” 1 p. typescript from cassette tape, incomplete.
*“Apocryphal Writings,” a typed transcript of a talk given at a Long Beach, California, Seminar graduation, late in 1967; 27 pp. s.s.; 44 pp. d.s. Also circulated as “Teachings from the Dead Sea Scrolls.”
A survey of teachings in a large number of apocryphal, pseudepigraphal and patristic writings. – Midgley
Apostles and Bishops in Early Christianity (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 2005: CWHN 15: xxv, 254.
*“Approach to Facsimile No. II (May 17, 1985),”
An Approach to the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1957): xvi, 416 pp. ; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1964): xxii, 416 pp. This edition contains a “Preface to Second Edition” by HN, one new chapter (#25) entitled “Strange Ships and Shining Stones,” which is reproduced from a 1959 publication. The questions appended to each chapter in the 1957 edition have been deleted and the pagination of the two editions is different. CWHN 6.
This book was originally published as the lesson manual for the Melchizedek Priesthood quorums of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The 2nd ed. Contains a new preface by HN, one new chapter [entitled “Strange Ships and Shining Stones”], and deletes the questions which were originally appended to each chapter; hence, the pagination differs in the two editions.
In 1959, An Approach to the Book of Mormon was criticized by Marvin S. Hill in an essay entitled, “The Historiography of Mormonism,” Church History 28:4 (December 1959):418-426. Hill preferred to account for the Book of Mormon with “the Smith hypothesis,” that is, the book is understood as a product of Joseph’s presumably fertile imagination couple to an unusual responsiveness to his own environment. Hill introduced his criticism of Nibley’s book by observing that the conflict between the Latter-day Saints and Gentiles is also evident among historians, who are “generally divided into two distinct groups, forging a cleavage of sentiment which is evident in the debates over the origin of the Book of Mormon....” [p. 418.] According to Hill, the issue which is “of primary importance is the nature of that unique American scripture, the Book of Mormon. Acclaimed by the faithful as a sacred history of a Christian people in ancient America, the book has been labeled a fraud by non-believers.” “The case for the Latter-day Saints,” Hill then acknowledged, “has been stated often, but with no greater sophistication than that exhibited by Hugh Nibley of Brigham Young University in his An Approach to the Book of Mormon (1957). He reviews the culture of the ancient Near East to find that in theme, the details of its narrative, and its use of place and proper names the Book of Mormon is authentic. He states that the marks of genuine antiquity in the record could not have been imitated by anyone in 1930. However intimate his knowledge of ancient history may be, certain difficulties exist in his argument. He cites many phenomena which seem as much American as they do ancient, and exaggerates the significance of details which are hazy or all but lacking. Invariably he handles his topic in an authoritarian fashion, never indicating that some points may be open to question.” [p. 418.]
Hill’s effort to show that “many phenomena” which Nibley thinks are typical of the ancient Near East, “seem as much American as they do ancient,” is supported by citing pp. 140, 202-216, 339 and 348 in Nibley’s book. [See p. 425, n. 3.] Hill also complains about Nibley’s having seen Lehi as a merchant and also about his drawing parallels between the community at Qumran and “the society described in Alma 23 ....” [See p. 425, n. 4.] – Midgley
“Archaeology and Our Religion,” 9 pp. typed paper, 1965; Seventh East Press (January 18, 1982): 4-7, 12; and CWHN 1: 21-36.
This is the manuscript of an essay submitted to the Instructor, and rejected, and circulated with two letters, both dated September 16, 1965, one addressed to “Dear Brother,” 1 p., and the other addressed to “Mr. W,” 5 pp. – Midgley
“The Arrow, the Hunter, and the State,” Western Political Quarterly 2:3 (1949): 328-344; CWHN 10:1-32.
A study of the role of the marked arrow and related practices, institutions and beliefs in founding and maintaining ancient regimes. – Midgley
“As Things Stand at the Moment,” BYU Studies 9:1 (Autumn 1968): 69-102.
More on the continuing debate generated by the recovery of the Joseph Smith Papyri, including a response to Wallace Turner’s remarks about the Book of Abraham in the July 15, 1968 New York Times. – Midgley
???book review of Sterling M. McMurrin, The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion
*“BLM Letter,” 1 page typescript, Provo, Ut., May 7, 1986
“Baptism for the Dead in Ancient Times,” a series in The Improvement Era during 1948-1949; CWHN 4: 100-167.
Portions of Nibley’s position on baptism for the dead were briefly described and then dogmatically rejected by Bernard Mary Foschini, in “‘Those Who Are Baptized for the Dead,’ I Cor. 15:29,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 13:1 (1951), 52-55, 70-73. Foschini offered an extensive treatment of the possible meanings of the language used by Paul and tried to explain away his apparent reference to baptism for the dead in a 96-page series appearing in five numbers of the Catholic Biblical Quarterly 12:3/4; 13:1,2,3 (July, October 1950; January, April, July 1951), 260-276, 379-388; 46-79, 172-198, 278-283. – Midgley
*“Baer Lecture,” or “Lecture at K. Baer appearance at BYU, 1975,”
Bar-Kochba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Second Jewish Revolt Against Rome, by Yigael Yadin, review essay in BYU Studies 14:1 (Autumn 1973): 115-126.
Reprinted as “Bar-Kochba and Book of Mormon Backgrounds,” in CWHN 8: 274-288.
Nibley points out that Yadin’s discoveries show, among other things, that the presumably feminine name Alma was also used by Jews as a masculine name, just as it was in the Book of Mormon. Nibley draws a number of parallels between the Bar Kochba artifacts and the Lehi colony. – Midgley
*“Basic Arabic Root System,” compiled in Compiegne, France [at the end of World War II] using J.G. Mava, Arabic-English Dictionary for the Use of Students (Beirut: Catholic University Press, 1921), 32 pp., s.s., unpublished handwritten manuscript.
“Before Adam,” CWHN 1: 49-86.
“The Best Possible Test,”in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8:1 (Spring 1973): 73-77; CWHN 12:532-540.
Nibley’s views on revelation, the question of the Blacks and the priesthood some five years prior to the June 8, 1978 revelation clarifying the matter for the Saints. – Midgley
“Beyond Politics,” in BYU Studies 15:1 (Autumn 1974): 3-28. A talk originally given on October 26, 1973, to the Pi Sigma Alpha society in the Political Science Department at BYU. Reprinted in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 2004): 279-305.
An argument that political action is desirable, even in an imperfect world, under the condition that it be the pursuit of the common good by reasonable discussion. But such conditions are not often found in the politics of man, which turn out to be instances of force and fraud, fueled by money and the desire for power and gain. – Midgley
*“Biblical Anthropomorphism,” excerpts from E. L. Cherbonnier, “The Logic of Biblical Anthropomorphism,” in Harvard Theological Review IV (1962): 187-206.
“Bird Island,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (2 eds.)
*“The Book of Abraham Acquitted,”
* “Book of Breathings, P. Louvre 3284,” an English translation, 1968, 6 pp., s.s., typescript, mimeograph, and privately circulated.
This is Nibley’s translation of the most famous parallel version of the text once in the possession of Joseph Smith. Cf. Richard A. Parker, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3:2 (Summer 1968): 98-99; and Klaus Baer, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3:3 (Autumn 1968): 109-134. The hieratic text of P. Louvre 3284 is reproduced in BYU Studies 11:2 (Winter 1971): 154-156. – Midgley
“The Book of Enoch as a Theodicy,” 28 pp., typed manuscript of a paper read at the regional meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature in Denver, Colorado in 1974; CWHN 2:66-90.
*“Book of Mormon and the Ruins–The Main Issues,”
“The Book of Mormon as a Mirror of the East,” The Improvement Era 51:4 (April 1948): 202- 204, 249-251. Reprinted, without illustrations, in The Improvement Era 73:11 (November 1970): 115-120, 122-125.
The earliest version of Nibley’s theory that the portion of the meaning as well as the historical authenticity of the Book of Mormon can be uncovered and tested by drawing upon the vast literary remains of the Near East. Nibley speculates on possible links between Book of Mormon names and Egyptian etymologies. The series drew the attention of Wesley Walters, who drafted a statement concerning its contents which was signed by William Foxwell Albright in 1949. Since that time the Reverend Walters has remained an inveterate anti-Mormon. – Midgley
“The Book of Mormon: A Minimal Statement,” (see “The Mormon View of the Book of Mormon”)
“The Book of Mormon: Forty Years After,” CWHN 8:533-567.
“The Book of Mormon: True or False,” Millennial Star 124:11 (November 1962): 274-277; CWHN 8: 219-242.
Nibley argues that if Joseph Smith was not telling the truth when he provided the world with the Book of Mormon, then he recklessly exposed his forgery to public discovery. In the course of his argument, he complains about what is currently being called “parallelomania.” Everywhere in Book of Mormon criticism, as well as in the scholarly world generally, various parallels are noted, and simplistic explanations are made to flow from those supposed parallels. With the Book of Mormon the end result is that those who only study nineteenth century materials and who read on English literature the tendency is to leap to the conclusion that they have discovered the sources upon which Joseph Smith presumably drew in fabricating the text; they are hence quick to condemn the book as a forgery. – Midgley
“The Boy, Nephi, in Jerusalem,” Instructor 96:3 (March 1961):84-85; CWHN 8:207-211.
A fictional account of how Jerusalem might have been in Nephi’s youth, grounded in roughly contemporary sources. – Midgley
“Breakthroughs I Would Like to See,” CWHN 9:378-405.
“Brigham Young and the Enemy,” The Young Democrat, privately printed leaflets, ed. by Omar Kadar and published in two separate parts in 1970. 4 pp. And 11 pp.l CWHN 13:187-246.
“Brigham Young as a Leader,” an address delivered on June 6, 1967; CWHN 13:449-490.
Nibley often drew upon materials he had culled from the writings of Brigham Young to make points on various issues.– Midgley
“Brigham Young as a Statesman,” an address delivered on June 7, 1967. CWHN 13:138-186.
*“Brigham Young as a Theologian,” 4 pp., typescript of remarks made in an address delivered on June 9, 1967.
*“Brigham Young as an Educator,” 15 pp., typescript of an addressed delivered on June 9, 1967.
For a more refined version of Nibley’s treatment of Brigham Young’s views on education, see his “Educating the Saints,” in CWHN 13:306-345. – Midgley
“Brigham Young on the Environment,” 6 pp., typescript of a talk given on April 21, 1971, for Earth Week at BYU; in Truman G. Madsen and Charles D. Tate, eds., To the Glory of God (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1972): 3-29 b; CWHN 13: 23-54.
A collection of passages culled from Brigham Young’s sermons. – Midgley
“But What Kind of Work?” CWHN 9:252-289.
“Candidates for the ‘Search Society’,” BYU Today 34 (August 1980): 12-13.
*“Celestial Environment,” (Tucson Institute of Religion)
“Censoring the Joseph Smith Story,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era, 1961; CWHN 11: 53-102.
“Change Out of Control,” mentioned as a previous name of an address that was changed and printed as “The Utopians” in CWHN 9:487-523.
*“Chattanooga,” (1987)
*”Chimes from Ell’s Belles,” 1 p. introduction, 1 p. biography of his father Alexander Nibley (‘El’), in a 50 p., home-printed and home-bound book of ‘birthday poems’ by El. The first page also has a cartoon, which was possibly drawn by HN.
“Christ Among the Ruins,” CWHN 8:407-434.
“Christian Envy of the Temple,” a two-part essay in the Jewish Quarterly Review 50:2,3/97-123 and 229-240. Reprinted with the same title in When the Lights Went Out (1970, 2001):55-58; 91-142; CWHN 4:391-434.
A detailed study of the reaction of early Christian writers to the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. – Midgley
“The Christmas Quest,” Millennial Star 112:1 (January 1950):4-5.
Nibley briefly looked into the question of whether it is possible that the bewildering profusion of Christmas observances might contain, among other things, a latent longing for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. – Midgley
*“Church History,” (G-2 report)
“Churches in the Wilderness,” CWHN 8:289-327 and Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless
“The Circle and the Square,” CWHN 12:139-176.
“Columbus and Revelation,” Instructor 88:10 (October 1953):319-320; CWHN 8: 49-53.
Columbus seems to have believed that he was led to the Indies by divine revelation. – Midgley
“Commencement Speech” (see “Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift”)
“Comment,” in Mormonism, A Faith for All Cultures, edited by F. Lamond Tullis (Provo: BYU Press, 1978): 22-28.
*“Commentary on Doctrine and Covenants, Section 1,” 2 pp., s.s., typed notes of a Family Home Evening lesson given in October, 1973.
A verse by verse commentary. – Midgley
“Common Carrier: Author Defends Image of Joseph Smith As Prophet,” Salt Lake Tribune (Sunday, November 25, 1973): 2G.
This was a reply to a “Common Carrier” article by Jerald and Sandra Tanner, in the Salt Lake Tribune (November 11, 1973): 6B. Nibley focuses on the debate over the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri. – Midgley
*“Conflict in the Churches between the God of the Bible and the God of the Philosophers,” (G-2 report)
“Conversation with Hugh Nibley,” in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
*“Conversation with Hugh Nibley, Friday, March 13, 1998,” (Kent Brown, Patricia J. Ward, Hugh Nibley and Phyllis Nibley), 20 page typescript.
*“Coptic Christian ‘Book of Breathings’,”
“Criticizing the Brethren,” (August 1989) CWHN 13:403-446.
*“Dark Days in Jerusalem: The Lachish Letters,”
“The Day of the Amateur,” The New Era 1:1 (January 1971): 42-44; CWHN 13: 301-305.
“The Dead Sea Scrolls: Some Questions and Answers,” Instructor 98:7 (July 1963): 233-235; CWHN 1: 245-252
An address originally given on July 5, 1962, to the Seminary and Institute Faculty assembled at Brigham Young University. – Midgley
*“Dear Missionaries,”
“Dear Sterling,” (see McMurrin Letter)
“Deny Not the Gifts of God,” CWHN 9:118-148.
“Do Religion and History Conflict?” in Great Issues Forum, Series 2 (Religion), No. 5 (Salt Lake City: University of Utah, Extension Division, 1955): 22-39; CWHN 12:434-449.
This is the published version of the first of several famous exchanges that Nibley has had with Sterling M. McMurrin. This one was held on March 23, 1955, under the sponsorship of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Utah. McMurrin’s address, “Religion and the Denial of History,” is published on pp. 5-21, although Nibley actually spoke first. – Midgley
*“Doctrine and Covenants,”
*“Earliest Christians,” (March 3, 1964 Fireside)
“Early Accounts of Jesus’ Childhood,” Instructor 100:1 (January 1965): 35-37; CWHN 4:1-9.
An assessment of the various infancy materials about the childhood of Jesus. – Midgley
*The Early Christian Church in the Light of Some Newly Discovered Papyri from Egypt (Provo: BYU Extension Publications, 1964): 20 pp.
An address delivered to the BYU Tri-Stake Fireside, March 3, 1964, which draws attention to the contents of some of the Coptic Nag Hammadi materials. – Midgley
“The Early Christian Prayer Circle,” CWHN 4:45-99.
“Easter and the Prophets,” in Immortality: Famed Discourses on Eternal Progression and Future Existence, ed. by Gordon Allred (Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publishing Co., 1974):140-148. This essay was reprinted from Nibley’s World and the Prophets; CWHN 3:154-162.
*“Eduard Meyer’s Comparison of Mohammed & Joseph Smith,” (G-2 Report No. 4)
“Educating the Saints – A Brigham Young Mosaic,” BYU Studies 11:1 (Autumn 1970):61-87; Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978):229-260; CWHN 13:306-345.
Comparisons might be made with Nibley’s talks on Brigham Young delivered in June, 1967. – Midgley
*“Endowment History,” (1992)
“The Enoch Figure,” CWHN 2:19-65.
“Enoch the Prophet,” in Pearl of Great Price Symposium, held at Brigham Young University on November 22, 1975: 76-85, 93-96. Reprinted in CWHN 2:1-18.
*“Enuma Elish, The Babylonian Poem of the Creation,” (G-2 Report)
*“Eschatology (from Theology 131, Section 1),” (October 1960)
“Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum: The Forty-day Mission of Christ– The Forgotten Heritage,” Vigiliae Christianae 20:1 (1966): 1-24; reprinted under the title “The Forty-day Mission of Christ – the Forgotten Heritage,” in When the Lights Went Out (1970, 2001): 33-54; 49-90; CWHN 4:10-44.
A study of evidences of the teachings of Jesus to his disciples in the forty days after the resurrection. – Midgley
*“Evolution: A Convenient Fiction,” (G-2 Report, No. 3)
“Exemplary Manhood–Keynote,” (Associated Students Awards Assembly, April 11, 1991)
CWHN 13:507-521.
“The Expanding Gospel,” BYU Studies 7:1 (Autumn 1965): 3-27; reprinted in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Prov: Religious Studies Center, 1978):21-47; CWHN 12:177-211.
A talk given as the Second Annual BYU Faculty Lecture on March 17, 1965. – Midgley
*“Expository Times,” (excerpts from The Expository Times by Hugh Nibley in the form of a G-2 Report)
*“The Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham: A Response,”
*”Fact and Fancy in the Interpretation of Ancient Records,” 55 pp., a typed transcript of an address given at the third annual Religion Lecture Series at BYU on November 11, 1965. The transcript of this address has been circulated under the title “Intre-Ancient Records.”
*“Faith of an Observer: Conversations with Hugh Nibley,” (FARMS Study Aid, 1985)
“FARMS Letter,” (written by Nibley and sent by FARMS November 1983)
*”Figure 6 of Facsimile 2,” 17 pp. typescript, available from http://www.farmsresearch.com/.
*“Final Exam,” (Pearl of Great Price Rel. 327, Fall or Winter 1979)
*“The First Vision,” 33 pp. typed transcript of an address given on February 18, 1961 at a Seminar on Joseph Smith held at BYU.
Nibley sets forth various reasons for believing that there had been a suppression of the story of the initial vision of Joseph Smith by his enemies between 1820 and 1838. See also the series entitled “Censoring the Joseph Smith Story,” published in 1961 in The Improvement Era. – Midgley
*“Forgery,”
“The Forty-day Mission of Christ – The Forgotten Heritage” (see “Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum”)
“Fragment Found in Salt Lake City,” BYU Studies 8:2 (Winter 1968): 191-194.
Reflections on the recovery of the Joseph Smith Papyri from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. – Midgley
“Freemen and King-men in the Book of Mormon,” CWHN 8:328-379.
A talk given in 1981 at the J. Reuben Clark Law School of Brigham Young University.
“The Freight Train,” in The Lyric West 5:5 (1926): 171.
“From the Earth Upon Which Thou Standest,” CWHN 12:550-554.
“Funeral Address for Donald M. Decker,” CWHN 9:290-307.
Genesis of the Written Word (Provo: BYU Press, 1973). This was the Commissioner’s Lecture delivered in 1972. Later reprinted (without the complete footnotes) in The New Era 3:9 (September 1973): 38-50; reprinted again in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978): 101-127; CWHN 12: 450-490.
An examination of writing as a gift from God and as a vehicle for the presentation and communication of knowledge of divine things. – Midgley
“Getting Ready to Begin, An Editorial,” BYU Studies 9:3 (Autumn 1968): 245-254.
A contribution to the continuing debate over the Joseph Smith Papyri and the historical authenticity of the Book of Abraham. – Midgley
“Gifts,” CWHN 9:84-117.
*“Glory,” (G-2 Report)
*“The God of the Christian Doctors,”
*“The God of the Philosophers,”
“Goods of First and Second Intent,” CWHN 9:524-553.
*“The Gospel of Repentance,”
“The Grab Bag,” CWHN 8:170:181.
“Great Are the Words of Isaiah,” CWHN 1:215-238.
*“The Greatness of Egypt,”
“The Hierocentric State,” Western Political Quarterly 4:2 (1951):226-253; CWHN 10:99-147.
A study of the role of ritual centers and kingship in ancient regimes. – Midgley
“Historicity of the Bible,” typed transcript of an address given to the Seminary and Institute faculty at BYU on June 19, 1956; CWHN 1: 1-19.
History of Syria: Including Lebanon and Palestine, by Philip K. Hitti, review, in The Western Political Quarterly (June 1952): 312-313.
*“The Holy Mountain,”
“A House of Glory,” (February 20, 1993, Temple Symposium) in Temples of the Ancient World, edited by Donald W. Parry (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994): 29-47.
“How Firm a Foundation! What Makes It So,” CWHN 9:149-178.
“How to Get Rich,” CWHN 9:178-201.
“How to Have a Quiet Campus, Antique Style,” BYU Studies 9:4 (Summer 1969): 440-452; CWHN 10: 287-302.
Nibley traces some interesting parallels in educational matters and especially in campus unrest in the decade after 1960 with the medieval world. – Midgley
“How to Write an Anti-Mormon Book,” Lecture II, February 17, 1962 in Seminar on the Prophet Joseph Smith (BYU Extension Publications, 1962): 30-41. This was reprinted (1964), pp. 31-42.
Essentially a preview of Sounding Brass (1963). A long satirical list of informal rules commonly followed by those anxious to attack Mormon things. – Midgley
“Howlers in the Book of Mormon,” Millennial Star 125:2 (February 1963): 28-34; CWHN 8: 243-258.
Nibley shows that a long list of mistakes presumably made by Joseph Smith may actually turn out to be, on closer inspection and with fuller understanding, vindications of its authenticity. – Midgley
*“Humanism and the Gospel,”
*“The Hypocephalus Enigma,”
“The Idea of the Temple in History,” Millennial Star 120:8 (August 1958):228-237, 247-249. Reprinted as What Is a Temple? The Idea of the Temple in History (1963 and 1968); and under the title “What is a Temple?” in The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives, ed. by Truman G. Madsen (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1984), 19-37; and in CWHN 4: 355-390.
“If There Must Needs Be Offense,” The Ensign 1:7 (July 1971): 53-55; CWHN 13:270-277. See also Nibley’s anti-war letter of March 29, 1971 in BYU Daily Universe.
“In the Party, But Not of the Party,” 22 pp., typed manuscript for an Academics Lecture given on June 3, 1976 at BYU on politics; CWHN 13:105-137.
An examination of how the Saints should understand involvement in politics, among other things drawing upon the examples of Paul and Daniel. – Midgley
“An Intellectual Autobiography,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, ed. by Truman G. Madsen (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978): xix-xxviii.
*“Intre-Ancient Records,” (See “Fact and Fancy in the Interpretation of Ancient Records”)
*“Irenaeus,”
“Islam and Mormonism: A Comparison,” The Ensign 2:3 (March 1972): 55-64.
Not all of the footnotes containing the citations for the supporting texts and explanations were published with this essay. – Midgley
*“Israel’s Neighbors,” 33 pp., a typed transcript of a talk given on February 24, 1965.
A discussion of the religious and cultural impact of Egypt, Babylon and other neighbors on events in Israel. – Midgley
*“It Takes All Kinds,”
“Jerusalem in Early Christianity,”Encyclopedia Judaica 9 (New York: Macmillan and the Encyclopedia Judaica Publishing, Jerusalem, 1972): columns 1568-75; CWHN 4: 323-354.
A treatment of the role and symbolic power of Jerusalem for Christians. This was also circulated in pamphlet form by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. – Midgley
*“The Jerusalem Scene,”
*“Jerusalem’s Formula for Peace,” 18 pp. typed transcript of a talk given in 1963.
*“Judging and Prejudging the Book of Abraham,”
“Just Another Book?” CWHN 8:148-169.
*“Kader,”
“Kangaroo Court,” CWHN 8:127-147.
*“Kitsch in the Visual Arts and Advertisements of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” an interview, in Lori Schlinker’s Kitsch in the Visual Arts (Brigham Young University, August 1971): 60-64. This was Lori Schlinker’s interview # 6.
*“LDS Foundation Winter Conference,” (Feb. 1987)
“Lachish Letters,” CWHN 8:380-406.
*“Larsen Memos,”
“Last Call: An Apocalyptic Warning from the Book of Mormon,” CWHN 8:498-532.
“The Last Days, Then and Now,” (Nov. 8, 1996, for Richard L. Anderson Festschrift)
*“The Last Days–Who Will Survive?”
“Law of Consecration,” CWHN 9:422-486.
“Leaders to Managers: The Fatal Shift,” 1983 BYU commencement speech, CWHN 13:486-506.
Learn Greek through the New Testament, by C. Wilfred Griggs and Randall Stewart, Foreword, (Provo: The Interlinguistica Series in Foreign Languages, 1981): I, ia.
“A Legendary Passion for Books,”
“Lehi in the Desert,” a series in The Improvement Era in 1950 . Reprinted, without illustrations, as the first half of Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites (1952): viii, 272 pp.; Reprinted in 1980, with an index prepared by Gary P. Gillum, and again in 1987, with corrections, full indexing and with the original illustrations restored, as the first and second parts of Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites, CWHN 5:1-282.
*“The Lesson of the Sixth Century B.C.,”
*“Letter to Dee Jay Nelson,”
“Letters to Smoother,”
“The Liahona’s Cousins,” The Improvement Era 64:2 (February 1961):87-89, 104-106, 108-111.
An examination of the Liahona in the light of Arabic divination arrows. – Midgley
“Literary Style Used in the Book of Mormon Insured Accurate Translation,” Deseret News, “Church News,” July 29, 1961, 10, 15. Originally a letter addressed to “Dear Mr. ----,” dated July 12, 1961. Reprinted in Saints Herald (October 9, 1961): 969-9, 975; CWHN 8:212-218.
*“Looking Backward,”
“Man’s Dominion, or Subduing the Earth,” The New Era 2:10 (October 1972): 24-31; reprinted in The New Era 11:1 (January 1981) and also available in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978): 85-99; CWHN 13:3-22.
Pointed social commentary concerning the state of the natural environment. – Midgley
“The Manti Temple: Decorative Hardware with Intricate Meanings,” in Rasmussen, Victor J., The Manti Temple (Manti, Utah: Manti Temple Centennial Committee, 1988): 33-36.
“McMurrin Letter,” in Petersen, Boyd Jay, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2002):427-430.
McMurrin was at the time working on a book of essays on Mormon things and had apparently invited Nibley to contribute an essay. The book that McMurrin had in mind was never published. – Midgley
“The Meaning of the Atonement,” CWHN 9:554-608.
*“The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” BYU Studies 11:4 (Summer 1971): 350-399.
A detailed study of some materials generated in Kirtland and currently being used by some critics to discredit Joseph Smith. – Midgley
“The Meaning of the Temple,” 18 pp., typed manuscript [made by Robert Miller], dated 1975; CWHN 12:1-41.
“Mediocre Meditations on the Media,” CWHN 13
The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1975), xiii, 305 pp; reprinted in 2005, CWHN 16 (609 pp.).
A translation and commentary on the so-called “Book of Breathings” that turned up among the Joseph Smith Papyri, with parallels to early Christian materials. For reviews, see C. Wilfred Griggs, “A Great Fuss About a Piece of Papyrus,” Ensign 5:10 (October 1975): 84; and Eric Jay Olson, “A Hint of an Explanation,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 9:4 (Winter 1974): 74-75. – Midgley
The Migrations, Alliances, and Power of Israel in Western Europe and Central Asia: A Latter-day Saint Perspective on the Lost Tribes, by Dale W. Nelson (Orem, Utah: Sharpspear Press, 2001): promotional comments on back cover.
“Mixed Voices: A Study in Book of Mormon Criticism,” a series of articles (on so-called Mormon “criticism”), in The Improvement Era, 1959; CWHN 8:127-206.
“More Brigham Young on Education,” Sidney B. Sperry Symposium (Provo: BYU Press, 1976): 2-20. A talk given on March 11, 1976 at the Joseph Smith Auditorium at Brigham Young University; CWHN 13: 346-379.
“More Voices from the Dust,” Instructor 91:3 (March 1956):71-72,74; CWHN 1:239-244.
Some brief references to the Dead Sea Scrolls. – Midgley
“The Mormon View of the Book of Mormon,” Concilium: Theology in the Age of Renewal 30 (New York: Paulist Press, 1968): 170-173; also printed in England under the same title in Concilium: An International Review of Theology 10 (December 1967): 82-83, and in other foreign-language editions of this Catholic journal in French, pp. 151-153; Portuguese, pp. 144-147; German, pp. 855-856;reprinted, as “The Book of Mormon: A Minimal Statement,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Religious Studies Center, 1978): 149-153; CWHN 8: 259-264.
An interesting summary statement of the content and purpose of the Book of Mormon prepared for a volume of Concilium devoted to an examination of the Christian scriptures. – Midgley
*“Mormons and the Environment,” (September 19, 1987)
The Mythmakers (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1961): 293 pp.; CWHN 11:103-406.
A highly satirical examination of the early criticisms of Joseph Smith. – Midgley
“Myths and the Scriptures,” New Era 1:10 (October 1971): 34-38; CWHN 1:37-47.
Near Eastern Culture and Society, by Philip K. Hitti et al., review, in Western Political Quarterly 5:2 (June1952): 315-16.
“New Approaches to Book of Mormon Study,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era, 1953, 1954; CWHN 8:54-126.
*“A New Christmas Theme,” 3 pp., s.s., typescript, dated 1973.
* New Discoveries Concerning the Bible and Church History (Provo: BYU Extension Publications, 1963): 12 pp.
A series of quotations by various writers on six general topics. – Midgley
“New Light on Scaliger,”Classical Journal 37:5 (February 1942): 291-295; CWHN 10:303.
“A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era, 1968-1970. The following three chapters, “Setting the Stage– The World of Abraham,” “The Sacrifice of Isaac,” and “The Sacrifice of Sarah,” have been reprinted in CWHN 14:163-218, 319-381.
“Nibley Talks About Contemporary Issues,” (interview with Lin Ostler Strack for Sunstone Review November/December 1983): 12-14.
*“Nibley the Scholar,” 13 pp., typed transcript of a BYU Forum Assembly in which Nibley was interviewed by Louis Midgley, May 21, 1974.
“Nibliography,”in Century II 1:2 (1976): 54-57.
No Ma’am, That’s Not History: A Brief Review of Mrs. Brodie’s Reluctant Vindication of a Prophet She Seeks to Expose (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1946): 62 pp.; CWHN 11:1.
Subsequently reissued without changes at various times. This is a short, witty reply to Fawn M. Brodie’s No Man Knows My History (New York: Knopf, 1945; 2nd ed., rev. and enlarged, 1971). His response to Brodie took the form of counter-punching which signaled to the Saints that there was still room for non-naturalistic accounts of Joseph Smith’s revelations. Cultural Mormons who celebrated a new enlightenment with the appearance of Brodie’s treatment of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were deeply offended by what they considered Nibley’s flippant response. Hostility to Nibley has also been a rather common feature of the secular, revisionist element in the so-called New Mormon History, which has seen in Brodie’s account of Joseph Smith the beginning or basic outlines of an acceptable naturalistic account of Mormon things. Commenting on the reception of Brodie’s biography of Joseph Smith, Thomas G. Alexander claims that “perhaps no book in recent years has evinced more comment.” He then contrasted “the scholarly Marvin Hill’s” two reviews of Brodie’s biography of Joseph Smith [Church History 43:1 (March 1974):78-96; Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 7:4 (Winter 1972): 72-85] with “the outrageous Hugh Nibley’s No Ma’am That’s Not History ....” [Alexander, “The Place of Joseph Smith in the Development of American Religion: A Historiographical Inquiry,” Journal of Mormon History 5 (1978):3-17, at 10, n. 9.] – Midgley
*“Nobody to Blame,” 8 pp. Open letter, addressed to “Dear Brother Burgon,” dated July 29, 1960, with a cover letter, addressed to “Dear Brother...,” 1 p., dated August 3, 1960.
“Not to Worry,” in Expressions of Faith: Testimonies of Latter-day Saint Scholars, edited by Susan Easton Black (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1996): 139-154. Reprinted from a talk given October 31, 1994.
*“Not Trivial Pursuits, but Terrible Questions,”
“A Note on F.M. Brodie,” 2 pp., s.s., typescript, ca. 1974; CWHN 11:47-52.
Brief comments by Nibley on two reviews of Fawn Brodie’s Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History (New York: Norton, 1974). He calls attention to similarities between features of his 1946 review of Brodie’s No Man Knows My History and criticisms of her Jefferson book by David Herbert Donald in Commentary 58:1 (July 1974): 96-98 and Gary Wills in the New York Review of Books 21 (April 18, 1974): 26-27. Nibley’s remarks might be compared with the more extensive, though still limited, review of reviews of Brodie’s Jefferson book by Louis Midgley [“The Brodie Connection: Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Smith,” BYU Studies 20:1 (Fall 1979): 59-67] and also by Jerry Knudson [“Jefferson the Father of Slave Children? One View of the Book Reviewers,” Journalism History 3:2 (Summer 1976): 56-58], who examined a somewhat larger sample of the reviews of Brodie’s book than did Midgley, though with similar results. Knudson concluded that professional historians had been highly critical of her scholarship. Brodie responded (59-60) to Knudson by citing as examples historians who had written favorable comments on her book and the advertising blurbs that were provided by her historian friends for W. W. Norton, her publisher. The conclusions found in the Midgley and Knudson essays can be checked against and updated from the more than seventy separate reviews of her Jefferson book, most of which have been assembled in the Brodie Papers in Special Collections at the Marriott Library, University of Utah. – Midgley
“Of Birthdays,” The Improvement Era 29:6 (June1926): 743; and in Petersen, Boyd Jay, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2002): 55.
*“Old Testament,”
*“On the Pearl of Great Price,” 34 pp., typed transcript of a lecture given on May 13, 1965.
“On the Sacred and the Symbolic,” in Temples of the Ancient World, edited by Donald W. Parry (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1994): 535-631.
“One Eternal Round: The Hermetic Version,” CWHN 12:379-433.
Our Book of Mormon by Sidney B. Sperry (Salt Lake City: Stevens & Wallis, 1948), review in The Improvement Era 51:1 (January 1948): 42.
“Our Glory or Our Condemnation,” in ASBYU Academics Office Presents: Last Lecture Series, 1971-72 (Provo: n.p., 1972 and 1973): 1-14; CWHN 9:1-24.
Social commentary touching on themes that have become increasingly common in Nibley’s various addresses and writings containing social commentary. – Midgley
“The Passing of the [Primitive] Church: Forty Variations on an Unpopular Theme,” Church History 30: 2 (June 1961): 84-85; reprinted in When the Lights Went Out (1970, 2001), and later in BYU Studies 16:1 (Autumn 1975): 139-164; and CWHN 4:168-208.
Nibley presents forty arguments for the apostasy in an examination of the expectation of early Christian writers of the fading of the Church. Professor Hans J. Hillerbrand wrote a letter protesting Nibley’s thesis because, among other reasons, of the possibility that, if widely accepted, it would logically preclude his continuing to teach what he understood to be “Church history.” See Hillerbrand, “The Passing of the Church: Two Comments on a Strange Theme,” Church History 30:3 (December 1961):481-482; and a response to Hillerbrand by Robert M. Grant, “The Passing of the Church: Comments on Two Comments on a Strange Theme,” Church History 30:3 (December 1961):482-483.
William A. Clebsch, in his “History and Salvation: An Essay in Distinctions,” published in a collection of essays entitled The Study of Religion in Colleges and Universities, edited by Paul Ramsey and John F. Wilson (Princeton University Press, 1970):40-72, commented on Nibley’s arguments for the apostasy in “The Passing of the Church” as follows:
During the early 1960’s there arose in the pages of Church History a brief but in retrospect fascinating argument, which I will trace briefly. The argument not only revolved around the question of the continuity of the Christian church but also involved a more fundamental question about the very survival of the church through its early history. On the basis of his study of patristic writings, Hugh Nibley scored all church historians since Eusebius for describing rather than questioning the survival of the church through the early centuries. That Nibley took a Mormon’s viewpoint on the nascent Christian movement does not make any easier the defense of its identity and continuity against his attack. ‘By its very definition,’ he wrote, ‘church history requires unquestioning acceptance of the basic proposition that the Church did survive.... Church history seems to be resolved never to raise the fundamental question of survival as the only way of avoiding a disastrous answer, and the normal reaction to the question – did the Church remain on earth? – has not been serious inquiry in a richly documented field, but shocking recoil from the edge of an abyss into which few can look without a shudder’” [p. 67; also CWHN 4:168-169].
Clebsch continues:
An incensed retort from Hans J. Hillerbrand, who confessed that it was to him a ‘breadand butter’ issue, pleased the Reformers’ distinction between the church visible and invisible as the knife Nibley should have used to cut his knot. Further, Hillerbrand proposed the viability of considering church history ‘as the history of the interpretation of Sacred Scriptures’ (Gerhard Ebeling) or as ‘the history of the Gospel and its consequences in the world’ (Heinrich Bornkamm). ‘Or, more simply but quite adequately,’ according to Hillerbrand, ‘one can define church history as the history of Christianity or the Christian religion and avoid thereby the theologically dangerous term ‘church’...” [pp. 68f.; quoting Church History 30:3 (December 1961):481].
According to Clebsch, Robert M. Grant, “at the request of the journal’s editors... arose to referee the debate.” And he admitted that only a Catholic understanding of the Church makes any sense. And he brushed aside Hillerbrand’s attempt to slide around the issue by reducing church history to the “history of Christianity” or the “history of Christian religion.” Albert Outler then settled the issue by assertion, just as Nibley had said that it had always been settled. If we cannot tell the story of church history, Outler held, “then more than the enterprise of church history is at stake, for the Christian faith itself will not long outlive its major premise: God’s real presence in human history – past, present, and future” [p. 70].
The tendency, at least since 1960, has been to turn away from the doing of “church” history, and to the doing of the history of “religion,’ an even more ambiguous and amorphous term. Among some Mormon historians there are signs of a shift from “church” to “religious” history. For example, some effort has been made to place Joseph Smith in the development of American religion, and even the faithful have been charmed by recent efforts to describe “Mormonism” as “a new religious tradition.” “For if it is true that Mormonism represents a new religious tradition, then a narrative of mythic dimensions that relates the origins of that tradition becomes imperative for the true believer,” according to Neal E. Lambert and Richard H. Cracroft, in “Literary Form and Historical Understanding: Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980):40. Jan Shipps later fashioned a book around that bit of speculation. See her Mormonism: The Story of a New Religious Tradition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1985).
There has been a tendency, for various reasons, even for Latter-day Saint historians, to move away from doing the history of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and , in that sense, the Church, understood as God’s covenant people, toward doing history controlled by questions of a presumed religious development, understood often through sociological and psychological categories. Unwilling to address the issues raised by Nibley, some historians have turned to the study of the Church understood as a political, economic, or cultural institution or artifact, and not as the covenant people of God. – Midgley
“Patriarchy and Matriarchy,” CWHN 1:87-114.
“Paths That Stray: Some Notes on Sophic and Mantic,” CWHN 10:380-478.
“Paul and Moroni,” letter to Christianity Today 5:5 (May 22, 1961):727
A response to a letter by C. Sumter Logan of the Trinity Presbyterian Church in Ogden, Utah, that had appeared in Christianity Today 5:3 (March 27, 1961): 551 (commenting on Moroni 7 and Paul’s praise of charity). – Midgley
*“Pearl of Great Price Class Notes,” (taken by Russell A. Peak)
*“Pearl of Great Price Papyri Acquisition,” 15 pp., transcript of a talk given on March 14, 1967.
*“Perennial Egypt,”
*“Peter,”
“Phase One,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3:2 (Summer 1968): 99-105.
This essay concerns the debate over the Joseph Smith Papyri and the bulk of the number contains materials on this issue. – Midgley
*“The Philosophical Implications of Automation,” 3 pp., s.s., typed transcript of a lecture given on March 19, 1964.
*“Plato’s Athens,”
*“Portland Institute Symposium,”
*“Prayer, Devotional Assembly,”
*“Priesthood,”
“Prolegomena to Any Study of the Book of Abraham,” BYU Studies 8:2 (Winter 1968): 171-178.
On November 27, 1967 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City made available to the Church certain papyri fragments that had once been in the possession of Joseph Smith. These generated considerable interest and also much controversy over the Book of Abraham and what came to be called the Joseph Smith Papyri. – Midgley
“Promised Lands,” (Lawyer Seminar, Oct. 9, 1993), CWHN 13:74-101.
The Prophetic Book of Mormon. (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1989), 567 pp. CWHN 8
*“Questions on Authority and Passages for Discussion (The Apostasy),” 23 pp., mimeographed class handout, ca..1952.
A compendium of passages from the New Testament, the early fathers of the Church, and from historians of Christian antiquity on the question of the apostasy. – Midgley
“Qumran and the Companions of the Cave: The Haunted Wilderness,” Revue de Qumran 5:2
(1965): 177-198; reprinted as “The Haunted Wilderness,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978): 187-212; CWHN 1: 253-284.
This is a remarkable, complex study of stories that turn up in both Muslim sources and in the Dead Sea Scrolls; these stories and their strange appearances have more significance than appears on the surface. – Midgley
“Rediscovery of the Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon,” 58 pp. d.s. typed transcript of a lecture given on March 17, 1965; CWHN 12:212-263.
The imagery and practices found in the Book of Mormon are compared with certain phrases and material concerns found in Jewish and Christian apocryphal writings. – Midgley
“Religion: An (Almost) Uncensored Interview,” Student Review March 24, 1993
“Renounce War,”(see “A Substitute for Victory”)
*“The Religious Picture,” (G-2 Report, No. 1)
“Return to the Temple,” CWHN 12:42-90.
*“‘Revelation’ No Longer a Naughty Word,” (G-2 Report, No. 2)
The Roman Games as a Survival of an Archaic Year-Cult (Berkeley: University of California Ph.D. dissertation, 1939): 249 pp.; bibliography: 236-249.
[Completed and approved by December 1938. The UCB library cataloged the dissertation in early 1939. Available on microfilm in the Family History Library at BYU.]
*“Roman Satire and Us,” (BYU Women’s Lecture, October 26, 1991)
“Sacred Vestments,” 32 pp., d.s., or 19 pp., s.s., typed transcript of a lecture, which was originally accompanied by slides, and given in 1975. This lecture was circulated in two different editions in 1986 and 1987; CWHN 12:91-138.
“The Sacrifice of Isaac,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 130-149; CWHN 14
“The Sacrifice of Sarah,” CWHN 14
“Science Fiction and the Gospel,” 22 pp. s.s., typed transcript of a talk given February 13, 1969; published, with some changes, in LDSF 2: Latter-day Science Fiction, ed. by Benjamin Urrutia (Ludlow, Mass.: Parables, 1985): 5-28; CWHN 12:491-531.
“Scriptural Perspectives on How to Survive the Calamities of the Last Days,” CWHN 8:470-497.
*“Secrets of the Scriptures – The Creation,” 29 pp., typed transcript of a talk given in Glendale, California in 1969.
One of the best examples of Nibley’s use of ancient apocryphal writings. The talk was also unusual in that he expressed gratitude that it was being recorded.
“Setting the Stage–The World of Abraham,” CWHN 14
“Shalamar,” 7 pp., s.s., typed script used by Nibley for his part on the BYU Women’s Program, April 24, 1970,” in Petersen, Boyd Jay, Hugh Nibley: A Consecrated Life (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2002): 431-437. Two slightly different versions of this have been preserved and circulated.
Since Cumorah, originally a series of articles on the Book of Mormon in The Improvement Era, 1964-1966. Reprinted in 1967 and 1970 (xiii, 451 pp.) with much the same material that originally appeared under the same title from The Improvement Era in 1964-66, but with a somewhat different organization and with some additional materials, specifically on “Military History” (pp. 328-370) and “The Prophetic Book of Mormon” (pp. 373-444); CWHN 7.
Alexander T. Stecker reviewed Since Cumorah in BYU Studies 8:4 (Summer 1968): 465-468. Robert Mesle provided an RLDS reaction to it in a magazine called Courage 2:1 (September 1971): 331-332. At the time he published this review, Mesle was a student at Graceland College in Lamoni, Iowa, where he then taught religion and philosophy. He grants that Nibley appears to be a “very competent scholar in the field of ancient documents and their languages,” but complains that he is not “at all objective or critical in the sphere of his own religion.” The reason is that Nibley takes the Book of Mormon seriously, which Mesle’s RLDS Secular Fundamentalist religious indoctrination prevented him from doing. Mesle, who holds that in order to be properly objective and sufficiently critical, one must fancy that the Book of Mormon and the gospel are fraudulent and spurious rather than authentic and genuine, charged that Nibley’s work is “trite and naive” – it is “both confident scholarship and the tritest of religious defenses,” though he neglected to indicate what in Since Cumorah was either hackneyed or unsophisticated.
For a sympathetic commentary on the last seventy pages of Since Cumorah – the portion of the book that did not appear in the original series in The Improvement Era, see Louis Midgley, “The Secular Relevance of the Gospel,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4:4 (Winter 1976): 76-85. A bitter complaint was registered against Nibley’s position by Duane Stanfield. See the exchange of letters between Stanfield and Midgley, Dialogue 5:2 (Summer 1970): 5-7. – Midgley
“Some Notes on Cultural Diversity in the Universal Church,” CWHN 12:541-549.
* “Some Reasons for the Restored Gospel,” 24 pp., d.s., typed manuscript of the talk given on the occasion of the visit to BYU of Professor Klaus Baer, an eminent Egyptologist and former teacher of Hugh Nibley, then teaching at the University of Chicago.
Nibley provides a listing of various reasons why one should give careful consideration to the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He deals with Joseph Smith’s version of the Book of Enoch, with the Book of Abraham, various compelling elements of the Book of Mormon, and the role of prophetic warnings to the Saints. – Midgley
*“Some Significant Statements by Leading Scientists on The Scope of Scientific Authority,” (Loosely compiled by H. Nibley),
Sounding Brass (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1963): 249 pp.; CWHN 11:407-727.
This book carries the subtitle “Informal Studies in the Lucrative Art of Telling Stories About Brigham Young and the Mormons” and is a response to Irving Wallace’s The Twenty-seventh Wife (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1961). A few historians have been annoyed because Nibley pointed out some of the flaws in anti-Mormon literature. “Hugh Nibley’s Sounding Brass .... is a meticulous critique of two anti-Mormon writings. Nibley’s book is most useful for the poorly informed who do not have the background to critique sensationalistic or popular works of questionable validity, like those of Ann Eliza Young or Irving Wallace. But it is a pointed and often sarcastic essay that emphasizes in great detail flaws already evident to the knowledgeable reader. The generally uninformed but orthodox Latter-day Saint will find this type of work supportive of his beliefs, but the Mormon who is familiar with critical methodology and with history will prefer a synthesis of the events critiqued. Many scholars find this style of writing to be a sort of intellectual overkill, and it has not been particularly influential among historians.” Thomas G. Alexander, “Toward the New Mormon History: An Examination of the Literature on the Latter-day Saints in the Far West,” an essay in Historians and the American West, edited by Michael P. Malone (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983). – Midgley
*“Souvenirs from Lehi’s Jerusalem,”
“Sparsiones,” Classical Journal 40: 9 (June 1945): 515-543; CWHN 10:148.
*“A Stage without a Play,”
Stela 5, Izapa, by M. Wells Jakeman, review, (Provo: Utah, 1958): 7 pp., s.s., ca. 1958.
A scathing critique of Jakeman’s claim to have found and interpreted a stone depicting Lehi’s Tree of Life dream. This can be compared with Jakeman’s highly critical response to Nibley’s treatment of amateur archaeology, which was circulated in the form of a review of Nibley’s An Approach to the Book of Mormon, in the U.A.S. Newsletter 40 (March 30, 1957):1-11. [This was the newsletter of the University Archaeology Society at BYU.] Jakeman’s criticisms of Nibley’s remarks about archaeology seem to have led to his review of the claims made about a stone depicting Lehi’s Tree of Life dream, which are called into question in this review. – Midgley
“Stewardship of the Air,” in Williams, Terry Tempest, ed., New Genesis: A Mormon Reader on Land and Community (Salt Lake City: Gibbs-Smith, 1998): 114-129); CWHN 13:55-75.
“The Stick of Judah and the Stick of Joseph,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era, 1953; CWHN 8:1-48.
An examination of the meaning of Ezekiel 37 in the light of the use of tally sticks. – Midgley
“Strange Ships and Shining Stones,” CWHN 6:340-360.
“‘A Strange Thing in the Land’: The Return of the Book of Enoch,” a series of articles in Ensign; CWHN 2:91-301.
“A Substitute for Victory,” an anti-war letter of March 26 [29?], 1971 in BYU Daily Universe. See also Ensign 1:7 (July 1971): 53-55; CWHN 13:267-269.
*“Teachings from the Dead Sea Scrolls,” (see “Apocryphal Writings”)
*“Temples Everywhere,” (Dec. 20, 1999)
“Tenting, Toll, and Taxing,” Western Political Quarterly 29:4 (December 1966): 599-630; CWHN 10:33-98.
An historical study of the roots of taxation, property and political dominion. – Midgley
“Terrible Questions,” CWHN 12:336-378.
*“There Is Always Egypt,”
“There Were Jaredites,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era, 1956 and 1957. Reprinted as part three of Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites, in CWHN 5:283-454.
*“The Thousand Year Question,” (March 17, 1987)
“Three Degrees of Righteousness from the Old Testament,” CWHN 3
*“Three Facsimiles from the Book of Abraham,”
“Three Shrines: Manti, Sopic and Sophistic (The Confrontation of Greek and Christian Religiosity,” Deseret Lectures, Sterling Library Lecture Hall, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, under the sponsorship of the LDS Deseret Club at Yale, given on May 1, 2 and 3, 1963; CWHN 10:311-379.
Time Vindicates the Prophets (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1954). See The World and the Prophets below.
Published as 31 separate pamphlets (misnumbered so that no part 20 was presented.) These were addresses given over radio station KSL at 9 p.m. on the regular Sunday Evening Program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. – Midgley
“To Open the Last Dispensation: Moses Chapter 1,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, 2-
21.
The Torment of Secrecy: The Background and Consequences of American Security Policies, by Edward A. Shils, review, in The American Political Science Review 50:3 (September 1956): 887-888.
“Treasures in the Heavens: Some Early Christian Insights into the Organizing of Worlds,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 8:3/4 (Autumn/Winter 1974): 76-98. Reprinted in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Provo: Religious Studies Center, 1978): 49-84; CWHN 1:171-214.
A complex and rich study of the cosmology of the Christian world, which is compared to other similar sources. – Midgley
*“Two Authorities on War,” (Feb. 21, 1991)
“Two Shots in the Dark,” in Noel B. Reynolds, ed., Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on
Ancient Origins (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1982), 232 pp.
“Two Stars,” a poem published in Anthology of Student Verse for 1925, ed. By Snow Longley (Los Angeles: Los Angeles High School, 1927): 10-12.
“Two Ways to Remember the Dead,” in Immortality: Famed Discourses on Eternal Progression and Future Existence, ed. by Gordon Allred (Salt Lake City: Hawkes Publishing Co., 1974): 199-210. This essay was reprinted from Nibley’s World and the Prophets; CWHN 3:163-172.
“Unrolling the Scrolls–Some Forgotten Witnesses,” a talk given in Glendale, California in 1967; CWHN 1:115-170.
“The Unsolved Loyalty Problem: Our Western Heritage,” Western Political Quarterly 6:4 (1953):631-657; CWHN 10:195.
An examination of the problem of loyalty in the 4th century, with obvious significance for our own time. – Midgley
“The Uses and Abuses of Patriotism,” CWHN 13:238-286.
“The Utopians,” CWHN 9:487-523.
“Victoriosa Loquacitas: The Rise of Rhetoric and the Fall of Everything Else,” Western Speech 20:2 (Spring 1956):57-82; CWHN 10:243-286.
A study of the rhetoric of the second Sophistic movement and its influence on politics and culture generally, with obvious significance for our own time because of remarkable parallel developments in the current world of business, politics and education. – Midgley
“Warfare and the Book of Mormon,” CWHN 13:276-298.
“The Way of the Church,” a series of articles in three parts in The Improvement Era. This series was to have been continued, but was actually abandoned. The materials were eventually used in “The Passing of the Church,” Church History 30: 2 (June 1961): 131-154; reprinted in When the Lights Went Out (1970, 2001): 1-32; and in BYU Studies 16:1 (Autumn 1975): 135-164; and in CWHN 4:209-322.
“We Will Still Weep for Zion,” CWHN 9:341-377.
“What, Exactly, Is the Purpose and Significance of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham?” Ensign 6:3 (March 1976): 34-36.
This essay was published as part of the section in the Ensign called “I Have a Question.” – Midgley
“What Frontier, What Camp Meeting?” CWHN 8:182-192.
What is a Temple? The Idea of the Temple in History (Provo: BYU Press, 1st ed., 1963; 2nd edn., 1968): ii, 18 pp. Reprinted from the Millennial Star 120:8 (August 1958): 228-237, 247-249. Also appeared as “Die Tempelsidee in der Geschichte,” Der Stern 85 Jahrgang/ no. 2 (February 1959): 43-60; CWHN 4:355-390 (See also “The Idea of a Temple in History”)
*“What is ‘The Book of Breathings’?” BYU Studies 11:2 (Winter 1971): 153-187.
An early version of one part of The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri (1975).
See also “Book of Breathings, P. Louvre 3284,” Nibley’s 1968 translation of the text once in possession of Joseph Smith, and cf. Richard A. Parker, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3:2 (Summer 1968): 98-99; and Klaus Baer, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3:3 (Autumn 1968): 109-134. The hieratic text of P. Louvre 3284 is reproduced in BYU Studies 11:2 (Winter 1971): 154-156. – Midgley
“What is Zion? A Distant View,” in What Is Zion? Joseph Smith Lecture Series, 1972-1973 (Provo: BYU Press, 1973): 1-21; CWHN 9:25-62. This talk, originally given in 1973, was circulated prior to publication as “Waiting for Zion,” typed typescript, 34 pp., d.s.
A passionate treatment of one of Nibley’s favorite themes. – Midgley
*“What Shalle We Do?” 4 pp., s.s., typed transcript of a Family Home Evening lesson given on November 26, 1973.
When the Lights Went Out (see the individual articles: “The Passing of the Primitive Church,” “Evangelium Quadraginta Dierum,” and “Christian Envy of the Temple”)
Why the Church is as True as the Gospel, by Eugene England ( Foreword by Hugh Nibley)
*“The Word of Wisdom,” (December 1979, Manavu Ward Gospel Doctrine Class)
“Work We Must, but the Lunch Is Free,” CWHN 9:202-251.
The World and the Prophets (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1954), 250 pp. Reprinted as 2nd. “enlarged ed.” in 1962, with the addition of “The Doctors’ Dilemma,” and “The Return of the Prophets?”, though they were not part of the original series of radio addresses and have a somewhat different style. Also in a 3rd. ed., with further additions and corrections, CWHN 3:333 pp.
“The World of the Jaredites,” a series of articles in The Improvement Era in 1951 and 1952.
Reprinted as the second half of Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites (1952); CWHN 5:151-282.
These articles were written in the form of expository letters to “Professor F.” – Midgley
*Writing and Publication in Graduate School (Provo: Mimeographed by the BYU Graduate School, 1966), 11 pp.
An address on the rudiments of scholarship given on May 12, 1965 to the BYU History Department Honors Banquet. Presented in the form of a series of answers to hypothetical questions. – Midgley
“Zeal without Knowledge,” Academic Awareness lecture, June 26, 1975. Original manuscript in mimeographed form. Reprinted in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 11:2 (Summer 1978): 101-112; in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless (Religious Studies Center, 1978): 261-277; in Readings for Intensive Writers, compiled by Susan T. Laing (Provo: Honors Intensive Writing, 1977) 185-194; and in CWHN 9:63-84.
This lecture is one of Nibley’s most famous.
