The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Vol. 7: Since Cumorah

390 Pages·2015·4.21 MB·English

by  Hugh Nibley

Since Cumorah
Hugh Nibley

© 1981 Hugh W. Nibley.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without
permission in writing from the publisher, Deseret Book Company ([email protected]), P.O.
Box 30178, Salt Lake City Utah 84130. This work is not an official publication of The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints. The views expressed herein are the responsibility of the author and do not
necessarily represent the position of the Church or of Deseret Book. Deseret Book is a registered trademark
of Deseret Book Company.
Table of Contents

Foreword to the 1967 Edition
Preface
The Book of Mormon as Scripture
". . . There Can Be No More Bible."
A New Age of Discovery
The Illusive Primitive Church
". . . But Unto Them It Is Not Given"
The Bible in the Book of Mormon
Philological Notes
Strange Things Strangely Told
Checking on Long-Forgotten Lore
Some Scientific Questions
"Forever Tentative . . . "
The Real Background of the Book of Mormon
Some Fairly Foolproof Tests
Prophets in the Wilderness
A Rigorous Test: Military History
The Prophetic Book of Mormon
Good People and Bad People
Prophecy in the Book of Mormon The Three Periods
Momentary Conclusion
Appendix
Key to Abbreviations
Foreword to the 1967 Edition

History is the record of the unpredictable. Old orders give way without
perceiving their own passing. The religious world of early Christianity was just
such an unstable age. Yet the most penetrating Roman historian, Tacitus,
considered Christianity at the close of its apostolic ministry nothing but a
disreputable superstition. This fact prompted today's leading private Bible
translator of the Anglo-American world to ask whether the modern age might
not have somewhere an unrecognized counterpart of the ancient ministry of
inspired apostles. In his preface to his translation of Acts J.B. Phillips
considered, "It is perfectly possible that the unpublicised and almost unknown
activities of the Spirit through His human agents to-day are of more permanent
importance than all the news recorded in the whole of the popular Press."1
The need of modern "activities of the Spirit through His human agents" was
hardly felt when Joseph Smith announced revelation to a Christian world firm in
confident orthodoxy. Nearly a century and a half later, Christianity itself is in the
crisis of a doctrinal revolution of such proportions that serious believers and
leaders display the deepest anxiety. The president of Harvard University has
recently challenged the lack of conviction of the teachers who train Christian
ministers: "Men continue to scorn older formulations of belief; . . . but now
belief itself—professedly—is consciously eschewed. We have all become
doubting Thomases."2 Now it is a question of what doctrines may survive when
creeds are no longer valid statements of faith.
As never before, the claims of Joseph Smith to modern revelation demand
the attention of serious men. The fact that a scholar of the stature of Hugh Nibley
has found it productive to spend years on the question of the Book of Mormon
shows that no easy dismissal of this work as an obvious imposture is possible.
His research has examined Joseph Smith's claims at every point where historical
scholarship possesses the tools to do so. Fortunately for this purpose, Joseph
Smith "translated" an ancient American record of religious history roughly the
size of the historical portions of the Old Testament. Anyone with slight
experience with the Book of Mormon knows that its prophetic portions are only
reached through chapter after chapter of historical detail—of migrations from the
Near East, of religious traditions and practices, of unfamiliar names and strange
mores, of economic, political, and military affairs. The very existence of a
purported history of this length is an open invitation to competent scholars to
demolish the claim of its author that it is history. No other product of Joseph
Smith's life shows such promise of giving unerring knowledge of whether he is a
genuine prophet or a clever fraud.
Yet the main case against the Book of Mormon continues to be argued
mainly on the ground that it is the inevitable product of the nineteenth century. In
the first place, no one has so far offered this thesis who is in the slightest
competent to say whether the Book of Mormon is more like the nineteenth
century than the ancient world that it chronicles. A student of the nineteenth
century may indeed find parallels in this period and the Book of Mormon but
without a knowledge of the world of antiquity, he simply is not equipped to
make a judgment whether the Book of Mormon resembles more Joseph Smith's
environment or the ancient culture it claims to represent. Professor Nibley is the
only person now publishing on this question who is equipped to make valid
observations. A simple scanning of the table of contents will show him dealing
with the writings of the Christian fathers, the writings of the Christian gnostics,
Jewish literature and traditions, Near-Eastern history and archeology, not to
speak of a half-dozen assorted areas of special competence such as military
tactics and social disintegrations. Professor Nibley has looked into these areas at
least enough to ask questions about them, and that is all he does. But he asks odd
questions.
The last century in the field of ancient studies is as iconoclastic as the
industrial revolution in the world of practical concerns. The fact that the
accuracy of the Book of Mormon is more evident after new discoveries makes it
impossible now to be honest and simply ridicule this record. These discoveries
have done more than vindicate the Book of Mormon. They have shown enough
of its truth to put a burden of investigation on anyone who is seriously interested
in religious or historical reality. New evidence demands a fresh look at the claim
that the Book of Mormon is a record of ancient religious history, sealed up for
the instruction and salvation of the modern world. Readers of every level of
education have in this book exciting and provocative insights to God's purposes
under the competent guidance of a gifted scholar. Lack of answers to his
evidence for the Book of Mormon over two decades is rapidly forging the
conviction that it is unanswerable.
Richard Lloyd Anderson
Footnotes
^ J. B. Phillips, The Young Church in Action (London: Collins/Fontana,
1.
1955), 16.
^ Nathan M. Pusey, "Faith's Waning Power to Enthrall," Christianity Today
2.
(May 12, 1967): 7 [791].
Preface

The purpose of this book1 is to call attention to some points on which the
main hypothesis of the Book of Mormon may be tested. The hypothesis is that
the Book of Mormon contains genuine history, and with it goes the corollary that
the work was divinely inspired. Because of that corollary no serious attempt has
been made to test the main hypothesis; for to test a theory means to take it
seriously only for a little while, to assume for the sake of argument that it may
conceivably, however absurdly, be true after all. That is a concession no critic of
the Book of Mormon has been willing to make.
Instead of the vigorous onslaught that the Book of Mormon hypothesis
invites and deserves, it has elicited only a long, monotonous drizzle of
authoritarian denunciation, the offhand opinions of impatient scholars whose
intelligence and whose official standing will not allow them to waste a moment
more than is necessary to write off an imposture so obviously deserving of
contempt.
But today it is being pointed out in many quarters that authoritarianism is
the very antithesis of true science, and that the best scientific theory is not the
sane, cautious, noncommittal one but the daring and revolutionary one. "A
theory which asserts more," says Karl Popper, "and thus takes greater risks, is
better testable than a theory which asserts very little."2 And he further notes that
preference should always be given to the theory that makes more precise
assertions than others, explains more facts in greater detail, invites more tests,
suggests more new experiments, and unifies more hitherto unrelated problems.
On all these points the Book of Mormon scores high. It is the very extravagance
of its claims that makes it so deserving of the respect which is denied it. The
outrageous daring of its title page is the very thing that should whet the appetite
of a real scholar: here is a book that is asking for a fight, so to speak, and if it is
as flimsy as it looks at first glance any competent schoolman should have little
trouble polishing it off in an hour or so.
But, strangely, through the years the challenge has had no takers. The
learned have been willing enough to wave their credentials and state their
opinions, but they have been adroit and determined in avoiding any serious
discussion. To illustrate, Bernard de Voto once hailed an ambitious critic of
Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon as "a detached, modern intelligence,
grounded in naturalism, rejecting the supernatural."3 This is good news indeed