| Topic: |
Religions > Atheism |
| User: |
"maff" |
| Date: |
08 May 2005 06:16:16 AM |
| Object: |
Daughter's Denunciation of Historian Roils Mormon Church |
Daughter's Denunciation of Historian Roils Mormon Church
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050700981_pf.html
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 8, 2005; A03
SALT LAKE CITY -- Although the Mormon Church is one of the wealthiest
and fastest-growing Christian denominations, members of the faith often
take a defensive stance toward the outside world. "Mormons of every
stripe are obsessive about their image," historians Richard and Joan
Ostling noted, "deeply concerned that their church appears to outsiders
as a 'cult.' "
In the ongoing effort to enhance the church's image, no Mormon played a
bigger role than Hugh Nibley, the multilingual teacher and scholar
whose books, laden with footnotes and laced with quotations from
ancient texts, make a meticulous argument that Mormon scripture
reflects historic truth.
Mormons
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/01d66ad68fdf8384
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| User: "Emma Pease" |
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| Title: Re: Daughter's Denunciation of Historian Roils Mormon Church |
08 May 2005 09:02:06 PM |
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In article <1115550976.920294.170510@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>, maff wrote:
Daughter's Denunciation of Historian Roils Mormon Church
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/07/AR2005050700981_pf.html
By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 8, 2005; A03
SALT LAKE CITY -- Although the Mormon Church is one of the wealthiest
and fastest-growing Christian denominations, members of the faith often
take a defensive stance toward the outside world. "Mormons of every
stripe are obsessive about their image," historians Richard and Joan
Ostling noted, "deeply concerned that their church appears to outsiders
as a 'cult.' "
In the ongoing effort to enhance the church's image, no Mormon played a
bigger role than Hugh Nibley, the multilingual teacher and scholar
whose books, laden with footnotes and laced with quotations from
ancient texts, make a meticulous argument that Mormon scripture
reflects historic truth.
Mormons
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/alt.atheism/msg/01d66ad68fdf8384
I would be very wary of accepting the daughter's charges
1. recovered memories of abuse tend to be unreliable.
Linkname: HOW RELIABLE ARE RECOVERED MEMORIES?
URL: http://www.religioustolerance.org/rmt_reli.htm
2. her claims that 90% of her father's footnotes were false seem to
be based on
Beck writes that she was in the frozen-foods aisle of a grocery store
when a scholar in a tweed coat, whom she does not name, came up to her.
He told her that Nibley's 15 history books were fictional, and that 90
percent of his footnotes were made up. On hearing this charge, she
says, "I felt noticeably, physically stronger."
In an interview, Beck said the charges against her father's scholarship
came from the man in the grocery store, and "not as a result of my own
investigation."
according to this article. This does not shall we say seem a
reasonable basis on which to believe such a charge. Admittedly the
article may be quoting her wrongly.
I did a quick web check and found bits like
Likely the most damning review of Hugh's scholarly work has been Kent
P. Jackson's review of Old Testament and Related Studies, Volume 1 of
the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, which appeared in BYU Studies 28.4
(1988): 114-118. In that review, Jackson critiques Nibley's "tendency
to gather sources from a variety of cultures all over the ancient
world, lump them all together, and then pick and choose the bits and
pieces he wants" and to read into these sources things that "simply
don't seem to be there" (115). He says Hugh takes phrases out of
context, didn't provide sufficient documentation for some sources,
provides documentation "overkill" on others, and doesn't give
sufficient evidence for some of his assertions. Additionally, Jackson
took Nibley to task for his sarcasm and name-calling, "which have no
place in serious scholarship" (116). But in all of this, Jackson never
hints that Nibley simply "made up" his sources.
http://www.libertypages.com/clark/10379.html
And also at
Linkname: Apologetics research resources on religious cults and sects -
CounterPoint: A look at Mormon Scholarship, Apologetics, and
Evangelical Neglect
URL: http://www.apologeticsindex.org/cpoint10-13.html
A few brief comments about appendix 8 and Dr. Hugh Nibley. I would like
to ask Mr. Weldon a blunt question: How many of Dr. Nibley's books has
he actually read? My guess would be: Zero. Brother Weldon somehow
thinks he has proven that Dr. Nibley is not a good scholar by citing
several others who have written critical things about him. I would be
the last person in the world to defend the veracity of Dr. Nibley's
defenses of Mormonism. After all, I am not a Mormon. However, as Mr.
Mosser and I demonstrated in our paper, Dr. Nibley is widely
acknowledged both within and outwith the LDS Church as a top rate
scholar. On top of the evidence we documented in our paper, I have
personally asked two internationally known scholars what they thought
of Dr. Hugh Nibley. Dr. James H. Charlesworth, of Princeton Theological
Seminary, told me he regards Nibley as a "linguistic genius." Dr. David
F. Wright, one of the world's top church historians, and professor of
church history at the University of Edinburgh, commented to me after
reading some of Nibley's materials: "It's clear that he [Dr. Nibley]
has a thorough knowledge of the Church Fathers." Joseph Fitzmyer, S.J.,
professor emeritus of biblical studies at the Catholic University of
America, remarked to Carl Mosser and myself when we were speaking at a
dinner engagement that Dr. Nibley was a very capable scholar. Their
testimony, compared to folks such as Brother Weldon and our friend
James White, is something along the lines of a full house matched up to
a joker and a 2 in a game of poker.
Note this is an Evangelical Christian in response to another
Evangelical Christian who had criticized Nibley's scholarship. If
anything I would expect an Evangelical Christian apologist to be eager
to jump on falsified footnotes (and would also be the type to check
their validity) in a major Mormon apologist's work not defending his
scholarship.
Emma
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|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
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