My Experiences with Hugh Nibley, for his 100th Birthday
I apologize in advance for the overly long and personal post. It’s probably more for me than for anyone else, but I’m happy to share if you’ll indulge me for just a moment.
Living in South Texas, there were no LDS bookstores within a thousand miles. But we traveled. A lot. And long before I came along, my dad had traveled–to Church history sites. As early as I can remember, we had a closet full of books, most of which, as a young child, looked so boring (that white softback Comprehensive History of the Church set exuded boredom). I came around, though. I discovered most of these books were Church books, gradually collected during our yearly family vacations. I learned to love that collection, and it provided a space for intellectual expansion that otherwise did not seem to exist (unless you counted blind speculation–and yes, plenty of that went on too!).
We were a little later than most of my friends in getting a computer and internet access. But when it came, it opened up a whole new world of interaction. The thousands of miles melted away, and suddenly I was connected with writings and chat groups at my fingertips. It was there, through the internet, that I became acquainted with the works of Hugh Nibley. I couldn’t get enough. I loved his wit, how he had an answer for everything, how fascinating I found his material. When I came to BYU after graduating from High School, my Nibley-love deepened. It was whispered that he lived close to campus. His masterwork, to be entitled, One Eternal Round, was also spoken of (speculated about) in hushed tones.
Being called to the Utah Provo Mission, I was assured continued access to Nibley. In Delta, Utah, we had a key to the stake library where we were welcome to make copies and borrow videos as the need required. That library had a nice collection of Improvement Eras, and I took volume after volume home to the missionary apartment and was elated to find multi-part, large-scale, classic Nibley articles there. In St. George, I picked up Nibley’s Myth Makers from the local DI. I went to my missi0n president to ask permission to read Nibley (you see, the Improvement Eras were official Church publications, so no permission needed 
.
“Have you passed all your certifications?” He asked.
“Yes.”
“Have you done X?”
“Yes.”
“Have you done Y?”
“Yes.” [Etc.]
He thought for a moment. “Well, if’ you’ve done all that, then yes, I guess you can read Nibley.”
I had gone prepared. And I read Myth Makers in short order. I’d heard of his The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri. In Provo, my last area, I checked it out from the library and devoured it. Someone told me about how much they liked Approaching Zion. In one of my rare free moments I randomly looked in the Phone book just if by some stretch of possibility Nibley was listed. I was shocked that he was! What luck! I mean, celebrities aren’t usually listed in the phone book, I thought. I made up my mind that I needed to go visit him. Surely he wouldn’t turn away a set of missionaries! The plan couldn’t fail.
I kept Nibley’s address carefully filed in my memory and I waited for the time to present itself and for my nerves to steel up. One evening our last planned appointment fell through and I felt that that was as good a time as any. We found parking close by and walked over. My companion, from Mexico, had never heard of Nibley and didn’t understand why I wanted to see him. I tried to explain, but it just didn’t work. I rang the bell with a shaky finger, my heart pounding. A dozen questions filled my head in rapid succession: “What would I say? What would I ask him? How could I express to him what I thought of his work? I can’t believe I’m at his door!” The door opened, and we were met with one of Nibley’s sons. He had us come in and said that Hugh was out at a birthday party, but would be arriving shortly. We sat in his living room with his son. I looked around, books and stacks of papers everywhere. He came in before long, walking with a cane (about February ’03) and sat down. We introduced ourselves and he immediately reached over to a stack of papers on the coffee table and began talking about the geometric properties of the 2nd Facsimile. He spoke with such enthusiasm, like he was telling us about a groundbreaking and recent discovery. I asked if this was new and his son chuckled and said, No, he’s been working on this for a while. He would have gone on and on, but after about a half hour, we had to get home for the evening. I thanked him and we departed. I was star struck. My companion was underwhelmed.
I went to Deseret Book on a preparation day not too long after and bought Approaching Zion. I got into it that night as bedtime preparations unfolded. I got 15 pages in and put it down. I couldn’t handle any more. I knew that night that I would never be the same again. I wrote in my journal, “Reading Approaching Zion by Hugh Nibley. It’s changed my life.” When my next companion came, I took him with me to see Nibley. This time I brought Approaching Zion. Nibley himself answered the door. “Oh, missionaries! Come in!” He ushered us into the living room. His wife came in and I began telling him how much I liked his book and fought the urge to just gush. He said that one of the things he loved to ask students was what they would do if they had unlimited funds and unlimited time. And how students always answered that they didn’t know what to do, that they’d be bored. I had the book in my hands and as I talked, he motioned for it with his hand and with the other hand made signing motions in the air. He was way ahead of me. I handed him the book and a pen. He noted out loud that it was 3/3/03, and that it wouldn’t happen again for a thousand years. He signed the book. After a little more discussion we took our leave. I was walking on air. The inscription read:
N.B! -> 3/3/03!
Come back in 1000 years for No. 4!
Brother T.amez,
Wishing a bright Millennial day for you.
Hugh Nibley
(still on approach!)
With my last companion I went by one last time before leaving the mission. It was just a few months later, but by that time, when we entered, Nibley was in a hospital bed in the front room. He was sitting up, watching the history channel. I saw that family was there, and they seemed a little uncomfortable with our visit, so I said hello and asked if we could say a brief prayer with them before we left. That was the last time I saw Brother Nibley. I continued to read Nibley’s writings and they had convinced me to turn away from political science and law and to history. When I returned to BYU, I enrolled in Hebrew classes and, hearing that the Ancient Near Eastern Studies major would be revived soon, I began to prepare for it. The summer of 2004 found me neck deep in Latin classes and I passed many hours in the Nibley reading room on the fifth floor of the Harold B. Lee Library. In a spare moment I would walk around and contemplate Nibley’s portrait or the sarcophagus there. The following winter, February 25, 2005, I arrived on campus and as I got to a computer and saw BYU’s home page, I was met with the news that Hugh Nibley had passed away the day before. I was crushed. I knew that he had been ill. It wasn’t surprising. But…Hugh Nibley was too big to die. “It can’t be.” I thought to myself over and over. It was then that I had a very special experience that deeply impacted me, comforted me, and taught me the greatest lesson I ever did and have learned about Brother Nibley. My sorrow that morning turned to rejoicing.
I cherish the memory of those brief moments when I, as a missionary, had the opportunity to meet and converse with Hugh Nibley. Hugh has had his critics, and my own scholastic journey has taken me, methodologically, in a different direction than that which Hugh often epitomized. In my intellectual and scholarly journey thus far, I owe a lot to a lot of people. Probably as much if not more than anyone, to Hugh Nibley for setting me on a course that has taken me to where I am today. And so, brother Nibley, on your 100th birthday, I thank you. But more than for inspiring me to a life of academia, thank you for your reminder to me, which echoes off the page every time I contemplate the inscription you left, that as disciples of Christ, we are all still on approach.
Wow, I really loved this, Jared, partly because I could really relate to it. My experience with Nibley had very similar contours.
I loved the inscription. Nibley was famous for them.
Comment by Kevin Barney — March 27, 2010 @ 5:29 pm
Bravo, Jared.
Comment by WVS — March 27, 2010 @ 5:30 pm
Some of you JI folks make me feel positively old! (I was one of those graduates asked to provide feedback about BYU’s “old” Near Eastern Studies program, a few years before it got revamped.)
Nibley was great. The one time I interacted with him, he was shuffling off campus from the library. I asked if I could walk with him a bit, asked him which his favorite language was. “Russian. It’s all so clear, you see.”
Thanks for the reminiscence.
Comment by Nitsav — March 27, 2010 @ 5:40 pm
Thanks Kevin, WVS, and Nitsav (don’t feel too old
)
Comment by Jared T — March 27, 2010 @ 5:51 pm
Awesome.
Thanks for this, Jared. I didn’t get into Nibley’s writings until I got home from my mission, but I certainly agree with you that ‘Approaching Zion’ changed my life. (It also changed my political affiliation…)
Comment by Ben — March 27, 2010 @ 6:03 pm
Jared,
This means a lot to me. Thank you for sharing.
Comment by Chris Henrichsen — March 27, 2010 @ 9:03 pm
Wonderful post, Jared. JI needs more personal stories like this.
Comment by Ardis E. Parshall — March 27, 2010 @ 9:25 pm
Thanks Ben!
Chris, I’m glad. Thank you.
Ardis, thank you. I agree.
Comment by Jared T — March 27, 2010 @ 9:39 pm
In 1971 I dropped by my stake president’s home (Glendon Johnson, then president of Great Southern Life Insurance Company) one evening in Houston, Texas, to say hello. They introduced me to Hugh Nibley, who was visiting. I had read “An Approach to the Book of Mormon,” “No Ma’am, That’s not History,” (I read “No Man Knows My History” in high school) and other writings, so I was amazed to actually meet him. I was studying German at Rice University at the time, so off we went – and what an evening it was! We ended up in the Johnson’s large indoor swimming pool before I had to head back to my apartment. What a comfortable, down-to-earth and extrodinarily exceptional man! Thanks for promting the memory, Jared.
Comment by Brent Orr — March 27, 2010 @ 10:15 pm
Nibley’s work was enough a part of the texture of Mormon discussions in my house that when I was very little, I thought that Hugh Nibley was the name of a character in the Book of Mormon–you know, Nephi, Lehi, Huniblee.
Comment by Kristine — March 27, 2010 @ 10:30 pm
Thanks Jared! I fully agree with you and Ben on Approaching Zion, one of the greatest books I’ve ever read.
Comment by Brett D. — March 27, 2010 @ 11:24 pm
Wonderful post Jared! Thanks for sharing your experiences. One of my regrets is that I never met him. I am very disappointed that his book One Eternal Round is published on such terrible paper. They should have done something special.
Kristine, Huniblee is hilarious!
Comment by Travis — March 27, 2010 @ 11:41 pm
Thanks Brent, Kristine, Brett, and Travis!
Travis, it’s been a long time. I hope you are well.
Comment by Jared T — March 27, 2010 @ 11:56 pm
Hugh Nibley memories…
I don’t remember when I first heard Hugh Nibley’s name. I assume it was sometime while I was growing up–I had heard of Sunstone and Dialogue, after all, though I wasn’t sure what either of them contained–but I can’t place any specific memory. It’s possible I never read any Nibley until my freshman year at BYU (1987), when I started hanging around the old FARMS offices in the ancient Knight Magnum Building (I think that’s what it was called…), digging out one article of his after another, getting old apologetics photocopied and taking them with me, feeling like I was getting in on the hidden secrets of Mormondom. That feeling only continued on my mission, where several lengthy and “controversial” Nibley pieces were passed around by the missionaries surreptitiously, like contraband.
After I returned to BYU, I would sit in on–but never actually enroll in–classes he taught on the BoM, or whatever. In a class I took from Robert Matthews on the JST, Nibley would appear occasionally. The older students in the class, those that knew Nibley well from the restricted section of the HBLL (like John Gee) would usually have something for him–like a Bloom County comic strip, or whatever–and he’d reward them with a laugh. Student Review ran an almost-uncensored interview with him once, around the time of the faculty firings in 1993, in which he lambasted the administration as a bunch of Know-Nothing lawyers. Good times…
Then finally, after Melissa and I were married, we lived in Nibley’s ward for a while, around 1994-1995. It was interesting watching the odd would-be disciples who crowded into the gospel doctrine room, tape recorders at the ready, waiting for any stray word from the master’s lips. He gave a sacrament meeting talk during our Christmas Sunday service that year, which went on for about 40 minutes, and which defended the existence of Santa Claus. That has always been good enough for me.
Comment by Russell Arben Fox — March 28, 2010 @ 8:10 am
Thanks so much for this Jared. Do I lose all my credibility with or even membership in the bloggernacle if I confess that I’ve read almost nothing by Nibley. One of these days.
Comment by Steve Fleming — March 28, 2010 @ 9:41 am
Russell, glad to hear about Nibley’s defense of Santa Claus. Like you, I’m in the pro Santa camp.
Comment by Kevin Barney — March 28, 2010 @ 1:37 pm
Great story Jared. Approaching Zion was also one of my favorites and dramatically impacted the way I view the world.
Comment by WJ — March 28, 2010 @ 2:48 pm
Thanks for this Jared.
“Reading Approaching Zion by Hugh Nibley. It’s changed my life.”
I have that same entry in my journal, almost word for word, penned just about a year after yours, as I neared the end of my own mission.
Comment by Christopher — March 28, 2010 @ 3:14 pm
Thanks Russell, Steve, and WJ.
Steve, no worries. Get Approaching Zion under your belt and you’ll be able to fake the rest, LOL.
Chris, that’s awesome
Comment by Jared T — March 28, 2010 @ 3:35 pm
I too was in Hugh’s ward as a young married couple (1989-1990). One memorable quote from his Gospel Doctrine class: “all the crackpots in the church come to me!” Looks like that never ended for poor Hugh until his death.
Comment by ScW — March 28, 2010 @ 4:47 pm
Thank you, Jared! I really enjoyed this bit of your personal intellectual history.
Comment by Elizabeth — March 28, 2010 @ 8:37 pm
Back in late 1978, I lived for a few months in Utah. One Sunday morning, I had the opportunity to visit Hugh Nibley in his Provo home. After an hour or so, I noticed that all the remaining members of his family were dressed and ready to leave for Church. Hugh was still in his carpet slippers wearing an open-necked shirt. He announced that our pleasant chat would have to end as he needed to ready himself for Church, and then whispered to me that “it hasn’t been much fun lately”!
Without exposure to Nibley early in my studies of Mormonism as a 17-year old, I might never have joined the Church. Reading his work instilled in me an interest in acquiring an education (which had previously been lacking). I still retain that interest. Nibley was a great man.
Comment by Jonathan M. — March 29, 2010 @ 7:35 am
I really enjoyed this post, Jared. Thanks for sharing. What a great line: “Still on approach”. I first glimpsed the work of Hugh Nibley while reading some of “Lehi in the Desert”. I was indelibly impressed.
(PS: I can relate to your nervous excitement of going up to his front door to meet him, too. I felt somewhat similar when I worked up the courage to knock on Richard Bushman’s door (his Provo home) while in the middle of reading “Rough Stone Rolling”. That too is an indelible memory.)
Comment by Clean Cut — March 29, 2010 @ 1:04 pm
By the way–what is it with Portland, Oregon producing the likes of both Nibley and Bushman? I guess that’s where I went awry. I’m from Eugene–two hours south of Portland.
Comment by Clean Cut — March 29, 2010 @ 1:07 pm
Very much enjoyed it, Jared. Thanks for sharing.
Comment by Ryan T — March 29, 2010 @ 1:18 pm
Thanks all, I appreciate it.
Comment by Jared T. — March 29, 2010 @ 10:01 pm
I found Nibley in the 1960s; my dad had “No Ma’am, That’s Not History” stashed among his many books, articles, and other floating data points. For the first year after my mission, I lived with my parents and had a hard-hat job so I’d go down to Deseret Book in Orange County and buy whatever looked interesting. I ended up with about everything Nibley wrote. I bought “Egyptian Papyrus” upon its printing and shortly afterward heard Nibley lecture on it in the little lecture room above the Varsity Theater (as I recall) at BYU. He was gracious enough to sign my copy for me even as he seemed amused that anyone would want him to do so. I just acquired the DVDs of his Book of Mormon lectures at BYU 1988-90 and found a VHS of his lecture on the meaning of the temple at DI in Los Angeles — for $0.50! — so my new-convert wife and I are having alot of our my private time with him now.
It was fun to be walking around for a few decades wondering what he was going to release among us next.
Comment by manaen — March 31, 2010 @ 8:00 pm
[...] East Stake where Madsen was the stake patriarch. For all the bravado with which I undertook to beat a path to Nibley’s door, I never mustered up the nerve to call Madsen up or visit him. And it’s one of my great [...]
Pingback by Juvenile Instructor » A Small Tribute to Truman G. Madsen — July 10, 2010 @ 3:40 am
Jared, I was inspired reading your post. Very ironically, I am sitting in the Ancient Near Eastern Studies room as I speak, studying the Book of Mormon with my roommate. I love this room, and I come here often ever since I took my first class at BYU: ANES 201! I leave on my mission in about a month and I can’t wait to have that precious time in the mornings of my mission receiving revelation about me and my investigators.
Thank you for your testimony.
Comment by Jarrett — December 10, 2010 @ 9:18 pm
Thanks for the kind words, Jarett. Best of luck to you in your missionary service!
Comment by Jared T — December 10, 2010 @ 9:39 pm