tonight on NOVA (PBS) there's a story about the DSS; has any GA said Anything substantive about them?

Any books, talks, or essays or ANYTHING?

dead sea scrolls smell bad ~



because they are so rotten ~



mormons can't stand it ~

I am grateful for the dead sea scrolls. Just don’t put those little pieces of paper under your tongue.

I had dinner with John M. Allegro who gave me a rundown on the scrolls. They do not say what you think they say.

Well that's a tease!

If you are talking about the newest Dead Sea scrolls (to be accurate: readable fragments of scrolls) found, (plus a huge, intact, basket, over 10,000 years old--which is an amazing find all by itself):

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/16/israeli-archeologists-find-new-dead-sea-scroll-fragments

Evidently buried during or around the time of the Bar Kochba Revolt: 132 C.E.-135 C.E.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2021 02:14AM by Tevai.

Hugh Nibley rattled on about Qumran and the DSS back in the day. Google will find you lots of references, here’s one:

https://fairlatterdaysaints.org/store/product/old-testament-and-related-studies

We don’t hear much about the Nibster these days, so I assume he has not stood the test of time all that well.

He didn't stand the test of time while he was alive.

What a pathetic little man. I think he began as a sincere academic but at some point he sold his soul for a mess of pottage--probably didn't even get his Second Anointing. By the 1990s his reputation was already mud, and that is without taking into consideration the mess he'd made of his family and his daughter Martha's accusations.

I imagine Hugh had many very difficult nights alone with his thoughts.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2021 03:45AM by Lot's Wife.

Although Hugh's academic reputation is deservedly toast, I still give him a measure of credit for his criticism of the hyper-materialistic greed and pharisaical fixation on outward appearance endemic in mormon culture.

I agree with you. Iron rod versus Liahona, the importance of the environment and of ethnic minorities and their traditions: he was right on a lot of those things.

But I don't think those contribution outweigh his sloppy research and writing let alone his shilling for the church. He had no integrity and gave others an excuse to suppress their own thoughts, doubts, and even identities.

He hurt a lot of people.

Funny. Hugh was a big star when I was a kid and I remember all the excitement over the Dead Sea Scrolls, cuz, uh anything at all dug up back then was PROOF that the church was true. Haven't thought about the DSS since.

Heavenly Father was leading anybody and everybody to discoveries everywhere. Take the Mayan and Aztec ruins for example . . . Archeologists were aiding and abetting the rolling forth of the one true church without even knowing it!

The Nibley legacy dwindled rather quickly. Probably should have forgone the "No Ma'am That's Not History" thing. Taking on a real scholar is risky business.

What a difference a decade or two makes. No wonder the Mormons are waffling and trying to become generic as fast as possible. No more foot in mouth for them. Nosirreee!

I think Professor Irwin Corey made more sense than Professor Hugh Nibley...

i posses a printed copy of the Dead Sea Scrolls translation
I have found it to be a source of interesting study
I also have a copy of the Nag Hamadi
my position is do not discount out of hand translations of ancient records just because personal thoughts are interjected into parts of them



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2021 02:13PM by thedesertrat1.

Hugh's brother, Reid, was a really good piano player, so there's that.

Yeah, Sloanie Nibley was a piece of work. She decided early on that Reid would be a musician and Hugh would be a professor. Then she raised them with those expectations even as she flitted back and forth between her various homes, largely abandoning her family.

It's not entirely unlike the Tiger Woods saga. When parents try to live their lives through their children, the latter suffer serious damage. Hugh probably is a manifestation of that.


I'm told that Reid was as good a man as he was a musician but that he bore considerable ill will towards his mother; as one of his friends once told me, "that woman has a lot to answer for come Judgment Day."

Yeah, I think Reid was a good guy. I helped paint his house once while working my way through BYU. Reading Martha's book was an eye opener.

I knew Martha quite well, including her feelings about her father. I'm not sure I believe what she said he did to her--my beliefs on that score are not important--but I am convinced he was an absolutely terrible husband and father. He struck me as a man possessed, and I think a lot of that stems from his childhood.

Reid emerged less scathed, but he suffered greatly too.

I stand all amazed...that tiny little pieces of paper, thousands of years old can be found, but no Nephite chariot wheels, no weapons of war, no jewelry, zipo, nada.

Whoops! I forgot; the Golden Plates were taken back to heaven, and our neighbor has said he is in possession of the sword of Laban and the Liahona.