The World and the Prophets, by Hugh Nibley (The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 3.)#

The message of this book is that (a) modern Mormonism is more like the primitive Church, for better or worse; (b) "time vindicates the prophets"; and, (c) other churches have peculiar histories.#

In a Foreword, R. Douglas Philips writes about the task:#

[Nibley] shows how prophets were replaced by scholars, revelation by philosophy, inspired preaching by rhetoric; how the testimony of the Holy Ghost was replaced by a self-induced mystical experience, and how for the spiritual gifts and miracles was substituted the magical wonder-making of the pagans. [p. x-xi]

In a chapter on "A Prophet's Reward":#

Before considering the test of a true prophet, we must make clear the fact that a prophet is a witness, not a reformer. Criticism of the world is always implicit in a prophet's message of repentance, but he is not sent for the purpose of criticizing the world. Men know the world is wicked, and the wickedest ones often know it best. To denounce human folly has been the avocation of teachers and philosophers in every age, and their reward, surprisingly enough, has not been death but usually a rather handsome fee. [...] It was not for their moral tirades that the prophets of old and the Apostles were stoned. [...] It was as witnesses endowed with power from on high that they earned the hatred of the world, [p. 13-14]

Nibley has interesting section on how Muhammad was very anxious about where his visions came from and thought they might come from the devil. Joseph Smith, on the other hand, was certain of their divine origin. [p. 22]#

Nibley quotes Eduard Meyer on the writing style of Ezekiel, which Meyer shows great disdain for, as well as the Book of Mormon. (Interesting, Harold Bloom makes a similar comment in Jesus and Yahweh.)#

"The prophetic apparatus has sunk to the most literal form. Ezekiel is a literary hack-worker. He does not work through the living word such as Isaiah and Jermieah struggled to bring out the depths of the soul, but simply reels off the contents of a book which he is supposed to have swallowed in a vision... Ezekiel is narrow-minded, cramped, without sweep or power, devoid of any creative imagination, and hence marked by unendurable pedantry and monotony." [p. 24]

The law of election and calling:#

The Latter-day Saints have always maintained that guidance both in doctrinal and administrational matters can come to the church only by revelation. We couldn't ask for a better case to prove it than that of St. Augustine, precisely because he is such a good and great man. The better man he is, the better he illustrates the point, which is that no man, no matter how good, wise, hard-working, devoted, and well-educated he may be, can give us certainty without revelation. In Father Bligh's opinion, time has not vindicated Augustine's opinions. It has shown that we can trust only the prophets. [p. 97]

My Libertarian alarm went off reading this.

Interesting topics:#

• Peter denying the validity of interpretation of his words. (p. 28)
• The search for God not being very Christian. (p. 54)
• St. Augustine's reason for not joining the Church in youth was the doctrine of God being corporeal, showing that this was an early revelation. (p. 94)
• Evolution is a bad theory, not because it is wrong, but because its adherents apply to every single situation and absolve themselves of the responsibility to do basic research. Nibley discusses this in the context of church organization, which he says started fully formed. (p. 129) I would, however, refer to Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling, which discusses the development of the structure in latter days.
• Religious activity is interesting, because it does not have any purpose (in the shallow sense.) (p. 146)
• "Scripture consists not in what one reads, but in what one understands." - St. Hilary (p. 202)
• Our time on Earth is like showing up late to a play and leaving early, but being expected to act intelligently. (p. 268-269)

Jesus and Yahweh, by Harold Bloom, is an analysis of the three characters Yeshua of Nazareth, Jesus the Christ, and Yahweh from a literary perspective intermixed with Bloom's doubtful gnostic Jewishness.#

Although peppered with one-line references to Mormons, I was primarily interested in this book due to my high regard for Bloom and in particular, his book The Book of J.#

Bloom's opener:#

This book centers upon three figures: a more-or-less historical person, Yeshua of Nazareth; a theological God, Jesus Christ; and a human, all-too-human God, Yahweh. That opening sentence cannot avoid sounding polemical, and yet I hope only to clarify (if I can) and not to give offense. [p. 1]

The reason I like Bloom so much is entirely apparent in this single paragraph:#

Shakespearean "self-overhearing" has one source in Chaucer, but perhaps the primary Shakespearean precursor is William Tyndale's Jesus in the Geneva Bible. Internalization in Shakespeare gets beyond Jesus', though Jesus inaugurated the ever-growing inner self, developed by St. Augustine, and which Shakespeare perfected in Hamlet, after reinventing it in Falstaff. [p. 10]

On the authenticity of the accounts in the New Testament:#

The New Testament is myth and faith, not a factual chronicale, and the writings of the untrustworthy Josephus have been falsified by Christian redactors. Jesus lacks both history and biography, and which of his sayings and teachings are authentic cannot be known. If you accept the Incarnation, none of this matters. Judaism after all is equally unreliable: did the Exodus actually happen? Christ's miracles, like Yahweh's, persuade only the persuaded. [p. 43]

On the anti-Pharisee sentiment in the New Testament:#

I guess, with Akenson, that Yeshua was a Pharisee, since ironically that accounts for the anti-Pharisaic fury of the New Testament, which needs to distinguish the particular Pharisee from all the others. Except for that, I have no other surmise. [p. 44]

A Bloomism: "I am inclined to believe that the best poetry, whatever its intentions, is a kind of theology, while theology generally is bad poetry." (p. 98)#

Bloom is very Mormoon in his emphasis that God is not anthropomorphic, but that men are theomorphic. (p. 119, and throughout)#

A quote from Donald Akenson: "I cannot believe that any sane person has ever liked Yahweh." (p. 174)#

Does Yahweh need us? (Brother Brigham says no.)#

If Yahweh needed the Jews, or the Christians, or the Muslims, or the Zoroastrians, Hundus, Buddhists, Confucians, Taoists, and all the others, it appears he required feeding through sacrifices, and wanted also endless barrages of praise, prayers, hymns of gratitude, and immense love, unceasing love. Is Yahweh simply a cosmological and timeless King Lear, patriarch-of-patriarchs? [p. 175]