PROVO, Utah
— Hugh Nibley was dying. BYU professors Michael D. Rhodes, John W.
Welch, John Gee and others met at Nibley's home to decide what to do
with his unfinished book, "One Eternal Round."
Nibley was at home, but was unconscious. The amount of work needed to
complete the book was massive. Rhodes and the others knew that the only
way to finish Nibley's exhaustive examination of Facsimile 2 in the Book
of Abraham was to have one person take the
project on.
"As we all looked uncomfortably at each other, no one, at that point,
was willing to commit to doing it, and so we adjourned without making a
final decision," Rhodes said on Thursday, April 8, at the final
installment of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute's weekly
lecture series that honored the late Professor Nibley.
__IMAGE1__Rhodes couldn't shake the thought throughout the rest of the day: "Mike,
you got to do this."
"Finally, sometime in the middle of the night, a sense of calm came over
me, and I realized this was something I had to do and could do,"
Rhodes said. "I would finish this book for Hugh."
Early that next morning, Feb. 24, 2005, Hugh Nibley died.
"I firmly believe that once I had made that decision, Hugh somehow knew
it and felt he could leave this life, assured that his book would be
finished," said Rhodes, an associate research professor in BYU's
department of ancient scripture.
Rhodes' interest in things Egyptian began at age 9 when he noticed
Facsimile 2 in the Pearl of Great Price — a round drawing with
mysterious figures. "I felt a burning desire to learn Egyptian so I
could read those characters," Rhodes said.
Rhodes had just returned from a Mormon mission and was studying at BYU when
several portions of the Egyptian papyrus that had belonged to Joseph
Smith were discovered. Rhodes approached Nibley to see if he would teach
a class on Middle Egyptian. Nibley did and a friendship
began.
After graduation, Rhodes studied Egyptology with Professor Hans Goedicke
at Johns Hopkins University. Goedicke lost patience with Rhodes'
interest in Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham.
"On several occasions I would go to him and say 'Look at this! Joseph Smith said this and it's right.'" Rhodes said. "And his response was always, 'Lucky guess!'"
After three years, Goedicke told Rhodes he could never be a good
Egyptologist because Mormons could not be objective enough about the
subject.
Nibley encouraged and mentored Rhodes throughout his career. He wrote
Rhodes about Goedicke's attitude: "Goedicke's obvious annoyance at your
independence is the best guarantee that you are really going to produce
something. ... I have never been 'objective'
and never will be. ... Don't weaken — you may be the world's last, as I
am the world's worst, scholar."
Rhodes career took him to the Air Force, which took him to many
different places near many different universities. He studied science or
the ancient world, depending on what was available — including more
Egyptian at Freie Universitat Berlin.
Again Nibley encouraged him: "Three cheers! The path of genius is a
rough one, and I glory in my safe mediocrity."
After 17 years in the Air Force, Rhodes wrote to Nibley that he hoped to
teach at BYU when he retired in three years. "You can imagine how
elated I am at the news," Nibley wrote back. "I will try to hang on
until you get here, but you MUST come!"
Rhodes came to BYU in 1993 and, among his other duties, helped Nibley with
his next big project, a book to be titled "One Eternal Round."
Nibley renewed an interest in Egyptian in the late 1950s while
researching in the library. Rhodes said Nibley "received a prompting
that he should go back to (his old graduate school at) Berkeley and study
Egyptian."
Nibley studied Egyptian under Klaus Baer from 1959 to 1960 at Berkeley and 1966-67
at the University of Chicago. In 1967, the Joseph Smith papyrus
fragments were found, beginning 40 years of Nibley's work on the Book of
Abraham. Rhodes divided those years into four phases.
Phase 1 — 1968-71
Rhodes called the first phase "preliminary studies." Nibley concentrated
on how the Book of Abraham matched many ancient sources that were not
available to Joseph Smith. He published "A New Look at the Pearl of
Great Price."
Rhodes said some of Nibley's conclusions are dated — such as the
idea that the Egyptian sed-festival had human sacrifice — but he was
using the best sources available at the time.
Phase 2 — 1971-76
During this phase, Rhodes said Nibley worked on Joseph Smith papyrus
fragments I, X and XI — Facsimile 1 and portions of the Egyptian Book
of Breathings.
Nibley found parallels with the Book of Breathings and LDS temple
ceremonies. Again, Rhodes said some of his findings are dated. However,
Nibley's identification of the Book of Breathings as an "initiation
text" — which was radical at the time — is widely
accepted today. Nibley's contention that funerary texts were also used
by the living is also "part of mainstream Egyptology," Rhodes said.
Phase 3 — 1979-81
This phase was marked by the book "Abraham in Egypt," a collection of
evidence from many ancient sources about Abraham's life, from Egytian to
Islamic. "To Nibley," Rhodes said, "the real value of the Book of
Abraham is the eternal truths it teaches us."
Phase 4 — 1990s
This phase brings us back to "One Eternal Round." Rhodes called it
Nibley's "magnum opus" and his "swan song." When Rhodes decided to help
complete the book, there were more than 30 boxes of papers, notes and
pictures. There were more than 450 computer files.
Some chapters of the book had more than 20 different versions.
"As I sifted through the enormous mountain of material that comprised
Nibley's work on 'One Eternal Round,'" Rhodes said, "my chief goal was
to remain true to Hugh's purpose. ... This was Hugh's book, not mine,
and I made every effort to keep my editing and
writing at a minimum."
One thing that was not included was a complicated mathematical
examination of the pyramids. Rhodes and his colleagues couldn't figure
it out. "If he were here to explain it, he probably could have explained
what he really meant."
One thing that was added was a reference to an early stone-age temple
complex recently discovered in Turkey — supporting Nibley's contention
that temples go back to the very beginnings of time.
But that was about it.
The book's sweeping scope, its mining of sources — mathematics,
Alexander the Great, Egyptian pharaohs, medieval Jewish Kabbala, ancient
Hermeticism, Greek myths, Christian apocrypha, ancient Chinese jade
disks, Aztec calendars, Egyptian mirrors, Hopi Indian
ceremonies, Shaman drums and more, are all pure Nibley. And all of it is
mustered to bring light to the round Egyptian hypocephalus known as
Facsimile 2 in the Book of Abraham.
It has been five years since that restless night when Rhodes felt a
sense of calm that he could "finish this book for Hugh." Now his
mentor's book is done. "It is my sincerest hope that when it comes my
turn to cross through the veil, that Hugh will approach
me with a beautiful smile on his face and words of approval for what I have done," Rhodes said
"To paraphrase Mormon, 'And now, if there are faults in this book, they
are the faults of Mike, wherefore condemn not the things of Hugh
Nibley.'"
E-mail: mdegroote@desnews.com