Hugh Nibley – No Ma�am, That�s Not History

This is a response/rebuttal to Fawn Brodie�s book. Nibley refers to Brodie in a sexist tone as “the lady” throughout his review. This was perhaps the poorest critique of a book I�ve ever seen. If this is the church�s foremost scholar, the church is in trouble. After reading this review, I was left wondering, wouldn�t publishing nothing at all be a better response than this?

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I’ve had several people ask for a more detailed critique of Nibley‘s response.

In a nutshell, he didn’t address Brodie’s best arguments or sources (I readily admit that there are some flaws in Brodie’s work–a few of which Hugh points out). Essentially, a rebuttal that doesn’t focus on the key, major points isn’t much of a rebuttal IMO. Anyone can point out a few flaws in just about any book, but that doesn’t mean that everything the author wrote should be 100% disregarded.

Hugh also spent much of the response (and the other essays in “Tinkling Cymbals and Sounding Brass”) doing ad hominem-type attacks, making fun of those who don’t agree with his religion, and being obnoxious–rather than refute the potent points on the problems of Mormonism. This is his style I guess, but it doesn’t make for a very good, scholarly rebuttal. For his full commentary see this page.