Dr. Hugh Nibley lecturing

As I posted a few months ago, the Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), in conjunction with Religious Education and the Harold B. Lee library, presented a weekly lecture series during the Winter Semester 2010 in honor of the 100th anniversary of Hugh Nibley’s birth, who was born on March 27, 1910.

The lecture series concluded on April 8th.  I was able to attend some of the presentations, and they were very well done.  I’m grateful to be able to get to know better the man, scholar, and saint, Hugh Nibley, and what he taught.

The Neal A. Maxwell Institute has reported that video of the lecture series presentations will be made available soon, likely on the Neal A. Maxwell website.

Transcripts of two of the lectures have already been made available:

• Marilyn Arnold – “Words, words, words’: Hugh Nibley on the Book of Mormon”
• C. Wilfred Griggs – “Hugh Nibley, Mentor to the Saints.”

The Institute also reports that an updated bibliography of Hugh Nibley’s works has been made available.

An article by Hugh Nibley has also been made available that has not been published in The Collected Works called “Beyond Politics.”  The talk was given on October 26, 1973 to the Pi Sigma Alpha honor society in the Political Science Department at BYU. It first appeared in BYU Studies 15/1 (1974): 3-28; and was reprinted in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless.

I’m still curious if these articles available here are still unpublished elsewhere in The Collected Works.  If anyone knows, I’d be interested to find out if they have been published or will be published.

Updates about Hugh Nibley’s Centennial Commemoration

The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley

A reader asks, “Do you know if it is possible to buy the complete writings, books, etc., of Bro. Nibley in one volume or perhaps on a CD Disc? (surely there must be a demand for this).”

It’s not possible to include all of Nibley’s writings in one volume, as the binding would be several feet thick – now that would be one big book! I also don’t know of a single CD that includes all his writings. Most of Hugh Nibley’s writings are now contained in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, which has become a 19 volume series of books compiled and published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), and the Neal A. Maxwell Institute at BYU.  The Harold B. Lee Library website contains some other unpublished papers.  I don’t know if these will ever be published in book form. And I’m sure there are many other writings that have been left on the edit room floor. Perhaps some day they will be compiled in a series, “Hugh Nibley: The Notebooks.”

For those who don’t mind reading on a digital device, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute has made available on its website the first 14 volumes of the collected works for FREE (which is what Nibley would have preferred anyway).  These volumes are also searchable there, through the website search. The last five volumes, 15-19, are still only available in hardcover currently.

Those of you who like the feel of parchment against your fingertips, I’ve found one seller that offers the entire collected works series of books in a single package.  Their set of the first 18 volumes is available for $699.

You could also just purchase the books individually, or only those ones you need to finish your library of the collected works series. Using the tool below (only visible on the website), put a checkmark next to all the books you would like to buy, and then click on the “Purchase Selected Books” button at the bottom. If you want to purchase all of them, simply press the “Select All” button, which will add a checkmark in all the boxes. Amazon will automatically add all of the books you’ve selected to your shopping cart.

Note that purchasing these books through any of the links above will help support the work of this website, TempleStudy.com.  I will receive a small commission on each book sold, and am grateful for your donation.

Buy the Complete Set of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley

Music is a fundamental part of worship, and was even more so anciently than it is today.  Before the printed word made the sacred word so accessible to the masses, it was passed on from generation to generation orally.  But this was not just the spoken word.  In order for the word to be remembered and said the same way over and over again, over decades and centuries, a mnemonic device was employed to facilitate the reciter.  This device was music.  The sacred word, every word, was put to music.

This can be seen in the way the Bible is written in Hebrew, one of the oldest languages in the world.  In Hebrew, particularly the Hebrew Bible, there are cantillation marks that specify how the text should be sung: 

Hebrew text, vowel points in red, cantillation in blue

Cantillation marks are described by Wikipedia:

Cantillation is the ritual chanting of readings from the Hebrew Bible in synagogue services. The chants are written and notated in accordance with the special signs or marks printed in the Masoretic text of the Hebrew Bible (or Tanakh) to complement the letters and vowel points…

A primary purpose of the cantillation signs is to guide the chanting of the sacred texts during public worship. Very roughly speaking, each word of text has a cantillation mark at its primary accent and associated with that mark is a musical phrase that tells how to sing that word…

Even the name of the symbols themselves, cantillation marks, gives us a sense of what they are and were used for, the cant- prefix meaning “to sing.”

Michael Ballam

A few weeks ago my wife heard some interesting commentary on this subject on a radio show on Classical 89 called “On Stage with Michael Ballam”.  Michael Ballam is the general director of the Utah Festival Opera, a professor of music at Utah State University, and a very accomplished operatic singer.  He also does some acting.

In his commentary on that program, Br. Ballam said that back in the 1990s he took a sabbatical to go to Israel, and one of the things he wanted to study was the art of cantillation, the way the scriptures are sung in the Jewish synagogue.  This is an ancient tradition, one that Br. Ballam says the Jewish tradition dates back to Moses:

How did Moses, the author of the Torah or The Law, the first five books of the Bible, convey the message to the children of Israel?  He wrote it down on stone or metallic plates of copra, gold etc; he sang the law to them. He couldn't pass around the law in those plates or in those stones. He would have to communicate orally and he did it by singing. The holy writings or scriptures were conveyed in an oral tradition from generation to generation by chanting. That tradition is called Hassan or hassanot in plural. That's why I went to Israel. I wanted to understand that tradition. Not having been brought up in that tradition I wanted to understand its derivation. Moses, Aaron and ultimately the Rabbis in the synagogues and temples would convey God's will through the means of singing his will. It is Jewish tradition that Moses was commanded of God to sing the scriptures to impress upon them their meanings, into their minds and into their hearts.

Br. Ballam wanted to be able to read, hear, and sing those scriptures the way they would have been sung by Moses, and the ancients, before they were written down:

Now, the tradition of chanting the Holy writings were passed down in an oral tradition per centuries until a group of Rabbis in Tiberius, on the Southern shore of the sea of Galilee, determined it was time to write it down, so that it could be more stable. There are a series of marking called Chantalatian markings, there is the prefix Chantalatian, are found in most credible Hebrew Bibles. They are written directly under the words and moved from right to left, remember Hebrew goes from right to left, English goes left to right. They indicate when the pitches go up, when the pitches go down, when they come to a stopping point and when they need to be embellished, given special emphasis. They are supposedly as close to what the children of Israel heard from Moses in the wilderness as possible. One of my goals in going to Israel was to find someone who could read those Chantalatian markings and tell me the authoritarian sound that went with them. I found such an expert, Israel Vault, in a Hebrew University. He began by chanting for me those first lines of the Torah, the Bible. “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets.” The pitch goes up on the word Eloh-im. Why? The name of the Supreme Deity. “ve’et ha’arets”. There is a punctuation there. It comes to a conclusion. That is we hear a cadence. It comes to an end, a period there.

To hear what those first lines of Genesis 1:1 sound like sung in Hebrew, press play in this audio clip:

This is where things got interesting for Br. Ballam.  The expert, Israel Vault, told Br. Ballam an amazing story, and asked him if he could explain it:

He came to America a number of years ago and was asked to speak in a university in New Mexico. He began to chant the Torah: “Bereshit bara Elohim et hashamayim ve’et ha’arets”. As he began to chant, he noticed a segment of the audience becoming very interested, even agitated by it. At the conclusion of the class was met by a group of students all of whom were Native Americans from a Tribe and they asked him a question. Where did you get that music? He said: well, I got it out of the Bible its right there; it has been there for centuries. Why do you ask? And the spokesperson for this group of Navajo students said: It's fascinating to us that, though the words are in a different, it's the same tune that our fathers used to explain the creation to our tradition. Then Israel said to me: I don't understand this. How could this group in another continent, from another separation of time have this same melody to describe creation from the same perspective that ancient Israel did? He asked me if perhaps, those Navajos could be part of the lineage of the tribes of Israel. Would they in fact be one of the lost tribes? I didn't have a definitive answer for him but it is very interesting that the same tune that described the creation of the world in ancient Israel is also the same tune that describes the same story in ancient and modern Navajo.

Hugh Nibley would probably explain the synchronicity by telling about the universality of the creation song:

The word for poetry, poiema, means “creation  of the world.”  The business of the Muses at the temple was to sing the creation song with the morning stars. Naturally, because they were dramatizing the story of the creation, too, the hymn was sung to music (some scholars derive the first writing from musical notation). The singing was performed in a sacred circle or chorus, so that poetry, music and dance go together. (Lucian’s famous essay on the ancient dance, among the earliest accounts, takes it back to the round dance in the temple, like the prayer circle that Jesus used to hold with the apostles and their wives -- Jesus standing at the altar in the arms of Adam, and the apostles’ wives standing in the circle with them. Some have referred to this as a dance; it is definitely a chorus.). So poetry, music, and dance go out to the world from the temple -- called by the Greeks the Mouseion, the shrine of the Muses.

The creation hymn was part of the great dramatic presentation that took place yearly at the temple; it dealt with the fall and redemption of man…

I don’t have a definitive answer either for why the sung Hebrew Bible would be familiar to Navajo Native Americans, but Nibley gives us a good candidate.  Music was used in the earliest of temples to convey the ritual to the initiates.  It was one of the only modes of transmission the people had to pass the story and rites on from one generation to another.  Might the music contained in the Hebrew Bible be the same music sung by the Native Americans to describe the creation story?  Might it be the same creation song that was heard in the temple anciently?  It’s possible.

~~~~~~~~

In other more personal news, I resigned from my job today.  I am a designer by profession, and unfortunately I became overqualified for my position.  If anyone is aware of design work or open designer positions available, I would appreciate any leads.  I do all kinds of design – product design, graphic design, web design, etc.  You can contact me here.

Here’s a link to my design portfolio:

http://brycehaymond.com/Bryce_Haymond_Portfolio.pdf

Thank you!

The Universal Creation Song

Book Cover

I know a lot of people who have been waiting for this book for many years.  One Eternal Round is the 19th volume in The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, and is his magnum opus, the volume of materials he worked on for a very long time until the end of his life.  The book is described thus:

One Eternal Round is the culmination of Hugh Nibley’s thought on the book of Abraham and represents over fifteen years of research and writing. The volume includes penetrating insights into Egyptian pharaohs and medieval Jewish and Islamic traditions about Abraham; Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian myths; the Aztec calendar stone; Hopi Indian ceremonies; and early Jewish and Christian apocrypha, as well as the relationship of myth, ritual, and history.

The final groundbreaking chapter delves into geometry and mathematical relationships depicted on Facsimile 2. All these are woven together into a magnificent tapestry of evidence demonstrating that the book of Abraham and its facsimiles represent actual ancient materials and traditions. This book would not have come to fruition without the efforts of co-author Michael D. Rhodes. Includes illustrations by Michael P. Lyon.

I hope to soon get a copy and write my reflections about it.  The book is available from the BYU Bookstore and Deseret Book.

Nibley’s ‘One Eternal Round’ Magnum Opus Published

Dr. Richard Bushman

The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), in conjunction with Religious Education and the Harold B. Lee library, are hosting a weekly lecture series that begins tonight, January 14th, 2010, at 7:00pm, and extends through Winter Semester 2010 on Thursday evenings in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium at BYU.

This lecture series is in honor of the 100th anniversary of Hugh Nibley’s birth this year.  Hugh Nibley was born on March 27, 1910.

The presenters at these lectures will include Richard Bushman, Robert Millet, Terry Ball, Daniel Peterson, Zina Petersen, Ann Madsen, Alex Nibley, Bert Wilson, John Welch, Marilyn Arnold, Eric Huntsman, and Gaballa Ali Gaballa.

Tonight’s lecture is by Richard Bushman, biographer of Joseph Smith (Rough Stone Rolling), and an editor of the Joseph Smith Papers Project.  His topic is “Nibley and Joseph Smith.”  Next week’s lecture, January 21st, will be by Robert Millet who will present on “Nibley and the Church.”

I’m looking forward to these lectures.  Hugh Nibley catapulted LDS scholarship and apologetics into a new dimension, and his work will affect many generations of Latter-day Saints to come.  His work on the temple has particularly influenced me, and many others I know.

Update 1/15/10: The lecture was wonderful last night.  And there’s good news!  There were three cameras there filming it, which I think they will continue for the series, which means that they are planning on putting it all on TV or making it available somehow for later viewing (perhaps online).  They also gave the rest of the series schedule of lectures:

• 14 Jan – “Nibley and Joseph Smith” – Richard Bushman
• 21 Jan – “Nibley and the Church” – Robert Millet
• 28 Jan – “Nibley’s Early Education” – Zina Petersen
• 4 Feb – “Nibley as Apologist” – Daniel Peterson
• 11 Feb – “Nibley and the environment” – Terry Ball
• 18 Feb – “Graduate School through BYU” – Alex Nibley
• 25 Feb – “Nibley on the Bible” – Ann Madsen
• 4 Mar – “Folklore on Nibley” – Bert Wilson
• 11 Mar – “The Lasting Legacies of Hugh W. Nibley” – John W. Welch
• 18 Mar – “Nibley and Classical Scholarship” – Eric Huntsman
• 25 Mar – “Nibley on the Book of Mormon” – Marilyn Arnold
• 1 Apr – “Nibley the Mentor” – Wilfred Griggs
• 8 Apr – “Nibley, Egyptology & the Book of Abraham” – TBA

These lectures will all be held in the Harold B. Lee Library Auditorium (Level 1) at 7:00pm.  This is a great lineup!  If you plan on coming to these lectures, make sure you come early to get a seat, as the room was filled to overflowing last night.

Hugh Nibley Weekly Lecture Series Beginning Tonight at BYU

Margaret Barker

The use of those two words together, resurrection in mortality, appears to be perfectly incongruous at first glance.  In our common parlance in the Church we understand resurrection to be something that can only happen after mortality.  The resurrection “consists in the uniting of a spirit body with a body of flesh and bones, never again to be divided”.  This is an event which happens only after there has been a separation of the spirit body from the mortal body through the process called death.  In my reading over the weekend, however, I came across a fascinating perspective from Margaret Barker which gives added meaning to the word resurrection, and our understanding of it, a meaning which can apply to us while still in our mortal estate.

I was reading through the latest FARMS Review (Volume 21, Issue 1, 2009) from the Maxwell Institute at BYU, particularly a review by Frederick M. Huchel, an independent scholar and historian, of a book by British scholar and Methodist preacher Margaret Barker entitled Temple Themes in Christian Worship.  Huchel’s review is called “Antecedents of the Restoration in the Ancient Temple,” and provides an exquisite overview of Barker’s work over the past two decades, leading up to this book published in 2008 (See David Larsen’s comments on the review at Heavenly Ascents).  I highly recommend Huchel’s review as an introduction to Margaret Barker, and her unique perspective on Biblical studies which has become known as Temple Theology.  For Latter-day Saints, Barker’s work has profound implications and insights into many of the “whys,” as Huchel puts it, of Joseph Smith’s restoration.  As an interesting side note, Barker has established a Temple Studies Group to convene symposia on temple themes, with a website URL similar to this one – TempleStudiesGroup.com.

As Huchel explains, Margaret Barker is not an LDS apologist, and “is not seeking to support Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, or the restoration”.  Nonetheless, her work is making waves in LDS academia because much of the research she has done vindicates the Prophet Joseph Smith.

Because Barker’s background differs from the LDS tradition, some of her opinions run distinct from LDS theology.  But as Huchel points out, many of these points of disagreement “find a snug fit when we become better acquainted with the nowadays-lesser-known facets of Joseph Smith's restoration”.  One of those points that Huchel investigates, and the one that caught my attention, is that of the resurrection.

Huchel notes:

Barker speaks of “resurrection” as a state of perfection or exaltation that can occur during mortality (see pp. 111-18). For her, resurrection is tied up in the concept of the “heavenly ascent,” a doctrine of the First Temple but expunged by the Deuteronomists… In Barker's language, once one had experienced the heavenly ascent and had seen God face-to-face, one was in one sense “resurrected”… Barker tells us that “the central message of Christianity was the atonement” (p. 20).

Huchel reminds us of Hugh Nibley’s essay “The Meaning of the Atonement” in which Nibley showed that the resurrection is really another word for atonement (at-one-ment), along with “re-conciliation, re-demption… re-lease, salvation, and so on. All refer to a return to a former state”.  It is this that occurs at the veil in the temple.

At this point I was very interested in Huchel’s analysis.  In 2008 at Easter I wrote a post I titled “The Resurrection and the Temple” in which I said:

I don't think we recognize just how inseparably tied are the realities of the resurrection and the temple. We don't often mention the two in the same sentence, yet this might be excusable given that they represent very much one and the same eternal ideals and principles… the atonement and the resurrection are connected principles, both enabling us to return to the presence of God, for no untransfigured or unquickened mortal flesh can withstand God's presence and live.

At the time I did not realize how fully the blessings of the resurrection are extended to us through the temple.  In order to stand in the presence of God, one must be in a type of “resurrected” state, something akin to what Latter-day Saints might term “transfiguration” for mortals, a perfected state, for no unclean thing can dwell in His presence (Moses 6:57).  But can we achieve that state through the atonement and the temple?  Br. Huchel writes:

After one has made the journey of the heavenly ascent and has been taken into the embrace of God at the veil, one gains possession of certain keys. He has the keys of traveling at will up and down the path of the heavenly ascent (see D&C 132:19-20). He has the keys to bind, to seal, and to loose. His eventual exaltation is sealed upon him (D&C 131:5-6). Whereas it is given provisionally in the earthly ordinances, it is sealed upon him by the ordinances of the holy of holies.

Being sealed up unto eternal life, and receiving the fulness of the priesthood, is a subject I wrote about in “The Culminating Sealing Ordinance of the Temple.”  It is what we often call receiving one’s calling and election, or the more sure word of prophecy (D&C 131:5-6).  It is a person’s knowing that they are sealed up unto eternal life through the most sacred ordinances of the priesthood found only in the temple.  This is the ultimate at-one-ment, after which the promised blessings in John 14-17 may be fulfilled.  The Prophet Joseph Smith once described these blessings:

…he will have the personage of Jesus Christ to attend him, or appear unto him from time to time, and even He will manifest the Father unto him, and they will take up their abode with him, and the visions of the heavens will be opened unto him, and the Lord will teach him face to face, and he may have a perfect knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God; and this is the state and place the ancient Saints arrived at when they had such glorious visions–Isaiah, Ezekiel, John upon the Isle of Patmos, St. Paul in the three heavens, and all the Saints who held communion with the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn.

How does the resurrection factor in?  Br. Huchel explains:

In short, once one has the sealing, he becomes as one who has received the blessings received on the Mount of Transfiguration. His blessings and his authority are, in effect, the same as those of one who has been resurrected in glory.

So while the body and spirit cannot be inseparably connected in mortality, yet we can have the blessings and authority of the resurrection bestowed on us while yet living in the flesh.  Viewing it from this perspective, Barker is not far from describing the ultimate state of at-one-ment that we are able to achieve through the highest ordinances of the temple.  Not only this, but such at-one-ment brings with it identification with the One who gives it:

Barker says it this way: "Resurrection could mean many things, but in temple tradition it meant ascent to the heavenly throne" (p. 111). Then she argues that "this means that 'resurrection' in this sense was part of what it meant to be the Messiah" (p. 112). This expansion of resurrection beyond Jesus himself into the broader temple context has profound implications for the Latter-day Saint concept of becoming "Saviors on Mount Zion."

The Prophet Joseph once declared that we become “saviors on Mount Zion” by bringing the blessings of the resurrection in glory to our kindred dead through the ordinances of the temple:

But how are they to become saviors on Mount Zion?  By building their temples, erecting their baptismal fonts, and going forth and receiving all the ordinances, baptisms, confirmations, washings, anointings, ordinations and sealing powers upon their heads, in behalf of all their progenitors who are dead, and redeem them that they may come forth in the first resurrection and be exalted to thrones of glory with them; and herein is the chain that binds the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers, which fulfills the mission of Elijah.

Frederick Huchel’s review of Margaret Barker’s work has given me a new perspective of how the resurrection relates to the temple, and to the blessings received there.  I must admit, I have only sampled the work of Margaret Barker, but I think this has inspired me to study it much more thoroughly.

Do you have any thoughts about the relationship between the resurrection and the temple?  Please share with us in the comments.

Attaining the Resurrection in Mortality

Hugh W. Nibley (1910-2005)

A couple weeks ago The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship announced a new series of lectures that will be given at BYU in honor of Hugh Nibley, on the 100th anniversary of his birth:

The Laura F. Willes Center for Book of Mormon Studies and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, in conjunction with Religious Education and the Harold B. Lee library, will host a weekly lecture series on Thursday evenings during Winter semester of 2010. More information on this event will be posted soon.

To keep up to date on news from the Maxwell Institute, follow their RSS feed.

New Lecture Series Announced: The Work of Hugh W. Nibley

Book Cover

(This is a continuation of my thoughts about The Lost Symbol from my previous post.)

One of the themes taken up again and again in Dan Brown’s latest novel The Lost Symbol is the idea of power in group thinking and concentration.  Katherine’s character in particular is engaged in the scientific study of producing physical changes through the power of group thought and concentrated collective intention.  In connection with this, the practice of prayer circles is brought up:

The shocking discovery, it seemed, paralleled the ancient spiritual belief in a "cosmic consciousness"--a vast coalescing of human intention that was actually capable of interacting with physical matter. Recently, studies in mass meditation and prayer had produced similar results in Random Event Generators, fueling the claim that human consciousness, as Noetic author Lynne McTaggart described it, was a substance outside the confines of the body . . . a highly ordered energy capable of changing the physical world.

In another place, Brown continues:

Galloway knew, of course, that one needn't go to a lab to witness proof of this bold new idea, this proposal of man's untapped potential. This very cathedral held healing prayer circles for the sick, and repeatedly had witnessed truly miraculous results, medically documented physical transformations. The question was not whether God had imbued man with great powers . . . but rather how we liberate those powers.

And again:

Katherine smiled down at him. "We have scientifically proven that the power of human thought grows exponentially with the number of minds that share that thought."

Langdon remained silent, wondering where she was going with this idea.

"What I'm saying is this . . . two heads are better than one . . . and yet two heads are not twice better, they are many, many times better. Multiple minds working in unison magnify a thought's effect . . . exponentially. This is the inherent power of prayer groups, healing circles, singing in unison, and worshipping en masse."

Prayer circles have been defined as where participants join hands in a circle of prayer, often as part of a vigil.   Such circles have existed for a very long time (see my paper “The Genesis of the Round Dance“).  They are witnessed today in even the simplest act of joining hands around the dinner table while saying grace.  Hugh Nibley wrote extensively about their use in early Christianity in his paper “The Early Christian Prayer Circle.”  In that paper he said: 

It is because each prayer circle is a faithful reproduction of the celestial pattern that impulses can be transmitted from one to the other by all who are in a receptive state; the thoughts of those in the circle are concentrated as in a burning glass, or, since the thing most emphasized as the indispensable requirement of the circle is the absolute purity of mind, concentration of thought devoid of any reservations or distractions, and since the communication is beamed from one Treasury of Light to others, the analogy of the laser is quite striking…

The fullest expression of that altruism by which one saves oneself in saving others is a simple but ingenious device employed in the prayer circle; it was the “diptych,” a sort of looseleaf notebook or folded parchment placed on the altar during the prayer. It contained the names of persons whom the people in the circle wished to remember. The diptychs are among the oldest treasures preserved in the oldest churches. The name means “folded double,” though the documents could be folded triple or quadruple as well if the list of names was very long.

In the scriptures we are told, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16).  Christ taught that there was strength in numbers – “if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven.  For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them” (Matt. 18:19-20).  Prayers of many righteous people together are the most effectual – “Whatsoever ye shall ask in faith, being united in prayer according to my command, ye shall receive” (D&C 29:6).

An article in the January 1976 Ensign recounts the power of group prayer:

Why is it that when a ward comes together in fasting and prayer, it makes a greater difference somehow than if anyone had done so alone? In part because such united efforts of the Saints are a testimony unto the heavens--a witness that Christ and his purposes take precedence over our hostilities and personality problems. The revelation says, "Be agreed as touching all things whatsoever ye ask." (D&C 27:18.) Or again, "If ye are not one ye are not mine." (D&C 38:27.) Brigham Young, who learned much about prayer by listening to the Prophet, said repeatedly to the Saints that when someone prays in a congregation the rest of us should be saying in our minds what he is saying with his lips. We should repeat the very words in our minds. Then when we say "amen" we know what we are saying amen to. "Why?" Brigham asks. "So that Saints may be one." The effectual, fervent power of united prayer cannot be overestimated. Powerful prayer unites the "Saints--unity expands the power of prayer."

There are numerous stories in the church that have been told about the power of prayer and fasting in groups, which has the realization of healings, good fortune, receiving blessings, diverting disaster, or even altering nature.  One such story is told about the Utah drought of 1977:

It was spring and the farmers in the valley were worried. It had been a dry winter, and they needed rain so they could plant their crops.

The stake president decided to hold a special fast, and he asked each bishop to announce it to the members in his ward. He knew the people needed to draw closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus before they could receive the special help they needed. People from everywhere in the stake came to a meeting to join in praying and fasting. They prayed for rain or snow so they could plant their crops and they would grow. They waited and waited, but the moisture they needed did not come.

Months went by. The people continued to fast and pray. Finally, the stake president called another meeting. "Plant your crops," he told the people. "Heavenly Father has heard your prayers."

Even though the farmers had not seen any signs of rain, they did as they were directed. Within a few weeks, Heavenly Father's answer came. Day after day the rain fell, giving the crops the moisture they needed to grow. That year the farmers had one of the best crops they had ever seen. (See David Carl Danielson, "Rain in Due Season," Ensign, July 1978, pp. 68-69.)

Many times we consider such events to be miraculous, and they are, because we do not understand the operations which cause them.  Consequently, we also consider miracles to be outside our reality, i.e. that God causes them to happen contrary to natural law.  But consider the thoughts of Elder James E. Talmage in Jesus the Christ:

Miracles cannot be in contravention of natural law, but are wrought through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized. Gravitation is everywhere operative, but the local and special application of other agencies may appear to nullify it--as by muscular effort or mechanical impulse a stone is lifted from the ground, poised aloft, or sent hurtling through space. At every stage of the process, however, gravity is in full play, though its effect is modified by that of other and locally superior energy. The human sense of the miraculous wanes as comprehension of the operative process increases. Achievements made possible by modern invention of telegraph and telephone with or without wires, the transmutation of mechanical power into electricity with its manifold present applications and yet future possibilities, the development of the gasoline motor, the present accomplishments in aerial navigation--these are no longer miracles in man’s estimation, because they are all in some degree understood, are controlled by human agency, and, moreover, are continuous in their operation and not phenomenal. We arbitrarily classify as miracles only such phenomena as are unusual, special, transitory, and wrought by an agency beyond the power of man’s control…

In the contemplation of the miracles wrought by Christ, we must of necessity recognize the operation of a power transcending our present human understanding. In this field, science has not yet advanced far enough to analyze and explain. To deny the actuality of miracles on the ground that, because we cannot comprehend the means, the reported results are fictitious, is to arrogate to the human mind the attribute of omniscience, by implying that what man cannot comprehend cannot be, and that therefore he is able to comprehend all that is.

Could it be the the power that comes from prayer circles, fasting, group concentration, and the like, is actually because we tap into a power or energy that “transcend[s] our present human understanding,” “through the operation of laws not universally or commonly recognized” by us today?  That is not to say that God does not have a part in the process.  Since God knows all, could he have taught us about prayer and fasting so that we could utilize such laws which we don’t yet understand?

I believe that some day we will come to know and understand all the laws of the universe that we live in, and we will come to find that the peculiarities of quantum mechanics, energy and mass, the unique characteristics of light, the power of the priesthood, prayer circles, fasting, the operations of miracles, etc., are all interrelated and connected, and as President Howard W. Hunter once taught, that all truth is part of one great whole:

Truth never conflicts with itself. When we understand and work from true principles, we can expect order and agreement. True principles are part of one great whole, as the Savior explained to Joseph Smith…

When we encounter apparent conflict in our studies and scholarly work, it is because we see only a part of this great whole. Our understanding of the truth we seek may be partial or limited. We may hold an opinion or an idea about the world or human nature that is not entirely true. When we encounter situations of seeming conflict, we should not feel angry or discouraged, but rather we should confront the matter with great optimism and hope. For we know that this apparent conflict is only a prelude to a new understanding and a closer approximation of the ultimate principles we seek, and that this conflict will yield, in God’s own time, to those who seek wisdom by study and by faith.

It is inappropriate… to divide learning into secular education and religious education. Truth is, or ought to be, the object of our endeavors… and truth is not two things; it is one. Our concern is with true science and true religion. Certainly the laws that govern the behavior of both molecules and men are part of the laws known and used by our Heavenly Father. God is the perfect scientist. We must not forget that our knowledge is not yet perfect. Everyone in this life must often look at matters through a glass, darkly.

Nevertheless, all our discoveries in the physical sciences, in the social sciences, even in the workings of human nature testify that there is a set of eternal laws that govern in this universe. We come to realize that God, in his infinite wisdom and power, uses these laws in accomplishing his work. As we come to this awareness we can sense the beauty and majesty and harmony of the gospel. These truths are learned not just by study or prayer, but by study and prayer.

Prayer Circles and the Power of Group Thinking in Dan Brown’s ‘The Lost Symbol’

Book Cover

In case you missed it, the inexhaustible Hugh Nibley is still hard at work churning out volume after volume of incredibly insightful reading material on a host of subjects relevant to the Church.  As I heard one person remark, “Hugh Nibley wouldn’t let a little thing like death slow him down!”

Indeed, the presses are playing catch up.  The Maxwell Institute is now able to bring together more of Nibley’s early writings on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri.  Most, if not all, of these essays have been published before, but now are brought together in a single volume.

This book, published in May 2009, is entitled “An Approach to the Book of Abraham,” and is volume 18 in his Collected Works series.  Here is a brief description:

The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley contains Nibley's early work on the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri. The volume contains diverse essays, including his three-year series of lengthy articles from the Improvement Era, "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price." According to Nibley, "Until now, no one has done much more than play around with the bedizening treasury of the Pearl of Great Price. They would not, we could not make of the Book of Abraham an object of serious study. The time has come to change all that."

Produced at a breathtaking pace and originally published in a wide variety of places, Nibley's work remains basic reading for anyone interested in the Book of Abraham.

This new volume is available from Amazon, Deseret Book, and a number of other book stores.

Nibley’s latest – “An Approach to the Book of Abraham”

Dr. Hugh Nibley lecturing

Orson Scott Card wrote a great article today on Mormon Times, highlighting the tremendous influence that Hugh Nibley and C.S. Lewis have had on his “Christian education” over the years, but particularly when he was younger.

I couldn’t agree more with his feelings about the impact that these two scholars have had.  I’ve particularly been influenced, even fundamentally changed, by the writings of Hugh Nibley, and I’m just beginning to get into Lewis.  Like I’ve said in the past, in a way I’ve felt personally mentored by Nibley through reading his work, a sentiment shared by Orson Scott Card: 

It was a joy to spend time in his company, reading what he had to say.

He taught me, as Lewis did, that worldly intellectuals are only able to claim superiority to believers by using the dumbest examples of Christian thinking, and comparing it to the best of science; but the best of Christian (and, more particularly, Mormon) thinking takes all the findings of science and history into account, and finds no contradiction.

One thing that really impressed me, and continues to shape me, about Nibley’s work is that it was always solidly and unquestionably faithful and faith-promoting, but usually did so by placing Mormonism into the larger context of world history and science:

It comes from a rigorous scholar, who never lowers the bar to account for faith. Indeed, it was Nibley who taught me that religion must meet the same standard as science: It has to work in the real world. You have to be able to replicate the results.

I’ve always been a little shocked by how many members of the Church that I run into that have never read any of Nibley’s work, or very litte, something which Orson Scott Card also laments:

Wouldn’t that be a tragic irony if the greatest scholar, explainer and defender of Mormon doctrine in contrast to the philosophies of the world should be forgotten by his own people?

Hugh Nibley continues to be one of the Church’s most “unofficial” profound teachers and defenders of this century:

But it was Hugh Nibley, more than any other person, who actually taught me, not the gospel itself, but how to study the gospel and hold myself to the most rigorous standards as I did…

But our Christianity, the revealed religion, both ancient and modern, is nowhere better explained and applied than in the writings of Hugh Nibley.

Jump on over to Mormon Times to read the whole article.

Have you been influenced by Nibley’s work?  How so?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Orson Scott Card on Hugh Nibley & C.S. Lewis