Nibley's Response to Klaus Baer

Previously I posted some letters from Klaus Baer to Wesley Walters commenting on Hugh Nibley's "Egyptian Endowment" apologetic. A few days ago my friend Noel Hausler sent me a letter he received from Nibley that responded to the Baer letters.

[p. 1]

September 25, 1974

[Address deleted for privacy reasons]

Dear Brother Hausler:

Facsimiles No. 2 and 3 are inseparable from No. 1 and quite as instructive.  They require a lot of work.  During the past few years a surprising number of highly rated Egyptologists have been taking them into consideration.

Professor Bauer was here for a week in August.  He gave four lectures with long question periods after, and I had some long conversations with him.  We had not talked together for some years, and I was much impressed by the changes in his point of view.  We have LDS students studying with half-a-dozen top Egyptologists here and abroad--all out for doctor's degrees-- and so are no more "voices in the wilderness." Bauer was hard put to it during the discussion periods and at the end was definitely in retreat, though as an honored guest we could not press him too hard.

The main point was that he showed his hands while we, to spare unpleasant controversy, virtuously withheld our own.  What makes our position stronger every day, however, is not the improvement in our own ranks so much as the increasing number of eminent Egyptologists who are changing their own views and moving steadily in the direction of the "initiation school" and those other things that Bauer deplores.

In his letters to you Bauer condemns as obfuscatory things which he admits he has no intention of reading.  He had not read Bleeker's Initiation nor Bergman's book, yet he was ready with comments on both.  Thausing has come out with two important books since Bauer's letter to you making her position clear beyond question.  What has her teaching in Vienna to do with it?  The Brandon quote is one from a whole article in which he emphatically does "make the leap." [handwritten: See below = P.S.!]

While he was here last, Bauer repeatedly stated that evidence can have nothing whatever to do with faith: his faith as a dedicated Lutheran is not to be touched by any evidence.  By the same token no amount of evidence will ever, ever change his opinion of Joseph Smith.  For those who do consider evidence, however, each item must be considered on its own merits.

[p. 2]

Bauer loves to condemn other Egyptoloists on the strength of a single statement with which he disagrees. He does the same thing with books and articles: if there is a mistake or two, nothing can be right. But what he will not see is that if only a half or third or even a tenth of the points we have made about Joseph Smith are sound, the door is still wide open. Bauer insists angrily that a word from Breasted or Petrie in 1912 is enough to shut the door forever on all further discussion. The much-advertized competence of Egyptologists is pretty well limited to a knowledge (admittedly dubious) of the language. Beyond that they have no monopoly on common sense.

Trusting you will continue to use your own wits and judgment, I ups and remains,

Yours truly,
[signed: H. Nibley]
Hugh W. Nibley

HWN:li

P.S. Since Dr. Baer [unreadable] flings down the challenge: "How about this quote" from Brandon, it is only fair to note that Brandon adds immediately thereafter: "...mystery proves to have been an important component of the religious consciousness of the ancient Egyptians. And when mystery somewhere occurs, then the initiation into that hidden truth or spiritual realiaty cannot be totally absent." (Initiation, p.50). Then after announcing that "apparently...no authoritative myth, and certainly no secret doctrine" he spoils it all by adding: "Yet come cultic ceremonies werex celebrated, which were so holy and which so strongly had the character of a mystery that no one was allowed to describe or depict them." (p.53).

Thus instead of refuting Thausing's position, Bleeker's juggling is a good indication of the present trend of reluctant transition in the face of gathering evidence. But I can assure you, whatever new [unreadable] developments take place, the Chicago School will be the last in the world to recognize them.

[signed: H.N.]