Hugh Nibley

Hugh Nibley
Nibley's faculty photo from 1953
Born	Hugh Winder Nibley (1910-03-27)March 27, 1910 Portland, Oregon, U.S.
Died	February 24, 2005(2005-02-24) (aged 94) Provo, Utah, U.S.[1]
Alma mater	UCLA UC Berkeley
Occupations	Scholar historian author professor
Employer	Brigham Young University
Political party	Democrat
Spouse	Phyllis Nibley
Children	8, including Martha Beck

Hugh Winder Nibley (March 27, 1910 – February 24, 2005) was an American scholar and member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) who was a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) for nearly 50 years. He was a prolific author, and wrote apologetic works supporting the archaeological, linguistic, and historical claims of Joseph Smith. He was a member of the LDS Church, and wrote and lectured on LDS scripture and doctrinal topics, publishing many articles in the LDS Church magazines.

Nibley was born in Portland, Oregon, and his family moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1921, where Nibley attended middle school and high school. Nibley served an LDS mission in Germany, where he learned German. After his mission, he attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), where he graduated in 1934. He received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) in 1938. He taught various subjects at Claremont Colleges until he enlisted in the United States Army in 1942, where he was trained as an intelligence officer.

Nibley became a professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) in 1946, where he taught foreign languages and Christian church history. He continued to study Egyptian and Coptic, and became the figurehead of the Institute for Ancient Studies at BYU in 1973. During his professorship, Nibley wrote articles for scholarly publications and for official LDS Church publications. Nibley published multiple series of articles in the Improvement Era as well as An Approach to the Book of Mormon, which was the lesson manual for Melchizedek priesthood lessons in 1957. Nibley also published a response to the Joseph Smith Papyri as well as other articles on the Pearl of Great Price. In addition to Nibley's church publications, he also published social commentary, often aimed at LDS culture. Nibley's work is controversial. Kent P. Jackson and Douglas F. Salmon have argued that the parallels Nibley finds between ancient culture and LDS works are selective or imprecise. Nibley's defenders like Louis C. Midgley and Shirley S. Ricks argue that his parallels are meaningful.

Hugh Nibley's son Alex organized a documentary on Hugh entitled Faith of an Observer. Hugh Nibley's complete works were published jointly by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and Deseret Book. Around the time of Nibley's death in 2005, his daughter Martha Beck published a memoir where she claimed to have recovered repressed memories of Nibley sexually abusing her. Immediate family members and some book reviewers of Beck's memoirs considered her claims to be false.