Hugh Nibley

Nibley argues that the Kirtland Egyptian Papers contain several exploratory language projects rather than the method by which the Book of Abraham was produced. He distinguishes the revealed book from tentative work by Smith and his associates, and proposes that signs beside English text can coordinate manuscripts without being their translation source.

• Hugh Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (1971): 350–399.

These three projects were separate undertakings, each dealing with different materials from the others and in a different way.

Nibley interprets Latter-day Saint temple worship as a restoration of an ancient pattern joining creation, initiation, and humanity’s return to God. He treats parallels with Masonry as part of a wider landscape of surviving temple traditions, rather than an adequate explanation of the restored temple as a whole.

• Hugh Nibley, “What Is a Temple?,” The Temple in Antiquity: Ancient Records and Modern Perspectives (1984): 19–37.
• Hugh Nibley, Temple and Cosmos: Beyond this Ignorant Present (Deseret Book and Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1992).

Here for the first time in many centuries men may behold a genuine Temple, functioning as a Temple should