Sefer Yetzirah, Kabbalah, and Hugh Nibley's Apologetic

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_Philo Sofee
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Sefer Yetzirah, Kabbalah, and Hugh Nibley's Apologetic

Post by _Philo Sofee »

Ummmmmm, O.K. then, having finished reading Hugh Nibley's final book again, One Eternal Round, I was truly and genuinely curious about his analysis of the Sefer Yetzirah in his chapter title "Kabbalah" where he truly has hypocephalus on the brain. He was so blinded by his obssessive compulsive desire to prove Joseph Smith knew Egyptian that he literally ignored all else and imagined that every ancient religious system in existence was all about the Egyptian hypocephali which were hidden in coffins under heads, not bandied about philosophized and analyzed by scholars.

If you want to know what the Sefer Yetzirah is about or what it teaches, you won't get that information from Nibley's analysis. His only singular concentrated focused and determined attempt was only to justify Joseph Smith's imaginary interpretations of the hypocaphalus in the Book of Abraham. To that end he produced the most singular shallow analysis of the Sefer Yetzirah anywhere in print.

How can I say such a nasty thing? Because this week I re-read the Sefer Yetzirah and compared what Aryeh Kaplan's magnificent commentary said it meant and compared it with Hugh Nibley's verbal masturbation of hypocephalus silliness supposedly linking the two, at least philosophically and religiously, together.

I shall do a detailed analysis in my book. If this is indication of how inspidly shallow, cheap, narrow, bigoted, and silly Nibley handles the Hermetic literatures and others in his over weaning desire to prove Joseph Smith a true prophet, then what else did he mess up? Literally everything. And that he leaves the impression that not only is the Sefer Yetzirah close in doctrine to the ancient Egyptians but also the Mormon doctrines is utterly over the top ridiculous. See ya all in the next Kabbalah thread.....
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