Hugh Nibley- Child Abuse?

[TikiTokiguy]

I was browsing books on amazon and I looked up some ex-Mormon books. I found a book by a Martha Beck. I read she is the daughter of Hugh Nibley. The reviews said she claimed
her dad, Hugh Nibley, sexually molested her.

Wow. I had no idea or never heard this story. When I punch in Fawn Brodie there is a site,
fawnbrodie.com/brodie/ and it takes you to writings by Hugh Nibley. I find that disgusting. Anyway, the great Mormon defender is a child molester? Do most LDS deny
this accusation? I feel sorry for Martha Beck.

Do most Mormons hate her? Like Fawn Brodie, she sounds like a true brave person.

amazon.com/Leaving-Saints-Mormons-Found-Faith/dp/0307335992/ref=pd_sim_b_5

 

[soren1]

I was browsing books on amazon and I looked up some ex-Mormon books. I found a book by a Martha Beck. I read she is the daughter of Hugh Nibley. The reviews said she claimed
her dad, Hugh Nibley, sexually molested her.

Wow. I had no idea or never heard this story. When I punch in Fawn Brodie there is a site,
fawnbrodie.com/brodie/ and it takes you to writings by Hugh Nibley. I find that disgusting. Anyway, the great Mormon defender is a child molester? Do most LDS deny
this accusation? I feel sorry for Martha Beck.

Do most Mormons hate her? Like Fawn Brodie, she sounds like a true brave person.

amazon.com/Leaving-Saints-Mormons-Found-Faith/dp/0307335992/ref=pd_sim_b_5

This allegation is probably not true, though things like this are never provable either way. Martha Beck’s own siblings and her ex-husband (who, being a homosexual, is not partial to Mormonism) have published on the matter, explaining what they think are blatant untruths in the representation of her father and others. From what I have read, their remarks have been pretty kind towards her: they think she is quite disturbed but obviously don’t hate her. I haven’t looked into this matter for a while, so I really don’t remember details, but I remember finding their criticisms devastating. The problems aren’t just as simple as inconsistencies in her stories about dad, but go deeper, involving patterns of paranoia in the way she recounts virtually everything about everybody.

 

[benidict]

I was browsing books on amazon and I looked up some ex-Mormon books. I found a book by a Martha Beck. I read she is the daughter of Hugh Nibley. The reviews said she claimed
her dad, Hugh Nibley, sexually molested her.

Wow. I had no idea or never heard this story. When I punch in Fawn Brodie there is a site,
fawnbrodie.com/brodie/ and it takes you to writings by Hugh Nibley. I find that disgusting. Anyway, the great Mormon defender is a child molester? Do most LDS deny
this accusation? I feel sorry for Martha Beck.

Do most Mormons hate her? Like Fawn Brodie, she sounds like a true brave person.

amazon.com/Leaving-Saints-Mormons-Found-Faith/dp/0307335992/ref=pd_sim_b_5

um. im pretty sure the guys Mormonism has nothing to do with his sick twisted mind, if this is the case. sickos like that, come from all walks of life, and religions. even the amish and mennonite communities are not immune. sad but true. the problem is, when it happens in such a closed group like the ones listed previously, its very hard to get people to cooperate with the authorities. just look at our own Church, and how the powers that be, kept passing the buck. treating it as a moral problem, instead of what it really is, a criminal problem. Peace

 

[soren1]

When I punch in Fawn Brodie there is a site,
fawnbrodie.com/brodie/ and it takes you to writings by Hugh Nibley. I find that disgusting.

Nibley’s review of Brodie is very poor and condescending, and one of the more notable examples of double-standards in LDS scholarship. He upbraids her for using the very methods that he himself often employed in Mormonism’s defense. For instance:

What proves the stealing of the Book of Mormon from Ethan Smith is the presence of “striking parallelisms” between the two. This brings up a very important aspect of the Brodie method, namely, the use of parallels as an argument. It has become the favorite device of non-Mormon writers. Oriental literature bristles with parallels to the Book of Mormon that are far more full and striking than anything that can be found in the West.

There are “outside” parallels for every event in the Old and New Testaments, yet that does not prove anything. Of recent years, literary studies have shown parallels not to be the exception but the rule in the world of creative writing, and it is well known that great inventions and scientific discoveries have a way of appearing at about the same time in separate places. A scholar by the name of Karl Joel has recently amassed a huge amount of material on the subject, and though we need not accept his conclusion that the same sort of thing that is happening in one place at a given time will be found to be happening all over the world at the moment (!), still his vast volumes present a great wealth of undeniable parallels. The fact that two theories or books present parallelisms, no matter how striking, may imply a common source, but it certainly does not in itself prove that the one is derived from the other. We know (thanks to Brodie) that there was a great and widespread interest in the Indian problem in Joseph’s day, and we also know that these people of that day had a way of referring everything to the Bible; in that case it is hard to see how anyone could have avoided the Indian-Hebrew tie-up.

What I find amazing about this passage is that not only does it underrate the case for Ethan Smith’s influence on Joseph, but the way in which it criticizes arguments from parallelism wipes out much of what Nibley did himself, drawing every parallel he could between Mormonism and any ancient religion he could find. He claims those oriental parallels are far more striking than Brodie’s. I don’t know how anyone who critically reads his book The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: And Egyptian Endowment can be impressed by that claim. And it is even internally inconsistent: Nibley’s argument criticizes the use of literary parallels* in general,* but he doesn’t mind boasting that his “bristling” parallels are better than hers. In his other books, he does indeed wield these parallels as “evidence.”

Having said that, the sneaky website name is also a tactic used by anti-Mormons. If you type in www.bookofmormon.com it takes you straight to Utah Lighthouse Ministries.

 

[LongJourney]

Nibley’s argument criticizes the use of literary parallels in general, but he doesn’t mind boasting that his “bristling” parallels are better than hers. In his other books, he does indeed wield these parallels as “evidence.”

What is more, the massive number of parallels between the BoM, and literature available in New England before 1830 proves that the book is a product of those times. Brodie, nominally LDS when she wrote the book, was not willing to get into that kind of research. For instance, she summarily discounted the witnesses to Spalding’s work, but had difficulty discounting the witnesses to the BoM.

 

[TikiTokiguy]

Why would his daughter make the abuse story up?

 

[soren1]

Why would his daughter make the abuse story up?

One could as easily ask as well, “Why would a father molest his child?” Either way we are faced with a bizarre situation. Martha Beck’s family does not say she is lying, but that she is delusional, and there is some scientific grounds to support that theory. Her allegations are based upon “recovered memories.” She says that she was so traumatized by what her father did to her, that her mind suppressed the memory until she grew up. I know people who claim to have discovered similar suppressed memories, but psychiatrists are pretty skeptical about the phenomenon, which is often indistinguishable from simple delusion.

What inclines me to accept Martha Beck’s family’s version of events is that they point to distortions in the way she recounts many events. These distortions seem to represent a consistent paranoid pattern. For example, she claims the when her husband left the LDS Church, his mother was hesitant afterward to even tell her son that she loved him, though he himself has said this was not the case. The opposite is true: she never expressed her love for him more emphatically. He also says that he did not receive threatening communication from the LDS Church as she claims he did. Since he is an ex-Mormon himself, who would rather be on good terms with his ex-wife, I find his statements credible, especially as they coincide with similar reports from the Mormon members of the family.

 

[TikiTokiguy]

One could as easily ask as well, “Why would a father molest his child?” Either way we are faced with a bizarre situation. Martha Beck’s family does not say she is lying, but that she is delusional, and there is some scientific grounds to support that theory. Her allegations are based upon “recovered memories.” She says that she was so traumatized by what her father did to her, that her mind suppressed the memory until she grew up. I know people who claim to have discovered similar suppressed memories, but psychiatrists are pretty skeptical about the phenomenon, which is often indistinguishable from simple delusion.

What inclines me to accept Martha Beck’s family’s version of events is that they point to distortions in the way she recounts many events. These distortions seem to represent a consistent paranoid pattern. For example, she claims the when her husband left the LDS Church, his mother was hesitant afterward to even tell her son that she loved him, though he himself has said this was not the case. The opposite is true: she never expressed her love for him more emphatically. He also says that he did not receive threatening communication from the LDS Church as she claims he did. Since he is an ex-Mormon himself, who would rather be on good terms with his ex-wife, I find his statements credible, especially as they coincide with similar reports from the Mormon members of the family.

Never read her book but I’ll take her word over Nibley’s.

 

[CatholicGuyNY]

Never read her book but I’ll take her word over Nibley’s.

why?

 

[RebeccaJ]

One could as easily ask as well, “Why would a father molest his child?” Either way we are faced with a bizarre situation. Martha Beck’s family does not say she is lying, but that she is delusional, and there is some scientific grounds to support that theory. Her allegations are based upon “recovered memories.” She says that she was so traumatized by what her father did to her, that her mind suppressed the memory until she grew up. I know people who claim to have discovered similar suppressed memories, but psychiatrists are pretty skeptical about the phenomenon, which is often indistinguishable from simple delusion.

She claims she has always had detailed memories of physical trauma that was a result of the sexual abuse. What she repressed is what caused the physical trauma.

The Nibley family has very good reasons to circle the wagons around their father.

I’ve read her book. She gives a witness to her experience. That’s about all a person can do. In her circumstance, the rest is up to God.

 

[soren1]

Never read her book but I’ll take her word over Nibley’s.

I can understand why you might do that, because the nature of Nibley’s writing is a kind of character witness against him. It is not hard to imagine how a person who wrote the kinds of things Nibley did could, in another sphere of his life, exhibit some kind of weird depravity. But then, it doesn’t have to be that way. He could have had a perfectly normal home life, just like anybody. Because my own prejudices could easily incline me to think the worst of him (If there were a court trial, I would not be a good jury choice), I think it best to take a moderate skepticism of charges against Nibley. I take a much stronger skepticism when there is evidence against that charge, even though it is all hearsay.

The Nibley family has very good reasons to circle the wagons around their father.

Indeed. That it why I emphasize not the family as a whole, but specifically Beck’s ex-husband, who could not have all the same motives, being neither a blood relation nor even a Mormon any longer. I think it would take at the least a very concerted type of collusion to get him on board with a fabricated response to Beck. If I were to change my mind, it would only be if someone could form a strong reason to impeach his testimony.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Indeed. That it why I emphasize not the family as a whole, but specifically Beck’s ex-husband, who could not have all the same motives, being neither a blood relation nor even a Mormon any longer. I think it would take at the least a very concerted type of collusion to get him on board with a fabricated response to Beck. If I were to change my mind, it would only be if someone could form a strong reason to impeach his testimony.

I think it is a mistake to compare the relationship with her husband as being the same to the rest of her family. It isn’t logical.

It is also the MO of LDS to defend via character assassination, so, any conclusion they’ve come to that is based on carefully selected quips and clips, is suspect.

 

[soren1]

I think it is a mistake to compare the relationship with her husband as being the same to the rest of her family. It isn’t logical.

Exactly. That is my point. The response here has been that Beck’s family is biased in favor of her father and of Mormonism … but that can’t be said of her ex-husband. To the contrary, he left Mormonism before she did and, like her, is now an open homosexual. He has no stock to defend by telling people that her book distorts things. She credits him in the book itself for being her companion throughout the difficult times that she records. No doubt he was, so it is a surprising turnabout when he disowns the book and points out significant inaccuracies in it. Does this mean that he could not have some ulterior motive? No. But it does mean that people who are just going to say that Beck must be telling the truth have a problem that they must account for, especially when his version of events turns out to be consistent with what others in her family are saying.

It is also the MO of LDS to defend via character assassination, so, any conclusion they’ve come to that is based on carefully selected quips and clips, is suspect.

Do you not realize that this argument is itself a kind of character assassination? You are making an ad hominem argument to the effect that Mormons all make ad hominem arguments. I have read LDS apologetic literature, and I know just what you are talking about, but that is not grounds to broadbrush all of them. The reason I have emphasized the consistency among Beck’s critics is because it reduces the ad hominem content of the argument against her. You can attack the credibility of one person or even of a whole group, and you might be right, but it is hard to forge consistent stories among a large group of people at least one of whom does not share the same motives that could provoke dishonesty among the others. By contrast, one form of evidence against Martha Beck that has been produced as inconsistencies in her account of events that she made in various public appearances before and after the publication of her book.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Exactly. That is my point. The response here has been that Beck’s family is biased in favor of her father and of Mormonism … but that can’t be said of her ex-husband. To the contrary, he left Mormonism before she did and, like her, is now an open homosexual. He has no stock to defend by telling people that her book distorts things. She credits him in the book itself for being her companion throughout the difficult times that she records. No doubt he was, so it is a surprising turnabout when he disowns the book and points out significant inaccuracies in it. Does this mean that he could not have some ulterior motive? No. But it does mean that people who are just going to say that Beck must be telling the truth have a problem that they must account for, especially when his version of events turns out to be consistent with what others in her family are saying.

Do you not realize that this argument is itself a kind of character assassination? You are making an ad hominem argument to the effect that Mormons all make ad hominem arguments. I have read LDS apologetic literature, and I know just what you are talking about, but that is not grounds to broadbrush all of them. The reason I have emphasized the consistency among Beck’s critics is because it reduces the ad hominem content of the argument against her. You can attack the credibility of one person or even of a whole group, and you might be right, but it is hard to forge consistent stories among a large group of people at least one of whom does not share the same motives that could provoke dishonesty among the others. By contrast, one form of evidence against Martha Beck that has been produced as inconsistencies in her account of events that she made in various public appearances before and after the publication of her book.

I haven’t read anything regarding Beck, coming from Mormon apologists, that isn’t an ad hominem attack. Of course, there can be no other argument against her because she is relating personal experience.

If you want to say that is an ad hominem, fine, I just see it as fact.

Beck’s experiences were real to her. She has/had real physical evidence of abuse that are not repressed memories. When she remembered how the physical trauma occurred, she was not in therapy. She went to therapy because of what she remembered.

The people who want to defend Hugh Nibley have no recourse but to attack her in order to discredit what she says her experience was. They have nothing else. It is a case of he said/she said, and not even of the people actually involved in the events, ie, Beck and her father.

It is pointless, really. As I said, it is up to God. He knows the hearts of all involved and will be the judge. In the meantime, I’ll take the LDS apologetic position for what it is. People outside the situation trying to interpret it to their advantage, acting as armchair psychologists and not taking into account what she actually said she experienced. Rather trying to brush her, and what she has to say about her experience, aside.

 

[TikiTokiguy]

why?

Because I’m ticked off at Mormonism? Yes. But also, it seems a large part of the LDS church is hiding things they deeply believe or bad history. It seems it’s part of what they do, it’s natural to them. Also the “Anything bad about Joseph Smith/Church is a lie!” belief. One person telling something false on purpose - a lie. But when thirteen million Mormons say something false on purpose? It’s just a sensitive subject non mormons should not talk about!

Again, I can’t see a loving daughter with a loving dad making these claims unless she is a vengeful person, wanted attention, or really was abused. I’ve not read the book and don’t want to. My opinion of Nibley is already negative 10. My next book I’m going to read is Mormon Murders by Naifeh and Smith. amazon.com/Mormon-Murders-Steven-Naifeh/dp/0312934106/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281205816&sr=1-1

 

[SirThomasMore]

This allegation is probably not true, though things like this are never provable either way. Martha Beck’s own siblings and her ex-husband (who, being a homosexual, is not partial to Mormonism) have published on the matter, explaining what they think are blatant untruths in the representation of her father and others. From what I have read, their remarks have been pretty kind towards her: they think she is quite disturbed but obviously don’t hate her. I haven’t looked into this matter for a while, so I really don’t remember details, but I remember finding their criticisms devastating. The problems aren’t just as simple as inconsistencies in her stories about dad, but go deeper, involving patterns of paranoia in the way she recounts virtually everything about everybody.

I used to be a prosecutor. You have no idea how many abused children have their siblings, and even mother, deny the allegations when they are actually true. I have read her book, and the responses from her family. I am not willing to discount her story…

 

[TikiTokiguy]

I used to be a prosecutor. You have no idea how many abused children have their siblings, and even mother, deny the allegations when they are actually true. I have read her book, and the responses from her family. I am not willing to discount her story…

Yes. In the U.S. so many moms/wifes were denying abuse, even when the police saw women with bloody noses and black eyes, they had to change the law to allow prosecutors go after the abuser even if the wife/mom says to forget it all. In a way I can’t blame the women who do this - want to keep the family together and not have it all fall apart. Still, you can’t have abuse/sexual abuse of any person in the U.S.A.

Speaking of abuse - has anybody today every put Joseph Smith on trial? I mean, look at the laws of the 1830’s and 1840’s, take the evidence that exists, and put Smith on trial with the laws from back then? Would he have been found guilty of being a sexual predator or something else? Has anybody every made an official list of crimes he was committing, officially I mean? Not moral crimes but, but official crimes. I wonder about Smith and Young and if they did their stuff on the east coast and not in the vast empty spaces of the west, if they would have ended up in prison.

 

[PaulDupre]

Yes. In the U.S. so many moms/wifes were denying abuse, even when the police saw women with bloody noses and black eyes, they had to change the law to allow prosecutors go after the abuser even if the wife/mom says to forget it all. In a way I can’t blame the women who do this - want to keep the family together and not have it all fall apart.

Not only that, but men who abuse their partners routinely isolate them from family, friends and anyone who could offer help, then create an absolute economic dependence on the abuser (the woman has no money of her own, no bank account, no access to funds). Many abused women over time come to believe that without the abusive spouse, they would have no income and nowhere to turn for help.

 

[SirThomasMore]

I once prosecuted a guy for abusing his daughter. His wife denied it, the girl’s sister denied it. After he was convicted, the wife and daughter admitted they had known.

I also defended a guy once who sexuallly abused his daughter. His wife denied it over and over. The guy horribly failed a polygraph and did even worse on a penile plethysmograph. After both those tests (the Prosecutor was not aware we did those) the wife finally confessed she knew he was doing it and he finally agreed to plea guilty.

So, the denials by the family mean little to me

 

[dianaiad]

Why would his daughter make the abuse story up?

She isn’t making it up. She honestly believes it. The problem is…she is mentally ill. This is a generally accepted fact, even by those who know her and do NOT like the church.

This isn’t a matter of her being ‘out to get’ either her dad or her faith. It’s a matter of her own mental state, and shouldn’t be used against either Nibley OR her.

As to whether it is possible for something like this to happen…of course it is. Look at the McMartin preschool debacle. I also have a very personal experience with this sort of thing. My cousin is also convinced that her father molested her, and tells several stories about these incidents. As it happens, not only are NONE of the incidents she relates provable, the vast majority of them are impossible. For instance, several of them, she insists, occured at a time when she was in Utah—and her father was in Australia. It was physically impossible for her stories to be true.

It has taken many years, and a great deal of therapy, for her to simply INTELLECTUALLY agree that those things did not happen, but she is still emotionally convinced that they did.

So, m’friend, before you start taking this as gospel truth just because you are looking for things to tar the church with, it would be a good idea to take a good hard look to see if your tar brush actually has…you know, TAR on it.