Was Hugh Nibley a Heartlander?

Hugh Nibley (1910–2005)

Jonathan Neville’s short blog post, “Ensign in 1972, before M2C took over,” (July 5, 2019) quotes the following from Hugh Nibley in the September 1972 issue of the Ensign:

The Book of Mormon is a history of a related primitive church, and one may well ask what kind of remains the Nephites would leave us from their more virtuous days. A closer approximation to the Book of Mormon picture of Nephite culture is seen in the earth and palisade structures of the Hopewell and Adena culture areas than in the later stately piles of stone in Mesoamerica.

Neville apparently sees this quote as evidence for the long-lost halcyon days of yore, before conspiring “M2C”* eggheads and bureaucrats came and ruined everything. And, what’s more, it seems to prove that no one less than Hugh Nibley, the estimable godfather of modern Latter-day Saint scholarship and apologetics, agreed with Heartlander claims about the Hopewell and Adena being the Book of Mormon peoples!

So was Nibley really some kind of proto-Heartlander, as Neville apparently wants his readers to believe?

If he was, it seems odd that the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), which Neville sees as public enemy number one for promoting “M2C” and misleading the Saints on Book of Mormon geography, would publish his collected works.

But, setting this aside, what else did Nibley have to say about Book of Mormon geography?

Well, for one thing, he clearly did not consider himself an expert on the subject. He once declared: “Book of Mormon geography is a waste of time. I wouldn’t touch it with a forty-foot pole. Never have; it’s not necessary.”

When Nibley did venture to say something about Book of Mormon geography, he had a tendency to be all over the map. (Pun intended.) Besides his 1972 statement that Neville quoted (above), in his 1946 review of No Man Knows My History, Fawn Brodie’s psychobiography of Joseph Smith, Nibley wrote:

The Moundbuilders actually resemble the Book of Mormon people not at all. Who said they did? The Book of Mormon tells of a people ages removed from the Moundbuilders and very far away. (No Ma’am That’s Not History, 49)

In the edited version of his 1983 BYU Commencement speech, he observed that Book of Mormon events “took place in Central America, the perennial arena of the Big People versus the Little People.” (Brother Brigham Challenges the Saints, 502) Similar statements from Nibley can be multiplied:

• “What of the mighty ruins of Central America? It is for those who know them to speak of them;… It is our conviction that proof of the Book of Mormon does lie in Central America.” (An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 378)
• “Write on anything you want, because that is where you give yourself away. Joseph Smith could write anything at all; no one knew about Central America in those times long ago.” (Millennial Star 124:276 The Prophetic Book of Mormon, 236)
• “For example, the book describes in considerable detail what is supposed to be a major earthquake somewhere in Central America, and another time it sets forth the particulars of ancient olive culture. Here are things we can check up on; but to do so we must go to sources made available by scholars long since the days of Joseph Smith. Where he could have learned all about major Central American earthquakes or the fine points of Mediterranean olive culture remains a question.” (Since Cumorah, 231)

Heartlanders may object that these quotations predate Nibley’s 1972 Ensign article. Perhaps, they might say, Nibley’s views on this matter changed over time towards becoming more open to Heartlander claims.

This doesn’t seem likely, though. In 1999, Nibley wrote a brief personal note to John L. Sorenson capturing his thoughts on Sorenson’s recently-published book Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life:

Here’s a transcription of the note:

Statement by Hugh Nibley
on John Sorenson’s book
“Images of the Book of Mormon ”:

“This is the best book I have ever seen
on the Book of Mormon.”

Signed: ____________________
    Hugh Nibley    1/14/99

John Sorenson’s book “Images of America”
must remain the indispensable handbook
for students of the Book of Mormon.
The only book of its kind—enlightening
and convincing. Who else will ever bring
such diligence, knowledge and honesty
to the task?

      Hugh Nibley 1/14/99

Brother
Sorenson —
FYI =)

So much for Nibley the Heartlander.

As it turns out, there is some anecdotal evidence that Nibley’s views shifted away from anything resembling Heartlanderism over time. Kirk Magleby recalls:

John W. Welch, John L. Sorenson, and I began building FARMS in 1979–80. Hugh was never involved administratively in the organization, but he was a powerful force who influenced much of what we did. We consulted with him often. On one occasion, he expressed delight that Dr. Sorenson was on board. Nibley viewed Sorenson as our best hope to replace the pseudo scholarship of previous generations with substantive insights from Mesoamerica. When Dr. Sorenson’s book was hot off the press in 1985, I personally gave a copy to Dr. Nibley. Holding it, he lit up, saying, “At last, something I can sink my teeth into.” He really liked the maps that John and I had commissioned from cartographers in the University of Utah Department of Geography.

My last visit with Hugh was with Jack Welch in 2003. We met in the Nibley home on Seventh North in Provo. We talked about the many trips Hugh had made to the Hopi villages in northern Arizona. He reiterated his belief that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica with echoes and remnants filtering up into the native cultures of the continental United States.

Nibley’s note to Sorenson corroborates Magleby’s anecdote about Nibley’s enthusiasm for Sorenson’s work.

So, true to form, Neville’s short blog post is highly misleading. Rather than representing some kind of enthusiastic endorsement for Heartlander claims “before M2C took over,” Nibley’s comment in the September 1972 Ensign is better viewed, in light of abundant counter-evidence, as the offhand observation of an undeniably bright but somewhat eccentric scholar who had a commendably broad and sometimes contradictory vision of how the Book of Mormon fit into the ancient world. Anything Nibley might have said complimentary of the Book of Mormon being situated in an ancient North American setting must be weighed against his many comments on the Book of Mormon being a record of ancient Central America, as well as his positive assessments of the work of John Sorenson.

(While I’m at it, I can’t be the only one who has noticed that Neville is pleased whenever anything even remotely resembling the Heartland hoax appears in official Church publications or venues, like this 1972 Ensign quote or the second volume of Saints, but is absolutely beside himself for the supposed breach of the Church’s neutrality on Book of Mormon geography whenever “M2C” appears in official Church publications or venues. The least he could do is pretend like he isn’t a shameless hack who is gleeful to employ double standards when it suits him.)

—Captain Hook

* “M2C” is Jonathan Neville’s acronym for the theory that the Book of Mormon took place in Mesoamerica and that the hill Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is not the same hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates of Mormon.