KnoWhy OTL05D — What Did Hugh Nibley Have to Say About the LDS Enoch and the Aramaic Book of the Giants?

An Old Testament KnoWhy[1]

for Gospel Doctrine Lesson 5:

“If Thou Doest Well, Thou Shalt Be Accepted” (Moses 5-7) (JBOTL05D)

Question: What did Hugh Nibley have to say after having compared the LDS Enoch (Moses 6-7) and ancient Enoch manuscripts, in particular the Qumran Book of the Giants?

Summary: Although an English translation of the Ethiopian book of 1 Enoch appeared in 1821, the ancient manuscripts that are most relevant to the LDS story of Enoch were not available during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. The Qumran Book of Giants, discovered in 1948, contains striking resemblances to Moses 6-7, ranging from general themes in the story line to specific occurrences of rare expressions in corresponding contexts. In this video, Hugh Nibley discusses several of these resemblances. Significantly, he also discusses his interactions with Matthew Black, a translator of the Book of the Giants, when the latter visited BYU (see 6:04-6:50 in the video).

The comments by Nibley are excerpted from a FARMS videocassette entitled “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Era Dawns.” It contains material recorded in connection with a National Interfaith Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, 20 November 1992 in the Kresge Auditorium of Stanford University.

In seeking explicit permission for posting this video from Brigham Young University, I was advised that the copyright ownership of FARMS materials is currently uncertain. However, we have determined that there are reasonable grounds to post this excerpt under the provisions of Fair Use.

Thanks to Stephen T. Whitlock for digitizing this excerpt and making it available for posting.

Endnotes

[1] Used with permission of Book of Mormon Central. See https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/reference-knowhy.

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