Hugh Nibley

Years ago at an awards ceremony, Bookcraft Publishers presented Hugh Nibley with a check, then apologized because the plaque had yet to arrive.

The sly old scholar winked and, clasping his head, cried, "Oh, what will I do with my poor bare walls?"

Hugh Nibley passed away on Thursday at age 94. He left behind a legacy of scholarship and a treasure trove of anecdotes about his personal eccentricities. And, yes, he left a wall full of awards, degrees and certificates.

As a defender of the faith, Nibley was the LDS Knight Errant. He didn't tilt at windmills but jousted fiercely with some of the finest minds of his generation. He stood his ground and gave no quarter. And for such faithful service he was always permitted to speak his mind. Those thoughts now form a body of writing that stands with Brigham Young's "Journal of Discourses" and "The Collected Works of Neal A. Maxwell" as hallmarks of the Mormon faith.

Within minutes of his passing, the eulogies began pouring in. One from Nibley's biographer, BYU Professor Daniel Peterson, hailing his "brilliance and unbelievable erudition" and calling him "a real critic of materialism and greed."

Nibley could also be a magnet for storms, a lightning rod for controversy not only in his professional life but in his personal life, as well. Many of those controversies will continue to roil, even after his passing.

The son of a hard-driving businessman, Nibley learned early that the life of the mind — not the marketplace — would be his lot. He received a first-rate undergraduate education at UCLA and later earned a doctorate from Berkeley. He was soon in a position to pick and choose what he'd teach and where he'd go, but his lifelong passion for LDS doctrine and history kept him at BYU. There, the canon of Nibley anecdotes has steadily grown — stories of the scholar driving his car while reading a book, his penchant for keeping notes in dozens of old shoe boxes and his reading the complete works of Homer to his young children.

In LDS circles, few liked to debate Nibley. His mind held enough information to not only refute his opponent but to turn the tables and refute himself. He loved to spar.

Leonard Arrington, a former LDS Church historian, once said the three great LDS intellectuals of the 20th century are Lowell Bennion, Sterling McMurrin and Hugh Nibley.

The other two have passed on. Arrington has also passed on.

Now Nibley joins them.

LDS faithful can only imagine the kind of panel discussions being staged in Paradise.