Studying Egyptian hieroglyphs with Hugh Nibley

First, an article in the Deseret News about the new Lee Groberg/Mark Goodman film:

“Old Joseph Smith PBS documentary remade into new docudrama depicting ‘American Prophet’s’ polarizing life”

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I’m in a reminiscing vein, so I thought that I might tell about another early experience with Hugh Nibley.

I started off at BYU as a mathematics major.  But I soon realized that, while I admired mathematicians and mathematics, this wasn’t my particular strength and it wasn’t where I thought I should be.  I had come to BYU fairly young, so I took a second year there before my mission.  And I chose, that year, to take Greek (and Latin and Hebrew and, with Hugh Nibley, Middle Egyptian).  I had already come under Nibley’s influence, you see, and a dormitory neighbor had blazed the path by taking Greek during our freshman year.  That inspired me.  But it was a mad, mad, mad semester.  Too much, really.

I’m sure, by the way, that my parents were absolutely delighted when they heard that I had dropped mathematics and decided to focus on Greek and philosophy.  Very marketable fields, upon which a solid and lucrative career can be based.  But they said nothing, and were supportive.

Anyway, the course in Egyptian was tough.  We used the third edition of Sir Alan Gardiner’s Oxford Egyptian Grammar.  And, I somehow later learned, we took it at twice the pace that the corresponding course at Harvard was then taking it.

The class began with maybe twenty students.  Perhaps twenty-five.  (The Nibley mystique was in full force at the time.)  By the third meeting, it was down to five or six.  We were the group who stuck with it through to the final.

And what a final it was!  After working through Gardiner and growing used to the kinds of sample sentences that he provided, we came to the final exam and were confronted with several pages simply photocopied from the Egyptian Book of the Dead.

Half of the class got up after a few minutes, turned their largely-blank final exam booklets in, and walked out.  Three of us, I think, stayed to the bitter end, for the whole three hours allotted to the test.  It didn’t do much good, I’m afraid.  I could have stared at the sheets for years and still have been largely baffled by them.

I left the room eventually, absolutely certain that I had failed.  Mercifully, though, Professor Nibley gave me a good grade.  I think it was for endurance, more than for any demonstrated competence.