What did Enoch scholar Matthew Black say to Hugh Nibley about the Book of Moses' Enic account?

This is one of six episodes in our podcast series, based on the book entitled Hugh Nibbley observed.

BYU Professor Hugh Nibbley discovered many evidences of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon,

but did you know that he also made discoveries relating to the Book of Moses,

and that there are non-Latter-day Saint scholars who agree with the significance of his findings?

Chapters 6 and 7 of the Book of Moses contain a record of the prophet Enig that has been called

the most remarkable religious document published in the 19th century. What makes it so remarkable?

For one thing, it was produced at record speed. The expansion of the five verses in Genesis

into 110 verses in the book of Moses appears to have occupied only a few days of the prophet Joseph Smith's attention.

But even more striking is that the modern Enic text has many resemblances with ancient Enic manuscripts that were not available to Joseph Smith in 1830.

Fortunately, Hugh Nibbley was one of the rare scholars who mastered all the languages

needed to read these texts in their original form.

In 1976 through 1977, Hugh Nibbley dashed off one long, heavily footnoted article each month for a series

about ancient Enok manuscripts and Moses chapter 6 through 7 that was running in the church's

Enzyne magazine. Just as he was finishing the last article, he received, just in time, the

anxiously awaited English translation of the

Book of Giants, an account of Enoch found with the Dead Sea Scrolls. The Book of Giants was arguably

the oldest known Enoch manuscript discovered anywhere. Working quickly to meet his publication deadline,

Nibble found many significant resemblances between the Book of Giants and the Book of Moses.

His best known discovery is that a character with the name of Mahjija in the Book of Moses is a remarkable match for a character with a similar name in the Book of Giants.

Nibli found that the characters not only match well with their unusual names, but also in the Book of Giants. Nibbley found that the characters not only match well

with their unusual names, but also in the roles they play. The rest of the story of this discovery

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