Hugh Nibley on the Council in Heaven

I'm going to share one more Hugh Nibley quote for now. This quote provides an interesting perspective (not necessarily entirely true, but interesting) on the Council in Heaven during our pre-earth life.

"I was going to say that the Council in Heaven is quite a theme here [in newly-discovered early Christian documents], especially that Doctrine of the Abbatôn by Bishop Cyril of Alexandria. We won't go into that. The accounts of the Council in Heaven are that when the creation was proposed, it was voted down because the Earth complained that she would be defiled. The people up there all decided that there would be too much suffering, too much wickedness, too much defilement in this world. There was a deadlock, and they didn't know what to go on until one person volunteered and said, 'I will pay the price; I will take the blame.' You know who that was. When he did that, the whole chorus broke out and 'the morning stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted for joy.' That was the famous Creation Hymn. See, our word poem comes from Creation Hymn. The poem was the original Creation Hymn, the hymn that was sung in the heavens to announce the glory of the creation - all the earliest poems are. The Greek poiema means creation. It was the Creation Hymn. The muses first sang it together with the Greeks, etc. You have many references to that. They broke out in hymn because it was the Lord that made it possible to go on with the creation, carry this out, and allow this to happen. Even in spite of all this wickedness and corruption, he would pay the price. Only one person could clean up that mess, and he would do it." (Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon Part 1, Covenant Communications, 2004, p.215).

One thing I love about Hugh Nibley's writings and teachings is that he was able to take diverse sources - anything from ancient Egyptian writings or histories to modern events - and link them to the gospel. Hugh Nibley was someone who could see Truth in just about anything. That is something that Joseph Smith taught - that we should seek the good and true in all things. "One of the grand fundamental principles of 'Mormonism' is to receive truth, let it come from whence it may" (Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, Selected and arranged by Joseph Fielding Smith, annotated by Richard Galbraith, Deseret Book Company, 1993, p.351).