Hey guys. So if you're not already aware,
the Latter-day Saint Book of Abraham is
one of the most controversial aspects of
our faith. In this episode, we're going to
talk about what the *inaudible* is all about and
what our options are when it comes to
dealing with it.
So in general, we don't know a whole lot
about how Joseph Smith received his
scriptural translations and revelations
but we do know that the process will
sometimes be different depending on the
project. Sometimes he used the Urim and
Thummim or seer stones, sometimes the
scriptures seem to just catalyze a
sudden revelatory scriptural expansion.
Doctrine and Covenants seven is a translation
of a document written by John the
Revelator that Joseph didn't even
physically have. And other times, it's
unclear how much came from Revelation
and how much came from Joseph just
hitting the books. "You hit those books okay?"
Considering how little we know about the
process underlying his revelatory
projects, it's not surprising that we
really don't know exactly how Joseph
produced the Book of Abraham.
Now Joseph did have in his possession
ancient Egyptian papyri that he believed
contained the writings of Abraham.
Unfortunately, a good portion of the
original papyri was destroyed in the
Great Chicago Fire of 1871. "And that also
is very convenient." "Sir I find it
decidedly inconvenient." In the 1960s, some
surviving fragments resurfaced including
the original illustration or vignette
for facsimile one. But as it turned out,
both Latter-day Saint and non Latter-day
Saint Egyptologists agree that the text
we have on the surviving papyri does not
translate to what we have in the Book of
Abraham. So we're stuck to grapple with
the question, what exactly is the
relationship between the papyri and our
Book of Abraham? Generally people fall
into one of three categories outlined by
Egyptologist John Gee. People believe that
Joseph produced the Book of Abraham from
the surviving fragments of papyri we
still have; from papyri that was
destroyed that we no longer have; or he
produced it without the aid of any
papyri at all. The first theory is
heavily advocated for by antagonists of
our faith. The text from the surviving
fragments does not translate as The Book
of Abraham.
Instead, they contain pieces of so-called
funerary texts such as the document of
breathing's made by Isis, also known as
the book of breathing's, belonging to a
guy named Hor and multiple copies of a
text known
as the book of the dead. "You sure
you want to be playing around with this thing?"
Thus, if you believe that Joseph was
attempting to translate the surviving
papyri then you can easily discredit him
as a prophet but it should be noted that
this theory does not match up with the
eyewitness evidence we have of the
translation. The 19th century
eyewitnesses, both Mormon and non-Mormon,
favorable and hostile to the church,
agree that the Book of Abraham was
translated from a long roll of papyrus
that was still a long roll in the 1840s
and 1850s. The current fragments of the
Joseph Smith papyri, however were all
mounted on heavy paper and placed in
glass frames in 1837. None of them can be
the long roll described in the 1840s and
1850s.
So these fragments are specifically not
the source of the Book of Abraham,
according to the eyewitnesses. The next
question is well, what about facsimile
one? It's right there on the surviving
papyri. Doesn't it make sense then that
the text surrounding this illustration
should translate to what we have in the
Book of Abraham? "That makes sense to me." Well, to
us that might make sense. In ancient
Egyptian Scrolls, however, sometimes these
illustrations had no clear relationship
with their surrounding text. And feel
free to pause and read these quotes from
people smarter than I am who backed that
up. In fact this same guy, Hor, also
owned a copy of the Book of the Dead
written by the same scribe and
illustrator and more than half of the
pictures don't match with the text
surrounded. On top of that there are
actually no other instances of this
scene being adjacent to the book of
breathing's so while the text may not
belong to the Book of Abraham, the text
also doesn't seem to belong to facsimile
1, raising the question what does
facsimile 1 belong to? "I don't belong
here."
The second theory is that Joseph got the
Book of Abraham from a long roll of
papyrus that has since been destroyed.
This theory accommodates the eyewitness
evidence I quoted earlier but it also
comes with its challenges.
For example if Facsimile 1 was
originally attached to this long roll,
some scholars disagree on whether the
scroll would have been long enough for
both the book of breathing's and the
Book of Abraham. But it's also possible
that the long roll wasn't horse scroll
at all but one of the others that was
destroyed. This theory is frustrating
both to members and non-members simply
because it can't be verified since we
don't have the papyri. The third theory
is that the text that was revealed to
Joseph had nothing to do with any of the
papyri and it only served as a catalyst
that sparked the flow of revelation.
There is a precedent for this kind of
revelation in some of Joseph's other
works but the challenge is that Joseph
definitely believed he had a physical
document containing Abrahamic writings
so this theory would assume that Joseph
was wrong about that and that the papyri
just set him on a revelatory path. You
are free to believe whichever theory
you'd like or none of them at all. "What
if I choose not to believe it?" Now there
are still many other unanswered
questions associated with The Book of
Abraham, for example, lots of people have
questions about Joseph's interpretations
of the facsimilies. We're gonna dive
into that in a separate episode so if
you have questions about the Facsimilies,
hold onto those. Others also
wonder about the historical
believability of the Book of Abraham.
That also deserves an episode but until
then, I'd refer you to this video from
PearlofGreatPriceCentral.org.
Check out the resources in the
description for more info and have a
great day.
