Book of Abraham
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[edit] History
Joseph Smith bought the papyrus from a traveling salesman while he was in Kirtland, OH in 1835. Smith claimed that the Egyptian document was an original autograph that Abraham had written upon.
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[edit] Recovery of the papyri
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[edit] LDS views on the translation
Most Mormons tend to believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from the Egyptian papyri sold to Smith by Michael Chandler. They believe it was the same papyri that has been recovered today. Mormon apologists, however, take a different view:
- "From the evidence that we have today, it’s quite safe to say that Joseph Smith did not have the Book of Abraham or the Book of Joseph in front of him in the form of these papyri because they bear no relationship to the contents of the stories or to his translation." -Lanny Bell [1]
That is, apologists do not believe that the "extant papyri making up the Book of Breathings must be the original text of the Book of Abraham". [2] "[It] is doubtful that the Book of Abraham was translated from the Joseph Smith papyri that has been recovered." [3] One Mormon blogger puts it like this: "[T]here is a enormous gulf between what ordinary members believe about the BoA and the reality that the papyri force us to consider." [1]
A minority take the position that Joseph Smith possessed the scrolls and used them as inspiration, rather than a direct source of content. "Joseph used the papyri as a springboard for his revelation." [4]
- ". . . the discovery [of the Egyptian papyri in 1967] prompted a reassessment of the Book of Abraham. What was going on while Joseph "translated" the papyri and dictated text to a scribe? Obviously, he was not interpreting the hieroglyphics like an ordinary scholar. As Joseph saw it, he was working by inspiration—that had been clear from the beginning. When he "translated" the Book of Mormon, he did not read from the gold plates; he looked into the crystals of the Urim and Thummim or gazed at the seerstone. The words came by inspiration, not by reading the characters on the plates. By analogy, it seemed likely that the papyri had been an occasion for receiving a revelation rather than a word-for-word interpretation of the hieroglyphs as in ordinary translations. Joseph translated Abraham as he had the characters on the gold plates, by knowing the meaning without actually knowing the plates' language" (Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, p. 192).
[edit] Criticisms
- "Within a series of documents written by Joseph Smith's scribes, the 'Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar', also known as the "Kirtland Egyptian Papers", some manuscripts support the notion that the Book of Abraham was wrongly translated from extant papyrus." [5]
- There is a minute probability that the Egyptians would include writings from another religion in a funeral scroll.
- The Hebrews hated the Egyptians, and it seems odd that they would let such a sacred writing be lost from their own possession, only to end up in the hands of the Egyptians.
- The theology of the Book of Abraham contradicts the creation account and monotheism of the Bible.
- It seems obvious that Smith improvised facsimile no. 1 in the exact places where it is missing as we have it today.
- The date of the papyrus seems much later than the lifetime of Abraham. [Citation needed]
[edit] Quotes
- "Facsimile 1 is in fact a vignette from a late Egyptian funerary text showing a priest enbalming the body of a deceased person. The 'bird' is the spirit, or 'ba' of the dead man; the jars beneath the couch are the 'canopic jars' that held the organs. This is not some anti-Mormon fantasy, but the sober interpretation of professional Egyptologists. There is no getting away from it." -LDS Blogger [6]
- There’s certainly no reason that this particular book of breathing scroll should be expanded much beyond the surviving length. I’ve now read the entire document from the beginning to end and made out what one could make out on the poor copy of the final vignette. The most that is missing from this text is simply two columns worth of Egyptian hieratic. And possibly a small vignette. But other than that, there would be nothing more that would inflate its length much beyond its current size. It is both unprecedented and unreasonable to assume that an intrusive text about a completely different matter—a narrative history of Abraham and his descendents— would have been inserted into a document whose beginning, middle and end is devoted specifically to the resurrection of an Egyptian priest." -Robert Ritner (Egyptologist)
- "The faith and worthiness of this young man, Joseph Smith, enabled him not only to find the gold plates, but later to translate the hieroglyphic record by the power of God. What a thrill it was to see some of the reformed Egyptian characters as copied by the hand of Joseph Smith." [7]
- "In addition to the Old Testament, this course includes the books of Moses and Abraham from the Pearl of Great Price. These books provide important additions and clarifications to some of the material in the book of Genesis. The book of Moses is an extract from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. The book of Abraham is a translation that the Prophet Joseph Smith made from some Egyptian papyri." - Gospel Doctrine Teacher's Manual
- "In my judgment, his work on the facsimiles was secondary in nature, and although he demonstrates definite strokes of inspiration in the process of working with them, I don't consider them of the same stature as the text of the Book of Abraham; I don't believe they were ever intended to be regarded as highly, and they probably should never have been included in the canon along with the text of BoA. At some point in the future, I wouldn't be surprised to see the 'facsimiles' removed from the formal canon of the church." (William Schryver) [8] (accessed 5/29/2010)
- "An example of what I am talking about is the recent discovery of the papyrus scrolls from which Joseph Smith was presumed to have translated the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Modern scholars, looking at the scrolls, found nothing they considered to be similar to that book. I remarked at the time that such a finding didn't bother me in the least. God doesn't need a crib sheet in the form of a papyrus scroll to reveal Abraham's thoughts and words to Joseph Smith, with any degree of precision He considers necessary for His purposes. If the only function of the scrolls was to awaken the Prophet to the idea of receiving such inspiration, they would have fulfilled their purpose." (Henry Eyring, Reflections of a Scientist, p. 46 )
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ↑ Comment by a Mormon named "Ronan" at "By Common Consent". Accessed 8/22/2006. URL: http://www.bycommonconsent.com/2006/08/poll-the-abraham-problem/
[edit] External links
- How Much Papyri Did Joseph Own? (MormonApologetics.org discussion)
- Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers
[edit] Non-Mormon
- Many articles on the Book of Abraham
- The Book of Abraham, by Bill McKeever
- By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri, by Charles M. Larson
- Book of Abraham (Wikipedia)
- The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim (Movie Review by Kurt Van Gorden)
- Summary of Mormon Apologist views on the Book of Abraham
- BookOfAbraham.com - "devoted to the idea that the Book of Abraham...is not what it purports to be."
- Examining the Book of Abraham, by Kevin Mathie
- Joseph Smith's Interpretation of Book of the Dead 125, by Christopher Smith
- A Smoking Gun in the Book of Abraham: Could Joseph Smith Translate Egyptian?, by Christopher Smith
- Brent Metcalfe on Missing Scroll Theory
- The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr, by Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith
- KEP Dictation Argument: The Evidence, by Kevin Graham
[edit] Mormon
- Teaching the Book of Abraham Facsimiles, by Michael D. Rhodes
- Abraham's Creation Drama (Quicktime Movie), by Hugh Nibley
- Mnemonic Device of the Joseph Smith Papyri, Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar & the Book of Abraham (Oct. 25, 1968), by John Tvedtnes - "proposes that the Book of the Dead is not the text of the BOA but a mneumonic device. Each word in the BOD represents a group of words or paragraph which was memorized." [9]
- The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus . . . Twenty Years Later (PDF), by Michael D. Rhodes - a translation of facsimile #2 by LDS egyptologist Michael Rhodes
- The ABCs of the Book of Abraham, by Michael Ash & Kevin Barney
- The Abraham "problem" (or lack thereof) (By Common Consent)
- Book of Abraham papyri (FAIRWiki)
- The Papyrus Rolls, by Paul Osborne
- On Elkenah as Canaanite El, by Kevin Barney
- Putting the Best Face on the Book of Abraham (review of John Gee's A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri)
- Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: Some Questions and Answers, by Kerry Muhlestein
http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/49894-michael-d-rhodes-%E2%80%9Ci-have-a-question%E2%80%9D/
[edit] Ensign articles
- Why doesn’t the translation of the Egyptian papyri found in 1967 match the text of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price? (Michael D. Rhodes, "I Have a Question," Ensign, July 1988, 51)
- News from Antiquity (Daniel C. Peterson, "News from Antiquity," Ensign, Jan. 1994, 16)
- Research and Perspectives: Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Texts, by John Gee (John Gee, "Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Texts," Ensign, July 1992, 60)
- What, exactly, is the purpose and significance of the facsimiles in the book of Abraham? (Hugh Nibley, "I Have a Question," Ensign, Mar. 1976, 34)
- The Book of Abraham: A Most Remarkable Book (Andrew Skinner, "The Book of Abraham: A Most Remarkable Book," Ensign, Mar. 1997, 16)
