The Book of Abraham–Not a Correct “Translation”?
by -Note: A good friend of mine is trying to help his brother better understand certain aspects of Mormon history. My friend has done a great job thoroughly researching these issues. He gave me permission to publish some of his comments. I hope they help others as well!
By way of background, this letter discusses the Book of Abraham, a book of scripture that Mormons use together with the Bible. Many Mormons believe the Book of Abraham was revealed to Joseph Smith, our first prophet, directly from God. In contrast, some Mormons believe that Joseph used ancient Egyptian papyri that he’d purchased in 1833 to perform a more traditional translation. Critics of the church, hoping to demonstrate that Joseph wasn’t genuinely inspired, have tried to show that the text on existing remnants of Joseph’s papyri doesn’t correspond to the text of the Book of Abraham.
Most Mormons don’t really care about the papyri text, since we see the message of the Book of Abraham as being of primary importance and acknowledge the possibility that the papyri weren’t actually involved in any “translation” in the traditional sense. Still, some people are troubled by the claims of the critics. Hopefully this explanation will help.
Hi brother. There’s quite a bit of evidence that the portion of the scrolls/papyri that Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham were burned in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire. I did some more research. See below. Ultimately, though, it doesn’t really matter whether or not those papyri fragments were burned, since my real argument is that the Book of Abraham was inspired/revealed to Joseph Smith. God didn’t really need the scrolls to be there, but perhaps Joseph Smith did in order to receive the inspiration of a divine revelation rather than a perfect word-for-word or character-for-word(s) “translation”.
Witnesses to the original papyri in a museum setting before they were burned…and other cited evidence (by LDS Scholar John Gee): http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=20&num=1&id=699
One key quote I thought was interesting:
“…Eyewitnesses from the Nauvoo period (1839-1844) describe ‘a quantity of records, written on papyrus, in Egyptian hieroglyphics,’ including some papyri ‘preserved under glass,’ described as ‘a number of glazed slides, like picture frames, containing sheets of papyrus, with Egyptian inscriptions and hieroglyphics’; ‘a long roll of manuscript’ that contained the Book of Abraham; ‘another roll’; and ‘two or three other small pieces of papyrus, with astronomical calculations, epitaphs, &c.’ Only the mounted fragments ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and were subsequently given back to the Church of Jesus Christ. The eyewitnesses not only describe the papyri, but they also describe specific vignettes or pictures on the papyri. When eyewitnesses described the vignettes as being on the papyri mounted under glass, they can be matched with the fragments from the Metropolitan Museum of Art. On the other hand, when the vignettes are described as being on the rolls, the descriptions do not match any of the currently surviving fragments. Gustav Seyffarth’s 1859 catalog of the museum in St. Louis indicates that some of the Joseph Smith Papyri were there. Those papyri moved with the Wood Museum to Chicago and were burned in the Chicago Fire in 1871. Whatever we conjecture their contents to be is only that: conjecture.
Both Mormon and non-Mormon eyewitnesses from the nineteenth century agree that it was a ‘roll of papyrus from which [Joseph Smith] translated the Book of Abraham,’ meaning the ‘long roll of manuscript,’ and not one of the mounted fragments that eventually ended up in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. So the intellectual position that some members follow and that the critics would have us adopt as the position of the church is not in accord with the historical evidence.
How big were the rolls? One way to answer that question is to take the standard size for a papyrus roll and just use that. ‘In the Ptolemaic period a roll was usually 320 cm long and 32 cm high.’ I have used such estimates before, but those figures are not entirely satisfactory. As Mark Depauw has pointed out in a later study, the measurements of papyri vary throughout the Ptolemaic period, with different standards applying at different times…. (goes on about mathematical calculations as they relate to the historical Egyptian papyri)”
Brother, you claim there are many more reliable witnesses that said there were only two scrolls, but the truth is there were very likely more. The evidence points much more strongly toward more rather than fewer.
Michael Chandler was quoted as saying that the mummies he sold to Joseph Smith were wrapped in the papyrus. Sounds like a lot more papyrus that we have presently.
Think about this from the simple perspective: The existing fragments we have were split off BEFORE the soon-to-be-burned-up papyri was sent to the museum of Chicago. The surviving fragments were never at the museum where they could have been burned. “Something” was sent to the museum of Chicago and later completely destroyed. The portion we now have never made it there…that’s why we have it!! That’s why it survived. It went a completely different direction. It did not survive a fire at all. What did get burned we may never know…but something did!! That certainly begs the question… how much was sent to Chicago that was eventually burned? There simply HAD to be more than what eventually turned up at the museum of New York. Likely much more was in Chicago during the fire.
But these details aren’t actually that important, since my real argument is that the translation of the Book of Abraham was an “inspired” translation anyway… My understanding is that the only eyewitness to the translation process that later described it was Joseph Smith’s scribe Warren Parrish, who after he left the church claimed, “I have set by his side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven.”
His statement was “by direct INSPIRATION from Heaven”. Who knows what that really means any more than the word “translate” from other quotes, but I do see the very real possibility that he may have viewed the work as an inspired revelation of the words of Abraham, not a literal, word-for-word, academic-style translation of the papyri before him.
You also raise some questions about the Kirkland Egyptian papers, which you claim prove that Joseph Smith used a faulty translation method to produce the Book of Abraham. I invite you to see this research on the Kirtland papers: http://www.boap.org/LDS/BOAP/SecondEd/Draft-copy/AppendixV-JS-Commentary-on-BOA.pdf
At least part of the Book of Abraham was available BEFORE the “Alphabet and Grammar” document was even considered, so the claim that the Alphabet and Grammar was used to produce the Book of Abraham seems dubious.
A couple of key quotes from the above listed source:
“It is clear that at least the first part of the Abraham text was available before an ‘Alphabet and Grammar’ was even considered, because Oliver Cowdery quotes from it in September 1835. Improvement Era (1904), 942; Parrish was not involved until Nov. 1835.] Moreover, the Book of Abraham word ‘shinehah’ appears in the D&C text approved August 17, 1835… Joseph never used or claimed to use this dubious document for translating anything, nor did his scribes ever make that claim and in fact, they did not do it. ‘Having fun with papyrus’ is about all that can be said about the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar at present.”
“Who was responsible for the so the called Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar portion of the Kirkland Egyptian papers if it is not in Joseph Smith’s handwriting? Egyptian symbols are found in this ‘Grammar,’ but they are merely listed according to their position (the scribes use the term ‘degree’) on the papyri, sometimes with a suggested experimental vocalization attached. Making Joseph Smith responsible for this Grammar is essentially arbitrary and no scholar with genuine credentials supports it… as we have shown before, [the grammar] actually appears to be the attempt of Joseph’s associates to understand the materials they had, including the already translated text.”
More recently some LDS scholars have theorized that it’s very likely that the “Alphabet and Grammar” could have been an attempt at a Masonic cipher.
You also claim that Joseph Smith plagiarized the Book of Mormon, or that it came from an outside source. I’ve heard this argument before. I’ll throw out my non-scholarly opinion (with some research found on the subject) as something to consider here:
For example, “The Apocalypse of Abraham” is a very early Slavic apocryphal account of Abraham (Jewish origin – 70-150 A.D) that was not discovered nor published until AFTER the death of Joseph Smith. This apocryphal writing has many common themes regarding the narrative of Abraham that were NOT in the Bible but WERE found in the Book of Abraham. How could Joseph Smith have known about that? Answer: He didn’t. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apocalypse_of_Abraham
Abraham’s vision of the heavens is found in ancient Arabic texts, but not in the Bible.
The astronomical scheme of the Book of Abraham mimics that of the ancient world (Egypt) rather than early America. Joseph Smith couldn’t have known that at the time.
Fawn Brodie also accused Joseph Smith of borrowing parts of the Book of Abraham from Thomas Dick, but objective research indicates that that just isn’t the case. Her accusation amounts to “Smith used some words that Dick used, [words used in common discourse] so he used Dick’s ideas to mold the Book of Abraham.” There is no suggestion that Joseph Smith’s friends may have noticed some kind of similarity to what their Prophet had already done and then pointed it out. Depending on which critic is listed, Joseph Smith is cited as using all sorts of different outside sources for the Book of Abraham. Was an uneducated farmboy really that well read?
As for the Bible overlap, I’d say that the common elements would be logical since both books talk about Abraham and are scripture. There are bound to be similarities. No biggie. Why wouldn’t they have common concepts, themes and wording? They both tell the story of Abraham. Are there differences as well? Yes. Why would Joseph Smith interject so many differences and additions to the Bible if everything was being simply lifted from it?
Read the Book of Abraham with an open and honest heart. Then decide if the message and doctrine rings true. Seek God, not man.