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===The date of the Book of Abraham vs. the date of the papyrus=== | ===The date of the Book of Abraham vs. the date of the papyrus=== | ||
When Joseph Smith obtained the papyri in 1835, he reportedly said that "one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham...."{{ref|hc2}} According to Joseph's scribes, this scroll was "written" by Abraham's "own hand upon papyrus."{{ref|marquardt1}} It seems reasonable to conclude that Joseph believed that Abraham himself, with pen in hand, wrote the very words that he was translating. The problem is that most modern scholars (including LDS scholars) date the papyri to a few centuries before Christ, whereas Abraham lived about two millennia before Christ. Obviously, Abraham himself could not have penned the papyri. | When Joseph Smith obtained the papyri in 1835, he reportedly said that "one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham...."{{ref|hc2}} According to Joseph's scribes, this scroll was "written" by Abraham's "own hand upon papyrus."{{ref|marquardt1}} It seems reasonable to conclude that Joseph believed that Abraham himself, with pen in hand, wrote the very words that he was translating. The problem is that most modern scholars (including LDS scholars) date the papyri to a few centuries before Christ, whereas Abraham lived about two millennia before Christ. Obviously, Abraham himself could not have penned the papyri. | ||
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+ | {{Detail|/Dating|l1=Dating of the Joseph Smith Papyri}} | ||
This issue is very similar to that of Book of Mormon geography. It is very likely that Joseph Smith believed in a hemispheric Book of Mormon geography—it made sense to his understanding of the world around him. Such a misinformed belief makes him no less a prophet; it simply provides us with an example of how Joseph—like any other human—tried to understand new information by integrating it with his current knowledge. So, likewise, with the Abrahamic papyri: Joseph, by way of revelation, saw that the papyri contained scriptural teachings of Abraham. It would be natural, therefore, to assume that Abraham wrote the papyri. But, some will ask, how could the teachings of Abraham be present on a document written two thousand years after Abraham lived? As Gee notes, we find the same thing with Biblical manuscripts. There is a major difference, he explains, "between the date of a text [the information contained on the papyri] and the date of a manuscript [the papyri itself]."{{ref|gee5}} | This issue is very similar to that of Book of Mormon geography. It is very likely that Joseph Smith believed in a hemispheric Book of Mormon geography—it made sense to his understanding of the world around him. Such a misinformed belief makes him no less a prophet; it simply provides us with an example of how Joseph—like any other human—tried to understand new information by integrating it with his current knowledge. So, likewise, with the Abrahamic papyri: Joseph, by way of revelation, saw that the papyri contained scriptural teachings of Abraham. It would be natural, therefore, to assume that Abraham wrote the papyri. But, some will ask, how could the teachings of Abraham be present on a document written two thousand years after Abraham lived? As Gee notes, we find the same thing with Biblical manuscripts. There is a major difference, he explains, "between the date of a text [the information contained on the papyri] and the date of a manuscript [the papyri itself]."{{ref|gee5}} |
Answers portal |
The Book of Abraham |
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FAQ:
Book of Abraham content: Production: |
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Critics of the Book of Abraham attack it from several directions. This article will address these major criticisms:
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]
In July 1835, Joseph Smith purchased a collection of papyri and mummies that had been discovered in Egypt and brought to the United States. Joseph Smith stated that one of the rolls contained, "the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, purportedly written by his own hand, upon papyrus,"[1] and he commenced a translation of the papyri.
The translated text and facsimiles of three drawings were published in the early 1840s in serial fashion in the LDS newspaper Times and Seasons. The entire work was published in 1852 in England as part of The Pearl of Great Price, which was later canonized as part of LDS scripture.
The original papyri were thought to have been completely destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. However, fragments of them, including Facsimile number 1, were discovered in 1967 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, and given to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
There are eleven fragments of the original papyrus owned by Joseph Smith. The initial labels given the fragments came from Hugh Nibley's work.
The fragments that exist and their source are described in the table below, as are other materials of interest to students of the Book of Abraham:
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When Joseph Smith obtained the papyri in 1835, he reportedly said that "one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham...."[2] According to Joseph's scribes, this scroll was "written" by Abraham's "own hand upon papyrus."[3] It seems reasonable to conclude that Joseph believed that Abraham himself, with pen in hand, wrote the very words that he was translating. The problem is that most modern scholars (including LDS scholars) date the papyri to a few centuries before Christ, whereas Abraham lived about two millennia before Christ. Obviously, Abraham himself could not have penned the papyri.
For a detailed response, see: Dating of the Joseph Smith Papyri
This issue is very similar to that of Book of Mormon geography. It is very likely that Joseph Smith believed in a hemispheric Book of Mormon geography—it made sense to his understanding of the world around him. Such a misinformed belief makes him no less a prophet; it simply provides us with an example of how Joseph—like any other human—tried to understand new information by integrating it with his current knowledge. So, likewise, with the Abrahamic papyri: Joseph, by way of revelation, saw that the papyri contained scriptural teachings of Abraham. It would be natural, therefore, to assume that Abraham wrote the papyri. But, some will ask, how could the teachings of Abraham be present on a document written two thousand years after Abraham lived? As Gee notes, we find the same thing with Biblical manuscripts. There is a major difference, he explains, "between the date of a text [the information contained on the papyri] and the date of a manuscript [the papyri itself]."[4]
If, for example, one held out a modern LDS Bible and pointing to 1 Corinthians asked, "Who penned this book?" most people would respond with, "Paul." The copy of the scriptures, however, was printed within the last few decades, and the English wording is based on what King James scholars decided that the ancient biblical manuscripts said. Paul, himself, did not pen any modern printing of the scriptural book even if he did author the original text. How can we fault Joseph for basically stating the same thing?
Some LDS scholars propose that the original Book of Abraham "text" was written by Abraham and then "passed down through his descendants (the Jews), some of whom took a copy to Egypt where it was copied (after being translated) onto a later manuscript."[6] Such a proposal makes a lot of sense since we recognize that this the typical provenance of most Biblical documents. As Dr. John Gee (PhD, Egyptology, Yale) notes, "some of the texts in the Book of the Dead manuscripts from the same time as the Joseph Smith Papyri (and even later) are also attested in manuscripts that go back before the time of Abraham."[7]
Among the early Book-of-Abraham-related-manuscripts that have survived from the days of Joseph Smith are a number of papers collectively referred to as the "Kirtland Egyptian Papers" (KEP). These pages were written while the Saints lived in Kirtland, Ohio, and were recorded in the general time frame that Joseph was translating the Book of Abraham. They are in the same handwriting of several of Joseph's scribes. Critics charge that the KEP represent Joseph's attempt to translate the hieroglyphics from those portions that are still extant, noting that Egyptologists tell us that the alleged "translations" do not accurately reflect the meanings of the hieroglyphics. In some cases, several paragraphs of the English translation of the Book of Abraham are associated with Egyptian characters from the Joseph Smith papyri. In some instances, one Egyptian character seems to yield several sentences of English text. To the critics, this is proof that Joseph was a false prophet.
For a detailed response, see: Kirtland Egyptian Papers
It should first be undestood that we do not have all the papyri that Joseph Smith had when he translated the Book of Abraham. Some of the papyri were burned in the Chicago fire and it's possible that other fragments were lost or destroyed elsewhere. Yale-trained Egyptologist, Dr. John Gee, believes that Joseph Smith originally had five papyrus scrolls (one of which was the hypocephalus).[8] Of these five scrolls, only eleven fragments of two scrolls have survived. The "Scroll of Hor" (the Egyptian Book of Breathings) from where we get Facsimile 1 (and almost certainly Facsimile 3—which didn't survive) is incomplete.
Dr. Nibley writes:
Nothing like this has survived today. Dr. Gee estimates that the Scroll of Hor (likely the putative [supposed] source for the Book of Abraham) may have been ten feet long[10] and that in all, Joseph may have had eight times as much papyri as what is currently extant.[11] A number of scholars contend that the reason that the extant papyrus fragments don't have anything to do with the Book of Abraham is because we don't have that portion of the papyrus that served as the text from whence Joseph translated the Book of Abraham. At the very least, the critics ought to be cautious if only 13% of the ancient scrolls are currently known!
And while it's true that the extant portions of the JSP are from the Book of the Dead and the Book of Breathings and do not, according to Egyptologists, translate to anything like the LDS Book of Abraham, this doesn't necessarily mean that the translation didn't derive from Joseph's papyri. There are other scenarios that are compatible with Joseph's claims. We know from other sources, for instance, that sometimes scrolls were attached together.
For a detailed response, see: Jewish redaction
For a detailed response, see: Missing portions
There is evidence from antiquity—both in the Abrahamic tradition and in the Jewish recontextualization of Egyptian vignettes and dramas—which lend support to the claim that Joseph translated (albeit by unconventional means) the Book of Abraham from an authentic ancient source.
While Book of Abraham "translations" and "restorations" of the damaged vignettes do not seem to square with the translations of non-LDS Egyptologists, there are several instances when Joseph did get some of the details correct. This is no small thing considering that neither Joseph, nor any one to whom he had access, could translate Egyptian.
Facsimile 2 (shown between Chapters 3 and 4 of the Book of Abraham in the LDS Pearl of Great Price), is known as a hypocephalus ("under the head") and was a small disk-shaped object that was placed under the head of the deceased. The Egyptians "believed it would magically cause the head and body to be enveloped in flames or radiance, thus making the deceased divine."[12] In this drawing (or vignette), stand four mummy-like figures known—to Egyptologists—as the Sons of Horus. Their images were also on the canopic jars (the jars that stored the internal organs of the deceased) that we see under the lion couch in Joseph Smith's Facsimile 1. Joseph revealed that these four figures represented "this earth in its four quarters." According to modern Egyptologists, Joseph Smith is correct. The Sons of Horus "were the gods of the four quarters of the earth and later came to be regarded as presiding over the four cardinal points."[13]
Years ago, Dr. Nibley pointed out that the critics neglect the ancient Near Eastern Abrahamic traditions that support the story found in the Book of Abraham.[14] Ancient Abrahamic lore and Jewish traditions preserved in ancient texts, show some surprising parallels to what we find in the text of the Book of Abraham. Some of these parallels imply that Joseph (who likely could not have had access to many of these traditions) actually restored authentic ancient Abrahamic traditions. Some of these parallels include early Jewish traditions about Abraham's life—details not found in the Bible.[15] Two such ancient documents that show some surprising parallels to our Book of Abraham are the Apocalypse of Abraham[16] and the Testament of Abraham[17] (the Apocalypse of Abraham dates to about the same time as the Book of Abraham papyri).
Other interesting parallels include ancient names and astronomy. Ancient Egyptian names, for example, that would have been unknown to Joseph Smith, are accurately represented in the Book of Abraham both phonetically as well as in meaning.[18] With regard to astronomy, we find that in Joseph Smith's day "heliocentricity" (as proposed by Copernicus and Newton) was the accepted astronomical view. Nineteenth-century people (including the most brilliant minds of the day) believed that everything revolved around the Sun—therefore the term "heliocentric" (Greek helios=sun + centered). (In the twentieth-first century we generally accept an Einsteinian view of the cosmos.) The Book of Abraham, however, clearly delineates a geocentric view of the universe—or a belief that the Earth (Greek geo) stood at the center of the universe, and all things moved around our planet.
According to ancient geocentric cosmologies and what we read in the Book of Abraham, the heavens (which is defined as the expanse above the earth—no celestial object is mentioned to exist below the earth) was composed of multiple layers or tiers—each tier higher than the previous. Therefore the Sun is in a higher tier than the moon, and the stars are in higher tiers still (compare Abraham 3:5, 9, 17).[19] According to geocentric astronomy, celestial objects have longer time spans (or lengths of "reckoning") based upon their relative distance from the earth. "Thus, the length of reckoning of a planet is based on its revolution [time to orbit around the center, in this case the earth](and not rotation [time to spin on its axis, as the earth does every 24 hours])."[20] The higher the celestial object, the greater its length of reckoning (compare Abraham 3:5). Likewise, in Abraham 3:8–9, we read that "there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still; And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob."
Ancient geocentric astronomers believed that the stars were "the outer-most celestial sphere, furthest from the earth and nearest to God."[21] We find in the Book of Abraham that the star Kolob was the star nearest "the throne of God" (Abraham 3:9). In the ancient, yet recently discovered, Apocalypse of Abraham (which dates from about the same time period as the JSP), we find that God's throne is said to reside in the eighth firmament (the firmaments, being another term for the varying tiers in the heavens above the Earth).[22]
The Book of Abraham also reveals that those celestial objects that are highest above the earth, "govern" the objects below them (see Abraham 3:3, 9 and Facsimile 2, fig. 5). This sounds similar to the beliefs of those who accepted an ancient geocentric cosmology:
We find this governing order described in the Apocalypse of Abraham and other ancient sources. All of this makes sense only from an ancient geocentric perspective (such as that believed in Abraham's day) and makes no sense from a heliocentric perspective (which is what Joseph would have known in his day).
A different interesting parallel comes from Facsimile 1 (Abraham on the lion couch). According to Egyptologists, this is a typical Egyptian embalming scene and has nothing to do with Abraham or sacrifice. In fact, the critics assure us, Abraham is not a topic of discussion in Egyptian papyri, and there is no connection with Abraham and the embalming lion couch.
Recent discoveries, however, suggests that the Biblical Abraham does appear in some Egyptian papyri that date to the same period as the JSP. In one instance (thus far discovered) Abraham's name appears to have a connection to an Egyptian lion couch scene.[24]
The stories and worldviews we find in the translated text of our Book of Abraham coincide nicely with what we find from ancient Abrahamic lore. The critics must account for Joseph Smith's extensive knowledge of these areas, which he then integrated into a theologically rich whole.
When we critically examine the charges against the Book of Abraham in light of what we now know about ancient Jewish traditions and the adaptation of Egyptian iconography, we find that an ancient Book of Abraham is not only plausible, but believable.
Contents
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The Book of Abraham is "an inspired translation of the writings of Abraham. Joseph Smith began the translation in 1835 after obtaining some Egyptian papyri."[1] "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces the book of Abraham as scripture. This book [is] a record of the biblical prophet and patriarch Abraham."[2]
To view articles about the Book of Abraham, click "Expand" in the blue bar:
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