Ancient texts indicate that the idolatrous gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, and Korash, described in the book of Abraham (Abr. 1:6, 13, 17; facsimile 1, figs. 5–8), truly were worshipped in the ancient world, despite the fact that the Bible makes no mention of them. 5 Furthermore, ancient texts suggest that the ensemble of four figures depicted as figure 6 of Facsimile 2 could indeed “represent this earth in its four quarters” in the ancient world, as the explanation to the facsimile in the book of Abraham says. 6 Ancient texts also support the interpretation given in the book of Abraham of figure 11 of facsimile 1 as “designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians.” In fact, the phrase “pillars of heaven” occurs in Egyptian literature. 7 The angled lines below the lion couch in facsimile 1 are identified as “the firmament over our heads” (fig. 12), which must seem rather strange to any modern reader. It only makes sense when we realize, in light of recent research, that the lines represent the waves of the water in which the crocodile is swimming, and that one way the ancient Egyptians conceived of heaven was as “a heavenly ocean.” 8
5. See Lundquist, “Was Abraham at Ebla?” p. 232; Tvedtnes and Christensen, Ur of the Chaldeans, pp. 32–33.
6. See Rhodes, “A Translation and Commentary of the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus”; John Gee, “Notes on the Sons of Horus” (Provo: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991). See also Apocalypse of Abraham 18, OTP, 1:698.
7. See, for example, Adriaan de Buck, The Egyptian Coffin Texts, 7 vols. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1935–61), 61 I 263; Adriaan de Buck, Egyptian Reading Book (Leiden: Nederlands Instituut voor het Nabije Oosten, 1963), 53.15, 57.10; Dieter Arnold, “Pfeiler,” in Wolfgang Helck and Hartwig Altenmüller, eds., Lexikon der Ägyptologie, 7 vols. (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1977–89), 4:1008–9; Heinrich Balez, “Die altägyptische Wandgliederung,” Mitteilungen des deutschen Archäologischen Instituts in Kairo, 1 (1930):57–62.
8. Erik Hornung, “Himmelsvorstellungen,” Lexikon der Ägyptologie, 2:1216.
If true, this would certainly be fascinating information that would give some credence to the book of Abraham. But the problem is I don't have any of the sources and cannot verify any of the information online, although I have tried. The excerpts do use a lot of weasel words (indicate, suggest, support, etc.), but I would nevertheless like to see this information fleshed out. What evidence is there that the gods mentioned in the book of Abraham were gods actually worshipped in the ancient world? Does anyone have any of the sources mentioned in the footnotes and if so, can you give an abstract of their arguments? Are there any non-LDS scholars that have investigated these claims? And if these are gods that were worshipped, can we rule in or out the possibility that JSJr would have known about them?