DiscussMormonism.com

Hello. I recently wrote an essay summarizing the most important arguments on both sides of the Book of Abraham debate:

http://in-fide-scientiam.com/

My goal with this essay was to accurately and objectively present the best arguments both for and against the premise that the Book of Abraham is divine scripture. I would welcome any feedback from those who have more knowledge about Book of Abraham issues than I do (whether from a critical or believing perspective).

Thank you in advance for your feedback!

-Tom Hardman

Hi Tom and welcome.

It looks like you have spent some time putting together your Book of Abraham summary and it looks like you have tried to keep it as objective as possible, a difficult thing to do with this topic.



Let me start with one of your first paragraphs.

After Joseph Smith’s death, the papyri were sold to different museums. Eleven papyrus fragments eventually ended up in the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art (MMA), and in 1967 the LDS church received the surviving fragments as a gift from the MMA. The LDS church published photographs of the papyri in the February 1968 issue of the Improvement Era.

Here is what happened to the collection after Joseph Smith's death.

After his death the majority of the collection remained in the possession of his mother Lucy Smith. A small portion of the papyri known as the Church's Historian Fragment did make its way to Salt Lake. See here. When Lucy died in 1856, Emma and her husband, immediately sold the collection to Able Combs. Combs sold the mummies and a potion of the papyri to the St Louis Museum that same year (1856). The St Louis Museum was purchased in 1863 by the Chicago Museum which was later know as the Wood's Museum. In 1872 the Wood's museum burned down and no trace of what was purchased from Combs has ever been found.

Combs died in 1892 and left the Joseph Smith papyri to his nurse Charlotte Benecke Weaver Huntsman who passed them on to her daughter Alice Combs Weaver Heusser. In 1918 Alice tried to sell the papyri to the Metropolitan Museum of Art but they declined. In 1846 Ludlow Bull, associate curator of the Dept of Egyptian Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, bought the papryi from Edward Heusser, the 80 year old spouse of Alice.

Regarding this paragraph.

The LDS church is also in possession of some manuscripts related to the Book of Abraham that were written while the church was headquartered in Kirtland or Nauvoo. These manuscripts, which are sometimes referred to as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, are in the handwriting of several of Joseph Smith’s scribes.

A portion of the KEP was actually penned by Joseph Smith.
See the EAJS also known as Egyptian MS No. 4. About two-thirds of this text is in Joseph Smith’s hand with the remainder contributed by Oliver Cowdery.

Regarding this paragraph.

According to some believers, the reason that the surviving 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 which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham.

In support of this argument, some believers refer to a journal entry written by Joseph Smith on December 31, 1835: “The record of Abraham and Joseph, found with the mummies, is beautifully written on papyrus, with black, and a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation.” Nothing with “a small part red, ink or paint, in perfect preservation” is included among the eleven papyrus fragments recovered from the MMA

This is simply wrong. The reference above is from a letter from Oliver Cowdery to William Fyre on Dec 22, 1835 which was published in Messenger & Advocate Dec 1835 pg 234, also in Oliver Cowdery Letterbook 69-74. Also given the balance of the letter and other descriptions it is clear Oliver is talking about the scroll that Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Jospeh or Book of the Dead of Ta-Sherit-Min which is still extant and in the Church's possession. There is a dispute as to how much is still extant, but no argument that this is the scroll being referred too in Oliver's quote. See here for a picture of an extant piece of the scroll.

So your quote is incorrectly attributed and does not make the argument about the missing scroll in any case.

Hi Tom,

There are a couple of problems with the catalyst theory. It seems like it is essential for a document exist (at some point) for these revealed translations to be made. For example, in the case of the Book of Mormon, the existence of the Gold Plates seemed to be necessary. It is doubtful that Joseph Smith could actually read the plates. But it is probable that the intent of the authors of the plates and their actual writings were translated in some manner without Joseph Smith knowing their language so that it is reflected in English in the Book of Mormon.

I think upon examination of the Book of Abraham, you'll see the same thing. It is likely that there were original writing of Abraham (most likely made on clay tablets). These writing were copied over time. Now, it becomes very important to understand who made these copies. If it were pagans, then it is doubtful much of what Abraham wrote would have been preserved in the copies. Pagans would be uninterested in preserving his writings as they were and they would have been quickly adapted to reflect the mythos and gods these pagans worshipped. However, if the copies were made by Coptic Jews, then we there might have been much less alteration and embellishment of the stories. Since we don't have the complete papyrus, we don't know if the Book of Abraham was actually contained within the papyrus or not.

Now the critics assume a number of rather ridiculous positions to attack the Book of Abraham. The first is that Joseph Smith could actually read and understood ancient Egyptian. I don't think that is a serious assumption that should be made. However, they make this assumption then point at the KEP as an example of Joseph Smith using a traditional method (or attempting to) of identifying the characters and grammar to come up with a translation. They believe this is a smoking gun that Joseph Smith was a fraud because the KEP does not correspond to any known rendering of the Egyptian. They also use the KEP to line up sections of the papyrus with the Book of Abraham to show that this was a hoax and a completely mistaken translation of the surviving pieces of the papyrus we have. Another example of these kinds of assumptions is seen in the translation of the facsimiles. The attacks are that the translations and corrections of the facsimiles are wrong under the current known understanding of how they should be translated in comparison to how they were redrawn or rendered by Joseph Smith.

My own view is that these are absurd assumptions to make and should be rejected by Mormons. If Joseph Smith were able to reveal the writings of Abraham, it would have only been by revelation and Joseph Smith's speculations about the papyrus otherwise will be incorrect. His attempts to decipher the papyrus himself should be discounted and may only by his own clumsy attempts to restore or understand the original writings of Abraham (i.e. mistakenly thinking the papyrus was actually written by Abraham and other mischaracterizations of what the papyrus actually was).

Tobin wrote:
Now the critics assume a number of rather ridiculous positions to attack the Book of Abraham. The first is that Joseph Smith could actually read and understood ancient Egyptian..

Tom,

Contrary to the absurd suggestion above, it isn't the critics who claim Joseph Smith could actually read and understand Ancient Egyptian. As should be obvious to anyone, the critical position is exactly the opposite.

I do think that you might want to include a fifth argument in your summary of criticism, one which deals with problems within the text itself.

I might phrase it something like this.

5. Critical examination of the text itself shows serious anachronism, such as the use of the term Potiphar or the claim of an Egyptian cult in Ur during the time period Abraham is purported to have lived. Also an analysis of the 4th & 5th chapters in the Book of Abraham show that they derive from a version of the Bible originally written about 700 BC, which could not have been penned by Abraham.

Tom,

Regarding your assessment of the Facsimiles, might I suggest some reading?

This is one of the better articles dealing with the problems of Facsimile#1

The Ancient Egyptian "Books of Breathing," the Mormon "Book of Abraham," and the Development of Egyptology in America by Lanny Bell

This is simply wrong. The reference above is from a letter from Oliver Cowdery to William Fyre on Dec 22, 1835 which was published in Messenger & Advocate Dec 1835 pg 234, also in Oliver Cowdery Letterbook 69-74. Also given the balance of the letter and other descriptions it is clear Oliver is talking about the scroll that Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Jospeh or Book of the Dead of Ta-Sherit-Min which is still extant and in the Church's possession. There is a dispute as to how much is still extant, but no argument that this is the scroll being referred too in Oliver's quote. See here for a picture of an extant piece of the scroll.

To be fair to Tom, he is only stating that this is something apologists have argued. He's right about that. Even though it has been well refuted, you still see apologists making these kinds of arguments.

By the way Tom, great looking family.

Kevin Graham wrote:

This is simply wrong. The reference above is from a letter from Oliver Cowdery to William Fyre on Dec 22, 1835 which was published in Messenger & Advocate Dec 1835 pg 234, also in Oliver Cowdery Letterbook 69-74. Also given the balance of the letter and other descriptions it is clear Oliver is talking about the scroll that Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Jospeh or Book of the Dead of Ta-Sherit-Min which is still extant and in the Church's possession. There is a dispute as to how much is still extant, but no argument that this is the scroll being referred too in Oliver's quote. See here for a picture of an extant piece of the scroll.

To be fair to Tom, he is only stating that this is something apologists have argued. He's right about that. Even though it has been well refuted, you still see apologists making these kinds of arguments.

By the way Tom, great looking family.

Mostly I was trying to point out that the quote reference was wrong, but is anyone still pushing the red ink as evidence of a missing scroll? I thought that was a dead issue.

By the way Tom, Kevin is one of the most knowledgeable people you can find when it comes to the Book of Abraham.

Believe it or not that argument still lives. I don't think FAIR has removed it from their website and neither has Maxwell. Apologists, even to this day, still use it as if it had never been discussed or refuted by critics. Even the same apologists who were around when these refutations took place many years ago, they pretend they never saw them.

Wade Englund is a perfect example. In a thread at Mad just last year, he asked me to produce evidence that any of the extant papyri had red ink. I was like, seriously? Recently apologists like Mola Ra Sudan(or whatever his name is) and Robert F. Smith have regurgitated other well refuted apologetic claims that date all the way back to Nibley. Virtually nothing Nibley had said about these documents turned out to be true.