......They have to make a sacrifice. They have to do something about it, and they do. Abraham goes up, and he is to be offered. The whole theme of the Abraham story in the book of Abraham is the rivalry between Abraham and Pharaoh as to the priesthood and kingship. That's why Pharaoh, we are told in the Midrash, wanted to marry Sarah - to raise up a righteous line, which is what Abraham wanted to do too. So he took Sarah away because she was the princess. He was to raise up a line. But there is this constant conflict between the two. And you notice in the first part Abraham is sacrificed on the altar in the place of Pharaoh, which is considered a great honor at this time. This goes back to the Sed-festival. The most important festival in Egypt was the Sed-festival. From prehistoric times you find it. The earliest monuments of Egypt have the Sed-festival. There are Sed-festival monuments over in the museum there now. The Sed was the celebration, originally at the end of thirty years, when the king started to get old and feeble. The king had to be sacrificed, and then he would be restored in his son Horus who would be regarded as the resurrected version of the king. He would disappear for three days, and suddenly he would come out as Horus (as himself). It was convenient also to come forth without being put to death that way but just disappear for a while and then come forth, and have somebody else put to death in your place. So you have the sacrifice. You have the proxy, which is done. The rules are very strict and they are followed here. There are a great many instances of this happening. Abraham was chosen. As I say, it was considered a great honor. You had to be a noble, and you had to have either yellow or red hair. They preferred red hair to anything else. So you were in real danger if you visited Egypt and were a redhead.
You notice it starts out by giving four gods in Cannan. Those were the four gods of Cannan that ruled the four parts. It says in the Book of Abraham, "Now, at this time it was the custom of the priest of Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to offer up upon tha altar which was built in the land of Chaldea, for the offering unto these strange gods, men, women, and children" (Abraham 1:8). Well, what was the Egyptian king doing in Chaldea? In the eighteenth dynasty there was Ramses II. What was he doing up there in Megiddo? Well, he conquered that. That was Egyptian country in those days. That's where this was, Chaldea. It was a temporary time. At the time Abraham wrote this, or at the time his children were supposed to read it, apparently it was no longer part of the egyptian empire. It came and went, depending. In the eighteenth dynasty Thutmose III took the whole shebang clear over to the Euphrates. Then they lost it all. Then they got it back again in the twentieth dynasty. Then finally, in the twenty-second dynasty the great Sheshonk went out and conquered it all again, and even more. Then it was lost again. Then Alexander the Great took the name of Sheshonk, said he was the son of Amon, made himself Pharaoh, and went back and conqured the whole thing again following the very same pattern. Each one of these conquerers called himself a cosmocrator. The story of the cosmocrator is important because Abraham's rival, Pharaoh, always calls himself the cosmocrator. You know what that would be. The cosmos is the universe, and the crator is a person who rules. It's a Greek title, but this is a Latin form. The cosmocrator was the man who claimed to rule the world as God's successor on earth. The mortal rival of Abraham was a cosmocrator who went by the name of Nimrod. All the legends say that the Pharaoh who tried to sacrifice Abraham was this Nimrod. You know Nimrod, the mighty hunter of the Bible. Is it the same one? that's a long story; we won't go into it. But the point is that Abraham in the legends has this mortal rivalry with the person who claims to have the priesthood and the kingship. Does he have the right to rule, and does he have the priestly right? Well, that's what Abraham had, and that's what Pharaoh coveted.
When he tries to sacrifice Abraham (this is the story that is told in the Midrash here), Abraham was put on the altar, and the fire was ready. You first cut the throat of the victim and then you cast him on the fire. It is always done that way. You notice in Abraham's sacrifice of Isacc, Isacc was carrying the wood for the fire. But Abraham raised the knife- it was the sacrificial knife, and then the fire follows. Well, as the priest raised the knife, a great, mighty earthquake struck. It overthrew the altar. It killed the priest, and Abraham wasn't touched. Well this impressed the king, who immediately let him go. And he didn't have to sacrifice Abraham anymore because the sacrifice had already been made; the high priest was the substitute.
Now that someone had been sacrificed, he had no argument with Abraham. And he did honor Abraham by letting him sit on his throne. The Pharaoh had ordered the people all to bring cedar wood and make an enormous bonfire to burn Abraham on. Then the priest's knife was cast from his hand. The priest was overthrown and killed and Abraham was let go. Then he ordered them to gather wood and build a special place to put Abraham's throne on. Then he said he had 365 of the highest nobles of the land come with their children to Abraham to sit on the throne and be taught the principles of astronomy by Abraham. Well, that's what we have here in facsimile No.3. Figure One: "Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh's throne, by the politeness of the king, with a crown upon his head, representing the Priesthood, [notice the two feathers; that is the spiritual crown, the shew feathers], as emblematical of the grand Presidency in Heaven; with the scepter of justice and judgement in his hand." Then it says, "Abraham is reasoning upon the principles of Astronomy, in the king's court." We are told that's exactly what he did. We are told in the Bet Ha-Midrash (I have a Bet Ha Midrash text), page 140 in the fifth volume, that he sat upon the throne by Pharaoh's permission, and all the court brought their children to be instructed in the principles of astronomy. We are told he began preaching, "Blessed be God who created the sun, the moon, and the planets." That's the way he began his sermon to the children of the Egyptians after Pharaoh had accepted Abraham. He accepted Abraham at his court, and Abraham became a great favorite of him.....
Joseph Smith told us all this before any of the other texts of Abraham had been discovered.
The above is from Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price, pg. 295-297