Notice: By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus by Charles
M. Larson is Copyright © 1992 by the Institute for Religious
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FOREWORD
One of the most exciting events in modern Mormon history was the
rediscovery of some of the Egyptian papyri which the Prophet
Joseph Smith had in his possession when he produced his Book of
Abraham translations. Long thought to have been destroyed in a
fire in Chicago, they had in reality found their way to the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City where they
resurfaced in 1967. Their rediscovery established for certain
that Joseph Smith had authentic Egyptian documents on which he
based his translation of the Abrahamic work now published in the
Pearl of Great Price.
The rediscovery of these ''Joseph Smith Papyri,'' as they have
come to be known, sent scholars rushing in all directions to
explore the meaning and full implications of these texts.
Articles and books have flooded the market examining every facet
of these documents.
For a long time the average reader has needed someone to bring
into manageable form this mass of material. Charles Larson has
had the patience and skill to render us this service.
Complications have been reduced to understandable terms, various
theories have been set forth and evaluated, and the essential
facts have always been kept before the reader's eyes. To do
these things with clarity requires more than a brief pamphlet,
yet Mr. Larson has kept the task within a commendably brief
span. The reader who stays with this book until the final
sentence will find himself amply rewarded with a knowledge of
all the facets of these most significant documents.
Unlike the gold plates of the Book of Mormon, which scholars
were never able to examine, these Egyptian texts give us the
actual documents from which Joseph Smith was working in making
his translation. Therefore, they give us the first real
opportunity to examine the Prophet's claims objectively and
scientifically. Mr. Larson has provided us with all the
pertinent data we need to reach our own conclusions on this much
discussed and important topic.
— Wesley P. Walters
CHAPTER ONE
How It All Began: The Mormon Story
The Mormon church began with a man who claimed a vision. For
nearly nineteen centuries God had been silent; neither his voice
nor his messengers had been heard upon the earth since the days
of Christ's apostles. For long ages the world had to depend upon
only the Bible as a spiritual guide, a record which many
believed was poorly preserved, often improperly translated,
difficult to understand, sprinkled throughout with additions
made by men, and with many plain and precious parts lost. Forced
to depend upon such a standard, the inevitable happened.
Different opinions arose, factions erupted, and the one, True
Church was racked by apostasy and division. Many splinter
churches sprang up, each putting forth its own interpretation of
the Bible.[1]
But one event was about to change all of this. A new, latter-day
prophet -- a young man named Joseph Smith -- was about to appear
who would claim he had been given the mission of restoring the
one, True Church and the fullness of the Gospel.
An angel had appeared to Joseph Smith four years earlier and
revealed the hidden location of a sacred record, written on
plates of gold.[2] These plates, when translated, would settle
once and for all the disputes which had arisen because of
apostate Christendom's sole reliance upon the Bible. This
revelation, given by supernatural power to Joseph Smith, was to
become a new scripture to mankind. It would be a book pure and
undefiled, translated from its ancient tongue by the gift and
power of God operating through Joseph Smith.[3]
Smith was now on his way to recover the hidden records. The time
had arrived. It was the twenty-second day of September in the
year 1827.
The golden plates turned out to be a record of the former
inhabitants of the Americas, ancestors of the American Indians,
who had journeyed to the new world from the land of Israel
hundreds of years before the time of Christ. They had left a
vivid account of their travels and wars, and of the teachings
and visions of their prophets, and even of Christ's visit and
ministry among them following his crucifixion and ascension on
the other side of the world,[4] knowing that these writings
would one day come forth and speak to men "low out of the dust,
as the voice of one having a familiar spirit."[5]
The record, however, could not be translated by normal means or
by an ordinary man. Written in a strange, long-forgotten
language called Reformed Egyptian, only a person called and
blessed of God could read and understand it.6 Joseph Smith could
do so, but because of all the excitement and misunderstanding
that the discovery of the strange plates caused, and the
persecutions and moving he was forced to endure, it was more
than two years before his translation was completed and ready
for publication.
Finally, in the early spring of 1830 the Book of Mormon first
appeared in print and shortly thereafter the one, True Church of
God was re-established on the earth.[7]
But circumstances were not favorable for the little church as it
struggled to grow in those early days. The world seemed
generally either hostile or indifferent to the claim of the
Restoration of the Fullness of the Gospel, and after many months
of heartfelt labor proselytizing throughout the area around
Joseph Smith's home in upstate New York, his little group had
scarcely enlisted the membership of a handful of families from
his own neighborhood.[8] The missionaries ranged farther and
farther afield, selling their books and seeking their harvest of
souls.
Then, for a while things began to look up. Word came from Ohio
that the leader of a communal religious society had read the
Book of Mormon and converted himself, his family, and several
hundred of his followers.[9] Joseph soon moved the center of the
Church from New York to the town of Kirtland, Ohio, where the
missionary effort was redoubled. One group was sent westward to
preach to the Indians. These missionaries, after passing through
the wilderness of Missouri, sent back a report of the vast,
unspoiled beauty of that sparsely settled region.[10] The
Prophet received the word of the Lord that Missouri was to be
Zion, the site of the City of New Jerusalem,[11] and a fast
growing colony of Latter-day Saints was soon established there
in Jackson County. People from far away began to hear of this
marvelous work, and steadily, more and more came to see whether
God had indeed raised up a new prophet among men.
Things seemed to be going well, but this good fortune did not
last long. Angry mobs rioted against the Saints in Jackson
County and drove them from their homes as winter began to settle
in. Joseph again received the word of the Lord, this time that
he was to gather together an army from among the Saints in Ohio
and march to reclaim their inheritance in Zion, where he said
the Lord had promised them a mighty victory over their
enemies.[12] The army set out in the spring with Joseph at its
head, but by the time it arrived in Missouri an outbreak of
cholera had begun to rage through its ranks, dashing all hopes
of redeeming Zion.[13] Defeated, the weary soldiers drifted back
to Ohio when they were well enough to travel, their homes and
crops already neglected far too long. The word of the Lord given
again by Joseph, explained that they had been turned back
because of their unwillingness to be totally obedient to God's
commandments.[14] But many had started to lose faith in Joseph's
calling as a prophet.
Once back in Kirtland, the murmuring against Joseph and the
Church increased. There had always been some scoffing by the
unbelieving in the neighborhood (the "gentiles," as the Saints
called them), but now there were "apostates" at work as well.
Though few in number, the growing sound of their voices as they
joined the gentiles in deriding the prophet and his followers
was having it's effect on Joseph's leadership. "How do we really
know the Book of Mormon is what you say?" they would pointedly
ask. "Show us the plates -- if there ever were any!" Of course
Joseph could not do this; as he always maintained, he had given
the gold plates back to the angel after finishing the
translation,[15] since he had no further use for them and they
were the property of the angel in the first place.
There was also a certain amount of uneasiness and concern over
some of the newer commandments being taught in the church --
things not a part of the Prophet's teaching in the beginning,
when many had been baptized -- but which they now had to accept
as Church doctrine.[16] Joseph continued to receive new
revelation from God, or at least said he did. But many seriously
wondered how they could be sure without something tangible
backing up Joseph's new teachings. Something . . . scriptural?
Something more than the Book of Mormon, perhaps?
Though newcomers continued to arrive in Kirtland, the back door
had now been opened and others were leaving. The growth of the
Church became stagnant, and for a while it looked as though a
stalemate was about the best that could be hoped for.
That is, until something truly incredible happened.
July 4, 1835, was an unusually eventful day in Kirtland. The
talk all over town was about the Irishman who had arrived in the
village the day before, and had now set up an exhibit of, of all
things, four Egyptian mummies.[17] It was spectacular! For a
small price you could actually see and touch mysterious
carvings, fragments of ancient writings, and even mummified
human corpses, all of which had been on the earth since Bible
times! The exhibit was extremely popular, and Mr. Chandler, the
Irishman, did everything he could to accommodate the Saints
during his stay.
The four mummies were probably the most colorful objects
displayed, but several of the prominent brethren of the Church
were even more intrigued by the scraps of ancient writings. In
the Book of Mormon, they recalled, Mosiah had described a seer
as "a man that can translate all records that are of ancient
date" (Mosiah 8:13). Joseph, they knew, had been called of God
as "Prophet, Seer, and Revelator" back when the Church was first
organized. Joseph should be able to read and understand this
writing! What a wonderful way of silencing his critics for good!
Having been told of the Mormon leader's reputation of
deciphering the ancient text of the Book of Mormon, Chandler was
invited to show some of his Egyptian writings to Joseph, if he
would care to learn their meaning. To this the Irishman happily
consented.
Some of the writings were taken to Joseph Smith, who told
Chandler that he could indeed translate them, though to do so
properly would take some time. Joseph explained that a few of
the figures were more immediately recognizable to him than the
rest, possibly because of their similarity to the engravings on
the gold plates. These he proceeded to interpret for Chandler,
who thanked him profusely and even wrote down on a piece of
paper for Joseph the following:[18]
KIRTLAND, July 6, 1835
This is to make known to all who may be desirous, concerning the
knowledge of Mr. Joseph Smith, Jun., in deciphering the ancient
Egyptian hieroglyphic characters in my possession, which I have,
in many eminent cities, showed to the most learned; and, from
the information that I could ever learn, or meet with, I find
that of Mr. Joseph Smith, Jun., to correspond in the most minute
matters.
MICHAEL H. CHANDLER
Traveling with, and proprietor of, Egyptian mummies
This was just the sort of thing the brethren had been hoping
for, and they were confident that this certificate would help to
strengthen the Prophet's reputation and undo some of the harm
that had occurred. On further reflection, however, it occurred
to them to go a step farther. Pooling their resources, they
raised $2400 to actually purchase Chandler's exhibit -- the
writings, the mummies, everything -- which they then presented
to Joseph.[19] Now, surely, any who ventured to question the
Prophet's God-given ability to translate ancient records would
be able to see for themselves.
But even their wildest hopes could not have prepared these
faithful brethren for what the newly acquired Egyptian writings
turned out to be, as identified by their prophet. The
astonishing discovery is best described by Joseph Smith himself,
who later wrote of the incident:
". . . with W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I
commenced the translation of some of the characters or
hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls
contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of
Joseph of Egypt, etc. -- a more full account of which will
appear in its place, as I proceed to examine or unfold them.
Truly we can say, the Lord is beginning to reveal the abundance
of peace and truth."[20]
The news sped like an electric shock through the community. All
the Saints were beside themselves with joy over the fact that
God should so preserve and direct these things unto them through
his holy Prophet. The Church's local periodical printed a letter
by Oliver Cowdery, one of Joseph's scribes in the work, in which
he reported:
"Upon the subject of the Egyptian records, or rather the
writings of Abraham and Joseph, I may say a few words. This
record is beautifully written on papyrus with black, and a small
part red ink, or paint, in perfect preservation."[21]
Describing some of the artwork on the record identified as the
Book of Joseph, he excitedly continued:
"The serpent, represented as walking, or formed in a manner to
be able to walk, standing in front of and near a female figure,
is to me one of the greatest representations I have ever seen
upon paper, or a writing substance; and must go so far towards
convincing the rational mind of the correctness and divine
authority of the holy scriptures . . . as to carry away, with
one mighty sweep, the whole atheistical fabric . . . Enoch's
Pillar, as mentioned by Josephus, is upon the same roll . .
."[22]
Translation of the papyri commenced almost at once, though not
with the record of Joseph that had so impressed Cowdery.
Instead, Joseph Smith turned to what would have been the more
ancient record of Abraham. Day after day, as much as time would
allow, the Prophet occupied himself with the ancient
writings.[23] Besides the translation manuscript, which grew
steadily, Joseph also undertook the preparation of an alphabet
and grammar of the Egyptian language. This was the first work of
its kind in the world, since all knowledge of ancient Egyptian
writing had been lost to mankind for centuries.
People were duly impressed with the translation project, and
eventually a brother named Warren Parrish was called upon to
assist Joseph full-time as his principle scribe, aiding the work
of Phelps and Cowdery.
Scores of visitors, both Saints and gentiles alike, would call
upon the Prophet to see for themselves these wondrous things.
Joseph endeavored to give to all "a brief history of the manner
in which the writings of the fathers, Abraham and Joseph, have
been preserved, and how I came in possession of the same -- a
correct translation of which I shall give," he promised, "in its
proper place."[24]
In the meantime, however, problems continued to plague the
Church. During the next few years the Saints would experience
some severe setbacks, including economic chaos brought on by the
fall of the Church-sponsored Kirtland Safety Society bank, the
resulting abandonment of the town of Kirtland, the apostasy and
excommunication of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon and
other prominent brethren (including Joseph's scribe, Warren
Parrish), the eventual expulsion of the Saints from the state of
Missouri, and even the arrest and imprisonment of Joseph and
several other Church leaders for treason.
Yet the Church would endure these things and more. And while
there were doubtless a number of reasons why the Church survived
adversity, the one common element was its credibility with its
members, a credibility now bolstered for hard times ahead in
large part by the miraculous existence of the Prophet's Egyptian
records, and of his obviously God-given ability to understand
and translate things hidden from the world.
If Joseph could decipher the Egyptian characters on the papyri,
then surely he had been able to translate the writings on the
golden plates of the Book of Mormon, just as he said he did. And
if he had translated the Book of Mormon, he really was called of
God as a true prophet. What more proof could a person ask?
CHAPTER TWO
The Book of Abraham: A Timely Document
The small ASSORTMENT OF brittle, faded papyri that Joseph had
acquired strengthened his reputation as a prophet and translator
at a time when such support was greatly needed; but the little
work now known as the Book of Abraham was to have an even more
far reaching effect upon the Church.
As published today, the Book of Abraham is a small work,
containing only about fifteen printed pages (including the
"facsimiles," or pictures adapted from the papyri, which
accompany the text). It was apparently never completed, as it
ends abruptly in the middle of the beginning sequences of the
Garden of Eden story. Possibly Joseph was killed (June 1844)
before the remainder could be produced; we cannot be certain.
That he had intended to do more with the papyri at a later time
seems likely, for the portion completed was the product of two
separate, relatively brief but intense periods with an
interruption of several years between them.1
From the beginning, Joseph revealed to his scribes that the
papyrus record was an expanded version of the Genesis account of
the life of Abraham as found in the Bible.2 It showed that
Moses, in compiling the Pentateuch, had apparently relied upon
the very same account which Joseph Smith now possessed. Moses
evidently abridged and condensed the record as he wrote,
omitting considerable detail. Either that, or the original
writings of Moses had suffered the same ravages of time through
careless and dishonest scribes thought to have affected the rest
of the Bible.
But no matter. If Joseph was correct, the Church now had before
it the very work from which Genesis had been derived; nothing
less than the original, first-hand journal that had been kept by
Father Abraham himself.3* And this account, now slowly unfolding
as the Prophet labored to translate it -- first in Kirtland,
later in Nauvoo -- not only cast new light on the background and
experiences of the great biblical patriarch, it also gave
scriptural authority to a number of new doctrines and teachings
Joseph had recently introduced.
During the first phase of the translation process, which took
place from the time he acquired the papyri in July 1835 to the
latter part of the same year, Joseph was able to dictate
approximately forty percent of what he would eventually produce.
His scribes in Kirtland faithfully recorded the words as Joseph
read them off, filling nearly ten full manuscript pages. The
translated portion appeared neatly alongside a narrow column on
the left side of the paper that displayed a hand-drawn copy of
the Egyptian symbol from which Joseph derived the text.
The opening section of the Book of Abraham, which reads today
through Abr. 2:18, gives Abraham's first person account of the
conditions in his homeland, the idolatry and famine, which
preceded his rescue by the Lord from an altar of sacrifice, and
the subsequent command to depart from his homeland and go to a
land which the Lord would show him. The account Joseph produced
from the papyri greatly expands upon the Bible's version of the
same events, to the extent that only a half-dozen or so
corresponding Bible verses (Genesis 12:1-6) are detectable.
The sheer volume of this newly discovered Bible-related material
was surely impressive enough to establish, once and for all,
Joseph's continued favor with God. But to the joy of Joseph and
the faithful, they noted that Abraham made repeated references
to his lineal priesthood authority, which he referred to simply
as the Priesthood. This was highly significant, for some within
the Church had begun to criticize Joseph for introducing back in
mid-1831 the office of "High Priest" within the Church. These
dissenters argued that the whole matter of priesthood had always
been a temporal affair, developed in the days of Moses and
strictly confined to the Levites until the time of Christ, when
it was abolished.4 These critics were the same people who had
refused to accept as scripture some of the writings of Moses
rewritten by Joseph in 1830 under the influence of direct
revelation. In these, Joseph had argued that the Priesthood was
an eternal power. In his attempts to reason with these
dissidents, Smith pointed out the revelation contained in
Doctrine and Covenants 27, which referred very plainly to the
bestowal of the priesthood upon both himself and Oliver Cowdery
in the spring of 1829. This, he argued, occurred long before
there had been any question of authority. In response, his
critics charged that the revelation had simply been altered more
recently to include these teachings after they had already been
put into practice.5
But the Book of Abraham changed all this, for it stated clearly
that Abraham had held the Priesthood of God long before the
Levites existed. And if any still cared to question the matter,
the original manuscripts themselves were on display for all to
see. The challenge had been met and answered. Both Joseph's
status as a prophet and the doctrine of the priesthood authority
within the Church had been vindicated by the timely appearance
of the Book of Abraham.
Nor was this the only instance when Joseph was so vindicated,
for Abraham's record continued in a most gratifying manner to
justify the still newer doctrines of the Church when Joseph
again took up the task of translating in early 1842. By this
time the Saints, having been forcefully expelled from the state
of Missouri, had settled in Illinois. There, on a peaceful bend
in the Mississippi River, they began to build up a new city
which they called Nauvoo; and there, at least for a season, it
looked as though the Church would be left alone to take care of
its own affairs. Then the Lord could reveal through the Prophet
Joseph Smith the further light and knowledge he desired his
people to have.
Most of these additional teachings were made public and were
embraced by the membership as soon as they were revealed.
However, some (and one very special teaching in particular) were
of such a sacred nature that they could not be taught publicly,
nor could their existence even be acknowledged, as the time had
not yet come, their leaders said, when people could understand
these new truths. The major new issue was polygamy -- the
practice of a man having more than one wife at a time. Joseph
said he had been commanded of the Lord to enter secretly into
the practice of this principle at least as early as 1841, and
possibly much earlier -- the surviving records are unclear. He
had also been told to instruct certain select, faithful brethren
around him in the same practice. But as might be expected, this
presented a dilemma to the Prophet and the others who had been
initiated. How were they to practice something secretly in order
to be counted righteous of God, and at the same time be able, in
honesty, to deny that they were practicing it? Joseph and many
of the brethren were being forced into the position of having to
deny publicly that polygamy was being taught and practiced in
Nauvoo in order to prevent persecution from their gentile
neighbors and dissent from uninitiated fellow Mormons.6
When translation of the Book of Abraham began again, the answer
to this dilemma became obvious. The Bible described how Abraham,
when he first entered Egypt, had deceived the Egyptians into
thinking that Sarai, who was very beautiful to look upon, was
his sister -- not his wife. He did this because he feared the
Egyptians would kill him and take his wife (Genesis 12:11-13).
This same incident was described in the papyri when Joseph began
translating the second time, but with a significant change:
according to the papyri version of the narrative it had actually
been the Lord himself who had instructed Abraham to tell the
Egyptians that Sarai was his sister (Abraham 2:22-25). This
demonstrated that God sometimes justifies deceit in those
instances when a righteous purpose is served.
But this was only the beginning. Following the episode
concerning Abraham's wife and the Egyptians, the translation of
the ancient record broke off from any semblance of paralleling
the biblical sequence of events, and instead recounted an
entirely new episode. In an elaborate vision, the Lord is
described as instructing Abraham on the principles of astronomy,
whereby the heavens are likened unto eternal progression, the
pre-existence of spirits, and the governing of the Celestial
Realms by Deity (Abraham 3:1-21).*
It provided insight into God's plan for organizing the earth and
peopling it for a second estate by the spirits of mankind, gave
further details of Lucifer's rebellion, and an account of a
resulting war in Heaven over the issue of man's free agency
(Abraham 3:22-28).
The Prophet was just beginning to teach many of these ideas in
1842, the period when the translation project was taken up
again. Significantly, the parts of the Book of Abraham dealing
with these concepts formed the basis for virtually all of
Joseph's subsequent teachings about an area of doctrine known as
the plan of progression, and the eventual exaltation of those
men who would go on to become gods themselves in the Celestial
Kingdom.
The final chapter of the Book of Abraham, also completed at this
time, was a continuation of Abraham's vision. It appeared to
Joseph and his scribes to correspond to -- and thus be the
original source for -- the creation account found in the first
two chapters of Genesis. Joseph had once (back in 1830)
corrected, by inspiration, this same passage of biblical text,
along with other portions of the Bible (producing what is known
as the Joseph Smith Translation or the Inspired Version, of the
Bible). But now, as they translated the Book of Abraham creation
story, the Prophet and his scribes found that it contained some
noteworthy and startling differences from both the Bible's
account and Joseph Smith's earlier, inspired restoration. This
only served to emphasize how significantly the original writings
of Abraham (as they were now being translated by Smith) differed
from the biblical version authored by Moses.
What were some of the significant differences? When the book of
Genesis had been corrected by the Prophet the first time in
1830, the text he produced retained the Bible's (and Moses')
emphasis that there is only one God. Joseph's 1842 translation
of portions of the Book of Abraham, however, distinctly taught
the plurality of gods -- a concept of deity Joseph had started
teaching a few years earlier, but one which many Saints neither
understood nor appreciated.7
The Book of Abraham also introduced the first and only
scriptural basis for denying the priesthood to Blacks, the
Church's official position until 1978. It described Pharaoh and
the Egyptians as descendents of Ham and Canaan (the progenitors
of the Negro race), and under the curse of Canaan and
disqualified from the priesthood (Abraham 1:21-22, 26-27).
The entire text of the translation, together with woodcuts of
the three facsimiles and their explanations, created a sensation
when they appeared in print for the first time in Times and
Seasons, a publication of the Mormon Church. The paper featured
bi-weekly installments of the Book of Abraham text, starting in
its March 1, 1842 issue. The value and impact of the Book of
Abraham was recognized at once by the faithful, and Joseph
continued to expound upon its contents in lectures, sermons, and
other teachings for two full years, right up to the time of his
death. For several years after Joseph and his brother Hyrum were
killed by a mob at the Carthage, jail there was a period of
confusion and contention among the Saints. Without Joseph to
hold the Church together, these confrontations soon erupted into
a series of permanent divisions over doctrines and leadership
that would split the Saints forever.
Several dominant groups emerged, with varying numbers of
followers.8 The majority of the Saints aligned themselves with
the Apostles under the leadership of Brigham Young. These people
tended to endorse the doctrines of the Priesthood,
pre-existence, eternal progression, and the plurality of gods.
They favored the principle of plural marriage once they were
introduced to it, and they upheld the Book of Abraham as a vital
revelation from God. Those who followed other leaders tended,
with a few exceptions, either to reject, ignore, or modify these
newer doctrines, and to cast the Book of Abraham into a state of
limbo.
But to the followers of Brigham Young -- those who would
eventually become the Utah-based Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints -- the value of the Book of Abraham was
incalculable. It could never be laid aside without forfeiting
some of that Church's most sacred and distinctive doctrines. It
was published a second time in 1851 by the overseers of the
branches of the LDS Church in England, appearing in pamphlet
form as part of a small collection of writings entitled The
Pearl of Great Price. This collection was later re-issued in a
slightly edited form in Utah in 1878 under the same title. Two
years later, in October of 1880, it was officially canonized by
unanimous vote at a session of the Church's semiannual General
Conference in Salt Lake City.
Maintaining the divine authority of the Book of Abraham is every
bit as vital to the doctrines and theology of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today as it was in the days of
Joseph Smith, Brigham Young and their successors. As the late
Apostle Bruce R. McConkie (one of the Church's most prolific
scriptural spokesmen) so succinctly stated, the Book of Abraham:
. . . contains priceless information about the gospel,
pre-existence, the nature of Deity, the creation, and priesthood
-- information which is not otherwise available in any other
revelation now extant.9
CHAPTER THREE
Charges and Rebuttals: The Challenge Begins
Nearly forty years were to pass from the time Joseph translated
the Book of Abraham until it was officially recognized as sacred
Scripture of the Church. However, during this period something
occurred which neither Joseph nor any of his contemporaries
could have foreseen. After many years of dedicated work on the
Rosetta Stone and other sources, scholars were able to decipher
the ancient Egyptian language. It was now possible to translate
accurately Egyptian texts with virtually the same degree of
comprehension as Greek or Latin texts.1
Initially, though, it did not appear likely that this new
development would impact the Mormon Church or the Book of
Abraham. Living in the shelter of their Great Basin kingdom, the
Saints for much of the second half of the nineteenth-century
were both physically and culturally isolated from the rest of
the country. In spite of such developments as the introduction
of the railroad and increased gentile enterprises and
settlements in the region, the Saints lived in a rigidly
structured state of near-total dependence on Church authority.
Many of their teachings and practices (such as polygamy) only
served to reinforce the barriers established between the Saints
and their neighbors. For their part, the Saints trusted the word
of the prophet and felt no particular need to vindicate his work
to the rest of the world. And even if they had desired such
vindication, Joseph's papyri collection was unavailable; it had
passed into the hands of his widow, Emma, who refused to follow
the leadership of Brigham Young, and had remained in Nauvoo.2
So, as far as the Utah Saints were concerned, the world could
simply go its own way with its knowledge, and the Saints would
go on their way with theirs. Except that the rest of the world
was not to be quite so obliging.
It was sometime during the year 1856, about five years after the
Pearl of Great Price had been printed in England, when one of
the small pamphlets found its way to the Louvre in Paris. There
the facsimiles from the Book of Abraham, together with Joseph's
accompanying explanations, were brought to the attention of M.
Theodule Deveria. As one of the pioneers in the field of
Egyptology, Deveria was asked to offer any comments on them he
cared to make.
To Deveria the project probably did not seem worth the minimal
effort it would require. However, he proceeded, and immediately
recognized all three drawings as copies of rather common
Egyptian funerary documents, of which he had examined hundreds.
To be sure, most of the hieroglyphic and hieratic figures had
been too poorly transcribed to be of much use for translation,
and some elements in several of the drawings appeared to Deveria
to be guesswork, probably incorrect restorations of missing
sections of the original papyri. Still, most of the major
elements fit very well into the established pattern associated
with Egyptian mythology and the preparation of common funerary
documents. Enough of the writing was legible for Deveria to
decipher the names and titles of various Egyptian gods and
goddesses, and on one of the drawings (Facsimile No. 3) he was
able to determine the name of the deceased Egyptian for whom the
scroll had originally been prepared. Concerning Facsimile No. 3
he wrote:
The deceased led by Ma into the presence of Osiris. His name is
Horus, as may be seen in the prayer which is at the bottom of
the picture, and which is addressed to the divinities of the
four cardinal points.
Deveria dismissed Joseph's explanations as rambling nonsense.
His comments first appeared in French in a two-volume work by
Jules Remy entitled Voyage au Pays des Mormons (Paris, 1860).
Understandably, they caused very little concern within the
Church, if LDS officials were even aware of the book. However,
the following year an English translation of Remy's work
appeared, published in London under the title A Journey to Great
Salt Lake City. Perhaps it was through this account that certain
Church leaders first became aware of the results of Deveria's
investigation, though no deliberate effort appears to have been
made at that time to answer his charges. Possibly they felt
criticisms raised by such an obscure work did not warrant a
reply. Furthermore, the Saints could reason, if the scholarship
of Christendom could not recognize and correct the corruptions
in the text of its own Bible, how could anyone expect the
"learned" to have even a faint understanding of the subject
matter of the Book of Abraham?
But then, in 1873, a man by the name of T. B. H. Stenhouse wrote
a book which brought Deveria's study back into the public eye
again. The Rocky Mountain Saints: A Full and Complete History of
the Mormons seemed to hit the market at just the right time to
become a popular success. Published in New York and later issued
in two editions in London, it finally presented -- at least to
the gentile mind a serious challenge to the Book of Abraham.
Many eyes turned to the Mormon Church to await an official
response. Many no doubt hoped to catch the Church making a
retraction of some of the more bizarre doctrines it had helped
to formulate. Some critics, no doubt even went so far as to
predict the eventual collapse of the entire Mormon system.
The response of the Church was to disappoint such critics,
however. Back in the original Times and Seasons article of 1842,
the text of the papyri translation had been preceded by the
heading::
A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our
hands from the Catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings
of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham,
written by his own hand upon papyrus. THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM.
This same heading had been used in the (first) 1851 edition of
The Pearl of Great Price, the source that had been available to
the critics. But in 1878, when the second edition was being
prepared for publication in Salt Lake City, Apostle Orson Pratt
edited out the words "purporting to be" from the heading. This
emphasized even more strongly the Church's position that the
book was nothing less than the divinely translated record of
Abraham, and not merely some pagan funeral text as the
non-Mormon scholarly world was asserting.3
The following year (1879) George Reynolds, a president of the
LDS Council of Seventy, wrote an article for the Church
entitled, "The Book of Abraham: Its Authenticity Established as
a Divine and Ancient Record." In it Reynolds suggested that the
papyrus,
. . . had at least two (but more probably three) meanings, the
one understood by the masses -- the other comprehended only by
the initiated, the priesthood and others; which latter conveyed
the true though hidden intent of the writer.*
The following year the Book of Abraham was officially recognized
as scripture. The position of the Saints was firm: Deveria's
20-year-old conclusions were misleading and lacked the authority
of Latter-day Saint enlightenment. This was, after all, the only
real authority the Saints could properly recognize.
This was not to be the end of the matter, however. Though each
passing decade tended to put Deveria's work further out of
reach, it was included in Stenhouse's book when it was
republished in 1900. Apparently in response, the Church once
again voted on and sustained the latest edition of the Pearl of
Great Price at its October 1902 Conference. At this rate the
subject might well have continued to seesaw back and forth until
one side grew too weary to respond.
At least that was how the Rt. Reverend Franklin S. Spalding,
Episcopal Bishop of Utah, saw the situation in 1912. It was in
that year that he decided to send copies of the three facsimiles
from the Book of Abraham to some of the world's leading scholars
of Egyptology, asking each for an independent assessment of
Joseph Smith's interpretations..
The eight Egyptologists and Semitists who responded were
unanimous in their scathing verdict: "Joseph Smith's
interpretation of these cuts is a farrago of nonsense from
beginning to end," came the report from the Metropolitan Museum
of Art in New York, which added that "five minutes study in an
Egyptian gallery of any museum should be enough to convince any
educated man of the clumsiness of the imposture;"4 ". . .
difficult to deal seriously with Smith's impudent fraud," wrote
another from Oxford, England. "Smith has turned the Goddess into
a king and Osiris into Abraham."5 From Chicago, ". . . very
clearly demonstrates that he (Joseph Smith) was totally
unacquainted with the significance of these documents and
absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian Writing
and civilization."6 And from London, ". . . the attempts to
guess a meaning are too absurd to be noticed. It may be safely
said that there is not one single word that is true in these
explanations."7
On and on the critiques went, giving the most comprehensive
portrayal ever assembled of exactly what Joseph's papyri
actually were: common Egyptian funerary texts. Spalding
published the results of his survey as Joseph Smith, Jr. As a
Translator, adding enough fuel to the fire to keep the
controversy burning hot for many years to come. The New York
Times featured a major expos?on the Book of Abraham in December
of that year; other articles and pamphlets soon began to appear
in print as well. The Church's response was quick and sharp:
Charges simply not valid. Church spokesmen vehemently charged
the scholars with using erroneous criteria. Their methods were
faulty, their motives questionable. In 1913, Mormon writer John
Henry Evans pointed out in an article in the Church-sanctioned
Improvement Era, that less than one-seventh of the whole Book of
Abraham was represented by the facsimile portion, and even that
only as an accompaniment to the text. Evans argued that in order
to give a fair test of Joseph's true ability to translate
Egyptian, and before the scholars could get away with charging
that the entire Book of Abraham was a false translation, "they
would have to examine the original papyrus, or a copy of it,
from which the Book of Abraham was translated."8
B. H. Roberts, the well-known Church historian, took special
exception in the same magazine to remarks quoted in the Times
article by Dr. Albert Lythgoe, head of the Department of
Egyptian Art at the New York Metropolitan Museum. Dr. Lythgoe
had suggested that the scene Joseph interpreted as a "wicked
priest attempting to sacrifice Abraham upon an altar" was a
false reconstruction, because "the god Anubus, bending over the
mummy, was shown with a human and strangely un-Egyptian head,
instead of a jackal's head usual to the scene. And a knife had
been drawn into the god's hand"9 (see Facsimile No. 1 on p. 33).
Dr. Lythgoe's observations were virtually identical to those
Deveria made a half-century earlier. Deveria had also noted that
the bird in the picture, to correctly represent the soul of
Osiris, "should have a human head."
". . . should have a human head,'" wrote Roberts caustically
about both critics. "Yes, or the head of an ass, then it could
be made to mean something else than what these other learned men
describe it as meaning . . . 'should have a jackal's head.' Yes,
or some other change might be suggested, and by such process
some other meaning may be read into the plate and make it
different from the translation of Joseph Smith."100
Such strongly worded pronouncements from respected Church
authorities would, under most circumstances, have been
sufficient to erase doubt from the minds of even the most
wavering Saint, and adequate to frustrate the arguments of the
most adamant critics. But this was far from an ordinary
situation. In reality, the Church's best arguments not only
looked and sounded ridiculous to the gentiles -- hardly a
tenable position for a missionary-minded church -- but a
surprising number of members seemed to recognize the sad fact
that even the best minds in the Church were simply unable to
respond credibly to the charges of scholarly professionals.
The Church was openly vulnerable, and the frustration that
accompanied that vulnerability led its leaders to do something
they had never done before: they sought the services of a hired,
professional "expert."11
This man of the hour was known simply as Robert C. Webb. As it
happened, "Webb" was an assumed name belonging to a professional
writer, defender of causes, and self-styled expert on numerous
matters. (Once, under a different name, he had even written a
book in defense of the liquor industry!) However, his background
and credentials seemed to be unimportant to Church officials.
What was important was his willingness and ability to defend the
Church's position on the Book of Abraham -- that, and the fact
that he would be doing so as a gentile.
Webb's scholarly-sounding articles began appearing in Church
publications in 1913. He also wrote a small book on the subject
entitled, The Case Against Mormonism. Promoted as a definitive
work by a "non-Mormon" author, Webb's book was anything but a
case against Mormonism. Rather, it consisted of an impressive
display of argumentation, and enough linguistic
pseudo-scholarship to baffle the layman --apparently Webb's
intention. It made no difference that the best "experts"
criticized and ridiculed his writings as "full of errors," "its
own refutation," and "ridiculous." The always innovative Webb
had by this time tacked a bogus Ph.D. onto his name,12 thus
becoming -- at least in the eyes of the Church officials who
were willing to pay him for his writing -- one of the "experts"
himself.
Webb remained a shadowy "expert" at the Church's disposal for
many years, his little book dusted off and appealed to whenever
occasion required the strengthening of a member's testimony or
the refuting of an antagonist's criticism. Decades later, when
researcher and author Fawn M. Brodie revealed that Webb's real
name had been J. E. Homans, and that he had never earned a Ph.
D. in Egyptology or any other field, few people seemed to care.
"Webb" had served his purpose during the time he was needed
most, and in the meantime Spalding's report had become as
outdated to the current generation as Deveria's was in
Spaulding's day.
The main LDS argument used throughout the controversy still
stood: The facsimiles could "remind" the scholars of anything
they wished, but no legitimate grounds existed to judge Joseph
Smith's work, since none of the critics had ever had the
Prophet's original papyri to examine. And that fact was not
likely to change either, since the papyri collection had
disappeared long ago, and was presumed destroyed in the great
Chicago fire.13 Without them, no test would ever be valid. But
Joseph Smith's original papyri had not been destroyed. Lost, yes
-- but not forever. They were one day to reappear.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Papyri Rediscovered: A Timely Opportunity?
One day in the early spring of 1966, a professor of Arabic
Studies from the University of Utah in Salt Lake City entered
one of the vault rooms of New York's huge Metropolitan Museum of
Art, seeking supplementary material for a book he was writing.
"I was in one of the dim rooms where everything was brought to
me," Dr. Aziz S. Atiya would later recollect. "Something caught
my eye, and I asked one of the assistants to take me behind the
bars, into the storehouse of documents, so that I could look
some more." Dr. Atiya soon located a file that contained an
apparently forgotten collection of Egyptian Papyri -- eleven
tattered pieces, to be exact -- which had been glued to stiff
backing paper in the nineteenth-century in an effort to preserve
them.
The crude preservation efforts had been remarkably successful.
Nearly all the papyri contained beautifully clear and legible
writing - mostly in black, with a small part in red -- and many
contained illustrations as well. But the vivid scene depicted on
one fragment in particular was strikingly familiar to Professor
Atiya, who, though not a Mormon himself, was well acquainted
with the collection of various writings his LDS friends and
associates revered as scripture. "When I saw this picture,"
Atiya would later explain to them," I knew it had appeared in
the Pearl of Great Price."1
Thus began an extraordinary series of events which led, a
year-and-a-half later, to what one prominent Mormon scholar has
termed the most momentous transaction for the Church since the
Angel Moroni retrieved from Joseph Smith the golden plates of
the Book of Mormon.2 On November 27, 1967, the Salt Lake City
Deseret News announced:
NEW YORK -- A collection of papyrus manuscripts, long believed
to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871 was presented
to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here Monday
by the Metropolitan Museum of Art . . . Included in the papyri
is a manuscript identified as the original document from which
Joseph Smith had copied the drawing which he called "Facsimile
No. 1" [see photograph on p. 33] and published with the Book of
Abraham..
This startling news produced more than mere excitement within
the Church. The sudden, unexpected reappearance of so large a
portion of Joseph Smith's original papyrus collection caused
feelings that could only be compared with those of the earlier
Saints who had seen them that first time in Kirtland over a
hundred and thirty years earlier.
And there could be no question that the Metropolitan papyri were
indeed none other than the ones which Joseph Smith had once
purchased and used. The reverse sides of the paper to which they
were glued contained such things as architectural drawings of a
temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area.3
Several of the fragments contained Egyptian drawings, and while
there was no sign among them of two of the facsimiles from the
Book of Abraham, the original of Facsimile No. 1 stood out like
a blazing banner. Two other fragments contained drawings that
seemed to match perfectly Oliver Cowdery's descriptions of
pictures in the Book of Joseph scroll. However, no one could be
sure whether the Prophet had done more than simply identify that
book during those last, hectic years of his life. In all, it was
determined that about one-third of the entire papyrus collection
once owned by Joseph Smith had been discovered in this dramatic
find.4
Church members saw in this development a growing number of
opportunities that could only have been foreordained of God. For
one thing, the scholarly criticisms by Spaulding and others of
Joseph's explanation of Facsimile No. 1 could now be reviewed in
light of modern scholarship and using the original document, and
the Church would be able to prove, once and for all, that the
arguments of the critics were faulty. In short, this discovery
held out the possibility of dramatically vindicating before the
world Joseph Smith's original identification of Facsimile No. 1
(along with the rest of the Book of Abraham and all the
doctrines it represented).
There was also the tantalizing prospect of being able to
demonstrate one of the Church's greatest gifts in the Latter-day
dispensation: the gift of a Seer, the ability to translate by
the gift and power of God just as Joseph Smith had done. As far
back as 1878 Orson Pratt had seen fit to challenge the world on
this subject, declaring in one of his sermons: "Have any of the
other denominations got this gift among them? Go and inquire
through all of Christendom . . . 'Can you translate ancient
records written in a language that is lost to the knowledge of
man?' No . . . the universal reply of the Christian
denominations, numbering some 400,000,000, would be that they
have not the power to do it . . . you must give us credit," he
had chided, "of at least professing to have these great and
important gifts."5
Nor was Apostle Pratt's point taken lightly by others in the
Church; several decades later another Apostle, John A. Widtsoe,
pointedly explained that if "records appear needing translation,
the President of the Church may at any time be called, through
revelation, to the special labor of translation."6
And if ever there was a time when there were records needing
translation, the Saints could reason, surely it was now -- for
who but Heavenly Father could have orchestrated such a glorious
opportunity? And if these fragments turned out to contain any of
the original Book of Abraham -- well, who then could deny the
truthfulness of the Restored Gospel??
There was an unfortunate complication within the Church at this
time, however. The President of the Church at the time the
papyri were rediscovered, David O. MacKay, was very old and had
been ill for some time. He was simply in no condition to
undertake such a calling to translate, no matter how divinely
propitious or urgent. Though much of the membership understood
the President's Counselors in the First Presidency to hold
collectively all the necessary keys and authority to perform the
duties of Seer to the Church,7 the papyri were nevertheless
turned over to some of the Church's top scholars at Brigham
Young University in Provo, for evaluation and translation.
But while many Mormons were doubtless disappointed that the
Church passed up this opportunity, such feelings were quickly
brushed aside in anticipation of future developments. Would the
arguments of the critics be overcome and silenced at last? Would
Joseph's work finally be justified with devastating finality
before the eyes of a skeptical world?
The Saints waited expectantly, and held their breath.