📜 Book of Abraham¶
Estimated time to read: 3 minutes
The church does have a Gospel Topics Essay about this. My notes here are fairly short, because... that essay makes this book of scripture lose all credibility after only a few paragraphs. No part of it holds water. I'll comment on only a few parts— delving into the whole thing would be redundant, these quoted excerpts are enough to make my point.
Written by whom?¶
“A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.”
— Heading of the Book of Abraham
Writings of Abraham. Written by his own hand on papyrus.
Remember that, now. It's about to be very important.
None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham.
Does no one think this is a problem?
Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.
Of course, the fragments do not have to be as old as Abraham for the book of Abraham and its illustrations to be authentic.
Excuse me? For the record to say it was literally written by the hand of Abraham, you’ll claim that it doesn’t have to be from when Abraham was even alive? Didn't Joseph Smith himself assert that Abraham wrote it?
Translated¶
Alternatively, Joseph’s study of the papyri may have led to a revelation about key events and teachings in the life of Abraham, much as he had earlier received a revelation about the life of Moses while studying the Bible.
Alternatively? If this was by revelation, what does that say about this being a translation?
This view assumes a broader definition of the words translator and translation. According to this view, Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.
Oh. Good. Cool. Fine, nothing here seems suspicious. If we just redefine what “translation” means then yeah he totally translated it. What if this assumes a broader definition of the word “charlatan”?
The veracity and value of the book of Abraham cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book’s translation and historicity.
WHAT
We literally have the source material! Only a few paragraphs back, the church states that "scholars identified the papyrus as funerary texts". I don't think they'd say that if the source material was so fragmented and discombobulated that no one could make sense of it. This is like saying that Tolkein was reading New Zealand's policy on import tariffs and felt inspired to write The Lord of the Rings from that. I cannot understate how absurd this is.
If the book of Abraham is bunk, what does that say about being accepted as canon in the standard works? What does it say about temple ceremonies?