Transcription
In 1835, a curious collection of Egyptian mummies and scrolls arrived in a small Ohio town. The town was Kirtland, Ohio, home to a fledgling religious movement led by Joseph Smith, who had already published the Book of Mormon just a few years earlier. When Joseph unrolled the aged papyrus scrolls that came with these mummies, he declared that he had found something astounding: an ancient record written by the biblical patriarch Abraham by his own hand upon papyrus. This record, which Joseph Smith translated by divine inspiration over the next few years, would be published as the book of Abraham. Eventually, it was accepted as holy scripture by the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the LDS church, or more commonly known as the Mormon church, and they included it in a volume of LDS canon called the Pearl of Great Price.
But what is the Book of Abraham exactly? And why has it become one of the most controversial subjects in Mormon history? In our exploration today, we'll journey through the full story of the Book of Abraham, from its ancient origins or lack thereof to its doctrinal significance, from Joseph Smith's translation claims to the challenges posed by Egyptology, and through the responses and debates that have ensued among believers, scholars, and critics alike. We'll encounter fascinating characters, both ancient and modern, puzzling faximiles filled with Egyptian symbols, bold claims of revelation, and the relentless scrutiny of modern scholarship. By the end, you'll have a clear and comprehensive understanding of why the book of Abraham inspires faith in some and serious doubts in others. Let's start at the beginning. What is in the book of Abraham? And why do Latter-day Saints hold it as scripture?
The Book of Abraham is a short text, only five chapters long, that purports to be an autobiographical record of Abraham, the Old Testament prophet, written in his own words. In the LDS faith, it is considered canonical scripture on equal footing with the Bible and Book of Mormon. For Latter-day Saints, this book holds profound doctrinal significance. It was first published by Joseph Smith in 1842 and later canonized in 1880 as part of the Pearl of Great Price, one of the standard scriptures of the LDS church. So why do believers cherish the book of Abraham? Well, fundamentally they believe it contains the words and teachings of Abraham as revealed through Joseph Smith, Mormonism's founder. The narrative closely follows portions of Abraham's life story known from Genesis: His early life, his covenant with God, his journey through Canaan and Egypt. But it also adds new details and teachings not found in the Bible. For example, Abraham's early life and rescue. Chapter 1 of the book of Abraham describes Abraham's father and community falling into idolatry. It dramatically portrays Abraham nearly being sacrificed by an idolatrous priest only to be saved by an angel of the Lord at the last moment. This story of Abraham almost being sacrificed is absent from Genesis. It's an extra detail that Latter-day Saints believe was revealed to Joseph Smith.
The covenant and journey. Chapters 2 and 3 recount God's covenant with Abraham, echoing the biblical promise to make Abraham a great nation and describe Abraham's travels to the promised land and then into Egypt during a famine. The book of Abraham emphasizes Abraham as a seeker of great knowledge and a follower of righteousness who rejected his father's idols, giving context to why God chose him. Third, the visions of the cosmos in premortal life. Perhaps most famously, the book of Abraham contains an account of Abraham receiving a grand vision of the universe. In Abraham chapters 3-5, Abraham learns about the stars and planets, including a star called Collab, said to be nearest to God's throne. He is taught about the premortal existence of souls, the idea that our spirits existed with God before we were born, and about a council in heaven where God's plan for humanity was presented. This is where the book of Abraham introduces doctrines distinctive to Latter-day Saint theology: the eternal nature of spirits or ordination, and details about the creation of the world by the council of gods, a plurality of gods acting under the direction of the God of Abraham.
Fourth, the creation story with a twist. The final chapters, Abraham 4 and 5, retell the creation of the world, paralleling the Genesis account, but written from Abraham's visionary perspective; it repeatedly uses the phrase, "The gods organized and formed," things such as the earth, reflecting a distinctly LDS interpretation that the biblical creation involved a council of divine beings, not just a single act of creation ex nihilo. This nuance reinforced Joseph Smith's later teachings that God the Father, Jesus Christ, and others were united in the creation, a theology that diverges from mainstream Christianity. Beyond the narrative, the published book of Abraham included three facsimile images copied from the Egyptian papyri accompanied by Joseph Smith's explanations of their meaning. These faximiles are an integral part of the scripture for Latter-day Saints, believed to depict scenes from Abraham's life and teachings.
Faximile number one is an illustration showing Abraham fastened upon an altar with a priest holding a knife above him and various Egyptian gods pictured. According to Joseph Smith's explanation, this story corresponds to the story in chapter 1, of Abraham being nearly sacrificed. Faximile number two is a circular image, a hypocephalus in Egyptological terms, filled with small figures and hieroglyphs. Joseph Smith said it represents the cosmos, "Collab, the residence of God," and other celestial concepts. Faximile number three shows a scene Joseph described as "Abraham sitting upon Pharaoh's throne," teaching principles of astronomy and religion in the court of Egypt, for believing Latter-day Saints. The context of the book of Abraham is faith affirming. It supports, expands, and clarifies the biblical account of Abraham's life. That's the words of an official church essay. It introduces the idea that God's covenant with Abraham began in premortal times and that Abraham was chosen in a pre-earth life, concepts that underscore LDS teachings about a premortal existence and the eternal nature of the soul. The book also provides a backstory for the priesthood authority, tracing it back to the patriarchs and explains that Pharaoh, king of Egypt, was barred from priesthood lineage, a detail in Abraham 1:26 that later figured into LDS interpretations about lineage and authority.
In short, the book of Abraham is cherished scripture to Latter-day Saints because it's seen as God's word revealed through Joseph Smith. It's quoted in sermons, in lesson manuals, and has inspired hymns. For instance, the LDS hymn, "If You Could Hide to Collab," was inspired by the cosmic revelations in Abraham chapter 3. Key LDS doctrines—the idea that we lived with God before this life and the creation was organized by divine beings and that Abraham learned the secrets of the universe—come in large part from this book. At the same time, from the moment of its publication, outsiders and later critics had viewed the book of Abraham with skepticism and even derision. A scripture that came from the Egyptian papyri sounded intriguing, and it was only a matter of time before people asked where did these papyri come from and how did Joseph Smith translate them?
To unravel the origins of the book of Abraham, we travel back to the early 19th-century mummy craze. In the early 1800s, Europe and America were fascinated with ancient Egypt. Collectors brought mummies and artifacts back from Egypt to display or sell. One such entrepreneur was Antonio Labolo, an Italian excavator who reportedly discovered a cache of mummies and papyrus scrolls in Thebes, Egypt, between 1818 and 1822. After Labolo's death, his collection, containing 11 mummies and several scrolls, eventually made its way to the United States to be sold for profit. By 1835, a Michael H. Chandler, a relative of Labolo, or perhaps an agent of his, had acquired four of those mummies and the associated papyri. Chandler toured the Eastern United States, exhibiting the artifacts, capitalizing on the public's fascination. In late June or early July 1835, Chandler arrived in Kirtland, Ohio, which happened to be the headquarters of the Mormon movement at that time. He advertised the mummies as possibly having lived in the times of biblical figures like Jacob, Moses, or David—a tantalizing claim for a biblically minded audience. Joseph Smith, at this point, age 29, was leading the church in Kirtland. He had already declared that ancient scripture, the Book of Mormon, came into his hands by the power of God. Now confronted with actual Egyptian scrolls, Joseph's interest was piqued.
According to later accounts, Joseph examined the papyri and immediately felt there was a profound truth in them. He even offered Michael Chandler a preliminary translation of some characters. Joseph soon announced that the scrolls contained the writings of the ancient patriarchs Abraham and Joseph, the son of Jacob, as well as a short history of an Egyptian princess named Katumin. In Joseph's own history, he wrote, "With W.W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I commence the translation of some of the characters, and much to our joy, found that one of the scrolls contained the writings of Abraham and another the writings of Joseph of Egypt." The idea that these dusty papyrus scrolls held the actual words of Abraham must have been electrifying to the early Latter-day Saints. Joseph Smith and some associates quickly arranged to purchase the entire collection from Chandler. By early July 1835, they had bought four Egyptian mummies and at least five papyrus documents for the considerable sum of $2,400, a huge amount at the time, equivalent to roughly $70,000 today. Several members pulled funds for the purchase, partly in hopes that publishing the translations could recoup the cost. One co-investor was assured that the profits from the work, when translated, would more than cover the cost. Now, Joseph Smith had in his possession something tangible and rare: genuine Egyptian papyri.
It's worth noting that in 1835, no one in America could actually read Egyptian hieroglyphs. The famous Rosetta Stone had been deciphered by Champollion only a decade prior, and that knowledge had barely begun to spread outside of Europe. So to Joseph's followers, it didn't seem far-fetched that God could reveal the meaning of these scrolls to the prophet just as he had the golden plates of the Book of Mormon. What exactly did Joseph get from Chandler? Historical reconstruction and modern rediscovery, which we'll discuss later, gives us a pretty good idea. One papyrus scroll had been identified as the Book of Breathing, a funerary text for a man named Hor or Horus. Joseph Smith believed this scroll contained the book of Abraham. Another scroll was identified as a fragmentary Book of the Dead for a woman named Tasher Men or Tashimin. Joseph referred to this second text as the book of Joseph, attributing it to Joseph of Egypt. There were a few other fragments, including a hypocephalus, a circular disc placed under a mummy's head belonging to a man named Shashank, which became facsimile number two, and other bits of papyri that Joseph didn't specifically describe. Joseph and his associates also mentioned the story of a princess named Codaman. It appears they believed one papyrus told her story, though little came of that in terms of a published scripture.
Contemporary eyewitnesses in Kirtland, Ohio, recorded their excitement. One non-Mormon who saw the mummies noted the papyri were somewhat damaged, torn by being taken from the roll of embalming sav, but reported that Joseph Smith intended to translate even the missing parts by inspiration, like Nebuchadnezzar's dream, referring to the biblical story where Daniel recovers a lost dream by revelation. This shows that from the get-go, Joseph presented his ability to translate as not limited by damage or missing text. God could fill in the gaps miraculously. To the Latter-day Saints, it seemed that God had delivered into their hands additional scripture from the ancient world. As one convert, Wilford Woodruff, wrote in his journal, "These are the writings of Abraham and Joseph. What a treasure indeed. A record of God's people of old." Paraphrasing his sentiment, the stage was set for Joseph Smith to bring forth new ancient scripture, much as he had done with the Book of Mormon. Next, we'll see how Joseph went about translating these papyri and what emerged from that process: both the text of the book of Abraham and the accompanying faximiles.
From July to November 1835, Joseph Smith and his closest collaborators engaged in the work of translating the Egyptian records. Unlike the Book of Mormon translation, which, according to accounts, Joseph accomplished by dictation while looking into seer stones, the translation of the papyri was a more drawn-out, stop-and-start project. Joseph was simultaneously leading a growing church and dealing with other matters. So, the Book of Abraham translation unfolded intermittently over several months. And even then, it wasn't fully published until years later, in 1842. How did Joseph claim to translate the Egyptian papyri? He left no detailed first-person account of the mechanics. However, a few clues do survive. His scribe, Warren Parish, later recalled that Joseph would sit with the papyri and dictate English as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from heaven while the scribe wrote it down. In other words, Joseph did not profess to have learned Egyptian the conventional way. He always maintained it was through divine aid. Secondhand reports suggest that Joseph may have used the divine seer stone at times to aid in the translation, similar to how he said he translated the Book of Mormon. But this is not certain.
What we do have is a set of intriguing documents known as the Kirtland Egyptian papers or the Kirtland Egyptian alphabet and grammar. These are manuscripts in Joseph's and his scribes' handwriting where they attempted to work out an alphabet of Egyptian characters and their meanings. One document, for instance, had Egyptian hieroglyphic characters copied from the papyri in one column and written explanations in English in the other. The existence of these papers shows that Joseph and his associates initially tried to understand the papyri character by character, creating a sort of makeshift Egyptian dictionary. They devised multiple degrees of meaning for each character, as if one little squiggle on the papyrus could encapsulate whole sentences in English. This may strike us today as bizarre, but remember, in 1835, virtually no one in Kirtland knew how Egyptian really worked. So they were experimenting from scratch, presumably guided by revelation. A quick example in these papers: a single Egyptian character from the papyrus was interpreted to mean "the earth under the government of rightful authority in the 7,000 years." Such expansive translations for tiny symbols suggest Joseph believed a lot of meaning was packed into the hieroglyphs, or alternatively, that he was using the papyri as a catalyst to receive lengthy revealed text far beyond the literal translation of each character. Joseph's journal entries mentioned translating an alphabet for the book of Abraham and arranging a grammar of the Egyptian language. That was 1835. This likely refers to the efforts above. Yet despite these analytical attempts, the final English text of the book of Abraham was ultimately produced by Joseph dictating to the scribes in the same revelatory manner as his other scripture translations.
By the end of 1835, Joseph Smith had drafted at least part of the Book of Abraham text, chapters 1 and 2, it appears. However, other events, like internal dissension in Kirtland and then the move to Missouri and Illinois, put the project on hold. It wasn't until early 1842, when Joseph was in Nauvoo, Illinois, editing the church's newspaper, that he turned back to the papyri to publish the Book of Abraham. In March 1842, the Times and Seasons, an LDS newspaper, announced that the first installment—Joseph Smith, as editor, introduced it as "a translation of some ancient records purporting to be the writings of Abraham, written by his own hand upon papyrus." This bold heading told readers that this really was Abraham's authentic ancient record, not a modern composition. Over March and April of 1842, the book of Abraham text and the three faximiles were published serially in the newspaper. The publication included Joseph's explanations for each facsimile. For instance, under facsimile number one, Joseph provided a numbered legend explaining the figures. Figure one, Joseph Smith said, was the angel of the Lord. Figure two, that Abraham was fastened upon an altar. Figure three, the idolatrous priest of Elohim attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice. Figures 4 through 8 were various idolatrous gods: the jackal, the falcon, which Joseph labeled with names like Elohim, Libna, Mamakra, Korash, and Pharaoh. Figure nine, the idolatrous god of Pharaoh—this would be the crocodile under the altar. These explanations basically narrate the scene as a human sacrifice that God intervenes in, matching the text of Abraham chapter 1.
The other faximiles got similar treatment. Faximile number two, that hypocephalus round disc, was said to contain sacred knowledge. Hieroglyphs labeled as representing Collab, the heavens and earth, the four quarters of the earth, including interpretations like: figure three is made to represent God sitting upon his throne. Figure 5 is called in Egyptian Enish Gowandosh and is said to be the sun, and so on. Joseph gave unique names to some elements. It essentially was presented as an ancient diagram of the universe full of deep truths. And facsimile number three was explained as Abraham reasoning with Pharaoh in Pharaoh's court. Joseph identifies one standing figure as a slave, a black servitor named Olimla in Joseph's explanation, and another is Schulam, one of the king's waiters, and says the scene is in honor of Abraham. It's worth highlighting that at the time of the publication, no one in Nauvoo could dispute these interpretations. They had to take Joseph Smith's word for it. There were no Egyptologists on the American frontier checking his work. Thus, the Book of Abraham went forward and was embraced by the Latter-day Saints without immediate controversy within the community.
After Joseph Smith's death in 1844, the text was compiled into the Pearl of Great Price by 1851, then by LDS Apostle Franklin D. Richards in England and officially canonized in Utah in 1880. For decades, the Book of Abraham stood unchallenged in LDS teaching, illuminating doctrines about the premortal life, the purpose of existence, and God's revelations to Abraham. However, from outside of the church, challenges began to arise as early as the mid-19th century. The reason was simple: The field of Egyptology was blossoming in Europe, and scholars were learning to read the same kind of hieroglyphs that Joseph Smith had claimed to translate. When those experts looked at Joseph's Egyptian papyri and faximiles, they saw something very different from what Joseph had described. This brings us to the next part of our story: the collision between Joseph's translation and real Egyptian translations. It's one thing for a prophet in 1840s Illinois to publish translations of Egyptian papyri. It's another when actual Egyptologists get a hold of those claims. From the mid-19th century onward, non-Mormon experts repeatedly concluded that Joseph Smith's interpretations were incorrect. This created a controversy that simmered for years and then boiled over after a dramatic discovery in the 1960s.
The first known Egyptologist to scrutinize the Book of Abraham faximiles was Théodule Devéria in the 1850s. Devéria worked at the Louvre in Paris. Around 1856, he was given copies of the faximiles from the Book of Abraham. His analysis, translated and published in an academic journal, was straightforward: The faximiles were standard Egyptian funerary scenes, nothing whatsoever to do with Abraham. For example, for facsimile number one, the altar scene, Devéria noted the figures under the couch were the four sons of Horus, the canopic jar gods for human organs. The standing figure was the god Anubis, who should have had a jackal's head, and that the scene actually depicted a well-known ritual from the Book of the Dead, the embalming or resurrection of Osiris. He also suspected that some parts of the facsimile had been incorrectly reconstructed. The drawing didn't look entirely authentic to him. Devéria's conclusions in the 1850s barely reached most Latter-day Saints, as most spoke French about as well as they read hieroglyphics—meaning not at all. But they laid groundwork for later critics.
A much more public challenge came in 1912. In that year, an Episcopal bishop named Franklin S. Spalding of Utah sent copies of the three faximiles to eight of the world's leading scholars in Egyptology and related Semitic fields, asking for their professional evaluation. These included renowned Egyptologists like Dr. James A. Breasted of the University of Chicago, Dr. Arthur Mace of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as others in Europe. Spalding compiled their replies, and they were devastating for Joseph Smith's claims. All eight scholars independently reported that the faximiles were ordinary Egyptian funerary documents or illustrations with no connection to Abraham. To summarize a few of their points in plain terms, the scene in Facsimile 1 was identified as an embalming scene or a portrayal of the god Osiris on the funerary bier attended by Anubis, a lion-couch scene common in Egypt. One scholar noted that Joseph's version had a human head on the standing figure, but in Egyptian art that figure would have had a jackal head as it represented Anubis. Joseph's idolatrous priest was, to the Egyptologists, clearly the god Anubis. And they pointed out that in the Mormon publication the head looked strange, unegyptian, as if someone had sketched it in. Dr. Arthur Mace flatly stated that the figure is not a priest but the Egyptian god Anubis with his jackal's head. However, Smith has given him a human head in the facsimile, indicating that the original was altered. They also noted the apparent addition of a knife in the figure's hand. Knives are not part of that embalming scene, but Joseph's drawing included one to fit the sacrifice narrative. Faximile number two, the hypocephalus, was recognized as a typical funerary hypocephalus, a kind of amulet placed under the mummy's head containing spells about the afterlife and representations of Egyptian deities like the god Khnum, various baboon figures, etc. The Egyptologists translated many of the little hieroglyphs and found no mention of Collab or Abraham; rather, they were standard Egyptian phrases. They also saw that parts of the drawing had been filled in incorrectly. One portion
Of facsimile number two, for example, was copied upside down from another papyrus fragment. Something later confirmed, and we'll revisit this.
Facsimile number three was identified as an Egyptian scene of the deceased being presented before Osiris, the god of the afterlife, a very common vignette in funerary papyri. Joseph Smith had labeled one figure in Facsimile 3 as Pharaoh, another as a prince, another as Schulam, the king's waiter, etc. The real Egyptologist said, "No, these figures are actually Egyptian gods and goddesses. For instance, likely Osiris on the throne, Isis standing behind him, Mut or another goddess, and the figure in front is the deceased person who in typical scenes might be a male. But Joseph labeled one as a female and one as a male servant." They even pointed out how Joseph seemingly mistook artistic conventions. The one figure Joseph drew completely black and said was a slave, was probably an artifact of the original being drawn in dark red. Egyptians often painted male skin as reddish brown. Dr. Albert Lythgoe, the Met Museum curator, remarked that the black slave in Joseph's facsimile was likely a misinterpreted Egyptian priest figure. Egyptians painted priests with shaved heads which might have looked like a black head to Joseph, and the skin color might have been misjudged. In essence, the experts concluded that Joseph Smith's explanations were incorrect and had no basis in the actual Egyptian meaning. One scholar famously wrote that if Joseph's interpretation of Facsimile 2 were true, then every Egyptian mummy must have been buried with text of Abraham's monotheistic religion next to their pagan scrolls, which is absurd. Another described Joseph's work as a farrago of nonsense. Bishop Spalding published these findings in a pamphlet that caused a stir. A New York Times article in December 1912 ran the headline, quote, "Museum walls proclaim fraud of Mormon prophet," unquote, reporting that the translation was a work of the Mormon prophet's imagination, and that modern discovery had completely destroyed the authenticity of the Book of Abraham.
The LDS church at the time, in 1913, responded defensively through a series of articles in the Improvement Era, an official LDS magazine, with LDS apologists questioning the scholars' motives and arguing that it wasn't so cut and dry. Some suggested that perhaps the papyri could have dual meanings or that the scholars were biased. Notably, LDS writer B.H. Roberts and others attempted to defend Joseph's inspiration. But without any original papyrus in hand to consult, much of the debate was theoretical.
For a long time, it was assumed that the actual papyrus scrolls that Joseph Smith had were lost. Many believe they perished in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871. After Joseph's death, his widow Emma had kept the mummies and papyri. They were eventually sold and ended up in a museum collection in Chicago. But in a remarkable twist, in 1966, several fragments of the Joseph Smith papyri were found in the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The Met, realizing the significance, turned these papyrus fragments over to the LDS church in November of 1967. Suddenly, for the first time in over a century, we had the actual source material that Joseph Smith had labeled the Book of Abraham. And now, Egyptologists, including LDS scholars, could directly read them. This launched a whole new phase of investigation.
One fragment was immediately identified as the original facsimile number one, the very papyrus scene Joseph had copied and published. Sure enough, it showed the lion couch scene with portions missing, including the head of the standing figure and parts of the altar. This fragment had Egyptian hieroglyphic writing around it. Scholars, including eminent Egyptologist Dr. Klaus Baer at the University of Chicago, translated those columns of text in 1968. What did it turn out to be? Well, it was the opening of a breathing permit, a type of funerary text often placed with a mummy. The text identified the deceased as the son of Oawar and Tuckabite, and contained typical funerary blessings for him. Dr. Baer's translation and others confirming it made no mention of Abraham. It was written in Egyptian around the 1st or 2nd century BC, some 1500 years after Abraham would have lived. Additional recovered fragments match the descriptions of the other papyri: parts of the Book of the Dead, the "Tasher Men," Joseph's book, etc. One long fragment from the Joseph Smith papyrus 11 had rows of hieratic Egyptian writing. To the excitement of researchers, it turned out that the characters on this fragment match the strange characters written in the margins of Joseph Smith's Kirtland Egyptian papers next to the English text of the Book of Abraham. In other words, we found the exact hieroglyphs that Joseph's scribes had been looking at when they recorded the English translation. This fragment's translation was also done by Egyptologists, including LDS scholar Dr. Hugh Nibley and others. It turned out to be a set of instructions for wrapping a mummy and performing the breathing permit ritual. Again, nothing about Abraham. When rendered into English, it talks about conveying the deceased to the gods, ensuring his soul may live, wrapping the papyrus with the mummy, etc. Standard funerary content.
The circular facsimile 2 was not among the recovered fragments. It likely was destroyed or remains missing. But even before Egyptologists could translate such hieroglyphs from the other examples, it contains Egyptian deities, passages from the Book of the Dead, and so on. Again, nothing in it inherently about Abraham.
The significance of the discovery could not be overstated. Critics felt it was the smoking gun. The very papyrus that Joseph Smith said was the Book of Abraham was now proven to be an unrelated Egyptian funerary text. In fact, the text that scholars could directly match with Joseph's notes, showing that when he saw certain Egyptian characters, he produced specific English sentences of the Book of Abraham. It appeared to be solid evidence that Joseph's translation was not genuine by academic standards. As one 2014 summary by University of Chicago Egyptologist Dr. Robert Ritner put it, the source of the Book of Abraham is a breathing permit, misunderstood and mistranslated by Joseph Smith. Ritner later said that the Book of Abraham is confirmed as perhaps a well-meaning but erroneous invention by Joseph Smith, though he acknowledged it remains an interesting part of American religious history.
In 1968, the LDS church's magazine Improvement Era featured articles about the new papyri. Rather than deny the scholars' translations, the church allowed publication of the findings. In fact, LDS scholar Hugh Nibley wrote a series of articles titled "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price" in which he discussed the papyri and tried to contextualize Joseph's work. Nibley and later LDS Egyptologists like John Gee and Michael Rhodes acknowledged that the papyri fragments we have do translate to the Book of Breathing in the Book of the Dead, confirming that LDS apologists agree that the papyri fragments we have are what non-LDS Egyptologists have imposed. That much was not disputed. Even Mormon scholars agree on what the hieroglyphs say. They match non-LDS Egyptologists' translations of the funerary documents. So the critical question became: how do we reconcile this with Joseph Smith's claim that these same papyri contain the Book of Abraham? This is where various theories were developed by believers which we will explore next.
The two main apologetic theories that arose are known as the missing scroll theory and the catalyst theory. Each tries to explain why the extant papyri and Egyptology don't line up with Joseph's translation while still preserving the Book of Abraham as inspired scripture. Let's examine these responses and the issues that come with them.
Confronted with the scholarly consensus that Joseph Smith papyri fragments are ordinary Egyptian text unrelated to Abraham, the LDS church and its apologists have not remained silent. Over time, they've proposed a few explanations. First, the missing scroll theory. This theory posits that the actual source of the Book of Abraham was on a portion of the papyri that has not survived, a lost or missing scroll. Perhaps Joseph Smith had a much larger collection of papyrus text than the fragments we have. And maybe, just maybe, the writings of Abraham were on that section that either got destroyed in the Chicago fire or to this day is still lost. In this scenario, the fragments we have, the Book of Breathings, etc., might just be other documents that Joseph Smith had but didn't actually use to translate Abraham's record. The real record of Abraham was on a different roll that is now lost.
The second theory is the catalyst theory. This explanation suggests that the Egyptian papyri were never meant to be a literal source text for a word-by-word translation. Instead, they served as a catalyst or inspiration that led Joseph Smith to receive revelation. In other words, when Joseph studied the papyri, it put his mind in a state where God gave him the Book of Abraham by inspiration. Regardless of what the papyrus itself says, under this view, the phrase "translation" might be used more loosely. Joseph didn't linguistically translate Egyptian into English. Rather, he interpreted or revealed scripture through divine means that was triggered by the artifact. Even though the narrative of the Book of Abraham isn't actually on the artifact itself, the LDS church has not officially and explicitly canonized either theory, but recent church publications like the 2013 Gospel Topic essay that we cited earlier lean towards the catalyst idea while also leaving room for the missing papyri. The essay states, quote, "Only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls once in Joseph Smith's possession exist today. The relationship between those fragments and the text we have today is largely a matter of conjecture." It also emphasizes that Joseph received the text by the gift and power of God without needing to know Egyptian. And it notes that what Joseph called a translation might not align with scholarly definitions. These statements together imply that they're not sure how it worked. Maybe some of the papyrus is missing. Or maybe translation means inspired revelation. The church's stance is basically that the Book of Abraham is scripture because it was revealed to Joseph Smith, however that happened, and that it ultimately stands on faith, not on what the papyri alone shows. Let's unpack each theory with a bit more detail and the reasons offered for them.
Those who favor the idea of the missing scroll theory often point to historical accounts indicating that Joseph Smith had more papyrus material than what ended up in the Met's discovery. For instance, eyewitnesses in the 1830s referred to rolls (plural) of papyrus and even a long roll. One who saw the collection described it as a long roll of manuscript and two or three other small ones. Indeed, when Joseph and company bought the papyri, they inventoried at least five different documents. Some were scrolls, some may have been folded sheets. We know the papyri we have today are portions of at most two or three of those documents. Where are the rest? Well, they're likely destroyed or lost. Importantly, the Met fragments correspond to the Book of Breathings and with facsimile number one. But Joseph had mentioned a record of Joseph of Egypt and had the hypocephalus facsimile number two as well. Apologists theorize that the Book of Abraham might have been on a now missing part of the scroll or on another scroll entirely. Some LDS researchers estimated how long the original papyrus scroll was. One early calculation in 1968 guessed that what we have is about 1/3 of the whole scroll. John Gee later suggested it could be as little as 20% of the original scroll, implying that a lot is missing. If hypothetically the scroll was originally, say, 10 feet long, maybe the last several feet contained an ancient Book of Abraham text that Joseph Smith translated. Under this scenario, the reason the fragments we have don't mention Abraham is simply because they're the wrong sections. The real Abraham's story was on a part that didn't survive. Could that have been the Book of Abraham? Some LDS scholars hypothesized yes. That maybe a Jewish redactor in antiquity combined an Egyptian funerary text with a Hebrew prophetic record on one scroll. This is a stretch, but it's an idea that they consider.
However, critical researchers have challenged the missing scroll notion. In 2010, scholars, including LDS origin researcher Christopher Smith and Andrew Cook, did a careful physical analysis of the surviving papyri fragments, particularly looking at the ripped edges and how the pieces fit together. They concluded that the original scroll was not dramatically longer than what we have. Only about 56 cm or 22 inches might be missing beyond our fragments. The length would be taken up entirely by the portion of the Book of Breathings' text that is broken off since the end of that text is missing. In other words, there was likely no room on that scroll for an entire extra Book of Abraham as lengthy as the one that Joseph produced. This directly contradicts the idea of a huge lost section containing the Hebrew patriarch's writings. It suggests that the scroll, start to finish, was just the breathing permit and nothing more, which is typical for such funerary documents.
What about a separate scroll? Yes, Joseph also had the "Tasher Men" Book of the Dead scroll. Could the Book of Abraham have been on the "Tasher Men" scroll or another? Apologists have speculated, but there's no hint from Joseph or his scribes that Abraham's record was separate from the papyrus. In fact, the Kirtland Egyptian papers tie the Abraham translation to the characters from the document, not to ones from the "Tasher Men" fragments. Early eyewitnesses like Oliver Cowdery described one roll as containing Abraham's record and another containing Joseph of Egypt's, implying that Abraham and Joseph of Egypt were on two different scrolls. We know Joseph of Egypt's record never got published and presumably was on the "Tasher Men" scroll. So, by elimination, they believe the Abraham story was in fact on the papyrus. If that papyrus doesn't have room for it in reality, then it's problematic.
The catalyst theory is an approach that's more theological. It essentially says maybe Joseph got it wrong about the papyrus text itself containing Abraham's writing, but he did still get a true revelation. In this view, the papyri were a catalyst for revelation, not a direct source text. Latter-day Saint scholar Kevin Barney introduced a version of this idea, suggesting the papyri might have been used by some ancient Jewish sect as a mnemonic device. But regardless of ancient intent, the key result is Joseph Smith could have been inspired to receive the Book of Abraham by studying the papyri, even if he wasn't truly decoding the hieroglyphs word for word. This theory gained traction especially as the linguistic discrepancies became undeniable. By this logic, God sometimes gives new scripture through a physical object that prompts the revelation. Proponents draw a parallel. Joseph Smith's Book of Moses, another LDS scripture, came about when he was rereading Genesis and felt inspired to translate, which actually meant rewrite the early chapters of Genesis with revealed additions. In this case, the Bible was like a catalyst that launched Joseph into an inspired expansion of the Book of Moses. Could the Egyptian papyri have similarly launched Joseph into receiving the words of Abraham by vision or inspiration rather than translation? The church's essay even hints at this analogy. Joseph's study of the Book of Genesis, for example, prompted revelations found today in the Book of Moses. By analogy, the Bible was a catalyst for the Book of Moses. So the Egyptian papyri could, in fact, be a catalyst for the Book of Abraham.
Under the catalyst theory, it's not necessary that any text of Abraham was ever on the papyrus. The phrase "written by his own hand" could just mean authored by Abraham originally. The church essay indeed suggests it means Abraham as author, not literally. That copy in Joseph's hand was penned by Abraham. So, Joseph might have believed he was translating the papyri, but in fact, he was receiving direct revelation, ascribing it to the papyri because that's how inspiration came to him.
Over the years, defenders of the Book of Abraham have tried to buttress these theories with various arguments and evidence. They note that it's not unusual in LDS belief that a prophet translates ancient records without having the original source present. The Book of Mormon's golden plates were often hidden from direct view during translation. And Joseph Smith's JST, the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, adds material not found in any manuscripts, presumed to be lost scripture. So the idea that Abraham's words could come through Joseph by revelation, even if not on the papyrus, is doctrinally palatable.
Some apologists emphasize eyewitness accounts that mention things we don't see on the surviving fragments. For example, John Gee has pointed out that an early witness spoke of, quote, "the man with a drawn knife," unquote, on the papyrus. Our extant fragment of facsimile 1 doesn't show a drawn knife because that part is missing. But Joseph had a drawn knife in the published facsimile. Gee argues this suggests the papyrus in Joseph's day was intact enough to see a knife. Gee and others, therefore, proposed the papyri were more complete and got more damaged later on, so that Joseph didn't just invent missing parts, but rather maybe they were there and later crumbled away. This is used to counter the idea that Joseph filled in the gaps incorrectly. They'll say, "Maybe there were no gaps originally when he worked with them, so our fragments are more broken now than they were then."
Apologists also introduced the idea of an Egyptian Jewish redactor. They theorized that perhaps some Jewish scribe in antiquity took Egyptian religious documents and adapted them to include or correspond with Jewish teachings, possibly even inserting Abrahamic themes. They cite examples of Jewish adaptation of Egyptian motifs. For example, pointing to a text from the Greco-Roman period where Abraham is mentioned in a magical papyrus or legends of Abraham in Egypt that surfaced in later writings. One often mentioned piece of evidence, a 3rd-century AD papyrus, the Leiden Papyrus I384, has a lion couch vignette, and in the Greek magical spell accompanying it, the name Abraham appears as one of the magic words. In 2013, the church's essay pointed to this as an intriguing find, connecting Abraham to a lion couch scene. However, critics respond rightly that this is a magic spell, not a historical record. Abraham's name was used sort of like "Abracadabra" to give a spell power, not because the scene actually depicted Abraham. It's a tenuous link at best. Still, apologists suggest that such things show that it's not impossible that ancient people associated Abraham with Egyptian writings. So, Joseph's translation could have some antiquity behind it, even if not obvious.
On the facsimiles, some LDS apologists have proposed dual meanings. Maybe the facsimile drawings are ordinary Egyptian scenes, but could also symbolically correspond to Abraham's story. For example, one could say, "Sure, facsimile one is Osiris on the couch, but perhaps to a Jewish viewer, it represented Abraham on an altar, a dual symbolism." Now, this is a bit speculative, but it's an attempt to say that Joseph's interpretations could be spiritually or figuratively true, even if not what an Egyptian priest would have said they were. They argue that maybe a correct interpretation doesn't have to match a standard Egyptologist interpretation if the document was adapted for a different purpose. One LDS writer, Hugh Nibley, even quipped that Egyptologist criticisms assume their interpretation is the only one. But if an ancient Jewish owner gave new meaning to the images, Joseph might be capturing that alternative meaning.
These arguments, however, are not accepted by Egyptologists outside the LDS circle who see no evidence of such unique Jewish redaction on these papyri.
The LDS church itself, in its educational materials, has gently introduced members to the idea that the Book of Abraham's translation might not be straightforward. The church's official Gospel Topics Essay of 2013 stops short of committing to either the missing scroll or the catalyst theory, but it clearly acknowledges the mismatch: the fragments do not contain the text of the Book of Abraham, and that Joseph's translation was by inspiration since he didn't know Egyptian. It concludes that the truth of the book ultimately rests on faith in the saving truths found within the book itself. Essentially, members are taught that it's the content and spirit of the book that matter, not whether it matches the papyrus characters.
Both the missing scroll and catalyst theories attempt to bridge the gap between faith and evidence, but each comes with significant issues that critics and even many thoughtful observers have pointed out. Let's discuss why neither theory has fully resolved the controversy, especially in the eyes of non-LDS scholars and even some LDS ones.
First, issues with the missing scroll theory. There is zero direct evidence that an ancient text of Abraham ever existed in Egyptian papyri. The only claim it did is Joseph Smith's. Every actual papyrus fragment from the collection is consistent with known Egyptian funerary documents. If Joseph truly had a separate long roll containing Abraham's writings in Egyptian, one wonders why none of that survived or was noted by people who handled the papyri after Joseph's death. The fragments we have were pasted onto paper in a scrapbook with maps on the back, suggesting those were considered the important pieces to preserve. It appears that the Saints in Nauvoo and later Emma Smith's family who kept the papyri identified the same scroll (facsimile one) as the Book of Abraham's source. If the actual source was another, why didn't they preserve that? LDS scholar Dr. John Gee once hypothesized a portion was missing from the scroll, but his length estimates have been contested by the Cook-Smith study. If that study is correct, the missing section of papyrus could only hold maybe a few dozen words of Egyptian. Certainly not entire chapters of a story about Abraham. So physically the math just doesn't add up.
Now the Kirtland Egyptian papers; these documents strongly suggest that Joseph and his scribes believed the Book of Abraham text was coming from the characters on the papyrus fragment that we have. In one K manuscript (KP standing for the Kirtland Egyptian papers), the character that looks like a little boat shape is in...
The margin next to the English paragraph about God teaching Abraham astronomy. If Joseph thought that the source was a missing scroll, why do this exercise with characters from the wrong papyrus? Critics argue that the most straightforward interpretation is that Joseph was looking at those very hieroglyphs and thinking, or at least having a scribe write down, that those yielded the English translation by some key or code. If the missing scroll contained the actual text, there was no need for Joseph to attempt to decipher any characters from the horse scroll at all.
Apologists counter that maybe the KP was after translation, an attempt by scribes to reverse engineer a grammar using the revealed text. But there is debate on timing. Regardless, the existence of the KP ties the book of Abraham tightly to the extant fragments in a way that the missing scroll theory finds hard to explain away. If one suggests that Abraham's record was separately preserved by Egyptians, one has to imagine a scenario: Abraham in 1800 BC writes down something. It gets passed down or copied. Eventually, an Egyptian priest in 200 BC copies it onto a scroll alongside regular literary text. That's a span of 1600 years and a cultural leap. While not impossible, some apocryphal stories do survive in later copies. It's a heavy lift. Non-LDS Egyptologists have not found any trace of the book of Abraham story in the vast corpus of Egyptian or Jewish writings of antiquity outside the Bible and a few Jewish legends about Abraham smashing idols. This is why independent scholars generally reject the missing scroll idea. It seems like an ad hoc attempt to place the problem out of reach. The evidence of Abraham's text was conveniently destroyed. They say it's not impossible, but it's not supported by what we do have. To believe the missing scroll theory, one must accept that this unique record existed, was oddly paired with Egyptian documents, and then completely vanished for Joseph's translation. It requires a lot of faith in unseen evidence, which, for critics, is no more convincing than the initial claim.
Next, we're going to spend some time talking about the issues with the catalyst theory. The catalyst theory almost implies that Joseph Smith was mistaken about what he was doing. Joseph consistently presented the book of Abraham as a translation of the papyrus, not as a separate revelation that merely uses the papyrus as a prompt. He went to the trouble of publishing the facsimiles with explanations, clearly implying those drawings themselves were part of the narrative of Abraham's life. If one says the papyrus didn't really contain Abraham's words, one is effectively saying that Joseph and his contemporaries held an incorrect assumption about the source. For believers, that raises uncomfortable questions. Could a prophet be so wrong about the origin of scripture and yet the scripture still be true? Some say yes. The truth of the doctrine can be separate from Joseph's assumption. Others find that this is special pleading. If Joseph was receiving pure revelation, why attach it to the papyri at all or claim it was written by Abraham on them? It would seem a misleading detail for God to allow.
Even if the text of the book of Abraham was revealed independently, what about Joseph's detailed interpretation of the facsimile drawings? Those are clearly tied to the physical papyrus images. If the images in reality depict Egyptian gods and funerary scenes, then Joseph's claim that, for instance, Facsimile 3 shows Abraham sitting on Pharaoh's throne is a testable claim. And that claim does not hold up. Every Egyptologist, both Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint, will say that Facsimile 3 actually shows an Egyptian deceased person being presented to Osiris. The names Joseph assigns of Schulum and Olmaw do not appear in the hieroglyphs. In fact, in Facsimile 3, the Egyptian inscriptions, which were not fully visible or understandable in 1842, actually name the figures as gods like Osiris, Isis, and Maat and the deceased person, which directly contradict Joseph's identifications. For a believer in the catalyst theory, one could argue that Joseph was giving a revealed interpretation. But then, were the gods of Egypt secretly code for figures in Abraham's story? That's hard to justify. Critics thus see facsimile interpretations as evidence that Joseph was trying to literally interpret Egyptian drawings and that he got it wrong.
Catalyst theory doesn't easily explain the facsimiles except by saying perhaps those two were given by revelation independent of the actual art. But then we're positing a god who reveals incorrect information about an image since the image clearly isn't what Joseph said it was. That's problematic for the notion of an all-knowing source. To accept the catalyst theory, one basically has to accept that none of the actual Egyptian text matters at all. That is, you have to set aside 100% of what the papyri say, which is a lot of content about Egyptian religion, and say it had nothing to do with what Joseph produced. At that point, it begs the question, why would God even bother with the papyri in the first place? Joseph had produced other scripture by pure revelation without any artifact. For example, Joseph's revelation on the degrees of glory in the church's Doctrine and Covenants section 76 or in its book of Moses. Those didn't need any physical catalyst beyond a Bible or even just prayer. If the Lord wanted to reveal the story of Abraham, he could have just given Joseph a vision or direct dictation just as with the book of Moses. So why involve Egyptian papyri and then give a text totally unrelated to them? It feels as if the existence of the papyri is either a huge coincidence or, to a critic, evidence that Joseph thought the papyri content was Abraham and was simply wrong.
The catalyst theory can sound like a post hoc explanation to maintain belief. "It doesn't match, so maybe it didn't need to match," would be their response. Outside of the circle of LDS apologists, the catalyst theory is not given credence. Any independent scholar would say, "If the text doesn't match, Joseph Smith's translation is false." Period. The idea of a catalyst assumes one already believes Joseph Smith was a prophet receiving revelation. Non-believers won't grant that assumption, so it doesn't persuade them at all. Even many believing Latter-day Saints find the catalyst theory to be a last resort option. It essentially means conceding that the book of Abraham is not an actual ancient document, but rather a 19th-century revelation that Joseph mistakenly thought was ancient. That could keep it as scripture in a faith sense, but it would mean the book of Abraham has no historical basis with Abraham himself. For a religion that teaches that God restored ancient truths, that can be a hard pill to swallow and can cause cognitive dissonance.
In summary, independent experts and a growing number of LDS scholars too see the missing scroll theory as unsupported by evidence and the catalyst theory as theologically convenient but evidentially irrelevant. Egyptologist Dr. Rittner was quite blunt. After reviewing all apologetic defenses, he maintained there's no getting around the fact that Joseph Smith's explanations do not match the papyri, whether missing or not. And thus, from an academic perspective, the book of Abraham is a product of Joseph's time, not of ancient Egypt. Even LDS scholar Dr. Brian Hagglid, who once was a believer in some apologetic theories, has stated in recent years that he finds the apologist case, like the missing scroll and the catalyst theory, unconvincing, and that the evidence more naturally points to Joseph producing the text in the context of 19th-century ideas and the content of the Kirtland Egyptian papers. This shows a shift where some faithful scholars acknowledge the difficulties openly.
One particularly vivid piece of evidence often cited by critics is an actual alteration that Joseph or his associates made to Facsimile 3's image, which we touched on. It's the missing jackal snout of Anubis. Let's explore that episode specifically as it encapsulates the issue in a single image. Sometimes it's the smallest missing detail that says the most. In the case of Facsimile 3 from the book of Abraham, that detail is a snout, the iconic jackal snout of the Egyptian god Anubis, or rather the absence of it. Facsimile 3 is presented by Joseph Smith as a scene from Abraham's life: Abraham seated on Pharaoh's throne instructing Egyptians in astronomy. The figures surrounding him are labeled as a king, a prince, a servant named Schulam, and a black slave named Olimla. All characters, according to Joseph, from Abraham's personal story. But Egyptologists in Joseph's time and today have identified this scene as something entirely different. It's a standard Egyptian funerary vignette. The figure on the throne isn't Abraham. It's Osiris. Standing behind him is Isis or Maat. And the dark-skinned figure Joseph labeled as Olima is, based on both the visual cues in the hieroglyphic text directly above him, Anubis, the jackal-headed god of embalming and the afterlife.
Now, here's where it gets especially curious. In Joseph's published version of Facsimile 3, the figure of Anubis appears with a human head. No snout, no jackal features, just a clean-shaven man. At first glance, it seems like a simple mistake. Maybe the papyrus was damaged and Joseph or his engraver had to fill in the blanks. That's plausible. But more recent analysis of the printing plate used to publish Facsimile 3 suggests something more deliberate may have happened. The original woodcut engraving created by Reuben Hedlock under Joseph's direction in 1842 appears to have initially included a snout on this figure. Researchers have noted that the space where the snout would have been, extending from the face of the figure, seems to have been carved out. The area has tooling marks that differ in direction and texture from the surrounding engravings, suggesting that something was once there and then removed. Even more interesting, the cutout matches the angle and shape that a jackal snout would naturally take if following Egyptian artistic conventions. This doesn't prove a snout was definitively there. The original papyrus of Facsimile 3 is still lost, so we can't compare it directly. But what we do have is the printing plate with what looks like evidence of a later edit, a physical modification that erased a jackal's nose and replaced it with a human profile. So the question becomes, why would someone do that? One theory suggests that Joseph or someone assisting him realized late in the process that the figure in Facsimile 3 closely resembled the figure in Facsimile 1, where the jackal-headed Anubis is more obviously present. While the head of Anubis in Facsimile 1 is damaged, there's enough left, including the black coloring and part of the distinctive headdress, to identify the figure. If someone compared the two images side by side, they might notice the similarity in pose, skin tone, and function, that could raise uncomfortable questions. So, this theory goes, a change had to be made. The snout had to go, not because of papyrus damage, but because leaving it in might expose the contradiction between Joseph's interpretations and the actual content of the images.
Now, to be clear, this remains a theory. We don't have a written record from Hedlock or Joseph Smith stating why the edit happened or even confirming it for certain. The engraving plate doesn't come with a diary entry, but the physical evidence is highly suggestive, and the motive it implies is highly plausible: remove the jackal features to avoid anyone connecting the dots. This isn't the only issue with Facsimile 3. The hieroglyphic inscriptions above each figure are not mysterious. They're readable and translate to the names of Osiris and Isis. Yet, Joseph gave them completely different identities. In one case, he assigned a male servant identity to a figure that is clearly a female deity. The translations simply don't align with what the text actually says. But the altered snout is unique because it's not just about misreading or misinterpreting. It may actually reflect a physical act to obscure inconvenient details. Even so, we have to keep some intellectual humility. We don't have all the facts. The snout-shaped cut could have been artistic cleanup. Or maybe the papyrus image really was ambiguous or missing. There's just not enough certainty to avoid claiming a smoking gun. But there's also just enough suggestive evidence, enough oddity, enough alignment between the missing feature and its implications to reasonably conclude that something fishy likely happened here. And for some, that's enough to raise serious doubts about the reliability of Joseph's interpretations. Because once you see that something may have been scraped off the face of Anubis, not just symbolically, but physically, you start to wonder what else was edited along the way.
Before we wrap up, let's touch on a few lesser-known details and interesting side notes that add nuance to the Book of Abraham story. The Book of Joseph. Joseph Smith also believed, or at least claimed, that one papyrus scroll contained the writings of a biblical Joseph, son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt. He never published a book of Joseph, but early church members were excited at the prospect. Fragments of the Joseph scroll, the Tasherit men's book of the dead, were among those recovered in 1967. They turned out to be chapters from the book of the dead, including a scene of judgment before Osiris. No translation of that by Joseph survives, but it is interesting that Joseph felt he had two ancient records side by side in this mummy and papyri discovery. It suggests he was ready to bring forth more lost scripture beyond Abraham. And some wonder, had he lived longer, would he have produced more translations?
Next, let's look at the doctrinal impact on LDS policies and theology. One verse in the book of Abraham 1:26 speaks of Pharaoh being of a lineage that could not have the right of the priesthood. This aligns with other LDS teachings that were used historically to justify the church's former policy of priesthood denial to black Africans, as some thought Barl's lineage meant Africans from Ham. The church today disavows that interpretation, calling those past racial theories wrong. But it does show how a text that Joseph produced had real-world effects on LDS belief and practice and, in this case, unfortunate ones.
Next let's look at the Facsimile Two puzzle. Facsimile 2, the hypocephalus in our current LDS scriptures, actually contains portions that were filled in from other papyri. Scholars have noted, as Michael Rhodes did, that the outer ring of characters on Facsimile 2 in Joseph's publication includes funerary writing copied from the papyrus. They literally took lines from the breathing permit and inserted them into missing wedges of the hypocephalus, flipping them upside down. This is a clear case of physically cut-and-paste reconstruction. It's as if a jigsaw puzzle was missing pieces. So, Joseph's team took pieces from another puzzle to fill the gaps. They likely did this for aesthetic completeness. It's notable because it means parts of Facsimile 2 in the printed version are gibberish in context. They're just random Egyptian lines thrown in. Modern LDS editions still print Facsimile 2 with those sections because that's how Joseph published it. So ironically, LDS scripture contains lines of Egyptian that mean "the pool of Consu endowed to breathe forever," taken from Horus text, while Joseph's explanation for those parts speaks of Kollab and so on. This is a stark example of divergence between the actual text and Joseph's explanation.
Next, let's look at the Pearl of Great Price compilation. The Book of Abraham might have remained a somewhat obscure pamphlet if not for the efforts of early LDS apostle Franklin D. Richards, who in 1851 compiled a bunch of Joseph's smaller translations and revelations into a pamphlet for British Latter-day Saints called the Pearl of Great Price. This volume was so useful to the saints that it was adopted churchwide and canonized in 1880. So, the book of Abraham took 38 years from publication to canonization. Interestingly, during the 1850s through the 1870s, the saints didn't know the papyri's whereabouts, and they were assumed to be lost. But they canonized the book on faith anyway.
Next, Abrahamic lore. Some content in the book of Abraham, like Abraham breaking idols and nearly being sacrificed for refusing idolatry, has parallels in ancient Jewish and Christian Apocrypha. For example, there's an old Jewish legend found in texts like the Apocalypse of Abraham and writings of later rabbis that Abraham's father was an idol maker and Abraham smashed the idols, somewhat akin to Abraham chapter 1 where Abraham denounces his father's idols and gets in trouble. There's also mention in ancient writings of Epiphanius, as preserved by Eusebius, that Abraham taught astronomy to the Egyptians. LDS apologists delight in these parallels, arguing Joseph couldn't have known since these sources weren't widely available or translated in his day, and thus it's evidence of authenticity. Critics counter that the similarities are coincidental or that Joseph might have heard some of those legends. They weren't entirely unknown. For instance, the story of Abraham and the idols was in some Bible commentaries. Regardless, it is interesting that some themes in the book of Abraham do resonate with known apocryphal texts. One could argue this both ways: either Joseph hit upon genuine ancient ideas by inspiration or he was influenced by the milieu of biblical lore circulating in his time, as some 19th-century publications did mention such legends.
Next, the Joseph Smith Papers Project. Recently, the church's Joseph Smith Papers project published all the documents related to the book of Abraham, including high-quality images of the Kirtland Egyptian papers and extant papyri. This transparency is a new development. The church is essentially saying, "We have nothing to hide. You can examine it all." The scholarly commentary in that volume is careful, but it doesn't claim to solve the mystery. The very openness, though, has helped more members become aware of the issues, which may ultimately force a more forthright grappling with what the book of Abraham is.
Lastly, I want to mention the impact on individuals, and then we'll hit our conclusion. For some church members, learning all this can be faith-shaking, but others compartmentalize it, considering the book of Abraham a kind of standalone test. "I don't know how it works, but I've prayed and it feels true," they would say. The church still includes the book of Abraham in its scripture study curriculum. However, leadership today seldom quotes from its controversial bits in official speeches. They more often quote the doctrinal gems like Kollab metaphorically or the premortal council concept without referencing the source too explicitly. It remains both cherished and somewhat awkward in LDS canon.
At the end of the day, the book of Abraham stands as a fascinating case of religious belief intersecting with scholarship. For believers, it can be seen as a divine mystery, a chance to trust spiritual conviction over empirical evidence. For skeptics, it's perhaps the clearest evidence of Joseph Smith's human limitations or deception. And for others, it's a captivating historical puzzle. The story of the book of Abraham is not just about an old papyrus and a modern prophet. It's about how we navigate faith and reason. On one hand, we have an inspiring narrative of Abraham that has become woven into the fabric of LDS doctrine, giving millions a sense of God's grand plan and their place in it. On the other hand, we have the cold reality of Egyptian characters that tell a completely different story about mummification and pagan gods, not Hebrew patriarchs. This juxtaposition forces tough questions: Can scripture be true in purpose even if its origin is different than we thought? At what point does a prophetic claim, if unsupported, undermine prophetic authority as a whole? Each person, believer or critic, answers those questions differently. Some will say, like many LDS leaders do, that spiritual witness trumps all. "The book of Abraham is true scripture given to Joseph by God. Full stop." Others will say that truth is consistent, and here the evidence shows a clear falsehood which calls Joseph's divine inspiration into question.
In telling this full story, we see Joseph Smith as a complex figure. For a broad audience, it's fair to conclude that the Book of Abraham remains a faith-affirming scripture for devout Latter-day Saints, containing unique teachings that they hold sacred within their theology. Historically and academically, the evidence indicates it was not a literal translation of Egyptian papyri, but rather a product of Joseph Smith's prophetic imagination or inspiration during the 1830s. The LDS church today acknowledges the gap and allows members to decide whether it was a missing papyrus, pure revelation, or something else, as long as they maintain faith in its spiritual message. In a sense, the book of Abraham serves as a microcosm of the larger LDS experience, a blend of tangible history and transcendent faith, inviting both criticism and devotion. As with many issues in religion, people will weigh the story and the evidence and come to their own conclusions. What's undeniable is that the Book of Abraham has sparked one of the most interesting dialogues in Mormonism, one that continues to evolve as more information comes to light. We've traveled, during the course of this conversation, from the sands of Thebes to the printing presses of Nauvoo to the museum halls of New York, tracing the saga of the Book of Abraham. It's a story with excitement and discovery, contention and debate. Whether one sees it as scripture, fraud, or something in between, the Book of Abraham will likely continue to be studied and discussed for years to come, a testament to the complex legacy of Mormonism's founder, Joseph Smith, and the enduring quest to understand that intersection of the divine and the human.