Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints consider the Book of Abraham to be
a volume of holy scripture. When it was published on March 1st, 1842, the book was presented
to the world as 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
has a fascinating and controversial history involving tomb-raiding archaeologists, Egyptian
mummies, and papyri, and a charismatic young prophet, Joseph Smith, who had a gift for
translating ancient languages.
Generally speaking, there are three interlocking issues people encounter when they learn about
the controversy surrounding the Book of Abraham. First, there’s the question of the papyri
Joseph Smith acquired and how he translated them. Second, there’s the question of Joseph
Smith’s explanations of three facsimiles published along with the text of the Book
of Abraham. And third, there’s the question of the historical believability of the text
itself. These issues are too complicated to cover in just one video. A good place to start
to learn more is a Gospel Topics essay published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, titled “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham.” This video is just
going to focus on the last issue, the historical believability of the text of the Book of Abraham.
Is there any evidence that it preserves authentic ancient writings from the biblical prophet
and patriarch Abraham?
To answer this question, it’s important to carefully read the text itself to understand
what it does and does not actually say. So, let’s start at the beginning. The book opens
with Abraham residing in a place called Ur of the Chaldees. This Ur was adjacent to an
area called the plain of Olishem. While living there Abraham was almost sacrificed to some
false gods by an idolatrous priest because he refused to worship idols. These gods are
given names: Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh. The priest is said to
have been a priest of Pharaoh and is also said to have attempted to sacrifice Abraham
after the manner of the Egyptians. In other words, the Book of Abraham claims that there
was some kind of Egyptian cultural and religious influence in the area of Ur of the Chaldees,
wherever that was, during the lifetime of Abraham, which is believed by scholars to
have been around 2000 to 1800 B.C.
Do we have any evidence for what’s depicted in the first chapter of the Book of Abraham?
Yes, we do. While most scholars in the past and today believe Abraham’s Ur was located
at a site in what is today southern Iraq, a good case has been made by some scholars
for locating it in what is today southern Turkey or northern Syria. While the exact
site of Abraham’s Ur is still unknown, a number of plausible candidates have been proposed
in the general area near the Turkish-Syrian border. Archaeological discoveries confirm
that during Abraham’s day there was a discernible measure of Egyptian culture, trade, and possibly
even military presence in Syria-Palestine. Furthermore, Egyptologists recognize that
the ancient Egyptians during Abraham’s day did in fact practice human sacrifice, or,
more properly, sanctioned killing or ritual violence against enemies of Egypt or rebels
against the king.
Even the names of gods mentioned in the Book of Abraham appear to have external confirmation.
The god Elkenah, for example, is very likely a shortened form of the Canaanite deity name
El Koneh Aratz, or, god who created the earth. This god was worshiped as El Kunirsha by the
ancient Hittites living in Anatolia. There is also evidence that the other gods mentioned
in the texts, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh, were anciently worshiped in this
same area. Finally, the name Olishem, mentioned in the Book of Abraham, has been plausibly
identified with a location called Ulisum or Ulishum, mentioned in an inscription of an
ancient Akkadian king named Naram-Sin. This Ulisum is believed to be located somewhere
in southern Turkey, not far from the Syrian border, precisely the same location where
some scholars believe that Abraham lived. So, scholars have been able to piece together
a plausible ancient time, location, and cultural setting for the first chapter in the Book
of Abraham.
Continuing into chapter 2 in a passage that parallels the account found in Genesis 12,
11 through 12, the text says that God instructed Abraham to refer to his wife Sarai as his
sister instead of his wife when he got into Egypt. This, God says, was to save Abraham’s
life out of concern that the Egyptians would kill Abraham because of Sarai’s beauty.
This passage has disturbed some readers because it seems to portray God as commanding Abraham
to lie. There’s a believable ancient context to these verses, however, that provides important
insight. Egyptologist John Gee has explained that the phrasing in the text takes advantage
of an ambiguity in the Egyptian language. The Egyptian word for wife means only wife,
but the Egyptian word for sister means both sister and wife. Thus, the term that Abraham
used was not false but ambiguous. It was also necessary since numerous Egyptian texts discuss
how pharaohs could take any woman that they fancied and would put the husband to death
if the woman was married. This advice saved Abraham’s life.
Also, in chapter 2 is a depiction of God making a covenant with Abraham. While some details
about the Abrahamic covenant can be read in the Book of Genesis, it is in the Book of
Abraham where important additional aspects about this covenant are revealed. As one scholar
observed, the covenant in the Book of Abraham has several features that appear in other
covenants and treaties of the ancient world. Treaties and covenants in Abraham’s day
typically have a preamble or title, stipulations in oath or solemn ceremony, and, more rarely,
curses conditional on violation of the covenant. The covenant in the Book of Abraham follows
the pattern for Abraham’s day. So, while the content of the Abrahamic covenant is what’s
most important for Latter-day Saints today, the form or structure of the covenant as depicted
in the Book of Abraham helps ground the text in the ancient world.
Chapter 3 says that Abraham possessed an object called the Urim and Thummim through which
he communicated with God and saw the stars and other celestial bodies. He also had a
vision of the premortal council in heaven. Abraham 3 is where Latter-day Saints get their
concept of Kolob, which is said to be a star or planet nearest to the throne of God. This
so-called Abrahamic astronomy can be situated comfortably in the ancient world. For starters
the text appears to be describing a geocentric cosmos, where the earth is at the center,
and the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies revolve around it in graded tiers. This Earth-centered
model was commonly accepted in Abraham’s day, and yet it contrasts the heliocentric
model of the solar system known in Joseph Smith’s day, which placed the sun in the
middle and had the earth and other celestial bodies rotating around it. In addition, words
such as Kolob and Shinehah in Abraham 3 have plausible ancient roots. Kolob is given as
the name of a great star located near the throne or residence of God. It could reasonably
be derived from the Semitic root qlb, meaning “heart, center, middle” and may be related
to the root qrb, meaning to be near or close. This explanation is enticing because it works
wells as a pun. Kolob, a name associated with the center of things or being near unto things
is described as a governing star that is near unto God. The word Shinehah, which is said
to be the sun in the Book of Abraham, is plausibly attested in Egyptian texts from Abraham’s
day as the name for the sun’s ecliptic or the path the sun travels through the sky during
the day from the vantage point of standing on Earth.
Finally, in contrast to typical Jewish and Christian beliefs in Joseph Smith’s day,
the creation account found in Abraham 4 and 5 describes plural gods instead of a singular
god as carrying out the creation of the cosmos. This depiction of a plurality of gods is much
more in line with texts from Abraham’s day. The account even uses specific language that
invokes the presence of the divine council, a concept that is now widely recognized by
scholars as being unquestionably ancient. Scholars likewise recognize that the ancient
cultures of Egypt, Syria, Canaan, and Mesopotamia did not seem to recognize ideas of creation
ex nihilo, but rather envisioned creation as the emergence of an ordered cosmos out
of pre-existing chaos, often represented as a primordial cosmic ocean or sometimes as
a primeval cosmic combat between gods. The verbs “organize” and “form” are used
throughout the Book of Abraham’s creation account instead of “create,” clearly indicating
some kind of divine activity of fashioning material as opposed to creating all matter
ex nihilo or out of nothing.
The points discussed in this video are just a sample of the evidence which supports the
Book of Abraham as an ancient text. Viewers wanting to dive deeper into these evidences
are encouraged to check out Pearlof GreatPriceCentral.org, which has short essays and an extensive bibliography
devoted to exploring these issues. While there are still plenty of questions about the Book
of Abraham that we cannot fully answer at the present, readers can confidently approach
the text knowing that a compelling case can and has been made for its historical authenticity.