The Joseph Smith Papyri

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An example of what I am talking about is the recent discovery of the papyrus scrolls from which Joseph Smith was presumed to have translated the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price. Modern scholars, looking at the scrolls, found nothing they considered to be similar to that book. I remarked at the time that such a finding didn't bother me in the least. God doesn't need a crib sheet in the form of a papyrus scroll to reveal Abraham's thoughts and words to Joseph Smith, with any degree of precision He considers necessary for His purposes. If the only function of the scrolls was to awaken the Prophet to the idea of receiving such inspiration, they would have fulfilled their purpose.

—Henry Eyring, Reflections of a Scientist, p. 46

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The Joseph Smith Papyri

Summary: Joseph Smith had in his possession three or four long scrolls, plus a hypocephalus (Facsimile 2). Of these original materials, only a handful of fragments were recovered at the Metropolitan Museum. The majority of the papyri remains lost, and has likely been destroyed. There are a number of criticisms related to the recovered fragments of the Joseph Smith papyri. These criticisms are addressed below.

Video published by the Church History Department.

Jump to Subtopic:

• Online source documents
• The Joseph Smith Papyri: Source Quotes
• Identity and nature of the papyrus in the Church's possession
• When did the Church disclose that the Joseph Smith Papyri were an Egyptian funerary text?
• Why is the Book of Abraham text not on the papyri?
• The facsimiles in the Book of Abraham
• Antiquity of the Book of Abraham

Online source documents

• View high resolution images of the Joseph Smith Papyri online.

The Joseph Smith Papyri: Source Quotes

Summary: A collection of source quotes related to the Joseph Smith Papyri

Jump to details:

• 1840
• 1842
• 1846
• 1883

Identity and nature of the papyrus in the Church's possession

Jump to details:

• Gospel Topics on LDS.org: "Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham"
• Question: What is the relationship of the Joseph Smith Papyri to the Book of Abraham?
• Question: What happened to the papyri after Joseph's death?
• Question: What do the Joseph Smith papyri fragments consist of?
• Question: Did Abraham himself pen the Joseph Smith Papyri?
• John Gee, "Book of Abraham, I Presume"

When did the Church disclose that the Joseph Smith Papyri were an Egyptian funerary text?

Summary: Critics often assert that the Church did not identify the Joseph Smith Papyri as an Egyptian funerary text until after Egyptologists examined them. They also claim that the Church is hiding or "covering up" the papyri's actual contents. Both assertions are incorrect. In fact, the Church ran a multi-part series with color pictures of the papyri in the Improvement Era (the predecessor to the Ensign) less than two months after they were received from the Metropolitan Museum. The series repeatedly affirmed that the recovered papyri contained Egyptian funerary materials and not the text of Book of Abraham.

Jump to details:

• Question: Was the Church forthright in identifying the rediscovered papyrus prior to their examination by non-LDS Egyptologists?
• Improvement Era (January 1968): "Often the funerary texts contained passages from the 'Book of the Dead,' a book that was to assist in the safe passage of the dead person into the spirit world"
• Question: What did the Church announce in 1968 when the Joseph Smith papyri fragments were discovered?
• Question: How long did the Church know about the papyri before they published information about them?

Why is the Book of Abraham text not on the papyri?

Summary: We do not claim to know why the text of the Book of Abraham (or the missing Book of Joseph) is not in evidence on the fragments of papyrus that were recovered. Critics, of course, simply assume this to be conclusive evidence that Joseph was a fraud. From a believer's perspective, however, there are several possible theories to account for this: 1) The text was revealed much in the same manner as that of the Book of Mormon, without the need for the actual papyri, 2) The text was present on portions of the papyri that are missing, and 3) The Book of Abraham manuscript was attached to the Book of Breathings manuscript and was lost. 4) Perhaps there was a way of understanding the Egyptian ideograms anciently that is unknown to Egyptology in our day, yet to be discovered, deciphered or acknowledged, that could yield an interpretation of a text that is different than the standard Egyptological reading.

Jump to Subtopic:

• Question: Was the text of the Book of Abraham received through revelation?
• Question: What is the Book of Abraham "Missing Papyrus theory"?
• Historical Sources on Translation of Book of Abraham
• Gospel Topics on LDS.org, "Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham"

The facsimiles in the Book of Abraham

Summary: In the Book of Abraham, Joseph included three facsimiles of illustrations from the papyri, along with commentary about what the images and their individual parts represented. Some of Joseph's interpretations are similar to those of trained Egyptologists, but most are not. A number of criticisms relate to the three facsimiles associated with the Book of Abraham. It is noted that Joseph Smith's translation of the facsimiles does not agree with that provided by Egyptologists, and that some missing portions of the facsimiles were incorrectly restored before they were published.

Jump to details:

• Book of Abraham Facsimile 1: The "lion couch" scene
• An analysis of the Charles M. Larson restoration of Facsimile 1 compared against the original papyrus
• Book of Abraham Facsimile 2: The hypocephalus
• Book of Abraham Facsimile 3: The throne scene
• Restoration of missing portions of the facsimiles

Antiquity of the Book of Abraham

Jump to details:

• Question: Since the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was translated date to the 3rd century BCE to the 1st century CE, does this mean that the events recorded in the Book of Abraham cannot be historical?

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Source(s) of the criticism

Critical sources

Edward H. Ashment, The Use of Egyptian Magical Papyri to Authenticate the Book of Abraham: A Critical Review, Salt Lake City: Resource Communications, 1993. Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri, 2nd ed., (Grand Rapids, MI: Institute for Religious Research, 1992), . Jerald and Sandra Tanner, "Solving the Mystery of the Joseph Smith Papyri," Salt Lake City Messenger 82 (September 1992): 1–12. Jerald and Sandra Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism (Moody Press, 1979), Chapter 11.( Index of claims )

Notes