Some critics, including one former member of the Church in Ireland that
I know personally, have made the argument that, based on the Church's Gospel
Topics essay on the Book of Abraham, the Church is now ambivalent on the issue
of the historicity of the Book of Abraham, trying to relegate it to a source of
doctrine merely. Of course, such is false.
For those who have not yet done so, one should read the essay in full:
For a good
introduction and overview to the Book of Abraham, one should pursue this recent
volume:
John Gee, An
Introduction to the Book of Abraham (
Here are some relevant excerpts from the essay that assume and affirm
the historicity of the Book of Abraham and that it is not to be treated as a
source of theology only:
This book, a record
of the biblical prophet and patriarch Abraham, recounts how Abraham sought the
blessings of the priesthood, rejected the idolatry of his father, covenanted
with Jehovah, married Sarai, moved to Canaan and Egypt, and received knowledge
about the Creation
On many particulars,
the book of Abraham is consistent with historical knowledge about the ancient
world. Some of this knowledge, which is discussed later in this essay, had not
yet been discovered or was not well known in 1842 . . . A careful study of the
book of Abraham provides a better measure of the book’s merits than any
hypothesis that treats the text as a conventional translation. Evidence
suggests that elements of the book of Abraham fit comfortably in the ancient
world and supports the claim that the book of Abraham is an authentic record .
. . The book of Abraham is consistent with various details found in nonbiblical
stories about Abraham that circulated in the ancient world around the time the
papyri were likely created . . . Other details in the book of Abraham are found
in ancient traditions located across the Near East. These include Terah,
Abraham’s father, being an idolator; a famine striking Abraham’s homeland;
Abraham’s familiarity with Egyptian idols; and Abraham's being younger than 75
years old when he left Haran, as the biblical account states. Some of these
extrabiblical elements were available in apocryphal books or biblical
commentaries in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, but others were confined to
nonbiblical traditions inaccessible or unknown to 19th-century Americans.
Thousands of years ago, the prophet Nephi
learned that one purpose of the Book of Mormon was to “establish the truth” of
the Bible. In a similar way, the book of Abraham supports, expands, and
clarifies the biblical account of Abraham’s life.
Of course, the fragments do not have to be as
old as Abraham for the book of Abraham and its illustrations to be authentic.
Ancient records are often transmitted as copies or as copies of copies. The
record of Abraham could have been edited or redacted by later writers much as
the Book of Mormon prophet-historians Mormon and Moroni revised the writings of
earlier peoples. Moreover, documents initially composed for one context can be
repackaged for another context or purpose. Illustrations once connected with
Abraham could have either drifted or been dislodged from their original context
and reinterpreted hundreds of years later in terms of burial practices in a
later period of Egyptian history. The opposite could also be true:
illustrations with no clear connection to Abraham anciently could, by
revelation, shed light on the life and teachings of this prophetic figure.
Joseph Smith’s explanations of the facsimiles
of the book of Abraham contain additional earmarks of the ancient world.
Facsimile 1 and Abraham 1:17 mention the idolatrous god Elkenah. This deity is
not mentioned in the Bible, yet modern scholars have identified it as being
among the gods worshipped by ancient Mesopotamians. Joseph Smith represented
the four figures in figure 6 of facsimile 2 as “this earth in its four
quarters.” A similar interpretation has been argued by scholars who study
identical figures in other ancient Egyptian texts. Facsimile 1 contains a
crocodile deity swimming in what Joseph Smith called “the firmament over our
heads.” This interpretation makes sense in light of scholarship that identifies
Egyptian conceptions of heaven with “a heavenly ocean.”
On the topic
of Abrahamic traditions in ancient texts and how they coincide with the
non-biblical elements about the life and ministry of the patriarch in the Book
of Abraham, something discussed in the essay, for a fuller discussion, one
should pursue the following book:
Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham, eds. John A. Tvedtnes, Brian M.
Hauglid, and John Gee (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon
Studies, 2001)
Jeff Lindsay
has a very good summary of the book on his Web Page: