Commenting on Franklin S. Spalding's survey of comments from Egyptologists about the Book of Abraham from 1912, still a popular (if dated) resource by critics of the Book of Abraham, the non-LDS Egyptologist John A. Wilson offered the following comment about the unscholarly nature thereof:
The transcriptions of the stained papyri which Joseph Smith had published in different places were not legible. Scholars in the past had been unable to get any running translation from these copies. Now it would be possible to examine the texts more closely. However, the matter might be delicate. Back in 1912 an Episcopal bishop had mounted an attack on Joseph Smith as a translator. He had solicited and published several off-hand and hostile opinions from Egyptologists. The resulting controversy had left a lot of bitterness. Scholarship required a more responsible analysis than a lot of indignant snorts. (John A. Wilson, Thousands of Years: An Archaeologist’s Search for Ancient Egypt [New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1972], 175-6, emphasis added)
