The following is taken from Stephen O. Smoot, "Framing the Book of Abraham: Presumptions and Paradigms," a review of Dan Vogel's 2021 Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique:
The
“Kirtland Egyptian Papers” and the Book of Abraham
The
centerpiece of Vogel’s contention that the Book of Abraham is a modern
pseudepigraphon is the motley collection of manuscripts commonly classified as
the “Kirtland Egyptian Papers,”34 the “Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers,”35 or more recently the “Egyptian-language documents.”36 This corpus can broadly be grouped into the following categories:
(1) several manuscripts on which
associates of Joseph Smith copied Egyptian characters; (2) three
manuscripts containing attempts to decipher the Egyptian writing system,
called the Egyptian Alphabet documents; (3) a document associated with the
Egyptian Alphabet documents, called the Egyptian Counting document, that
contains a system of counting; and (4) a manufactured book of ruled
paper into which early Latter-day Saint scribes William W. Phelps and
Warren Parrish inscribed a “Grammar and A[l]phabet” of the Egyptian
language. The Egyptian-language documents are textually interdependent. The
Egyptian Alphabet documents contain non-Roman characters — many of which were
copied from the papyri — with accompanying transliterations and definitions.
Characters, transliterations, and definitions from the Egyptian Alphabet
documents were later copied into the Grammar and Alphabet volume.37
Controversy has swirled around these documents for over five decades,
since “the extent of Joseph Smith’s involvement in the creation of these
manuscripts is unknown.”38 More than just that, actually,
Almost every aspect of these
documents is disputed: their authorship, their date, their purpose, their
relationship with the Book of Abraham, their relationship with the
Joseph Smith Papyri, their relationship with each other, what the
documents are or were intended to be, and even whether the documents form
a discrete or coherent group.39
From the looks of it, the Egyptian-language documents are little more
than a confounding historical oddity that only a small cadre of
archivists and historians would find meaningful; hardly the sort of thing to
get worked up over. Why is it, then, that anti-Mormons have long salivated over
these manuscripts? Because despite how well-intended they may have been, “these
attempts are considered by modern Egyptologists — both Latter-day Saints and
others — to be of no actual value in understanding Egyptian.”40 The “Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language” (GAEL) document,
called the “bound grammar” throughout Book of Abraham Apologetics, has
particularly proven to be a lightning rod, since it is commonly believed
that the linguistic hocus-pocus of the GAEL is all that is needed to safely
demonstrate Joseph Smith’s inability to understand Egyptian.
To properly indict Joseph Smith, Vogel attributes the entirety of the Kirtland-era Egyptian-language
corpus to the Prophet (xi). He specifically goes to great pains to attribute
authorship of the “Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language” (GAEL)
to Joseph Smith (96–115), since the “imaginative” (96) way the Egyptian
language is understood in this text is indeed damning for the Book of Abraham
if the latter was derived from the former. Of course, Vogel has no other
prosecutorial option if he wants his charges to stick. If enough reasonable
doubt can be cast on the claim that Joseph Smith was the primary author of
the GAEL, then one of Vogel’s most important arguments in Book of Abraham Apologetics unravels. For Vogel’s
naturalistic claims about the Book of Abraham to work, he needs Joseph to be the principal instigator behind
the Egyptian-language documents.
So what evidence, exactly, does Vogel have to attribute authorship of
the GAEL to Joseph Smith? The first is this entry from Joseph Smith’s
history: “The remainder of this month [July 1835], I was continually
engaged in translating an alphabet to the Book of Abraham, and arranging
a grammar of the Egyptian language as practiced by the ancients.”41 Although dated July 1835 and written in the first person,
this entry, in fact, is a retrospective account that was composed by
scribe Willard Richards no earlier than mid-September 1843. Vogel is aware
of this, and so postulates that “he probably composed the July 1835
account with the help of Smith and/or Phelps, the latter of who also worked on
Smith’s history” (34). He indeed may have
consulted Joseph for this entry, or he may have only consulted Phelps, who is
the other (stronger, in my judgment) candidate for the authorship of the GAEL
and who by late 1843 had assumed the mantel of ghostwriter for the Prophet.42 So while this entry from Joseph Smith’s history is evidence
of contemporary attribution of the GAEL to Joseph, it is only secondary
evidence for such, as it could just as well be Phelps’ own projection of his
summer 1835 efforts onto Joseph. “It is important to remember that although
various people acted as scribe to Joseph Smith, they were independent
people and had their own independent thoughts. Not everything written by one of
Joseph Smith’s scribes came from the mind of Joseph Smith, even
during the time period when they served as Joseph Smith’s scribes.”43
Vogel next offers Joseph Smith’s October 1, 1835, journal
entry as evidence that “phase two” of work on the GAEL resumed under the
Prophet after a brief lapse (121–25). The entry reads:
“October 1, 1835. This after noon labored on the Egyptian alphabet,
in company with brsr O[liver] Cowdery and W[illiam] W. Phelps: The system of
astronomy was unfolded.”44 Vogel immediately jumps to the conclusion that this must be
referring to the astronomical content of the GAEL, “which in the last seven
chapters … [describes] a hierarchy of stars and planets” (121). A much
more parsimonious explanation for the October 1, 1835 journal entry,
however, is that on this day Joseph was working (“laboring”) on the “Egyptian
alphabet” documents, not the GAEL.45 Unlike the GAEL, this group of Egyptian-language documents
(labeled A, B, and C in JSPRT4) actually
does contain not only the handwriting of Phelps, but also that of Cowdery and
the Prophet. “The three versions are clearly related. They may all be derived
from an earlier version, or, more likely, they may have been created
simultaneously, with [Joseph], Cowdery, and Phelps consulting with one another
or referring to each other’s manuscripts.”46 Joseph, Cowdery, and Phelps working together on the “Egyptian
alphabet” texts one breezy October afternoon is a far more likely scenario
than the convoluted one Vogel offers.47
None of this is to deny that Joseph Smith had any involvement
whatsoever with the composition of the Kirtland-era Egyptian-language
documents. His handwriting appears in at least one of the “Egyptian alphabet”
manuscripts, and his history could be used
to show his involvement in the production of the GAEL in some undeterminable
capacity. It is, rather, to stress two things. First, the evidence for Joseph Smith’s
involvement in the composition of the GAEL, specifically, is tenuous; and
second, Vogel has ramrodded the facts into a specific predetermined
conclusion about the composition of the Book of Abraham and its relationship
with the Kirtland-era Egyptian-language documents. In fact, the situation is
far more uncertain than Vogel lets on.
It is unclear when in 1835
Joseph Smith began creating the existing Book of Abraham manuscripts or
what relationship the Book of Abraham manuscripts have to the Egyptian-language
documents. While some of the documents are clearly textually dependent upon
others, there is also evidence of overlapping creation, false starts, and
building upon previous work. The sequence of the creation of the Kirtland-era
Book of Abraham manuscript and the various manuscripts of the Egyptian-language
project is unknown. Considerable overlap of themes exists between the Book of
Abraham and the Egyptian-language documents. Both have information concerning
Abraham, Egypt, the Creation, Adam and Eve, Eden, astronomy, and Kolob and
other stars, among other topics. Some evidence indicates that material from the
Grammar and Alphabet volume was incorporated into at least one portion of the
Book of Abraham text in Kirtland. But most of the Book of Abraham is not
textually dependent on any of the extant Egyptian-language documents. The
inverse is also true: most of the content in the Egyptian-language documents is
independent of the Book of Abraham.48
Because of this, Vogel’s overall discussion of the significance of the
Egyptian-language documents in Book of Abraham Apologetics,
including his exposition on how the content of the GAEL and other related
documents must have informed the worldview of Joseph Smith, is of limited
value.49
34. The
term coined by Hugh Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian
Papers,” BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (Summer 1971): 350–99;
rep. in Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Abraham,
502–68.
35. The
term preferred by H. Michael Marquardt, “Joseph Smith’s Egyptian
Papers: A History,” in The Joseph Smith Egyptian
Papyri, 11–56.
36. The
term used by the Joseph Smith Papers Project, as found in Jensen and
Hauglid, JSPRT4, xiii.
37.
Jensen and Hauglid, JSPRT4, xiv–xv,
citations removed.
38.
Ibid., xv.
39.
Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 33.
40.
Jensen and Hauglid, JSPRT4, xxv.
41.
“History, 1838–1856, volume B-1
[1 September 1834–2 November 1838],” p. 597, The
Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-b-1-1-september-1834-2-november-1838/51.
42.
Samuel Brown, “The Translator and the Ghostwriter: Joseph Smith and W. W.
Phelps,” Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 1 (Winter 2008):
26–62.
43.
Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” in Approaching
Antiquity, 437.
44. “Journal,
1835–1836,” p. 3, The Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/journal-1835-1836/4.
45.
Jensen and Hauglid, JSPRT4, 53–93.
46.
Ibid., 53.
47. See
further Gee, “Fantasy and Reality in the Translation of the Book of Abraham,”
161–62; “Prolegomena to a Study of the Egyptian Alphabet Documents in the
Joseph Smith Papers,” 78–83.
48.
Jensen and Hauglid, JSPRT4, xxv,
citations removed.
49. If
one wishes to explore this line of investigation, I recommend, as an
alternative to Vogel, Samuel Morris Brown, “Joseph (Smith) in Egypt: Babel,
Hieroglyphs, and the Pure Language of Eden,” Church History 78,
no. 1 (2009): 26–65; Samuel Morris Brown, In Heaven as It Is On Earth:
Joseph Smith and the Early Mormon Conquest of Death (New
York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 115–41; Samuel Morris Brown, Joseph Smith’s Translation, 193–232.
