Thursday, September 8, 2022

First-Person Accounts similar to the Book of Mormon in Ancient Egyptian Literature

Taken from

 

Robert F. Smith, Egyptianisms in the Book of Mormon and Other Studies (Provo, Utah: Deep Forest Green Books, 2020), 28-29

 

Autobiography

 

David Bokovoy objects that the Bible doesn’t exhibit any first-person accounts such as are found throughout the Book of Mormon. [140] However, ancient Egyptian literature features a plethora of first-person narrative accounts, such as the Shipwrecked Sailor, Wenamon Report, Tale of Sinuhe, [141] Dispute of a Man with His Ba, [142] and hundreds of autobiographical tomb inscriptions, such as those of Weni the Elder, [143] Harkhuf, [144] Ahmose son of Ebana, [145] and Ahmose Pen-Nekhebet, [146] aside from all the first person songs, such as the Songs of the Harpers, [147] which have their parallel in the biblical Song of Songs. This was a standard genre in ancient Egypt, which was certainly part of the world of the Bible. Indeed, first-person accounts were also quite common in cuneiform literature (Sargon Birth Legend, Idrimi, Azittawada, etc.). [148] The Book of Abraham is likewise autobiographical, and (as pointed out by John Gee) the first four phrases of Idrimi’s autobiographical inscription parallel those of the Book of Abraham. [149]

 

Notes for the Above

 

[140] Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament, 3 vols. (SLC: Kofford, 2013- ), I:193-194, claiming that “we do not have any type of record from the world of the Bible comparable to the Book of Mormon in which named narrators present their true history as a type of autobiographical narrative” – citing K. van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible, 117. Cf., however, Ecclesiastes as autobiography.

 

[141] COS, I:77-84,89-93.

 

[142] COS, III:321-325; cf. TPPI, 17,5; 20,4, and Urkunden VII, 2.9.

 

[143] Lichtheim, AEL [UC Press, 1973]. I:18ff; 6th dynasty.

 

[144] Lichtheim, AEL, I:23-27; 6th dynasty.

 

[145] Lichtheim, AEL [UC Press, 1975], II:12ff; 18th dynasty. This one also has a heading, which is characteristic of the Book of Mormon.

 

[146] Breasted, ARE, II, §§ 17ff., 40ff; 18th dynasty.

 

[147] COS, I:48-50, of Intef, Neferhotep, etc.

 

[148] As Assyriologist Paul Hoskisson has kindly pointed out to me. Cf. Tremper Longman III, Fictional Akkadian Autobiography: A Generic and Comparative Study (Winona Lake: Eisenbrauns, 1991), 53-73.

 

[149] J. Gee, Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 100,103.