The 1832 First Vision Account

Joseph Smith—History Insight #2

The earliest firsthand account of Joseph Smith’s First Vision was written in the summer of 1832.¹ Part of a larger, ambitious historical narrative “of the life of Joseph Smith Jr.” that includes “an account of his marvilous experience” and “an account of the rise of the church of Christ in the eve of time,”² this account of the First Vision is the only extant rendition that is preserved in the Prophet’s own hand.

The origin of the 1832 history that preserves this early account of the First Vision can be placed in the context of a shifting emphasis in recordkeeping among early Latter-day Saints. Spurred on by revelation commanding that a record and history be kept of the rise of the newly-formed Church of Christ (Doctrine and Covenants 21:1; 85:1–2), “the circa summer 1832 history came about as part of a new phase in [Joseph Smith]’s record-keeping practices. During the first four years of Mormon record keeping (1828–1831), [Joseph] focused primarily on preserving his revelatory texts. . . . This focus changed in 1832, when [Joseph] began documenting his personal life in detail for the first time, both in his history and in the journal he began on 27 November 1832.”³

“In the early 1830s,” note the editors of the Joseph Smith Papers Project, “when this history was written, it appears that [Joseph] had not broadcast the details of his first vision of Deity” with the possible exception of a hinting reference to the First Vision in an 1830 revelation.⁴

Initially, [Joseph] may have considered this vision to be a personal experience tied to his own religious explorations. He was not accustomed to recording personal events, and he did not initially record the vision as he later did the sacred texts at the center of his attention. Only when [Joseph] expanded his focus to include historical records did he write down a detailed account of the theophany he experienced as a youth. The result was a simple, unpolished account of his first “marvilous experience,” written largely in his own handwriting. The account was not published or widely circulated at the time, though in later years he told the story more frequently.⁵

It isn’t clear exactly when in 1832 this history was recorded, but a very likely time frame for its composition is sometime between July and November of that year.⁶ Frederick G. Williams assisted Joseph as a scribe to record the opening pages of this history. The way Joseph told this account of his vision was likely influenced, in part, by experiences he had while staying in Greenville, Indiana.⁷ That spring he traveled with Sidney Rigdon, Jesse Gause, Peter Whitmer Jr., and Newel K. Whitney to Missouri. On the way back to Ohio in May, Whitney broke his leg in a stagecoach accident, forcing Joseph to stay with him in Greenville to help him recover. During this time Joseph had plentiful opportunities to ponder on his standing before the Lord and reflect on the trials that faced him. Several of the prominent themes in the 1832 retelling of the First Vision parallel themes that appear in Joseph’s letters from his time in Greenville, which speak to the strong likelihood that at least the narrative and thematic seeds of the 1832 history were planted in Joseph’s mind during this time.⁸

Perhaps the most notable aspect of the 1832 account is that it does not explicitly speak of two personages visiting Joseph as later accounts do. Rather, it speaks of “the open[ing] the heavens upon [Joseph]” and Joseph then seeing “the Lord.”⁹ The reason for this apparent discrepancy with his later accounts has been explored by Latter-day Saint writers who argue that, while admittedly not as clear as the later accounts, the language of this account does not necessarily preclude the possibility of two personages being described.¹⁰

Another remarkable detail in this account of the vision is Joseph’s description of “a piller of ~~fire~~ light above the brightness of the sun at noon day” shining above him. Joseph appears to have struggled somewhat to communicate what he experienced in the vision, as he first wrote “fire” to describe what he saw but immediately crossed it out and replaced it with the word “light.”¹¹ This gives a glimpse into Joseph’s struggle to describe his revelations with what he called “the little narrow prison . . . of paper[,] pen[,] and ink and a crooked[,] broken[,] scattered[,] and imperfect language.”¹²

After the Prophet’s death in 1844, the 1832 history traveled west with the Saints to Utah and was kept in the Church Historian’s Office. Being eclipsed in notoriety and importance by Joseph’s canonical 1838–39 account in the Pearl of Great Price, it went unpublished until 1965 when Paul Cheesman included a transcript of it in his master’s thesis.¹³ Since then, the 1832 account has been published and discussed multiple times (including in official Church publications) and has regained a prominent place in the historical consciousness of Latter-day Saints.¹⁴

Although the 1832 account of the First Vision may be “the least polished” of the extant renditions, it is without question the most intimate. The later retellings “are more conscious of the vision’s significance for all mankind, but none surpasses this earliest known account at revealing what it meant personally to young Joseph Smith.”¹⁵

Circa Summer 1832 History

(Following the standardized version here; original available here)

At about the age of twelve years, my mind become seriously impressed with regard to the all-important concerns for the welfare of my immortal soul, which led me to searching the scriptures—believing, as I was taught, that they contained the word of God and thus applying myself to them. My intimate acquaintance with those of different denominations led me to marvel exceedingly, for I discovered that they did not adorn their profession by a holy walk and godly conversation agreeable to what I found contained in that sacred depository. This was a grief to my soul.

Thus, from the age of twelve years to fifteen I pondered many things in my heart concerning the situation of the world of mankind, the contentions and divisions, the wickedness and abominations, and the darkness which pervaded the minds of mankind. My mind became exceedingly distressed, for I became convicted of my sins, and by searching the scriptures I found that mankind did not come unto the Lord but that they had apostatized from the true and living faith, and there was no society or denomination that was built upon the gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the New Testament. I felt to mourn for my own sins and for the sins of the world, for I learned in the scriptures that God was the same yesterday, today, and forever, that he was no respecter of persons, for he was God.

For I looked upon the sun, the glorious luminary of the earth, and also the moon, rolling in their majesty through the heavens, and also the stars shining in their courses, and the earth also upon which I stood, and the beasts of the ﬁeld, and the fowls of heaven, and the ﬁsh of the waters, and also man walking forth upon the face of the earth in majesty and in the strength of beauty, whose power and intelligence in governing the things which are so exceedingly great and marvelous, even in the likeness of him who created them. And when I considered upon these things, my heart exclaimed, “Well hath the wise man said, ‘It is a fool that saith in his heart, there is no God.’” My heart exclaimed, “All, all these bear testimony and bespeak an omnipotent and omnipresent power, a being who maketh laws and decreeth and bindeth all things in their bounds, who ﬁlleth eternity, who was and is and will be from all eternity to eternity.” And I considered all these things and that that being seeketh such to worship him as worship him in spirit and in truth.

Therefore, I cried unto the Lord for mercy, for there was none else to whom I could go and obtain mercy. And the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness, and while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord, in the sixteenth year of my age, a pillar of light above the brightness of the sun at noonday came down from above and rested upon me. I was ﬁlled with the spirit of God, and the Lord opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord.

And he spake unto me, saying, “Joseph, my son, thy sins are forgiven thee. Go thy way, walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments. Behold, I am the Lord of glory. I was crucified for the world, that all those who believe on my name may have eternal life. Behold, the world lieth in sin at this time, and none doeth good, no, not one. They have turned aside from the gospel and keep not my commandments. They draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me. And mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth, to visit them according to their ungodliness and to bring to pass that which hath been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and apostles. Behold and lo, I come quickly, as it is written of me, in the cloud, clothed in the glory of my Father.”

My soul was ﬁlled with love, and for many days I could rejoice with great joy. The Lord was with me, but I could ﬁnd none that would believe the heavenly vision. Nevertheless, I pondered these things in my heart.

Footnotes

¹ See History, circa Summer 1832; cf. Karen Lynn Davidson et al., eds. The Joseph Smith Papers, Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844 (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2012), 3–23.

² History, circa Summer 1832, 1.

³ Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Histories, Volume 1, 6.

⁴ See Articles and Covenants, ca. Apr. 1830 [D&C 20:5]; cf. Michael Hubbard MacKay et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831 (Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 121.

⁵ Davidson et al., eds. The Joseph Smith Papers, Histories, Volume 1, 6.

⁶ Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 34.

⁷ Matthew C. Godfrey, “The Second Sacred Grove: The Influence of Greenville, Indiana, on Joseph Smith’s 1832 First Vision Account,” Journal of Mormon History 44, no. 4 (October 2018): 1–18.

⁸ See Godfrey, “The Second Sacred Grove,” 15–18.

⁹ History, circa Summer 1832, 3.

¹⁰ James B. Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision—What Do We Learn from Them?” Improvement Era, April 1970, 7; Matthew B. Brown, A Pillar of Light: The History and Message of the First Vision (American Fork, UT: Covenant, 2009), 92–94; Steven C. Harper, “A Seeker’s Guide to the Historical Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel 12, no. 1 (2011): 168; James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “Analysis of Joseph Smith’s Accounts of His First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestation, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2017), 66–67.

¹¹ History, circa Summer 1832, 3.

¹² Letter to William W. Phelps, 27 November 1832, in Letterbook 1, p. 4; cf. Matthew C. Godfrey et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 2: July 1831–January 1833 (Salt Lake City, UT: Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 320.

¹³ Paul R. Cheesman, An Analysis of the Accounts Relating Joseph Smith’s Early Visions (Master’s Thesis, Brigham Young University, 1965), 126–132.

¹⁴ Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” BYU Studies 9, no. 3 (1969): 278–280; Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision—What Do We Learn from Them?” 4–13; Milton V. Backman Jr., Joseph Smith’s First Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1971; 2nd edition, 1980), 155–157; “Joseph Smith’s Recitals of the First Vision,” Ensign, January 1985, 8–17; Eyewitness Accounts of the Restoration (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1986), 17–32; Dean C. Jessee, ed. The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1984. rep. ed. 2002), 4–6; The Papers of Joseph Smith, Volume 1: Autobiographical and Historical Writings (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), 3–10; Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision,” 10–21; Ronald O. Barney, “The First Vision: Searching for the Truth,” Ensign, January 2005, 14–19; Brown, A Pillar of Light, 178–180; Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Histories, Volume 1, 10–16; MacKay et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1, 279–285; Allen and Welch. “Analysis of Joseph Smith’s Accounts of His First Vision,” 37–77; Richard J. Maynes, “The First Vision: Key to Truth,” Ensign, June 2017, 60–65.

¹⁵ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 33.

February 4, 2020September 17, 2020

Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision

Joseph Smith—History Insight #1

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are inspired by Joseph Smith’s account of his First Vision of God the Father and Jesus Christ as recorded in Joseph Smith–History in the Pearl of Great Price. Canonized as scripture on Sunday, October 10, 1880,¹ this account of the First Vision has been enshrined for Latter-day Saints as the canonical narrative of the early life and prophetic calling of Joseph Smith.²

But while Latter-day Saints are mainly familiar with the canonical account of the First Vision that was first drafted by Joseph Smith in 1838–39, over the years historians have identified three other firsthand accounts of the First Vision left by the Prophet. As with the four canonical gospels in the New Testament that narrate the life and teachings of Jesus, the four primary accounts of the First Vision can be read individually to appreciate the nuance and subtle differences that they communicate in each retelling or they can be read together in harmony to appreciate them as an organic whole. Whether read individually or in harmony, each account communicates profound truths about God and Joseph Smith’s prophetic call.³

The primary accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision have been conveniently collected and digitized by the Joseph Smith Papers Project.⁴ They entail:

The 1832 Account: JS History, ca. Summer 1832, pp. 1–3.

This is the earliest account of the First Vision and is recorded in Joseph Smith’s own hand. It is a deeply personal and poignant narrative that is couched in Joseph’s quest to find forgiveness for his sins as a young man. It features an extended direct quotation of what the Lord instructed Joseph in the vision.

The 1835 Account: JS, Journal, 9–11 Nov. 1835, pp. 23–24.

This recitation of the First Vision stems from Joseph Smith’s encounter with the eccentric Robert Matthews in November 1835. Joseph and Matthews discussed religious matters during their meeting as both claimed prophetic authority. Part of the conversation included Joseph’s description of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and the First Vision. This account includes the detail not present in other accounts that Joseph saw “many angels” in his vision of the Father and the Son.

The 1838 Account: JS History, 1838–1856, vol. A–1, pp. 2–3

Undoubtedly the most famous account of the First Vision, this recitation opened what later evolved into the six-volume History of the Church and was canonized in the Pearl of Great Price. Written at a time when the persecution of the Saints in Missouri was fresh on the Prophet’s mind, the tone of this retelling is more defensive and apologetic and emphasizes the theme of opposition against Joseph personally as well as his efforts to restore the Church of Jesus Christ.

The 1842 Account: The Wentworth Letter (“Church History,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 [March 1, 1842]: 706–707.)

Published in 1842 in the Church’s newspaper Times and Seasons, this account was prepared at the request of Chicago newspaperman John Wentworth. It was contextualized as part of a larger “sketch of the rise, progress, persecution, and faith of the Latter-Day Saints.” Peppered with Latin phrases, carefully crafted for wide public consumption, and drawing language from previously published records, this account of the First Vision shows the Prophet’s evolving literary style and reliance on clerks who helped him (re)formulate his narrative in later years.

The 1835, 1838, and 1842 accounts of the First Vision were copied or otherwise repurposed on a few occasions in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, attesting to their importance. As one historian has remarked, “Joseph Smith’s [F]irst [V]ision may be the best documented theophany in history. . . . Joseph Smith worked hard to document his experience in the grove, and scholars have worked hard to raise awareness of his several accounts.”⁵

Rather than feel threatened or bothered by the existence of multiple accounts of the First Vision, Latter-day Saints can rightly rejoice that they have access to additional records that compliment the canonical account in the Pearl of Great Price. As is true with all books of scripture, “The [F]irst [V]ision accounts were created in specific historical settings that shape what they say and how they say it. Each of the accounts of Joseph Smith’s [F]irst [V]ision has its own history. Each was created in circumstances that determined how it was remembered and communicated and thus how it was transmitted to us. Each account has gaps and omissions. Each adds detail and richness.”⁶

Footnotes

¹ “Fiftieth Semi-Annual Conference,” Deseret News (13 October 1880).

² See the discussion and overview of the importance of the First Vision in Latter-day Saint thought in Terryl Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019), 223-240; Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019).

³ Richard J. Maynes, “The First Vision: Key to Truth,” Ensign, June 2017, 60–65.

⁴ See “Primary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision of Deity,” online at the Joseph Smith Papers website.

⁵ Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 31.

⁶ Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision, 32.

February 3, 2020February 11, 2020

First Vision Study Guide

In his closing remarks during the last session of the October 2019 general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, President Russell M. Nelson designated “the year 2020 . . . as a bicentennial year” commemorating the restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. “In the springtime of the year 2020,” said President Nelson during his talk, “it will be exactly 200 years since Joseph Smith experienced the theophany that we know as the First Vision. God the Father and His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, appeared to Joseph, a 14-year-old youth. That event marked the onset of the Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fulness, precisely as foretold in the Holy Bible.”

To prepare for a bicentennial celebration at “a unique [general] conference” of the Church in April 2020, President Nelson invited members of the Church to study the early events of the Restoration “by reading afresh Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price.”

To help prepare members of the Church for this conference and to assist them in their study of Joseph Smith’s canonical account of the First Vision, Pearl of Great Price Central is pleased to present this study guide. The intended length of this course of study is left to be determined at the discretion of the reader. The guide can be completed in one week (seven topics, one per day) or spread out over the next two months leading up to the April 2020 general conference.

The structure of the study guide is as follows:

Primary Reading: the relevant verses from Joseph Smith–History in the Pearl of Great Price and one or two short articles that provide contextual information relevant to the topic. This is the minimal amount of reading required for each topic.

Secondary Reading: articles that provide more in-depth information relevant to the topic. These articles are encouraged to be read along with the items listed under Primary Reading but are left to the discretion of the reader based on his or her level of interest.

Additional Reading: additional print and online articles relevant to the topic for readers who wish to broaden the scope of their study beyond the material listed in the Primary and Secondary Reading categories.

Additional Resources: miscellaneous multimedia resources to complement the material listed under the Primary, Secondary, and Additional Reading categories.

Pearl of Great Price Central First Vision Study Guide

Topic 1: Joseph Smith’s 1838-39 History and the Pearl of Great Price

Primary Reading

“Introduction” in The Pearl of Great Price.

“Histories” online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

“The Pearl of Great Price” online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

Secondary Reading

“Introduction to History, 1838–1856 (Manuscript History of the Church)” online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

“Joseph Smith as Revelator and Translator” online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

Dean C. Jessee, “The Writing of Joseph Smith’s History,” BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (1971): 439–473.

James R. Clark, “Our Pearl of Great Price: From Mission Pamphlet to Standard Work,” Ensign, August 1976.

Additional Reading

Dean C. Jessee, “The Reliability of Joseph Smith’s History,” Journal of Mormon History 3 (1976): 23–46.

Paul H. Peterson, “Understanding Joseph: A Review of Published Documentary Sources,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, The Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 101–116.

Oscar W. McConkie, “Why the Pearl of Great Price,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 1–12.

Additional Resources

“First Vision Accounts: Joseph Smith History, 1838–1856”

“Joseph Smith Papers: History of a History”

”Joseph Smith Papers: Joseph Smith and His Papers, Part 1”

“Joseph Smith Papers: Joseph Smith and His Papers, Part 2”

“Joseph Smith Papers: Pearl of Great Price”

Topic 2: The Early Life of Joseph Smith

Primary Reading

Joseph Smith–History 1:1–4

“Chapter 1: Ask In Faith,” in Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2018), 3–10.

“Joseph Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith Family”

Secondary Reading

Richard Neitzel Holzapfel, “The Early Years, 1805–19,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 1–22.

“Sacred Grove and Smith Family Farm”

Additional Reading

M. Russell Ballard, “The Family of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” Ensign, November 1991.

Daniel R. Winder, “The Smith Family Legacy of Prayer,” Selections from the Religious Education Student Symposium 2007 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2007), 18–34.

Donald L. Enders, “The Joseph Smith, Sr., Family: Farmers of the Genesee,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, The Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 213–225.

Additional Resources

“Joseph Smith Papers: Joseph’s Roots”

“Joseph Smith Papers: Joseph’s America”

“Joseph Smith Papers: The Family of Joseph Smith, Part 1”

Topic 3: Religious Excitement During Joseph Smith’s Youth

Primary Reading

Joseph Smith–History 1:5–13

“Chapter 1: Ask In Faith,” in Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2018), 11–13.

“Awakenings and Revivals”

Secondary Reading

“Palmyra and Manchester”

“Christian Churches in Joseph Smith’s Day”

Additional Reading

Joseph T. Antley, “The Cultural and Religious Environment of Joseph Smith’s Youth.” In BYU Religious Education 2010 Student Symposium, 3–21. Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2010.

Stephen J. Fleming, “John Wesley: A Methodist Foundation for the Restoration,” Religious Educator 9, no. 3 (2008): 131–150.

Milton V. Backman Jr., “Verification of the 1838 Account of the First Vision,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 197–212.

Porter, Larry C. “Reverend George Lane—Good ‘Gifts,’ Much ‘Grace,’ and Marked ‘Usefulness’,” BYU Studies 9, no. 3 (1969): 321–340.

Additional Resources

“Joseph Smith Papers: Palmyra”

“Joseph Smith Papers: First Vision Beginnings”

“Joseph Smith Papers: Unusual Excitement”

“Episode 5—The Setting of the First Vision”

Topic 4: The Vision

Primary Reading

Joseph Smith–History 1:14–20

“Chapter 2: Hear Him,” in Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2018), 14–19.

Secondary Reading

Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision.” Ensign, April 1996, 10–21.

J. B. Haws, “Reconciling Joseph Smith–––History 1:10 and 1:18–19,” Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel 14, no. 2 (2013): 97–105.

Additional Reading

Steven C. Harper, “A Seeker’s Guide to the Historical Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision.” Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel 12, no. 1 (2011): 165–176.

Additional Resources

“Episode 6—The First Vision”

Topic 5: The Aftermath of the Vision

Primary Reading

Joseph Smith–History 1:21–26.

Secondary Reading

Christopher C. Jones, “The Power and Form of Godliness: Methodist Conversion Narratives and Joseph Smith’s First Vision.” Journal of Mormon History 37, no. 2 (Spring 2011): 88–114.

Additional Reading

Truman G. Madsen, “The First Vision and Its Aftermath,” in Joseph Smith the Prophet (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1989), 7–18.

Additional Resources

Ron Barney, “Joseph Smith’s Visions: His Style and his Record,” Presented at the 2013 FairMormon Conference, August 2013.

Topic 6: Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision

Primary Reading

“First Vision Accounts” online at www.churchofjesuschrist.org.

Steven C. Harper, “The First Vision: A Narrative from Joseph Smith’s Accounts” online at www.history.churchofjesuschrist.org.

Secondary Reading

“Primary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision of Deity” online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

Steven C. Harper, “Suspicion or Trust: Reading the Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision.” In No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 63–75.

Milton V. Backman Jr., “Joseph Smith’s Recitals of the First Vision,” Ensign, January 1985, 8–17.

Additional Reading

James B. Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision—What Do We Learn from Them?” Improvement Era, April 1970, 4–13.

Michael Baldwin, “A Harmony of First Vision Accounts,” in BYU Religious Education 2009 Student Symposium (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 83–104.

Additional Resources

“Ask of God: Joseph Smith’s First Vision”

“Joseph Smith Papers: Four Accounts”

“Four Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision”

Topic 7: The Significance of the First Vision

Primary Reading

Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Fruits of the First Vision,” April 2005 General Conference.

Richard J. Maynes, “The First Vision: Key to Truth,” Ensign, June 2017.

Secondary Reading

James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1, no. 3 (Autumn 1966): 29–45.

Adele Brannon McCollum, “The First Vision: Re–Visioning Historical Experience,” in Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience, ed. Neal E. Lambert (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1981), 175–96.

Douglas N. Marsh, “First Visions: The Opening Events of the Mosaic, Nephite, and Final Dispensations,” Selections from the Religious Education Student Symposium 2006 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2006), 53–71.

Additional Reading

J. B. Haws, “First Vision, doctrinal contributions of.” In Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, 123–125. Edited by Dennis L. Largey. Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2017.

Steven C. Harper, First Vision: Memory and Mormon Origins. New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019.

Matthew B. Brown, A Pillar of Light: The History and Message of the First Vision (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2009).

Additional Resources

“The First Vision”

“The Truth Restored”

January 31, 2020January 27, 2022

The Relationship Between the Book of Abraham and the Joseph Smith Papyri

Book of Abraham Insight #40

It is clear that Joseph Smith’s inspired translation of the Book of Abraham was connected to the Egyptian papyri he acquired in the summer of 1835. However, less clear is the precise relationship shared between the Book of Abraham text and the papyri.

Several theories posit ways in which the Book of Abraham text relates to the papyri. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints maintains that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from papyri, but they do not specify which papyri. Theories about the relationship may be categorized under three heads: Joseph Smith produced the Book of Abraham (1) from the fragments of papyri that we still have, (2) from papyri that we no longer have, or (3) without the aid of any of the Joseph Smith Papyri.¹

Exploring these theories individually reveals that while they each have some evidence for them, “not all of the theories account equally for the historical evidence. It is worth knowing some of the problems associated with the various theories. Whichever theory one chooses to follow, one must be prepared to deal with the problems posed by the evidence that the theory cannot account for.”²

Theory 1: Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from surviving papyri fragments

The proponents of this theory maintain that Joseph Smith derived the Book of Abraham from the surviving fragments of the Hor Book of Breathings (P. Joseph Smith I, XI+X). This theory is mainly advocated by critics of Joseph Smith who want to cast doubt on the Prophet’s claims to inspiration, since these surviving fragments do not translate as the Book of Abraham.³ Some Latter-day Saint scholars also believe Joseph Smith attempted to translate the Book of Abraham from the surviving papyri fragments based on their interpretation of the historical data.⁴

The two main points of evidence cited by proponents of this theory are: (1) the hieratic Egyptian characters from P. Joseph Smith XI that appear in the margins of the early Book of Abraham manuscripts, and (2) the apparent reference to Facsimile 1 (the illustration in P. Joseph Smith I) at Abraham 1:12, 14.⁵ At first glance these two pieces of evidence may appear persuasive, but other scholars have disputed their explanatory power in connecting the English text of the Book of Abraham to the surviving fragments.

For example, it is not clear who added the hieratic characters in the margins of the Book of Abraham manuscripts or when they were added. It is also not clear what the scribe was thinking when they added the characters. It has been widely assumed that they were added at Joseph Smith’s direct prompting during the process of translation, but this is not certain.⁶ “Though the juxtaposition of the characters and Book of Abraham text implies a relationship between the two, the exact nature of that relationship is not stated” and is complicated by the evidence that the manuscripts which bear these marginal characters appear to be copies of an earlier text that is no longer extant.⁷ There is thus no “demonstrable relationship between the characters on the papyri and the text of the Book of Abraham.”⁸ Any assumed relationship between the two remains an assumption.

A page from one of the Kirtland-era Book of Abraham manuscripts in the handwriting of Warren Parrish. Characters from the Egyptian papyri can be seen in the left margin of the manuscript. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

The second point of evidence (the reference to Facsimile 1 at Abraham 1:12, 14) is likewise more complicated than is often supposed. For starters, scholars have recognized that the last line of Abraham 1:12 (““I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record”) and all of Abraham 1:14 (“That you may have an understanding of these gods, I have given you the fashion of them in the figures at the beginning, which manner of figures is called by the Chaldeans Rahleenos, which signifies hieroglyphics”) are interlinear insertions in the earliest manuscript copy of the Book of Abraham.⁹ What’s more, even if one assumes these references were original and not added later, “the reference [at Abraham 1:12, 14] indicates that the vignette depicting the altar and idols is not adjacent to the text but some distance from it.”¹⁰ In other words, the reference at Abraham 1:12, 14 could be read as indicating just the opposite of how proponents of this theory understand it.

Theory 2: Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from missing papyri fragments

This theory has gained traction as scholars have looked more closely at nineteenth century eyewitness descriptions of the papyri believed to be the source of the Book of Abraham.

The nineteenth-century eyewitnesses, both Mormon and non-Mormon, favorable and hostile to the Church, agree that the Book of Abraham was translated from a long roll of papyrus that was still a long roll in the 1840s and 1850s. The current fragments of the Joseph Smith Papyri, however, were all mounted on heavy paper and placed in glass frames in 1837. None of them can be the long roll described in the 1840s and 1850s. So these fragments are specifically not the source of the Book of Abraham according to the eyewitnesses.¹¹

The main advantage to this theory is that it can account for the nineteenth century eyewitness evidence. It also answers the objections raised by those who rightly point out that the Hor Book of Breathings is not the Book of Abraham. However, this theory has been criticized on the grounds that while there are indeed missing portions of papyri (for example, Facsimiles 2 and 3 are no longer extant) it is questionable to some whether there was enough missing papyri to accommodate a hypothetical missing Book of Abraham text.¹² Furthermore, even though “this theory accounts for [the eyewitness] evidence” it is still “frustrating to many people. Because the papyri are no longer extant, there is no possible way to check Joseph Smith’s translation of the Book of Abraham.”¹³

Theory 3: Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham without any physical papyri

This theory argues that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham directly by revelation without using any physical papyri. As an essay published by the Church recently articulated,

Joseph’s study of the papyri may have led to a revelation about key events and teachings in the life of Abraham, much as he had earlier received a revelation about the life of Moses while studying the Bible. This view assumes a broader definition of the words translator and translation. According to this view, Joseph’s translation was not a literal rendering of the papyri as a conventional translation would be. Rather, the physical artifacts provided an occasion for meditation, reflection, and revelation. They catalyzed a process whereby God gave to Joseph Smith a revelation about the life of Abraham, even if that revelation did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.¹⁴

Those who adopt this theory urge Latter-day Saints to reconsider the scope and mechanism of “translation” in Joseph Smith’s theology and scriptural productions.¹⁵ The strength of this theory is that it is consistent with the Prophet’s other scriptural productions. “One advantage is that in Doctrine and Covenants section 7, Joseph Smith translated an ancient papyrus that he never had in his possession; hence, there is a precedent for Joseph Smith translating a papyrus that was not in his possession, and so there is no reason to suppose that he had to have the papyrus of the Book of Abraham in his possession either.”¹⁶ At the same time, however, the main drawback to this theory is that Joseph Smith himself believed that he possessed a physical record of Abraham.¹⁷

“Given our current state of knowledge,” concludes one Latter-day Saint scholar, “the theory that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham from papyri that we no longer have accounts for the most evidence with the fewest problems. Even so, for none of the theories is the evidence as neat or as compelling as one might wish.”¹⁸ It could even be argued that some of these (and other) theories might be combined to form new paradigms. “As scholars continue to find, research, and analyze the evidence that bears on this subject, future studies will undoubtedly illuminate other theories that have not yet been conceived.”¹⁹

Since The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not taken an official stance on how the translation of the Book of Abraham was accomplished other than by revelation, and since the evidence is not as clear or as complete as we might like, it would perhaps be wiser for readers to worry less about the method of the translation and more about the results.

Footnotes

¹ John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 83.

² Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 84.

³ Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002).

⁴ Brian M. Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project: ‘A Knowledge of Hidden Languages’,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 474–511.

⁵ Grant S. Heward and Jerald Tanner, “The Source of the Book of Abraham Identified,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 2 (1968): 89–97; Christopher C. Smith, “‘That which Is Lost’: Assessing the State of Preservation of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 31, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011): 73.

⁶ See the discussion in Kerry Muhlestein, “Assessing the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Introduction to the Historiography of their Acquisitions, Translations, and Interpretations,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 22 (2016): 32–36; “The Explanation-Defying Book of Abraham,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, UT: Brigham Young University’s Religious Studies Center, 2016), 81–82, 84–85; “Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: A Faithful, Egyptological Point of View,” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 228–229.

⁷ Brent M. Rogers et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 5: October 1835–January 1838 (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2017), 74–75.

⁸ Muhlestein, “The Explanation-Defying Book of Abraham,” 85.

⁹ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 143; Rogers et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 5, 78; Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018), 195–196nn57, 64.

¹⁰ Muhlestein, “Assessing the Joseph Smith Papyri,” 29–32, quote at 30; cf. “Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham,” 225–226.

¹¹ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 85; cf. pp. 4–5; “Eyewitness, Hearsay, and Physical Evidence of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in The Disciple as Witness: Essays on Latter-day Saint History and Doctrine in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson, ed. Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 175–217; Kerry Muhlestein, “Papyri and Presumptions: A Careful Examination of the Eyewitness Accounts Associated with the Joseph Smith Papyri,” Journal of Mormon History 42, no. 4 (October 2016): 31–50.

¹² One of the main points of contention is whether it can be mathematically calculated how much papyrus is currently missing, and what was potentially contained on the missing portion. For different arguments, see John Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review 20, no. 1 (2008): 117–123; Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith, “The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 4 (2010): 1–42; “Formulas and Faith,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21, no. 1 (2012): 60–65; Smith, “‘That which Is Lost’,” 69–83; Muhlestein, “Papyri and Presumptions,” 31–50.

¹³ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 85.

¹⁴ “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham,” Gospel Topics.

¹⁵ Karl C. Sandberg, “Knowing Brother Joseph Again: The Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith as Translator,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 22, no. 4 (Winter 1989): 17–38; Terryl Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2019), 180–202.

¹⁶ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 85.

¹⁷ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 85–86.

¹⁸ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 85.

¹⁹ Kerry Muhlestein, “Joseph Smith and Egyptian Artifacts: A Model for Evaluating the Prophetic Nature of the Prophet’s Ideas about the Ancient World,” BYU Studies Quarterly 55, no. 3 (2016): 67.

January 30, 2020January 27, 2022

How Did Joseph Smith Translate the Book of Abraham?

Book of Abraham Insight #39

Multiple sources associated with the coming forth of the Book of Abraham spoke of Joseph Smith as translating the text.¹ The Prophet himself used this language to describe his own activity with the text. For example, an entry in Joseph Smith’s journal under the date November 20, 1835 indicates the Prophet “spent the day in translating” the Egyptian records.² In an unpublished editorial that was apparently meant to be printed in the March 1, 1842 issue of the Times and Seasons (the issue that saw the publication of the first installment of the Book of Abraham), Joseph Smith signaled his desire to “continue to translate and publish [the text] as fast as possible [until] the whole is completed.”³ What was published with the Book of Abraham was a preface announcing it as “A TRANSLATION Of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands . . . purporting to be the writings of Abraham.”⁴

But while Joseph Smith and others used the word “translation” to describe the production of the Book of Abraham, the means or methods Joseph used to translate ancient scripture were unique. Rather than utilizing dictionaries, grammar books, and lexicons, Joseph translated scripture through revelation. This can be seen in the other efforts Joseph Smith undertook throughout his prophetic ministry to produce other books of scripture.⁵

The Book of Mormon

Joseph Smith’s signature work of scripture is the Book of Mormon, which the Prophet claimed to have translated from golden plates “by the gift and power of God.”⁶ While early efforts to decipher the “reformed Egyptian” (Mormon 9:32) characters of the Book of Mormon evidently did involve some mental effort by the Prophet and his scribes,⁷ ultimately the translation was accomplished through the use of divinely-prepared seer stones. “When Joseph Smith began translating the Book of Mormon in 1827, he usually left the plates in a box or wrapped in a cloth, placed the interpreters or his seer stone (both of which seem to have been called Urim and Thummim) in a hat, and read the translation he saw in the stone to a scribe. . . . When the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon were stolen, an angel took back the interpreters, and Joseph instead used his seer stone.”⁸ All of this suggests that Joseph Smith’s mechanism for translating the Book of Mormon, while still in some way conveying one language (Egyptian) to another (English), was more closely synonymous with revelation.⁹

The Parchment of John (Doctrine and Covenants 7)

Doctrine and Covenants 7 was received by Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery in April 1829 just before or during the time when Oliver acted as a scribe for the translation of the Book of Mormon.¹⁰ When this section was first published in 1833, it was described as “a Revelation [sic] given to Joseph and Oliver” and was said to have been “translated from parchment, written and hid up by” a figure named John (presumably the beloved disciple).¹¹ This revealed “translation” of John’s record was received, like the Book of Mormon, through seeric instruments (the Urim and Thummim).¹² It is important to remember that during this process Joseph Smith “did not have physical possession of the papyrus he was translating.”¹³

The chapter heading to Chapter VI of the 1833 Book of Commandments (Doctrine and Covenants 7). The heading identifies this text as both a revelation and a translation. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

The “New Translation” of the Bible

Another important effort undertaken by Joseph Smith was what he called a “new translation” of the Bible.¹⁴ Accomplished principally between 1830–1833, this “new translation” of the Bible (today called the Joseph Smith Translation) was not accomplished by the Prophet carefully scrutinizing Hebrew and Greek manuscripts, nor even by consulting his seer stone or the Urim and Thummim, but instead by revising the English text of the King James Version of the Bible.¹⁵ “At the beginning of this translation, Joseph Smith would dictate long passages to his scribe without the use of the Urim and Thummim. When Sidney Rigdon began serving as a scribe, however, he apparently persuaded Joseph to change his practice and mark only passages in the Bible that needed changes and record those.”¹⁶ Even though Joseph and his clerks were revising the English text of the KJV and sometimes revealing entirely new content (such as portions of what is today called the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price),¹⁷ they nevertheless called the project a translation. While it is arguable that a handful of Joseph Smith’s revisions to the KJV Bible are indeed more precise renderings of the underlying Greek and Hebrew, or that the larger portions revealed by the Prophet in some way correspond to now-lost ancient manuscripts, this once again indicates the broad range of meaning the Prophet applied to this term.

The Book of Abraham

When it comes to the nature of the translation of the Book of Abraham, there is not much direct evidence for how Joseph accomplished the work. “No known first-person account from Joseph Smith exists to explain the translation of the Book of Abraham, and the scribes who worked on the project and others who claimed knowledge of the process provided only vague or general reminiscences.”¹⁸ John Whitmer, then acting as the Church’s historian and recorder, commented that “Joseph the Seer saw these Record[s] and by the revelation of Jesus Christ could translate these records … which when all translated will be a pleasing history and of great value to the saints.”¹⁹ Another important source is Warren Parrish, one of the scribes who assisted Joseph in the production of the Book of Abraham. After his disaffection from the Church in 1837, Parrish reported that in his capacity as Joseph’s scribe he “penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks as [Joseph] claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from Heaven.”²⁰ Parrish’s statement, like Whitmer’s, emphasizes that the method of Joseph’s “translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphicks” was revelatory, not academic, but that the Prophet was still performing a translation of an ancient language. Unfortunately, Parrish did not elaborate further on the precise nature of this translation “by direct inspiration.”

Other sources report that the Prophet used the Urim and Thummim (meaning probably one of his seer stones) in the translation of the Book of Abraham, although these sources come from those not immediately involved in the production of the text, and in one instance may have been confusing the translation process of the Book of Abraham with the translation process of the Book of Mormon, and so they should be accepted cautiously.²¹ If Joseph did use a seer stone in the translation of the Book of Abraham, this would reinforce the point that the method or means of translation for the Prophet was unique.

Joseph Smith’s brown seer stone. Some sources reported the Prophet using the Urim and Thummim (perhaps this or a similar seer stone) in the translation of the Book of Abraham. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Clues from the Book of Abraham text itself suggests that the Prophet felt free to continually adapt and revise his initial translation. For example, some of the names of the characters in the Book of Abraham were revised in 1842 shortly before the publication of the Book of Abraham.²² Likewise, Joseph Smith’s study of Hebrew appears to have also influenced the final form of the text, as Joseph’s knowledge of such influenced either how he initially rendered or later revised certain words and phrases in the Book of Abraham’s creation account.²³ One of the glosses at the beginning of the book (“which signifies hieroglyphics”; Abraham 1:14) is not present in the Kirtland-era manuscripts, which appears to indicate that it came from Joseph Smith or one of his scribes at the time of the publication of the text.²⁴ Another gloss (“I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record”; Abraham 1:12) was inserted interlineally, suggesting that “the references to the facsimiles within the text of the Book of Abraham seem to have been nineteenth-century editorial insertions”²⁵ (although this is not the only interpretation of this data point).²⁶

It should not come as a surprise that Joseph Smith (or his scribes) made revisions to the English text of the Book of Abraham and still called it a translation, since he also revised his revelations that comprise the Doctrine and Covenants and the Book of Mormon in subsequent editions after their initial publication.²⁷

Replica of the Urim and Thummim by Brian Westover, photo by Daniel Smith. Image via Book of Mormon Central.

Whatever his precise method of translation, which Joseph specified no more than being “by the gift and power of God,” more important is what the Prophet produced. As Hugh Nibley recognized, “[T]he Prophet has saved us the trouble of faulting his method by announcing in no uncertain terms that it is a method unique to himself depending entirely on divine revelation. That places the whole thing beyond the reach of direct examination and criticism but leaves wide open the really effective means of testing any method, which is by the results it produces.”²⁸ The results of Joseph Smith’s inspired translations are books of scripture that would have been beyond the Prophet’s natural ability to produce on his own. This is true for the Book of Abraham, which evinces numerous signs of having been derived from the ancient world as it claims and not from Joseph Smith’s fertile imagination or nineteenth-century environment.²⁹

A fuller grasp of this fascinating and important subject therefore includes appreciating how Joseph Smith and other early Latter-day Saints used words such as “translation” in ways that are similar but also in some ways very different than how they are typically used today.³⁰

Footnotes

¹ History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838], 596; John Whitmer, History, 1831–circa 1847, 76; Warren Parrish, letter to the editor, Painesville Republican, 15 February 1838, cited in John Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review 20, no. 1 (2008): 115n4.

² Journal, 1835–1836, 47.

³ Editorial, circa 1 March 1842, Draft, 1.

⁴ “Book of Abraham,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 704, emphasis in original.

⁵ See the overview and discussion in Kerry Muhlestein, “Book of Abraham, translation of,” in The Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2017), 63–69; cf. “Assessing the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Introduction to the Historiography of their Acquisitions, Translations, and Interpretations,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 22 (2016): 32–39; Hugh Nibley, “Translated Correctly?” in The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 2005), 51–65; Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018), xxii–xxvi.

⁶ “Church History,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 707.

⁷ David E. Sloan, “The Anthon Transcripts and the Translation of the Book of Mormon: Studying It Out in the Mind of Joseph Smith,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5, no. 2 (1996): 57–81.

⁸ John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 20.

⁹ For an overview, see Michael Hubbard MacKay, “‘Git Them Translated’: Translating the Characters on the Gold Plates,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 83–116; Brant A. Gardner, “Translating the Book of Mormon,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and History, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2016), 21–32.

¹⁰ “Account of John, April 1829–C [D&C 7],” in The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1: July 1828–June 1831, ed. Michael Hubbard MacKay et al. (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2013), 47–48. For the historical context of this section, see Jeffrey G. Cannon, “Oliver Cowdery’s Gift,” in Revelations in Context: The Stories Behind the Sections of the Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Matthew McBride and James Goldberg (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2016), 15–19.

¹¹ “Chapter VI.,” in A Book of Commandments, for the Government of the Church of Christ, Organized according to Law, on the 6th of April, 1830 (Independence, MO: W. W. Phelps & Co., 1833), 18. In the Manuscript Revelation Book this section is called a “revelation” and not explicitly a “translation.” Revelation Book 1, 13.

¹² History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], 15.

¹³ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 21; cf. MacKay et al., The Joseph Smith Papers, Documents, Volume 1, 48n129.

¹⁴ Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 25 June 1833, [1]; Letter to Church Leaders in Jackson County, Missouri, 2 July 1833, 52.

¹⁵ See generally Kent P. Jackson, “Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible,” in Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer, ed. Richard Neitzel Holzapfel and Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 51–76; “The King James Bible and the Joseph Smith Translation,” in The King James Bible and the Restoration, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 197–214; Royal Skousen, “The Earliest Textual Sources for Joseph Smith’s ‘New Translation ‘ of the King James Bible,” FARMS Review 17, no. 2 (2005): 451–470; The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon. Part Five: The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2019), 132–140.

¹⁶ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 21.

¹⁷ In fact, it appears that part of the process in revising some portions of the text of the “new translation” involved Joseph consulting popular biblical commentaries of his day. See “Joseph Smith’s Use of Bible Commentaries in His Translations,” LDS Perspectives Podcast, Episode 55.

¹⁸ Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018), xxiii.

¹⁹ John Whitmer, History, 1831–circa 1847, 76.

²⁰ Warren Parrish, letter to the editor, Painesville Republican, February 15, 1838.

²¹ Wilford Woodruff Journal, February 19, 1842, in Scott G. Kenney, ed., Wilford Woodruff’s Journal (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1983), 2:155; Parley P. Pratt, “Editorials,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 3 (July 1, 1842): 47; Friends’ Weekly Intelligencer, October 3, 1846, 211; Orson Pratt, Journal of Discourses (August 25, 1878), 20:65. The account in the Friends’ Weekly Intelligencer reads thus: “[W]hen Joseph was reading the papyrus, he closed his eyes, and held a hat over his face, and that the revelation came to him; and that where the papyrus was torn, he could read the parts that were destroyed equally as well as those that were there; and that scribes sat by him writing, as he expounded.” The detail of Joseph placing his face into his hat to read the papyrus sounds much like how witnesses described the translation of the Book of Mormon, suggesting the possibility that the paper misreported or confused which text Lucy Mack Smith was describing.

²² See Pearl of Great Price Central, “Zeptah and Egyptes,” Book of Abraham Insight #8 (August 28, 2019).

²³ Matthew J. Grey, “‘The Word of the Lord in the Original’’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew in Kirtland,” in Approaching Antiquity, 249–302; Kerry Muhlestein and Megan Hansen, “‘The Work of Translating’: The Book of Abraham’s Translation Chronology,” in Let Us Reason Together: Essays in Honor of the Life’s Work of Robert L. Millett, ed. J. Spencer Fluhman and Brent L. Top (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University, 2016), 149–153.

²⁴ Jensen and Hauglid, The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, 309n85.

²⁵ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 143; Jensen and Hauglid, The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, 195n57.

²⁶ Kerry Muhlestein, “Assessing the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Introduction to the Historiography of their Acquisitions, Translations, and Interpretations,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 22 (2016): 29–32; “The Explanation-Defying Book of Abraham,” in A Reason for Faith, 82; “Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: A Faithful, Egyptological Point of View,” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 225–226.

²⁷ See Royal Skousen, “Changes in The Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 161–176; Marlin K. Jensen, “The Joseph Smith Papers: The Manuscript Revelation Books,” Ensign, July 2009, 47–51; Robin Scott Jensen, Richard E. Turley, Jr., and Riley M. Lorimer, eds., “Joseph Smith–Era Publications of Revelations,” in The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 2: Published Revelations (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2011), ix–xxxvi.

²⁸ Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, 63.

²⁹ As discussed in the Book of Abraham Insight articles posted here at Pearl of Great Price Central, as well as in Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 49–55, 97–105.

³⁰ See further Robert J. Matthews, “Joseph Smith—Translator,” in Joseph Smith: The Prophet, The Man, ed. Susan Easton Black and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 77–87; Richard Lyman Bushman, “Joseph Smith as Translator,” in Believing History: Latter-day Saint Essays, ed. Reid L. Neilson and Jed Woodworth (New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2004), 233–247; Alexander L. Baugh, “Joseph Smith: Seer, Translator, Revelator, and Prophet,” BYU devotional speech, June 24, 2014; “Joseph Smith as Revelator and Translator,” The Joseph Smith Papers Project.

January 29, 2020January 27, 2022

The “Kirtland Egyptian Papers” and the Book of Abraham

Book of Abraham Insight #38

Associated with the translation of the Book of Abraham is a collection of documents known today as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.¹ This name was coined by Hugh Nibley in the early 1970s to describe a corpus of manuscripts that can be classified into, broadly, two categories: Book of Abraham manuscripts and Egyptian-language manuscripts.² Although still commonly used, because some of these documents post-date the Kirtland period of Latter-day Saint history, and because it is somewhat vague, the name coined by Nibley to describe this corpus has fallen out of use among scholars who prefer more precise classifications. What’s more, “The[se] name designations are modern ones and typically reflect assumptions of the individuals using the particular designations. No [single] designation [to describe these texts] has gained wide acceptance.”³

Notwithstanding, as mentioned above, this corpus “can be divided into two fairly distinct parts: “(1) those papers that center primarily on the text of the Book of Abraham and (2) those that focus on alphabet and grammar material that the authors connected to the ancient Egyptian language.”⁴ The Abraham manuscripts (1) are what contain the extant English text of the Book of Abraham. These manuscripts date from between mid-1835 to early-1842 and are in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps, Warren Parrish, Frederick G. Williams, and Willard Richards.⁵ The Egyptian-language manuscripts (2) are comprised of a hodgepodge of documents that transcribe portions of the characters from the Egyptian papyri and appear to attempt to systematize an understanding of the Egyptian language in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps, Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Warren Parrish.⁶ While these two groups can be broadly distinguished, “it should also be understood that the Abraham documents contain a certain amount of Egyptian material and the Egyptian papers include a certain amount of Abraham material.”⁷ Because of this, it is clear that there is some kind of relationship between these two groups.

Although there is an apparent relationship between these two groups of documents, because of conflicting interpretations of the historical data among scholars “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.”⁸ This uncertainty has unfortunately resulted in a lack of consensus on how to understand this collection.

KEP2 — The first page of the “Grammar & A[l]phabet of the Egyptian Language” in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps, dating to mid- to late-1835. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Although it is clear that the Egyptian-language documents in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers reflect a sincere attempt by those involved to somehow understand the Egyptian language (there is no evidence for conscious fraud or deceit on the part of those involved), “like many similar efforts of the time to unravel the mysteries of the Egyptian language, these attempts are considered by modern Egyptologists—both Latter-day Saints and others—to be of no actual value in understanding [the] Egyptian” language.⁹ Because of this, some have attempted to use the Egyptian-language documents to cast doubt on Joseph Smith’s prophetic inspiration or the authenticity of the Book of Abraham. This effort, however, is highly questionable for many reasons.

First, “The extent of Joseph Smith’s involvement in the creation of these manuscripts is unknown.”¹⁰ While it is true that he had some involvement in the project since his handwriting appears in one manuscript and his signature on another,¹¹ there is not enough evidence to conclusively demonstrate that Joseph Smith was the driving instigator behind the effort to create a systematized grammar of the Egyptian language.

Second, “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.”¹²

Third, while “considerable overlap of themes exists between the Book of Abraham and the Egyptian-language documents . . . 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.”¹³

Fourth, and finally, the Egyptian-language documents were never presented as authoritative revelation similar to Joseph Smith’s other canonized books of scripture. “What emerges most clearly from a closer look at the Kirtland Egyptian Papers is the fact that there is nothing official or final about them—they are fluid, exploratory, confidential, and hence free of any possibility or intention of fraud or deception.”¹⁴

A manuscript titled “Egyptian Counting” in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps, dating to mid- to late-1835. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Rather than viewing the Egyptian-language documents as Joseph Smith’s botched revelation, they might instead more plausibly be seen as part of “an interest in ancient languages within the early church and an anticipation that additional ancient texts would be revealed.”¹⁵ This interest prompted Joseph Smith and those close to him to attempt a secular study of other ancient languages such as Hebrew and Greek.¹⁶ The Egyptian-language project undertaken by some early Latter-day Saints and associated with the coming forth of the Book of Abraham may very well be situated in that same context.

There is still much that we do not know about the so-called Kirtland Egyptian Papers, including the precise circumstances surrounding their creation and purpose. While their ultimate nature remains debated, the work of scholars in recent years has called into question older assumptions and arguments about the extent of Joseph Smith’s participation in the Egyptian-language project and the Book of Abraham’s dependency on these manuscripts. In the mean time, what can be safely concluded is that “although we have incomplete information on exactly how the Book of Abraham was translated, the resulting contents of that translation are more important than the process itself.”¹⁷

Footnotes

¹ Hugh Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” BYU Studies 11, no. 4 (Summer 1971): 350–399; reprinted in An Approach to the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2009), 502–568.

² Brian M. Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project: ‘A Knowledge of Hidden Languages’,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 447–449.

³ John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 32–33.

⁴ Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project,” 477.

⁵ Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project,” 477–478; Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 34–35.

⁶ Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project,” 478; Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 34–35. The Book of Abraham manuscripts and related Egyptian-language documents can be viewed online at the Joseph Smith Papers website.

⁷ Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project,” 477.

⁸ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 33.

⁹ Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018), xxv.

¹⁰ Jensen and Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, xv.

¹¹ Jensen and Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, xv; Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 34.

¹² Jensen and Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, xxv. For different arguments on the direction of the dependency between the Book of Abraham and the Egyptian-language documents, see Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project,” 474–511; Kerry Muhlestein, “Assessing the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Introduction to the Historiography of their Acquisitions, Translations, and Interpretations,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 22 (2016): 33–37.

¹³ Jensen and Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, xxv.

¹⁴ Nibley, “The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers,” 399.

¹⁵ Jensen and Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, xxi.

¹⁶ See Matthew J. Grey, “‘The Word of the Lord in the Original’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew in Kirtland,” in Approaching Antiquity, 249–302; John W. Welch, “Joseph Smith’s Awareness of Greek and Latin,” in Approaching Antiquity, 303–328.

¹⁷ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 39.

January 28, 2020January 27, 2022

What Egyptian Papyri Did Joseph Smith Possess?

Book of Abraham Insight #37

Joseph Smith acquired the Egyptian papyri associated with the coming forth and translation of the Book of Abraham in July 1835. From historical evidence and the papyrus fragments that were returned to the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in November 1967,¹ we can piece together a profile of what papyri Joseph Smith is known to have possessed.

The Book of Breathings of Hor (P. Joseph Smith I, X–XI)²

One of the texts that came into Joseph Smith’s ownership was a copy of a text known today as the Book of Breathings (what the ancient Egyptians called the šˁyt n snsn; translated variously as “Document of Breathing” or “Letter of Fellowship”³). The purpose of this text, which the Egyptians believed had been written by the goddess Isis (and so was called, in full, “The Document of Breathing Made By Isis for Her Brother Osiris”; šˁyt n snsn ỉr·n Ἰst n sn·s Wsir), “was to provide the deceased with the essential information needed to be resurrected from the dead and attain eternal life with the gods in the hereafter.”⁴ Indeed, as the text itself explicitly says, its purpose was to cause the deceased’s “soul to live, to cause his body to live, to rejuvenate all his limbs again, so that he might join the horizon with his father, Re, to cause his soul to appear in heaven as the disk of the moon, so that his body might shine like Orion in the womb of Nut.”⁵

Today there are thirty-three extant copies of the Book of Breathings Made By Isis.⁶ “While all extant copies of the . . . Document of Breathing are very similar, no two are exactly identical.”⁷ The known copies belonged almost exclusively to members of families of the priesthood of Amun-Re at the Karnak Temple in Thebes, “which suggests the text might be associated with that office.”⁸ The copy of this text that Joseph Smith owned belonged anciently to an Egyptian priest named Hor (Ḥr) or Horos (in Greek) and is quite probably the oldest known copy (dating to circa 200 BC).⁹ Thanks to the work of Egyptologists since the rediscovery of the Joseph Smith Papyri, we know quite a bit about Hor and his occupation as a priest that has direct bearing on the Book of Abraham.¹⁰

The Book of the Dead of Tshemmin (P. Joseph Smith II, IV–IX)

Another papyrus scroll that came into Joseph Smith’s possession was a text owned anciently by a woman named Tshemmin (tȝ-šrỉt-[nt]-Min) or Semminis (her Greek name).¹¹ “Semminis’s scroll contained a Book of the Dead. Originally a very long scroll, it was greatly reduced, and only fragmentary pieces ever reached Joseph Smith.”¹² This copy of the Book of the Dead dated to probably sometime during the third to second century BC.¹³ The Book of the Dead is the name given by modern Egyptologist to a collection of writings called by the ancient Egyptians “Utterances of Coming Forth By Day” (rȝw nw prt m hrw).¹⁴ Among other purposes, this text “served as a protection for the bearer. It describes its purpose as aiding the spirit in becoming exalted, ascending to and descending from the presence of the gods, and appearing as whatever wanted, wherever wanted.”¹⁵

P. Joseph Smith IV, containing passages from the Book of the Dead. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers website.

Although the Book of the Dead is often (and understandably) referred to as a “funerary text,” Egyptologists now recognize that this text served non-funerary purposes.¹⁶ For example, the Book of the Dead had a connection to the ancient Egyptian temple which may have significant implications for the Book of Abraham and for the Latter-day Sant temple endowment ceremony.¹⁷ “The sections of Semminis’s Book of the Dead in the Joseph Smith Papyri cover part of the introductory chapter, some of the texts dealing with Semminis’s being able to appear as various birds or animals, texts allowing her to board the boat of the supreme god and meet with the council of the gods, texts providing her with food and other good things and making her happy, and a text asserting her worthiness to enter into the divine presence.”¹⁸

The Book of the Dead of Neferirnub (P. Joseph Smith IIIa–b)

Joseph Smith also possessed a papyrus fragment that contained a section of the Book of the Dead that belonged to a woman named Neferirnub (Nfr-ỉr-nbw).¹⁹ This copy of the Book of the Dead probably dates to sometime during the first century BC to the first century AD.²⁰ The surviving fragment contains “a portion of the vignette of chapter 125” of the Book of the Dead.²¹ This section of the Book of the Dead portrays a judgment scene which “shows the deceased standing before [the god] Osiris with her heart being weighed in scales.”²²

This portion of the Book of the Dead was being used in Egyptian temples by the time period of the Joseph Smith Papyri.²³ It was also being used in the initiation and purification rituals of Egyptian priests.²⁴ Interestingly, Oliver Cowdery described the scene portrayed in this papyrus fragment as the judgment of the dead in 1835.²⁵

The Scroll of Amenhotep (“Valuable Discovery”)²⁶

Another papyrus roll that Joseph Smith owned belonged to a man named Amenhotep (Ἰmn-ḥtp).²⁷ Unfortunately, the original papyrus containing this text is not extant. It is only known from a nineteenth century copy in the handwriting of Oliver Cowdery and appears, based on the reading of one Egyptologist, to be portions of a copy of the Book of the Dead.²⁸ Because only a few lines of hieratic Egyptian characters were copied (enough to give us the name of the owner of the papyrus and a perhaps sense of what it contained, but not much more), it is unknown to when this papyrus dates.

The Hypocephalus of Sheshonq (Facsimile 2)

Finally, Joseph Smith owned a hypocephalus that anciently belonged to a man named Sheshonq (Ššq).²⁹ This hypocephalus was published on March 15, 1842 in the Times and Seasons as Facsimile 2 of the Book of Abraham.³⁰ Unfortunately, the original hypocephalus is not extant. However, because this type of document is rare and belonged primarily to a select group of Egyptian priests and their family members, we can date Sheshonq’s hypocephalus to sometime during the Late Period to the Ptolemaic Period (circa 664–30 BC).³¹ The significance and purpose of the ancient Egyptian hypocephalus has already been described in a previous Book of Abraham Insight article.³²

It should be remembered that this is what we currently know Joseph Smith possessed. It is possible, and indeed likely, that Joseph Smith possessed more papyri than has currently survived. What may have been contained on the portion of missing papyrus, and exactly how much papyrus is missing, are open questions that scholars are still investigating.³³

Footnotes

¹ Jay M. Todd, “Egyptian Papyri Rediscovered,” Improvement Era, January 1968, 12–16.

² The numbering for the papyri used in this article follows the numbering used in Jay M. Todd, “New Light on Joseph Smith’s Egyptian Papyri,” Improvement Era, February 1968, 40–49. The papyri themselves can be viewed online at the Joseph Smith Papers Project website (“Egyptian Papyri, circa 300 BC–AD 50”).

³ For different arguments on the best translation of the title see John Gee, “A New Look at the ˁnẖ pȝ by Formula,” in Actes du IXe congrès international des études démotiques, Paris, 31 août–3 septembre 2005, ed. Ghislaine Widmer and Didier Devauchelle (Paris: Institut Français D’Archaéologie Orientale, 2009), 136–138; Foy David Scalf III, Passports to Eternity: Formulaic Demotic Funerary Texts and the Final Phase of Egyptian Funerary Literature in Roman Egypt (PhD diss., The University of Chicago, 2014), 19–27.

⁴ Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002), 14.

⁵ Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings, 28; see additionally Mark Smith, Traversing Eternity: Texts for the Afterlife from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009), 462–478.

⁶ Marc Coenen, “Owners of the Document of Breathings Made by Isis,” Chronique D’Egypt 79, no. 157–158 (2004): 59–72.

⁷ Marc Coenen, “The Ownership and Dating of Certain Joseph Smith Papyri,” in Robert K. Ritner, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri, A Complete Edition: P. JS 1–4 and the Hypocephalus of Sheshonq (Salt Lake City, UT: The Smith–Pettit Foundation, 2011), 58.

⁸ John Gee, “Book of Breathings,” in The Pearl of Great Price Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 69.

⁹ Marc Coenen, “The Dating of the Papyri Joseph Smith I, X, and XI and Min Who Massacres His Enemies,” in Egyptian Religion: The Last Thousand Years, Part II: Studies Dedicated to the Memory or Jan Quaegebeur, ed. Willy Clarysse, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 1103–1115; Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings, 3.

¹⁰ See Pearl of Great Price Central, “The Ancient Owners of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” Book of Abraham Insight #14 (October 8, 2019).

¹¹ Michael D. Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2010), 5.

¹² John Gee, “The Contents of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 76.

¹³ Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 7.

¹⁴ Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 1. For an accessible yet fairly comprehensive overview of the Book of the Dead, consult Foy Scalf, ed., Book of the Dead: Becoming God in Ancient Egypt (Chicago, Ill.: The Oriental Institute, 2017).

¹⁵ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 76.

¹⁶ John Gee, “The Use of the Daily Temple Liturgy in the Book of the Dead,” in Totenbuch—Forschungen: Gesammelte Beitrage des 2. Internationalen Totenbuch—Symposiums 2005, ed. Burkhard Backes, Irmtraut Munro, and Simone Stöhr (Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006), 73–86; Alexandra Von Lieven, “Book of the Dead, Book of the Living: BD Spells as Temple Texts,” The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 98 (2012): 258–259.

¹⁷ See Hugh W. Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 2005); Stephen O. Smoot and Quinten Barney, “The Book of the Dead as a Temple Text and the Implications for the Book of Abraham,” in The Temple: Ancient and Restored, ed. Stephen D. Ricks and Donald W. Parry, Temple on Mount Zion Series 3 (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation and Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2016), 183–209.

¹⁸ Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 76.

¹⁹ Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 57.

²⁰ Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 57.

²¹ Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 57.

²² Rhodes, Books of the Dead Belonging to Tshemmin and Neferirnub, 57.

²³ Von Lieven, “Book of the Dead, Book of the Living,” 263–264.

²⁴ Robert K. Ritner, “Book of the Dead 125,” in The Context of Scripture: Volume II, Monumental Inscriptions from the Biblical World, ed. William W. Hallo (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 60; John Gee, “Prophets, Initiation and the Egyptian Temple,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 31 (2004): 101.

²⁵ “Egyptian Mummies—Ancient Records,” Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 3 (December 1835): 236.

²⁶ Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid, eds. The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2018), 27–41. This text can be viewed online at the Joseph Smith Papers Project website (“‘Valuable Discovery,’ circa Early July 1835”).

²⁷ John Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 10–13; Ritner, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri, 209–213.

²⁸ Jensen and Hauglid, The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4, 27. Ritner, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri, 209, misleadingly describes the document as Joseph Smith’s “hand copy.” In fact, besides his signature on the front cover, Joseph Smith’s handwriting does not appear in the “Valuable Discovery” notebook. The English text and, in the judgment of Jensen and Hauglid, “likely” the hieratic characters are in the hand of Oliver Cowdery.

²⁹ Michael D. Rhodes, “A Translation and Commentary of the Joseph Smith Hypocephalus,” BYU Studies 17, no. 3 (Spring 1977): 260–262; Michael D. Rhodes, “The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus…Twenty Years Later,” FARMS Preliminary Report (1997).

³⁰ “The Book of Abraham,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 10 (March 15, 1842): [721].

³¹ Tamás Mekis, Hypocephali, PhD diss. (Eötvös Loránd University, 2013), 1:12, 2:122.

³² Pearl of Great Price Central, “The Purpose and Function of the Egyptian Hypocephalus,” Book of Abraham Insight #30 (January 13, 2020).

³³ For different perspectives and arguments on the subject of how much papyri is missing, and what was potentially contained thereon, see John Gee, “Some Puzzles from the Joseph Smith Papyri,” FARMS Review 20, no. 1 (2008): 117–123; Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith, “The Original Length of the Scroll of Hôr,” Dialogue 43, no. 4 (2010): 1–42; “Formulas and Faith,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 21, no. 1 (2012): 60–65; Christopher C. Smith, “‘That which Is Lost’: Assessing the State of Preservation of the Joseph Smith Papyri,” The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 31, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2011): 69–83; Kerry Muhlestein, “Papyri and Presumptions: A Careful Examination of the Eyewitness Accounts Associated with the Joseph Smith Papyri,” Journal of Mormon History 42, no. 4 (October 2016): 31–50.

January 27, 2020January 27, 2022

Isis the Pharaoh (Facsimile 3, Figure 2)

Book of Abraham Insight #36

The explanation given for Facsimile No. 3 identifies Figure 2 as “King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head.” One potential way to identity this figure by Egyptological methods would be to read “the characters [hieroglyphs] above his head.” Unfortunately, the original illustration or vignette from the papyrus is not extant, and so we are forced to decipher the glyphs as they are reproduced in Facsimile 3 by their engraver Reuben Hedlock. While Hedlock appears to have done a fairly commendable job accurately reproducing the facsimiles (at least based on a comparison of Facsimile 1 with the extant original papyrus), he also made some noticeable mistakes.¹ So the first issue at hand in resolving the question of the identity of this figure would be to determine how legible these glyphs actually are.

In fact, a number of Egyptologists who have examined Facsimile 3 have lamented that the hieroglyphs reproduced by Hedlock were partially or entirely illegible,² “leaving them to rely upon comparable scenes from other texts to provide their interpretations of the figures.”³ The only two Egyptologists who have made an attempt in print to read the hieroglyphs above Figure 2 render them as:⁴

Robert Ritner (2011)

Michael Rhodes (2002)

ȝs.t wr.t mw.t nṯr

“Isis the great, the god’s mother.”

ỉs.t wr.t mw.t nṯr

“The great Isis, mother of the god.”

Ritner does not provide a hieroglyphic transcription for his reading, while Rhodes does. A careful comparison of the glyphs as reproduced by Hedlock and Rhodes, however, reveals some difficulties.⁵

The hieroglyphic caption for Figure 2 of Facsimile 3 as reproduced by Ruben Hedlock in the 1842 Times and Seasons, right, next to Egyptologist Michael D. Rhodes’ transcription, left, published in his 2002 translation of the Joseph Smith Papyri.

The most noticeable difference is in the top three glyphs which form the name Isis. These glyphs were either poorly preserved by Hedlock or poorly drawn by the original ancient Egyptian scribe (it is impossible to tell without the original papyrus fragment), making them effectively illegible. What Egyptologists such as Rhodes (and, it would appear, Ritner) have done is reconstruct and read these glyphs how they think they ought to be read (as the name of Isis), as opposed to how they actually stand in the preserved facsimile.⁶ So while this figure might be reasonably identified as Isis based on similar iconographic elements found in comparable scenes,⁷ the identity of this figure cannot be securely reached based solely on reading the poorly-preserved hieroglyphs. The identification of this figure as Isis is therefore worth exploring, but there are reasons for this identification to be accepted cautiously.

At first glance, this appears problematic for Joseph Smith, since, as seen above, scholars identify this figure as the goddess Isis (or sometimes the goddess Hathor, who was often syncretized with Isis⁸), not the Egyptian Pharaoh. If we assume that this identification is correct, a closer look at the attributes and epithets ascribed to the goddess Isis during the time Facsimile 3 was drawn reveals that this identification actually has some justification.

As the mother of the god Horus, who was the godly manifestation of Pharaoh, Isis had long been recognized as the royal mother and the king’s wife by the ancient Egyptians. “She was most commonly shown as a woman wearing the throne symbol that helps to write her name. As the ‘throne goddess,’ she was the mother of each Egyptian king.”⁹

Isis2 — A bronze or copper alloy statue of the goddess Isis nursing her son Horus dated to the Third Intermediate Period–Late Period (circa 1070–343 B.C). Image via the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

By virtue of her royal associations and because of her extensive worship throughout the Mediterranean world, by the time of the Joseph Smith Papyri Isis had come to be identified as the very Pharaoh(ess) of Egypt. In one text from this time period, for example, she is called “the Pharaoh(ess) of the whole land” (tȝ pr-ˁȝt nt tȝ r-ḏr·f).¹⁰ Of her additional dozens of epithets and titles, she was also designated, among other things, “ruler of the two lands in the house of joy” (hḳȝt-tȝwy m ḥwt ȝwṯ-ỉb),¹¹ “ruler of gods and goddesses” (hḳȝt nṯrw nṯrwt),¹² “the Pharaoh(ess) of everything” (pr-ˁȝt nt tm nb),¹³ “the queen who seizes office by her power” (nswt ỉṯỉ ỉȝwt m sḫrw·s),¹⁴ “excellent ruler” (ḥḳȝt mnḫt),¹⁵ “excellent queen” (nswt mnḫt),¹⁶ “excellent ruler on the throne of her father” (ḥḳȝt mnḫt ḥr nst ỉt·s),¹⁷ “ruler of Egypt” (ḥḳȝt nt bȝḳt),¹⁸ and “queen of all Egypt” (nswt nt snwt r ȝw·s).¹⁹

These and similar epithets were routinely given to the reigning monarch, whether male or female, and inasmuch as Isis’ name in Egyptian literally means “throne” or “seat,” her shared identity with the office of the Pharaoh is not at all surprising. “As the presumed embodiment of the ‘seat of the throne,’ [Isis] is in a special way bound to kingship and thus to the political aspect of [the king’s] divine nature; her role as mother of Horus and sister-wife of Osiris binds her even more closely into the Egyptian kingship, in which the living King Horus [the Pharaoh] embodies.”²⁰

Accordingly, “with the idea of the Great Lady [Isis] actually” personifying the throne, and thereby the Egyptian kingship, “the incongruity of [Joseph Smith’s identification of] figure 2 [in Facsimile 3] as ‘King Pharaoh’ begins to dissolve.”²¹

Footnotes

¹ For instance, Hedlock positioned Figure 3 in Facsimile 1 behind Figures 2 and 4, whereas in the original illustration Figure 3 is positioned between Figures 2 and 4.

² Thus William Flinders Petrie, “The inscriptions are far too badly copied to be able to read them,” or John Peters, “The hieroglyphics which should describe the scenes, however, are merely illegible scratches, the imitator not having the skill or intelligence to copy such a script” in Franklin S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr. As a Translator (Salt Lake City: The Arrow Press, 1912), 24, 28. Compare the comments in Klaus Baer, “The Breathing Permit of Hôr: A Translation of the Apparent Source of the Book of Abraham,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1968): 127nn109–110.

³ Quinten Zehn Barney, The Neglected Facsimile: An Examination and Comparative Study of Facsimile No. 3 of The Book of Abraham, MA thesis, Brigham Young University (2019), 26.

⁴ Robert K. Ritner, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition (Salt Lake City, UT: The Smith-Pettit Foundation, 2011), 139; Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002), 25.

⁵ “A Fac-Simile from the Book of Abraham,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 14 (May 16, 1842): 783; Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings, 24.

⁶ As one Egyptologist has recognized, this can be “a dangerous procedure when one is trying to use the names to prove something.” Baer, “The Breathing Permit of Hôr,” 127n110.

⁷ See the discussion in Barney, The Neglected Facsimile, 63–88.

⁸ Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 2000), 425–432.

⁹ Geraldine Pinch, Egyptian Mythology: A Guide to the Gods, Goddesses, and Traditions of Ancient Egypt (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002), 149; cf. L. Kákosy, “Isis Regina,” in Studia Aegyptiaca I: Recueil d’études dédiées à Vilmos Wessetzky à l’occasion de son 65e anniversaire, ed. L. Kákosy and E. Gaál (Budapest: Éötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem, 1974), 221–230.

¹⁰ Christian Leitz, ed., Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen (Leuven: Peeters, 2003), 3:40; 8:29.

¹¹ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 5:551; 8:30.

¹² Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 5:545–546; 8:30.

¹³ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 3:40; 8:30.

¹⁴ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 4:347; 8:30.

¹⁵ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 5:543–544; 8:30.

¹⁶ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 4:348; 8:30.

¹⁷ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 5:544; 8:30.

¹⁸ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 4:348; 8:30.

¹⁹ Leitz, Lexikon der ägyptischen Götter und Götterbezeichnungen, 4:348; 8:30.

²⁰ Siegfried Morenz, “Vorträge und Referate (Ausführliche Fassung) Ägyptische Nationalreligion und sogenannte Isismission,” Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 111, no. 2 (1961): 434. “Als mutmaßliche Verkörperung des ‚Thronsitzes‘ ist sie dem Königtum und damit dem politischen Aspekt göttlichen Wesens sogar in besonderer Weise verbunden; ihre Rolle als Mutter des Horus und Schwester-Gattin des Osiris bindet sie denn ja auch aufs engste in das ägyptische Königtum ein, in dem der lebende König Horus verkörpert . . . eingeht.” C.f. Jan Bergman, “Isis” in Lexikon der Ägyptologie, ed. Wolfgang Helck and Eberhard Otto (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1980), 3:186–187.

²¹ Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 429.

Joseph Smith—History Insight #2

Circa Summer 1832 History

Further Reading

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Joseph Smith—History Insight #1

Further Reading

Footnotes

Pearl of Great Price Central First Vision Study Guide

Topic 1: Joseph Smith’s 1838-39 History and the Pearl of Great Price

Primary Reading

Secondary Reading

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Topic 2: The Early Life of Joseph Smith

Primary Reading

Secondary Reading

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Topic 3: Religious Excitement During Joseph Smith’s Youth

Primary Reading

Secondary Reading

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Topic 4: The Vision

Primary Reading

Secondary Reading

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Topic 5: The Aftermath of the Vision

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Secondary Reading

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Topic 6: Joseph Smith’s Firsthand Accounts of the First Vision

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Topic 7: The Significance of the First Vision

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Book of Abraham Insight #40

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Book of Abraham Insight #39

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Book of Abraham Insight #38

Further Reading

Footnotes

Book of Abraham Insight #37

Further Reading

Footnotes

Book of Abraham Insight #36

Further Reading

Footnotes