Author: BMC Team

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Approaching the Facsimiles

Fac1Plate

Book of Abraham Insight #27

As “the only illustrations in our scriptures” the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham “attract attention not only because of their rough-hewn quality but by their very existence as a visual medium in the midst of the written word.”1  Latter-day Saint scholars and interested laypersons have offered a number of different approaches to understanding the facsimiles and gauging the validity of Joseph Smith’s interpretations thereof.2  Some of the more common approaches include:

    1. The illustrations were original to Abraham. To interpret them we should look to how Egyptians in Abraham’s day, or Abraham himself, would have understood them.
    2. The illustrations were original to Abraham but were modified over time for use by the ancient Egyptians. The illustrations we have as preserved in the facsimiles are much later and altered copies of Abraham’s originals. To interpret them we should consider the underlying Abrahamic elements and compare them with how the Egyptians understood these images.3
    3. The illustrations were connected to the Book of Abraham when the Joseph Smith Papyri were created in the Ptolemaic period (circa 300–30 BC). To interpret them we should look to what Egyptians of that time thought these drawings represent.4
    4. The illustrations were connected to the Book of Abraham for the first time in the Ptolemaic period, but to interpret them we should look specifically to what Egyptian priests who were integrating Jewish, Greek, and Mesopotamian religious practices into native Egyptian practices would have thought about them.5
    5. The illustrations were connected to the Book of Abraham in the Ptolemaic period, but to interpret them we should look to how Jews of that era would have understood of them.6
    6. The illustrations were never part of the ancient text of the Book of Abraham, but instead were adapted by Joseph Smith to artistically depict the ancient text he revealed/translated. We can make sense of Joseph’s interpretations by expanding our understanding of his role as a “translator.”7
Facsimile 1 of the Book of Abraham

Each of these approaches has its respective strengths and weaknesses, but none on its own can account for all of the available evidence. For example, the first paradigm (1) is a more straightforward way of thinking about the facsimiles but is severely undermined by the fact that the Joseph Smith Papyri date to many centuries after Abraham’s lifetime.8 The second, third, and fourth paradigms (2–4) are each compelling to varying degrees since they can account for the instances where Joseph Smith’s interpretations of the facsimiles align with other Egyptologists, but no single one of them can account for his interpretations in their entirety from an Egyptological perspective.

Whichever paradigm one adopts, it seems clear that Joseph Smith’s explanations to the facsimiles were original to himself (none of the explanations appear as text next to the illustrations on the papyri he possessed).9 “There are aspects of [these explanations] that match what Egyptologists say they mean. Some [of them] are quite compelling. . . . . However, as we look at the entirety of any of the facsimiles, an Egyptological interpretation does not match what Joseph Smith said about them.”10 This is, however, complicated by the fact that even though none of Joseph Smith’s explanations to the facsimiles in their entirety agree with how modern Egyptologists understand these illustrations, in many instances they do accurately reflect ancient Egyptian and Semitic concepts.11 This requires us to carefully unpack the assumptions we bring when approaching the facsimiles under any of the theoretical paradigms listed above.

Facsimile 2 of the Book of Abraham

Despite some important advances in scholarship, “we [still] do not [entirely] know to what we really should compare the facsimiles.”

Was Joseph Smith giving us an interpretation that ancient Egyptians would have held, or one that only a small group of priests interested in Abraham would have held, or one that a group of ancient Jews in Egypt would have held, or something another group altogether would have held, or was he giving us an interpretation we needed to receive for our spiritual benefit regardless of how any ancient groups would have seen these? We do not know. While [scholars] can make a pretty good case for the idea that some Egyptians could have viewed Facsimile 1 the way Joseph Smith presents it, [we are still] not sure that is the methodology we should be employing. We just don’t know enough about what Joseph Smith was doing to be sure about any possible comparisons, or lack thereof.12

What is clear from all of this is that “much more work needs to be done before we can understand the facsimiles in their ancient Egyptian setting, and only then will it be meaningful to ask whether that understanding matches that of Joseph Smith (to the extent that we understand even that).”13 For example, “Facsimile 3 has always been the most neglected of the three facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. Unfortunately, most of what has been said about this facsimile is seriously wanting at best and highly erroneous at worst.”14  Some valuable work in recent years, however, has helped remedy this by better situating this facsimile in its ancient Egyptian context.15  As that context has become clearer, elements of Joseph Smith’s explanations have become more plausible (although other elements remain at odds with current Egyptological theories).

Whichever theoretical paradigm one adopts in approaching the facsimiles, a respectable case can be made that with a number of his explanations Joseph Smith accurately captured ancient Egyptian concepts (and even scored a few bullseyes) that would have otherwise been beyond his natural ability to know.16  Any honest approach to the facsimiles must recognize this and take this into account. At the same time, however, this is not necessarily conclusive evidence that the facsimiles themselves were actually used as illustrations for Abraham’s record in antiquity. For now, then, the best approach to the facsimiles would be to remain open-minded and inquisitive and to keep asking the best questions that we can based on the best available evidence and information.

Facsimile 3 of the Book of Abraham

Further Reading

John Gee, “A Method for Studying the Facsimiles,” FARMS Review 19, no. 1 (2007): 347–353.

Kevin L. Barney, “The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, ed. John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005), 107–130.

Michael D. Rhodes, “Teaching the Book of Abraham Facsimiles,” Religious Educator 4, no. 2 (2003): 115–123.

Footnotes

 

1 John Gee, “A Method for Studying the Facsimiles,” FARMS Review 19, no. 1 (2007): 347.

2 John Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000), 33–41; “A Method for Studying the Facsimiles,” 347–353; “The Facsimiles,” in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 143–156; Hugh Nibley, “What, Exactly, Is the Purpose and Significance of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham?” Ensign, March 1976, 34–36; “The Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham: A Response,” in An Approach to the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2009), 493–501; Michael D. Rhodes, “Teaching the Book of Abraham Facsimiles,” Religious Educator 4, no. 2 (2003): 115-123; “Facsimiles from the Book of Abraham,” in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 Vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:135–137; Kevin L. Barney, “The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, ed. John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005), 107–130; Allen J. Fletcher, A Study Guide to the Facsimiles of the Book of Abraham (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, Inc., 2006); Terryl Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 142–153.

3 Rhodes, “Teaching the Book of Abraham Facsimiles,” 115–123.

4 Gee, “A Method for Studying the Facsimiles,” 347–353.

5 Kerry Muhlestein, “The Religious and Cultural Background of Joseph Smith Papyrus I,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 1 (2013): 20–33.

6 Barney, “The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources,” 107–130.

7 Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price, 180–202.

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

9 With regard to the authorship of the explanations of the facsimiles, it should be kept in mind that “[w]hile we do not know if Joseph Smith is the original author of these interpretations, we know he participated in preparing the published interpretations and gave editorial approval to them.” Kerry Muhlestein, “Joseph Smith’s Biblical View of Egypt,” 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), 469n10.

10 Stephen Smoot, “Egyptology and the Book of Abraham: An Interview with Egyptologist Kerry Muhlestein,” FairMormon Blog (November 14, 2013).

11 In addition to the sources cited above, see additionally Michael D. Rhodes, “The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus…Twenty Years Later,” FARMS Preliminary Report (1997); John Gee, “Abracadabra, Isaac, and Jacob,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 7, no. 1 (1995): 19–84; Hugh Nibley and Michael D. Rhodes, One Eternal Round (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2010).

12 Smoot, “Egyptology and the Book of Abraham.”

13 Gee, “A Method for Studying the Facsimiles,” 353.

14 John Gee, “Facsimile 3 and Book of the Dead 125,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, ed. John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2005), 95.

15 Gee, “Facsimile 3 and Book of the Dead 125,” 95–105; 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.

16 “Egyptian was not really understood in Joseph Smith’s day. Not a single inscription in either hieratic or hieroglyphs had been completely translated before his death, and none were published until seven years afterwards. Joseph Smith was not in the tradition of Champollion to which Egyptology today belongs. Any knowledge he may have had did not come from that source, and indeed, everyone is in agreement about that.” John Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” in Approaching Antiquity, 443.

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The Fall of Lucifer

Satan1

Book of Abraham Insight #26

In parallel with other books of Latter-day Saint scripture (e.g. Moses 4:1–4), the Book of Abraham’s depiction of the pre-mortal council includes a brief mention of the fall of Lucifer. As readers encounter at the end of chapter 3 of the Book of Abraham, Lucifer’s fall from the divine council was an act of rebellion because of his not being selected to carry out God’s plan of salvation.

And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; And we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them; And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first. And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him. (Abraham 3:24–28)

While later biblical and extra-biblical writings from the first millennium BC contain reworked allusions to pervasive Near Eastern myths about the fall of rebellious deities or angels (e.g. Genesis 6:1–4; Isaiah 14; Ezekiel 28:1–10; 28:11–19; Job 38; Daniel 11–12; Psalm 82),1 a fair question to ask is whether this mythic archetype is attested in Near Eastern literature from Abraham’s day. In fact, there does appear to be evidence for elements of this mythic concept in the literature of earlier Near Eastern cultures.

Biblical scholar Mark Smith has recently drawn attention to the “basic idea” underlying the myth of the “conflict between competing deities in the divine realm” being present in texts from the Middle and Late Bronze Age sites of Mari and Ugarit. “These cases of divine conflict are set in the divine council that meets in heaven; they end in the demotion or expulsion of the defeated deity.”2 In the Mari corpus is a letter from Šamaš-naṣir, the governor of the city of Terqa, to Zimri-Lim, the king of Mari from circa 1775–1760 BC.3 In this text, Šamaš-naṣir “gives account of a vision concerning a heavenly verdict” by the god Dagan, the chief deity of Mari, against other deities, including the god Tišpak of the city Ešnunna. “This is done in the presence of other gods” in the divine council and “corresponds to Zimri-Lim’s hoped-for victory over King Ibalpiel II of Ešnunna, whose god [Tišpak] – and, through him, the king himself – is threatened with” destruction.4 As the relevant section of the text reads:

“‘[Now, let them c]all [Tišpak before me] and I will pass judgment.’ So they called on Tišpak for me, and Dagan said to Tišpak as follows: ‘From Šinaḫ (?) you have ruled the land. Now your day has passed. You will confront your day like [the city] Ekallatum.’”5

As scholars recognize, this text clearly depicts a divine council scene where “a denial of the right of [another deity] to rule” is issued by the edict of a superior deity.6 As such, it provides broad parallel with and precedent to later biblical texts which depict the fall of rebellious divinities,7 as well as the Book of Abraham.

Turning to the material from Ugarit, the Late Bronze Age text known as the Baal Cycle depicts “cases of divine conflict [which] are set in the divine council that meets in heaven; they end in the demotion or expulsion of the defeated deity.”8 One such scene from the Baal Cycle (KTU 1.2 I 19–48) narrates how the god Baal defiantly rebuked the messenger gods of his rival, the deity Yamm, after they brought the divine council a message demanding surrender. The cycle ends with Baal defeating Yamm and claiming kingship in the divine council (KTU 1.2 IV 30–41).9 That the Ugaritic Baal Cycle provides clear underlying mythic and literary precedent for later biblical iterations of this type-scene is widely recognize by scholars.10

An image of the Canaanite storm god Baal (left) on a limestone stela (Louvre AO 15775) discovered at the site of the ancient city of Ugarit. The celebrated Baal Cycle as preserved in cuneiform script on clay tablets (Louvre AO 16641+16642) discovered at Ugarit (right) narrates how this deity became the chief god of the Ugaritic pantheon. Images via Wikimedia.

The mythic tales of Illuyanka and Kumarbi from ancient Anatolia might also provide additional parallel material to the rebellion of Lucifer in the Book of Abraham.11 In the Illuyanka tales, which date to the Old Hittite period (circa 1750–1500 BC), the chief deity of the people of Hatti, a storm god, is “defeat[ed] and incapacitat[ed] . . . by an evil and powerful reptile. . . In both versions of the myth, the Storm God needs the help of a mortal and a trick in order to regain supremacy over the serpent.”12 In the second version of the myth, the storm god battles and ultimately prevails over the serpent at “an unspecified sea.”13

Finally, in the Hurrian Kumarbi Cycle (circa 1400–1200 BC) “the central theme . . .is the competition between [the gods] Kumarbi and Tessub for kingship over the gods.”14  This mythic cycle depicts how Kumarbi “attempt[ed] . . . to supplant Tessub as king of the gods” through stratagem. This included one attempt where Kumarbi raised up his son Ullikummi “to destroy . . . the city of Tessub, and to dethrone Tessub” himself. Tessub, however, concocts his own plan for defeating Ullikummi with the help of members of the divine council, which he eventually does.15

While there are very clear differences between these texts and the Book of Abraham, and while none of this is to suggest that the Book of Abraham is directly drawing from these texts, or vice versa, important parallels nevertheless remain which are indicative of a shared cultural and religious backdrop. The common elements in these ancient Near Eastern and Anatolian myths and the Book of Abraham include the divine council as the setting, the involvement of multiple divinities or gods, some kind of attempt to supplant or overthrow the chief deity of the council in an overt act of rebellion or defiance,16 and the ultimate humiliation or downfall of the rebellious character.

From this and other evidence,17 “several striking affinities with Semitic traditions are immediately available” in the Book of Abraham. As seen above, “the council scene in particular is consistent with a standard motif in Mesopotamian and Ugaritic literature, wherein a divine assembly convenes to consider a problem and a series of proposals is offered.”18 This in turn reinforces the overall sense of antiquity and historical believability of the book.

Further Reading

John Gee, “The Preexistence,” in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Provo and Salt Lake City, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2017), 121–127.

Stephen O. Smoot, “Council, Chaos, and Creation in the Book of Abraham,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 28–39.

Footnotes

 

1 On this topic, consult Hugh Rowland Page, Jr., The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion: A Study of its Reflexes in Ugaritic and Biblical Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1996); R. Mark Shipp, Of Dead Kings and Dirges: Myth and Meaning in Isaiah 14:4b–21 (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2002), esp. 81–127; Mark S. Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2019), 15–28.

2 Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil, 22.

3 Reproduced in “6. Šamaš-naṣir to Zimrli-Lim,” in Prophets and Prophecy in the Ancient Near East, ed. Peter Machinist (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003), 26–27.

4 Martti Nissinen, “Prophets and the Divine Council,” in Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel/Palästina und Ebirnâri für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. Ulrich Hübner and Ernst Akel Knauf (Freiburg and Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Freiburg Schweiz and Vanderhoeck & Ruprecht, 2002), 9.

5 “6. Šamaš-naṣir to Zimrli-Lim,” 27, punctuation slightly modified and footnotes removed.

6 Mark Smith, God in Translation: Deities in Cross-Cultural Discourse in the Biblical World, rep. ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2010), 138.

7 Smith, God in Translation, 137–139.

8 Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil, 22.

9 Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil, 22, 107n42. A translation of the Baal Cycle can be accessed in Simon B. Parker, ed., Ugaritic Narrative Poetry (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1997), 81–180.

10 For a summary of the scholarly consensus, see Page, The Myth of Cosmic Rebellion; cf. Smith, The Genesis of Good and Evil, 22–24; Michael D. Coogan and Mark S. Smith, ed. and trans., Stories from Ancient Canaan, 2nd ed. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2012), 97–109.

11 For translations of these texts, see Harry A. Hoffner, Jr., Hittite Myths, 2nd ed. (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 1998), 9–14, 40–80.

12 Hoffner, Hittite Myths, 10–11.

13 Hoffner, Hittite Myths, 13.

14 Hoffner, Hittite Myths, 41.

15 Hoffner, Hittite Myths, 55–56.

16 The Book of Abraham does not make this point as explicitly as other Restoration scripture, such as the Book of Moses, which depicts Satan as seeking “to destroy the agency of man, which . . . the Lord God, had given him” and also demanding “that [God] should give unto him [his] own power.” This Satan does by proclaiming, “Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor” (Moses 4:1, 3). Nevertheless, an implication of Satan actively rebelling against God in the Book of Abraham can be seen in his being described as “angry” at God’s decision to choose the one “like unto the Son of Man.” Additionally, that “many followed after him [=Satan]” also suggests a collective act of rebellion.

17 David E. Bokovoy, “‘Ye Really Are Gods’: A Response to Michael Heiser concerning the LDS Use of Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John,” FARMS Review 19, no. 1 (2007): 267–313, esp. 272–279; Stephen O. Smoot, “Council, Chaos, and Creation in the Book of Abraham,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 28–39.

18 Terryl Givens, When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010), 215–216; cf. The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 125–128.

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Egyptianisms in the Book of Abraham

Detail from Abraham and Isaac

Book of Abraham Insight #25

One way of determining whether the Book of Abraham is a translation of an underlying Egyptian document or if it was originally composed in English is to see if the text contains what might be called Egyptianisms, or literary and linguistic features of the Egyptian language. The presence of Egyptianisms in the text of the Book of Abraham “might indicate some knowledge of Egyptian on Joseph Smith’s part.”1 Because “Egyptian was not really understood in Joseph Smith’s day,”2 any knowledge of Egyptian Joseph Smith may have possessed could only have come by revelation.

A careful reading of the Book of Abraham does reveal some potential Egyptianisms in the English text. For example,

The earliest manuscript containing Abraham 1:17 reads “and this because their hearts are turned they have turned their hearts away from me.” The phrase “their hearts are turned” was crossed out and “they have turned their hearts” was written immediately afterwards. In Egyptian of the time period of the Joseph Smith Papyri the passive is expressed by the use of a third person plural. So the two phrases would be identical in Egyptian. The translator has to decide which way to render the passage.3

Book of Abraham Manuscript, circa July–circa November 1835, handwriting of Warren Parrish. At five lines up from the bottom, the text highlighted in red reads “their harts are turned they have turned their hearts away from me”. Image via the Joseph Smith Papers Project.

Another type of Egyptianism in the Book of Abraham is paronomasia or word play. Paronomasia is an attested feature of ancient Egyptian literature.4 In Abraham 3, the Lord showed Abraham a panoramic view of the cosmos and then a vision of the pre-mortal council in heaven.

The conversation between Abraham and the Lord shifts from a discussion of heavenly bodies to spiritual beings [halfway through the chapter]. This reflects a play on words that Egyptians often use between a star (ach) and a spirit (ich). The shift is done by means of a comparison: “Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star [ach] may exist above it; . . . as, also, if there be two spirits [ich], and one shall be more intelligent than the other” (Abraham 3:17–18). In an Egyptian context, the play on words would strengthen the parallel. . . . The Egyptian play on words between star and spirit allows the astronomical teachings to flow seamlessly into teachings about the preexistence which follow immediately thereafter.5

The question remains whether Abraham himself was responsible for these Egyptianisms or if they were the result of later scribes and copyists. Abraham appears to have been writing to a non-Egyptian audience (presumably his own descendants) and it is currently unknown what language he originally spoke.6 While Abraham taught the relationship between stars and spirits to the Egyptians and their own language would have supported paronomasia, it is possible that these Egyptianisms were introduced in the circa 300 BC copy of Abraham’s writings that were preserved on the papyri acquired by Joseph Smith. This, in turn, could potentially explain how Egyptianisms appear in a text written for Abraham’s Hebrew posterity.

While these Egyptianisms in the Book of Abraham do not indisputably prove that Joseph Smith was translating from ancient Egyptian, they are consistent with his claims to have done so.

Further Reading

John Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” 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), 427–448.

Footnotes

 

1 John Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” 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), 442.

2 Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” 443.

3 Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” 442.

4 See Siegfried Morenz, “Wortspiele in Ägypten,” in Festschrift Johannes Jahn zum 22. November 1957 (Leipzig: E. A. Seemann Verlag, 1957), 23–32; Antonio Loprieno, “Pun and Word Play in Ancient Egyptian,” in Puns and Pundits: Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. Scott B. Noegel (Bethesda, MD: CDL Press, 2000), 3–20; Penelope Wilson, Hieroglyphs: A Very Short Introduction (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 62–69; Barbara A. Richter, The Theology of Hathor of Dendera: Aural and Visual Scribal Techniques in the Per-Wer Sanctuary (Atlanta, GA: Lockwood Press, 2016), 13–19.

5 John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, 2017), 117, 119; cf. Silvia Zago, “Classifying the Duat: Tracing the Conceptualization of the Afterlife between Pyramid Texts and Coffin Texts,” Zeitschrift für Ägyptische Sprache 145, no. 2 (2018): 212.

6 Eric Jay Olson, “I Have A Question,” Ensign, June 1982, 35–36.

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Chiasmus in the Book of Abraham

Papyrus1

Book of Abraham Insight #24

Chiasmus, or inverted parallelism, is “a two-part [literary] structure or system in which the second half is a mirror image of the first, i.e. where the first term recurs last, and the last first.”1 Most Latter-day Saints who know about chiasmus have probably heard about their presence in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.2 Chiasmus, however, also appears in the Book of Abraham. For instance, the opening verses of the Book of Abraham contains a chiasm highlighting Abraham’s right to priesthood:

A It was conferred upon me

B from the fathers;

C it came down from the fathers, from the beginning of time,

D yea, even from the beginning,

D’ or before the foundation of the earth,

C’ down to the present time, even the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is Adam, or first father,

B’ through the fathers

A’ unto me.

(Abraham 1:3)

Another chiasm appears in Abraham 3 that emphasizes the “selection of . . . noble ones as rulers”3  on earth:

A Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was;

B and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones;

C And God saw these souls that they were good,

D and he stood in the midst of them,

E and he said: These I will make my rulers;

D’ for he stood among those that were spirits,

C’ and he saw that they were good;

B’ and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them;

A’ thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

(Abraham 3:22–23)

What makes the presence of literary parallelism in the Book of Abraham significant besides being evidence for a “tight and deliberate literary structure”4 of the text is that this type of literary device is “an unmistakable feature” of ancient Egyptian literature.5 This includes chiasmus or inverted parallelism, which has been identified in Egyptian art and architecture,6  as well as in ancient Egyptian texts.7 This is seen in texts from the time of Abraham such as the Stela of Sobk-Iry, which contains a hymn to the god Osiris and features these lines:8

A “Whose awe Atum set [qmꜣ ] in the heart of men, gods, spirits, and dead,

B Whom rulership was given [rdỉ] in On;

C Great [ˁꜣ ] of presence in Djedu,

D Lord [nb] of fear in Two-Mounds;

E Great [ˁꜣ ] of terror in Rostau,

F Lord [nb] of awe in Hnes.

F’ Lord [nb] of power in Tenent,

E’ Great [ˁꜣ ] of love upon earth;

D’ Lord [nb] of fame in the palace,

C’ Great [ˁꜣ ] of glory in Abydos;

B’ Whom triumph was given [rdỉ] before the assembled Nine Gods,

A’ For whom slaughter was made [qmꜣ ] in Herwer’s great hall.”

Additional texts from Abraham’s time known today as the Story of Sinuhe and the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor both contain a macro-chiasm that structures the overall narrative as an inverted parallelism.9

The Story of Sinuhe10

A Sinuhe’s Flight from Egypt

B Sinuhe’s Conversation with King Amunenshi

C Sinuhe’s Life and Adventures in Syria

B’ Sinuhe’s Correspondence with King Senwosret I

A’ Sinuhe’s Return to Egypt

The Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor11

A Framing Device: The šmsw and Leader

B Narrator’s Departure

C Life on the Island

B’ Narrator’s Return

A’ Framing Device: The šmsw and Leader

Since Abraham was not writing Egyptian literature for an Egyptian audience, the significance of ancient Egyptian texts and the Book of Abraham sharing common literary features like chiasmus and parallelism is noteworthy, but should not be overstated. It seems, rather, that because Abraham was presumably writing using literary features from his own culture to those who were not Egyptian (Abraham 1:31),12 the presence of chiasmus in the Book of Abraham demonstrates the prevalence of this literary feature in the ancient world generally, including Abraham’s own culture, and can be viewed generally as a marker of the text’s ancient origin.

So while chiasmus in the Book of Abraham doesn’t necessarily prove the text is ancient, the presence of such in the Book of Abraham is consistent with expectations that the text bears a high degree of historicity and reinforces its overall credibility and literary quality.13

Further Reading

Julie M. Smith, “A Note on Chiasmus in Abraham 3:22–23,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 8 (2014): 187–190.

Footnotes

1 John W. Welch, “Introduction,” in Chiasmus in Antiquity, ed. John W. Welch (Hildesheim: Gerstenberg Verlag, 1981), 10.

2 John W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” in Chiasmus in Antiquity, 198–210; “The Discovery of Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon: Forty Years Later,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 16, no. 2 (2007): 74–87, 99.

3 Julie M. Smith, “A Note on Chiasmus in Abraham 3:22–23,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 8 (2014): 189.

4 Smith, “A Note on Chiasmus in Abraham 3:22–23,” 189.

5 Jacqueline E. Jay, Orality and Literacy in the Demotic Tales, Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 81 (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 91–96, quote at 93.

6 Christian E. Loeben, “Symmetrie, Diagonale und Chiasmus als Dekorprinzipien im Bildprogramm des Großen Tempels von Abu Simbel,” in 3. Ägyptologische Tempeltagung, Hamburg, 1.–5. Juni 1994: Systeme und Programme der ägyptischen Tempeldekoration, ed. Dieter Kurth (Wiesbaden: Karrassowitz Verlag, 1995), 143–162.

7 Jay, Orality and Literacy in the Demotic Tales, 29–30; Robert F. Smith, “Chiasmus in Ancient Egyptian & in the So-Called ‘Anthon Transcript’,” unpublished paper in authors’ possession.

8 For translation and discussion of the chiastic structure of this passage, see Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume I: The Old and Middle Kingdoms (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1973), 202–203.

9 See the comments of Richard Parkinson on the “internal symmetry” of Sinuhe’s “tightly structured” narrative. The Tale of Sinuhe and Other Ancient Egyptian Poems, 1940–1640 BC (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 1997), 11, 21–26; as well as John Baines’ comment about the “internally cyclical forms” (i.e. chiasmus) of these texts. John Baines, “Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 76 (1990): 67.

10 Modified from Smith, “Chiasmus in Ancient Egyptian & in the So-Called ‘Anthon Transcript’,” 8.

11 Following Baines, “Interpreting the Story of the Shipwrecked Sailor,” 67.

12 Eric Jay Olson, “I Have A Question,” Ensign, June 1982, 35–36.

13 For additional examples of chiasmus in the Book of Abraham, see the reformatted Book of Abraham Study Edition.

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By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus

Scribe

Book of Abraham Insight #23

In the current (2013) edition of the Pearl of Great Price, the Book of Abraham is prefaced with this explanatory note: “A Translation of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.”1 This editorial title is based on the 1 March 1842 printing of the Book of Abraham in the Times and Seasons, with some alteration.  A look at the Kirtland-era manuscript evidence for the Book of Abraham reveals a similar phrase: “Translation of the Book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus and found in the CataCombs of Egypts.”2

Some have wondered how the papyrus acquired by Joseph Smith could have possibly been written by Abraham’s “own hand” when the papyri date to circa 300 BC, many centuries after Abraham’s lifetime.3

Before answering this question, the first issue to determine is whether the phrase “by his own hand upon papyrus” was part of the ancient Book of Abraham text or a modern assumption made by Joseph Smith or his scribes about the nature of the papyri they acquired. Some evidence suggests Joseph Smith and the early Latter-day Saints believed the papyri was as old as Abraham himself,4 although caution is necessary in evaluating this evidence since some of these sources are hearsay that “may have confused ‘written by the hand of Abraham’ (authorship) with ‘handwriting of Abraham’ (his personal penmanship).”5

On the other hand, some scholars have argued that the phrase “the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus” was the ancient title of the text itself. As they have observed, the phrase “by his own hand,” or something similar to it, was used in ancient Egypt simply to denote authorship.6 For example, one ancient Egyptian text features this line:

[If it (so) happens] that you want to recite a writing, come to me, so that I can have you taken to the place where this (particular) Book [lit. “papyrus”] is, of which Thoth was the one who wrote it with his own hand, himself, when he had come down after the (other) gods.7

The literal idiom used here in ancient Egyptian is “with his own hand” ([n-]ḏr.ṱ=f ḥˁ=f), which indeed denotes authorship.8 A similar idiom—“written . . . with his own fingers” (m ḏbˁw=f)—is also attested from ancient Egypt as a way to attribute authorship.9

Column 3 from the Demotic Egyptian tale of Setne-Khaemwas (as preserved in this 3rd century BC manuscript). The line highlighted in red describes how the god Thoth was the author of a papyrus text by saying that he wrote the text “with his own hand.” Image from Vinson (2017), Pl. VI.

The idiom “in the hand” to denote authorship, authority, or possession (“in the possession, charge of,” “from,” “through,” “because of,” “be done by,” etc.) also appears in the Egyptian language as spoken in Abraham’s day, reinforcing (though not proving) the possibility that the phrase was original to the ancient text prepared by Abraham.10

This phrase also appears in the Bible. For example, some prophetic books speak of oracles or “the word of the Lord” coming through or by certain prophets (e.g. Malachi 1:1; Haggai 1:1; 2:1; Zechariah 7:7, 12). The literal Hebrew idiom in these passages, however, is “by/in the hand” (bĕ yad). In the New Testament, some of Paul’s epistles conclude with a short phrase indicating the apostle wrote “with his own hand,” even though he surely employed scribes in helping him compose his letters, and even after those letters were copied by subsequent scribes (1 Corinthians 16:21; Galatians 6:11; Colossians 4:18; 2 Thessalonians 3:17; Philemon 1:19).11

Significantly, an “autobiography” of a Semitic ruler named Idrimi from Abraham’s time attributes authorship of the text to the ruler himself while at the same time overtly mentioning the name of the scribe who physically wrote the text.12 It would not be difficult to imagine a similar situation with Abraham as he composed his record.

Whatever Joseph Smith and early Latter-day Saints may have thought about how old the papyri were or who physically wrote them, the following conclusion can be safely drawn from the surviving evidence:

The heading [of the Book of Abraham] does not [necessarily] indicate that Abraham had written that particular copy but rather that he was the author of the original. . . . A text, regardless of how many copies of it exist in the world, is written by one author. However, each copy of that text is a manuscript. . . . We all know that when an author of the ancient world wrote something, if those writings were to survive or be disseminated, the text had to be copied again and again and again, for generation upon generation. When the heading states that the text was written by Abraham’s own hand, it notes who the author is, not who copied down the particular manuscript that came into Joseph’s possession.13

Further Reading

Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt, 2nd. ed. (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000), 4–9.

Hugh Nibley, “As Things Stand at the Moment,” BYU Studies 9, no. 1 (1969): 74–78.

Footnotes

 

1 “The Book of Abraham,” Times and Seasons 3, no. 9 (March 1, 1842): 704. The Salt Lake City 1878 edition of the Pearl of Great Price dropped the phrase “purporting to be” in the title. This omission was retained in subsequent editions, including the 1902 edition prepared by James E. Talmage that serves as the basis for the 1981 and current 2013 editions of the book.

2 Robin Scott Jensen and Brian Hauglid, eds., The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts (Salt Lake City, UT: Church Historian’s Press, 2018), 219. To view the manuscript online, see Book of Abraham Manuscript, circa July–circa November 1835–C [Abraham 1:1–2:18], online at www.josephsmithpapers.org.

3 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, ed. Willy Clarysse, Antoon Schoors, and Harco Willems (Leuven: Peeters, 1998), 2:1103–15; Michael D. Rhodes, The Hor Book of Breathings: A Translation and Commentary (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002), 3.

4 “A Glance at the Mormons,” Quincy Whig, 17 October 1840; reproduced in Brian M. Hauglid, ed., A Textual History of the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2010), 218; Wilford Woodruff Journal, 19 February 1842; reproduced in Hauglid, A Textual History of the Book of Abraham, 220; Editorial, circa 1 March 1842, Draft, online at www.josephsmithpapers.org; Josiah Quincy, Figures of the Past from the Leaves of Old Journals (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1883), 386.

5 Terryl Givens, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2019), 155. See also the discussion in John Gee, “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, Utah: FARMS, 2000), 192–195.

6 Hugh Nibley, “As Things Stand at the Moment,” BYU Studies 9, no. 1 (1969): 74–78; Abraham in Egypt, 2nd. ed. (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2000), 4–9; cf. John Gee, “Were Egyptian Texts Divinely Written?” in Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists, ed. J. C. Goyon, C. Cardin (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters en Departement Oosterse Studies, 2007), 806; “Literary Titles in Greco-Roman Egypt,” in En détail – Philologie und Archäologie im Diskurs: Festschrift für Hans-W. Fischer-Elfert, ed. Marc Brose et al. (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2019), 344–345.

7 Steve Vinson, The Craft of a Good Scribe: History, Narrative and Meaning in the First Tale of Setne Khaemwas (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 114; cf. Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Volume III: The Late Period (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1980), 128; Robert Ritner, trans., “The Romance of Setna Khaemuas and the Mummies (Setne I),” in The Literature of Ancient Egypt, ed. William Kelly Simpson, 3rd ed. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 456; James Allen, The Ancient Egyptian Language: An Historical Study (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 191.

8Janet H. Johnson, ed., The Demotic Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago (Chicago, Ill.: Oriental Institute, 2001), 60; Thus Wrote ‘Onchsheshonqy: An Introductory Grammar of Demotic, 3rd ed. (Chicago, Ill.: Oriental Institute, 2000), 31; see the discussion in Gee, “Were Egyptian Texts Divinely Written?” 807–810, esp. 809; “Literary Titles in Greco-Roman Egypt,” 344–345.

9 Gee, “Were Egyptian Texts Divinely Written?” 809, citing P. Louvre 3284 2, 8/9 and other texts.

10 Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1957), §178; James Hoch, Middle Egyptian Grammar (Mississauga: Benben Publications, 1997), §81.

11 Lincoln H. Blumell, “Scribes and Ancient Letters: Implications for the Pauline Epistles,” in How the New Testament Came to Be: The Thirty-fifth Annual Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Frank F. Judd Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2006), 208–226.

12 John Gee, “Abraham and Idrimi,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 1 (2013): 34–39, esp. 37.

13 Kerry Muhlestein, “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, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 230.

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New Video Explores the Historical Credibility of the Book of Abraham

image

Published serially from 1 March 1842 to 16 May 1842 and canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 10 October 1880, the Book of Abraham has been valued by Latter-day Saints for its important teachings on the nature of the Abrahamic covenant, the pre-mortal existence of humanity, the Creation, and other topics. Writing not long after the text was first published, Apostle Parley P. Pratt mused, “When we read the Book of Abraham with the reflection that its light has burst upon the world . . . we see there unfolded our eternal being—our existence before the world was—our high and responsible station in the councils of the Holy One, and our eternal destiny.”

While Latter-day Saints primarily cherish the Book of Abraham for its significant doctrinal contributions to the Restoration, since at least the 1960s with the pioneering work of Hugh W. Nibley, scholars have explored the Book of Abraham to see what clues might exist that situate the text in a plausible ancient setting. Utilizing the tools of Egyptology, Near Eastern archaeology, and other disciplines, these scholars have uncovered numerous points of convergence between the text of the Book of Abraham and the ancient world from whence it purports to derive. The historicity of the Book of Abraham, or the quality, soundness, and credibility of its historical claims in light of external confirmation, naturally continues to be debated, and many as-of-yet unanswered questions remain, but the work of past and contemporary scholars makes it clear that a compelling case can be and has indeed been made in favor of the text’s historicity.

A new video by Pearl of Great Price Central brings together just a few samples of this evidence reinforcing the Book of Abraham’s historicity. Drawing from a series of short articles called Book of Abraham Insights, this new video presents some of the evidence for the Book of Abraham’s historical believability in a compelling and visually-striking manner. Going chapter by chapter through the text, this new video overviews the evidence for a plausible cultural, geographical, and historical setting for the opening chapter of the Book of Abraham (Abraham 1), explains how the form or structure of the Abrahamic covenant in the Book of Abraham matches the covenant pattern known from texts in Abraham’s day (Abraham 2:6–11), provides a believable ancient context for Abraham’s “lie” about his wife Sarai (Abraham 2:22–25), highlights one way of understanding so-called “Abrahamic astronomy” in an ancient context (Abraham 3), discusses the likely etymology of two unique astronomical names in the Book of Abraham (Kolob and Shinehah), explores the depiction of the unquestionably ancient concept of the divine council in the text (Abraham 3), and details how the Creation account in the Book of Abraham matches other texts from Abraham’s day (Abraham 4–5).

To be sure, this evidence does not “prove” the Book of Abraham is true, but it does shed a very favorable light on Joseph Smith’s claims to prophetic inspiration in addition to bolstering confidence in the authenticity of the book which presents itself as “the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt.”

For an extensive bibliography on the Book of Abraham and to read twenty-two out of forty (initial) planned Insight articles, be sure to check out Pearl of Great Price Central. The Book of Abraham Insights below in particular are those highlighted in the video. Full documentation for the claims made in the video, as well as further reading for each of the topics addressed in the video, can be found in the individual Insight articles.

Videos exploring the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham, what is known about the Egyptian papyri acquired by Joseph Smith, and the translation of the text are forthcoming. For now, readers wanting to learn more about these topics are encouraged to check out the Gospel Topics essay “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham” published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the recent book An Introduction to the Book of Abraham by Latter-day Saint Egyptologist John Gee. Additional study resources (articles, book chapters, videos, podcasts) on these related topics can also be accessed for free on the Pearl of Great Price Central bibliography for the Book of Abraham.

Sources for the Book of Abraham Evidence Video

The location of Abraham’s Ur of the Chaldees

Ur

The plain of Olishem

Olishem

The near sacrifice of Abraham by an idolatrous priest

Sacrifice

The idolatrous god of Elkenah

Elkenah

Abraham’s “lie” about his relationship to Sarai

Abraham and Sarai

The ancient structure of the Abraham covenant

Abrahamic Covenant

The nature of “Abrahamic Astronomy”

Astronomy

The etymology of the word “Kolob”

Kolob

The etymology of the word “Shinehah”

Shinehah

The divine council in the Book of Abraham

Divine Council

Creation from chaos

Kolob

Parallels with other texts from Abraham’s day

Ancient Near Eastern Creation Myths

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The Abrahamic Covenant

Abrahamic Covenant

Book of Abraham Insight #22

One of the important doctrinal contributions of the Book of Abraham is its elaboration on the nature of the Abrahamic covenant (Abraham 2:6–11).1 While some details about the Abrahamic covenant can be read in the book of Genesis (12:1–5; cf. 26:1–4, 24; 28; 35:9–13; 48:3–4), it is in the Book of Abraham where additional important aspects about this covenant are revealed.

The significance of the Abrahamic covenant as explained and expanded upon in the Book of Abraham is that it involves blessings for and responsibilities of priesthood holders and includes a charge to Abraham’s descendants to share the gospel with all the families of the earth.

Also significant is that it “has several features that appear in other covenants and treaties of the ancient world. Treaties and covenants in Abraham’s day typically have a preamble or title, stipulations, an oath or other solemn ceremony, and, more rarely, curses conditional on violation of the covenant. . . . The covenant in the Book of Abraham follows the pattern for Abraham’s day.”2

With this in mind, the Abrahamic covenant as depicted in the Book of Abraham can be structured as follows:

ANCIENT COVENANT PATTERNABRAHAM 2:6–11
SOLEMN CEREMONYBut I, Abraham, and Lot, my brother’s son, prayed unto the Lord, and the Lord appeared unto me, and said unto me:
PREAMBLEArise, and take Lot with thee; for I have purposed to take thee away out of Haran, and to make of thee a minister to bear my name in a strange land which I will give unto thy seed after thee for an everlasting possession, when they hearken to my voice. For I am the Lord thy God; I dwell in heaven; the earth is my footstool; I stretch my hand over the sea, and it obeys my voice; I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot; I say to the mountains—Depart hence—and behold, they are taken away by a whirlwind, in an instant, suddenly. My name is Jehovah, and I know the end from the beginning; therefore my hand shall be over thee.
STIPULATIONSAnd I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee   above measure, and make thy name great among all nations, and thou shalt be a blessing unto thy seed after thee, that in their hands they shall bear this ministry and Priesthood unto all nations; And I will bless them through thy name; for as many as receive this Gospel shall be called after thy name, and shall be accounted thy seed, and shall rise up and bless thee, as their father; And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse them that curse thee; and in thee (that is, in thy Priesthood) and in thy seed (that is, thy Priesthood), for I give unto thee a promise that this right shall continue in thee, and in thy seed after thee (that is to say, the literal seed, or the seed of the body) shall all the families of the earth be blessed, even with the blessings of the Gospel, which are the blessings of salvation, even of life eternal.

As one scholar has observed, “the covenant in the Book of Abraham follows the pattern of treaties and covenants in his day and not the pattern of later times. The covenant pattern is thus an indication that the text dates to Abraham’s day.”3 While the content of the Abrahamic covenant is what’s most important for Latter-day Saints today,4 the form or structure of the covenant as depicted in the Book of Abraham is one way the text can be grounded in the ancient world from which it purports to derive.

Further Reading

John Gee, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2017), 107–113.

Janet C. Hvorka, “Sarah and Hagar: Ancient Women of the Abrahamic Covenant,” in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant, ed. John Gee and Brian M. Hauglid (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005), 147–166.

Michael Goodman, “The Abrahamic Covenant: A Foundational Theme for the Old Testament,” Religious Educator 4, no. 3 (2003): 43–53.

Monte S. Nyman, “The Covenant of Abraham,” 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), 155–70.

Footnotes

 

1 See Michael Goodman, “The Abrahamic Covenant: A Foundational Theme for the Old Testament,” Religious Educator 4, no. 3 (2003): 43–53; Monte S. Nyman, “The Covenant of Abraham,” 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), 155–70.

2 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), 108–109.

3 Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, 111.

4 Russell M. Nelson, “The Gathering of Scattered Israel,” Ensign, November 2006, 79–81.

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The Foreordination of Abraham

Foreordination of Abraham

Book of Abraham Insight #21

One of the most important doctrinal teachings in the Book of Abraham is that of the pre-mortal existence of humankind and the foreordination of many “noble and great ones” to be rulers on earth (Abraham 3:22–28). Abraham himself was singled out as one who was divinely preordained to a great mission:

Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast chosen before thou wast born. (vv. 22–23)

Since the Book of Abraham so clearly teaches the idea of a pre-mortal existence and the divine foreordination of rulers, the question might reasonably be asked whether these teachings find a plausible context in the ancient Near East.

In fact, scholars recognize that Near Eastern peoples believed in the divine foreordination of their kings (and in the case of the ancient Israelites, some of their prophets).1 As one scholar put it, “Divine election—the academic designation for the choosing of people by deity for position and opportunity in mortal life—is a claim that is well attested in ancient Near Eastern texts, including the Hebrew Bible.”2

For example, in a prologue to his famous collection of laws, the ancient Babylonian king Hammurabi (circa 1810–1750 BC), depicted himself as being foreordained by the gods to rule:

When the august God Anu . . . and the god Enlil, lord of heaven and earth, who determines the destinies of the land, allotted supreme power over all the peoples to the god Marduk . . . [a]t that time, the gods Anu and Enlil, for the enhancement of the well-being of the people, named me by my name: Hammurabi, the pious prince, who venerates the gods, to make justice prevail in the land, to abolish the wicked and the evil, to prevent the strong from oppressing the weak, to rise like the sun-god Shamash over all mankind, to illuminate the land.3

The ancient Egyptians of Abraham’s day likewise believed their kings were divinely pre-elected to be rulers. One Egyptian text from Abraham’s time says of the pharaoh Senwosret I (circa 1950–1900 BC): “Men and women surpass exultation in him, now that he is king. He took possession [of kingship] in the egg; his face was toward it from before he was born. Those born with him are multiple, but he is a unique one of the god’s giving.”4 Additional texts from Abraham’s lifetime and many centuries afterwards point to this concept being both prevalent and long-lasting in Egyptian thought.5

Some ancient Egyptian monarchs even went so far as to claim that they were literal divine offspring. At her mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri, for example, the queen Hatshepsut (who reigned circa 1473–1458 BC) commissioned a series of reliefs depicting herself as the literal daughter of the god Amun-Re who could, accordingly, claim a divine birthright to rule Egypt. The reliefs begin with a depiction of what Egyptologists call a “council of the gods”6 where, in the midst of other important deities, Amun-Re foretells Hatshepsut’s reign, followed by scenes of her divine conception, birth, and ascendency to the throne.7

A facsimile reproduction of a relief from the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri. In this scene, which has sadly suffered extensive damaged, the god Amun-Re (seated on the right) announces to the council of gods (standing on the left) that he has foreordained Hatshepsut to unite Egypt under her rule and has also given her dominion over foreign lands and peoples. Image from Naville (1897), Pl. XLVI.

Abraham appears to have not held any kingly titles in mortality yet was designated a “noble and great one” who was foreordained to be a “ruler” (Abraham 3:22–23). This must certainly at least have been true in a priesthood sense, and unlike the counterfeit priesthood of Pharaoh (Abraham 1:25–28), Abraham’s foreordination to the priesthood was legitimate and ratified through a covenant with God (Abraham 2:6–11).8  Thus, by drawing attention to his foreordained status, Abraham may have been demonstrating how the power and divine authority usually associated with earthly kings was more legitimately and eternally endowed upon worthy holders of the priesthood.

The Book of Abraham’s teachings about foreordination and divine election are therefore important for the eternal truths they preserve and ground the text in a plausible ancient context.

Further Reading

Stephen O. Smoot, “‘Thou Wast Chosen Before Thou Was Born’: An Egyptian Context for the Election of Abraham,” forthcoming.

Dana M. Pike, “Formed in and Called from the Womb,” in To Seek the Law of the Lord: Essays in Honor of John W. Welch, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation, 2017), 317–331.

Terryl Givens, When Souls Had Wings: Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought (New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, 2009), 9–20, 215–216.

Dana M. Pike “Before Jeremiah Was: Divine Election in the Ancient Near East,” in A Witness for the Restoration: Essays in Honor of Robert J. Matthews, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Andrew C. Skinner (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2007), 33–59.

Footnotes

 

1 Dana M. Pike “Before Jeremiah Was: Divine Election in the Ancient Near East,” in A Witness for the Restoration: Essays in Honor of Robert J. Matthews, ed. Kent P. Jackson and Andrew C. Skinner (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2007), 33–59; “Formed in and Called from the Womb,” in To Seek the Law of the Lord: Essays in Honor of John W. Welch, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation, 2017), 317–331.

2 Pike “Before Jeremiah Was,” 33.

3 Martha T. Roth, trans., Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor, 2nd ed. (Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, 1997), 76–77.

4 James P. Allen, Middle Egyptian Literature: Eight Literary Works of the Middle Kingdom (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 87.

5 See for instance Wolfgang Helck, Die Lehre für König Merikare (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1977), 83–87; Adrian de Buck, “The Building Inscription of the Berlin Leather Roll,” Studia Aegyptiaca I, Analecta Orientalia 17 (1938): 54; Kenneth A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical (Oxford: Blackwell, 1976), 2:284, 327, 356; Ramesside Inscriptions: Historical and Biographical (Oxford: Blackwell, 1977), 5:239; Robert K. Ritner, The Libyan Anarchy: Inscriptions from Egypt’s Third Intermediate Period (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 477–478.

6 James Henry Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt (Chicago, Il.: The University of Chicago Press, 1906), 2:78; Edouard Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Part II, Plates XXV.–LV.: The Ebony Shrine. Northern Half of the Middle Platform (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1897), Pl. XLVI.

7 Naville, The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Part II, 12–18, pls. XLVI–LV; The Temple of Deir el Bahari, Part III, Plates LVI.–LXXXVI: End of Northern Half and Southern Half of the Middle Platform (London: The Egypt Exploration Fund, 1898), 1–9, Pls. LVI–LXVI.

8 See further John Gee, “The Abrahamic Covenant,” in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Provo and Salt Lake City, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2017), 107–113.