By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

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In an article published in the New York Times, May 3, 1970, Wallace Turner wrote:

SAN FRANCISCO, May 2 — The “Book of Abraham,” which provides the theological basis for the Utah Mormon churches excluding Negroes from its priesthood, has been described as “simply the product of Joseph Smith Jr.’s imagination” by a leading scholar in a branch of the church Mr. Smith founded.

It was the Book of Abraham that Mr. Smith produced as a translation of papyri he acquired along with four Egyptian mummies in 1835.

The papyri were thought to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871. But, reasoning from crude copies, Egyptologists have argued for decades that the papyri did not say what Joseph Smith said they said, and were instead quite ordinary burial papers of the sort found with mummies.

Three years ago the original papyri from which Joseph Smith worked to produce the Book of Abraham were found in the Metropolitan Museum in New York. . . .

The growing social impact of Negro resentment of the Utah Mormons’ exclusion of them from full participation in the church has served to focus further attention on the credibility of the Book of Abraham. This is because there is one short phrase among its thousands of words that is cited as the reason for prohibiting Negroes from entering the priesthood orders . . .

Black athletes at the University of Wyoming have refused to play against teams from Brigham Young University, the Utah Mormon school. Stanford University has served notice of intention to sever athletic relationships with the school, . . .

The description of the Book of Abraham as the product of Joseph Smith’s imagination is in an article entitled “The ‘Book of Abraham’ in the Light of History and Egyptology,” printed in the pilot issue of “Courage: A Journal of History, Thought and Action” issued for members of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.

The author is Richard P. Howard, historian for the church branch commonly called R.L.D.S., the largest of the groups that splintered away from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints . . .

Mr. Howard pointed out that the publication in 1966 by Modern Microfilm Company of Salt Lake City of Joseph Smith Jr.’s original “Egyptian alphabet and grammar” allowed scholars to discover how the prophet worked in producing the Book of Abraham.

Mr. Howard cited the work of Dee Jay Nelson, an elder in the Utah Mormon Church and a philologist with 20 years’ experience in Egyptology. Mr. Nelson took two words from the papyrus fragment and showed their translation properly to be “offspring of ” or “born of.”

Joseph Smith Jr. produced a 132-word passage in the Book of Abraham and attributed it to those words, Mr. Howard wrote. He also suggested that the Prophet Joseph used the “curse of Ham” argument against Negroes as a means of reconciling differences that arose among his followers when Elijah Abel, a Negro, was ordained into the priesthood March 3, 1836, . . .

“Whatever the intent of Joseph Smith in expounding this view of the Negro,” Mr. Howard wrote, “it is clear that the ancient papyri from Egypt contained no such information.”

Mr. Howard wrote that “it may be helpful to suggest that the ‘Book of Abraham’ represents simply the product of Joseph Smith Jr.’s imagination, wrought out in the midst of what to him must have been a very crucial and demanding complex set of circumstances.” (New York Times, May 3, 1970)

For many years the Salt Lake Tribune refused to take articles critical of the Mormon Church. Times are changing, however, for the article quoted above was printed in the Salt Lake Tribune on May 4, 1970. While the part concerning the Mormon Egyptologist Dee Jay Nelson was not included, the Salt Lake Tribune contains some additional material concerning the Book of Abraham. In an article entitled “LDS Affirm ‘Abraham’” we find the following:

The First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepts the “Book of Abraham” as “scripture given to us through the Prophet (Joseph Smith),” President N. Eldon Tanner said Sunday night.

President Tanner, second counselor in the church’s First Presidency, made the statement in response to an article saying the translation of the “Book of Abraham” was the product of Joseph Smith Jr.’s “imagination.”

The article appears in a publication of the Reorganized Church . . . Author of the article is Richard P. Howard, historian for the RLDS. (Salt Lake Tribune, May 4, 1970)

Joseph Smith clearly stated that he “translated” the Book of Abraham from the papyrus, but since Egyptologists have proven that the papyrus is in reality an Egyptian funerary text known as the “Book of Breathings,” Mormon apologists are faced with a serious problem. James R. Harris, of Brigham Young University, now suggests that Joseph Smith received the Book of Abraham by revelation before he obtained the papyrus and that the papyrus was “defective” and “unnecessary” to the production of the Book of Abraham. In an article published in Brigham Young University Studies he made these revealing statement:

A possibility that the text of the Book of Abraham may have been defective and therefore both inadequate and unnecessary to the production of a revealed translation is explored and proposed by Todd (pages 289, 325).

We may have observed additional support for this theory about a month before Todd went to press. The second article in a series on The Three Witnesses was published by Richard L. Anderson. In a quote from a patriarchal blessing recorded in 1833, December 13, (Patriarchal Blessing Book, No. 1, pages 8-9) Oliver Cowdery (recorder) added this comment:

But before baptism our souls were drawn out in mighty prayer . . . and we diligently sought for the right of the fathers, and the authority of the Holy Priesthood, and the power to administer in the same; for we desired to be followers of righteousness and the possessors of greater knowledge, even the knowledge of the mysteries of the Kingdom of God. (See also The Improvement Era, September 1968, page 20) . . .

Comparing this quote with Abraham 1:2 would support the theory that a papyrus text in the hands of the prophet was not essential to production of the translation:

I sought for the blessings of the father, and the right where unto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge, and to be a greater follower of righteousness and to possess a greater knowledge . . .

The near identical wording of these passages would indicate that some of the text of the Book of Abraham was revealed and recorded before the Abraham Papyri came into the possession of Joseph Smith. (Brigham Young University Studies, Autumn 1969, pages 126-127)

[Bold in quotations is added for emphasis and does not appear in originals.]

James R. Harris, Assistant Professor of Religious Education at Brigham Young University, has apparently uncovered the source for some of the text of the Book of Abraham, but he does not seem to realize the serious implications of this important discovery. From Dr. Harris’ comments it would appear that he is willing to accept the idea that the Book of Abraham did not come from the papyrus. He would apparently have us believe that at least some of the text of the Book of Abraham was revealed to Joseph Smith before December 13, 1833, and that Oliver Cowdery borrowed his statements from there. While this would explain the “near identical wording,” it is not facing the reality of Joseph Smith’s statements that the Book of Abraham came from the papyrus. A much more logical explanation is that Joseph Smith’s Book of Abraham is work of his own imagination and that he derived his ideas from Oliver Cowdery and several other sources.

In an article published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Winter 1969, page 93, Lester Bush states that “the parallels between Mormon Scripture and the contemporary pro-slavery arguments are striking.” He goes on to point out that ever before Joseph Smith received the papyri, W. W. Phelps had published an article which contains ideas similar to the Book of Abraham. This article was published in the Messenger and Advocate in March, 1835, and according to the History of the Church, Joseph Smith did not receive the papyri until July of the same year. In this article we find the following:

Is or is it not apparent from reason and analogy as drawn from a careful reading of the Scriptures, that God causes the saints, or people that fall away from his church to be cursed in time, with a black skin? Was or was not Cain, being marked, obliged to inherit the curse, he and his children, forever? And if so, as Ham, like other sons of God, might break the rule of God, by marrying out of the church, did or did he not, have a Canaanite wife, whereby some of the black seed was preserved through the flood, and his son, Canaan, after he laughed at his grandfather’s nakedness, heired three curses; one from Cain for killing Abel; one from Ham for marrying a black wife, and one from Noah for ridiculing what God had respect for? Are or are not the Indians a sample of marking with blackness for rebellion against God’s holy word and holy order? And can or can we not observe in the countenances of almost all nations, except the Gentile, a dark, sallow hue, which tells the sons of God, without a line of history, that they have fallen or changed from the original beauty and grace of father Adam? (Messenger and Advocate, vol. 1, page 82)

In his Book of Abraham, Joseph Smith seemed to follow the same argument used by Phelps—i.e., that Ham married a Canaanite woman and thus “the curse” was “preserved” in the land:

Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth.

From this descent sprang all the Egyptians, and thus the blood of the Canaanites was preserved in the land.

The land of Egypt being first discovered by a woman, who was the daughter of Ham, and the daughter of Egyptus, which in the Chaldean signifies Egypt, which signifies that which is forbidden.

When this woman discovered the land it was under water, who afterward settled her sons in it; and thus, from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land. (Pearl of Great Price, Book of Abraham, 1:21-24)

Mormon leaders use these verses to try to prove that the Negroes were cursed and therefore cannot hold the Priesthood. John Taylor, the third President of the Mormon Church, made this statement:

And after the flood we are told that the curse that had been pronounced upon Cain was continued through Ham’s wife, as he had married a wife of that seed. And why did it pass through the flood? Because it was necessary that the Devil should have a representation upon the earth as well as God; . . . (Journal of Discourses, vol. 22, page 304)

That Joseph Smith may have borrowed ideas from W. W. Phelps or Oliver Cowdery is not too surprising, for both these men were good writers, and worked with him on the papyri. In Joseph Smith’s History we read the following under the date of July 5, 1835: “. . . with W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, . . .” (History of the Church, vol. 2, page 236).

Josephus

It is very possible that the writings of the Jewish historian Josephus had some influence on the Book of Abraham 1:23 we read of “the daughter of Egyptus, . . .” This name is not found in the Bible, but in “Flavius Josephus Against Apion,” we read: “. . . Manetho says that Sethosis himself was called Egyptus, . . .” (Josephus, translated by William Whiston, Michigan, 1966, page 612).

According to the Book of Abraham, the Lord revealed the principles of astronomy to Abraham before he went into Egypt. In Abraham 3:15 we read: “And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.” At the bottom of the explanation to Facsimile No. 3 in the Book of Abraham we find this statement: “Abraham is reasoning upon the principles of astronomy, in the King’s court.” While the Bible does not even use the word “astronomy,” Josephus claimed that Abraham taught the Egyptians “the science of astronomy”:

. . . Abram conferred with each of them, . . . He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for, before Abram came into Egypt, they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; . . . (Josephus, page 33)

The Mormon leaders must have been familiar with Josephus at the time the Book of Abraham was written, for in a letter, dated December 22, 1835, Oliver Cowdery stated: “. . . Josephus says that the descendants of Seth were virtuous, and possessed a great knowledge of the heavenly bodies, . . . (Messenger and Advocate, vol. 2, page 236)

In The Case Against Mormonism, vol. 3, we will deal with this matter at greater length and show other sources from which the Book of Abraham was probably derived.

Filibuster Ends

When the papyri were given to the Mormon Church by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dr. Hugh Nibley, of Brigham Young University, was assigned by the Church leaders to give a report to his people. He began a series of articles for the Improvement Era in January, 1968. This series ran for over two years, and was finally brought to a conclusion with the issue published May, 1970. Dr. Nibley was supposed to unfold “the meaning of the hieroglyphics” in this series of articles. In our last Messenger we stated: “There is good reason to believe that Dr. Nibley will never publish a translation of the papyri, for in an article he wrote in 1968, he stated: ‘. . . it is doubtful whether any translation could do as much good as harm’ (Brigham Young University Studies, Spring 1968, page 251).” This prediction seems to be proving true, for Dr. Nibley has completed his series of articles and no translation has appeared. It would appear that Dr. Nibley’s main objective was to blind the eyes of his fellow Church members so that they could not see the real issues involved in this matter. Although he used almost 2,000 footnotes, he never did deal with the main problem. In the issue for August, 1969, Dr. Nibley made this fantastic statement:

From here on the reader might as well know that this writer intends to show that the Book of the Dead fragments, the Breathing Papyrus, and the three facsimiles, that is, all the available Egyptian materials that were once in the possession of Joseph Smith, contain the elements of a single story, which happens to be the story of Abraham as told in the Book of Abraham and the early Jewish legends. (Improvement Era, August 1969, page 75)

Dr. Nibley’s concluding article makes it clear that he was unable to demonstrate any relationship between the papyri and the Book of Abraham. Nevertheless, he encourages members of the Mormon Church to go on stalling lest they be accused of “forfeiting the game”:

Since the basic charges against Joseph Smith emerging from the study of the newly found papyri have not been discussed in the pages of the Era, it may be well to review them briefly here. Two documents of the Joseph Smith Papyri were identified and translated in 1967/8, the one comprising sections from the Book of the Dead, the other being the much rarer but still not unknown “Sensen” Papyrus or “Book of Breathings.” Neither of these texts contained the same reading matter as the Book of Abraham, but who said they should? . . .

What supports the idea that the Book of Abraham was thought by Joseph Smith to be a translation of the Breathing Certificate? Two things: first, that the “Breathing text” was originally adjoined to Facsimile 1 on the same strip of papyrus, and second that the symbols from the “Breathing text” are interpreted bit by bit in a writing known as “the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar” in which the interpretation turns out to be the same as the text of the English Book of Abraham. . . . No slightest knowledge of Egyptian is necessary to convince anybody that when a symbol as brief as CAT is “translated” by an involved paragraph of over one hundred words, we are not dealing with a “translation” in any accepted sense of the word . . . the “Alphabet and Grammar” was never given out as an official or inspired document, was never meant for publication, never placed before the Church for approval, never discussed for the record, never explained to the world as the facsimiles were. . . . 1968 priority went to the newly found papyri, which had never been translated and about which many people were understandably curious and impatient. But when it soon became apparent that those documents did not contain any of the text of the Book of Abraham as we have it, it was time for the Egyptologists, having done their work and done it well, either to bow out of the scene or to go on to the more important and essential problems of the facsimiles. . . . It is only the last step that counts, as the French say, and so far nobody has taken it. The hopes for a quick decision with the finding of the Joseph Smith Papyri were blasted when it became apparent on the one hand that those documents do not contain the Book of Abraham, and on the other that the connection between the so-called Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and the Book of Abraham is anything but clear. The work has hardly begun, but people still seek the safe and easy solution of authority and ask with impatience, “Can’t you spare us all that speculation and surmising and comparing and illustrating and simply give us the results?” The anti-Mormons have been only too glad to do just that, but we must never let them make us forget that proof is a process, not an answer, and that there is no such thing as total knowledge. . . .

Many Latter-day Saints have not been too happy with the Joseph Smith Papyri, which instead of giving them all the answers only set them to work on a lot of problems with which none of this generation is prepared to deal. But it was the Mormons who started this game, and it is their responsibility to keep it going. They can never again leave the field without forfeiting the game. . . . The bringing forth of the papyrus fragments in 1967 was a reminder to the Saints that they are still expected to do their homework and may claim no special revelation or convenient handout solutions as long as they ignore the vast treasure-house of materials that God has placed within their reach.

So far we have only taken a preliminary view of a few problems raised by Facsimile No. 1, and hardly even mentioned Facsimiles 2 and 3, . . . We have dealt entirely in possibilities, never in certitudes, possibilities being all we need to keep the door open. . . . As long as a single aspect of any problem raised by the Book of Abraham remains unexamined, as long as there is the remotest possibility that any slight detail of any significance may have been overlooked, as long as a single possible relevant text remains unread, we must hold our final word in abeyance. . . .

Who, then, is to decide these weighty matters? That is just the point: Is it necessary to decide here and now? The Mormons have always hesitated and asked for time, waiting (though rarely seeking) for further light and knowledge. Significantly, it has always been the Egyptologist, usually the very soul of caution, who have insisted on a once-for-all, here-and-now, before-we-leave-the-room decision and have been desperately determined not to prolong the discussion. That is still their policy, and it forces us to return upon their own heads the routine question that the world would confound the demolish us: You scholars have spoken; why don’t you do the honest thing and admit that you don’t know a blessed thing about the facsimiles, that you haven’t made even a superficial study of them . . . Why not admit that the relationship between the “Alphabet and Grammar” and the Book of Abraham is an enigma, full of odd contradictions and unexplained anomalies? Why not admit that you are not privy to the mind of Joseph Smith? That the test of the Book of Abraham lies in what it says, not in the manner in which it may have been composed, and that a thorough test of its contents would require a scope of research that no scholar today has any intention of undertaking, a scope of knowledge that few if any scholars today possess? . . .

Until now, no one has done much more than play around with the bedizening treasury of the Pearl of Great Price. “They” would not, we could not make of the Book of Abraham an object of serious study. The time has come to change all that. (Improvement Era, May, 1970, pages 82, 83, 93 and 94)

While the evidence clearly shows that the Book of Abraham is a product of Joseph Smith’s imagination, Dr. Nibley would have his people continue to stall and evade the main issue. The Mormon leaders can continue to ignore the evidence against the Book of Abraham and the anti-Negro doctrine contained in its pages, but such a course may very well lead to violence and bloodshed. In the last Messenger we point out that the Church-operated Brigham Young University has received a great deal of criticism from those who are seeking equal rights for the Negro. We also showed that Brigham Young University athletic teams have been met with “a gathering wave of protest” during the last two years. There is every reason to believe that this situation will get worse. The Deseret News for April, 4, 1970, contained these statements:

Harry Edwards, the man most responsible for mounting discontent against Brigham Young University athletic teams, vowed in Salt Lake City Friday that “Things will get worse unless Mormon (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) doctrine is changed.”. . .

“A change of doctrine which forbids Blacks to hold the priesthood and places them in an inferior human role, is the only action by Mormon authorities which will prevent escalation of activity against BYU, and I think I could go on national television and have it stopped.”

Referring to members of the press, Edwards said: “If things don’t get better by next fall, those who travel with BYU should invest in hard hats and asbestos suits.” (Deseret News, April 4, 1970)

The Salt Lake Tribune carried these statements in an article printed the same day:

Mr. Edwards spoke briefly in criticism of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its doctrine of barring Negroes from the priesthood . . .

The structure of the church “is crumbling” from within by the hierarchy’s action, he said.

“If the church is destroyed, it will not be from the blacks . . . but by the fact that the 20th Century has caught up with the state of Utah,” Mr. Edwards said. (Salt Lake Tribune, May 4, 1970)

From the information we have presented it is plain to see that if the Mormon leaders continue to ignore these problems the consequence could be disastrous.

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