By Jerald and Sandra Tanner

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After Joseph Smith’s death the Egyptian papyri, which were supposed to contain the books of Abraham and Joseph, were lost. In 1967, however, the Mormon Church announced the “discovery” of eleven pieces of this papyri at the Metropolitan Museum. Another fragment had also been preserved in the Church Historian’s Office, but the Mormon leaders tried to suppress this fact. Jay M. Todd, who has served as an editor and staff writer for the Church’s Improvement Era, states that Dr. Clark, of Brigham Young University, knew about this fragment for thirty years but was told to suppress this information: “Outside of a few associates, Dr. Clark had kept the fragment a matter of confidence, under instructions from the Historians Office, for over 30 years” (The Sage of the Book of Abraham, Salt Lake City, 1969, page 364).

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

Two years after we published a photograph of this fragment in Joseph Smith’s “Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar,” the Church leaders decided that it was time to “find” it. The LDS Church Section of the Deseret News carried this statement of February 10, 1968: “An interesting development in the work going on at BYU by Dr. Hugh Nibley on the papyri fragments turned over to the Church by the New York Museum of Art is the locating of another fragment in the vaults at the Church Historian’s Office.”

We now have evidence which seems to show that the Mormon leaders have still not brought all of the skeletons out of the closet. In the Messenger for October, 1970, we stated: “We have heard from two separate sources that Dr. Nibley has discovered more of Joseph Smith’s papyri—possibly Facsimile No. 2. If any of our readers know the location of the papyri or have any other information on this subject we would appreciate it if they would let us know.” In a letter dated October 5, 1970, we received the following information:

I received your Salt Lake City Messenger . . . you mention about more papyri and for any information on the subject.

Here is what I know:

The first I heard about more Joseph Smith Papyri was from you . . . I went to see ____ [a prominent Mormon who is acquainted with Dr. Nibley] . . . He stated . . . Nibley told him that there was more papyri found and that it was discovered in Texas. . . . Mention was made by Nibley that Facsimile No. 2 was among the papyri.

The same man who sent us this information talked with another man who claimed:

Hugh Nibley mentioned that there were 2 scrolls still in existence which were once in the possession of Joseph Smith. One was owned by Emma Smith and the other by someone who had some connection with the R.L.D.S. Church. . . .

The Papyrus is in a small town safe and it is owned by an antique dealer. The dealer bought it from Emma Smith or relatives; he believed that they were sacred and said that they were Joseph’s. He also said that they had Masonic symbols on the Papyrus and that he wouldn’t sell them even for $750.00.

It could be that Dr. Nibley’s has known of this papyri for some time. In The Case Against Mormonism, vol. 3, page 1, we stated:

A friend of Dr. Nibley’s gave us this information in a letter dated August 13, 1968: “I saw photographs of them [i.,e., the papyri in the Metropolitan Museum] for the first time in 1963, I believe . . . I wrote Nibley that some of the Joseph Smith papyri still existed but that I was not at liberty to say where, and he wrote me about the same time that someone in Utah had located of pile of unpublished Joseph Smith papyri.”

However this may be, it would appear that Dr. Nibley has recently made statements which would indicate that more of the papyri are still in existence and that he knows their location. Now, these papyri may be very important to those who are studying Mormonism, but we do not feel that we can put a great deal of stock in the statement that they are in Texas. This may be the case, but we remember that Dr. Atiya tried to divert us when we were on the track of the papyri in the Metropolitan Museum. He had a friend of ours write to a university back East when he knew the exact location of the papyri.

Perhaps some of our readers can provide a few clues that could lead to the discovery of the rest of the papyri. These manuscripts may contain some very important evidence concerning the development of the Mormon Church.

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