Ancient Parallels With the Book of Abraham And of course, still more showing us just how far we have to get to in order to start drawing hard and fast negative conclusions against Joseph Smith. The critics want fast, pat answers, as long as they end up negative. But the information available demonstrate there is more to this than meets the eye. ***If the Book of Abraham is so phony and simply made up in the cranium of Joseph Smith, how is it that it fits so well into the ancient scheme of things which Joseph Smith certainly did not only not have access to, but did not have the time to research into all this? I have found this stuff, but it has taken me several years of quiet and careful study and the purusing through many university libraries. Can it be shown that Smith had this kind of time and access to this type of careful Egyptological research?*** As more and more scholars gather information on the ancient scriptures they find texts which deal with areas that the Mormon scriptures also deal with. In many ways Joseph Smith is being confirmed as being correct which is no surprise to us Mormons. It is necessary to deal with all the information which is coming out on the Book of Abraham. While the issues with the papyri are interesting, it is to the text of the Book of Abraham that we turn to in order to see if Smith had anything. He had everything! Ancient sources verify that Abraham saw God's creations as recorded in the Book of Abraham - translated by Joseph Smith. The Bible does not deal with the following detail: "And [God] said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before my eyes, and I could not see the end thereof." (Abr. 3:12). The Apocalypse of Abraham makes the same claim, where Abraham is carried aloft to heaven to view the wonders of the universe. The Lord tells Abraham that he [the Lord] would "show [him] that which is in heaven, and upon the earth, and in the sea, and in the abysses, in the underworld, and in the Garden of Eden and its rivers, and in the fullness of the circuit of the whole world; for you shall behold all." Daniel C. Peterson points out that the above quotation "is almost an exact translation of the Egyptian words in the left middle portion 1 / 6
of Fac. #2 of the Book of Abraham. (figures 9 and 10). "News From Antiquity," Ensign, Jan. 1994, p. 19. When we look further into this in Charlesworth's text, "Old Test. Pseudepigrapha," Vol. 1, we note that the angel which visits Abraham takes him to heaven and tells him to look (cf. the angel with Nephi who during his interview and vision tells him to "look") and shows him a picture of the cosmos (p. 694-698). In the picture Abraham sees half of humanity on one side of the circle and the other half on the other side (note how hypocephali are divided in two halves, usually the solar half or male half on top and the lunar or female half underneath). Notice also how the heavens are layered, which correlates to the Mormons claiming there are more than just one heaven and one hell. Other ancient religions also have three heavens and various layers in the underworld. The hypocephalus is a cosmic map so to speak. The Apocalypse of Abraham definitely has this conception of the circular heavens with all the animals, people and wars, peace, etc. Abraham is given a guided tour, exactly as Nephi is in the Book of Mormon. One of the most striking things to me the very first time through the BofMormon was how Nephi was just talking and asking and receiving answers from his heavenly visitor and guide. We now know that this type of interviewing does take place, and in fact, as in the Bof Abraham, in other ancient literatures, there is the pre-existence of souls taught, as in the "Prayer of Joseph" fragment A, which states clearly: " I, Jacob [notice how Jacob starts his text as Nephi does, "I, Nephi..."] who is speaking to you, am also Israel, an angel of God and a ruling spirit [cf. Abraham who is also chosen as one of the leaders in the Bof Abraham] Abraham and Isaac were created before any work." (Charlesworth, "O.T. Pseud." Vol. 2, p. 713). Note the idea of preexistence and ruling spirits above others and being called with a holy calling, etc. All this is ALSO in our Book of Abraham, but NOT in the Bible, but now known to be authentic. Joseph Smith was exactly correct in his text. This does seem to be an authentic ancient book. In fact when we look further in James H. Charlesworth's incredible texts, "The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha," Vol. 1, pp. 694-701, we find that the Apocalypse of Abraham states that Abraham beheld the "hosts of stars, and the orders they were commanded to carry out, and the elements of the earth obeying them." Ancient sources now verify that Abraham was also almost sacrificed, although in the Bible we only have the almost sacrifice of Isaac, in the BofA, Smith also noted that Abraham was sacrificed. This used to be 2 / 6
thought a blatant bungle of Smith's supposedly showing he was too stupid to read the Bible carefully and confused Isaac's sacrifice with Abraham's, but now the fuller picture is out and Smith is verified to the T. In the Book of Jasher, chapter 12 we find the attempted killing of Abraham and his deliverance through divine intervention. In the "Pseudo-Philo" we read of the arch-rival of Abraham, Nimrod and his followers trying to dispose of Abraham in the furnace of fire, but through divine intervention, Abraham is saved. ("O.T. Pseudepigrapha," Vol. 2, pp. 310-312) The explanations and ideas expressed in the facsimiles in the BofA are eternal and represent concepts which we Mormons claim have been taught since the creation of the world. Milton R. Hunter's book "The Gospel Through the Ages" demonstrated that many ideas such as the belief in immortality, the Messianic Hope, the one Divine Savior-God, the Atonement through sacrifice, the ordinance of baptism, the sacrament, etc. have been in the world. Some critics have blindly insisted that each figure in each facsimile can have only one meaning, and hence that Joseph Smith was incorrect in each and every instance. For instance, Bishop Spaulding in 1912 said that Smith's explanations are obviously nothing more than "fraud" and "fabrication." For instance, the figure on the lion couch cannot be Abraham as Smith insisted, but it is Osiris, and hence Smith was wrong. But this exclusiveness is now known to be incorrect, with the Egyptians having many meanings in EACH figure. Smith was correct in this, his critics were not. The Egyptians did not think in Aristotilean terms, such as since A is A, it cannot be B. But to the Egyptians, they thought in multiplicity of meanings for each figure. If the figure on the lion couch is Osiris, it can also be Abraham, or Anubis, or anyone who they could get to be on the lion couch! This has only been discovered since the 1950's. Because Smith disagrees with what his critics say, does nothing to prove that Smith was wrong. The Egyptians are always surprising us, but not more so than here with their multiple meanings to one figure and multiple meanings to another figure, and to every figure in the facsimiles. The multiple meanings of Egyptian symbols is nowhere more perfectly exemplified than in Richard H. Wilkinson's book "Symbol & Magic in Egyptian Art," Thames & Hudson, 1994. He notes that even the Egyptian Hieroglyphics have two types of information embedded in them, (p. 155). Egyptian art, oh much of the art is designed to work on a number of different levels according to Wilkinson, p. 183. In fact, form symbolism can have HUNDREDS of different meanings and contexts! P. 16. 3 / 6
But John A. Wilson an Egyptologist out of Chicago, who was well qualified to caution critics, noted that scholarship requires a more responsible analysis than "a lot of indignant snorts" ("Thousands of Years: An Archaeologists Search For Ancient Egypt", p. 176) Wilson added that "the Mormons will survive this criticism because: Egyptologists can claim no inspiration. We can only scrape the surface meaning. If Joseph Smith was a prophet, he was an instrument of divine authority, so that he might find the deepest meaning." (Wilson, "Ibid"., p.174, 176). In fact, Eberhard Otto differentiated between the non-mythological "primary" symbolism and the secondary mythology in the Book of the Dead (Otto, "Das Verhaeltnis von Rite und Mythus im Aegyptischen" "Sitzungberichte der Heildelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften ]Heidelberg: Carl Winter, Universitaetsverlag, 1958, p. 28). Gertrud Thausing, "Das Gross Aegyptische Totenbuch" [ Cairo: Oesterreichisches Kulturinstitut, 1969,] p. 67 noted "loftier realities" above and beyond the external appearances. In other words there is not just one and only one meaning with Egyptian Symbolism. If Joseph Smith says its Abraham and the Egyptologists say its Osiris, that isn't a necessary contradiction at all. An ancient source verifies that Abraham saw children sacrificed as record ed in the BofA, yet unknown in the Bible. "I saw there the likeness of an idol of wrath, an image made of material like unto that which my father had made... Before it stood a man, and he worshipped it, and there was an altar opposite, and BOYS were butchered upon it in full view of the idol. (Apocalypse of Abraham in Hugh Nibley, "Abraham in Egypt," p. 18). In light of this, Eugen Strouhal s book "Life of the Ancient Egyptians," Univ. of Oklahoma Press, (1992) is remarkable in that the lion couch on p. 232 is used as a sacrificial alter! It is sloped downwards toward the back as a basin to hold the blood. Hugh Nibley in his book "The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri," p. 155 shows a mummy on the lion couch with no Anubis but it does have a sun shining its rays on the mummy. The inscription above it says his body is being preserved against decay (the hieroglyph is that of a stinking fish). This is the same idea of the hypocaphalus (Fac. 2) which was put under the head of the mummy to preserve its body for the time when the spirit would inhabit it again. In fact, the very idea of mummifying was to transform the corpse itself into a new eternal body, according to John H. Taylor, "Death and the Afterlife in Ancient Egypt," Univ. of Chicago Press, 2001, p. 16. The ba or ka of the individual we are told, was believed to come back to unite with the body. He says later that Books of Breathings were kept under the mummy to be presented to the deities in the afterlife, and to give the corpse life for eternity, (p. 199f), the exact same idea found in Hugh Nibley s "Message of Joseph Smith Papyri." 4 / 6
Nibley also shows on p. 157 a depiction of the dead in the grave awaiting the resurrection, and the sun shining on it. It is obviously a mummy. Nibley notes it is from the womb of the earth and the place of incubation from which the dead will be reborn. How this ties in is also found in Nibley "Message," p. 214 where he notes that the idea of sacrifice came from the earliest times in Egypt when it was flooding. The idea of sacrifice was to preserve life and guarantee the prosperity of the human race. This was why Pharaoh used a substitute (which is exactly what Abraham was in the ancient myths and rites, as depicted in our own Book of Abraham!), in his place. Nibley also noted in his book "Abraham in Egypt," (FARMS/Deseret edition, 2000) that Rosenberg noted the substitute sacrifice in place of the king was an institution all over the ancient world, whether in Persia, Babylon, or Egypt. The star Sirius (named in the Book of Abraham as Shagreel!) was known as Saturn! This was the god, who, of course, demanded human sacrifice. (p. 338). The background ideas for the Book of Abraham story is coming out like never before. (See also Richardson and Bentley, "1,000 Evidences," pp. 67f). I think its rather obvious that Smith knew whereof he spoke. That he got any of this correct is astronomically against him. He not only got the overall concepts of Abraham's life correct, he got many of the details that simply were unknown to his world of the 1830's. In fact, all facets of the story of Abraham the way Joseph Smith told it can now be accounted for. The idolatrous God of Pharoah being the crocodile as Smith says in Fac. #1, is strictly correct, since we now know that Unas or Wenis, the last king of the 5th dynasty, 2356-2323 B.C., had Pyramid Texts reading: "The King Appears as the Crocodile-god Sobek. In fact, Sobek is viewed as a manifestation of Horus, the god most closely associated with kingship in Egypt, during 2040-1640 B.C., the time of Abraham according to current scholarship. The last king of the 12th dynasty adopted the name of the crocodile-god calling himself, "Nefru-sobk (Beautiful is Sobek), and 5 pharoahs of the next dynasty, the 13th, took the name Sebek-hotpe (Sobek is content). Lichtheim, "Ancient Egyptian Literature: A Book of Readings," Berkeley Univ. of Calif. Press, 1975, p.40. The Pillars of Heaven and Firmament Over Our Heads: Ancient texts support Joseph Smith in claiming these represented these concepts. Smith said that the strange vertical lines at the bottom of Fac. #1 (Fig. 11) are identified as "designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by the Egyptians." This phrase occurs several times in Egyptian literature. Adriaan De Buck, "The Egyptian Coffin 5 / 6
Texts," 61 I 263. Similarly, the angled lines above the Pillars of Heaven in the Fac. 1 are interpreted as representing the "firmament over our heads." Daniel C. Peterson explains that this identification only makes sense when we realize, in light of recent research, that the lines represents the waves of water in which the crocodile is swimming, and that the one way the ancient Egyptians conceived of heaven was as a heavenly ocean! So things make emminent sense from the Egyptian point of view, exactly as Smith said he was taking as Abraham anciently took, that is, the Egyptian point of view. Remember, in the book of Abraham, Abraham is not propounding his own religion, but is telling about the ancient Egyptian thinking in religious terms, ideas, and philosophy. We are now learning that in ancient Egypt were the same terms in and of religion as in Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham. Joseph Smith claimed that the earth was created out of already existing matter, such as the ancient Egyptians taught. They taught that "Nun was chaos, or the primordial waste of waters in which all creation was imminent." The ancient Egyptians copied the ancient gospel from the patriarchs. (see Veronica Ions, "Egyptian Mythology, N.Y.: Peter Bedrick Books, 1986], p. 34; E.A.E. Raymond, "The Mystical Origin of the Egyptian Temple," Manchester Univ. Press, 1969, p. 187; Cf. Hugh Nibley, "Timely and the Timeless," 1978, pp. 57fff. And so it goes. Once one begins an honest exporation into the ancient Egyptian ideas, one sees all sorts of relevant information for the study of the Joseph Smith interpretations of the Facsimiles in the Book of Abraham. But one MUST look. 6 / 6