From: gclapp@javelin.sim.es.com (Glenn Clapp)
Subject: BoA Papyrus (SLCM-9/92-1/7)
Organization: Evans & Sutherland Corp.
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 19:22:27 GMT


Salt Lake City Messenger  -- Issue no. 82 -- September 1992
Utah Lighthouse Ministries
P.O. Box 1884, Salt Lake City, Utah, 84110


             Solving the Mystery of the Joseph Smith Papyri


        A book analyzing Joseph Smith's translation of the "Book of
Abraham" has caused a real stir in Utah. It is written by Charles M.
Larson and is entitled, _By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look At The
Joseph Smith Papyri_. We understand that before the book was offered for
sale, about 30,000 copies were sent without charge to members of the
Mormon Church. Almost all the homes in one stake received a free copy.
One man told us that his bishop was so upset with the book that he
warned members of his ward not to read it. This, of course, made the man
very curious and he came to our bookstore to purchase a copy.

        Mormon scholars seem to be very worried that Larson's book will
cause members to lose faith in the Book of Abraham. The Mormon apologist
John Gee, a researcher for the Foundation for Ancient Research and
Mormon Studies (F.A.R.M.S.), has written a review of this book which is
published in _Review of Books on the Book of Mormon_, vol. 4, 1992.
While Mr. Gee tries very hard to find some way to belittle Mr. Larson
and undermine his work, we do not feel that he has successfully answered
the major issues. He, in fact, has made his own mistakes.

        For example, on pages 93-94 of his article, Mr. Gee quotes from
a cover letter which was sent out with copies of Larson's books. He
notes that the letter says that the book contains "the first ever
published color photographs of the Joseph Smith papyri collection." Gee
then asserts that this claim is not true and goes on to state: "...the
publishers... are mistaken in thinking that they are publishing the
first color photographs of the Joseph Smith papyri. They are nearly a
quarter century too late for that, for The Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints published a complete set of color photographs of the
Joseph Smith papyri in the February 1968 _Improvement Era_."

        While the photographs in the _Improvement Era_ give the
appearance of being "color" reproductions of the papyri (we ourselves
once thought they were full-color photographs), the printing was
apparently done with sepia ink, a dark brown or reddish-brown ink. This
worked fairly well because papyrus is basically brown. Unfortunately,
however, some of the papyri contain "rubrics"--portions written in red
ink. Wherever rubrics appeared on the papyrus, the characters did not
reproduce well in the church's magazine, _The Improvement Era_. Instead
of being red, they appear to be a very light brown and sometimes fade
out to the point that they are hardly readable. In the photographs found
in Larson's book, however, real color printing has been used.
Consequently, the rubrics come out red and are very readable.

        While Michael Marquardt believes John Gee is wrong about the
Feb. 1968 issue of the _Improvement Era_ having real color photographs
of the papyri, he feels that the cover of another issue did have a color
photograph of one fragment of papyrus, Fac. No. 1.

        It is interesting to note that when the church received the
papyri on Nov. 27, 1967, church leaders only allowed four or five black
and white pictures to be published. Reed Durham, an instructor at the
LDS Institute of Religion at the University of Utah asked if we could
furnish photographs of all eleven pieces of papyri for the library at
the Institute. We replied we could not obtain copies and wondered why he
was not able to obtain them from his own church. He stated that when he
contacted the church's _Deseret News_, he was told they had a large
number of copies of photographs of all the papyri, but had been ordered
not to release them. Later however, Grant Heward was able to obtain
photographs from another source after being refused by the Mormon
Church. When the _Deseret News_ learned that Mr. Heward had the
photographs, it caused a great deal of excitement, and word went out
that photographs had fallen into the hands of the enemies of the church.
Mormon leaders knew that if they did not release all the photographs, we
would print them.

        Evidence seems to indicate that there were originally no plans
for any pictures of the papyri to appear in the Feb. 1968 issue of the
_Improvement Era_ and that the publication of the photographs of the
papyri were inserted at the last minute in a hasty and peculiar manner.
In the table of contents on page 1 we read that pages "33-48" are
devoted to a section called "Era of Youth." In the midst of this
section, beginning at page 40, the Era of Youth abruptly ends and ten
pages of photographs of the papyri are inserted. After this the Era of
Youth starts again and continues to page 48 as the table of contents
indicated. Two pages of the Era of Youth were deleted at the place where
the 10 pages of photographs were added. This, of course, created a
problem in the page numbers. To solve this the photographs of the papyri
are numbered as pages 40, 40-A, 40-B, etc.

        This unusual method of producing the February issue of the
church's magazine seems to show that once word got out that our friend
Grant Heward had photographs, the church rushed to get them into print.
Church leaders certainly did not want these photographs to appear first
in the _Salt Lake City Messenger_! This hasty attempt to get the
pictures into print may have made it expedient to use sepia ink instead
of going through the added trouble of making full color pictures.

        Although we do not have the space here to deal in depth with
John Gee's arguments, we will examine some of his work and also his
sensational claim that papyri have been found that contain the name
Abraham. Some of Gee's other arguments about Joseph Smith's translation
of the Book of Abraham have already been refuted in our book _Mormonism
--Shadow or Reality?_ Chapter 22.

4,000 YEARS OLD?

        According to Mormon writers, the "Book of Abraham" was supposed
to have been written on papyrus by the Biblical patriarch Abraham about
4,000 years ago! Mormon apologist Sidney B. Sperry said that "the Book
of Abraham will some day be reckoned as one of the most remarkable
documents in existence... the writings of Abraham... must of necessity
be older than the original text of Genesis." (_Ancient Records Testify
in Papyrus and Stone_, 1938, page 83) Mormon leaders felt the Book of
Abraham was so important that they canonized it as scripture and
published it in the _Pearl of Great Price_--one of the four standard
works of the church.

        The evidence shows that while Joseph Smith had the Egyptian
papyri, he allowed many people to freely examine them. This was entirely
different from the secretive attitude he had with regard to the "gold
plates" from which he translated the Book of Mormon. He was very careful
to keep those plates concealed from the general public. Although Joseph
Smith let some of his close associates look at the plates, he never
allowed experts to examine them. Naturally, this caused many people to
wonder if the Mormon prophet really had the plates he described. Others
suggested that he may have had some plates which were fabricated to fool
his friends and family but that they were neither ancient nor made of
gold. In any case, Smith claimed that he eventually returned the plates
to the angel who had brought them. Consequently, there is no way to
check Smith's claim that he translated the Book of Mormon from gold
plates.

        While one has to depend upon Joseph Smith's own story and the
testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses concerning the plates, in the
case of the Book of Abraham it can be established with certainty that
Joseph Smith had some ancient Egyptian papyri which were purchased from
Michael Chandler while he was in Kirtland, Ohio. While there is no
question about the papyri's authenticity, many people have had serious
reservations regarding the accuracy of Smith's translation.
Unfortunately, while Joseph Smith had the papyri in his possession the
science of Egyptology was in its infancy. Therefore, Joseph Smith's work
as a translator could not be adequately tested. To make matters worse,
after Smith's death the Mormon Church lost control of the papyri and it
was believed that they were destroyed in the Chicago fire.

        Since neither the gold plates nor the Egyptian papyri were
available, it appeared that Joseph Smith's ability as a translator would
never be tested. However, on November 27, 1967, the church's _Deseret
News_ announced one of the most significant events in Mormon Church
history:

                "NEW YORK--A collection of pa[p]yrus manuscripts, long
   believed to have been destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1871, was
   presented to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints here
   Monday by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.... Included in the papyri
   is a manuscript identified as the original document from which Joseph
   Smith had copied the drawing which he called 'Facsimile No. 1' and
   published with the Book of Abraham."

        After the papyri were recovered by the church, many Mormons felt
that Joseph Smith's work would be vindicated. Church apologist Hugh
Nibley, however, was not optimistic about the matter and warned his
people that there was trouble ahead. On Dec. 1, 1967, the _Daily
Universe_, published at Brigham Young University, reported these
statements by Dr. Nibley: "The papyri scripts given to the Church do not
prove the Book of Abraham is true,' Dr. Hugh Nibley... said Wednesday
night. 'LDS scholars are caught flat footed by this discovery,' he went
on to say." Since Nibley was supposed to be the Mormon Church's top
authority on the Egyptian language, such a pessimistic assessment must
have jolted Mormons who read his comments. After all, anyone could see
that there were three rows of hieroglyphic writing on the right side of
the papyrus which Joseph Smith used as Facsimile No. 1 in his Book of
Abraham. In addition, another row of hieroglyphic writing appeared on
the left side of the papyrus. Since the papyrus was surrounded by
Egyptian writing, how could it fail to prove the Book of Abraham? If
Joseph Smith really knew how to translate Egyptian, the writing would
prove that the scene found in Facsimile No. 1 showed "The idolatrous
priest of Elkenah attempting to offer up Abraham as a sacrifice."

        As it later turned out, when the writing found on the papyrus
was translated by Klaus Baer, Associate Professor of Egyptology at the
University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, it became clear that the
papyrus was a pagan document which had absolutely no relationship to
Abraham. The translation, in fact, revealed that the papyrus was really
made for a dead man named "Hor"--after the Egyptian god Horus. Experts
who have examined this papyrus agree that it is drawing of Osiris, the
Egyptian god of the dead, being prepared for burial by the god Anubis.
The fact that this is a funerary papyrus is made clear in Dr. Baer's
translation of the line on the left side of the papyrus: "May you give
him a good, splendid burial on the West of Thebes just like..."
(Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Autumn 1968, page 117) Since the
text of Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham says that Abraham survived the
attempt to take his life, there would have been no reason to speak of
burial. Furthermore, the Egyptians would not have given a sacrificial
victim a "splendid burial on the West of Thebes."

        Since the Egyptian papyri did not support Joseph Smith's Book of
Abraham, Hugh Nibley was not anxious for a translation to come forth. In
the Spring 1968 issue of _Brigham Young University Studies_, page 251,
Dr. Nibley made this revealing comment: "We have often been asked during
the past months why we did not proceed with all haste to produce a
translation of the papyri the moment they came into our possession....
it is doubtful whether any translation could do as much good as harm."

        We were very disappointed with Hugh Nibley's attempt to make
light of the importance of the Joseph Smith Papyri. We turned to Grant
Heward who was studying Egyptian at the time. Mr. Heward had been
excommunicated from the Mormon Church because he dared to question the
authenticity of the Book of Abraham. Heward was convinced that the
papyrus Joseph Smith identified as the Book of Abraham was In reality
the Egyptian "Book of Breathings"--a pagan document which was actually a
condensed version of the "Book of the Dead." We were impressed with
Heward's argument and printed his observations in the March 1968 issue
of the _Salt Lake City Messenger_. It seemed like a bold move to make at
the time, but within a few months the identification was confirmed by
leading Egyptologists.

        In addition, Mr. Heward prepared the first rendering of some of
the text from the Joseph Smith Papyri which we printed in the same issue
of the Messenger. The portion he used was taken from what Joseph Smith
identified as the Book of Joseph. In reality, however, Mr. Heward
demonstrated that it was taken from the Egyptian Book of the Dead. It
related to a dead woman "Transforming into a Swallow."

        It is interesting to note that even though the original Joseph
Smith Papyri had been found, leaders of the Mormon Church seemed to have
had no desire to produce a translation of the papyri for their people.
Like Dr. Nibley, they must have felt that it was "doubtful whether any
translation could do as much good as harm." The three Egyptologists who
allowed their work to be published by _Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon
Thought_ were not commissioned by the church. _Dialogue_ is actually an
independent publication which is not controlled by the church and often
prints articles that are disturbing to some of the top leaders of the
church.
-- 
=============================================================================
= Glenn Clapp                          |  gclapp@thunder.sim.es.com         =
= Evans and Sutherland Computer Corp.  |  My opinions are my own, but then  =
= Salt Lake City, Utah  (801) 582-5847 |  that's my opinion.                =