Pearl of Great Price

[[File:Abraham Facsimile 2.png|thumb|right|165px|Smith's drawing of an ordinary Egyptian {{wpl|hypocephalus}}, an [[amulet]] placed beneath a mummy's head.  According to Smith, this represents God and the star Kolob.<ref>[https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/fac-1?lang=eng Book of Abraham], LDS. "One day in Kolob is equal to a thousand years according to the measurement of this earth, which is called by the Egyptians Jah-oh-eh."</ref>]]
{{scriptures}}
The '''Pearl of Great Price''' is a book of [[Mormon]] [[scripture]].  Together with the [[King James Bible]], the [[Book of Mormon]], and the [[Doctrine and Covenants]], these constitute the scriptures of the [[Church of Latter Day Saints]].  The text is not accepted as [[canon]]ical by the Community of Christ, a rival Latter-Day Saint [[religion]].  It is perhaps the strangest and most obviously fabricated text among the four.  The title is a reference to the {{wpl|Parable of the Pearl}} told by [[Jesus]].<ref>[[Gospel of Matthew|Matthew]] 13</ref>

==Contents==
The Pearl of Great Price contains five texts: the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, [[Joseph Smith, Jr.|Joseph Smith]]'s edition of the [[Gospel of Matthew]], a brief autobiography by Smith, and the Mormon Articles of Faith. Of these texts, the Book of Moses and the Book of Abraham are of the greatest literary and investigative interest.  

===Book of Moses===
The Book of Moses is an [[apocrypha]]l text attributed, of course, to [[Moses]], containing a prologue to the [[creation]] of the [[universe]].  Parts of it are cribbed from the [[Book of Genesis]], with Smith's additions and commentary presented as part of the text.  It purports to document a [[out of body experience|heavenly ascent]] by Moses, where he was [[rapture]]d up to [[Heaven]] and conversed with [[God]], instead of simply dying as in the Old Testament.  It teaches the theory of Mormon theology that all humans are the physical offspring of God, who [[sex|begat]] them in something akin to the usual way with a "[[Goddess|Heavenly Mother]]", along with [[Jesus]] and [[Satan]].  Jesus and Satan are everybody's brothers.<ref>''Pearl of Great Price'', [https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp/moses/3?lang=eng Book of Moses] 3</ref>

===Book of Abraham===
[[File:Abraham Facsimile 1.png|thumb|right|200px|According to Smith, this represents a villain attempting to sacrifice the prophet Abraham.<ref>[https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/fac-1?lang=eng Book of Abraham], LDS</ref> It is in fact a familiar image of the ''Opening of the Mouth'' ceremony that enables a mummy to breathe in the afterlife.  The human figure should be the jackal-headed Anubis. Note the familiar {{wpl|canopic jar|canopic jars.}}]]
[[File:Joseph Smith Papyrus I.jpg|thumb|right|200px|The original of Smith's image; as you can see, parts of the original have been lost.]]
[[File:Abraham_Facsimile_3.png|thumb|right|200px|People with even an offhand interest in ancient Egypt will recognize this as the court of Osiris.  According to Smith, it represents Abraham teaching the Pharaoh [[astronomy]].<ref>[https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/fac-3?lang=eng Book of Abraham], LDS. Note that the goddess Isis is identified by Smith as a male Pharaoh, and the actual image of Osiris as Pharaoh is identified as Abraham.</ref>]]
{{cquote|If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye,<br>And then continue onward With that same speed to fly,<br>Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity,<br>Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?|||W. W. Phelps, ''If You Could Hie to Kolob'', traditional Mormon hymn.<ref>[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/If_You_Could_Hie_to_Kolob If You Could Hie to Kolob]</ref>}}
The Book of Abraham is even more interesting.  Its theological significance is as an exposition of the Mormon [[priest]]hood.  It represents Smith's clueless interpretation of several [[Ancient Egypt]]ian papyri, the chief of which is one of many copies of the Egyptian ''Book of Breathing'' or ''Opening of the Mouth'', a late recension of the ''Book of the Dead'' buried with mummies, that Smith got a hold of.  Champollion's work on deciphering ancient Egyptian had not penetrated the [[United States]] at the time, so Smith's interpretation was made without the benefit of any real understanding of ancient Egyptian.  The papyri were brought to the United States to be sold to benefit an estate; they came to Smith's attention during his sojourn in Kirtland, Ohio, and Smith acquired them for the sum of $2,400 in 1835, a prodigious sum at the time.  The original papyri were thought lost in the Great Chicago Fire.  However, portions of Smith's papyri were discovered by a Coptic scholar in 1966, who revealed their survival to the LDS church.  Subsequently, the Church bought the papyri, which are held in its archives as the {{wpl|Joseph Smith Papyri||.}}<ref name="Ritner">Ritner, Robert K. (July 2003), "'The Breathing Permit of Hôr' Among the Joseph Smith Papyri", ''Journal of Near Eastern Studies''.</ref> 

The papyri were recognized because Smith published facsimiles of the fragments he possessed, with his own imaginative reconstruction of the gaps. In fairness to Smith, his drawings, though slightly garbled and containing imaginative reconstructions of the gaps, were accurate enough that Egyptologists were able to read some of the hieroglyphs they contained and determine that Smith's claims as to their significance were fabricated.<ref name="Ritner" />

Smith decided that his Egyptian papyri were written by the [[patriarchy|patriarch]] [[Abraham]] and contained autobiographical materials.  In it, we learn that the Pharaoh was of the "[[race]] of Ham" and as such ineligible for the priesthood; this was one source of the LDS Church's teaching that [[African American]]s and other Black people could not achieve the highest ranks in the Mormon hierarchy, nor obtain [[deity|deification]] in the [[afterlife]].<ref>[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pearl_of_Great_Price/Abraham#1:27 Book of Abraham] 1:27</ref>  This bit of scripture was rescinded in 1978.<ref>See, ''[[Doctrine and Covenants]]''</ref>

The Book of Abraham also tells us that the [[God]] worshipped by Christians in fact dwells on a [[planet]] revolving around a star (or planet) named {{wpl|Kolob||.}}  Abraham, in a vision, "saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; … and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest."<ref>Pearl of Great Price, [https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Pearl_of_Great_Price/Abraham#3:2 Book of Abraham] 3:2</ref>

The Book of Abraham also represents Mormonism's abandonment of [[monotheism]] in favor of [[polytheism]].  According to the Book of Abraham, there are many gods; the God of the [[Christian]] faith only created the [[Earth]], and the other gods are for other planets.  The sacrifice of Jesus is repeated under different names by different divine creators on different worlds, to redeem [[Extraterrestrial|alien populations]].<ref>[https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng#9 Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham], Church of the Latter-Day Saints</ref>

==Reception==
While the Pearl of Great Price is accepted as part of the canon of scripture revered by the Church of Latter-Day Saints, unlike the ''Book of Mormon'' you will ask the pair of Mormon [[evangelism|evangelists]] at your doorstep for a copy in vain.  The weird, [[science fiction|science-fictional]] divergence between Mormonism and more conventional Christian denominations is too obviously on exhibit in its pages.  Its historical claims can be proven false by any well-read amateur. In it, Mormonism shows itself as an entirely worthy forerunner of [[Scientology]], the other major American religion founded on the rock of [[science fiction|fantastic fiction]].

==External links==
*[https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/pgp?lang=eng Pearl of Great Price], Church of Latter Day Saints official version
*[http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers/revelations-and-translations/jsppr6 Book of Abraham] manuscript materials.

==References==
{{reflist|2|80%}}

[[Category:Mormonism]]

Categories: Mormonism