[Book of Abraham] Detailed Response to the "CES Letter" from a believing Latter-day Saint

Book of Abraham

Start: Introduction

Previous: First Vision 

Contents for this section:

1. "By his own hand, upon papyrus"
2. Existing papyrus has nothing to do with Abraham
• Facsimile 1
• Facsimile 2
• Facsimile 3
3. Facsimile summary
4. Newtonian view of the universe
5. King James Version wording
6. Anachronisms
7. Physics
8. The Philosophy of a Future State
9. Elder Holland interview
• Egyptologist statements

“None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments. Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.”

– LDS CHURCH’S TRANSLATION AND HISTORICITY OF THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM ESSAY

Jeremy will quote this again, but placed here at the front it serves as a summary of how the Book of Abraham did not meet his expectations.  A summary of my response also comes from the Church's essay:

A careful study of the book of Abraham provides a better measure of the book’s merits than any hypothesis that treats the text as a conventional translation. Evidence suggests that elements of the book of Abraham fit comfortably in the ancient world and supports the claim that the book of Abraham is an authentic record.

The Book of Abraham is scripture, and whatever unmet expectations I had isn't enough to counteract that, nor provide an explanation for how Joseph was able to produce it.

1. Originally, Joseph claimed that this record was written by Abraham “by his own hand, upon papyrus” – a claim still prominent in the heading of the Book of Abraham. This claim could not be evaluated for decades as many thought the papyri were lost in a fire. The original papyrus Joseph translated has since been found and, as stated in the Church’s July 2014 Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham essay, “scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts…[that] date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.”

I don't know that anyone thought that the exact papyrus Joseph Smith had was literally written by Abraham. (In fact, the original publication said it was "purporting" to be the writings of Abraham.)  Instead, I would say that the expression "by his own hand upon papyrus" simply means that Abraham was the original author.  Similar expressions are pretty common in the Bible, as Paul uses it several times:

1 Corinthians 16:21—"The salutation of me Paul with mine own hand."

Galatians 6:11—"Ye see how large a letter I have written unto you with mine own hand."

2 Thessalonians 3:17—"The salutation of Paul with mine own hand, which is the token in every epistle: so I write."

Philemon 1:19—"I Paul have written it with mine own hand,"

The earliest copies of any of these is Papyrus 46 which dates to about 200 AD, long after Paul had lived.  But it is recognized that these are copies, and it was only the original that would have been written by Paul's hand.  You don't normally change the text when you make a copy.

This is also pointed out in the sentences directly following the one Jeremy quoted from the Church essay, "Of course, the fragments do not have to be as old as Abraham for the book of Abraham and its illustrations to be authentic. Ancient records are often transmitted as copies or as copies of copies."

I think alternatively it is possible for the Book of Abraham to be a piece of pseudepigrapha, meaning some ancient person writing falsely claiming to be Abraham.  These types of works were common at the time period that the papyrus was dated to.  Which isn't to say that I don't believe it's scripture, just that it doesn't literally have to be written by Abraham.

We know this is the papyrus that Joseph used for translation because the hieroglyphics match in chronological order to the hieroglyphics in Joseph’s Kirtland Egyptian Papers, which contains his Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL). Additionally, the papyrus were pasted onto paper which have drawings of a temple and maps of the Kirtland, Ohio area on the back and they were companied by an affidavit by Emma Smith verifying they had been in the possession of Joseph Smith.

I don't think anyone claims that these papyri didn't belong to Joseph Smith, though I suppose stating it is important for making the argument.  However, saying these fragments are what was used for the Book of Abraham translation is probably an overstatement.

I'll come back to that, but first for some background, in 1835, Joseph Smith and others purchased four mummies in order to get the set of papyrus that they had.  According to Joseph's history he identified one roll as containing the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt (see also Oliver Cowdery's letter in the December 1835 Messenger and Advocate).  Joseph's journal records that he worked on the translation in 1835, then returned to it again in 1842 when it was published as the Book of Abraham.

Lucy Mack Smith kept the artifacts until she died in 1856, and they were sold to Abel Combs, who sold part of it to the St. Louis Museum.  In 1863, the museum moved to Chicago, and the following year was sold to Colonel John H. Wood, and named Wood's Museum.  It was believed that the entire collection was destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire in 1871.

However, what people didn't know was that Abel kept part of the collection for himself.  These ten fragments that were mounted and kept under glass eventually went to his housekeeper, whose daughter's widower sold them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City in 1947.  They knew what they had, but they kept it confidential.  But in the 1960s, new curators didn't want to keep them, and found a tactful way to return them to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  They informed Aziz Atiya of their existence.  He was a Coptic historian, a University of Utah professor, and founder of the Aziz Atiya Library of of Middle East Studies.  (Newspapers would misreport the event as Atiya discovering them, which was not the case.)  They were donated to the Church on 27 November 1967.

Although these fragments survived, it is certain that the majority of the papyri originally purchased in 1835 is missing, destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.  Even not knowing anything else, the source for Facsimile 1 is one of the surviving pieces, while the source for Facsimiles 2 and 3 are not extant, so clearly we do not have all the papyri.  Further study shows that by comparing with the characters on P. Louvre 3284, we might expect two more columns for the Book of Breathing for Horos, and that the scroll containing it that Joseph Smith had would have had room for another book.  The Egyptian Alphabet documents also have transcripts of Egyptian writing that does not appear on any of the existing fragments.

Back to what Jeremy was saying, the papyrus fragments and the Book of Abraham aren't the only documents related to the Book of Abraham project.  The Kirtland Egyptian Papers (also called the Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts) are all available on the Joseph Smith Papers website with historical background.  Of these, Jeremy only mentions the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL).

The GAEL was apparently part of an attempt to learn Egyptian, describing characters with five different degrees of meaning.  It was written by William W. Phelps and Warren Parrish, and they drew from earlier documents which had incomplete transliterations and definitions of Egyptian characters.  It is not known how much Joseph Smith was involved, but it is likely he knew and approved of the work.  This was made during a period of time where Joseph was studying ancient languages.

Besides the GAEL, a similar set of documents are the Egyptian Alphabet documents.  Most of the characters in the Egyptian Alphabet documents comes from the Fragment of Book of Breathing for Horos-A, including hieroglyphs to the right of the vignette and the hieratic to the left.  But there are also characters of unknown origin, composite characters of unknown origin, and characters associated with a document in Phelps handwriting that claims to bear the "pure language" of Adam (see Introduction to Egyptian Alphabet Documents, also Comparison of Characters).

Jeremy doesn't really describe the critic's argument very well here (though he links to it in item #2)—the argument isn't regarding the GAEL, but rather three copies of early manuscripts for the Book of Abraham:

• Book of Abraham Manuscript—A (Abraham 1:4-2:6 in handwriting of Frederick G. Williams)
• Book of Abraham Manuscript—B (Abraham 1:4-2:2 in handwriting of Warren Parrish)
• Book of Abraham Manuscript—C (Abraham 1:1-2:18 in handwriting of Warren Parrish and William W. Phelps)

Evidence suggests that A and B were created at the same time, probably from an earlier copy which was possibly dictated, though A shows evidence that at least the last part was copied from a written copy.  C incorporates editing marks in the other two, and so appears to represent a more finalized version.

On each of these manuscripts, a margin was created on the left-hand side and Egyptian characters appear.  Many of these appear to come from fragment XI, which is from the Fragment of the Book of Breathing for Horos—A to the left of facsimile 1, reading right-to-left, top-to-bottom.  So the argument critics make is that it appears that the text on the right is a translation of the characters on the left, so this "proves" that this fragment should be where the Book of Abraham was supposed to start, and should be the translation of those characters, and since it is not, that means it is false.

For a lot of critics, the Book of Abraham is the "smoking gun"—the argument boiling down to that we have characters that Joseph could not translate.  However, is that actually what we have?  Instead, for believing Latter-day Saints, it seems to be the opposite, that it appears that Warren Parrish and others were trying to work backwards from the text of the Book of Abraham and trying to figure out what the Egyptian characters meant.

For some additional arguments, John Gee argued that not all of the symbols appear in order right-to-left, that many characters that would have been in the damaged portion of the papyrus came from elsewhere in the document.  Tim Barker also presented the argument and pointed out that Facsimile 2 apparently had damaged portions, and these were filled in using characters copied from fragment XI, which Joseph gave as explanations they "will be given in the own due time of the Lord" and "The above translation is given as far as we have any right to give at the present time."  Tim Barker argues that given that these characters are from fragment XI, that implies Joseph did not translate fragment XI.

I would also note that only three characters in the Book of Abraham manuscripts actually appear in the GAEL and Egyptian Alphabet documents, so how would those documents be used to create the Book of Abraham?  It seems to me that it was the other way around, that they were using the Book of Abraham to work out a translation for Egyptian, and the reason it didn't work is because they carried into the project their own incorrect assumptions.

2. Egyptologists have also since translated the source material for the Book of Abraham and have found it to be nothing more than a common pagan Egyptian funerary text for a deceased man named “Hor” around first century C.E. In other words, it was a common Breathing Permit that the Egyptians buried with their dead. It has nothing to do with Abraham or anything Joseph claimed in his translation for the Book of Abraham. The Church admits this in its essay:

“None of the characters on the papyrus fragments mentioned Abraham’s name or any of the events recorded in the book of Abraham. Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the Book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments. Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.”

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was the first ones to announce that they were Egyptian funerary texts, over 40 years before the essay was published.  Right after the papyri were donated to the Church, the January 1968 issue of the Improvement Era published an article which explained, "Some of the pieces of papyrus apparently include conventional … Egyptian funerary texts, which were commonly buried with Egyptian mummies.  Often the funerary texts contained passages from the 'Book of the Dead,' a book that was to assist in the safe passage of the dead person into the spirit world.  It is not known at this time whether the ten other pieces of papyri have a direct connection with the Book of Abraham."

The article mentions that the manuscripts were given to scholar Hugh Nibley for further research and study.  The following month, they published images of these papyrus fragments.  Fragments IV-IX were identified as being from the Book of the Dead.  At the same time, the Hugh Nibley also began writing a series of articles, "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price" which defended the Book of Abraham.  Many of these were in draft form when the papyri were returned to the Church.  In the April 1968 issue, Nibley explained:

With the sudden appearance of the long-lost papyri and the great surge of popular interest in the Pearl of Great Price and in things Egyptian, it was necessary, before everything else, to take precautions against certain basic misunderstandings.  First of all, a preliminary notice was in order—just enough to make it clear that we were quite aware that some of the fragments were obviously from the Book of the Dead and that Joseph Smith had engaged in extensive speculation about some of the writings which, in the present state of our knowledge, no one is obligated to accept as scripture.  Along with this we took the calculated risk of offending both defenders and critics of the Book of Abraham in order to forestall premature speculations and hasty conclusions.

In the August 1968 issue, he went into length about the Book of the Dead, and in following issues he began talking about the new things we can learn from the papyri.

This was again mentioned in the Ensign in 1988 and in the manual for the Church History in the Fulness of Times institute class.

I would say that the essay, rather than admitting the existing papyrus was from the Egyptian Book of the Dead instead was informing a new generation of Latter-day Saints, and placing it in a location that is more easily accessible.

High-resolution images of the papyrus are available on the Joseph Smith Papers website:

• Fragment of Book of Breathing for Horos—A (fragments I (facsimile 1) and XI)
• Fragment of Book of Breathing for Horos—B (fragment X)
• Fragments of Book of the Dead for Semminis—A (fragments VII and VIII)
• Fragment of Book of the Dead for Semminis—B (fragments V and VI)
• Fragment of Book of the Dead for Semminis—C (fragments II and IV)
• Miscellaneous Scraps of Book of the Dead for Semminis (fragment IX)
• Fragment of Book of the Dead for Nefer-ir-nebu (fragment III)
• Miscellaneous small papyrus scraps with no discernible characters.

FACSIMILE 1

The graphic below shows the rediscovered papyri placed on top of Facsimile 1. The red circles denote the filled-in sections of facsimile 1 that respected modern Egyptologists say is nonsense.

In contrast with the canonized version of Facsimile 1, the following image is what Facsimile 1 is really supposed to look like, based on Egyptology and the same scene discovered elsewhere in Egypt:

The reason for this argument is that normal lion couch scenes follow the Osiris myth.  For a summary of the myth, Set killed his brother Osiris.  Isis—his wife and sister—searched for his body with her sister Nephthys, the wife of Set, while transformed into birds.  They find Osiris, and Anubis embalms the body, preserving it.  When his body is made whole, Isis temporarily revives him, and Isis conceives their son, Horus.

It used to be the argument that Joseph Smith (or some other Latter-day Saint) intentionally altered the scene, making it different from similar lion couch scenes.  Since the papyrus was discovered, it shows that instead, parts of the vignette were missing.  So criticizing it as "nonsense" itself doesn't make sense—they're just trying to fill in the gaps.

But if the criticism is that the Church's reconstruction is "wrong" because it is unique, then they should look in the mirror, since their reconstructions also make it unique. Meanwhile, there are legitimate unique elements to the facsimile, and uniqueness shouldn't be dismissed as "nonsense."

This particular recreation image comes from Charles M. Larson's book, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus published in 1992 by the Institute for Religious Research, which is an evangelical counter-cult organization.  He described his image as a professional reconstruction, but he didn't say who did it.  He is not an Egyptologist, but is presumably relying on others who are.

However, we can turn to a similar criticism from Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.  In the Summer 1968 article, soon after the papyri was returned to the Church and images were published, Chairman and Professor of Egyptology at Brown University, Richard A. Parker said of Facsimile 1

This is a well-known scene from the Osiris mysteries, with Anubis, the jackal-headed god, on the left ministering to the dead Osiris on the bier.  The pencilled(?) restoration is incorrect.  Anubis should be jackal-headed.  The left arm of Osiris is in reality lying at his side under him.  The apparent upper hand is part of the wing of a second bird which is hovering over the erect phallus of Osiris (now broken away).

Hugh Nibley responded to this in the following October in his series in the Improvement Era.  Professor Parker was working with some poor photographs rather than the actual document.  The Joseph Smith Papers has high-resolution images of the papyrus on their website, and looking at that gives us better information. Let's look at the four things that he says are "wrong" with the scene, and a couple others not mentioned.

Raised Hands

Looking at the original papyrus, it becomes obvious that there really are two hands raised.  For the second hand, only the fingertips still remain, but the existence of one bird and one hand shows how the artist drew hands and wings differently, and zooming in you can see that the second hand is identical to the first hand, and nothing like the wing.

Phallus

Following the Osiris myth, a lion couch scene may depict embalming, resurrection, or procreation.  In a procreative scene, an erect phallus is visible. 

Professor Parker suggested that this is a procreative scene rather than (or in addition to?) an embalming scene or resurrection scene (or according to Latter-day Saints, a sacrificial scene).  However, the fact that the man on the lion couch isn't naked would seem to me to argue against that.  It also raises the question as to what the priest's hand is doing, as either assisting or hindering the procreative act would be unique in a lion couch scene.

Knife

Professor Parker didn't mention the knife since he is looking at the papyrus, not the Book of Abraham recreation, though a procreative scene wouldn't likely have a priest with a knife.  Hugh Nibley noted that other experts saw nothing wrong with the knife.

Back in 1903 Budge's colleague at the British Museum, Henry Woodward, saw in Facsimile 1 "an embalmer, knife in hand, preparing to disembowel a dead body to embalm it!"  Von Bissing saw "the soul leaving the body the moment when the priest is opening the body with a knife for mummification."  And at the present time Professor George R. Hughes of the Oriental Institute at Chicago obliges with an explanation: "The embalming of a deceased person, or rather the operation preparatory to mummification. … He has in his hand a knife ready to make an incision in the abdomen"

And actually, you can find first-hand accounts from those who saw the papyrus that the priest was holding a knife.   William I. Appleby wrote in his journal for 5 May 1841, "There are likewise representations of an Altar erected, with a man bound and laid thereon, and a Priest with a knife in his hand, standing at the foot, with a dove over the person bound on the Altar with several Idol gods standing around it."  Reverend Henry Caswall wrote in 1842 that Joseph showed him the papyrus and said, "That is the picture of Abraham on the point of being sacrificed.  That man standing by him with a drawn knife is an idolatrous priest of the Egyptians."

Based on these eye-witness accounts, it seems that the knife actually existed on the papyrus originally, then wore off later.

Anubis

I'm fine with the priest's head having the head of Anubis, though I should also note that from the image of the papyrus, you can see residue from the glue which indicates that the papyrus deteriorated after the time it was first mounted.  This suggests that the priest's head and hand were both on the original papyrus.  Though to be fair, that doesn't mean they couldn't have changed the image.

At an unknown time, someone penciled in the missing parts on the backing paper, which also differs from the facsimile as published in the Book of Abraham.

Bird's Head

The bird's head broke off before it was mounted, and I'm fine with it being a human head, the Holy Ghost is a human, and not a bird, after all.  Which also raises the question that if Joseph were really trying to alter the image to match his narrative, why would he change it to a bird?

Larson wrote of the reconstruction "notice the beard stroke coming down from the chin in front of the hair in the picture, and compare this with Smith's Facsimile No. 1" so apparently he thought the bent line that looks like a neck was actually a beard.  However, you can see from the canopic jars under the lion couch how the original artist drew bird and human heads, and the neck doesn't look like a beard stroke at all to me.  Nibley noted that "enough of the neck fortunately remains to show that it never bore a human head."

Strangely the other bird in Larson's reconstruction was drawn with a bird's head, so I'm not sure why he thought the first bird needed a human head.  In other lion couch scenes, there are birds with bird heads or with human heads, but of those with more than one bird, I haven't seen any that had a human head on one bird, and a bird's head on the other.

Legs

In his September 1968 article, Hugh Nibley responded to claims that the image was altered from the original, and noted one significant difference:  In the version published in the Book of Abraham, the priest is standing in a natural way behind the couch and the person lying on it.  However, in the actual papyrus drawing, he stands awkwardly in front of the couch and behind the legs of the man on the couch.  Rather than hide something unfavorable to Joseph's interpretation, this change hid something strange and unique that would actually support Joseph's interpretation.

The odd thing about Facsimile 1 is that it is criticized both for the parts that make it common and the parts that make it unique:  It is a common image from the mythology of Osiris, but because it doesn't match these similar vignettes, it is copied "incorrectly"—never mind that the "corrections" would also render a unique vignette.

The following is a side-by-side comparison of what Joseph Smith translated in Facsimile 1 and what it actually says, according to Egyptologists and modern Egyptology:

	JOSEPH SMITH'S INTERPRETATION	MODERN EGYPTOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION	My Comment
1.	The Angel of the Lord	The spirit or "ba" of Hôr (The deceased fellow)	Robert Ritner said it is "the human-headed ba-spirit of Hor". However, he rejects the idea that this is a sacrifice scene, and says it is a resurrection scene, and doesn't address the anomalies.
2.	Abraham fastened upon an altar	The deceased: His name was "Hôr"	Sometimes you'll see the Greek equivalent "Horos". Robert Ritner says it is Osiris. The person on the table is alive: his hands are raised, and his legs are apart, and the priest is standing awkwardly between the legs and the table. As explained above, in the original papyrus, the priest was described as holding a knife.
3.	The idolatrous priest of Elkenah	Anubis. (see original image, this figure was originally portrayed with the head of a Jackal)	It possibly did originally have the head of a Jackal, you can see a piece of what looks like a headdress. Anubis is the god of the dead and appeared in embalming scenes not resurrection scenes as far as I know. It seems likely that a priest would imitate Anubis. Elkenah probably refers to the Canaanite god El koneh aratz, and known as Ekunirsa among the Hittites
4.	The altar for sacrifice by the idolatrous priests, standing before the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh	A common funeral bier or "lion couch"	The difference between the lion couch and an altar is that the later is  used to kill prior to embalming. The complaint is about the claim that this is a sacrifice scene. Ritual sacrifice was performed in areas controlled by ancient Egypt.
5.	The idolatrous god of Elknah	Canopic jars containing the deceased's internal organs. They represent the four sons of the god Horus, who are: #5: Qebehseneuf #6: Duamutef #7: Hapy #8: Imsety	These are four canopic jars representing the four sons of Horus. Michael D. Rhodes cites possibilities for interpretations for these idolatrous gods, as does John Gee.
6.	The idolatrous god of Libnah
7.	The idolatrous god of Mahmackrah
8.	The idolatrous god of Korash
9.	The idolatrous god of Pharaoh	This is the god "Horus"	Klaus Baer claimed that Horus helped Isis find Osiris' body parts in the Nile while in the form of a crocodile. This is more commonly interpreted as the crocodile-headed god Sobek, though he was regarded as a manifestation of Horus.  Both Horus and Sobek are closely related with the Pharaoh.
10.	Abraham in Egypt	A libation table bearing wines, oils, etc. Common in Egypt	Specifically, it is an offering table having a lotus flower, sometimes referred to as a water lily. That's what it literally is, but the claim is that it symbolically refers to Abraham in Egypt.
11.	Designed to represent the pillars of heaven, as understood by Egyptians	A palace facade, called a "serekh"	I would say that a palace facade represents the pillars of heaven.
12.	Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament over our heads; but in this case, in relation to this subject, the Egyptians meant it to signify Shaumau, to be hig, or the heavens, answering to the Hebrew word Shaumahyeen	This is just the water that the crocodile swims in	Robert Ritner says that this is the Nile. One way the Egyptians conceived of heaven was as "a heavenly ocean."

Sources:

Joseph Smith’s Translations: Facsimile 1 in Book of Abraham

Modern Egyptological Translations

FairMormon Facsimile 1 Apologetics (notice FairMormon attempts to distract away from line by line translations and instead goes off in irrelevant tangents about sacrifice and other nonsense.)

Jeremy doesn't actually use FAIR as a source in his table, he just links it to criticize how weak he thinks the defense of Facsimile 1 is.  If Jeremy thinks that sacrifice is an irrelevant tangent, then he doesn't understand the argument that critics of the Church make about Facsimile 1.  They claim that it is either an embalming scene, a resurrection scene, or a procreation scene, and not a sacrifice scene.

These are not translations, as this is a picture, not writing.  It would be more appropriate to call them interpretations.

Figure #3 is supposed to be the jackal-headed Egyptian god of mummification and afterlife, Anubis; not a human. The following images show similar funerary scenes which have been discovered elsewhere in Egypt. Notice that the jackal-headed Egyptian god of death and afterlife Anubis is consistent in every funerary scene.

Since that part of the papyrus no longer exists, it very well could have been Anubis.  Comparing with other lion couch scenes, there are a number of unique elements in fragment I. Anubis is the god of the dead, also of embalming and mummification, and so typically appears with mummies, as in the images Jeremy chose, so it seems unusual to me that he is appearing with someone still alive.

FACSIMILE 2

The following is a side-by-side comparison of what Joseph Smith translated in Facsimile 2 versus what it actually says according to Egyptologists and modern Egyptology:

Before going into the interpretations, I think we should first go over what this is.  This is a hypocephalus, which ancient Egyptians placed at the heads of the dead, believed to provide protection, and would make the deceased divine.  It symbolized the Eye of Ra, itself a symbol for the Sun. Each hypocephalus was unique, though they often share characteristics.

The original papyrus for facsimile 2 no longer exists, but there is a hand-drawn copy.  This copy is incomplete in the top-right and the right-hand side, indicating that these portions were missing on the original papyrus.  When creating facsimile 2 as published, images and characters were copied from elsewhere in the papyri.  A translation of the text indicates this hypocephalus belonged to a person named Sheshonq.

The primary source for my comments will be from "The Joseph Smith Hypocephalus . . . Twenty Years Later" by Michael Rhodes, an Egyptologist.

	JOSEPH SMITH'S INTERPRETATION	MODERN EGYPTOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION	My Comment
1.	Kolob, The residence of God Kolob, signifying the first creation, nearest to the celestial, or residence of God. First in government, the last pertaining to the measurement of time. The measurement according to celestial time, which celestial time signifies one day to a cubit. 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	The god Khnumu	Khnum (or Khnemu) was often portrayed with a ram's head. Most hypocephali are portrayed with four heads, though at least one had two. This was in the portion believed to be damaged in the original papyrus. When depicted with four heads, Khnum represents the attributes of Re (the sun), Shu (light), Geb (the earth), and Osiris (the afterworld), and symbolizes the primeval creative force. This seems very similar to Kolob to me, as it is the first creation. I have included a corrected full version of Joseph's interpretation that includes that statement. Also note that Kolob is not the residence of God, but nearest the residence of God. Kolob most likely derives from semetic root qlb meaning "heart, center, middle" and qalb forms part of the Arabic names of several of the brightest stars in the sky. Jah-oh-eh may be related to a Latinized version of the Egyptian word for "O Earth" pronounced yo-he.
2.	Stands next to Kolob called by the Egyptians Oliblish...	"Amun-Re", god with two faces representing rising & setting sun	Amon-Re is the chief god of the Egyptian pantheon.  The two heads represent his hidden vs. visible power. The staff he holds was considered a symbol of power, matching Joseph's explanation that he was "holding the key of power." The text to the left of this god translates as "The name of this Mighty God." The Egyptians believed that every god and goddess had a secret name. If anyone could find out this name, he would have power over the god or goddess.
3.	Is made to represent God sitting on his throne, clothed with power and authority; with a crown of eternal light upon his head; representing also the grand Key-words of the Holy Priesthood, as revealed to Adam in the Garden of Eden, as also to Seth, Noah, Melchizedek, Abraham, and all to whom the Priesthood was revealed.	"Horus-Re" riding in his boat	This is Re (or Ra) seated on his solar bark, which represents the sun in its daily journey across the sky.  The text to the left of the figure translates as "divine ship." Re wears the sun disk on his head, so certainly can represent eternal light. On either side of him is a Wedjat-eye. Among other things, it represents divine wisdom. This was in a damaged portion of facsimile 2. The figure was copied from the bottom-right of fragment IV. However, other hypocephali have similar images in the top-right corner.
4.	Answers to the Hebrew word Raukeeyang, signifying expanse, or the firmament of the heavens; or also the number 1000; also a numerical figure, in Egyptian signifying one thousand; answering to The measuring of time of Oliblish, which is equal with Kolob in its revolution and in its measuring of time.	Represents Sokar, not a number	Can represent either Horus-Soped or Sokar, both hawk gods symbolized by a mummiform hawk. The outstretched wings suggest a connection with Horus, the god of the sky. In the Festival of Sokar, a Sokar-boat would be pulled around the sanctuary, symbolizing the revolution of the sun and other celestial bodies. Although not the hieroglyph for one thousand, there is a connection between the number and the ship of the dead.  A line from the Coffin Texts says, "He takes the ship of 1000 cubits from end to end and sails it to the stairway of fire." On the sarcophagus of the princess Anchenneferibre is found a description of the "Khabas in Heliopolis" and "Osiris in his ship of a thousand." The term Khabas means "A Thousand is her souls" and refers to the starry hosts of the sky.
5.	Is called in Egyptian Enish-go-on-dosh; a this is one of the governing planets also, and is said by the Egyptians to be the Sun...	Cow of Hathor behind which stand a uzat-headed goddess holding a sacred tree	The cow Ihet is common to almost all hypocephali. Ihet is a form of Hathor, a personification of the waters from which came all of creation, and the one who gave birth to the sun. She is connected with Mehweret, another cow goddess who symbolized the sky, and is the celestial mother by whom the sun is reborn each day. Standing behind the cow is the goddess Wedjat holding a lotus blossom, the symbol of rebirth, here indicating the annual renewal of the sun. Michael D. Rhodes notes that strange incomprehensible names are typical of this class of Egyptian documents.
6.	Represents the earth in its four quarters	The four sons of Horus, they can represent the four cardinal points of earth	The four sons of Horus were the gods of the four quarters of the earth and later came to be regarded as presiding over the four cardinal points. To the right of the four figures is the name of a god using three hieroglyphs: a lotus blossom, a lion, and a ram. Individually, they represent the gods of the rising, midday, and setting sun: Re, Khepri, and Atum.  Together as one name, the name itself has no known meaning but is found in the Book of the Dead along with other meaningless names in Chapter 162, which describes making the hypocephalus. Michael Rhodes believes it is significant that the name appears in another papyrus which refers to Abraham (Full text pdf with notes). The name Abraham in this papyrus appears near a lion couch scene with a woman on it.
7.	Represents God sitting on upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand Key- words of the priesthood; as, also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove.	The god "Min", an ithyphallic god; that is, a sexually aroused male deity	A seated ithyphalic god with a hawk's tail, holding aloft a flail. This is a form of Min, the god of the regenerative, procreative forces of nature. Before the god appears to be a bird presenting him with a Wedjat-eye, the symbol of all good gifts. This portion was damaged in the original. In other hypocephali, it can also be a snake, an ape, or hawk-headed snake that presents the eye.  This figure represents Nehebka, a snake god, considered to be a provider of life and nourishment. As a bird, this figure may symbolize the Ba or soul, an appropriate symbol for the Holy Ghost. The Wedjat-eye represents divine wisdom, and so is not unreasonable to call it "the grand key-words of the priesthood" as in figure 3.
8.	Contains writings that can only be revealed in the temple	"grant that the souls of Osiris Shechonk may live"	Translation (in order) from Michael Rhodes: "O God of the Sleeping Ones [i.e. the dead] from the time of the creation. [literally "the first time"] O Mighty God, Lord of heaven and earth, of the hearafter, and of his great waters, [refers to the primeval ocean from which the sun rose on the day of creation and which surrounds the earth] may the soul of the Osiris Shishaq be granted life." In Chapter 162 of the Book of the Dead, which provides instructions for the hypocephalus, it ends with a caution: "This is a great and secret book. Do not allow anyone's eyes to see it, for that would be an abomination. He who knows it [ie. the book] and keeps it secret, he will continue to exist." As its purpose is to make the deceased divine, a parallel to the temple does not seem unreasonable.
9.	Ought not to be revealed at the present time	"the netherworld (below the earth) and his great waters.
10.		O might god, lord of heaven and earth
11.		O god of the sleeping ones from the time of creation (read in order 11,10,9,8)
12.	Will be given in the own due time of the Lord	"near" and "wrap"	These four lines were damaged in the original hypocephalus. These are not hieroglyphs, but upside-down hieratic writing copied from line four of fragment XI. Michael Rhodes translated line four as "the Document of Breathing which <Isis> made, shall (also) be buried, which"
13.		"which made by"
14.		"breathings"
15.		"this book"
16.		"and may this soul and its posessor never be decreased in the netherworld"	"May this tomb never be desecrated and may this soul and its lord never be desecrated in the hereafter." The source that Jeremy used, Kevin Mathie, actually used Michael Rhodes as a source here. He used his original paper while I am using his updated document. Either way, he should have seen the explanations he provided. Michael Rhodes noted he made some emendation to translate properly, and that similar passages are found in the British Museum hypocephali, that are even more garbled.
17.		"may this tomb never be desecrated"
18.		"I am Djabty in the house of Benben in Heliopolis, so exalted and glorious. (I am) copulating bull without equal. (I am) that mighty god in the house of Benben of Heliopolis... that might god..."	The right side of the ring is damaged in the original hypocephalus. That portion does not have hieroglyphs, but upside-down hieratic writing copied from lines 2, 3, and 4 of fragment IX. The edge hieroglyphs (with proposed missing portion) reads: I am the Provider1 in the Sun Temple2 in Heliopolis. [I am] most exalted and very glorious. [I am] a virile bull without equal. [I am] that Mighty God in the Sun Temple in Heliopolis <May the Osiris Shisaq live forever> with that Mighty God in Heliopolis. 1 An epithet of Osiris. It can also mean a box, like the Hebrew "ark" of the covenant, which is thought to be an Egyptian borrowing. 2 Literally "house of the Benben." Reference to the House of the Benben is also found in two late demotic magical papyri which also contain the name of Abraham.
19.		"You shall be as that God, the Busirian"	You shall ever be as that God, the Busirian. [A location adjective formation of Busiris, a cult center of Osiris on the Delta, and thus used as an epithet of Osiris.]
20.
21.
22.	No Annotation Given Actually annotated at the end of figure 5: This planet receives its power through the medium of Kli-flos-is-es, or Hah-ko-kau-beam, the stars represented by numbers 22 and 23, receiving light from the revolutions of Kolob.	"The name of this mighty god"	This is actually on figure 2, Kevin Mathie misattributed it to figure 22.
23.		Baboons are adoring the souls of that realm	Figures 22 and 23 are two apes with horned moon-disks on their heads, in an attitude of adoration. There are also two snakes on either side. The apes can represent Thoth, the god of writing and wisdom, as well as the moon. As they hold up their hands to receive the first warming rays of the sun, they are often found in connection with the sun. Apes are also found associated with stars and constellations. Joseph identifies them as stars receiving light from Kolob, which is in harmony with our understanding of their symbolism in Egyptian. As noted in figure 5, strange names are common in Egyptian religious documents, but Hah-ko-kau- beam is recognizable as the Hebrew kokabin (ko-kau-beam) meaning "stars".

Sources:

Joseph Smith’s Translations: Facsimile 2 in Book of Abraham

Modern Egyptological Translations

FairMormon Facsimile 2 Apologetics (Joseph may have gotten 1 out of 21 translations correct!)

Again, Jeremy doesn't use FAIR as a source, he only references their defense to criticize it generally.  Joseph declined to translate the text, so it is better described as an interpretation.  Jeremy didn't notice that Joseph interpreted 2 other figures.  But if we subtract those that he didn't interpret, that makes nine.  He may have gotten nine interpretations correct—I think they are very interesting, but obviously Jeremy is unsatisfied.

One of the most disturbing facts I discovered in my research of Facsimile 2 is figure #7. Joseph Smith said that this is “God sitting on his throne…” It’s actually Min, the pagan Egyptian god of fertility or sex. Min is sitting on a throne with an erect penis (which can be seen in the figure). In other words, Joseph interpreted that this figure with an erect penis is Heavenly Father sitting on His throne.

Jeremy is surprised to learn that Egyptians were not puritans.  Min represents procreation and fertility, which are attributes of God.  Jeremy left out that figure 7 also represents the sign of the Holy Ghost to Abraham, in the form of a dove.  Procreation and fertility are also attributes of Abraham, as found in the Abrahamic covenant.

FACSIMILE 3

The following is a side-by-side comparison of what Joseph Smith translated in Facsimile 3 versus what it actually says according to Egyptologists and modern Egyptology:

In this segment, I don't have much to say on these, so I'll mostly just give the translation and commentary by Michel D. Rhodes, but I'll comment on the vignette as a whole afterwards.

	JOSEPH SMITH'S INTERPRETATION	MODERN EGYPTOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION	My Comment
1.	Abraham sitting on Pharoh's throne, by the politeness of the king, with a crown upon his head, representing the priesthood, as emblematical of the grand Presidency in heaven; with the scepter of justice and judgment in his hand	This is Osiris. Writing above figure: "Recitation by Osiris, Foremost of the Westerners." The "atef" crown also identifies him as Osiris	(1) Words spoken by Osiris, the Foremost of the Westerners: (2) May you, Osiris, Hôr, abide at (3) the side of the throne of his greatness
2.	King Pharaoh, whose name is given in the characters above his head	This figure is female, not male. Writing above figure: "Isis the great, the god's mother"	Isis is regularly portrayed wearing cow's horns with a moon disk.  She is the mother of Horus. "The great Isis, mother of the god." As this and figure 4 are obviously female, why would Joseph pick an interpretation that is obviously wrong?
3.	Signifies Abraham in Egypt as given also in Figure 10 of Facsimile No. 1.	This is a libation table (wine, oils, etc.)	Offering table with a lotus flower. This one doesn't have text. But obviously this is not literally Abraham in Egypt. Pictures can and do symbolize other things.
4.	Prince of Pharaoh, King of  Egypt, as written above the hand	This figure is female, not male. Writing above figure: "Maat, mistress of the gods"	This figure has the ma'at feather headdress. Unusually, it is circled. "Ma'at, Lady of the West."
5.	Shulem, one of the kings principal waiters, as represented by the characters above his hand	This is a deceased individual wearing the traditional cone of perfumed grease and lotus flower on his head Writing above figure: "The Osiris Hor, justified forever"	These signs read from left-to-right, rather than the normal right-to- left. The figure is that of Hôr, the owner of the papyrus, being introduced into the presence of Osiris. (1) Osiris Hôr, the (2) justified forever. Michael Rhodes notes that the "the" is most unusual, but clearly there. The name Shulem is a Semetic name that appears at the time of Abraham, and also the time of the papyrus.
6.	Olimlah, a slave belonging to the prince	Not a slave. This is Anubis, guide of the dead, who is there to support the deceased. Writing above figure: "Recitation by Anubis, who makes protection(?), foremost of the embalming booth,..."	These lines also read left-to-right. Anubis is often found in the Hall of Judgment.  (1) Words spoken by Anubis … (2) Lord of heaven, foremost of (3) the Westerners Michael Rhodes notes that the reading is far from certain, but is a common title for Anubis as well as Osiris. The printing plate for facsimile 3 suggests it may have once had a snout, but is uncertain. If Anubis, the figure is also missing its headdress, and a second ear. Anubis typically led the deceased before Osiris, not followed. The aprons being identical is also notable.

Sources:

Joseph Smith’s Translations: Facsimile 3 in Book of Abraham

Modern Egyptological Translations

FairMormon Facsimile 3 Apologetics (“There are LDS experts who believe the Book of Abraham is a genuine artifact, and that it testifies of Joseph Smith’s status as a prophet. Non-LDS experts obviously do not agree with that.”)

Again, Jeremy didn't use FAIR as a source, he is just linking it.  Unlike the other times where he criticized it in general, he is just stating the obvious, that those of other faiths disagree with Latter-day Saints.  I don't know if he is surprised by that, but he shouldn't be.  As a reminder from the Church's Gospel Topics essay, 

Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham, though there is not unanimity, even among non-Mormon scholars, about the proper interpretation of the vignettes on these fragments.

Facsimile 3 is similar to the throne room scene often associated with chapter 125 of the Book of the Dead, and often included with the Book of Breathings, and so for this and other reasons, it is believed that facsimile 3 was found on the same roll of papyrus as facsimile 1.  The original doesn't exist, so unlike with the rest of the papyrus, translations rely on interpreting the hieroglyphs as they were copied into facsimile 3.

In ancient Egyptian theology, in the afterlife, Anubis weighed a person's heart against the feather of Ma'tt.  If it balanced, then they would be presented before Osiris before being admitted into paradise.

There are a number of questions regarding facsimile 3.  Are the hieroglyphs interpreted correctly?  Early Egyptologists dismissed them as unintelligible.  But Klaus Baer, Robert K. Ritner, and Michael D. Rhodes made an attempt, and that's where we get the translations from in the table above, though they each noted uncertainties.

And although each throne room scene is depicted differently, there are also questions regarding the more unique elements of facsimile 3.  Here's also a question regarding the vignette as a whole.  It seems most comparable to a presentation scene, but other copies of the Book of Breathings that have a presentation scene place it at the beginning of the text, not the end. Why is that different?

But what I think is more important that Egyptians believed symbols should have multiple layers of significance.  So Horos on the lion-couch scene is supposed to be symbolic of the Osiris myth.  Could it not also be used to represent Abraham being sacrificed?

For some more symbolic-layer interpretation, James Edward Homans argued (twice) under the pseudonym Robert C. Webb that the the offering table with a lotus flower (figure 3 in facsimile 3) could be symbolic of Abraham in Egypt.  His argument was that a hieroglyph of the lotus plant may represent the phonogram that makes the "a" sound.  He recognized it as similar to another hieroglyph, meaning "east" and transcribed eiebt (today as i3bt, R15).  And among other things, the lotus flower is a symbol of Egypt.  Taken together, it could be interpreted as "Egypt and Ab (ram)".

Another question I find important here: Are we supposed to interpret it as an ancient Egyptian would interpret it? Maybe we should be interpreting it how an ancient Jewish person living in Egypt would interpret it?  Or maybe some other way?  These are the questions we should ask for each of the facsimiles.

Putting the facsimiles aside, we can also consider the stories that Joseph claimed they represent.  First, that Abraham was nearly sacrificed for rejecting idols.  Second, that Abraham taught Pharaoh and the Egyptians in astronomy.  These are stories not found in the Bible, but these stories are found in other ancient texts that date back to the time the papyrus was created.  Execution for those rejecting religious authority has also been discovered at the time of Abraham in areas under Egyptian control.

3. Respected non-LDS Egyptologists state that Joseph Smith’s translation of the papyri and facsimiles are gibberish and have absolutely nothing to do with the papyri and facsimiles and what they actually say.

As far as I know, they haven't called his interpretations "gibberish" and even if so, that's not really correct, since it is intelligible English writing.  Robert Ritner has described Jospeh's interpretation as "uninspired fantasies" and that's more the type of criticism you'd expect.  But I'm guessing that Jeremy just didn't know what "gibberish" meant, instead using it to mean "incorrect" or something.

Jeremy's point number 3 is really just summarizing everything he brought up in point number 2, so my reply will also include some things I've said before.

FACSIMILE 1

1. The names are wrong.
2. The Abraham scene is wrong.
3. He names gods that are not part of the Egyptian belief system; of any known mythology or belief system.

#1 and #3 are really mostly the same, since the only names in facsimile 1 are Abraham and the names of the gods.  Elkenah is likely a shortened form of the name of the Canaanite god El koneh aratz, and was later worshiped by the Hittites as Elkunirsha.

Likewise, there were other gods with names similar to Libnah, Mahmackrah, and Korash who were worshiped anciently.  While I realize that it might just be a coincidence, it still does ruin the "of any known mythology or belief system" argument.  But putting that aside, consider that even the Book of the Dead also names gods that are unknown in the Egyptian belief system.

We have the papyrus for Facsimile 1, and enough of it exists to show that it is a unique vignette.  Unique enough to be "wrong" if it is supposed to be depicting a scene from the traditional Osiris myth.  The figure on the lion couch is wearing clothes—he is neither nude, nor a mummy.  The papyrus shows that the priest is  awkwardly standing between his legs and the couch.  Enough remains to show the fingertips of the second hand raised.

FACSIMILE 2

1. Joseph translated 11 figures on this facsimile. None of the names are correct and none of the gods exist in Egyptian religion or any recorded mythology.
2. Joseph misidentifies every god in this facsimile.

Joseph declined to translate any of the text on this facsimile.  Joseph did interpret 9 figures on the facsimile.  I'm not sure where Jeremy got 11 from, perhaps he just counted how many rows he had on his table?  Instead of identifying false gods, Joseph identified figures as Abraham, and as true God of Abraham.  Besides that, Joseph didn't name any gods in facsimile 2, instead naming planets and such.

Because it includes Christian elements, Joseph's interpretation clearly cannot be intended to describe how the Egyptians would have interpreted it.

FACSIMILE 3

1. Joseph misidentifies the Egyptian god Osiris as Abraham.
2. Misidentifies the Egyptian god Isis as the Pharaoh.
3. Misidentifies the Egyptian god Maat as the Prince of the Pharaoh.
4. Misidentifies the Egyptian god Anubis as a slave.
5. Misidentifies the dead Hor as a waiter.
6. Joseph misidentifies – twice – a female as a male.

While it is true that the interpretations don't match the Egyptian text, they also don't match the images themselves.  If Joseph were trying to deceive people, why would he identify two obviously female figures as male?  While there are some questions regarding facsimile 3, I suspect that Joseph's interpretation has to do with the underlying symbols than the literal images.

4. The Book of Abraham teaches an incorrect Newtonian view of the universe. These Newtonian astronomical concepts, mechanics, and models of the universe have since been succeeded and substantially modified by 20th century Einsteinian physics.

What we find in Abraham 3 and the official scriptures of the LDS Church regarding science reflects a Newtonian world concept. Just as the Catholic Church's Ptolemaic cosmology was displaced by the new Copernican and Newtonian world model, however, the nineteenth-century, canonized, Newtonian world view has since been displaced by Einstein's twentieth-century science.

This criticism doesn't really make sense to me.  The Book of Abraham does not present a Newtonian view of the Universe.  Jeremy does link to an article to explain the problem, and he will next provide a quote from the article, but it is one that only criticizes, rather than supports his point.

We will get to that in a minute, for now, I feel like it is important to understand the difference between Newtonian and Einsteinian physics and how they are different from the view that the Book of Abraham presents.

The part about Einsteinian physics that changed Newtonian is the theory of relativity.  Newtonian physics still applies for most practical applications, and it was Newtonian physics that got us to the moon.  Einsteinian physics only comes into play at speeds near the speed of light and near large masses.

Neither of these features appear in the Book of Abraham.  Instead, we are given a very strange picture of the universe, that would have been foreign even in the 1800s.  In Abraham 3, the Lord revealed to Abraham the stars, one of which was nearest to the throne of God, called Kolob, and that it was there "to govern all those planets which belong to the same order" as the Earth.  Many other great ones were near Kolob, which were also "governing ones".

The real confusing part is when it talks about revolutions, that the moon is "above or greater" than the Earth, because it moves more slowly.  The Lord explains that given those facts, "there shall be another planet above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still; And thus there shall be the reckoning of time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord's time."  One revolution, or one day to the Lord, is 1,000 years to us.

It appears as though the Lord is saying time slows down the farther you go away from Earth and the closer you get to Kolob, because revolutions also get slower the farther away you go.  This is not how it works in Newtonian physics or in Einsteinian physics.  I was always confused by Abraham 3 until I read this article, "And I Saw the Stars": The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy written by John Gee, William J. Hamblin, and Daniel C. Peterson.  They argue that this describes a geocentric view of the universe, and I agree, that interpretation makes so much more sense.  The farther out you go from Earth, the longer it takes for a planet to make one revolution, the Moon only a month, but Saturn over 29 years.

Details of Egyptain (or Israelite) astronomy are limited, but they did hold a geocentric view of the universe.  The Greeks believed after Saturn were the fixed stars, and the realm of God was beyond.  The Book of Abraham apparently suggests that the stars move, but very slowly, the slowest being Kolob.  In the article, they show that in The Apocalypse of Abraham, an ancient text that dates to the time of the Book of Abraham, Abraham saw that beings in lower heavens obeyed orders from those in higher heavens.

It also serves to explain why it sometimes seems like in the Book of Abraham that planets and stars are interchangeable.  The word "planet" means wandering star, and the ancients didn't know planets and stars as anything more than points of light in the sky.

That leads us to the real question:  Why would God reveal to Abraham an incorrect view of the universe?  The Lord explains in verse 15 that he was to "declare all these words" in Egypt.  He follows by explaining that just as one planet or star is greater than another, one spirit is more intelligent than another, and the Lord God is "more intelligent than they all."

In other words, this astronomy lesson was put in terms that they would understand for the purpose of the analogy.  Egyptians believed in a pantheon of gods, but Abraham was to teach them of the supremacy of the Lord God, that He was greater than they all.

So back to the article Jeremy linked, it doesn't have any of this kind of discussion, it's more of the general concept that science marches on, and questions whether Latter-day Saint theology would change with it, not specifically about the Book of Abraham.  Here is Jeremy's summary—

Keith E. Norman, an LDS scholar, has written that for the LDS Church:

"It is no longer possible to pretend there is no conflict."

Norman continues:

“Scientific cosmology began its leap forward just when Mormon doctrine was becoming stabilized. The revolution in twentieth-century physics precipitated by Einstein dethroned Newtonian physics as the ultimate explanation of the way the universe works. Relativity theory and quantum mechanics, combined with advances in astronomy, have established a vastly different picture of how the universe began, how it is structured and operates, and the nature of matter and energy. This new scientific cosmology poses a serious challenge to the Mormon version of the universe.”

Jeremy links the December 1985 Sunstone article, but also modifies the last sentence in the quote, "Not only does this new scientific cosmology pose a serious challenge to the Mormon version of the universe, but some of its main features seem remarkably congruent to the orthodox Christian doctrine of creation opposed by Mormonism."  Obviously Jeremy didn't want to suggest that science supports mainstream Christian ideas, and it's not like it is relevant to the point, but when you cut out words, you should use ellipses to indicate that there has been a change.

And actually, Jeremy is really quoting Grant Palmer who provided these quotes along with the one Jeremy quotes next.  But Palmer correctly annotated the paragraph, "... This new scientific cosmology pose[s] a serious challenge to the Mormon version of the universe."

Anyway, in the article, Keith's more specific argument is only about the Big Bang, how that might appear to conform to the idea of creation ex nihilo and questions how an eternal God is supposed to rule (or even exist) in a universe that had a beginning and is apparently fated to either collapse in on itself or to expand and eventually become cold and dead.

In the years since that time, in 1998 we discovered that the Universe not only is expanding, but is accelerating, so kind of worse than he thought.  But on the flip side, in the article, he described that by "modern physics" the universe was not infinite, but was like a sphere, and if you could travel far enough, you would loop back on yourself.  However, modern measurements suggest a topologically flat universe, and therefore infinite.

I think Latter-day Saints already accept that matter being eternal doesn't preclude matter also being energy—Einstein showed that energy and matter are equivalent.  I would also suggest that asking "what happened before the big bang?" (from a scientific point of view) is a nonsensical question because time was also created at the big bang.  It is like asking "what is north of the north pole?"  He dismisses multiple universes as wild speculation, but I suggest that given the discussion above of the Book of Abraham's geocentric view of the universe, it leads naturally into a possibility that God is outside the universe.  Still speculation, I know, but while science has come a long way since the 1800s, I don't feel like Latter-day Saint cosmology is married to the science of that era either, and we sit well with big bang cosmology.

Grant Palmer, a Mormon historian and CES teacher for 34 years, wrote:

“Many of the astronomical and cosmological ideas found in both Joseph Smith’s environment and in the Book of Abraham have become out of vogue, and some of these Newtonian concepts are scientific relics. The evidence suggests that the Book of Abraham reflects concepts of Joseph Smith’s time and place rather than those of an ancient world.”

– An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, p.25

After completing his M.A. in American History at BYU in 1967, Grant Palmer was hired to teach British Empire history at the Church College of New Zealand.  While there, he began teaching religion classes.  When he returned to the United States in 1970, the school recommended him to the Church Education System (CES), and so was hired as a CES coordinator for the Wittier Stake in southern California, which included teaching at Whittier and Rio Hondo Colleges in Southern California.  He quit in 1973 to pursue a Ph.D in American history, but soon returned as a CES coordinator from 1975-80 for the Chico Stake, which included teaching at Butte College.  He and his wife then moved to Utah where he taught a year of Seminary at East High School in Salt Lake City, then taught at Brighton High School until 1988.

In 1984, when the Salamander Letter came out (purported to be by Martin Harris, but actually a forgery by Mark Hofmann, whom we will talk about in a later section) Grant Palmer began to question the traditional historical narrative.  In 1985 he was put on probation after sharing some of his research.  The same year, he saw a connection between the Salamander Letter and the German Der goldne Topf, "The Golden Pot" by Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, and wrote "New York Mormonism" under the pseudonym Paul Pry Jr.  In it, he argued that its description of a salamander too similar to the one in the letter to just be a coincidence.

From 1988 until he retired in 2001, he taught inmates at the Salt Lake Jail.  He was asked by jail administrators and the CES to teach lessons appropriate for any and all Christian inmates, and so he taught only from the Bible.

"New York Mormonism" served as an initial draft for An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which was published in November 2002, a year after he retired.  The chapter on The Golden Pot remains, but most references to salamanders were removed, given the discovery that the Salamander Letter was a forgery (and therefore similarities really were a coincidence).  Although Palmer claimed that Insider's View was intended to "increase faith," it questions whether Joseph Smith misrepresented his authority and claims Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon himself.  Palmer claims he was disfellowshipped from the Church in 2004 as a direct result of the book.  In 2010, he resigned his membership in the Church.  Jeremy will quote from this book several other times throughout his letter.

Here, for this particular quote, this is just again claiming without evidence that the Book of Abraham uses Newtonian cosmology when it obviously doesn't.  I was curious if Palmer had made some kind of argument of how one could possibly fit the idea that "planets farther away from the Earth revolve more slowly" as claimed in the Book of Abraham can fit into a Newtonian cosmology.  However, Palmer quotes another source, Klaus J. Hansen's 1981 book Mormonism and the American Experience, which appears to get the Book of Abraham cosmology wrong.

In the Book of Abraham, one star named Kolob "was nearest unto the throne of God." Other stars, in ever diminishing order, were placed in increasing distances from this center.

Hansen observed further that:

According to the Book of Abraham, the patriarch had a knowledge of the times of various planets, "until thou come nigh unto Kolob which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord's time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that up on which thou standest." One revolution of Kolob "was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord's time according to the reckoning of Kolob." God's time thus conformed perfectly to the laws of Galilean relativity and Newtonian mechanics.

What we find in Abraham 3 and the official scriptures of the LDS church regarding science reflects a Newtonian world concept. The Catholic church's Ptolemaic cosmology was displaced by the new Copernican and Newtonian world model, just as the nineteenth-century, canonized, Newtonian world view is challenged by Einstein's twentieth-century science. Keith Norman, a Mormon scholar …

And from there it goes into the Keith Norman quotes immediately followed by the rest of the Palmer quote Jeremy provided.

So it seems that the reason Jeremy thinks the Book of Abraham has a Newtonian view of the universe is because Grant Palmer also thought so, and he thought so because Klaus Hansen thought so.  He actually gave his reasoning:  He thought that Kolob was in the center of the universe, and everything revolved around it.  However, that's not what the Book of Abraham claims.

If it were true, then the farther away from Kolob, then the slower you would revolve around it, according to Newtonian mechanics.  However, the opposite is true:  Abraham 3 says the Moon moves more slowly than the earth, and "therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many" and given that, "there shall be another planet whose time shall be longer still; And thus shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob".

Perhaps Hansen was thinking about time dilation in Einsteinian physics, and he sees that as not matching the description of "time dilation" in the Book of Abraham.  But Newtonian physics doesn't have time dilation at all.  I think the Book of Abraham is more about how you perceive time rather than actual time flow.  Whatever the case, he incorrectly places Kolob at the center of the universe, while I feel like the geocentric model of the cosmos is pretty strong here.

5. 86% of Book of Abraham chapters 2, 4, and 5 are King James Version Genesis chapters 1, 2, 11, and 12. Sixty-six out of seventy-seven verses are quotations or close paraphrases of King James Version wording. (See An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins, p.19)

If the Book of Abraham is an ancient text written thousands of years ago “by his own hand upon papyrus,” then what are 17th century King James Version text doing in there? What does this say about the book being anciently written by Abraham?

This is the same argument as #2 in the Book of Mormon section, and the answer is the same.  Abraham wrote in Egyptian, not English.  It is a translation.  A translation takes one language and renders it into another.  Jeremy doesn't explain how he expects it to be translated instead.  Genesis (and the rest of the Bible) is also an ancient text written thousands of years ago, so what is 17th century King James Version text doing in there?  Because that's how it was translated.

One difference is that while Nephi said he was quoting Isaiah, it appears based on the text that God revealed the same thing to both prophets.  Of course, it is also possible that whoever was writing later quoted the earlier, or it is also possible that the translation was not literal word-for-word, and so the Hebrew and Egyptian didn't have to literally match anyway.  There is a lot that we don't know, and our preconceptions may lead to mistaken conclusions.

6. Why are there anachronisms in the Book of Abraham? For example, the terms Chaldeans, Egyptus, and Pharaoh are all anachronistic.

The strange part on this is that Jeremy linked to Kerry Muhlestein's answer, who explains that it is not anachronistic because the papyrus dates to 300 BC-100 AD, and like anachronisms in the Bible, there was plenty of time for later copyists to add in those references.  So it seems that if he read the link, Jeremy could've answered his own question.  Here are some of my other thoughts.

If Chaldea is anachronistic in the Book of Abraham, it is anachronistic in the Bible too.  The reason it is seen as anachronistic is because scholarly consensus places it in southern Mesopotamia.  However, the Book of Abraham suggests a northern Mesopotamian location, which is where the Chaldean people are believed to have come from prior to their arrival in southern Mesopotamia.

Egyptus is obviously related to Egypt, which is a name with Greek origins.  The word comes from one of the Egyptian names of Memphis, Ha(t)-ka-ptah "temple of the soul of Ptah" the creative god, who is associated with Memphis.  Greeks applied Egypt to the whole country.  Abraham 1:23 said that her name was Chaldean, not Egyptian.  It was called Ḥkpt in in Ugaritic from the same source.

Names are often translated rather than transliterated.  Perhaps Egyptus' actual name could have been related to Ptah.  In fact, in the three surviving manuscript copies of the Book of Abraham, her name instead appears as Zeptah.

The Hebrew word for Egypt is Mizrai, and Mṣrm in Ugaritic.  Mizraim is also listed as a son of Ham in Genesis 10:6. Some modern translations render the name as Egypt.  It seems the difference between Joseph Smith and modern translations is that Joseph Smith identified this child as a daughter instead of a son.

Ancient Egyptians would have called their monarchs their word for "king" and used the term "pharaoh" later on.  It is also anachronistic in the Bible.  Like the Bible, a later copyist could have substituted the word "pharaoh" or alternatively, the Lord is perfectly capable of providing that word in the translation.

Additionally, Abraham refers to the facsimiles in 1:12 and 1:14. However, as noted and conceded above in the Church’s essay, these facsimiles did not even exist in Abraham’s time as they are standard first century C.E. pagan Egyptian funerary documents.

The Church's essay only said that the documents themselves date to between 3rd century B.C and 1st century A.D. and went on to say that they "don't have to be as old as Abraham to be authentic" since they could be copies.

To represent the critic's argument better, it goes something like this: Since the resurrection of Osiris is a vignette associated with the Book of the Dead, and the Book of the Dead dates to after Abraham's time, then how could Abraham reference the scene?

There are several possibilities.  For one, it is possible that these references were inserted by a modern scribe.  The Book of Abraham document created by Frederick G. Williams shows both these sentences  inserted, suggesting they were not part of the original translated text.

It is also possible that the image was added by a later copyist sometime after Abraham.  Or if it did originate with Abraham, and was copied in a different way.  These are the sorts of things the Church's essay goes on to describe:

Illustrations once connected with Abraham could have either drifted or been dislodged from their original context and reinterpreted hundreds of years later in terms of burial practices in a later period of Egyptian history. The opposite could also be true: illustrations with no clear connection to Abraham anciently could, by revelation, shed light on the life and teachings of this prophetic figure.

I feel like this idea of reinterpreting images one direction or the other would also serve to explain why it is so "wrong" as Jeremy argued above.

“Some have assumed that the hieroglyphs adjacent to and surrounding facsimile 1 must be a source for the text of the book of Abraham.”

– Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham essay, lds.org

WHY WOULD ANYONE ASSUME THAT?

“And it came to pass that the priests laid violence upon me, that they might slay me also, as they did those virgins upon this altar; and that you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation at the commencement of this record.”

– Abraham 1:12

Looks like Jeremy answered his own question.  People see that it references the vignette, and assume that the text would be next to it, even though as you can see, that's not what it says.  If the text were at the end of the record (and therefore not next to the vignette) it would still be correct to reference it by saying "at the commencement of this record."  It might even be more logical to assume it is far away, since if it is right next to it, it might not need to invite you to glance to the side to look.

In fact, the more common argument, and one that Jeremy used earlier, was that the text of the Book of Abraham was in the hieratic writing in the column to the left of fragment I, and not the hieroglyphs adjacent to it.

And indeed, the text on the papyrus has been translated and neither the hieroglyphs nor the hieratic reference the vignette, so that is an incorrect assumption.

7. Facsimile 2, Figure #5 states the sun receives its “light from the revolutions of Kolob.” We now know, however, that the process of nuclear fusion is what makes the stars and suns shine. With the discovery of quantum mechanics, scientists learned that the sun’s source of energy is internal and not external. The sun shines because of thermonuclear fusion. The sun does not shine because it gets its light from any other star or any other external source.

Actually, it says that figure "is said by the Egyptians to be the Sun, and to borrow its light from Kolob through the medium of of Kae-e-vanrash, which is the grand Key, or, in other words, the governing power" while it is the stars represented by figures 22 and 23 that receive light "from the revolutions of Kolob."  Given that it says these things are "said by the Egyptians" then it's probably safe to not wonder how it could apply to the actual light of the Sun, since they had an incorrect understanding of astronomy.

That being said, consider that in an 1832 revelation, the Lord taught Joseph Smith that Jesus is "in the sun, and the light of the sun" and that His light "proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space".

Kolob is symbolic of Jesus Christ.  So I think the lesson here is that just as the Egyptians believed that the Sun borrowed its light from Kolob, Jesus is the source for all light in the universe.

8. There is a book published in 1829 by Thomas Dick entitled The Philosophy of a Future State. Joseph Smith owned a copy of the book and Oliver Cowdery quoted some lengthy excerpts from the book in the December 1836 Messenger and Advocate.

The "future state" the book talks about is the afterlife.  Oliver Cowdery quoted the entirety of Section X, which makes an argument against the idea that man will ever be annihilated.  By analogy, they remark that matter is never destroyed, it only changes forms; likewise it doesn't seem reasonable that immaterial spirit would be destroyed.

On 31 January 1844, Joseph Smith donated that book among others to the Nauvoo Library, so sometime before that, he owned a copy.  With that background in mind, let's see where Jeremy is going with it.

Klaus Hansen, an LDS scholar, stated:

“The progressive aspect of Joseph’s theology, as well as its cosmology, while in a general way compatible with antebellum thought, bears some remarkable resemblances to Thomas Dick’s ‘Philosophy of a Future State’.”

Hansen continues:

“Some very striking parallels to Smith’s theology suggest that the similarities between the two may be more than coincidental. Dick’s lengthy book, an ambitious treatise on astronomy and metaphysics, proposed the idea that matter is eternal and indestructible and rejected the notion of a creation ex nihilo. Much of the book dealt with the infinity of the universe, made up of innumerable stars spread out over immeasurable distances. Dick speculated that many of these stars were peopled by ‘various orders of intelligences’ and that these intelligences were ‘progressive beings’ in various stages of evolution toward perfection. In the Book of Abraham, part of which consists of a treatise on astronomy and cosmology, eternal beings of various orders and stages of development likewise populate numerous stars. They, too, are called ‘intelligences.’ Dick speculated that ‘the systems of the universe revolve around a common centre…the throne of God.’ In the Book of Abraham, one star named Kolob ‘was nearest unto the throne of God.’ Other stars, in ever diminishing order, were placed in increasing distances from this center.”

– Mormonism and the American Experience, p.79-80, 110

Jeremy did not provide any commentary on this item, so I have to resort to guessing his argument.  To avoid creating a strawman, I want to see what others are saying about it.

Jeremy is repeating quotes given in An Insider's View of Mormon Origins, which are used right before the other quotes, as shown above in #4.  (Jeremy just quotes pages 79-80, he didn't include Palmer's quote from page 110 that I discussed earlier.)   Grant Palmer was using the quote to support his claim that Joseph got his concept of his cosmology from his environment.  I've already argued that the Book of Abraham cosmology doesn't match his environment.

I found a book review from Thomas G. Alexander in Winter 1983 Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought to be helpful in understanding the book itself.

Hansen explains Mormonism as the attempt of a group of early nineteenth-century Americans ravaged by the vicissitudes of modernization to find a religious life which allowed them to cope with a world they did not like but could not change. They adopted a new world view which provided satisfying answers to the questions uppermost in their minds which contemporary evangelical Christianity did not answer. As Hansen sees it, some of the elements of the Mormon tradition were found in Puritanism, some in Arminianism. Others, such as the potential godhood of human beings, were unique, at least in contemporary Christianity. Mormons rejected much in nineteenth-century Christianity, especially revivalism, and provided a view of the pre-Columian past which placed the American continent in a primary position rather than the traditional secondary status in world history.

The author or revelator of those views (depending on how you read Hansen's argument) was Joseph Smith. Hansen focuses on the Book of Mormon and the nature of personal revelation rather than on the First Vision where most other Mormons would have begun. He sees the Prophet as an enormously gifted man of towering spiritual stature, rejecting the characterizations of Joseph as a deviant, a fraud, or a psychotic. Hansen's argument is naturalistic rather than supernatural, but at base defends Joseph Smith and the Mormons for those outside the Church.

So it appears that that really is the argument, that Joseph's ideas came from his environment, specifically The Philosophy of a Future State, and not from revelation.

I would note that one important part of revelation is the idea of studying it out in your mind, so there's nothing really wrong about adopting views that others have.  But it doesn't really seem to be the case here.

Klaus Hansen said that Thomas Dick "proposed the idea that matter is eternal and indestructible and rejected the notion of a creation ex nihilo."  The idea of conservation of mass had long been accepted as scientific fact, so I don't know about "proposed"—he uses it as the basis of his argument in Section X that Oliver Cowdery quoted, not as his conclusion.  I can't find anything to suggest he rejected creation ex nihilo, however.  In fact, it appears his words support creation out of nothing.  From page 101, the beginning of Section X:

It is highly unreasonable, if not absurd, to suppose that the thinking principle in man will ever be annihilated.

In so far as our knowledge of the universe extends, there does not appear a single instance of annihilation throughout the material system.  There is no reason to believe, that throughout all the worlds which are dispersed through the immensity of space, a single atom has ever yet been or ever will be annihilated.  From a variety of observations, it appears highly probable, that the  work of creation is still going forward in the distant regions of the universe, and that the Creator is replenishing the voids of space with new worlds and new orders of intelligent beings; and it is reasonable to believe, from the incessant agency of Divine Omnipotence, that new systems will be continually emerging into existence while eternal ages are rolling on.  But no instance has yet occurred of any system or portion of matter either in heaven or earth having been reduced to annihilation.

In Part III, (starting at page 202) Thomas Dick argued that in the eternities we will need something to occupy our minds if we are to enjoy eternal bliss, and that would only come through beholding the glory of God.  Through our finite intelligence, we can only comprehend His external manifestation, which is "the material creation which his power has brought into existence--in the various orders of intelligences which he has peopled it--and in his moral dispensations towards all worlds and beings which now exist, or may hereafter exist, throughout his boundless empire" (pg. 209).

And he goes on about that for the rest of the section.  Eternal Progression in Latter-day Saint theology is not only continuing to learn, but that we will become like God and be able to have spirit children of our own.  This doesn't come from the Book of Abraham, but from D&C 131 and 132, and hinted at in D&C 76.

The Book of Abraham does include the teaching that given two spirits, one is more intelligent than another, and that God is more intelligent than they all.  I don't know that Joseph needed to read that in a book, but there's that.

Klaus Hansen noticed that Thomas Dick called the various beings "intelligences".  This wasn't unique to him but was a fairly common expression, even found in the dictionary of the time as one definition of intelligence is "a spiritual being" also using it in a sentence, "as a created intelligence It is believed that the universe is peopled with innumerable superior intelligences."

Since we are not familiar with the expression today, perhaps it is natural to assume that Joseph Smith came up with it, which leads to the thought that he stole it from someone else when it shows up elsewhere.  Think of it like this, no one accuses Joseph Smith with stealing the idea of baptism even though that expression was used elsewhere in his day, and Latter-day Saints teach that God revealed the proper manner of baptism to Joseph Smith.  The only difference is that we are also familiar with baptism outside the Latter-day Saint context, so we don't have any assumption that Joseph created the idea.

On page 249, still within Part III, Thomas Dick talked about the throne of God.  I have already talked about how his conception doesn't match the description of Kolob in the Book of Abraham, but in case you were wondering, that's where you can find it.  He noted that astronomers feel that all systems of the universe revolve around one common center, and he suggested that if that is the case one may term this location the throne of God.  Again, The Book of Abraham describes planets and stars as moving more slowly as one approaches Kolob, which suggests to me a geocentric view of the Universe, with the throne of God being outside what the Greeks knew as the fixed stars, with Kolob being the star nearest the throne of God.

9. Elder Jeffrey R. Holland was directly asked about the papyri not matching the Book of Abraham in a March 2012 BBC interview:

Sweeney: “Mr. Smith got this papyri and he translated them and subsequently as the Egyptologists cracked the code something completely different…”

Holland: “(Interrupts) All I’m saying…all I’m saying is that what got translated got translated into the word of God. The vehicle for that, I do not understand and don’t claim to know and know no Egyptian.”

Is “I don’t know and I don’t understand but it’s the word of God” really the best answer that a “prophet, seer, and revelator” can come up with to such a profound problem and stumbling block that is driving many members out of the Church?

This comes from an episode of This World, a current affairs program produced by the BBC which mainly focuses on social issues and current affairs stories around the world.  In 2012, they produced the episode "The Mormon Candidate" where reporter John Sweeney traveled to Utah to examine Mitt Romney and his beliefs, and part of that he had a sit-down interview with Elder Jeffrey R. Holland. Unfortunately, his documentary comes across as an exposé, where he presents us as a cult, and conflates us with polygamist groups.  It's probably reasons like this that such interviews with Church leaders are so rare.

The Book of Abraham section begins at 16:51, introducing it with the explanation given in By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus without question, (discussed earlier in this section) and misattributing facsimile 1 to the Book of Mormon.

Not that it matters, but the transcript Jeremy provides is slightly off, Sweeny actually says "Joseph Smith got these papyri" and I also think it's a bit inconsistent to include Elder Holland's stutter but not Sweeney's stutter when he said, "Egyptian-Egyptologists".

Anyway, yes, that is the best answer one can give in such an interview.  The Book of Abraham is the word of God, but as far as how Joseph translated, we don't know.  You can find a better answer in the Gospel Topics essay published by the Church, which has the length required to expand on those thoughts and other issues.  These essays have been approved by the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve.

Jeremy appears to have the idea that a prophet seer and revelator should have all the answers.  However, they only know as much as God reveals to them.  It is pretty typical that God doesn't explain how He performs His miracles.  Prophets have been called and authorized by God to lead His Church, but they are still mortal human beings, and it is a mistake to put Church leaders up on a pedestal.

The Church essay notes that only small portions of the papyri survive, and so the original Book of Abraham could be in the missing portion.  The essay also describes an alternative theory that it wasn't actually a translation, but that the papyri may have been a catalyst for revelation, that God revealed to Joseph Smith the life of Abraham even though it did not directly correlate to the characters on the papyri.

For reasons like this, it is appropriate to say that we don't know the vehicle for Joseph's translation.  And although the text of the Book of Abraham has evidence supporting its historicity, its importance to us isn't for its history, but that it is scripture.  Therefore, like any other scripture, its truth is found through study, prayer, and through confirmation from the Spirit.

The following are respected Egyptian scholars/Egyptologists statements regarding Joseph Smith and the Book of Abraham:

“…these three facsimiles of Egyptian documents in the Pearl of Great Price depict the most common objects in the Mortuary religion of Egypt. Joseph Smith’s interpretations of them as part of a unique revelation through Abraham, therefore, very clearly demonstrates that he was totally unacquainted with the significance of these documents and absolutely ignorant of the simplest facts of Egyptian writing and civilization.”
– Dr. James H. Breasted, University of Chicago, Joseph Smith, Jr., As a Translator, p.26-27

“It may be safely said that there is not one single word that is true in these explanations.”
– Dr. W.M. Flinders Petrie, London University, Joseph Smith, Jr., As a Translator, p.24

“It is difficult to deal seriously with Joseph Smith’s impudent fraud…Smith has turned the goddess [Isis in Facsimile #3] into a king and Osiris into Abraham.”
– Dr. A.H. Sayce, Oxford professor of Egyptology, Joseph Smith, Jr., As a Translator, p.23

These quotes (and others) come from, as indicated and linked, Joseph Smith, Jr., As a Translator.  This  30-page pamphlet was published in 1912 by Franklin Spencer Spalding, who was the Episcopalian Bishop of Utah.  In it he made the argument that even taking Joseph's claims of metal plates and angels at face value, it is meaningless if the translation is incorrect.  He then introduced the Book of Abraham with its facsimiles, saying this provides a good test, then quoted these scholars who provide their interpretations and each conclude that Joseph Smith failed.

When this was published, it sparked a lot of controversy, and reviews and commentary about it was published in Utah newspapers and Church magazines.

The Salt Lake Tribune published a favorable review on 8 December 1912, and  they published a response from B. H. Roberts on the 15th.  The Deseret News published an editorial on December 17th, and was followed by an article on the 19th by B. H. Roberts and another editorial.  On the 29th, the New York Times responded to the first Deseret News editorial.

Many of these articles originally published in the Deseret News were republished in the Improvement Era, such as correspondences between Spalding and John A. Widtsoe, who was then the president of Utah State Agricultural College (February, March and April 1913).  The April issue also republished an article from his brother, Osborne J. P. Widtsoe, who was then serving as a Bishop.

Another response was published in the April 1913 Improvement Era by Professor of English N. L. Nelson (more about him here).  There, talked about Bishop Spalding's original argument, as to whether the Book of Mormon is true.  He noted that the first edition of the Book of Mormon had "about 2,000 mistakes in spelling and grammar which have since been eliminated" and yet we believe the voice of God declared it to be true.  He argued that the idea of "correctness" isn't about "spelling and grammar" nor about "botany, zoology, geography astronomy" or such things, but that it "is true for us which is fitted to awaken and keep growing our soul-life, however incorrect it may be as measured by a more perfect standard."  And it is in that sense that the Book of Abraham is also true.

The most scholarly responses published in the Deseret News were from James Edward Homans, writing under the pseudonym, "Dr. Robert C. Webb" (though he was not actually a doctor).  He was not a member of the Church, nor a resident of Utah.  Like Bishop Spalding, he was an Episcopalian, and apparently took issue with the argument he was making, and so wrote to defend Joseph Smith, describing similarities that the Egyptologists had overlooked.  His articles were published in the Improvement Era that March, May, and September.

In May and June were some correspondences from Fredereck J. Pack, who had a question regarding one of the claims of Spalding's experts.  In the process, he learned that John Peters was no longer associated with the University of Pennsylvania, but for the last 20 years was the rector (clergy over a parish) of an Episcopalian church in New York.  The September issue had an article from Isaac Russell, a member of another faith who took issue with the same claim.  The same issue had an article from J. M. Sjodahl, editor of the Deseret News.

Meanwhile, the pamphlet was also the topic of the front-page article in the 29 January 1913 Christian Herald, a weekly newspaper devoted to topics of interest to evangelical Christians.  An editorial statement was also published a few pages later.  Sterling B. Talmage, curator of the Deseret Museum and son of James E. Talmage, wrote a letter to the editor regarding the flaws in the article.  They declined to publish his remarks, so he sent it to the Improvement Era instead, where his letter was published in the June 1913 issue.  He made note of the accusation that Joseph had altered the vignettes, and wondered "why was he not consistent?  Why did he not alter the figure of the 'angel of the Lord,' in the first plate, and give it some other head than that of a bird of prey?  Why did he not alter figure 4 of the third plate, and make it look more like a prince and less like a woman?"  He also referenced Webb's Deseret News article and summarized some of the points he made.  It also republished the Christian Herald articles.

In the first tissue of The Utah Survey, a monthly publication of the Episcopal Church in Utah, in September 1913, they responded to Webb's criticism.  Robert C. Webb again had an article published in the Deseret News on 15 November 1913, and was republished in the Feb 1914 Improvement Era.  He again defended the Book of Abraham and the statements he made in his earlier article.

There were likely other things written, but those that were republished in the Improvement Era are the ones easiest to find.

Bishop Spalding's publication was reprinted in 1965 and so Hugh Nibley began writing a series of articles in response, which began to be published in the January 1968 Improvement Era as "A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price".  As he was writing these articles, the papyri fragments were discovered and returned, and so he continued his series with new things the actual papyri informed us about, which began to be published in September 1968.  I've referenced many of them before, here are links to the articles in one handy place:

• January 1968 - "Challenge and Response"
• February
• March
• April
• May - "May We See Your Credentials?"
• June
• July - "Empaneling the Panel"
• August - "Second String"
• September - "Facsimile #1: A Unique document"
• October
• November
• December
• January 1969 - "The Unknown Abraham"
• February
• March
• April
• May
• June
• July
• August - "Facsimile No.1 by the Figures"
• September
• October
• November - "Setting the Stage - The World of Abraham"
• January 1970
• March - "The Sacrifice of Isaac"
• April - "The Sacrifice of Sarah"
• May - Taking Stock (Conclusion)

Regarding the expert opinions, he described the three that Jeremy quoted and two others used as "among the most learned men who ever lived."  However, Hugh Nibley felt that they were too biased against Joseph Smith to seriously consider the papyri and would never acknowledge any similarities to Joseph's description, however small.

He spent great length arguing in favor of the Church, and a few of the things I summarized in earlier items.  But I'll quote one thing from his conclusion that remains relevant today:

A few years ago a librarian in Salt Lake City revived the dormant issue of the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham by proclaiming with great force in a series of lectures that one fatal mistake that Joseph Smith made in all his career of deception was to publish a commentary on Egyptian documents that would someday be an open book to science.  The librarian had it backwards.  It would be hard to find any document that Joseph Smith or anyone else could have selected, whose nature and purpose is more effectively locked up from the scrutiny of the learned.  To the eye of the candid unbeliever the Prophet may be considered particularly lucky in having hit upon these singularly enigmatic objects as the subject of his discourses, and to have been thrice lucky in coming up with a history of Abraham that fits so nicely with the old Abraham legends and traditions about which he knew nothing.  Whether it was luck or not, we cannot in all fairness deny him the advantage of our own very real ignorance by continuing to conceal it.  It is on the absurd assumption of a whole and solid knowledge of the facsimiles and on that alone that the case against Joseph Smith rests at the moment.

Alright, besides those that wrote over a hundred years ago, Jeremy also gives one example of what an Egyptologist is saying today.

In addition to the above, world renowned and respected University of Chicago professor of Egyptology, Dr. Robert Ritner, provided a detailed response and rebuttal to the LDS Church’s Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham essay that is sobering and devastating. Dr. Ritner’s rebuttal to the Church’s essay can be read here.

Jeremy linked to Robert Ritner's response at point #2, and I responded in point #1 to the argument he makes that the Book of Abraham must have come from fragment XI.  In addition, he disagrees with Latter-day Saint interpretations, and finds the text anachronistic, but I think we've also talked about these things enough in earlier sections.

The following video offers a thorough, complete, and unbiased overview of the Book of Abraham issues as well as the apologetic responses to them:

CESLETTER.ORG/PAPYRI

While it is thorough, it is not complete, and they say as much.  After a summary of the papyri, the topic of the video is on the arguments against the Book of Abraham, while not going into the text or facsimile interpretations.  They do bring up the defenses against these criticisms, but they reject them, focusing on the criticisms, and never go into why Latter-day Saints might disagree with the criticisms.  For those reasons, I wouldn't call it unbiased.

At about the minute mark, they refer to the Church as "the newly established Mormon Church, also known today as the LDS Church."  The name of the Church today is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Even if an honest mistake, it reveals their bias.  (And if we're honest, everyone has bias.)

One thing it brings up is the length of the scroll of Horos.  Friedhelm Hoffmann developed a formula for calculating the original length of a scroll based on repeated damaged areas of a papyrus.  In a 2008 Mormon Studies Review article, John Gee used this formula and calculated 1250.5 cm (about 41 feet) of missing papyrus.  The video instead cites the Winter 2010 Dialogue Journal article which Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith made in response to his calculation.  They created their own formula and came up with the result of only 56 cm of missing papyrus.

John Gee provided his own response in a 2012 article in the Journal of Mormon Studies that used actual measurements of a real papyrus to show that Cook and Smith's formula greatly underestimated papyrus length, while Hoffmann's formula succeeded at providing a rough approximation.  The video only cited Cook and Smith's article, and didn't even mention that it was in response to John Gee's calculation, let alone that he had responded to it.

Meanwhile, Michael D. Rhodes suggested that during the time period the scroll came from, the average roll was about 320 cm, and the entire Book of Breathings would have been 156 cm, leaving 164 cm for an additional text, if this scroll was the average length for its time.

Given that the current Book of Abraham is 5,506 words long, and that a translation of the hieratic characters on fragments X and XI made by Robert Ritner is 1,299 words, and that the Joseph Smith Papers say these fragments measure 47 cm at greatest length, if we assume the Book of Abraham was also written in hieratic characters taking up a similar amount of space and a similar translation methodology, then that would mean about 199 cm would be needed to cover the Book of Abraham.  While I think some of my assumptions are wrong, that should still give a good ballpark figure.

Back to the video, they discuss one eyewitness account of a long scroll that extended through two rooms of the Mansion House, but dismiss it as third-hand and not likely given the other evidence.  However, they don't address more reliable witness accounts such as an 1843 letter from Charlotte Haven that describes Lucy Smith opening a "long roll" and saying it is the writings of Abraham.  This would have been after the fragments that still exist today were cut and mounted.  An 1846 account by an unknown author appearing as "M" also visited Lucy, and the account also suggests she believed the Book of Abraham came from the roll.

In another eyewitness account, Gustavus Seyffarth (a rival to Jean-François Champollion) saw the papyrus roll at the St. Louis Museum before it moved to Chicago.  He said "the papyrus roll is not a record, but an invocation to the Deity Osirus" and went on to describe what was likely facsimile 3.  There is no such invocation in the Book of Breathings, but perhaps he was reading the opening lines of another text that followed the Book of Breathings.

I think most of the other things in the video I have already addressed in earlier sections and don't feel a need to go over again.  Also, you should be aware that the video came out in 2013, a year before the Gospel Topics essay came out, so their criticisms that the catalyst theory as being against official position of the Church no longer apply, as the essay offers that as one possible explanation.

An online contributor created an easy-to-understand document very clearly outlining the Book of Abraham issues.

This document makes the same argument as Robert Ritner, which I described earlier.  It also makes the same mistakes as in item #1, confusing the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language with the Book of Abraham manuscript.  They also make the same mistake as the video, only citing Cook and Smith's article for the length of the scroll to claim that there was no missing papyrus fragment.  They also make the same mistake and assume that because Joseph thought he was literally translating the papyrus, then this must rule out the catalyst theory.  However, we do not believe in prophetic infallibility, and God is perfectly capable of giving him a revelation on Abraham without telling him it isn't literally on the papyrus he is looking at.

Contrary to what some Mormon apologists claim or imply, a person does not have to be an Egyptologist or a scholar with a PhD to clearly understand the Book of Abraham problems and challenges to Joseph Smith’s claims of being a translator.

I assume Jeremy is including this to cover the very non-scholarly article he just linked.  I find it a bit hypocritical given all the criticism he has given FAIR for being "unofficial apologists."  You also don't need to be an Egyptologist or a scholar with a PhD to clearly defend the Book of Abraham from criticism, either.  

Of all the issues, the Book of Abraham is the issue that has both fascinated and disturbed me the most. It is the issue that I’ve spent the most time researching because it offers a real insight into Joseph’s modus operandi as well as Joseph’s claim of being a translator. It is the smoking gun that has completely obliterated my testimony of Joseph Smith and his claims.

I find it interesting that despite being "fascinated and disturbed" by the Book of Abraham, and claiming to spend "the most time researching" he apparently only looked at Grant Palmer's book, Reverend Spalding's 1912 pamphlet, an anti-Mormon meme blog, and John Sweeney's exposé, and apparently didn't look for how the Church has responded to these criticisms, at least not in his first edition of the CES Letter.

For me, in writing this response, I spent probably the most time on the Book of Abraham because it is a complex topic and I wanted to do it justice.  I recognize that a lot of critics see it as a "smoking gun" and they expect that anyone who learns these facts would leave the Church.  However, there are a lot of unanswered questions with the Book of Abraham that are difficult for critics of the Church to answer that they often ignore or dismiss.

Ultimately, I agree with the conclusion of the Church's Gospel Topics essay:

The veracity and value of the book of Abraham cannot be settled by scholarly debate concerning the book’s translation and historicity. The book’s status as scripture lies in the eternal truths it teaches and the powerful spirit it conveys. The book of Abraham imparts profound truths about the nature of God, His relationship to us as His children, and the purpose of this mortal life. The truth of the book of Abraham is ultimately found through careful study of its teachings, sincere prayer, and the confirmation of the Spirit.

Next: Polygamy/Polyandry