A Threatened and Recovered Testimony: My Experience with the Book of Abraham
by Jeff Lindsay
Many
years ago a member of my ward in Appleton, Wisconsin, left the Church
and eventually started a popular anti-Mormon website. When I went
there to learn his story, it appeared that losing his testimony over
the Book of Abraham was what led him out of the Church.
After
reading the critiques on the Book of Abraham from anti-Mormon
publications, he became convinced that Joseph Smith lied about his
ability to translate with the power of God. I can sympathize with his
initial reaction (but not with his later pursuit of full-blown
anti-Mormonism) because it almost happened to me, too.
I
think it was early 1995, while serving as a bishop, when I seriously
looked into some of the Book of Abraham attacks published by a Utah
anti-Mormon ministry. I had experienced anti-Mormon rhetoric and
thought it would be easy to see through the attacks they offered, but
this was different than the typical anti-Mormon pamphlet.
A
seemingly clear and convincing case was presented: (1) Joseph had
some papyrus documents that he "translated" as the Book of
Abraham; (2) those documents were lost for many years but have now
been found; (3) scholars who now can translate Egyptian confirm that
the papyrus scrolls have nothing to do with Abraham. It was
all a fraud. Ouch!
I
was troubled by the evidence and was unprepared to deal with it.
Could it be that Joseph just got it all wrong with the Book of
Abraham? It sure seemed that way — but that created a real
puzzle because there was no doubt in my mind, intellectually and
spiritually, on the basis of extensive evidence and experience and
powerful personal revelation, that the Book of Mormon was an
authentic, divine work.
Could
he have gotten the Book of Mormon right and then fell as a prophet to
mess up the Book of Abraham completely?
I
went to the Lord in prayer and asked for guidance, and explained that
I sincerely wanted to know the truth, wanted to be able to bear
testimony honestly of what was really true and needed to know if the
Book of Abraham was divine or not. After this prayer, I simply felt
that I needed to study more and be patient.
As
I started digging up information on the Book of Abraham to understand
the issues raised by critics, I soon felt cheated and betrayed.
Not by Joseph Smith, but by the anti-Mormons who had conveniently
left out some of the most important information about the Book of
Abraham.
The
anti-Mormon critiques I had read left the reader without the
slightest hint that the Joseph Smith papyri — the fragments
that were found in 1967 — were remnants of a much larger
collection of scrolls, and that these remnants do not match
the multiple physical descriptions of the scroll Joseph Smith
translated as the Book of Abraham.
That
scroll appears to have been in the collection that was sold to sold
to a St. Louis museum in 1856 and then later sent to a Chicago
museum, where it appears to have burned in the Great Chicago Fire of
1871.
The
critics almost universally assert that the
Book of Abraham scroll has been found, not allowing the reader to
know the gaps in their argument. To inform people that some of the
other
related documents in the Joseph Smith collection do not deal with
Abraham is just not faith-shattering enough, I guess — but
even that does raise some legitimate questions, especially since some
of the figures that are included with the Book of Abraham were
attached to some of the other documents.
But
now the debate is of quite a different flavor. The results of my
investigation, and the evidence that the anti-Mormons left out, are
given in my LDSFAQ page, "The
Truth about the Book of Abraham, Part 1."
Here's
one sample issue: Figure 6 in Facsimile 2, said by Joseph Smith and
modern scholars to represent "the four quarters of the earth."
Bullseye. Just a lucky guess? Here's an excerpt from my page ("Part
2") that deals with the direct hits:
Figure
6 is the same as the four canopic figures under the lion couch of
Facs. 1 and is said by Joseph to represent "this earth in its
four quarters." How many farmers would have guessed that four
little statues represented such a thing? But it is an entirely
plausible explanation based on a modern understanding of Egyptian,
and fits nicely into the themes of the Hypocephalus.
E.
Wallis Budge explained, "These jars were under the protection of
Isis, Nephthys, Neith, and Serqet, and represented the south, north,
east, and west respectively" [Budge, 1904, 1:210]. In the
forward to Budge's translation of The
Book of the Dead, Budge
wrote that the four "children of Horus" were each "supposed
to be lord of one of the quarters
of the world, and finally became the god of one of the cardinal
points" [Budge, 1967, p.
cxxiv, emphasis mine]. Joseph was absolutely correct.
According
to John Gee [Gee, 1991], the four canopic vessels represent the four
Sons of Horus, each of which has its own unique name, its own animal
head, and its own cardinal direction. The link between the Sons of
Horus and the cardinal directions was first established in 1857
[Brugsch, 1857], so Joseph could not have drawn upon scholarly
knowledge in saying that they represented the four quarters of the
earth. Indeed, there was essentially no valid knowledge of Egyptian
to draw upon in 1842,when
the Book of Abraham was published.
Stephen
E. Thompson criticizes Joseph Smith's interpretation of Figure 4
[Thompson, 1995]. Concerning the claim of LDS scholars that the fours
sons of Horus represent the four quarters of the earth, Thompson
objects:
"As
far as ancient Egypt is concerned, there is no evidence currently
available to support this claim. There is only one context in which
the sons of Horus are associated with the cardinal directions, i.e.,
'the earth in its four quarters.' They were sent out, in the form of
birds, as heralds of the king's coronation....I must emphasize that
it is only in this context, and in the form of birds, that these gods
were associated with the cardinal points. In the funerary context no
such relationship is evident. Furthermore, the fact that these gods
are sent to the four quarters of the earth does not mean that the
Egyptians equated them with these directions. There is no evidence
that they did so."
Thompson's
approach fascinates me. Instead of marveling at how Joseph could have
guessed even a remotely plausible meaning for the canopic figures, he
quibbles. After flatly stating that there is no evidence for a link
to the four quarters of the earth, then he admits that there is only
one context — coronations — in which such a link exists.
He then denies the relevance of that link, alleging that Facsimile 2
is only a funerary scene.
I
wonder if he is unaware of what Hugh Nibley has been writing about
Facsimile 2 for many years: that it is centers around the concept of
the endowment, which is the "coronation" of the resurrected
soul in the kingdom of God. Indeed, non-LDS scholars acknowledge that
figures of this type (the hypocephalus) are concerned with the life
after, with a triumphant resurrection and entrance into eternity. It
seems entirely reasonable to me to place Facsimile 2 into the context
of a coronation scene, the one scene for which Thompson says the sons
of Horus are linked to the four quarters of the earth. But Thompson
can allow no room for plausibility in anything Joseph says.
I
also disagree with Thompson's stance that only one context permits a
relationship between the sons of Horus and the cardinal directions.
John Gee provides others in his article. For example, in the Pyramid
Texts, "the Sons of Horus are associated with the orientation of
the four corners of the earth and used to orient the Pyramid"
[Gee, 1991, p. 38]. They are also connected to winds from the four
corners of the sky.
I
feel that identifying the "four quarters" with the sons of
Horus in Figure 6 is especially appropriate, since the four legs of
the adjacent cow, Hathor = “house of Horus,” have a
similar meaning mentioned in the quote from Campbell above.
Still
puzzled about Thompson's allegation, I borrowed a copy of Richard W.
Wilkinson's Symbol and Magic in Egyptian Art [Wilkinson, 1994]
from our local library. The discussion of the Sons of Horus in
Wilkinson clearly links them to the four quarters of the earth or the
four cardinal directions, with no hint at all that this connection
only occurred during coronation ceremonies.
For
example, Wilkinson's glossary entry for the Sons of Horus explains
that they "were four genii or minor deities connected with the
cardinal points and which guarded the viscera of the deceased.
Originally human-headed, they were regularly portrayed with the heads
of different creatures: Imsety, human-headed (south); Duamutef,
jackal-headed (east); Hapy, ape-headed (north); Qebesenuef,
falcon-headed (west)" (p. 213).
His
section on the meaning of the number four notes that the four Sons of
Horus were one of several groups of four commonly found in Egyptian
art. Then he writes, "Frequently the number [four] appears to
connote totality and completeness and is tied to the four cardinal
points...The four cardinal points are certainly an ancient
concept.... Usually ... the four areas represent the four quarters of
the earth alone. This is the case in most religious rituals which
find representational expressions" [Wilkinson, 1994, pp.
133-134, emphasis mine].
He
does cite the coronation of the king as well as the jubilee ceremony
as examples involving the cardinal directions, but there is no hint
that the connection between the four Sons of Horus and the four
quarters of the earth only occurs in a narrow and limited context.
Page
145 of Wilkinson shows a photograph of canopic jars (shaped as the
Sons of Horus, containing human viscera) in a decorated chest (22nd
Dynasty). Each side of the chest also has one of the four Sons of
Horus on it, being protected by the goddesses Isis, Nephthys, Neith,
and Selket.
This
concept is discussed on pages 70-71 in the context of placement of
coffins, which were sometimes oriented with the cardinal directions
(head to the north, with the body sideways facing east). The four
Sons of Horus were sometimes placed on the long sides of the coffin,
with two on the west side and two on the east.
Wilkinson
then notes that the Son of Horus are sometimes represented on the
four sides of the chests in which canopic jars were stored. Again,
the Sons of Horus are linked to directions in a context other than
coronation rites alone.
Joseph's
"four quarters of the earth" remains a "direct hit,"
in my eyes. Now how can the critics explain that? If Joseph were a
fraud, why the direct hits?
Since
that time some outstanding new insights have come out revealing many
more impressive hits for Joseph Smith. Some of these are discussed in
a recent new DVD, available from FAIRLDS,
“A Most Remarkable Book: Evidence for the Divine Authenticity
of the Book of Abraham.” I review
the DVD
over at my Mormanity website.
There
are still many questions and some genuine problems for which we don’t
have clear explanations, but it is also clear that something more
than random guessing by a conman is needed to account for the
remarkable treasures we have in the Book of Abraham. It is simply the
wrong reason for someone to abandon their faith.
When
we hit problem spots, my advice is to recognize that doubts and
questions are normal. Dig in, hold in, and continue pressing forward.
See also my recent post, “A
Fellowship of Doubters.”
As we patiently move forward, we may find that some of the weak spots
in our testimony became centers of strength. The Book of Abraham may
be an example of that.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.
