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| '''Summary:''' Critics of the Book of Abraham have alleged that the Book of Abraham could not have been written by Abraham himself given many supposed anachronisms in the Book. They argue, among other things, that the dating of the papyri precludes Abraham from being the author of the Book, that various names in the Book are anachronistic to it, and that several geographic features of the text lack corroboration in the archaeological record. | | '''Summary:''' Critics of the Book of Abraham have alleged that the Book of Abraham could not have been written by Abraham himself given many supposed anachronisms in the Book. They argue, among other things, that the dating of the papyri precludes Abraham from being the author of the Book, that various names in the Book are anachronistic to it, and that several geographic features of the text lack corroboration in the archaeological record. |
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| :''Contents:''
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#Abraham Speaking Egyptian|Abraham Speaking Egyptian]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#Chariots|Chariots]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#The Dating of the Papyri|The Dating of the Papyri]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#The Documentary Hypothesis|The Documentary Hypothesis]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#Hebrew Not Old Enough for Abraham|Hebrew Not Old Enough for Abraham]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#The Name “Egyptus”|The Name "Egyptus"]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#The Name “Pharaoh”|The Name "Pharaoh"]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#Potiphar’s Hill|Potiphar's Hill]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#The Scenes in the Facsimiles|The Scenes in the Facsimiles]]
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| *[[Book of Abraham Anachronisms#Ur of the Chaldees|Ur of the Chaldees]]
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| ---- | | ---- |
| ===Abraham Speaking Egyptian===
| | *[[Approaching Anachronisms in the Book of Abraham]] |
| ===Chariots===
| | *[[Assessment of Claimed Anachronisms in the Book of Abraham]] |
| On March 18, 2022, Dr. John Gee, the foremost expert on the Book of Abraham and a professor in the Department of Near Eastern Languages at Brigham Young University, had a paper published in ''Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship'' entitled “‘The Wind and the Fire to be My Chariot’: The Anachronism that Wasn’t.”
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| In the paper, Dr. Gee points out that no critic since the translation and publication of the Book of Abraham has pointed out the apparent anachronism of the chariot. In Abraham 2:7, God tells Abraham in Haran that he will “cause the wind and the fire to be [his] chariot.”
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| Is the chariot an actual anachronism in the Book of Abraham?
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| Dr. Gee responds to his own criticism and shows that both linguistic and archaeological data point to the chariot existing during the span of time typically thought of to be Abraham’s lifetime. One can read the paper by following the link below.
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| {{InterpreterBar
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| |author=John Gee
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| |authorlink=https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/author/johng/?journal
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| |title=“The Wind and the Fire to be my Chariot”: the Anachronism that Wasn’t
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| |link=https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-wind-and-the-fire-to-be-my-chariot-the-anachronism-that-wasnt/
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| |blog=no
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| |date=March 18, 2022
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| |summary=In the Book of Abraham, God tells Abraham in Haran, “I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot” (Abraham 2:7). While this initially might appear to be an anachronism, as the chariot is normally thought to have been introduced later, archaeological finds of chariots at the site of Harran predate Abraham by hundreds of years.}}
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| ===The Dating of the Papyri===
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| In 1835, Joseph Smith, founder of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints], began the translation of some Egyptian papyri that was sold to him in the Church’s then-headquarters—Kirtland, Ohio. Joseph Smith claimed that the papyri purported to be the autobiographical writings of the ancient biblical patriarch Abraham. This translation was made part of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_works official canon] of the Church in the 1880s.
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| In 1967, the Church acquired some surviving fragments of the papyri from which the translation was rendered from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art New York Metropolitan Museum of Art] through the help of [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aziz_Suryal_Atiya Dr. Aziz Atiya], a professor at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Utah University of Utah].
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| As [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papyrology papyrological] work was done, scholars discovered that the papyrus dated to at least 1700 years (Between 300 BCE – 100 CE) after the prophet Abraham is traditionally claimed to have lived (2000 BCE).<ref>"Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, accessed November 4, 2019, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng&query=Abraham.</ref>
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| Many have naturally asked the question of how can the papyri date to such a late time and record genuinely historical events from the life of the supposedly historical Abraham.
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| ====Examples of Texts that have Survived for Long Periods of Time====
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| In response to the above criticism, it may be noted that we do have knowledge of texts that record historical events and survive [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scribe scribal] transmission for a long period of time.
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| For example, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_Dead The Book of the Dead] was copied from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Kingdom_of_Egypt New Kingdom] period of ancient [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt Egyptian] history clear down to the end of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ptolemaic_Kingdom Ptolemaic Period]. That's 1000+ years of transmission.
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| Additionally, the oldest portions of the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torah Pentateuch] (e.g. the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Moses Song of Moses] in Exodus 15) were passed through scribal transmission for well over 1,500+ years.
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| What's more, narrative texts from the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Kingdom_of_Egypt Middle Kingdom] period in Egyptian history like the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_of_Sinuhe Story of Sinuhe] were preserved in copies belonging to the New Kingdom period, which would be around 700+ years of transmission.
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| Perhaps our best parallel would be the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible Holy Bible]. It has a pretty long manual transmission history from [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autograph_(disambiguation) autographs] penned in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age Iron Age] all the way down to when they were placed in print editions of the Bible starting in the 1500s. In other words, people were hand-copying these texts with a fair degree of accuracy for over 3,000 years and yet we hold their texts as fairly accurate historically speaking.
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| ====Elements of the Book of Abraham that Date to the Time of Abraham====
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| Elements from the Book of Abraham that can definitively place it in the time that the historical Abraham is claimed to live can help us construct the historical core of the Book of Abraham and bolster the claim of historical authenticity. Some of these elements that can more than plausibly date to Abraham’s day include:
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| *[https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/human-sacrifice/ Human sacrifice] | |
| *[https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/the-idolatrous-god-of-elkenah/ The God of Elkenah]
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| *[https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/olishem/ Olishem]
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| *The idolatrous gods represented by the canopic jars in facsimile 1.<ref>John Gee, "[https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/four-idolatrous-gods-in-the-book-of-abraham/ Four Idolatrous Gods in the Book of Abraham]," ''Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship'' 38 (2020): 133–52.</ref>
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| *Stating that autographs are “written in the hand” of that person.<ref>"Abraham and Idrimi," Pearl of Great Price Central, August 1, 2019 https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/abraham-and-idrimi/.</ref>
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| *Identification of Shinehah as “the sun”.<ref>"Shinehah, The Sun," Pearl of Great Price Central, October 23, 2019, https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/shinehah-the-sun/.</ref>
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| *The name "Shulem" as reference to the king's waiter.<ref>John Gee, "[https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/shulem-one-of-the-kings-principal-waiters/ Shulem, One of the King's Principal Waiters]," ''Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship'' 19 (2016): 383–95.</ref>
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| *[https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/abrahamic-astronomy/ The astronomy of the Book of Abraham]. | |
| *[https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/sobek-the-god-of-pharaoh/ The identification of a crocodile as "The God of Pharoah"].
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| ====Stephen Smoot and Kerry Muhelstein’s Paper on the Transmission of the Book of Abraham====
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| Stephen O. Smoot—a PhD student in Egyptian and Semitic Languages and Literature—and Dr. Kerry Muhelstein (PhD Egyptology, UCLA)—a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University—have outlined a plausible scenario in which a text containing the autobiographical writings of Abraham could have been preserved and transmitted for that long of time and on the type of papyrus that Joseph Smith claimed to translate from. We strongly encourage readers to review their paper published in ''BYU Studies'' on the subject.
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| {{BYUStudiesBar
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| |link=https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/prophets-pagans-and-papyri/
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| |title= Prophets, Pagans, and Papyri: The Jews of Greco-Roman Egypt and the Transmission of the Book of Abraham
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| |author=Stephen O. Smoot and Kerry Muhelstein
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| |vol=61
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| |num=2
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| |date=2022
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| |summary=Complications and questions abound regarding the historicity of the Book of Abraham, its relationship to the papyri owned by Joseph Smith, the way it was translated, and the Prophet’s interpretation of the three facsimiles that accompany the text. Given the gaps in the historical record (to say nothing of the diverse methodological assumptions that have undergirded different approaches to the text), this subject will give scholars plenty of fodder for continued academic investigation. One question that remains open for examination is how a purported autobiography of the patriarch Abraham could have been transmitted from his time (most likely circa 2,000–1,800 BC) into the Ptolemaic period (when the Joseph Smith Papyri were created)—a journey of well over a millennium and a half! How feasible or likely is it that a copy of Abraham’s writings could have been recovered from a point in history so far removed from his own time? How was the text transmitted, and when? And by whom? And for what purpose(s)? And how likely is it that Abraham’s writings would have been associated with a collection of funerary papyri seemingly unrelated to anything Jewish or biblical?
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| }}
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| These and other elements can combine to help us understand that, even though a text does have a very, very long transmission history, it can still plausibly preserve literal historical events from the lives of the first authors. That does not mean that the text as it has been preserved to us today must have originated entirely from the mind of the historical Abraham. Scribes and redactora could have made inspired emendations to the text over the years and we would still have a text that dates originally to the time of Abraham. In sum, we have no reason to believe that the dating of the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was translated threatens the possibility of being genuine writings from the prophet Abraham and no reason to believe that the dating of the papyri threatens the core theology of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
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| ===The Documentary Hypothesis===
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| ===Hebrew Not Old Enough for Abraham===
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| ===The Name “Egyptus”===
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| ===The Name “Pharaoh”===
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| Several critics allege that calling someone "Pharaoh" is anachronistic to the time of Abraham.
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| ====The Functional Equivalent of the Office of Pharaoh Does Go Back to the Time of Abraham====
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| It should be noted that the functional equivalent of the office of Pharaoh absolutely does range to the time of Abraham. The title "Pharaoh" began to be applied to the Egyptian ruler beginning around the 18th dynasty (1500 BC). It is true that the title "Pharaoh" does not range back to the traditional dating of Abraham's life. After the 18th dynasty, the title was retroactively applied to all monarchs of Egypt.
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| If there was a person that could be called the monarch in Abraham's day, Joseph Smith and his contemporaries would call that person "Pharaoh." Since God speaks to men unto their understanding and in their language ({{DC|1|24}}), and since virtually anyone today would call any Egyptian monarch "pharaoh," it is unsurprising that the name Joseph Smith and God selected for an Egyptian monarch was "pharaoh."
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| ===Potiphar’s Hill===
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| ===The Scenes in the Facsimiles===
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| ===Ur of the Chaldees===
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| {{POGPCentral|title=Ur of the Chaldees|url=https://www.pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/ur-of-the-chaldeans/|number=4}}
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| The Chaldeens are mentioned a number of times in the Book of Abraham (Abraham 1:1, 8, 13, 20, 23, 29, 30, 2:4 and 3:1.)
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| {{s||Abraham|3|1}} states:
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| <blockquote>
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| And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees
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| </blockquote>
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| It is claimed that the mention of "Ur of the Chaldees" in the Book of Abraham is an anachronism. According to Stephen Thompson, "scholarly estimates for the age of the patriarchs range from 2200 to 1200 B.C." <ref name="thompson">Stephen E. Thompson, "Egyptology and the Book of Abraham", ''Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought'' (Spring 1995)</ref> The Chaldeans, on the other hand, did not appear until hundreds of years later. Thompson notes that, "anything occurring after 1500 B.C. is definitely anachronistic to Abraham's lifetime."<ref name="thompson"></ref>
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| An additional complication is that scholars today place "Chaldea" in southern Mesopotamia, which is too far away to have any Egyptian influence.
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| ====The phrase "Ur of the Chaldees" appears in the Old Testament in connection with Abraham (Abram) and his father Terah====
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| The phrase "Ur of the Chaldees" appears in the Old Testament in {{s||Genesis|11|26-28}} in connection with Abraham (Abram) and his father Terah:
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| <blockquote>
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| 26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.<br>
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| 27 ¶Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.<br>
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| 28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.<br>
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| </blockquote>
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| ====The location of "Ur of the Chaldees" is not known====
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| The location of "Ur of the Chaldees" is not known, although that has been much speculation among religious scholars concerning its possible location. It is noted by the Church that "Most scholars today locate “Chaldea” (or Ur) in southern Mesopotamia, removed from the area of Egyptian influence, but cogent arguments have been made for a northern location, within the realm of Egyptian influence." <ref>"Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," Footnote 35, ''Gospel Topics'', LDS.org. {{link|url=https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng}}</ref>
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| Those "cogent arguments" for a northern location can be found from the likes of John Gee and Paul Y. Hoskisson below.
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| ====Paul Hoskisson (1991): "I will suggest an alternate location for the Ur of the Chaldees in the story of Abraham"====
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| Paul Y. Hoskisson, [https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/07/research-and-perspectives-where-was-the-ur-of-abraham?lang=eng "Research and Perspectives: Where Was the Ur of Abraham?",] ''Ensign'' (July 1991)
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| <blockquote>
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| Most people have an interest in the material settings of the scriptural accounts they hold sacred. Beyond this interest, physical settings become particularly important when scholars locate scriptural sites on present-day maps, because on this basis scholars augment and supplement our body of scriptural knowledge with facts from the indicated sites. For instance, many scholars place the site of Abraham’s Ur in southern Mesopotamia, and on that basis suggest that Abraham had contact with and was influenced by the dominant cult of that Ur, the cult of the moon god. With the aid of the book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, I will suggest an alternate location for the Ur of the Chaldees in the story of Abraham.<ref>Paul Y. Hoskisson, [https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/07/research-and-perspectives-where-was-the-ur-of-abraham?lang=eng "Research and Perspectives: Where Was the Ur of Abraham?",] ''Ensign'' (July 1991)</ref> {{read more|url=https://www.lds.org/ensign/1991/07/research-and-perspectives-where-was-the-ur-of-abraham?lang=eng}}</blockquote>
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| ====John Gee: "If Oylum Hoyuk is Olishem, the Ur of the Chaldees should be one of the dozens of Middle Bronze II sites in the Kilis plain"====
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| John Gee,
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| <blockquote>
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| If indeed tablets from Hittite from the site identify it as Ullis, the it is probably the Ulisum that Naram-Sin attacked and is a likely candidate for Olishem. If Oylum Hoyuk is Olishem, the Ur of the Chaldees should be one of the dozens of Middle Bronze II sites in the Kilis plain. We await further discoveries and publications. At present, given the many uncertainties, we can regard this identification as promising but not proven.<ref>John Gee, [https://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/22/2/9Gee_Olishem%20Discovered.pdf "Has Olishem Been Discovered?,"] ''Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture'' Vol. 22, Num. 2 (2013)</ref> {{read more|url=https://publications.mi.byu.edu/publications/jbms/22/2/9Gee_Olishem%20Discovered.pdf}}
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| </blockquote>
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| ====Stephen O. Smoot, "'In the Land of the Chaldeans': The Search for Abraham's Homeland Revisited====
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| <blockquote>First, I will look at what Genesis says about Abraham and his sojourns throughout Mesopotamia and Syria. I will pay special attention to passages in Genesis and elsewhere that touch on Abraham’s geographical and cultural setting(s). Then I will provide a brief history of the excavation of Tell el-Muqayyar and recount what modern scholarship says about Ur in various parts of its history. From there I will compare the picture in Genesis with the archaeological picture provided by this scholarship. As will be seen in my analysis, the attempts by the renowned archaeologist Sir Leonard Woolley and others to identify Tell el-Muqayyar as Abraham’s Ur are not without considerable difficulty. I will then transition into highlighting the work of scholars who have placed Abraham’s Ur not in southern Iraq but rather in various sites in Syria or northern Mesopotamia. After that, I will conclude by bringing the book of Abraham into the equation to explore the significance it carries when it comes to locating Abraham’s Ur.{{read more|url=https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/in-the-land-of-the-chaldeans-the-search-for-abrahams-homeland-revisited}}</blockquote>
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| {{endnotes sources}}
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