Book of Abraham Anachronisms

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Book of Abraham Anachronisms

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.

Contents:

• Abraham Speaking Egyptian
• Chariots
• The Dating of the Papyri
• Hebrew Not Old Enough for Abraham
• The Name "Egyptus"
• The Name "Pharaoh"
• Potiphar's Hill
• The Scenes in the Facsimiles
• Ur of the Chaldees

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The Dating of the Papyri

In 1835, Joseph Smith, founder of 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 official canon of the Church in the 1880s.

In 1967, the Church acquired some surviving fragments of the papyri from which the translation was rendered from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art through the help of Dr. Aziz Atiya, a professor at the University of Utah.

As 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).

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.

Examples of Texts that have Survived for Long Periods of Time

In response to the above criticism, it may be noted that we do have knowledge of texts that record historical events and survive scribal transmission for a long period of time.

For example, The Book of the Dead was copied from the New Kingdom period of ancient Egyptian history clear down to the end of the Ptolemaic Period. That's 1000+ years of transmission.

Additionally, the oldest portions of the Pentateuch (e.g. the Song of Moses in Exodus 15) were passed through scribal transmission for well over 1,500+ years.

What's more, narrative texts from the Middle Kingdom period in Egyptian history like the Story of Sinuhe were preserved in copies belonging to the New Kingdom period, which would be around 700+ years of transmission.

Perhaps our best parallel would be the Holy Bible. It has a pretty long manual transmission history from autographs penned in the 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.

Elements of the Book of Abraham that Date to the Time of Abraham

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:

• Human sacrifice
• The God of Elkenah
• Olishem
• The idolatrous gods represented by the canopic jars in facsimile 1.
• Stating that autographs are “written in the hand” of that person.
• Identification of Shinehah as “the sun”.
• The name "Shulem" as reference to the king's waiter.
• The astronomy of the Book of Abraham.
• The identification of a crocodile as "The God of Pharoah".

Stephen Smoot and Kerry Muhelstein’s Paper on the Transmission of the Book of Abraham

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.

BYU Studies, "Prophets, Pagans, and Papyri: The Jews of Greco-­Roman Egypt and the Transmission of the Book of Abraham"

Stephen O. Smoot and Kerry Muhelstein,  BYU Studies 61/2 (2022)

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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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.

Ur of the Chaldees

Pearl of Great Price Central, Insight #4: Ur of the Chaldees

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.) Abraham 3꞉1 states:

And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees

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." 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."

An additional complication is that scholars today place "Chaldea" in southern Mesopotamia, which is too far away to have any Egyptian influence.

The phrase "Ur of the Chaldees" appears in the Old Testament in connection with Abraham (Abram) and his father Terah

The phrase "Ur of the Chaldees" appears in the Old Testament in Genesis 11꞉26-28 in connection with Abraham (Abram) and his father Terah:

26 And Terah lived seventy years, and begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran.
27 ¶Now these are the generations of Terah: Terah begat Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran begat Lot.
28 And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees.

The location of "Ur of the Chaldees" is not known

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."

Those "cogent arguments" for a northern location can be found from the likes of John Gee and Paul Y. Hoskisson below.

Paul Hoskisson (1991): "I will suggest an alternate location for the Ur of the Chaldees in the story of Abraham"

Paul Y. Hoskisson, "Research and Perspectives: Where Was the Ur of Abraham?", Ensign (July 1991)

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. —(Click here to continue)

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"

John Gee,

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. —(Click here to continue)

Stephen O. Smoot, "'In the Land of the Chaldeans': The Search for Abraham's Homeland Revisited

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.

—(Click here to continue)

Notes

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