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Question: What are the historical approaches that have been take in an attempt to understand the Kirtland Egyptian Papers?
Contents
Historical approaches to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers
Critical responses
Critics note at least two evidences which demonstrate an obvious connection between some of the Kirtland Egyptian papers and the Book of Breathings scroll from the Joseph Smith Papyri (JSP). These two evidences are used by critics to prove that the existing fragments of the Scroll of Hor is the source of the Book of Abraham and that therefore Joseph was not a prophet.
- Like the Hebrews, the Egyptians read right to left. The "Scroll of Hor"-- which is the Book of Breathings scroll in the JSP collection-- begins (at the right end) with Facsimile 1 (as recorded in the Book of Abraham) followed by Egyptian characters. Some of the KEP are divided by a vertical line at the left side of the paper. About three fourths of the paper is to the right of each line. To the left of the line are Egyptian characters. These are the same characters that follow Facsimile 1 of the Book of Breathings(these would be to the left of the vignette). To the right of the vertical line (on the Kirtland papers) appear passages from the Book of Abraham. Critics assert that these passages represent Joseph Smith's attempt to perform "translations" of each of the characters on the left. It is claimed that Joseph took a single character in each case and expanded it to a full paragraph of text.
- The Book of Abraham states:
...that you may have a knowledge of this altar, I will refer you to the representation [Facsimile 1] at the commencement of this record." (Abraham 1:12-- keeping in mind that the scroll would have been read from right to left to and Facsimile 1 is virtually the first item at the right end of the scroll.)
Historical LDS responses
LDS approaches to the KEP have been more varied. The first significant scholarly study of the matter, by John A. Tvedtnes and Richley Crapo, appeared in a series of articles under the auspices of the Society for Early Historic Archaeology from 1968 to 1970. Their theory was that the Sensen Papyrus may have represented a mnemonic device to bring to mind a longer oral tradition — a tradition that corresponded to the narrative of the Book of Abraham as we know it. This theory was grounded in two observations. First, the hieratic symbols copied into the left margin of the KEPA documents were complete morphemes, as opposed to the inappropriate breaks one would expect of someone who could not read Egyptian. Second, in every case the meaning of the hieratic word in the margin shows up in some relevant way in the much longer English text corresponding to the hieratic word. Of course, lots of other words and concepts are present as well, but the meaning of the hieratic word in each case is present in the English text.
While a fascinating study, the Tvedtnes and Crapo mnemonic device theory never really caught on. Hugh Nibley was intrigued by this possibility at first, but then decided to go in a different direction. Nibley authored a seminal, lengthy study of the KEP in BYU Studies entitled "The Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers." He did not attempt to defend the KEP as revelatory documents (other than the English portions of the KEPA). Rather, he took the view that the KEP represent either a preliminary "studying it out" stage in the process, or a (failed) attempt to reverse engineer the English translation so as to decipher the Egyptian language. In other words, the English text of the Book of Abraham was received by revelation as opposed to a purely mechanical process. While Joseph was involved in the KEP project, a theme of Nibley's piece is to portray the efforts of Phelps, Cowdery, and Parrish as largely independent of Joseph. Nibley's take has become the dominant LDS view, and has been echoed more recently in several publications by John Gee.
A small minority of LDS commenters on the KEP seeks to defend the supposed revelatory character of these documents, viewing them through the lenses of kabbalism or extreme symbolism. It has few adherents.
The KEP as an attempt at "backwards translation"
Some LDS scholars have proposed that the Kirtland Egyptian Papers are an example of a backwards translation. In other words, Joseph translated the Book of Abraham prior to the creation of the KEP and then he, and other early LDS brethren, tried to match the translated text to what they believed were the characters that were used to elicit the translation. In this scenario the KEP was not the product of revelation, but was rather an attempt to "study out" the translation, after-the-fact, in what might have been an experiment to create an Egyptian alphabet.[1] In essence, Joseph and his friends were trying to "reverse engineer" the translation of Egyptian script using the inspired translation he had already produced. The men at Kirtland were treating the Book of Abraham as a sort of Rosetta Stone from which they hoped to crack the code for Egyptian (which was largely untranslatable by scholars of the time.)
Directions for further research
The KEP have been understudied to date. Although preliminary studies have appeared from various perspectives, much more work needs to be done. In many ways, apologetic or polemical approaches to these documents are premature. Rather, they first must be studied rigorously from a scholarly perspective.
An essential tool that is a prerequisite to further progress is a critical edition of the texts. While the microfilm photocopy editions are sufficient for limited purposes and to get a feel for the documents, they are totally inadequate for serious scholarly study. Ideally such scholarship should be grounded in a study of the original documents. To the extent that they are not available for such study, the color photographs that are in existence would be the next best basis for such an edition.
In addition to a careful and clear presentation of the texts, such a study needs to focus on understanding the documents. Too much energy has been devoted to attack and defense, and not enough to basic comprehension of what those involved in the project thought they were doing and how they went about their work. Such a study needs to bring the same standards and attention to detail to these texts as Royal Skousen has brought to his study of the original text of the Book of Mormon.
== Notes ==