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Interest in Egyptian antiquities had been reawakened at the end of the eighteenth century by the military expedition of Napoleon, who entered Cairo on 25 July 1798. Napoleon brought with him 175 civilians, including scientists, Orientalists, artists, and poets, who came to study the pyramids and other ancient artifacts. They did not know the meaning of the curious hieroglyphs which were found on statues and temple walls, but one of Napoleon's soldiers did discover by chance the key to their decipherment, a basalt stele which became known as the Rosetta Stone. Solving the mystery of the hieroglyphs had to await the work of Champollion, whose Egyptian Grammar was not published until 1836. In the meantime, there were many attempts, both educated and uneducated, to decipher the Egyptian characters.
The Book of Mormon seems to reflect this renewed interest in Egyptian artifacts. Ancient writers who referred to the hieroglyphs were not very informative, but one passage in Herodotus may have suggested the "reformed Egyptian" of the Book of Mormon: "In writing or calculating, instead of going, like the Greeks, from left to right, the Egyptians go from right to left . . . . They have two sorts of writing, the sacred and the common" (Herodotus 1972, 143). According to Tacitus, the Egyptians discovered the alphabet and introduced it to the Phoenicians, who taught the Greeks how to write. Herodotus adds, speaking of the Greeks, "At first they used the same characters as all the other Phoenicians, but as time went on, and they changed their language, they also changed the shape of their letters" (Herodotus 1972, 361).
In his 1832 history, Joseph Smith related that he made a copy of the characters which were on the plates that he had discovered and sent Martin Harris with a copy to eastern cities to see if the "learned" could read the characters. In New York City, Harris showed the characters to Charles Anthon, professor of Greek and Latin at Columbia College. Harris claimed that Anthon verified the characters as true and a translation of some of them as correct, although Anthon denied this. This trip to New York was a fulfillment of Isaiah 29:11-12, which refers to a sealed book being delivered to "one that is learned." The Book of Mormon greatly alters these few words by adding nineteen verses. However, the Anthon affair leaves some questions unanswered. Joseph and Martin could have made up a story to fulfill the prophecy without making an actual trip to New York. And if Joseph had invented the characters himself and knew that they were indecipherable, why would he ask Anthon to examine them? If, on the other hand, the characters were not Joseph's invention, Joseph may not have known whether they were genuine or not, and he certainly would not want to put forth a translation of the characters, if it was possible for someone to read them and prove him wrong. He may, therefore, have sent Martin with a copy of the characters to the learned to discover whether or not they were authentic. However, Joseph never included a copy of the characters with his publication of the Book of Mormon.
In July 1835 Joseph Smith acquired some Egyptian scrolls, which he immediately started to translate, claiming that the rolls contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. He also began work on an Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and discovered that the hieroglyphs on the papyri were similar to both Hebrew and to the characters on the plates which contained the Book of Mormon.
After Joseph's death in 1844, the papyri remained in the custody of Emma Smith. In 1856 she sold them to a man named A. Combs. For many years, it was thought that they had been given to a museum in Chicago and that they had been destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871. However, they were discovered in 1966 at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art and were acquired by the Mormon church the following year.
Since their discovery, the papyri have been examined by Egyptologists. Because Joseph copied characters from the papyri and wrote out his translation next to them, it has been possible to determine exactly which one of the papyri supposedly contained the writings of Abraham. This is often referred to as the small Sensen fragment. This papyrus has been translated and is nothing more than a very common funerary text, dating between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100, taken from the Book of Breathings, which is itself a shorter version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. These texts were placed in coffins or burial chambers to assist the soul of the deceased in the afterlife.
In the first part of the Egyptian Grammar, Joseph Smith listed a number of characters and gave each of them a name and definition. Joseph's scheme included a series of five degrees, in which the meaning of the characters varies. For example, Joseph gave the name Iota to a character which looks like a dot (Iota is of course the name for the Greek letter "i"). The meaning of Iota in the five degrees is as follows:
Joseph Smith's translation of the Sensen papyrus produced a manuscript which fills eleven printed pages and consists of five chapters with a total of 136 verses. The handwritten copies of the Book of Abraham demonstrate the manner in which Joseph and his scribes worked. There are four existing manuscripts. The first two, designated as 1a and 1b, are contained in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar. 1a is in the handwriting of W. W. Phelps and runs from Abraham 1:4 to 2:6; 1b was copied by Warren Parrish and runs from Abraham 1:4 to 2:2. A longer manuscript was obtained in 1937 by Wilford Wood from Charles E. Bidamon, the son of Emma Smith's second husband. This document is in the handwriting of both Phelps and Parrish; Phelps added Abraham 1:1 to 1:3, while Parrish continued the text from Abraham 1:4 to 2:18. A later manuscript copied by Willard Richards includes Abraham 1:1 to 2:18 and 3:18-26. The Sensen papyrus is damaged and portions of the right-hand side of the first three lines of hieratic script are missing. In manuscripts 1a and 1b the scribes copied three characters, which correspond to the missing portion of line one, and wrote out next to them the text of Abraham 1:4-7. They then copied the remaining six characters on line one, with the corresponding text of Abraham 1:7-19. Four more characters were inserted in place of the missing portion of line two, and were translated as Abraham 1:20-28. The remaining five characters on line two furnished the text of Abraham 1:29 to 2:6. In the longer Phelps-Parrish manuscript, Phelps copied three groups of new characters with the text of Abraham 1:1-3; the manuscript then continues with the same characters and translation as are found in 1a and 1b. Abraham 2:6 begins with the first character on line three of the papyrus. A new character was inserted to fill the missing portion of line three and was translated as Abraham 2:7-9. The remaining three characters on line three correspond to the text of Abraham 2:9-16. Finally, the translation ended with the first character on line four and the text of Abraham 2:17-18. There is evidence that the Sensen papyrus was damaged when Joseph Smith possessed it and that the portions which are missing now were missing when it was translated. In a couple of instances, the characters which were inserted appear to have been copied from another line of the papyrus, but in most cases they seem to be Joseph's own inventions. In addition, Egyptologists have been able to reconstruct the missing portions by comparing the Sensen fragment with other similar papyri, and the characters which Joseph supplied do not match the reconstructed text. We have seen that there are serious problems with the first three verses of the Book of Abraham. In manuscripts 1a and 1b, the translation began with verse four, and this was only after the scribes had added three characters to fill in the missing portion of line one. In the longer manuscript, W. W. Phelps wrote the text of Abraham 1:1-3 next to three new characters, which were inserted before the other three characters, which had already been added to the beginning of line one. Thus it does not appear that the first three verses of Abraham could have been on the papyrus. (More on the Book of Abraham)
The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar appear to be related to another document called the Book of Enoch. When Joseph Smith made his revision of the Bible, he added visions of Enoch to chapter 7 of his Book of Moses. Joseph claimed that these visions were from the lost Book of Enoch. The next clue that Joseph had other material in his possession comes in a revelation dated March 1832: "the Lord God, the Holy One of Zion, who hath established the foundations of Adam-ondi-Ahman; who hath appointed Michael your prince . . . ." (D&C 78:15-16). Next we have a patriarchal blessing which was given on 18 December 1833. Joseph Smith's father, who had already been made a high priest, was ordained as the first patriarch of the church during this meeting. Oliver Cowdery recorded the blessing and added these remarks: "we diligently sought for the right of the fathers, and the authority of the holy priesthood, and the power to administer in the same; for we desired to be followers of righteousness and the possessors of greater knowledge" (Tanner 1982, 367). This is very similar to the wording of Abraham 1:2: "I sought for the blessings of the fathers and the right whereunto I should be ordained to administer the same; having been myself a follower of righteousness, desiring also to be one who possessed great knowledge . . . ." Both the wording and content of Oliver's remarks seem to depend on the Book of Abraham. If Oliver was using material from the Book of Abraham in 1833, it would prove that Joseph Smith had the material even before he acquired the papyri. However, there are some who claim that although the blessing was given in 1833, Oliver's comments were not recorded before 1835.
Nonetheless, when Joseph Smith's father was ordained as patriarch, Joseph's blessing contained these words: "Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch and Methuselah, who were High Priests, with the residue of his posterity, who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing. And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the Prince, the Archangel" (Joseph Smith 1976a, 38-39). These same words were included in Section 107 of the Doctrine and Covenants, in a revelation dated 28 March 1835. And Section 107 states: "These things were all written in the book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time" (D&C 107:57). In June 1835 the Messenger and Advocate published the words of a hymn written by W. W. Phelps, entitled "Adam-ondi-Ahman." The first stanza reads: "This world was once a garden place,/With all her glories common;/And men did live a holy race,/And worship Jesus face to face,/In Adam-ondi-Ahman." Joseph also included the name in his Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, when he defined the character "Beth": "The place appointed of God for the residence of Adam; Adam ondi-Ahman, a garden made to be fruitful, by blessing or promise; great valley or plain given by promise; filled with fruit trees and precious flowers, made for the healing of man. . . . place of happiness -- purity, holiness, and rest; even Zomar _____ Zion." On 19 May 1838 Joseph claimed that he had found the site of Adam-ondi-Ahman in Missouri near the Grand River. It was a place "which the brethren called 'Spring Hill,' but by the mouth of the Lord it was named Adam-ondi-Ahman, because, said He, it is the place where Adam shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet" (Joseph Smith 1976b, 3:35; D&C 116). This was near a spot which Joseph had named Tower Hill, because of the remains of a Nephite altar and tower that stood there.
The references to Zomar and Zion in the definition of "Beth" are also of interest. Joseph Smith had attempted to establish Zion near Independence, Missouri, and planned to build a temple there. In August 1831, Ezra Booth wrote that on the site of the temple, there was a sapling: "On the south side of the sapling will be found the letter T, which stands for Temple; and on the east side Zom! for Zomas; which Smith says is the original word for Zion" (Howe 1834, 199). Thus Joseph knew both the account of Adam-ondi-Ahman and the name Zomar or Zomas long before he prepared his Egyptian Grammar.
Section 78 of the Doctrine and Covenants, which contains the first mention of Adam-ondi-Ahman, also refers to Christ as "the Son Ahman" (D&C 78:20). According to Orson Pratt, this is the name of Christ in the pure language spoken by Adam:
"There is one revelation that this people are not generally acquainted with. I think it has never been published, but probably will be in the Church History. It is given in questions and answers. The first question is, 'What is the name of God in the pure language?' The answer says, 'Ahman.' 'What is the name of the son of God?' Answer, 'Son Ahman -- the greatest of all the parts of God excepting Ahman.' 'What is the name of men?' 'Sons Ahman,' is the answer. 'What is the name of angels in the pure language?' 'Angloman'" (McConkie 1966, 29).
Section 78 has some other peculiarities. As originally published in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants, the revelation read: "The Lord spake unto Enoch, saying, hearken unto me saith the Lord your God, who are ordained unto the high priesthood of my church . . . . it must needs be that there be an organization of my people, in regulating and establishing the affairs of the storehouse for the poor of my people, both in this place and in the land of Zion, or in other words, the city of Enoch" (Cf. D&C 78:1-3). The revelation said further: "let my servant Ahashdah, and my servant Gazelam, or Enoch, and my servant Pelagoram, sit in council with the saints which are in Zion" (Cf. D&C 78:9). Subsequent editions inserted names of individuals in brackets after the names in the revelation. Enoch and also Gazelam were identified as Joseph Smith, Ahashdah was Newel K. Whitney, and Pelagoram was Sidney Rigdon. However, the current edition of the Doctrine and Covenants has dropped the names Enoch, Gazelam, Ahashdah, and Pelagoram, substituting the names of individuals, and has completely eliminated reference to the city of Enoch.
Other revelations also included unusual names, including the following:
The facts suggest that the Book of Enoch contained the following information: an account of the gathering at Adam-ondi-Ahman where the Lord blessed Adam, an explanation of the meanings of terms in the pure Adamic language, visions of Enoch, an exposition of the order of Enoch or the united order, and a history of the people living in the time of Enoch. Joseph had already used a considerable amount of material from the Book of Enoch by 1835. In July 1835 the Egyptian papyri fell into Joseph's hands, and he probably realized that he could link the writings of Abraham and Joseph to the scrolls.
The Enochian names almost completely disappear from the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants after 1835. However, one of these names occurs in the Book of Abraham, when the Lord shows Abraham the planets and stars: "And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon. And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars" (Abraham 3:13). Shinehah had been used in Sections 82 and 104 as a term designating Kirtland, Ohio, and Section 117 states: "Is there not room enough on the mountains of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and on the plains of Olaha Shinehah, or the land where Adam dwelt . . . . Therefore, come up hither unto the land of my people, even Zion" (D&C 117:8-9). This was written in Far West, Missouri, and Joseph had already identified a site in Missouri as Adam-ondi-Ahman. The name Shinehah does not appear in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, but one of the fixed stars is called Shineflis. However, in Section 104, Joseph seems to have been doing something very similar to what he would later do in the Grammar. The word Laneshine was used to mean a print shop, shinelah meant "to print," and shinelane meant "printing." We have seen that in the Grammar Joseph gave the names and definitions of Egyptian characters.
We should also recall that when Joseph began work on the Book of Mormon, his first act was to copy down characters from the plates and give a translation of them. David Whitmer stated, "Frequently one character would make two lines of manuscript, while others made but a word or two words" (Lamb 1887, 240). Whitmer could not have known this unless at one time Joseph was using a system similar to that which appears in the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar, in which characters and the interpretation were placed side by side. Joseph Smith also derived many lines of manuscript from just one Egyptian character. According to Richard Bushman, Lucy Smith said in the Preliminary Manuscript for her Biographical Sketches that "Joseph was instructed 'to take off a facsimile of the characters composing the alphabet which were called reformed egyptian Alphabetically and send them to all the learned men that he could find and ask them for the translation of the same.' Lucy implied that once Joseph had a translation of all the basic characters, he could carry on by himself -- thus the need to copy a great number of characters" (Bushman 1984, 86). This seems to be proof that Joseph had not merely the text of the Book of Mormon, but also the basic characters of the Egyptian alphabet. This suggests that the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar really belonged to the Book of Mormon and that Joseph deleted it and then later adapted it to the Egyptian papyri.
We should take note of another indication that Joseph had unpublished material at hand, which he was waiting for an opportunity to use. In 1843 some men from Kinderhook, Illinois, claimed that they had discovered some plates covered with hieroglyphs, and the plates were taken to Joseph to translate. Joseph wrote in his history:
I insert fac-similes of the six brass plates found near Kinderhook, in Pike county, Illinois, on April 23, by Mr. Robert Wiley and others, while excavating a large mound. They found a skeleton about six feet from the surface of the earth, which must have stood nine feet high. The plates were found on the breast of the skeleton and were covered on both sides with ancient characters.I have translated a portion of them, and find they contain the history of the person with whom they were found. He was a descendant of Ham, through the loins of Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and that he received his kingdom from the Ruler of heaven and earth. (Joseph Smith 1976b 5:372)
Joseph's interpretation of the characters on the plates sounds like a sequel to the Book of Abraham. Abraham 1 gives a brief account of the founding of Egypt by a daughter of Ham and states concerning the Pharaoh who lived in the time of Abraham: "Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth" (Abraham 1:21).
The men who brought the Kinderhook plates to Joseph were probably waiting for him to publish his translation, but this never happened. Thirty-six years later, one of the men, Wilbur Fugate, admitted that the whole thing was a hoax and that they had made the plates themselves. However, some Mormons still claim that the plates were genuine and that Joseph did translate a portion of them.
Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery stated that the Egyptian papyri also contained the writings of Joseph, the son of Jacob, and it seems that the Book of Mormon provides us with a portion of this record. When Lehi blessed his son Joseph, he quoted from the prophecies of the biblical Joseph (2 Nephi 3). Joseph Smith included these prophecies in his translation of chapter 50 of the Book of Genesis, but with variations. Moroni also quoted a prophecy of the biblical Jacob concerning the seed of Joseph (Alma 46:24-25), which is not included in the JST.
The concept of a record containing ancient prophecies is found not only in the Book of Mormon, but in the Book of Moses as well. The Book of Moses states that in the days of Enos "a book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration; and by them their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled" (Moses 6:5-6). Enoch says further: "For a book of remembrance we have written among us, according to the pattern given by the finger of God; and it is given in our own language" (Moses 6:46). The Book of Abraham seems to indicate that Abraham came into possession of the book of remembrance, for it says: "But the records of the fathers, even the patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood, the Lord my God preserved in mine own hands; therefore a knowledge of the beginning of the creation, and also of the planets, and of the stars, as they were made known unto the fathers, have I kept even unto this day" (Abraham 1:31). The Book of Mormon also states that king Benjamin taught his sons in "the language of his fathers . . . . And he also taught them concerning the records which were engraven on the plates of brass" (Mosiah 1:2-3). Benjamin says further that the brass plates were engraved in the language of the Egyptians. These brass plates had been in the possession of Laban and his ancestors, until they were taken from Laban's treasury by Nephi. Thus the concept of an ancient record, passed on from one generation to another, runs through and binds together the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses, and the Book of Abraham. Furthermore, we are led to speculate that the Egyptian language was either the same as the language of Adam or was a modified version of it. And it seems very probable that the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar all came from the same source.
Bushman, Richard L. 1984. Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Herodotus. 1972. Herodotus: The Histories. Translated by Aubrey de Sélincourt. Revised by A. R. Burn. Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.
Howe, E. D. 1834. Mormonism Unvailed. Reprint. Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, n.d.
Lamb, M. T. 1887. The Golden Bible, or, The Book of Mormon; Is it from God? New York: Ward & Drummond.
Matthews, Robert J. 1975. "A Plainer Translation": Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible, A History and Commentary. Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press.
McConkie, Bruce R. 1966. Mormon Doctrine. 2d ed. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft.
Smith, Joseph. 1976a. Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Compiled by Joseph Fielding Smith. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company.
Smith, Joseph. 1976b History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 6 vols. 2d ed. rev. Edited by B. H. Roberts. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company.
Sperry, Sidney B. 1968. Book of Mormon Compendium. Salt Lake City: Bookcraft.
Tanner, Jerald and Sandra Tanner. 1982. Mormonism -- Shadow or Reality? 4th ed. Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry.
Quinn, D. Michael. 1998. Early Mormonism and the Magic World View. Revised and Enlarged. Salt Lake City: Signature Books.
Vogel, Dan, ed. 1996-2000. Early Mormon Documents. 3 vols. Salt Lake City: Signature Books.