The Book of Abraham and Scholarship: An Invitation

Why might a surviving physical instance of the ancient word, in plates or papyri, be requisite for some of our scriptures and not for others? Must "all records of ancient date" be physically present in order to be translated? Did Mosiah require the 24 gold plates to produce the world of the Jaredites? Did his own father need to go through all the fuss of "a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it" to interpret said engravings "by the gift and power of God" (Omni 1:20)? If Joseph Smith could translate without the Interpreters, did he need the papyri? 

God chose such media for His own purposes, says Hugh Nibley, but inspired translation need not rely solely on them, and often not at all (Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, p. 51). The stela and the 24 gold plates stirred undreamt of questions; they awakened a lively sense of doom in hearts whose "lives passed away like as it were unto us a dream, we being a lonesome and a solemn people, wanderers, cast out from Jerusalem, born in tribulation, in a wilderness" (see Jacob 7:26). The Latter-day Church, also "born in tribulation" and about to be cast into the wilderness, likewise required for her escape from the dragon "ready to devour" something more than a random mummy or an unremarkable scrap of papyrus (see JST Revelation 12:4-5). There required a "welding link of some kind or other between the fathers and the children." Without some physical link, or tie, or bond to Abraham--though it demands the trial of faith to see even the translation as such--we could not be made perfect (see Doctrine and Covenants 128:18).

Gold plates attest to the reality of a lost and fallen people. There is a pattern: the 24 gold plates left in plain sight by Ether attest the Jaredite fall. The records, solid and surviving, vividly link us to wipe outs, forgotten palaces, secret societies, and stern prophetic warnings. They link us to glorious anticipations of the coming of the Son of God. And vitally, for the affirming of a new dispensation, Mormon's plates also served as the objective evidence to the 11 men permitted to stand as Book of Mormon witnesses.

As for the papyri, Joseph Smith, in good faith, put them on public display in both Kirtland and Nauvoo. All were invited to examine them and to find out what the hieroglyphs and figures conveyed. Hugh Nibley makes much of the matter of the open display and forthright invitation. If Brother Joseph had lived to see the closing decades of the 19th Century, many of the learned men of the times would have had the opportunity to see the collection, discuss it with the Mormon Prophet, and chime in on its significance.

The papyri proclaim to the world that Joseph Smith had 1) nothing to hide, 2) was willing to have his ideas and translations weighed in the balance of the learned, and 3) welcomed the participation of the learned in the open-ended quest for further light. He knew that Ancient Egypt was now open to the modern view. Though never describing or disclosing his method, Joseph Smith also never hesitated to publish his readings to a world agape. He never feared the test. Nothing about the Prophet's publication of the Book of Abraham shows contempt for scholarly method or for the 19th Century discovery of Ancient Egypt. He played fair--and the papyri so attest.

Some readers fuss over the lack of reference to Abraham in the extant Joseph Smith papyri, including the three facsimiles of Egyptian vignettes. Though descriptions of the roll containing Abraham's writings do not, at all, match the scraps we call the Book of Breathings, Hugh Nibley does note a parallel, peculiar and specific in wording, tying the title of that book to Abraham 2:24-25. (Joseph Smith emphasizes titles.) Isis makes a Book of Breathings for her brother, Osiris, so that his soul may live. Sarah in Egypt, and in Egyptian idiom, so intervenes for Abraham that his soul may live. As for Facsimile 2 (the hypocephalus), its hieroglyphic text 1) addresses the god as both "noble" and "great"; 2) features (so Nibley) a prayer for rescue, that is, resurrection; and 3) hints at "the name of that great god" (Figure 1); who came into existence in 4) "the first time"; and 5) thence "came down" to save Osiris so-and-so. The match between the words, phrases, and themes found on this and other hypocephali and words, phrases, and themes found throughout the chapters of Abraham again partakes of the peculiar and the specific. I don't think so, says one. Go to my house, and I'll take up the lexicon: "The name of the great one is Kolob" in Abraham 3 answers to hieroglyphs labeling figure 1 of the hypocephalus: "The name of that great god."

Why gather such evidence? The marriage of history and scripture teaches us to better love both. Love of truth "as it really is" heralds no injurious purpose, breathes no coercive air (see Doctrine and Covenants 93). In the pursuit of the things of the Spirit, all sorts of surprises turn up. Nowhere in Hugh Nibley's writings do we find the word apologist. A better label for the man is sharer. Of evidence, Brother Nibley simply says: We need to show we're still in the game, so the honest in heart will be willing to take a second look.

Whereas Latter-day Saints have no obligation to prove anything to anybody, we are not going to stand by while persons learned and unlearned drum boring, self-righteous condemnation. And after 50 years the repetition of answered objections does start to bore. Besides, such repetition has never moved the scriptural foundation of faith. Abraham talked with God face-to-face.

We invite thorough, thoughtful, patient assessment of every particle of data and of every thread of argument. Forget the label apologist. We are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints shouldering a mandate to share His Gospel with the world (Matthew 28:19-20).

You might as well attempt to terrify God upon His throne (to borrow a phrase from Brigham Young), as to terrify Latter-day Saints with the "consensus" or the "conclusions" of scholarship. Hectoring cannot replace quiet thought or balanced discussion. Scripture endures--and as the Book of Abraham itself shows, it can span the millennia.

No matter how it was read, and no matter just how much of Abraham's or of Joseph's writings Joseph Smith had in his keeping, Abraham did deposit a record in Egypt. What we now have in translation is the fragment of a record claiming to have been built up by Abraham around yet older books, themselves divinely preserved: "the records of the fathers, even the patriarchs, concerning the right of Priesthood"--a trace of library (Abraham 1:31). And that is why the papyri, drawn inexorably to the Latter-day Joseph and held in his hands as tangible sign of Restoration, had to contain a portion of the words of the fathers.

One thing exceeds all else in importance. Both plates and papyri, reflections the one of the other, came to light as modern, tangible testators of the resurrection. Jesus Christ is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob: And "He is not the God of the dead, but of the living" (Mark 12:32, and see esp. JST Mark 12:32). No matter how the Prophet translated plates, parchment, papyri, no matter the instruments he used--or whether he used any at all--no matter the lacunae; the very survival and attestation of at least some of the writings of Nephi and Moroni and of Abraham and Joseph, though merely abridgments, copies, or even traces, stand as material witness of a new dispensation and as an earnest of the resurrection. The recovered vignette of Facsimile 1 so concretely depicts Abraham's deliverance from death on the altar. And as cloud cumulus, all the Joseph Smith papyri, which came to light after being hid for millennia in a Theban tomb, also serve as witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Other like scriptural witnesses will yet make their like appearances. 

See also: http://valsederholm.blogspot.com/2014/08/i-learned-it-by-translating-says-joseph.html

Examining the Catalyst Theory and the Book of Abraham

By revelation or translation, as the case may be (Elder Bruce R. McConkie in 1985, 32 years ago)

Nonsensical is the oft-celebrated but never elucidated idea of an object, say, some mummy or random papyrus roll, serving as a "catalyst" to revelation. Both translations from ancient writings (Book of Mormon) and translations qua transmissions of the past (Book of Moses) came to Joseph Smith as a gift, by the medium of revelation--so why would things be any different with the book of Abraham? They aren't. Joseph Smith was indeed given Abraham's book by revelation, but the words of Abraham were also inkbrushed into a specific papyrus in his keeping, as he made very clear in his last sermon, given on June 16, 1844: "I learned it by translating the papyrus now in my house." (Thomas Bullock, the Prophet's most exacting secretary, transcribed the sermon.)

Here we see Joseph's childlike capacity for receiving knowledge from any channel God might open for investigation and advancement, including hieratic script. Do we have the same childlike capacity? "I learned a test[imony] concerning Abraham and he reasoned concerng the God of Heaven--in order to do that sd he--suppose we have two facts that supposes that anotr fact may exist two men on the earth--one wiser than the other--wod shew that antr who is wiser than the wisest may exist--intelligences exist one above anotr that there is no end to it." "Abra reasoned thus" (Grove East of Temple, Thomas Bullock reporting, The Words of Joseph Smith, ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, 380).

Mind and hieroglyph met; then the Spirit infused Joseph's mind with pure intelligence--but it has to be the right hieratic text or the right Egyptian vignette, not some random roll. The linguistic, historical, cultural, and literary evidence of such a meeting and of such spiritual infusion appears everywhere in both the book of Abraham and what of the Joseph Smith Papyri we now hold, so let us soldier on and never concede the game while the ball is so clearly in our court--and especially when we no longer have all the papyrus once owned by the Prophet. And let's do stop puzzling over the fact that Abraham's name nowhere appears in extant fragments, or wondering whether Joseph the Seer, though a true Prophet indeed, might also have been a bit of "a visionary man," sometimes carried away like Lehi by "the foolish imaginations of his heart," or perhaps merely a product of his times, who simply judged amiss (and no harm done) in respect of what we loosely and hastily deem ordinary funerary texts (see 1 Nephi 2:11). "Imaginations?" No. The specificity of correspondence between what we do have and what Joseph Smith unabashedly published to the world as "the Sacred record"--his exact words--affords us all we could ever ask for, and more, as evidence for his "high gift" of translation (Mosiah 8:14; Joseph Smith Papers, Journal 1:135, "Sacred record" is written in the Prophet's own hand).


If that's not cause for rejoicing, what is?



I have a question for Latter-day Saint students who yet "ponder these things in their hearts," and in asking the question recognize that it may take decades for it to be taken up or even acknowledged. Yet here is the question--and let future generations judge. We may presume to explain, analyze, or even reinterpret how Brother Joseph once interpreted; we may posture and speculate and look at things "through the lens" of this and that; we may give talks, spin off articles, and write books that repetitively and endlessly appeal to a sophisticated view of the matter; but can we ever be justified in not coming to grips with the full weight of the Egyptian evidence, as shown by plain, translated, correspondence of text to text, of papyrus to Abraham? Can one look in a mirror and not see the reflection? 

And what of the 19th century sources?

It's a powerful and a wonderful thing for each of us to reflect on how posterity, not popularity or a friend's book review, will be the final judge. Future readers more attuned to evidence than theory--readers of the primary documents in the Joseph Smith Papers--will readily note which ideas, comments, or footnotes merit being dissolved, put down, made an end of, destroyed, cancelled, dismissed, or in other words: catalyzed (see Liddle and Scott, Greek Lexicon). Posterity can cut a road right through the "definitive." Or what does the "last word" matter decades--or even days--after the last full stop on that final chapter falls? 

Consider both 1) the Gospel Topics Essay, "Historicity and Translation of the Book of Abraham" and 2) the introductory material and notes in the Kirtland Documents volume of the Joseph Smith Papers. These both example loose and ambiguous sentences, wildly incorrect assessments about the nature of hieroglyphic script, or of any logographic script whatsoever, and complete misunderstanding about what contemporaneous Americans knew of Champollion. 

Does the "last word" matter even moments after the last full stop on the final chapter falls?

No. If wrong, the last word is a dead letter--and posterity will both blush and trumpet.

Looking to the decades ahead, a period when reassessment will matter more than advertisement, I would invite posterity to consider how the hieroglyphic texts on the hypocephalus, that is, Facsimile 2 of the Book of Abraham, show startling resemblances to the words and themes of the Book of Abraham. We can start with five examples. First, consider the theme of Descent and Rescue, which the Prophet also associates with Facsimile 1. Hugh Nibley noticed the shared theme--but his books have plunged out of favor. The iconography on the hypocephalus also charts the line of Patriarchal descent, no surprise to Egyptologists, but Latter-day Saints will note how the Book of Abraham opens with the very same theme of patriarchal lineage, authority, and government (see David Klotz, Adoration of the Ram: Five Hymns to Amun-Re from Hibis Temple, Yale, 2011). Or have we duly considered the correspondence in the text on Facsimile 2 between the "noble" and "great" god (as found on the middle panels) and the theme of the "noble and great ones" in Abraham Chapter 3? or the hieroglyphs describing the name of Facsimile 2, figures 1 and 2, and the like words describing Kolob in Abraham 3? The eye-popping Enish-go-on-dosh forcibly recalls several names of attested stellar and planetary bodies (Tosh-iat-hut-ins; Har-Tash-Tawy; Hor-ko-pi-ranef-siu-yaminty-jo-pi), and some preliminary yet etymologically and culturally sound explanations of this unusual name may be put forward based on these parallels. I see the name as referring to the Female Sun, the exalted (go) and beautiful (on) Red (dosh) Solar Eye (Enish, Dosh). And does not Brother Joseph connect Enish-go-on-dosh with both cow and sun?  To quote Brother Joseph  about his work of translation and transmission, the hypocephalus was the one of the papyri "now in my house."
(For "noble and great," see http://bit.ly/16190Ik .)

What the Prophet saw in the Abraham vignettes gave specific and peculiar detail about Abraham's unique history, teachings, and blessings. Indeed on two of the vignettes, says Brother Joseph, we find the signifier, or hieroglyphic signature: Abraham in Egypt. So much for Abraham not appearing on any of the papyri now in our hands. Nor is that the only reference to Abraham in the papyri. Hugh Nibley, who gives sound evidence for the signature of the lotus as the welcoming gesture for visitors such as an Abraham in Egypt, also notes the parallel in idiom between Isis composing the Book of Breathings on behalf her brother, Osiris, "so that his soul might live" and Sarah shielding Abraham, her "brother," "so that his soul might live" (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Abraham; Abraham in Egypt). That an Egyptian priest should later use the same vignettes to illustrate his own priestly offices and his own hopes of eternal life does not in the least nullify the gift to see "the root of the matter." The Seer did not only interpret or translate the representations and the hieroglyphs on Facsimile 3 as they now stand; he translated writing and image as it once stood on an original stela or papyrus, from whence our version was taken (see Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt). "Speaking of a typical ritual scene like Facsimile No. 3, 'Despite the bizarre iconography. . . the great spiritual significance of the idea which inspired it must be patent to all who contemplate it'" (Ibid., 123 quoting S.G.V. Brandon, Numen 5, 112). Joseph Smith once said: "If I have sinned, I have sinned outwardly; but surely I have contemplated the things of God" (Teachings: Joseph Smith, Chapter 45). Joseph Smith surely contemplated "the great spiritual significance" of what he saw on the papyri! Do we?


The gap yawns widely here, from Abraham to the Ptolemies, but the pure doctrine of the Book of Mormon prepares the mind. There, the tutoring about seers and their stones gets very specific: "things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known" (Mosiah 8:17). Why, when we gladly receive, line-upon-line, new doctrines and truths from the Prophet, should we "murmur and dispute" (3 Nephi 27:4) over his revealing to us something we deem impossible and "which otherwise could not be known"? Receptivity reaches out not only to the unknown but also to the unknowable, including the lost. It's all for our benefit: "therefore he becometh a great benefit to his fellow beings" (Mosiah 8:18). The Lord encouraged Oliver Cowdery, in April 1829, to "translate and receive knowledge from all those ancient records which have been hid up, that are sacred," even "engravings of old records" that would benefit all humankind as "parts of my scripture" (Doctrine and Covenants 8:1, 11). And note that last phrase: "parts of my scripture." The concrete nature of the engraved ancient records is telling, and we again recall the 24 gold plates of Ether discovered by the startled troop sent by Limhi to discover something else; the troop did not find the city of Zarahemla, the temporal hope of welcome and of rescue, but they did find a record replete with the nurture and the admonition of the Lord. 

There is many a "missing papyrus."

Or, should we perhaps erase the name Elkenah appearing on the Bashan stela, simply because concrete stelae and papyri and vigette rich in relevant text don't fit our theories about catalyst, pure revelation, and inspiration? The tour guides at the Church History Library triumphantly insist that "pure inspiration" obviates any need to study the papyrus fragment before them. How wonderfully convenient! Joseph Smith received all by pure inspiration, so why study the Joseph Smith papers, the papyri, or languages, tongues, history, or anything else "pertaining to the Kingdom of God"? The mantra about the Bible being enough, mutatis mutandis, morphs into the Internet or pure inspiration being enough. 

We didn't expect the Bashan stela, but neither did Joseph Smith expect the record of Abraham. We can't help it, and neither could he. A turn of the spade, or a flash of Lidar, spells astonishment as old worlds swim into ken at a furious rate unabated since the early 19th century.
http://valsederholm.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-god-of-elkenah-in-hieroglyphs-and.html

Receptive Oliver Cowdery, writing in 1835 to a newsy innkeeper in Gilead, Illinois, already dismissed the idea of the relics as "catalyst": "Though the Mummies themselves are a curiosity, and an astonishment, and well calculated to arouse the mind to a reflection of past ages. . .yet I do not consider them of much value compared with those records which were deposited with them" (The Messenger and Advocate, December 1835, p.237). That is to say, with all due respect to Howard Carter's "wonderful things"--golden sarcophagi! mummies! alabaster vases!--Abraham's name on papyrus came as a sweeping surprise! The records, says Joseph, "have fallen into our hands"--accident or miracle--and, astonishingly, "purport to be the writings of Abraham, while in Egypt." The word purport, as every reader notes, clarifies the relation of papyrus to Abraham: something penned on papyrus, and understood by Joseph Smith, is making a claim. Claim and ink and papyrus and translation are one in Joseph's hands.

The Prophet, while taking the claim as occasion for rejoicing, needed neither relic nor relict to awaken his mind to Abraham and Joseph. Already in 1831 Joseph Smith, for the New Bible, had translated qua transmission what we might call books of Moses, of Enoch, and of Abraham, complete with remarkable textual expansions on Genesis. These expansions include an elaborate prophecy attributed to Joseph in Egypt, one showing striking variants from the very same prophecy as previously translated from the Book of Nephi. By 1835 there were already wheels within wheels.

This fresh Genesis Abraham forms part of Joseph Smith's New Translation of the King James Bible from the King James Bible. But do such changes to the Genesis narrative also prove the Bible to have served as some sort of metaphorical "catalyst?" Study of Scripture alone cannot prompt new Scripture transmitted directly from ancient texts predating our Bible. Small changes in Biblical wording aside, we should not speak of the New Translation of the Bible itself, but of the New Translation of prior gospel dispensations from concrete records long lost to view. The language of the Translation more or less recalls the English of the Authorized Version, but the remove of the New Reading from the Old makes up a mighty span. The Old Bible alone could never bridge that gap.

Joseph translated with a clear idea or two in mind: 1) the English Bible is often obscure and even obscurantist; 2) the Bible does not contain all the prophetic word necessary for our salvation. Beyond the tangles of transmission, translation, and archaic English, there were precious writings lost. Nephi lays out the matter in great plainness. God always stands ready to reveal more Scripture to generations who treasure up His word. And though Joseph in Egypt prophesied the restoration of much of God's word, he never said to expect plate-bearing angels at every turn (2 Nephi 3). Much of ancient Joseph's prophecy appeared on plates; God provided other means to reveal the rest.

While Hugh Nibley insists on Joseph translating from tangible plates and papyri, no matter how he did it and no matter whether he--"taking flight"--saw and translated beyond the extant records, the "true meaning" of translation accords with Joseph's role as transmitter. Joseph Smith brings the words of truth, temporally and spatially scattered throughout all nations, kindreds, tongues, and peoples, back again. (He also "brought the Priesthood back again.") The missing records, found on various media and written in various tongues, were all once as tangible as the plates and papyri, but by the medium of miraculous transmission we have them in English alone. For that matter, with the sole exception of one Egyptian vignette, the facsimiles of two other vignettes, and a transcription or two of a few reformed Egyptian characters--all traces of the genuine article--we have Mormon and Abraham solely in English. As Nibley puts it: The Book of Mormon is the only ancient text written and available solely in a modern language. The book of Abraham, then, pending recovery of the specific papyrus, must be the sole hieratic text found only in English. Even so, an Egyptian idiom peppers it. (See Hugh Nibley, Message of the Papyri, Chapter 3: "Translated Correctly?")

Joseph Smith's lifelong study of scripture repeatedly opened the windows of heaven--from 1820 on. When young Joseph read James 1:5, the Holy Ghost, prompting, impressed upon him the desire to pray for wisdom, but shall we label the Epistle of James the catalyst of the Restoration? Is the King James Bible the ready and sufficient inspiration for the New Translation's sweeping views of Adam, Enoch, Noah, Moses, and Abraham?

A catalyst denotes "a substance that alters the rate of reaction with other chemicals, but does not itself undergo any permanent change." Joseph changed the Bible. Though "widely used in metaphor to suggest any agent of change," catalyst lends itself to misuse, which prompts a new style guide to warn: "Beware this weasel word" (The Wordsworth Dictionary of Modern English Grammar, Syntax and Style for the 21st Century). Fancy words replace the need for thought.

Besides, since the catalytic agent is, among other things, that element which "remains unchanged in the process," "the term [catalyst] will scarcely do for an active participant." Is the papyrus discovery "the event that sets it [translation] off?" No one ever said anything else: one discovery sets off another. The question remains How one discovery set off another? How the Book of Abraham came into being and What the published or translated book has to do with Egyptian papyri purchased by the Prophet? (Wilson Follett, Erik Wensberg Modern American Usage: A Guide, 228).

I reframe the question: Did the Egyptian papyri play an active part in mediating the translation of the Book of Abraham? Yes. One need only consider the three distinct, though thematically related, Egyptian vignettes introduced into the body of the book. Each comes with point-by-point prophetic explanation--the matching numbers also etched onto painstakingly crafted facsimiles of the vignettes--that changes, even transfigures, symbolic representations on papyrus into what the Lord calls a part of "my scripture"--not ours, but His alone. The drawings themselves are not Scripture, insists Brother Nibley, though the accompanying explanations are. The vignettes, grafted onto Scripture, flourish with new life. Add to the transformation from vignette to annotated facsimile the reference found in Abraham Chapter One to the various figures depicted in the first vignette, and it becomes plain as a pikestaff--as Brother Joseph would say--just how active a role at least some of the papyri played in the revelation of Scripture.

The papyri, once the Prophet had translated the title the book of Abraham, did move him to take up "the dispensation of the gospel of Abraham" more quickly than he otherwise might have done. There's the catalyst: he promptly began to translate. The coming of Elias and Elijah in 1836 with priesthood keys also stirred him to doctrinal reflection. Did the papyri propel him forward? No. Joseph Smith took his time--seven full years--to study and to ponder before publication. Some catalyst!--a slow burn rather. Again, remember that the Prophet had already recorded startling details about Abraham's life, teachings, visions, revelations, and covenants in his New Translation of the Bible from other lost writings of Abraham. These revealed additions and adjustments to the biblical record, never published in Brother Joseph's lifetime, come as close to matching in length, as they certainly do in substance, the wee 14 pages of the Book of Abraham. Put simply, the Prophet spent over a decade pondering the good news revealed to Abraham. The papyri were as much retardant as catalyst to translation.

Two are the restored books of Abraham; two, the modes of translation, or transmission. Yes, but exactly how does the catalyst come into play in either case? The notion of either printed Bible or penned papyri as catalyst dissolves into thin air. Catalyst assumes its pride of place among "Words owing their vogue to the joy of showing one has acquired them" (Fowler, "Vogue Words," q.v.). When it comes to papyri and Abraham that joy simply exceeds all bounds. Why? One word, evoked as if by magic, solves all--in catalytic flash--rendering further thought unnecessary. Another "joy": "pure revelation" (as opposed to what?). Now, there are worse things than catalyst: to wit, catalyst theory--I've shuddered at the phrase for decades. It comes to us not from chemistry but from sixties legalese. Anyone attuned to words gapes at monsters such as the following: catalyst theory, catalyst theories(!), missing papyrus theory, redaction theory, retardant theory, just-about-any theory, Vorgang, process, bring about a process, catalyze a process, trigger an event, by pure revelation, translating word-for-word, literal translation. Scripture supplies: gift, sight, power, high gift, great power, provided a means, through faith, work mighty miracles, sealed up, in its purity.

Let's arrive at an axiom: seeric translation belongs to that class of things "babes in Christ" "cannot understand" (see 1 Corinthians 3:1; Jacob 4:14). We desire things we cannot understand and, in "the solemnity of science," summon words to "process" ideas rather than to ex-plain them (Follett, "Scientism," q.v.). We need a plain word: a mummy, a papyrus roll, a Scripture, does not catalyze; it prompts, hints, suggests, awes, invites, entices, inspires.

Even in the New Translation, the Prophet worked from text seen and from (the idea of) text unseen. Had he then known Hebrew, had a critical text of the Hebrew Bible or anything even remotely like an Urtext or Laban's Brass Plates been available to him, he certainly would have worked with the better texts. The English Bible was not merely a symbol of the prophetic past, a Great Code to reference and to rework; it was for the first years his only available avenue to that past. No wonder he so treasured the gift of the Hutter Polyglot: it gave him wings! Joseph recognized his indebtedness to Jewish Masorete and Gentile Reformer alike, and he not only pored over Hebrew, he came to prefer Luther's Testament to the Authorized Version (see 2 Nephi 29:4). As for Abraham, a scribal copy of his own writings on papyrus happened to be extant; then available, sold, bought, and read--even "by revelation or translation, as the case may be," as Elder Bruce R. McConkie puts it with plainness. And there we can let it rest (Bruce R. McConkie, "The Doctrinal Restoration," in eds. Monte S. Nyman, and Robert L. Millet, The Joseph Smith Translation: the Restoration of Plain and Precious Things [1985], 21).


Treasure in the Field

There is a law of efficiency. We must ask why Joseph, most inefficiently, "encouraged some of the Kirtland Saints to purchase four mummies and the papyri for $2,400, a large sum when money was desperately needed for other projects" (Richard L. Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 186). Couldn't the catalyst have quickened things up? inspiration struck? Might not even a fleeting aroma of papyrus and mummy wake the Patriarchal Age? Couldn't an angel, perhaps Abraham himself, have brought the rolls, rather than the shadowy showman, Chandler? A righteous man from Abraham's day visited the Kirtland Temple just months later; he could have brought Abraham's record, when he restored Abraham's priesthood keys. Or, could not a visionary glimpse of a concrete but lost autobiography of Abraham serve the prophetic sight so well as purchased papyri? Yes, and yes--but no. We mustn't miss the point. The papyri signified: like the plates, not only did they manifest the prophetic word, they also came as link and sign.

Joseph purchased the costly rolls and mummies solely because some bold writing on the rolls, even a specific title which he claimed to understand, purported to contain the writings of Abraham while in Egypt: The Book of Abraham Written by His Own Hand upon Papyrus. That's the ancient title as worded in the ancient idiom, says Hugh Nibley. And he with the "high gift" read that title and--"for joy"--went out and raised $2,400.

Joseph Smith and the Translation of Words of Fundamental Doctrinal Significance: A Quest for Purity of Meaning

Where the salvation of the human family is at stake, neither scholarly "translation" nor scholarly bafflement will do. The difference between all others who translate from dead languages and the Prophet Joseph is that living touch with living mind, with living idea, with gospel truth, which requires neither dictionary nor grammar. The God of Abraham is not the God of the dead but of the living. Joseph translated the languages of the Living, and with living tongues of fire.

Not that the merely human endeavor deserves despite. Joseph Smith studied Greek, Hebrew, and German; he also pondered and preached from Elias Hutter's old polyglot New Testament (Nuremberg, 1602): Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German. A convert had given Brother Joseph the Testament in Nauvoo, and he seemed to treasure it in the same way he treasured the papyri. He naturally tried his hand as student translator, and even at emending unclear places (an irresistible game for any student of Biblical languages). And he made his mistakes, as all students must. But even while wrapped in study, he sought the further inspiration of God.

Study weds faith in the journal entry of 19 January 1836: "Spent the day at school; the Lord blessed us in our studies. This day we commenced reading in our Hebrew Bibles with much success. It seems as if the Lord opens our minds in a marvelous manner to understand His word in the original language." A breathtaking prayer follows: "And my prayer is that God will speedily endow us with a knowledge of all languages and tongues" (see Joseph Smith Papers: Journal I:164). "All languages" evokes Mosiah's "all records which are of ancient date"; it also points to the Prophet's powerful desire to bring the Gospel to all people.

The Nauvoo discourses show several translations, emendations, or transcendent explanations of Greek, Hebrew, and even German words and phrases. "Salvation" we always understand to be a matter of heaven and hell; yet "salvation," "heaven," and "hell" bear interpretive cargoes of connotation and comment. Joseph sought to set words free. 

He wondered about the origin of paradise: "find the origin of Paradise--find a needle in a hay mow" (11 June 1843, Willard Richards report, The Words of Joseph Smith, 211). The word comes from either the Avestan pairidaeza or Old Persian paradayadam or paridaidam, but Joseph didn't need to know that to translate. Knowledge of Persian, could he have attained to that grace, would have availed nothing. Translation required translation: Joseph, like Paul, knew a man who had been caught up to the spiritual world--and that rapture more than sufficed. Paradise signified "a world of spirits," not heaven, as the divines would have it (Roland Kent, Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon [1950], 195: Av. an enclosure, walled garden; OP "perhaps 'pleasant retreat'"; "that which is beyond or behind the wall"; Gr paradeisos "park").

Words like paradise and hell--and perhaps a dozen other English words in the Authorized Version--with all their accumulated signatures, were, at essence, made-up words: "a modern word," he says. They were signifiers pointing to nothing a seer might glimpse yonder. "Five minutes" scanning heaven would overthrow all dusty books, he claimed. Uninspired translators foisted such words on the language, and in the language they were destined to remain as stumbling blocks to truth.

To get at inspired translation requires cutting new channels of thought. "You must study it out in your mind," while waiting on the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 9). We encounter Sheol, a word which the eager Hebrew student translates, well, Sheol. . . or grave or pit. "Sheol--who are you? God reveals. means a world of spirits--I don't think so says one. Go to my house I will take my lexicon" (211). We go with Joseph and look at his lexicon: "the lower world, the region of ghosts, the orcus or hades of the Hebrews" (Josiah W. Gibbs lexicon; see Journals I:107 n. 159). Note the marriage of lexicon and revelation, "by study and also by faith" (Doctrine and Covenants 88). "A world of spirits," in place of grave or pit, may not seem an earthshaking translation of Hebrew Sheol, but it opens onto a brave new world. Sheol is not hell; Paradise not heaven--both signify another place along the way to immortality and eternal life. Joseph saw Sheol, knew Sheol--and that seeric certainty, now confirmed by the lexicon, is what he translates for his auditors. It remains for us to wrestle with the implications. 

And note how such concern for Hebrew words of fundamental doctrinal significance, words to be grasped in their purity, matches the attention he gives to the Hebrew words in Book of Abraham Chapter 3 and in the explanations of the Abraham facsimiles. For Brother Joseph, use of a lexicon serves to carry the seeker beyond translation by tradition; it's a first foray into a purer realm of language, a realm free from the splintered light show of learned commentary, a realm where signifiers point at what seers saw--then God reveals.

Many Germans congregated at the grove where he preached. But that only encouraged Joseph to translate Luther's Bible in startling new ways. He would boldly ask his German hearers to weigh-in, even on his pronunciation, and they would respond.

Joseph never claimed mastery of German, though he daringly read from the Hutter polyglot before thousands; neither did he fuss over the possibility of contradiction from some crotchety grammarian. There is some fun in it all--yet, without hesitation, he shared his surmisings about this or that verse. He is clear, when so discoursing, about the two-step act of prophetic translation; even when the second, spiritual step, interwoven as it is with sessions of prayerful thought, can neither be reached nor replicated, unless his listeners also work by faith.

The method remains mysterious, as mysterious as thought itself, though the result of such translation recalls the lost-wax technique of casting precious metal objects. The treasured wonder alone remains, a substantial idea that can be weighed, tested, admired. The Prophet simply could not rest with the fragmentary knowledge and imaginary flights of scholarship; he sought greater light and knowledge; worked at it until he got it; then shared his revelations and translations with a spiritually thirsting world (see Neal A. Maxwell, "How Choice a Seer," October Conference 2003; For the Hutter polyglot, see http://bit.ly/18s941p).

The Title Page of the Book of Mormon and the Translation of the Book of Abraham

Joseph Smith describes the title page of the Book of Mormon as "a literal translation," even "a genuine and literal translation," of the last unsealed gold plate. In only one other instance does the Prophet specify the original locus of a particular place in scripture: Abraham Chapter 3 derives "from the papyrus now in my house." In other words, Visit my house, and I'll be glad to show you the very hieroglyphs I translated. And note how Joseph, when speaking of the particular gold plate that serves as title page, correlates one plate to one page. Other plates may translate into three or four pages of English, but the point remains: Here is no mystical, pre-decipherment "reading" of hieroglyphs as Symbol, wherein each sign contains of itself sufficient capacity to supply many sentences of esoterica. No. Joseph Smith has been lambasted for, supposedly, believing a single hieroglyph in Egyptian could stand for many words, even paragraphs, in English. That may describe Athanasius Kircher; Joseph Smith can speak for himself. Joseph, who compares the Egyptian writing on the last plate to "all Hebrew writing in general," sees all hieroglyphs, formed or reformed or whatever, as a "running" script. That's his word. "Running": nothing could be more clear (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 60-61).

We accordingly see Joseph Smith at pains to supply the right adjectives. "The English version" "of the very last leaf" of "the original Book of Mormon" is a "genuine and literal translation" from the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Book of Abraham aims to be "a correct translation." Further, the English version of the Book of Mormon title page "is not by any means a modern composition, either of mine or of any other man." Some wonder whether Joseph Smith himself composed the Book of Abraham solely as an inspired vehicle for introducing a transcendent doctrine--a symbolic link to a symbolic rather than an historical past. Those few so supposing would describe prophetic "trans-lation" as an ingenious re-imaging or re-imagining of the ancient scriptural heritage--a justifiable theological enterprise--and, by so describing, think to detach and thus save inspired comment and composition from the imperatives of scholarship. It doesn't take much imagination, though, to hear the Prophet's frank response: Neither is the Book of Abraham "a modern composition, either of mine or of any other man who has lived or does live in this generation."

As for the revealed explanations of the three Book of Abraham facsimiles, these, too, are not a composition "of any other man who has lived or does live in this generation"--the imprimatur of Joseph the Seer lies powerfully upon them.

Great Inequality: Alma Chapter 4:12-14

A distinct, and distinctly poetic, section in Alma Chapter 4, introduced by verse 11 but which properly comprises verses 12-14, begins with the statement: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people," and ends with a forward look to "the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ." We can name this little section: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people."

12 Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted.

13 Now this was a great cause for lamentations among the people, while others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy;

14 Looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.

Anyone reading that first sentence in verse 12 today might recall something or other said by Bernie Sanders (or anybody else) in the 2016 presidential campaign. "Great inequality among the people" describes our own condition. But America's in the midst of a troubled political campaign, a campaign that evokes those described in Alma Chapter 2 or Helaman Chapter 1, so I hate to weigh in. You read those chapters--then just stick around for 2020 or 2028. In the midst of "great disputations" we go.

Where did all these people in needy Zarahemla come from? The first three chapters of Alma make it clear: a swift and terrible civil war had also led to a foreign invasion. By war's end, flocks and farms were left desolate; there was many a widow and many an orphan. These displaced and dispossessed flocked into the capital parts of the country, and were likely to be seen on every street corner in Zarahemla. Today I think of the lovely, the urbane, the literary, the moral, the pious, that stream from war-torn Syria. I liken Alma's words to our day in the history of the Church.

In Alma's book everyone's continuously on the run, war is perennial, and inequality and inequity--and iniquity--are principal themes.

How does Alma take up the theme? In various ways. But in chapter four, Alma summons an array of verbs that contrast how different types of people address inequality. He clearly gives us two groups of people; I don't mean to say the haves and the have nots, rather the give nots and the givers. Yet Alma's dynamic verbal description of how different people address inequality goes beyond two distinct or stereotyped groups: he's looking for verbs that cover the ground attitudinally, and he also gives us various little verbal pictures of service.

The second group, the givers of various sorts, are both more active and thus also more alive--they feel more of both pain and joy; the first group remains hauntingly distant: they stand and turn, but the one emotion is that of despite. Despite knows neither sorrowing, suffering, nor joy. Despite may not indeed be an emotion at all, but only a stance. To despise is to pretend to feel or to think something; but, you've turned away now, so we'll never know if a fluttering of the heart shows any life or not.

An array of verbs thus marches past us in Alma's three verses:

lifting (themselves up), despising, turning (their backs), abasing (themselves), succoring, imparting, feeding, suffering (for Christ's sake), looking forward, retaining (a remission of their sins), being filled (with great joy).

Those who lift themselves up contrast nicely with those who abase themselves. Lifting themselves up and turning--Who are these? Approached by the poor--these could be lesser judges or the like, who sit at the gate--they stand to show their glitter and glory, and despite, then turn and walk away. Maybe they do not stand as tall as they think; thus they turn and slink away. But all the needy see is total rejection. Fast comes the sinking feeling in the stomach. There were great lamentations among the people, for these were not street beggars, but those about to perish--the orphans of war.

The other group does not stand on approach, it kneels or bows in greeting--and then runs (suc-cor) to the aid. Here the suffering is shared. There's going to be a price for serving the needy. As you impart, you drain yourself away--you must come to hunger. Abasing, succouring, imparting, feeding--the verbs are very active here, and lend pictures to the mind. But passive "suffering" also inevitably follows. And there's a second reason for suffering: Though they have stood up and turned and walked away, the despisers are never far off, and are ever going to harass and harangue both the have nots and the give alls.

The verbal train also shows that feeding and clothing the poor is never going to be sufficient--the burden will be too great: for the poor ye have always with you--which also means that help from most members of society is never forthcoming. Looking forward is the only solution. So the verbs continue: looking forward while yet serving, and serving so unceasingly that the heart is ever more and more being filled with great and greater joy, as we all await both the salvation of the poor and the all-rectifying resurrection of the dead by the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ.

Doctrine and Covenants 56:18-19 promises that the poor "shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs. For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice."