Book of Mormon Sources and Abridgment and iPhones. What does Helaman or even "Deutero-Isaiah" Show?

We take up the Book of Helaman and, starting with its ancient title page, see in the very last line: "the record of Helaman and his sons, even down to the coming of Christ, which is called the book of Helaman, and so forth." (Et cetera: The 1830 edition shows an ampersand; in today's edition we see "and so forth.") The Book of Helaman, and so forth? The very last verse of the work significantly answers, in ring composition, to the last line of that title page: "And thus ended the book of Helaman, according to the record of Helaman and his sons."

There's still more to that ampersand: Helaman, and so forth, is not only full of Mormon's summarizing comments, it is a "book" "according to the records of Helaman, who was the son of Helaman, and also according to the records of his sons, even down to the coming of Christ--wonderfully down to Christmas! (The last phrase is part of the ancient title, and states the thesis of the whole: the Christ is coming.) 

Helaman was the governor and Chief Judge of the Nephites. Who were his sons? Nephi and Lehi. Nephi clearly wrote, but here we learn that Lehi likewise kept his records and that either Nephi or Mormon later added what Lehi wrote to his father's book. All this detail comes from the short but labored and repetitious--and marvelously informative--title page. The headings and subheadings found throughout the Book of Mormon are easy to overlook: the Book of Helaman, for instance, includes ancient subheadings introducing both the prophecies of Nephi and those of Samuel.



And note how the pairing of Nephi and Lehi and that of Nephi and Samuel (in the divisions of the Book of Helaman, son of Helaman), matches the book's pairing of such ancient prophets as Zenos and Zenock, Ezaias and Isaiah (Nephi and Jacob, Mosiah and Abinadi, Alma and Amulek). 

Ezaias and Isaiah? What's that all about? What we see is clearly the name Yesha'yahu given in two forms as a simple matter of differentiation; in other words, we see Isaiah and Isaiah, which could answer--might it not?--to First and Second (Deutero-) Isaiah, both of which were seemingly and surprisingly available to the Nephites. Might not these two Isaiahs, both prophets, have also been father and son? and perhaps also prophet and prophetic editor? When we consider the prophetic naming of Helaman's two sons (in Helaman 5), we should also bear in mind how two of Isaiah's sons, Shear-Jashub, Maher-shalal-hash-baz, bear names of sign and prophecy. Shear-Jashub refers to the Return, which is the burden of the second half of the book, or the "Second" Isaiah. "The Book of Isaiah the prophet, and so forth."

That's one way to look at things, a rather unitary way, and it's very much in line with what Hugh Nibley says in Since Cumorah: "If others than Isaiah wrote about half the words in the book, why do we not know their names? The answer is, because of the way is which they worked. They were (as it is now explained) Isaiah's own disciples or students," or his sons, grandsons, and so forth, ampersand. "If anything," says Nibley, "the Book of Mormon attests the busy reshuffling and reediting of separate pages of sacred writings that often go under the name of a single prophet."

The form of the name Ezaias, Ezias, Esaias, etc., in Greek, English, or whatever linguistic cast we may choose to present, functions merely as a semiotic pointer--this Isaiah, not that one. Each is absolutely swallowed up in the other anyhow, ampersand. One of the Nephite chosen Twelve bears the name Isaiah. Doctrine and Covenants 84 tells of yet another Isaiah, in this case semiotically, and thus simply, differentiated as Esaias, who "lived in the days of Abraham." Again, when Doctrine and Covenants 76 addresses all professing partisans, including "some of Esaias, and some of Isaiah," it helps to read the words as being a critique not only of an undue--even a nitpicking--sectarian devotion to a particular prophet or gospel dispensation or book of scripture or even spelling of a name, but also as a critique of overzealous devotion to some kinds of higher criticism: these are the true words of Isaiah, these not; this is genuine Peter, this not; Romans is Pauline, 2nd Timothy not; John is Johannine, the Revelation not; Nephi quotes Deutero-Isaiah and is therefore in error, Joseph Smith mistakenly refers to Elias as other than Elijah, and so forth. Some are thus partisans of such-and-such a theory; some of another. As disciples progress toward sainthood, we shed the partisan line, however learned it may seem, however we may have learned it, and no matter how much we have been draped in "all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto." And let's stop boasting about knowledge of biblical languages, as if a badge of supremacy. By the way, Brother Joseph's differentiation of Elias and Elijah is another instance of a metalinguistic and semiological indicator of difference for two men having the same name, Eliyahu, but different roles to play. How many stumble, or parade, over such matters!

The occurrence of the unusual--and the pairing of Ezaias and Isaiah is unprecedented--signals that the Book of Mormon has something to tell us. When the Doctrine and Covenants chimes in, it's time to perk up our ears.

The Book of Mormon (that is, ensconced Helaman) thus resolves, with deft plainness, a weighty and long-standing difficulty about quotations from what many consider a Deutero-Isaiah. Helaman's ampersand-plus-c(etera) and the side-by-side naming of two Isaiahs in both Helaman 8:20 and Doctrine and Covenants 76:100 together provide us with sufficient answer for those who dispute one Isaian chapter or another making an appearance in the Book of Mormon. As for a pre-exilic Deutero-Isaiah in Father Lehi's hands, consider the chapters his son Nephi includes in his own double book, and what he leaves out--then get over it. Nephi left Jerusalem with a unitary copy of Isaiah, etc. It's as simple as that. (Nephi includes Isaiah 48-49 in his own first book; Isaiah 2-14, and then 29, in his second book; Isaiah 50-52, 55, in Nephi's brother Jacob's record, again in Nephi's second book. Mosiah and a Third Nephi (Trito-Nephi) include Isaiah 52-54.)

The later 20th Century scholarship confirms, says Hugh Nibley, how "the peculiar practices employed in the transmission of inspired writings in the Book of Mormon, as well as the theory and purpose behind those practices, are the very ones that prevailed in Palestine at the time Lehi lived there." Indeed: "We have come across a great tradition of prophetic unity that made it possible for inspired men in every age to translate, abridge, expand, explain, and update the writings of their predecessors without changing a particle of the intended meaning or in any way jeopardizing the earlier rights to authorship. Isaiah remains [one Isaiah], no matter how many prophets repeat his words or how many other prophets he is repeating. The Book of Mormon explains how this can be so, and its explanations would seem to be the solution to the Isaiah problem toward which the scholars are at present moving" (Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah). When Brother Nibley further cites Hans Wildberger about how Isaiah and Micah, in prophesying of the Mountain of the Lord's House, the Salt Lake Temple, may be quoting from "archaic ritual texts" (or a single ancient text?) might not the Book of Helaman also afford a solution to the "problem toward which scholars are at present moving?" Could that archaic source perhaps be Helaman's Ezaias? or yet another of the name?

That's the sort of thing for which readers should forever be on the lookout, for the Book of Mormon continually invites our awareness as it awakens and enlarges our memories. Just so, the Brass Plates, a supersized and up-to-date Library of Hebrew Scripture in Lehi's hands, once served "to enlarge" "the memory of [his] people" (see Alma 37).



As Professor James Sanders would tell his students: 'Scripture is full of itself''--consciously so. It's kaleidoscopic, with built-in intertextuality that serves a crucial purpose. If otherwise, "it were not possible," as Benjamin tells his sons of Lehi, that he [or we] could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children" (Mosiah 1:4). I'd add that "Scripture is also full of the latest world report and abounding in politics"--a BBC of sorts. (I'm thinking of the well-informed Prophets here--they were Prophets to the World.)

The wee but rich Book of Helaman, compressing 51 years into 38 columned pages, cites as vital sources and guiding points of reference: Amulek, Zeezrom, Alma, Nephi, Lehi, Joshua, Zenock, Zenos, Ezaias, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, Abraham, Lady Wisdom, Ether, Moses--and Messiah. Hugh Nibley, who labeled Helaman "the Book of Crimes," while also calling it the most spiritually charged book in the entire collection, further noted surprising correspondences between Helaman and the apocryphal Enoch literature, the Dead Sea Scrolls, etc. He filled the margins of his own copy with such references.

All that's not going to make for a once-over or easy reading. Helaman's going to require effort, its going to require checking the footnotes and reviewing other stories, so turn the TV off. Yet take away the words and deeds of these prophets, and the authorial expectation that the reader will know what he is referring to--the Red Sea, the Brazen Serpent, Elijah's contest with the priests of Baal, imprisoned Jeremiah--and the message of Helaman falls flat. We'll need Bible literacy to understand the Book of Mormon. On the other hand--so turn the tube back on--too much quoting from these prophets, and Helaman's own delicate narrative line would be lost. So when we speak of Mormon and abridgment, much of his work had to do with pruning citation, and ever more quotes and citation.

We only get the thousandth part of either citation or of story, or something like that, for a hundreth part," of these and many other matters, "cannot be contained in this work [the entire abridgment of the plates of Nephi]" (Helaman 3:14). Editing Mormon, who ultimately has access to "many books and many records of every kind" (v.15), including "many records," "which are particular and very large" (v.13) gives us a list of the 99%: wars, contentions, dissensions, preaching, prophecies, shipping, building of ships, building of temples, building of synagogues, sanctuaries, righteousness, wickedness, murders, robbings, plundering, abominations, whoredoms. The shipping and craftsmanship intrigues the acolyte of Rick Steves, but you'd want to avoid interacting with the tense, preachy, even violent, locals. Note how righteousness is hopelessly outnumbered: 1 to 6; note the ceaseless building, the restless troublers of civility.) Mormon still cannot help but include in his abridgment of Helaman's record what readers today might paradoxically call an "Omni-sized" but endlessly compelling note about far-reaching explorations into lovely, long since abandoned but yet timberless lands of lakes and rivers, the consequent building of houses, temples, synagogues, sanctuaries, and "all manner of their buildings" with cement, and the necessary shipping of timber. The description reminds us of Chaco Grande's timber-consuming construction--an ecological disaster. (Hugh Nibley would mull over this verse.)


To get a feel for Mormon as condenser, pick up a library copy of Ibn Ishaq, the first editor-biographer of the Prophet Muhammad, then scroll through a version online. The unabridged copy in the library, which stuns us with its prolixity, being "particular and very large," preserves the sourcing. It gives each particular isnad, or connecting chain tracing who reported what to whom, etc., while the online version frees the casual reader of such a ponderous chain of reference. What readers have, thanks to prophetic and judicious pruning, may be called the online Book of Mormon. It's all preset for ready reading on iPads and iPhones, and during TV commercials. . .
(For the uses of abridgment in packaging literary works for the media, ponder the following: http://grammarist.com/spelling/abridgment-and-abridgement/ .)

So find a chair--you'll need one--link to Helaman 1, and safely turn it over to your favorite news channel: politics and political theater, campaigns, disputed elections, accusations, curtailment of freedom of speech, growing skepticism, detection, elitism, corruption, collusion, gangs, crimes, assassinations, intense famines, ecological disasters, financial collapses, surprise attacks on urban centers, and ordinary people "visited with terror"--everything you get when the shield of protection slips from an America of favor and promise (see President Boyd K. Packer, Conference Report, April 2004; Elder Neal A. Maxwell, Conference Report October 2001). Such applies equally well to Venezuela or to the United States.

Keeping up with Helaman? You'll need a 24/7 cable news network.





Notes

Though I know no instance of it in print, likely others, perhaps even many other readers have noted the possibility of an Ezaias/Isaiah authorship or dual editorship of what we call the Book of Isaiah. My own thoughts on such a relationship, with the one prophet's name, identity, and book completely enveloped in the other's, simply derives from reading and thinking about Helaman 8 yesterday and today--30 June 2017, yet the idea builds on what Hugh Nibley presents in Since Cumorah, ideas I've mulled over since the age of 10 or 11. The Scriptures of the Restoration give us so many prophetic doubles, double books, "and so forth's." And there are so many possibilities in the Holy Scriptures. The Septuagint, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the New Testament all know but one Isaiah. The Book of Mormon, that great Scripture of the Restoration, with Ezaias and Isaiah, like Urim and Thummim, may show a double-Isaiah, or Isaian figure, likely father and son. It's moments like these in which Scripture enlarges our memory.

As a child, I often read from George Reynolds's Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, which describes Ezias (or Ezaias) as "An ancient Hebrew prophet, referred to by Nephi." Exactly! Because there are multiple kings and prophets in the Book of Mormon who are named Nephi, even Zenephi (Egyptian for "son of Nephi," z3-nb-hy), one particular Nephi might have talked about one Ezaias, another about another; one Isaiah may have spoken about a particular Nephi, or one Esaias of another--and so forth.


I will add that I accept without question that Isaiah's prophecy addressed to Cyrus by name came by the spirit of prophecy and of revelation and was recorded long before the great Cosmocrator appeared on the scene. Here is one of the great moments of prophecy in the history of the world. It is God who appoints a Cosmocrator--Cyrus himself recognized that (see the Cyrus Cylinder). As the Coffin Texts state: God knows every name.
See the various forms of the Ezaias name in the helpful: https://onoma.lib.byu.edu/index.php/EZIAS

2 Nephi 33:1, the Egyptian Tale of Petese, and the Corpus Hermeticum

"When a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost," says Nephi, "the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men:"

And now I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men (2 Nephi 33:1).

We can start thinking plainly about this scripture by noticing how Nephi favors speaking because of a perceived weakness inherent in writing, in his writing anyway. "I cannot write" is a theme that Moroni, the last living man trained in the scribal tradition of Lehi and Nephi, takes up again, and poignantly, at the end of the Book of Mormon. For Nephi, the immediacy of the spoken word is both personal gift and cultural value, but, here, rhetoric finds enhancement "by the power of the Holy Ghost" and thus becomes the "divine word" as well. 

To speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, is to speak "in a new tongue, yea, even with the tongue of angels" (2 Nephi 31). And might not writing also be done by the same power? Moroni, the final scribe, later explains that gift of writing with power as a higher gift, one possessed alone by the ancient Brother of Jared after the Flood and after the confounding Tower.

And who may qualify to speak by the power of the Holy Ghost, or the tongue of angels? Lehi, we are instructed, "received" this "power" "by faith in the Son of God" (1 Nephi 10:17).

As every reader knows, Nephi says he "makes my record in the language of the Egyptians," though his father had also taught him "in the learning of the Jews." "I cannot write," Nephi says, because writing and speech, for him, already stand far apart, writing in Egyptian is a far different matter than writing in Hebrew letters (as Moroni, at the end, also painfully observes.) Nephi, whose very name looks Egyptian (Nepri?), speaks a dialect of Hebrew (as evidenced throughout his record), reads the Hebrew of the courts (the Hebrew of Isaiah), yet also knows how to read and write in Egyptian language and script. We note that the Egyptian of Nephi's day includes much Hebrew or other West Semitic vocabulary. In other words, when Nephi speaks to his errant brethren, he catches the spirit of a Hebrew prophet at court, yet phrases all in what he calls the "plainness of my speech." When he records the same words, that is, when he translates and sets down the same words into Egyptian idiom and hieroglyphs, his plain preaching now appears to him markedly simple and bland. 

We may ask why it is that Nephi, a literate Hebrew, should give us a record "in the language of the Egyptians," especially when the record, for us, appears only in English? Moroni explains it as a way to save space on precious plates. When I contemplate the English version, I see a more profound reason for all that linguistic transfer; it works to place the record beyond and above the simplistic concerns of human language and commentary, and thus makes necessary the workings of the Holy Ghost in carrying the sacred message to our hearts, and even expansively "unto [the hearts of] every nation, kindred, tongue, and people." Nephi's language, the language he speaks of in 2 Nephi 33:2, is a universal language. The Bible, too, stands above human language, while also being wrestled and wrested to the last syllable of recorded Hebrew, Aramaic, or Greek. That is why we write Exhaustive commentaries and the like, and have endless translations.

All this recalls, in both parallel and in a nice reversal, the Egyptian expression for the written word: the mdw-nTr or "Words of God," "divine words"; it also recalls what the Late Antique Hermetic books claimed about the nature of the Egyptian language, a claim reflecting "the Greek perception of Egyptian anxiety about the translation of Egyptian texts into Greek." In his Perfect Discourse to King Ammon, Asclepius says: "The very character of the sound. . . of Egyptian words has in itself the power meaning (energeia) of what is said" (Orly Goldwasser, From Icon to Metaphor, 27).

"Leave this text untranslated, so that these secrets remain hidden from the Greeks [cf. from the Gentiles] and their irreverent, feeble, and orotund speech does not undermine the dignity and vigor of our language and the energy of the names. For the discourse of the Greeks, though outwardly impressive, is empty, and their philosophy is nothing but verbose noise. We by contrast, we employ not words but sounds full of energy" (quoted in Jan Assmann, The Mind of Egypt, 396). 

This boast about "efficacious (energetikos) speech" (Goldwasser, 27), recalls how Nephi spoke to his brethren "in the energy of my soul" (1 Nephi 16:24).   

The notion of an effective spiritual energy (3x, 3xw) inherent in Egyptian ceremonial speech may everywhere be found in the Ancient Egyptian texts themselves, and elsewhere I note how the Greek phrase describing Egyptian speech can in fact be matched by a well-known Egyptian idiom for such speech: "Akhu-power upon the mouth": "According to the Corpus Hermeticum spells do not consist of mere words, they must be repeated 'in mighty speech of 3x.w' (= 3x.w m tpj-r3, phonais mestais ton ergon)."
(See Val H. Sederholm, Papyrus British Museum 10808, 105, citing Festugiere and Nock, CH XVI: II 230).

Such "mighty speech" may also be called the speech of a Pharaoh: "Be an artist in speech, then you will be victorious. for behond: the sword-arm of a king is his tongue," which recalls Alma's statement about "the preaching of the word" having "had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them" (Wisdom of Merikare, see Jan Assmann, The Mind of Egypt; Alma 31:5).

Nephi says of his own preaching:1 Nephi 15:25: "I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul" and 16:24: "they had humbled themselves because of my words; for I did say many things unto them in the energy of my soul." Again, both words, energy and soul, invoke the Egyptian word akhu, a word signifying (in the plural!) an efficacious power and also a spiritual being, an akh (or ghost). Nephi, in the Hebrew sense, is speaking in the energy of "my nephesh," quite a powerful phrase, in the energy of my life-force, bekoakh naphshi or bekoakhei naphshi, in or through the power of my life's soul. Koakh and Akhu (k-w-x and '-x) sound a bit alike--these are strong-sounding words bespeaking a powerful drain on the life force. Here we discern something far beyond how we consider the spoken word in present times.

So much for the spoken word.

I also note the immediate power on my heart of Nephi's written word--well, we're also told that the Book of Mormon comes to us as if a spoken word: "a voice out of the dust."



We next move toward the heart. What is the distance between speech and heart? Is it forever? or can the gap be bridged? 

In riddling out what Nephi is saying, we must also look at the prepositions. The unto in "unto the hearts" must be the equivalent of the Afroasiatic preposition l, or le (the Egyptians write r), but as we shall see, perhaps also the equivalent of the Egyptian preposition n. Given that we only have Nephi's written words in English, what does unto mean? Gothic-Low Germanic un-to or Gothic-North Germanic un-til are variants of the same thing: "even to" or "all the way to." So how does speech, human speech, ever go "all the way to" the human heart? From mouth to heart--the Holy Ghost carrieth the word. Does "all the way to" signify "into" as well? (See Mason's English Grammar.) Again: Mason tells us that und is the Gothic equivalent of German bis; when the two Germanic prepositions, und and to, of like meaning, combine, the first takes on an emphatic, adverbial quality: bis-to, un-to, un-til, and seems to convey the idea: "really, all the way to--lest there be any doubt."

Elder David A. Bednar makes a fine distinction in explaining how the Holy Ghost carries the divine word unto the heart, the into depends on each hearer, as in the distinction between hearing and obeying, though intended for synonyms, an idea also expressed in Scripture as not "being hearers only." That attentiveness to the prepositional difference is therefore consistent with the doctrine of a learner's agency, as also found in the Parable of the Sower and in the many Scriptural statements about "hardening the heart." When you see the words "hardening the heart," the distinction between unto and into doesn't seem all that fine, after all. The words are carried until, all the way up to the heart, or unto the heart, but not all the way into the heart. And notice how Nephi reminds us in the following verse that some do reject the word, lodge-the word where it may.  It's a matter of "until the heart accepts the word"--a temporality which may never find fruition.

In such a reading, unto is not quite into, West Semitic l not quite b, Egyptian r not quite m (though the Egyptian preposition n slips through the barrier), though well on the way; for already there's a spiritual impact, a clear invitation, the transfer, in plain terms, of a idea (or is it a feeling) upon which one may lay hold, in faith. The Book of Mormon does make much of distinguishing prepositions: Amulek discourses on the salvific necessity of realizing that Christ saves us from not in our sins, a clear-cut distinction, though unto and into becomes a more delicate matter, a matter of the heart. 

Leaving prepositions aside, What of the heart? What does "unto or until the hearts of the children of men" signify? Speech is carried by the Holy Ghost all the way to the heart--but What is the heart? Does heart speak primarily in English to feelings? to intellection? or both? (Answer: Primarily it speaks to feelings, or as Frost says, "never with the heart"--you might let go with the hands or mind, but "never with the heart.") And how about heart in other languages? lev, jb, h3ty, kokoro. . .Well, the heart escapes us.

In English, or in any language you may please, the phrase "unto the hearts" can be unpacked variously: "touching upon the feelings" or "entering into our feelings;" or, on the other hand: "beginning to enlighten our understandings," entering into our understandings. In English, when something is carried unto our heart, that's where we begin to love it, to feel it, but in Hebrew and Egyptian the heart first references what we call the mind, with the heart being the seat of intelligence, though the heart is also the soul of love. And, of course, English also knows the thoughtful heart (thoughtful in what sense? in mind or heart?). So is Nephi speaking to us, here, more in English or in Hebrew or in Egyptian? Does his heart signify feeling or thought? Or does heart capture both ideas? 

Nephi does have much to say about the heart. His poetic personification of his heart, found in 2 Nephi 4, shows an active, speaking, even exclaiming heart. This Prayer of the (Personified) Heart and Soul, while slipping away, here and there, beyond the culturally comprehensible, still speaks directly to each of us. The Ancient Egyptian reader would pick up the cultural references more precisely than we can, but we understand Nephi's heart, do we not? Somehow Joseph Smith's translation gives us our heart, and Nephi's, while also holding fast to the cultural truth of the original language. (See Jan Assmann, "The Theory of the Heart," in The Mind of Egypt, 135ff.)

While avoiding any attempt at definition, I also like the way Nephi's words resonate with an Egyptian phrase ph n h3t, a phrase which seems to mean "reach the heart" in the sense of "reach till understanding." Words that "reach the heart" or are carried unto or into the heart, are words plain to the understanding, and thus words understood. Yet there are always those who do not or will not understand the words, as in the case of the seed fallen on hard ground, the obdurate heart, the blind mind, those who will not understand my words, the tongue of angels. 


But now to a story.

Nephi's words about speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost resonate with a story from Ancient Egypt in which Re speaks to a woman in the voice of her deceased husband--and his words reach her heart. Is there not a parallel here, with God speaking to us through the power of the Holy Ghost, in some ineffable way that yet reaches the heart? 

So let's see how Professor Kim Ryholt understands this moment from the Ancient Egyptian storybook: The Story of Petese, Son of Petetum: and Seventy Other Good and Bad Stories. 

It's a strange story anyhow, for we find seventy other stories packed into the principal story, or story frame, of Petese. The priest Petese learns from the god Osiris, through a spirit messenger, that he has but 40 days left to live. His name is already inscribed on Osiris' netherworldly register.

After confronting the pain and shock, Petese plans three vehicles to convey him to immortality--a bit of crafty overkill typical of the Egyptians. First, he arranges for a lavish, even sumptuous, burial--an immortal tomb--which is what one may expect of a wealthy Egyptian priest. In Ancient Egypt, mummification and burial makes up not only the eternal monument of the worthy dead, it is the ceremonial gateway to eternal life. Second, Petese, through the agency of magical creatures he himself fashions, gathers 70 tales, 35 good, 35 bad. The Egyptian word for such a magical creature is Hk.t, a hikat--and note how story and magic flow together in a single stream. As Kim Ryholt observes, the collection, or composition, of these spellbinding tales, tales no less of the good and bad deeds of women, will win Petese deathless acclaim. Third, Petese also sets to work preparing a magic potion (pHr.t) which, when prepared by his widow (and on which side of the telling tally of tales will she land?)--for he will enter his coffin and "die"--will assure his escape from death altogether, even his resurrection. His life, his heart, is in a woman's hands.

Petese thus covers all bases--indeed achieves all three forays into immortality. And, for me, these three grand plans finally combine into one--his efforts comprehend the entire Egyptian encyclopedia of glorious immortality, even as the offerings of frankincense, myrrh, and kyphi evoke the three offerings to Re at morning, noon, and dusk, and thus also comprehend the immortal solar cycle to which Petese now, too, belongs (see Ryholt, here). Note further that 70 (the 70 tales) is for the Egyptians a solar number, a number of completeness.


So on to the moment in which his wife, of splendid name--The Beautiful One of Sakhmet--like Isis or Helen, administers the pharmakon, burning three measures of incense to the sun.

Column 5, lines 24-30 (page 57):
After this, Sakhminofret [went] to his store-rooms on the morning of the following day. On this day, her heart was exceedingly sad because of Petese, her husband, who she did not see, and [she] truly [hoped (?) in (?)] her heart that Petese [had (?)] made the remedy for the illness. . . She acted according to everything which he had commanded [to her]. She put myrrh, frankincense, and kyphi, [on the brazier], and she said: My brother, Petese. Do you watch for yourself. O, son of Petetum. [I pray that] Re will rescue you in the remedies which you are making. Re spoke [with] her. He answered [her with the] voice of Petese. It reached her heart. Petese said [. . .

What a surprising outcome, the voice of Re:

Re spoke [with] her. He answered [her with the] voice of Petese. It reached her heart (ph [=s] Xn H3t[=s]. (The hieroglyphs may be found on pg. 19.)

It reached (ph) her heart, or it reached to within her heart (ph Xn h3t). 

Re responds to the plea for deliverance from death and his voice descends: an act of nHm, of rescue.

Professor Ryholt comments on the story (p. 42):

"If it is correctly understood in lines 29-30 that Re answers Sakhminofret with the voice (3spy) of Petese, then the phrase 'it reached her heart (ph=s Xn H3t=s) must mean that she understood it. Erichsen, DG, 137, lists di pH=s n H3t in the meaning 'sich etwas ueberlegen, o.a.? consider something.'"  

In other words, the idiom it (the voice) reached her heart means that Sakhminofret understood it: she understood the voice of her husband speaking to her through the medium of the divine voice, that is, "the tongue of angels." The voice "speaketh unto their understanding," that is, "unto the heart."

Eyewitness: Joseph Smith "Interpreted Hieroglyphics for Us"

"A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such"--Joseph Smith, History of the Church 5:265.

Oft repeated is the assertion that no on-the-spot, eyewitness account exists of Joseph Smith translating from the Egyptian papyri. Warren Parrish, scribe, gives but a one-line summary of his work, and three years after the fact: "I have set by his side and penned down the translation of Egyptian Hieroglyphicks as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration of Heaven" (Painesville Republican, 5 February 1838). John Whitmer, the contemporary Church Historian, recorded: "Joseph the Seer saw these Record[s] and by the revelation of Jesus Christ could translate these records" (italics added: see "Book of Abraham Translation" in Church History Topics). The statement fully accords with what Orson Pratt later taught: The first gift given to the Prophet was that of revelation: the power to translate by the Urim and Thummim (Journal of Discourses, December 9, 1877, italics added).

For insight into what that seeric correlation of revelation and translation means, we turn to our guide and pattern in all things: the Book of Mormon. Here we find the accounts of King Mosiah I, translating, by revelation, or by the revelatory means of what the book calls "interpreters," engravings on a large stone, and of King Mosiah II translating, again by revelation, mysterious engravings on plates of ore. In each case, we find 1) an actual record, 2) written in an unknown language, 3) and a Seer, 4) who translates the same record by the revelation of God, that is, by instruments that convey the revelation of God, 5) a means of translation that belongs to God, and not to men. In such a way, and twice-over, the Book of Mormon explains, so far as it can or should be explained to our limited minds, how that or any other ancient record, brought to us in concrete form and lying before our eyes, can be read by the power of revelation.

We gratefully acknowledge these sparse insights from the Book of Mormon, and about the Book of Mormon, though the lack of such a first-hand account for the Book of Abraham leaves to the eyes of some a unbridgeable gap in understanding: How did the Prophet translate the Book of Abraham? What of the papyri? Owing to the supposed absence of an eyewitness account showing how the "work of translation" unfolded, an account that brings both papyri and the act of translation to one table, it's as commonly believed as not that the Prophet did not translate from the papyri he owned at all; instead, he "translated" by receiving a revelation about a lost record that he never once saw, as was indeed the case with his translation from a lost record of John the Beloved. As for the Egyptian artifacts, though so very physically present, many believe that these did not contain a record of Abraham at all but rather played the role of "prompt" or "catalyst" or "springboard" to the revealed "translation."

Joseph Smith was indeed given the translation of the Book of Abraham by revelation, but the words of Abraham were also inkbrushed onto a specific papyrus in his keeping, according to a clear statement in his last sermon, given on June 16, 1844, and recorded by Thomas Bullock: "I learned it by translating the papyrus now in my house." Did that papyrus contain all of what we have of Abraham's book? We clearly cannot quantify how many of the words of Abraham appear thereon, but it's clear that Joseph Smith read at very least the full ancient title of the book, The Book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus (a typical ancient title, as Hugh Nibley pointed out), and it's also clear that the text of the Book of Abraham shows some remarkable parallels to the hieroglyphic text found on the hypocephalus, Facsimile 2. Then on June 16, 1844, the Prophet connects material found in Abraham Chapter 3 with hieroglyphic writing on a papyrus he owned. Did all of Chapter 3, every last word or idea, derive from that source? I doubt it; we don't know; and it doesn't matter. It's wrong for us to even ask the question.

From that date, Sunday, June 16, 1844, we move forward a mere eleven days to Thursday, June 27 and Martyrdom; and we move back exactly one month to Wednesday, May 15. These are days of witness, days of final--and lasting--doctrinal explanations to his hearers and of the final demonstrations of his prophetic power to teach new Christian doctrines, prophesy of future events, and, uniquely, to translate "by the gift and power of God." And so, the ministry of a Prophet closed as it began, with gifts, knowledge, and prophecy.

The assertion about there being no contemporaneous eyewitnesses linking papyri, or record, to spiritual interpretation is not entirely true. On Thursday, May 16, 1844, young Josiah Quincy, soon-to-be mayor of Boston, wrote his "very darling wife" about what it was like for him and Charles Francis Adams to spend an entire day with the Mormon Prophet.

So what was it like?

Thursday, May 16, 1844 (describing the events of the previous day, the 15th).

"We passed the whole day in his society and had one of the most extraordinary conversations I ever participated in he preached for us prophesied for us interpreted hieroglyphics for us exhibited his mummies and took us to his temple which he is now erecting on a most majestic site of hewn stone."

Jed L. Woodworth, "Josiah Quincy's 1844 Visit with Joseph Smith," BYU Studies 39/4
http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4071&context=byusq

Joseph Smith, to honor his esteemed guests, and to satisfy their wishes, was more than willing, by grace, to demonstrate for them, in "an extraordinary conversation," what it meant to be a Prophet, Seer, Revelator, and Translator, charged with spiritual gifts and powers. These remarkable moments unfolded in the most candid way possible--there was absolutely no reticence--and these visitors thus got to see who and what Joseph Smith professed to be, and, as he clearly intended, what they saw and heard that day left a lasting and "extraordinary" impression on both men. That is what they came to see and to hear, after all, and that is what they were given--but only by the kindness of God. What Brother Joseph chose to share yet reverberates; for many who have since read Quincy's and Adams's various accounts of the experience have likewise sensed something of what it was like to share a "whole day" with a Prophet. How it impressed this reader as a child!

Josiah Quincy uses many active verbs to describe to his wife what an energetic and inspired Joseph Smith did and said that day, mundane and otherwise, but it is a special few that describe his renowned prophetic gifts:

On greeting them:

He "blessed us."

Then, throughout the day:

"He preached for us,

prophesied for us,

interpreted hieroglyphics for us."

Latter-day Saints will fondly note where this "extraordinary conversation" ultimately led--to the Holy Temple. He "took us to [the] temple."

Jed Woodworth has edited the letter to a perfection and sorted out how it correlates with the other, more famous, and more whimsical, accounts of Quincy and Adams, including Adams's diary. (Quincy's ten-page journalizing on the visit has never been archived.) Yet as we take up this priceless letter, we must also momentarily set these other records aside. We must take that rare fresh look at a much repeated conversation. What this letter does better than all other accounts, in their paint and detail, is to capture, with succinctness, the interview as a manifestation of spiritual charisma, something Joseph Smith himself described as that special moment when a Prophet speaks and acts as a Prophet, something Scriptures describe as a Prophet speaking by the power of the Holy Ghost.

These two men might as well have find themselves suddenly alongside Nephi, as he journeyed in the wilderness from Jerusalem, a man who "opened his mouth and it was filled" (Doctrine and Covenants 64), or, again, with seeric king Mosiah, when he interpreted engravings on a large stone by the power of God, a stone others carried into his presence. And whether Mosiah interpreted the writings one or many times for the benefit of wondering court visitors, each time the mysterious characters had to succumb once again to the seeric vision.

All this is to throw together the "extraordinary" with the diurnal. Brother Joseph's clothing and home, said Quincy, were both somewhat "dirty"; the "conversation" came pure.

And note how message takes second place to the act itself--really, a demonstration in three acts. What mattered was the sign, the expression: what we might call the prophetic "speech-act." These guests wanted to see prophecy in action, not learn doctrine. The men wondered about Joseph as Minister of the Gospel: He preached by the power of the Holy Ghost. And note that he "preached for us," not "to us." They marveled at his claims to be a Prophet: he accordingly prophesied. They had wondered at his translation and publication of New Scripture--a unique and curious pretense. To satisfy that wonderment, he interpreted hieroglyphs from a roll of papyrus.

And note it well, the Prophet did not show them a copy of the translated Book of Abraham as published in the Times and Seasons newspaper, or anything like that, that is, What I translated. No. He took up the papyrus to show them How I "interpreted hieroglyphics." And it makes no difference whether he had preached to this particular theme or translated that particular line before, the gift--with assertion, yes, but no fanfare--was both summoned and manifested in their immediate present and in their profane presence. Add a little dirt to a warm Spring day in Illinois and it won't affect the presence of the Divine one iota.

The pair were given to understand that they were witnessing the "act" of divine translation itself, firsthand, and in expression of authoritative charisma. Adams's diary records that Joseph Smith concluded the demonstration with "I say it!"

Who said it? Brother Joseph, in plain humility, once taught: "A prophet was a prophet only when he was acting as such." On May 15, 1844, 15 years to the day of the appearance of John the Baptist and his ordination to the Priesthood, Joseph Smith certainly "was acting as such."

As remarkable as it all sounds, such odd conjunction of the mundane and the highly charged appears from time-to-time in accounts others left of their own encounters with Joseph Smith, moments in which he took up, in their very presence, the prophetic mantle. He might preach many times from a particular text or two found in Mark or Matthew; he might repeatedly prophesy of judgments on Missouri--or the like--but for each new hearer the experience was doubtless startling and unique: their chance to meet a Prophet "acting as such."

What does it mean to translate as seer and revelator? How does that differ from other acts of translation? What does it mean to prophecy? How does the preaching of a living prophet differ from that of other men? The questions all collapse into one: What does one see, hear, and feel in the presence of a working Prophet of God? Or, What can one see, hear, and feel? The answer may depend on the individual observer. And what does it mean when each of us is also told "that it is by my power [that] you can read them [the Revelations] one to another" (Doctrine and Covenants 18:35). The Lord invites us to read His Scriptures, but when we read "in spirit and in truth," "they shall be read by the power of Christ" (John 4:24; 2 Nephi 27:11).

Many, it would appear, were those who passed a spell in the Book of Mormon "translation room" back in Pennsylvania, in 1829--1830, and, as did Adams and Quincy, witnessed an act of prophetic translation. What they reportedly observed of translation, and what the Bostonian pair observed, do not essentially differ. The action partook of no mystic element. Without ceremony, a man dictated, or claimed to dictate, into plain English, characters found in "records of ancient date" (Mosiah 8:13).

"These were days never to be forgotten," writes scribe Oliver Cowdery, who, "day after day," as he puts it, witnessed the divine gift and power of interpretation. These were long days of listening to an ordinary voice dictate, but along with the seemingly

mundane, he attests that the entire work unfolded "by the inspiration of heaven," a reality certainly lost on the merely curious observer. But might not the ordinary voice and the long days spell boredom? Read the Book of Mormon sometime.


Day after day--or just today--let us walk and talk with Joseph Smith as he takes up the prophetic mantle and speaks and prophesies and translates by what he called "the unspeakable power of the Holy Ghost." And remember: What is unspeakable is not all to be understood, or even at all to be understood. Yet we can attest that we have heard, and now hear, in extraordinary conversation, God's voice speaking through a living Prophet, from Joseph Smith to Thomas S. Monson, in our walk today. (See, again, Doctrine and Covenants 18:34-36).