Ideas and Society

A few weeks ago, on April 30th, FamilyNet, a nationwide religious programming network, aired The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim. The program was produced by the Institute of Religious Research (IRR), a professional ‘anti-Mormon’ ministry. Unlike anti-Mormon videos produced in the past, which generally have had the look and feel of a tabloid newspaper, this production comes across as a slick documentary. People who watch this video will have the mistaken impression that it is a well- researched, fair, and balanced piecepresentation, while in reality it is nothing more than a polished collection of one-sided half-truths.

The video, which was released in August of 2002, has been shown at various colleges in Utah and California. Hundreds, if not thousands of videos have been given away to people at these college events and to pastors of churches all across the country.

THE MESSAGE OF THE VIDEO

The basic message of the video is that the Book of Abraham is evidence that Joseph Smith was a false Prophet. Here is a short summary of the film’s argument:

1. Joseph Smith claimed to have “translated” the Book of Mormon.
2. Publishing the Book of Mormon established Joseph Smith as Prophet and Seer in the eyes of his followers.
3. Michael Chandler visited Kirtland, and wanted to find a buyer for Egyptian papyri, which were in his possession.
4. The members of the Church wondered if Joseph Smith could purchase the papyri and translate them.
5. Joseph told the members this was not some ordinary Egyptian papyrus, but was written by Abraham himself.
6. Scholars today have since looked at the fragments of the remaining Egyptian papyrus and translated them.
7. They have concluded that these fragments are not the book Book of Abraham, but an ordinary Egyptian papyrus.
8. Therefore, Joseph Smith either translated it wrong or lied about the whole thing.
9. Therefore, it is likely that Joseph Smith lied about translating the Book of Mormon.
10. Therefore, Joseph Smith was not a prophet.
11. Therefore, Mormonism, and all its claims, is false.

Of course there are various evidences cited and “experts” quoted throughout the film to support this line of reasoning.

BACKGROUND NEEDED TO UNDERSTAND THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

The Book of Abraham is a difficult topic to discuss in a short review because of the many issues involving history and Egyptology. But there are a few basic things to know to give a framework for understanding the issues.

1. Joseph Smith had more than one papyrus. He had several. Some he found more valuable than others.
2. Many people saw the different papyri and wrote about them.
3. The papyri were split into two groups and, as far as we know, ended up in two different museums. One of the museums burned down and the papyri was presumably lost. The papyri from the other museum were discovered and given to the church Church in 1967.

Two other points to know:

Joseph Smith did not “translate” as university scholars do by a mechanical process, nor was the means of doing so generally known. We only know he relied on revelation from God.

The Book of Abraham and its history has been the subject of ongoing study by Latter-day Saint Egyptologists and historians for many years.

THE PROBLEMS WITH THE VIDEO

To support their arguments, the film producers commissioned Dr. Robert Ritner, associate professor of Egyptology at the University of Chicago to translate the scroll. In the video, Dr. Ritner tells us that the scroll has nothing to do with Abraham but is really a prayer on behalf of a deceased Egyptian priest.

The producers of the film should have saved themselves the money. Dr. Ritner sheds no new light on the subject, stating what LDS scholars have been saying since 1967: the rediscovered scroll fragments are not the source of the Book of Abraham. The simple answer is that the Book of Abraham was translated from the papyri, which we assume were destroyed in the museum fire.

There are many other problems with the video, but I will mention only three of them here:

1. It ignores the historical evidence
2. It ignores the textual evidence
3. It ignores the academic disagreements

Ignoring the Historical Evidence. Dr. Ritner spends time explaining some of the problems with the LDS positions. For example, Dr. Ritner describes a missing portion of facsimile one in which the figure in the Book of Abraham is holding a knife. He explains how a proper Egyptian document wouldn’t include the knife and that Joseph Smith must have added it to the Book of Abraham. The difficulty with his argument is that it completely ignores the eyewitness accounts from Joseph’s time period which describe the figure in the papyrus as holding the knife.

The same problem occurs as the video tries to explain away a comment by Egyptologist Dr. John Gee. The video narrator states, “Dr. Gee puts forth the position that other than the original of Facsimile 1, the Joseph Smith Papyrus fragments given to the church Church in 1967 were, ‘not the portion of the papyri that contained the text of the Book of Abraham.’ He claims the scroll Joseph used was originally 10 feet long, and that there was a large section that is now missing, that may have contained the lost book.”

Dr. Ritner’s response is, “There’s certainly no reason that this particular book of breathing scroll should be expanded much beyond the surviving length.” But eyewitnesses contemporary with Joseph Smith from that time period write a description of the papyrus being much longer than the fragment we now have. We also know that there was more than one scroll.

Ignoring the Textual Evidence. John Tvedtnes of FARMS, Michael Rhodes of BYU, and others have done work comparing the Book of Abraham with other ancient documents. They have found amazing parallels. This video gives no discussion as to how Joseph Smith could’ve known the information that was contained in these other ancient documents that were not examined until recently. When the video does try to discuss the text of the book, they get into trouble again with their experts. This leads us to the next problem with the video.

Assuming All the Experts Agree. We have much to learn about the Book of Abraham, just as we have much to learn about many historical documents. But the producers of this film seem to operate from a position that all of these questions have been examined and settled. That is far from the truth. There are a number of serious disagreements about the Joseph Smith Papyri among the non-Mormons. Although the producers are aware of these disagreements, they have chosen to hide them.

One example of the continued disagreement comes from two of the “experts,” interviewed in the video: Dr. David Crump and Dr. Richard Mouw, who are interviewed in the video.

In discussing the Book of Abraham text, Dr. Crump comments, “Judaism and Christianity have always been monotheistic religions, there’s one God, there’s one Creator. And if He had a council, it was a council of created angelic beings that did His bidding by His sovereign authority. And the idea of equally co-eternal beings working with him on a group project is totally unprecedented in Jewish and Christian teaching.”

Dr. Mouw expressed a decidedly different opinion at a Christianity Online discussion on December 13, 1997.

He stated, “I don’t see it in exactly those terms. Most Old Testament scholars see the early stages of Old Testament thought as henotheistic, i.e., the view that there are many Gods but that Jehovah is the supreme deity before whom we should place no other. Similarly, Paul in Colossians seems to suggest that there are many powers, but we should not placate them, because everything holds together in Jesus Christ. I think the important thing is that we acknowledge that only the God and father of Jesus Christ is worthy of our worship and obedience.”

THE QUESTION

The next question one is led to ask is if the producers of the film had access to these various problems and ignored them to make their point in this film. The answer is yes. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which is criticized for not appearing in this anti-Mormon video, sent the producers a free copy of Dr. John Gee’s book, which discusses these very issues. It is out of this book that they obtained the quote they used from Dr. John Gee. They can’t claim that they didn’t know; they just chose to ignore the information.

MORE INFORMATION

This review is not an in- depth discussion of the video. There are many other problems and issues that are important to understand. For a more complete understanding, read the review by Ben McGuire at the FAIR website Web site site at

https://www.fairlds.org/cgi-bin/site.pl?c104

Additionally, FAIR will be hosting Dr. John Gee, Michael Rhodes and John Tvedtnes to talk about the Book of Abraham at its annual conference on August 7th and 8th in Orem, Utah, as well as many other speakers. The public is invited. Information about the FAIR conference can be found at the FAIR website at https://www.fairlds.org/conf03a.html.

FAIR is located at www.fairlds.org.

2003Meridian Magazine.  All Rights Reserved.