There’s a lie being perpetuated by both sides of the Great Apologetic War. This falsehood, this fairy tale is being spread by both Mormon apologists and their critics. It comes to us from well-meaning BYU religious instructors, [1] and it is presented to us by world-renowned secular Egyptologists.[2] The great lie is really quite simple. And you’ve heard it, even if you haven’t recognized that you’ve heard it. The lie is that a Mormon cannot be both critically minded and religious.
Either there was a missing papyrus scroll that Joseph literally translated the Book of Abraham from, or Joseph Smith was a fraud. Either there were “Egyptians” who knew about Abraham, or Mormonism is a false religion. I reject this dichotomy presented to us through the Great Apologetic War. To put my feelings into Mormon nomenclature, I reject this falsehood “with every fiber of my being!” A person can be both academic and religious. It happens in Judaism and it certainly can occur in Mormonism. Tragically, this notion that one must be either religious or academic runs counter to the very heart of Mormon theology, which in its true essence, seeks to access divinity through a development of both mind and spirit.
Mormon apologists must come to terms with the fact that in this Great War, they are “losing the battle and not even knowing it.” It doesn’t do Mormonism any good for LDS apologists to present convoluted, problematic arguments in defense of the Book of Abraham as scripture when these arguments are rejected by the academic world. Apologists could get away with this approach before the advent of the Internet. But the information accessibility the Internet now provides has changed everything! Until LDS apologists come to terms with the fact that in perpetuating the notion that there were either “Egyptians” who knew Abraham, or the Book of Abraham is not true, they are unintentionally leading truth seekers away from the Church.
So what is the Book of Abraham? Well, it depends upon your perspective. For me, as a believing Latter-day Saint academically trained in Historical Criticism of the Bible and the ancient Near East, the Book of Abraham is scripture, plain and simple (ok, maybe not so simple). So what makes scripture “scripture”? While this question is in reality a very complex issue, the noun “scripture” means at least this: “a text that is considered sacred or authoritative.” For Latter-day Saints, the Bible is “scripture,” no matter who authored its various texts. Concerning the Bible, one of Joseph Smith’s revelations on the subject states:
“And again, the elders, priests and teachers of this church shall teach the principles of my gospel, which are in the Bible” (D&C 42:12)
Simply because a non-identified Priestly author wrote Genesis 1-2:4a and a non-Priestly scribe composed Genesis 2:4b (the texts that appear in Abraham 4-5) does not change the fact that Mormon scripture specifically defines the Bible as a sacred authoritative text. Of course there are many other ancient Jewish writings outside of the Bible that various religious groups consider “scripture” that Latter-day Saints do not define as “authoritative.”
These texts would include the pseudepigraphic works falsely attributed to biblical figures including Enoch, Isaiah, Moses, and yes, even Abraham. Since these sources were not written by these biblical figures, and in light of the fact that Mormon scripture does not do for these pseudepigraphic texts what it does for the Bible (namely identify these sources as “scripture”), the pseudepigraphic books are not considered authoritative to Latter-day Saints.
Returning to the Book of Abraham, if the book did appear on a missing portion of the papyri in Joseph’s possession (a rather improbable claim), the BofA would be a lost example of one more pseudepigraphic Jewish text, even though admittedly, the fact that the text would be a Late Second Temple Jewish document would not automatically disqualify the BofA as “scripture” since the Bible itself contains many pseudepigrahic sources including the Book of Deuteronomy and its 1st person sermons spoken by Moses.
I suspect, however, that many Latter-day Saints would not feel comfortable in simply defining a book “purportedly” written by Abraham, but in reality composed by a Hellenized Jewish scribe, as authoritative “scripture,” at least not without an official declaration similar to the one featured in the D&C concerning the Bible. I therefore see no reason whatsoever for Mormon apologists to present problematic theories of missing papyrus scrolls, or overly complex mathematical computations in order to defend a pseudepigraphic text “purportedly” written by Abraham (again, referring to the way the book was introduced until 1878).
Both historical sources and the text itself make clear that Joseph Smith was literally attempting to decipher the papyri in his possession. The prophet used the Facsimiles to help produce his book. My question is in light of the fact that Abraham could not have possibly written the BofA (see post 1), why not simply take the opportunity provided by the new 2013 introduction to the book and abandon all of these highly problematic apologetic arguments that have not only failed to convince many believing Latter-day Saints, but also every non-LDS specialist in Egyptology?
Personally, I see no reason that a believing Latter-day Saint could not hold the position that instead of a supernatural translation of a pseudepigraphic Book of Abraham featured on a conveniently missing papyrus scroll, that through working with the papyri, the Prophet’s mind was directed in an inspired way to produce the scriptural Book of Abraham.
In fact, it seems logical to me that rather than diminishing the “scriptural” nature of the BofA, approaching the text from this vantage point would actually provide an even greater authoritative stamp upon the book than the one achieved through the classical apologetic argument which leaves Latter-day Saints with simply a translation (however miraculous) of a non-biblical pseudepigraphic text, produced not by Abraham but by a Hellenized Jewish scribe revising the Genesis account.
This approach to the BofA has great power. It puts an end to the necessity of the problematic apologetic arguments rightfully criticized by non-LDS scholars and places the BofA on a sphere not subject to scientific objection. After all, if the text presents theological constructs that a reader connects with spiritually, then the book is inspired. It is “scripture.”
Interestingly, instead of a literal “translation” of an Egyptian document, if one accepts the BofA as an inspired religious text received by the prophet Joseph Smith directly from God himself, this view actually accords with the revelatory process and production of sacred scriptural texts in Jewish traditions. For example, in an effort to argue in favor of the canonical nature of the erotic love poems in the Song of Solomon (a text whose scriptural value was highly disputed in some Jewish circles), Rabbinic discussions of the Song’s inspired nature argued that a human author did not compose the text. Instead, some Rabbinic commentary referred to the Song of Solomon as the “holiest of holies,” arguing that even though the book was transmitted to a human scribe, the text was literally composed by either God himself or his angels. The Song was even understood in some circles to have been originally revealed to Moses at Mount Sinai (or at the Red Sea), even before the rest of the Torah.[3]
God himself is the author of scripture according to this Jewish perspective, even when texts are produced by Judean scribes as pseudepigrapha. In order to legitimize a text as religiously authoritative, Rabbinic commentators would go so far as to identify later biblical sources as books originally revealed to Moses. We see this process at work in the Jerusalem Talmud with regard to the post-exilic Book of Esther:
“Rab, R. Ḥaninah, R. Jonathan, Bar Qappara, and R. Joshua b. Levi said, ‘This scroll was stated to Moses at Sinai, for there is no chronological order in the Torah.” (J. Megillah 1.5).
Recognizing this approach to scripture would obviously extend the concept of “scripture” to a pseudepigraphic Book of Abraham written by a late Hellenized Jewish scribe (i.e. the position that would be the ultimate result if the classical LDS apologetic was correct). But really, there’s no need to assume this position by putting together the convoluted ideas rightfully dismissed by critics. I would submit that a more sophisticated view of the BofA, one that answers the objections raised by its critics, would be to simply accept Joseph Smith as “scribal author.”
In fact, in light of what we know about the development of the opening chapters of the Bible through biblical scholarship, this is really the only truly viable option for a believing Latter-day Saint to adopt. Technically, the new introduction to the Book of Abraham identifying the text as the “writings of Abraham” is correct; for even though the evidence leads us to the conclusion that Abraham could not have literally written the text Joseph produced, the book still presents itself as the writings of Abraham, just like the pseudepigraphic Book of Deuteronomy presents itself as the book of Moses.
This does not make the BofA a fraud, any more than Deuteronomy is a fraud. The concept of an “author” was not the same notion in antiquity that it is today, and it would be wrong for us to simply assume that our modern western notion of “authorship” is the correct one. As one scholar has observed regarding this venerable tradition of authorial attribution in the production of Jewish scriptural texts:
“Attribution (attaching names to Biblical books) belongs to the realm of literary scholarship, and has little to do with the intentions of the composers of works. It isn’t so much about what an author did write, but rather it is about what he would have written (or; from the perspective of ancient literary interpreters, what he must have written).”[4]
So for a believing Latter-day Saint, it comes down to this: do you want to keep advocating convoluted apologetic claims to associate the BofA with an inspired Hellenized Jewish author, or would you rather abandon the problematic Egyptian apologetics, accept the option provided by the Church’s new edition of the scriptures, and associate the BofA with an inspired Joseph Smith who somehow tapped into the divine realm by working with the scrolls, and in the process produced what Abraham “would have,” or perhaps even “must have” written?!!
In a forthcoming book, I will present some of the fascinating ways in which from my perspective, the BofA reflects ancient Semitic (even biblical) efforts to tap into the divine as it lays out inspiring theological constructs concerning god, humanity, and the universe. In this blog entry, I really only have time to share one of these insights.
Joseph Smith reinterprets the presentation scene in Facsimile 3 as a depiction of the biblical patriarch Abraham seated upon a throne. Critics, of course, have rightfully pointed to the fact that the figure identified as Abraham is in reality the Egyptian god Osiris. In ancient Near Eastern conceptions, placing a man upon a throne has been linked with apotheosis or deification. Thus, taking Joseph Smith’s interpretation seriously, the temple related scene would present a type of prefiguration of the state Abraham now occupies according to D&C 132:
“Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne” (v. 29)
Did Joseph Smith correctly interpret the Facsimile? Of course not! For Latter-day Saints, the Prophet did something much more impressive. He produced “scripture.”
[1] I will not point out specifics in terms of the BofA in this brief post, however, a famous illustration of this mindset can be seen in the following quote regarding biblical scholarship and the Book of Mormon from BYU religion professors Robert Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie: “In writing a commentary on the Book of Mormon it is not the authors’ intent to suggest that a proper understanding of this marvelous book of scripture requires the interpretive helps of trained scholars. Further, we make no pretense to being such. Ours has been the blessing of opportunity. For some years we have had occasion to be both student and teacher of the Nephite record. As to the world’s scholarship, it ought be observed that the best of man’s learning, as it has been directed toward the Bible, has not resulted in an increase of faith in that holy book. Indeed, one of the primary purposes for which the Lord gave us the Book of Mormon was to defend the Bible and its teaching against the siege of the supposedly wise and learned. Scholars are far too wont to sift the sands of faith through screens of their own making, and in doing so often find themselves left with nothing but the rocks of their own unbelief;” in Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon; vol. 2.
[2] See the highly critical assessment of the Book of Abraham by Robert K. Ritner. “ ‘The Breathing Permit of Hôr’ among the Joseph Smith Papyri,” in Journal of Near Eastern Studies 62/3 (2003): 161–77. Speaking personally, I am very grateful for Dr. Ritner’s contributions to the Book of Abraham discussion; I’m especially impressed by his recent Signature Book publication. However, the JNES article does give the impression that one cannot logically accept the BofA as scripture in light of Egyptology.
[3] See, for example, Shir Ha-Shirim Rabbah 1:12; Saul Libermann, “Mishnat Shir Ha-Shirim,” Meḥqarim be-Torat Ereẓ-Yisrael (Jerusalem: Magnes Press, 1991), 118-126.
[4] Jed Wyrick, The Ascension of Authorship: Attribution and Canon formation in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Christian Traditions (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004), 80.
Don’t be shy, David. What is highly problematic about Professor Kerry Muhlestein’s videos and how do they argue that I can’t be both critical thinking and a believing Mormon? (You spelled his name incorrectly, by the way. Thought you’d want to know.)
The Millet and McConkie quote is highly reminiscient of the polemic by the former Habad librarian, Haim Liberman.
“Hasidism has now acquired the “merit” of being a topic of scholarly inquiry. Articles and entire books devoted to the study of Hasidism have recently been published. But by all rights this topic should be handled by experts: namely, the hasidim themselves. As members of the inner circle, born and bred in Hasidism, imbibing it with their mother’s milk and living in a hasidic environment, all the paths, methods, and streams of Hasidism are clear to them; they possess expertise in its literature, customs, and oral traditions. Only they have a true sense of Hasidism and for them alone is it proper to undertake its study. It is to be regretted that outsiders and unripe students educated in a foreign environment and possessing extrinsic attitudes toward Hasidism, who derogate the honor of the eminent leaders of Judaism, have chanced upon this field… They bring their prejudices to the study of Hasidism, deliberately and incorrectly attributing to it aspects of their own imagination. They introduce distortions, and reach vain conclusions through empty casuistic discussion. Even though they lack the training to study Hasidism, they pretentiously adopt the stance of men of science, and pretend to be governed only by neutral, unbiased academic standards and to show no favoritism.”
http://www.brandeis.edu/tauber/publications/excerpts/Assaf_UNTOLD_sample.pdf
“So for a believing Latter-day Saint, it comes down this: do you want to keep advocating convoluted apologetic claims to associate the BofA with an inspired Hellenized Jewish author, or would you rather abandon the problematic Egyptian apologetics, accept the option provided by the Church’s new edition of the scriptures, and associate the BofA with an inspired Joseph Smith who somehow tapped into the divine realm by working with the scrolls, and in the process produced what Abraham “would have,” or perhaps even “must have” written?!!”
David, I’m going to disagree here that one must necessarily choose between the two. Sure, one should ditch bad arguments, and I think the Muehlsten videos are poor, but I’d love to discuss my ideas with you some time.
David, this is fantastic.
I agree that viewing Joseph Smith as the author is the best solution. but. . .
Perhaps our view of the notion of “authorship” is incorrect. But our view is the one Joseph Smith was operating with when he claimed that this was “the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the BOOK OF ABRAHAM, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.”
If Joseph (or God) were using a different definition of “authorship” than what the audience understood the definition to be, he’d be considered at best “Clintonian” and at worst a fraud.
But I guess it depends on what the definition of “is” is.
David, I think you tap into an incredibly important concept of Scripture – a communal agreement of divinely inspired texts. Thus, we choose to find inspiration in them, regardless of their background. There are texts that are less than divinely inspired and more so created within a particular cultural context, but we see them as scripture (e.g., the Pastoral Epistles – in my opinion), and there are other texts that are deeply inspiring (e.g., the Hymn of the Pearl – in my opinion) but are not seen as Scripture. Scripture seems to be less about “what is literally inspired of God,” and more about providing a cohesive vision for a community in which to think about spiritual and divinely inspired things, that is both simple enough for all to grasp, but rich enough to keep us busy (provoked to ponder). The BoA seems to be part of this. It’s teachings are too entrenched in the LDS community to give up and to deny its inspiring qualities for the building of faith within the community. To me, BoA has always been more of another D&C 93, where we have the testimony of John, but no record to back it up and no real clarity of what John we are even talking about (even the entire Book of Mormon can be seen in this light). But for the community, that is unnecessary. It is true to the community nonetheless, despite the lack of credentials of literal translation. Joseph Smith seemed to have this type of “translation” often. Being a translator was after all his central gift, and I think your recent posts help us expand what this actually means in ways that get us beyond the embarrassing apologetics that do little more than expose our inability to see things in a more complex and enriching way.
Tim, I was thinking the same thing.
David, your approach is interesting, and reminds me a bit of Walker’s post on reading scripture like a novel. I believe that nearly any text can bring spiritual and moral enrichment if read in the right spirit—especially if read within the context of a responsible moral community. I have richly benefited, for instance, from the novels of Orson Scott Card, from the writings attributed to the Buddha, and from season 3 of The Wire. It makes perfect sense, I think, for a moral community to create a “canon” of inspiring texts—however fictional—to serve as a core basis for collective moral reflection. Communities have every right to do so.
However, it seems to me that one component of the “right spirit” for reading inspiring texts is a critical sensibility. I guess one reason I’m a bit wary of your approach is that usually when people treat a text as scripture, the critical sensibility is left aside. It seems to me that for canonical constructivism to be fruitful, there might need to be some changes in how “scripture” is defined, read, and understood. I’m thankful that you, with your training in biblical criticism, are helping to pioneer said changes.
It all makes perfect sense, David. Which makes it likely many on both sides of the Great Apologetic War will energetically disagree with your argument.
In a Church where some members and some leaders think nothing died on Planet Earth before 4004 BC, and furthermore think that those who reject such glad tidings are not only mistaken but actively influenced by Satan (as I was told earlier this week), the kinds of arguments put out by LDS apologists are hardly our biggest problem. Still, we’ll take progress however it comes, and the new Introduction certainly encourages some progressive thinking and scholarship. Let a thousand flowers bloom.
David, I second what Christopher said about Tim’s comment and would be interested in your response. The revised introduction to the Book of Abraham is certainly a step in the right direction, but how do we reconcile it with what follows?
Thanks for the follow-up David.
Again I think we are mainly on the same page. Though I suspect that what you are saying is more that what is implied by the adjustment, if that matters at all.
And I did get a bit confused at the end where you mention, re: your forthcoming book, that you “will present some of the fascinating ways in which … the BofA reflects ancient Semitic (even biblical) efforts ….” Could say more about what such a reflection would mean in the case of a 19th century BofA?
Anyway, my personal opinion is that it would indeed be for the best to stop saying that everything depends on the ancientness of Mormon scripture.
Psted this on the older blog post comments and will now re-post it here with a couple of edits/additions:
Is it possible to claim that the BOA is a true record of Abraham inspired in its translation by deity, then argue for the evidences of this translation in parallels and other points without then fully embracing what is contained in the Book of Abraham?
Was there a literal, world wide flood event whose waters receded off of the face of the land of Egypt within a few hundred years before the birth of Abraham? Can you decouple a global flood from a divinely produced BOA?
Dear Tim and Mark,
Thank you for posting the interesting question. Joseph Smith was incredibly mystically oriented. Like a shaman, Joseph was constantly trying to access the divine. In the process of attempting to decipher the Egyptian papyri, Joseph produced the Book of Abraham. It seems clear to me that the Prophet believed that he was reproducing the literal words of the biblical patriarch. Yet in reality, whatever Joseph believed he was doing, the evidence suggests that he created a pseudepigraphic text.
This perspective may no doubt bother some believers, but the more one delves into the Jewish and Christian scriptural tradition, the more one comes to recognize that the BofA actually reflects the general pattern for scriptural texts.
In ancient Israelite/Judean examples of pseudepigraphy, pseudonymous authors are used as a tool to elevate the status of a texts as revealed literature. And yet, the goal of connecting an author with a text is not simply to identify the text as a document coming from a sage, or even a prophet, but instead, as a text produced by one who communicated with God, and can therefore serve as a type of conduit for the disclosure of divine knowledge. Pseudonynomous authors (like Abraham in Joseph Smith’s work) therefore legitimize the scriptural authority of the text.
In these sense, the pseudonymous writer is not so much an author as he is a “tradent,” meaning “a person who delivers or hands over any property to another.” As I suggested, the ancient art of pseudepigrapha is not consistent with the modern notions of fraud or forgeries, and though an interesting historical question, the issue of whether or not Joseph understood that he was creating that sort of a text is not relevant to my personal belief that he tapped into a very inspiring way of understanding God, humanity, and the universe.
Scripture is “messy;” even the Book of Mormon title page allows for human error. I suspect that when it comes to the representation of the absolute truth regarding God, humanity, and the universe, none of what the world’s religions define as “scripture” conveys a perfect reflection of transcendent reality, but for me, the BofA works. It is an amazing text with fascinating parallels to ancient Semitic (and biblical) efforts to convey religious truth. It is one of my favorite scriptural texts.
Best,
–DB
David, just a slight correction to a wonderful series, the “purportedly” disappeared in 1878, not 1981. Rock on.
A great example and clear illustration of Joseph also conceptually being okay with (and see the utility of) Pseudepigrapha as a legitimate scriptural genre would be how Joseph took the United Firm revelation texts, and ‘translated’ and completely transformed them into a pseudepigraphical revelation to Enoch about his United Order. See Chris Smith’s fantastic paper “The Inspired Fictionalization of the 1835 United Firm Revelations” found here.
David, have you read Bart Ehrman’s recent book, Forged? http://www.amazon.com/Forged-Writing-God-Why-Bibles-Authors/dp/B00B1L1YIE
In it he apparently claims that pseudepigraphy was not viewed as acceptable in the ancient world. Thoughts?
David: I think that your post here is incredibly uncharitable to Kerry Muhlestein. I do not think he has been reckless or overstated the evidence — and he knows one heck of a lot more about Egyptology than you do. At least his written works seem to be appropriately restrained: see here http://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-11-number-1-2010/egyptian-papyri-and-book-abraham-some-questions-and-answers
While as I stated I believe that what you outline here is an option available for a faithful response, there is a price to pay for adopting this view. Other than the community’s consensus and Wittgensteinian language game, what supports the judgment that Joseph was inspired? After all, the community accepted the BofA as scripture because Joseph Smith presented it as an inspired translation of an ancient text; not the other way around. Scripture in Mormonism is not created because of a vote in a creedal council but because the prophet says so. The prophet is accepted as such largely because he gave us true translations of new scripture. So your argument seems circular to me.
I would be interested to see your response to this circle of authority problem.
In addition, I fail to see how the belief that there was a Jewish author(s) or a text regarding Abraham’s visions that relied on Egyptian throne scenes as a base text to explain the vision is convoluted from the simple fact that it actually occurred! Moreover, it is hardly convoluted since the BofA inherently involves 3 levels of claims on any faithful assessment:
1. There was a revelation to the patriarch Abraham;
2. This revelation is in some way represented in the Egyptian facsimiles in the Book of Abraham according the text itself; and
3. Joseph translated/interpreted/received a revelation that relates 1 and 2 to create the BofA.
Now it is hardly convoluted to desire an account of the BofA, if one takes it seriously, to account for the relation of all three strata of the BofA text.
Moreover, if scholarly acceptance is the Procustean bed that religious claims must fit to be acceptable, then we will be blown to and fro with every change of view in the academy (which occurs on a regular basis) and we may as well give up now since the vast majority of academics find Mormonism to be downright silly from the get go. I do not believe that any view has to meet such a requirement — if it did, no new views could ever emerge.
“I think that your post here is incredibly uncharitable to Kerry Muhlestein. I do not think he has been reckless or overstated the evidence — and he knows one heck of a lot more about Egyptology than you do.”
As “uncharitable” as it may be to define via a footnote Kerry’s videos as “highly problematic” and a contribution to the perception that one must be either critically minded or apologetic, I very much stand by this assertion. Moreover, as I suggested in part 1, Egyptology is clearly irrelevant as a tool for accessing the Book of Abraham, since Joseph Smith did not translate an Egyptian record.
Thank you for your comments, though.
Allen,
I would be more than happy to discuss your views in person sometime. I actually thought of you last night during a lecture we had at the University of Utah with Talmudist expert Admiel Kosman. It was wonderful and I wished your were there. It really sparked my interest and appreciation for this fascinating subject.
Please send me an email.
Best,
–DB
David, I appreciate your response. I must admit that I feel a bit overwhelmed with the material presented in your posts and the resulting comments, but if I understand correctly it seems that the question of how Joseph “translated” the BofA makes the question of what he was “translating” almost irrelevant. This because he wasn’t actually “translating” anything, but rather he discovered a way to connect with the divine and through inspiration produced the BofA. His personal interpretation of this experience was that he had “translated” the BofA from the scrolls, when in actuality he had created an inspired pseudepigraphic text. So the new introduction, by addressing the question of how Joseph produced the scripture that follows, redefines the role of what he was “translating” such that it really doesn’t matter anymore.
David, I’m troubled by your response to Blake. On MDDB, you mentioned one of the Muhlestein videos that bothered you. In response, I suggested that you misunderstood what Muhlestein intended in the video, though I granted that the video needed editing to make his meaning clearer(http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/60238-the-book-of-abraham-an-end-to-the-apologetic-war-pt-1/page__st__20#entry1209233039). That said, it was obvious to me what he was saying. Why wasn’t obvious to you? That’s a nice way of saying that maybe Blake is correct: you are being uncharitable towards Muhlestein.
As I also wrote on MDDB, you’re are obviously a very nice guy. Nevertheless, at least two of us on this thread wonder if you may have a blind spot in this case.
“That said, it was obvious to me what he was saying. Why wasn’t obvious to you?”
It isn’t obvious to me, so there are at least two of us.
Why must it be pseudepigraphic even if it isn’t the text we find in the papyrus scroll? I have always tied the Book of Abraham to the D&C 93 John text. Joseph Smith used the Papyrus as a portal (as you seem to describe in the OP) to an entirely different text that probably once existed, but is now forever gone. I refuse to believe that it never existed, even if it came from an ancient unfinished Ur text. That is faith to be sure, but its one grounded in my trust in God and Joseph Smith.
Jettboy,
Read Part 1 of David’s post, and I think you’ll understand better why he thinks this can’t be a genuine Abrahamic text.
To explain, since I do not want this issue to distract from the views in my essay, and I have heard from two different sources that Kerry felt that his comments lacked sufficient context via the editing process, I’ve removed the reference from the footnote. While I still disagree with his apologetic arguments, I will not allude to his work in this or any other essay until I can post a full critique of his proposals. It’s nothing personal, I just feel a professional and religious responsibility to point out problematic apologetic assertions.
Thanks for this post, David. I think your’re really doing something wonderful here. Something that may be difficult to swallow from a traditional perspective, but something that, as you say, is consistent with the essence of Mormon theology.
Christopher Smith, I used Ur text for a reason. The first part doesn’t take away from my point.
“I would submit that a more sophisticated view of the BofA, one that answers the objections raised by its critics, would be to simply accept Joseph Smith as “scribal author.””
Likewise, a more sophisticated view of the Salamander Letter would be to simply accept Mark Hofmann as “scribal author.” This does not make the SL a fraud any more than the BoA is a fraud.
David, I don’t even think the secular scholarly world has taken the Book of Abraham seriously enough to even have a valid opinion on the book. They’ve been far too dismissive and unengaged for me to – frankly – care what they think.
“David, just a slight correction to a wonderful series, the “purportedly” disappeared in 1878, not 1981. Rock on.”
Thank you WVS, I must have misread Brian’s footnote. I’ll have to go back and read more carefully.
Best,
–DB
“David, I don’t even think the secular scholarly world has taken the Book of Abraham seriously enough to even have a valid opinion on the book. They’ve been far too dismissive and unengaged for me to – frankly – care what they think.”
Be that as it may, Seth, I would still encourage you to read Dr. Ritner’s book “The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition.” I think it is very helpful in correcting problematic assertions.
http://signaturebooks.com/2012/02/scholar-says-mormon-scripture-not-an-egyptian-translation/
David, I don’t have much reason to question the quality of Ritner’s Egyptology work, and I’ll grant reading him is a good idea. I’ve only seen video interviews of him.
My impression was that whatever you want to think about his Egyptology work and conclusions – his conclusions about the overall “validity” of the Book of Abraham were sweeping, unwarranted, and showed a lack of any serious engagement in the debate going on over the work. He exhibited precisely the dismissive attitude I was talking about and demonstrated little understanding of the alternative explanations or counter-arguments out there.
Furthermore, as far as I was aware, one scholar does not even remotely come close to “serious engagement” from the secular scholarly world. The consensus among the world of secular scholarship on this issue is “ah – Ritner did something on that… looks good to me, and I don’t really care about the issue enough to add anything.”
You see this attitude in spades in this article response:
http://www.fairblog.org/2013/03/06/reverend-spalding-strikes-again-a-response-to-internet-criticism-of-kerry-muhlesteins-book-of-abraham-videos/
Most of the responses showed a laudable caution, but nonetheless disengagement with the subject matter. And one of them was downright cartoonishly unprofessional.
One other thing to keep in mind is that not just any Egyptologist will do. Different Egyptologists specialize in different era’s of the Egyptian language, which (no surprise) evolved significantly over the thousands of years of its existence. So it’s not just a matter of getting an Egyptologist’s opinion. Some Egyptologists will have no more to say on the matter than a scholar of ancient Greek would. It’s a matter of getting the right Egyptologists’ opinion.
David: I think that the “purporting to be the writings of Abraham” that appended the original publication of the BofA in 1848 is significant for the singular reason that it points toward a pseudepigraphic document regarding Abraham.
I’ve listened to Kerry Muhlestein’s videos and he did convince me of something: that he has yet to master the documentary evidence for the formation of the Book of Abraham. His understanding of the early-19th century ideational setting is even worse. He is oblivious, for instance, to the fact that many Jewish and Islamic traditions about Abraham were known in Joseph Smith’s era and easily accessible.
Now for all I know Kerry may be a brilliant Egyptologist… but if so, that brilliance is tarnished by his videos.
My best,
Brent
Brent, my understanding of the videos is that they’re just covering a single academic topic.
You seem to be miffed that he didn’t include all the critical disclaimers you wanted. But that would only be a relevant gripe if his video was claiming to establish the inspired nature of the BoA in the first place.
Was it?
Seth R.,
Robert Ritner is hardly the first Egyptologist to address this. And incidentally, he was one of our own John Gee’s graduate professors, as you may know.
But sure enough, the secular scholarly world includes more than just Egyptology, and there are lots of academics that have not engaged the BoAbr.
Why should they, we might want to ask, when anything they may say about it is likely to be understood primarily within a parochial framework of truth claims, counter-claims, and disputes, not to mention outright hostility on both sides of the divide between Mormons and ‘the critics’?
It’s like the (fittingly apocryphal story) I heard about Harold Bloom getting invited to speak at a university in Utah (that part did happen). Once there, he was promptly asked to weigh in on the religious dispute, so the story goes, and was more than a little put off by the unprofessionalism and pettiness of the question (that’s the apocryphal part that I cannot corroborate because I was not there).
When you say that the secular scholarly world has not taken the BofAbr seriously enough even to have a valid opinion of it, it kinda sounds to me like what you are saying is you want them to validate your opinion, not take the BofAbr seriously.
Here is the link for viewing the words “purporting to be” in the 1842 Willard Richards MS, behind the T&S publication and 1851 first edition of PGP:
http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/willard-richards-copy-of-abraham-manuscript-early-1842-a-abraham-11-218
wesley,
I don’t care what conclusions they reach, as long as they actually engaged. Which they have not.
The best we have is brief moments of comedy – like a certain message board poster’s attempt to lure a bunch of Egyptologists into an ideological war, or the completely similar antics of Reverend Spaulding back in the day. Accompanied of course, by serious scholarship like Ritner’s that is good in the limited Egyptological analysis, but utterly deficient in engaging the rest of the questions surrounding the circumstances of Joseph Smith’s work on the document.
None of my argument relies on questioning the credentials of Ritner.
All I’m saying is that he’s “wandered off the farm” as they say in his conclusions and speculations on the broader question of Joseph Smith’s work on the BoA. I don’t question Ritner’s Egyptology credentials any more than I question Richard Dawkins’ qualifications as an evolutionary biologists (by all accounts, he’s a quite excellent one). But when either of them wander off the farm to start making pronouncements they are not qualified to make – that’s where my attentiveness to their opinions ends.
Ritner has allowed himself to be co-opted in an ideological war. A war which your reported account has Harold Bloom wisely avoiding. Too bad Ritner didn’t have the same discretion.
DB,
Thanks for your response. Both you and the critics agree that the Book of Abraham is pseudepigrapha. Do you think “pious fraud” is an accurate description of your view?
Do you think that the Book of Mormon is also pseudepigrapha with Joseph Smith (or some other contemporary) being the actual source?
Here’s the thing. Take for example Metcalfe criticizing Muhlestein because he is not fully informed about the 19th century background of the Book of Abraham. But no one bothers to see if Ritner knows anything about either the Book of Abraham or its 19th century background or the relation of Egyptian documents to Abrahamic pseudepigraphic works because he is an Egyptologist pure and simple. We shouldn’t expect Ritner to know about it. He is a great Egyptologist, not such a great scholar of intertestamental Jewish literature. So I do not accept him as qualified outside the areas of his competence. He cannot address all of the relevant issues regarding the Book of Abraham.
Nor do I expect him to have taken seriously the Book of Abraham by looking for possibilities about the relation to Abraham. Because on its face at least the Egyptian text gives not hint that it involves Abraham, I don’t think that Ritner needs to know about the Book of Abraham for his purposes. It takes looking deeper than just the Egyptian text to see how it works in my view. He is a really fine Egyptologist and that is enough.
I suggest that it is also unreasonable to expect Muhlestein to be an expert in 19th century Abrahamic information including the midrashic and pseudepigraphic documents available. He addresses it from the perspective of one trained in Egyptology who has an interest as a Mormon in the Book of Abraham. He can address issues that Brent cannot. But Brent has a better background in some areas. That does not make Muhlestein a poor scholar.
g. wesley: Thanks for that link. It appears to be directed by Joseph Smith to Willard Richards as an explanation of what the document presented is. It is a “purported” writing of Abraham. Is that another way of saying it is a pseudepigraphic work about Abraham? I don’t think we can say for sure, but it is very suggestive of that possibility as I see. However, I don’t see pseudepigrapha as “pious fraud.” There is every indication that those writing these documents had the experiences that relate. If the Apoc.Abr. is a vision by a first-century Jew of the same vision given to Abraham, then it is appropriate to put it under Abraham’s name and impute it to Abraham. That is at least one possibility.
Seth R.,
I see that you and I may be more in agreement than I realized.
Yes, from my LDS perspective it would have been nice if Ritner and others had not allowed themselves to be co-opted, assuming that they are always aware that this is what is happening to them. And I have my doubts that the latest three Egyptologists intended for their emails to be the centerpiece of a messageboard post or used in a subsequent Youtube video. (Plus I hope we can agree that co-optation happens on both sides of the divide between Mormons and ‘the critics.’)
We could say that it is a pity the scholars take the bait. Yet, we then do the same thing by lashing out at the scholars. The Spaldings and the flackermans are baiting us more than they are the scholars. They know what the scholars are going to say, and they are just trying to get a reaction from us. If they can get us to embarrass ourselves in front of the scholars and show our unprofessionalism and even anti-intellectualism, they win.
They win because now the scholars have all the more reason to think less of Mormons (in general and Mormons in academia) when we go on the defensive and attack them, such as in this FAIR response. Sure, we might feel justified, even provoked. But it doesn’t matter. Bottom line is if we want to be taken seriously, and if we want our religious texts to be taken seriously, we have to act like professionals or at least adults, whether others do the same or not.
Umm no wesley.
The FAIR response only attacked ONE of the scholars in that exchange.
And she, in every way, deserved the attack for how unprofessionally she behaved.
Ok, sure, let’s say that she behaved unprofessionally in an email that was then made public, with or without her (full) intent. That deserves a public attack on the FAIR blog? From my point of view, that is called escalation, doing more harm than good, etc.
Anyhow, even if she had gone on national television and made the same statement, the Spaldings and the flackermans still win. We still take the bait. The bottom line remains the same: if we want to be taken seriously, and if we want our religious texts to be taken seriously, we have to act like professionals or at least adults, whether others do the same or not.
Blake,
I don’t know what can be said about the words “purporting to be” in the MS either. But I do think it is interesting that they were dropped as the BofAbr was canonized. Is there something to the canonization process that locks us into unnecessarily rigid positions?
Also, I think I am beginning to understand better what you have in mind with visions of visions. Are you thinking of the BofAbr by analogy to apocalyptic and merkabah traditions, in which some would say the would-be visionary reads and meditates upon past visionary accounts such as in Ezekiel until they experience the vision for the themselves? Or to take the Book of Mormon example, the Revelation of John as the vision of Nephi as the vision of Lehi?
g wesley: “Is there something to the canonization process that locks us into unnecessarily rigid positions?”
I was thinking that the latest changes unilaterally by the church without a common consent vote show precisely that often changes were made in ignorance and without appreciating the original import of what was changed. I am not indicting the church. I think it is just natural that such changes occur as new folks come on board that didn’t fully understand what those who came before were up to. As I get older, in fact, I appreciate this limitation more and more.
“Are you thinking of the BofAbr by analogy to apocalyptic and merkabah traditions, in which some would say the would-be visionary reads and meditates upon past visionary accounts such as in Ezekiel until they experience the vision for the themselves? Or to take the Book of Mormon example, the Revelation of John as the vision of Nephi as the vision of Lehi?”
Precisely. The same visions are given repeatedly. I think that those writing pseudepigraphically saw themselves as restorers of what the patriarch or prophet in whose name they wrote experienced first based on their own visions and experiences. The ascension literature (of which Revelations is just one) is teeming with very similar throne visions after ascension guided by a heavenly messenger. I have always thought of the Book of Abraham that way.
In addition, those writing NT books in the name of Peter, for instance, saw themselves as accurately conveying his words and experiences as carriers of a common oral tradition. That is why we need to look behind the mere fact that say, John or Matthew, did not write the gospels of John and Matthew. The writers of the gospel of John, for instance, believed that they had the words of John revealed to them as the basis of the gospel. In fact, it would be hard to argue that there is not a good deal of accurate historical recollection in this process of revealing the prior apostle’s (or disciple’s) zeitgeist. The oral traditions were more stable and reliable than we give them credit. Of course, all of that requires very careful textual, historical and critical assessment.
Blake,
I realized after typing that I need to be more precise about the words “purporting to be” dropping out as the PGP was canonized. If I have it right, the words were dropped in the 1878 edition under the editorship of Orson Pratt. Then canonization was two years later.
I come from the school of thought that is willing to accept reports of visions, etc., as based on genuine religious experiences, which is not to say that none of the texts in apocalyptic and merkabah traditions might be literary creations. It seems like these visions, etc., are often at least partly cultivated through various practices, but I don’t think some superhuman input must always be ruled out for that reason.
g wesley #48 – So are you saying Superman could have written the Apoc.Abr.?
Actually, she did say the questioner could use her name in her response wesley.
Did you even read the FAIR response? Or did you just skim over it and then say what you’d already decided to say before reading it?
Also, I think your concept of winning public approval is dubious at best. Sure, you can win approval from an insular group of academics. But then if society doesn’t agree and moves on and leaves you in the dust, who cares?
Don’t confuse FAIR with the Maxwell Institute wesley, or even with the previous FARMS – they are not, and never were the same things.
FAIR has always had concerns beyond simply producing scholarship. It’s own mission extends to a lot of other practical aims – like actually helping people with criticisms of the LDS Church.
Winning ivy-tower popularity contests is only one of the many things it can and should be shooting for.
Seth R.,
At this point, my only response is … don’t let me or anyone else stand in your way. You’ll do what you feel you have to, I’m sure.
Blake,
I think religious experiences the world over can involve input from something superhuman, whatever that may be in each case. I think a religious experience could be recorded in ApocAbr under the name of the patriarch. If so, I think that the vision could have been cultivated by certain practices. But I would hesitate to reduce it to those practices and their physiological results. Even so reduced though, I think it would still be a genuine religious experience, or at least rather hard to distinguish from one (if the definition of religious experience requires superhuman input).
What superhuman input there may have been in the vision of the pseudepigraphical writer of ApocAbr I couldn’t say. Was it God, the same God said to appear to Abraham in Genesis, and later said to be the Son of God incarnate, and later said to appear to JS? Again, I couldn’t say.
wesley, I will grant however that your warnings have a lot of practical merit for publishing Mormon scholars however.
I’m grateful for all the feedback and discussion that these posts have provoked (in a good sense). I’m sorry I don’t have time to properly answer all of the questions and respond to every post. A lot of people have asked if I could point out a specific example of problematic assertions in traditional BofA apologetics. There are many that could be cited. My goal has never been to simply produce controversy or debate.
I care deeply about Mormonism and have personally witnessed many believing Latter-day Saints abandon their faith due to well-intended, albeit poorly expressed apologetics. Since Mormonism has been such an effective spiritual force in my own life, I hate to see this happen. I feel both a professional and a religious obligation, therefore, to not only correct bad arguments, but to offer alternative perspectives.
I actually hinted towards one of the traditional apologetic arguments that I believe needs to be improved by the way I place “Egyptian” in quotation marks. In recent years, we’ve seen video presentations and LDS publications refer to the term “Egyptian” in reference to Coptic. These statements are obviously correct; Coptic is “Egyptian.” But the problem is that when a text or even a people is/are described as simply “Egyptian” (especially in the context of the BofA), most non-specialists (and even many scholars) immediately associate the term with a much earlier era/people.
I don’t know why we should be surprised by the fact that “Egyptian” Christians knew about Abraham!!
To provide an analogy of what I see happening with these types of assertions, if in the context of discussing the Israelite Exodus, I were to write a statement such as “many Egyptians believed Moses was a prophet sent from God,” this would be shocking, since the reader would naturally assume that I was referring to “Egyptians” connected with Moses’ time period, when in reality, I was simply referring to Egyptian Muslims from the 8th century AD when Kone Greek and Coptic were first officially used as the “Egyptian” administrative language.
I could (and perhaps will at some point) provide many more examples of this occurring in BofA apologetics. It’s not helping. It’s “smoke and mirrors,” and it needs to stop.
DB,
Well said sir!
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I do not like the way FAIR handles things. Why do they even respond to anti- boards?
What would be the alternative Nelson? Like it or not, as foul-minded as the message boards are, they do actually come up with unique criticisms of the LDS Church from time to time.
By the way, I think we should be circling the wagons on Kerry Muhenstein right now. He received undue criticism from a good-looking, pop Egyptologist.
The BOA text itself seems to reveal what part were the words of the scribe himself and what part were the words of Abraham (copied into the document by the scribe). See
http://1stactscriptures.wordpress.com/2012/04/05/the-book-of-abraham/