Criticism of the Book of Abraham
scholarly assessment of Mormon text
The Book of Abraham is a work produced sometime between 1835 and 1842 by the Latter Day Saints (LDS) movement founder Joseph Smith that he said was based on Egyptian papyri purchased from a traveling mummy exhibition. According to Smith, the book was "a translation of some ancient records ... purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus". The work was first published in 1842 and today is a canonical part of the Pearl of Great Price. Since its printing, the Book of Abraham has been a source of controversy. Many non-LDS Egyptologists, beginning in the mid-19th century, have criticized Joseph Smith's translation and explanations of the facsimiles, unanimously concluding that his interpretations are inaccurate. They have also asserted that missing portions of two of the facsimiles were reconstructed incorrectly by Smith.
The controversy intensified in the late 1960s when portions of the Joseph Smith Papyri were located. Translations of the papyri revealed that the rediscovered portions bore no relation to the text of the Book of Abraham. Latter-day Saint scholar and apologist Hugh Nibley and Brigham Young University Egyptologists John L. Gee and Michael D. Rhodes subsequently offered detailed rebuttals to some criticisms.
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