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Question: Are chariots an anachronism for the Book of Abraham?
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Question: Are chariots an anachronism for the Book of Abraham?
Introduction to Criticism
On March 18, 2022, Dr. John Gee, the foremost expert on the Book of Abraham and a professor in the department of near eastern languages at Brigham Young University, had a paper published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship entitled “‘The Wind and the Fire to be My Chariot’: The Anachronism that Wasn’t.”
In the paper, Dr. Gee points out that no critic since the translation and publication of the Book of Abraham has pointed out the apparent anachronism of the chariot. In Abraham 2:7, God tells Abraham in Haran that he will “cause the wind and the fire to be [his] chariot.”
Is the chariot an actual anachronism in the Book of Abraham?
Response to Criticism
Dr. Gee responds to his own criticism and shows that both linguistic and archaeological data point to the chariot existing during the span of time typically thought of to be Abraham’s lifetime. One can read the paper by following the link below.
Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, "“The Wind and the Fire to be my Chariot”: the Anachronism that Wasn’t"
John Gee, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, (March 18, 2022)In the Book of Abraham, God tells Abraham in Haran, “I cause the wind and the fire to be my chariot” (Abraham 2:7). While this initially might appear to be an anachronism, as the chariot is normally thought to have been introduced later, archaeological finds of chariots at the site of Harran predate Abraham by hundreds of years.
Click here to view the complete article
Notes