FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Question: Do the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham demonstrate that Joseph was translating from the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language?
Question: Do the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham demonstrate that Joseph was translating from the extant Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language?
The claim is contradicted by manifold data
A common claim of critics who wish to support the Extant Papyri Theory (The theory that the Book of Abraham was translated from the papyri that we have today. Often it is further claimed that the translation came from the GAEL. There are problems with that approach not mentioned in this article.) is to show that the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham have characters from the papyri in their margins, suggesting to some that Joseph and co. used the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language to render the text of the Book of Abraham. Since the Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language is considered by both non-Latter-day Saint and Latter-day Saint scholars to not provide any authentic knowledge to the Egyptian Language, this, they claim, supports the notion that Joseph Smith was a conscious fraud and that the now-demonstrated fraudulent Book of Abraham supports this notion. Below we provide resources for learning more about this complex topic.
Further Reading
- Gee, John. "The Joseph Smith Papers Project Stumbles." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 33 (2019): 175–86.
- Lindsay, Jeff. "A Precious Resource With Some Gaps." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 33 (2019): 13–104.
These first two papers are responses to a Joseph Smith Papers volume that promotes the "Simultaneous Dictation Theory" for the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham and argues against other conclusions promoted in the volume. Two editors of the JSP then responded to Gee and Lindsay:
- Grow, Matthew J. and Matthew C. Godfrey. "The Joseph Smith Papers and the Book of Abraham: A Response to Recent Reviews." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 34 (2020): 97–104.
Gee and Lindsay then published rejoinders to that response:
- Gee, John. "Taking Stock." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 34 (2020): 113–118.
- Lindsay, Jeff. "A Welcome Response, but Flaws Remain." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 34 (2020): 105–12.
Later, John Gee would add more arguments and detail to his prior reviews and authored the most detailed response to the Simultaneous Dictation Theory:
- Gee, John. "Fantasy and Reality in the Translation of the Book of Abraham." Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 42 (2021): 127–70.
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