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Responding to Errors in an Anti-Mormon Film

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Responding to Errors in an Anti-Mormon Film RESPONDING TO ERRORS IN AN ANTI-MORMON FILM: “THE LOST BOOK OF ABRAHAM: INVESTIGATING A REMARKABLE MORMON CLAIM” by Ben McGuire OVERVIEW attack The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the beliefs of its members. Much of the film is quite Within the last year, the Institute of Religious Resarch accurate, but much is also misleading. For those who (IRR), a professional ‘anti-Mormon’ ministry, has pro- understand the latest in scholarship about the Book of duced a film entitled The Lost Book of Abraham: Inves- Abraham, this movie brings to mind the old saying that tigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim. This paper is a Satan will tell you a thousand truths to get you to be- review of that film, as well as an analysis of the bias lieve a single lie. evident in what the producers decided not to discuss in the film. This is not IRR’s first attempt to denigrate the Book of Abraham, considered by members of the LDS Church • While presented as a documentary and passed to be sacred scripture. Ten years ago a book was pub- off as a scholarly production, the film’s sole pur- lished by IRR, authored by Charles M. Larson, entitled pose is to attack the LDS Church. By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the • The film ignores the large body of scholarly Joseph Smith Papyri. This film repeats many of the work developed in the last decade. same charges as are printed in the book and conve- niently ignores the large body of scholarly work that • The purpose of this review is to demonstrate has been developed since its publication. This film, while the failure of the film to deal with scholarly trying to maintain a scholarly facade, loses much of its issues, such as: credibility because of this fact—it fails to acknowledge • How old were the papyri, and how old did current scholarship. Joseph Smith believe they were? This review is not an attempt to prove the Book of • Is it possible that Egyptian funerary texts Abraham to be a divinely inspired text; its purpose is could contain an Abrahamic tradition? not to convert the reader to the LDS faith. Its sole pur- • Do we have the actual papyri used by Jo- pose is to demonstrate the failure of the film to deal seph Smith to produce the text of the with the issues of the Book of Abraham as they are now Book of Abraham? understood in both the scholarly and apologetics com- munities of the LDS faith. • How were the papyri translated? Was it a merely mechanical or a divinely in- This response is intended to explore some of the unre- spired revelatory process? solved issues surrounding the coming forth of the Book of Abraham. Of all of Joseph Smith’s translational en- This paper also briefly discusses the nature and bias of deavors, it is the one we know the least about, and ar- the film and its producers. guably the one for which we have no original copies of Joseph’s work. Because of the lack of clear con- temporary accounts, and the apparent contra- BACKGROUND dictions that appear in the accounts we do have, the Book of Abraham has been the subject of The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Re- countless speculations. The rediscovery of some markable Mormon Claim is touted as a docu- of the Egyptian papyri which Joseph Smith mentary and passed off as a scholarly produc- owned has done nothing but feed these fires. tion by its producers. The reality, however, is This review is a brief response to some of the that the sole purpose of this production is to concerns which skeptics raise in this film over The Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research 2 The Lost Book of Abraham: A Review the production of the Book of Abraham. It is not intended his statement in that letter is not sufficient basis to as a complete rebuttal of the IRR film; there are un- conclude that Joseph Smith believed that the actual doubtedly other reviews that will be forthcoming, and papyrus that he had was 3500 years old. That the con- the reader is urged to review current scholarly data as tents of that papyrus could be considered that old was it relates to the Book of Abraham. A good place to begin something that he taught. It should be obvious that the your search is at the FAIR Web site, the address of which papyrus and the contents of the papyrus can have dif- is at the end of this review. ferent ages. (For instance, an ancient Greek play could be written on modern paper, but the age of the paper does not mean that the play is of the same age.) THE AGE OF THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM The statements above avoid making a critical distinc- The film makes three references, all of which are very tion between medium (the papyrus) and its content. The similar, that deal with the age of the text and/or the age film reinforces the fallacy that it was the papyri them- of the Joseph Smith papyrus. The first reference occurs selves that were that old when they declare that the in the introduction to the film, as follows: papyri had been “lost for nearly 4,000 years.” (Of course Ashment calculates this at about ‘3500 years old’, which Smith claimed the scroll contained a lost book the producers of the film have rounded up to 4,000 to of Abraham—an original text nearly 4,000 years enhance the disparity.) Because the film relies on an old. obscure reference, which has other possible alternative explanations, and because that reference is not included The second remark occurs a little later: in the film, this is an indication that the producers are not interested in explaining this detail. While this may From early on, non-Mormons were dubious of not be of huge significance, it is used to set the stage— Joseph’s claim to have recovered a book writ- a stage that is weak from the outset. ten by Abraham 2,000 years before Christ, and lost for nearly 4,000 years. I read into Joseph’s remarks the idea that he was refer- ring to buried papyri in general, and not specifically to The film’s transcript includes a footnote for the above those in his possession, when he uses the phrase “after a remark, which appears as follows: lapse of nearly 3500 years.” Then, there is an often-ignored statement, from Parley P. Pratt, close friend and associ- In a letter of November 13, 1843 to James Ar- ate of Joseph Smith, and an apostle of the LDS Church lington Bennett, Joseph Smith referred to his at the time, who said this of the papyri and their con- Egyptian mummies and papyri: “the art of em- tents: balming human bodies and preserving them in the catacombs of Egypt, whereby men, women, The record is now in course of translation by and children, as mummies, after a lapse of means of the Urim and Thummim, and proves nearly 3500 years come forth among the living to be a record written partly by the father of and although dead, the papyrus which has lived the faithful, Abraham, and finished by Joseph unharmed in their bossoms [sic] speaks for them when in Egypt. After his death, it is supposed in language like the sound of an earthquake…” they were preserved in the family of the Pha- Ms. D 155 bx 2 fd 6 v. Joseph Smith Collection. raohs and afterwards hid up with the embalmed LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City. As cited body of the female upon whom they were found. by Edward H. Ashment, unpublished paper, Thus it is, indeed, true, that the ways of the Lord 2000. “Thus, Smith dated the Egyptian writings are not man’s ways, nor his thoughts as our to be ca. 3500 years old; that is, according to thoughts.1 him, the papyri were written ca. 1660 BCE.” (Ashment). Here, Pratt is quite clear that there was a theory (the facts being unknown) that the papyrus containing the A thoughtful review of these assertions leads to a couple record of Abraham was “preserved” by the descendants of direct criticisms. First, the remarks made by Joseph of Pharaoh (and not the Israelites—a point of discus- Smith in the letter dated November 13, 1843 to James sion within the film), and that it was later buried with Arlington Bennett as recorded in the unpublished manu- the mummy on which they found it. Whether or not this script of Edward H. Ashment would not lead me to the was the exact same material that Abraham wrote upon, same conclusions that Ashment drew. In other words, and the length of time it remained in the possession of Copyright © 2002–2003 by FAIR Ben McGuire 3 the descendants of Pharaoh is open to speculation. There common during the Pre-dynastic Period, before are a number of current theories that reflect upon these 3100 BC. Another utterance (Spell 355) says that ideas, but they are never discussed in the film. bricks have been removed from the great tomb, a reference to mud-brick mastaba tombs of the Of course, someone who is predisposed to a critical view type discarded by royalty since the early Third of the antiquity of the Book of Abraham can point to Dynasties about 2680 BC.2 Pratt’s statement and assert that the words “written partly by…Abraham” indicates that Abraham actually A little later Faulkner writes: wrote the scroll.
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