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Facsimile 1: a Unique Document 4 Facsimile 1: A Unique Document A Doubtful Coup-de-grâce It was the finding of the original papyrus from which Facsimile 1 in the Book of Abraham was taken that reopened the case of Joseph Smith versus the scholars by making it possible to give definite answers to questions of funda- mental importance that have heretofore been viewed by the Mormons as remaining in the twilight zone of speculation and by the non-Mormons as absolutely settled and sealed for all time. What was felt to be by far the strongest argument against the authenticity of Joseph Smith’s interpretations was the claim that the three facsimiles were not unique documents at all, but thoroughly conventional representations of well- known Egyptian scenes, identical copies of which could be produced in unlimited quantities: Joseph Smith had mis- taken ordinary glass buttons for the crown jewels. This was the point that the experts labored with might and main. It would be hard to state it more bluntly and emphatically “Part 5: Facsimile No. 1: A Unique Document” originally appeared in the series “A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price” in IE 71 (September 1968): 66–80; and (October 1968): 73–81. “Part 6: Facsimile No. 1: A Unique Document (cont.)” originally appeared in the series “A New Look at the Pearl of Great Price” in IE 71 (November 1968): 36–38, 40, 42, 44; and (December 1968): 28–33. 115 116 AN APPROACH TO THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM than James H. Breasted did again and again: “Joseph Smith was attributing to Abraham not three unique documents of which no other copies exist, but was attributing to Abraham a series of documents which were common property of a whole nation of people who employed them in every human burial, which they prepared.” 1 As to the first facsimile, “If desired, publications of fac-similes of this resurrection scene . could be furnished in indefinite numbers.”2 And again, “the three facsimiles in question represent equipment which will be and has been found in unnumbered thousands in Egyptian graves. In accepting them, then, as parts of the ‘Book of Abraham,’ let it be understood that they were in universal use among the pagan Egyptians.” 3 Dr. Breasted cannot insist too strongly on this: The scene in Facsimile 3 “again is depicted innumerable times,” 4 and “to sum up, . these three facsimiles . depict the most common objects in the mortuary religion of Egypt. Not to repeat it too often the point which I wish to make is that Joseph Smith repre- sents as portions of a unique revelation through Abraham, things which were commonplaces and to be found in many thousands in the everyday life of the Egyptians.” 5 Is that clear enough? Eduard Meyer had already made the same point in his book on the Mormons, observing that the plates in the Book of Abraham were nothing but “the usual represen- tations from the Book of the Dead. The most amusing thing about it is the explanations of the pictures. There is the usual scene of the dead person being conducted into 1. Franklin S. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator (Salt Lake City: Arrow, 1912; reprint, Salt Lake City: Modern Microfilm, 1965) , 25. 2. Ibid., 26. 3. Ibid., 25. 4. Ibid., 26. 5. Ibid., 26–27. FACSIMILE 1: A UNIQUE DOCUMENT 117 the presence of Osiris by the Goddess of Truth.” 6 It is all so perfectly ordinary and familiar—that is what makes Joseph Smith’s version so amusing. Petrie joins the chorus: the facsimiles “are copies (very badly done) of well known Egyptian subjects of which I have dozens of examples.” 7 For Dr. Lythgoe, Facsimile 1 was “merely the usual scene of the mummy upon its bier. The idolatrous priest . was . merely the familiar figure of the god Anubis. [The facsimiles] were thus stock scenes, and in no way individual to any particular mummy. There is nothing so certain as that the Mormon prophet got hold of pictures showing the common mortuary ritual of the Egyptians, and that these pictures recur again and again throughout the whole period of Egyptian burials.” 8 Even the hypocephalus (Facsimile 2) was for A. H. Sayce and Breasted just “an ordinary hypo- cephalus” (as if any hypocephalus was ordinary! ) found “under the head of the mummy.” 9 For Samuel A. B. Mercer these were all “the most commonplace Egyptian figures,”10 and for the confident Banks, “The original of Smith’s crude drawing is a common stock picture from the tombs; its meaning is thoroughly understood.” 11 Finally, Dr. Lythgoe’s present-day successor at the Metro- politan Museum of Art repeats the refrain: “The three scenes belong to three common classes of inscription of which many hundreds of examples exist today. Any textbook 6. Eduard Meyer, Ursprung und Geschichte der Mormonen (Halle: Niemeyer, 1912) , 64–65. 7. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator, 23. 8. Albert M. Lythgoe, in “Museum Walls Proclaim Fraud of Mor- mon Prophet,” New York Times, 29 December 1912, 1; the quotations are not in the order in which they appear in the article. 9. Spalding, Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator, 23, 26. 10. Ibid., 29. 11. Edgar J. Banks, in Sterling B. Talmage, “The Sacred Books of the ‘Mormons’: A Letter and a ‘Protest against Misrepresentation,’ ” IE 16 (1913): 775, speaking of Facsimile 3. 118 AN APPROACH TO THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM on Egyptian religion or funerary customs . would give you information on these objects.” 12 Here the experts have their surest arguments, and they are determined at any price to deny any slightest glimmering of originality or uniqueness to the three facsimiles, the con- cession of which would be bound to raise all sorts of difficult questions. In view of this challenge, the Mormon position was forthright and ingenuous: they simply asked for a demonstra- tion of the proposition that the critics were loudly declaring to be supremely demonstrable: “A sample ‘facsimile’ or two from the doctor’s ‘scores’ would be exceedingly enlighten- ing. It would cost him little time and trouble to give us a few titles and page references.” 13 After all, it was hardly asking too much of the men who insisted they knew of the very par- allel documents that would settle the case once for all to pro- duce a few of those all-important items for the bene fit of the ignorant. But they never did. Why not? Some of the experts hedged a bit: “You will find practically the duplicate of this drawing over and over again,” 14 and you can also find almost“ exactly a duplicate of the disk [Facsimile 2].” 15 But a duplicate is not an approximation; it is not practically or almost like something else, and today it is being pointed out with increas- ing frequency that apparently minor differences in otherwise identical Egyptian documents can be extremely significant.16 Thus, to say with Dr. Eric Young that the facsimiles “belong 12. Dr. Eric Young of the Metropolitan Museum in a letter to LaMar Petersen, dateline of 1959. [We have been unable to locate the Peterson letters mentioned in this chapter—eds.] 13. Robert C. Webb (J. C. Homans) , “Truth Seeking: Its Symptoms and After Effects,” IE 16 (1913): 1079; see Robert C. Webb, “A Critical Exami- nation of the Fac-Similes in the Book of Abraham,” IE 16 (1913): 436–37 (from the Deseret News, 5 July 1913). 14. Banks, in Talmage, “Letter and a ‘Protest against Misrepresenta- tion,’ ” 775 (emphasis added). 15. “Museum Walls Proclaim Fraud of Mormon Prophet,” 3 (empha- sis added). 16. See below, notes 68–73. FACSIMILE 1: A UNIQUE DOCUMENT 119 to three common classes of inscription” is almost the equiva- lent of saying that the three are not unique because they all contain recognizably Egyptian material.17 In their zeal to damn the Mormon documents as utterly commonplace, the doctors soon found themselves in a rather awkward, not to say ridiculous, position. Plus c’est la même chose, plus ça change! 18 No sooner have the authorities announced with all the majesty at their command that all three facsimiles are the most ordinary stereotyped documents imaginable, than they start protesting that everything about the pictures is wrong, irregular, and out of order—“incorrect,” as Dr. Sayce puts it. And they are right: anyone who follows the advice of our experts and duly spends some time looking through “any textbook on Egyptian religion or funerary customs” 19 will recognize the facsimiles at first glance as old friends, for they do look reassuringly familiar. But whoever risks the indis- cretion of a second glance is suddenly not so sure—there is something strange going on! At this point the conscientious student should do what nobody seems yet to have done and what the Mormons begged the experts to do—namely, to go back and check all available parallel docu ments.20 This is what we have to do. The admitted haste and brevity of all reports made to date on the facsimiles by professional Egyptologists, and their invincible reluctance to engage in 17. Letter from Young to Petersen. 18. The more things stay the same, the more they change. 19. Letter from Young to Petersen. 20. “The museums on both sides of the water . are filled with papyri . that might have been examined to secure the counterparts of Joseph Smith’s ‘hieroglyphics.’ ” John A. Widtsoe, “Comments on the Spaulding [sic] Pamphlet,” IE 16 (1913): 456–57. “Another worth while phase of the matter would perhaps be now to turn to hypocephali and collect and compare all of those interesting circular discs to be had in the museum.” Isaac Russell, “Joseph Smith Jr., as a Translator: A Further Discussion of Bishop Spalding’s Pamphlet,” IE 16 (1913): 1099.
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