Egypt Archives — Denver Snuffer

The last lesson I taught the Priests in my ward I went over the history of the Book of Abraham. There are a host of arguments made against Joseph Smith, his translation and the authenticity of the Book of Abraham which rely upon ignorance to persuade.

The Book of Abraham is one of the strongest proofs of Joseph Smith’s credibility as a prophet who restored ancient knowledge and did so using the power of God. But only if you have read enough to know the lay of the terrain.

I brought the following books with me to the class:

Abraham in Egypt (Nibley)

The Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Nibley)

Astronomy, Papyrus and Covenant (Hauglid)

An Approach to the Book of Abraham (Nibley)

One Eternal Round (Nibley)

The Blessings of Abraham (Clark)

Traditions About the Early Life of Abraham (Tvedtnes, Gee)

The Hor Book of Breathings (Rhodes)

A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Gee)

Vol. 2 of The History of the Church (Joseph Smith)

Critics of Joseph have provoked a tremendous effort to account for the Book of Abraham. If you are interested in the topic, the results of that effort are worth reading. I find that all topics related to the restoration are interesting to me.

I’ve spent a few days with scholars with backgrounds in Egyptology. There is a great deal to learn about the earliest days of Egypt and the Egyptian influence on ancient Israel. Many of our Psalms are taken directly from Egypt. Abraham sojourned there, Joseph served there, the twelve tribes resided there, Moses was raised there in the royal courts, Jeremiah fled there, and Christ lived several years there. Egypt was a repository of arcane knowledge which remains interesting to Latter-day Saints.

The brass plates of Laban were also in Egyptian. Mosiah Chapter 1, verses 1-4 discuss the education of Mosiah’s sons. They were taught “in all the language of his fathers.” That phrase gets explained. But before clarifying what “all the language” included, the brass plates are mentioned in verse 2. These plates contained the commandments that the sons of Mosiah needed to understand and were not possible for father Lehi to remember. Therefore it was necessary for them to possess the brass plates to stimulate their memory of the commandments.

Continuing on with the explanation, and addressing specifically the brass plates, it is written: “it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates; for he having been taught in the language of the Egyptians therefore he could read these engravings, and teach them to his children.”(Id. v. 4., emphasis added.)

This somewhat changes the picture of Jerusalem at the time of Lehi’s departure. The record of the brass plates included what we would recognize as the Old Testament record, from Moses’ five books down to the time of Lehi’s exodus. (See 1 Ne. 5: 10-16.) For the entire Old Testament account to have been written in Egyptian onto the brass plates means that Egyptian was a preferred language. It wasn’t just an efficient language that Nephi selected for his own record, but instead a preference that was widespread among the Jews throughout Jerusalem at the time of Lehi’s departure.

By the time Mormon took over abridging the record, the language had been further modified for efficiency and reduced effort in carving the record onto metal plates. (See Mormon 9: 32-34.) It was a more efficient, though less exact, form of language than Hebrew.

The Egyptian influence upon ancient Jerusalem and our own Bible should be studied. The presence of Egyptian hieroglyphs in our scriptures (Book of Abraham Facsimiles 1-3) also puts us on notice that we need to look into Egyptian matters. Hugh Nibley has written a number of books on the matter, the most recent of which was released as One Eternal Round on the occasion of Nibley’s 100 year from birth. Abraham in Egypt was an earlier work also on this subject. And there has been a three volume set on the Early Life of Abraham published through BYU (quite an expensive set to own). It is interesting how much Egyptian influence there has been in our faith. Remember that the Egyptians sought to preserve the faith which existed before the flood and was practiced from Adam to the time of Noah. (Abraham 1: 26.) It may have become eroded and drifted, but it nevertheless preserved truths from the beginning. Abraham was sent to them to help restore the original faith which they originally tried earnestly to preserve.

Whether we like it or not, we have an interest in knowing more about ancient Egypt than any other Christian faith.