Joseph Smith Papyri

However, based on what is still in existence, it can be concluded that there were at least 5 separate funerary documents as shown in the following table:[12][13] All of the mummies and papyri date to the Ptolemaic Egypt period, from sometime between 300 and 100 BC in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, near modern-day Luxor.

[22] While Chandler was in Philadelphia, a doctor named W. E. Horner gathered six other doctors and gave Chandler an unsolicited endorsement of his collection: Having examined with considerable attention and deep interest, a number of Mummies from the catacombs, near Thebes, in Egypt, and now exhibited in the Arcade, we beg leave to recommend them to the observation of the curious inquirer on subjects of a period so long elapsed; probably not less than three thousand years ago.

[46][47] Booth had intended to send them to President Andrew Jackson's Tennessee home, but after being told how rare the items were, gave them to John Varden, owner of the Washington Museum of Curiosities.

[49] Looking to make a sale, Chandler brought four mummies, two scrolls, and additional papyrus fragments[50] to Kirtland, Ohio (then headquarters of the LDS Church) in late June or early July 1835.

but having all confidence in the utility of the collection, and being assured by yourself that the burthen would be but temporary; that the profits arising from the work when translated would be more than adequate to the defraying all the expence which might accrue by the purchase.

[62]The latter half of 1835 Joseph Smith and his scribes Cowdery, Phelps, Frederick G. Williams, and Warren Parrish spent studying the scrolls and translating the first part of the Book of Abraham.

"[64] In January 1836, work on the translation of the papyri stopped, as Joseph Smith focused on other projects and events, such as the building of the Kirtland Temple, learning Hebrew, and administering a growing church.

[73] Lucy Mack Smith recalled the troubling time later in life: The first movement was to sue Joseph for debt, and, with this pretense, seize upon every piece of property belonging to any of the family.

[80] The LDS Church faced difficult times in 1838 and 1839, including expulsion from Missouri, Joseph Smith being jailed, and relocating its headquarters to Nauvoo, Illinois.

In his July 26, 1838 entry he writes that he saw men gathering logs for Joseph Smith's house, "in which he intends translating the heiroglyphics [sic] of the Egyptian Mummies.

[77] On October 27, 1838, after the governor of Missouri issued the Extermination Order to expel the state of "Mormons", Joseph Smith moved his parents to Quincy, Illinois, who took the mummies and papyri with them.

He then walked to a secretary, on the opposite side of the room, and drew out several frames, covered with glass, under which were numerous fragments of Egyptian papyras, on which, as usual, a great variety of hieroglyphical characters had been imprinted.

Charlotte Haven, a young girl who visited Nauvoo, wrote to her mother, "[Madame Smith] took up what seemed to be a club wrapped in a dark cloth, and said "This is the leg of pharaoh's daughter, the one who saved Moses.

"[90] The St. Louis Evening Gazette reported, "In addition to the mummies that were intact, there were some fragments of others, including a limb of that Pharaoh's daughter who rescued Moses when he had been exposed to the crocodiles in the bulrushes of the Nile.

A 1918 memorandum from the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art records that Heusser brought "eight or ten fragments of papyri" for inspection "in connection with the effort made by Bishop Spaulding of Utah about 1912 to obtain confirmation ... that Joseph Smith's supposed translations of sacred Egyptian texts on which he founded his 'Pearl of Great Price' were a fraud.

He characterized himself as the principal discoverer of the papyrus, relating the story in the Improvement Era as follows: While I was in one of the dim rooms where everything was brought to me, something caught my eye, and I asked one of my assistants to take me behind the bars into the storehouse of documents so that I could look some more.

"[114] Museum curator Henry Fischer responded in a letter to Atiya: Although I was already aware that your version of the discovery of these documents had caused considerable confusion, it was startling to read that you had informed me of their existence.

In the same article in the February 1968 issue of the Improvement Era that contained the near full size sepia color reproductions of the papyri, Jay M. Todd, editorial associate for the magazine, discussed the discovery of a fragment which had been stored with the manuscript of the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and had been in the Church Historian's archives since at least 1908.

Church Historian's fragment" and the text:[117] With our readers, the staff of The Improvement Era will be looking forward with eager anticipation to additional developments in this fascinating story, and the unfolding of the meaning of the hieroglyphics and illustrations on these valuable manuscripts as they are given by Dr. Nibley in his articles.Joseph Smith taught that the two rolls were literally written by the Ancient Patriarchs Abraham and Joseph.

[127] In total, eleven papyrus fragments have been recovered, and are designated I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, X, and XI in the Improvement Era article.

[133] The official position taken by the LDS church on the papyri is that "Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the translation given in the book of Abraham.

[149] The culminating vignette, also known as facsimile #3, is the presentation of Hor to the Egyptian god of death and rebirth Osiris (seated), and his wife Isis (standing) after having been judged worthy to continue existence.

Prospective deceased would pick and choose which spells (sometimes referred to as chapters) they wanted in their book to assist them, as such, there is a wide variance between different versions across its long history of use.

In an 1835 letter he described various vignettes as follows: The representation of the god-head--three, yet in one, is curiously drawn to give simply, though impressively, the writers views of that exalted personage.

Halfway down the Lilly stand, above two plant shaped wine jars are two human-headed birth bricks called Meskhenet and Shai, gods of destiny that represent the fate of Nefer-ir-nebu.

[153] In an 1835 letter Oliver Cowdery appeared to reference this scene while describing the scroll of Joseph: The inner end of the same roll, (Joseph's record,) presents a representation of the judgement: At one view you behold the Savior seated upon his throne, crowned, and holding the sceptres of righteousness and power, before whom also, are assembled the twelve tribes of Israel, the nations, languages and tongues of the earth, the kingdoms of the world over which satan is represented as reigning, Michael the archangel, holding the key of the bottomless pit, and at the same time the devil as being chained and shut up in the bottomless pit.

The hypocephalus represented all that the sun encircles: the world of the living, over which it passed during the day, was depicted in the upper half, and that of the dead, which it crossed during the night, in the lower portion, where the images are upside down.

[1][citation needed] "The records were obtained from one of the catacombs in Egypt, near a place where once stood the renowned city of Thebes, by the celebrated French traveler, Antonio Lebolo, in the year 1831.

He procured license from Mehemet Ali, then viceroy of Egypt, under the protection of Chevalier Drovetti, the French Consul, in the year 1828, and employed four hundred and thirty-three men, four months and two days (if I understand correctly) - Egyptian or Turkish soldiers, at from four to six cents per diem, each man.

"Many of the leading Elders apostatized and turned against the Prophet seeking to take his life, but God warned him to rise up by night and depart for Missouri which he did and as fast as possible all the faithful followed, and those who could not do so but were forced to stay another winter were hunted, harassed, robbed and mobbed by apostates and among that number I was one although at the same time my house was a hiding place for old father Joseph Smith his sons Carlos and Samuel and many others.