The Masonic Book of Abraham

[George Miller]

While it is unknown if Joseph Smith had access to George Oliver's later writings such as Signs and Symbols Illustrated, these types of Kabbalistic interpretations were not uncommon in Masonic symbols. However, the initiation of Jacob as a Mason and the importance of Jacob's ladder to Masonry would have been apparent to Joseph Smith solely through his reading of Antiquities of Freemasonry.

Antiquities of Freemasonry records that the ancient patriarch Jacob "adhered to our science [Masonry] as received by Abraham and practiced by Isaac" and that he passed the secrets of Masonry on to Joseph "whom he lover more tenderly than his other sons" and thus "[h]e bestowed more than ordinary pains in illustrating the objects embraced by the science of Masonry" unto Joseph (Oliver, Antiquities of Freemasonry [1824] p. 196-9, 204). In contrast Jacob's brother Essau was "initiated into and tainted with, the idolatrous rites of the neighboring nations" thus being initiated into a spurious Masonic tradition in which he had instead "taken wives from among the Hittites, and given in other respects to strong symptoms of apostacy". Because of this Jacob was sent to a distant country. It was in these travels that Jacob had his vision of the Ladder.

His mother, to avert the threatened danger [from Esau], sent Jacob to Padanaram, a distant country in the land of Mesopotamia, that he might remain in safety under the protection of his maternal uncle Laban. A fugitive from his own country, alone and friendless, overcome with the bodily exertions of his journey, augmented by anxiety of mind, he laid himself down to rest at a place called Luz, with the cold earth for his bed, and a stone for pillow, and the cloudy canopy of heaven for his covering. Her it pleased the Lord to impart that comfort his situation so imperiously demanded; and which conveyed to his senses through the medium of a most extraordinary vision. He thought he saw a LADDER, composed of staves or rounds innumerable, whose foot was place on the earth, but whose top extended to heaven, and was enclosed with a radiant circle of celestial glory. On this ladder the angels of God appeared as authorized ministers of his dispensations of justice and mercy. Some were ascending to receive divine commissions from the fountain of all goodness, and others were descending to execute these commissions on earth. Suddenly there appeared, amidst the beams of glory which encircled the ladder's top, the Almighty Architect of the universe in person; who addressed the sleeping Jacob in words full of peace and consultation. "I AM the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Jacob Isaac ... ."

This ladder was a type of Christ, who is the only way by which a created mortal can attain the kingdom of God; for no one can ascend up into heaven, but through him who cam down from heaven. Its staves or rounds point out the innumerable duties man is called on to perform on his journey from this world to better. The most prominent of these, and from which all the rest emanate like rays diverging from a common center, are the three theological virtues, Faith, Hope, and Charity. These virtues are of the greatest estimation amongst Masons, for they form the grand and fundamental basis of their profession.

When Jacob awoke, he consecrated the place, which he conceived to be the house of God and the gate of heaven, by the name of Bethel; he set up a pillar of testimony; and vowed a vow, saying, "If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, so that I come again to my father's house in peace, then shall I the Lord be my God, and this stone which I have set for pillar shall be God's house; and all that thou shalt give me, I will surely give the tenth unto thee." (Oliver, Antiquities of Freemasonry [1823], p. 198-201)

Thus George Oliver's retelling of the biblical account of Jacob casts him as having been initiated a Mason by Abraham who in turn initiated his son Joseph as a Freemason. In the process of his life Jacob was given a vision of angels as "authorized minsters" descending up and down a Masonic ladder at the top of which was the Grand Architect of the Universe. Next, Jacob, like other Masons, entered into solemn promises at an alter. Afterwards, Jacob would utilize his operative Masonic skills to build a pillar of stone at Bethel and then give it a Masonic dedication as Masonic temple, even a "house of God."

Thus Joseph Smith could have become familiar with the idea of Jacob having being initiated into the mysteries of Freemasonry and begun to envision the encounter at Bethel as a Masonic theophany based solely on his reading of Antiquities of Freemasonry. However, having discussed the role of Jacob's ladder in Masonic thought, let's now turn ourselves back to a discussion of why Joseph may have interpreted the hatched marks on the apron on a depiction from the Book of the Dead Belonging to Nefer-ir-nebu as Jacob's ladder.

[Hagoth]

GM,

Some observations/questions:

1)

Here God graciously condescended to enter into a specific covenant

I have always found the phrase "knowest thou the condescension of God?" in 1 Nephi a bit odd. It is interesting to see it here. Any thoughts?

2) Isn't the pillar of Enoch identified by Oliver Cowdery in the Ti-Shert-Min papyrus also a Masonic symbol?

3) The apron that Satan wore as a symbol of his "power and priesthoods" in the in the pre-1990 live endowment at the Salt Lake temple, if I recall correctly, had pretty much the same symbols as the white Masonic apron shown in your image of the Smith family belongings. Since listening to your ME podcasts it has seemed pretty obvious to me that this represented the other (spurious) branch of Masonry that Satan passed onto Cain in the George Oliver version of history, in contrast to the godly Masonic tradition (aka "priesthood"). Do you agree?

[George Miller]

I have always found the phrase "knowest thou the condescension of God?" in 1 Nephi a bit odd. It is interesting to see it here. Any thoughts?

That is indeed interesting. I just did a Google Books search for the phrase "condescension of God" and there were a number of results which had no links to the phrase in the Book of Mormon. However, more interesting was a search for the phrase in time. There were only 5 instances of the phrase from 1700 - 1800. All of the references were from religious sources with one coming from the Baptist writer John Bunyan who wrote the influential religious book entitled The Pilgrim's Progress. However, during the 1800s this phrase became much more common with more than 70 different references, many of which where published in the 1830s. In the 1900s the phrase again becomes less common.

As you suggest, it is intriguing to see such a close turn of phrase in the Book of Mormon as can be found in George Oliver's writings. However, it should be noted that this phrase is found in George Oliver's book Signs and Symbols Illustrated which was not published until 1826, right in the heat of the Morgan Affair. Being that this was the time in which many of the lodges were beginning to close, I think it a little less likely that the book would have been circulating in New York. That is not to say it was not, just that it is less likely. While I am VERY confident that Joseph Smith had a copy of AoF, I am much less confident that he actually would have read George Oliver's other works. However, his writing, even if Joseph Smith didn't read them directly, are great for determining the types of information circulating in Masonic circles as well as how Masons in the early 1800s were interpreting their lore and rituals.

2) Isn't the pillar of Enoch identified by Oliver Cowdery in the Ti-Shert-Min papyrus also a Masonic symbol?

You are entirely correct. In talking about the Book of the Dead Belonging to Ta-Sherit-Min which Joseph Smith believed was part of the Book of Joseph, Oliver Cowdery on December 22nd, 1835 wrote to Wm. Frye Esq to say, "Enoch's Pillar, as mentioned by Josephus, is upon the same roll. -- True, to our present version of the bible does not mention the fact, though it speaks of the righteousness of Abel and holiness of Enoch ... but Josephus says that the descendants of Seth were virtuous, and possessed great knowledge of the heavenly bodies, and, that, in consequence of the prophesy of Adam, the the world should be destroyed once by water and again by fire, Enoch wrote a history or an account of the same, and put into two pillars one brick and the other of stone; and the same were in being at his (Josephus') day."

However, there are some interesting things about Cowdery's account. While Josephus does make comments about a pillar in antediluvian days, some of the details are different than what Cowdery stated.

[Adam] had indeed many other children, but Seth in particular. As for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore only endeavour to give an account of those that proceeded from Seth. Now this Seth, when ho was brought up, and came to those years ill which lie could discern what was good, became a virtuous man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he leave children behind him who imitated his virtues. All these proved to be of good dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes falling upon them till they died. They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly bodies, and their order. And that their inventions might not be lost before they were sufficiently known, upon Adam's prediction that the world was to be destroyed at one time by the force of fire, and at another time by the violence and quantity of water, they made two pillars; the one of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those discoveries to mankind; and also inform them that there was another pillar of brick erected by them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to this day.

Note that in particular Cowdery is following the Josephus account about the nobility of the antediluvians who in response to a prediction by Adam built two pillars on of brick and one of stone. However, Cowdery diverges from Josephus in that he attributes the actions to Enoch in particular who he also said, "wrote a history or account of the same, and put it into two pillars". The idea that these were Enoch's Pillars comes from Masonry and the idea that Enoch stored information in the two pillars is also Masonic. Thus Cowdery's comments come both from Josephus and Masonic sources. Given that Oliver Cowdery's family was heavily involved in Freemasonry, it it likely that was information he gleaned from his family or others with whom he conversed who were interested in Freemasonry.

3) The apron that Satan wore as a symbol of his "power and priesthoods" in the in the pre-1990 live endowment at the Salt Lake temple, if I recall correctly, had pretty much the same symbols as the white Masonic apron shown in your image of the Smith family belongings. Since listening to your ME podcasts it has seemed pretty obvious to me that this represented the other (spurious) branch of Masonry that Satan passed onto Cain in the George Oliver version of history, in contrast to the godly Masonic tradition (aka "priesthood"). Do you agree?

I would agree with you 100%. In addition, this brings us back to the point of this intriguing little side conversation, which is that Joseph Smith was seeing in the apron worn by what Joseph Smith interpreted as one of the wives of Jacob a Masonic apron. However, more on that in the next post.

[George Miller]

So why would Joseph Smith have associated the horizontal lines on Jacob's wife's clothes as Jacob's ladder?

In response to this question one has to realize that Joseph Smith on multiple occasions interpreted the images in the scrolls in a Masonic context. The most obvious of these instances is Facsimile 2 number 7 which interprets as representing "God sitting upon his throne, revealing through the heavens the grand Key-words of the priesthood; as, also, the sign of the Holy Ghost unto Abraham, in the form of a dove." Careful observation of the pictograph reveals has a man sitting on a throne with what Joseph Smith interpreted his hand raised up in the form of a square. Joseph Smith reveals this using Masonic language of "grand keywords" because he is referring to the form in which a Freemason takes his Masonic oath as an entered apprentice as revealed in Masonic exposes in Joseph Smith's days.

Q. What did the Worshipful Master do with you?
A. He made an Entered Apprentice Mason of me.
Q. How?
A. In due form?
Q. What was that due form?
A. My left knee bare bent, my right forming a square; my left had supporting the Holy Bible, Square and Compass; I took upon me the solemn oath or obligation of an Entered Apprentice Mason.

Facsimile 2 also shows what Joseph Smith interpreted as a man with his hands upraised. Joseph Smith likely was thought of this as Abraham giving the Masonic "grand failing sign of distress" which exposes described in the following manner.

He then throws up the grand hailing sign of distress: this if given by raising both hand and arms, to the elbow, perpendicularly, on each side of the head, the elbows forming a square, his arms then drop by his sides ... .

Thus associated Abraham before the throne of God in the presence in the presences of heavenly beings using allusions to Masonic language, Masonic secret signs, and Masonic ritual. Understanding this, let's return to the scene from the Book of the Dead Belonging to Nefer-ir-nebu.

Here again we have Jacob who is in the presence of a divine being sitting on a throne. In Joseph Smith's mind the appropriate attire for such a meeting with Grand Architect of the Universe would be Masonic robes and an Masonic apron. While every initiated Entered Apprentice Mason receives a white lambskin apron, it was common for Freemason to have them decorated as they chose. The predominant symbols embroidered upon aprons were those found on the various trestle boards such as the one we saw at the beginning of this conversation. Some of the most common symbols placed on Masonic aprons were those found on the first degree trestle board such as the black and white checkered floor, Masonic pillars, and the alter at which a Mason was made a Mason. It was also common for the top of the apron to be embroidered with the starry canopy. With this in mind, let's look at Joseph's Smith's own Masonic apron; does it contain Jacob's ladder?

As you can see above it does indeed contain Jacob's ladder reaching to the starry celestial canopy.

Joseph Smith would have familiar with Masonic aprons as he saw his father, brother, and other members of the community don them as they headed to the lodge or paraded through the streets in Masonic parades. Because of the frequent exposes and public reenactments of Masonic ritual in the aftermath of the Morgan Affair, Joseph Smith would have also been familiar with Masonic signs and tokens. As such, similar to his interpretation of Facsimile 2, he would have noticed the positioning of the hands of Jacob's wife in a a fashion that could be misrepresented as Masonic signs. So what would the most likely Masonic symbol be on Jacob or his wives Masonic apron? Why none other than Jacob's ladder.

So something that made no sense to us, or to museum visitors in the 19th century, makes perfect sense when viewed through a Masonic lens.

BTW Hagoth- Thanks for the diversion along this tangent. It allowed me setup the future discussion of Joseph Smith's translation of the "alphabet" section of the scroll with some context. I hope that others are enjoying the conversation. Please feel free to comment or ask questions as I babble on about the subject.

[Emower]

This has been a fascinating thread to read. I also went and listened to the Mormon expressions podcast. Well done and extremely interesting. I gathered from the podcast that the connections between masonry and Mormonism are not troubling to you. 99% of it is not to me either, except for the priesthood aspect. Since control over exaltation is administered through priesthood, any suggestions that the priesthood is something Joseph created is troubling for a lot of people. What are your thoughts about the genesis of priesthood and any connections to masonry?

[Hagoth]

Thanks GM. This is gold. A couple more things:

1)

It was also common for the top of the apron to be embroidered with the starry canopy.

This leads me to see how Joseph might have also seen significance in the canopy of stars along the upper edge of Facsimile 3, and how he came to the conclusion that the seated figure is Abraham teaching astronomy. It all seems to mesh well with Masonry and Agrippa.

2) A woman with a masonic apron?

[George Miller]

I gathered from the podcast that the connections between masonry and Mormonism are not troubling to you. 99% of it is not to me either, except for the priesthood aspect. Since control over exaltation is administered through priesthood, any suggestions that the priesthood is something Joseph created is troubling for a lot of people. What are your thoughts about the genesis of priesthood and any connections to masonry?

Emower- As stated in my podcast, I do wish that more Mormons were receptive to naturalistic explanations of Joseph Smith and that he was heavily influenced by Freemasonry. Too many Mormons react with fear when they discover Mormon-Masonic connections. Additionally, you commented that this does beg the question of what effect these ideas have on Mormon conceptions of the priesthood. I can deeply empathize with your comments; and I can only share my own thoughts and feelings on the subject.

First, I would like to note that Joseph Smith Jr. grew up in a home heavily influenced by his father's and grandfather's deep and abiding belief in Universalist ideas. Having dug in deeply to the writing of Hosea Ballou which permeated the culture of Joseph Smith Jr.'s birthplace and reading this Masonic lecture's writing as well as his groundbreaking Treatise on the Atonement, I couldn't help but be deeply moved and profoundly swayed in my views towards Universalist thought. As such I have developed what I call the "Father God Acid Test". An acid test is a chemical test used to determine if a substance is real gold. If the substance passes the test, it is gold, if not it is some other mineral such as fool's gold. My acid test for any and all doctrinal items is see if it accords with the nature of God that I have come to believe. Mormons believe that God is a loving father, and as such he must act as a deeply loving, caring, and compassionate father. If an item of doctrine does not pass this test then I usually disregard it.

I personally don't believe that my Father in heaven loves his children differently. I believe he wants us all to return to him. I believe he would not ask of us more than is necessary. As such, I can't even fathom the idea that only Mormons will be saved. I can't conceive of a God who would simply deny exaltation to anyone who wanted it. I can't fathom the idea that he would talk deny any blessing to my Catholic friends that he bestows to me. I can't imagine that he would talk to the 1st Presidency, but not to talk and guide Pope Francis. I think God works in the lives of ALL Mormons, Christians, Muslims, Atheists, Baptists, Methods, and in the lives of all that I know. I can't imagine God setting up any nonsensical barriers to his children's eternal progression just because they were not baptized by Mormon priesthood authority or because they did not go through directly or indirectly some type of temple ordinance. God loves ALL his children, even me.

While such ideas were difficult for Joseph Smith propagate among his people, I still think that cherished and saw the truth in Universalist ideas. Thus he would say, "But while one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; He views them as His offspring, and without any of those contracted feelings that influence the children of me ... ." I concur with these sentiments.

Forgive me a Kabbalistic aside to balance my comments. Universalist ideas large follow one side of the Tree of Life, the right handed pillar of Chochmah, Chesed, and Netzarch. These principles must be balanced by those of Binah, Geburah, and Hod. As such Universalist principles must be given form that they might be actualized in the world of Malkuth. (If this made no sense to you then please feel free to ignore).

So what role then does priesthood serve in my own conceptions. While these univeralist ideas are true they must be actualized through systems in which they can be taught. Just because God will seek to save us all and bring us to exaltation, this does not mean that we will not be required to gain the attributes of God so that we might become more like the Grand Architect of the Universe. Priesthood structures and priesthood ordinance are not salvific in and of themselves. Instead priesthood structures and ordinance are archetypes of the divine which represent the nature and character of God.

In constructing both priesthood structure and temple ordinances Joseph Smith was trying to construct a physical system which would model the structure and experience that he himself had learned and experienced. If one is baptized by Mormon priesthood authority but has not received a baptism of fire, then the experience is lacking and only leads one towards salvation and does not reach the ends of salvation. If one experiences temple ordinances which are meant to guide one in their progress as they ascend through the heavens to finally be crowned a prophet, priest, and king by God himself without actually scaling these heights and communing with Jehovah to become a true prophet, priest, and king then one has missed the experience Joseph Smith wished to model for his brothers and sisters. The role of priesthood is to serve as an earthly model for the experience of scaling mount Zion to reach the celestial lodge above.

Let me more directly answer your question. Did Freemasonry influence Joseph Smith's understanding of priesthood? Most definitely! However, to say that Joseph Smith created priesthood is also not true. Joseph Smith had, to him, real spiritual experiences. He felt that he had been able to communicate and that he had "touched" the divine. Joseph Smith, as with many others, both Mormon and non Mormons, wanted others to experience what he experienced. The structure he based his conception of priesthood on was deeply enmeshed with the way he himself was translated beyond this earthly veil. He was trying to recreate the structure he used to converse with God in an earthly system which guided his followers into the same experience. Does this mean that priesthood is not salvific? I think, in fact, that priesthood is salvific. However, priesthood, is only if it points in the path to touch the divine, apprehend divine attributes unto ourselves, and to return and build Zion here in this mortal world.

[George Miller]

This leads me to see how Joseph might have also seen significance in the canopy of stars along the upper edge of Facsimile 3, and how he came to the conclusion that the seated figure is Abraham teaching astronomy. It all seems to mesh well with Masonry and Agrippa.

Absolutely, and as we shall see, and as we shall in Joseph Smith's translation of the Book of Abraham that Joseph Smith had very different views of astronomy the reasons that both Abraham was interested in the same. And it does, as you mention, have everything to do with both Masonic views and Agrippa.

2) A woman with a masonic apron?

Why of course. After all New York was the place where female Masonic rituals were spreading. Since these very rituals called up both the names and stories of both Old and New Testament women, Joseph surmised that the same was true in the ancients' days as well.

[George Miller]

Let us know turn to the Hor Book of Breathing. When Joseph Smith began to translate this papyri what did it look like? For modern day readers to understand what Joseph Smith saw when he looked at this papyri roll, it helps for us to take a deep look at it as well. However, if you ask most Mormons about the scroll, they will respond that the Book of Abraham scroll was burned up in the Chicago fire. However, that is not the the whole story. While a portion of the Book of Abraham scroll was burned up in a fire, a substantial amount of the scroll is still extant. The extant portion can be seen below.

The extant papyri consists of the portion of the scroll that contains what would be our facsimile 1, five vertical columns (3 to right of the drawing, one above the hand of Anubis, and one column to the left of Anubis) written in hieroglyphics, and four columns of text written in horizontal heiretic (a cursive form of Egyptian) characters. The extant evidence suggest that the remaining portions of the scroll (including what would become facsimile 3) was indeed sold to a museum in Chicago and perished in a fire.

When the above portion of scroll was returned to the LDS church and translated the remaining scroll contents turned out to be a relatively common Egyptian funerary text known at the Book of Breathing. The absence of content pertaining to Abraham starting a major quandary for Mormon scholars leading them to pose questions about the length of the original scroll. Some Mormon scholars suggested that the scroll was extremely long and may have contained the actual record of Book of Abraham which Joseph Smith translated. One professional Egyptologists took up the question and estimated the length of the scroll based other Book of Breathings texts and gave their professional opinion arguing against the possibility posed by Mormon scholars. However, the matter was largely put to rest a few years ago based on winding lengths.

When a papyri is rolled up and stored for extended periods of time, irregularities in the papyri tend to form repeating patterns of ridges in the roll. Since the diameter of the roll tends to decrease as one comes to the center of the roll, the length of the roll can be estimated fairly accurately based on the decrease in the winding lengths. When careful measurements were taken of the roll and the length of it was finally calculated, it was found that length was only sufficient for a Book of Breathings text and definitely not a Book of Breathings text plus the Book of Abraham. Below is my own reconstruction of the total scroll created to scale.

Based on this reconstruction and the best estimations of professional historians, we can say that when Joseph Smith viewed the scroll he most likely saw six columns of Egyptian characters written horizontally with two drawing, one at the beginning of the scroll and one at the end. However, what must have struck Joseph Smith as odd was the 5 columns vertical hieroglyphics which appeared at the commencement of the record. Joseph Smith likely wondered why their orientation and the style of writing was so different than the remainder of the text. Based on the extant documents from this period, the most parsimonious which takes into account the extant data is that Joseph Smith thought that the 5 vertical columns consisted of a primer on the Egyptian language. Joseph Smith with his two associates Oliver Cowdery and W.W. Phelps acting as scribes, would copy, elaborate on, and translate these characters to form what would be called Smith's Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language (GAEL).

In my next installment I will examine Joseph Smith's translation of this text and how he utilized ideas from Freemasonry, George Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry, and Agrippa's De Occulta Philosophia in the translation and restoration project that would become the GAEL.

Please let me know if our readers have any questions about the content above before I continue babbling.

[George Miller]

When Joseph Smith viewed the Hor Book of Breathing papyri he was confronted with several large blocks of horizontally written hieretic figures which made up the bulk of the scroll and five separate columns of distinctively differently written hieroglyphic characters written in long thin vertical surrounding Facsimile 1. A close up of these five columns can be seen below. To the left of each column of written characters are clean Egyptian hieroglyphics based the interpolated text based on other Book of Breathings texts in accordance with the understanding of modern academic Egyptologists. Missing portions of the scroll lost be wear and tear of the scroll are represented by hatching behind the extant papyri. Portions which were likely missing before the scroll's arrival in Kirtland are red. Portions which were likely extant at the time of the arrival of the scroll in Kirtland are marked in green and have been determined based on comparing expected hieroglyphic characters with those on the existing papyri with those extant in the translation documents penned by Joseph Smith and his scribes.

Why then would Joseph Smith have made the claim that these vertical columns of hieroglyphics made up a dictionary or "alphabet" of Egyptian language. As it turns out similar claims were made about the Golden Plates.

When Joseph Smith claimed to have excavated the plates from the Hill Cumorah, he made several claims about the plates which were repeated by his family. Fayette Lapham came to Palmyra in search of information about the plates in the early 1830s and conducted an interview with Joseph Smith Sr. about the nature and contents of the plates.

[The golden plates] consisted of a set of gold plates, about six inches wide, and nine or ten inches long. They were in the form of a book, half an inch thick, but were bound at the back, like our books, but were held together by several gold rings, in such a way that that the plates could be opened similar to a book. Under the first plate, or lid, he found a pair of spectacles, about one and a half inches longer than those used at the present day, the eyes not of glass, but of diamond. On the next page were representations of all the masonic implements, as used by masons at the present day. The remaining pages were closely written over in characters of some unknown tongue, the last containing the alphabet of this unknown language. Joseph, not being able to read the characters, made a copy of some of them, which he showed to some of the most learned men of the vicinity.

In this interview we learn that Urim and Thummin was placed under the cover of the book and that the last page contained an "alphabet" of Reformed Egyptian. Especially for those interested in a Mormon-Masonic connection, is that Joseph Smith Sr., who had earlier raised to the degree of Master Mason in a Masonic Lodge in Canandaigua, New York, was thinking about the plates in Masonic terms as he suggested that the first page of the Golden Plates contained "all the masonic implements, as used by masons at the present day." The interview also suggests that Joseph Smith sought to have these translated by scholars that he might translate Golden Plates. However, The view that the plates contained an alphabet that could be used to translate the remaining characters on the plates was also expressed by Lucy Mack Smith.

In writing her draft of her Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith, Lucy Mack Smith, the mother of Joseph Smith, wrote about the early translation process.

[Joseph] was instructed to "take off a facsimile of the characters composing the alphabet which were called reformed egyptian Alphabetically and send them to all the learned men that he could find and ask them for the translation of the same."

Thus Lucy claimed that Joseph Smith had made a "facsimile" this implying a direct copy of an extant portion which was part of the Gold Plates representing the "alphabet" which was arranged "alphabetically" for translation. Not only, according to Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, did the golden plates contain an "alphabet" that could be used to translate Reformed Egyptian on it's final page, but the form of the facsimile of the "alphabet" showed similarities with columns found on the Hor Book of Breathings.

Upon making a facsimile of the "alphabet" from the Golden Plates this facsimile was taken by Martin Harris to local scholars for a translation. So what did this facsimile look like? According to one of the scholars, Charles Anthon, the facsimile "consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in columns" and these characters "were arranged in perpendicular columns". (Bushman, Beginnings of Mormonism, Appendix 4) Thus the characters on the facsimile of the Golden Plate's "alphabet" were arranged in columns.

When Joseph Smith examined the Hor Book of Breathings and the vertical columns of Egyptian hieroglyphics at the commencement of the scroll, he most likely recalled his earlier claims about the Golden Plates and assumed this too was an "alphabet" that was to be used to translate the plates. Thus Joseph Smith's means of interpretation of the text is reminiscent in many regards with his previous Egyptological translation process. In addition, like his father did with the Golden Plates, Joseph Smith Jr. interpreted this new Egyptian material through a Masonic lens.

[Hagoth]

When Joseph Smith examined the Hor Book of Breathings and the vertical columns of Egyptian hieroglyphics at the commencement of the scroll, he most likely recalled his earlier claims about the Golden Plates and assumed this too was an "alphabet" that was to be used to translate the plates.

Wow, I never put those two things together. Interesting!

I would love to have some discussion about the gold plates in these regareds, but I don't want to derail this excellent thread, so I'll start another at some point.

[George Miller]

Now that evidence has been provided that, similar to the translation of the Gold Plates, that a dictionary or alphabet was necessary and that this was at the end of the scroll, lets turn our attention to the nature of that alphabet. Soon after the the Book of Abraham Papyri, Book of Joseph Papyri, astronomical writings, and epitaphs were purchased by the Mormons, Joseph Smith with his two scribes Oliver Cowdery and W.W. Phelps began work on constructing their Egyptian Alphabet in preparation for translating the Book of Abraham Papyri. The translation of the Egyptian Alphabet is contained in a total of four manuscripts.

The first manuscripts we will examine are called the Egyptian Alphabet documents. There are three Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts named after the primary person who penned the document: Egyptian Alphabet Joseph Smith (EAJS), Egyptian Alphabet Oliver Cowdery (EAOC), and Egyptian Alphabet W.W. Phelps (EAWP). These three manuscripts are similar in form each consisting of 4-5 total pages of text. Each manuscript is broken into 5 separate sections labelled at the top and denoted as pertaining to the "first degree". I will refer to these five sections as First Part, Second Part, Third Part, Fourth Part, and Fifth Part based on their designation in the text. The various pages of these manuscripts can be seen below color coded in Blue (Part 1), Purple (Part 2), Red (Part 3), Yellow (Part 4), and White (Part 5).

In the next post I will discuss how the parts are related to the Book of Abraham Papyri. If our readers have any questions then please jump in. I more than happy to answer questions, explain anything in more depth, clear up any misconceptions, or go off on tangents.

[Vlad the Emailer]

George, I will post an unrelated, yet related question.

On this 5 year old Mormon dialogue thread apologist William Schryver appears to claim that the Book of Abraham was actually created before the papyri made it to Kirtland and is therefore not translated from the Hor Book of Breathings.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/560 ... sy/?page=3

Do you know anything about this timing argument?

I mean, to me, the relationship is unquestionable simply given that the facsimile's present in the BoA are clearly the ones in the existing Hor papyri and that the BoA text refers specifically to the first facsimile.

But as a non-scholar who has not taken the time to research all this, I thought you might be willing to comment on that argument.

Thanks! And thanks very much for sharing your research here!!

[George Miller]

On this 5 year old Mormon dialogue thread apologist William Schryver appears to claim that the Book of Abraham was actually created before the papyri made it to Kirtland and is therefore not translated from the Hor Book of Breathings.

Do you know anything about this timing argument?

Hey Vlad- Glad to hear from you. You ask an extremely interesting question. Let's give some context before I move in to answer your question. William Schryver is a computer programmer and a Mormon did substantive research on the Kirtland Egyptian Papers (KEP) in the years surrounding 2010. Schryver gave a very well constructed visually stunning presentation at the 2010 FAIR conference entitled The Meaning and Purpose of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers in which he elaborates on his research into the Egyptian Alphabet. At the time of the presentation the FAIR researchers and other for whom this was their first large scale foray into the Kirtland Egyptian Papers were extremely impressed and laudatory of Schryver's presentation. However, for some of the scholars that had been researching these documents prior to the presentation saw problems with the argument. So what was his argument?

In his presentation, Schryver made the following argument.

[T]he key to understanding the meaning and purpose of the disparate set of documents known collectively as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers is to be found within the manuscripts entitled Egyptian Alphabet, Grammar and Alphabet of the Egyptian Language, and Egyptian Counting.

I shall attempt today to establish the following thesis, expressed in two parts:

The explanation contained in the Alphabet documents are dependent on a pre-existing text of the first three chapters of the Book of Abraham. This dates the reception of the translation of these chapters to the period between July 4 and July 17, 1835, which is when the Alphabet project was commenced.

The greatly expanded character explanations contained in the Grammar documents are manifestly dependent not only on the first three chapters of the Book of Abraham, but also on the remainder of the revealed Book of Abraham, as well as the explanations to Facsimile #2. This roughly dates the reception of the translation of these things to a period between late 1835 and 1836.

This thesis expresses what I would like to term the "essential elements of understanding" in respect to the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.

I think you might have somewhat misunderstood Schryver's claim, an easy thing to do, when you suggested he claimed that "the Book of Abraham was actually created before the papyri made it to Kirtland". So what is Schryver's timeline? Chandler exhibited the mummies and papyri on June 30, 1835 and they were soon purchased so that Joseph could begin translating. In contrast to other historical researchers who put forth the claim that Joseph Smith used, at least in part, the Egyptian Alphabet to aid in his translation of the Book of Abraham papyri thus making the Book of Abraham dependent on the Egyptian Alphabet, Schryver claims the Egyptian Alphabet project is dependent on preexisting Book of Abraham revelation. This means that Joseph Smith would have had to have penned at least the first three chapters of the Book of Abraham by July 17, 1835 when the Egyptian Alphabet project commenced. So what evidence does Schryver present in support of this claim?

During his presentation Schryver seeks to show that the Egyptian Alphabet is dependent on Book of Abraham. The strongest evidence he shows in his presentation comes when he shows how phrases from the Egyptian Alphabet show up in Abraham 1:1-3, Abraham 1:23-26, and Abraham 2:11. Schryver makes an excellent case for the interdependence of the Egyptian Alphabet and the Book of Abraham for these verses, however, the direction of the dependence is the problem. What Schryver did not tell his audience is that Chris Smith had earlier shown the dependence of the Book of Abraham on the Egyptian Alphabet for the first two examples. The third example is much more complicated in that Abraham 2:11 is a relatively minor expansion on a biblical verse and in this case the parallels are weaker. So the two strong examples that Schryver cites are in fact the strongest examples of how Joseph Smith used the Egyptian Alphabet to create the Book of Abraham instead of reverse as Schryver suggests. I will discuss these examples in depth as I continue to discuss my findings.

However, Schryver's argument is a little bit more complex than this. He further supports his theory by suggesting that the concepts and words in the Egyptian Alphabet are "almost all proper nouns that form a lexicon of people places, and things - almost all of them from the Book of Abraham, and often very uniquely so" and that "there is too little of the story of the Book of Abraham in the Alphabet and Grammar for it to have been used to produce the story, yet too much of the story for it not to be dependent on the rest of the story." In essence Schryver's argument is that Joseph Smith seems to have known the main characters, story line, and concepts contained in the Book of Abraham before the Egyptian Alphabet was constructed. Because of this Schryver concludes that Joseph Smith most likely received by revelation the Book of Abraham before the Egyptian Alphabet was produced. So what is wrong with this conclusion?

The first thing wrong with this conclusion is that the historical evidence does not line up with these conclusions. Historical evidence provides no evidence for a preexisting manuscript and the evidence instead suggests the opposite with a piecemeal revelation of Abraham 1:1-3 followed by Abraham 1:4 - Abraham 2:18 with the remainder of the revelations not being penned until the Nauvoo period.

Second, there is no reason for Joseph Smith would need to have received the full contents of the translation prior producing the Book of Abraham to produce a relevant Egyptian Alphabet. Instead Joseph would have only needed to know the characters, story line, and concepts which would be contained in the Book of Abraham. Did Joseph Smith have this? Yes he did! These were already to a large extent contained in Antiquities of Freemasonry as I shall show. In other words, Schryver is right there is a preexisting narrative structure for the Book Abraham before the Egyptian Alphabet is produced, but he is wrong as to the nature of that narrative. Of course there is no way Schryver could have known this.

Third, the final and most important problem with Schryver's thesis is that he doesn't provide a believable purpose for the Kirtland Egyptian Papers if they were not meant to translate the Book of Abraham papyri. If Joseph Smith had already received a revelation of the entirety of the Book of Abraham, then why would he create such an elaborate Egyptian Alphabet?

So in summary, let me answer your question in brief. My own research is not consistent with Schryver's conclusion that the Egyptian Alphabet is dependent on the Book of Abraham. Instead all of the historical and text critical data show that Joseph Smith was translating the Book of Abraham papyri by triangulating between the Egyptian Alphabet, Antiquities of Freemasonry, and Genesis to create the Book of Abraham. I hope that answers your question Vlad.

[Hagoth]

Schriver's conclusion, like so much of apologetics, only holds water if you accept a supernatural origin of the Book of Abraham. It can be deflated simply by saying the Joseph had already begun to form the story in his head before anything was written down. The same pattern might have repeated if Joseph had proceeded with a translation of the Kinderhook plates. We don't know if he actually attempted to a translation but we do know that as soon as he saw the plates he began formulating a story and peopling it with characters.

[George Miller]

Schriver's conclusion, like so much of apologetics, only holds water if you accept a supernatural origin of the Book of Abraham. It can be deflated simply by saying the Joseph had already begun to form the story in his head before anything was written down. The same pattern might have repeated if Joseph had proceeded with a translation of the Kinderhook plates. We don't know if he actually attempted to a translation but we do know that as soon as he saw the plates he began formulating a story and peopling it with characters.

Hagoth- Right on the mark! In fact, the Kinderhook plates are a prime example to which we can look to show the dependence of Joseph Smith's translation upon the Egyptian Alphabet. When the the Kinderhook plates arrived in Nauvoo, Joseph asked that the Egyptian Alphabet be brought to him. Joseph then examined the Kinderhook plates, identified one of the most prominent glyphs and then searched for and found the glyph in the Egyptian Alphabet. Having identified a match, Joseph utilized the Egyptian Alphabet to translated a portion of the Kinderhook plates. IOW this is an example in which Joseph's translation was dependent of the Egyptian Alphabet instead of the other way around as William Schryver would expect.

[George Miller]

So what evidence is there that the Egyptian Alphabet is Joseph Smith's attempt to translate what he believed to be 5 vertical columns of hieroglyphics surrounding the lion couch scene on the Hor Book of Breathing papyri? While things are more complicated than I will describe at this stage, the most straight forward evidence is to be found in the order of the hieroglyphs as they appear in the Egyptian Alphabet. To explain this lets take a closer look at the structure of the Egyptian Alphabet.

Each page of the Egyptian Alphabet consists of three columns of information. In the far left hand column is drawn one or more hieroglyphics. In the next column is a pronunciation of the hieroglyph to the left. The right hand column contains a definition of the drawn hieroglyphic on the far left. There are 136 separate glyphs in the Egyptian Alphabet which are treated with different levels of translation. Of the 136 hieroglyphs there are 67 which remain completely untranslated with neither pronunciations nor definitions.

In addition, each of the Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts is broken down into 5 "parts" marked below in Blue (Part 1), Purple (Part 2), Red (Part 3), Yellow (Part 4), and White (Part 5). The ordered hieroglyphics in the various Egyptian Alphabet parts originate with the 5 columns of hieroglyphics in the Book of Abraham Papyri as marked below in the same colors.


So what is the evidence that hieroglyphics in the Egyptian Alphabet are coming from the Book of Abraham Papyri? The answer to this question is very complicated. However, the clearest evidence comes through a detailed examination of the untranslated hieroglyphs in Part 2 and the remainder of the hieroglyphs in Parts 3-5.

Shown above are the 5 columns of hieroglyphs in the Book of Abraham Papyri ordered according to part. On the left of each column is a clean rendering of the Egyptian hieroglyphic. To right of the column are the untranslated hieroglyphs from Part 2 and the hieroglyphs from Parts 3-5 in the order which they appear in the Egyptian Alphabet. The hieroglyphics discussed above appear in the same order and divided into parts which correspond to specific column columns in both the Book of Abraham Papyri and the Egyptian Alphabet. This is clear evidence that the Egyptian Alphabet is directly connected to the Book of Abraham Papyri. In other words, for these hieroglyphics, the only obvious conclusion from the data is that the hieroglyphics in the Egyptian Alphabet are coming in order directly from the Hor Book of Breathings Papyri. (In later posts I will address the translated hieroglyphs in Part 2 and subsequently Part 1).

With the connection between the two documents for these hieroglyphs firmly established, lets learn more about Joseph Smith's ideas about the nature of the Egyptian language and how it was to be translated through a detailed examination of two hieroglyphs which are translated in Part 3.

[Vlad the Emailer]

I hope that answers your question Vlad.

Yes, it certainly does. Thanks very much, George.

I haven't gone back into the Schryver thread (frankly, having made it all the way through once I have very little desire to even click on the link again), but I think I got the idea for some of this predating the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland from some Schryver commentary about WW Phelps referring to/listing characters (Hebrew?) in a letter a few months before the mummies and papyri showed up.

In the meantime, as you point out, the relationship of the BofA to freemasonry may very well be the smoking gun (sorry, I know that's an overused phrase) explanation that explains it all - timing and content. Thanks again for sharing all this with us!

[Hagoth]

I think I got the idea for some of this predating the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland from some Schryver commentary about WW Phelps referring to/listing characters (Hebrew?) in a letter a few months before the mummies and papyri showed up.

If GM is going where I think he is, all of this will come together amazingly.

[George Miller]

I haven't gone back into the Schryver thread (frankly, having made it all the way through once I have very little desire to even click on the link again), but I think I got the idea for some of this predating the arrival of the papyri in Kirtland from some Schryver commentary about WW Phelps referring to/listing characters (Hebrew?) in a letter a few months before the mummies and papyri showed up.

Vlad- I do want to thank you and any of the other readers he for slogging through this stuff. I hope it has been at least interesting thus far. Know that you mention "W.W. Phelp's referring to/listing characters (Hebrew?)" prior to Kirtland I completely understand what you were saying. In fact this is one of things that seemed so problematic for Schryver and led him to his thesis and conclusions. Schryver noted that the first glyphs translated in Part 2 are similar to an earlier revised revelation by Joseph Smith which W.W. Phelps shared with his wife in a letter. For some reason Schryver concluded that the revision of divine revelation cam from Phelps instead of Smith. However, when you look at the translation using Masonic and Agrippa's work it becomes VERY apparent that there is only ONE possible source of the revision - Joseph Smith. In a later post I most definitely will cover this fascinating story.

Sadly, we have to cover some preliminary ground to get to that point. I promise, however, that it will be fascinating. I am SERIOUS when I say that what was happening sounds like it was right out of a Dan Brown novel. It is simply, one of the most fascinating things you will ever see in Mormon history.