Criticism of Mormon Sacred Texts - Book of Abraham

Book of Abraham

The Book of Abraham differs from the other Mormon sacred texts in that some of the original source material has been examined by independent experts.

The Institute for Religious Research and the Tanners claim that Joseph Smith fraudulently represented the Book of Abraham, part of the church's scriptural canon, as a divine document. Richard and Joan Ostling note that non-LDS scholars have concluded that translations of surviving papyri which they believe are portions of the source of the Book of Abraham are unrelated to the content of the book's text. Joseph Smith states he came into the possession of several Egyptian papyri, from which he claimed to translate the Book of Abraham, part of the modern Pearl of Great Price. The papyri were lost for many years, but in the late 1960s, portions of the papyri were discovered. The extant papyri, as well as the facsimiles preserved by Smith in the Pearl of Great Price, have been translated by modern Egyptologists, and have been conclusively shown to be common Egyptian funerary documents unrelated to the content of the Book of Abraham. Mormon scholars Michael D. Rhodes and John Gee came to the same conclusion, but argue that Smith may have been using the papyri as inspiration.