Abrahamic Records

[WingedPaladin]

Having gotten into a discussion recently with an individual who was once a member of the LDS faith, the topic of the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price came up.

http://scriptures.lds.org/en/abr/contents

Egyptologists have looked at and translated what they believe to be fragments of what Joseph Smith had. (Most of what Joseph Smith had as far as Egyptian parchments was burned in "The Great Chicago Fire".) Joseph Smith translated the records he had to be a work written by Abraham, while Egyptologists say that such records are actually about Osiris and that Joseph Smith's translation is bogus and that the drawings he referred to did not show up in history hundreds or thousands of years beyond Abraham. Thus some consider "The Book of Abraham" and its included Facsimiles as the "holy grail" in proving Joseph Smith to be a false prophet. This has troubled me for some time, but still, I've had faith that the Book of Abraham was a true account.


Recently, I found this article:

http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=561

What is interesting here though is that other records have been found in both the Jewish and Islamic faiths concerning the life of Abraham - records that Joseph Smith had no access to since some of them were not available in the United States or translated into English until 50 years after his death. Some of these records include uncanny parallels (you already know how much I love parallels) to the story about Abraham that Joseph Smith revealed. What I have figured from these findings is that Joseph Smith revealed the story behind the story - or the story of Abraham which inspired and evolved over hundreds of years into the story of Osiris of which Egyptologists are more familiar - the first story being the Jewish version with Jewish names and the second being the Egyptian version with Egyptian names.

The works found concerning Abraham with parallels to "The Book of Abraham" include:

• "the Testament of Abraham" (A text of Jewish (possibly Essene) origin likely composed around the first century AD)
• the Islamic Qisas al-Anbiya' (Tales of the Prophets)
• writings of Eupolemus (a Jew or Samaritan in Palestine in the mid-second century BC),
• writings of Ioannes Zonaras (a twelfth-century Byzantine historian)
• writings of Midrash Rabbah (a rabbinic commentary composed around the fifth century AD).
• writings of Artapanus (who lived prior to the first century BC)

This is something I'm just starting to scratch the surface of, so as of today, I have only read the first work in the list. The parallel I see in the first is that Abraham is given to view the Earth and its creations and is also given to view Heaven and the great ones that are there.

There are perhaps more ancient works concerning Abraham of which I am not yet aware.

[WingedPaladin]

In an attempt to disprove arises evidence

In an attempt to disprove arises evidence that Joseph Smith knew what was written there all along.

Here are video clips covering the Egyptologist's study:

http://www.bookofabraham.info/VideoClips.htm

The last video is the conclusion of the Egyptologist Dr. Robert Ritner. The "real" translation Ritner gave got me so very excited. Something they mentioned it said is not found in our Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price, but is used by Latter-Day Saints minus the Egyptian god names.

[WingedPaladin]

Did Dr. Dahesh tell any stories about Abraham?

[zionic]

Did Dr. Dahesh tell any stories about Abraham?

If I may add to the question...did Dr. Dahesh tell any stories about Enoch?