Hugh Nibley, Abraham in Egypt. Second Edition. The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume 14, Pearl of Great Price. Edited by Gary P. Gillum. Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co. and Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies at Brigham Young University, 2000. xxxiii, 705 pp. Illustrations, Indices. $34.95.

The first edition (1981) of Abraham in Egypt had nine chapters while the contents of this second edition contains thirteen chapters. In the new edition there is material added from Dr. Hugh Nibley's articles that appeared in the Improvement Era. These additions are mainly in chapters 2, 3, 4, 7 and 8. This edition of Abraham in Egypt does not include his complete Improvement Era series of articles published from January 1969 through May 1970, only a segment.

In an interview ten years ago Dr. Nibley said, "In that book called Abraham in Egypt, that second half is absolutely a mess."⁽¹⁾ He may be placing blame on the publisher Deseret Book Company.

This printing continues to print the incorrect date of the issue in the first installment of the Book of Abraham in the Times and Seasons: March 5, 1842 (p. 4 [p. 3, 1981 ed.]). The correct dating should be March 1, 1842. In the 1981 printing of Abraham in Egypt the words "that have fallen into our hands" were omitted from the printed Book of Abraham heading that was in the Times and Seasons. This has been rectified in the second edition by its inclusion. But there are other errors not corrected. The book has Dr. Nibley still writing that the editor (Franklin D. Richards) made changes to the heading of the Book of Abraham text.

The second edition states, "The words 'purporting to be' are omitted, and in their place is an imperious dash that brooks no nonsense-it is the writing of Abraham" (4). Though a correction was made to Book of Abraham heading to make it correspond to the Times and Seasons, the argument is still kept that Dr. Nibley is making Apostle Franklin D. Richards the fall guy who makes an important mistake. In Dr. Nibley's words "the editor made changes in the heading that have led to serious misunderstanding ever since." Next Dr. Nibley wrote, "But note the significant omissions and insertions." The interesting thing is that while blame is placed upon Apostle Richards the heading of the Book of Abraham was not checked carefully with the first edition of the Pearl of Great Price. There was no change in the wording in 1851.

One of the Translation Manuscripts (BAbr Ms 2, page 1, LDS archives) has the following heading in the handwriting of William W. Phelps, a scribe to Joseph Smith:

Translation of the Book of Abraham written by his own hand upon papyrus and found in the Catacombs of Egypt

The Printer Manuscript in Willard Richards's handwriting has this heading:

A Translation of Some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand upon papyrus.

This was published with the same words in the Times and Seasons:

A TRANSLATION Of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catecombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the BOOK OF ABRAHAM, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.

The Pearl of Great Price (Liverpool: Published by F.D. Richards, 1851), 19, published the heading from the Times and Seasons:

THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

"A TRANSLATION OF SOME ANCIENT RECORDS, THAT HAVE FALLEN INTO OUR HANDS FROM THE CATECOMBS OF EGYPT, PURPORTING TO BE THE WRITINGS OF ABRAHAM WHILE HE WAS IN EGYPT, CALLED THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM, WRITTEN BY HIS OWN HAND, UPON PAPYRUS."-Times & Seasons, Vol. III. p. 704.

(Translated from the Papyrus, by Joseph Smith.)

The second edition of Abraham in Egypt omits the sentence: "The insertion of the editor specifying that these are 'some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands" also takes liberties, implying that the actual possession of the records is what made translation possible" (1981 ed., 4). The reason for this is because the heading is the same as that printed in the Times and Seasons.

The 1 March 1842 issue has the following editorial comment, "This paper commences my [Joseph Smith's] editorial career, I alone stand responsible for it." The manuscript draft of the editorial contains the following, "In the penst [present] no. will be found the commencement of the Records discovered in Egypt. Some time since. as pensnd [penned] by the hand of Father Abraham. which I shall continue to translate & publish as fast as possible till the whole is completed."⁽²⁾

That Joseph Smith considered the "Book of Abraham" as a record written by Abraham's hand is certain. The reprinted Abraham in Egypt, in the series of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, indicates that there is some sloppy research at the Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) at Brigham Young University. The standard of scholarship at FARMS needs to be upgraded. The Book of Abraham as printed in the LDS Pearl of Great Price is related to the Horus Papyrus that was in the possession of Joseph Smith.

In 1982 I reviewed the first edition of Dr. Nibley's Abraham in Egypt. The first portion of that review can be applied to this second expanded edition:

In his new book, Abraham in Egypt, Dr. Hugh Nibley states that "To date, not a critic has laid a finger on the Book of Abraham" (p. 1). If this were true, there would be little need for Dr. Nibley to have produced this book. The truth is that what was represented as a "translation" of an ancient Egyptian papyrus made by the Mormon founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., and entitled the Book of Abraham has been completely discredited in the eyes of scholars by the rediscovery of some portions of that papyrus in 1967 in the archives of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Dr. Nibley tries to put as much distance as possible between those papyrus fragments and Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham, because the papyrus fragments have demonstrated beyond doubt that Joseph Smith did not have the slightest idea of what the Egyptian characters on the papyrus really said. Therefore, in a previous work, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, Dr. Nibley without success tried to prove that the papyrus fragments recovered in 1967 were not the portion from which Joseph Smith made his Book of Abraham translation. In this book he goes further and suggests that Smith may not have had an Egyptian text before him at all, but received the entire work by revelation. He remarks that Joseph "had already demonstrated at great length his power to translate ancient records with or without possession of the original text" (emphasis added, p. 4). He therefore want the reader to put aside all the evidence that establishes the fact that Joseph Smith could not understand a word of Egyptian, although professing divine aid to do so, and to concentrate only on the contents of the little 15-page work itself. Dr. Nibley tries to show that the contents fit in with various patterns and ideas of the ancient Egyptians themselves as well as with Jewish apocryphal works. Therefore he would like to shift the issue to one where "it is the Book of Abraham that is on trial, not Joseph Smith as an Egyptologists" (p. 3).

To separate the Book of Abraham from an Egyptian text in Joseph Smith's possession, Dr. Nibley must eliminate all reference to such Egyptian records actually being in Joseph's hands. This he is able to do by completely misreading the statements made about the Book of Abraham by Joseph himself. In 1842, when Joseph Smith, as editor of the Times and Seasons first published in that church paper his Book of Abraham, he prefaced the publication with a statement that it was a translation of "Records that have fallen into our hands." This preface in full proclaimed:

A TRANSLATION of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catacombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the BOOK OF ABRAHAM, written by his own hand, upon papyrus (emphasis added).

. . .

Unfortunately, for Dr. Nibley's case, it was Joseph himself who made the claim of having actual documents from which he was translating his Book of Abraham. Furthermore, when the Millennial Star press in 1851 reprinted Joseph's work in their little pamphlet, the Pearl of Great Price, they reprinted the preface exactly as it had appeared in the Times and Seasons published by the Prophet himself. Dr. Nibley's whole premise is therefore undercut by a simple check of the factual data itself.

However, Dr. Nibley is not finished with his bungling of the data. He further charges the editor of the Millennial Star with removing the words "purporting to be" when reprinting the Times and Seasons preface in 1851. Dr. Nibley belabors this point:

But note the significant omissions and insertions. ". . . purporting to be" is omitted, and in its place an imperious dash that brooks no nonsense - it is the writing of Abraham (p. 4).

The truth is, the 1851 printing did not leave out "purporting to be" or any other word or phrase from the original Times and Seasons printing. It was an 1878 printing of the Pearl of Great Price that deleted the words "purporting to be," and it was that version that was canonized by the LDS Church as scripture. The "imperious dash" was added in later printings of the Book of Abraham and is still retained in the current official 1981 printing.

As if that were not enough distortion of the data, Dr. Nibley accuses the (1851) editor with misreading the prefatory material so as to make the words "Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus" mean that Joseph had acquired the actual handwritten copy made by Abraham himself. Dr. Nibley maintains that the wording actually was "part of the original Egyptian title: '. . . called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus'-that was Abraham's own heading (p. 4) [2nd ed., p. 5]. "This is important," Dr. Nibley adds, "since much misunderstanding has arisen from the assumption that the Joseph Smith Papyri were the original draft of Abraham's book, his very own handiwork" [2nd ed., p. 5]. First, however, Dr. Nibley's editor turns out to be Joseph Smith, since the 1851 edition simply reprinted Joseph's own heading. And secondly, if this were a misunderstanding, the 1851 editor cannot be blamed for such an error, for visitors to Nauvoo were shown Abraham's own signature on the papyrus by the prophet Joseph Smith himself.

On page 51 [2nd ed., p. 111] Nibley argues that "The Book of Abraham must have come from somewhere," inferring that the book may reflect authentic Abrahamic material. He is correct that it derives from some source, but there is no indication in his book that the textual material for at least half of the Book of Abraham came directly from the King James Version of the Old Testament book of Genesis. There are revisions, but the King James style of the Genesis story dealing with Abraham before he went into Egypt and the Genesis account of the creation of the world are clearly reflected in the book.

(Journal of Pastoral Practice 5,4 [1982]:113-15)

1. Accession 814, Cooley, Oral Histories, Hugh Nibley Interview #325, Interview No. 1, page 22, 19 April 1990, Manuscripts Division, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

2. Times and Seasons 3 (1 March 1842):710. The draft of editorial is in the handwriting of Willard Richards, Joseph Smith Collection, LDS archives. A portion of this editorial (first paragraph reworded) was published in Times and Seasons 3 (1 March 1842):710. When the Book of Abraham commenced its publication in the Millennial Star in England the editorial stated that the Book of Abraham was a relic "of greater antiquity than the Bible" (Millennial Star 3 [June 1842]:32, edited and published by P. P. Pratt and T. Ward.

Marquardt, H. Michael, review of Abraham in Egypt (1981 ed.) in the Journal of Pastoral Practice 5,4 (1982):113-16. Republished in The Book of Abraham Revisited (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1983).

Richards, Franklin D., compiler, The Pearl of Great Price: Being a Choice Selection from the Revelations, Translations, and Narrations of Joseph Smith, First Prophet, Seer, and Revelator to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Liverpool: Published by F.D. Richards, 15, Wilton Street. 1851.

Smith, Joseph, editor, Times and Seasons 3 (1 March 1842):703, [issue no. 9] Facsimile No. 1, with explanation; text on pages 704-706, 13 paragraphs (1-13) [Abr. 1:1-2:18]. For Smith as editor see 3:710, Tuesday, March 15 [sic; 1], 1842. This issue was proofed on 2 March and mailed about 4 March.

Walters, Wesley P., "Joseph Smith Among the Egyptians: An Examination of the Source of Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham," Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 16 (Winter 1973):25-45.