OK I'll take the challenge and try and keep this as short as possible - this is not official LDS thinking - there isn't any official pronouncements on this.
1 "On the 3rd of July, Michael H. Chandler came to Kirtland to exhibit some Egyptian mummies. There were four human figures, together with some two or more rolls of papyrus covered with hieroglyphic figures and devices." (History of the Church 2:235)
2 "The last of June four Egyptian mummies were brought here; there were two papyrus rolls, besides some other ancient Egyptian writings with them. As no one could translate these writings, they were presented to President Smith. He soon knew what they were and said they, the 'rolls of papyrus', contained the sacred record kept by Joseph in Pharaoh's Court in Egypt, and the teachings of Father Abraham." (W.W. Phelps; Improvement Era 45, August 1942)
3."Soon after this some of the Saints in Kirtland purchased the mummies and papyrus, a description of which will appear hereafter, and with W.W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery as scribes, I commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphs, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, and another the writings of Joseph of Egypt" (Joseph Smith; History of the Church 2:236)
4. "The papyrus, covered with black or red ink, or paint, in excellent preservation" (Times and Seasons 3; May 2nd, 1842; 774)
This is the woodcut left and a recovered original.
OK how did Joseph Smith translate these - not a clue!! Joseph Smith was in possession of the Urim and Thummim - the seer stones by which the past present and future could be seen but of more present application they could be used to translate (that's how he did the BOM.) These fragments above are not originals (IE not literally written by Abraham) but are are copies many hundreds of years later (remember what happened to the Bible) so a translation of these characters above would produce a result that had been heavily Egyptisised (I made up that word hehe ) and would contain very little of the original - in fact these are very very similar to Book of Breathings texts which are well translated. Joseph also produced a grammar and alphabet that are nothing like the current scholarly grammars and alphabets.
So options :
- The fragments aren't the story of Abraham. The fragments don't match the beautifully preserved papyrus JS described. (personally - not too sure) There is another missing roll. Definately some of the papyrus is missing.
- What Jospeh Smith translated was not what was on the papyrus - let me clarify; when he read the papyrus as a Seer he saw the original uncorrupted (possibly different language?) and this is what that grammar and alphabet referred to? (I like this a lot for some reasons I'll give below)
- He made the whole lot up (inc. BOM) and was martyred pointlessly.
- Current Egyptology is all wrong (yeah - not really an option)
- Speculation!!!!! Egypt historically gained its desire for the Priesthood of God as a corrupted form of the Ancient order after the flood and the denial of Ham the Priesthood ( They may have descended from Ham). Their whole religion contains many christian / hebrew ideas (you could argue vica versa!) but they understood the idea of judgment, becoming a god (OK thats LDS), the afterlife, the heavens and the underworld, the idea of sacrifice, the wearing of priestly robes and a priesthood, Abraham and other ancient Prophets taught them many true things that became corrupted. The funeral texts etc are their scriptures and incorporated into their religion are many correct doctrines mixed up with myths. We are unable to understand the true meaning of Egyptian religion because we are many cultures and years apart from them and so our understanding of the past is wrong.
OK why plump for the second option (which to a sceptic gives JS carte blanche to make up anything he wants up)
- JS translated many things without an original - the Urim and Thummim regularly translated from corrupt nth generation copies back to original meaning - the Pearl Of Great Price contains the JS translation of the bible - he wasn't working from originals. There is a whole section in the DC that contains a letter written by Paul ( I think ) which doesn't even have a source.
- Daniel in the bible got a whole set of words and sentences out of one word written by God on the wall. The papyrus doesn't contain enough words for the Book of Abraham - either JS was yanking our chain or he was following the prophetic model.
- If anyone reads the history of JS they will find someone who is uneducated but almost incredibally talented - to make up the Book of Abraham would have been abject folly - no-one joined the church because of it, it was not used as a book to preach the gospel (the BOM and Bible were used for that) it has little or no purpose for a fraudster, in fact it was only published in magazine format as an interesting point and was only later added into the canon once its doctrinal importance was found.
End of the day, I believe JS is/was a prophet - end of the day I don't believe because of proofs - same way I don't believe the bible because they dig up an ancient city etc..Book of Abraham would be way down my list of things to disprove JS if that was my thinking.
