On the Book of Abraham as Pseudepigrapha II

In an incoherent argument by a commenter over here I am accused of a number of things:

John Gee has gone so far as to state that “the Book of Abraham is not like the Book of Mormon; it has no equivalent of Moroni’s promise; it is not a sign of the prophetic calling of Joseph Smith.” Gee has also said publicly that “the Book of Abraham is not central to the restored gospel of Christ.”

Yes, the scriptures define the gospel as:

1. Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ
2. Repentance
3. Baptism
4. the gift of the Holy Ghost
5. enduring to the end.

In a strict sense, the Book of Abraham is not central to that. I have also written about what the significance of the Book of Abraham is. It is not insignificant and its rejection loses a number of important things. Without the Book of Abraham we lose much of what it means to be Mormon, not the gospel, but plain and precious things nonetheless.

The argument then becomes completely incoherent:

if Gee and Muhlestein are correct in their arguments that the BofA literally appeared on the papyri Joseph possessed, the BofA would be a late pseudepigraphic text authored by either an Egyptian or Jewish scribe who syncretized Jewish and Egyptian religious traditions.

This is absolutely false. My have never believed that the Book of Abraham was a pseudepigraphic text. I have always believed and argued that it was written by Abraham. My latest article on the subject implies that the pseudepigraphic position is false.

The incoherent argumentation reveals some intriguing clues:

The BofA revises the opening chapters of Genesis which scholarly consensus attributes to two separate Judean sources that date long after the time period associated with Abraham.

The author does not mention that there is no hard physical evidence of the Judean sources ever existing. They are imaginary inventions of the nineteenth century. So the irony of this is that the Judean sources are pseudepigrapha, and not even ancient pseudepigrapha. So, ironically, someone must accept two modern pseudepigrapha to argue that the Book of Abraham is ancient pseudepigrapha.  If the Pentateuch was really compiled from documents that never existed until they were invented in the nineteenth century then a number of valid propositions become untenable and incomprehensible. If we limit ourselves to real documents, however, there is no basis to the claim.

One of the advantages of Near Eastern studies over biblical studies is that one must work with real documents. Scholars of the ancient Near East don't have to indoctrinate our students into the blind acceptance of imaginary documents as an article of faith. For the Book of the Dead, for example, we have thousands of manuscripts extending over thousands of years. We can, if we choose, investigate how the text developed over time. We do not have to hypothesize or invent sources, we have them. We do not have to speculate about the processes of text formation, we can explore them.

As one author wrote:

We possess and thus can present good-quality, original comparative data, all with very clear date limits; therefore, will all respect, one cannot possibly consider substituting physically unsupported theories or wholly theory-originated "works" in their place. (K. A. Kitchen, Treaty, Law, and Covenant [Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2012], 3:241.)

So, with the Idrimi inscription, we possess and can present good-quality, original comparative data with clear date and space limits. This trumps wholly theory-originated works, no matter what consensus might support it.

The only way one can take my arguments as indicative that the Book of Abraham is ancient pseudepigrapha is if one privileges nineteenth century pseudepigrapha to actual ancient documents.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From But For a Small Moment (1986), 29:

In any event, for centuries the Lord oversaw the painstaking work of prophets engraving, as they did, upon the plates which would be the basis of the Book of Mormon. He could scarcely be true to those diligent men, whom he loved and called, had he ignored the modern Church's casualness about the Book of Mormon. After all, merely holding or reading a menu is not the same thing as eating a fine meal.

Regarding the incredible "implants" which appear in these "other books," one searches in vain for ways to analogize adequately. These are like nuggets found far from the original mine, or like Mount Everest towering above sister peaks. If the transcendent theology in these books were today's high technology, it would suddenly appear, free standing, with only a few loose wires indicating previous connections.

Examples of such Everests would include chapter 3 of Abraham, chapter 1 of Moses, the third and fourth books of Nephi, and of course such verses as D&C 76:24; 107:53-57 and 121:26-32, from Liberty Jail. There are many others. These special portions sometimes stand amid a penumbra of other well-loved, less spectacular chapters and verses of scripture.

On the Book of Abraham as Pseudepigrapha I

The notion of the Book of Abraham as pseudepigrapha fits into a continuum of theories about (or ways of looking at) the authenticity of the Book of Abraham.

There are four basic positions on the authenticity of the Book of Abraham:

1. The Book of Abraham as Abrahamic: Under this way of looking at things, the Book of Abraham is a work written by Abraham. It was translated by Joseph Smith under the inspiration of God.


2. The Book of Abraham as pseudepigrapha:  In this view, the Book of Abraham is ancient but not actually written by Abraham. It was written by someone else centuries or millennia later. It was translated by Joseph Smith under the inspiration of God.


3. The Book of Abraham as inspired fiction: In this view, the Book of Abraham was not ancient at all but God inspired Joseph Smith to produce a story about Abraham that is not true but teaches some edifying or inspiring concepts.


4. The Book of Abraham as a fraud: In this view, Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Abraham in the nineteenth century and God had nothing to do with it.

There are theoretically some other possibilities but they are either logically incoherent or historically impossible.

So taking the Book of Abraham as pseudepigrapha is to claim that it is ancient and Joseph Smith was inspired to translate it, but it is an ancient fraud. That is what is claimed by those who claim that the Book of Abraham is pseudepigrapha.

There are those who have claimed that I promote the idea that the Book of Abraham is pseudepigrapha. For the record, I reject the idea that the Book of Abraham is pseudepigrapha.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 106:

Nephi found favor with the Lord because he did not murmur as did his brothers, who murmured because they were sent back to Jerusalem for the plates, which was to them such "a hard thing." (1 Nephi 3:5.) Laman and Lemuel felt imposed upon by what they thought, apparently, was not such a good idea—especially because of the personal risks involved. When prophets, like Nephi, are plain-speaking about such disobedience, some murmur the more at being found out and called down. (2 Nephi 1:26.) Nephi refused to join their fraternity of fault finding, for which Laman and Lemuel never forgave him.

A Little More Nibley

The main BYU University Conference starts today. It is time, on this serious occasion, to remember this quote from Hugh Nibley:

In an apocryphal but very ancient account, Peter, in the course of a debate with Simon Magus, points out that people either take themselves or the gospel very seriously--nobody ever takes both seriously. At our Utah universities we take ourselves very seriously, but the suppression of free and open discussion of things academic, while it provides needed security to those who have reason to shun honest scrutiny, can only contribute in the long run to mounting jealousy, suspicion, and tension. There is a point beyond which reticence ceases to be prudence and makes only for misunderstanding." (Hugh Nibley, "Nobody to Blame," CWHN 17:126.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 52:

Indeed, in the macropolitical processes and trends in the world, we are seeing the large-scale consequences of individual selfishness; there is even in some areas a possible loss of nationhood in the recurrence of sectionalism and tribalism. There is surely a hardening of regional and class interests. These trends are ominous manifestations of selfishness and of the coarsening of people. The less love, the less service. The more selfish assertiveness, the less neighborliness.

A Little Nibley

As BYU's University Conference starts today (for some), let us pause to remember something Hugh Nibley wrote on the subject over half a century ago, which is unsurprisingly still relevant:

I have discussed the supplanting of the gospel by the teaching of the schools (in ancient times, that is) in a number of studies, but to show what I mean, one example close to home will suffice. On 23 March 1955, I engaged in a public discussion in Salt Lake with my friend Sterling McMurrin. I closed my rather feeble address with the words, "At this point (i.e., after we have discovered the depths of our own ignorance) we can begin the study of the gospel; there is no further need for waiting around until 'history' can make up its mind." Immediately Sterling (for it was his turn to speak) arose and introduced his own discourse by saying, "now we will hear the real gospel." This brought a round of applause from the university crowd--did they realize what it meant? It was a frank declaration that the celebrations of the learned men and not the utterances of the prophets comprise the gospel. This has been the credo of the Christian schoolmen since the days of Clement of Alexandria: the university--Christian, Moslem, Jewish, or pagan--has its own religion, and the basic tenet of that religion is the denial of revelation." (Hugh Nibley, "Nobody to Blame," CWHN 17: 128-29.)

Today's Maxwell Quote

From All These Things Shall Give Thee Experience (1980), 32:

Regardless of the type of suffering, however, if one examines the ecology of suffering, he will see many things. The mistakes and sins of some often cause great suffering among those who are, in a sense, innocent. The parents of disobedient children suffer because of the unrighteousness of their children.

Translating Matthew 28:1

A reader asks about the translation of Matthew 28:1 and what it implies for the arrival of the two Marys at the tomb.The question comes because Tyndale translated it:

The sabbath day at even which dawneth the morrow after the saboth, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to see the sepulchre.

The Greek text in question is:

Ὀψὲ δὲ σαββάτων, τῇ ἐπιφωσκούσῃ εἰς μίαν σαββάτων, ἦλθεν Μαρία ἡ Μαγδαληνὴ καὶ ἡ ἄλλη Μαρία θεωρῆσαι τὸν τάφον. (Matthew 28:1)

My translation (at least for today) is:

Long after the Sabbath, at the dawn of the first of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary came to look at the tomb.

To me the text seems pretty clear that the two Marys came at dawn on the first day of the week.

I can actually see where Tyndale comes up with his translation. The text has ὀψέ which looks a lot like ὀψία which was used just a few verses before in Matthew 27:57. The Greek term ὀψία does mean evening, and ὀψέ is related to it both terms referring to lateness, but they are not the same term and do not mean the same thing. It is an easy mistake to make.

I think William Tyndale was a phenomenal translator. It is perhaps too easy to take a few hundred years of hindsight and nit-pick the work of someone else. This passage simply has a nit. Even when he was wrong, his prose is beautiful, much better than mine.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Things as They Really Are (1978), chapter 3:

The living Church can, to a great extent, provide us with growth experiences we would not otherwise have through added friendships. It is true, for instance, that the Latter-day Saint has immediate friends, or "instant community," in every country or city to which he would go where there are already brothers and sisters in the gospel. He has a chance to become a native rather than being a mere tourist.

Trust and Distrust

M. Johnston has some interesting thoughts about trust and distrust. His analysis is bound up in current politics and so I will generalize a bit:

If [someone in a position of power] starts with the perspective that whatever he wants is necessarily right, all of this is beside the point to him. If an act on his behalf, or by one who works on his behalf, is even arguably legal, it’s right (and do you think that [an underling in a position of power] doesn’t have his back on any and all close calls about legality?). [The person in a position of power] doesn’t care about your idea of what’s right or wrong, except insofar as it limits what he can do.

The rest of us, though, live in a world where our faith in the integrity of our most senior elected and appointed officials matters very much. If we think that they are self-interested mandarins who treat their “friends” well and their “enemies” roughly, we will have a very different perspective on the social contract than the one that we have had. And, sadly, it’s beginning to look that way.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Those, however, who "for a while believe" never have these adventures which are reserved for the "true believers of Christ." Those who "almost" believe will never know these joys, for they are far too easily satisfied. Those who believe for a while make only a brief tour in the kingdom, though, thereafter, they often feel qualified to inform those who know even less about the Church; but the fact is they were really only tourists—not natives who really knew the kingdom's countryside.

A Tale of Woe

It has been said that the Greek term historia was originally the progressive stages of a disease, and then was applied, by Herodotus, to his researches into how things happened and how the Greek world got where it was. The evidence is not as clear-cut as that, but it is still sometimes useful to think of history as the progressive stages of a disease.

Paul Gottfried certainly seems to view things that way. He describes how the acceptance of a progressive political fad destroyed the atmosphere at Elizabethtown College. He describes Elizabethtown College as "a sleepy Anabaptist college, affiliated with the Church of the Brethren."

Gottfried attributes the beginning of the end to a new administration headed by a president who "pushed the college in an unmistakably ideological direction from which it would never turn back." Gottfried does not think that the president "believed any of the multicultural doctrines he so energetically pushed. He was just taking his lead from the presidents of other colleges."

First came the "tolerance." "This typically took the form of being more “welcoming” to our modest number of non-Christian, non-white students." No one was allowed to say or do anything that might make those not of the college's religious persuasion uncomfortable even though there were plenty of other outlets for them.

Then came the invited "guest speakers who would be invited to campus to edify us, and justify the stress on diversity and social justice" and thus "even without injecting the righteous odor of PC into every core course, the entire college would emit its fragrance."

Equally significant were the multiple “hires” that took place during this time. Most of the younger people who came on board have better credentials than the older generation of faculty. Unfortunately, they are not much interested in serious scholarship. . . . The primary effect of the younger faculty has been to radicalize the institution beyond recognition.

Then came the dean "who imposed her political values on recalcitrant residents. Students of mine were dressed down by this dean and the provost for not being sufficiently sensitive . . . [and] were threatened with expulsion for disputing the diversity dogma that had been proclaimed for the “college community.”"

Next those faculty decided, “It’s time we make a statement.” And they did.

Gottfried, no longer teaching at Elizabethtown, generalizes the situation found at his college:

Elizabethtown’s pitiable transformation corresponds to a widespread degradation of learning. What bothers me about such glib generalizing, however, is the unwillingness of those of my generation to acknowledge that what they are deploring happened on their watch.

This process of change took place in different places and varied contexts, and so when I hear from those who lament what has befallen our college that “it’s really the same all over” I get intensely annoyed. I have no doubt that at Elizabethtown something could have been done to make things less crazy if fewer professors had hidden their heads in the sand. There was rarely a vote on any issue that radicalized the school in which the “nays” could not have won or at least held their own. The critics were just too cowardly or self-centered to let their opposition be known at the appropriate time.

Although this passage from Burke may now be overworked, it seems particularly apt looking back at my college experience: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Clearly those who wish "the opportunity to live in a charming setting and to teach at a socially traditional college" (if any such places still exist) need to exhibit vigilance or the same thing could happen to them.

The point in seeing history as the progression of disease symptoms is to recognize the symptoms and treat the disease.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Not My Will, But Thine (1988), 33:

Thus the Book of Mormon will be with us "as long as the earth shall stand." We need all that time to explore it, for the book is like a vast mansion with gardens, towers, courtyards, and wings. There are rooms yet to be entered, with flaming fireplaces waiting to warm us. The rooms glimpsed so far contain further furnishings and rich detail yet to be savored, but decor dating from Eden is evident. There are panels inlaid with incredible insights, particularly insights about the great question. Yet we as Church members sometimes behave like hurried tourists, scarcely venturing beyond the entry hall.

Follow-up on the City of Abraham

I noted a couple of days ago a news report on an archaeological site (Oylum Höyük) that either its excavator or a newsman connected with Abraham. I have now had a chance to read through a recent (2012) report on the Early Bronze (EB) and Middle Bronze (MB) Age finds and a surface survey of the surrounding area. It is a bit more sober than the news reports. I note the following features:

• The site is the largest archaeological site of the Kilis plain during the EB and MB periods. It was the major city (town) of the area. For those proposing that it is the site of Ulisum mentioned in the Naram-Sin inscription, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition.


• There is a destruction layer in the EB levels which would match with the destruction of the site under Naram-Sin. (Again a necessary but not a sufficient condition.)


• There are also two destruction layers in the MB levels.


• There is a massive fortification wall dating to the Bronze age (but exact dates are not given and appear not to have been known when the report was written).


• The evidence from the Bronze Age "remains partly patchy and includes gaps."


• No radio-carbon dates from the site are available.


• Burials provide much of the information and it appears from them that the population was poorer in the MB than in the EB. 


• Burials within the houses in the MB period match those of other MB sites in Syria.


• The archaeological report says that there is so far no inscriptional evidence from the site for the periods in question.


• Although the publication date is 2012, the information may not reflect finds from even a couple of years before that. So the archaeologists may now have inscriptional evidence that they did not have when the report was written, or they may have simply ignored the inscriptional evidence they did have because it was from a later time period and hence not relevant to discussing Bronze Age remains. Typically, there can be a ten year lag between the discovery of an inscription and the publication of the inscription.

Oylum Höyük is the largest site in the Kilis plain and clearly dominated the whole plain in the Middle Bronze Age. The site would explain the wording in the Book of Abraham that "Potiphar’s Hill [was] at the head of the plain of Olishem" (Abraham 1:10) Olishem is only mentioned because the whole plains took their name from the city and that Ur was apparently located in the plains, but the text never says that Abraham was at Olishem. Nothing precludes this site from being Abraham's Olishem, but nothing requires it to be either.

The site (possibly of Olishem) is about thirty-five to forty miles north of where I guessed the site of Ur would be. I made my guess based on the confluence of the Egyptian evidence (for Olishem) and the Naram-Sin inscription. (You can see my guess on the map published here.) Ur should be in the same plain and about five to ten miles from Olishem.

If indeed tablets in Hittite from the site identify it as Ullis, then it is probably the Ulisum that Naram-Sin attacked, and is a likely candidate for Olishem. If Oylum Höyük is Olishem, then Ur of the Chaldees would be one of the dozens of MB II sites in the Kilis plain. At present, there are still too many ifs to see this as anything more than promising but not proven.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

Much sifting will occur because of lapses in righteous behavior which go unrepented of. A few will give up instead of holding out to the end. A few will be deceived by defectors. Likewise, others will be offended, for sufficient unto each dispensation are the stumbling blocks thereof! A few will stumble because, in their preoccupation with the cares of the world, they do not have oil in their lamps. And, again and again, those who refuse to eat their spiritual spinach will come off second when they wrestle with the world. Some, because of the scorn of the world, will grow ashamed and let go of the iron rod. (See 1 Ne. 8:28.) A few who have not been Saints, but merely tourists passing through, will depart from the path. A few, failing to be of good cheer, will even charge God foolishly. (See Job 1:22.)

Geographic Ignorance

Victor Davis Hanson has a discussion of ignorance in the public square. He argues that ignorance of geography and history are especially prevalent. This is part of an ongoing trend. Back when I was an undergraduate, I graduated with a Middle Eastern Studies major who thought that Mecca was in Palestine. As Hanson notes, they were singing about it in the fifties.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From this talk:

As He began to feel the awful weight of the approaching Atonement, Jesus acknowledged, “For this cause came I into the world” (John 18:37). We too, brothers and sisters, came “into the world” to pass through our particularized portions of the mortal experience. Even though our experiences do not even begin to approach our Master’s, nevertheless, to undergo this mortal experience is why we too are here! Purposefully pursuing this “cause” brings ultimate meaning to our mortal lives. And we are greatly helped if we enter with faith that pavilion of perspective—the plan of salvation. Then the search for meaning is ended, even though further and resplendent discoveries await us. Alas, as Church members we sometimes behave like hurried tourists, scarcely venturing beyond the entry point.

The City of Abraham?

Turkish archaeologists claim to have discovered the city of Abraham near Kilis in Turkey (news report here, repeated here).

The site (which appears to be Oylum, just a few miles east of Kilis, which is about thirty-five miles north of Aleppo and only five miles from the border between Syria and Turkey) is said to have occupation levels dating to the Chalcolithic, and been occupied since the Early Bronze Age. It is also said to have some Hittite documents, and coins from the time of Alexander the Great. The excavator, Atilla Engin, claims that an Iron Age papyrus says that the site was where Abraham lived. He also refers to clay tablets in Hittite which are said to support the idea that the site was the ancient city of Ullisu.

An overview of past excavations (since the 1980s) can be found here. Surface surveys were conducted in the 1960s, and an Italian team went through in the late 1960s. Since the 1980s the work has been done by the Turks, first under Prof. Dr. Engin Özgen and now under Atilla Engin. Some interesting points: The city was burned twice in Middle Bronze II, and the inhabitants seem to have been poorer than at earlier times.

Whether the claims that this is the city of Abraham, or that this was ancient Ullisu are intriguing but remain to be seen. I have not seen the excavation reports or publications of the clay tablets or the papyrus. The site is in the right general area for the Book of Abraham's Olishem. Whether it is Olishem is too early to tell. News from the site will be worth watching.

Today's Maxwell Quote

From Deposition of a Disciple (1976), 61:

There is just too much on record and too many reasons to have an institutional church to question seriously its value and the need for it. People who are inside the Church are in a sense inside something holy, and we can understand it, mostly. It is difficult to tell a so-called tourist more than superficial things about something he remains outside of or experiences only fleetingly. If he really wishes to know, he must come inside. Tourists seldom really savor a place even when inside! It is difficult for nonbelievers to describe the believer's world. The nonbeliever can circle a concept indefinitely—like besieging armies outside a city wall—without grasping it.