Brian M. Hauglid

John Laurence Gee

Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant is the third volume in the FARMS series and includes papers from a recent conference on the subject. Rather than focus on biblical interpretations of Abraham, each chapter instead explores a lesser-known aspect of Abrahamic studies: his startling visions of the heavens, comparisons between the Book of Abraham and other ancient texts, such as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and an investigation into shifting interpretations of Abraham throughout nineteenth-century America. The compilation is an excellent introduction to recent scholarship on the subject and will prove to be fascinating reading.

Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant

John A. Tvedtnes

Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham represents the first in a series of books in the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) collection at Brigham Young University. Here the authors have assembled and translated more than 100 ancient and medieval stories from their original Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Persian, Coptic, and Egyptian sources, all in an effort to piece together the early life of Abraham. This unprecedented compilation sheds new light on the Book of Abraham as an authentic ancient text and will be a welcome resource for biblical and religious studies scholars.

Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham

In July 1835 at Kirtland Ohio, a traveling antiquities dealer brought to Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, four Egyptian mummies and several rolls of papyri. Upon inspection Smith determined that one of the rolls contained a lost record of the patriarch Abraham. After purchasing these artifacts for $2400 Smith generated through translation five chapters that appeared during March 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois in the Times and Seasons, a Mormon periodical, under the title “The Book of Abraham”. This book has since become a canonized text of scripture for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions serves as a source book for interested researchers and scholars. It includes a brief introduction to the Book of Abraham and a detailed record of textual variants from the time it first appeared in the Times and Seasons until its latest edition (1981). This volume also produces for the first time typographic transcriptions with facing grayscale images of the surviving handwritten manuscripts of the Book of Abraham. Several appendices offer additional helpful resources such as contemporary accounts related to the translation of the Book of Abraham and a full set of color high-res images of the surviving Abraham manuscripts. This book will be a valuable reference tool for scholars interested in researching the textual history of the Book of Abraham

Manuscripts and Editions

A Textual History of the Book of Abraham

Terryl Givens

The Pearl of Greatest Price narrates the history of Mormonism's fourth volume of scripture, canonized in 1880. The authors track its predecessors, describe its several components, and assess their theological significance within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Four principal sections are discussed, along with attendant controversies associated with each. The Book of Moses purports to be a Mosaic narrative missing from the biblical version of Genesis. Too little treated in the scholarship on Mormonism, these chapters, produced only months after the Book of Mormon was published, actually contain the theological nucleus of Latter-day Saint doctrines as well as a virtual template for the Restoration Joseph Smith was to effect. In The Pearl of Greatest Price, the author covers three principal parts that are the focus of many of the controversies engulfing Mormonism today. These parts are The Book of Abraham, The Book of Moses, and The Joseph Smith History. Most controversial of all is the Book of Abraham, a production that arose out of a group of papyri Smith acquired, along with four mummies, in 1835. Most of the papyri disappeared in the great Chicago Fire, but surviving fragments have been identified as Egyptian funerary documents. This has created one of the most serious challenges to Smith's prophetic claims the LDS church has faced. LDS scholars, however, have developed several frameworks for vindicating the inspiration of the resulting narrative and Smith's calling as a prophet. The author attempts to make sense of Smith's several, at times divergent, accounts of his First Vision, one of which is canonized as scripture. He also assesses the creedal nature of Smith's "Articles of Faith," in the context of his professed anti-creedalism. In sum, this study chronicles the volume's historical legacy and theological indispensability to the Latter-day Saint tradition, as well as the reasons for its resilience and future prospects in the face of daunting challenges.

Brian M. Hauglid

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