The book of Abraham, Joseph Smith’s final translation project, is easily one of the most controversial books of scripture in the Latter-day Saint canon. And we want to talk about it.
In this episode of Church History Matters, we dig into the fascinating story of how the exploits of a 19th century grave robber in Egypt ended up expanding our scriptural canon! We look at where in Egypt the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was purportedly translated came from and how Joseph Smith came to possess both this papyri and a couple pair of mummies. We examine three theories of what source material Joseph Smith translated from and how he did it. And we trace what we know of what happened to the papyri after Joseph’s death, how much has survived to this day, and what modern Egyptologists think about the surviving fragments—which is the source of the two biggest controversies regarding the Book of Abraham.