Deity Names in the Book of Abraham
Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2008 6:32 am
The Book of Abraham refers several times to "the gods of Elkenah, Libnah, Mahmackrah, Korash, and Pharaoh."
Elaborating on a suggestion made by Ted Chandler, the poster at MADB known as "bjw" offers the following interesting comments on these deity names:
bjw is probably correct. In each of his inspired "translations" of allegedly ancient texts, Joseph Smith appears to have modeled many of his names on names borrowed from the King James Version of the Bible (cf. here for a list of examples from the Book of Mormon). Most of the names he borrowed are slightly modified, evidently in order to make the borrowing less obvious. Not only does Exodus 6 contain the most plausible biblical models for the Book of Abraham deity names all in close proximity to each other, but it also does so in the context of a discussion of the covenant God made with Abraham (cf. vv. 3-8). It's clear from the way that the Book of Abraham incorporates and reacts to biblical passages about Abraham that Joseph Smith read up on the life of the patriarch prior to "translating" his record. Perhaps, while doing his research, he came across the names in this chapter and decided that they sounded authentically "Egyptian" enough to work into his Abraham narrative. He may even have intended to imply that the persons listed in Exodus 6 were named after his (fictional) Egyptian deities.
On the other hand, the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham omit the name "Korash" and render "Libnah" as "Zibnah"; Korash first appears in a second-generation manuscript produced by Joseph Smith and his scribe something like a week or two after the initial translation, and "Libnah" is probably a misreading of "Zibnah" that first occurred in a third generation manuscript years later. This throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the plagiarism theory, because it means "Zibnah" is a less impressive match and also requires that Joseph Smith plagiarized these names in two different editorial stages, utilizing Exodus 6 as his source at both stages. That makes plagiarism here less likely, but not impossible, especially if he deliberately chose this chapter specifically because it offered some likely "Egyptian" names.
Incidentally, it's clear from Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar that he thought "ah" and "ash" were characteristically Egyptian phonemes. So it is no accident that all of his Egyptianized versions of these names end in either "ah" or "ash".
See Also:
Korash in the Book of Abraham...Or Not?
Best,
-Chris
Elaborating on a suggestion made by Ted Chandler, the poster at MADB known as "bjw" offers the following interesting comments on these deity names:
I've heard it mentioned before the belief that Joseph Smith stole the names from facsimile 1 of the Book of Abraham from Exodus 6. [...] The names I caught were Elkanah/Elkenah (v.24), Libni/Libnah (v.17), Mahali/Mahmackrah (v.19), Korah/Korash (v.24), and Pharaoh/Pharaoh (several places in ch. 6).
bjw is probably correct. In each of his inspired "translations" of allegedly ancient texts, Joseph Smith appears to have modeled many of his names on names borrowed from the King James Version of the Bible (cf. here for a list of examples from the Book of Mormon). Most of the names he borrowed are slightly modified, evidently in order to make the borrowing less obvious. Not only does Exodus 6 contain the most plausible biblical models for the Book of Abraham deity names all in close proximity to each other, but it also does so in the context of a discussion of the covenant God made with Abraham (cf. vv. 3-8). It's clear from the way that the Book of Abraham incorporates and reacts to biblical passages about Abraham that Joseph Smith read up on the life of the patriarch prior to "translating" his record. Perhaps, while doing his research, he came across the names in this chapter and decided that they sounded authentically "Egyptian" enough to work into his Abraham narrative. He may even have intended to imply that the persons listed in Exodus 6 were named after his (fictional) Egyptian deities.
On the other hand, the earliest manuscripts of the Book of Abraham omit the name "Korash" and render "Libnah" as "Zibnah"; Korash first appears in a second-generation manuscript produced by Joseph Smith and his scribe something like a week or two after the initial translation, and "Libnah" is probably a misreading of "Zibnah" that first occurred in a third generation manuscript years later. This throws a bit of a monkey wrench into the plagiarism theory, because it means "Zibnah" is a less impressive match and also requires that Joseph Smith plagiarized these names in two different editorial stages, utilizing Exodus 6 as his source at both stages. That makes plagiarism here less likely, but not impossible, especially if he deliberately chose this chapter specifically because it offered some likely "Egyptian" names.
Incidentally, it's clear from Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar that he thought "ah" and "ash" were characteristically Egyptian phonemes. So it is no accident that all of his Egyptianized versions of these names end in either "ah" or "ash".
See Also:
Korash in the Book of Abraham...Or Not?
Best,
-Chris