Manetho, Josephus, and the Book of Abraham

[Kishkumen]

Manetho was an Egyptian priest who lived in the early third century BC. He wrote a history of Egypt in Greek that begins as follows [at least according to the fragment preserved in Eusebius]:

1. The first man (or god) in Egypt is Hephaestus,​1 who is also renowned among the Egyptians as the discoverer of fire. His son, Helios (the Sun), was succeeded by Sôsis; then follow, in turn, Cronos, p5 Osiris, Typhon, brother of Osiris, and lastly Orus, son of Osiris and Isis. These were the first to hold sway in Egypt. Thereafter, the kingship passed from one to another in unbroken succession down to Bydis (Bites)​2 through 13,900 years. The year I take, however, to be a lunar one, consisting, that is, of 30 days: what we now call a month the Egyptians used formerly to style a year.3

2. After the Gods, Demigods reigned for 1255 years,​4 and again another line of kings held sway for 1817 years: then came thirty more kings of Memphis,​5 reigning for 1790 years; and then again ten kings of This, reigning for 350 years.

What part of this is truly historical? Did the Egyptians call their first man or god Hephaestus 5000 years before Manetho wrote his history? No. Undoubtedly not, but this was the story Manetho wanted to tell about Egypt's past in the early Ptolemaic period.

Josephus, a learned Jewish scholar of the first century AD, puts a character from the Hebrew Bible named Abram in Egypt, teaching its priests the sciences:

2. For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and, confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.

This undoubtedly did not happen, but it suited Josephus as a proud Jew to tell his people's story in a way that flattered them.

Joseph Smith, an American of the 19th century, took Josephus' ideas about Abraham and updated them for his own purposes. He shared the revelation that God gave Abraham that enabled Abraham to school the priests and pharaoh:

15 And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.

None of this stuff happened. It is not historically accurate. OK? It was not written to be historically accurate according to our understanding. All of these accounts were written for other purposes than to craft a scientific history. They are true to the extent that they seek to communicate something of great value to and about the time, place, and culture that they come out.

[drumdude]

Joseph Smith produced the Book of Abraham which he said was a selection from actual writing of the biblical patriarch bearing that name. As with the Book of Mormon the Book of Abraham clearly seems to reach back into ancient materials regarding its hero and his environment to which Joseph Smith could not have gained access through natural means. Within its brief text for instance the book tells us that Abraham's own fathers had turned aside from worship of the true God to the service of the god of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

The Bible on the other hand appears to know nothing about the idolatry of Abraham's ancestors. However their polytheism along with Abraham's conversion to the worship of the true God and his attempt to convert his family is a common theme of many very old Jewish stories.

The Book of Abraham refers to a place that that it calls the plain of allah shem. No such place name occurs in the Bible but it does occur in an inscription of the Akkadian Roulin Aram sin dating to about 2250 BC the approximate time of Abraham. It refers to a place located in northwestern Syria in the area near Amman and Ebla, it also appears in a list of cities under the reign of Sesostris the third who ruled between 1873 and 1854 BC where it's two towns north of Ebla

The idolatrous worship of the gods of al cana lignum mamakara and kourosh that's described in the Book of Abraham also seems to be identifiable in the ancient world despite the fact that the Bible makes no mention of them.

Indeed Elkanah Libya and kourosh are all known from inscriptions dating to roughly abraham's time and place furthermore, although the average person would never have thought of it the ensemble of four figures depicted at figure six effects fasimile - does indeed represent this earth in its four quarters just as the Book of Abraham says so - figure 11 in fact simile 1 is as the explanation given by the Book of Abraham designed to represent the pillars of heaven as understood by the Egyptians and in fact the phrase pillars of heaven does occur in Egyptian literature and the forms in facsimile 1 are evidently the characteristic lintel and post pattern familiar from the architecture of early temple complexes such as that at saqqara.


furthermore the identification of the angled lines below the eye of the lion couch in fact similarly 1 as the firmament our heads must seem rather strange any modern reader it only makes sense when we realize that the lines represent the waves of the water in which the crocodile is swimming that the ancient Egyptians conceived of heaven as a heavenly ocean one noteworthy element of the religious situation portrayed in the Book of Abraham is the identification of a crocodile as the idolatrous god of Pharaoh now what ill-educated 19th century Americans seeing a crocodile lurking underneath the lion couch in fact simile number one would ever have thought of such an identification yet The Book of Abraham is precisely correct on this point.


Oona's for example was the last king of
the fifth dynasty around 2300 BC and his
pyramid still stands at saqqara south of
modern cairo utterance 317 of the unas
Pyramid Texts includes the following the
king appears as the crocodile god Sobek
Oona's has come today from the
overflowing flood unas is sobic green
plumed wakeful alert unas arises as
sobic son of Nathe speaking of the
egyptian middle kingdom during which the
traditional dating of abraham places his
lifetime
one scholar observes that the god Sobek
is viewed as a manifestation of Horus
the god most closely identified with the
kingship of egypt intriguing ly Middle
Kingdom Egypt around the time of the
12th dynasty the most likely time of
Abraham's own life saw a great deal of
activity in the large Oasis to the
southwest of modern Cairo known as the
fayum crocodiles were common there and
Sobek was the chief local deity the last
king of the 12th dynasty even adopted
the name of the crocodile God calling
himself neferu Sabich and five pharaohs
of the 13th dynasty took the names
Seebeck hotep the book of abraham tells
of an attempted sacrifice of the
patriarch the Bible knows nothing of
such an episode but post biblical
literature repeatedly mentions Abraham's
miraculous deliverance from an attempt
to kill him and now the name of Abraham
has actually been found in a third
century AD Egyptian papyrus associated
with a lion couch scene much like that
in fact simile one when one critic
attempting rather desperately to
neutralize this piece of support for
Joseph Smith's prophetic calling claimed
contradicting not only latter-day saints
collars but prominent non-Mormon experts
that the text shouldn't actually be read
as Abraham but
some sort of magical term the
Egyptologist Gyeonggi responded with an
article aptly titled abracadabra Isaac
and Jacob unsurprisingly Abraham leaves
the land of aura not long after his
miraculous escape from death and goes to
Canaan when the autobiographical portion
of the Book of Abraham ends we find him
about to enter the land of Egypt there
in order to preserve his life the Lord
advises him to conceal the fact that
Soraya's his wife and instead to tell
the Egyptians that she is his sister the
Bible records the story of Abraham's lie
but is silent regarding the divine
counsel that authorized it however the
Genesis Apocrypha a document found among
the famous Dead Sea Scrolls only in the
mid 20th century agrees with The Book of
Abraham that the patriarchs behavior in
this matter was divinely ordained and
there was good reason
the crocodile king of utterance 3:17 in
the Yunus Pyramid Texts which I've
already cited is portrayed as willful
and tyrannical specifically he said to
steal wives from their husbands whenever
it suits him to do so
that is of course exactly what Abraham
expected Pharaoh to do to Sarai the
third chapter of the Book of Abraham
offers a remarkable picture of what
might be termed Abrahamic astronomy the
Prophet has shown various features of
the heavens including even the great
astronomical body Kolob which is set
nigh unto the throne of God recent
research indicates that the astronomical
model portrayed here fits very well
among ancient geocentric or
earth-centered notions it's interesting
to note that although nothing in the
Genesis account of Abraham's life
suggests that he had any special
astronomical interests our knowledge
many post biblical texts preserve an
image of him that Accords perfectly with
that in the Book of Abraham the first
century Jewish historian Josephus for
instance knows of earlier records that
portray Abraham as a man righteous and
great and skillful in the celestial
science in the Testament of Abraham
which dates to the 1st to 2nd century AD
the patriarch is caught up into heaven
and given a spectacular view of the
earth and all its inhabitants
both the book of Jubilees composed in
the second century BC in the 7th century
AD Muslim Quran portray Abraham as a
meditative contemplate her of the skies
the 1st to 2nd century ad apocalypse of
Abraham tells how the patriarch was
taken in
heaven where among other things he
beheld hosts of stars and the orders
they were commanded to carry out and the
elements of Earth obeying them did the
tenth century Muslim scholar at-tabari
widely regarded as the greatest of
medieval commentators on the Quran
because among other things of his
careful gathering up of earlier
materials knows of a vision in which the
seven heavens were opened up to Abraham
up to and including the throne according
to the Book of Abraham the Lord wanted
the patriarch to transmit the
astronomical and theological information
he'd received to the Egyptians I show
these things unto thee before you go
into Egypt that you may declare all
these words and in fact although the
text of the Book of Abraham as we
currently possess it doesn't actually
carry the story into Egypt he seems to
have fulfilled his divine assignment
facsimile 3 shows an Egyptian scene in
which Abraham is reasoning upon the
principles of astronomy in the Kings
Court Josephus 2 knows of Abraham's
going into Egypt to teach astronomy and
the great church historian Eusebius of
Caesarea who lived in the late 3rd and
early 4th centuries preserves in the
early even earlier account in his
priority Oh Eve Angelika that has
Abraham going to Egypt and they're
teaching astronomy or astrology to both
the priests of Heliopolis and to Pharaoh
himself the pagan astronomers fremitus
Mateus and Vettius Valens preserved
quotations of astronomical material
attributed to Abraham the fourth and
fifth chapters of The Book of Abraham
record a vision of the creation received
by the Prophet that parallels the
account given in Genesis but also
differs from it in certain important
ways here - the account of Abraham
preserved in the pearl of great price
goes beyond that in the Bible but
receives support from sources that
Joseph Smith's is unlikely to have known
at Amadori preserves reports that
Abraham was granted a vision of the
creation one of the interesting elements
of the creation account given in Abraham
four through five is its use of the verb
to organize by which were given to
understand that the gods formed the
heavens and the earth out of
pre-existing materials now this flies in
the face of centuries of Christian
tradition which have insisted that God
created the universe ex nihilo that is
from nothing once again however the Book
of Abraham finds support in current
scholarship the doctrine of ex nihilo
creation simply cannot be found in
Genesis or anywhere else in the Old
Testament ancient Jewish
claim that God created the universe by
giving form to formless matter it's not
till the second century after Christ
that Christian thinkers began under the
influence of Greek philosophy to teach
creation from nothing and the doctrine
gained wider acceptance only gradually
thereafter on the foundation of such
scriptural texts as the Book of Mormon
in the Book of Abraham which latter-day
saints regard as restorations of
inspired ancient documents accompanied
by the Bible and modern revelations
stands the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter day Saints it proclaims itself
the restoration of the church originally
founded and led by Jesus and His
disciples with a priesthood authorized
by God and restored to the earth by the
ancient biblical figures John the
Baptist and Peter James and John in
several ways it's undeniably similar to
the ancient church it practices baptism
by immersion and it ordains its officers
and like the elders mentioned in James 5
and 9 sand blesses the sick by the
laying on of hands its missionaries take
its message to the ends of the earth
baptizing in the name of the Father and
of the son of the Holy Ghost
like the original Christian movement
founded by Jesus it's led by prophets
and a Council of Twelve Apostles when
they occur vacancies the Apostolic
Council are filled so that the council
continues from generation to generation
this was attempted in ancient times -
but with persecutions scattering and
death the Council of the Apostles
nonetheless soon ceased to exist as an
organized body echoing both New
Testament Christianity and the Old
Testaments wandering desert Israel
quorums of 70 performs significant
portions of the Lord's work like the
earliest church it features priests
deacons and bishops the Reformation
notion of the priesthood of all
believers clearly not yet arisen before
the departure of the Apostles the
Christian movement possessed leaders
whose authority was general rather than
local who traveled throughout the world
and among the branches of the church
bringing order and establishing solid
doctrine there after that we find a deep
need for such general officers there
were none the writings of the so called
Apostolic fathers the first literature
from the post New Testament church a
replete with Appeals for unity from
bishops and others who didn't hold and
knew that they didn't hold the authority
to bring such unity about the earlie

How do you explain DCP’s breathless list of parallels?

[Res Ipsa]

Manetho was an Egyptian priest who lived in the early third century BC. He wrote a history of Egypt in Greek that begins as follows [at least according to the fragment preserved in Eusebius]:

1. The first man (or god) in Egypt is Hephaestus,​1 who is also renowned among the Egyptians as the discoverer of fire. His son, Helios (the Sun), was succeeded by Sôsis; then follow, in turn, Cronos, p5 Osiris, Typhon, brother of Osiris, and lastly Orus, son of Osiris and Isis. These were the first to hold sway in Egypt. Thereafter, the kingship passed from one to another in unbroken succession down to Bydis (Bites)​2 through 13,900 years. The year I take, however, to be a lunar one, consisting, that is, of 30 days: what we now call a month the Egyptians used formerly to style a year.3

2. After the Gods, Demigods reigned for 1255 years,​4 and again another line of kings held sway for 1817 years: then came thirty more kings of Memphis,​5 reigning for 1790 years; and then again ten kings of This, reigning for 350 years.

What part of this is truly historical? Did the Egyptians call their first man or god Hephaestus 5000 years before Manetho wrote his history? No. Undoubtedly not, but this was the story Manetho wanted to tell about Egypt's past in the early Ptolemaic period.

Josephus, a learned Jewish scholar of the first century AD, puts a character from the Hebrew Bible named Abram in Egypt, teaching its priests the sciences:

2. For whereas the Egyptians were formerly addicted to different customs, and despised one another's sacred and accustomed rites, and were very angry one with another on that account, Abram conferred with each of them, and, confuting the reasonings they made use of, every one for their own practices, demonstrated that such reasonings were vain and void of truth: whereupon he was admired by them in those conferences as a very wise man, and one of great sagacity, when he discoursed on any subject he undertook; and this not only in understanding it, but in persuading other men also to assent to him. He communicated to them arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy; for before Abram came into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning; for that science came from the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from thence to the Greeks also.

This undoubtedly did not happen, but it suited Josephus as a proud Jew to tell his people's story in a way that flattered them.

Joseph Smith, an American of the 19th century, took Josephus' ideas about Abraham and updated them for his own purposes. He shared the revelation that God gave Abraham that enabled Abraham to school the priests and pharaoh:

15 And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.

None of this stuff happened. It is not historically accurate. OK? It was not written to be historically accurate according to our understanding. All of these accounts were written for other purposes than to craft a scientific history. They are true to the extent that they seek to communicate something of great value to and about the time, place, and culture that they come out.

Interesting, Reverend. I'm having trouble choosing which lenses I should use to understand these three written passages. If I asked each of the three authors at the time of their writings the question: "is what you wrote what really happened?" what kind of answer should I expect to receive? Today, we have additional information that we can use to judge the historicity of each passage. But on what basis can we say that each was not attempting to convey what each believed to be historically accurate information?

[Moksha]

None of this stuff happened. It is not historically accurate. OK?

So, you are saying none of this is historically accurate? What if we bear our testimonies?

[Kishkumen]

Interesting, Reverend. I'm having trouble choosing which lenses I should use to understand these three written passages. If I asked each of the three authors at the time of their writings the question: "is what you wrote what really happened?" what kind of answer should I expect to receive? Today, we have additional information that we can use to judge the historicity of each passage. But on what basis can we say that each was not attempting to convey what each believed to be historically accurate information?

The very concept of what constitutes historically accurate has changed over time. I would guess that each author would likely affirm that their story was true and accurate, but what that meant would undoubtedly not match your definition. Surely, Joseph Smith’s time comes closest to the expectations of ours, but he was also consciously emulating Josephus and seeking to fill out Josephus’ account.

[Kishkumen]

So, you are saying none of this is historically accurate? What if we bear our testimonies?

We will then know you believe it is “true,” but it will not affect the written narrative’s historicity at all.

[Res Ipsa]

Interesting, Reverend. I'm having trouble choosing which lenses I should use to understand these three written passages. If I asked each of the three authors at the time of their writings the question: "is what you wrote what really happened?" what kind of answer should I expect to receive? Today, we have additional information that we can use to judge the historicity of each passage. But on what basis can we say that each was not attempting to convey what each believed to be historically accurate information?

The very concept of what constitutes historically accurate has changed over time. I would guess that each author would likely affirm that their story was true and accurate, but what that meant would undoubtedly not match your definition. Surely, Joseph Smith’s time comes closest to the expectations of ours, but he was also consciously emulating Josephus and seeking to fill out Josephus’ account.

Smith is the easiest to think about. I certainly can accept that Smith was attempting to fill out Josephus's account. But to conscious emulate what Josephus was doing, wouldn't Smith have had to understand that Josephus had a different meaning of historically accurate than Smith had? I don't think that Smith and I so far apart that me asking him the question: does the Book of Abraham describe what really happened to real people in Egypt? would not be unintelligible to him in some material way. if I asked, would his answer look like "Yes, the Book of Abraham describes real events that occurred in the real Egypt to real people, including Abraham."? Or would it look like: "I'm emulating Josephus, whose understanding of historically accurate is much different than my understanding. So, no, it's not about real people doing real things in a real place as you understand it?"

[Kishkumen]

How do you explain DCP’s breathless list of parallels?

To me, DCP’s parallels argue that Joseph Smith was miraculously inspired and Smith could not have done this without divine inspiration. That’s a subjective position that reaffirms Joseph’s claims. If you believe Joseph, then DCP’s piece strengthens your conviction. If you do not, DCP’s piece does nothing to change your mind.

[yellowstone123]

Thank you.

[Kishkumen]

Smith is the easiest to think about. I certainly can accept that Smith was attempting to fill out Josephus's account. But to conscious emulate what Josephus was doing, wouldn't Smith have had to understand that Josephus had a different meaning of historically accurate than Smith had? I don't think that Smith and I so far apart that me asking him the question: does the Book of Abraham describe what really happened to real people in Egypt? would not be unintelligible to him in some material way. if I asked, would his answer look like "Yes, the Book of Abraham describes real events that occurred in the real Egypt to real people, including Abraham."? Or would it look like: "I'm emulating Josephus, whose understanding of historically accurate is much different than my understanding. So, no, it's not about real people doing real things in a real place as you understand it?"

I don’t know, RI. I can’t read Joseph Smith’s mind. He seemed to be skeptical of the assumed value of worldly learning, and he could have believed Josephus contained lost truths removed from the Bible. He may have really believed he could restore more of those truths based on the nuggets Josephus gave him. What he was doing with Mormon scripture was in no way comparable to the writing of history. The methods and tools are so radically different, that it seems silly to me to suppose the results ought to be the same or that Joseph Smith intended them to be the same.