Why was the Book of Abraham written in Egyptian and not in Greek?

[Moksha]

The story takes place in the Land of Make-Believe, located somewhere in the human imagination. Therefore, it makes sense that it should be written in some form of unknown Egyptian script. People in the real world knew Greek.

Logical questions do not affect the Land of Make-Believe by decree of the SeN Substantive Discussion Bureau.

Good Point The Land of Make Believe is patterned after Abraham 4:18 or what Murray Head said “Thank God I’m only watching the game, controlling it.”

Most of all we should give Joseph a break. The same as we would for author Kilgore Trout.

[malkie]

The story takes place in the Land of Make-Believe, located somewhere in the human imagination. Therefore, it makes sense that it should be written in some form of unknown Egyptian script. People in the real world knew Greek.

Logical questions do not affect the Land of Make-Believe by decree of the SeN Substantive Discussion Bureau.

Good Point The Land of Make Believe is patterned after Abraham 4:18 or what Murray Head said “Thank God I’m only watching the game, controlling it.”

Props for the quote from an amazing rock opera!

[Brack]

Michael Chandler showed up in Kirtland at the end of June 1835 with what remained of a larger collection of Egyptian mummies and papyrus rolls that he had been exhibiting and selling off throughout the United States. Upon his arrival, Joseph Smith examined the rolls and said that “one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham, another the writings of Joseph of Egypt, etc.” Smith convinced his followers that these were authentic autographs of Abraham and Joseph and they bought what remained of Chandler's Egyptian collection. All extant fragments from this collection are in Egyptian, as well as any handwritten copies of the text or from the facsimiles. These documents date from the 1st and 2nd BCE and there is no question that whichever document it was that Smith used to produce the Book of Abraham, it was written in Egyptian. Why would it be in Egyptian? All the important texts of the Jews in Egypt at that time were in Greek or Hebrew. In fact, Hebrew was rapidly becoming a dead language in Egypt, many Jews there only spoke Greek. According to legend dating back to the 2nd century BCE, Ptolemy II asked the high priest Eleazar in Jerusalem to send learned men to Egypt to translate the Hebrew Bible into Greek. The result of this endeavor was the Septuagint, which came to be seen by the Jews as an improvement on the Hebrew original. So, even if a copy of the Book of Abraham existed at that time in Egypt, it would have been in Greek, not Egyptian. An Egyptian version does not make any sense.

I believe that the LDS Apologist position has been that when the Book of Abraham was taken to Egypt, it was translated in Egyptian there. LDS Apologist John Gee stated:

Nothing compels us to assume that the book of Abraham must necessarily have been written by Abraham in Egyptian and preserved in Egyptian hands the entire time; it may also have passed through the hands of Abraham's posterity and been taken to Egypt only much later, where it was translated. ... What the Anastasi priestly archive shows is that Egyptian priests (in Thebes) freely borrowed from Jewish and Christian sources; thus they must have had some sort of access to them. This does not tell us necessarily what those sources were, or when these sources came into Egypt (although it does provide a terminus ante quem), or what sort of shape those sources were in.

[Fence Sitter]

I believe that the LDS Apologist position has been that when the Book of Abraham was taken to Egypt, it was translated in Egyptian there. LDS Apologist John Gee stated:

Nothing compels us to assume that the book of Abraham must necessarily have been written by Abraham in Egyptian and preserved in Egyptian hands the entire time; it may also have passed through the hands of Abraham's posterity and been taken to Egypt only much later, where it was translated. ... What the Anastasi priestly archive shows is that Egyptian priests (in Thebes) freely borrowed from Jewish and Christian sources; thus they must have had some sort of access to them. This does not tell us necessarily what those sources were, or when these sources came into Egypt (although it does provide a terminus ante quem), or what sort of shape those sources were in.

Thanks Brack,

Gee is the expert here, so what I would ask him is: when the Egyptian priests were accessing these Jewish and Christian documents, what languages were they in? From what little I have read about that, those documents were in Greek, the Septuagint being the primary example. Of course, there is nothing preventing them from producing an Egyptian version but why, when they can already read Greek? The entire story about a completely unknown text written by Abraham, making its way nearly 2000 years to be placed on and buried with a mid-level Egyptian priest only to be dug up 2000 years later and then making its way thousands of miles to a small inconsequential mid-western city to be rediscovered by a obscure character like Smith who translates it only to lose the only original copy, is laughable. What makes it twice as ridiculous, and a fact that apologist constantly ignore, is that also happened with the stick of Joseph, another completely unique text no one had ever heard about.

Really, I am just making a minor observation here. Smith just made the entire thing up from what he knew about Egyptians and Abraham in the 19th century. In my opinion, the fact he thought it was in Egyptian, not Greek is just a small bit of evidence added to the mountains of other evidence that he really did make it up.

[Manetho]

Gee is the expert here, so what I would ask him is: when the Egyptian priests were accessing these Jewish and Christian documents, what languages were they in? From what little I have read about that, those documents were in Greek, the Septuagint being the primary example. Of course, there is nothing preventing them from producing an Egyptian version but why, when they can already read Greek?

Egyptians generally didn't evince the same curiosity about other cultures that the Greeks did. While religious ideas and whole deities could be borrowed from other cultures into Egyptian religion, I've never heard of a non-Egyptian sacred text being translated into Egyptian the way the Hebrew Bible was translated into Greek, aside from individual magical spells. In Ptolemaic times, by no means did all Egyptians know Greek (I don't know the rate of bilingualism, though somebody has probably tried to estimate it), but the ones who were most cosmopolitan in their interests would be likely to learn Greek and read foreign texts that had been translated into Greek for the benefit of those inquisitive oddballs from the other side of the sea.

Something that just occurred to me: It especially makes no sense that a foreign text would be translated into hieroglyphs. In the Ptolemaic era, and for about 400 years beforehand, everyday Egyptian documents were written in the Demotic script. Before that, they were written in Demotic's ancestor hieratic, a cursive offshoot of hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphs were reserved for sacred texts and monumental inscriptions, because they represented age-old pharaonic tradition. By Ptolemaic times, virtually no one understood hieroglyphs except priests. The Joseph Smith Papyri were written in hieroglyphs because they were funerary texts, and hence sacred texts representing age-old pharaonic tradition. Not Judaism.

Gee knows how Egyptian writing systems were used. He just doesn't care. Your discussion topic has made me realize yet another layer of dishonesty to Gee's apologetics! Just when I think my contempt for him can't get worse, it does! Wow!