Review
———
Title: Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique
Author: Dan Vogel
Publisher: Signature Books
Genre: Religious Non-Fiction
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 250
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-56085-290-2
Price: $18.95
Reviewed by Cheryl L. Bruno for the Association for Mormon Letters
In Book of Abraham Apologetics: A Review and Critique, author Dan Vogel has synthesized years of Mormon studies on one of their foundational texts into a few crucial arguments. Considering the volume of unwieldy and complicated apologetics that have been put forward on the Book of Abraham, this is a considerable feat. By concentrating on a few salient points, Vogel has created a book which is clear, logical, and readable. Although the subject is intimidating to many readers, this paperback volume of 250 pages is not. I dove right in.
One need not be an expert on the Joseph Smith Egyptian papers[1] or the intricacies of Smith’s production of the Book of Abraham to enjoy this book, though Vogel “assumes on the part of readers a basic familiarity with the sources, arguments, and personalities” (xvii). He points to a few introductory volumes to get the uninitiated reader up to speed. However, I recommend that newbies simply read Vogel’s introduction and first chapter on the documents and timeline carefully. These are well crafted to give the necessary background.
One of the major apologetic arguments Vogel dissects is the Book of Abraham timeline. Defenders of the Book of Abraham’s authenticity as the translation of a record penned by the Biblical patriarch himself usually attempt to separate and distance this scriptural account from about ten other extant documents containing Egyptian characters. These manuscripts were largely copied from papyrus fragments which have since been found to contain funerary and other documents unrelated to translations assigned to them by Smith’s scribes. Defenders claim that the Book of Abraham was “dictated by Smith within the first month of his acquiring the papyri” (xvii) and that the translation documents containing Egyptian alphabets, counting, and grammar explorations were a later attempt by Smith’s scribes to make sense of the hieroglyphics. Therefore, mistranslations of the characters cannot be attributed to Joseph Smith (85).
Vogel convincingly explains why he believes the translation documents were originated by Joseph Smith, though dictated to and penned by scribes. He then demonstrates from Smith’s journals, official history, and contemporary documents, that the Alphabets, Counting, and Grammar manuscripts were written first. This makes apologist arguments such as the Reverse Translation Theory and the Missing Documents Theory unnecessary. Vogel asks that these theories be abandoned by current and future researchers. Instead, the documents relating to the Egyptian language “should be seen as Smith’s preliminary efforts to understand his newly acquired papyri and to convince followers that his translation was derived from the papyri” (31-32).
What delighted me about the book were the several chapters which explore nineteenth-century themes addressed by the Joseph Smith Egyptian Documents. I especially appreciated a chapter on the subject of the cosmos. “Abraham’s scheme” as envisioned by Smith “was both unique and consistent with what was understood and believed by astronomers and natural theologians in the mid-nineteenth century” (119). This chapter enlightens the reader on ancient Hebrew cosmology, which the Book of Abraham does not follow, and nineteenth-century systems, which it does. Vogel guides us through views of the cosmos by authors Amos Pettengill, William Herschel, Adam Clarke, and Thomas Dick. We learn of the common view that rational beings lived on other planets. We read of a “system of systems” model, where our sun-centered solar system “is part of a larger system that moves around other systems, which in turn move around the throne of God” (128). Book of Abraham defenders, seeing that its cosmology does not reflect what we can observe today, attempt to compare it with what might be ascribed to the Old Testament patriarchs. Vogel shows why this view is not feasible. However, he also demonstrates the creative and ingenious aspect of Smith’s system, which “reflects Smith’s recent organization of his church ecclesiastical hierarchy” (125).
Another chapter written in this same vein addresses the subject of race, a fraught issue in Joseph Smith’s milieu. Vogel states, “Smith’s revelations reflected the theological prejudices of white Europeans concerning Blacks and the biblical justification for slavery” (115). Smith had to walk a tightrope between Mormons from the North with anti-slavery ideals and slave owners in Missouri where the Saints were trying to establish their Zion community. Vogel asks readers to view racial aspects of the Book of Abraham with this context in mind.
Vogel can be pointed at times, and he makes no secret of his standpoint: “without seriously considering the possibility of deception, Abraham apologetics will remain mired in convoluted, incoherent theories” (211). However, for the most part, the author presents his material in a subdued, non-argumentative way, which will appeal to all readers. He points out inconsistencies and contradictions in apologetic arguments without being combative, bringing a refreshing maturity to the field. A sample of Vogel’s style of argument is as follows:
I contend that the so-called unique elements in the Book of Abraham—that Abraham’s father, Terah, was an idolater; that Abraham was a victim of an attempted sacrifice; that Abraham was an astronomer; that Abraham made converts in Haran—were all known to Joseph Smith’s contemporaries. That said, I am not arguing that Smith knowingly plagiarized these sources. Rather, I believe that Smith arrived at a similar narrative but through a different process. The realization that Smith’s contemporaries had access to the same Jewish, Christian, and Muslim traditions about Abraham and that these traditions were widely known in Smith’s day stands, I believe, as a corrective to claims of antiquity. (217)[2]
I suspect almost everyone engrossed with this field of study will have a few items to quibble with Dan Vogel over. I do, too. Only one is important enough to mention here. My largest criticism of this book is an insufficient consideration of the influence of Western esotericism upon Joseph Smith’s translation efforts. This omission is probably because we do not have much evidence of this type of approach on Smith’s part. Historical figures rarely see the need to explain their world view, and we often attribute ours to them without scrutiny. I feel that without a serious investigation of Joseph Smith’s esoteric practice, Vogel’s dismissal of catalyst theories becomes weak. These theories belong to a new school of apologetics which “asserts that the Egyptian papyri served as a ‘catalyst’ for Smith’s dictation of the Book of Abraham, which was the result, not of translation, but of independent revelation” (249). Vogel responds to this argument by pointing out, quite correctly, that Smith and his assistants represented their work as “translation” in a conventional sense—“as literal renditions of original texts” (212). This cannot be easily brushed aside in our more empirical paradigm. But Smith lived in a world where hieroglyphics “carried multi-layered esoteric meanings available only to prophets, priests, and kings” (206),[3] and pseudepigrapha was readily consumed. In an essay not addressed by Vogel, author David Golding describes the mechanics of eighteenth and nineteenth-century attempts to translate Egyptian as follows: “Scholars of the age approached Egyptian with assumptions of ancient and hidden wisdom and the mystique of veiled secrets.” Translators were persuaded “that the hieroglyph packed degrees of meaning” they could only discover through “a more opaque and adventurous process” than simple deciphering.[4]
I won’t steal Vogel’s thunder by giving away his conclusion. I will say, however, that it will give you a jolt, no matter which side of the fence you occupy!
[1] Vogel has adopted the term “Joseph Smith Egyptian papers” to refer to what has come to be known as the Kirtland Egyptian papers (a misnomer since some of the material was created in Nauvoo) as well as Book of Abraham manuscripts.
[2] By the way, I’ve never understood apologetic appeals to antiquity. The argument goes that Joseph Smith’s writings coincide with themes from ancient sources. Since they were not available to him contemporaneously, he could only know these things through revelation. I’ve often wondered why apologists want to attach Smith’s revelatory work with ancient lore, which was supposedly apostate and degenerated from true religion.
[3] For more on this school of thought, see Terryl Givens with Brian M. Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).
[4] David Golding, “Eternal Wisdom Engraven Upon the Heavens: Joseph Smith’s Pure Language Project,” in Michael Hubbard MacKay et al, eds., Producing Ancient Scripture: Joseph Smith’s Translation Projects in the Development of Mormon Christianity (Salt Lake City: The University of Utah Press, 2020). Golding’s article more fully describes “the esoteric background of Smith’s creative linguistics” in the Book of Mormon translation, the Doctrine and Covenants, the Bible revision, and Book of Abraham and Egyptian project.