What’s Wrong with Joseph Smith’s Restoration? – Facsimile #2 / Facsimile #3

View PDF Tract  / The Older The Bolder – Marshall Almarode 

Four Problems!

• The Restoration
• The Identifications
• The Subject Matter
• The Date / Age

What’s Wrong with His Restoration?

Joseph Smith’s attempts at “Restoration”:

• He drew a human head on Anubis
• He drew a knife in the hand of Anubis
• He mistook Isis’s wing for hand
• He didn’t recognize Hor’s spirit
• He missed Hor’s phallus altogether

Joseph Smith couldn’t recognize or identify even the most famous characters in this easily recognizable resurrection ritual (Egyptian Religious Mortuary). This causes his “Restoration” to be equally incorrect. Since Joseph didn’t know who Anubis was (the priest of Elkenah), he didn’t know to draw a dog head on the left character in black. He incorrectly drew a human head. Not recognizing this as a resurrection scene for the dead person named Hor, Joseph Smith falsely identified Hor as Abraham. He thought Hor is alive and is being sacrificed, but this is a common resurrection scene in which the corpse on the lion couch is being resurrected by Anubis. Yes, one of Anubis’s final jobs was to resurrect the dead person. He was never involved in killing. He never needed a knife to resurrect the dead. Joseph couldn’t read this.

Joseph didn’t identify even one person or character correctly. He didn’t realize that Hor had become a god in the afterlife just like temple-worthy Mormons. His wife in the afterlife was Isis and she was in the form of a bird flying over his dead mummy. A portion of her wing was above his hand and Joseph thought it was another hand.

Joseph did not realize that Hor’s spirit was flying over his head, ready to re-enter his body at the moment of his resurrection. His spirit should have a human head like Hor, but Joseph put a bird head on Hor’s spirit and called it “The Angel of the Lord.” He falsely identified Hor as Abraham even though Hor’s name appears multiple times in the text. Hor was lying on a burial bed or “briar” that Joseph calls “an altar for sacrifice.” Mayans had altars of sacrifice, but the ancient Egyptians didn’t.

The four gods of Hor are falsely identified with names that are not Egyptian as Elkenah, Libna, Mahmachrah, and Korash. They are the sons of the Egyptian god, Hor, and their names are well known as number 8 – Imseti, 7 – Hapi, 6 – Duamutef, and 5 – Qebehsenuef.  Number 9 is a crocodile in water, probably in the lake Khonsu mentioned in the text. His name was Sobek, and he was a god of the Nile who brought fertility to the land. Joseph identified him as “The God of Pharoh.” Does he know his name? Apparently not.

Joseph missed the fact that the crocodile is in the Great Lake Khonsu (understood as a wide area of the Nile River). Joseph calls the lake “Raukeeyang,” signifying expanse, or the firmament over our heads; but in this case, in relation to this subject, the Egyptians meant to signify Shaumau, to be high, or the heavens, answering to the Hebrew word Shaumahyeem. The Egyptians did not “answer to Hebrew words.” In his ex-planation, Joseph invented three proper names and decided that this lake, clearly named Khonsu in the text, was sky, or a firmament over our heads. Joseph also misidentified #11. This is a niched brick façade was used by artists for the decoration of sacred wall scenes. It has nothing to do with the “pillars of Heaven as understood by the Egyptians.”

Joseph patched many of the papyri with pieces that broke off. One of his patches is a rather large section from the breathing permit or passport of Hor. It is patched into a book of the dead for a woman named Ta-Sherit-Min, which is the wrong papyrus. It appears in the upper left corner of fragment IV. It belongs in the large lower blank space in fragment XI. Most of the Egyptian characters that Joseph Smith “translated” came from Fragment XI. Joseph needed this large piece to complete the restoration and thus his translation. Why didn’t he put it in the correct place where he needed it? Could it be that he couldn’t read Egyptian?

Joseph missed the subject matter. The subject matter is purely of a religious content and reveals the religious faith of “the cult of Min” in ancient Egypt. This facsimile #1 represents the very moment of awakening in the resurrection. It is part of the Book of Breathings, which is a document containing a condensed version of the Book of the Dead. These both cover the after-life judgment and resurrection of those in the cult of Min. It is called the Book of Breathings because it is a permit or passport used in the afterlife for judgment and to regain the ability to breathe again in the process of coming back to life. The word “Sin-Sin” appears in the text multiple times. It means “breathing or breath” and is a summary of the purpose of the passport.

Joseph didn’t know or recognize the simple message of the afterlife written in Egyptian hieroglyphics on the papyrus. All the supposed Egyptian names listed by Joseph Smith are fictitious. None of them is Egyptian. The text contains the name of the dead person, Hor, and the names of his mother, Taikhibit, and his father, Osorwer.  The text also states that Hor was a “Prophet of the God, Amon-Re, Also, a Prophet of Khonsu, and a Prophet of Min, who slaughters his enemies.” Joseph missed all of this.

Joseph Smith claimed that his translation was “The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.” This statement dates the papyrus at the time of Abraham about 4,000 years ago. All modern scholars have dated this papyrus at about 2000 years old. The latest date was done by Marc Coenen using the genealogy of the priests of Min to accurately determine the true date of the papyrus at about 150 BC. This is the earliest dated Book of Breathings known to exist. Joseph dated Hor’s Book of Breathings 2000 years before a “Book of Breathings” ever existed. Joseph the Seer stated that it was the Book of Abraham, which it was not, and Joseph’s subject matter and purpose was totally fictitious.

Joseph Smith, the prophet, seer and revelator, was not able to restore the Papyrus to its original because he couldn’t read any of it and didn’t know its purpose, date or subject matter. If Joseph really knew how to read and translate Egyptian, then he would have known these basic things Egyptian.

My conclusion is that Joseph lied, and The Book of Abraham should start with these words:

“Once upon a time in a land far, far away!”

Learn more by reading two books. The first one is good for a serious, overall coverage of most major issues and is a pretty fun read. The second one is more for the seriously studious and is comprehensive, in-depth and thorough.

• By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus by Charles M. Larson
• The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: A Complete Edition by Robert K. Ritner (Egyptologist at the University of Chicago).