Kirtland Egyptian papers#Copies of Egyptian Characters

The Kirtland Egyptian papers are housed in the Church History Library of the LDS Church. They comprise over a dozen other documents produced ca. 1835 and 1842 in Kirtland, Ohio, and Nauvoo, Illinois. All dates for production are estimates. Due to controversy about the order of production, there is no generally accepted manuscript numbering scheme. The manuscript numbers (MS #) reported below refer to the folder numbers under which the manuscripts are catalogued in the Church archives. These folder numbers were assigned by Hugh Nibley ca. 1971. The order given below mirrors the authoritative Joseph Smith Papers project.{{Cn|date=November 2023}}

{{See also|Joseph Smith Papyri#Book of the Dead for Amenhotep}}

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When Michael Chandler arrived in Kirtland in 1835 with the Egyptian Papyri, he allowed Oliver Cowdery to copy "four or five different sentences" from the papyri. A translation of the lines by Joseph Smith were given to Michael Chandler to his satisfaction. Given that the "Valuable Discovery" notebook was written in Oliver Cowdery's hand, signed by Joseph Smith, with a translation of some of the characters, it is postulated that it is the same notebook.Jensen, Robin Scott, and Brian M. Hauglid, eds. Revelations and Translations, Volume 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts. Facsimile edition. Vol. 4 of the Revelations and Translations series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Ronald K. Esplin, Matthew J. Grow, Matthew C. Godfrey, and R. Eric Smith. Salt Lake City: Church Historian's Press, 2018. page 25

File:ValuableDiscoveryTranslation.JPG Most of the copied Egyptian characters in either notebook were untranslated by Smith or his associates.

Some of the characters are translated to read "Katumin, Princess, daughter of On-i-tas King of Egypt, who began to reign in the year of the world 2962. Katumin was born in the 30th year of the reign of her father and died when she was 28 years old which was in the year 3020." The Egyptian Hieratic characters have been translated by modern Egyptologists to read "Recitation by the Osiris".Ritner, R. K. (2013). The Joseph Smith Egyptian papyri: A complete edition ; P. JS 1-4 and the hypocephalus of Sheshonq. Salt Lake City: The Smith Pettit Foundation. page 260

The name Onitas appears in other Kirtland Egyptian manuscripts, and Joseph Smith's mother would later state that the mummies were "King Onitus and his royal household."Charlotte Haven, Nauvoo, IL, to "My dear Mother," 19 Feb. 1843, in Haven, "Girl's Letters from Nauvoo," 623

The three Egyptian alphabet documents created by Joseph Smith and his associates are an attempt to systematize the Egyptian language. Much like a dictionary, there are columns with the character, pronunciation and the definition of the character. The documents are incomplete, with many of the characters lacking definitions.

Some of the characters do not come from the Papyri, but from what Joseph Smith told William W. Phelps were Adamic language characters.The Joseph Smith Papers Revelations and Translations Volume 4 Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts page 54

WilliamPhelpsSampleOfPureLanguage.jpg |Sample of pure language, in a letter from William W. Phelps to his wife Sally on May 26, 1835, written one month prior to the arrival of the PapyriBrian M. Hauglid, "The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project: 'A Knowledge of Hidden Languages'," in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 474–511

PureLanguageCharactersFromEgyptianAlphabetA.jpg|Section of Egyptian Alphabet-A in Joseph Smith's handwriting, with pure language characters{{Cite web|url=https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/egyptian-alphabet-circa-early-july-circa-november-1835-a/1|title = Egyptian Alphabet, circa Early July–circa November 1835–A, Page 1}}

Egyptologist I. E. S. Edwards stated that the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar was "largely a piece of imagination and lacking in any kind of scientific value."Letter of I. E. Edwards, Keeper of the Department of Egyptian Antiquities, dated June 9, 1966, as quoted in Charles M. Larson, By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus, rev. ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Institute for Religious Research, 1992), 43. Hugh Nibley commented that the Grammar was "of no practical value whatever."Nibley, "Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers," 357.

In 1968, Jay Todd suggested that the Grammar may have been reverse-engineered from an inspired Book of Abraham translation.Jay M. Todd, The Saga of the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1969), 253. In 1971, Hugh Nibley expanded on Todd's argument, explaining that the Alphabet and Grammar materials were largely an uninspired production of Joseph Smith's scribes, who had turned against him and were working independently of him at the time. This view is also accepted by John Gee.John Gee, A Guide to the Joseph Smith Papyri (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2000), 24. Samuel M. Brown has argued for a slightly more nuanced version of this view, attributing to W. W. Phelps a "major" role in authoring the Alphabet and Grammar, while at the same time conceding that the project was carried on under Smith's direction. Brown asserts that it is "unlikely, though not impossible, that the Grammar was actively used in producing the Book of Abraham."Samuel M. Brown, "The Translator and the Ghostwriter: Joseph Smith and W. W. Phelps," Journal of Mormon History 34, no. 1 (2008): 62.

In 1970, Richard P. Howard proposed the opposite view: that the Alphabet and Grammar was the modus operandi of the Book of Abraham's translation.Richard P. Howard, "The 'Book of Abraham' in the Light of History and Egyptology," Courage: A Journal of History, Thought, and Action (1970): 38. Edward H. Ashment has also adopted this view, arguing against Nibley that the scribes of the KEP were all loyal to and in good standing with Joseph Smith at the time the manuscripts were produced.Edward H. Ashment, "Reducing Dissonance: The Book of Abraham as a Case Study," in The Word of God, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1990), 227-228. More recently, Christopher C. Smith has argued at some length that Joseph Smith was the primary author of the Alphabet and Grammar documents, and that those documents served as the source or modus operandi for the translation of at least the first three verses of the Book of Abraham. According to Christopher, "This undoubtedly accounts for the choppiness and redundancy of these three verses, which stylistically are very different from the remainder of the Book of Abraham. Verse 3, for example, reads as though it has been cobbled together from a series of dictionary entries."Christopher C. Smith, "The Dependence of Abraham 1:1-3 on the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar," John Whitmer Historical Association Journal 29 (2009): 38-54.

The LDS Church has been accused of suppressing the Kirtland Egyptian Papers because they were considered potentially damaging to the credibility of Joseph Smith, Jr. as a prophet. The Papers have been in the Church Historian and Recorder's vault in Salt Lake City since 1855, and there are indications that the Church Historians have been aware of the documents' whereabouts since 1908. Their existence was denied until 1935, when James R. Clark and Sidney B. Sperry were informed that they were in the vault. Even then, Clark and Sperry were not permitted to inform the public about the discovery until some time thereafter. When the documents' existence was finally revealed, Clark stated that he did not believe the Alphabet and Grammar should be submitted to scholars. He preferred to "depend on our testimonies of the gospel."Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? (Salt Lake City, Utah: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987), 355-365.

Jerald and Sandra Tanner, critics of the Church, obtained an unauthorized copy of a microfilm strip containing images of the documents in 1966, and published them as Joseph Smith's Egyptian Alphabet & Grammar. This publication was criticized in a BYU Studies article by Hugh Nibley in 1971 because it did not contain all of the manuscripts, and included no critical apparatus to aid readers in distinguishing one manuscript from another. Nibley's article included images of ten of the manuscript pages.Nibley, "Meaning of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers." The Tanner publication was revised and updated by H. Michael Marquardt in 1981. Marquardt added a critical apparatus and some interpretive material.H. Michael Marquardt, The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papers, (Cullman, Ala.: Printing Service, 1981). A new critical edition of the Book of Abraham manuscripts by Brian M. Hauglid appeared in 2011, with a second volume planned to publish the remainder of the KEP.Brian M. Hauglid, A Textual History of the Book of Abraham: Manuscripts and Editions, Studies in the Book of Abraham, Vol. 5 (Provo, Utah: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2010).

On October 29, 2018, the Joseph Smith Papers project released all existing documents relating to the creation of the Book of Abraham, including high resolution images of all the Egyptian Papyri, KEPs, and Nauvoo papers.{{Cite web|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/42516802-the-joseph-smith-papers|title = The Joseph Smith Papers}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers/revelations-and-translations/jsppr6|title = The Joseph Smith Papers: The Papers}}

• Book of Abraham
• Criticism of the Book of Abraham
• Joseph Smith Hypocephalus
• Joseph Smith Papyri
• The Joseph Smith Papers
• Kolob
• Reformed Egyptian

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{{Wikisource|Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language}}

• [http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/grammar-and-alphabet-of-the-egyptian-language-circa-july-circa-december-1835/1 The Egyptian Alphabet] from The Joseph Smith Papers (accessed December 17, 2016)
• [http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers/revelations-and-translations/jsppr6 Book of Abraham manuscript materials] from The Joseph Smith Papers (accessed December 17, 2016)

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