Keywords

Joseph Smith, seer stone, translation, Book of Abraham

Document Type

Article

Abstract

A complete understanding of how Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham unfortunately remains elusive. Writing in the introduction to the Joseph Smith Papers Project’s edition of the manuscripts pertaining to the Book of Abraham, volume editors Robin Scott Jensen and Brian M. Hauglid observe how “no known first-person account from Joseph Smith exists to explain the translation of the Book of Abraham, and the scribes who worked on the project and others who claimed knowledge of the process provided only vague or general reminiscences.”[1] Complicating matters is the fact that scholars have not reached consensus on the exact relationship the Book of Abraham shares with the so-called Egyptian-language manuscripts (or, alternatively, the Kirtland Egyptian Papers).[2] Furthermore, although Joseph Smith used the terms translate and translation to describe, respectively, his production of the Book of Abraham and its final textual result,[3] this terminology, when used by the Prophet, did not always appear to “correspond to the conventional meaning of the word” as it is understood and used today.[4] Sometimes when Joseph Smith spoke of “translating” a text or language, for instance, he meant it in the conventional sense of rendering one language into another,[5] but other times he seems to have meant something more like offering an interpretation of a scriptural passage,[6] or the copying and transmission of a text over time,[7] or even restoring a lost text through revelation.[8]