Appearance
Anachronisms & Source Texts
The claim:
"There is a book published in 1829 by Thomas Dick entitled The Philosophy of a Future State. Joseph Smith owned a copy of the book and Oliver Cowdery quoted some lengthy excerpts from the book in the December 1836 Messenger and Advocate."[1]
"The Book of Abraham teaches an incorrect Newtonian view of the universe."[2]
"Why are there anachronisms in the Book of Abraham? For example, the terms Chaldeans, Egyptus, and Pharaoh are all anachronistic."[3]
"86% of Book of Abraham chapters 2, 4, and 5 are King James Version Genesis chapters 1, 2, 11, and 12."[4]
The CES Letter argues the Book of Abraham is a 19th-century composition — borrowing cosmology from Thomas Dick, reflecting Newtonian physics, recycling KJV Genesis, and containing terms no ancient author would use.
If the Book of Abraham is modern, why does it keep being confirmed by discoveries made after 1835?
Dick and Abraham teach opposite theologies
Thomas Dick's Philosophy of a Future State (1829) discusses eternal matter, inhabited stars, progressive intelligences, and celestial systems revolving around a "throne of God." Joseph Smith's associates owned the book. Oliver Cowdery quoted from it in 1836. Klaus Hansen noted "some remarkable resemblances" between Dick and Abraham 3.[5]
The parallels are real. The conclusion doesn't follow.
The scholar who studied it most carefully said no
Erich Robert Paul (University of Illinois Press, 1992) conducted the most thorough scholarly comparison. His verdict: it is "unlikely that Joseph Smith benefited significantly from Dick's ideas."[6]
Edward T. Jones showed why. Dick and the Book of Abraham contradict each other on nearly every core theological commitment:
| Doctrine | Thomas Dick | Book of Abraham |
|---|---|---|
| Creation | God created from nothing (ex nihilo) | Matter is eternal; the Gods "organized" existing material |
| God's nature | Formless, omnipresent spirit | Physical being dwelling at a specific location |
| Mind and matter | Strict dualist — mind and matter are separate | Strict monist — "There is no such thing as immaterial matter" |
| God's comprehensibility | God is incomprehensible | Knowing God's character is essential |
| God's location | Omnipresent, universal, ethereal | Dwells near Kolob, a specific physical center |
| Human nature | Humans utterly contingent on God | Intelligences are co-eternal with God |
Jones's conclusion: Smith "rejected most of that which Dick believed most strongly, while retaining that which Dick seemed to reject."[7]
Borrowers don't invert their sources
If Joseph copied from Dick, why did he systematically contradict Dick's entire theological framework? Borrowers borrow. They don't take a source's surface vocabulary and then reverse every underlying commitment.
The shared ideas — stars, intelligences, God's throne — aren't unique to Dick. They appear in the Old Testament, the Book of Mormon, and broadly available religious thought. Hansen himself was noting cultural resonances, not making a plagiarism argument.
The CES Letter treats thematic overlap as dependence without addressing the fundamental incompatibility underneath.[6:1]
Bottom line: The Dick parallels are surface-level. The two systems disagree on the nature of God, spirit, matter, human destiny, and creation. The scholar who studied the comparison most carefully concluded Joseph Smith did not borrow from Dick.
Ancient Egyptian astronomy — not Newton
The CES Letter claims Abraham 3 teaches "an incorrect Newtonian view of the universe" because it describes stars with set revolution times, hierarchical ordering, and a governing star called Kolob.[2:1]
Here's the problem. A 19th-century fabricator would have used the heliocentric model — the accepted science of Joseph's day. Abraham 3 does the opposite.
What Abraham 3 actually describes
The text starts from "the earth upon which thou standest" (Abraham 3:3, 5-7) and works outward. Bodies with longer orbital periods occupy higher positions. Kolob sits "nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets" (Abraham 3:9).
This is geocentric astronomy. It matches ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian systems, not Newton.
| Feature | Abraham 3 | Ancient Egyptian astronomy | Newtonian model |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reference point | Earth | Earth | Sun |
| Hierarchy | Longer orbit = higher rank | Longer orbit = higher rank | No hierarchy — orbits are mechanical |
| Governing star | Kolob, nearest God's throne | Imperishable stars near celestial pole | No governing star |
| Encircling = governing | Higher bodies "govern" lower ones | "Encircling something was a powerful symbol of controlling or ruling over it"[8] | No such concept |
The "encircling" concept is distinctively Egyptian. In Egyptian thought, higher-orbiting bodies that encircle lower ones metaphorically govern them. The deceased king is more powerful because he "encircled" every god. This is the exact framework of Abraham 3.[8:1]
An Egyptian pun that only works in Egyptian
At Abraham 3:17-18, the text transitions from physical stars to pre-mortal spirits. In Egyptian, the words for spirits (akhw) and circumpolar stars (ikhmw-sk) are phonetically similar — creating a wordplay connecting the physical cosmos to the spiritual realm.[9]
This pun works in Egyptian. It doesn't work in English. Joseph Smith had no training in Egyptian.
If Joseph were fabricating, he would logically use the heliocentric model his audience already accepted. Instead, the text uses a geocentric system matching ancient Egyptian astronomy — complete with puns that require knowledge of the Egyptian language.
Bottom line: Abraham 3 describes a geocentric, hierarchical cosmos consistent with ancient Egyptian astronomy — not Newtonian physics. The CES Letter misidentifies the cosmological framework.
KJV Genesis in the creation account
The overlap is real
Large portions of Abraham 4-5 parallel Genesis 1-2 in KJV English. The CES Letter cites an 86% figure from Grant Palmer.[4:1] The basic observation is undeniable — shared wording is extensive.
The differences are what matter
| Feature | KJV Genesis | Book of Abraham |
|---|---|---|
| Deity | "God" (singular) | "The Gods" (plural) |
| Action | "Created" | "Organized" |
| Creation model | Implied ex nihilo | Pre-existing matter explicitly stated |
| Council | Absent | Pre-mortal divine council directs creation |
| Structure | Narrative | Deliberative — "Let us do X... and the Gods did X" |
"The Gods organized" reflects the Hebrew Elohim — grammatically plural — and ancient Near Eastern divine council theology. Joseph's formal Hebrew instruction didn't begin until 1836, after the Book of Abraham translation.[10]
Why KJV language appears
The same pattern exists across the Restoration. The Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah in KJV English. D&C 1:24 describes God speaking "after the manner of their language."
When Joseph received ancient content through revelation and expressed it in the scriptural language he and his audience knew, KJV phrasing is expected. The parallel creation accounts share a common subject. Shared phrasing reflects the translation medium, not the origin of the text.
The distinctive content — plural Gods, organized matter, a deliberative council — has no source in Joseph's KJV Bible or his 1830s environment. A 19th-century fabricator copying Genesis would reproduce Genesis. He wouldn't independently correct the creation theology to match ancient Near Eastern patterns that scholars wouldn't identify for another century.
Bottom line: KJV language in the Book of Abraham reflects the translation idiom, not plagiarism. The differences from Genesis — plural Gods, organized matter, divine council deliberation — match ancient patterns Joseph Smith had no access to.
The "anachronisms"
Chaldeans, Pharaoh, and Egyptus
The CES Letter flags three terms as anachronistic.[3:1]
Every one of them appears in Genesis.
| Term | In the Book of Abraham | In Genesis (KJV) |
|---|---|---|
| Chaldeans | Abraham 1:1 | Genesis 11:28, 31; 15:7 |
| Pharaoh | Abraham 1:6 | Genesis 12:15-20 |
| Egyptus | Abraham 1:23 (personal name) | Greek Aigyptos, from Egyptian hwt-ka-ptah (Memphis, containing the Ptah element) |
If "Pharaoh" in Abraham's era invalidates the Book of Abraham, it equally invalidates Genesis 12. The CES Letter never notes this.
"Pharaoh" as a royal title isn't attested before roughly 1500 BC. "Chaldeans" as an ethnic designation appears in Assyrian records around 850 BC. Both genuinely postdate Abraham's era.[11]
But anachronistic terms in an ancient text don't prove modern fabrication. They prove the text has been transmitted, copied, and updated — scribes replacing archaic names with ones their audience would recognize.
Genesis uses "Philistines" for peoples in Abraham's day, though the Philistines didn't arrive in Canaan until roughly 1175 BC. Dan is called "Dan" in Genesis 14:14, though the city wasn't renamed until the period of the Judges. Nobody concludes Genesis is a modern fabrication.
The anachronism argument has backfired
Details once dismissed as anachronistic have been confirmed by post-1835 archaeology:
| "Anachronism" | What critics said | What we now know |
|---|---|---|
| Olishem (Abraham 1:10) | Made-up place name | Akkadian Ulisum — attested in cuneiform of Naram-Sin (ca. 2254-2218 BC), located in northwestern Syria near Abraham's homeland[12] |
| Human sacrifice in Egypt | Egyptians didn't practice it | Kerry Muhlestein (UCLA PhD) documented archaeological evidence at Mirgissa and execution texts prescribing death by burning[13] |
| Egyptian religion in Syria | Impossible in Abraham's era (scholars, 1912) | Twelfth Dynasty artifacts, Sobek images, and Egyptian administrative infrastructure confirmed at Ebla in Middle Bronze Age levels[14] |
Cuneiform was not deciphered until after Joseph Smith's death in 1844. The O/U and S/SH shifts between Olishem and Ulisum are standard Semitic sound correspondences. In 2013, Turkish excavators at Oylum Hoyuk — near the Syrian border, roughly 45 miles north of Aleppo — identified the site as ancient Ulisum.[12:1]
Joseph named a place in 1835. Archaeologists found it in 2013.
Bottom line: "Chaldeans," "Pharaoh," and "Egyptus" are genuine anachronisms — the same kind found in every ancient text that has passed through centuries of copying. The Bible has the same ones. And the details once called anachronistic keep being confirmed.
The positive case: ancient elements Joseph couldn't have known
The CES Letter spends its pages on what looks wrong. It never addresses what looks right.
Names with real Semitic and Egyptian roots
| Name | Book of Abraham | Ancient attestation | Known in 1835? |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kolob | Governing star nearest God (Abr. 3:3) | Semitic qalb ("heart"), Akkadian kalbu ("dog/star") | No |
| Shinehah | The sun (Abr. 3:13) | Egyptian Shaneha/Shinehah — the sun's course | No |
| Kokaubeam | Stars (Abr. 3:13) | Hebrew kokabim (plural "stars"), Akkadian dKakob | No |
| Elkenah | Idol god (Abr. 1:6) | Hebrew El qanah ("God who created"), Hittite Elkunirsha | No |
| Zeptah | Egyptian figure | Egyptian Siptah (sa ptah, "son of Ptah"), attested in Abraham's era | No |
These aren't lucky guesses at a name or two. The Book of Abraham contains a consistent pattern of Semitic and Egyptian etymologies confirmed only by later scholarship.[15][16]
Ancient Abrahamic texts discovered after 1835
Over 100 ancient documents contain parallels to the Book of Abraham. The vast majority were unavailable to Joseph Smith.[17]
| Ancient text | Date available in English | Parallels to Book of Abraham |
|---|---|---|
| Apocalypse of Abraham | 1919 | Abraham's father making idols; sacrifice attempt; divine deliverance; priesthood of the fathers |
| Book of Jubilees | 1902 | Idolatry in Ur; famine; Abraham's astronomical observations; copying father's books |
| Genesis Apocryphon (Dead Sea Scrolls) | 1947 | Divine counsel to claim Sarah as sister; details absent from the Bible |
| P. Leiden I 384 (Egyptian magical papyrus) | 20th century | Lion couch scene with "Abraham," "bind them," and "incinerate" in the text |
| Tanna debe Eliyahu | Compiled centuries after Christ | Abraham bound; bonds burned; angelic deliverance; God rescuing from furnace |
| Pseudo-Philo | Published much later | God rescuing Abraham from pagans throwing him into fire; human sacrifice |
| Philo the Epic Poet (2nd-3rd century BC) | Published much later | Abraham "heard in the ancient laws"; bound with "bonds' knot"; God quenching pyre |
The Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947. The Apocalypse of Abraham wasn't available in English until 1919. Cuneiform was undeciphered. Rabbinic literature was inaccessible on the American frontier.
Kerry Muhlestein's assessment: the cumulative alignment of dozens of independent ancient texts with the Book of Abraham's specific details makes coincidental fabrication "virtually impossible."[18]
Human sacrifice confirmed
The Book of Abraham opens with Abraham on an altar, about to be killed for rejecting local gods (Abraham 1:5-12). In the 1830s, scholars rejected the idea of Egyptian-context human sacrifice.
Kerry Muhlestein's doctoral research changed that. Archaeological evidence at the Middle Kingdom fortress of Mirgissa — a decapitated foreigner, ritual objects, a flint knife — demonstrates ritual killing. Execration rite texts specify procedures: "Bind with the sinew of a red cow... decapitate him with a knife... place him on the fire."
A Thirteenth Dynasty stele required that anyone found within sacred precincts "except for a priest about his duties, he shall be burnt."[13:1]
The Book of Abraham describes killing followed by burning. The Egyptian sources describe killing followed by burning. Joseph described this scenario a century before the archaeology confirmed it.
The ancient autobiographical genre
The Book of Abraham follows an ancient Near Eastern autobiographical covenant narrative: lineage, exile, divine communication, covenant, future promises. This structure mirrors the Idrimi inscription — discovered in 1939 at Alalakh in modern Turkey — a first-person autobiography written "by the hand of" a religious figure.[14:1]
The heading "by the hand of Abraham" echoes this ancient scribal convention. Autobiographical texts are common in Egypt during the Middle Kingdom and in Old Babylonian Mesopotamia — Abraham's proposed era.
The text contains specificity characteristic of ancient texts: "no 'once upon a time' element, no anonymity about main characters, no vagueness about locations."[14:2]
Joseph Smith could not have patterned his writing after a literary form scholars hadn't yet identified.
The Semitic adaptation model
Kevin Barney's "J-red" hypothesis offers a scholarly framework for how authentic Abrahamic content could be associated with Egyptian funerary papyri. During the Ptolemaic period (2nd century BC), a Jewish redactor attached an Abrahamic manuscript to Egyptian funerary texts — adapting the imagery for a Jewish audience.[19]
This isn't speculation without precedent.
| Precedent | What happened |
|---|---|
| Testament of Abraham | Jewish author adapted an Egyptian psychostasy (soul-weighing) papyrus — Osiris became Abel, Egyptian gods became angels |
| Luke's Rich Man and Lazarus | Derived from an Egyptian tale where "Osiris plays the part later adapted (by Jews) to Abraham" |
| Instructions of Amenemope | Influenced portions of the Hebrew book of Proverbs — demonstrating Jewish use of Egyptian sources |
For more on the physical papyri, see Papyri. For the facsimile evidence, see Facsimiles.
The scorecard
| Evidence | Date available | Could Joseph have known? |
|---|---|---|
| Olishem — Akkadian Ulisum in Abraham's region | Inscription known by 1985; excavation 2013 | No |
| Shinehah — authentic Egyptian sun term | Confirmed by later Egyptology | No |
| Kokaubeam — Hebrew/Akkadian star vocabulary | Standard Semitic linguistics | No |
| Elkenah — attested Canaanite divine epithet | Confirmed by Near Eastern onomastics | No |
| Geocentric cosmology with Egyptian pun | Scholarly reconstruction mid-20th century | No |
| Human sacrifice in Egyptian religious contexts | Muhlestein's archaeology, 21st century | No |
| Apocalypse of Abraham parallels | English 1919 | No |
| Book of Jubilees parallels | English 1902 | No |
| Genesis Apocryphon parallels | Dead Sea Scrolls, 1947 | No |
| Ancient autobiographical genre | Idrimi inscription discovered 1939 | No |
| Egyptian religion in Syria | Ebla excavations, 20th century | No |
| Plural Gods / divine council creation theology | Scholarly reconstruction mid-20th century | No |
Twelve categories of evidence that postdate Joseph Smith — or were inaccessible to him — embedded in a text he produced in the 1830s.
A 19th-century fabrication should contain zero.
What the CES Letter leaves out
The CES Letter's source-text argument works by addition: Dick's book existed, Joseph's associates owned it, some themes overlap. Case closed.
It never addresses:
- Dick and Abraham contradict each other on every core theological point.
- Abraham 3's cosmology is geocentric — matching ancient Egypt, not Newton.
- The text contains an Egyptian pun that only works in Egyptian.
- "The Gods organized" reflects Hebrew grammar Joseph hadn't studied yet.
- "Anachronistic" place names and practices keep being confirmed by archaeology.
- Over 100 ancient documents — most unavailable in 1835 — contain parallels to the Book of Abraham.
- Semitic and Egyptian name etymologies have been consistently validated by later scholarship.
The CES Letter asks you to believe Joseph assembled this from 1830s frontier resources. The evidence asks a harder question: how did a text produced in 1835 anticipate discoveries made across the next two centuries?
Bottom line: The Thomas Dick borrowing theory collapses under comparison — Dick and Abraham contradict each other on every major theological point. The "Newtonian cosmology" is actually ancient Egyptian geocentrism. The "anachronisms" exist in Genesis too, and several have been confirmed by modern archaeology. Meanwhile, the Book of Abraham contains a growing catalog of ancient elements — place names, Semitic etymologies, sacrifice traditions, astronomical concepts, and parallels to over 100 ancient texts — that no 19th-century author could have known. The CES Letter shows you what looks borrowed. It hides what looks revealed.
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Abraham," nos. 7-8, pp. 48-49. ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Abraham," no. 4, pp. 46-47. ↩︎ ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Abraham," no. 6, pp. 47-48. ↩︎ ↩︎
Runnells, CES Letter (2017), "Book of Abraham," no. 5, p. 47. The 86% figure comes from Grant Palmer, An Insider's View of Mormon Origins (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2002), 19. ↩︎ ↩︎
Klaus Hansen, Mormonism and the American Experience (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 79-80, 110. ↩︎
Erich Robert Paul, Science, Religion, and Mormon Cosmology (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992). Paul concludes it is "unlikely that Joseph Smith benefited significantly from Dick's ideas" and that the Prophet "likely did not use available literary materials" as primary sources. ↩︎ ↩︎
Edward T. Jones, comparative analysis of Dick and the Book of Abraham, discussed in FAIR, "The Book of Abraham and Thomas Dick's Philosophy of a Future State." https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/The_Book_of_Abraham_and_Thomas_Dick's_Philosophy_of_a_Future_State ↩︎
Kerry Muhlestein, "Encircling Astronomy and the Egyptians: An Approach to Abraham 3," Religious Educator 10, no. 1 (2009). https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-10-no-1-2009/encircling-astronomy-egyptians-approach-abraham-3 ↩︎ ↩︎
John Gee, William J. Hamblin, and Daniel C. Peterson, "'And I Saw the Stars': The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy," in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005). https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/and-i-saw-stars-book-abraham-and-ancient-geocentric-astronomy ↩︎
Stephen O. Smoot, "Framing the Book of Abraham: Presumptions and Paradigms," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 47 (2021). https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/framing-book-abraham-presumptions-and-paradigms ↩︎
"Book of Abraham/Anachronisms," FAIR. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Book_of_Abraham/Anachronisms ↩︎
John Gee, "Has Olishem Been Discovered?" Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 22, no. 2 (2013). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol22/iss2/10/. See also Pearl of Great Price Central, "The Plain of Olishem." https://pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/olishem/ ↩︎ ↩︎
Kerry Muhlestein and John Gee, "An Egyptian Context for the Sacrifice of Abraham," Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 20, no. 2 (2011): 70-77. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol20/iss2/6/ ↩︎ ↩︎
John Gee and Stephen D. Ricks, "Historical Plausibility: The Historicity of the Book of Abraham as a Case Study," in Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2001). https://rsc.byu.edu/historicity-latter-day-saint-scriptures/historical-plausibility-historicity-book-abraham-case-study ↩︎ ↩︎ ↩︎
John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center / Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017). See also Stephen O. Smoot, review of An Introduction to the Book of Abraham, Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship (2018). https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/pressing-forward-with-the-book-of-abraham ↩︎
Pearl of Great Price Central, "40 Insights on the Book of Abraham." https://pearlofgreatpricecentral.org/book-of-abraham/ ↩︎
John A. Tvedtnes, Brian M. Hauglid, and John Gee, eds., Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2001). This volume compiles over 500 pages of text from over 100 ancient documents containing parallels to Book of Abraham content. ↩︎
Kerry Muhlestein, Let's Talk About the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2022). ↩︎
Kevin L. Barney, "The Facsimiles and Semitic Adaptation of Existing Sources," in Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2005), 107-130. https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/facsimiles-and-semitic-adaptation-existing-sources ↩︎