The Book of Abraham By Jim Robertson

These parchments were thought to have been lost during the great fire of Chicago when Mrs. O'Leary's cow kicked over the lantern. In 1967, the parchment was rediscovered in the basement of the New York Metropolitan Museum. I remember this so clearly because at the time we were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A large ceremony took place showing the parchment being officially given back to the Mormon church. Pictures of the presentation were on TV and in the newspapers. Judy and I jumped up and down with joy because now we were going to prove to the world that the LDS church was true. However, as is the case with all Mormons, we were kept very busy with our church jobs and didn't have time to think about this great discovery. I now know this to be one of the ways to keep the members from doing any research because they are so busy.

After having left the Mormon church some years later, we went back and began to do some research on this "great discovery." We began to learn that when the Rosetta Stone was discovered, it gave scientists the ability to build an Egyptian alphabet and to be able to read the strange hieroglyphics of the Egyptian language. Several Egyptologists were given the opportunity to read and translate these parchments that once belonged to Joseph Smith, including a Mormon elder by the name of D. J. Nelson. After conferring with some of the professors of Egyptology, including Dr. Klaus Baer at the University of Chicago, we learned that Nelson was accurate in his translation. He, along with several Egyptologists, concluded that these parchments had absolutely nothing to do with Abraham at all. Instead they all agreed it was a document called the Book of Breathings. Egyptians believed in reincarnation and this was a tool, buried with all Egyptians, to get them from this life to the next.

So the Pearl of Great Price, or the Book of Abraham that the Mormons believe to be a book given to them from God, turns out to be a pagan ritual that has nothing to do with Abraham or with Christianity. In fact, a second book, called the "Book of Moses," was written by Smith and added to the Pearl of Great Price. He claimed that this book came to him by direct revelation about the time he began rewriting the Bible.

So we found that Joseph Smith had completely made up the notion that these books were written by the Abraham and Moses of the Bible. Instead, they were documents and practices that were completely removed from any relationship with the Old or New Testament of the Bible and that added to the overwhelming evidence that Joseph Smith was a false prophet and not to be believed or followed. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6) We cannot affiliate ourselves with a false prophet or we condemn ourselves, just as Joseph Smith is condemned. Read Galatians 1:6-9.

We have just received a new video called The Lost Book of Abraham that does a very good job of documenting all of these details. Our Thursday night support groups just finished reviewing it and were very complimentary about how well it is done. It can be ordered from our web site, by phone, by letter or in person.