Writings: Latter-day SaintsThe Joseph Smith Papyri5 of 10

Writings: Latter-day Saints

The Joseph Smith Papyri

The Joseph Smith Papyri are fragments of Egyptian funerary texts that Joseph Smith and others bought in 1835. The Metropolitan Museum presented them to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1967. The church's essay dates them from the third century BCE to the first century CE. Scholars differ over their link to the Book of Abraham.

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Three dates, kept apart

  1. The text's date: the tradition's view

    1835 to 1842, when the church teaches Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham, with no year in the sources used for Abraham's own writing (the church's essay says summer and fall of 1835 and spring of 1842, and the Joseph Smith Papers say the months after the summer 1835 purchase and early 1842; the bar marks the translation only)

  2. The text's date: critical scholars' view

    1835 to 1842, the Book of Abraham composed in Smith's time, as the Egyptologist Robert Ritner reads it (he holds it a nineteenth-century composition from the Horos papyrus; the years are the Joseph Smith Papers' dating of the dictation, because he names the century, not the years of composition)

  3. This copy made

    third century BCE to first century CE, when the church's essay says the papyri were written (the Joseph Smith Papers title the papyri circa 300 to 100 BCE and head the two fragments of the Book of Breathing for Horos between 238 and about 153 BCE; Egyptologists date that Horos papyrus anywhere from the second century BCE to the second century CE; the strip draws the church essay's span)

  4. This copy found

    1817 to 1822, when agents of Bernardino Drovetti took the papyri from tombs at Luxor (the Joseph Smith Papers name no tomb and say the Horos papyrus likely came from a family vault); bought in Kirtland in July 1835; brought to the church's attention in spring 1966, when Aziz Atiya came upon them at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though the museum's curator said its first knowledge of them went back to 1918; presented to the church on 27 November 1967

All four rows share one timeline. A row with no marker says why in words. How ancient texts are dated.

What it is

The Joseph Smith Papyri are fragments of papyrus, a writing material made from the papyrus plant, with Egyptian writing and drawings. The writing is hieroglyphic and hieratic, a cursive form of hieroglyphs.12 Egyptologists identify them as funerary texts, made for a tomb. They are two fragments of a Book of Breathing for a priest named Horos and four fragments and several scraps of a Book of the Dead for a woman named Semminis. One more fragment is from a Book of the Dead for Nefer-ir-nebu.13

One fragment carries the drawing printed in 1842 as Facsimile 1, one of three illustrations published with the Book of Abraham.3 The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints holds that book, a record of the biblical patriarch Abraham, as scripture.4 The museum counted eleven documents in 1967; the church's essay counts ten fragments.24

How the copy was dated

The sources used report no radiocarbon test; Henry Fischer, a Metropolitan Museum curator, said in 1967 that it would use up too much papyrus.25 Dating rests on handwriting (paleography) and the owners' families. The Joseph Smith Papers, the church's own scholarly edition, say Egyptologists date the papyri between the third and first centuries BCE. They cite Michael Rhodes, a Latter-day Saint author in Ritner's description, Marc Coenen, and John Gee. The volume introduction says the third or second century.3167 The church's essay gives the third century BCE to the first century CE.4

For the Horos papyrus the dates differ. In 1968 Klaus Baer, a University of Chicago Egyptologist, judged its handwriting late Ptolemaic (the era of Greek-speaking kings) or early Roman, about the time of Christ.8 Robert Ritner, a later Chicago Egyptologist, reports that Jan Quaegebeur and Coenen dated it to the first half of the second century BCE, which he calls controversial though possible.910

John Gee, an Egyptologist at Brigham Young University, which the church founded, supports, and guides, writes that a number of Egyptologists have championed an earlier date, the second century BCE. A couple still prefer the second century CE.101112 For the methods, see how ancient texts are dated.

The text: its date and authorship

The strip marks the Book of Abraham, not the papyri. In the church's account Joseph Smith translated it in 1835 and again in 1842; the sources used give no year for Abraham's own writing.14 The critical bar marks the same two periods, because Ritner, who holds it a nineteenth-century composition, names the century, not the years of composition.6

The tradition's view

This column carries the church's essay of 2016 and scholars at Brigham Young University. Gee writes that the church has no official position on which papyri Smith translated.10 The essay says the Book of Abraham originated with papyri that Smith translated beginning in 1835. It holds the link to the surviving fragments largely a matter of conjecture, and the fragments likely only part of what Smith had.4

Gee writes that eyewitnesses described a long roll matching no surviving fragment, and that lost papyri account for the most evidence with the fewest problems.13 Kerry Muhlestein, then an associate professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, reported in 2010 Gee's estimate that the long scroll was forty-one feet long (about 1,250 centimeters).1415 Gee's article of 2012, of which only the abstract was read, says such formulas give erratic or inconclusive results on scrolls of known length. Cook, in a reply read only in its opening paragraph, reports that Gee called Cook and Smith's method inaccurate.1617

The essay offers a second reading: the papyri may have prompted a revelation about Abraham.4

Scholars of the papyri and the book: Baer, Ritner, and, on the scroll's length, Cook and Smith

Baer translated the Horos papyrus in 1968 as the apparent source of the Book of Abraham. He ended his main text by writing that the Latter-day Saint historian and theologian must take over.8

Ritner, whose edition of the papyri appeared in 2011, writes that the text concerns only the afterlife of the priest Horos and contains nothing resembling the Book of Abraham's narrative.96 He holds that Smith tied Facsimile 1 to the papyrus he said he translated, which makes it the source, and that no lost papyrus was used.6

Andrew Cook and Christopher Smith, whose affiliations the 2010 Dialogue article does not give, argue that no more than 56 centimeters of the scroll's inner part can be missing. Baer had put the whole scroll at 150 to 155 centimeters, and they compute that a Book of Abraham text in the same script would need about 511 centimeters.18 Cook replied in 2012 that Hoffmann's formula, which Gee defends, and theirs are equivalent and give the same results if correctly applied.17

How it was found

Agents of Bernardino Drovetti, the French consul general in Egypt, took mummies and papyri from tombs mostly at Luxor between 1817 and 1822. The Joseph Smith Papers say they likely emptied a family vault of Horos.13 The exhibitor Michael Chandler brought four mummies, two papyrus scrolls, and more fragments to Kirtland, Ohio, in 1835, and Joseph Smith and others bought them for $2,400.14 Emma Smith sold the collection in 1856, and it was divided. Part burned in the Chicago fire of 1871, and part reached the Metropolitan Museum, which bought it in 1947.12

The church's multivolume history, titled Saints, says Aziz Atiya, a University of Utah professor, came upon them in a museum storeroom in spring 1966. A Dialogue report of 1967 puts it in the latter part of May.195 Fischer said the museum's first knowledge of them went back to 1918.2 The museum presented them to the church on 27 November 1967.2

What it shows, and what it does not

The fragments show that Joseph Smith and others owned Egyptian funerary papyri in 1835 and that one fragment is the original of Facsimile 1.2 The church's essay says Latter-day Saint and other Egyptologists agree that the characters on the fragments do not match the Book of Abraham's translation.4 Scholars differ on how the book relates to the fragments: as its source, as one papyrus among lost ones, or as a prompt for revelation.134

They do not show what the lost parts held. The Joseph Smith Papers say only a fraction of the collection survives. They put the Horos roll at 150 to 156 centimeters in most estimates and about 1,300 centimeters in one scholar's.1 The church's essay holds that the loss means the papyri cannot settle the question, and Ritner holds that no lost papyrus was used.46

Community of Christ, then the Reorganized Church, appears here only through an 1896 statement by two of its officials, quoted in 1968, that to their knowledge it had never acted to endorse or condemn the Book of Abraham.2021 Baer, Ritner, and Cook and Smith each argue one thesis in the works cited here.

See also

Sources

  1. Joseph Smith Papers editors. Introduction to Revelations and Translations: Volume 4, Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts. The Joseph Smith Papers (Church Historian's Press), sections on the Egyptian papyri and the Egyptian-language documents. Accessed 2026-11-03.
  2. Lynn Travers (interviewer), with Henry G. Fischer, Curator of the Egyptian Collection, Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Facsimile Found: The Recovery of Joseph Smith's Papyrus Manuscripts: An Interview with Dr. Fischer. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2, no. 4 (Winter 1967), pp. 55 to 64, 1967, pp. 55 to 64 (the saved text begins on p. 55). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  3. Joseph Smith Papers editors. Introduction to Egyptian Papyri, circa 300-100 BC. The Joseph Smith Papers (The Church Historian's Press), page 1 of the introduction (print volume: JSP, R4:3 to 7; editorial record ID 18161). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  4. Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Gospel Topics Essays), 2016. Accessed 2026-11-03.
  5. Glen Wade. The Facsimile Found: The Recovery of Joseph Smith's Papyrus Manuscripts: A Conversation with Professor Atiya. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 2, no. 4 (Winter 1967), pp. 51 to 55, 1967, pp. 51 to 55. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  6. Robert K. Ritner. 'Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham': A Response. Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures (ISAC), University of Chicago, research archive, the whole response (19 pages). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  7. About the Project. The Joseph Smith Papers (The Church Historian's Press). Accessed 2026-11-04.
  8. Klaus Baer. The Breathing Permit of Hor: A Translation of the Apparent Source of the Book of Abraham. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 3 (Autumn 1968), pp. 109 to 134, 1968, pp. 109 to 134. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  9. Robert K. Ritner. The 'Breathing Permit of Hor' Thirty-four Years Later. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 4 (Winter 2000), pp. 97 to 119, 2000, pp. 97 to 119. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  10. John Gee. Frequently Asked Questions (in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham). Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2017, 2017, the whole chapter as posted by the Religious Studies Center. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  11. Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University. John Gee (staff directory page). Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Brigham Young University. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  12. About BYU (mission statement). Brigham Young University. Accessed 2026-11-04.
  13. John Gee. The Relationship of the Book of Abraham Text to the Papyri (in An Introduction to the Book of Abraham). Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, and Deseret Book, 2017, 2017, the whole chapter as posted by the Religious Studies Center. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  14. Kerry Muhlestein. Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: Some Questions and Answers. Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010), pp. 91 to 108 (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University), 2010, pp. 91 to 108; the sections 'The Source of the Book of Abraham' and 'Kirtland Egyptian Papers'. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  15. Religious Education, Brigham Young University. Kerry Muhlestein (faculty directory page). Religious Education, Brigham Young University. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  16. John Gee. Formulas and Faith. Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 21, no. 1, article 6 (2012), BYU ScholarsArchive (the Joseph Smith Papers cite it, pp. 60 to 65, under the journal's earlier name, Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture), 2012, the abstract on the article's landing page only. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  17. Andrew Cook. Formulas and Facts: A Response to John Gee. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 45, no. 3 (Fall 2012), pp. 1 to 10 (Dialogue Foundation web page), 2012, the web page's opening summary only (the article's PDF was not read). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  18. Andrew W. Cook and Christopher C. Smith. The Original Length of the Scroll of Hor. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 43, no. 4 (Winter 2010), pp. 1 to 42, 2010, the introduction (pp. 3 to 4) and the results (p. 36). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  19. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Saints, Volume 4, Chapter 10: Time Is Crucial. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (church history series Saints), the opening scenes of the chapter and the paragraph on the First Presidency and the papyrus fragments. Accessed 2026-11-06.
  20. Richard P. Howard, Church Historian, Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Joseph Smith Egyptian Papyri: Translations and Interpretations: A Tentative Approach to the Book of Abraham. Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 2 (Summer 1968), pp. 88 to 92 and following, 1968, pp. 88 to 92 (the saved file holds only the first pages of the article). Accessed 2026-11-06.
  21. Joseph Smith Papers editors. Book of Abraham Manuscript, circa July-circa November 1835-C [Abraham 1:1-2:18]. The Joseph Smith Papers (The Church Historian's Press), the source note and historical introduction (page 2 of the document). Accessed 2026-11-06.