In two recent articles John Gee appeals to
ancient Egyptian documents in an effort to
establish the historicity of the Book of
Abraham. The first appears as the lead
article in the September 1991 newsletter,
Insights: An Ancient Window, published by
the LDS-Church-funded Foundation for Ancient
Research & Mormon Studies (FARMS), titled
'References to Abraham Found in Two Egyptian
Texts'. [2] His second article (taking
advantage of an early version of the
unpublished review of the first and of a
general request for 'anyone aware of any...
references' to Abraham in Egyptian
literature to contact him c/o FARMS[3])
appears in an official publication of the
LDS Church, The Ensign (July 1992, 60-62),
titled 'Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Texts'.
Since in his second article he significantly
modifies some of the major arguments he
makes in his first, it is important to
present the review of the first as well as
of the second.
'References to Abraham Found in Two Egyptian
Texts'. In his first article, Gee declares
that his 'discoveries give students of the
Book of Abraham new evidence to evaluate'.
Moreover, he asserts as 'premature' any
conclusions that Joseph Smith was the first
to conceive a relationship between a
lion-couch vignette, a hypocephalus (see
figs. 3, 4) and the Book of Abraham, because
the materials he cites 'expressly mention
Abraham and also connect him with
representations similar to Facsimiles 1 and
2 of the Book of Abraham' (FARMS 1991, 3;
emphasis added).
The documentation that Gee offers as
evidence of his extraordinary assertions
comes from magical papyri a fact Gee
neglects to tell his readers. He states that
the 'texts' he cites 'date to about the same
time as the Joseph Smith papyri' (1). He
first discusses the last column [4] of Pap.
Leiden I 384vo. (fig. 1), which contains a
lion-couch vignette (figs. 1 B; 2) that is
roughly similar to the vignette in Papyrus
Joseph Smith 1 (fig. 3). He claims to
identify the name of Abraham in what turns
out to be a Greek magical spell immediately
below the vignette (fig. 1 C) and utilizes
textual material from another Greek magical
spell, which he states comes from 'the next
to the last column of this papyrus', to
suggest that the scene refers to the
sacrifice of Abraham on a lion-couch
'altar', thus attempting to authenticate
Joseph Smith's interpretation of Facsimile
One of the Book of Abraham.
Gee next concentrates on the Magical Papyrus
of London and Leiden 8.8 (fig. 5), in which
he again claims to recognize the name of
Abraham identified as the 'pupil [and iris]
of the wedjat-eye', appealing to the Book of
the Dead, chapters 162 and 163 to assert
that the 'pupil of the wedjat-eye' is an
Egyptian name ('epithet') for a hypocephalus.
Even more astounding, he declares that
'Abraham is called this in the midst of a
section on how to obtain revelation' (3;
emphasis added), ambitiously claiming that
Facsimile Two also 'deals with obtaining
revelation about the heavens and the cosmos'
(3; emphasis added). Thus, Gee attempts to
connect hypocephali-specifically the
Facsimile Two hypocephalus (fig. 4)-with
Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham.
Fig. 1. Papyrus Leiden I 384.1 (from Johnson
1975, pl. 13)
Do those papyri 'expressly mention Abraham'
in the manner Gee avers? That is, do they
'connect him with representations similar to
Facsimiles 1 and 2 of the Book of Abraham'?
Is the lion-couch vignette of 384:1 a
depiction of Abraham as a human sacrifice,
and does the text from the previous or any
column of that papyrus refer to that
sacrifice? Does Magical 8.8 connect the
hypocephalus with Abraham; and does it deal
with 'how to obtain revelation', and the
hypocephalus 'with obtaining revelation
about the heavens and the cosmos'? Because
outside of the Book of Abraham there are no
known references to Abraham on a lion-couch
'altar', who is about to be sacrificed by
pharaoh's priest (Abr 1:7,12,14), and
because Joseph Smith's interpretation of the
Facsimile Two hypocephalus is unparalleled,
the remarkable substantiating claims that
Gee makes for Facsimiles One and Two require
scrutiny.
Egyptologically, the papyri from which the
alleged evidence comes were written by a
single scribe, most likely in Thebes, and
date to the third century CE [5] 200 or more
years after the composition of the Joseph
Smith Papyri. [6] They are comprised of
magic spells in both Demotic and Greek, with
superlinear glosses in Old Coptic to ensure
correct pronunciation of important magical
words. 384 appears to have been written
before Magical (Johnson 1975, 48, 53; in
Betz 1992, lvii). The spells in 384
generally are 'designed to separate people
and make them hate each other'. The vignette
that Gee avers is a depiction of the
lion-couch sacrifice of Abraham is in the
last column of that papyrus. The spells in
Magical, among other things, [7] 'give
instructions for divinations, especially
divinations using a lamp' (Johnson 1975, 51
note 28) [8] Gee's attribution of Abraham as
the wedjat-eye is in one such
lamp-divination spell.
Fig. 2. Lion-Couch Vignette from Pap. Leiden
I 384:1 as reproduced by FARMS
Gee's presentation of 384 as evidence of the
historicity of the Book of Abraham is
misleading. He declares inaccurately that
the 'next to the last column', the one
preceding the column containing the
lion-couch vignette, 'contains a text...
entitled "The sacrifice [or burning] of
so-and-so"', which he claims includes an
appeal of a sacrificial victim to the gods
for salvation from the 'jackal-headed god'
and his cohorts. Gee then refers to the
magical spell immediately below the vignette
(fig. 1 B) as though it were a fragmentary
caption (see fig. 2) and translates it as:
'Let Abraham who... upon... wonder
marvelously'. Ignoring the text before and
after the portion that he chooses to
interpret, he inaccurately tells the reader
that the 'text is broken at that point, and
many endings are possible', conjecturing two
possibilities that suggestively parallel
Joseph Smith's Book of Abraham: that it is
Abraham '"who lies upon the altar" or "who
calls upon God"' (FARMS 1991, 1). Thus, he
links his alleged sacrificial victim to the
vignette and to Abraham.
The fact is that the magical spell from
which Gee develops his interpretation of
Abraham's desperate appeal for deliverance
does not come from the next to the last
column on the papyrus. Rather, it is the
last spell in the last column on the papyrus
(fig. 1 D). Contrary to Gee, the subject of
the spell is a woman-not Abraham. Moreover,
its title is not 'The sacrifice of
so-and-so' and does not contain a desperate
appeal of a human-sacrifice victim. Instead,
the spell is entitled 'Another' a variant
of the previous spell (fig. 1 C), in which
the magician was instructed to write the
spell, including a drawing of the lion-couch
scene, on a piece of new papyrus. The
magician was to take the piece of papyrus
with the spell on it and 'cook it in the
bath!' The spell itself consists of a series
of magical abracadabra words, followed by
the actual conjuration, in which the
magician would bedevil a woman to him by
commanding a demon 'to become a bath-woman
and to inflame the beloved with the heat of
the bath waters' (Daniel 1991, xxiii). In
certain places, the magician was to supply
the name of the woman over whom the spell
was cast. The incantation is as follows:
ALLANTH BIREIBAMETIRA / EMETHIRE THARABLATH
PNOUTHE THOUCHARA OSOUCHARI SABACHAR... , /
burn [inflame] her, NN, until she [comes] to
me, NN, immediately, immediately; quickly,
quickly. I conjure you, daimons of the dead,
[by] the dead and by the daimon of [Balsames],
and the / dog-faced god [Anubis], and the
gods with him (Johnson in Betz 1992, 171).
[9]
Contrary to Gee, the text of the spell
cannot authenticate the historicity of the
Book of Abraham, because it has nothing to
do with the human sacrifice of a victim on a
lion-couch that is about to be killed by a
jackal-headed god.
The text from which Gee extracts his caption
for the lion-couch vignette that 'expressly
mentions Abraham', is actually in the middle
of a series of magical abracadabra words for
the spell immediately underneath the
vignette (fig. 1 C). [10] The subject of
that conjuration, too, was a woman not
Abraham. It reads:
... AIDIO ORICH THAMBITO, Abraham who at...
PLANOIEGCHIBIOTH MOU ROU and the whole soul
for her, NN [whom NN bore]... the female
body of her, NN [whom NN bore], I conjure by
the... [and] to inflame her, NN whom [NN
bore] [Write these] words together with this
picture [the lion couch vignette] on a new
papyrus (Johnson in Betz 1992, 171).
There simply is no support for Gee's
assertion that the vignette is a depiction
of a human sacrifice, with the victim lying
on the altar and calling upon God for
deliverance. Rather it is a normal
lion-couch vignette, showing 'Anubis
administering to a mummy lying on a
lion-couch' (Johnson 1975, 30), which here
seems to have been used as a magical
representational device in connection with
certain magical spells. [11]
Gee fails to point out that Magical 8 (fig.
5), his 'section on how to obtain
revelation', is in reality a pagan
lamp-divination spell and leaves his Mormon
audience to misunderstand divination as
having the same meaning as 'revelation' that
they learned in church. The purpose of lamp
divination was to conjure the presence of a
deity by using a properly prepared wick lamp
and casting various spells. The divinity was
then to respond to questions about topics of
interest to the magician (Jacq 1985, 62).
Contrary to Gee's assertion, Magical 8 was
merely a follow-up spell to be recited if a
conjured divinity had not already appeared.
Several times, the magician recited magical
abracadabra words and called the god to
answer his queries. Then he uttered more
abracadabra words:
"Come in, PIATOY CHITRE! O SHOP SHOPE SHOP
ABRAHME [Old Coptic gloss: ABRACAM], the
pupil of the sound eye, QMR QMR QMR QMR KMRO,
who created creation, great flourishing
creation. SH[ ]KNYSH is your real name. Let
an answer be told to me / about everything
concerning which I am asking here today"
(Johnson in Betz 1992, 208).
Finally, the magician appealed once more to
the divinity to come and truthfully answer
his questions. The entire spell was to be
recited seven times (Griffith and Thompson
1904, 63-65; Johnson in Betz 1992, 208).
Certainly Gee does not want to imply that
conjuring by lamp divination is the method
by which prophets converse with God.
Contrary to Gee, the hypocephalus (fig. 4)
has nothing to do with 'obtaining revelation
about the heavens and the cosmos'.
Hypocephali appeared in the latter part of
Egyptian history, serving as magical amulets
placed under the head of the deceased to
provide heat ('the flame of Re') for his/her
birth into and continued life in the
netherworld. Formulae were written on them
from Book of the Dead chapter 162 for that
purpose, often accompanied by protective ('prophylactique')
representations. Hypocephali had the
secondary effect of procuring for the
deceased a part of the divinity of the sun
god, Re. The Greek name, hypocephalus
('under the head'), is derived from the term
'heat under the head' in the Egyptian title
of BD 162: 'Spell for providing heat under
the head of the blessed dead'.
Parenthetically, the hypocephalus may have
been a prototype of the halo that crowned
the heads of personages in Egyptian art from
before the Fourth Century CE (Bonnet 1952,
389f.; Kessler, 1980, 693; Goyon 1972, 276;
Barguet 1967, 228 note 1).
Fig. 5. A Lamp Divination Spell (from
Griffith and Thompson 1905, 2:VIII)
Contrary to Gee, Book of the Dead chapter
163 is not related to chapter 162 or to
hypocephali.[12] But since BD 162 does not
contain the phrase, 'the pupil of the wedjat-eye',
[13] which Gee has identified with Abraham
and considers to be 'one of the Egyptian
names' for a hypocephalus, he must treat BD
163 as though it too were a hypocephalus
chapter, because of its reference to the
deceased as one 'hidden within the pupil of
the Sound Eye [wedjat]' (Allen 1974, 159).
Gee thus improperly asserts that 'the pupil
of the wedjat-eye' refers to a hypocephalus
in order to make a connection between it and
Abraham in his effort to authenticate
'Joseph Smith's explanation of the
hypocephalus in the Book of Abraham' (FARMS
1991, 3). [14]
A crucial claim of Gee's article is that
ABRACAM (Magical 8.8)/ABRAAM (384:1.6) refer
to the biblical Abraham in such a way as to
prove the historicity of Joseph Smith's Book
of Abraham. Unfortunately, he fails to
acknowledge that his alleged references
occur within series of magical abracadabra
words. An important question, therefore, is
whether those occurrences actually refer to
Abraham probatively; or do they, like the
words around them, primarily have the
significance of magical abracadabra words?
Appeals to Abraham and other Judeo-Christian
elements even Jesus appear frequently in
the syncretistic magical papyri. [15] One
spell cites a portion of the Lord's Prayer,
after which it appeals to, inter alia,
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Kotansky in Betz
1992, 300). Another conjurs the god 'by the
great, famous name, Abraam... ' (Smith in
Betz 1992, 125). Indeed, coming from the
Greco-Roman period, the magical material
'reflects an amazingly broad religious and
cultural pluralism', with most spells being
'mixtures of several religions Egyptian,
Greek, Jewish, to name the most important',
including 'a few sprinkles of Christianity'
(Betz 1992, xlv). It is not known how the
Jewish material made its way into the
magical papyri, although at least some may
have originated in the Greek Septuagint,
written in the second century BCE. [16] To
the itinerant magicians,
"the gods from the various cults gradually
merged, and as their natures became blurred,
they often changed into completely different
deities. For these magicians, there was no
longer any cultural difference between the
Egyptian and the Greek gods, or between them
and the Jewish god and the Jewish angels;
even Jesus was occasionally assimilated into
this truly "ecumenical" religious syncretism
of the hellenistic world culture" (xlvi).
[17]
Moreover, the magician 'no longer understood
the old languages, although he used remnants
of them in transcription' (xlv). In
addition, 'incomprehensible words' were
often used in the magical spells, 'arranged
into patterns of sounds which are judged to
be effective; they are a mixture of
Egyptian, Babylonian, Cretan, and other
foreign languages to make "abracadabra"
spells' (Jacq 1985, 20f.). 'Abra-' was a
widely-used formative element in the magical
texts that was combined with various other
elements to produce abracadabra words. It
'was probably originally a secret paraphrase
of the name of the Jewish God Yahweh written
in four (Hebrew: arba = abra) consonants (tetragram)'
(Rudolph 1983, 311). [18] For example,
observe how abra is combined with another
element in the following instance: In the
magical spell of which fig. 6 is a part, the
magician stood on top of his house and
sought divination from the moon, pronouncing
an incantation from seven to nine times
until the divinity appeared to him. This
part of the incantation was 'Ho! Sax, Amun,
Sax, Abrasax; for thou art the moon'
(Griffith and Thompson 1904, 147). 'Abra'
here was combined with s(t)-`ks[19] 'saks'
to form the magical word 'Abrasaks'. [20] 'Abrasax'/'Abraxas'
continued to be used throughout the
centuries in connection with magical spells.
[21]
Fig. 6. 'Saks' and 'Abra-saks' (from
Griffith and Thompson 1905, 2:23.24
Note the various uses of abra in other
magical spells:
- abra (Betz 1992, 96);
- abrae abrao abraoa (17);
- abra abra sabaoth (37);
- abrat abrasax (45);
- abraiaoth (57, 58, 59);
- abraoth (61, 96, 103);
- abrasax (20, 22, 24, 30, 36, 67, 101, 103
[2], 107 [3], 121, 122, 136, 146, 148, 150
[2], 152, 155, 161 [2], 163, 174, 176, 184,
187, 233, 265, 266, 270, 272, 277, 282, 286
[2], 291, 292, 296, 297 [3], 299 [2], 302
[6], 303, 309, 314);
- ABRA BRACHA (67);
- ABRAA (77);
- ABRASILOA (11);
- ABRASIAOUA (159);
- ABRAARM (190); ABRAACH (190);
- ABRATIAOTH (193);
- ABRASAKS (218, 245);
- ABRATHIAOTH (261);
- ABRAXAS (30, 262);
- ABRATHIAO (277);
- ABRA A O (293);
- ABRASAKX (299);
- ABRASICHOOU (302);
- ABRAO (304);
- ABRASA (305).
It is therefore not surprising that the
biblical name 'Abraham' would be popular in
the spells not only when the magicians
would appeal to, among others, the god of
'Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob' [22]; but
especially because it contained the
magically potent abra element, and
consequently was a word that was felt to
contain magical power suo jure. [23]
For example, in the first magical spell that
Gee cites (384:1.6-11, fig. 1 C), composed
in Greek, ABRAAM occurs as part of a group
of magical words. The second spell in which
Gee finds an authenticating reference to
Abraham (Magical 8.8; see fig. 5), does not
refer probatively to the biblical Abraham.
Rather, ABRACAM functions as a magical word,
the proper pronunciation of which was
important for making the spell effective.
(Since the Demotic and hieratic writing
systems were only consonantal, leaving
uncertain the proper vocalization of
important magical words, the scribe of 384
and Magical provided glosses in Old Coptic
[24] for certain magical words so that they
would be pronounced correctly [Johnson 1975,
48, 53]). [25] ABRACAM here is a gloss in
Old Coptic for two Demotic elements: abra
and hmy, the word for 'artificer' [26]:
`br`-
hmy
The same word, ABRACAM, was used magically
in another instance (in 384:2*.16f. = PDM
12.6-20), which Gee does not cite: 'Write
this name on [a white, grape-shaped stone]
... saying, "ABRACAM FILHN . . . CNI . . .
."' (Johnson 1975, 33 [ Johnson in Betz
1992, 152]). [27] ABRACAM clearly has no
significance as the biblical Abraham in
these spells. Note (Abrm) as 'Abraham' in
Demotic (Lddeckens 1980, 1:1.8) and as
'Abraham' in the Coptic Nag Hammadi codices
(Nag Hammadi 2:82.26; 133.29). [28]
The lion-couch vignette of 384:1 does not
depict a human sacrifice. The adjacent text
Gee cites does not contain a plea for
deliverance by an intended sacrificial
victim. Book of the Dead chapter 163 has
nothing to do with hypocephali, which in
turn have nothing to do with Abraham. ABRAAM
and ABRACAM, possibly originating from the
name 'Abraham', serve merely as potent
magical words; they have no authenticating
connection with Abraham as depicted in the
Book of Abraham. As a result, Gee's
statement that Pap. Leiden I 384 and the
Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden
'expressly mention Abraham' is misleading,
and it is impossible for them to 'connect
him with representations similar to
Facsimiles 1 and 2 of the Book of Abraham'.
As a result, conclusions that Gee asserts as
'premature' (FARMS 1991, 3) must still be
considered seriously:
1) There are no known ancient Egyptian
documents that are related to the text of
the Book of Abraham, and the likelihood that
any will be found is slim at best.
2) The only relationship between hypocephali
and the text of the Book of Abraham is the
one that Joseph Smith asserted.
'Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Texts'. John
Gee's evidence for his second article is
comprised of the two magical spells he
presented in his first (Pap. Leiden 384vo. 1
and Magical 8) and four additional spells:
one introduced in the above review of his
first article (Pap. Leiden 384vo. 2* = PDM
12.6-20) and three new ones (PGM 12.
260-321; PGM 36.295-311; and PGM 5.459-89).
They are reviewed in the order he presents
them.
The first spell to which Gee appeals in his
effort to establish the historicity of the
Book of Abraham was designed to magically
empower an iron ring to 'cause praise' for
the petitioner (PDM 12.6-20). As part of the
procedure, the magician was to take a white,
grape-shaped stone and empower it by writing
several magically potent words on it, one of
which was ABRACAM. (See Johnson in Betz
1992, 152.) For Gee, ABRACAM must refer to
the patriarch Abraham and the white stone
must be a seer stone. He draws his readers'
attention to three scriptural texts to
support the interpretation he has read into
the spell according to Mormon hermeneutics:
- Rev 2:17: To him that overcometh will I
give to eat of the hidden manna, and will
give him a white stone, and in the stone a
new name written, which no man knoweth
saving he that receiveth it.
- DC 130:10-11: Then the white stone
mentioned in Revelation 2:17, will become a
Urim and Thummim to each individual who
receives one, whereby things pertaining to a
higher order of kingdoms will be made
known....The new name is the key word.
- Abr. 3:1: And I, Abraham, had the Urim and
Thummim, which the Lord my God had given
unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees; (cf. v. 4:
And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and
Thummim... .)
Unfortunately, nothing in the spell
indicates that the white, grape-shaped stone
is an analog to a seer stone, a medium
through which revelation is to be obtained.
Even more unfortunate for Gee's
interpretation, the white stone of Rev 2:17
(on which DC 130:10-11 is a pesher) was not
a seer stone. Braumann (TDNT 9:606) observes
that it was
"thought to be an amulet. In religious
history the amulet has a place in the
magical beliefs of the time. Magical formul',
in this case the new name, mediate
supernatural powers and offer protection
against demons and evil forces."
The fact is that this is only one among
numerous magical spells prescribing that the
magician write magically-potent words,
figures, and/or numbers on papyrus, linen,
gold, lead, silver, copper, tin, iron,
branches, leaves, roots, bat wings, and
stones.[29] Gee's reference to the
grape-shaped, white stone as a seer stone is
unwarranted; and abracam, as noted in the
review of Gee's first article, is a
magically-potent word that has no
authenticating significance for the Book of
Abraham.
The second magical spell to which Gee
appeals (PGM 12.270-350) also utilized a
stone with writing on it. The purpose of
this spell was to empower a ring to make
'men famous and great and admired and rich
as can be', or at least making possible for
the ring-bearer to make friends with
famous-and-great-and-admired-and-rich-as-can-be
men. The ring-bearer was instructed that
whenever he had the ring with him,
"you will always get whatever you ask from
anybody. Besides, it calms the angers of
masters and kings. Wearing it, whatever you
may say to anyone, you will be believed, and
you will be pleasing to everybody. [The
power of the ring can] call back souls, move
spirits, subject legal opponents, strengthen
friendships, produce all [sorts of] profits,
bring / dreams, give prophecies, cause
psychological passions and bodily sufferings
and incapacitating illness, and perfect all
erotic philters" (Smith in Betz 1992, 163f).
The ring was empowered by a 'first-rate
name', Helios, inscribed on a stone, which,
when made potent by the magical spell 'can
open doors and break chains and rocks'
(164). At dawn the magician was to face the
sun (Helios) and magically embue the
'well-planned, beneficent, divine, holy,
useful, economical, merciful stone which
provides your needs' by invoking the
'Greatest god, who exceed[s] / all power'.
From the long list of names of the god the
magician was to recite, Gee focuses on 'IAO
SABAOTH ADONAI EILOEIN [ELOHIM]', and
'Abraham, Isaac, Jacob'. He declares that
the 'first four names are Hebrew for "LORD
of hosts, my Lord, God"' (1992, 60). But he
fails to acknowledge that by the time the
magical spells were written, 'even the
Jewish god Iao', originally YHWH, was in
many respects an underworld deity (Betz
1992, xlvi-xlvii) who 'became an important
deity in magical literature' (335); that the
meaning of 'my Lord' for ADONAI 'had been
long lost to the practitioners of the Roman
Empire' and now referred to an 'important
angelic figure in gnosticism and in magic'
(331). In fact, IAO, SABAOTH, ADONAI, and
ELOHIM occur so frequently in the magical
spells that their appearance is not
noteworthy. Moreover, the occurrences of
Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in several magical
spells [30] are disconnected from any
biblical context and therefore do not
constitute an assurance 'that we are dealing
with references to the biblical Abraham'
(61) in any more than the vaguest sense. The
currency of these terms in Egyptian
literature is unknown before the Late Period
and therefore they are not evidence of a
long tradition that dates to the second
millenium BCE that would in any way
authenticate the Book of Abraham.
Gee's third example is a modified appeal to
Pap. Leiden I 384:1 (PGM 12.480-495) that he
introduced in his first article. This time
he concedes that the spell is a 'love charm'
(60) instead of merely a 'text . . .
entitled "The sacrifice [or burning] of
so-and-so"' (1991,1) and that the subject of
the spell is a woman, not Abraham.
But Gee's new interpretation does not
correctly reflect the data he cites. In the
first place, he misleads his readers when he
takes license to translate neku n as 'the
dead (pharaohs)' in his attempt to relate
the spell to the Book of Abraham. As
justification for his interpretation, he
claims that 'Neukoi [sic] can refer to the
dead in general or specifically to certain
dead pharaohs,' appealing to the Ptolomaic
Egyptian chronographer Manetho as his
authority (62 note 4). What he fails to
mention is that Manetho's work was a
translation of the Egyptian king lists into
Greek, with the obvious result that
Manetho's use of 'the dead' would refer to
kings. The word neku n itself has no
intrinsic meaning that refers to dead
pharaohs. [31]
Secondly, because Joseph Smith restored a
man's head to the damaged Anubis from the
lion-couch vignette and identified him as
the 'Idolatrous Priest of Elkenah' in
Facsimile One of the Book of Abraham, Gee
wants to minimize the fact that the
facsimile should have been restored with
Anubis' head, instead of a man's.
Accordingly, he begs the question with his
assertion that Anubis 'is indistinguishable
from his priest, who wears a jackal mask
over his head' (61), appealing for support
to an article about masks by Seeber (1980,
1196-1199). The Egyptians in fact were
concerned about representing the god in
their illustrations, not the person doing
the officiating, which may be why there is
only one known illustration of a priest
wearing the mask of a god-and it may not
even be a depiction of an actual event (see
Seeber 1980, 1197).[32] The question is not
whether priests impersonated gods on cultic
occasions by wearing masks. The question is
whether or not Joseph Smith's reconstruction
of the standing figure in his lion-couch
vignette is accurate. It is not.
The evidence from the lion-couch vignette of
Pap. Joseph Smith 1 (fig. 8a) clearly shows
the remnants of Anubis' headdress (fig. 8b),
which Joseph Smith's restoration omits (fig.
8c). But then, because Smith was
unacquainted with ancient Egyptian
lion-couch scenes, it is only natural that
he would not recognize the headdress
remnants for what they are, and he
instructed Reuben Hedlock to restore
hypothetically a man's head, consonant with
his interpretation of Anubis as the
'Idolatrous Priest of Elkenah'. As figure 8
indicates, the correct restortation of the
vignette would require Anubis' head, not a
man's. There is no evidence of a man's head
on the papyrus, and there is no precedent
for one on any known lion-couch scene.[33]
In light of the review of his first article,
Gee drops his original claim that the person
about to be sacrificed was Abraham and now
maintains that it was a woman on the
lion-couch vignette of the magical spell who
was the intended sacrificial victim: 'The
idea of incinerating the woman as a
punishment in case the woman does not yield
to the man who casts the spell is an old
Egyptian formula' (61). This would call to
his readers' mind Abr 1:11-12:
"Now, this priest had offered upon this
altar three virgins at one time, who were
the daughters of Onitah, one of the royal
descent directly from the loins of Ham.
These virgins were offered up because of
their virtue; they would not bow down to
worship gods of wood or of stone, therefore
they were killed upon this altar, and it was
done after the manner of the Egyptians. And
it came to pass that the priests laid
violence upon me, that they might slay me
also, as they did those virgins upon this
altar; and that you may have a knowledge of
this altar, I will refer you to the
representation at the commencement of this
record."
In support of his singular assertion that
the lion-couch was used to sacrifice
unyielding women, Gee misinterprets PDM
12.147-164 as referring to human sacrifice,
when its real purpose was intended to
inflame a woman with passion, as pointed out
in the review of his first article. Worse,
he wrongly appeals to a ca. 20th-Dynasty
love charm to support his contention for the
immolation of women. Unfortunately for Gee,
it contains no reference to lion couches or
to incinerating, sacrificing, or even
harming women in any way.[34] Instead, the
suitor threatens to set fire to the city of
Busiris and Osiris himself if the gods do
not make the intended woman submissive:
"Hail to you, gods, lords of heaven and
earth-let (the woman) NN born of NN come
after me like a cow after grass, like a
maidservant after her children, like a
herdsman after his cattle. If they fail to
make her come after me I will set Busiris
and burn up !" (Borghouts 1978, 1)
There is no evidence to support Gee's claims
that men (e.g., Abraham in his first
article) and/or unyielding women (in his
second article) ever were sacrificed on lion
couches..
Gee's fourth example is a modification of
his appeal to Magical 8 ( = PDM 14.150-231)
from his first article. He now at least
refers to it as a magical papyrus even
though he places magical in quotation marks
(61). This time he almost admits that the
text is a lamp divination spell he now
calls it 'a long chapter on using a lamp to
get revelation' (61) whereas before he
referred to it merely as a 'section on how
to obtain revelation' (1991, 3). His second
article wisely omits the claim he made in
his first that, like Magical 8, 'Joseph
Smith's explanation of the hypocephalus in
the Book of Abraham also deals with
obtaining revelation about the heavens and
the cosmos' (3); for Magical 8 has no such
stated purpose.
Gee focuses his attention on the phrase `br`hmy
pa f n ta irt n ta wedjat, 'ABRAHME [Old
Coptic gloss: ABRACAM], the pupil of the
sound eye' (Johnson in Betz 1992, 208),
trying to use it as the link between Abraham
and Facsimile Two of the Book of Abraham. He
first claims significance for the 'sound' (wedjat)
eye by noting that it 'occurs four times' in
Facsimile Two. But only two occurrences are
certainly authentic. The other two come from
Joseph Smith's hypothetically-restored
section of the badly-damaged hypocephalus
(fig. 9a; see fig. 4). The restoration was
taken from a vignette in Pap JS 2:8 (fig.
9b).[35]
He misleadingly quotes Hopfner that 'it is
very noteworthy that the Patriarch Abraham
is called "the apple of the wedjat-eye"'
(61), by omitting why Hopfner thought it was
remarkable, for Gee wants his readers to
equate the wedjat eye with the Facsimile Two
hypocephalus and Abraham in such a way as to
authenticate the Book of Abraham. What
Hopfner found remarkable was that 'ABRACAM'
was equated with the full moon; not with an
wedjat-eye-as-hypocephalus as Gee would have
his readers believe. Here is his full
statement:
"Finally, it is very remarkable that the
patriarch Abraham is called 'the apple of
the wedjat eye'; that is, the full moon. [Endlich
ist es sehr bemerkenswert, da?der Patriarch
Abraham der Apfel des Auges der Uzat", d.
h. der Vollmond genannt wird.]" (Hopfner
1935, 118)36
Continuing with his wedjat-Abraham-Facsimile-Two
theme, Gee next declares that 'in Christian
times it [the wedjat eye] was the word the
Copts used for salvation' (61).
Unfortunately, Gee's cl