Kolob and Khnumu
For the next couple of weeks we’re taking a look at Facsimile 2 from the Book of Abraham. In the summer of 1835 Joseph Smith told Michael Chandler, a traveling salesman, that he could interpret the papyri he was marketing through the eastern seaboard of the US.
As it turned out Smith’s interpretation of the papyri and hypocephalus (funerary disk) was ridiculed by Egyptologists who were able to show with definitive proof everything Smith said was a fraud. Chandler’s papyri were excerpts from Hor’s Book of Breathings and The Book of the Dead which were funerary instructions. The hypocephalus was a depiction of Egyptian gods and spells. The Church purchased his wares for $2,400 after Joseph told everyone the papyri were actually writings from the patriarch Abraham. In 1880 Smith’s translations were canonized in Mormon scripture and known today by members as the Book of Abraham.
