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How the Book of Breathings and theHow the Book of Breathings and theBook of Abraham are Book of Abraham are ConnectedConnected

Kyle Beswick

It goes without saying that the world in general,

especially in academia, takes the claims of believing

Mormons with much less than a single grain of salt. They

jeer at our “alternate” history of Central America and

Native Americans. They scoff at the visions of Joseph Smith.

But when it comes to labeling with the brand “Oscar Meyer,”

their favorite variety is the Book of Abraham.

Now, we as members of the Church are apt to brush their

claims off as nothing more than the faithless mumblings of

those who are lost in the dark, trying to grope their way to

the great and spacious building. We instantly classify such

people as heathens and proceed to bear testimony, as we try

to inject them with the Spirit to open their minds and fog

their biased reasoning whispered to them by the father of

lies. While we cannot dispute the power of emotions given to

us by the Holy Ghost, we cannot overlook this fact: that

these people are not idiots, and they may very well be

convicted with the same intensity through logic, discovery,

and science as we are through faith, spirituality, and

enlightenment. Such is especially the case with the Book of

Abraham.

As the supposedly lost fragments of the Joseph Smith

Papyri were found by Dr. Aziz S. Atiya1 the world’s

attention peaked. Both skeptics and faithful alike had the

ultimate test of fraudulency or verification, respectfully.

As the original source of the Book of Mormon wasn’t around

to prove or disprove, there was much excitement now that we

some sort of acid drop for the Prophet. And this is where

the skeptics found their supposed redemption. They could be

silenced no more, and there was good reason for it. The text

contained material not expected and required a different

understanding of history to fit with the Prophet’s context.

There was no Abraham. No mention of Kolob. It was

discovered that these documents were just traditional

funerary texts of ancient Egypt named the Book of Breathings. For

someone who has no comprehension of spiritual things (which

Paul says would be any man without experience in faith) and

relies solely on the evidence, then of course, they appear 1 Church Education System, Pearl of Great Price Study Manuel (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2000), pg. 29

to be correct. But to someone who has received a sure

knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel in their heart

via the Holy Ghost, and relies on that conviction in their

perspective of all things, what does this mean for them? It

would be easy to hang up one’s hat in the face of being

duped. Professor Hugh Nibley prefaces his great work on this

very issue (from which much more will be said), that “the

reader pursuing the translation…may well wonder if someone

isn’t pulling his leg.2” But Nibley continues to say they

may discover more…a pattern which contains important truths

not even inherently expressed in our canonical text itself.

And with his genius scholarship, we can, in the face of

blatant opposition, broaden our scope of the gospel and

drive the seed of faith even further in our souls. Those

cynics just can’t win out to the convicted – their arguments

just have the opposite effect.

If the gospel is to be the truth of all that is and

was, then we must be able to find a correlation between it

and all history to thus verify the gospel as the source of 2 Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment (Deseret Book, 2005), pg. xxvi

all this history. Egyptian documents called the Pyramid

Texts are among the oldest in the world and should thereby

have remnants of the teachings of the Patriarchs, being

dated around the time of the Great Flood (if the biblical

math provides an accurate date). If Egypt was settled

initially by the granddaughter of Noah, as the Book of

Abraham tells us, then this dating makes sense and these

texts should contain blatant references to many of the

truths of the gospel taught by him, as he was yet alive when

these were supposedly produced.

However, even though Noah was amongst the children of

men preaching the Word of God, the priesthood was not with

everyone. Egypt was settled by Ham’s lineage, which was

denied the priesthood in Gen. 9:25 so therefore the entire

Egyptian line was without that blessing. We read of this

briefly in an oft-overlooked passage: Abr. 1:26. Pharaoh

wished to imitate the priesthood – knowing that it was good

but that he did not have proper authority, he still wished

to teach his people after its ways as far as could be

understood. Of course, without the Holy Spirit of Promise

and misunderstandings of those who had not the blessing of

endowment, and in the course of oversimplification and over-

symbolizing, these rites and rituals became quickly skewed,

though no doubt unintended by Pharaoh.

The Pyramid Texts are the result of this corruption.

However, they are a primeval version of the Book of Breathings

which is directly related to Abraham’s writings and so they

must have contained enough truth to be the Great Patriarch’s

direct reference. Perhaps they are more pure, being less

shrouded in the mythology that developed over time. These

texts, in summary, contain instructions for initiation rites

to prepare the body of a deceased Pharaoh for entrance into

a glorious afterlife. These rituals center around the god

Osiris, who is the Eldest Son of the anthropomorphic god of

the Earth, Geb. According to Egyptian legend, Osiris was

betrayed and killed by his brother Set for jealously of

honor and who later became the god of Evil. He was later

resurrected and became the judge of all who pass on to the

next life.3

3 Dr. Robert K. Ritner, Ancient Egypt (Oxford University Press, 1997), pg. 137

In the very basic idea, this legend was no doubt derived from the

Atonement of Jesus Christ. In the corruption that became of

Pharaoh’s attempts to practice the ordinances with no

authority, the Atonment became a legend of its own to these

ancient people and, as all oracles, legend built upon

legend. It transformed Jesus into Quetzalcoatl among the

Lamanites, and likewise to the Old Dynasty, Jesus became

Osiris, Lucifer became Set, and Elohim became Geb. But the

essentials remain, even some relatively minor symbols, as

ideas remain linked in the cultural status quo. All the way

to the end of Osiris’s prominence in worship, he (as well as

other persons of power) were always portrayed with a crook

and a flail, which can be seen as a indirect remembrance to

the titles of “Good Shepherd” and “provider of the Bread of

Life” given to Christ.

With this basic foundation of Ancient Egyptian worship,

all other texts were built upon, just as the Atonement of

Christ is the building foundation of the uncorrupted gospel.

As this was tweaked into mythology, so too were the other

corresponding parts tweaked to adapt to the same mythology.

In the same book stated earlier, Bro. Nibley

hypothesizes that the basic traditions that came out of the

Pyramid Texts and later the Book of Breathings were derived

from none other than the endowment received in the House of

the Lord. This endowment being one of the Highest Ordinances

of the Priesthood (in fact, being a part of the Priesthood

itself) and totally dependent upon it, it is easy to see how

this experience was changed, intentionally or not, for those

who did not hold even the most basic form of the Priesthood.

We can see the resemblance in basic ceremonial

ideology. The Book of Breathings, in very essence, is a set

of instructions given to the deceased to allow them to

ascend to the afterlife, much like the endowment, except of

course the endowment is given while the recipient is still

living, or performed by the living on the dead’s behalf –

not performed on the dead. Perhaps it was changed this way

because of the lack of understanding. Those who received the

rites without the Priesthood would not understand how to

participate. And so the rite was given after death, with the

idea that the spirit (or to them called the Ba4) was

receiving it and participating.

Besides the timing of performance and the tweaked

symbolism, the basic idea remains the same. Compare the

summaries of the two ceromonies:

For the Book of the Dead - “It enabled the Dead to

overcome obstacles of the underworld and not lose their way.

It did this by teaching passwords, giving clues, and

revealing routes that would allow to answer questions and

navigate around hazards. It would grant the help and

protection of the gods while proclaiming the deceased's

identity with the gods to attain an afterlife of bliss in

the Field of Reeds.5”

And for the Temple Endowment - “Your endowment is, to

receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which

are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to

enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father,

4 Wikipedia, “Egyptian Soul,” (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_soul)5 Aldokkan.com, “The Complete Book of the Dead - Papyrus of Ani - Translated by E.A. Wallis Budge,” (www.aldokkan.com/religion/dead.htm)

passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to

give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to

the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in

spite of earth and hell6…First, there is a course of

instruction relative to man’s eternal journey from the dim

beginning towards his possible glorious destiny. Then,

conditions are set up by which that endless journey may be

upward in direction. Those who receive this information

covenant to obey the laws of eternal progress, and thereby

give life to the knowledge received. Finally, it is made

clear that a man must sometimes give an account of his

deeds, and prove the possession of divine knowledge and

religious works. It is a very beautiful, logical and

inspiring series of ceremonies.7”

As we can see, the very form and purpose of the two

ceremonies are essentially the same. They are a set of

instructions, classified to those who receive the right to

obtain them, to progress through the eternal realms. They 6 Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young – comp. John A. Widtsoe (Deseret Book, 1941), p.4167 Elder John A. Widtsoe, A Rational Theology (Deseret Book, 1965), pp. 125-26

consist of passwords and tokens required to take this

journey toward exalted status.

So, we can see an obvious correlation filling an

awfully empty gap in history being filled with mocks and

mimicries of the deceptive. But must the void be crossed

with nothing but shadowy bridges to satisfaction? Despite

the comfort of many that such connections exist, we must

face reality in that we can only explain part of the story.

Apparently, we can see where the plan of salvation and

gospel teachings can be found as source material, but what

of the Book of Abraham itself? What of the claim that such

was “written by the hand of Abraham on papyrus” when all we

have are these vague traces of truth eroded by time? Surely

Abraham would have restored such to clarity and not remained

restricted to legends and folklore – he communicated with

the ultimate source. And so why does this remain?

Well, here we must solidify our findings with faith. We

have read many times throughout God’s dealings with people,

particularly in Jesus’ ministry in the flesh, where Divinity

tends to wrap Themselves with some sort of ambiguity in

order for the saving power of faith to take full effect, and

the learning experiences of seeing through the glass darkly

to contribute to our progression. If we knew everything,

faith would be invalid and we would hardly have a test of

character in this life, for we would know exactly how to

proceed.

But we can justify our faith with theory.

Perhaps the Lord allowed only the most indistinct

fragments of Joseph Smith’s acquired papyri to be saved from

the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire, where the record in its

entirety was located before any significant knowledge of the

Egyptian language was accessible for a proving translation.

After all, we He did remove the Golden Plates from the

presence of man, and thereby disallowing any absolute

confirmation of the sacred proceedings described by the

Prophet. There is record of the original writings being so

lengthy that when unraveled they covered the length of the

entire floor of the Mansion House.

Another theory seems to be that perhaps the Book of

Breathings acted as a sort of spiritual catalyst for the

long-lost writings of Abraham. After all, when Joseph Smith

translated the Golden Plates, some records say he hardly

ever looked at them directly, instead he looked at the Urim

and Thummim while they remained covered on the table8. So

perhaps he didn’t really need the actual book, but just some

medium of writings similar to it (and perhaps derived from

it, for they contain the same illustrations) to allow the

Spirit to elaborate.

However, judging from the historical Church records, it

seems fairly clear the early Church leaders were under a

strong impression that the papyri contained literal

handwriting of Abraham, and so the first seems much more

plausible.

But, regardless of history and sources, the most

important part of the Book of Abraham is the content itself.

This is what any priesthood leader would say, and this is

because it is the teachings that become the source of faith,

through which all else is perceived. This paper itself was

written with that same perception. Had there been no faith, 8 Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New YorkCity: Vintage Books, 2005), pg. 71

the eye-opening comparison of Ancient Egyptian religion with

our own would not have been clear.

And thus we see that it is only with faith that we can

achieve eventual pure knowledge. It is only with faith that

we can accept the claims of spirituality over supposed

science, and scoff back at those who do not understand. It

is only with faith that we see the truth over the

counterfeited traditions of Pharaoh’s Priesthood.