The Latter-day Saints (LDS) maintain that the English text now known as the Book of Abraham, consisting of about fifteen pages, was translated by their Prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr from a papyrus written in Egyptian, acquired by Smith in July 1835, and is a similar version of the Genesis account of the life of Abraham. It is reprinted as part of the collection of Scripture known as The Pearl of Great Price, and contains information not found elsewhere about the pre-existence of spirits, the nature of deity, and the Mormon priesthood.
The papyrus that Smith purchased contained portions of a first-century A.D. Book of Breathings prepared for a deceased priest of the Egyptian God Amon, accompanied by a portion of the Book of the Dead, which gives instructions how the deceased should behave towards various gods to progress through the afterlife.
Though the papyruses were thought to have been destroyed in a fire in Chicago in 1871, portions of them were rediscovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
The opponents of the authenticity of Smith's translation maintain that within the available recovered papyrus, they say they have identified passages that were egregiously mistranslated by Smith, and that no part of the recovered papyrus makes any reference to Abraham.
Those who support the authenticity of the translation agree with critics that the papyrus could have been a first century copy of an earlier text, and agree that some of the documents contain instructions for deceased persons. They deny that the papyrus and the Book of Abraham can be "matched up" in a way that shows even the slightest mistranslation, as not all of the original papyrus is available.
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