Egypt. Land of the pharaohs. Land of great mystery. Land of fertility. Land of the life-giving Nile.
Egypt was developing as a civilization about the same time as the earliest civilizations in Mesopotamia. However, Egypt had several advantages. Because of the yearly flooding of the Nile, Egypt had a predictably fertile environment. While we do have record of famine in Egypt (see Genesis 41:30 ), it was far less frequent than in Mesopotamia. Floods in Mesopotamia always brought destruction. Floods in Egypt brought life.
Egypt is also protected by the Mediterranean Sea on the north, the Red Sea and the Sinai Desert on the east, the Sahara Desert on the west and the mountains and cataracts of the Nile on the south. As you can see on this map on the left, all life in Egypt owed its existence to the Nile.
While there was internal political upheaval in Egypt over the centuries and dynasties, there were not the great sweeping wars of conquests and empires as were found in Mesopotamia. If there were any place in the ancient world that could be said to be stable, that place was Egypt.
On the Church Website, one can find an essay written by scholars who are members of the Church, called Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham. I would like to share a few pertinent insights the essay provides, but I would invite you to seek out the entire essay, which can be found at the site listed below. All quotes come from that site.
The book of Abraham was first published in 1842 and was canonized as part of the Pearl of Great Price in 1880. The book originated with Egyptian papyri that Joseph Smith translated beginning in 1835. Many people saw the papyri, but no eyewitness account of the translation survives, making it impossible to reconstruct the process. Only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls once in Joseph Smith’s possession exist today. The relationship between those fragments and the text we have today is largely a matter of conjecture.
The Lord did not require Joseph Smith to have knowledge of Egyptian. By the gift and power of God, Joseph received knowledge about the life and teachings of Abraham.
On many particulars, the book of Abraham is consistent with historical knowledge about the ancient world. Some of this knowledge, which is discussed later in this essay, had not yet been discovered or was not well known in 1842.
It is interesting to me how compelling the connection between the account of Abraham found in the Pearl of Great Price and the history and geography of ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. I look forward to noting those connections in this blog.
© Gebara Education 2016
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