Whether there was additional
papyri besides the fragments we know of today that held the actual writings of
Abraham, which Joseph Smith interpreted and has since been lost, possibly in
the Chicago fire, or whether the papyri merely served to bring Joseph Smith’s
attention to a point where the Lord could inspire him to record the Book of
Abraham, and the vignette scenes were merely representative of the idea of
Abraham’s events is of little importance. What is of import is that the Book of
Abraham gives us a better and clearer understanding of the doctrines of the
Lord’s gospel and the very character of the ancient prophet.
As an example, from the papyri we see that Abraham:
1. Understood at an early age
the blessings his ancestors enjoyed;
2. Knew and understood
priesthood ordination;
3. Knew the ancient patriarchs
from Adam onward held the priesthood;
4. Knew his immediate ancestry
had turned away from the Lord and his holy commandments;
5. Knew idolatry was wrong and
that idols held no conscience or power;
6. Knew human sacrifice was evil
and that life was a God-given gift;
7. Knew the genealogy of the royal
family of Sumeria back nine generations to Ham;
8. Talked with Jehovah
face-to-face, as one man talks to another;
9. He was promised a land for
himself and his posterity;
10. Had all the records in his
possession that dated back to Adam, including the record of the rights of the
priesthood;
11. He had the Urim and Thummim;
12. He knew and understood the
Creation, and knew about the planets and the stars as they were made known unto
the fathers, some of which he wrote on the papyri;
13. He went into Egypt to
declare the knowledge of the Universe and the Lord unto the Egyptians.
As we read the Book of Abraham, we learn:
1. Through Abraham’s seed, all
the nations of the earth will be blessed with the Gospel and eternal life;
2. The blood of Ham’s wife, or
the Canaanite blood, was preserved after the flood through their daughter,
Egyptus’ first born son, whom she named Pharaoh;
3. When Egyptus first reached
the land now called Egypt, it was still underwater from the Flood and she settled
there as the waters rescinded;
4. The government Pharaoh
established in the land of Egypt was after the government of Ham, or
patriarchal;
5. That this first Pharaoh was a
righteous man, and established his kingdom and judged his people wisely;
6. Pharaoh strove to imitate
that order established by the fathers in the first generations, even to the
reign of Adam;
7. Noah blessed Ham with the
blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him
pertaining to the Priesthood;
8. Pharaoh was not entitled to
the Priesthood;
9. All later Pharaohs feigned a
claim to the Priesthood and in so doing, led astray Abraham’s father, Terah, by their
idolatry;
During this time Abraham learned:
1. About the planet Kolob, and
it being the nearest to where God dwelt;
An international team of astronomers led by the University of Central
Lancashire in the UK has discovered “the largest known structure in the
universe” (it is 1200 Mpc at its widest point—by comparison, the distance
between the Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda Galaxy is about 0.75 Mpc)
2. That one day to the Lord is
the same as 1000 years on Earth;
3. The principle that governs
the planets, stars, and moons, as well as their rotational times, and the order
that governed their orbits;
4. That all celestial bodies
have a set time to their orbits and that the slower a celestial body rotates,
the higher is its order, and that these orders were set to a higher and higher
level all the way up to Kolob;
5. Kolob is after the reckoning
of the Lord’s time;
6. Kolob governs all the
planets, from its rotational level down to that of Earth;
7. All the stars have set times
to their rotation;
8. The Lord made all the stars,
planets, and celestial bodies, a number so numerous Abraham could not see the
end of his creations in a vision that opened his eyes to them;
In the Adamic language, the Lord called the Sun (Shinehah, a Star
(Kokob), the Moon (Olea), all the Stars or the great lights (Kokaubeam)
9. Spirits vary in order and
intelligence, and one spirit is more intelligent than another;
10. Spirits have no beginning
and no end, and shall exist forever because they are eternal;
11. God is the most intelligent
of all the spirits and his wisdom exceeds all;
11. God rules in the heavens
above and in the Earth beneath in all wisdom and prudence over all the
intelligences;
12. Intelligences were organized
in the beginning before the world was;
13. God chose different
intelligences, or spirits, for their roles on the Earth before they were born;
14. Abraham and others were
chosen before the world was and before they were born to specific callings and
positions during Earth life;
15. Our position or status at
birth was due to how we performed and lived our lives in the spirit before the
world was organized;
16. The purpose for all of us
coming to this Earth is to prove ourselves in our obedience to God;
17. The role of the Savior,
Jehovah, Jesus the Christ, was determined in a Grand Council of spirits in this
pre-mortal period;
18. Lucifer, Satan, the Devil,
fell from grace when he demanded God’s glory for saving all mankind and was
cast out of the pre-mortal sphere.
There is still more in the Book
of Abraham, but the above should suffice in showing how important this writing of the ancient prophet,
this interpretation by Joseph Smith at the hand of the
Lord and through the Spirit, is to all of us. And knowing these things is
essential to our salvation and exaltation. What a shame so many so-called professional people would prefer to stick to their old paradigms than to move forward with knowledge essential to their salvation, and how sad it is that people will rush to find fault and criticize the Book of Abraham they have probably never read, rather than try to learn what it has to say and its value in their lives.
And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;
ReplyDelete3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.
Just wondering why Kolob was mentioned as a planet when it states star?