Abraham 1:21-27 and the priesthood/temple ban

The only scripture that curses a lineage 'as pertaining to the Priesthood' became the proof-text for a ban the Church now disavows.

What the Church claims

Abraham 1:21–27 is about Egypt's founding and its priesthood succession, not about race, and the priesthood and temple restriction on Black members did not rest on it.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. Abraham 1 does describe a hereditary bar on the priesthood, and its use as the ban's proof-text is documented and conceded by LDS scholars, so the claim that the chapter has nothing to do with the restriction does not hold. It is weak rather than untenable because the verses justified the ban rather than caused it, and the chapter genuinely is about Egypt.

The record

  • Abr. 1:21-27 says Pharaoh was 'a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth', that Egypt 'preserved the curse in the land', that Noah 'cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood', and that Pharaoh was 'of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood'.
  • LDS authors (Smoot, Gee, Muhlestein, Thompson, BYU Studies 2022) trace the use of the passage: Parley P. Pratt echoed its wording in April 1847 ('cursed as regards the priesthood'); explicit citation grew after the 1880 canonization, with John Taylor and B. H. Roberts (Contributor, May 1885), and by 1900 it was the 'de facto official' reading. They stress Joseph never used it to justify a restriction.
  • Metcalfe's manuscript study shows the 'Egyptus ... signifies that which is forbidden' etymology and the matriarchal-line-from-Ham narrative were in the text from 1835.
  • The 2013 Gospel Topics essay 'Race and the Priesthood' disavows the theories that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse and discusses the Cain and Ham folk explanations, but it nowhere mentions the Book of Abraham or Abr. 1:21-27.
  • The same 2022 BYU Studies article argues the passage concerns priesthood transmission (patriarchal vs matriarchal succession), never mentions skin color, and that modern leadership has 'officially disavowed' racialized readings.

The moving target

  • 1852: Announced the restriction to the Utah legislature; the essay records Cain/Ham curse theories as later justifications.
  • 1885-05: Read Abr. 1 as grounding the ban in Ham's lineage.
  • 2013-12: Disavows the curse theories; silent on Abraham 1.
  • 2022: Abr. 1 is about lineage of priesthood right, not race; its use for the ban was a misreading that grew after 1880.

The exchange

Smoot, Gee, Muhlestein, Thompson (BYU Studies 2022); Interpreter 'Being of that Lineage'

The text never mentions skin color or Black people; it explains why Egyptian kings could not hold Abraham's priesthood (descent through a matriarch, Egyptus), and Joseph never applied it to Black members. Later leaders misused it.

The answer: Granting all of that, the passage still teaches a hereditary priesthood curse on Ham's descendants, and it was the standard scriptural proof-text for a century of exclusion, as the same authors document. Disavowing 'theories' while keeping the verses that generated them, and omitting them from the race essay, leaves the source of the doctrine unaddressed. That Joseph did not apply it does not change what the text says or how the Church used it.

What they get right: It is true that the verses are about priesthood lineage rather than skin, that Joseph ordained Black men, and that the ban's origin under Brigham Young had other drivers.

Smoot, Gee, Muhlestein and Thompson, BYU Studies 61:4 (2022)

Even granting that later leaders cited Abraham 1, misuse of a passage says nothing about the passage. The racial reading came out of American Protestant thought about Cain and Ham, which predates the Book of Abraham entirely.

The answer: The two cannot be separated here, because Abraham 1 is the text that put the Ham lineage into Latter-day Saint scripture. Protestant writers had the Cain and Ham traditions; what they did not have was a canonized account making a named Egyptian matriarch the reason a lineage is 'cursed as pertaining to the Priesthood'. Brigham Young, John Taylor, Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R. McConkie all reached for that verse, and the 2013 essay disavows the theories built on it without ever saying what the verse means. A church may outgrow a reading of its scripture. The claim under test is that the restriction did not rest on this text, and for more than a century its own leaders said that it did.

What they get right: The passage genuinely never mentions skin color or Africa beyond Egypt, and skeptics who quote it as though it does are misreading it.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

The Church's 2013 essay attributes the ban to Brigham Young and to 'theories' about Cain and Ham that it now disavows. But the Church's own scholars show that from the 1880s the ban was defended from Abraham 1, a canonized text stating that a lineage from Ham was 'cursed ... as pertaining to the Priesthood'. If the Book of Abraham is a 19th-century composition (see other topics), then the one scriptural warrant for excluding Black members was produced by Joseph Smith in 1835, and the essay's silence about it is a gap in the Church's account of its own history.

The apologetic case

Abraham 1 is a story about Egypt's founding and priesthood succession, not a racial taxonomy; nothing in it mentions color or Africa beyond Egypt. Joseph Smith ordained Black men and never cited the passage for restriction. Later leaders, working in an American racial culture, read their assumptions into it. The Church has since repudiated those readings and the ban itself.

What would change this

Evidence that Church leaders did not in fact rely on Abr. 1:21-27 for the ban, or a canonical clarification removing or reinterpreting the passage.

Closely related

Sources

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