Claimed ancient 'hits': Olishem, Elkenah, astronomy, Kolob

The essay's evidences of antiquity are loose name matches and motifs that were available to Joseph in Josephus, the Bible and popular books.

What the Church claims

The Book of Abraham contains details (Olishem, Elkenah, human sacrifice for apostasy, Abraham teaching astronomy in Egypt, Kolob and the hierarchical cosmos) that Joseph could not have known and that match the ancient world.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Contested. Several of the named details have plausible nineteenth-century routes into Joseph's hands, and the matches that remain are loose enough to fit more than one ancient place. A few items, Olishem and Ulisum among them, are genuinely open. The claim rests on probabilities nobody can settle either way, which is what contested means here.

The record

  • The essay lists: 'Ulisum' in an inscription from north-western Syria paralleling 'the plain of Olishem' (Abr. 1:10); Elkenah as a god of ancient Mesopotamians; execution of religious dissenters; ancient texts saying Abraham taught astronomy to Egyptian priests (Eupolemus); the Apocalypse of Abraham; and a poetic structure in Abr. 3:22-23.
  • Olishem/Ulisum was proposed by John Lundquist in 1985 from a Naram-Sin (c.2254-2218 BC) inscription; the site is now argued to be Oylum Hoyuk near Kilis, southern Turkey (announced 2013). Pearl of Great Price Central concedes no inscription at the site confirms the name and that Gee calls the identification 'promising but not proven'.
  • Critics note the Naram-Sin text puts Ulisum in the far north near Haran, hundreds of miles from the traditional Ur, and that Abr. 1 puts Olishem beside Ur; the fit requires relocating Ur to the north as well. The two names share only an approximate consonant skeleton.
  • Elkenah is defended as a form of the Canaanite/Hittite creator epithet El qoneh arets / Elkunirsha; the apologetic treatment does not address the fact that the object labeled 'the idolatrous god of Elkenah' in Fac. 1 is a canopic jar of one of the Sons of Horus, nor the names Libnah, Mahmackrah and Korash.
  • Josephus, widely available in English in Joseph's America, says Abraham reasoned about God from irregular celestial motions (Ant. 1.7.1), cites Berosus on a Chaldean 'skilful in the celestial science' (1.7.2), and says that in Egypt Abraham 'delivered to them the science of Astronomy' (1.8.2).
  • Sefer haYashar (the 'Book of Jasher'), containing Abraham's persecution by Nimrod and Terah's idols, was first printed in English in New York in 1840. That is after the 1835 dictation of Abr. 1-2, so Jasher cannot be a source for that text; it was in print before the 1842 publication and revision, and Joseph cited Jasher in the Times and Seasons in 1842. The 1751 'Book of Jasher' (reprinted 1829) is a different, forged work.
  • Fawn Brodie proposed Thomas Dick's Philosophy of a Future State (a throne of God at the center of the universe, orders of intelligences) as a source for Abraham 3; FAIR replies that Dick's theology differs (creation ex nihilo, immaterial God), that Cowdery excerpted Dick in the Messenger and Advocate in December 1836, and that Joseph owned a copy by 1844.
  • Pearl of Great Price Central's proposed etymologies for Kolob (QLB/QRB 'heart, near') are conceded to be attested only as late as Arabic, or (KLB, 'dog'/Sirius) to go back to a 1913 LDS writer.
  • Metcalfe documents that Ham's wife is 'Zeptah' and the daughter 'Egyptes' in all 1835 manuscripts; 'Egyptus' (a Greek-derived form) was substituted in 1842.
  • Ritner's edition includes an essay by Sumerologist Christopher Woods on the practice of Egyptian religion at 'Ur of the Chaldees' (i.e. the Book of Abraham's Egyptian cult in Chaldea has no support).

The moving target

  • 2014-07-08: Lists the parallels above as evidence that the book 'is consistent with various details found in nonbiblical stories about Abraham'.

The exchange

Lundquist 1985; John Gee; Pearl of Great Price Central; Gospel Topics essay

Olishem = Ulisum, a real Bronze-Age toponym in exactly the northern region where a 'northern Ur' (Urfa/Sanliurfa area) has been argued.

The answer: Even Gee rates it unproven. The match is phonetically loose, the location conflicts with the biblical itinerary unless Ur is also moved, and with thousands of attested ancient toponyms a three-consonant near-match is expected by chance. A hit that requires a second unproven hypothesis is not independent evidence.

What they get right: If the northern-Ur hypothesis were established on other grounds, Ulisum would be a genuinely interesting datum.

Hugh Nibley (Abraham in Egypt); Gospel Topics essay

Abraham teaching astronomy in Egypt and being saved from sacrifice are attested in Eupolemus, Josephus, the Apocalypse of Abraham and rabbinic tradition, which Joseph did not know.

The answer: Josephus, the single most common non-biblical history in early American homes, says outright that Abraham taught the Egyptians astronomy and reasoned from the stars; The rescue-from-sacrifice motif belonged to a Jewish legendary tradition that reached English readers through Bible commentaries on Ur ('fire') and, in 1840, through the Book of Jasher. Jasher's first English edition post-dates the 1835 dictation and so cannot be its source, but Joseph had it by the 1842 revision and cited it that year. The Apocalypse and Testament of Abraham are first- and second-century AD Jewish works, not Abraham's era, so they attest a late tradition whose descendants were available to Joseph.

What they get right: The essay is right that these motifs are old; the question is whether they were unavailable, and they were not.

Pearl of Great Price Central; Gee

Kolob and the astronomy of Abraham 3 are ancient, with Semitic etymologies and an Egyptian-style geocentric hierarchy of stars.

The answer: The proposed etymologies are conceded to be late or speculative. The names in Abr. 3 and Fac. 1-2 (Kokaubeam, Raukeeyang, Shaumahyeem, gnolaum) are transliterated Hebrew of the kind Joseph was learning in Kirtland in 1835-36, and the same star names appear in the Egyptian-language documents, which the JSP notes overlap thematically with the Book of Abraham. A cosmology of graded 'intelligences' and a throne at the center was current in Dick and similar popular astronomy.

What they get right: FAIR is correct that Dick's metaphysics differs from Joseph's, so 'plagiarism' overstates it; 'available ideas' is the fair claim.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

None of the proposed hits is a proper name or fact read off the papyri; all are thematic or phonetic resemblances to material outside the papyri. Where the text can be checked against the papyri (the facsimile names), it fails. The strongest thematic items were reachable without revelation: Josephus says outright that Abraham taught the Egyptians astronomy and reasoned from the stars, and the rescue-from-sacrifice story circulated in commentary and legend before the Book of Jasher put it into English in 1840 - too late for the 1835 dictation, in time for the 1842 revision. The cosmological frame was in circulation in Joseph's milieu. Olishem depends on an unproven relocation of Ur. Elkenah is explained by an epithet while the object it labels is a canopic jar. The text's internal history (Zeptah to Egyptus) shows 19th-century composition in progress. The essay itself frames these only as consistency with 'nonbiblical stories', not as proof.

The apologetic case

The Book of Abraham lands several details that a New York farmer had no obvious way to know: a Bronze-Age toponym in the right region for a northern Ur, a Canaanite creator-god name, the ancient tradition that Abraham taught Egyptians astronomy, ritual execution of dissenters, and Egyptian-flavored cosmology. Cumulatively, apologists argue, this is what an ancient text transmitted through Ptolemaic Egypt would look like.

What would change this

An inscription at Oylum Hoyuk naming Ulisum together with independent evidence for Abraham's Ur in that region; or a pre-1835 Abraham text with Kolob-type astronomy unavailable to Joseph.

Closely related

Sources

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