The Facsimiles Of The Book Of Abraham: Not J-Red, E-Red.

[Olavarria]

I really like Kevin Barney's J-Red theory BUT I have have my own spin on it. Rather than a Jewish redactor using Egyptian iconography to tell a Jewish story, I see a different possibility, one that Kerry Muhlstien spells out nicely:

Kevin L. Barney examines a crucial and oft-ignored possibility concerning the facsimiles of the Book of Abraham. He argues that the facsimiles may well have a Semitic interpretation quite separate from what the ancient Egyptians may have seen in these vignettes, and he provides parallels. Coupled with Nadig's article, Barney's piece gives us a clearer understanding of the sociohistorical context from which the papyri stem. (What remains to be done, and Nadig is very capable of doing this, is a description of the intellectual and cross-cultural sharing of the time period.)

Barney sets out the possibility that the Book of Abraham had at least one Jewish redactor, whom he dubs J-red. He outlines five key false assumptions used by critics of the church that his Jewish redaction theory would dismiss (p. 111). He finds several convincing parallel cases in which Semites clearly used Egyptian elements but gave them a uniquely Israelite/Jewish interpretation. One of his more convincing bits of evidence is based on similarities between the Testament of Abraham and the Egyptian psychostasy. While scholars have long assumed that there were parallels between the scene described in the Testament of Abraham and the typical Egyptian judgment scene, until recently no one has done a thorough investigation into these similarities to put the assumption on a sure scholarly foundation. However, Jared Ludlow presented his investigation at an academic Egyptological conference held at BYU—Hawaii in February 2006,¹⁰ concluding that the assumption is indeed correct and that the parallels are real. This study makes Barney's example all the more forceful.

It should be noted that Barney argues that J-red adapts/adopts vignettes from the Book of Breathings for a Jewish use, but Facsimile 1 is not typical of the Book of Breathings (at least no parallels have been found). This does not diminish his argument; the hypothetical J-red could have provided a Jewish adaptation to this scene whatever its original context. Undoubtedly each culture will assign its own understanding to any visual representation. Barney demonstrates that there are Semitic contexts and interpretations for Egyptian motifs that are valid in addition to their Egyptian context. This could be the case with the Book of Abraham facsimiles. Barney's Semitic adaptation theory has many strengths, but we cannot know for sure if it represents what actually happened.

The various times Abraham and his descendants moved in and out of the Egyptian realm provided many opportunities for reinterpretations and adaptations of each other's cultural elements. Abraham's text, and its ensuing copies, could have moved to and from Egypt a number of times and could have been handled by numerous types of people. Besides the possibility of a Jewish reinterpretation of an Egyptian motif, we should be cognizant of the possibility of an Egyptian redrawing of Jewish documents and representations. Could there have been a J-red and an E-red? Could E-red have seen a Jewish drawing and recopied it on papyrus using artistic elements and scenes with which he was most comfortable? (Most artists draw using their own cultural artistic conventions, regardless of the original representations; hence we have Latter-day Saint depictions of Abraham's sacrifice that are very different from Facsimile 1, and Renaissance portraits of biblical figures in European styles.) While the J-red hypothesis is valuable and attractive, we must acknowledge that the possible twists in the story of how Abraham's book arrived in its present form are dizzying. Still, careful analyses such as that done by Barney will open up new avenues for further research, and we will slowly inch toward a more accurate picture.

My own twist on this is that an Egyptian redactor may have added the vignettes to a Jewish text and not the other way around.

Edited November 3, 2011 by Pedro A. Olavarria