Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator

Joseph Smith, Jr., as a Translator

A Further Discussion of Bishop F. S. Spalding's Pamphlet

l'.V ISA ( IU'S.sKI.1.

IF THE average reader of this piece shoull bo instructed tc set out on B search for the oldest portrait in thj world of a Jew I wonder if he would be temptsd, supposing he had gaioed his impressions from Bishop Spalding's pamphlet on the "Book of Abraham,"' to make his search through the tombs ol the Egyp- tian pharaobs?

And if tuo same reader, again, should be instructed to set out on a search for the earliest reference in any literature of the world to the Holy City of tho Jews — Jerusalem — would he, having read Bishop Spalding's pamphlet, turn hopefully to the litera- ture of Egypt as a reasonable place to expect lo make such a find?

I have before me a3 I wr;te the bit of poetic (kscription in which the ear- liest reference in the world to Jeru- salem is made. It is in Egyptian hier- oglyphics; and what is still more isg- nificant. the Egyptian who wrote the piece wrote of his joy on getting to Jerusalem because he round there peo- ple- who could speak his own Egyptian language and people who had known him in his own home on the banks of the Nile!

There is also on my desk as 1 write the earliest known portrait of a Jew. It is of a Semite who lived a thousand years before Abraham and yet he wore a coat of many colors and carried a water-skin on his back and a shepherd's musical instrument in his hand. And the portrait was made of him upon his arrival in Egypt over the same pathway Abraham took.

Before beginning to discuss these two documents that iiave come down to us from the very cradle-days of history, I want first to call attention again, as I have done in previous ar- ticles, to ihe assertion of Dr. James H. Breasted of the University of Chi- cago to -he effect that the Egyptians "knew nothing of Abraham's God or Abraham's religion." And I wish also to recall the still more remarkable as- sertion of Dr. John Peters, who signed himself while serving on Bishop Spal- ding's jury a.", from the "University of Pennsylvania." whereas as a matter of fact he had been for many years an

Episcopal clergymen in New York. The assertion of Dr. Poters was that Jo- seph Smith's translations from Egyp- tian papyri roll display< (d cm "amus- ing ignorance" because "Chaldeans and Egyptians are hopelessly mixed up al- though as cifcsimilar and remote in language, rehgion and locality as are today American and Chinese."

The reason for bringing in Dr. Pe- ters just hore is that in a v-olume by Flinders Petrie, another of Bishop Spal- ding's jurymen, I have just been read- ing the narrative of a king of Chaldea who was also at the same time the pharaoh of Egypt, and this long be- fore Abraham's time. Not only did Petrie tell of this Chaldean who was Egypt's pharaoh, but he told of at least threo other Chaldeans who had s-i served in Egypt!

I have already referred to Dr. Sayce and the view he gives of the period, preceding the visit to Egypt by Abra- ham, in which Chaldea was a province cf Palestine, this period being followed by another era in which Palestine was a province of Egypt, so that Chal- deans came freely into Egypt and the Chaldean culture and many Chaldean words came with them.

Petrie, by dealing extensively with both of these periods gives us a pic- ture of the sources of Egyptian cul- ture which leaves not the remotest credence to any assertion that the Chaldeans were a remote people from the Egyptians or that Abraham's re- ligion was strange and remote from contact with the Egyptians.

You can measure the geography of the situation with a single glance at any school map. A pencil held to the scale will show that it was only 300 miles from Thebes, the capital of the Egyptians, to Jerusalem, the capital of Palestine, and only 500 miles from Jerusalem to Babylon and Ur, the chief cities of the Chaldeans.

You have then, in considering the fusing of Abraham's people and the Chaldeans and Egyptians — which with- out the slightest doubt went on con- tinuously for a period of over 1,000 years — to deal with an area only 800 miles in width— less than the distance lrom Salt Lake to Omaha with traffic

♦From the Deseret News July 19, 1913.

JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR

1093

conditions very similar to those ex- isting in the pioneering and pre-rail- road days of the west.

Flinders Petrie tells the story with a great wealth of detail. To deal with it merely in headlines, we find that in the third millennium B. C. the people of Chaldea began to stir themselves. In successive waves of migration they swept through the fertile Euphrates valley from their chief city of Ur. After overflowing the Euphrates district they moved in successive migrations down the pastoral plains at the back of Syria. They reached and populated simultaneously the island of Cyprus, the Mediterranean shores, and the land of Egypt, — and this long before Abra- ham. For a time the kings of Baby- lon in this period ruled also in Egypt, and the Children of Israel's invasion of Egypt was merely the final and tri- umphant expression of this migratory movement. The end of the migrations came, as Flinders Petrie points out in the rise of the pharaoh "who knew not Joseph." Petrie does not depend upon any biblical learning to make this fact clear. He bases the conclusion entirely upon the evidences of the Egyptian monuments and Egyptian literature, independent of the Bible. And indeed any writer upon Egypt will tell you how the native princes of Egypt, who for long centuries were in subjection to the Hyksos, or shepherd invaders from Asia, finally rose in their wrath s^ cast them out. And how, after cast- ing them out, the Egyptians pursued them all the way to Palestine and Babylon, and ruled the world through to the Euphrates, thus exactly revers- ing the situation of the earlier cen- turies in which the people of the Eu- phrates had ruled clear through to Egypt. The Children of Israel swinging into Egypt at the crest of the wave merely remained till the ebb set in and so were persecuted.

Now this period of empire was the greatest period Egypt ever enjoyed. The world as then known to the Egyptians was looted to enrich the temples at Thebes, which in that period were built or greatly expanded and enlarged. Art- ists from all the territory of the em- pire were called to Thebes to beautify the cities and the palaces of the phar- aohs. And towards the end the Chil- dren of Israel were forced to build more cities for the native Egyptian kings.

From these usual accounts of Egypt- ian history you find that this reverse- movement in migrations out of Egypt started in the year 15S0 B.C.— the year in which Prince Ahmes I of Thebes drove the Shepherd Kings out of Egypt and pursued them into Palestine. From Petrie I take this table of the

chronology of the visit of the Children of Israel to Egypt: Abraham came into Canaan from the Chaldean city of

Ur, the place of his birth 2110 B. C.

The Israelites entered Egypt.. 1650 B. C.

The exodus 1220 B. C.

The oppression commenced. ..1580 B. C. I have already pointed out that the end of the Hyksos rule and the begin- ning of a native Egyptian rule was in 1580 B. C. That date also, as you can readily see from the aboA'e table, was a date at which the biblical narrative and the evidences of the Egyptian monu- ments fuse and make mutually corrob- orative history. It was the date when one Egyptian dynasty closed and a pharaoh came to the throne who "knew not Joseph," or any of his Asiatic kind'. The great Empire of the Egyptians lasted from 1580 B. C. to 945 B.C.— a date just 30 years beyond the time when the Children of Israel, after wan- dering under Moses and Joshua and adopting the monotheistic worship which Moses taught to them, undertook the erection of the Temple of Solomon. In these mere glimpses at the litera- ture of ancient Egypt in its relationship to the "Book of Abraham" controversy there is not space to develop the de- tails, but here are some of the chap- ter headings in which Flinders Petrie discusses the mutual relations of two people who according to good Dr. Pe- ters were as remote as Americans and Chinese and who according to Breasted knew nothing of each other's religion. The volume by Petrie was published onlv two years ago, and it therefore has the" advantage of great authority due to its very recent date as well as to the fact that it is from the pen of one of the greatest of the archaeologists at work in Egypt. The volume is entitled "Egypt and Israel."

I wish I could give more than the chapter headings but they will suggest to anvone interested some of the data to be had through following up this

theme: m _

The Babylonian Kings of Egypt The Egyptians and Semites Mixed. Israel not All in Egypt. Abram, the Shepherd Prince. Familv Links of Egypt and Judih. The Babylonianizing party in Egypt. The New Jerusalem in Egypt. Israel Triumphant in Egpt. The Name of Israel on the Great Slab (An Egyptian monument.) Now, while we who had not here- tofore pried much into Egyptian his- torv had been considering Abraham to be a sort of father of our history the Egvptinn perspective shows us that he came to Egypt at the close of the fifth age of Egyptian history and that after him there were only

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three ages to follow — the empire, ushered In while his people were still there and bringing with it the oppres- sion; the Greek conquest and reigns; and the Arabian conquest which brought a final end to all of Egypt's glory.

Before Abraham then had been that period In which the pyramids arose, became ancient, an I were for- gotten, as to their meaning and re- ligions' significance. Also the Egypt- ians had passed through the period of worshiping a god in each district, and had worked towards a mono- theistic idea with the attributes of all their gods concentrated In a single ch'cf god.

We must realize then, In consider- ing this situation that Abraham him- self was not monotheistic in his ear- liest career and that the Semite tribes to which he belonged were not entire- ly monotheistic up to his time. In him then we have the father of the idea of monotheistic worship In all the world — If we are to trust an au- thority who Petrie constantly urges upon lis as worthy of great belief. t refer to .Tosephus, the historian of the Jews. Breasted and Peters T sus- pect would not want to go on record as repudiating Josephus any more than tbev would care to sanction Joseph Smith. "Let us see then what Josephus tells us about Abraham In Bfirypt. His story of the life of Ab- raham was one T hardly expected to encounter after reading the views of the Spalding jurymen. Here is the Jos°phns storv that 'Petrie fipdc so well verified by the Egyptian monu- ments that he goes out of his way especially to commend It:

T quote from the seventh chapter of Josephus:

"Abraham wis a person of great sagacity both for understanding all things and persuading his bearers and pot mistaken in his opinions: FOR WHTOH RFASON HE BEGAN TO WAVE HTHOER NOTIONS OF1 VTR- TTT-R! THAN OTHERS WAD ND HE DETERMINED TO CHANGE AND TO RENEW THF OPTNtON ALL MEN- TT \ PPTlNRn THEN TO HAVE roNTKRyTvr, GOD: EOT? hf WAS TWE FTRST THAT VENTURED TO T>TTPT,T9!H TWT<5 NOTION TWAT TWERE WAR BUT ONE OOD. THE GREATOT? OE THE TTNTVERSE; AND TWAT Ac? to TWp OTHER n-ODc! TE THEY OONTRTRTTTED AMYTWTVn TO TWv -prVRPTNE^S n^ m-htJ THAT EACH nv THEM •WFORnEn TT nVTV ACCORDING m^ tttcs a PPOTVTMKNT AND NOT pv TTTFTr. OWN POWER

"Vrtf wh1»h doctrines. when the Chaldeans and ether neonle of Meso- netam'a raised n tumult asrainst him, ve thought fit to leave the country;

and at the command and by the as- sistance of <;oi he came and lived In the land of Canaan. And when he was there settled he bulll an altar and performed a sacrifice to God.

"Beroeua mentions our father '• without knowing him when lie iayl thus: 'in the tenth generation after th" flood there was among the Chal- deans a man righteous anil great; an'l sK-iifui in • ace.'

"Now after this, when a famine had

Invaded the land of Canaan, and Ahram had discovered that the Egyp- tians were in a flourishing condition he was disposed to Co down to them both to partake of the plenty thev en- Joyed. AND TO BECOME AN AUDI- TOR OF THEIR PRTESTS. AND TO KNOW WHAT THEY SAID CON- CERNING THE GODS: DESIGNING EITHER TO FOLLOW THEM TE THEY HAD A BETTER NOTTON TH \N HE. OR TO CONVERT THEM TO A BETTER WAY IF HIS OWN NOTIONS PROVED THE TRUEST.

"FOR WHEREAS THE EGYP- TIANS WERE FORMERLY ADDICT- ED TO DIFFERENT CUSTOMS AND DESPISED ONE ANOTHER'S SA- CRED AND ACCUSTOMED RTTES AND WERE VERY ANGRY ONE! WITH ANOTHER ON THAT AC- COUNT, ABRAM CONFERRED WTTH EACH OF THEM, AND CON- FUTING THE REASONINGS THEY MADE USE OF, EVERY ONE FOR THEIR OWN PRACTISES HE DEM- ONSTRATED THAT SUCH REASON* INGS WERE VAIN AND VOID OF TRUTH. WHEREUPON HE WAS ADMIRED BY THEM IN THOSE CONFERENCES AS A VERY WISE MAN, AND ONE OF GREAT SA- GACITY, when he discoursed on any •subject he understood: and this not only in understanding it but in per- suading other men also to assent to him. HE COMMUNICATED TO THEM ARITHMETIC AND DELIVERED TO THEM THE SCIENCE OF ASTRON- OMY, for before Abram came int>> Egypt thry were unacquainted with these parts of learning, FOR THAT SCIENCE CAME FROTV: THE CHAL- DEANS INTO EGYPT and from thence to the Greeks also."

One of the fascinating things of pry- ing a bit into Egyptian lore is the con- stant surprises one meets in finding how alive today are many of the things brought into the world in the ancient millenniums of Egyptian rule. I passed, for instance, on Broadway a day or two ago a young woman wearing a hat that is a forerunner of the new- est vogue. Yet it was a hat fashioner! exactly aft;r a crown that graced the head of many Egyptian famous queens. It was the vulture-crown that the

JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR

1095

women of Egypt wore in Joseph's day — that is the women of royalty. Last winter the tableau drama "Joseph and His Brethren" was produced in New York. The chief actress wore this vul- ture-crown as part of a stage setting that faithfully reproduced a temple of the Thehan pharaohs when Joseph ar- rived as the Hebrew slave. And now of course that "new style hat" has had to become the vogue after the usual manner of the rtartlingly new things that famous actresses wear in these play-going days! And so in this one little minor matter we flash back our styles over many millenniums!

Nor is that all one may observe of things around about us that we owe to Egypt. Who would have suspected that such a completely Jewish name as Moses is not Jewish at all but pure- ly Egyptian. We write a typical Egyp- tian name, Amen-hotep, and recognize a pharaoh's title. Write it Mo- uses and you get the Egyptian original which means "saved out of the water." At least that is what Petrie says it means! And this concerning the proclaimer of the ten command- ments and religion we know today as sacred throughout Christendom and which Breasted and Peters would have us conclude was utterly aloof from Egyptian contact!

If you had taken your Egyptian con- ceptions from the Spalding pamphlet would you expect, in looking through reproductions of famous temples built by the Egyptians, to find a temple con- taining baptismal fonts — that is fonts for ablutions after the exact manner of the Jewish and the older Semitic ritual? And would you expect to en- counter pictures of the ruins of a for- tification built only 20 miles away from the chief center of Egyptian rule in entirely the Chaldean style — a style of earth entrenchments for defense from archery that the Egyptians never learned?

Yet to quote from Petrie: "There has fortunately been found 20 miles north of Cairo a fortress that is com- pletely unegyptian in character, al- though it is completely similar to the fortresses built during the Jewish age in Syria."

Petrie goes on to explain that the Syro-Mesopotamian troops from the Euphrates valley first reached Egypt as mercenaries and gradually grew in strength through subsequent migra- tions till they gained authority and gave us the Hyksos dynasties of Phar- aohs. "Fortunately," he says, "we have preserved the name of one of the Syro-Mesopotamian intruders who rose to the Egyptian throne. His name ap- pears as Khendy on a cylinder of green jasper. On his head is the double

crown of Egypt. An Egyptian waist cloth is wrapped about him. He is shown presenting the 'sign of life' (an Egyptian symbol carried by almost all rulers and gods and goddesses) to a Babylonian who stands before him. Beyond the Mesopotamian is an Egyp- tian who holds a papyrus plant. The king's name is enclosed in a cartouche and scattered hieroglyphics are around it." A cartouche, it should be ex- plained is the device by which all Egyptian pharaohs inclosed their titles in writing them down.

Petrie adds that on a well known tablet now in Paris the name of this king is given as well as the name "Ra- ne-mant-ne-kha" and "the usual Egyp- tian titles."

"All this" he says "points to THE BABYLONIAN HAVING COME INTO EGYPT WHEN THE COUNTRY WAS STILE WELL ORDERED AND IT POINTS TO HIS HAVING SERvr^ AS A REGULAR EGYPTIAN KING. Some scarabs of the king have been found." It should be understood of course that scarabs were as typical of Egypt as the green Tarper vase was typical of Babylon!

I mentioned having found the earli- est portrait of a Semite in the world. It was from a carving on the tombs at Leni-Hasan, an Egyptian monarch or ruler of a province. Of this portrait — it is in a series of portraits depicting the arrival of a familv from Syria seek- ing admission to Egypt, Petrie says:

"Although the date is 1,000 j^ears be- fore Abraham this immigrant into Egypt was one of the same race and probably led much the same life. The portrait therefore is invaluable as an historic type of the great Semitic in- vasion of Egypt.

"Haear was an Egyptian slavp and Ishmael. the son of Abram, was there- fore half Egyptian. His mother chose an Egyptian wife for him and therefore the race that Ishmael founded was thr->p-quarters Egyptian!

•'The ceremony of circumcision was practiced in Egypt for 2,000 years be- fore Abram performed the rite upon Ishmael, the Egyptian Hagar's son!" And later upon Isaac, thus founding out of his Egyptian contact a perma- nent and distinctive Hebrew custom!

And concerning the temple for Jew- ish worship built by Egyptians Petrie savs this: "The nature of the changes introduced into the religion of the Israelites by the Mosaic system has been somewhat explained in the re- mains of a temple for Semitic worship at Serabit al Khadem. Although con- structed by Egyptians who went there to mine for turquoise the character of the ritual was in each respect not Egyptian but adapted to the Semitic

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nature. There were three tanks for ablutions (which may still be seen In pictures of the ruins) and conical stones which ;irr even yet a feature of Syrian worship."

We have become familiar in the Booh of Abraham controversy with the ques- tion of the significance to be attached to lotOfl flowers such as are shown at various places in the pictures from the Book of Abraham. That matter can well !>e cleared up as to general Egyp- tian usage. Petrle tells us that lotos flower? wore the emblem of royalty, and that that is all they signify. Queens carried them in the festivals and a sprig of them in the hand signi- fied that the person carrying them was a royal person.

The significance of the outstretched wings of a bird also was brought up. Observe here how Petrie tells us that the Egyptian custom as to that matter

had vital Influence upon the Hebrew custom. Thousands of Egyptian fig- ures exist, It should be remembered in which the goddess Isis stands with wings outstretched behind the god Osiris and sometimes the wing tips meet the wing tips of her sister god- dess. Maat, standing on the other side of the god. Symbolically however the wings and the goddesses too signified nothing but the protecting power of mercy and truth, for which the goddess figures stood as ideograms. AND THE HE- BREWS CARRIED THE CTJSTl >.M DOWN IN THEIR OWN REL.TGION EVEN TO THIS TTME AND TT SPREAD THROUGHOUT THE

WORLD; FOR HOW OFTEN IN CHURCHES DO YOU SEE CHERUBS WITH OUTSTRETCHED WINGS ABOUT AN ALTAR OR ABOVE THE MERCY SEAT?

EGYPTIAN ART AFTER ABRAHAM. Portrait of Amen-hotep IV. of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

This pharaoh reigned at the zenith of Israelitish influence in Egypt. It was Egypt's Golden Age, and the Children of Israel were still at this period Egyptian subjects. The son of an Asiatic mother and the husband of an Asiatic wife, this pharaoh definitely abandoned the polytheistic creeds ana founded his own cult of monotheism. His portrait, given above, was not ex- (.elled in Egyptian art accomplishment, except by a portrait made by Asiatic artists of his own mother. Following his reign and that of his immediate suc- cessors, who drove out the Children of Israel, Egypt fell into ruin under Ethiopian invaders from which it was not rescued until the Persian and Green conquests after a lapse of 400 years.

JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR

1097

Here is the Petrie version of the custom's origin: "In the holiest of all things, the Ark of Yahveh of the Hebrews, there were cherubs, one on each end of the mercy seat with wings covering the mercy seat. This agrees with the description of the Egyptian ark of the gods with figures of the goddess Maat with wings cov- ering the ark." And the idea is fre- quently met with in scripture as in- dicated in the phrases, "mercy and truth are met together," "for thy mer- cy and for thy truth's sake."

Petrie at great length develops the probability that the ark of the He- brews contained in the Holy of Holies the same set of scales that are shown in the Egyptian judgment scenes to express symbolically the same idea the Egyptians sought to express by that - device of the justice of God's judgments.

So much for influences that worked out of Egypt into the life and relig- ious customs of the Jews.

Concerning the other side of the story — the impression the Semites made upon the Egyptian people whom they ruled for centuries — I have tried to give a few slight glimpses of what, the record shows. With this piece I enclose two pictures "from originals in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one from the period in which native Egyptian power reached its climax, and the other from the period of which Semitic influence reached its climax. The most beautiful art ob- ject I have seen from Egypt was a vase delicately done after a manner strange to Egyptian art of any prev- ious age. The art object was a vase surmounted by a queen's portrait and this queen was Queen Thiy; It was during her husband's reign that the zenith of t^e Empire was reached.

Queen Thiy's influential position must have been one of wide celebrity for in the famous Babylonian tablets found in the ruins of the city of Khu-en-Aten (her son) there is a communication from Dushratta, king of Nitanni to Queen Thiy herself "ask- ing her to interest herself in a mat- ter the king says she must know all about."

Everywhere one turns in this later literature about Egvpt one finds abun- dance upon abundance of narrative dealing with contact between Abra- ham's people and the Egyptians and the Chaldeans both before and Ion1? after Abraham's visit to Egypt. It would be tiresome to repeat it all, but merely to show how completely it is the nervading view of modern writers, let us glance at one paragraph from the work of Miss Buttles, who by the way is a relative of Theodore Davis, the greatest of the archaeologists

whom America has contributed to the Egyptian field. In company with Mr. Davis she spent years in Egyptian re- search and was honored through a preface to her volume from the pen of Maspero, dean of the corps of Egyptian excavators.

Miss Buttles noted that rich in- crease in humanity and art in Egypt and the tense revolutionary spirit that pervaded the country just after Ab- raham's time. I have already noted mentions of this condition by Mas- pero, Budge, Sayce and Petrie. Here is what Miss Buttles says about it:

"At an early date the sun god at Heliopolis became Amen at Thebes and Amen-Ra in later times, 'Kin? of the gods,' and after the Fourth dynasty Egyptian kings added to their titles the title of 'the son of Ra.'

"From this earlier background the Eighteenth dynasty blossomed out as the golden age of Egypt. Arts, crafts, literature were in the zenith of their glory and its monarchs were not only the most brilliant personalities of its history but they have 'so stamped themselves and their times on the countless records of the period that even after the lapse of more than 30 centuries they seem to live and to aD- pear as human beings.

"Suddenly released from the old order of rigid laws (Miss Buttles is here re- ferring to the religious revolution that gave us a monotheistic nharaoh) the arts and crafts make a leap forward and find an expression wholly new to Egypt. The literature and poetry ol the age, the extraordinary approach to modern thought in its philosophy, the monotheistic character of its re- ligious principles, the admirable fideli- ty to nature of all its expresisons make the reign of Kuh-en-Aten, the heretic (from Egyptian polytheism) one of the most remarkable of ancient history."

So that readers of this piece may judge exactly what the contrast in art development, for instance, was, I am furnishing with this two photographs of original art objects which are in the metropolitan museum of art. One is a portrait done at the zenith of the Egyptian period before the coming or Abraham, the other a portrait done at the zenith of the influence of the Chil- dren of Israel. The strong contrast in art power of the two pictures will sure- ly be readily observed.

The listing of items which prove the existence in Egypt at Abraham's time of a cosmopolitan culture in which pre- < vions Egyptian culture collapsed, grows ' tedious. But just to complete the se- ries here entered upon let us take a final glance at another department of life in which the situation made itselt evident. The beautiful Queen Thiy,

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whose picture In the Metropolitan Mu- seum Is said by great art critics to be almost unequaled as a specimen of idealized portraiture, was only one of the wives of the great Egyptian con- queror whose queen she was. Of the other wives this is the roster as given

The word for Palestine in Egypt was TENi:. Holding that in mind it may possibly be interesting to glance through this bit of verse concerning the adventure of one Sinhue who lied from Egypt after Sesostrls became pharaoh. Breasted says of the tale that

ART IN EGYPT BEFORE ABRAHAM.

A Typical Twelfth Dynasty Portrait.

It was a period wnen textiles and wood were the only mediums in use, and the great Semitic migrations into Egypt were just commencing. Com- pare the finish and delicacy of the Egyptian art object of the period of the Children of Israel's invasion of Egypt with this portrait. Both pictures are from originals at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The pic- ture given above represents the zenith of Egyptian art accomplishment under purely native influence.

by Miss Buttles: "a daughter of Satharna, a daughter of Dushratta, a sister and a daughter of Kallimasen, and a sister of Buraburiash, kings ol Babylonia."

And from Petrie and Sayce we learn that these Babylonian princesses who were the wives of Egyptian pharaoha often brought long trains of followers and servants with them to the court which as Peters told us "was as remote from" them as China from America!

it is "essentially true" and is the oldest reference in the world to Jerusalem:

When I reached the lake of Kemwer

I fell down for thirst; fast came my breath,

My throat was hot,

I said: "This is the taste of death.

I upheld my heart, I drew my limbs to- gether,

I heard a sound of the lowing of cattle,

I beheld the Bedwin.

JOSEPH SMITH, JR., AS A TRANSLATOR

1099

That chief among them who had been in Egypt, recognized me.

He gave me water, he cooked for me milk.

I went with him to his tribe,

Good was that which they did for me.

One land sent me on to another

I arrived at Kedem

I spent a year and a half there.

Emuienshi, that sheik of Upper Tenu brought me forth

Saying to me: 'Happy are thou with me,

For thou hearest the speech of Egypt."

He said this for he knew my charac- ter,

He had heard of my wisdom;

The Egyptians who were there with him bare witness of me. Dr. John A. Widtsoe has called our

attention to the haste with which the

scholars turned off their opinions about

the Book of Abraham and the need for

more scholarly research before reach- ing final conclusions. The conclusions! of the American branch of the Spalding jury are surely upset by the views given here of Egyptian history. An- other worth while phase of the matter would perhaps be now to turn to hypo- cephali and collect and compare all ol those interesting circular discs to be had in the museum. Some of those who wrote for Bishop Spalding intimated that there are thousands if not millions of them to be had, but more conserva- tive estimates place the world's total supply at 40. Maybe a fairly com- plete set of pictures of them could be obtained and all the known data about each be made accessible for those in- terested in the Book of Abraham mat- ter. I would welcome data on this subject but I doubt if any scholars have given any detailed consideration whatever to the hypocephali.