Some parchments inscribed with hieroglyphics were then offered us. They were preserved under glass and handled with great respect. "That is the handwriting of Abraham, the Father of the Faithful," said the prophet. "This is the autograph of Moses, and these lines were written by his brother Aaron. Here we have the earliest account of the creation, from which Moses composed the first book of Genesis."Recently I was asked what I think about Quincy's report that the prophet identified Moses and Aaron's autographs on the document. Was Quincy exaggerating? Or did the prophet really make this claim?
It is often taken for granted that this aspect of Quincy's report is inaccurate, and not without reason. One reason to doubt it is that one account has Mother Lucy saying it was Joseph of Egypt who buried the papyri on the queen's breast. That of course would exclude the possibility of Moses having ever seen them. A second, perhaps more important cause for skepticism is simply that no other source confirms Quincy's report. One would think that if the prophet were making such an extraordinary claim, other witnesses would have mentioned it.
So, it may be that Quincy was misremembering or misreporting what he had heard. (Perhaps, for example, Smith pointed to the signature of Abraham as he had in the presence of another visitor, and Quincy mixed up the names.) Such misremembering and misreporting on the part of eyewitnesses is unfortunately frustratingly commonplace in the historical record, and I have found it to be a particular problem in assessing the evidence concerning the Book of Abraham (where we often are trying to achieve a degree of precision that was not in the witnesses' purview). But my general rule of thumb is along the lines of the old "two or three witnesses" rule. If two or more people independently report the same thing, or if the plausibility of a report can be established based on information gleaned from other sources, then we're relatively safe in accepting it. That does not at first glance seem to be the case here.
On the other hand, Quincy goes on to report that the papyri contained an account of creation that Moses used in his composition of Genesis-- a perfectly plausible claim given the similarity of the Abraham creation account to the Book of Moses/Genesis. And another witness reported that Mother Lucy identified one of the mummies as Moses' adoptive mother, the woman who rescued him from the Nile. These reports suggest that Moses might have had access to the papyri after all. Certainly James R. Clark seems to have believed Quincy's report in this regard when he wrote his book The Story of the Pearl of Great Price. Clark compared the handing down of Abraham's record through the family line to the similar handing down of the Books of Mormon and the Generations of Adam-- a plausible-sounding connection, to my mind. In this context, Quincy's claim doesn't sound so outrageous, after all.
So while I don't think we can definitely say whether Quincy accurately reported the words of the prophet here or not, we also probably shouldn't too rashly rule it out.
6 comments:
Great stuff. I had no idea that the papyri had been on display, though was this perhaps not a public display? Seems like a strange thing for Quincy to mis-remember. Such claims about the relics seem like they'd stick in your mind. At any rate, you make good points about why it's fair to be skeptical of the apologists.
Hi Matt,
It's not as though there was a glass case in the lobby of the Mansion House with the mummies in it or anything, so it wasn't a public exhibition in that sense. But certainly quite a few visitors were shown the artifacts, sometimes by JS himself and sometimes by his associates and/or his mother. There was a while in Nauvoo when Lucy had them in her home and earned a living by charging visitors twenty-five cents to see them.
The claim that Moses and Aaron signed the papyrus does seem like the kind of outrageous thing you'd remember, it's true. Although since Quincy's interest in the claim was more in how outrageous it was than in the details of which patriarchs were involved, I can imagine him mixing up Moses and Aaron with Abraham, or some other similar mistake. And sometimes, like "the one that got away", these stories have a tendency to be exaggerated or to grow in memory over time.
-Chris
Well taken. Thanks for the reply with add'l info. Two things strike me as fascinating: 1. The side-show nature of the whole enterprise from beginning to end. 2. The possibility that the Smiths saw a patriarchal/dispensational connection between Abraham and Moses/Aaron. I can totally see this as such continuity by means of holy objects is thematic.
Yes, those things are striking to me, also. I've written several pages on the dispensational connection issue that I may eventually incorporate into some kind of book or essay on the BoA.
As for the sideshow nature of the whole things, interesting you should mention that. Abigail Harris reported in 1833 that when the Gold Bible affair was just getting started, Lucy Mack Smith told her the plates were eventually to be exhibited for an admittance fee of 25 cents. Dale Morgan has observed that the similarity between this reported scheme and the exhibition of the papyri "leaves no room for doubt as to the substantial accuracy of [Abigail Harris's] remarks."
Chris,
Could it be the case that by "autograph" Quincy was actually saying that Smith claimed that the manuscripts were actually written by the hand of Moses and Aaron. In which case, he may have simply forgotten or mixed up Moses and Aaron with Joseph and Abraham, which, given the similarity of these pairs, is altogether likely. The claim that the papyri were written "by the hand of Abraham" remained.
Hi Trevor,
I rather doubt that JS was familiar enough with that usage of the term "autograph" to use it in casual conversation, but (as I mentioned in the OP) I do think it's possible that Quincy confused Moses with Abraham. JS told another visitor to Nauvoo that a particular character was the signature of Abraham, so it would not be at all surprising if he said the same to Quincy. Your comment about the similarity of the Joseph/Abraham pair and the Moses/Aaron pair is well taken.
Peace,
-Chris
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