Book of Abraham

Lore & Background

The Book of Abraham originated from eleven mummies and several papyri discovered near Thebes by Antonio Lebolo between 1818 and 1822. After Lebolo's death in 1830, the artifacts were sent to New York and eventually came into the possession of Michael H. Chandler, who toured the eastern United States displaying them. In late June or early July 1835, Chandler exhibited his collection in Kirtland, Ohio, where Joseph Smith examined the papyri and claimed they contained writings of Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. Smith, along with Joseph Coe and Simeon Andrews, purchased four mummies and at least five papyrus documents for $2,400.

Smith began translating the papyri between July and November 1835, working with scribes W. W. Phelps and Oliver Cowdery. He produced a manuscript called the 'Grammar & Alphabet of the Egyptian Language,' which attempted to decipher Egyptian characters. The translation was dictated by Smith, with Phelps, Warren Parrish, and Frederick G. Williams acting as scribes. The complete work was first published serially in the Latter Day Saint movement newspaper Times and Seasons in 1842, and was later canonized in 1880 by the LDS Church as part of the Pearl of Great Price.

The papyri were thought lost in the 1871 Great Chicago Fire, but in 1966 several fragments were found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the LDS Church archives. Professional Egyptologists identified these fragments as Egyptian funerary texts, including the 'Breathing Permit of Hôr' and the 'Book of the Dead.' Some Latter-day Saint apologists defend the book's authenticity, but the academic consensus does not regard it as an ancient text.

Reader's Guide

The Book of Abraham holds significance within the Latter Day Saint movement as a source of distinct doctrines, including the idea that God organized eternal elements to create the universe, the potential exaltation of humanity, a pre-mortal existence, the first and second estates, and the plurality of gods. It expands upon the nature of the priesthood, suggesting that those foreordained to the priesthood earned this right by valor in the pre-mortal life, and explicitly denotes that Pharaoh was a descendant of Ham and thus could not have the right of priesthood. The text also shows dependence on the King James Version of the Book of Genesis, with nearly half of its content paralleling Genesis. The book was incomplete at Joseph Smith's death in 1844, and Oliver Cowdery indicated it could be quite large. The discovery of the papyri fragments in 1966 and their identification as common Egyptian funerary texts has led to ongoing debate about the book's origins and authenticity, with the academic consensus rejecting it as an ancient text.

Did You Know?

• The papyri from which Smith claimed to translate the book were originally discovered near the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes by Antonio Lebolo between 1818 and 1822.
• In 1966, several fragments of the papyri were found in the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and in the LDS Church archives.

A Global Archetype: Dragons Across Every Continent

Dragon figures appear across virtually every inhabited continent, making them one of the most geographically widespread creatures in human mythology. The tradition spans African, European, and Oceanian storytelling, while the Asian subcontinent alone yields distinct dragon traditions in West Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and East Asia. In the Americas, both North and South American cultures carry their own dragon narratives. This near-universal distribution suggests the dragon archetype is not the product of a single cultural diffusion event but rather a recurring imaginative response to the natural world that emerges independently in diverse societies. The sheer breadth of the phenomenon, from the waters surrounding Oceanian islands to the highlands of South America, underscores how deeply the dragon has embedded itself in the collective storytelling of humanity, taking on radically different forms, roles, and meanings depending on the cultural context in which it appears.

Dragons in Sacred and Religious Narratives

Beyond folklore, dragons occupy prominent positions in sacred and religious narratives. In Abrahamic tradition, the figure of Azazel is specifically described as a dragon within the Apocalypse of Abraham, linking the creature to one of the world's major religious lineages. In the Buddhist sphere, the goddess Benzaiten is credited with subduing an unnamed five-headed dragon at Enoshima in Japan in the year 552 of the common era, embedding the dragon in a specific historical and devotional context. These examples show that dragons are not merely folkloric monsters but carry theological and cosmological weight. They appear in apocalyptic literature, serve as adversaries to divine figures, and function as symbols of chaos that must be overcome by sacred powers. The fact that a dragon figure appears in both Abrahamic apocalyptic writing and East Asian Buddhist legend highlights how the creature transcends any single religious framework and instead serves as a universal symbol of formidable, often destructive, supernatural force standing in opposition to divine order.

Serpentine Beings and Legendary Reptiles

Several legendary creatures blur the line between dragon and serpent, occupying a liminal space in mythological classification. The sea serpent, described as a water dragon, appears in legends spanning the globe, making it perhaps the most geographically ubiquitous of all serpentine beings. The cockatrice presents a hybrid form, a two-legged, serpent-like creature bearing a rooster's head, combining avian and reptilian features in a single mythological entity. The basilisk, often called a serpent king, is distinguished by its lethal gaze, capable of causing death with a single look, a trait that sets it apart from most other dragon-type figures. Additionally, the unnamed dragon defeated by Saint George has become one of the most iconic dragon-slaying narratives in European tradition. These creatures share a common thread: they are serpentine or reptilian in nature, yet each carries a unique set of attributes, whether hybrid anatomy, deadly vision, or aquatic habitat, that distinguishes them within the broader dragon family and gives them singular roles in the stories that feature them.

Civic Guardians and the Scholarly Study of Dragons

Certain dragons are tied to specific places and serve as civic or regional symbols rather than generic monsters. The Brnensky drak, known as the dragon of Brno, is a Czech legend centered on a dragon killed near the Moravian city, embedding the creature in local history and identity. Similarly, the Ljubljana dragon functions as the protector dragon of Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, giving the city a mythological guardian figure. These place-specific dragons illustrate how communities adopt the dragon archetype to express local pride, history, and identity. Academic scholarship has examined the dragon phenomenon from multiple angles. Elizabeth Wayland Barber and Paul T. Barber explored fire-breathing dragons in the context of how the human mind shapes myth. Robert Blust investigated the origins of dragons, while Ruth M. Stein traced the evolving literary portrayal of dragons, from the Norse Fáfnir to Tolkien's Smaug, showing how the archetype adapts across centuries of storytelling.