It was almost literally one year ago that I committed a serious wrong in the eyes of the LDS Church (the Mormons), and read some "anti-Mormon" literature. I used quotes there because it was not anti-Mormon literature, but I had been raised, and lived until I was nearly forty-four years old believing that's what it was. I had been taught and had truly internalized the teaching in the Mormon church to not read anti-Mormon literature. So I never did. Not in high school, when an insanely zealous born again Christian friend offered it to me, and even opened books and put them in my face. Instead, I followed another Mormon teaching to simply avoid talking of such matters altogether. The result of this was that this friend of mine, no longer was a friend. At least not NEARLY to the degree he had been. He became an acquaintance. I never speak to him now. I never read anti-Mormon literature while serving a full-time two year mission for the Church in Brazil, when angry opponents to our message wanted me to. And I never read anything during the 20+ years after my mission, during which time I was sealed in the Mormon temple in Dallas, raised three children in the church, and was an active member of the congregation in every ward I lived. But I did a year ago. More on what it was shortly.
The Book of Abraham. Ever heard of it? If you're not Mormon, probably not. The Book of Abraham for Mormons is scripture, the word of God, its teachings just as important as what is in the Book of Mormon, or the Bible. So what is the Book of Abraham? Well, I am looking right now at a copy I have had since my childhood, my name stenciled in gold on the front cover, so I can tell you EXACTLY what it says on the title page:
THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM
TRANSLATED FROM THE PAPYRUS, BY JOSEPH SMITH
A Translation of some ancient Records, that have fallen into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt.--The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.
I will confess I never knew all the backstory to the bringing forth of the Book of Abraham as is briefly mentioned on its title page (and believe me when I tell you it is part of no lesson ever taught by any teacher in any class I ever attended at church, if by any teacher in any class), but I am sure I was happy the Lord had seen fit to somehow have delivered into the hands of his chosen prophet Joseph, this papyrus, upon which Father Abraham himself had written.
So you know what's funny? And by funny I mean I didn't find it funny in the least. What I read that most disturbed me, that upset me the most, that planted the first seed of doubt in my mind, the thing that caused me such great stress and rattled my testimony, this terrible fact I was exposed to simply by committing the error of reading anti-Mormon literature? The Mormon church did not refute it, did not deny it, and indeed, LDS scholars had researched and written long indecipherable treatises on the subject.
The papyrus from which Joseph translated the writings of Abraham, a papyrus which is in the possession of the Mormon church still, does NOT in fact contain the writings of Abraham, nor any mention of Abraham, and it is universally known by scholars Mormon and non-Mormon, to be a common Egyptian funerary text from a time well after it is estimated Abraham would have been alive. This is fact. The Mormon church knows it and accepts it. And when I read this, it bothered me greatly, as I hope you can imagine it might have. I felt betrayed and tricked. I felt I had been treated as a child. I truly believed I should have been trusted to accept the truth of how the Book of Abraham came to be, whatever that truth was. "Dear Brother, we want you to know the Book of Abraham was NOT translated from papyrus, and Joseph simply felt inspired to write it." Sold! "Brothers and Sisters. It has come to our attention that the papyrus we previously believed to have been translated as the Book of Abraham, is a hoax, and we are removing it from our canon." Sold! "Dearest members, notwithstanding it is clear from Joseph's journals he believed he had interpreted characters on the papyrus to correspond to phrases and words in English, it is now also clear he did not, and we must conclude the papyrus simply served as a catalyst of some sort for the prophet to receive inspiration to write these great words we revere and rely on so much today." I'll take it! But the Mormon church took and takes no such position.
And if you think it is ridiculous I might have swallowed any or all of those explanations, consider what I already gladly and fully believed when I read this information (whether the church has changed its position on any of these is immaterial, as I fully believed them when they were accepted church doctrines):
1. A fourteen-year-old boy LITERALLY saw and spoke to the all powerful and omniscient creator of the universe and universes without end, and his LITERAL son, Jesus Christ.
2. This Jesus Christ LITERALLY died, was dead for several days, but began to live again, and lives to this day.
3. A man or woman cannot aspire to reach the highest degree of glory God has prepared for all, if that man or woman;
a. is not sealed to another man or woman (well, you know--one man to one woman [or more], or one woman to one man [but not more than one].
b. does not wear a specific set of undergarments at nearly all times of their life.
c. does not wear a specific set of outer garments (robes and aprons and veils and caps) during an ultra-sacred ceremony one must never speak of outside of the temple upon penalty of death (unless one did not go through the temple before 1990).
d. does not know specific passwords, grips, and handshakes that guardians of the heavens will ask them for.
e. drinks coffee and does not go through the full repentance process to clean one's self of this sin.
4. Negroes were spirits in our pre-mortal life with our Heavenly Father who were less valiant in a pre-mortal war between the spirit children of our father in heaven, and Lucifer and his followers. As such, any Negro cannot hold the Priesthood, the authority to act in God's name and perform sacred ordinances.
5. The previous teaching about Negroes was miraculously undone in 1978 by a loving God after constant fasting and prayer and long-suffering.
6. That my oldest brother and my now ex-wife (wife at the time), who both left the church many years ago, would continue to be affected and protected less and less by the spirit of the Lord and would be every day more susceptible to sin, wickedness, and unhappiness. (I shrugged away the reality that both seemed to do the absolute reverse of that.)
So, yes, I very much believe I might have believed any number of explanations about the true origins of the Book of Abraham, if any straightforward answer from the Mormon church had ever been released on the subject. Read the Mormon-church published essay yourself to see if you feel they have.
