Q. What are the 'Books of Abraham' that are somestimes cited in your literature? Do these have any connection with Mormonism's 'Book of Abraham' which is known now to be an Egyptian funerary text?

A. To answer the second question first, no, the 12 Books of Abraham have nothing whatsoever to do with Joseph Smith's 'Book of Abraham' which, as you say, is an Egyptian funerary text that has neither any philological relationship whatsoever to the alleged 'translation' made by Joseph Smith, Jr. nor do the three original documents have anything to do with the Patriarch Abraham or any biblical character. They are entirely of pagan origin and speak only of pagan deities like Osiris and Isis. Messianic Evangelicals regard the Smith 'translation', which appears in the LDS Church's Pearl of Great Price, to therefore be a deliberate fraud. It has nothing to do with any biblical character or the Elohim (God) of the Bible, Yahweh.

The Books of Abraham consist of 12 volumes:

• 1. The familiar Genesis account of the Patriarch Abraham in chapters 12-25 in a messianised version of the King James Version known by us as '1 Abraham', and needs no further explanation;

• 2. A rewriting (by us) of a neo-apocryphal work attributed to Abraham that is an expanded version of Genesis 12-25. It was not composed by a member of this ministry. It seeks to accomplish what the earlier apocryphal Book of Jasher attempted, namely, to give a fuller account of the life of the Family of Abraham. However, it not only appears to have borrowed extensively from Jasher but also, it has been claimed, from the 'Book of Joseph' section of the Missaticum Biblia ('Book of Messages') which is of unknown provenance and originally written in Greek. 2 Abraham, as we call this book, has been revised by us 5 times already (2021) and we have seriously considered dropping it altogether. It has mostly been retained only for its story line; and

• 3. Volumes 3-12, of which numbers 3 through 11 have been written (2021), sometimes collectively called '3 Abraham' and individually as '3, 4, 5, etc. Abraham', takes up the story line in 2 Abraham which it uses to develop a narrative background in which to teach deep spiritual truths about the Millennial Melchizedek Order, although 2 Abraham is not required to receive the full benefit of 3 Abraham. This collection of books does not claim to be historical but a parable akin to the parables taught by Yah'shua (Jesus).

This page was created on 5 December 2021 Last updated on 7 January 2025

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