On Sat, Aug 21, 2021, 8:27 AM, Vincent Coon wrote the following in a personal email:

I’m MOST grateful and indebtEd to Ed for getting me off the false Mormon tradition that the Book of Abraham (and the Book of Joseph for that matter) existed in clear written form on papyri that arrived at Kirtland with mummies. What accompanied the mummies were Egyptian funerary texts – that’s it - the kind of texts that one would expect to accompany Egyptian mummies from circa Ptolemaic times.

Facsimile No. 1 (from the Hor Book of Breathings) is not the original “representation at the commencement of …” the ancient Sepher Avram (Abr 1:12). The revealed scriptural text explicitly indicates only one “representation” (facsimile, vignette), not three facsimiles. The original Sepher Avram illustration probably featured actual “hieroglyphics” (not hieratic script, Abr 1:14). The other two facsimiles (borrowing from more than one funerary text) are an Ahmehstrahan styled embellishments, added to the revealed scriptural text. These serve as a kind of curious “Egyptian” clam shell clasping a precious pearl. The true and most precious pearl of the Sepher Avram is not the Book of the Dead Hypocephalus (amazing though it is), it is the revealed scriptural text itself! Egypto-maniacal Saints should earnestly study the text after they are drawn in by the “Egyptian” stuff.

The truth about the Sepher Avram is really more amazing than the Mormon story (misrepresentation) about a physical scroll containing the Book of Abraham arriving in Kirtland with mummies. The truth is, the text of the Book of Abram was received by revelation, but it happens to correlate (for whatever incredible reason) with expanded interpretations of symbols appearing in the Egyptian funerary scrolls, principally from, but not limited to, the Hor Book of Breathings.

The ... Church History misrepresentation [compare HC, Thursday, Dec. 31, 1835 with what is actually in the Prophet's journal] about the source of the Book of Abraham, only gets in the way of presenting the marvel clearly. The Saints need to stop teaching the false tradition about the source of the Book of Abraham, and start teaching that the Book of Abraham is what the Prophet Joseph said is was - a work of “present revelation”. After teaching that up front, then they can point out that --- by the way, look at how there is this amazing correlation between expanded meanings of symbols on the funerary scrolls, and what is revealed in the scripture. HOW DID THAT COME TO BE, and is it even the result of human intelligence? That is how to honestly present the amazing Book of Abraham to the children of men.

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