Abraham Facsimile 1

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Home > The Pearl of Great Price > Abraham > Abraham Facsimiles > Facsimile 1 (image)
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Summary[edit]

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Message. Themes, symbols, and doctrinal points emphasized in Facsimile 1 include:

Discussion[edit]

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  • A number of face-offs. If one interprets this vignette artistically--and especially in light of Egyptological insight--a first clue for interpretation presents itself in the directions the figures in the facsimile face. No sooner is this said than a first pair of figures offer themselves for consideration: the angel (fig. 1) and the "idolatrous priest of Elkenah" (fig. 3) face each other. Perhaps linking them more fundamentally still is a curious aspect of the history surrounding this first facsimile. When the original of this vignette was rediscovered in 1967, it was revealed that Joseph had done some "restorative" work before the facsimile itself was produced: the heads of both the angel and the priest are missing from the original vignette (all of the papyri are at least in a somewhat fragmented condition). Egyptologists who have since done interpretive work on what Latter-day Saints call the first facsimile have almost universally agreed that Joseph's "restorative" work is "incorrect" in restoring these two heads: the bird should have, according to the Egyptologists, a human head, whereas the priest should have a jackal's head. In short, Joseph switched the human and animal heads around in his restoration of the vignette! No scholar, however, doubts that the heads would in any case have been facing each other. This double tie (one artistic, the other perhaps "destinal") suggests the priest and the angel be considered together.
Both artistically and according to the text of the Book of Abraham itself (see Abr 1:20), there is an implied face-off between the angel and the priest. In the vignette they seem, in fact, to be regarding each other. The tension between them is perhaps heightened by the vast empty space their gazes traverse, a space overwhelmingly empty in such a busy vignette (though the original, there is some evidence, had at least some hieroglypics in this space). The double regard is marked again by the matched level of their eyes: above every other aspect of the picture, the eye of the angel and the eye of the priest are frozen. The match between them might itself be confirmed thematically elsewhere in scripture: the cult of the Old Testament temple is replete with hints that priests were understood anciently to be angels, and angels to be priests. Here a match is more than implied: the angel and the priest are engaged in combat over the body of Abraham.
At the same time, however, some obvious details frustrate this match, or rather, force this match to be reinterpreted and to reinterpret the rest of the vignette. The most important such detail is the clear connection between the human head of the priest and Abraham's own, nearly identically drawn head. The priest, though perhaps interrupted by the angel, is obviously more fundamentally engaged in a struggle with the young prophet. The priesthood themes that saturate the first chapter of Abraham's text, all focused on depriving a priest like the one in the vignette of any claim to priesthood and on grounding Abraham's own claim to the same, suggests this struggle all the more. A detail that only emerged with the rediscovery of the papyri also seems to confirm this. While in the facsimile the priest stands behind Abraham lying on the lion couch, in the original papyrus the priest stands awkwardly between Abraham lying and the couch itself. As scholars generally agree, some sort of struggle between the figure on the couch and the sacrificing priest is implied. Even, then, as the vignette suggests a parallel between the angel and the priest, the same relationship is frustrated by the vignette itself: the facsimile at once forces a connection between the priest and the angel and relegates the priest's real struggle to a lower level of the picture.
Interruption seems to be the best way to interpret this tension: the priest is being drawn from the struggle to the attention of the angel. Interestingly, so is Abraham, as the direction of his upraised hands suggest (parallel precisely to the direction of the sacrificial blade of the priest). The strife that ties Abraham and the priest of Elkenah together is interrupted by the sudden appearance of the angel (the "Angel of the Lord" in the explanation, but "the angel of his presence [His face]" in Abr 1:15). There is a sort of supersession at work in the top half of the vignette: the struggle between two priestly figures is interrupted by the sudden appearance of the figure of the Lord Himself (even the appearance of His face?).
The triplet formed by these three figures is suggestive when viewed from a very broad perspective. Appearing atop the wrestling pair is the Lord Himself (in the figure of an angel perhaps, but only perhaps). When this is set atop the four figures of the idolatrous gods, the whole upper portion of the vignette appears to follow the description of the throne of God in Rev 4:2-8. Gathered above the four corners of the throne (a throne that doubles as a sacrificial altar in Rev 5:6) are four beasts (said to represent the "four quarters" of the earth in Facsimile no. 2, fig. 6). Atop the throne/altar--just as in the Holy of Holies in the OT temple--are two wrestling figures, two "cherubim," one here pictured as holding a dagger/sword. Atop these two figures, appearing in distracting glory is the face or figure of the Lord Himself. The parallel is obvious: facsimile no. 1 seems to follow the seven-fold construction of the ark of the covenant, even sitting atop the "expanse, or the firmament" as it does in Rev 4:6 (a "sea of glass like unto crystal").
If this is a decent interpretation of the vignette itself, then a reinterpretation of the role of the angel figure in the facsimile might be offered. As an "animal," the bird/angel faces not the human priest, but the crocodile/pharaoh who swims at the bottom of the vignette in the heavenly oceans: through the release of Abraham, the Lord Himself apparently confronts Pharaoh (questions his claim to earthly authority), as He through His angel regards the crocodile that in turn regards Him. The odd connection between birds and serpents at work elsewhere in the facsimiles (see fig. 7 of facsimile no. 2) seems to confirm this more fundamental pairing: Abraham is not the one who faces Pharaoh, but rather the Lord.
This ultimate pairing, beyond all other pairings in the vignette, suggests two vastly important connections elsewhere in scripture. The more immediate connection is again fig. 7 of facsimile no. 2. There, according to Egyptologists, Joseph has "restoratively" replaced a serpent with a dove, who appears before the throne of God. If one reads the "original" serpent into that figure, it seems to present a serpent/crocodile who encounters God's seven-fold throne. In other words, the whole of facsimile no. 1 is figured in fig. 7 of facsimile no. 2 (as is the whole of facsimile no. 3; see the commentary there). The other scriptural connection is more remote, but powerfully suggestive. In Rev 12:4-5, John sees a woman give birth to a child who, to escape the serpent who would kill it, is "caught up unto God, and to his throne." The connection between the dragon/serpent/crocodile and the Lord on the throne seems there to be the same as in this vignette and as in facsimile no. 2. Since John's revelation locates all of this "in heaven," there may be more at play between these two texts than at first appears. At the very least, there is some powerful connection across these themes.

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Notes[edit]

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