The Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses

 This week in Come Follow Me we studied Moses and Abraham 3.  Both books are in the canonized scripture that we probably speak the lest about, The Pearl of Great Price.  The book of Moses is a revelation that Joseph Smith received while working on his "translation" of the Bible.  The book of Abraham is from a "translation" of some Egyptian scrolls the church acquired at great expense in 1835.  There is a reason I put the word "translate" in parenthesis.  When I was young I thought that Joseph Smith translated these two documents in the traditional sense.  He saw the text in another language, deciphered the meaning of the words in the original text, and then wrote the words in English as the new text.  Now we know that Joseph Smith didn't really translate any text this way.  He didn't know ancient Egyptian or or the Nephite language. He, at one point, tried to learn Hebrew, but I, having studied Hebrew for several years now, can imagine that, with all else that was going on in his life, he never really mastered that ancient language either. 

What then does it mean when we say that Joseph Smith "translated" the Book of Mormon, the Bible, and the Egyptian papyri?  We need to go back to the root of the word "translate."  It comes from two Latin word parts: "trans" which means, "across" and latus, which comes from the participle of a verb that means, "to carry."  So, to translate something is to carry it across from one state to another.  When you translate in the traditional sense, you carry a word from one language to another. In this case, however, Joseph Smith carried a message from God to us.

Some people get worried about the Book of Abraham. When I was little, historians thought that the original papyri Joseph Smith had were all destroyed in the great Chicago fire. Since then, researchers have found fragments of the papyri that were not destroyed in the fire, and have translated them (in the traditional way) and found they are standard Egyptian burial texts from the 1st century BCE.  

So the question is, did the original papyri that was burned in the fire contain the Book of Abraham as we now have it in the Pearl of Great Price, but written in a different language (Hebrew or Egyptian), or did Joseph Smith make it all up?

The answer is probably "no" to both questions. I, personally, doubt that the papyri ever contained an account written by Abraham. I think they were probably just the standard funerary texts found with most Egyptian mummies. Yet, I don't believe that Joseph Smith just made it all up. I think we need to remember that Joseph Smith was as much of a prophet as Abraham was. As a prophet, he could receive revelation from God, just like Abraham did. 

We see from reading the Doctrine and Covenants, that God tends to wait for Joseph Smith to ask a question before he gives a revelation.  Joseph asked what church he should join, God gave him the first vision.  Joseph asked about the communalism practiced by the Campbellites, and he got the law of consecration.  Joseph asked about the "plain and precious things" that were taken from the Bible, and he got (over a period of years) the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible, including the book of Moses.

I think that the Egyptian papyri caused Joseph to ask something.  The pictures on the scroll made him think, and he went to the Lord with a question. Maybe the facsimile reminded him about when Abraham was almost sacrificed by his father and he asked about that. Once he asked, the Lord was able to reveal to him the Book of Abraham which contained important information about our pre-earth life and the order of heaven that had been lost from the Hebrew Bible, and, indeed, from all the scripture that Joseph Smith had access to. It was important information Joseph Smith and the Church needed to know, and once Joseph asked, God told him about an interaction he had with Abraham that contained the information. Joseph Smith wrote it down and now we have it.

I might be totally wrong.  There might have actually been an account of Abraham on the papyri that was destroyed in the fire.  We will never know. To me, it doesn't matter if there was or was not.  What matters is that it was a revelation from God, first to Abraham, and then to Joseph, and now to us. 

Happy Anniversary

 I started this blog five years ago in January 2021. That was when I decided that I wanted to learn Hebrew so I could do a deep dive into the Old Testament in 2022. I studied Hebrew all of 2021, and in 2022, I wanted to teach Gospel Doctrine so much that I asked the Bishop for the calling.  He didn't give it to me, so I vented my pent up "scriptorian" energy by posting on this blog. 

Now it is time to study the Old Testament again, and this time I am teaching Sunday School  I am not teaching Gospel Doctrine to the adults, but instead I am teaching 15-year-olds. This is a fun an interesting challenge.  How can I make the Old Testament engaging and understandable to that age group?

I taught my first lesson today.  It was an introduction to the Old Testament. I started off talking about memes.  I found three memes, printed them off and showed them to the class.  The first was a picture of Justin Bieber looking ticked off at the camera.  The second one was of Taylor Swift and her fiancé at a football game looking rapturous. The third was a Star Wars Yoda joke. Some of the kids understood the memes right away, and were able to explain why they were clever.  Others didn't understand them.  I asked them what they needed to know to understand each meme.  Then I explained that the Old Testament gives us the information and cultural background to understand key symbols and incidences in the Bible, New Testament, and even the Doctrine and Covenants. If we don't understand the story of manna in the wilderness, we can't really understand why Jesus called himself the "Bread of Life." If we don't understand the sacrifice of a sheep during the Passover, we won't understand when John said about Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God."  

I will try to make this second round of commentary on the Old Testament fresh and worthwhile. I hope the two or three of you who actually read my blog will find it interesting. :-)

Ancestors Who Converted to the Gospel 1876-1938

Here are the last of our ancestors who joined the church.

Ann Waldron

Thomas Salt and Ann Waldron (1881)

Ann Waldron was born in Wiltshire, England in 1843 on a prosperous family farm. When she was 14 her father died, and she was sent to live with an aunt and uncle. She worked at her uncle’s store until she married Thomas Salt in 1864. Thomas was a carpenter and joiner and was a religious young man. Soon after the marriage he had an accident and became temporarily disabled.  Anne did sewing to help support the family until he recovered. 

In 1881 they joined the church in England. After they joined the church they ran the mission home for a while until they immigrated to Utah in the 1890s.  Ann had 11 children by Thomas, but six of them died in childhood. They settled in Hooper, Utah.  William died not long after in 1896, and Ann married Charles Singleton in 1904. 

Andries Rogharr and Grietje Kater (1887)

Andries Rogharr and Grietje 

Andries was born in 1849 in Groningen, Netherlands.  He was a skipper by trade and owned his own cargo ship. When he was 28 he married Grietje Kater. Her father was also a skipper, and the couple lived on Andries ship for the first years of their marriage.  They joined the church in 1887 and immigrated to the US in 1895. In 1897 Andries returned to the Netherlands as a missionary.  Later he became disaffected with the church and he and Grietje moved back to the Netherlands in 1912, but most of their children stayed in Utah. 

Pieter Roelofs Zondervan, Grietje Pieters Slot (1889)

I did not find very much information about this couple beyond the very basics.  Pieter was born in Dronrip, Netherlands in 1846. Family search lists his occupation as skipper. His first wife was Aaltje Hendriks Pool.  They married in 1872 and had two children together, but Aaltje died delivering their second child in 1875. He married Grietje Pieters Slot the next year. They had twelve children, all born in the Netherlands, two of which died in infancy. They may have immigrated to the US in 1907, and by 1810 were living in Ogden.  Pieter died in 1916 in Ogden.  Grietje was called Grace in the US and died in 1929. 

Blanche Irene Alsop (1938)

Blanche Irene Alsop

Blanche Irene is our most recent first convert to the church. There is a nice 27-page biography about her on Family Search written by her son, Bartell W. Cardon Jr.. Here are a few basic facts.

Blanche was born in 1900, in Marion Iowa. She grew up on an 80 acre farm with a strict mother and an affectionate father. She went to a one-room school house until high school. During high school she met her first husband, Ralph Collins.  They dated until he left to serve in WWI.  When he returned they were married. They lived happily for a while Ralph had problems with infidelity and after several years they divorced. In 1929 she met Bartell Wilson Cardon, and they were married in Denver in 1931. Within a year, they had their first child, Bartell Junior. It was difficult for Bartell Sr. to make enough money for them to live on, so they moved to Utah in 1933. Bartell’s father introduced her to the church, and she was baptized in 1938. Her marriage to Bartell eventually ended, but she stayed true to her new religion and raised her two sons in the gospel. 

Family Converts up to 1876

Philippe Cardon and Marthe Marie Tourn (1854)
John Paul Cardon and Susanne Goudin

Lorenzo Snow had been serving as a missionary in Italy, but had met with little success until he found the Waldensians in northern Italy.  One family story says that before the missionaries arrived, Philippe had a dream where he saw two men who brought a book to him. His daughter, Madeline also had a dream of the coming missionaries, and when they arrived the Cardons accepted the gospel. They were baptized in 1952, and immigrated to Utah in 1854. They settled in the Logan area where they stayed for 24 years.  Philippe was a stone mason and a builder.  He built many of the fire places and chimneys in the new homes in the growing community.

Marthe Marie Tourn

Along with Philippe and Marie, several of their family and children also joined the church.  We are descended from John Paul Cardon who married Susanne Goudin. She was away to school when her family to join the church, but when it came time for the saints to emigrate to Utah, she was the only one of her family that decided to go. When their group arrived in St Louis, the church had just decided to bring converts to Utah by handcart. Susanne, now 23, was in the first handcart company. Being unmarried, Susanne pulled her own handcart most of the way. She often had a little passenger, Madeline Beus, who was 2 the daughter of another Italian convert family, and was years old at the time. Ironically, Madeline later became a sister wife to Susanne. Once in Utah, other converts from Italy who had emigrated earlier, took in the new arrivals and helped them get settled. John Paul Cardon met Susanne at this time and they were married. They started a silk making industry in Cache Valley. 

Sarah Ann Littlewood, Joseph Wilson and Mary Anne McCornick

Sarah Ann Littlewood was born in 1815 in the Isle of Man but was raised in Cheshire England.  In 1835 she married Thomas Wilson in 1835. In 1840 they heard about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from Parley P. Pratt, and Sarah joined the church, even though Thomas did not. Joseph Wilson was their 4th child, born in 1844. Soon after his birth, the family moved to Andalucía in Spain, where Thomas managed a cotton mill. The family moved back to England 4 years later. Joseph was baptized at the age of 16.  He moved to Leeds to work in a cotton mill, and there met Mary Ann McCornick. 

Joseph Wilson and his daughter Florence

Mary Ann McCornick was born in 1846. By the time she was 14 she was already working in the mills. There she met Thomas, in 1865, and in 1866 joined the church. They decided to immigrate to Utah 1868 with the help of the Perpetual Immigration fund. Once in Utah, they settled in Cache Valley in a humble log cabin in Clarkston.  The weather there was severe, so in 1874 they decided to move to Logan.  Joseph was a machinist, and worked for the foundry the casted the statues of oxen that supported the original Logan Temple baptismal font.

Mary Anne McCornick

William McDonald (1875)--Christina Wallace (1876) and Mary McDonald (1866)

William McDonald was born in 1822 in Angus Scotland. He worked as a tenant farmer and sheepherder.  In 1844 he married Christina Wallace. They had 5 children in Scotland.  In 1855 Mormon missionaries came to Scotland, and Christina decided to join their church.  She was afraid William would disapprove, so she sneaked away to a different town to be baptized.  When she returned she told her husband what she had done. The next year, their 10 year old daughter, Mary,  was also baptized without her father’s knowledge. When Mary was 16 she married James Mowberry.  They had a child in 1862 but shortly thereafter James went to sea and never returned. In 1866 Mary left her son, James Jr, with her parents and migrated to Utah. Mary urged her brothers, and finally her parents to come to Utah with her son in 1874. In 1875 William, Christina, and Mary’s son, James, were all baptized. William set up a farm and an orchard in Holladay, Utah. Christina died just a year later, but William worked the farm and orchard with the help of his sons and son-in-laws until he died in 1910. 

Christina Wallace

William McDonald

Mary McDonald

More Ancestors

 I have decided to go ahead and add the rest of our "ancestors who joined the church" over the next few weeks until the end of the month.  These are people who joined the church after the Doctrine and Covenants, and I will just do short bios on each of them. 

John C Dewey and Harriet Roseann May

John Cook Dewey was born in Lincolnshire England and joined the church at age 17.  He left for “Zion” in 1850, but didn’t arrive in Salt Lake until 1853. Invited to join polygamy by Brigham Young, he married two women the same day, our ancestor, Harriet May and Mary Allen.  He was directed by Brigham Young to settle in a place called Empey Springs, which, in 1864 became Deweyville. 

Harriet May’s family received the gospel from Lorenzo Snow in England.  As they were migrating to America, her parents both died of cholera. She was only 12 years old, so Lorenzo Snow took care of her until they reached Salt Lake.  She lived with different families until she married John at age 19. 

Abram Reeves and Bessie Widdowson

Abram and Bessie were born in Derbyshire England. Abram was a lace maker. They joined the church in England in 1851 but didn’t migrate to America until 1865. They settled in Kaysville Utah where Abram continued making fine lace until his death. (I couldn't find a picture of them)

John Thompson and Margaret Smith

John Thompson was baptized in 1852 in England, and married Margaret Smith in 1853.  They were leaders in their branch in England until 1862 when they immigrated to Utah.  While Margaret was crossing the plains, she got sunstroke and was blind for three weeks.  She would tie herself to the wagon and trudge along carrying a baby. Once in Utah, they were assigned to settle in Franklin Idaho, and later moved to Hooper. 

Phebe Whittemore Carter 1834

Phebe Whittemore Carter was born in 1807 in Maine. In 1834, at the age of 27, she joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Her family did not approve of her decision and were not happy when she decided to move to Kirtland, Ohio to be with the Saints. I had a hard time finding a source that said who taught and baptized her, and when, exactly, she moved to Kirtland, but we know that in 1837 she met and married Wilford Woodruff who was also 27.

A few months after their marriage, her husband was called on a mission to the Eastern United States and, since Phebe’s family lived there, she decided to go along. They were not very rich, so when it was time to buy a coach ticket for the last leg of the journey to Hartford, they only had enough money for one ticket. Wilford bought one for his wife, and he walked the 137 miles on foot. 

Soon Phebe was pregnant with her first child so they decided to stay in Maine until after the baby was born. In 1938 they decided to return to Kirtland, and on the way she became very sick. She thought she would die, and even had an out-of-body experience during which she spoke with a heavenly being and was given a choice whether to return to her body or not. She received a blessing from her husband and was revived.

By the time she was ready to travel again the Saints had already been driven out of Missouri  and Kirkland. Wilford was leading a group of about 50 saints from Maine and they decided to stop in Rochester, Illinois, and stayed there until 1839 when they moved to Quincy Illinois. Wilford was called to serve a mission in Great Britain, and while he was gone, Phebe’s baby daughter died. She also had another child, a son, who is named after his father. 

When Wilford returned from Great Britain in 1841, they moved to Nauvoo and stayed there until 1844. During that time they receive their temple endowment and are sealed by Hyrum Smith. 

In 1844 Phebe and Wilford moved to England so that Wilford could preside over the British Mission. While there, Phebe had another baby. They returned to Nauvoo in 1846, in time for the Nauvoo Temple dedication, but soon needed to leave Nauvoo along with the rest of the saints due to persecution.

In 1846, Wilford and Phebe were taught about the principle of plural marriage. At first Phoebe was opposed to the principle, but later gained a testimony of it. Wilford took on a total of nine  additional plural wives, though a few of the marriages were short lived. 

Wilford was in the first wagon train to travel to Utah in 1847.  He returned to Council Bluffs the same summer, but arrived three days after Phebe had given birth. Wilford was called to preside over the Eastern States missions and Phebe and the children went with him.  Phebe’s new baby died not long after they arrived. 

They stayed in the Eastern United States until 1850, when they finally migrated to the Salt Lake Valley.  They built a home called The Valley House and Phebe lived there the rest of her life. She ended up having nine children in total but only five lived past age 2. 

In 1879 Wilford Woodruff went into hiding because of polygamy. He spent a lot of time in or near Saint George where he had served as temple president. Meanwhile, Phebe served in the presidency of the SLC 14th Stake Relief Society. In 1885 she became ill.  When Wilford heard that Phebe was ill he came to Salt Lake and was by her side when she died in November of 1885, but was unable to attend her funeral for fear of capture and incarceration. In 1889 Wilford Woodruff became the 4th President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and in 1890 he issued the Manifesto ending the practice of Plural Marriage.

Thomas and Catherine Foy 1836

(There are some discrepancy in the records of the Foy family.  The ordinance record shows that they were baptized in 1842, but as I read through their family records, they were actually baptized in 1836. It may be that they were baptized in 1836, but then rebaptized in 1842, which was a common practice in the early church.) 

Thomas Birk Foy and Catherine Rebecca Fink Foy 1936

There are a lot of family legends about Thomas Foy and his family, but not a lot of historical evidence to back it up. Thomas Birk Foy was born in 1802 in Pennsylvania, but some family histories say his father was from France, and others from Germany.  One family story is that one of Thomas’ ancestors was a general to Napoleon, and another was married to King Charles of Spain.  I asked my mother about his line, and she thought they were Huguenots, who fled France and lived for a time in Germany before migrating to America. Family legend suggests that Thomas’ father came to America as an indentured servant, and that he drove a supply wagon in the Revolutionary War. Other accounts say that he was a cooper, and made barrels for a living. One story says Thomas was the last of 12 children born to his parents.

Thomas seems to have had no formal education. His father died when he was 17, but older brothers and sisters looked out for him. In 1820 or 1821 he moved with his brother to Indiana County, PA, which was considered frontier at that time. There Thomas met Catherine Fink, the daughter of German immigrants, and they were married in 1828.  They lived next door to Catherine’s parents and Thomas worked as a wheelwright. 

After the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the new Mormon church sent out missionaries throughout the United States.  Erastus Snow went to Pennsylvania and there met and baptized the Foys. The church grew in Pennsylvania, and the Foys stayed there until 1840 when they moved to Warsaw Illinois, near Nauvoo. Catherine, by that time, was expecting her 5th child. The census of 1842 required that people list their taxable goods.  From that census we know that the Foy Family were living near poverty.  Warsaw was a portage town, where people would unload their boats, haul everything upstream to avoid rapids, and then re-enter the river. By 1840 it became a meeting place for those who were persecuting the church. The Foy’s must have been victims of some of the harassment because when the church asked members to record their grievances against the mobs, Thomas and Catherine had losses to report. 

In 1841 Thomas was ordained an elder by Willard Richards, and Catherine obtained her patriarchal blessing from Hyrum Smith. Thomas received his patriarchal blessing in 1842, and it states that he would “have an inheritance with the remnants of the seed of Jacob, not of Joseph, but of Issachar.”  

In 1845 mob violence had increased so the Foys, who now had 7 children, moved to Nauvoo for safety. The records show the exact plot they bought and it put them in the same ward as Joseph Smith, Wilford Woodruff, Brigham Young and other well known persons in church history. Maybe for this reason, Thomas and Catherine were part of the first endowment session in the Nauvoo Temple in January 1846. 

There is no record of when they left Nauvoo due to persecution, but by 1848, when their eighth child was born, they were in Council Bluffs. Later that year they were sealed by Heber C. Kimball in Winter Quarters. 

Because Thomas Foy was a wheelwright, family legend states he was asked to stay in Iowa to help build wagons for those crossing the plains. Though there are no records when they themselves crossed, it was probably in 1850 when the church called all remaining saints in Iowa to migrate to Salt Lake. There is one letter that states that Catherine got Cholera on the trip west, and was also four months pregnant, but she survived. (Catherine went on to have 12 children total.) The Foys show up in the 1850 census as living in Salt Lake City. They later moved to Ogden, where Thomas married a second wife, Louisa Potterrill (who was only 20, 11 years younger than Thomas’s oldest daughter. Louisa ended up having eight children with Thomas). They were eventually called as part of the “Cotton Mission” and were sent to Saint George to grow cotton. they stayed there until Thomas’ death in 1873. Catherine died in 1870, but Louisa lived until 1920.