The CES Letter argues Joseph Smith was a false prophet because the Book of Abraham does not match the surviving papyri.
But why do you assume the surviving papyri are what he translated in the first place?
Dear CES Letter,
Your argument against the Book of Abraham depends on a single assumption.
That the fragments we still possess today are the same material Joseph Smith translated.
You treat that assumption as obvious.
It is anything but.
Once we slow down and examine the historical record, that assumption becomes the weakest part of your entire case.
A Category Error at the Center of the Argument
Your critique rests on a basic category error.
You assume that because an image appears next to a block of Egyptian text, that text must explain the image.
That assumption feels intuitive to a modern reader.
It is not how ancient documents worked.
Egyptian papyri were often composite documents. Texts were copied, reused, repurposed, and arranged for ritual or funerary purposes. Vignettes were frequently symbolic, reused across genres, or paired with texts that had little to do with them directly.
In many surviving Egyptian documents, the text near an image does not describe the image at all.
A modern analogy helps here.
Open a newspaper or a magazine.
Is the photograph on the page always explained by the article next to it?
Of course not.
Images are reused, symbolic, decorative, thematic, or even unrelated to the adjacent text.
Yet your argument assumes an ancient document must operate with modern academic precision.
That assumption is imposed, not demonstrated.
What Actually Survives Today
Only a small portion of the papyri Joseph Smith owned still exists.
We know from eyewitness accounts that Joseph worked primarily with two papyrus scrolls, described as long rolls containing black and red ink.
Those scrolls no longer exist.
They were sold after Joseph Smith’s death, sent to a museum in Chicago, and destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.
The papyri critics analyze today followed a completely different path.
- Cut into fragments
- Mounted on backing paper
- Framed under glass
- Privately held
- Eventually donated to a museum decades later
These fragments were not the prized scrolls.
They were the leftovers.
Why the Fragments Survived at All
One detail alone should give critics pause.
Some of the surviving fragments were given to the maid of a museum worker.
Not sold to a collector.
Not preserved as valuable religious material.
Given away. To a maid.
That tells us something critical.
These fragments were not viewed as important.
They were not seen as central.
They were not considered the primary texts.
If the text of the Book of Abraham were plainly written on those fragments, why were they treated as disposable?
Why were they separated from the scrolls?
Why were they not preserved, displayed, or valued?
The survival of these fragments says more about what they were not than what they were.
The Statistical Improbability No One Addresses
Even if we ignore everything else, the probability problem remains.
Joseph Smith owned multiple papyri:
- At least two long scrolls
- Additional fragments
- Multiple mummies
Only a tiny fraction survives today.
And critics insist that this tiny fraction must contain the very text Joseph translated.
That claim is not based on evidence.
It is based on convenience.
It requires us to believe that:
- The most important text just happened to be on the smallest surviving pieces
- The most valuable material was inexplicably given away
- The scrolls Joseph focused on contained nothing relevant
- The fragments critics possess today are the key to everything
That is not historical reasoning.
That is outcome-driven reasoning.
What the Historical Record Actually Allows
Here is what we can responsibly say.
Joseph Smith possessed ancient papyri.
He produced a text he identified as the Book of Abraham.
We do not know:
- Which papyrus contained which text
- How the material was arranged
- What was on the lost scrolls
- Whether Abrahamic material was embedded, excerpted, or adjacent
- Whether translation was physical, revelatory, or both
The CES Letter treats these unknowns as settled.
They are not.
The Question That Never Gets Asked
Your argument never asks the most basic historical question.
Why assume the fragments we have are what Joseph translated?
That assumption is not required by the evidence.
It is not supported by eyewitness accounts.
It ignores the loss of the scrolls.
It ignores how Egyptian documents functioned.
And once that assumption is removed, the confidence of your conclusion collapses.
What This Leaves Us With
The Book of Abraham as a translated document by Joseph Smith is not “settled.”
Not historically.
Not textually.
Not logically.
Your argument depends on certainty where the historical record provides none.
And until that gap is addressed honestly, the claim that Joseph Smith was exposed as a false prophet by the surviving papyri remains an assertion in search of evidence.
So which is it?
Do you have a primary source showing Joseph Smith translated the surviving fragments, or is that assumption doing all the work for you?
I look forward to your response.