The Book of Joseph is one of Joseph Smith’s least-known translation projects. In 1835, soon after Egyptian papyri arrived in Kirtland, his associates began saying that part of the collection contained writings of Joseph of Egypt.[2][3] The record was described, shown to visitors, and expected to be translated and published, but no existing Book of Joseph is known to survive.[8]
“Book of Joseph” is a useful modern label, but the nineteenth-century sources used several names.[8] They referred to the “writings of Joseph,” the “record of Joseph,” a “History of Joseph in Egypt,” and, in Oliver Cowdery’s words, “Joseph’s record.”[2][6] The claim appears in Kirtland sources from 1835 and in later accounts by people who saw the papyri.[5][8] Cowdery also tied “Joseph’s record” to particular Egyptian images that can still be examined today.[6][11]
1835: A second biblical record appears in Kirtland
Michael Chandler brought four Egyptian mummies and papyri to Kirtland, Ohio, in late June or early July 1835 after exhibiting Egyptian antiquities elsewhere in the United States.[1][6] Joseph Smith, Simeon Andrews, Joseph Coe, and possibly others ultimately paid Chandler $2,400 for the four remaining mummies and the related manuscripts.[1] The Joseph Smith Papers notes that Chandler was actively trying to sell the collection and had no known academic training that qualified him to judge an Egyptian translation.[1]
Before the sale was completed, Chandler gave Joseph Smith a certificate endorsing his ability to interpret the characters.[1] Chandler wrote that Smith’s explanation corresponded “in the most minute matters” with information Chandler had previously received.[1] Cowdery later published the certificate in the Messenger and Advocate.[1][6] Chandler’s endorsement shows that he publicly vouched for Smith, but Chandler had no known Egyptological training and was trying to sell the collection.[1]
Within weeks, W. W. Phelps was telling his wife Sally that the Egyptian material had been identified as more than one ancient record.[2] Phelps reported that Joseph Smith said the papyrus rolls contained “the sacred record kept of Joseph in Pharaoh’s Court in Egypt, and the teachings of Father Abraham.”[2] Phelps also reported Joseph comparing an emotional letter from Sally to reading “the History of Joseph in Egypt.”[2]
The Joseph Smith Papers entry on the manuscript history states the two-record claim directly. The entry is dated to July 1835, but the surviving volume was created between October 1843 and February 1845.It is important to note that Joseph Smith “did not dictate or revise any of the text recorded in B-1,” even though the compilers retained a first-person voice as if he were the author.[3] The entry says:
I, with [William W. Phelps] and [Oliver Cowdery], as scribes, commenced the translation of some of the characters or hieroglyphics, and much to our joy found that one of the rolls contained the writings of Abraham; another the writings of Joseph of Egypt, &c. a more full account of which will appear in their place, as I proceed to examine or unfold them.[3]
The same entry continued that “a more full account” would appear as Smith proceeded to “examine or unfold” the records.[3] That language shows that the identification was not presented as the end of the project; additional translated or explained material was expected.
John Whitmer preserved a similar account.[4] His history says Joseph “could translate these records” by revelation and that the material gave “an account of our forefathers,” much of it written by Joseph of Egypt.[4] The surviving Whitmer manuscript probably dates to 1838, although Whitmer had been the Church historian during the Kirtland period.[4]
What early witnesses said the Joseph record contained
The surviving descriptions are brief, but together they show what early Latter-day Saints believed the record contained and what they expected Joseph Smith to do with it.
Albert Brown, writing to his parents on November 1, 1835, reported that the papyri contained “som of the history of Josef while in egypt and also of Jacob and many prophesies Delivered by them.”[5] His letter shows what at least one Latter-day Saint in Kirtland understood the Joseph record to contain. It does not establish that Brown personally heard every detail from Joseph Smith.
Phelps also expected the record to be published. He wrote that the Egyptian records would eventually be “translate[d] and print[ed]” and would serve as a witness for the Book of Mormon.[8] In April 1836, Stephen Post recorded that he had seen “the writings of Abraham & Joseph that came with the mummies.”[8] Post gave no description of their contents, but his note shows that the Joseph identification persisted into the following year.
William I. Appleby encountered the papyri in Nauvoo several years later.[7] A version of his May 5, 1841 journal entry was published in the Christian Observer that September and says he saw papyrus containing writings of Abraham and Joseph, written in red and black ink, with a visible difference in the writing.[7] Appleby’s fuller autobiography, compiled in 1848 from earlier journal material, added that Joseph of Egypt “appears to have been the best scribe.” It also said Appleby believed the writings described scenes in ancient Egypt, worship, idol gods, men, beasts, birds, oxen attached to a plough, a female guiding it, and the serpent beguiling Eve.[8] Because that fuller description refers to papyri attributed to both Abraham and Joseph, those details cannot all be assigned specifically to the Book of Joseph. They are also later recollections, not a verbatim 1841 note.[8]
Taken together, the surviving accounts describe a fairly substantial expected work. Whitmer said the records gave “an account of our forefathers,” much of it written by Joseph, and that the completed translation would be “a pleasing history.”[4] Brown was more specific: history of Joseph while in Egypt, material about Jacob, and “many prophesies” delivered by them.[5] Cowdery expected the completed Egyptian records to reveal “much upon the mighty acts of the ancient men of God” and God’s dealings with people who saw him face to face.[6] A July 1842 Times and Seasons editorial later said Egyptian learning and astronomy had been taught by Abraham and Joseph “as their records testify.”[13] Because that editorial speaks of both patriarchs together, astronomy is best treated as possible Book of Joseph content rather than a securely isolated passage from it.
Cowdery tied “Joseph’s record” to specific images
Oliver Cowdery’s December 1835 description is the most detailed early attempt to explain what the papyri showed.[6] He wrote in the Messenger and Advocate that the records contained evidence of the creation, the Fall, the Godhead, and other biblical themes.[6] He described a walking serpent near a female figure, which he understood as evidence for the Genesis story, and he identified “Enoch’s Pillar” on the same roll.[6]
The inner end of the same roll, (Joseph’s record,) presents a representation of the judgment: At one view you behold the Savior seated upon his throne, crowned, and holding the sceptres of righteousness and power, before whom also, are assembled the twelve tribes of Israel, the nations, languages and tongues of the earth, the kingdoms of the world over which satan is represented as reigning. Michael the archangel, holding the key of the bottomless pit, and at the same time the devil as being chained and shut up in the bottomless pit.[6]
Cowdery was interpreting illustrations rather than presenting a line-by-line translation of Egyptian writing.[6] Some of the images he described survive. They provide the clearest way to compare what Cowdery called “Joseph’s record” with the Egyptian material itself.[10][11]
Did the Book of Joseph influence the temple endowment?
Cowdery’s description is the main reason the Book of Joseph sometimes enters discussions of Latter-day Saint temple history. In December 1835 he associated “Joseph’s record” with the creation, the Fall, a walking serpent, judgment, Michael, Satan, and other biblical scenes.[6] Several of those themes later appeared in the Nauvoo temple endowment, which makes the resemblance worth examining.[18]
The chronology is suggestive, but it does not establish dependence. The papyri were acquired in July 1835.[1] On January 21, 1836, Joseph Smith and other church leaders performed washings and anointings in the Kirtland House of the Lord while preparing for the promised endowment of power.[16] Yet the idea of an endowment already predated the papyri. A January 1831 revelation had promised the Saints that in Ohio they would be “endowed with power from on high.”[15]
The Kirtland rites also should not be treated as the same ceremony later associated with Latter-day Saint temples. The Joseph Smith Papers distinguishes the Kirtland “endowment of power” from the temple-related ordinance Joseph introduced to a small group in Nauvoo on May 4, 1842.[17] No complete text of the 1842 ceremony survives. The first detailed accounts of the Nauvoo Temple endowment from 1845 include Michael, the serpent or Satan, the creation, the Garden of Eden, the Fall, and a ritual movement toward the presence of God.[18]
The thematic overlap with Cowdery’s 1835 description is real, but no surviving statement from Joseph Smith says the Book of Joseph supplied those temple teachings or ceremonies. The evidence supports only a narrower connection: Cowdery understood “Joseph’s record” through creation, Eden, judgment, and heavenly themes that later became prominent in Nauvoo temple ritual. Whether the papyri directly influenced that development remains undocumented.
What survives of “Joseph’s record”
The surviving material most directly connected with Cowdery’s “Joseph’s record” is Egyptian Book of the Dead material dating to roughly 300–100 BC.[9][10][11] The surviving texts concern the afterlife, ritual protection, and the deceased person’s movement among the gods.[9][10][19] Nothing in the extant Egyptian text identifies the biblical Joseph as its author or subject.[10][11][19]
The fragments have been cataloged under more than one name. The Joseph Smith Papers lists the chapter 125 judgment fragment under Nefer-ir-nebu, while more recent work by Egyptologist Malcolm Mosher Jr. argues that Neferirnub was another name for Tshemmin, or Semminis, and that the judgment fragment belonged to the same Book of the Dead roll as the other Semminis fragments.[11][19] That reconstruction fits Cowdery’s statement that the judgment appeared on “the same roll,” although it does not change the Egyptian identification of the material.[19]
One surviving vignette is the walking-serpent image Cowdery singled out in 1835. The Joseph Smith Papers notes that he “made specific mention of the same vignette,” which survives on the Book of the Dead for Semminis.[10] The Papers does not identify every figure in the small scene, but the woman and serpent are part of an Egyptian funerary manuscript; the surviving text does not identify them as Eve and the serpent of Genesis.[10]
Vignette from the Book of the Dead for Semminis/Tshemmin. Cowdery described the walking serpent beside a female figure as evidence for the Genesis account of the Fall.[6][10][20]
The chapter 125 judgment vignette allows a much firmer comparison. Egyptologists identify the scene as the deceased standing before Osiris and some of the forty-two judges or gods while her heart is weighed against the feather of Maat, representing truth and justice.[11] Cowdery identified the same scene as the Savior enthroned before Israel, with Michael, Satan, and the devil bound.[6] The disagreement is therefore not simply over symbolism. The figures and ritual setting are identified differently.
Judgment vignette from the Joseph Smith Papyri. Cowdery read the scene as Christ, Israel, Michael, and Satan; Egyptologists identify a funerary judgment before Osiris.[6][11][21]
If Mosher’s reconstruction is correct, Cowdery may have been right about the physical placement: the judgment scene was on the same Semminis or Tshemmin roll. His identification of the figures, however, still differs from the Egyptological reading.[11][19]
Some Egyptological scholarship has also connected Book of the Dead chapter 125 with Egyptian temple and priestly initiation or purification contexts in the Ptolemaic period.[19] That may help explain why the scene carried ritual significance in Egypt, but it does not show that Joseph Smith knew of that use or that it influenced the Nauvoo endowment.
Portions of the nineteenth-century collection are still missing, so the original roll cannot be reconstructed in full.[9] But the walking-serpent vignette and the chapter 125 judgment scene themselves survive. Their Egyptian context does not depend on reconstructing a hypothetical missing section of papyrus.[10][11]
How much did Joseph Smith actually translate?
No known continuous English translation of the writings of Joseph of Egypt survives.[8] That is different from saying Joseph Smith never worked on or interpreted the supposed record. The later manuscript history says he and his scribes began translating “some of the characters or hieroglyphics” and then identified records of Abraham and Joseph.[3] Whitmer said Joseph could translate the material by revelation.[4] Phelps reported Joseph identifying a sacred record of Joseph in Pharaoh’s court.[2]
The Joseph Smith Papers preserves extensive Egyptian-language work from Kirtland and English narrative manuscripts for the companion Abraham project, but no comparable Book of Joseph narrative manuscript has been identified.[12] Barney’s survey likewise concludes that whether a Book of Joseph translation was ever completed is unknown.[8]
A July 15, 1842 Times and Seasons editorial also referred to records of both patriarchs, saying that Egyptian learning and astronomy had been taught by “Abraham and Joseph, as their records testify.”[13] Older publications have often quoted that sentence as a direct statement by Joseph Smith. The Joseph Smith Papers now cautions that the editorial, though published under Joseph Smith’s editorship and presumably approved by him, does not appear to have been personally written by him; John Taylor may be the most likely author.[13] It is evidence that the idea of a Joseph record remained present in the Nauvoo editorial environment, but it should not be presented as a verified Joseph Smith sermon.[13]
Why the Joseph record was never published is not stated in the surviving sources. Joseph Smith returned to Egyptian-related publication in Nauvoo in 1842, but only material attributed to Abraham appeared in the Times and Seasons.[12] No comparable Book of Joseph installment is known.[8]
What the missing-papyrus argument can explain
Much of the original papyrus collection is missing, so the material Joseph Smith owned cannot be reconstructed in full.[9][14] This leaves open the possibility that additional material associated with Joseph of Egypt was on portions now lost. The Church makes a similar point about the surviving extent of the papyri in its Book of Abraham essay.[14]
That possibility does not erase the surviving evidence. Cowdery explicitly connected visible images to “Joseph’s record,” and those images are still identifiable as Egyptian Book of the Dead material.[6][10][11][19] Missing papyrus can account for material no longer present, but it cannot change what the surviving scenes depict.
Could the papyri have been a catalyst?
No official Church essay applies a catalyst model specifically to the Book of Joseph. The Church’s Book of Abraham essay allows that the papyri may have prompted revelation without supplying the revealed text word for word.[14] Extending that model to the Book of Joseph is therefore an extrapolation.
The earliest descriptions, however, speak of the papyri themselves as the record. Phelps said the rolls “contained” the sacred record of Joseph.[2] The manuscript history likewise said one roll “contained” Abraham’s writings and another Joseph’s.[3] Cowdery called an illustrated portion “Joseph’s record.”[6] A catalyst model can redefine how “translation” worked, but it does not change what those early witnesses claimed the papyri were.
What the evidence supports
Early Latter-day Saints treated the Book of Joseph as a real ancient record in Joseph Smith’s Egyptian collection. Phelps reported Joseph identifying a sacred record kept by Joseph in Pharaoh’s court; Brown mentioned history and prophecies of Joseph and Jacob; Cowdery called part of the papyri “Joseph’s record” and interpreted its images..[2][5][6][7][8]
No published Book of Joseph survives, so there is no full translation to test line by line.[8] What can be tested is narrower. Some of the images Cowdery associated with “Joseph’s record” survive, and Egyptologists identify them as scenes from an Egyptian Book of the Dead, not depictions of Eve, Christ, Michael, Satan, or the biblical Joseph.[10][11][19]
Sources
[1] “Certificate from Michael Chandler, 6 July 1835,” The Joseph Smith Papers, including historical introduction and annotations. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/certificate-from-michael-chandler-6-july-1835/1
[2] William W. Phelps to Sally Waterman Phelps, 20 July 1835, as documented in “Letter to Sally Waterman Phelps, 20 July 1835,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/letter-to-sally-waterman-phelps-20-july-1835/1
[3] “History, 1838–1856, volume B-1 [1 September 1834–2 November 1838],” p. 596, The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-b-1-1-september-1834-2-november-1838/50
[4] John Whitmer, “History, 1831–circa 1847,” p. 76, The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/john-whitmer-history-1831-circa-1847/80
[5] Albert Brown to his parents, 1 November 1835, reproduced in Christopher C. Lund, “A Letter Regarding the Acquisition of the Book of Abraham,” BYU Studies 20, no. 4 (1980): 402–3. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol20/iss4/10/
[6] Oliver Cowdery, “Egyptian Mummies—Ancient Records,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 3 (December 1835): 233–37. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Latter_Day_Saints%27_Messenger_and_Advocate/Volume_2/Number_3/Letter_to_Wm._Frye_from_Oliver_Cowdery
[7] William I. Appleby, journal entry for 5 May 1841, republished as “Journal of a Mormon,” Christian Observer, 10 September 1841, 146; transcription and source details reproduced by the B. H. Roberts Foundation. https://bhroberts.org/records/s2dR6b-051irk
[8] Quinten L. Barney, “The Joseph Smith Papyri and the Writings of Joseph of Egypt,” Journal of Mormon History 42, no. 2 (April 2016): 95–109. https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/barney/2020-01-29/quinten_l._barney_the_joseph_smith_papyri_and_the_writings_of_joseph_of_egypt_2019.pdf
[9] “Introduction to Egyptian Papyri, circa 300–100 BC,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/introduction-to-egyptian-papyri-circa-300-100-bc/1
[10] “Fragment of Book of the Dead for Semminis–B, circa 300–100 BC,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/fragment-of-book-of-the-dead-for-semminis-b-circa-300-100-bc/1
[11] “Fragment of Book of the Dead for Nefer-ir-nebu, circa 300–100 BC,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/fragment-of-book-of-the-dead-for-nefer-ir-nebu-circa-300-100-bc/2
[12] “Book of Abraham and Facsimiles, 1 March–16 May 1842,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-abraham-and-facsimiles-1-march-16-may-1842/1
[13] “Times and Seasons, 15 July 1842,” pp. 855–56, The Joseph Smith Papers, including editorial note on authorship of “The Government of God.” https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/times-and-seasons-15-july-1842/9
[14] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, “Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham,” Gospel Topics Essays. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng.
[15] “Revelation, 2 January 1831 [D&C 38],” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-2-january-1831-dc-38
[16] “Visions, 21 January 1836 [D&C 137],” historical introduction, The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary/visions-21-january-1836-dc-137
[17] “Introduction to Documents, Volume 10: May–August 1842,” The Joseph Smith Papers. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/introduction-to-documents-volume-10-may-august-1842
[18] David John Buerger, “The Development of the Mormon Temple Endowment Ceremony,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 34, nos. 1–2 (Spring–Summer 2001): 75–122. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/the-development-of-the-mormon-temple-endowment-ceremony/
[19] Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein, and John S. Thompson, “What Egyptian Papyri Did Joseph Smith Possess?,” BYU Studies Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2022), esp. 16–17. https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/what-egyptian-papyri-did-joseph-smith-possess
[20] “TaSheritMin Scroll Vignette Snake On Legs,” Wikimedia Commons, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TaSheritMin_Scroll_Vignette_Snake_On_Legs.jpg
[21] “Book of the Dead for Nefer ir nebu vignette with labels,” Wikimedia Commons, public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Book_of_the_Dead_for_Nefer_ir_nebu_vignette_with_labels.JPG
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