There are so many glaring errors in this book that it was hard to decide where to start. I'll examine it in several posts and not necessarily from page 1 to page 240 (counting the Index). Instead I'll just note problems that Larson has and we can examine and discuss them and bring them out as we go.

It has always fascinated me that the papyri bring out the worse in scholarship with anti-Mormons. Apparently they feel that it is safe to say just whatever pleases their fancy because there are so few who can check into the facts, and again there are even fewer who care to. Those of us who take it rather seriously however, do check into it and always find misconceptions with the anti view. Larson is certainly no exception.

On p. 137f, I find the most glaring and humorous example of Larson missing it altogether, perhaps more here than anywhere else in his book. Discussing what Larson calls the "Catalyst Theory" of how the BofA came about, he complains that the vague hypothesis that Joseph Smith sought revelation from the Lord concerning the papyri and received in the process, the BofA, is simply silly! And he screams for over three italicized paragraphs about why this account will never do. (Incidentally, I note as an aside that Larson simply will not accept what any Mormon scholar says, so in light of the silliness of this idea of Joseph receiving revaltion, what does Larson think of Michael Marquardt's (another anti-Mormon author!) discovery that Warren Parrish, who worked with Joseph Smith, claimed that "I have set [sic] by his, Joseph Smith's side and penned down the translation of the Egyptian Hieroglyphics [sic] as he claimed to receive it by direct inspiration from heaven." Letter from Warren Parrish, Kirtland Ohio, Feb. 5, 1838; "Painsville Republican", Vol. 2, nos. 14,15; Feb. 15, 1838, whole # 67). So since Larson will not accept a Mormon who points this out, will he accept one of his own fellow anti-Mormons who also note that divine inspiration may have had a part in all this? (in Michael Marquardt - "The Book of Abraham Papyrus Found" 1975, p. 5).

Anyway, Larson claims that the catalyst theory is "fatally flawed" because it does what no Biblical Fundamentalist Christian can possibly conceive of God doing, namely, associating his sacred truth with a document consisting of "prayers to pagan Egyptian gods, and ripe with occultism...it is inconceivable, given God's holy character as received throughout the Bible, that He would associate Himself or his truth in any way with such pagan occult documents." (p. 138 - de-emphasis mine). Larson refers the reader to his analysis on pp. 119,120 where we find, after Larson's demonstration that God disassociates the Isrealites from their pagan neighbors, that "Since the Joseph Smith Papyri have been identified with absolute certainty as prayers to pagan Egyptian gods that, by biblical definition are ripe with occultism, it is inconceivable, given the holy character of God that he would associate Himself or His revelation in any way with these pagan religious documents. This fact alone is ample grounds for totally rejecting the Book of Abraham as a revelation from the one True and Living God." (p. 120 de-emphasis mine).

Now this is an interesting argument! Larson cites Klaus Baer, Richard Parker, and John Wilson, as well as Dee Jay Nelson, James R. Harris, Ed Ashment, Hugh Nibley,

Michael H. Marquardt, Donl H. Peterson, Michael D. Rhodes, Jerald and Sandra Tanner,

John Tvedtnes, Kirt Vestal, Robert C. Webb, Franklin S. Spaulding and a host of other experts, Egyptologists, and Mormon scholars, but absolutely NONE of them, No, not one, has ever concluded that the Book of Breathings in the Joseph Smith Papyri consists of prayers to pagan Egyptian Gods! The Joseph Smith Book of Breathings is addressed to *no* Egyptian gods; rather it is addressed to a human individual and reminds him of promises made to him and things he has experienced. Where we may ask, in all of Papyrus Joseph Smith Xi-X is there any prayer to any Egyptian god? Hor is the name of an individual Egyptian man. His Father's name is Rmny-qey, and his mother's name is Tay-hbyt; the name is clearly identified as personal rather than divine. He simply condemns to contents of the papyri without ever examining them or understanding what they are about at all. He cannot even identify the contents of the various papyri correctly! (pp. 62, 120, 138). (John Gee-Review of Books", Vol. 4, 1992, pp. 104f).

But the real tip-off that Larson does not understand the issues involved is when he screams for paragraph after paragraph (all italicized, to be sure), that God does not deal with pagans! Period! God is too holy! God is too good to soil Himself by association with the likes of such heathenish abominations. Well, the idea sounds very patriotic, very ennobling and uplifting, except for one thing.... naturally, the evidence! And make no mistake about it, Larson wants us all to believe that not only in the Old Testament, but in the New Testament as well, God just simply will have nothing to do with paganism, nor would any holy follower of God in his church have anything to do with it. Aside from his extremely selective use of the scriptures to make his case, he is completely ignorant of scholarship on this score. Ernst Robert Curtius, as well as many other scholars, has noted some interesting things about Pagan connections with the Bible. He notes in his magnaminous "Europaische Literatur und lateinisches Mittelalter", trans. Willard R. Trask, that writers in the second and third centuries of the church set themselves the task of defending the new faith and making it acceptable to educated pagans. They used the reasoning of the Hellenized Jews (Philo, Josephus) which sought to demostrate the conformity of the Jewish Law with Greek philosophy, especially taking over the allegorical exegesis developed in the stoa, and called it "The authority of antiquity." (p. 551). But Curtius also notes that "...Paul quotes verses by Epimenides, Meander, and Aratus..." (p. 40). Augustine was famous for using the Hellenistic practice of Allegorical exposition of the scriptures. For example, in dealing with Exodus 3:22 and 12:35 Augustine explains that when the text says the Israelites took gold and silver vessels with them when they left Egypt, we are to understand that "thus the Christian must rid pagan learning of what is superfluous and pernicious, that he may then place it in the service of truth." (p. 40). The origin of the artes are from Jupiter or perhaps Egypt, "since Moses was a pupil of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22)." (p. 40). Seutonius in his "De viris illustribus" notes that "The greatest apologists and fathers, in both the Greek and Latin tongues, show thorough knowledge of pagan literature, and that very thing made it possible for them to defend the Gospel victoriously." (p. 447). Clement of Alexandria, we are told, in the period of Early Christian literature - the period when Christianity made peace with Greek philosophy and science - develops an Orphic Christology [!] which is used again and again as an argument of theological poetics. For Origen, another early Church Father, we are told, the alliance between Greek philosophy and the Christian life was a perfect amalgam, "...it was through this alliance that Christianity became a world religion." (p. 551). In fact, "this Hellenized Christianity, which has its last expression in Eusebius (263-339), is closely linked with Greek thought" (Plato - Cf. R. Arnou's article "Platonisme des Peres" in the "Dictionaire de Theologie catholique", XII, 2 (1935), 2258: "...Aristote, pour eux, est le 'physicien, quand it n'est pas l'athee. Platon est le 'philosophie', un voyant superieur chez qui on se plait a retrouver l'echo des croyances chretiennes"), the Stoa, Posidonius. It is musal and speculative." (p. 551).

But Larson is blithely unaware of all this. He is completely ignorant of the stark fact that Paul also quotes the pagan Aratus (Phaenomena 5) approvingly when teaching the Gospel (Acts 17:28). More impressive still, the Lord Jesus himself quotes a pagan poet to Paul in one of his visions (Acts 26:14 citing Euripedes, "Bacchae" 794-95).

Dr. Joseph L. Saalschutz's "Archaeologie der Hebraer", Konigsberg, 1855 (yes, I have one of the original editions) notes that Hebrew archaeology begins with the Patriarchs, and reaches the high point with the kings. After the Babylonian captivity it was contaminated by many foreign elements (manche fremdartige Elemente), from both the Greeks and the Romans, which elements were added into the religion of the Bible (wesen beimischten). Saalschutz, later in his section on religion, noted the many foreign elements of human sacrifice in various nations and their influence on the Israelites (Aristomenes von Messene opfert dem Jupiter dreihundert Menschen, unter welchen sich Theopompus, der lacedamonische Konig befand, Dergleichen geschah in den altesten Zeiten bei den Lustrationen und Expiationen haufig.Ausserdem hatte Bachus einen Altar in Arkadien, auf welchem sehr viel junge Madchen mit zusammengebundenen Ruthen so lange gebauen wirden, bis sie starben. p. 180, note 3).

Also, Annie Besant, ("Esoterisches Christentum oder Die kleinen Mysterien", Leipzig, 1911) notes the great influence the Hellenistic "Mystery Religions" and their secret rites and formulations exerted on Christianity from the beginning.

A discussion of the scientific and religious information passing between the Mediterranean cultures in antiquity and India and Greece, as well as how information on medicine was passed around among the cultures and adapted and expanded and changed is the subject of Dr. Willibald Kirfel, "Die Funf Elemente insbesondere Wasser und Feuer", 1950.

The enormous influence of pagan cultures on the Israelite religion in the Old Testament is discussed in Walter Beltz, "Gott und Gotter:Biblische Mythologie", Auflage, 1975. The influence of the Gnostics on Christianity and the various adaptions, arguments, and fights between the two are found in Wolfgang Fauth, "Oriens Christianus: Hefte fur die Kunde des Christlichen Orients", Band 57, 1973, pp. 78-120. The enormous influence of Gnosticism, Alchemie, the Hermetic literature on the Church through time is discussed by Prof. Dr. Edmund O. von Lippmann, "Entstehung und Ausbreitung der Alchemie mit einem Anhange: Zur Alteren Geschichte der Metalle", Berlin, 1919. The pagan influence of Aristotle, and the "Orientalische Einflusse" and its impact on the Renaissance is discussed by August Reikel, "Die Philosophie der Renaissance", Verlag, 1925. The influence and adaption of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, on Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Occam, Grotius, and on up into our scientific age is talked about in Dr. Johann Sauter, "Die philosophischen Grundlagen des Naturrechts", Wien, 1932. Jakob Burckhardt's, "Die Cultur der Renaissance in Italien" is a discussion of the revival of ancient paganism in the Renaissance and the importance of putting man in the center of the "kosmos".

These are just a few of the sources that speak of the influence of Paganism on the religious life of both Judaism and Christianity, to the complete contrary of Larson, who blissfully unknowingly declares the "Biblicist Fundamentalist" (to quote Marc A. Schindler) approach to the Bible and history, which Larson has apparently accepted. But the facts are just not on his side in his declaration. He not only misconstrues what the Joseph Smith Papyri are all about, but he misunderstands the Bible, History, and progressive theology from the Church Fathers, through the Middle Ages, into the Renaissance and up into our own times. Larson simply hasn't got a clue....

Kerry A. Shirts