Gospel Topics: "The phrase can be understood to mean that Abraham is the author and not the literal copyist"

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Gospel Topics: "The phrase can be understood to mean that Abraham is the author and not the literal copyist"

"Translation and Historicity of the Book of Abraham," Gospel Topics on LDS.org:

Scholars have identified the papyrus fragments as parts of standard funerary texts that were deposited with mummified bodies. These fragments date to between the third century B.C.E. and the first century C.E., long after Abraham lived.
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Joseph Smith, or perhaps an assistant at the Nauvoo print shop, introduced the published translation by saying that the records were “written by his [Abraham’s] own hand, upon papyrus.” The phrase can be understood to mean that Abraham is the author and not the literal copyist.

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