The Book of Abraham
"What these fragments have to do with the text as it stands cannot be said with certainty."
The translation of the book of Abraham is fictitious. The papyri from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham have been rediscovered, translated, and unrelated to the contents of the bookto do with Abraham. The Egyptian alphabet constructed by Joseph Smith proves to be an error.
After decades of disappearance from Joseph Smith's estate papyri, a small portion of them turned up in 1967. These fragments have been consistently identified by Egyptologists, both those who believe in Joseph Smith's statement of the Book of Abraham and those who do not, as the "Book of Breath," an abridged version of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, the traditionally placed in the grave of the deceased in Egypt. This text has nothing in common with the book of Abraham. In addition, the origin of this papyrus has been dated to the late Egyptian Hellenistic period, many centuries after Abraham. The opponents of the divine origin of the book of Abraham see this as confirmation. They also argue that a 34-page manuscript by Joseph Smith entitled "Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar" survives, which, while showing an intensive study of the papyri, is a product of the imagination that has nothing to do with a real grammar, alphabet or vocabulary list of Egyptian. They further point out that the illustrations in the Book of Abraham (facsimiles #1 through 3) by Joseph Smith and/or his associates were Egyptian counterfeits with his approval, which were the supreme probative evidence of Joseph Smith's potential for fraud and charlatanry.
The Book of Abraham presents a Newtonian cosmology very similar to Thomas Dick's book Philosophy of a Future State (1830), which Joseph Smith also owned.
"While many people have seen the papyri, we have not received any eyewitness account of the translation work itself, so it is not possible to reconstruct it accurately. Today only small fragments of the long papyrus scrolls that were once in Joseph Smith's possession survive. What these fragments have to do with the text as it stands cannot be said with certainty.”
https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng
What the Church has taught about the Book of Abraham:
"A translation of some ancient records that have come into our hands from the catacombs of Egypt. The writings of Abraham while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand on papyrus. (Historyof the Church, 2:235–236, 348–351.)”, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr?lang=eng
"In a statement dated July 5, 1835, Joseph Smith explained the meaning of these ancient Egyptian writings: "I began translating some of the characters or hieroglyphs and found to our delight that one of the scrolls containing the records of Abraham. ... Truly we may say, the Lord is beginning to reveal the fulness of peace and truth” (History of the Church, 2:236).”
What the Church now teaches about the Book of Abraham: "Why did the Prophet Joseph Smith say he had the writings of Abrahamtranslated when the manuscripts do not date from Abraham's time?
In 1966, eleven fragments of the papyri that once belonged to the Prophet Joseph Smith were discovered in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. They were handed over to the Church, examined by scientists and dated to the period between100v. and 100 AD. dated. A common objection to the authenticity ofbook of Abraham is that the manuscripts are not old enough to be fromTo have been written by Abraham, who lived almost two thousand years before Christhad. Joseph Smith never claimed that Abraham wrote the papyri himselfor that they came from the time of Abraham. It corresponds to a commonpractice of speaking of the works of a particular author, whether or nothe wrote them himself or dictated them to someone else, or whether others later
made copies of his works.”
“The Prophet Joseph Smith never claimed that Abraham himself wrote the papyri. ”
https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-and-church-history-seminary-teacher-manual-2014/section-7/lesson-152-the-coming-forth-of-the- pearl-of-great-price?lang=eng&_r=1
