This new volume of the Joseph Smith Papers is another Facsimile Edition, which means it is an oversized volume (approx. 12 1/4 x 9 1/2 inches, matching the other Facsimile Editions in the series) with all of the items related to the Book of Abraham available to the public for the first time in full color. It contains photos of the extant papyri, the collection of documents commonly known as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, and the Book of Abraham as first published in the Times and Seasons, along with the printing plates that were used.
As with all the books in the JSP series, there is a great volume introduction that gives the historical background and an overview of what the volume contains. It explains how the mummies and papyri came into the possession of Joseph Smith, what the various sets of documents are and how they might relate, and how revelation and translation were understood at the time by Joseph and the Saints. This is important since it has been known since the extant fragments were recovered in the 1960s that they actually contain common funerary texts (see https://archive.org/stream/improvementera7101unse#page/n13/mode/2up). There are two theories that explain this discrepancy – either the scriptural text was on the much larger portion of papyri that was lost, or it was revealed without regard to what the papyri actually contain (see https://www.lds.org/topics/translation-and-historicity-of-the-book-of-abraham?lang=eng) – the introduction focuses on the latter. [Read more…] about Book Review: Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, Vol. 4: Book of Abraham and Related Manuscripts
Tyler J. Griffin was born and raised in Providence, Utah in the beautiful Cache Valley. After serving a mission in Brazil Curitiba, he returned home and completed a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical/Computer Engineering. He married Kiplin Crook and began teaching seminary in Brigham City, Utah. After six years in that assignment, he transferred to the Institute adjacent to Utah State University where he worked for the next seven years. One of his assignments there was working in the Seminary Preservice program (teaching and training potential seminary teachers) for four years. He also developed an online home study seminary program. His masters and doctorate degrees are both in Instructional Technology. He and his wife have 10 children (5 boys and 5 girls). He has been at BYU since August 2010.
Scott Gordon is president of FairMormon and as such has been a writer of several articles and a speaker at firesides. He has a master’s degree in Business Administration from Brigham Young University with a bachelor’s in Organizational Communication. He has held many Church callings, including Bishop, and currently serves as the Ward Mission Leader. He is married to Sheri Farnsworth Gordon and has five children.
This podcast series features past FairMormon Conference presentations. This is a special episode that contains the second of two presentations given at our conference earlier this month about the new book series being published by the Church, Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days. The first volume will be released on Tuesday, September 4. (If you would like to watch the video of this and the other presentations from the 2018 conference, you can still purchase 
Steven C. Harper is a historian for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who has served as an editor of The Joseph Smith Papers, working on volumes in the Documents series and the Revelations and Translations series. He taught religion at BYU from 2002 to 2012 and religion and history at BYU–Hawaii from 2000 to 2001. He earned his PhD in early American history from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He is the author of Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (2012), Making Sense of the Doctrine and Covenants (2008), and Promised Land: Penn’s Holy Experiment, the Walking Purchase, and the Dispossession of Delawares 1600–1763 (2006), as well as multiple published articles on early Mormonism and the early American republic. Two of these were awarded the T. Edgar Lyon and Juanita Brooks awards by the Mormon History Association.
Scott A. Hales has been a historian/writer for the Church History Department since 2015. He currently works as a writer and story editor for Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, the new four-volume narrative history of the Church. He has a BA in English from Brigham Young University and an MA and PhD in American Literature from the University of Cincinnati. He has published scholarly articles on Mormon and American literature in several academic journals, including Religion and the Arts and The Journal of Transnational American Studies. He currently lives in Eagle Mountain, UT with his wife and five children.
