As with so many things in the mysteries and contentions around the Book of Abraham, key information is often found in easily overlooked details. There are two subtle clues of potentially great importance to the debate over Book of Abraham origins that I just noticed in the 1835 "translation" document from W.W. Phelps in which he presents about 50 Egyptian characters and a similar amount of English text. The clues are the two names, Katumin and Onitas. Of these, Katumin is more important.

Both of these names occur in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, but with different spellings. The three Egyptian Alphabet manuscripts, A, B, and C, have Kah tou man, Kah-tou=mun, and Kah=tou=mun, respectively. And the Book of Abraham Manuscripts that allegedly show Joseph translating single characters in the left margin into large chunks of English all have Onitah as the spelling of the father of the three noble women of royal descent who were sacrificed for refusing to worship idols (Abraham 1:11). Why the difference in spelling?

Joseph Smith's study of Hebrew, which began when Oliver Cowdery brought some Hebrew books in November 1835 (see Joseph's Nov. 20, 1835 journal entry) and continued in early 1836 under the tutelage of Joshua Seixas, affected Joseph in many ways. Seixas' translation of some portions of the Bible appear to have influenced the final form of the Book of Abraham that Joseph published as well as the spelling of a number of words. On the influence of Seixas' excellent translation, see Michael T. Walton, "Professor Seixas, the Hebrew Bible,,and the Book of Abraham" published by Sunstone. John Gee has also pointed out that Seixas' system of transliteration influenced spelling of many names. When I first read his argument, I was not aware of the evidence he referred to and have been waiting for more detailed analysis to be published, which I understand may happen soon. Here's what he said in John Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 427–48:

Contrary to the date provided on the Joseph Smith Papers website, the book cannot date to 1835. How do we know that? The system of transliteration that Phelps used in the book follows the transliteration system taught by Josiah Seixas beginning in January of 1836. Words with long final vowels end in an “h.” The transliteration system used before that does not have the “h” and this can be seen in the transcriptions of the same words made in October 1835. Since the book has the later system, it must date after the later system was taught and thus must date after its introduction in January 1836. Joseph Smith’s journal entries indicate that within a week of receiving Hebrew books, Joseph dropped working on Egyptian in favor of Hebrew.[77]

Vowels followed by "h" appear to be part of Seixas' transliteration method, which would suggest that it was after Seixas and his family came to Kirtland to teach Hebrew to eager Latte-day Saints (he was impressed by the zeal of Joseph and others in their study of Hebrew) that words like Katumin would be spelled as Kah-tou-mun, or Onita(s), if the final s were dropped, would be spelled as Onitah. Since the change from Onitas to Onitah requires dropping or changing the final s, it's unclear why Onitas was changed.

While there are a number of vowels followed by "h" in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers, I wasn't aware of clear pre-Seixas spellings that were changed after he came, though I need to look more carefully. But the Phelps document may be a good place to start. Perhaps it was one of the documents Gee had in mind, but I'm not sure.

But if the changes in spelling in Onitas and Katumin are due to Seixas, as I suspect they are, there are a number of implications that arise, some of which may be troubling or at least troublesome. It would suggest that Phelps was working with some early Alphabet and Grammar or perhaps something from missing translation by Joseph Smith that gave us the name Katumin (and possibly was used as one of the sources for the later Alphabet and Grammar). It would suggest that there was an early Book of Abraham translation manuscript with the name Onitas (or possibly Onita). And it would suggest that Gee is correct in his criticism of the Joseph Smith Papers Project for getting the date wrong on the very important Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar. All those 1835 dates for so many documents may have missed important clues in orthography that point to an 1836. That big of an error would be rather distressing and certainly troublesome, though dating old documents accurately when they aren't provided with dates is often quite difficult.

On the positive side, if the Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar and the "1835" Book of Abraham manuscripts with "Onitah" are all from 1836, then some of the most troubling issues in the debate over the Book of Abraham become much less important. Phelps' "translation" of Egyptian does much more than just show that Joseph and his scribes were not so deluded as to think that one scrawl could convey a paragraph of English text. It also helps confirm that the Joseph Smith Papers Project made a serious error in assigning dates to many manuscripts, an error which has played into the hands of critics of the Book of Abraham.

This issue needs further research, either to overthrow yet another of my flawed hypotheses, or to overthrow a serious error from others regarding the Book of Abraham and the Kirtland Papers.


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