Facsimile 2 of the Book of Abraham is one of the most debated images in Latter-day Saint scripture. Modern Egyptologists identify it as a hypocephalus, a small circular object placed under the head of a mummy. Ancient Egyptians believed hypocephali provided light, warmth, protection, divine power, and rebirth in the afterlife.

But Facsimile 2 is much more than just a funerary object. While other hypocephali have been found, this one is unique in its specific arrangement, its connection to the Book of Abraham, and Joseph Smith’s numbered explanation of its figures.

No exact duplicate has been found. Like other hypocephali, it uses symbols of light, life, creation, divine power, and the afterlife, but Joseph’s interpretation places those symbols into a broader revealed framework of priesthood, heavenly order, sacred time, and return to God’s presence.

Critics assume Joseph was trying to translate Egyptian symbols in a modern academic sense. But that assumption misunderstands both the Book of Abraham and the way ancient religious symbols functioned.

Religious symbols in the Ptolemaic age often had more than one meaning. A hypocephalus could point to burial, the cosmos, temple worship, priesthood, and the journey back to God all at the same time.

That is why Facsimile 2 should be read with the Book of Abraham. The Egyptian symbols give part of the picture, but the Book of Abraham helps explain the deeper religious meaning Joseph Smith was revealing.

What Is a Hypocephalus?

A hypocephalus was a round religious image placed beneath the head of the deceased. Egyptians believed it connected the dead person with divine power and helped them participate in eternal life.

These images were symbolic teaching diagrams. Their figures represented ideas such as:

• creation
• light
• divine authority
• resurrection
• sacred time
• heavenly movement
• cosmic order

The same symbols were reused for centuries across different dynasties and religious traditions. Their meanings could expand, shift, or be reinterpreted depending on the time period and religious setting.

Critics often treat Egyptian symbols as though they only carried one fixed meaning forever. Ancient Egyptian religion did not work that way.

The hypocephalus can be read as a symbolic path rather than a normal paragraph of text. In Joseph Smith’s numbered explanation of Facsimile 2, the sequence begins near the divine center, moves through heavenly order, creation, earth life, sacred knowledge, and governing powers, then points back toward God’s presence.

The upper portion emphasizes the heavens, creation, and divine government, while the lower portion moves closer to earth, mortality, life, and instruction. You actually flip the hypocephalus upside down to see the images representing the earthly or mortality portion.

Read this way, the image presents a complete sacred pattern: humanity begins with God, passes through mortal experience, receives divine instruction and priesthood knowledge, and returns toward God in one eternal round.

How Facsimile 2 Relates to the Book of Abraham

Most people assume Facsimile 2 came from the same papyrus collection as Facsimile 1. That is a reasonable assumption, but it is an assumption and we do not actually know for certain. Only fragments connected to Facsimile 1 physically survive today. Facsimile 2 may have come from one of the missing long scrolls destroyed in the Chicago fire, from fragments later lost, or from a different burial collection entirely.

Joseph Smith taught that the Book of Abraham contained records connected to Abraham and Joseph of Egypt. The surviving fragments belong to an Egyptian priest named Hor from around 200 BC, but those fragments are only small remnants of a much larger collection.

This means modern scholars do not possess the source text Joseph Smith translated from. Their translation assumptions come completely independent of any accompanying text which would help understand a more specific layered meaning.

With an Abrahamic meaning, Facsimile 2 directly reflects the main themes of Abraham 3–5. Abraham is shown the stars, Kolob, governing bodies, divine time, intelligence, and the order of creation. Facsimile 2 presents these ideas visually through heavenly figures, sacred measurements, governing powers, light, and movement around a divine center. It functions as a symbolic diagram of the cosmic order Abraham was shown.

Facsimile 1 and Facsimile 2 Work Together

Facsimile 1 and Facsimile 2 Work Together

While we do not have physical evidence that Facsimile 1 and Facsimile 2 were part of the same scroll, symbolically and using the story of Abraham they appear to function as connected opposites.

Facsimile 1: Corrupted earthly sacred order:

false priesthood
false sacrifice
idolatry
counterfeit authority
a corrupted altar
Abraham under threat of death

Facsimile 2: The true heavenly order:

governing powers
divine authority
sacred time
creation
priesthood
heavenly light
the throne and residence of God

The connection becomes stronger when we notice the direction of the story. Facsimile 1 shows Abraham surrounded by a counterfeit sacred system: a false altar, false gods, false priesthood, and a priest attempting to use sacred forms for idolatrous violence.

Facsimile 2 then answers that counterfeit with the real thing. Instead of a corrupted altar, Abraham is shown the heavenly order above. Instead of false gods, he is taught about governing lights and divine authority. Instead of human sacrifice, he is shown creation, order, light, time, priesthood, and the throne of God.

In sacred-center terms, Facsimile 1 shows what happens when the earthly center is corrupted. The altar, which should be a place of covenant and communion with God, has become a place of idolatry and death. Facsimile 2 restores the true center by placing divine order, sacred light, and the throne of God at the center of Abraham’s vision.

The movement from Facsimile 1 to Facsimile 2 is also Abraham’s own ascent. He moves from being bound on a false altar to being taught the structure of heaven. He moves from counterfeit priesthood to true priesthood. He moves from the threat of death to a vision of eternal order. He moves from chaos below to cosmos above.

That same movement continues directly into Abraham 3, where Abraham is taught about stars, governing intelligences, Kolob, divine reckoning, and heavenly hierarchy. Facsimile 2 also carries creation themes, since hypocephali are tied to divine light, renewal, cosmic order, and rebirth. In that sense, the image fits naturally with the Book of Abraham’s movement from corrupted earthly religion, to heavenly order, to creation.

The Cosmic Structure of Facsimile 2

Joseph Smith explained Facsimile 2 as a system of divine government flowing outward from God.

At the center is the highest governing power. Around that center are ordered heavenly bodies receiving light, power, and authority according to rank and position.

Joseph identified Kolob as the governing creation nearest to God. He connected the image with:

• celestial time
• governing stars
• priesthood authority
• sacred knowledge
• divine light
• heavenly revolutions

This structure closely matches how ancient hypocephali functioned as symbolic diagrams of cosmic order.

Modern Egyptologists also recognize that hypocephali represent:

• divine power flowing through creation
• heavenly order
• resurrection
• cycles of time
• eternal life

The vocabulary differs, but the core concepts overlap, showing that Joseph Smith’s explanations were not random and reflected real themes connected to the symbols and figures within the hypocephalus.

Facsimile 2 and the Plan of Salvation

One of the deepest understandings of Facsimile 2 is how it tells the Plan of Salvation.

The image appears to move outward from the divine center into lower realms and then back again. The figures represent order, movement, instruction, authority, life, and return to God.

Joseph Smith’s explanations describe:

• God ruling from His throne
• heavenly bodies organized by authority
• light flowing downward from higher kingdoms
• sacred knowledge revealed in stages
• eternal progression

The circular structure itself mirrors the idea of beginning with God, passing through mortal experience, and returning again to God through divine law and priesthood order.

Figure 6 and the Four Quarters of the Earth

Joseph Smith explained Figure 6 as representing “this earth in its four quarters.”

Modern Egyptologists identify these figures as the Four Sons of Horus, guardians associated with the four cardinal directions and the organization of the cosmos.

Joseph did not use technical Egyptological terminology, but his explanation correctly captured their symbolic role. His explanation lands in the right symbolic world. Figure 6 is not merely “four odd figures under the throne.” It belongs to a fourfold cosmological pattern pointing to sacred space organized by four directions.

Ancient people often understood the world from a sacred center outward. In temple-centered cosmology, the sacred center was the meeting point between heaven and earth, the place from which divine order extended into the world. The four directions represented the ordered totality of the inhabited earth extending outward from that holy center. In that setting, “earth in its four quarters” means the cosmos made intelligible, bounded, governed, and placed under divine order.

That fits Facsimile 2, because the entire image is concerned with sacred order: a center, governing figures, heavenly hierarchy, sacred time, and the relationship between heaven and earth.

Joseph’s explanation correctly identifies a symbolic reading of the figure’s role within a sacred cosmological diagram.

Figure 7 and Temple Themes

Figure 7 is one of the most openly temple-oriented scenes in the facsimile.

Joseph Smith connected it with priesthood revelation and sacred knowledge. The imagery includes gestures and symbols that resemble later temple symbolism, including:

• sign of compass
• sign of square
• square-like arm positions
• cupped hands
• uplifted hands
• sacred instruction imagery

This becomes difficult to dismiss as coincidence when considering that Joseph published these explanations years before modern scholarship understood Egyptian temple symbolism in greater depth.

It also refutes the idea that these symbols were simply stolen from freemasonry, as these symbols were clearly used in temple like settings thousands of years before modern masons.

Figure 8 and Sacred Temple Knowledge

Figure 8 may be one of the strongest examples of Joseph Smith correctly identifying ancient Egyptian symbols and understanding temple-related concepts beyond what was known in the 1830s.

The Egyptian phrase in Figure 8 centers around the concepts of:

• giving or endowing
• life
• eternal life through Osiris (Jesus)

This phrase and these symbols appear in Egyptian temples near the most sacred spaces, including areas comparable to a Holy of Holies all over Egypt.

Joseph Smith explained this section as:

“to be had in the holy temple of God”
and
“not to be revealed unto the world.”

That explanation aligns with the restricted temple context where these symbols were actually used. This video explains this concept and shows examples of these signs all over egypt.

Abraham and the Wedjat Eye

One of the most important discoveries connected to Facsimile 2 came long after Joseph Smith’s death.

An ancient Egyptian text was discovered containing the phrase:

“Abraham, the pupil of the eye of the Wedjat.”

The Wedjat Eye, or Eye of Horus, is directly connected to the symbolism represented by hypocephali and in ancient Egypt was directly connected to Abraham.

Joseph Smith could not have known this text existed.

Yet the ancient source directly connects Abraham with the same symbolic tradition tied to Facsimile 2, just as Joseph Smith does.

Ancient Temple Cosmology

Critics try and reduce Facsimile 2 to “just a funerary object.”

But ancient temples themselves were cosmic diagrams. Egyptian temples represented:

• creation
• divine order
• heavenly ascent
• sacred kingship
• eternal life

Hypocephali reflect the same worldview in miniature symbolic form. If someone buried in their temple clothes was discovered hundreds of years later, would the discovers describe them as “ordinary burial clothes”?

Joseph Smith’s interpretation focuses on:

• cosmic order
• priesthood
• heavenly government
• sacred knowledge
• divine light
• eternal progression

Those themes fit naturally within ancient temple cosmology and Egyptian understanding of the role of temples and the afterlife.

Why Joseph Smith’s Explanation Is Different

Joseph Smith did not accept Egyptian mythology as literally true, and Egyptian mythology evolved over time.

The Book of Abraham teaches that Pharaoh and Egyptian religion represented corrupted imitations of true priesthood authority.

So Joseph interpreted the facsimiles differently than a modern Egyptologist would.

Modern Egyptologists generally explain what later Egyptians believed the symbols represented inside their religious system.

Joseph Smith’s explanations instead focus on the eternal truths behind the symbols:

• priesthood
• creation
• heavenly order
• covenant
• divine authority
• salvation

Those are two entirely different interpretive frameworks.

Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham by the gift and power of God. He likely did not derive the text from the facsimiles themselves. Rather, the revealed content of the Book of Abraham appears to have provided the framework that helped him interpret the symbolic meaning of the facsimiles through Abraham’s story, including creation, priesthood, heavenly order, and divine instruction.

Conclusion

Facsimile 2 is not random and Joseph Smith’s interpretation of it aligns remarkably well with understanding of Ancient Egyptian temples and understanding of the plan. This hypocephalus centers on:

• creation
• governing powers
• sacred time
• priesthood
• heavenly order
• divine light
• temple knowledge
• eternal life

Those same themes appear throughout the Book of Abraham itself.

Ancient discoveries made long after Joseph Smith’s lifetime continue to align with and provide evidence for major elements of his explanations:

• Abraham is connected to hypocephalus symbolism
• the Four Sons of Horus tied to the four quarters of the earth
• temple-restricted language associated with eternal life
• cosmic order flowing through heavenly governing powers

Joseph Smith published these explanations in the 1840s, long before modern Egyptology understood many of these concepts. This video explains the profound understanding of the Facsimiles and their relationship to the temple.

When the evidence is viewed against how little was known about ancient Egypt in the 1830s, it takes more faith to believe that Joseph Smith’s interpretation of the Book of Abraham and the facsimiles came from lucky guesses than that it came by the gift and power of God.

Through the Book of Abraham and its facsimiles, we better understand the Creation, our role as divine sons and daughters of God, the role of Jesus Christ as our Deliverer, and our eternal potential to become like God.

Answering the Claims Found in Letter For My Wife Regarding Facsimile II

The biggest flaw in Faulk’s argument is that it assumes Egyptological classification equals total meaning. It doesn’t take into account multiple layers of meaning or different symbolism, especially over different evolving periods of time in the long history of Egypt.

With this framing, the target is shifted to somewhere where Joseph Smith was never looking with an agenda to create doubt in what the translation of the divine truths of Abraham actually are.

Facsimile 2 is a hypocephalus, not an Abrahamic record.

A hypocephalus being funerary does not mean it has no creation, resurrection, light, divine-order, temple, or afterlife themes. In fact, those are exactly the themes hypocephali deal with. These are not contradictory terms.

It belonged to Sheshonq, not Abraham.

The claim that Facsimile 2 “belonged to Sheshonq, not Abraham” completely misses what the Book of Abraham actually claims.

Yes, modern Egyptologists identify the surviving hypocephalus as belonging to a man named Sheshonq who lived around 200 BC. That is not controversial. His name appears in the text.

But nobody claims Abraham personally owned the hypocephalus.

Joseph Smith never said Facsimile 2 was Abraham’s autograph drawing. The argument is that the Abraham papyri collection contained Abrahamic material, not that every single attached funerary object originated with Abraham himself.

That would be like finding a medieval Bible stored beside later funeral papers and then claiming the Bible must also have been written in the Middle Ages because the burial papers were.

Ancient texts were copied, preserved, edited, combined, reused, and buried with later owners constantly. That is normal ancient transmission history.

Even secular scholars acknowledge that Jewish stories and traditions were widespread in Egypt during the Ptolemaic period when Sheshonq lived. Egyptian priests in Thebes were incorporating foreign religious traditions, including Abraham and Moses traditions, into Egyptian ritual texts.

The surviving hypocephalus itself is also full of creation, resurrection, heavenly order, divine light, stars, governing powers, and cosmic themes, exactly the same themes found in Abraham 3.

Could an Egyptian priest living in a heavily Jewish-influenced Egypt around 200 BC possess Abrahamic religious material alongside Egyptian funerary texts?

Historically, culturally, and archaeologically, the answer is absolutely yes.

Joseph’s explanations do not match standard Egyptological translations.

A few questions for the Egyptologists:
Which period of Egyptian History are these Egyptologists giving their meaning from? Understanding Ptolemic coding layers, which layer of interpretation are they using?
Why do different Egyptologists interpret different meanings?

Joseph Smith was not giving a modern Egyptology caption. He was giving a revealed interpretation of symbols.

Egyptologists identify the later Egyptian use of the figures: deities, funerary language, afterlife imagery, solar rebirth, divine light, and ritual protection.

Joseph explains the same image through restored doctrine: Kolob, governing powers, priesthood, creation, sacred time, divine order, and return to God’s presence.

Those are not contradictions. They are different interpretive layers.

A symbol can have a conventional Egyptian meaning and still point to an older or higher doctrinal meaning. Ancient religious symbols were reused, adapted, and reinterpreted for centuries. Egyptian religion itself was full of layered meanings, syncretism, and symbolic overlap.

So this claim only works if you ignore how symbols actually work and assume:

1. Symbols have one fixed meaning.
2. Late Egyptian usage equals original meaning.
3. Joseph was trying to write an academic interpretation of what the Facsimile meant rather than its deeper spiritual meaning.
4. Revelation cannot restore a meaning lost or distorted over time.

None of those assumptions are proven.

The facsimiles deal with creation, divine light, resurrection, priesthood-like ritual, cosmic order, sacred knowledge, and the soul’s return to God. Joseph’s explanations fit that symbolic world providine evidence that his interpretations have substance.

Parts of Facsimile 2 were missing and filled in.

Yes, parts of Facsimile 2 were missing and later filled in. That is true. Ancient papyri and hypocephali are often damaged, incomplete, and reconstructed. These Papyrus were nearly 2,000 year old!

Critics treat this like some kind of devastating discovery, but it actually proves something important: the people restoring the missing sections clearly did not fully understand Egyptian.

And Joseph Smith likely didn’t either.

Joseph never claimed to be a trained Egyptologist translating characters through academic study. He said the Book of Abraham came by revelation and the gift and power of God.

That completely changes the argument.

If Joseph had claimed, “I personally understand Egyptian grammar and can academically reconstruct missing hieroglyphs,” then criticism about restoration errors would matter a lot more.

But that was never his claim.

The restoration work around Facsimile 2 appears to have been an attempt by artists or assistants to visually complete damaged areas using nearby Egyptian characters and patterns. In some places, characters were copied from unrelated papyri simply to fill gaps. That actually demonstrates confusion about Egyptian, not mastery of it.

Joseph’s explanations were not dependent on perfectly reconstructing missing hieroglyph. His interpretations focus on the symbolic and doctrinal meaning of the facsimile: creation, governing powers, sacred time, priesthood, divine order, heavenly bodies, and eternal progression.

So the existence of reconstruction errors does not disprove revelation. It only disproves an argument that was never made, that Joseph was claiming to be an academic Egyptologist.

Some missing sections were filled using characters from a different papyrus.

Yes, some missing sections of Facsimile 2 were filled using characters copied from a different papyrus. Egyptologists are correct about that.

But critics massively overstate what this means.

The copied characters were added into damaged gaps by the people preparing the facsimile for printing. This was reconstruction work on missing portions of an already damaged object. It was not Joseph Smith sitting down and producing a line-by-line scholarly translation of Egyptian grammar.

In fact, this actually supports the idea that the reconstruction artists did not fully understand Egyptian. They copied nearby characters to visually complete missing spaces, which was common in early restoration attempts before modern Egyptology even existed.

Joseph Smith’s explanations were not dependent on the literal meaning of those inserted characters. His interpretations focus on the symbolic and doctrinal themes of the hypocephalus itself: creation, governing powers, sacred time, heavenly order, divine light, priesthood, and eternal progression.

Critics assume:
“Wrong reconstructed hieroglyph = Book of Abraham false.”

That logic only works if Joseph claimed:
“I am academically translating every Egyptian character on this image.”

He never made that claim.

The Book of Abraham was produced by revelation. The facsimiles function more like symbolic teaching diagrams tied to the revealed text, not academic Egyptology worksheets.

The copied characters are upside down or out of place.

See point above. Shows the people who filled in the gaps didn’t understand Egyptian. Adding additional points to the same argument that was never made doesn’t make it any stronger.

Joseph called it connected to Abraham, but Egyptologists call it funerary.

“Joseph called it connected to Abraham, but Egyptologists call it funerary” is not the contradiction critics think it is.

Why couldn’t a 200 BC funerary text, describing rites, divine protection, sacred knowledge, resurrection, and the way to receive blessings from God, also preserve reference to a notable ancient figure who had received true knowledge from God, understood the plan, and overcame death through divine deliverance?

That is exactly the kind of figure Abraham was.

“Funerary” does not mean meaningless burial decoration. Egyptian funerary religion was about life after death, divine judgment, sacred knowledge, rebirth, cosmic order, and entering the presence of God.

Those themes overlap directly with the Book of Abraham.

Egyptologists are describing the later Egyptian setting of the object. Joseph Smith was giving a revealed interpretation of the divine truths behind the symbols and how they relate to Abraham.

A funerary context does not disprove Abrahamic meaning. It may actually explain why temples were so important to the Egyptians and why an Egyptian priest would care about Abraham in the first place.

Kolob and the cosmology are invented.

Critics say Kolob is “invented” because modern Egyptologists do not read the Egyptian figure as “Kolob.”

But that assumes Joseph Smith was giving a standard Egyptological label.

He wasn’t.

Kolob comes from Abraham 3, where Abraham is shown stars, governing bodies, divine time, intelligences, and the order of heaven. Facsimile 2 visually presents those same themes: a divine center, governing powers, cosmic movement, light, sacred time, and heavenly order.

So the issue is not whether an Egyptologist would label a figure “Kolob.”

The issue is whether Joseph’s revealed explanation fits the symbolic world of the hypocephalus.

And it does.

Hypocephali are already about divine light, rebirth, cosmic order, heavenly power, and the soul’s return toward God. Joseph’s cosmology is not randomly pasted onto the image. It matches the kind of ideas the image is built to communicate.

Faulk’s argument only works if “standard Egyptological label” equals “the only possible word used.” That is a bad assumption.

Joseph was not claiming to decode a museum placard. He was revealing the Abrahamic and doctrinal meaning behind the symbols, and the meaning he interpreted aligns with the meaning derived by modern scholars.

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