The Book of Abraham: The Apocalypse of Abraham

I want to say to you, read the book, the Pearl of Great Price, and read the Book of Abraham. The Pearl of Great Price I hold to be one of the most intelligent, one of the most religious books that the world has ever had; but more than that, to me the Pearl of Great Price is true in its name. It contains an ideal of life that is higher and grander and more glorious than I think is found in the pages of any other book unless it be the Holy Bible. It behooves us to read these things, understand them: and I thank God when they are attacked, because it brings to me, after a study and thought, back to the fact that what God has given He has given, and He has nothing to retract." - Levi Edgar Young, Conference Report (April 1913), 74

"...it must be evident to all who seriously consider the matter, that if the Book of Abraham as given to us by Joseph Smith be true, it must have been translated by a greater than human power." - George Reynolds, The Book of Abraham: Its Authenticity Established as a Divine and Ancient Record (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1879), 4

Sunday, November 13, 2011

The Apocalypse of Abraham - G.H. Box 1918

The following translation and commentary on The Apocalypse of Abraham was provided by G.H. Box, in 1918. The original text was probably written in Hebrew or Aramaic, from which a Greek version was made. The following translation is from a Slavonic text which was based on the Greek version. Box believes the date of the original composition to be the end of the first century, or beginning of the second century A.D. The date of the Slavonic text is probably from the fourteenth century A.D. I've included his comments as well as the translation to provide a greater context regarding the translation of the text.