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

Thursday, November 17, 2016

1835 - Improvement Era (1942) - W.W. Phelps

In the August 1942 issue of the Improvement Era, under the title of "Genealogy," the Church published an excerpted transcript from a letter written by W.W. Phelps to his wife Sally in July 1835.1 This letter references the work being done on the papyri, providing some historical insights into the matter. The article also included an image of a letter written by Joseph Smith to Sally, essentially thanking her as W.W. Phelps spent a "short season" with him away from her and the family. Both letters have relevance to the history of the papyri and the Book of Abraham. The images are provided below, as well as a typescript of some of the contents.