THE BOOK OF ABRAHAM

ITS AUTHENTICITY ESTABLISHED AS A DIVINE AND ANCIENT RECORD

WITH COPIOUS REFERENCES TO ANCIENT AND MODERN AUTHORITIES

BY ELDER GEO. REYNOLDS.

1879 SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH

CHAPTER VII.

THE MEANS BY WHICH ABRAHAM WAS TAUGHT ASTRONOMY.–THE ABRAHAMIC
SYSTEM OF ASTRONOMY.–FROM THE EARTH TO KOLOB.–THE SYSTEM PROVEN TRUE BY RECENT
RESEARCH.–TESTIMONY OR VARIOUS AUTHORS.–ALCYONE.–MR. PETRIE’S TESTIMONY.–ADMISSIONS
THAT THE ANCIENTS WERE TAUGHT SCIENTIFIC TRUTHS BY DIVINE REVELATION.

A BRAHAM tells us that there were three ways by which he received
his knowledge of astronomy.

1st. Through the records handed down to him from the antediluvian
patriarchs.

2d. By the use of the Urim and Thummim, which he received from the
Lord in Ur of Chaldea.

3d. By direct communication with the Almighty, who, face to face,
and with His own voice, explained to him the laws that govern His countless creations.

The system of astronomy revealed by God to Abraham is so vast, so
grand, so comprehensive, that no uninspired man ever searched out its depths or
ascended its heights. Occasionally a patient searcher after truth caught a faint
glimmer of its glory, but that was all. But they none learned as Abraham learned,
nor did the profoundest astronomers of forty years ago have aught but the most meagre
and vain conception of the truths given to the world by Joseph Smith in his inspired
translation of Abraham’s record. Indeed, the truths there set forth are, today,
scarcely recognized by the more conservative schools of astronomy, it is only the
more daring minds that accept them, even in part.

The great truths told by Abraham regarding the starry hosts of heaven
are recorded thus: “I saw the stars that they were very great, and that one of them
was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones that were near
it; and the Lord said unto me, These are the governing ones: and the name of the
great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God; I have
set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order of that upon which
thou standest. And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was
after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolution
thereof, that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning,
it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou
standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of
Kolob.”

In other words these great, governing planets control all others
in their revolutions, or are the centres around which the others revolve. As the
moon revolves around the earth, and the earth with the other primary and secondary
planets belonging to this solar system revolve around the sun, so has the sun a
centre around which it, with all its earths and moons, revolves, while this grand
centre has a governing planet also, a sun or world around which it, with its attendant
systems of suns and worlds, revolves, and so on until we come to Kolob, the “nearest
to the celestial or the residence of God,” which is the grand centre which governs
all the suns and systems of suns “which belong to the same order” as our earth and
those that move with it.

Still further than this the Book of Abraham teaches us:

1st. That Kolob is the greatest of all the stars seen by that patriarch.

That it is so because it is nearest to the celestial, or residence
of God.

That it is nigh unto the throne of God.

That it governs all the planets which belong to the same order as
this earth.

That it is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time.

That it is after the manner of the Lord according to its times and
seasons and the revolutions thereof.

That one revolution is a day unto the Lord.

That one day, in Kolob, is equal to a thousand years, according
to the measurement of this earth.

That Kolob signifies first creation.

That it is the first in government, and last pertaining to the measurement
of time. The measurement according to celestial time; which celestial time signifies
one day to a cubit.

2d. That Oliblish stands next to Kolob.

That it is the next grand governing creation.

That it is equal to Kolob in its revolution and in its measurement
of time.

That it holds the key of power as pertaining to other planets.

3d. That Enish-go-on-dosh is also a governing planet, which was
said, by the ancient Egyptians, to be the sun, and to borrow (receive) its light
from Kolob through the medium of Kae-e-vanrash.

4th. That Kae-e-vanrash is the grand key, or governing power, which
governs fifteen other fixed planets or stars, as also the moon (Floeese), the earth
and the sun in their annual revolutions. That Kae-e-vanrash receives its power through
Kli-flos-is-es or Hah-ko-kau-beam.

5th. Kli-flos-is-es and

6th. Hah-ko-kau-beam receive their light from the revolutions of
Kolob.

To summarize: That this solar system is governed by Kae-e-vanrash,
which is governed by Kli-flos-is-es or Hah-ko-kau-beam, which are governed by Kolob.
Whether Oliblish belongs to the same order of systems as this earth, or simply holds
the keys of power-pertaining to other planets, is not so apparent.

When Joseph Smith enunciated the sublime truths above noticed no
such thoughts were prevalent amongst the students of astronomy. The Herschels had
some inkling of the facts, but their ideas were crude and undeveloped. It was not
until the Book of Abraham had been published in America, and if we mistake not in
England also, that Sir Wm. G. Hamilton, of the Dublin University, advanced the idea
that our solar system had a centre around which the sun and all its attendant planets
moved. To-day the scholars in the most radical school of astronomy will only admit
that our system has a centre, and that the probabilities are that that centre has
a centre also round which it and all its satellites move. Further than this they
cannot go. However, the little they do admit, confirms the mighty truths revealed
to Abraham of old and Joseph of today. On the other hand, the followers of the more
conservative schools will simply acknowledge that our solar system has a proper
motion of its own, independent of its relative or apparent motions with regard to
other stars. They admit that “relative to the general mass of stars, our sun is
moving in the direction of the constellation of Hercules.” They have come to this
conclusion, because they find that the stars in that part of the heavens are continually
growing brighter, (thus showing they are coming nearer,) whilst those in exactly
the opposite direction are as continually growing more dim. They have
also discovered that “there are in the heavens several cases of widely extended
groups of stars, having a common proper motion entirely different from that of She
stars around and among them. Such groups they say “must form connected systems,” (1 )
or in other words, are all controlled by one and the same governing planet. It is
also admitted that “the stars in all parts of the heavens move in all directions
with all sorts of velocities; (2 ) but they claim
that the distances of the stars from the earth are so immense, and so short a period
of time has elapsed since they first began to notice these movements, that they
cannot with certainty say whether they are moving in circles or straight lines,
it is only by analogy that they reason that they are moving around a centre. So
little are some of these observers willing to admit, that Prof. Newcomb simply allows
that “as our sun is merely one of the stars, and rather a small one too, it may
have a proper motion as well as other stars.” The Smithsonian report for 1871, speaking
of Herschel, says: “The world can afford to wait. Astronomy advances. It may be,
in the distant future, that the mysterious centre around which our sun and his worlds
revolve, may be detected and afford a solution for other mysteries as well as these.
The greatest astronomer is equipped for no more than a Sabbath-day’s journey.” Another
writer remarks, “Madler attempted to show, from an examination of the proper motions
of the stars, that the whole stellar universe was revolving around Alcyone, of the
Pleiades (or ‘seven stars’) as a centre–a theory, the grandeur of which led to
its wide diffusion in popular writing.” Mr. Wm. Petrie, of London, writing with
regard to this same star says: “Alcyone, a primeval name of the star, means the
centre, and has quite recently been discovered to be really the centre around
which even our whole solar system, amongst others, revolves.”

Short as is this last quotation, it testifies to three things confirmatory
of the divine inspiration that gave to the world the Book of Abraham.

1st. That this solar system has a central or governing sun or planet.

2d. That this fact was known to the ancients, who gave to this particular
star the name of the centre.

3d. That in modern times this truth has only been “quite recently
discovered.” That is to say; Joseph Smith could not have learned it from living
men or modern books, but only through the revelations of God.

And here let us observe that the word planet, as given by Joseph
Smith to the suns, in common parlance called fixed stars, is scientifically correct,
as a planet is a world that moves or wanders through space, and the common nomenclature
of fixed stars is untruthful and scientifically incorrect, as none are absolutely
at a standstill or fixed immovably in one place.

Elder Joseph L. Barfoot affords us the following additional particulars
with regard to the revolution of the solar system around Alcyone. He states: “The
entire march of our sun and its system around its centre is 25,868 years. (The period
of the precession of the equinoxes.) I believe this to be the period of the solar
orbit, and that there is some relation to this period and the sacred cubit (25.025)
which may yet be discovered. The change of 50.1” per annum in the appearance of
the stars as seen from the earth results from the orbital motion around Kolob or
some other large body. This would be a degree in seventy-two years. Of course the
orbit would be immense; the Lord evidently gave the Prophet Joseph an insight into
the order of this grand eternal round, which I think is really pictured in the Hypocephalus.

“The earth rotates on its axis, and moves in its orbit by the power
imparted to its mass by the solar forces; the deflective force from the line of
the sun’s motion, produced by the sun’s rotation on its axis, and its progression
around the centre of momentum of the system to which it belongs. And, since neither
the earth, nor any other body of matter, has power without motion, so, in the sun’s
great power, we have evidence of its great progressive motion. The rotation of the
sun of more than 6,500 feet per second would demand a velocity of progression of
over 26,000 feet per second. Herschel, by observation, was led to conclude that
‘the sun somehow moved towards Hercules with the velocity of the earth, or 100,000
feet per second,’ and to infer that the sun actually describes ‘a great orbit around
some undiscriminated centre.’ Sir R. Phillips analogically estimated the size of
this orbit, and announced that with equal centripetal and centrifugal force, it
would require an orbit of 162,885 millions of miles, performed in exactly 25,868
years, the period of the precession of the equinoxes.

“And as the earth and the other planets of this system rotate by
reason of the central solar motion, and turn on their axis by being deflected from
a right line in their respective orbits, Philips has shown that the sun and all
other planets rotate, as a result of the operation of the same law of motion, and
the fact that its satellites move in elliptical (egg-shaped, to be exact) orbits
shows that the solar centre is advancing.

“That this earth is part of a system that suffers no permanent change,
is seen in the unvarying order of the eclipses, which return in periods of eighteen
years and eleven days, if there are four leap years, and in eighteen years and ten
days, if there are five leap years in the period. And although astronomy does not
yet recognize the different orders of planets alluded to in the Book of Abraham,
the teachings of science are all tending to show that there are great governing,
central forces and periodic cycles.”

Having thus shown that present research and investigation are proving
the astronomical truths first given to this generation by that unlearned but heaven-inspired
man, the Prophet Joseph Smith, we have next to show that the Egyptians were familiar
with them, and that they learned them through the teachings of Abraham. To have
done this some fifteen or twenty years ago would have been next to an impossibility;
but to-day, through the researches of various talented and earnest men, it can be
demonstrated with comparative ease.

But before we attempt to prove that Abraham was actually the instrument
used of God to instruct the Egyptians in the mysteries of the starry worlds, we
will present a few extracts, from various writers, to manifest that even the scientific
world is beginning to admit that the Egyptians obtained their knowledge of astronomy
through divine agency or revelation, as it was entirely out of their power in those
early postdiluvian days to make such stupendous advances in this science with the
instruments and learning then at their disposal, without they received such aid
from records, etc., of antediluvian times.

Rev. Mr. Mackay, referring to some of the astronomical truths known
to the ancient inhabitants of the land of the Pharaohs, states that he believes
they were “revealed to man, ages and generations before science had any existence,”
and strange to say, the truths to which this gentleman refers have a direct relation
to those contained in the Book of Abraham. Mr. Wm. Osborn, in a sketch of the history
of ancient Egypt, remarks: “According to Moses, moreover, the age that produced
by far the most remarkable of those monuments (the pyramids) was one in which the
Almighty had frequent and familiar intercourse with man, as in the case of the patriarchs,
Abraham, Melchizedek and Job; while the monument itself evinces innumerable evidences
of a knowledge and wisdom to which unaided humanity has nowhere ever attained.”

Rev. Mr. Goodsir, from the demonstration of facts akin to the foregoing,
remarks: “The conclusion that some men in primeval times were taught by God, for
important religious and moral purposes, scientific truths which modern men of science
are only now discovering, is maintained on the strength of two lines of evidence–first,
the freedom of scripture rightly interpreted from scientific error, and from the
religious and moral errors witnessed among the pagans as the result of ignorance
and errors in science: and second, the possession by primeval man of such scientific
knowledge as we are only now reaching, as demonstrated by the great pyramid.
Certain things render it extremely probable that this knowledge was imparted to
the Ethnics (the gentiles) (who employed it in constructing the great pyramid) by
servants of God, whom He had taught; and though ultimately corrupted and
obscured by the pagans, still it is highly probable that, evincing its truth even
from the midst of enveloping error, this scientific knowledge continued to stimulate
the Egyptian, and afterwards the Greek, mind to scientific inquiry. * * * For as
there is the clearest evidence that a revelation of religious truth existed in primeval
times, and continued to benefit men, even when it became more or less corrupted,
so is there as clear evidence that men were primevally instructed in the most important
cosmologic and scientific truths. * * * The extreme probability is that a true scientific
conception of the Kosmos in general would be at first conveyed to man directly by
God, to guard his intelligent and highly-favored child from nature worship.”

That God did use Abraham, as stated in his book, to convey astronomical
knowledge to the Egyptians, is, we think, fully demonstrated by the following: Josephus
(book 1, chapter viii,) states that Abraham “communicated to them (the Egyptians)
arithmetic, and delivered to them the science of astronomy, for before Abraham came
into Egypt they were unacquainted with those parts of learning, for that science
came by the Chaldeans into Egypt, and from them to the Greeks also.”

This is very strong corroborative testimony, but modern research
actually claims to have discovered the year in which Abraham did this. The British
text book already referred to, entitled “Facts and Dates,” published in 1870 by
the well-known firm of Wm. Blackwood & Sons, of Edinburgh (we are particular in
giving details, to show that it proceeds from a reliable and highly respectable
firm), in its history of ancient Egypt, gives the following:

“B.C. 1980. Abraham teaches the king of Egypt the true chronology,
after which the inscriptions bear the name of the year and month.”

So far as the actual year is concerned, we deem it a matter of minor
importance, so that the fact is acknowledged, and the truth of modern revelation
vindicated.

(1 ) ” Popular Astronomy, 1878,”
by ‘Professor 8. Newcomb, of the United States Naval Observatory.

(2 ) Ibid.