Note: This is a shortened, somewhat simplified version of a more academic paper entitled “Chiasmus in the Book of Abraham?” available on Dr. Bowman’s Academia.edu page.

Chiasmus is a kind of parallelism in reverse, as in Jesus’ famous saying:

“Whoever exalts himself will be humbled,
And whoever humbles himself will be exalted” (Matt. 23:12).

Readers may be familiar with the claim that chiasmus in the Book of Mormon is evidence that it is ancient Hebraic literature. Mormons have recently been making a similar argument for the Book of Abraham, which they believe God inspired Joseph to translate from a text written by Abraham about four thousand years ago. LDS scholars claim to have identified two noteworthy examples of chiasmus in the Book of Abraham.

We do not need to dispute that the Book of Mormon or the Book of Abraham might contain some passages that fit the form of a chiasmus. Nor should we argue that Joseph deliberately used that device, since he almost certainly knew nothing about it. We should examine the proposed instances of chiasmus with an open mind, looking at them in as objective a manner as we can, and see where the evidence leads.¹

Abraham 1:3 as a Chiasmus

Some LDS writers have analyzed Abraham 1:3 as a chiasmus, as follows.²

A  It was conferred upon me
     B  from the fathers;
          C  it came down from the fathers, from the beginning of time,
               D  yea, even from the beginning,
               Dʹ or before the foundation of the earth,
         Cʹ to the present time, even the right of the first born,
      or the first man, who is Adam, or first father,
    Bʹ through the fathers,
Aʹ unto me.

If we look more closely, however, we have reason to question outlining this sentence as a chiasmus. Let’s divide the sentence into clauses or phrases, and then mark all of the parallel elements as best we can:

It was conferred upon me from the fathers;
it came down from the fathers,
from the beginning of time,
yea, even from the beginning,
or before the foundation of the earth,
to the present time,
even the right of the first born,
or the first man, who is Adam,
or first father,
through the fathers, unto me. 

Now let’s make some observations regarding parallels in the passage, without seeking to prove or disprove a possible chiasmus.

• The opening two clauses of Abraham 1:3 both use the words “it…from the fathers.”
• The next two clauses also have a three-word segment in common, “from the beginning.”
• The sentence gives a threefold description of Adam as the “first”: “the first born, or the first man…or first father.” This threefold description tells us something about what “it” at the beginning of the sentence means (the “right” passed down from Adam).
• We also find a threefold description of how old the “right” is: “from the beginning of time, yea, even from the beginning, or before the foundation of the earth.”
• Note the contrasting lines, “from the beginning of time…to the present time.”
• There are related phrases at the beginning and the end of the passage: “upon me…unto me,” and “from the fathers…through the fathers.”

Some of these parallel or related elements in the sentence could give partial support to the chiastic outline. The phrases “upon me” and “unto me” function like bookends of the verse (what literary scholarship calls an inclusio), consistent with the proposed lines A and Aʹ. The contrasting phrases “from the beginning of time” and “to the present time” are partial elements in lines C and Cʹ of the proposed chiasmus.

However, the chiastic outline fails to give any significance to most of the notable parallel structures in the verse. For example, the parallel clauses using the words “it…from the fathers” are not treated as parallel in the chiasmus but are instead assigned to three opening lines (A, B, and the first part of C). The two occurrences of the three-word unit “from the beginning” are assigned to the second part of C and to D, and thus they are also not treated as parallel in the chiastic outline. The threefold use of “first” is completely ignored in order to maintain a comparatively weak parallel between “fathers” (C) and “father” (Cʹ).

If we were to outline Abraham 1:3 to reflect its inherent literary structure, it would look something more like the following:

A1 it was conferred upon me from the fathers;
     A2 it came down from the fathers,
B1 from the beginning of time,
      B2 yea, even from the beginning,
            B3 or before the foundation of the earth,
B1ʹ to the present time,
C1 even the right of the first born,
      C2 or the first man, who is Adam,
            C3 or first father,
A1ʹ through the fathers, unto me.

This outline shows that the text includes inclusio, as mentioned earlier (A1 and A1ʹ), along with another reverse parallel (B1 and B1ʹ). It also includes two sets of three parallel lines describing the right’s temporal (B1, B2, B3) and human (C1, C2, C3) origins. So we can identify meaningful use of parallelism, and even two instances of reverse parallels, in the verse. However, it is a mistake to outline the entire verse as a chiasmus. Doing so forces a single structural form on the text rather than recognizing the natural structures of the passage.

Abraham 3:22-23 as a Chiasmus

The other proposed chiasmus in the Book of Abraham is Abraham 3:22-23, first identified as such by LDS author Julie M. Smith.³

A  Now the Lord had shewn unto me, Abraham,
the intelligences that were organized before the world was;
     B  and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones,
          C  and God saw these souls that they were good,
               D  and he stood in the midst of them,
                    E  and he said, these, I will make my rulers;
               Dʹ for he stood among those that were spirits,
          Cʹ and he saw that they were good;
     Bʹ and he said unto me, Abraham, thou art one of them,
Aʹ thou wast chosen before thou wast born.

The inner elements of this chiastic outline do exhibit some parallelism (C/Cʹ and D/Dʹ). On the other hand, the outermost parallels specified in the chiastic outline are comparatively weak.

The verbal parallel between “before the world was” and “before thou wast born” consists only of the word before and two similar yet different forms of the to-be verb (was and wast). The proposed parallel lines A and Aʹ do nothing with most of the text in line A (“Now the Lord had shewn unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized…”).

There is a conceptual parallel between “the noble and great ones” (B) and “thou art one of them” (Bʹ), because Abraham is included among “the noble and great ones.” However, the verbal similarity here involves merely the use of ones and one. The strongest verbal parallels to line Bʹ of the proposed chiasmus are in lines E (“and he said”) and A (“unto me, Abraham”).

Thus, the proposed parallels represented by A/Aʹ and B/Bʹ are both rather weak, calling into question whether there was any intention to create a chiasmus in this text. The point is not to deny the presence of any reverse parallelism here or to deny that any portion of the text can be interpreted as employing such parallelism. Rather, the evidence falls short of supporting the conclusion that the text was intentionally composed as a chiasmus.

Chiasmus and Ancient Egyptian Texts

In order to use these alleged instances of chiasmus to support the belief that the Book of Abraham is ancient, Smoot and his co-authors cite academic studies on the use of chiasmus in ancient Egyptian literature. It is true that chiasmus occurs in some ancient Egyptian texts. However, the LDS scholars’ handling of this evidence is inadequate in some significant ways.

For example, the LDS scholars quote a hymn to Osiris that contains a chiasmus consisting of two sets of six lines in clear reverse parallel order.⁴ The identification of chiasmus in this text, however, is beyond debate. The first six lines begin with a series of six words (in English these are translated set, given, great, Lord, great, Lord), and the following six lines begin with those same exact words exactly in reverse order (Lord, great, Lord, great, given, set).⁵ This is just the sort of tight structural device not found in the proposed instances of chiasmus in the Book of Abraham.

The authors also appeal to Jacqueline E. Jay’s book Orality and Literacy in the Demotic Tales to support their point that chiasmus was a significant feature of ancient Egyptian literature.⁶ However, Jay does not argue that chiasmus was distinctively Egyptian, Semitic, or even ancient. Rather, she explains that parallelism of varying kinds, including chiasmus, is common in ordinary speech and writing. Such rhetorical forms are found in almost every language.⁷ The use of chiasmus and other forms of parallelism is not distinctively ancient or Semitic. Its presence in a text is consistent with it being ancient but is also equally consistent with it being modern. Its presence is irrelevant to determining the origin of the text.

Could Joseph Compose a Chiasmus?

LDS apologists are the only authors today who argue that chiasmus can be evidence of a text’s antiquity. Biblical scholars, Egyptologists, and other scholars do not view chiasmus in this way. Chiasmus, where it exists, can help us understand a text better. However, chiasmus is not evidence that the text originates from a particular culture or period of history.

Ironically, we have a surprising example of modern chiasmus in Joseph Smith’s introduction to the first published edition of the Book of Abraham. Here is the entirety of that introduction, set out exactly as in the 1842 published edition:

A TRANSLATION
Of some ancient Records that have fallen into our hands, from the Catecombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham, while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham, written by his own hand, upon papyrus.⁸

This introduction may be analyzed as a “chiasmus” just as easily as any passage in the Book of Abraham. Omitting the heading “A TRANSLATION” that is set on a different line in all capital letters (making it the title of the article), we may analyze the introduction as follows (italics added for emphasizing parallel elements):

A  Of some ancient Records
     B  that have fallen into our hands,
          C  from the Catecombs of Egypt, purporting to be the writings of Abraham,
          Cʹ while he was in Egypt, called the Book of Abraham,
     Bʹ written by his own hand,
Aʹ upon papyrus.

The middle two lines (C/Cʹ) both refer to “Egypt” and use the synonymous expressions “the writings of Abraham” and “the Book of Abraham.” The lines marked B/Bʹ present an interesting contrast between “our hands” (where the records ended up) and “his own hand” (where the records originated). The writings are described as consisting of “ancient Records” (A) and as “papyrus” (Aʹ), which of course is an ancient writing medium.

The point is not that Joseph’s introduction to the Book of Abraham was an intentional chiasmus. Joseph clearly composed this introduction himself. It was not something he claimed to translate from an ancient source. No one thinks Joseph was consciously aware of chiasmus as a literary device (by any name) and was deliberately composing textual materials with that device. Yet the passage can be outlined as a chiasmus with at least as much cogency as the supposed Book of Abraham examples of chiasmus. Indeed, one could call Joseph’s introduction a chiasmus as long as one was not mistakenly attributing to him the intention of producing the text as a chiasmus. It doesn’t matter insofar as the categorization of a unit of text as chiasmus has nothing whatsoever to do with its origin.

Joseph was certainly no scholar, but he was highly intelligent, thoroughly conversant with the King James Version of the Bible, and both comfortable and skilled in speaking extemporaneously. To the extent that there are chiasmus-like passages in Joseph’s scriptural writings, they can be easily attributed to Joseph himself. They are occasional examples of his extreme use of repetition in all of his scriptural texts, some of which happen to fall into a chiasmus-like pattern.