Pearl of Great Deception
I purchased a copy of the second printing of Dr. Walter Martin's book The Maze of Mormonism some time around 1984. By then the Mormon church was doing their best to discredit Egyptologist Dee Jay Nelson who claimed the facsimiles in the Book of Abraham were total fiction. Though Mr. Nelson a member of the Latter-Day Saints was chosen by the church to translate some newly found papyri, it did not turn out in their favor. When other scholars outside the church such as both Dr. John A. Wilson, and Dr. Klaus Baer (University of Chicago), as well as Professor Richard Parker (Brown University) came to about the same conclusion as Nelson, the church began screaming anti-Mormon conspiracy. The reality became known that what Joseph Smith had claimed in his dubious translation was pure poppycock. This was not something written by Abraham but in fact was an ordinary Egyptian funeral document dating to no earlier than 660 B.C. over a thousand years after the time of Abraham....
