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The collection consists of Edward H. Ashment's manuscript, "The Use of Egyptian Magical Papyri to Authenticate the Book of Abraham" (27 pages, 1993), as well as correspondence pertaining to the research and writing of this paper. Ashment's paper responds to two articles published by John Gee, a doctoral candidate in Egyptology. The articles in controversy were published in Insight: an Ancient Window, ("References to Abraham Found in Two Egyptian Texts," September 1991), funded by the Foundation for Ancient Research & Mormon Studies. The article was then rewritten and published in The Ensign as "Abraham in Ancient Egyptian Text," in July 1992. They discuss the translation of the Magical Papyrus of London and Leiden in relation to Joseph Smith's interpretation of Facsimile One of the Book of Abraham. Ashment and Gee disagree as to the translation and meaning of the Egyptian symbols.
The correspondence in the collection covers the period from June 1992 through January 1995 and consists of letters from Stephen Thompson, a recent Ph.D. in Egyptology at Brown University; Brent Lee Metcalfe, of Salt Lake City, Utah; and Dialogue, an independent Mormon publication based in Salt Lake City, Utah. All of the correspondence relates to the paper written by Ashment and the articles written by John Gee. This material was donated by Edward H. Ashment in May 1995.