By Book of Mormon Central · October 30, 2019
...In addition to reinforcing the credibility of the Book of Abraham, this new, previously-unpublished evidence reminds us that the process of reliable scholarly inquiry into Joseph Smith’s scriptural translations and revelations takes time, but increasingly yields positive signs of their authenticity. As is true with the Book of Mormon, the trend for the Book of Abraham is to find confirmation for its claims slowly over time. The evidence surveyed in the new Insight on Shinehah was unavailable in Joseph Smith’s day, not understood well until the middle of the twentieth century, and not noticed by Latter-day Saint researchers until the twenty-first century.
As Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counseled in a BYU–Idaho devotional on September 24, 2013, when confronting questions or doubts about Joseph Smith’s scriptural texts, patience is an important virtue to exercise. “In counseling patience,” Elder Christofferson said on that occasion, “I simply mean that while some answers come quickly or with little effort, others are simply not available for the moment because information or evidence is lacking. Don’t suppose, however, that a lack of evidence about something today means that evidence doesn’t exist or that it will not be forthcoming in the future. The absence of evidence is not proof.”
Many questions remain about the translation and historicity of the Book of Abraham, and some of its claims do not at the moment find immediate confirmation from external evidence. In situations like this, instead of succumbing to paralyzing doubt, the Lord instructs his Saints to “doubt not, fear not” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:36) and instead to “seek . . . out of the best books words of wisdom,” and to “seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (D&C 88:118).
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