In Abraham 1:7, Abraham complains that his relatives tried to have him sacrificed to their gods. In this essay I wanted to make a few quick comments on some historical sources that shed light on the historicity of this particular aspect of the Book of Abraham.

In the days of Terah, we are told that people began to sacrifice their children and to worship images. It was in the days of Serug, Abraham's great-grandfather, that the people began to look upon the stars, and prognosticate by them and to make divination, and to make their sons and daughters pass through the fire. (Nibley - "The Unknown Abraham" in the "Improvement Era", Feb. 1969 - quoting "Philo's Biblical Antiquities".) Another source says "Serug is said to have discovered the art of coining gold and silver money. In his days men erected many idols into which demons entered and wrought great signs by them." (Rev. S. Baring Gould, "Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets", John B. Alden, 1884, p. 147). So here they were, as the BofA reports "offering up their children unto their dumb idols." (Abr 1:7) with Abraham protesting and nearly getting himself in serious trouble. Nimrod's sacrifice of 70,000 babies may well be an echo of the practice and have nothing to do with Herod. This idea of Nibley's is confirmed in S. Baring Gould's book again, on p. 170 where Nimrod, after seeing the star in the East devour the other stars at Abraham's birth, is said to have built a huge tower and housed all the pregnant women in it. He killed 70,000 male babies and left the females alive. This is very much in line with the information presented in the BofA by Joseph Smith. Children were being sacrificed! That is historic ritual, we might say. S. Baring Gould also notes the other idea that Abraham was against - "At this time idolatry was commonly practised by all." (p. 177). The BofA says this also. Joseph Smith is exactly accurate on these points according to both of these legends (which he couldn't have known about), as well as what is known of the history of Abraham's time.

Classical writers have described Egyptian sacrificial rites as witnessed in various lands. What is so very interesting is that in Ethiopia, Achilles Tatius reports, a virgin with hands bound behind was led around an altar by a priest chanting an Egyptian hymn; then "all retired from the altar at a distance," the maiden was tied down, and a sword was first plunged into her heart and then her lower abdomen was slashed from side to side. The remains were burned, cut to pieces, and eaten. (Nibley, "IE", Feb. 1969). Note also that Robert Graves in his "Greek Myths" says that among the Scythian Taurians "a princely stranger ... is killed with a sword by the goddess' virgin priestess; and she throws the corpse into the sacred fire." (Vol. 2, p. 74, 77). We know, thanks to the earlier labors of Dr. Jos. L. Saalschutz that "Aristomenes von Messene opfert dem Jupiter dreihundert Menschen, unter welchen sich Theopompous, der lacedamonische Konig befand. Dergleichen geschah in den altesten Zeiten bei den Lustrationen und Expiationen haufig.

Ausserdem hatte Bachus einen Altar in Arkadien, auf wlechem sehr viel junge Madchen mit zusammengebundenen Ruthen so lange gebauen wurden, bis sie starben. Die Lacedamonier hatten einen ahnlichen Gebrauch, indem sie ihre Kinder zur Ehre der Diana Orthia so sehr geisselten, dass sie bisweilen ihr Leben einbussten." ("Archaologie der Hebraer", 1855, p. 180). Here again we see the same theme, the maidens and children offered for sacrifice and in no small measure!

The Pseudo-Plutarch tells how the first Pharoah in bad years was ordered by the oracle to sacrifice his own daughter and in grief threw himself in the Nile (Nibley, Feb. 1969). Heliodorus explained that the Egyptians of the late period selected their sacrificial virgins from among people of non-Egyptian birth, the rule being the men were sacrificed to the sun, women to the moon, and virgins to Osiris, equated here to Bacchus. This is precisely and exactly what we read of in Abr. 1:9! Here the girls are plainly meant as consorts of the god, in the usual ritual marriage of the year-rite, common to Egypt and Syria. Indeed, in a legend we learn that Nimrod's own daughter Radha fell in love with Abraham and tried to come to him in the sacrificial fire! The name is interesting since Rodha, Rhodopis, is a name popularly given to the Sphinx in late times, which was the Egyptians sacred hierodule. And Alan Gardiner reminds us that from the 21st dynasty onwards, the title "God's wife", formerly reserved for the Pharoah's wife, was "transferred to his daughter who became the consecrated wife of the Theban god and to whom human intercourse was strictly forbidden." (Gardiner "Egypt of the Pharoahs", p. 343). This was the line of virgin priestesses which enjoyed a royalty line at Thebes. So here we have the august virgins of the royal line set apart as spouses of the god, and as such, expected to engage in those activities which would make them ritual hierodules. Strabo says that the Egyptians sacrificed the fairest princess, a virgin of the royal line, to be a hierodule until her physical purification, after which she could marry. Here is a plain indication that such princesses "of the royal descent" as described in Abraham 1:11, were expected to jeopardize their virtue, and if they refused to do so they would forcibly be dispatched in the manner of the hierodules. Wainwright says the ladies represent the spirit of fertility, an adulteress is one in whom this spirit is emphatically incarnate. In the annual year rites, Wainwright explains that royal princesses, even the queen herself, were expected to function as courtesans. In short, as Joseph Smith's marvelous BofA says after the manner of the Egyptians, royal princesses were sacrificed both for their virtue and their lives on ritual occassions. (Wainwright - "The Egyptian Sky Religion", pp. 55, 89).

In other words, the historicity and ritual aspects of the first chapter of the BofA dealing with virgins who are chaste and so are sacrificed, the idolatry and wickedness of sacrifices unauthorized is exactly and precisely correct. Abr. 1:9-11 is strictly historically correct in each and every sense of the word.