Joseph Smith said that , in addition to translating the golden plates , he translated the '' Book of Abraham '' papyri . These materials were thought to have been lost in the Great Chicago Fire . However , in 1966 scholars found ten fragments of the papyri in the archives of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York . Subsequently , an additional fragment was located in the LDS Church Historian 's Office . Both Mormon and non-Mormon Egyptologists agree that the '' Book of Abraham , '' as published by Joseph Smith , is not a translation of these papyri , and that the papyri were not written by the Biblical Abraham
Great Chicago Fire
Great Chicago Fire
Jerald and Sandra Tanner