Colby Townsend is a dual PhD candidate in English and religious studies at Indiana University Bloomington. He is the co-editor, with Abby Clayton, of Printing New Religion: Transatlantic Movements in the Nineteenth Century (advanced contract with the University of Illinois Press) and has published several essays in Journal of the Bible and its Reception, Dialogue, and Journal of Mormon History.
Last Updated
October 22, 2026
Books by the Author
Articles by the Author
In 1830, Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon from tablets written in Egyptian. In 1835, he bought Egyptian funerary papyri from a traveling exhibitor, which he declared to have been written by Abraham. Over the coming years he published his translation as the Book of Abraham, which later became part of the LDS canon. Because every stage of this process is documented, we can see how a mid-century piece of American literature was made into scripture by a new religious movement.
In 1830, Joseph Smith claimed to have translated the Book of Mormon from tablets written in Egyptian. In 1835, he bought Egyptian funerary papyri from a traveling exhibitor, which he declared to have been written by Abraham. Over the coming years he published his translation as the Book of Abraham, which later became part of the LDS canon. Because every stage of this process is documented, we can see how a mid-century piece of American literature was made into scripture by a new religious movement.
