The papyri Joseph Smith claimed to translate survived. Egyptologists read them. They're a standard funerary text. The LDS Church published an essay about it. We read it so you don't have to do it alone.
This is Episode 2 of our Gospel Topics Essay series. We walk through the full Book of Abraham history: the 1835 Kirtland purchase, the 1912 Spalding analysis (eight independent Egyptologists, one conclusion), the papyri's rediscovery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1966, and the First Presidency's letter written before any scholarly analysis — claiming the fragments proved Joseph's claims completely.
We read the church's 2014 Gospel Topics Essay closely — the Missing Scroll theory, the Catalyst theory, the strategic redefinition of translation — and why the essay presents three possible explanations without endorsing any of them. Robert Ritner, the Roe Professor of Egyptology at the Oriental Institute, called it "a perhaps well-meaning, but erroneous invention." The essay remains unchanged. We also cover the Kirtland Papers, the three facsimiles, the Kinderhook Plates, and Zelph.
The evidence isn't close. The only question is what you do with it.