Abstract: The seeming appearance of a lineal or generational curse in the Book of Abraham has been used erroneously to marginalize people and justify racist ideas in Latter-day Saint history. To avoid any further misinterpretation of scripture in ways that are hurtful to others, the following attempts to elucidate the meaning of lineal curses within the Book of Abraham’s claimed ancient provenance. “Cursed” often reflected a simple legalistic concept, applicable to any person regardless of race, that meant one was currently in a state of disinheritance. An individual might be in a state of disinheritance if they violated any requirement necessary to receive their inheritance, and any descendant who remained an heir of a person who no longer had an inheritance to give was also considered disinherited or “cursed,” even though they may have personally done nothing wrong. This ancient understanding of cursing as disinheritance provides better context and clarity to many of Joseph Smith’s revelations and translations, including the Book of Abraham. Arguably, the scriptures and revelations of the Latter-day Saint tradition, including the Bible, indicate that the eternal blessings of a kingdom (land) and priestly kingship/queenship (priesthood) originate from God but must be inherited through an unbroken ancestral chain forged via covenant. Indeed, the express purpose of sealing children to parents in modern Latter-day Saint temples is to make them “heirs.” Consequently, moving towards a better understanding of the roles inheritance and disinheritance play in receiving the divine blessings of the covenant might be beneficial generally and help readers avoid racist interpretations of the Book of Abraham and other scripture. This is especially the case when it is understood that being disinherited, in a gospel context, does not need to be a permanent status when one relies on the grace of the Holy Messiah and [Page 98]submits to those divine laws and covenant rites whereby one can literally inherit the promised blessings.

The Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith started publishing in 1842 as a divinely revealed translation of a text “purporting to be the writings of Abraham … upon papyri,” gives a first-person account of two major events from the patriarch’s life: 1) his initial calling by God at an altar where he nearly experienced capital punishment at the hands of a “priest of Elkenah,” who “was also the priest of Pharaoh” (see Abraham 1:1–31) and 2) his later covenant with God that included divine temple-like instruction concerning pre-mortal spirits (whose organization and relationships are compared to various heavenly bodies) as well as the creation of the earth and mankind (see Abraham 2:1–5:21).1 Passages within the first event appear to suggest that some kind of generational curse prohibited the king of Egypt from having the right to priesthood. The reader is told that from the biblical Ham “sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land” and that Pharaoh, as a descendant of Ham, was “of that lineage by which he could not have the right of Priesthood,” though the pharaohs generally would “fain claim it from Noah, through Ham” (Abraham 1:21, 24, 27).