Rating: 
Summary: Great resource book: primary data and historiography
Review: Larson's book is certainly a "must have." The book contains color pictures of all the papyri which form the "Book of Abraham" (and the untranslated "Book of Joseph" + all of Joseph Smith's (absurd) translations + what the papyri really say. The material is thorough and concise.In addition to this, Larson summarizes the historiography of the "Book of Abraham" question: both the critics and the apologists from the 19th century to the present. Truly, the Mormon apologists are a sad lot, and Hugh Nibley the Archdissembler is their Prophet. The book unfortunately includes a good deal of Christian matter (mostly toward the end) which makes the work appear "anti-Mormon" from a religious perspective. For this reason it disqualifies itself from being the final definitive work on the subject. As a source, however, it will doubtless prove quite useful to many.
Rating: 
Summary: Read review by Ben Larson, the authors son of Nov. 2000
Review: This was one of the 1st books I read in my journey out of the cult called Mormonism.
I was quite puzzled by the last chapter of the book where Mr. Larson appears to endorse Christianity as the alternative to Mormonism.
Apparently the author did not have the financial resources to publish the book. A non-profit Christian organization agree to assist with financial backing if Mr. Larson would allow a chapter promoting Christianity. This organization, not Mr. Larson actually wrote this last chapter.
Ben Larson goes on in his review of November 2000 to say the family hopes to be able to fund a second printing of the book the way it was originally intended to be, a purely scholarly reference.
By way of interest, there is now available on DVD a movie about the same subject which is available through Amazon.com which is excellent. It is called 'The Lost Book of Abraham: Investigating a Remarkable Mormon Claim.' It would make a great companion to Charles Larson's book, 'By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus.' I would recommend making them both a part of your library.
Rating:
Summary: If Mormonism is flawed, so is Monotheism as a whole
Review:
Did you know that the Papyrus Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price is sitting inside the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art? It was thought to have been destroyed in a fire in Chicago back in the 1800s. In fact Emma, Joseph's wife kept it, and she did not got West with Brigham Young. A professor of Middle Eastern Studies (and non-Mormon) from the Univ. of Utah discovered it back in the 1960s while doing research. I bought a book called "By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus". It has reproductions of the Papyrus scrolls in full color, the ones currently in the Museum I mentioned. When you see them it is very clear that the facsimiles in the Pearl of Great Price came directly out of them. The authors of the book I mentioned compiled a great deal of scientific evidence that indicates they are common burial documents dated about 2,000 years ago. Moreover, when scholarly Egyptologists have looked at J.S.'s translations of those documents they basically concluded that he didn't know a thing about the Egyptian Language. The book was very well written and had a lot of facts to back it up. But the final chapter in my opinion seriously undermined in my opinion the credibility of the book, as it was basically an endorsement for Evangelical Christianity.
I enjoyed this book. I thought it had an impressive amount of research that helped back up the claims of the book, while refuting the claims of the LDS Church as to the origins ofthe Book of Abraham. However, I think the book was undermined in part by the closing chapter. It gave the impression that the authors are Evangelical Christians bent on winning Mormon converts. It's not uncommon for "Bible Thumpers" from the deep South to go to Salt Lake to go proselytizing in order to show the poor deluded Mormons the "Light" and errors of their ways.
To give you a little background on me, I was raised a non-Mormon in Utah. I agree that Mormonism could be a bunch of B.S. in its entirety. But I think it's ultimately flawed to say Mormonism is wrong because it does not withstand logical or scientific scrutiny, and then say that mainstream Christianity is the way to go because it does. I would argue that there is
nothing radically new in Mormonism that has not already been proposed in one form or another throughout the some 4,000 years of Monotheism as a whole.
For example:
1) Revelation from God
This is common throughout Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Forget about the "Book of Abraham" as proposed by Joseph Smith. Just look at the story as accepted by most mainstream monotheists. Its kind of ridiculous when you
judge it by modern standards. Say for example, if I went to work tomorrow and a co-worker approached me and said, "You know, I went home last night and an angel from God told me to offer my son up as a sacrifice. I was just about to slit his through when and angel stopped me at the last second." What would your reaction to that be? You would probably call the
police and child services at a minimum, and would also probably want to have the guy committed.
2) Persecution
How many historical prophets encountered persecution? What about Jesus himself, was he not accused of teaching heretical teaching? It's all too easy to gloss that story over with 2,000 years of hindsight. Let's not forget the some 400 odd years of persecution of Christian adherents by the Roman Empire
before it was adopted as the religion of the Empire. How much historical knowledge and "evidence" must have been lost during that time. Also, don't forget the hundreds of years in which the Catholic Church monopolized the Bible. Anything that was threatening to their doctrine was certainly destroyed, and unfortunately as a result an objective scientific
organization such as yours was never allowed evaluate the Catholic claims of the Bible 1,400 or 1,500 years ago. They would have likely been burned at the stake as heretics.
What I am getting at is Protestantism hasn't really had much of a solid base to stand on, except what the Catholic Church permitted to remain. Of course many modern Christians point to new translations of the Bible based on the Dead Sea Scrolls. However, I would have to really question the underlying
religous goals of many of the so called objective experts that have translated those documents.
I guess what I am getting at is that while I agree with the assertions about the Mormon claims being flawed I would also go so far as saying that the underlying monotheistic tradition is flawed. Most of the historical phrophets of the Bible were probably just as dedulded and fanatical as Joseph Smith. But for modern Christians if it happened 2,000 or 4,000 years
ago, it must be true and if it happened 150 years ago or yesterday it must be B.S. I wonder what will be thought of Joseph Smith 2,000 or 4,000 years from now?
Also, I agreed with the letters in the book from Thomas Ferguson. The Mormon Church as an organization is pretty impressive. That's why he did not request excommunication. Doctrine aside I would have to say I am a lot more
impressed by the Mormon Church than any other Christian sect. Also, what Joseph Smith said about the revelation from God that all the other sects are wrong because "those professors were all corrupt in his sight: that they draw to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me." I feel as if that is so true, that so many Christian organizations are up to their necks in corruption. Many leaders of such organizations get rich and get personal gain from using and abusing the sacred name of Jesus for their own personal monetary gain. The Catholic Church is no different; it's history is riddled with scandal and corruption
to include the modern day abominations of its clergy (no need to further explain). I would have to say the Mormon Church is more free of corruption than any other Christian church I have seen. It's an all volunteer chruch. Even the President lives a pretty humble life and has a fixed salary. If the Church doubled in size tomorrow, he would not notice any change in his
personal standard of living. Church members are not motivated by personal monetary gain from their church activities, aside the blessings of heaven.
Again, good book.
Rating:
Summary: Mormonism - no more flawed than Monotheism as a whole
Review: Because my Ph.D. is in linguistics, it has been apparent to me for decades that the LDS church, despite the enomous good that it inspires in millions of lives, has very serious problems with the Book of Abraham, as Larson's book very competently and clearly presents. Often, Mormons will read this book and attempt to brush away the solid points Larson makes. And yet, all Larson does is to show, documentedly, that the papyri don't say what Joseph Smith said they say. As I have known with clarity since 1968, which was shortly after the discovery of the papyrus pieces from which the Book of Abraham was claimed to have been translated by Joseph Smith, founder of the LDS Church, there is no similarity between what is on the papyri, and what Joseph Smith said was on them. This is a problem that is not made to disappear by ignoring it, but, on the other hand, the great majority of Mormons do not look into this matter far enough to discover the problems. So, for this majority, the Book of Abraham continues to serve its purpose of inspiration.
Rating: 
Summary: Well written, but still scholarly false
Review: I will be the first to admit that Mr. Larson's book is extremely well written and articulated. It is on the surface, a well researched and well defined work. Unfortunately, it is incomplete. I don't feel that this is the forum to discuss this but would suggest anyone who reads it to read it with an open mind (Mormon and non-Mormon alike) and then do further research on your own. For those of you who are Mormon--read like books; for those who are not Mormon, read articles and books from their scholars. You will begin to see the inconsistencies with Mr. Larson's work even without the benefit of "faith". It is unfortunate that so many have stated that this is the end-all-beat-all work that disproves Mormonism, despite the fact that ALL religions have flaws and could be 'disproved' with any amount of scholarly work. This is the exact point of religion--to be based in FAITH not science.
I gave Mr. Larson's book 2 stars based on being very well written and interesting read but factually inconsistent. His logic is sound but when that logic is based on false premises or facts then the conclusion must also be false.
Rating:
Summary: Good info but somewhat outdated
Review: This book contains some good information. However it lacks current research and data which refutes most of the the arguments contained in the work. At best it is a selective work picking and choosing data for a given position. Also a very great detractor is the bit at the end, bashing one faith in favor of another. Clearly there is an agenda by the author to win converts to his beliefs. If you truly are interested in Papyri, or even in ancient cultures, I would suggest doing your own research. There are alot more intruiging comparisons to be found with new information coming from recent sites and artifacts.
Rating: 
Summary: Good but LDS should not read this
Review: This is a well written book which manages to not push an "anti-Mormon" agenda. However as an LDS I do not think others should read it. Why? Because it could destroy your faith in the Church. I am not trying to be clever. If you enjoy all of the good things the Church has brought into your life, do you care where it came from? No other Church has so short a history that it can be examined so closely by science. Otherwise we would find that they are all created on the backs of con-artist. I am willing to bet every religion was founded by a fraud. So who cares. Does religion bring us together? Does it bond a nation, a town, a family? If so then let it be. The truth is fleeting, and life is short. If believing in Santa makes children smile then believing in God makes adults smile. When children find out Santa isn't real, you kill a certain spark you can never get back. When you expose a Church as a fraud, you kill a little spark in all of us.
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