Problems with Facsimile No. 3 of the Book of Abraham:

One notable issue concerns the characters (5) Shulem and (6) Olimlah, who are named and briefly described by Joseph Smith in the explanations of Facsimile No. 3, yet no further information about them is provided anywhere in the Book of Abraham text or other documents. Their roles—Shulem as “a waiter” and Olimlah as “a slave”—raise additional questions.

While assigning exalted titles to figures he associated with royalty or priesthood (e.g., “King Pharaoh,” “Prince of Pharaoh,” and “High Priest”), Joseph Smith appears to have projected his 19th-century assumptions and racial biases onto the scene. (5) Hor (the deceased) is identified as Shulem, a waiter, and Anubis, a prominent funerary deity with a jackal head, is rendered as Olimlah, a slave. In reality, these are well-known gods in ancient Egyptian mythology, not mortal servants. Their demotion to menial roles in Smith’s explanation may reflect both a lack of Egyptological understanding and a racialized worldview, unfortunately quite common in antebellum America.

Moreover, modern Egyptologists universally reject Joseph Smith’s identifications and interpretations of the facsimile’s figures. The scene itself is a common funerary vignette from the Book of the Dead, showing the deceased being presented before Osiris—not an Abrahamic court or scene of royal judgment as Joseph Smith claimed.