Gee argues that eyewitness descriptions distinguish a long roll used for the Book of Abraham from the mounted fragments that survive, making a lost papyrus source the best fit to the historical evidence. He regards the Egyptian-language papers as insufficient evidence that the English book was generated from the surviving Breathing text.
- John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book, 2017).
- Stephen O. Smoot, John Gee, Kerry Muhlestein and John S. Thompson, “The “Kirtland Egyptian Papers” and the Book of Abraham,” BYU Studies Quarterly 61, no. 4 (2022): 45–49.
It is clear from the descriptions of nineteenth-century eyewitnesses that the papyrus from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Abraham does not match any of the existing fragments.