A recent article in an LDS publication gives a hint to how the Mormon church may choose to deal with the embarrassment of the Pearl of Great Price. Like many other elements of Mormonism which have brought negative attention to the LDS church, it may just “go away.” One way is through de-emphasis. The speaker quoted in the article, John Gee, listed what he referred to as the six essential elements of Mormonism–
God exists; Jesus Christ is His Son; God talked and still talks with men through the power of the Holy Ghost; Jesus Christ atoned for the sins of the world; the Atonement is available to those who trust Jesus, turn from sin, make and keep sacred covenants, and follow the course throughout their lives; and the Book of Mormon is true, an authentic record of God's interactions with actual ancient people.
Then Gee asked, “Now where is the Book of Abraham in this?” he asked. “It isn't. The Book of Abraham is not central to the restored gospel of Christ.”
To illustrate, he said that of all the scriptural citations in general conference since 1942, the Book of Abraham has been cited less than 1 percent of the time. Most of those citations are the seven verses in Abraham 3:22-29, which tell of the pre-mortal existence.
It's true that the Pearl of Great Price isn't very important to today's LDS doctrine or everyday life. And its liabilities– most notably, its complete noncongruence to the papyri from which it was supposedly “translated” -make it likely to undergo the same fate as the “white and delightsome” passage in the Book of Mormon.
For more information, see The Mormon Mirage 3rd Edition: A Former Member Looks at the Mormon Church Today(Zondervan, 2009). Also available as an audiobook and as an expanded-text E-book for Nook, Kindle and other reading devices.
