The name Ki-Abroam

Ki-Abroam, who appears as a character in the Words books and (in the form ki'abroan) in Words 14:7, has a name that pretty clearly comes from Joseph Smith's Kirtland Egyptian Papers.

Here, summarizing information from the GAEL and from Egyptian Alphabet documents A and C, and standardizing the spelling, are the five "degrees" of the name of Abraham:

1. Ah-broam: the father of the faithful, the first right, the elder(s)

2. Ah-broam: a follower of righteousness

3. Ah-broam: one who possesses great knowledge

4. Ah-broam: a follower of righteousness, a possessor of greater knowledge

5. Ah-brah-oam: a father of many nations, a prince of peace, one who keeps the commandments of God, a patriarch, a rightful heir, a high priest

I believe this is the only name or word that changes its pronunciation in the highest degree, and the two forms Ah-broam and Ah-brah-oam are pretty clearly intended to correspond to the biblical names Abram and Abraham, respectively. The hyphenation indicates a different analysis than the biblical names, which are understood to be Ab-ram and Ab-raham, with the prefix ab- meaning "father." In Joseph Smith's version, the first element is instead Ah, which is defined in Alphabet documents A, B, and C as "the first being, who exercises supreme power" (comma only in Alphabet C, so it's not clear whether or not the relative clause is restrictive).

We also have the same name, in its two forms, prefixed with Ki-. Ki by itself is listed as the compounding form of iota, and is defined as "see, sight, saw, seeing, having seen" or, in the fourth degree, as "me, myself." (These meanings, together with iota itself, seem to be linked by the English homophony of eye and the letter and pronoun I.)

1. Ki-ah-broam: that which goes before, until another time, or a change by appointment, the first, faithful, or father, or fathers

2. Ki-ah-broam: coming down from the beginning, to some place or fixed period, the first in lineage, or right in lineage

3. Ki-ah-broam: first reckoned in chronology, coming down from the beginning, firstborn right or blessings

4. Ki-ah-broam: change from the first [degree] by coming from the beginning by right of birth or lineage

5. Ki-ah-brah-oam: coming down from the beginning, right by birth and also by blessing and by promise, promises made, a father of many nations, a prince of peace, one who keeps the commandment of God, a patriarch, a rightful heir, a high priest.

The fact that we still have the two forms of the name, corresponding to Abram and Abraham in the Bible, seems to indicate that we are still talking about Abraham here. Part of the fifth-degree definition is identical to Ah-brah-oam in the fifth degree and thus also appears in Abraham 1:2, as shown in the table above.

Both the Ah-br(ah-)oam and the Ki-ah-br(ah-)oam definitions can be seen reflected in the text of Abraham 1:2-3. In the case of Ah-br(ah-)oam, the parallels are very exact, going through the five degrees in order and in almost the same language. The Ki-ah-br(ah-)oam parallels are less exact but are clearly there as well.

The relation of the Kirtland Egyptian Papers to the Book of Abraham is obviously far beyond the scope of this blog. The purpose of this analysis is to see if there is any significance to fact that the Words books preferentially refer to this character as Ki-Abroam rather than Abraham. Since the prefix ki- has no obvious meaning in any of Tolkien's languages or in other Words, I think the Kirtland Egyptian Papers are the only place to look.

As can be seen in the table above, Abroam emphasize righteousness and knowledge, while Ki-Abroam emphasizes coming down from the beginning and receiving rights by lineage from the first fathers. The longer form, Abrahoam, is essentially the same with or without the Ki- prefix: "a father of many nations, a prince of peace, one who keeps the commandments of God, a patriarch, a rightful heir, a high priest."

After the death of Asenath, Ki-Abroam is suddenly referred to instead as Abraham. It is possible that these names are meant to have different connotations, following the definitions in the Kirtland Egyptian Papers.