Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_Res Ipsa]

Hi Roger,

I'll comment on some of the points you made and I'll throw in some S/R reasoning to see what you think.

Sounds like fun.

E7: Joseph Smith's past treasure hunting.
E8: Information known about how con men operate, especially how they are able to misdirect attention and conceal important information about the con from others.

This would have been even easier if Oliver had been in on the con. Either way, if Smith was a good con-man and could conceal the use of a Bible to produce a substantial portion of the Book of Mormon text, then why couldn't he have concealed a Spalding ms?

I think having Oliver inside the con would likely have made it easier. That way, I guess Smith wouldn't have to fool Oliver repeatedly into seeing all those angels and things.

I'm not sure how hard it would have been to conceal use of the Bible for 2 Nephi. What percentage of the Book of Mormon would that represent. Heck, if Oliver were in on it, I suppose he could have just copied it himself without Smith being around. Sure, Smith could have concealed a manuscript, a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Koran. But that doesn't go to the likelihood that he concealed any of them.

C4: Smith's behavior exhibits the characteristics of a con-man.

E9: All other things being equal, the more people that are aware of a secret, the greater the chance of exposure.

C5: Smith has a strong motive to keep "inside information" to as few people as possible.

Agreed.

C5: Before we conclude that any given witness was aware of any relevant "inside" information, we should carefully consider the possibility that the information was concealed from them.

I think we agree that if there is a likely exception to this, it is Oliver Cowdery.

Well, I would still carefully consider the possibility, but I suspect the case for him being an insider is stronger than for some of the other translation witnesses.

E12: All witnesses to translation of the Book of Mormon (not the 116 pages) except Cowdrey reported that Smith put his face in the hat and dictated to a scribe.
E13: Cowdrey simply said that translation was done through the Urim & Thummin.
E14: Smith responded to an invitation to tell believers about the translation process by declining to provide any information.

There is not sufficient evidence to infer anything from the fact that none of the witness descriptions mentioned dictation from the Bible. Their descriptions do not make it more or less likely that the Bible was used in the translation. Although we can conclude that Smith dictated from Isaiah, there is no reason to believe the witnesses were in a position to observe that part of the translation. Given that intentional omission of that information assumes that the witnesses were aware of the information, and we have no evidence to show that the witnesses were aware, intentional omission is an unlikely explanation.

I still disagree. The way you lay it out above is a possibility. It requires that Emma Smith and David Whitmer were completely duped by Joseph Smith when their statements imply they were present for much of the dictation. I acknowledge the above scenario as a possibility, but I think it's equally possible that they knew more than they let on. Probably not that they sat in on secret meetings, but that they may have seen a Bible being used or other materials and not mentioned them because doing so would have been detrimental to Mormonism and to the Book of Mormon.

Do we know how much of the translation they actually witnessed? I'm not familiar with lots of the relevant details. For instance, there must be recorded readings of the Book of Mormon. How long does it take to just read the book aloud? Given that the scribe had to write, dictating the whole book would have to had to taken longer than just reading it aloud. So what's the minimum number of hours required? And once the initial novelty wore off, how interesting would it have been to watch Smith talk with his head in a hat? In other words, I don't think it would be very difficult to have dictated the Isaiah portions when witnesses weren't watching. For that matter, as I said above, Smith could have just asked Oliver to do the copying when he was "off duty." If there are several equally likely possibilities, then there isn't any basis for inferring anything from the fact that they didn't say something.

Oliver, on the other hand, knew of the dictation. His reaction to the information would depend heavily on whether he truly believed Smith was a prophet. There is evidence not discussed here that would indicate that Oliver was an "insider" rather than an "outsider." His description of the translation omitted the hat, and was generally a more faith-promoting summary. I don't know enough about Oliver to reach any kind of firm conclusion, but I think there is reason to investigate his motives further.

I agree. Dan Vogel posted this quote from Abram Benton a couple years ago [bold mine]:

During the trial it was shown that the Book of Mormon was brought to light by the same magic power by which he pretended to tell fortunes, discover hidden treasures, &c. Oliver Cowdry, one of the three witnesses to the book, testified under oath, that said Smith found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters, which were engraved on the plates.

--[Abram W. Benton], “Mormonites,” Evangelical Magazine and Gospel Advocate (Utica, New York) 2 (9 April 1831): 120.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=16575&hilit=Jocker&start=2226

In addition to the fact that this testimony was given under oath (at Smith's 1830 Bainbridge trial for glass-looking), I find it interesting that, as stated here, Oliver's testimony has a similar implication to those of the other witnesses. By looking through these "two transparent stones" Joseph was able "to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters." This doesn't give any indication that Joseph had to "study" anything out in his mind. On the contrary, he simply appears to be reading in English.

On the same thread, Vogel also noted that:

When Joseph Smith decided to give an account in 1832, he said “the Lord had prepared spectacles for to read the book” (EMD 1:30), but provided few details. In his 1834-35 history, Cowdery gave a similar statement that was very similar to his 1848 statement at Council Bluffs: “Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history, or record, called ‘The Book of Mormon’” (Messenger and Advocate 1 [October 1834]: 14).

I find it very interesting that on the same thread, Dan writes, and emphasizes by underlining:

None of this means OC was a coconspirator with Joseph Smith, only that he was willing to lie to promote the Book of Mormon and God’s church.

Dan notes that Cowdery's story differs from the others; that Cowdery never mentions a seer stone; that he might have been "playing a verbal game to avoid talking about the stone in hat" [because of it's treasure-hunting connotations] and that it’s "also possible that he simply distorted the truth as he did for other parts of the story."

Dan admits all this, even concluding that Cowdery: "was willing to lie to promote the Book of Mormon and God’s church" but then emphasizes that this doesn't make him a co-conspirator. I have to ask myself: Why is it so important to keep Cowdery out of a "conspiracy"? The conversation on that thread went on for many pages and it became clear that Dan is committed to Smith acting alone; that one of the reasons he rejects S/R is the notion of a "conspiracy" between Rigdon, Smith and Cowdery seems ridiculous to him and that there's no evidence for it. I find it very interesting that Dan is willing to acknowledge that Oliver "was willing to lie to promote the Book of Mormon and God’s church" and I agree with that conclusion. Once we agree with that conclusion, how much of a leap is it to think that Cowdery purposely avoided mentioning the use of a Bible? If Cowdery is "willing to lie to promote the Book of Mormon and God’s church," not much. But Dan is adamantly opposed to that notion.

Dan's probably forgotten more Mormon history than I've ever known. That doesn't mean his interpretation of events is ultimately accurate, but it does mean I'm in no position to argue with him without doing lots of homework and maybe getting some education in historical methods. Lots of very smart people have reviewed the evidence and have come to a broad range of conclusions about what actually happened and what motivated all the people involved. I got here because I made some comments on parallels.

Seriously, Dan has an interpretation of the facts that he thinks best explains what we know. I suspect there's more to it than simply that a conspiracy is ridiculous. If you think it would be helpful, I'd be happy to read the old thread and tell you what I think.

Another problem on that thread was Dan's attempt to force his concept of "conspiracy" onto the S/R theory. I don't necessarily think it had to be a "conspiracy" in the way it is generally thought of and certainly not as Dan was suggesting. You are correct, Brad, to note that the more people that are in on a secret, the greater the chances of someone revealing the secret. A "conspiracy" of three people is hardly a huge conspiracy. And I also don't think it was like Rigdon, Smith and Cowdery sat down to plot out how they could pull off a religious fraud. I doubt if any of them would have seen it as "fraud" and even if they did, they would have never admitted it. It is quite possible that Rigdon truly believed the Spalding manuscript had been placed in his care by God; that Spalding had not lived to publish it for a divine reason; and that the reason was that Sidney was to add additional, valuable revelation to it; that this revelation was necessary in order to settle various religious disputes and bring forth "the fullness of the everlasting gospel." He may have believed that Spalding had truly translated the text to produce the manuscript up to that point. (The extant Spalding story has Spalding translating the story from Latin into English). Rigdon may have believed that Nephites were real people. Spalding writes his extant story as though it were history and admonishes his readers as follows:

Now, Gentle Reader, the Translator who wishes well to thy present and thy future existence entreats thee to peruse this volume with a clear head, a pure heart, and a candid mind.

Of course, it must be kept in mind that Spalding's extant story is not the manuscript that was alleged to be the basis for the Book of Mormon by the Conneaut witnesses. They instead claimed that Spalding went further back in time and wrote in a Scriptural style in that manuscript. If Rigdon, Smith and Cowdery used it to create the Book of Mormon, then there is good reason why it is no longer in existence. But it's interesting to note that even in this story, Spalding presents himself as discovering an ancient manuscript and translating it into English. So it's quite possible that if Rigdon came across this manuscript, he might well have believed that Spalding had indeed discovered and translated a real history of "the ancient inhabitants of this continent."

Uncle Dale has also pointed out that printing new "scripture" was not unfamiliar to Rigdon, as it is likely he produced all or at least helped to compose the "Third Epistle of Peter" which was published in 1824.

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/1824Scot.htm

That work was a sarcastic diatribe against the clergy with whom Alexander Campbell (and Rigdon) disagreed, and it was produced in emulation of the King James Bible.

Roger, I see lots of possible scenarios in what you describe, but that's very different than making a case based on evidence. We can't do that by chaining together a bunch of possibles. I'm sure you have more, but I have no ability to evaluate what you're saying here.

Turning a corner here, you mentioned earlier that:

given sufficient information, I'd be able to show you some lie every witness you rely on for the S/R theory has lied

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. Do you think the Conneaut witnesses were lying about Spalding's ms?

No, it was a more general point about trying to draw general conclusions from evidence that a witness told a lie. I don't know enough about the Conneaut witnesses to evaluate their credibility on that topic.

[_Roger]

Referring to Oliver Cowdery:

First, I don't think he saw God, Jesus, Moses, Moroni, JtB at all. Did he believe he really saw them or did he have his fingers crossed? I don't honestly know. It sounds like you've read more about him than I have. I think you make a good point that the timing of his "visions" seems pretty convenient. I don't recall him having any that didn't fit in with Smith's founding of the church. Like I said, if I actually knew more about the guy, I might very well agree that he knew Smith wasn't what he claimed to be but went along with him.

I don't think we have much choice given Cowdery's testimony. Both Cowdery and Smith claim to have seen John the Baptist at the time the Aaronic priesthood was bestowed on them. Interestingly, Bushman points out that it was Cowdery that first made this claim, not Joseph:

Cowdery was the first to recount the story of John's appearance, not Joseph himself. In an 1834 Church newspaper, Cowdery exulted in his still fresh memory of the experience. "On a sudden, as from the midst of eternity, the voice of the Redeemer spake peace unto us, while the vail was parted and the angel of God came down clothed with glory, and delivered the anxiously looked for message, and the keys of the gospel of repentance!"

Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 75

Since we're not accepting the idea that angels exist, how do we explain this statement? I see no alternative but to either accept that Cowdery believed he spoke to an angel (John the Baptist) or that he was in on the fraud with Smith.

I'm not sure how hard it would have been to conceal use of the Bible for 2 Nephi. What percentage of the Book of Mormon would that represent. Heck, if Oliver were in on it, I suppose he could have just copied it himself without Smith being around. Sure, Smith could have concealed a manuscript, a copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin, or the Koran. But that doesn't go to the likelihood that he concealed any of them.

The point is, if Oliver is "in on it" it changes the whole dynamic. If Oliver is privy to "inside information" then a substantial portion of the text might have been produced out of the view of the other witnesses. Given that possibility, there is no telling what could have been used besides a Bible.

The fact that Rigdon had experience producing text that reads like scripture coupled with the fact that Rigdon produced revelations, like Smith, and even had at least one joint revelation with Smith early on, and later went on to claim that he knew by revelation what was written on the sealed pages of the Book of Mormon, indicates that Rigdon was more than capable of producing text for the Book of Mormon. He could easily have purloined a manuscript written by a man who was now dead but had claimed to have translated a history of the ancient inhabitants of this continent, believed it to be true, and believed that God had placed it in his care in order to add additional and necessary revelation. Of course, this is speculation, but reasonable speculation, given what we know about Rigdon. By the time the manuscript got to Smith and Cowdery, there is no reason they would not also have believed. If Joseph was a "pious fraud" it works both for S/A and S/R. If Joseph was a con-man it works both for S/A and S/R.

And if Smith and Cowdery could believe that Smith could receive revelation from God through his seer stone, then there is no problem with Smith adding his own revelation to the manuscript supplied by Rigdon. There is no problem with Smith dictating from and embellishing that manuscript to Cowdery. If Cowdery was comfortable believing that Smith could read from the KJV Bible and make changes (which would have been viewed as improvements) to the text, then there is no problem with Smith adding to a Rigdon supplied manuscript which itself had divine origins. God would have been directing the whole thing.

And Cowdery would not have mentioned the Rigdon supplied manuscript, just like he didn't mention the Bible. The problem comes in when we consider that Cowdery never mentioned the Bible but he specifically denied that a Spalding manuscript was used. So, either there was no Spalding ms, or Cowdery lied, or Cowdery was not aware that the materials supplied by Rigdon had originated with Spalding.

Well, I would still carefully consider the possibility, but I suspect the case for him being an insider is stronger than for some of the other translation witnesses.

I agree, but I think they (meaning Emma, Whitmer, Harris and Cowdery) were all willing to leave out damaging elements from their testimonies.

Do we know how much of the translation they actually witnessed? I'm not familiar with lots of the relevant details.

So far as I know, that is impossible to figure out. At times, Whitmer seems to be present and at other times, he's out doing chores. Same with Emma.

For instance, there must be recorded readings of the Book of Mormon. How long does it take to just read the book aloud? Given that the scribe had to write, dictating the whole book would have to had to taken longer than just reading it aloud. So what's the minimum number of hours required?

That is an excellent question. Most LDS apologists make a big deal about how quickly the whole thing came together when Oliver entered the picture. It seems almost unrealistic. If I remember correctly, the average breaks down to 8 pages per day but I don't think that includes days when no work was done. It would have been much easier to pull this off if some of the text was simply transcribed from other sources. This seems reasonable given that a lot of the larger KJV quotation sections fall in the 116 page replacement pages.

And once the initial novelty wore off, how interesting would it have been to watch Smith talk with his head in a hat? In other words, I don't think it would be very difficult to have dictated the Isaiah portions when witnesses weren't watching. For that matter, as I said above, Smith could have just asked Oliver to do the copying when he was "off duty." If there are several equally likely possibilities, then there isn't any basis for inferring anything from the fact that they didn't say something.

Except we've already determined by the text that at least a portion of it was not produced in the manner described. The italic reaction phenomenon would seem to indicate that whoever was doing the redacting had to put some thought into the process. This is not something that was likely to have been done as Smith was dictating on the fly.

Seriously, Dan has an interpretation of the facts that he thinks best explains what we know. I suspect there's more to it than simply that a conspiracy is ridiculous. If you think it would be helpful, I'd be happy to read the old thread and tell you what I think.

I'm only using Dan's logic as an example of S/A because he's the most prominent advocate of that line of thought that I am aware of. I agree that he has an encyclopedic knowledge of early Mormonism. Yes, you are correct, it's not just that he thinks conspiracy is ridiculous. There are other factors. I also mention Dan because we had a similar discussion on that thread and it sounds to me like you agree with his logic in many ways. That's why I'm interested in discussing this with you. You seem to be an intelligent, well-reasoned person. I think there is merit to the S/R theory and I'd like to see if you can see some of the logic behind it, or if, in the end, you think it's ridiculous.

If you want to read that thread, have at it. It's probably the longest thread in the history of Mormon Discussions. There are some interesting nuggets amid the warring egos.

Roger, I see lots of possible scenarios in what you describe, but that's very different than making a case based on evidence. We can't do that by chaining together a bunch of possibles. I'm sure you have more, but I have no ability to evaluate what you're saying here.

Fair enough. I've been looking into the S/R theory since about 2008. I've been doing other things for the last two years, however. So I'm rusty. There is a lot to digest. There's no way it can be presented in a few posts or even on a single thread. What interests me about vessr's parallels is that if we can conclude that borrowing took place, then I think it is worth looking into the possibility of additional borrowing. The KJV parallels are so numerous and extensive, they stand on their own. Given the italics factor as well as the carry-over of KJV mistakes, it seems pretty obvious to me that borrowing has occurred. There are also parallels between the Book of Mormon and Spalding's extant manuscript. But those parallels are not on the same level as the KJV parallels. If they were, I think Mormonism wouldn't have survived into the 20th century.

But those parallels need to be evaluated in the context of the claims that were made about them. That's where the S/R theory begins to get complex. If it were just the parallels alone that we have to go on, it would be, as you say, inconclusive.

The problem, as you may know, is that the extant Spalding manuscript is not the one the witnesses claim was used to produce the Book of Mormon. In fact both the LDS and RLDS jumped at the chance to publish Spalding's extant ms when it was rediscovered in 1884 in an effort to say: See? We told you this manuscript has nothing to do with the Book of Mormon.

Then when S/R proponents said, "well, this is not the correct manuscript," LDS apologists were quick to make it look like S/R theorists were responding in an ad hoc manner to the damaging information that Spalding's "Manuscript Found" was not the basis for the Book of Mormon. But that is highly misleading. Probably intentionally so. If we go back to the original claims, we see that Aron Wright (and other witnesses) were presented with this ms and point blank denied that it was the one they were referring to.

So we have a reciprocal Cowdery scenario. Cowdery denies point blank that a Spalding ms was used to produce the Book of Mormon, and Aron Wright denies point blank that the extant Spalding ms is the one he and the other witnesses were referring to when they gave their testimonies. They had given their testimonies a few months before Hurlbut discovered Spalding's Roman story, and Hurlbut went back to Conneaut with the Roman story to see if that was the ms they had referred to. Howe claims in his book they denied it, and we have evidence that Aron Wright (at least) did so deny.

A key component to this is the fact that the Conneaut witnesses emphasize that the Book of Mormon names were the same in Spalding's ms; particularly Nephi and Lehi. But none of the Book of Mormon names match with the Roman story. So we either have all eight witnesses suffering from the same really bad memory, or they were lying or they were telling the truth and there was another Spalding manuscript.

Interestingly, what does match, with regard to names, is the method of inventing new names. Both the Book of Mormon and Spalding's Roman story use current names to produce new names. So for example, Moroni becomes Moronihah in the Book of Mormon and Hamback becomes Hamboon in Spalding's Roman story.

So what we're examining when we look at the parallels between Spalding's Roman story and the Book of Mormon are simply possible clues that both were produced by the same author who was writing on a similar subject. Given that context, it should be no great surprise that we don't find parallels of the caliber that we see with the KJV. The only reason we're even looking for possible parallels is because claims were made by seemingly credible people who said the "historical part" of the Book of Mormon strongly reminded them of the Spalding ms they had heard read to them by Spalding and that the names were the same. We don't have that manuscript. But we have another one written by the same author and there appear to be some similarities.

So with that as a backdrop and given what we have concluded about the KJV... are you interested in seeing some of the parallels Vernal Holley found between Spalding's Roman story and the Book of Mormon?