Roman Story & Book of Mormon Similarities

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Nice!

Ben McGuire, though. Right?

Scratch likes Ben.

In addition to Exhibit A above I now submit Exhibit B. Compare this song of the natives from Manuscript Found, page 26, to an excerpt of Nephi's so-called "psalm" of 2 Nephi 4:

"Delawan to chakee poloo
"Manegango forwah toloo
"Chanepant, lawango chapah
"Quinebogan hamboo gowah.

And Nephi's so-called Psalm:

Behold, my soul delighteth in the things of the Lord; and my heart pondereth continually upon the things which I have seen and heard.

Nevertheless, notwithstanding the great goodness of the Lord, in showing me his great and marvelous works, my heart exclaimeth: O wretched man that I am! Yea, my heart sorroweth because of my flesh; my soul grieveth because of mine iniquities.

I am encompassed about, because of the temptations and the sins which do so easily beset me.

And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.

My God hath been my support; he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness; and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.

He hath filled me with his love, even unto the consuming of my flesh.

[_LifeOnaPlate]

Alright, I am done fooling around, but I hope you all enjoy those excerpts.

[_Dr. Shades]

Once I read Spalding's "Manuscript Story," here were the strongest parallels that I identified:

• The discoverers of both books claim to have discovered the records by using a lever to remove a rock under which the records were deposited
• Both books depict the goings-on of ancient settlers to the New World
• While making their initial oceanic crossing, the settlers in both books are blown by a fierce storm which makes them fear capsizement
• The civilized segments of the societies in both books are given strict charges to avoid intermarriage with the less civilized segments
• Both books mention horses
• Both books discuss the division of the people into two major civilizations
• Forts in both books are identical in their manner of construction
• The narrators of both books suddenly and inexplicably go out of their way to explain that the earth revolves around the sun
• Both books describe a messiah-like figure who appears suddenly, teaches the people, and ushers in an era of great peace
• Both books describe the settlers as having all goods in common at one point
• Both books, respectively, show the two major civilizations entering into a war of mutual destruction
• Both books at one point describe the populace as making use of elephants

[_Wiki Wonka]

Once I read Spalding's "Manuscript Story," here were the strongest parallels that I identified:

[*]The discoverers of both books claim to have discovered the records by using a lever to remove a rock under which the records were deposited

I don't find this first one a very compelling parallel when I read what Spalding wrote. First, the Roman narrarator of the story accidently comes across a flat stone:

Near the west Bank of the Coneaught River there are the remains of an ancient fort. As I was walking and forming vario[us] conjectures respecting the character situatuation & numbers of those people, who far exceeded the present race of Indians in works of art & inginuety I hapned to tread on a flat stone.

The stone is covered with characters:

This was at a small distance from the fort; & it lay on the top of a smal[l] mound of Earth exactly horizontal—The face of it had a singular appearance. I discovered a number of characters which appeared to me to be letters—but so much effaced by the ravages of time, that I could not read the inscription.

He uses a lever to raise the stone and finds that it is the entrance to a cave.

With the assistance of a leaver I raised the stone—But you may easily conjecture my astonishmen[t] when I discovered that at its ends & sides it [r]ested on stones & that it was designed [—] a cover to an artificial Cave.—I found [—] examining that its sides were lined with [—] built in a connical from with [—] down—& that it was abou[t] [p. 2] [e]ight feet deep—

He descends into the cave:

Determined to investigate extra design of this extraordinary work of antiquity—I prepared myself with necesary requisites for that purpose & decended to th[e] Bottom of the Cave—Observing one side to be built perpendicular nearly three feet from the bottom, I began to inspect that part with accuracy;

He finds a stone door which hides a cavity in the wall:

Here I noticed a big fla[t] stone fixed in the form of a doar, I imm[e]diatly tore it down & Lo a cavity wit[h] in the wall presented itself—it being about three feet in diamiter from side to side & about two feet high

In the cavity he finds an earthen box:

Within this cavity I found an earthan Box with a Box cover which shut it perfect[ly] tite—The Box was two feet in length one & half in breadth & one & three inche[s] in diameter. My mind filled with awful sensations which crowded fast upon me would hardly permit my hands to remove this venerable deposit, but curiosity soon gained the assendan[— —]

And in this box he finally finds parchment with Latin written on it:

the box was taken & raised to open [—] When I had removed the Cover I f[ound] that it contained twenty eig[ht—] of parchment. & that when [— —] [p. 3] appeared to be manuscrips written in eligant hand with Roman Letters & in the Latin Language.

Quite a bit more complex than Joseph prying up a stone covering a stone box.

-WW

[_karl61]

given Joseph's early life of seeking treasure that manuscript must have been just like gold to him; I'm sure if he read it he was glued to the part of searching the cave.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
Quite a bit more complex than Joseph prying up a stone covering a stone box.
...

Essentially a re-telling of the Royal Arch Masonry initiation drama --
though Spalding gave it an Ohio location and an 1810s timeframe.

For comments on some of the similarities (and shared phraseology) found
in the Times & Seasons Smith plates discovery and Spalding's story, see:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap04.htm

UD

[_Roger]

mikwut:

The similarities are there because the mysterious mounds and history that preceded them were of great interest. Authors often write similarities in writing about how such things could have come about. Uncle Dale giving the answer doesn't decrease the poignancy of the answer.

I am more interested in how a Spalding theorist who sees such dramatic similarities as you do isn't inclined to see the rather mundane but evident logic that the Conn. witnesses were brought to their beliefs of the two books (Roman Story and the Book of Mormon) because of the same similarities you point out. You would at least have to grant the point if your pressing your point.

I don't think so. As far as I know the Conneaut witnesses gave their testimonies before the discovery of the Roman story. If they didn't--and if their testimonies were concoted to "match" the Book of Mormon then why mess up so badly by saying the account includes names like Lehi and Lamanites? No, I don't think so.

Second, if you hold so tightly to the similarities you have listed mustn't you also accept the drastic difference in style between the two books, Fawn Brodie for example writes, “If on the other hand, Hurlbut was right and there were actually two Spaulding manuscripts, one might reasonably expect stylistic similarities between the Book of Mormon and the extant manuscript, since the latter was full of unmistakable literary mannerisms of the kind that are more easily acquired than shed. Spaulding was heir to all the florid sentiment and grandiose rhetoric of the English Gothic romance. He used all the stereotyped patterns – villainy versus innocent maidenhood, thwarted love, and heroic valor – thickly encrusted with the tradition of the noble savage. The Book of Mormon had but one scant reference to a love affair, and its rhythmical, monotonous style bore no resemblance to the cheap clichés and purple metaphors abounding in the Spaulding story."

Yes and no.

No I would not expect a completely similar style. Yes I would expect some stylistic overlap. In the first place the testimony is that the Roman story is not the Spalding ms that was used as a basis for the Book of Mormon. Rather it is simply another ms by the same author. Further testimony has it that Spalding changed the style of the ms's in question, so, again, no, I would not expect a great similarity.

Yes I would expect some stylistic similarities, however, of a more subtle nature--namely that which the word-print study supports.

However--even though you are suggesting similarities between the Roman Story and the BOM--which I do think exist, what I was specifically commenting on was the similarities between the Spalding Roman story and the Times and Seaons article in which Joseph Smith describes how he discovered the plates. Why would you expect such distinct similarities? Or perhaps I should say, why on earth would two accounts written 30 years apart contain so many similarities?

But that's not where it ends... you also have to factor in the question, why would these accounts, written 30 years apart not only share so many similarities, but also, why would this same 1840-something account have any similarities to an account that had been written by the guy people had been associating with the Book of Mormon since at least 1833? Now that's where it gets a little too coincidental if you ask me.

I think those are more clear than the similarities you pose. Of note, Jocker's study whose list of words only include the mundane a, an, if, then, there, were, so, his, her, etc... would not illuminate any quantitative differences of style as is so easily recognized between the two books (Book of Mormon and Roman Story).

Not sure I follow you here. Mundane words are used on purpose in wp studies.

Dan Vogel clearly made a similar point on this very message board, "the use of similar phraseology in a few chapters of the Book of Mormon is not the same as studying writing style and over-all vocabulary (the same goes for so-called word-print studies). Assuming Rigdon was the redactor, I find it difficult assigning to him the Book of Mormon's bad grammar, Yankee dialect, poorly executed imitation KJV language, over-the-top Bible-like stories, unsystematic and contradictory theology.

Vogel is right about that. That phraseology likley came from Spalding and/or Smith and/or Cowdery. The problem here is we're looking at an amalgamation. I don't think there is a single author. At best we have a single dictator--though I'm not convinced everything that made the final cut had to have been dictated.

On the other hand, the style and language of the Book of Mormon compare favorably with Joseph Smith's other scriptural productions. Anyone who doubts Joseph Smith had a powerful command of language should read the letters he dictated in Liberty Jail."

Which is perfectly consistent with the S-R theory. I think Smith did dictate from something--either memory or a ms or a seer stone.

These points aren't to fall on daft ears of the sincere regarding these issues.

my regards, mikwut

Thank you for responding.

[_CaliforniaKid]

I find the parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Roman Story about as convincing as the parallels between the Book of Abraham and Abrahamic legends, or between the Book of Mormon and Orphic theology, or between the Book of Mormon and the Narrative of Zosimus, or between the Book of Mormon and ancient Near Eastern kingship formulae... I could go on. Parallelomaniacs have identified all kinds of superficially interesting but ultimately unconvincing parallels to Joseph Smith's revelations. If we're to be fair, we have to apply the same standards of proof to all of them.

[_Roger]

Dan:

Please be patient, Roger.

Thanks for the reply. Not trying to rush you at all. Just trying to head off a tactic I thought you might attempt. The truth is, I am not paid to do this, so I have to earn a living on the side. The truth is you have years of experience and lot's of books and resources you can consult. I have the internet and Dale. ( )

The simple fact is that I really don't see the proposed parallels as either striking or significant (and I'm not convinced that, as you put it, these are "similarities that are striking to any disinterested party taking the time to examine them"). I might with at least equal justification demand that you explain, to my satisfaction, why you imagine that the supposed parallels are significant. It seems to me that, on one level, one either immediately perceives them as striking or, well, one just doesn't. And that's that. You complain that "So far all I hear you saying is 'I don't see what you see.'" But if I really don't see what you see, that's pretty basic.

Which is sort of my complaint, with all due respect. I can put a 2008 Ford Taurus and a 55 Chevy Pickup in front of you and and say look I see some similarities here... they both have 4 wheels, they both have a steering wheel, they both have seats, they both have an engine, they both run on gasoline, etc, etc and you say "Well I'm sorry I just don't see it like that." Now you might be thinking, one's a Ford the other's a Chevy, one is a truck the other is a sedan, one is red the other blue... I don't know what you're thinking... but if all you say is: "I just don't see it" after I've pointed out the similarities, what I am to do with that?

It occurs to me that, in order to develop some more or less agreed-upon common ground for deciding which parallels are significant and which aren't, it might conceivably be important to settle upon a specific literary-critical methodology. The method laid out by Michael Fishbane in Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel might be helpful. Or that used by Hays in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul. Or that of Ben Sommer in A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66. How, exactly, do you propose that we evaluate the strength of the parallels proposed between the texts, when we obviously judge it completely differently?

I'm not a scholar Dan, as you might have already surmised. So if you want to follow specific rules and methodology on your time and then report your findings, I say great!

Let me just ask you this... do you think if the Spalding account was actually a part of the book of Daniel and the Times & Seasons account was actually to be found in Matthew that Biblical scholars might not suspect that Matthew borrowed his ideas from Daniel? I suspect they would--regardless of methodology. But maybe I'm the only one who thinks that way.

It seems to me, too, that it's very easy to abstract two agenda-driven lists of items from a pair of texts that are, in reality, very, very different, and, by presenting them side by side, consciously or unwittingly exaggerate the supposed similarities between the two documents. (Grant Palmer's absurd effort to link the Moroni story with E. T. A. Hofmann's Der goldne Topf, which was only made worse by Palmer's inaccuracies and his surreptitious re-ordering of the listed elements to make them correspond better, is a spectacular illustration of this error.) Like mikwut, I've always been much more impressed by the differences between Spalding's novel and the Book of Mormon, which I see as fundamental and deep, than by what I've always seen, and continue to see, as truly shallow, cherry-picked "similarities."

Well that is certainly consistent with how one would expect an LDS apologist to think, so you're certainly not offering any surprises. Since you can't offer much in the way of commentary on the similarities and prefer to discuss the differences, why should I be impressed with the differences?

The fact is, I would expect differences. A plagiarizer who copies word for word is either pretty dumb or pretty confident he's not going to get caught. I don't think either Smith or Rigdon were dumb. I think they were a bit nervous about getting caught. Not only that, but you have Spalding writing about mounds in Ohio and Smith writing about hills in NY. There is bound to be some adaptation going on, I would expect that.

So we seem to have a fundamental difference in what we see as important with regard to these two texts.

One thing I would want to do, in this case, would be to quote as many of Spalding's actual words and as many of the Book of Mormon's actual words as possible.

We'll we're actually talking about two different things... two different sets of parallels... I DID write Book of Mormon in the title of this thread and I do believe there are parallels between the Book of Mormon and the Roman Story, but what I was specifically refering to earlier is the similarities between the Roman story and the Smith account of finding plates. For the time being, maybe we could focus on those similarities and move on to the Book of Mormon from there?

As I stated to mikwut, I can see no good reason why Smith's 1840-something account of finding plates should so closely resemble that of a ms known to have been written before 1816 by Solomon Spalding. That in and of itself is odd, but then when you consider that Spalding's Roman story was apparently in the possession of Matilda Spalding until 1833 or 34 and from there it went to Hurlbut and on to Howe in 1834 and was in his possession until he sold his business decades later. Then in 1840-something you have Smith publishing his account of finding the plates and, remarkably, his version closely parallels that of this ms that had been written prior to 1816 by the guy who people had already been associating with the Book of Mormon since at least 1833!

And you still see nothing remarkable in that?

[_Roger]

Dr Shades:

Once I read Spalding's "Manuscript Story," here were the strongest parallels that I identified:


The discoverers of both books claim to have discovered the records by using a lever to remove a rock under which the records were deposited
Both books depict the goings-on of ancient settlers to the New World
While making their initial oceanic crossing, the settlers in both books are blown by a fierce storm which makes them fear capsizement
The civilized segments of the societies in both books are given strict charges to avoid intermarriage with the less civilized segments
Both books mention horses
Both books discuss the division of the people into two major civilizations
Forts in both books are identical in their manner of construction
The narrators of both books suddenly and inexplicably go out of their way to explain that the earth revolves around the sun
Both books describe a messiah-like figure who appears suddenly, teaches the people, and ushers in an era of great peace
Both books describe the settlers as having all goods in common at one point
Both books, respectively, show the two major civilizations entering into a war of mutual destruction
Both books at one point describe the populace as making use of elephants

That's a great list, thanks for posting it. When he's in the mood, I think Dale can add to it. If I'm not mistaken, Spalding's ms also talks about polygamy.

And see this is the area where I think the Spalding-Rigdon theory has really gotten an unfair shake. The testimony had been built up that Spalding's long lost ms should really closely parallel the Book of Mormon. So when the Roman story shows up, Rice and Fairchild take a look and quickly decide that there is not much similarity.

The truth is, however, that this is not the ms--it can't be because it's not at all ready for publication--and there are indeed parallels. Just not parallels as close as the witnesses claimed there should be. Why not? Simple, Spalding wrote more than one ms and we have testimony saying exactly that. So where is that ms? I suspect that Smith and/or Rigdon destroyed it. But they COULD NOT destroy the one that was in the possession of Matilda Spalding and later Hurlbut and Howe. They probably were not even aware of its existance.

So they borrowed from Spalding in 1830 and had gotten away with it--despite Hulrbut and Howe--so why not borrow from Spalding again when it came to the plate discovery account?

So what we have with the Roman story is tangible evidence that supports the S-R theory when the theory is properly understood. The only way to minimize the impact of the data when that data is fully considered within the context of the S-R claims, is to argue that the parallels aren't very impressive. I beg to differ.