Spalding Theory -- Mormonleaks.com

[_Tobin]

So, you're going to go down to the MTC and tell them they're all just wasting their time? Because, you know, God is never going to tell some family that the Book of Mormon is true and they should let the missionaries baptize them just because the missionaries taught them for an hour or two and then had them say a prayer, right?

And you don't think they are wasting their time already?!? The program of "feelings" is not very effective as has been noted on this forum many times. They would be much more effective if they spent the time in service to their communities and lived a Christ-like example and encouraged people to experience God themselves than have people "feel" good about it for a moment. When the Church returns to having the gifts of the spirit truly manifest and people see and experience these things for themselves, then they'll be truly living the gospel as taught in Acts and as it was when the gospel was first revealed during this dispensation. Mormonism (ie true Christianity) is a revealed religion and if gifts of the spirit not readily apparent, then something is definitely wrong.

[_Sophocles]

I like Spalding because it offers a plausible explanation of a lot of early Mormon history, in particular the dynamic between Smith and Rigdon. For example, Rigdon's conversion (and that of his entire Campbellite congregation) and meteoric rise to power makes more sense if he were a co-conspirator from the start. It also explains the changing theology if the Book of Mormon is full of Rigdon's ideas and the D&C Smith's. It also sheds light on why Rigdon never bought into polygamy and refused to allow Joseph access to his daughters.

In fact, I find it quite amusing to think that Mormonism was all Rigdon's idea, and that Smith was only ever supposed to be his charismatic front man. And now Smith is the famous prophet of the Restoration and Rigdon is a footnote.

EDIT:

The hypothesis has good explanatory power, and has been shown to have predictive power as well. Both are features one should look for in selecting the best hypothesis.

Exactly what I was getting at.

[_Fence Sitter]

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Spalding theory require a missing manuscript?

[_MCB]

The Spalding theory is not necessary to be able to say that it is highly unlikely that Joseph Smith was the principal author.

It does not require having the missing manuscript. It only postualtes a missing manuscript.

[_Harold Lee]

The whole idea of you need to spend at least 30 years doing something all sense tells you is wrong before you get an answer it's right is completely ridiculous. One of my biggest issues was an 'answer' I thought I received in the Celestial Room after fasting and praying there for a while, turns out it happened exactly the opposite. The reason this is an issue is because it was the same 'feeling' I thought I had about a testimony.

With all I invested into it, if a feeling in the Celestial Room fasting for an answer to a prayer as an ordinance worker is dead wrong, how can I trust any of that feeling garbage under other circumstances?

That's when I didn't trust myself. When I saw a friend whose patriarchal blessing says, "Your husband will be with you when you get your endowments" and she meets him on her mission, that's when I don't trust 'revelation' either. That was a starting point when I realized alleged prophets and apostles hadn't revealed anything new since recording devices became portable. Their revelation at General Conference is read from a teleprompter and edited several times over ffs. They remind you over and over you're not allowed to record them when they speak, and the only time they're recorded is when they're reading from teleprompters. That doesn't strike anyone as odd behavior for the only men God allegedly speaks through?

Or you can just say maybe it's not all true, and you don't have to explain anything anymore.

Sorry for the sidetrack. Tobin's explanation and assumption that I wasn't committed enough, it requires 30 years to get an answer (or anything approaching it) is completely ridiculous in my opinion. If that's true God has no just basis to eternally judge people for lacking faith if you need to jump through 30 years of hoops to get your first clue.

[_Tobin]

Sorry for the sidetrack. Tobin's explanation and assumption that I wasn't committed enough, it requires 30 years to get an answer (or anything approaching it) is completely ridiculous in my opinion. If that's true God has no just basis to eternally judge people for lacking faith if you need to jump through 30 years of hoops to get your first clue.

Clearly, reading isn't your forté. I was speaking about the approach that one must have by exhibiting the right attitude. Try reading what I said again, I said after 30 years if you exhibit an attitude of being willing to do all that God asks you to do, that if you don't know the Lord - then let's talk. Or maybe that was just too hard for you to understand that?!?

[_Uncle Dale]

Correct me if I am wrong, but doesn't the Spalding theory require a missing manuscript?

At the very least, it requires the premise that some of Spalding's literary ideas made it into the Book of Mormon.

Ethan Smith's grandson stated that his grandfather and fellow Dartmouth graduate Congregationalist minister, Solomon Spalding, were in contact with one another and exchanged draft copies of writings on the American Indians' progenitors. If Joseph Smith and the very first Mormons made use of Ethan Smith's Israelite Indians notions, then the "missing manuscript" might well have been that of Ethan Smith, and not something directly from Spalding.

On the other hand, Spalding grand-neice, Mrs. Dickinson, argued that a young Joe Smith had access to Spalding's writings, while they were being stored in Onondaga Hollow, NY, during the 1820s (before they were removed to Hartwick in nearby Otsego Co.) --- If there is any truth in those allegations, then the missing Spalding writings, were, in effect, stored away in Smith's memory.

I discount both of these historical explanations -- but have no way of utterly refuting them. Most students of LDS history will conclude that "utter refutation" is unnecessary. All that is required is (a) a belief in angel messengers, or (b) a belief in the genius of the young Joe Smith.

In my understanding (and perhaps that of a few others) the original "Spalding-Rigdon theory" has evolved in recent decades, to include the idea that the text of the Book of Mormon relies upon multiple sources -- and not just upon the imagination of Joseph Smith, Jr., (and whatever words he might have copied out of the King Jame Bible).

If THAT explanation of historical process is an any way accurate, the "missing manuscript" we ought to be thinking about would have been Smith's finalized source for his 1829 dictation.

Such a "Smith manuscript" might possibly have been a 100% stream-of-consciousness mental document (and thus never committed to paper) -- or, it may have been a written text that Smith destroyed, piecemeal, as quickly as its contents were set down in Oliver Cowdery's handwriting, on new sheets of manuscript paper.

A final possibility is that the "missing manuscript" was comprised of authentic ancient American engravings, preserved on plates
having the appearance of gold.

In any case, I'd say that some "manuscript" must be "missing."

The missing manuscript that I postulate once existed, was a theological composition in which the italicized words from the KJV Bible paragraphs, were uniformly altered, according to a pre-existing religious doctrine ---- in much the same way that whole paragraphs and chapters of the KJV Bible were altered and expanded upon in the Rigdon-Smith effort to "translate" a restored biblical text, c. 1830-1833.

I do not believe that ancient Nephites carried out that religious re-wording of italicized KJV insertions in Isaiah, Malachi, etc. -- nor do I believe that Joe Smith carried out such a consistent set of literary/theological changes "on the fly," as it were.

Smith might POSSIBLY have possessed a photographic memory sufficiently developed, to allow his memorizing all of those KJV wording alterations -- but I am not convinced of that either.

My conclusion is that Smith had a copy of parts of the KJV text in front of him, with those same italicized words already changed (to match early Mormon doctrine) in 1828-29.

THAT is the missing manuscript I'd like to re-construct.

As for Spalding and Rigdon -- I suggest that folks here take a look at part 4 of Craig Criddle's on-line exposition on that particular topic, and report back their findings...

http://mormonleaks.com/library/episode-04/


Uncle Dale

[_Dan Vogel]

Well, if you read Dan Vogel's Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet 2004, you have read Howe's Mormonism Unvailed of 1834. It is just the modern-day equivalent.

Howe wasn't an historian. I had many more sources than Howe. My primary sources were Joseph Smith's 1838 History and Lucy Smith's 1845 History. However, you can't simply dismiss Howe based on Mormon apologetic assessments. The key documents are statements by Joseph Smith's former neighbors and relatives. These are primary documents and can't be dismissed as biased simply because they relate what you don't want to hear.

[_Chap]

Well, if you read Dan Vogel's Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet 2004, you have read Howe's Mormonism Unvailed of 1834. It is just the modern-day equivalent.

Howe wasn't a historian. I had many more sources than Howe. My primary sources were Joseph Smith's 1838 History and Lucy Smith's 1845 History. However, you can't simply dismiss Howe based on Mormon apologetic assessments. The key documents are statements by Joseph Smith's former neighbors and relatives. These are primary documents and can't be dismissed as biased simply because they relate what you don't want to hear.

You wanna bet? We're talking Tobin here, and his hallucinations Trump all other evidence.

[_Willy Law]

I believe the Spalding Theory lives and dies with the affidavits collected at the time. While Hurlbut's can be more easily dismissed as coerced or leading, there are other affidavits collected at different times, places and collected by different people that are more difficult to dismiss.
After spending a lot of time studying the Spalding Theory I am left a Spalding Theory agnostic leaning toward atheist.