Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Mary]

"The 1st Book of the Chronicles of John," Investigator, Oct. 30, 1812.
2 Lester H. Cohen makes a similar argument about the role of Providence in the early histories of the American Revolution. Choen, The Revolutionary Histories: Contemporary Narratives of the American Revolution (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1980), 15
3 This reference contains 6 citations:....

4 This reference contains 6 citations:.....
5 ...

6 This reference contains 2 citations:David Lawton, Faith, Text and History: The Bible in English (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1990), 64.Harry S. Stout, "Word and Order in Colonial New England," in The Bible in America, ed. Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 19-38.

7 Christopher Hill, The English Bible and the Seventeenth-Century Revolution (London: Penguin, 1993), 17.

8 Barbara K. Lewalski, Protestant Poetics and the Seventeenth Century Religious Lyric (Princeton. N.J.: Princeton University Press. 1979Ì. ix.

9 This reference contains 2 citations:Sheehan, Enlightenment Bible, 51, 148-49.Roston, Prophet and Poet: The Bible and the Growth of Romanticism (London: Faber and Faber, 1965),

10 ...
11This reference contains 3 citations:Alister McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How it Changed a Nation, a Language and a Culture (New York: Anchor, 2001), 254, 265, 269;Adam Nicolson, God's Secretaries: The Making of the King James Bible (New York: Harper Collins, 2003), 223;Lawton, Faith, Text and History, 62, 80-81.

12 ...
13 Paul C. Gutjahr, the King James Bible would rein supreme in the United States for nearly two centuries; only in the early decades of the nineteenth century would this hegemony begin to erode. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777- 1880 (Stanford. Calif: Stanford University Press. 1999), 92.
14...
15 Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988).
16 Horace Walpole cited in Carla Mulford, introduction to John Leacock, The First Book of American Chronicles of the Times, 1774-1775, ed. Carla Mulford (Newark: University of Delaware Press. 1987Ì. 28.
17 This reference contains 2 citations:"The Lessons of the Day," New York Weekly Journal, July 4, 1743;Pennsylvanian American Weekly Mercury.
18"The French Gasconade," Boston Evening Post, Oct. 31, 1743.
19 Trevor Colbourn, The Lamp of Experience: Whig History and the Intellectual Origins of the American Revolution (1965; repr., Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), 23.
20 Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette to be published in a German newspaper appeared in 1758: A Fragment of the Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi . . . now published in English (Philadelphia: 1758).
21"Israel Ben Ader (of the Tribe of Levi)," The Chronicle of B-g, the Son of the Great B -g, that lived in the Reign of Queen Felicia; Containing an account of his might transactions against Gallisoniere . . . Written in the Eastern Style (London: 1756; repr., Boston: 1757).
22"Chronicles," Maryland Journal, May 5, 1766.
23 This reference contains 2 citations:"The Book of America," Boston Gazette, May 12, 1766; reprinted also in New Hampshire Gazette, May 22, 1766, and Newport Mercury, May 12, 1766.Additional chapters were published in the Boston Gazette, May 26, 1766, and New Hampshire Gazette, June 6, 1766.
24 Chronicles of the Kings of England [1773], 83.
25"A Prophecy from the East," Virginia Gazette (Rind), Supplement, Aug. 15, 1766.
26 Sheehan, Enlightenment Bible, 116.
27 This reference contains 3 citations:"The First Book of the Kings," Alexandria Expositor, Feb. 21, 1803;"Book of the Democrats," American, March 14, 1809;"The Political Koran," Federal Galaxy, Sep. 15, 1798.
28 ....
29 .....
30.....
31.....
32Baal (1 Kings 18),
33Joanne Freeman, Affairs of Honor: National Politics in the New Republic (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2001).
34This reference contains 2 citations:Paul Hazard, The European Mind, 1680-1715: The Critical Years, trans. J. Lewis May (1935; repr., New York: Fordham University Press, 1990);Peter Gay, The Enlightenment: The Rise of Modern Paganism (1969; repr., New York: W. W. Norton, 1995).
35This reference contains 3 citations:Sheehan, Enlightenment Bible, 220, 260;Dror Wahrman, "God and the Enlightenment," American Historical Review 108, no. 4 (October 2003): 1057-60;AbstractJonathan Sheehan, "Enlightenment, Religion and the Enigma of Secularization: A Review Essay," American Historical Review 108, no. 4 (October 2003Ì: 1061-80.Abstract
36"Chronicles of the people of America, Chapter XCVII," Visitor, Nov. 13, 1802.
37Gilbert J. Hunt, The Late War, Between the United States and Great Britain . . . Written in the Ancient-Historical Style (New York, 1819), ix.
38"Chapter 37th," Boston Evening Post, Apr. 20, 1782.
39Andrew W. Robertson, '"Look on This Picture . . . and on This!' Nationalism, Localism, and Partisan Images of Otherness in the United States, 1787-1 820," American Historical Review 106, no. 4(October 2001): 1236-80, quote at 1267.
40.....
41The Middlesex Gazette. December 9. 1819.
42....
43This reference contains 2 citations:"First Chapter of the Book of Remembrance," Daily Advertiser, March 5, 1787,"The xxxvii Chapter of the Second Book of the Chronicles," Berkshire Chronicle, Oct. 9, 1788.
44Cohen, Revolutionary Histories, 23-127.
45...
46...
47.....
48.....
49This reference contains 3 citations:Carl Kaestle, Pillars of the Republic: Common Schools and American Society, 1780-1860 (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 17;Clifton Johnson, Old Time Schools and School-Books (New York: Dover. 19631 19:Gutiahr. American Bible. 113-42.
50This reference contains 2 citations:The Holy Bible Abridged (Boston, 1782), 5.Hannah Moore, Sacred Dramas, chiefly intended for young persons: the subjects taken from the Bible (1788).
51Eran Shalev, Rome Reborn on Western Shores: Classical Imagination and the Creation of the American Republic (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2009), 151-87.
52Jack P. Greene, "The American Revolution," American Historical Review 105, no. 1 (February 2000): 93-102.
53"Paraphrase on the First Book of Samuel, Chap. VIII," New York Journal, Jan. 13, 1791.
54This reference contains 3 citations:"Moses," "The last Chapter of the first Book of Samuel," Independent Gazetteer, Sep. 17, 1791;Western Star, May 24, 1796;"The First Chapter of the First Book of Chronicles," Ostego Herald, Apr. 20, 1797.
55This reference contains 2 citations:"First Chapter of Chronicles," Oriental Trumpet, Oct 18, 1798;"Ancient Chronicles, Chap. XX," Windham Herald, Oct. 9, 1800.
56This reference contains 2 citations:Hunt, Late War, 294-300.Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History (1931: reor.. New York: Norton. 1965).
57....
58.....
59Peter C. Messer, Stories of Independence: Identity, Ideology and History in Eighteenth-Century America (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2005).
61"Paraphrase of the First Book of Samuel, Chap. VIII," New York Journal, Jan. 13, 1791.
62This reference contains 2 citations:Western Star, May 24, 1796.Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), 267-88.
63 Shalev, Rome Reborn on Western Shores, 87-89.
64"The First Book of the Kings," Alexandria Expositor, Feb. 21, 1803.
65 Perry Miller, "The Garden of Eden and the Deacon's Meadow," American Heritage 7, no. 1 (December 1955): 54-61, 102
66 Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams (New York: BN Publishing, 2008), 13.
67 Herman Melville, White-Jacket (1850), chap. 36
68 Gordon Schochet, "Hebraic Roots, Calvinist Plantings, American Branches," Hebraic Political Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 2009): 99-103, quote at 101.
69 Glenn A. Moot, "Response: The Complications and Contributions of Early American Hebraism," Hebraic Political Studies 4, no. 2 (Spring 2009), 157-68.
70 Avihu Zakai, Exile and Kingdom: History and Apocalypse in the Puritan Migration to America (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002).
71This reference contains 2 citations:Mark A. Noll, "The Image of the United States as a Biblical Nation, 1776-1865," in The Bible in America: Essays in Cultural History, ed. Nathan O. Hatch and Mark A. Noll (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 39-58, quote at 45.Peter Dobkin Hall, The Organization of American Culture, 1700-1900: Private Institutions, Elites, and the Origins of American Nationality (New York: New York University Press, 1984).
72 Sacvan Bercovitch, The Puritan Origins of the American Self (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. 1975V
73 ....
74 This reference contains 3 citations:Nathan Perl- Rosenthal, '"The Divine Right of Republics': Hebraic Republicanism and the Debate over Kingless Government in Revolutionary America," The William and Mary Quarterly 66, no. 3 (July 2009), 535-64;Eran Shalev, '"A Perfect Republic': The Mosaic Constitution in Revolutionary New England, 1775-1788," The New England Quarterly 82, no. 2 (June 2009): 235-63.Michael Walzer, Exodus and Revolution (New York: Basic Books, 1986).
75John F. Berens, Providence and Patriotism in Early America, 1640-1815 (Charlottes ville: University of Virginia Press, 1978), 107.
76.....
77 This reference contains 3 citations:Shalev, "A Perfect Republic," 235-45.Eric Nelson, The Hebrew Republic: Jewish Sources and the Transformation of European Political Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2010),Fania Oz-Salzberger, "The Political Thought of John Locke and the Significance of Political Hebraism " Hebraic Political Studies 1, no. 5 (Fall 2006): 568-92.
78 ....
79 This reference contains 4 citations:Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-Day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 6n9.Gutjahr, American Bible, 2;Timothy L. Smith, "The Book of Mormon in a Biblical Culture," Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 3-21;AbstractDonald M. Scott, From Office to Profession: The New England Ministry, 1750-1850 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. 1978).
80 This reference contains 2 citations:"The First Book of Chronicles," Rhode Island Republican, March 18, 1835;"Chronicles of the Times," New-Bedford Mercury, March 11, 1836.
81"Chapter from the Whig Chronicles," New Hampshire Patriot, Apr. 20, 1840.
82 This reference contains 2 citations:"First Chronicles," The Pittsfield Sun, February 2, 1854;A. E. Frankland, "Kronikals of the Times," American Jewish Archives 9, no. 2 (October 1957Ì: 102 (originally published in Memphis in 1862).
83 Carl J. Richard, The Golden Age of the Classics in America: Greece, Rome, and the Antebellum United States (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2009), 41-82.
84 Kenneth Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence: The Fight over Popular Speech in Nineteenth-Century America f New York: Morrow. 1990), 97.
85 John Howe, Language and Political Meaning in Revolutionary America (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2004). Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence, 20-54.
86 This reference contains 2 citations:Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815- 1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),Harry L. Watson, Liberty and Power: The Politics of Jacksonian America, 2nd ed. (New York: Hill and Wang, 2006).
87 Cmiel, Democratic Eloquence, 13.
88 This reference contains 2 citations:Gutjahr, American Bible, 3, 119.Dorothy Ross, The Origins of American Social Science (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992).
89 This reference contains 3 citations:Sean Wilentz, The Rise of the American Democracy (New York: Norton, 2005);Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution (New York: Oxford, 1994);Gordon S. Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution (New York: Vintage, 1993).
90 This reference contains 4 citations:Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 14;Gutjahr, American Bible, 151-66.Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York: Knopf, 2005), 99n63, 107;Walter A. McDougall, Throes of Democracy: The American Civil War Era, 1829-1877 (New York: Harper, 2008), 182.
91 This reference contains 3 citations:Hatch, Democratization, 116, 120;Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 42;Gordon S. Wood, "Evangelical America and Early Mormonism," in Religion in American History: A Reader, ed. Jon Butler and Harry S. Stout (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 180-96.

Managed to find online notes for Shalev's American Zion, lots of noise, but among them would be the comprehensive list supporting Nevo's assertion that pseudo biblical writings were a well established genre in 18th century America. I'm not sure I accept that?

Edited to add an interesting review of one of the books Shalev mentions. 'Hebraic America'.

http://jewishreviewofbooks.com/articles ... c-america/

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries a style of writing arose that Shalev calls pseudo-biblicism. In 1793, for instance, Richard Snowden wrote a two-volume history entitled The American Revolution: Written in the Style of Ancient History. Composed in an English archaic even for the late 18th century, it is littered with constructions such as “spake” and “thou.” America was called “the Land of Columbia” and the town of Concord “Concordia.” In other such newspaper articles and pamphlets, authors began sentences with the King James-esque “And it came to pass . . . ” and described the United States as stretching from “Dan even unto Beersheba.” Americans not only read the Hebrew Bible, some wrote American history in biblical style.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, this certainly clarifies a lot.

- Joseph Smith was known to tell his family stories of the ancient American indians.

- We have the books that were available to him.

- It's not difficult to surmise he cobbled together a story from his imagination and extant texts.

- It now makes perfect sense why he tried to sell his novel since it's clear other authors had written similar books.

- Once that venture failed, it now makes sense why he started to tell the miraculous story of how the book came to be. It was to sell copies of his book.

- Eventually one story led to another, and this thing started to gain traction! The whole family was in on it. Talk about winging it... But at the end of the day it was better than farming in upstate New York.

/R

Doc

[_Mary]

Well, this certainly clarifies a lot.

- Joseph Smith was known to tell his family stories of the ancient American indians.

- We have the books that were available to him.

- It's not difficult to surmise he cobbled together a story from his imagination and extant texts.

- It now makes perfect sense why he tried to sell his novel since it's clear other authors had written similar books.

- Once that venture failed, it now makes sense why he started to tell the miraculous story of how the book came to be. It was to sell copies of his book.

- Eventually one story led to another, and this thing started to gain traction! The whole family was in on it. Talk about winging it... But at the end of the day it was better than farming in upstate New York.

/R

Doc

Within that context it would make sense for the Late Wars to have influenced Joseph more than the other books written in biblical style, since it was specifically adapted for a younger audience and would have been readily available to him. I'd like to see the Johnson's narrow down the list of comparable books to just those written in a psuedo biblical style and see which one comes up closest. Not sure if the results would show anything concrete but it would be interesting. Pity there is no extant copy of the Spalding work that so many of his contemporaries referred to (ie 'old it came to pass'). Spalding's (lost) work makes much better sense in the context that Shalev is writing of.

[_Mary]

This is interesting.

http://www.LDS.org/ensign/1979/09/josep ... voos-youth

Schooling. Despite limited schooling Joseph Smith loved to study and learn. In part he was influenced by schoolteacher associates. His father once taught school. His maternal grandmother, a schoolteacher, taught his mother the rudiments of “sums, ‘write-o-hand’ and spelling.” Joseph’s wife was a schoolteacher, “a woman of liberal culture and insistent on education.” 6 And his primary scribe during the translating of the Book of Mormon was schoolteacher Oliver Cowdery.

Joseph also sought to obey the many revelations which called for educated Saints. The Lord said to “seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning” (D&C 88:118); and to “study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people” (D&C 90:15). Things of heaven and earth, astronomy, geology, geography, history, politics, and current events must also be understood (see D&C 88:77–80).

But Joseph Smith found that too many converts were poorly educated like himself.

To say that Joseph was of limited education in terms of the time is disingenuous. Having done a fair amount of genealogy (admittedly in the UK) none of my ancestor's could even read, evidenced by their marking certificates with a cross and that was after 1837. Joseph was very well educated given the times covered, in my opinion. His family may have come upon hard times through Joseph Snr's bad business decisions but they were well connected with quite an honourable lineage of educated family members.

What was the book that Joseph Snr's father 'threw' at him? Thomas Paine's "Age of Reason" If the father could read a book like that, there is no way in heaven or earth that the children were poorly educated.

[_Mary]

study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people” (D&C 90:15). Things of heaven and earth, astronomy, geology, geography, history, politics, and current events must also be understood

That astronomy, geology, geography, history, politics and current events are specifically covered in the D&C is also fascinating and intriguing.

[_Uncle Ed]

...

Update: We go in to a lot of detail on the algorithm at http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/

(update 10/25/2103: This problem has largely been overcome by the new ISS algrorithm.)

Oops, c. a hundred years off. You might want to fix that....

[_Fifth Columnist]

I think it has been a long standing question why God revealed the Book of Mormon in 17th century English. Normally, translations are made to correspond with the language of the people at the time. For example, when I have a text translated, I want it translated into modern English, not 18th century English. However, the Book of Mormon is different in that it was given in English that was 200+ years older than that in use at the time.

It all makes sense with the understanding that people in Joseph's time thought a book sounds more ancient if it is "written in the ancient historical style." Joseph Smith thought an actual ancient book would sound like this so the Book of Mormon needed to sound like this too. It all makes perfect sense.

[_Uncle Ed]

The obvious answer to the shared quality of literature is that "God Is The Author", in other words, the Existence manifesting as the world of humans. Each of us shares the same "Author", and on a metaphysical level that means that all literature and other forms of expression share that same Source. Joseph Smith probably at least skimmed a copy of "Late War", since it was apparently available in schools at the time. Other than the influence of "ancient style" turns of phrase, the two books have practically zero in common. I once wrote a scifi book that attempted to "ape" a more classical or ancient literary style, and my influences were of course the Book of Mormon, and Tolkien, and who knows how many other books I had inculcated that "style" from throughout my life. Joseph Smith was no different, because he was creating a work of scripture, not reporting on mundane, contemporary things, so his mindset was geared to getting across that "familiar spirit" of scripture. All other examples of authors writing "In the Scriptural Style" are tapping into that same "Muse"....

[_Fence Sitter]

I think it has been a long standing question why God revealed the Book of Mormon in 17th century English. Normally, translations are made to correspond with the language of the people at the time. For example, when I have a text translated, I want it translated into modern English, not 18th century English. However, the Book of Mormon is different in that it was given in English that was 200+ years older than that in use at the time.

It all makes sense with the understanding that people in Joseph's time thought a book sounds more ancient if it is "written in the ancient historical style." Joseph Smith thought an actual ancient book would sound like this so the Book of Mormon needed to sound like this too. It all makes perfect sense.

It make sense in our time too. How many people would get a burning in their bosom reading the following passage?

1. My name is Nephi and I was born in a respectable family who taught me all that they knew. Now I have been through a lot but God has always blessed me. Since I know a lot about how good and mysterious God is I have decided to keep a journal of my life.
2. I am recording in this journal of my Jewish training using the Egyptian language.
3. Sine I am writing this myself you will have to take my word for it that it is correct.
4. My dad lived in Jerusalem all his life. In the 1st year that Zedekiah was king of Jerusalem we had a lot of prophets telling us to repent or the city must be destroyed.
5. My dad fervently prayed to God on the part of the people.

[_Runtu]

I think it has been a long standing question why God revealed the Book of Mormon in 17th century English. Normally, translations are made to correspond with the language of the people at the time. For example, when I have a text translated, I want it translated into modern English, not 18th century English. However, the Book of Mormon is different in that it was given in English that was 200+ years older than that in use at the time.

It all makes sense with the understanding that people in Joseph's time thought a book sounds more ancient if it is "written in the ancient historical style." Joseph Smith thought an actual ancient book would sound like this so the Book of Mormon needed to sound like this too. It all makes perfect sense.

It also makes sense when you read that Hunt believed using KJV language would encourage more reading of the Bible. The Book of Mormon was intended, in part, to prove the Bible was God's word and encourage people to study the word of God in both. Hunt also believed that the KJV language was uplifting and perfectly suited to teach with, which also helps understand the Book of Mormon choice of style.