Miss Taken wrote:Miss Taken wrote:Shades, are there any active Mormons who can match Uncle Dales knowledge on this???No.
pity!
If Dr. Lester E. Bush, Jr. is still alive, he would be the most expert LDS on the topic. He was the one who
responded to my 1982 Mormon History Association paper on the topic. From interacting with him then, I can
say that he knew a great deal about the subject -- but was very guarded in talking about it candidly.
Next in line would be Richard L. Anderson. I have seen evidence of his research in out of the way places,
from California to Washington, D. C. I recall once looking over an old ledger book in Cherry Valley, NY,
(where Spalding once lived), and on a page with an entry for Spalding's brother Josiah, was inserted a local
person's business card from about 1960, and on the back was Anderson's name and phone number in Utah.
Anderson is not interested in talking about this subject, despite his years of quiet research. Nor is BYU prof
Kent P. Jackson (who edited and oversaw the research on the last LDS Church publication in the topic).
The LDS second-string scholars would include Matthew B. Brown, Matt Roper and perhaps Matthew J. Tandy.
Scott H. Faulring might also fit in there somewhere -- though I doubt he has much useful knowledge.
Marvin S. Hill once knew a good deal, but I'm pretty sure he has not kept up his earlier interest.
On the amateur level there are Wade England, Jeff Lindsay, Russell Anderson, Robert & Rosemary Brown,
and perhaps Richard Winwood.
None of these Mormons seems ready, willing and able to discuss the many facets of the Spalding-Rigdon
authorship explanation in a reasonable, objective sort of way. Even Bush (who, as I said knows much) was
more interested in bearing his LDS testimony and talking about why NOT to study the topic, than he was
in sifting through the old evidence in dialogue with a non-Mormon.
I have hopes for Matthew J. Tandy --- time will tell.
Dale R. Broadhurst
web-host
SolomonSpalding.com