DiscussMormonism.com

a) Mormon and Moroni under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
b) Joseph Smith
c) Solomon Spaulding
d) Solomon Spaulding and Sidney Rigdon
e) Sidney Rigdon
f) Oliver Cowdery
g) Sidney and Oliver
h) Ethan Smith

Choose one

Colonel Mustard in the library and the study with the typewriter.

D. Solomon Spalding & Sidney Rigdon.

There is still no definitive proof that Solomon Spaulding and Sidney Rigdon knew each other, but it is very possible they met in Pittsburg about 1818-19. But no proof. However, Spaulding and Ethan Smith were classmates at Dartmouth for a year, and I believe Ethan Smith was best man at Spaulding's wedding.

The old man in a brown suit "Moroni" that David Whitmer says showed his mother the gold plates in a barn, and he saw on the road from Harmony to Palmyra, sounds a LOT like Ethan Smith. At the time of these appearances, Spaulding was dead and Rigdon was still a young man. But Ethan Smith would have been about 66. He lived until about 90.

The words "Moroni" and "Cumorah" probably come from the village of Moroni, capital of the Coromo Islands. Mo-ro-nee means "Place of Fire" in Swahili. No map Joseph Smith would have had would have shown "Moroni" which was just a village in his day. I doubt any map had the name "Moroni" on it at that time, since Moroni was just a small village on islands claimed by Arabs. However, there was a book about the capture and hanging of Captain Kidd, a British-American pirate, who hid from the British fleet in Moroni on Grand Comoro which was called them Camora. It is highly doubtful that this book would have been available at the very small Palmyra lending library, which had in Joseph Smith's day maybe several dozen books, but there is no doubt the book was available at Dartmouth, which had the greatest library English-speaking North America outside of the Library of Congress. Dartmouth had inherited its extensive library from Lord Dartmouth, a British nobleman who had a massive collection (for his day) of books.

A) Mormon and Moroni under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit

Ahhh....but "who" is "Mormon" and "who" is "Moroni". For these are code names....

KevinSim wrote:A) Mormon and Moroni under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit

in my opinion, it is: b) Joseph Smith

If Joseph Smith wrote it, then Joseph Smith knew how to read the Greek Septuigint, because there is a Verse in Nephi's Isaiah that corresponds with the Septuagint (Greek Old Testament) but not the KJV or any other translation based upon the Masoretic text.

It is possible that some Bible scholar translated that Isaiah verse into English, and published it in some English book, but I highly doubt that Joseph smith would have access to such a book, if one existed at the time. And also...why the hell would he bother? Of course, both Spaulding and Ethan Smith studied Greek, read from the Septuagint, at Darmouth.

Brackite wrote:in my opinion, it is: b) Joseph Smith

The professor who taught the course on the Origins of the American Indians, which both Sol. Spalding and E. Smith took, was accomplished in all the biblical languages available. His name was John Smith. In all likelihood, Sol and Ethan only knew Latin.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Smith_(academic)

Hey, Darrick, have you ever read any of Uncle Dale's threads? He has done an extensive study of the Spaulding theory. He also has a website. I don't have the URL handy, but I'm sure some folks here could find it.