Chris:
Dan periodically quotes from Ethan Smith to illustrate the Moundbuilder myth from which he and I both believe Joseph Smith drew, but I have not seen him argue for direct plagiarism from Smith's book.
Well then maybe that's true. Dan made a few posts here a while back but I never saw any clarification by him on this one way or another.
I would be very surprised if he held that view. More likely, the Moundbuilder myth was simply "in the air" in upstate New York in the 1820's, perhaps particularly among the money-diggers who saw the great mounds as vast storehouses of ancient Indian coins and treasures. The views Ethan Smith expressed in his 1823 book were hardly unique.
It would be interesting to find out, nevertheless, I assume the above is your view?
I certainly believe that Smith borrowed ideas from his environment, and that he in some cases may even have plagiarized wholesale certain stories that he had heard or scenes that he had seen (like his father's dream, a frontier camp meeting, and perhaps sermons he had heard on such topics as salvation and natural theology). But I am not of the opinion that he did a lot of copying out of books besides the Bible, no.
Well, I will grant that that is rational, however, the boundary you draw with the Bible seems, to me, arbitrary. If you truly grant that Smith--or somebody--copied words from the KJB (and unless Smith had an amazing memory I think the evidence for that is undeniable)--then you sacrifice the eyewitness testimony in the process that has Smith dictating every word. Once you open that door, it seems arbitrary for you to then say that he--or somebody--couldn't have done the same thing with any other book. Agreed?
Even if Smith did have a remarkable memory and he quoted the Bible using it, he still could have employed the same technique when plagiarizing from any other source.
So in my view, once you open the door to plagiarism of any kind, you open the door to plagiarism of
the one source people claimed was indeed used from nearly the beginning of Mormonism.
One difference between the Bible and View of the Hebrews as far as plagiarism goes is that there are very lengthy, substantial, word-for-word passages from the Bible that are replicated in the Book of Mormon, whereas with View of the Hebrews what we get are some very broad conceptual and thematic similarities that I don't find terribly persuasive.
And there is an obvious reason for that--the sections taken from the Bible are alleged quotes(!) which, of course, gives the author the freedom to quote verbatim. The concept was a beautiful ploy
to quickly fill pages after the 116 page loss. It would have worked better, had Smith--or somebody--not copied sections of the KJB where King James' translators actually made identifiable grammatical errors which subsequently found their way into the Book of Mormon.
Perhaps an even more important difference is that we know for a fact that Joseph Smith owned and read the Bible-- he tells us as much himself-- but we do not know that he had read View of the Hebrews, or that it is really even plausible he might have done so.
Correct! However, I believe there is evidence that Spalding knew Ethan Smith! Another "coincidence" I suppose.
Ben is exactly right when he describes the normal method historians follow in assessing the value of parallels. If it cannot be established from historical evidence that an author was exposed to a particular work, then any parallels to that work are seriously in question.
Well maybe so, but parallels, for pete's sake, are either parallels or not. Question them all you want. Apply whatever historian's caution you want. Parallels are parallels.
This is as true for scholars trying to establish Luther's dependence on Wyclif as for those attempting to show Joseph's dependence on Ethan.
Again, there is no need to "show Joseph's dependence on Ethan" if Spalding knew him and shared his beliefs.
As a trained and practicing historian, I can tell you from experience that this sort of methodological safeguard exists for good reason.
I suppose you are right about that, but there is a time for common sense. If Joseph Smith--or somebody--did make use of various other sources in constructing the Book of Mormon how likely would it be that we would find a confession? I dare suggest that Luther's literary exposures would be easier to establish than those of an 1828-29 Joseph Smith!
Nonetheless, are you willing to grant that Smith was "exposed" to Emmanuel Swedenborg?
Also, have you taken a look at Donofrio's work in relation to Spalding's dependance on sources like Mercy Otis Warren? Do you see warrant to Donofrio's conclusions when it comes to
Spalding borrowing from other sources?
I believe that the witnesses did see some broad parallels between the Spalding story and the Book of Mormon-- because of course there are some-- but that, having once made the connection, their memories supplied details that were not true. Did your parents ever tell you a story about something you did when you were little, or perhaps show you picture of it, that you didn't remember at the time they told you but subsequently remembered thereafter? This is called a false memory. It is manufactured-- not deliberately, mind you, but by the subtle power of suggestion.
Appealing to my personal experience is not going to work because I have my own experience that directly mirrors that of the Conneaut witnesses.
In the first place your example doesn't work because the memory of a child is different from that of an adult or even an adolescent.
In the second place, as I have stated elsewhere, I read two novels when I was in my teens--about the time I graduated from High school. (Over 25 years ago). They were fictional novels but based on a Second World War setting. One was a sequel to the other. I read them both through once and then started to reread the first but got bored with it and put it down and never touched them again. Remembering those novels during a discussion like this one on Spalding, I decided to test my memory by seeing how many names I could recall from those novels I hadn't touched in over twenty five years. I hit the nail on the head for all of the main characters and remembered a few of the secondary characters.
There were certainly a few names I forgot, but--here's the kicker--it only took briefly glancing at the novels again for a flood of details to come back. This is exactly what the Conneaut witnesses claim happened to them. We hear them claiming things like 'Having recently read the Book of Mormon brings these memories fresh to my mind.' This is
exactly my own personal experience. LDS apologists have been allowed to get away with the argument that these people were too far removed to remember the names they claim to remember or that Hurlbut was implanting these names in their minds that they actually never read. I'm sorry but that is just bogus. No one could have convinced me that the lead character in the novels I read 25+ years ago was anything other than Captain (and later Admiral) "Pug" Henry. No one could have convinced me that maybe his name was really Frank Jones. The idea that Hurlbut got a bunch of people--and not just
any people but people who legitimately knew Spalding--to remember
false names of people they claim were the lead characters in a story they read or heard read many times is simply ludicrous. And then that more unsolicited but supporting testimony would continue to come forth over the next 50 years clinches it.
I simply do not accept the notion that Hurlbut manipulated these people to the extent that they ALL remembered false names and stood by those claims with comments like "I well remember." That idea simply does not stand to reason. The only other possibility is that they were all patent liars. That too seems equally unlikely.
So what does that leave us with... the notion that, by george, could they have actually been telling the truth?
(As an aside, this may be part of how Smith altered his associates' memories of early Mormon events.) Law enforcement officers and judges are very well-aware of this problem, which is endemic in criminal investigations. Studies have show that eyewitnesses to crimes are extremely unreliable and tremendously susceptible to suggestion. Here's a video about it if you want to know more.
Of course that may be true... it probably is. But we're talking about something completely different here. We're talking about a group of people remembering names and other details from a manuscript that was read to them and that they read on many occasions as a means of entertainment. There was no trauma involved. This was not a test, it was amusement. It was voluntarily and willfully engaged in. There is a world of difference.
Actually, the true skeptic should be the first to feel skepticism about such claims, no? :-)
Not to the point of being blind. You yourself admit to "parallels" ...well, parallels are parallels regardless of how "striking" they appear. And when it comes to the Book of Mormon there is a limited number of possibilities. You agree with me that there were no plates with reformed Egyptian writing on them. The only question then, is whether the available evidence points to Smith producing the text on his own or, as Dale says, multiple authors.
Not really. I actually don't consider the parallels all that striking, either. The most impressive parallel between the two works is in the manner of Joseph's discovery of the plates and the manner of Spalding's reported discovery of his Roman manuscript: prying the lid off a stone box. But this is commonplace stuff in the treasure-lore of upstate New York, so there's certainly no need for Smith to have modeled his tale of finding the plates on a stolen manuscript.
Of course not, so why would there be ANY parallels at all? Look you are not a Mormon, so you agree with me that there were never any plates with ancient writing on them that had been buried for centuries in a hill. You have to agree with me that Smiths' story was made up... it did not happen. Maybe he's incorporating elements of a treasure dig into his official discovery narrative, but either way,
he is free to produce whatever false discovery narrative he thinks will best suit his needs.
Why then
are there parallels
to a Spalding ms at all?
If Smith's discovery narrative is later found to parallel a treasure hunting narrative from Joe Schmo then, maybe he borrowed from Schmo or maybe they both employed similar phraseology, but
why would we find a very similar discovery narrative with more than one parallel in terms of location, method, chronology and the material being discovered between something Smith wrote
in 1838 and something a guy wrote before 1816 who had
already been associated with Smith/Book of Mormon
for years prior to 1838? Even if you are correct, and there was no connection between them, that is a wierd coincidence. And the thing is, that's
not the only one.
"...a pious lie, you know, has a great deal more influence with an ignorant people than a profane one."
- Sidney Rigdon, as quoted in the Quincy Whig, June 8, 1839, vol 2 #6.