Would Joseph have violated Ethan Smith's copyright?

[_Yahoo Bot]

[1] the Israelite origin of the American Indian
[2] the future gathering of Israel and restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes
[3] the peopling of the New World from the Old via a long journey northward which encountered "seas" of "many waters"
[4] a religious motive for the migration
[5] the division of the migrants into civilized and uncivilized groups with long wars between them and the eventual destruction of the civilized by the uncivilized
[6] the assumption that all native peoples were descended from Israelites and their languages from Hebrew
[7] the burial of a "lost book" with "yellow leaves"
[8] the description of extensive military fortifications with military observatories or "watch towers" overlooking them
[9] a change from monarchy to republican forms of government
[10] the preaching of the gospel in ancient America

I have numbered your list so that I may address them.

I completely agree that in plagiarism cases, one looks for parallels and not unparallels. But, the most significant pieces of evidence are direct quotations and thefts of complicated story lines, as opposed to similarity of concepts.

For instance, as to items 1-4, 6 and 10, I point out that one of Thomas Jefferson's main motivations for the Lewis & Clark expedition was a belief that a group of Welsh Christians emigrated to the Americans and constituted upper Platte River tribes, the Modoks. The belief in Christian or Hebrew emigration to the Americas was a common theme amongst writers. For instance, Tennessee Supreme Court Justice Thomas Haywood in 1823 published an extensive work on archaeology in the Americans offering scattered proof of a Hebrew emigration connection to American Indians.

As well, Evangelical theology has sometimes included the belief that the gospel has been preached to the indigenous people of America, leading the all sorts of theories and justifications seen in Prescott's accounts of the conquest of Mexico and Peru.

So, these general theories have long been in circulation. Indeed, the Tanners cite these theories as possible explanations for a Book of Mormon rip-off of theories in place. So, Ethan Smith's book may have just repeated what was generally speculated to be true by people like Thomas Jefferson.

[_Sethbag]

One problem with this theory is that Ethan Smith, who surely would have read the Book of Mormon and saw the parallels, did not complain or even mention it that I know of. Why would this be?

sr

I can think of a reason that would explain this easily: Ethan Smith was merely fleshing out a pre-existing idea common at the time, ie: that the Indians were somehow of the House of Israel, and had somehow come over to the Americas from Israel, etc. In other words, some of the themes Ethan Smith himself was borrowing from his cultural or religious milieu, and thus he didn't necessarily see the Book of Mormon as a complete rip-off of his work.

Another idea is that the legal concept of derivative works was less developed at that time than it is now, and copyright was instead used to protect against outright word-for-word copying, to which it is not strictly limited today. I don't know if this is true, maybe a legal historian could verify it, but it would fit.

[_MCB]

http://www.historians.org/governance/pd ... fining.htm

[_sr1030]

I can think of a reason that would explain this easily: Ethan Smith was merely fleshing out a pre-existing idea common at the time, ie: that the Indians were somehow of the House of Israel, and had somehow come over to the Americas from Israel, etc. In other words, some of the themes Ethan Smith himself was borrowing from his cultural or religious milieu, and thus he didn't necessarily see the Book of Mormon as a complete rip-off of his work.

Another idea is that the legal concept of derivative works was less developed at that time than it is now, and copyright was instead used to protect against outright word-for-word copying, to which it is not strictly limited today. I don't know if this is true, maybe a legal historian could verify it, but it would fit.

Not that I disagree with you, but the problem with this is that there were many anti-mormons at the time of the writing of the Book of Mormon that made a lot of noise about the plagerism from Ethans book, yet none from him. It was a grandson of his that first brought Ethans acknowledgement to light that the book was based on his writing.

sr

[_MCB]

It was a grandson of his that first brought Ethans acknowledgement to light that the book was based on his writing.

CFR on that interesting fact, please.

[_sr1030]

CFR on that interesting fact, please.

It wasn't stated as a fact, and I indeed remembered incorrectly. It has been a long time since I have been posting on boards concerning Mormonism. What I was refering to is an article in the Cleveland Plain Newspaper in 1887, not 1877 and it was the grandson offering his own opinion and not necessarily that of his grandfather. A copy of the article can be found here:

http://solomonspalding.com/Lib/Smth1887.htm

Sorry for the misinformation, it wasn't intentional.

The point really is though that Ethan remained silent on the subject. One has to wonder why.

sr

[_MCB]

Interesting article, but I really don't take it seriously. I understand that Ethan Smith never taught Solomon Spalding. However, they both probably took a course on the origins of Native Americans, taught by another person named Smith. Documentation on that can be found elsewhere on Dale's websites.

[_jhammel]

there were many anti-mormons at the time of the writing of the Book of Mormon that made a lot of noise about the plagerism from Ethans book.

Are you sure?

The one mention of Ethan Smith's work and the Book of Mormon together in the same account prior to 1887 of which I am aware is this: http://sidneyrigdon.com/Rafn1833.htm#pg091a

Rafinesque made no special claims to plagiarism of View of the Hebrews. He only pointed out the common tenet among VoH, the Book of Mormon, and other works, that "the American tribes descend from the Hebrews or the ten lost tribes."

I don't know of any other published statements or works prior to 1887 that make a connection between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. If there were claims of plagiarism prior to 1887, I would be interested in seeing them.

I consider it likely that Ethan Smith had opportunity to see a Book of Mormon and would have had enough interest to form an opinion of it, but as of now I have no reason to think there were any claims of plagiarism at the time (i.e. between 1830 and his death in 1849) on which he needed to comment on the record. As far as I can tell, the claims of plagiarism didn't appear until decades later. In my opinion, ever since B.H. Roberts brought it up, View of the Hebrews has been given undue special attention as a source for the Book of Mormon. I do think at the very least that Oliver Cowdery was likely familiar with View of the Hebrews and that it could have significantly influenced the Book of Mormon authors - perhaps more than some other works based on similar ideas - but many of the similarities observed by Roberts and since are not necessarily due to borrowing directly from VoH. If there was plagiarism of some level, it apparently was NOT enough to provoke any published plagiarism claims at the time.

Jeff

[_Yahoo Bot]

And my particular point is that Ethan Smith's book was just one of many spouting the same theories at the same time. I've pointed to Haywood's book. Which might mean a number of things.

1. Nobody gave it much thought before BH Roberts because it was just one of many.

2. The charges of plagiarism are diluted because Ethan Smith's arguments were just a popular theme at the time. It would be like somebody, one hundred years from now. arguing that a book ripped off from somebody else in particular the theory that more than one gunman killed JFK. In reality, there are hundreds of works that make the same assertion.

[_MCB]

http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1775Adr1.htm