Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Fifth Columnist]

Here's my devastatingly simple natural explanation: Joseph Smith, a man with some remarkable mental faculties, wrote the Book of Mormon.

I see no reason to doubt this devastatingly simple natural explanation.

Joseph Smith said he made it up.

D&C 9:7-9 says that Joseph Smith made the story up, got confirmation that it was true, and committed it to paper. It's that simple.

7 Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.
8 But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must cask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.
9 But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given you from me.

[_Roger]

Kish:

Great thread! It started out with comments like these:

but I have to say that the resemblance to the language of the Book of Mormon is very striking. Whoever discovered this may have unlocked an important aspect of the mystery of the production of the Book of Mormon.

Very interesting read so far.

Lots of similarities.

Folks, this looks like a smoking gun if I have ever seen one.

So I'm curious, what is it that makes these parallels stand out? What makes you think you have a smoking gun here? I agree that the syntax and vocabulary in the samples you quoted is similar to the Book of Mormon. But as Mopologists are keen to point out, one could site several other examples, some of which post-date the Book of Mormon and therefore obviously could not have influenced the Book of Mormon text.

Can you post the best example you have found?

By the same token, I've noticed that the general attitude by a number of posters toward the Spalding parallels seems to be skeptical. I'm curious why that is? I have yet to see a set of alleged parallels to the Book of Mormon that compares to that of Spalding's discovery narrative and Joseph Smith's discovery narrative. Admittedly, Smith's narrative is not a part of the Book of Mormon, but it's obviously a key part of the back story on how it allegedly came to exist (in English). As you noted:

So, as messy as it is, I think that the Book of Mormon is inseparable from the story of its discovery.

I agree. That's what makes the Spalding discovery narrative (which dates to 1816 at the latest) so compelling.

When you factor in the timeline of claims being made about a connection between Spalding and the Book of Mormon (as early as 1831) vs. the year Smith produced his discovery narrative (1838, if I remember correctly), the discovery narrative parallels become even more convincing, IMHO.

One claim from Smith damns the whole edifice:

The angel took back the plates.

QED.

I couldn't agree more. Even if one accepts the miraculous, one is still at a loss to explain why an angel would need to remove the plates? The standard reply, as I understand it, is that they were somehow too holy. Too sacred. At best, this is unprecedented. There is no claim that the Ark of the Covenant needed to be removed to heaven because of its sacredness. There are claims of God smiting someone dead because they touched it and plagues coming on invading armies who captured it, but never any suggestion that it had to be kept from the view of ordinary people and then removed to heaven.

On the other hand, if the plates were never real, then the claim that an angel had to take them to heaven makes logical sense.

And this is not the only problem with the official claims of Book of Mormon origin. The inconsistencies of the Anthon incident and the missing 116 pages add weight to the skeptical view.

[_Roger]

Nevo:

Although the Book of Mormon contains elements consistent with an 1820s New York origin, I have great difficulty picturing Joseph Smith as the author. I find it even less conceivable that Solomon Spalding or Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery or a cabal of Dartmouth graduates wrote it. It is so unlike everything around it (yes, even The Late War) that I find its very existence mystifying.

I am sincerely interested in why you think this. Why couldn't the Book of Mormon be a compilation of writings from all or several of these individuals? Why is that notion "less conceivable?" Even the official claim suggests that the Book of Mormon is in fact a compilation of writings that have been "abridged" by one or more key authors. Why then would the skeptical view need to postulate a single fraudulent author to be credible?

You imply that the reason has something to do with the fact that "It is so unlike everything around it." Yes, I think I understand the point, the text has a lot of unique characteristics and yet, certain passages are obviously a lot like 19th century writings. Other passages have obviously been lifted from the 1604 KJVB. I don't see how that works against a multiple 19th century authors hypothesis? It seems to me to support it.

[_Always Changing]

Roger said:

When you factor in the timeline of claims being made about a connection between Spalding and the Book of Mormon (as early as 1831) vs. the year Smith produced his discovery narrative (1838, if I remember correctly), the discovery narrative parallels become even more convincing, IMHO.

But Smith's discovery narrative appeared shortly after the Geauga county committee retrieved Spalding's writings. And apparently Hurlbut was working as a double agent (or money was the goal); therefore, acquisition of the Oberlin Manuscript Story was the trigger for Smith adding that. Unless-- it was part of both stories. Then, why wasn't it included in the Book of Mormon? There was no cave in the discovery narrative, it was only in Smith's previous version.

But, then, why did they go to the trouble of retrieving Spalding's writings?

[_Uncle Ed]

It will always be lacking for the same reason it will be lacking from YEC apologia, or Big Foot. I find it interesting is almost every apologist is terrified to deal with the Book of Abraham. We can test Joseph in more then just the Book of Mormon claims. The Book of Abraham is such an open and closed case no one really wants to defend anymore. When you have the source text for the claimed translation it's over.

You seem to have forgotten that Joseph Smith's original claim to "authority", i.e. his religious calling from the Lord, was to bring forth the Book of Mormon and pretend to nothing else. http://josephsmithpapers.org/paperSummary?target=x1463

AFTER the Book of Mormon, his efforts were in direct conflict with this earlier "revelation" (and words were added to allow Joseph Smith to continue his religion-making). There was no organization of a legally recognized church in the works yet, but only the one "taught by my disciples" , i.e. a group effort of true disciples with no one pointed out as a "prophet" at all: Joseph Smith was the instrument to bring about new scripture to point the way to that "church". The Book of Mormon was a physical fact and Joseph Smith's followers were a fact without a church. All that came after the Book of Mormon could be laid down as Joseph Smith skidding inexorably off the rails, getting some things "right" but a great deal wrong too.

Imagine that the Book of Mormon actually becomes validated more or less by subsequent ancient American scholarship. I know, that's asking a lot. But if the Book of Mormon attained the stature of a mystery work, accurate enough to be considered a valid source of belief if you chose to believe, what would that say about Joseph Smith's subsequent religion-making? Would the Book of Mormon being validated as a mysterious ancient history make Joseph Smith the religion-maker into a holistic "prophet"? Not at all. Each step along his career requires validating. The Book of Abraham is a mess, clearly derivative and not nearly as impressive or substantial as the Book of Mormon. The subsequent episodes of Joseph Smith's "translation" efforts are even worse. Then we have his problematic "revelations": the ones that have clearly never materialized and never will, and the ones that taught doctrines that were subsequently dumped by his successors. We have a false prophet woven in with the lucky guesswork religion-maker. But the Book of Mormon, his first and most impressive work, remains apart from anything that came later, by his own admission - which was later ignored or explained away, by interpolating the original text (as the Joseph Smith Papers project clearly publishes for the whole world to see)....

[_robuchan]

When you factor in the timeline of claims being made about a connection between Spalding and the Book of Mormon (as early as 1831) vs. the year Smith produced his discovery narrative (1838, if I remember correctly), the discovery narrative parallels become even more convincing, IMHO.

I'm interested in this discussion but getting lost. What do you mean by Smith's discovery narrative of 1838?

[_Nevo]

Nevo:

Although the Book of Mormon contains elements consistent with an 1820s New York origin, I have great difficulty picturing Joseph Smith as the author. I find it even less conceivable that Solomon Spalding or Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery or a cabal of Dartmouth graduates wrote it. It is so unlike everything around it (yes, even The Late War) that I find its very existence mystifying.

I am sincerely interested in why you think this. Why couldn't the Book of Mormon be a compilation of writings from all or several of these individuals? Why is that notion "less conceivable?" Even the official claim suggests that the Book of Mormon is in fact a compilation of writings that have been "abridged" by one or more key authors. Why then would the skeptical view need to postulate a single fraudulent author to be credible?

Hi Roger,

It's good to see you back in these parts. I don't think the skeptical view necessarily needs to posit a single fraudulent author to be credible. As you note, the Book of Mormon itself claims to be assembled from multiple sources and wordprint studies have tended to bear that out. But I don't find the Spalding-Rigdon-Smith-Cowdery-Pratt theory of authorship remotely persuasive for many, many reasons. And the theory that a bunch of Congregationalist ministers conspired to write the Book of Mormon (despite Thomas F. O'Dea's observation that "the doctrine of the book is wholeheartedly and completely Arminian") is even more far-fetched.

Spalding's own writings are the best evidence that he had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I don't think Rigdon was secretly meeting Joseph Smith in the 1820s, so I don't think Rigdon was a co-author. I don't believe Rigdon saw the Book of Mormon before it was published (a view apparently shared by Rigdon). Ditto for Parley P. Pratt. Cowdery was in the room at least, but he was scarcely more educated than Joseph Smith, and not a particularly gifted thinker or writer.

[_Equality]

Hi Roger,

It's good to see you back in these parts. I don't think the skeptical view necessarily needs to posit a single fraudulent author to be credible. As you note, the Book of Mormon itself claims to be assembled from multiple sources and wordprint studies have tended to bear that out. But I don't find the Spalding-Rigdon-Smith-Cowdery-Pratt theory of authorship remotely persuasive for many, many reasons. And the theory that a bunch of Congregationalist ministers conspired to write the Book of Mormon (despite Thomas F. O'Dea's observation that "the doctrine of the book is wholeheartedly and completely Arminian") is even more far-fetched.

Spalding's own writings are the best evidence that he had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I don't think Rigdon was secretly meeting Joseph Smith in the 1820s, so I don't think Rigdon was a co-author. I don't believe Rigdon saw the Book of Mormon before it was published (a view apparently shared by Rigdon). Ditto for Parley P. Pratt. Cowdery was in the room at least, but he was scarcely more educated than Joseph Smith, and not a particularly gifted thinker or writer.

Nevo, I appreciate you sticking around and answering questions that are posed to you. I dig how you don't do the old bob-and-weave that some of the other Mormon believers who post here engage in. I agree with you that some of the theories of Book of Mormon authorship that involve multiple co-conspirators seem farfetched. But when placing the various theories on a scale from "most likely" to "most unlikely" I would still place them far above the "ancient resurrected American Indian delivered gold plates engraved in Reformed Egyptian along with magical translating spectacles" theory on our plausibility scale.

[_Roger]

Lucy asks some good questions, which I would like to address momentarily, but first, for those who are interested in this discussion consider the following...

Let's say we come to an agreement with Kish that the parallels he cites at the beginning of this thread are indeed noteworthy with even the most skeptical among us seeing some similarities. With that as a starting point, what would happen if...

- it was then discovered that 8 seemingly credible witnesses who lived in the early 1800's had already alleged - as early as 1832 - that there was indeed a connection between another work (allegedly an even more obvious connection) that had been written by the same author and the Book of Mormon? Would that be a relevant factor? Would that add weight to the suspicion that there was indeed some connection here?

- In addition, what would happen if we subsequently discovered that there is a story built in to the narrative of the work Kish cites about how that manuscript was discovered, with its author pondering the ancient inhabitants of the continent as he walks up a hill, notes an unusual rock, locates a lever to dislodge it and retrieves an ancient manuscript that he himself subsequently translates into English? Would that be relevant?

How much of a smoking gun would Kish have at that point?

[_Roger]

Hi Nevo:

Good to hear from you again as well!

Spalding's own writings are the best evidence that he had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon.

Yes, I understand your point. Upon a cursory reading, the extant Spalding manuscript does not resemble the Book of Mormon. Admittedly the language is not nearly as similar as the parallels Kish cites. However, the point you make is that "Spalding's own writings are the best evidence that he had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon." Of course I completely agree with that. Spalding indeed had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. He died 14 years before it was published. The allegation, of course, is that Smith (and others) had a lot to do with the Book of Mormon and that a now lost manuscript of Solomon Spalding provided the starting point.

I don't think Rigdon was secretly meeting Joseph Smith in the 1820s, so I don't think Rigdon was a co-author.

Fair enough, but can you provide evidence that they never met? What basis is there to definitely conclude that their paths never crossed prior to 1830? If there is no solid basis then shouldn't my opinion that they did meet at some point at least carry as much weight as your opinion that they didn't?

I don't believe Rigdon saw the Book of Mormon before it was published (a view apparently shared by Rigdon).

It's certainly no great surprise that Rigdon would claim not to have ever seen the Book of Mormon before its publication. An acknowledgement otherwise would provide more than a smoking gun. It would be tantamount to a confession. Nevertheless, even Rigdon's denial is interesting. He could, of course, easily claim in good conscience to have never seen the Book of Mormon before it was published since what he had seen was a set of manuscripts out of which the final product eventually appeared.

Again, you are certainly entitled to believe whatever you choose to believe, but a relevant question would seem to be: is there any evidence to suggest that Rigdon never saw any portion of what became the Book of Mormon before 1830, or does some evidence suggest that he may have at least known about some elements in the Book of Mormon prior to its publication?

Here again, when you look at available evidence - as I know you have - it seems to me this one could reasonably go either way.

Ditto for Parley P. Pratt. Cowdery was in the room at least, but he was scarcely more educated than Joseph Smith, and not a particularly gifted thinker or writer.

Cowdery was obviously in a position to collaborate with Smith. Even Dan Vogel - who is no friend of the Spalding Ridgon theory - acknowledges that Cowdery must have collaborated with Smith on the use of a King James Bible without leaving any record of any such collaboration.