Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Uncle Dale]

...what two or three discoveries published by the Smith-alone folks
would you say best support their authorship theory?
...

In e-mail conversations with a certain correspondent,
he has told me that the "Early Mormon Documents" series
and Joseph Smith: the Making of a Prophet, together
"practically prove that... Smith was the author."

Perhaps so -- but such a reference citation hardly informs us of
what modern discoveries show that Smith must have acted
alone in compiling the Book of Mormon.

I believe that I can list a couple of dozen historical and textual
source discoveries that the S-R advocates have made available
to the public during the last couple of decades. Even the Mormons
have uncovered relevant facts. What about the Smith-alone advocates?

UD

[_wenglund]

If you think about it, the lost 116 pages actually works against the Conneuat witnesses in two ways. After treading the Book of Mormon:

1) The witnesses don't say: "The gold Bible is the same as what Spalding wrote except for the religious parts and the first 1/7th of Spalding's story." They give no indication that a significant portion of the story is supposedly missing.

2) Instead, they claim that the Book of Mormon, as it was published, was the "same as" the Spalding story except for the religious part. Yet, the published Book of Mormon wasn't ebidently a story of the lost 10 tribe, etc.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_MCB]

I won't sweat that, Wade. Got it covered already. Thanks anyway for showing me how important that point is.

I believe that I can list a couple of dozen historical and textual
source discoveries that the S-R advocates have made available
to the public during the last couple of decades.

And, then there is the one unique to my work. It was a mere side-bar in a high school English textbook, had been working on my mind for 44 years. There is a town by that name back home, a couple of counties away. Named in 1831.

[_Uncle Dale]

If you think about it, the lost 116 pages actually works against the Conneuat witnesses in two ways. After treading the Book of Mormon:

1) The witnesses don't say: "The gold Bible is the same as what Spalding wrote except for the religious parts and the first 1/7th of Spalding's story." They give no indication that a significant portion of the story is supposedly missing.

2) Instead, they claim that the Book of Mormon, as it was published, was the "same as" the Spalding story except for the religious part. Yet, the published Book of Mormon wasn't ebidently a story of the lost 10 tribe, etc.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Interesting points -- If the witnesses published by Howe in
1834 intended to destroy the Mormon Church, they did a
very poor job of coordinating their accounts, one with
another, and with the Book of Mormon generally.

I think that an objective reader, having the Spalding Roman
story in one hand, the Book of Mormon in the other hand,
and Howe's book in his lap, would have to agree that the
witnesses' statements add up to testimony of something
OTHER than either of those two texts. It is problematic
that the witnesses provide the impression that Spalding's
writings were precisely identical to the Book of Mormon,
and then go off on tangents, talking about things not in
the extant Book of Mormon text.

My guess is that they were acquainted with the lost "Book
of Lehi," which only resembled the "small plates" in parts,
and in general story line.

Of course I could be wrong -- but that is where I start.

A more damaging fact, for S-R advocates, is that most of
the early witness testimony centers upon details found in
the "small plates;" while the parts of the text resembling
Spalding's known writings, use of language, computerized
authorship attribution, etc., fall OUTSIDE of those "plates."

If we were to agree upon some literary measurement
methods which listed the sections of the Nephite record
most resembling Spalding's literary output, I'm convinced
that the sections at the top of that list would come from
Mosiah, Alma and Ether -- with only some limited, small
sections of the "small plates" bearing any quantifiable high
similarity to Spalding's use of language and story themes.

Certainly such a discovery calls into question the seeming
assertion from those early witnesses, of the "small plates"
text being exactly what Spalding wrote.

However -- you know my assumption -- that the stuff in
the Howe book only alerts us to investigate the matter, and
does not stand as the definitive argument for secular 19th
century multiple authorship.

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

...it is doubtful that Solomon Spalding would have brought his lost tribes from Jerusalem as the witnesses are wont to say.
...

I addressed this topic earlier in the thread -- so you can go back
and look at the posting where I spoke of King Josiah's "Great Passover"
in which a remnant of the northerners living under Assyrian occupation
were invited to make the short journey down to Jerusalem.

A departure by a few dozen northerners at this time would have been
a logical and reasonable way for them to have escaped the Assyrians
AND to have escaped Josiah's imposition of his version of religion upon
the "idolatrous" northerners.

Had Spalding seized upon this historical opportunity, he could have
developed a manageable storyline, bringing a few northerners to
the New World, without having to write a story with a cast of
thousands of ancient characters. Such a plot would also have allowed
him to depict these northerners, escaping from the land of Jerusalem,
as a relatively "non-religious" people, in a non-religious story.

Getting back to recent research on the Book of Mormon itself,
what two or three discoveries published by the Smith-alone folks
would you say best support their authorship theory? I can think
of nothing new that they are offering for our study.

UD

Dale, do you honestly believe that believe that Solomon Spalding or anyone else in that group would have equated a few members of the lost tribes escaping to Jerusalem and afterward coming to the Americas as a lost tribes coming to the Americas and becoming the ancestors of the American Indians epic?
Remember the criticism leveled at the Book of Mormon when it was thought by some, maybe even most LDS that the descendants of Lehi and the people of Zarahemla became the ancestors of the American Indians?
The people of Conneaut would have understood a lost tribes story to be more in line with the ideas promoted by Ethan Smith>

Glenn

[Guest]

Since we do not have Spalding's manuscript, or the 116 pages, we really can't say how closely the witnesses' statements match the text of either.

Again, not having Spalding's manuscript, we are forced to look for themes and parallels in the literature to which people in that area and era had access. And there are plenty of such parallels, for someone who is motivated to look.


(I love the expression "area and era" if you haven't noticed.)

Dale said:

At any rate, I would expect that John and Martha's statements --
which were evidently taken in June/July 1833 -- might have been
based upon a casual reading of the Book of Mormon, and without
much consultation among their old neighbors, like Aron Wright.

Thank you

I expect that all of the statements were based upon a casual reading of the Book of Mormon. None of them exhibit knowledge of having skimmed just the first two books.
I also expect that you will find many, many themes and parallels, from many, many different sources. Dale has already found many. The more the merrier, as the old saying goes. But also, the more that you find, the more complex any "borrowing" idea becomes, and the less likely. After all, if parallels can be found in hundreds of texts from that era, what does it prove?
You have a computer to search for those parallels and phrases. How are you going to show that all of those phrases and parallels are significant other than "there are too many to be coincidence" type of assertion?

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale, do you honestly believe that believe that Solomon Spalding or anyone else in that group would have equated a few members of the lost tribes escaping to Jerusalem and afterward coming to the Americas as a lost tribes coming to the Americas and becoming the ancestors of the American Indians epic?

I actually tracked down a couple of fictional attempts at telling
the story of the entire Assyrian evacuation of Northerners making
it across Asia and to the preColumbian Americas. They are very
poor examples of storytelling. First of all, it is unconvincing to argue
that the Assyrians would have allowed hundreds of thousands of
Northerners to take off, as a mass migration, away from their control.
Secondly, it is almost impossible to relate such a fictional account
in such a way as to hold the readers' interest.

You are welcome to read the novels I found, and let me know if you
feel they are good stories that would hold reader interest.

Remember the criticism leveled at the Book of Mormon when it was thought by some, maybe even most LDS that the descendants of Lehi and the people of Zarahemla became the ancestors of the American Indians?
The people of Conneaut would have understood a lost tribes story to be more in line with the ideas promoted by Ethan Smith

Glenn

All I am saying is that there was a point in biblical history when
several dozen (or even a few hundred) Northerners could have
escaped Assyrian control, and escaped from the Land of Jerusalem
to some place away from King Josiah's religious tyranny.

The Assyrians allowed Josiah to implement his version of religion
upon the Israelites under their control. For Northerners, whose
religion was considered "idolatry," practiced away from the big
temple in Jerusalem, escaping the area during the Great Passover
would have been an opportunity to flee BOTH the hated Assyrian
occupiers AND Josiah's forced religious conversion efforts.

Don't believe it, if you wish.

But, were I to attempt to write a story in which the Americas
were populated by Israelites, I'd start off with a hundred or so,
who represented all ten of the northern tribes, and allow their
numbers to increase AFTER they reached America. My main story
would then center upon how it was that advanced Israelite
civilization eventually became extinct in the New World.

Are you saying that a story bringing over just a hundred or so
Old World colonists could not convincingly account for America's
preColumbian population?

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

I actually tracked down a couple of fictional attempts at telling
the story of the entire Assyrian evacuation of Northerners making
it across Asia and to the preColumbian Americas. They are very
poor examples of storytelling. First of all, it is unconvincing to argue
that the Assyrians would have allowed hundreds of thousands of
Northerners to take off, as a mass migration, away from their control.
Secondly, it is almost impossible to relate such a fictional account
in such a way as to hold the readers' interest.

You are welcome to read the novels I found, and let me know if you
feel they are good stories that would hold reader interest.

The novels may have been badly written, but they were written. The idea itself may not have been feasible. But it was a very popular idea. Those novels probably reflected the ideas that the people living in Conneaut would have entertained.

Remember the criticism leveled at the Book of Mormon when it was thought by some, maybe even most LDS that the descendants of Lehi and the people of Zarahemla became the ancestors of the American Indians?
The people of Conneaut would have understood a lost tribes story to be more in line with the ideas promoted by Ethan Smith

Glenn

All I am saying is that there was a point in biblical history when
several dozen (or even a few hundred) Northerners could have
escaped Assyrian control, and escaped from the Land of Jerusalem
to some place away from King Josiah's religious tyranny.

The Assyrians allowed Josiah to implement his version of religion
upon the Israelites under their control. For Northerners, whose
religion was considered "idolatry," practiced away from the big
temple in Jerusalem, escaping the area during the Great Passover
would have been an opportunity to flee BOTH the hated Assyrian
occupiers AND Josiah's forced religious conversion efforts.

Don't believe it, if you wish.

But, were I to attempt to write a story in which the Americas
were populated by Israelites, I'd start off with a hundred or so,
who represented all ten of the northern tribes, and allow their
numbers to increase AFTER they reached America. My main story
would then center upon how it was that advanced Israelite
civilization eventually became extinct in the New World.

Are you saying that a story bringing over just a hundred or so
Old World colonists could not convincingly account for America's
preColumbian population?

UD[/quote]

To your last question, no, I do not think so. But that does not really matter. What really matters is what the residents on Conneaut would have understood or believed about a lost tribes as ancestors of the Amrican Indians story. If you can come up with something from that time period which supports your idea, please share it.

Glenn

[_MCB]

Glenn said:

But also, the more that you find, the more complex any "borrowing" idea becomes, and the less likely. After all, if parallels can be found in hundreds of texts from that era, what does it prove?

That proves nothing, except that those ideas were common in that era. I have read many sources that others have seen as having parallels, and discarded them as being only a product of that era and way of thinking (think John Wesley and King Benjamin).

I never knew a Protestant theologian can be so good!! I thought Methodists and Presbyterians were nearly twins.

Those I have confirmed through this cognitive (somewhere between subjective and objective) process present compelling and frequent parallels.

[_Dan Vogel]

If you think about it, the lost 116 pages actually works against the Conneuat witnesses in two ways. After treading the Book of Mormon:

1) The witnesses don't say: "The gold Bible is the same as what Spalding wrote except for the religious parts and the first 1/7th of Spalding's story." They give no indication that a significant portion of the story is supposedly missing.

2) Instead, they claim that the Book of Mormon, as it was published, was the "same as" the Spalding story except for the religious part. Yet, the published Book of Mormon wasn't ebidently a story of the lost 10 tribe, etc.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

You probably won’t agree with this, but along the same lines is the explanation Joseph Smith gave in D&C 10 for not reproducing the “same over again” was because the enemies had altered the stolen MS so that it would not read the same if he had attempted a re-translation of the large plates. The lost MS was the “book of Lehi” and undoubtedly contained the names of the kings, which Joseph Smith could not remember and reproduce—hence the rather lame excuse given in the revelation. Nevertheless, this would imply that Joseph Smith wasn’t reading from a MS and was creating the text as he went.