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

[_MCB]

What are you talking about DNA evidence? That has nothing to do with the S/R theory.

They have everything to do with each other. All evidence against the literal truth of the Book of Mormon needs to be examined in an interactive context. Again, I see a forest. People of LDS cultural heritage tend to be so focused on leaves in isolation that they miss the whole picture.

[_GlennThigpen]

What are you talking about DNA evidence? That has nothing to do with the S/R theory.

They have everything to do with each other. All evidence against the literal truth of the Book of Mormon needs to be examined in an interactive context. Again, I see a forest. People of LDS cultural heritage tend to be so focused on leaves in isolation that they miss the whole picture.

If DNA proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon is not historically true, it would do nothing to advance or defeat the S/R theory, or the Smith alone theory, or the View of the Hebrews Theory, or the automatic writing theory. Each of those theories must stand or fall on their own merits.

As for not seeing the forest for the trees, I don't think that is an accurate evaluation of the scholarship that has been developed on the Book of Mormon by people competent in linguistics, DNA, Egyptian, history, middle eastern studies, Meso-Ameican studies, and Hebrew, to name a few. It is that extensive scholarship which is being ignored by most critics of the Book of Mormon. That is a forest.

Glenn

[_MCB]

It is that extensive scholarship which is being ignored by most critics of the Book of Mormon. That is a forest.

Ever heard of dutch elm disease? A culturally homogeneous forest, imposing its culture on others, and therefore becoming sicker and sicker.

[_GlennThigpen]

It is that extensive scholarship which is being ignored by most critics of the Book of Mormon. That is a forest.

Ever heard of dutch elm disease? A culturally homogeneous forest, imposing its culture on others, and therefore becoming sicker and sicker.

MCB, I do not care for the way you are taking this discussion. It seems as though you are taking a thread where we were discussing specific points towards you expressing a personal animus towards all things LDS.
I appreciate the substantive comments you have made in this thread thus far, but do not wish to continue in this direction.

Glenn

[_MCB]

Neither do I. That sarcastic comment was for a reason.

However, I am following some leads you gave me. Re Deming, Deming's statements from people who knew Dowen, Dowen, and Benjamin Winchester. It appears that Dowen's statement was never published because it conflicted with the other statements Deming had collected. I would like to know what he said, and that requires a trip to Chicago, which I cannot afford right now. However, I can do other research on that issue.

Thank you.

[_marg]

Post reference: link


Since it’s been a while I’ll recap. I’m arguing that myths can be changed, that Spalding in writing his fictional account did not have to adhere to the lost tribe myth which followed the prophecies of an Esdras passage, that passage being that all of the Northern Israelite tribes would disperse en masse to some far away land. If I have something wrong with my understanding of that myth I apologize, I don’t pretend to be an expert on it, when it started, what exactly is involved. I’m just going by what I believe Glenn and Dan have stated.

So I brought up the analogy that the Hebrew Bible, I believe called the Tanakh and myths associated were changed and added to by the writers of the New Testament and then later writers of the Book of Mormon changed some Christian myths by adding to and changing myths of the Bible. The new audiences did not reject the changed myths..hence myths can be changed and a new audience won over.

And so that is my argument that Spalding by employing a literary device of it being the writings of ancient people, not of himself..gains authority to change the lost tribe myth. Just as the N.T. writers, in writing new stories speaking on behalf of God gain authority in the eyes of their audience and so too, Book of Mormon writers in speaking on behalf of God and the use of the found ancient writing gain authority in the eyes of their audience.

So Spalding doesn’t have to follow the lost tribe myth as per the one linked with Esdras ..he doesn’t have to have all the tribes disperse immediately to the north and then to a far away land. He could have some people of the tribes go south to Jerusalem. The focus for Spalding’s story would not be ..where did all the lost tribes go to but rather ..who are the American Indians and where did their ancestors come from. As long as their blood line goes back to ancestors who were of the dispersed lost tribes, then the Am. Indian’s ancestry is of a lost tribe.

So Glenn with regards to your comment in which you are trying to show me where my analogy in changing myths is wrong you write:

The LDS did not call their new book of scripture a Bible nor have they tried to pass it off as a remake of the Bible. I am afraid that you are still making my point for me. If the LDS had brought forth the Book of Mormon claiming it to be the Bible, just a bit reworked, Joseph Smith would have been burned at the stake, maybe literally, for heresy.

Well Glenn the New Testament writers did not call their new book a Tanakh. First we have the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and the myths associated with that, , then later the myths are added to and reworded and New Testament books are chosen. They are not presented as a remake of the Old Testament books ..but together with the Hebrew Bible essentially ..Christians have the Bible. Then both of those scriptures are employed and added to with the Book of Mormon and Mormons have all 3 groups of scriptures.

There are differences in the myths, the Hebrews believe the Messiah is yet to come, can not be divine. The Christians reinterpreted books and passages with a different myth, that the messiah has come and is of God and born of a virgin. The “virgin” was a mistranslation of a Hebrew word meaning young woman. And then Mormons change some of that myth with an added historical storyline pertaining to Jesus and that God was once a man and became a God. In these 3 cases though Glenn, the myths changed in major respects ..and the audiences didn’t reject just because they were changed. You are saying Spalding would have appreciated he could not change the myth, and I’m saying the opposite that he likely appreciated he could change the myth especially if he was writing representing the voice of the “ancients”.

So that is my point, you don’t know what Spalding told the witnesses with regards to his version of what happened to the “lost tribes”. Essentially the lost tribes were simply the Northern Israelites who were kicked out of Northern Israel and not written about in the Hebrew Bible afterwards. No account of their lives and where they went. There is no reason why Spalding couldn’t have changed the Esdras myth, and focused on a few individuals from the dispersed Northern Israelites ..where they went and that ultimately it was their descendants who are the Am. Indians. It wouldn’t be a lost tribe story where all the lost tribes went it would be an American Indian story, where their ancestors came from.

Now that may have been what the Conneaut witnesses were exposed to by the time Spalding left Conneaut in 1812. He may have continued on with his story changing it even more..such that Redick Mckee would have a different version.

I’m not saying that the Conneaut witnesses must have had a perfect memory..and that they couldn’t possibly be wrong about Spalding and lost tribes. However with many of them recalling lost tribes as a factor in Spalding’s story and with the Book of Mormon not mentioning lost tribes..I suspect Spalding’s story did entail some aspect of the lost tribe myth. I don’t think in 1833 Mormonism was of much interest to many people. Hurlbut was only just beginning to investigate and question the witnesses so I doubt they did much research into Mormonism or what others were saying about it. Their focus in their statements was identifying whether or not they recognized Spaldings writings in the Book of Mormon. And based upon their statements the consensus was without a doubt Spalding’s manuscript had been used, but not the MSCC which wasn’t written in biblical language, which had a different set of characters and different storyline from different historical period. When they say they clearly remember aspects such as certain names, certain passages, certain phrasing which was brought back to memory by the Book of Mormon…that is not something attributable to false memory. False memory occurs when source memory is weak. That is when one is uncertain where or how one obtained a memory. In those cases memories become confusable. That is not the situation with the Conneaut witnesses. So if they aren’t confused on biblical style writing, certain phrasing"and it came to pass", certain names Nephi, Lehi which all match up to the Book of Mormon and is highly unlikely to be confused with some other writing and if they aren’t lying..then it would seem ..by extension with so many remembering “lost tribes” that Spalding likely incorporated it somehow in his storyline. And my explanation is simply an explanation of how it was quite possible Spalding changed the myth, and focused on a few people who were descended from some individuals in that dispersion of all the Northern Israelite tribes around 720 B.C. His focus in his storyline would not be about 'lost tribes' but about where Am. Indians came from.

[_MCB]

His focus in his storyline would not be about 'lost tribes' but about where Am. Indians came from.

Right. The theory was initially conceived to elevate the Natives to human status as descendants of Adam and Eve. In the Mormon mind, "degenerate Jews" was a double pejorative.

[_marg]

Post reference: link

You haven’t been listening, Marg. What do you think the discussion about false memory was about? Disagree all you want with my position, but my position doesn’t include calling them liars. I’ve made that clear from the beginning.

Dan I have been listening. Read what I say, I do not accuse you of saying they were lying. No you have not said they were lying. What I said to Glenn was “As I explained to Dan, if your argument is the conneaut witnesses mention of lost tribes was because they "thought" "the Book of Mormon was about lost tribes, then you are accusing them of lying. That's not simply a matter of confusion, that's deliberate deception.” Whether it is false memories or a matter of the witnesses thought that the Book of Mormon was about lost tribes and that’s why they said Spalding’s manuscript was about that as well…even if you aren’t explicitly accusing them of lying..when one critically evaluates that argument, it boils down to accusing them of lying. It’s not my fault Dan that the memory studies you’ve been using don’t apply to the Conneaut witnesses and that they don’t apply indicates to me you don’t appreciate what memory studies do say.

Dan false memory is not likely with the Conneaut witnesses. People do know when they clearly remember something, especially if they been given a retrieval cue to help recall. People who think they clearly remember something but actually don’t, such as those with implanted memories of abuse during therapy, occur when there is weak source memory. In otherwords in those cases the people had no memory of abuse before the therapy. Same thing with Loftus’s “lost in the mall” the people had no memory of being lost in the mall before the study. And if you asked the people if they remember having that memory before the study they’d appreciate they didn’t..even though that memory felt to them as real.


Now sure memory which is strong weakens over time. And I can appreciate the possibility of memory confusion over a similar storyline in some areas that may be easily confusable and especially when there is uncertainty and lack of consensus with the majority of witnesses. But there are too many witnesses who identify key aspects not easily confusable between Spalding’s manuscript and the Book of Mormon. So although you wish false memory to apply you haven’t made a strong argument for it, nor found a memory study to back up your reasoning.

The Conneaut witnesses say they have memories of Spalding reading..and when they say they clearly recall certain things like repeated phrasing “and it came to pass” , biblical style King james English, certain names brought back to memory it is with high probability they do clearly recall, that they aren’t simply recalling some imagined created memory or confusing it with memories of another story. Biblical King James English is not a confusable item with MSCC, “And it came to pass” again not confusable with anything in MSCC. This is why Dan if you are going to attack their memory you really need to appreciate what the memory studies say and under what circumstances they apply. People do know if they remember clearly or not unless their source memory is weak. When all the witnesses identify Spalding’s writing in the Book of Mormon the probability of false memory diminishes.

I appreciate Josiah has a different memory and of MSCC. Of all the people though his memory is the least reliable because he's 90 years old. It's not just a matter of the time that has passed but rather the physiological changes to the brain in old age, in particular the frontal cortex. I think he remembers MSCC, but I wonder if he's mixed up with when he was there or simply that he wasn't paying attention to what Spalding was writing, while he himself may have been reading MSCC.He mentioned nothing about listening to spalding read while neighbours or friends were present, and that appears to have occurred based upon the witnesses statements.

Your insistence that the Book of Mormon is about the ten tribes—despite what it says—is unreasonable.

I’ll tell what is unreasonable, your insistence that I say the Book of Mormon is about the 10 lost tribes and that the Conneaut witnesses say that as well. What the witnesses said was only about what Spalding’s book contained with respect to lost tribes. They said nothing about the Book of Mormon with respect to that, and they didn’t say the Book of Mormon brought back memories about lost tribes either.

What I said Dan, is that there is a connection . I’ve speculated that Spalding didn’t write about the lost tribe myth based on Esdras . The lost tribes story is essentially about the Northern Israelites dispersion out of N. Israel and speculation of what happened afterwards, since the Bible has no stories of their lives after this point. I’m not suggesting Spalding wrote about where they all went, but rather that he may have suggested some went south to Jerusalem and Lehi was a descendant..and ultimately the story was that the Am Indians were of Mideastern ancestry as opposed to Asian because those were the 2 theories at the time, and his main character happened to be a descendant of someone from a Lost tribe (from the middle east).

Your argument that the Book of Mormon is about the “lost tribes” because Lehi was from one of the tribes that got lost makes no sense at all.

It doesn’t make sense to you because you want the lost tribe myth to be set in stone according to Esdras with no possibility of any variation or changes possible, because that suits your purposes for argumentation. But that was a myth, essentially one speculation which could easily be changed by a writer. If there was no historical evidence where the Northern Israelites went after being kicked out of their territory, then a story teller can have them go anywhere and not just en masse as you and Glenn argue, particular if the focus was not on Lost tribes but rather on who were the ancestors of Am. Indians.

Your view that the witnesses really meant to say “lost tribe” instead of “lost tribes” is laughable.

Why should they be knowledgeable about the lost tribe myth per Esdras? Martha said a few lost tribes, her husband said Jews or Lost tribes..so yes, they don’t know the Esdras lost tribe myth, 2 others said lost tribes but in the context that they were under the impression that Spalding's story had only a few migrate to America, so again they don't appear to appreciate the Esdras myth version.

If they don’t know the lost tribes story per Esdras, then they don’t know the difference between Jews and Lost tribes, or what the Esdras myth says with regards to mass migration. And even if they did know that myth, that doesn’t mean Spalding couldn’t have changed it and they simply appreciated his version. Would you really expect them if this was the case to get into a long discussion on how spalding's lost tribe ideas differed to the myth particulars set out in Esdras?

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

I’m arguing that myths can be changed, that Spalding in writing his fictional account did not have to adhere to the lost tribe myth which followed the prophecies of an Esdras passage, that passage being that all of the Northern Israelite tribes would disperse en masse to some far away land. If I have something wrong with my understanding of that myth I apologize, I don’t pretend to be an expert on it, when it started, what exactly is involved. I’m just going by what I believe Glenn and Dan have stated.

Your witnesses were talking about the “lost tribes”, but you insist on talking about your own personal version—which has become totally unrecognizable to me. You are special pleading to avoid the obvious conclusion, which I have previously stated twice:

Either Spalding’s MS was about the ten tribes, and therefore contradicts the Book of Mormon, or it wasn’t about the ten tribes, and therefore the witnesses can’t be relied on.

Either the witnesses were accurately recalling Spalding’s MS, and therefore it was not like the Book of Mormon, or they are mistaken about Spalding’s MS, and therefore can’t be relied on anyway. More likely, the witnesses’ memories were tainted by what they thought the Book of Mormon was about based on popular misconceptions about its contents.

Marg, you are making things up without basis, even from your own witnesses.

So Spalding doesn’t have to follow the lost tribe myth as per the one linked with Esdras ..he doesn’t have to have all the tribes disperse immediately to the north and then to a far away land. He could have some people of the tribes go south to Jerusalem. The focus for Spalding’s story would not be ..where did all the lost tribes go to but rather ..who are the American Indians and where did their ancestors come from. As long as their blood line goes back to ancestors who were of the dispersed lost tribes, then the Am. Indian’s ancestry is of a lost tribe.

We know you have a motivation to change the dominant theory, but you need to explain why Spalding would. If Spalding had the same resistance to mass migration that you do (despite what McKee claimed), he would have simply broke off part of the captives in Assyria. Why would Spalding have a group go south, wait a hundred years, and several generations later go to America? How would this story be recognizable as a version of the lost tribe theory?

So I brought up the analogy that the Hebrew Bible, I believe called the Tanakh and myths associated were changed and added to by the writers of the New Testament and then later writers of the Book of Mormon changed some Christian myths by adding to and changing myths of the Bible. The new audiences did not reject the changed myths..hence myths can be changed and a new audience won over.

The analogy doesn’t work because you still have to prove that Spalding changed it.

And so that is my argument that Spalding by employing a literary device of it being the writings of ancient people, not of himself..gains authority to change the lost tribe myth. Just as the N.T. writers, in writing new stories speaking on behalf of God gain authority in the eyes of their audience and so too, Book of Mormon writers in speaking on behalf of God and the use of the found ancient writing gain authority in the eyes of their audience.

There is a big difference between a novelist and a prophet or apostle. Nevertheless, I believe you have missed my point, which wasn’t about authority at all. It was about the contradiction of tapping into readers’ assumptions about Indian origins to write a novel that would have a ring of truth. Spalding would have little motivation to change the theory radically, as you have proposed. The further Spalding would have strayed from his audiences’ assumptions, the less believability his novel would have. You are the only one that has reason to change the theory to match the Book of Mormon and defend the witnesses. You have failed.

Well Glenn the New Testament writers did not call their new book a Tanakh. First we have the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and the myths associated with that, , then later the myths are added to and reworded and New Testament books are chosen. They are not presented as a remake of the Old Testament books ..but together with the Hebrew Bible essentially ..Christians have the Bible. Then both of those scriptures are employed and added to with the Book of Mormon and Mormons have all 3 groups of scriptures.

Here you go right down the wrong road. Now, you are going to defend your analogy. You didn’t learn anything from my previous discussion of the fallacy of an argument from analogy. An analogy is only helpful in making us understand what you mean—but it’s not proof in itself. So don’t waste our time on this.

So that is my point, you don’t know what Spalding told the witnesses with regards to his version of what happened to the “lost tribes”. Essentially the lost tribes were simply the Northern Israelites who were kicked out of Northern Israel and not written about in the Hebrew Bible afterwards. No account of their lives and where they went. There is no reason why Spalding couldn’t have changed the Esdras myth, and focused on a few individuals from the dispersed Northern Israelites ..where they went and that ultimately it was their descendants who are the Am. Indians. It wouldn’t be a lost tribe story where all the lost tribes went it would be an American Indian story, where their ancestors came from.

They weren’t just kicked out, but were captured or deported to Assyria. As I said, if Spalding changed the theory, it would most likely directly apply to the northern kingdom—that way, one could still speak of the “lost tribes”. You only want them to go to Jerusalem to match the Book of Mormon, not that the Book of Mormon in any way connects Lehi’s relatives to a dispersion from the northern kingdom.

Now that may have been what the Conneaut witnesses were exposed to by the time Spalding left Conneaut in 1812. He may have continued on with his story changing it even more..such that Redick Mckee would have a different version.

McKee’s account is what I have been saying about what Spalding would have likely done, that is, if he had written about lost tribes. McKee is close to the Esdras story.

I’m not saying that the Conneaut witnesses must have had a perfect memory..and that they couldn’t possibly be wrong about Spalding and lost tribes. However with many of them recalling lost tribes as a factor in Spalding’s story and with the Book of Mormon not mentioning lost tribes..I suspect Spalding’s story did entail some aspect of the lost tribe myth.

Now you’re back to my questions above. However, I suspect you would correct the witnesses, as you have done before, as saying Spalding’s MS was about “a lost tribe”. Still, the Book of Mormon isn’t about a lost tribe. And you still want to change this to something like “a character whose ancestry was to a tribe that got lost.” But that is as far from the lost tribe theory one can get and still be talking about Israelites.

I don’t think in 1833 Mormonism was of much interest to many people. Hurlbut was only just beginning to investigate and question the witnesses so I doubt they did much research into Mormonism or what others were saying about it. Their focus in their statements was identifying whether or not they recognized Spaldings writings in the Book of Mormon. And based upon their statements the consensus was without a doubt Spalding’s manuscript had been used, but not the MSCC which wasn’t written in biblical language, which had a different set of characters and different storyline from different historical period. When they say they clearly remember aspects such as certain names, certain passages, certain phrasing which was brought back to memory by the Book of Mormon…that is not something attributable to false memory. False memory occurs when source memory is weak.

No. false memory happens when memory is vague, whether a source is strong or weak. False memory can happen to an entire memory or just part of a memory. Nevertheless, you are assuming that the witnesses were right about the names--therefore their source memories were strong and could not have been false. It’s circular. It could be equally argued that they were wrong about the names, and therefore their source memories were weak, as witnessed by their being wrong about a major theme.

That is when one is uncertain where or how one obtained a memory. In those cases memories become confusable. That is not the situation with the Conneaut witnesses.

Yet you are will to state at the beginning that “I’m not saying that the Conneaut witnesses must have had a perfect memory..and that they couldn’t possibly be wrong about Spalding and lost tribes.” False memory is accreted with the same certainty expected by those with strong source memories. Source memories can become vague over time, and vague memories can be made “better” with suggestion and corrupting influences. You are creating a false dichotomy with false memory vs. source memory.

So if they aren’t confused on biblical style writing, certain phrasing"and it came to pass", certain names Nephi, Lehi which all match up to the Book of Mormon and is highly unlikely to be confused with some other writing and if they aren’t lying..then it would seem ..by extension with so many remembering “lost tribes” that Spalding likely incorporated it somehow in his storyline.

But if they were wrong about the lost tribes, they were probably also wrong about the language style and names. All of this information came from the Book of Mormon, or what they thought was in the Book of Mormon. Miller’s statement that he could remember verbatim passages from Spalding’s MS after twenty years, and could find them in the Book of Mormon, is highly questionable. The idea that there were many verbatim passages in the Book of Mormon from Spalding’s MS is problematic since Miller and other Spalding witnesses also advanced the idea that the religious material in the Book of Mormon was added. It is difficult to find any passage, especially in the beginning portion, that doesn’t have religion in it. The idea that the Book of Mormon’s history can be separated from its religion is absurd—without it the stories don’t work.

And my explanation is simply an explanation of how it was quite possible Spalding changed the myth, and focused on a few people who were descended from some individuals in that dispersion of all the Northern Israelite tribes around 720 B.C. His focus in his storyline would not be about 'lost tribes' but about where Am. Indians came from.

The Indians were supposed to have descended from the “lost tribes” according to the witnesses, but that is not what the Book of Mormon says. It doesn’t appear your witnesses agree with you. You are making things up … and that’s not evidence.

[_GlennThigpen]

Post reference: link

So Spalding doesn’t have to follow the lost tribe myth as per the one linked with Esdras ..he doesn’t have to have all the tribes disperse immediately to the north and then to a far away land. He could have some people of the tribes go south to Jerusalem. The focus for Spalding’s story would not be ..where did all the lost tribes go to but rather ..who are the American Indians and where did their ancestors come from. As long as their blood line goes back to ancestors who were of the dispersed lost tribes, then the Am. Indian’s ancestry is of a lost tribe.

marge, you are correct that Solomon did not have to follow a lost tribes myth. But if he had not done so, it would not have been recognized as a lost tribes story.
If you read John Spalding's first statement, he has Nephi and Lehi coming over together, from Jerusalem.
However, in his second statement, he has Lehi come over first, as the leader of the Jaredites, and this he said about Nephi "Long after this, Nephi, of the tribe of Joseph, emigrated to America with a large portion of the ten tribes whom Shalmanezer led away from Palestine, and scattered among the Midian cities."

Whatever he is remembering, he seems to have learned that the lost tribes were not at Jerusalem and now has them coming from the Midian cities. It reflects two things. One is that he did not really remember much about Solomon's story, and two, that he had heard some more about the Book of Mormon but had not really read it.

The LDS did not call their new book of scripture a Bible nor have they tried to pass it off as a remake of the Bible. I am afraid that you are still making my point for me. If the LDS had brought forth the Book of Mormon claiming it to be the Bible, just a bit reworked, Joseph Smith would have been burned at the stake, maybe literally, for heresy.

Well Glenn the New Testament writers did not call their new book a Tanakh. First we have the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh and the myths associated with that, , then later the myths are added to and reworded and New Testament books are chosen. They are not presented as a remake of the Old Testament books ..but together with the Hebrew Bible essentially ..Christians have the Bible. Then both of those scriptures are employed and added to with the Book of Mormon and Mormons have all 3 groups of scriptures.

And that is the very point I was making. When you change a story, you do not call it by the same name, especially if it has little resemblance to the original story. If the lost tribes had been turned into a story of a family from one of the tribes, it would not have read or sounded like a lost tribes story., and it would not have been reported a a lost tribes story. Solomon had studied to become a man of the cloth, and although many of the Conneaut may not have been well versed with the geography of the Old world where the lost tribes were supposed to have been taken, there were others also trained in Biblical lore, such as Etahn Smith. If Solomon hoped that "it would be believed by many people as much as the history of England" he would not have struck new ground, especially if he wished to keep his real views hid "under a bushel."

It wouldn’t be a lost tribe story where all the lost tribes went it would be an American Indian story, where their ancestors came from.

Now that may have been what the Conneaut witnesses were exposed to by the time Spalding left Conneaut in 1812. He may have continued on with his story changing it even more..such that Redick Mckee would have a different version.

You are very right, it would not have been a lost tribes story. The first Redick McKee Version is not even about the Israelites.

I’m not saying that the Conneaut witnesses must have had a perfect memory..and that they couldn’t possibly be wrong about Spalding and lost tribes. However with many of them recalling lost tribes as a factor in Spalding’s story and with the Book of Mormon not mentioning lost tribes..I suspect Spalding’s story did entail some aspect of the lost tribe myth. I don’t think in 1833 Mormonism was of much interest to many people. Hurlbut was only just beginning to investigate and question the witnesses so I doubt they did much research into Mormonism or what others were saying about it.

You do not seem to have done much research into that area marge. There was a lot of interest in Mormonism in the area. Much of it negative in nature. LDS missionariesw stirred up excitement and a lot more eveywhere they preached abot the "Golden Bible." Missionaries had been through the area and converted some of the neighbors of those witnesses.

And my explanation is simply an explanation of how it was quite possible Spalding changed the myth, and focused on a few people who were descended from some individuals in that dispersion of all the Northern Israelite tribes around 720 B.C. His focus in his storyline would not be about 'lost tribes' but about where Am. Indians came from.

You cannot separate the two in the statements. They are intertwined. You have to look at it from the perspective of the witnesses. If they had reported that Splading's story was about a family descended from one of the lost tribes coming to America and becoming the ancestors of the American Indians, you might have a point. But it would not have been believed by anyone at the time because it would have seemed preposterous to most people at the time that all of the American Indians descended from a group of about twenty-three people. They would have believed a story about the Amrican Indians being descended from several large groups of people, or at least found it plausible.

Glenn