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

[_marg]

Dan P., what have you read on the S/R theory?

This was was the entire context of my sentence Dan, "To an outsider it may be hard to fathom anyone taking it seriously. So you need to consider the early witnesses wouldn't necessarily think it was worth their time to put in too much effort into their statements for a stranger, Hurlbut."

Arthur Deming wrote something along similar lines that outsiders in the early days of Mormonism didn't take it seriously and that was my point, why should we expect the conneaut witnesses to have and put in lots of effort into their statements such as describing in detail all or any of spalding's manuscripts.

He wrote: "The chief reason Mormonism has caused our Government so much trouble and expense is, that our authorities have used force without enough facts. The Mormons are composed of two classes, the Deceivers and the Deceived, who are by far the most numerous, and are generally honest, industrious, well-meaning people. Had the newspaper managers of 1830 been as enterprising and thorough in collecting news as they are to-day, Mormonism would have been very short-lived. A few hundred dollars judiciously expended by a competent person would have proven Rev. Sidney Rigdon's frequent visits with Jo Smith, at Manchester, New York, and elsewhere, for several years before the "Book of Mormon was published, also how he obtained and used the Spaulding "Manuscript Found." The Mormon thistle was allowed to take root and grow because but few people thought it would ever amount to anything."

(Naked Truths About Mormonism Vol. I. No. 1. (January, 1888) edited by Arthur B. Deming )

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

See how easy it is to misinterpret what people are saying, your focus was on "humorous" I didn't notice that. I think people could argue there are many humorous passages in the Book of Mormon because they would perceive the ideas ridiculous. Laban getting his head chopped off and Nephi putting on his clothes with no mention of blood and then the servant mistaking him for Laban because he talked like Laban. I found practically the whole Book of Mormon ridiculous to me it was a joke, practically everything in it. So I wouldn't be so quick to assume that a Spalding MF didn't appear humorous to his listeners. And especially if he read it in a way that made it obvious he wasn't being serious.

As I said to Roger, it’s only funny to non-believers. Not Joseph Smith, not his family, not the many converts thought it was funny. Why? Because they also believed in another miracle book—the Bible—which non-believers also find funny. The Nephi-Laban encounter is not unlike Isaac’s blessing of Jacob, and may have even been influenced by it. How could blind Isaac be fooled into thinking Jacob was his hairy older son Esau by such crude stratagem as placing animal skins about his shoulders and arms? Regardless, it’s really unfair to characterize the Book of Mormon as funny—especially intentionally funny. Spalding was being intentionally humorous, but the Book of Mormon is not.

[_Dan Vogel]

Jersey Girl,

Joseph Smith was also gifted in those areas as well, as his revelations abundantly testify. Both Pratt and Rigdon came on the scene after the fact.

[_marg]

Regardless, it’s really unfair to characterize the Book of Mormon as funny—especially intentionally funny. Spalding was being intentionally humorous, but the Book of Mormon is not.

To the Conneaut witnesses they may have found portions of Spalding's MF humorous and perhaps sarcastic of similar biblical stories. Sarcasm, and descriptions which go to unrealistic extremes often appear humorous.

The Laban story for example one might easily view as humorous. When I said I found the Book of Mormon to be a joke, it's not that I laughed. I found for example the repetitive concept repeated over and over throughout that a God favored those who believed and punished those who didn't..to me appeared immature, like a joke.

[_GlennThigpen]

By the way, Abner Jackson puts the beginning of the story in 1812.
Although you read Matilda's statement that Solomon's health must have become so bad that he could not work very shortly after he came to the area, you have ignored the evidence that he was actively engaged in surveying land, (1809 and 1810) then in rebuilding and working a forge (1811 - ?).
According to Matilda, it was after he was forced into retirement that he actually began writing the story. This is in contradiction to the statements of Artemas Cunningham, Henry Lake, and especially Oliver Smith.

Are you saying he was in good physical health until the summer of 1812 at which point he started to write. Is that what you think Matilda describes? Sure his health may have improved at points during their time in Conneaut, but she makes it clear when they arrived his health sunk and when he was in poor health to pass his time he would write.

marge, she says that shortly after they arrived that his health sunk. She did not give a time frame for that. But I presented evidence from the witnesses and external evidence that Solomon was actively engaged in surveying land and in rebuilding an iron forge from sometime in 1809 (when Solomon first moved to Ohio) and sometime in 1811, The date of the agreement between Solomon and Henry Lake was dated in March 1811 share expenses in rebuilding the forge and then take turns in working the forge. But Henry says in his statement that Solomon had already been at work rebuilding the forge the past couple of years. There is no known record of when the forge failed, or when Solomon's health got so bad that he could not physically carry out his end of the bargain. But the witnesses and legal record indicate that it was after March of 1811. Just how far past is anyone's guess. It could have been as late as early 1812. In any event, the records show that Solomon's health must not have been so bad as to preclude him from surveying land and working on the forge from 1809 until at least March of 1811, at the earliest. Matilda does not say how long that Solomon was twittering his thumbs in forced retirement before he conceived the idea to write his story, but she definitely gives a time frame for when he actually started.

As far as Abner Jackson goes are you using him as to when Spalding began to write? According to Abner ..Spalding visiting his father in 1812 a short time before Spalding moved to Pittsburg. How on earth would Abner know when Spalding started writing that story ..just because he brought with him the story? What it appears is that Spalding was spending time on writing MF 1812 and was reading it to people then.

I am only going by what Abner said.

In building this he failed, sold out, and about the beginning of the year 1812, commenced to write his famous romance called by him "The Manuscript Found."

Abner is long dead, so we cannot cross examine him, any more than we can cross examine any of the other witnesses. So, we don't know how he knew when the starting date was. Abner also is a witness for the full blown lost tribes theory, even throwing in the Behring Straits information to help you out.

Then you throw in the lost tribes by several witnesses, including Abner Jackson, and the straits of Darien out of the blue by John Miller, and you have a morass of contradictions, and wind up with one manuscript that Matilda Davison carefully preserved along with some of Solomon's sermons and short stories.

Of course there will be inconsistencies in people's statements, that's not surprising...but are there major contradictions?

Yes marge, there are major contradictions. It starts with Oliver Smith. His statement contradicts and confounds all of the second manuscript theories because he has Solomon working on a manuscript which contained the names Nephi and Lehi. He positively identified it with the Book of Mormon, yet in his description of the story, other than the names, his description is more like the content in the Oberlin manuscript (arts, sciences, mounds) than it is of the Book of Mormon.
Whatever the case, this gives Solomon no time to alter his plans and go further back in time to begin a lost tribes story, because that was Aron Wright's statement, that

he showed and read to me a history he was writing, of the lost tribes of Israel, purporting that they were the first settlers of America, and that the Indians were their decendants.

because, according to Oliver Smith, Solomon was already writing the Nephi and Lehi story.
You cannot fit Solomon beginning a second manuscript into that time frame, the six months or so that Solomon was staying with Oliver.

If your theory is correct, that the date on the letter on the reverse of page 132 is 1812 but written over to appear to be 1813, it still poses a problem for the second manuscript theory. That would show that Solomon was working on the Oberlin manuscript as late as January of 1812, because there are more than thirty more pages. There is no evidence from the witnesses to justify conjecture that Solomon was working on two manuscripts simultaneously. That puts the statements of Oliver Smith, Henry Lake, John Miller, and Artemas Cunningham in jeopardy, because they all would have been looking at the same manuscript, the one now at Oberlin College.

Glenn

[_MCB]

If Solomon Spalding wrote a parody of the Bible, it would have elements in common with the Book of Mormon. In fact, others had done this.
http://www.amazon.com/Leacocks-First-Am ... 087413305X

[_Dan Vogel]

Dan P., what have you read on the S/R theory?

This was was the entire context of my sentence Dan, "To an outsider it may be hard to fathom anyone taking it seriously. So you need to consider the early witnesses wouldn't necessarily think it was worth their time to put in too much effort into their statements for a stranger, Hurlbut."

Arthur Deming wrote something along similar lines that outsiders in the early days of Mormonism didn't take it seriously and that was my point, why should we expect the conneaut witnesses to have and put in lots of effort into their statements such as describing in detail all or any of spalding's manuscripts.

He wrote: "The chief reason Mormonism has caused our Government so much trouble and expense is, that our authorities have used force without enough facts. The Mormons are composed of two classes, the Deceivers and the Deceived, who are by far the most numerous, and are generally honest, industrious, well-meaning people. Had the newspaper managers of 1830 been as enterprising and thorough in collecting news as they are to-day, Mormonism would have been very short-lived. A few hundred dollars judiciously expended by a competent person would have proven Rev. Sidney Rigdon's frequent visits with Jo Smith, at Manchester, New York, and elsewhere, for several years before the "Book of Mormon was published, also how he obtained and used the Spalding "Manuscript Found." The Mormon thistle was allowed to take root and grow because but few people thought it would ever amount to anything."

(Naked Truths About Mormonism Vol. I. No. 1. (January, 1888) edited by Arthur B. Deming )

Marg, you make no sense here. You made a statement about the Book of Mormon without having read it. What does that have to do with how much Dan Peterson has read about Spalding? You were trying to say the Book of Mormon has humorous passages in order to make it fit with what one of the witnesses said about Spalding’s MS. Dan is probably offended that you don’t seem to know the difference between Spalding being intentionally humorous and the Book of Mormon’s being ridiculed by unbelievers. The Deming quote is irrelevant and amounts to nothing but his wish for better evidence than what he had scraped up. He could not know what early researchers would have found, but it’s no surprise he believed it would be supportive of his Rigdon/Spalding theory. However, I seriously doubt it.

[_MCB]

Book of Mormon’s being ridiculed by unbelievers.

I think this is a critical issue, Dan V. Mormons, with their lack of a sense of humor, have difficulty seeing the difference between those who ridicule it, and those who read it as a parody. Sad, that they have this hypersensitivity. The world would be a lot nicer if there were more loud laughter between the learning.

[_Dan Vogel]

If Solomon Spalding wrote a parody of the Bible, it would have elements in common with the Book of Mormon. In fact, others had done this.
http://www.amazon.com/Leacocks-First-Am ... 087413305X

It was actually done quite a lot in the 19th century in newspapers, mostly to mock politicians.

[Guest]

Marg, you make no sense here. You made a statement about the Book of Mormon without having read it.

This is the statements I made that he partially quoted:


"To an outsider it may be hard to fathom anyone taking it seriously. So you need to consider the early witnesses wouldn't necessarily think it was worth their time to put in too much effort into their statements for a stranger, Hurlbut."

What does that have to do with how much Dan Peterson has read about Spalding?

That comment I wrote because if he's participating in this thread and questioning my knowledge I have a right to question his. When I write I often quote to back up a point..I don't claim anywhere to be an expert on the Book of Mormon. One can always argue someone isn't knowledgeable enough, or doesn't have the credentials to argue an issue..it's all relative.

You were trying to say the Book of Mormon has humorous passages in order to make it fit with what one of the witnesses said about Spalding’s MS.

No Dan the part he quoted wasn't about whether the book was humorous..he quoted from my comment at the end which was about why the conneaut witnesses would not take the Book of Mormon seriously and therefore put little effort into their statements.

Dan is probably offended that you don’t seem to know the difference between Spalding being intentionally humorous and the Book of Mormon’s being ridiculed by unbelievers.

You are reading his mind I see. And since when does Dan need anyone's help to do that? I've been reading apologetics long enough to know that a strategy is to attack the individual and their knowledge as opposed to addressing the argument. So if someone isn't an expert on the Book of Mormon or Mormonism then the apologetic argument advanced is that anything they say should be rejected. If Dan were to address an issue I'm fine with that but I'm not the issue in this discussion.

The Deming quote is irrelevant and amounts to nothing but his wish for better evidence than what he had scraped up. He could not know what early researchers would have found, but it’s no surprise he believed it would be supportive of his Rigdon/Spalding theory. However, I seriously doubt it.

The Deming quote relates to what I wrote, I should know because the reason I wrote what I did was a function of having recently read what Deming wrote. The Conneaut witnesses had someone they didn't know show up at their doors to give statements about a small religious fringe group who they likely thought would amount to nothing in the future. They wouldn't likely have appreciated that every word would be scrutinized by people in 2011 interpreting a casual comment because it sort of appears they are saying something which they did not say explicitly.

Edit: This is what I wrote

"No one at that time, likely foresaw that millions of people would fall for the storyline of Book of Mormon. To an outsider Glenn the Book of Mormon can appear ridiculous. To an outsider it may be hard to fathom anyone taking it seriously. So you need to consider the early witnesses wouldn't necessarily think it was worth their time to put in too much effort into their statements for a stranger, Hurlbut."

While in discussion I need to appreciate the mind of a believer, so too Glenn should consider the minds of the non believers..which the Conneaut witnesses were. Their statements lack details and effort..and I'm saying that is likely a function of them talking to a stranger, without any concept that in the future their words would be scrutinized.