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

[_MCB]

Glenn, and Marg, I am going to put you both on ignore. Your constant arguing on one focused point has me convinced that you are a matched pair.

I would much rather debate with Dan, beginning with the points on which we agree.

Tired of this.

[_marg]

Marg,

Do me a favor Dan, don't teach me about your interpretation of the Book of Mormon and how it should be viewed, I'm not interested in your perspective.

I understand why you aren’t interested; it doesn’t suit your view that Spalding was the author of the opening chapters of the Book of Mormon, around which most of the discussion by Spalding witnesses revolved. A biographical approach that associates the characters of Lehi and Nephi (the two main names allegedly remembered by Spalding witnesses) with Joseph Smith and his father would be counterproductive to your views.

You probably mean that Smith "was the author of the opening chapters". It's much more than that Dan. The reason I quoted that critical reviewer is I agreed with him. Your psychoanalysis of J. Smith in the Laban story explanation and tying it to his relationship to his family made me question your intelligence. I've never read so much verbal diarrhea in a few short pages as what you wrote..in my entire life. So if I were to continue to discuss with you, I would be much more critical of you than that reviewer, which is why I quoted him.

You appear to be a very nice person who has worked very hard, and I'm sure put a lot of time and effort into that particular book and I'm sure there is much to be gleaned from it that is worthwhile, so I don't like to be critical..that's why it's best you don't continue to give me your perspective.

[_marg]

Wow... Glenn is still going on about the lost tribes thing? Sheesh. I am way too busy to keep up with this, but I note this from marg:

Thanks for your post Roger. I have to leave this discussion as it's taken too much of my time, I'm satisfied that this lost tribes isn't the issue Dan or Glenn make it out to be...as if it's some sort of Achilles heal that destroys the witnesses' credibility. It doesn't.

I have noticed Dan's post to you, but it is a rehash of what's been discussed previously and already addressed and countered.

Good luck I need a break. :)

[_marg]

Glenn, and Marg, I am going to put you both on ignore. Your constant arguing on one focused point has me convinced that you are a matched pair.

I would much rather debate with Dan, beginning with the points on which we agree.

Tired of this.

Good you do that MCB..I look forward to your discussions with Dan.

[_GlennThigpen]

Glenn, and Marg, I am going to put you both on ignore. Your constant arguing on one focused point has me convinced that you are a matched pair.

I would much rather debate with Dan, beginning with the points on which we agree.

Tired of this.

Good you do that MCB..I look forward to your discussions with Dan.

Maybe a good time for us both to bow out. We have gone circular. I have not convince you nor you me. I do appreciate the fact that you have been polite and courteous in your discussions.

Glenn

[_marg]

Maybe a good time for us both to bow out. We have gone circular. I have not convince you nor you me. I do appreciate the fact that you have been polite and courteous in your discussions.

Yes I think so. Before I came to the board this morning I had decided I wouldn't continue as it was obvious we weren't going to get to a mutual agreement, but I did respond because I was up earlier than usual and had the time.

What I liked about your approach Glenn is came across to me as you being sincere, and not playing rhetorical games.

I'll take a break for a bit, as I need to stop sitting at the computer for so long.

[_Roger]

Glenn:

Roger, you seem not to really understand the arguments that have been arrayed against the S/R theory. I am not arguing that Solomon actually wrote a story about the lost tribes coming to the Americas and becoming the ancestors of the American Indians.

But several witnesses who knew Spalding and would have had the opportunity to be exposed to his writings do. I think therefore that they are slightly more qualified to speak to the subject of what Spalding may or may not have written.

I have stated that it was a popular idea. Several authors wrotes about it, including Ethan Smith. It is possible that Solomon Spalding actually believed that theory at one point and discussed it with friends and neighbors but never actually wrote a story about it.

And it's also quite possible that he did.

It is possible that the the neighbors remembered those and other discussions aboutthe lost tribes and after twenty years conflated the stories.

Or, since you concede that discussions indeed took place, that Spalding may have actually written something on the matter.

It is also possible that Solomon did write a lost tribes story, but it certainly does not show up in the Book of Mormon in which case the witnesses were inaccurate.

How so? The witnesses never claim that Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon.

And if he did not write a story about the lost tribes, the witnesses were inaccurate.

Again, how so? The witnesses never claim that Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon.

It is my opinion that Solomon did not write a lost tribes story and that those witnesses were mistaken.

You're entitled to your opinion, but you have nothing to support it, other than the fact that it meshes well with what you choose to believe about where the Book of Mormon came from.

In another post I pointed out many instances where the descriptions by the witnesses of the contents of Solomon's story fit content from the Roman story very well and are not echoed in the Book of Mormon.

So from that you conclude they must have been exposed to the Roman story alone. There are also strong parallels between Spalding's discovery narrative and Smith's which wasn't put into print until 1838. Are you willing to come to the same conclusion for Smith that you are about the Conneaut witnesses?

There are several places where the witnesses remember things from Solomon's story that do find echoes in the Book of Mormon also, such as Martha Spalding saying that Solomon described some of the people as being very large, which also can be found in Ether and Joseph Miller describing the red markings on the foreheads of the Amelekites which has a counterpart in the Roman story.

Whether the witness were lying or not remembering correctly is really irrelevant.

No, it's highly relevant. If they were intentionally lying then the whole basis for S/R is weakened and we are left only with textual and thematic parallels and disputed word-print studies. If they were remembering inaccurately then there still may be a connection between Spalding's writings and the Book of Mormon. But in my opinion, you have demonstrated neither option and ignored the remaining possibility that they might have been telling the truth fairly accurately.

What is relevant is that when you discard the Book of Mormon names, you have strong echoes from the Roman story.

Not really. Only in certain cases. MSCC is essentially about a lost band of Roman sailors and their exploits among the native Americans. It reminds me more of Robinson Caruso than the Book of Mormon. And you can't just "discard" the names. That is a key component--indeed the key component--of what the witnesses insist. Hence, they were lying or telling the truth to best of their ability. It is only logical (and I know from my own experience) that the names of the lead characters are the most likely elements to be remembered in a story. It is inconceivable that they honestly thought they remembered Lehi and Nephi, etc. when they were really only exposed to Fabius and Lobaska, etc.

[_MCB]

textual and thematic parallels and disputed word-print studies.

Plus the richness of thematic parallels with other literature, from the small plates on, that can only be explained by contributions from highly literate author. The most likely such author was------










Solomon Spalding.

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

Skimming the Book of Mormon is not going to bring to mind lost tribes. The words "lost tribes" are barely mentioned. The fact that Lehi is a descendant of the Manasseh tribe is only mentioned once, it's buried within the text and why would they know the Manasseh was one of the lost tribes and even so unless one is familiar with the lost tribe story that would be meaningless.

Usually people when reading will read at least the first few pages and right at the beginning it's a family that's being talked about not tribes. So your theory that they skimmed the Book of Mormon and thought is was about lost tribes doesn't hold water.

However even if one adopted your theory, it suggests they deliberately lied. And then we'd have all other witnesses later..were deliberately lying.

As I have mentioned before and you never responded, the idea that Lehi came from Jerusalem was probably enough to connect the Book of Mormon in their minds with the “lost tribes” theory. I doubt they read it close enough to know Lehi’s tribe. Your argument here makes no sense for you own position. If they skimmed the text as you say, isn’t that a reason for their mistake rather than their correctness?

Glenn, Spalding had a keen interest and studied the Bible, he was a skeptic and didn't accept Biblical myths. So there is no reason to think that Spalding would have accepted at face value the Esdras lost tribe myth. He would have been aware that the Esdras prophecy of these exiled tribes dispersing to far corners of the world to uninhabited land..was written by a man or some men...well after the date of the event ..and was simply a prophecized myth, and no more. Of course it would occur to him whether or not anyone wrote about it, that the obvious reason the history of the tribes exiled was no longer written about is that they assimilated whereever they went or were exiled to. It doesn't take a genius to figure that one out.

You don’t need to be a genius to figure out the contradictions in your position. You have previously argued that Spalding was making fun of religion and religious narratives, but here you are arguing that he rejected such things and was trying to work out a more believable narrative—which is it?

With regards to this comment you make: "A lost tribes story that promotes the idea that the lost tribes migrated to the Americas and became the ancestors of the American Indians does not support a later secular viewpoint that the tribes became assimilated." Spalding's story evolved over at least 4 years if not much more. Initially the witnesses say he started the story timeline at 600 B.C...well actually he started even before that in 300 A.D. with MSCC and then took the story back further in time to 600 B.C. He may have chosen to start at 600 B.C. so he could focus on a few characters as opposed to whole tribes and get to the story in America which was his main focus..to show the moundbuilders and Indians as descendants of a lost tribe bloodline. Later Amity witnesses recall a storyline in China...and it may be if they are correct, that after Pittsburg he continued to take the story back..to incorporate more of the lost tribe myth and address the lost tribes from 720 B.C. But initially that may have been perceived as unnecessary and too much to tackle.

Pure fantasy built on distortion of what the witnesses said, what the Book of Mormon says, and bad logic. You have no evidence for Spalding’s evolving a story. The only thing evolving here is your speculations and convolutions to harmonize contradictions in the evidence.

Now you are talking about the Jewish Indian tribe theory which you say Spalding would have known. Sure but once again, it's based on a myth as you point out, fueled by the passage in Esdras but being as he studied the Bible and its history and that he rejected myths..he would have rejected the Esdras myth as is. Tthere is no reason for him to carry it on as it. His focus was the moundbuilders and Am. Indians and tying their ancestry to the lost tribes. So rather than start at the 720 B.C. point ..by starting at the 600 B.C. point he short-cuts the story and reduces explaining the events right after the exile.

That’s what the Book of Mormon does, but you have no evidence that Spalding did that. The Book of Mormon did it because it rejected the lost tribe theory, not because it was giving an alternate version of it. You have no evidence for Spalding doing any of this kind of thinking, and he had no motivation for doing so. If he was making fun of religion, as you have argued, then he would have had a good time with the traditional view of the lost tribes myth.

The problem is not myself and my understanding, nor the witnesses, the problem rests with you and your inability to acknowledge that one can refer to the exiled tribes in 720 B.C. as "lost tribes" without adopting the Esdras myth. Spalding's story, initially at least, was not about the lost tribes and right after their exile, it was about tying the Am. Indian & moundbuilders to the blood line of the exiled Israelites of 720 B.C.. As if say, he may have continued to take it back further in time as his story continued to evolve after Pittsburg.

You can talk about the lost tribes without Esdras in the sense that they were taken captive to Assyria. That is where the Old Testament leaves them. You would have great difficulty talking about the INDIANS being the lost tribes without the text from Esdras, which talks about them as a group traveling a great distance to Arsareth, or another land. As I have argued and to which you have never responded, if Spalding wrote about a family of the scattered tribes traveling to America, he would have had the family go to Assyria with the others, then leave from there to America. There would have been no reason for him to have them go to Jerusalem and leave several generations later. It works in the Book of Mormon because Lehi’s colony has nothing to do with the lost tribes of a previous generation and place.

The problem is not what the witnesses say, it's your limited notion of the what the term lost tribe can incorporate.

Your problem is that you have no limits to what it can mean. You have no methodology. Glen is using the vocabulary and social expectations to limit his definition of words, whereas you are using only your imagination and need to be right.

You appear to have difficulty perceiving the exiled Israelites from a secular view point...and it appears that you perceive the story as only one version..one which adopts Esdras as if it's literally true. You appear to think of the lost tribes story as involving a God who punished the Northern Tribes and allowed the Assyrians to conquer and exile them because of the "wickedness" and any deviation from that can't exist. Spalding didn't accept biblical myths as literally true, so for him to start at 600 B.C. with someone in Jerusalem with a blood line connection to the lost tribes...wouldn't be a problem. He wasn't writing a lost tribe story, he was writing to link the Am. Ind & moundbuilders to the lost tribes and it would tap into the Jew indian theories people speculated about.

You apparently have difficulty separating wild unfounded speculation from the scholarly pursuit of contextualizing literature in the time in which it was written. You are giving Spalding attributes he would need to have written the Book of Mormon, or something like the Book of Mormon. You are arguing in circles. I say something like because even what you describe isn’t the Book of Mormon. Why would Spalding reject biblical myths to make fun of biblical myths? Why would he make it more realistic only to tell unrealistic stories?

I didn't say there was a lost tribe story in 600 B.C. Glenn, I am talking about the witnesses' knowledge.

You say Spalding and the witnesses would have known the lost tribe myth as well as the Jew- Indian theory. And I'm saying if that's the case, then why are they describing a Spalding story which deviates from what you claim they would know and should not have deviated from.

As I have said and you never have acknowledged, either the witnesses accurately remembered Spalding’s MS, and therefore Spalding’s not the Book of Mormon’s author, or they are inaccurately remembered Spalding’s MS, and therefore can’t be trusted. What are you arguing? That they had your specialized understanding of the Indian-lost tribes myth, that they used plural “lost tribes” when they meant singular, and that they were apparently unique among their contemporaries? I think it’s far more likely they didn’t know what they were talking about on all counts. If Spalding had a finely nuanced position on the lost tribes-Indian origin theory, and they were capable of picking up on that when it was read to them, then they certainly would have qualified their statements to Hurlbut so as to not to be confused with what everyone commonly believed. Yet they mentioned it as though their audience would understand them.

The problem is you can't or won't accept that there can be any deviation from an Esdras fueled lost tribe scenario. You don't accept that when someone mentions "lost tribes" that they could be referring to the exiled Israelites in 720 B.C. and not to the entire myth per Esdras.

I’m sure Glenn knows there were different theories about the lost tribes. Not everyone located them in America. Adam Clarke, for instance, has them in Asia. But those who associated the Indians with the “lost tribes” usually cited Esdras for proof. Not everyone who believed the Indians were Jewish referenced Esdras, but they didn’t think they were “lost tribes” either.

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

You probably mean that Smith "was the author of the opening chapters". It's much more than that Dan. The reason I quoted that critical reviewer is I agreed with him. Your psychoanalysis of J. Smith in the Laban story explanation and tying it to his relationship to his family made me question your intelligence. I've never read so much verbal diarrhea in a few short pages as what you wrote..in my entire life. So if I were to continue to discuss with you, I would be much more critical of you than that reviewer, which is why I quoted him.

You appear to be a very nice person who has worked very hard, and I'm sure put a lot of time and effort into that particular book and I'm sure there is much to be gleaned from it that is worthwhile, so I don't like to be critical..that's why it's best you don't continue to give me your perspective.

LOL. I have been criticized by bigger minds than yours—I certainly can take it, Marg. But “verbal diarrhea” might be a projection on your part. You might lack the background necessary to even judge the value of my analysis in such harsh terms. The part you are referring to partly reflects my discussion with Bob Anderson, a psychotherapist who wrote Inside the Mind of Joseph Smith (Signature Books), where he has a similar discussion. I think you should just stick with what I wrote, which were parallels between the Lehi family and Joseph Smith’s family.