Lars Nielsen's "How the Book of Mormon Came to Pass"

[Dr Moore]

Anyone read this yet?

https://www.amazon.com/How-Book-Mormon- ... B0CYQDQ67K

It centers on the works of a 17th century religious charlatan named Athanasius Kircher, revealing numerous parallels with Book of Mormon motifs and names. I haven't read it, but found the podcast with Mormonish to be intriguing in terms of a fresh take on several things, including Reformed Egyptian, the Liahona, brass plates, and the proper names Nephi and Mormon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFar3sRdR_E

[Moksha]

Here is more on Lars Nielsen's research:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2C0VLcPeqHw

[Kishkumen]

Anyone read this yet?

https://www.amazon.com/How-Book-Mormon- ... B0CYQDQ67K

It centers on the works of a 17th century religious charlatan named Athanasius Kircher, revealing numerous parallels with Book of Mormon motifs and names. I haven't read it, but found the podcast with Mormonish to be intriguing in terms of a fresh take on several things, including Reformed Egyptian, the Liahona, brass plates, and the proper names Nephi and Mormon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFar3sRdR_E

Looks interesting. I'll have to check it out. Kircher has been on the radar for some years now. That is, people have long noticed the elements in his work that seemed to be influences on Smith, but no one had dug deep into it to come up with a book before this. I am a little bit skeptical, but I will certainly have a look. I think it is fair to say that Kircher is the kind of esotericist of great influence in that stream of culture who would be a natural precursor to Smith, but I think it less likely that Smith sat down with his work and mined it for Book of Mormon ideas.

[Fence Sitter]

There is an interesting thread about this going on over at MAD here. With a poster named Zosimus arguing that this Kircher was a well known figure who could have influenced Joseph Smith. (Kirsher was known to John Smith at Dartmouth who taught Hyrum.) Ben McGuire is arguing that Kirsher was not that well known and it would have been unlikely that Joseph Smith could have borrowed from him. Nevo is a bit more direct in his rejection of Lars Nielsen's theories.

Well, I've reached a preliminary conclusion about Lars Nielsen's work so far. It's utter nonsense.

This seems to be Nielsen's main argument:


"Nephi in The Book of Mormon was to some degree intentionally modeled on (or named after) Kircher’s Barachias Nephi, as opposed to being a coincidence. . . . More than one hundred years after Kircher had passed away, memes from his life and works got into the mind of Dartmouth’s Professor of Oriental Languages (the second link in the Kircherism chain) as he read, translated, and studied the works of the immortal encyclopaedist. Professor Smith transmitted some of those memes to his student, Solomon Spalding (the third link) as part of his graduate-level research and in the form of a fiction that Professor Smith had started but did not publish, fearing that it might injure his reputation as a theological writer. Professor Smith was therefore both a source and an influence on what eventually became The Book of Mormon. After finishing his master’s work, Spalding served as a Dartmouth missionary for ten years, after which he deconstructed his faith and became an atheist. When Professor Smith died in 1809, Spalding decided to finally finish what I now call Stories from Lost Manuscripts Found, which consisted of several nested storylines, including the F, N, J, and M texts. Some or all of these sources ended up in the possession of Sidney Rigdon (the fourth link)."

— Lars Nielsen, How The Book of Mormon Came to Pass: The Second Greatest Show on Earth, pp. 306–307 (Kindle edition).

The main problem with Nielsen's "Kircher-Nephi" theory is that there's no evidence for it. There is no evidence that Professor John Smith ever read anything by Kircher or wrote a "fiction" inspired by him. There is no evidence that Professor Smith and Solomon Spalding ever interacted after the latter's graduation in 1785. And there is no credible evidence for Rigdon coming into possession of a Spalding manuscript or for Rigdon meeting Joseph Smith prior to 1830.

The "Nephi" thing is interesting, but the name is also in the Apocrypha and is not far off of "Nephilim" mentioned in the book of Genesis (or it could be Egyptian). Likewise, I don't see an obvious connection between the Liahona and Kircher's magnetic clock. There are some similarities but nothing that demands that the two items must be linked.


Edit: The word nephilim isn't mentioned in KJV Genesis 6:4, but is in Adam Clarke's commentary.

[Nevo]

I know that's going to trigger Kish. But it's true, I'm not persuaded by the "Kircher-Nephi" theory.

There is no evidence that John Smith ever read anything by Kircher. And it's not reasonable to assume that he would have. Kircher was hardly mentioned in North American scholarship in Smith's lifetime (1751–1809) and copies of Kircher's works were extremely rare. The catalogues of Dartmouth's library holdings in 1775 and 1825 don't list any works by Kircher.

If John Smith wrote an unpublished novel about Native American civilizations, he evidently did so without the knowledge of his wife and closest associates. Also, it's worth noting that Smith believed that the Americas were populated by migrations from Africa and China.

Solomon Spalding didn't do "graduate-level research" at Dartmouth. His A.M. degree was conferred like all Dartmouth master's degrees were at the time: automatically upon payment of $5 "on graduates of three years' standing who had sustained good characters and been engaged in literary pursuits."

And the stories of Sidney Rigdon intercepting a Spalding manuscript at Patterson's printing office in Pittsburgh are dubious at best.

So, no, I don't find Lars Nielsen's theory compelling. Some of Kircher's ideas may well have influenced Joseph Smith, but I think Emmanuel Swedenborg and Freemasonry are more likely conduits.

[Kishkumen]

I know that's going to trigger Kish. But it's true, I'm not persuaded by the "Kircher-Nephi" theory.

There is no evidence that John Smith ever read anything by Kircher. And it's not reasonable to assume that he would have. Kircher was hardly mentioned in North American scholarship in Smith's lifetime (1751–1809) and copies of Kircher's works were extremely rare. The catalogues of Dartmouth's library holdings in 1775 and 1825 don't list any works by Kircher.

If John Smith wrote an unpublished novel about Native American civilizations, he evidently did so without the knowledge of his wife and closest associates. Also, it's worth noting that Smith believed that the Americas were populated by migrations from Africa and China.

Solomon Spalding didn't do "graduate-level research" at Dartmouth. His A.M. degree was conferred like all Dartmouth master's degrees were at the time: automatically upon payment of $5 "on graduates of three years' standing who had sustained good characters and been engaged in literary pursuits."

And the stories of Sidney Rigdon intercepting a Spalding manuscript at Patterson's printing office in Pittsburgh are dubious at best.

So, no, I don't find Lars Nielsen's theory compelling. Some of Kircher's ideas may well have influenced Joseph Smith, but I think Emmanuel Swedenborg and Freemasonry are more likely conduits.

Hello, Nevo!

I am not sure why you think I would be triggered by your reasonable objections to these theories. I think the theories are unlikely. What I find likely is that people coming out of the same intellectual ferment would have similar interests, speculations, and ways of expressing their ideas. I am not that big into the idea that Smith needed a secret influencer who really put his ideas together. I think he was capable with the resources at hand. Whether one views that work as divine revelation or creative genius is up to the individual to decide.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

I know that's going to trigger Kish. But it's true, I'm not persuaded by the "Kircher-Nephi" theory.

There is no evidence that John Smith ever read anything by Kircher. And it's not reasonable to assume that he would have. Kircher was hardly mentioned in North American scholarship in Smith's lifetime (1751–1809) and copies of Kircher's works were extremely rare. The catalogues of Dartmouth's library holdings in 1775 and 1825 don't list any works by Kircher.

If John Smith wrote an unpublished novel about Native American civilizations, he evidently did so without the knowledge of his wife and closest associates. Also, it's worth noting that Smith believed that the Americas were populated by migrations from Africa and China.

Solomon Spalding didn't do "graduate-level research" at Dartmouth. His A.M. degree was conferred like all Dartmouth master's degrees were at the time: automatically upon payment of $5 "on graduates of three years' standing who had sustained good characters and been engaged in literary pursuits."

And the stories of Sidney Rigdon intercepting a Spalding manuscript at Patterson's printing office in Pittsburgh are dubious at best.

So, no, I don't find Lars Nielsen's theory compelling. Some of Kircher's ideas may well have influenced Joseph Smith, but I think Emmanuel Swedenborg and Freemasonry are more likely conduits.

Hello, Nevo!

I am not sure why you think I would be triggered by your reasonable objections to these theories. I think the theories are unlikely. What I find likely is that people coming out of the same intellectual ferment would have similar interests, speculations, and ways of expressing their ideas. I am not that big into the idea that Smith needed a secret influencer who really put his ideas together. I think he was capable with the resources at hand. Whether one views that work as divine revelation or creative genius is up to the individual to decide.

That is exactly what a triggered person would say. Nice try Kish.

[Nevo]

The last time I expressed my skepticism in these parts regarding the "Dartmouth Connection," I was chided for materializing out of the blue to mock people (in that instance, Randy Bell) and for not keeping an open mind. I thought my emphatic rejection of Nielsen's theory on the other board as "utter nonsense" might elicit a similar rebuke.

Also, for Fence Sitter, John Smith never taught Hyrum at Dartmouth. John Smith died in April 1809 and Hyrum probably started attending Moor's Charity School in the fall of 1812. His teacher was Joseph Perry. We should be looking for his unpublished manuscripts!

[Everybody Wang Chung]

The last time I expressed my skepticism in these parts regarding the "Dartmouth Connection," I was chided for materializing out of the blue to mock people (in that instance, Randy Bell) and for not keeping an open mind. I thought my emphatic rejection of Nielsen's theory on the other board as "utter nonsense" might elicit a similar rebuke.

Also, for Fence Sitter, John Smith never taught Hyrum at Dartmouth. John Smith died in April 1809 and Hyrum probably started attending Moor's Charity School in the fall of 1812. His teacher was Joseph Perry. We should be looking for his unpublished manuscripts!

In all seriousness, I'm very skeptical of the "Dartmouth Connection" too.

[Kishkumen]

The last time I expressed my skepticism in these parts regarding the "Dartmouth Connection," I was chided for materializing out of the blue to mock people (in that instance, Randy Bell) and for not keeping an open mind. I thought my emphatic rejection of Nielsen's theory on the other board as "utter nonsense" might elicit a similar rebuke.

Also, for Fence Sitter, John Smith never taught Hyrum at Dartmouth. John Smith died in April 1809 and Hyrum probably started attending Moor's Charity School in the fall of 1812. His teacher was Joseph Perry. We should be looking for his unpublished manuscripts!

I think the issue here is whether Dartmouth is worthy of investigating or not. I think it definitely is, especially for the cultural and intellectual background that informs Mormonism. On the other hand, I am not a conspiracy-theorist. I am not looking for the person who “really” made up Mormonism.