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

[_marg]

“Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? by W. Cowdery, H. Davis, A Vanick

P 57
"With Spalding’s “Manuscript Story--Conneaut Creek,” the Manchester/Palmyra affidavits
and assorted other documents in hand, Hurlbut left New York and headed for Kirtland,
arriving there about 18 December 1833. One of his last acts before leaving Palmyra was
to visit the offices of the Wayne Sentinel, where he provided its editor, Pomeroy Tucker
with information which induced him to run the following article on Friday, 20 December:

“THE Mormon MYSTERY DEVELOPED
“Doct. P. Hurlbert [sic], of Kirtland, Ohio, who has been engaged for some time in different
parts of this state, but chiefly in this neighborhood, on behalf of his fellow townsmen, in the
pursuit of facts and information concerning the origin and design of the Book of Mormon,
which to the surprize of all in this region who know the character of the leaders of this bungling
imposition, seems to have already gained multitudes of believers in various parts of the
country, requests us to say, that he has succeeded in accomplishing the object of his mission,
and that an authentic history of the whole affair will shortly be given to the public. The original
manuscript of the Book was written some thirty years since, by a respectable clergyman,
now deceased, whose name we are not permitted to give. It was designed to be published as
a romance, but the author died soon after it was written; and hence the plan failed. The pretended
religious character of the work has been superadded by some more modern hand
believed to be the notorious Rigdon. These particulars have been derived by Dr. Hurlbert
from the widow of the author of the original manuscript.”

So I was thinking about the bolded underlined part.at 2 a.m...rather than sleeping and ....

If Hurlbut, not Spalding's widow, had thought Rigdon was involved ...there would be no point mentioning that to the Palymyra editor unless he had MF in hand (which would only take seconds to identify). He can't create a case against the Book of Mormon without the MF. But if he had the MF..that's all he would need to expose Mormonism, other information would be superfluous. Mentioning Rigdon as a person who added the religious part is rather superficial information...to the bigger necessary information of the actual MF. So if he doesn't have MF there is no reason for Hurlbut to fabricate that Spalding's widow informed him about Rigdon..it would be useless information. If he does have MF that information about Rigdon is minor and there is no reason to fabricate it.


So given the above it is likely that Spalding's widow did inform Hurlbut about Rigdon, that Hurlbut wasn't simply fabricating that information.

So to consider Matilda's motives, why would she in 1833, a person with little interest in Mormonism, little interest in her husband's writings..tell Hurlbut about a Rigdon being involved, unless he actually was involved. She didn't know Hurlbut was going to see her, she wasn't prepared for him, she couldn't care less about Mormonism, it's unlikely she had been following news about Mormonism even if Rigdon had been a name suggested early on in an article or some. She's aware of Mormonism and the issue that her husband's writings were likely used, but it's not a concern to her. So the probability is strong, that the reason she mentioned Rigdon as being involved, is she really did know that Rigdon was involved...and knew he was involved early on between 1813 - 1814 when they lived in Pittsburg.

Her statement below although she didn't sign it ... with later questioning she said in the main it was true

..MATILDA SPALDING DAVISON TO REV. DR. DAVID R. AUSTIN: c.1 MAR. 1839.

" From New Salem we removed to Pittsburgh, Pa. Here we found a friend
in the person of Mr. Patterson, an editor of a newspaper.(#) He exhibited
his manuscript to Mr. P, who was very much pleased with it, and borrowed
it for perusal. He retained it for a long time and informed Mr. S. that if he
would make out a title page and preface, he would publish it, and it would
be a source of profit.
“This Mr. S. refused to do, for reasons for which I can not now state. Sidney
Rigdon, one of the leaders and founders of the sect, who had figured so
largely in the history of the Mormons, was at this time connected with the
printing office of Mr. Patterson, as is well known in that region, and as Rigdon
himself has frequently stated. Here he had ample opportunity to
become acquainted with Mr. Spalding’s manuscript, and to copy it if he
chose. "

(With regards to whether Hurlbut had MF...when he spoke with the newpaper editor Tucker..an argument against him having MF, which I've heard at some point suggested is that perhaps he intended to create a fake copy and blackmail Mormons with it. I don't find that persuasive. To create a fake MF would be extremely labor intensive, not easy and not likely to be successful in blackmail endeavours if it is a fake and no MF of Spalding's ever existed. All it would take is Conneaut witnesses' which Hurlbut did not have in his pocket as allies, to verify it wasn't spalding's MF. So in my opinion,but I've mentioned this before this Palmyra newspaper note..indicates he had MF..and really that's the only reason he bothered to mention Rigdon as well)

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

I was just thinking :) that Smith may have on occasion used a trick hat. That is use a hat with a false top easily removable. With Cowdery I think he simply read off the sheets he had, unless someone was nearby .. but perhaps with his wife and a few others on occasion he would use a head in the hat. So all he would have to do is have the pages he intends to read off of in the hat. He could put the sheets to be read between material which makes up the false top. Then with a scribe sitting at a desk, and he's on the opposite side, puts his head into the hat, elbows on his legs, removes the false top and read off the written sheets. With people like David Whitmer, since Dan vogel seems to think a Bible would be acceptable in the room and not raise suspicion, he could also have sheets in a Bible to be read off and whenever a witness came too close he could discreetly hide the sheets into the book/Bible.

This is so bazaar that it should stand as evidence why someone such as yourself should not be lecturing us on logic and reason. Fantasy and imagination is no substitute for evidence. Assuming your theory, how do you propose Joseph Smith turned the pages in the bottom of this hat? How did he read in the dark? How could foolscap pages fit into the hat? Do you imagine the MS was recopied onto very small pages in very small writing? You still have to deal with Joseph Smith’s inability to replace the lost book of Lehi.

[Guest]

Assuming your theory, how do you propose Joseph Smith turned the pages in the bottom of this hat? How did he read in the dark? How could foolscap pages fit into the hat? Do you imagine the MS was recopied onto very small pages in very small writing? You still have to deal with Joseph Smith’s inability to replace the lost book of Lehi.

First of all he likely didn't do this with Harris, at that point I believe he used a blanket to separate from Harris. I think it's possible he did this with Emma though, because I don't think he'd want Emma in on this completely. He'd rather she wouldn't have to lie and the same would go for her. So the whole idea was not to trick her but rather have her participate in such a way that she doesn't need to lie and if she's not inquisitive (deliberately & agreed upon) which I think was the case..he could use a hat with a false top. As I said she would be on one side of the table he on the other. His wrists rest on the table, he looks through the hat which at this point has the fake top removed, reads the sheet of paper on his lap. He finishes a sheet, takes a break, chats while he changes sheets. That sort of thing he could do with Emma. With Cowdery they are a team..and Cowdery was the main scribe. Cowdery is in on it, , they work together..no tricks. With Emma's dad, Cowdery and Smith are in a cabin on the propery, they see him approach they use the hat temporarily. Smith doesn't even need to read off any sheets, for the short period of time the dad is present. He can make it up on the spot. With the Whitmers...it seems David is in on it. He's too credulous with his explanation that Smith read words from a stone. I doubt the rest of the family had easy access where they could see them at all times. I also think the family to some extent were deliberately non-inquisitive. This whole thing for them was likely looked upon as having a potential financial reward, possibly large..so the more they played along and the less inquisitive they were, the better.

So the hat was kept nearby for temporary shows, perhaps a Bible with the sheets inside, prepared in advance by Rigdon, to be used.

As far as the Lost book of Lehi, when lost they didn't work on it, they continued on using the sheets they had and continued the story. After they finished then they worked on the lost part, perhaps with input from Rigdon by that point.

Do you imagine the MS was recopied onto very small pages in very small writing?

I don't think he had to use the hat much, with Emma it's a possibility, with the Whitmers they may have had a system to not intrude unless they gave an advance warning, or perhaps they way he sat ...behind a table and with a viewpoint such that he could hear or see anyone approaching and it give him time to peer into the hat for show. I think the point would be to enable some of the witnesses to give a scenario that incorporated magic/seer stone so that they wouldn't have to lie. I think they were very non skeptical obliging witnesses and the few hostile ones had limited exposure in controlled by Smith situations.

I don't think the size of paper is an issue, if he has the paper on his lap and a false top to enable him to read easily and his lap is hidden from view by a table. The witnesses Dan are not skeptical witnesses, they show no signs of being baffled and trying to figure anything out. They are too obliging. Hostile witnesses are present for too short a time, and on the whole they don't concern themselves much, Emma's dad appreciates it's all a ruse.

[_MCB]

Thank you, Dale and Marg, for your insights on Occam and taking the effort to clmb a mountain. I will have to review my explanation of how I shaved it, with references to Tolkien.

New OS to be installed tomorrow. I have a long to-do list.
Still lurking.

[_Uncle Dale]

...So the probability is strong, that the reason she mentioned Rigdon as being involved, is she really did know that Rigdon was involved...and knew he was involved early on between 1813 - 1814 when they lived in Pittsburg.
...

If not by that time, then I suppose by 1814-16, when the Spaldings
were managing the inn for the tiny hamlet of Amity, some twenty miles
southwest of Pittsburgh.

At the time the Spaldings were there, the adult population was about
200 -- including Sidney Rigdon's widowed Aunt Mary Rigdon and her
family. One of Mary's older sons evidently had a separate home, not
far away.

In a hamlet of that small size, it is almost certain that the Spaldings
would have known Mary Rigdon and her family on sight, if not
personally.

Other evidence indicates that Mary and her family were Baptists,
and had attended the "Tenmile" Baptist congregation, a little
outside of Amity. This congregation eventually split into two,
and the northern group formed the Washington Baptist church
in about 1820. In 1823 one of the members of that congregation,
Hugh Wilson, accompanied Alexander Campbell to Pittsburgh, to
attend the annual meeting of the Redstone Baptist Association.
At that meeting Elder Campbell was disassociated from the Baptists,
and the Pittsburgh pastor, Sidney Rigdon, was thrown out of the
conference -- and eventually disfellowshipped.

Hugh Wilson, who was at the 1823 "casting out" of Sidney Rigdon,
certainly had known Mary Rigdon, a few years earlier, when they
were all in the Tenmile Baptist church. One of Hugh Wilson's
descendants recalled that Solomon Spalding had lodged with the
Wilsons, in Washington, prior to his moving to Amity. The Wilsons
represent the sort of local Baptist family whose members would
have known both Solomon Spalding AND Sidney Rigdon. The
Pittsburgh suburbs were then sparsely populated and folks like
the Rigdons, Spaldings and Wilsons naturally interacted more
closely and more frequently than people in that urbanized area
do today.

Amity witnesses stated that Solomon Spalding knew Sidney Rifgdon
prior to Spalding's 1816 demise. William Leffingwell, a Conneaut
school-teacher who knew Solomon Spalding, later stated that
after the time that the Spaldings had moved to Pennsylvania, that
he (Leffingwell) had heard of a connection between Spalding's
writings and Sidney Rigdon -- c. 1812-13.

None of this PROVES that Spalding's widow knew Sidney Rigdon
personally -- nor does it PROVE that she suspected a connection
between her husband's writings and Sidney Rigdon at an early
date. What this evidence does provide, is a context wherein we
should not be surprised, if some future discovery documents a
connection between the Spaldings and the Rigdons, c. 1813-16.

Of course we find Solomon Spalding's name and Sidney Rigdon's
name within a couple of inches of each other in the same 1816
Pittsburgh newspaper. This is, once again, simply an indication
of how small the area's population was during that period, and
how likely it was that residents' paths would occasionally cross.

By 1839 Spalding's widow had an opportunity to read Howe's
1834 book, or some other report of Rigdon's purported link with
Solomon Spalding and the writing of the Book of Mormon. So,
by 1839, we cannot rule out a degree of "contamination" from
those external sources, upon the widow's thoughts. By 1839 she
was echoing E.D. Howe's book, in concluding that Rigdon was
not denying the purported connection. Actually, the widow's
notion in this regard, sounds more like a conflation and misreading
of two Howe passages, rather than a private memory. Howe said
that Rigdon admitted to taking time off to study the Bible, etc.,
while still in the Pittsburgh area -- the widow evidently misunderstood
those allegations, and thus misspoke in 1839.

The Dec. 1833 "news release" in the Wayne Sentinel credits
the widow with supplying the Rigdon link to the Spalding authorship
claims. I accept that reading of the article as a reasonable one --
and from December 1833 onward (with the Rigdon authorship idea
adjoined) those early Spalding "claims" became a full-fledged "theory."

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...I don't think the size of paper is an issue
...

Pages torn from a cheap (often given out for free) 1820s pocket Bible
would have been easily secreted -- whether in a hat, a cupped hand,
or simply placed out of view on Smith's lap.

Thus, I suppose Smith could have consulted extracts from a Bible,
even during periods of careful scrutiny by the entire Whitmer household.

Hiding scraps of paper containing manuscript writings would have been
more difficult, I suppose. The type in a pocket Bible can be readable,
even when printed at a very small size -- but manuscript handwriting
would naturally take up a larger amount of space, and thus require
larger (less easily concealed) sheets of paper.

Several reports tell us that Smith had a remarkable memory -- that his
own father could memorize a book in a single reading -- that Martin
Harris knew the Bible by heart, etc. etc. I do not think we should dismiss
the memorization skills of late 1820s residents of Palmyra/Manchester.
I attended school with a kid who could glance at a textbook page, and
then recite the entire contents back to his impressed juvenile audience
ten minutes later. Some people are better skilled in memorization than
even that child prodigy.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...
Are the Cowdery results coming out like you expected?

More or less.

I "expected" that parts of Alma were composed as a Cowdery-Smith
collaboration, but have never been in possession of sufficient
quantitative literary data to make a firm case for that expectation.

Let's look again at the Cowdery / Alma excerpts chart I posted earlier:



Note the "dips" in the bar values on Book of Mormon pages 207, 209,
and 280 (as well as for all of the chapter 32 pages). I've been looking
for some possible explanation.

If we posit a Cowdery-Smith collaboration, then perhaps Smith's own
efforts "took up the slack," so to speak.

There may be some faint, preliminary evidence for just such a Smith
admixture in Alma 5-6-7 and Alma 32-33 (but perhaps not Alma 34):


http://premormon.com/resources/r011/Smith-AA.htm#Chart1

It is too soon to tell -- but perhaps further charting of the Smith-only,
Cowdery-only, Rigdon-only and Spalding-only Book of Mormon shared
vocabulary will provide us with some more authorship clues.

UD

[_marg]

Thank you, Dale and Marg, for your insights on Occam

Deciding between different historical theories which are based on actual events, doesn't lend itself to Occam's razor. Something actually happened and determining what actually happened is not a function of using as a decision criterion,the least amount of data or whatever is the simplest explanation.

But one could take for example the S/R theory..and if all one wants from that theory is an explanation involving Spalding & Rigdon as key writers of the Book of Mormon then I suppose one could use Occam's Razor idea to ignore other data not necessary to the essential theory.

In science...theories are not about absolute "truth" or about what actually happened or what was true, like history tries to determine. Science theories are about best fit explanations for phenomena. As long as the theories are testable and verifiable, whatever theory adequately explains a phenomenon, with the least complexity..makes sense to use. It's not a function of truth, it's a function of what theory offers explanatory power that can be used.

[_MCB]

To apply Occam to the problem, one must ask the qyestion "What were the sources for the book?" When the richness of sources for the second 2/3 of the book indicates that a highly literate person was responsible for much of that text, Spalding becomes the logical choice. Much simpler than speculation on how it happened.

[_MCB]

For example, when searching thriogh the Heimskringla, parallels were strong with the first part of the Heim. But then dried up. I just discovered yesterday that the last part was not yet available in English at that time. Parallelomania? Extremely doubtful.