GlennThigpen wrote:marge, I keep saying that the statements by the witnesses must be understood by what they meant and understood. You have no evidence that Solomon had any idea other than what the prevailing ideas of the time were.
Why is there such a double standard? How is it that whatever the Book of Mormon witnesses say is unquestioned and accepted at face value as strong evidence, despite the fact they were not objective, had a vested interest, were involved in the enterprise and were making extraordinary claims.
Then when it comes to Spalding..and that the Spalding witnesses said he had discussed Am.Indians being descendants of lost tribes..they are accused of confusion or lying. They said he had an interest in the local mounds which contained buried bones and that the story he was writing was to account for those buried individuals and he intended them to be descendant of the lost tribes...somehow that's not evidence that Spalding ever had such an interest or speculation.
These witnesses were not noted anti Mormons who devoted their lives to attacking Mormonism. Hurlbut came and questioned them, they didn't seek him, and they didn't then spend the rest of their lives devoted to this issue. Later witnesses completely removed from the earlier ones said the same thing, that Spalding discussed and it was part of the book he was writing that it was designed to account for a history of the am. indians and that they in the story descendants of the lost tribes.
As far as what was understood at their time..the main influential person for the witnesses were Spalding. Since he was a biblical skeptic his notion/belief of lost tribes may have excluded the mythical parts in the Bible. That being the case..what is left is the historical account..the exiled northern israelite tribe of 720 B.C...who were unaccounted for historically after that date.
The witnesses explained pretty plainly what Solomon was talking about. And that followed pretty much what the prevailing ideas of the time were. You still have not provided evidence. You are only providing "could have" without any corroboration. That could have is not borne out what the witnesses actually said. Please provide some evidence for your last statement.
I'm not following what your problem is. On the one hand you say in 1833 there was popularized notion that the Am. Indian were descendants of the 720 B.C. lost tribes..which the spalding witnesses would have known about and been influenced by. And that popularized notion had the lost tribes travel en masse in 720 B.C. from Northern Israel..over to the Bering Str. and across to Am. So you say they knew about this,yet their recount of spalding's book has a group leave from Jerususalem..which you say is not part of the lost tribe myth. Well which is it, do they know the myth or not? Or perhaps they were truthfully recalling spalding's story which didn't necessarily incorporate the myth.
And if they knew the myth and they had read the first few pages of the Book of Mormon they would know it didn't jive with the myth.
You are also arguing that only the religious "lost tribes" myth could possibly be entertained...that Spalding couldn't simply acknowledge the historically unaccounted for lost tribes of 720 B.C. and written the story such that Am. Indians were descendants from a few, or a small group tracing back to 600 B.C. who also traced their blood line back to the 720 B.C. group.
There are too many of the witnesses recalling Spalding talking about the moundbuilders as being lost tribe descendants..that to accuse them of being confused with Ethan Smith's account..doesn't seem highly probable in my opinion.
They aren't making an extraordinary claim. They don't have a vested interest in destroying Mormonism. They show an apathetic interest in Mormonism. They have nothing to gain by giving their statements, nothing to gain by lying. No one ever accused them of lying . So...while I acknowledge they can be mistaken in some of what they say, when lots of them remember a single ingredient of the story..in my opinion it seems probable that the memory is there because it is something Spalding said and wrote about.
Glenn wrote:In order to counteract that evidence, you had to concoct a scenario that is unsupported by any evidence from the witnesses or from any of the literature and ideas of the time and come up with your own version of a lost tribes story. That version was invented solely in response to the evidence that was presented, does not have any evidentiary support and thus is ad hoc.
Glenn as I explained previously I was gathering information and I also have to evaluate the sources of that information. As I pointed out to you, given what Dan and to some extent you have said so far in this discussion , I'm highly skeptical of the biased views I'm getting. What guys want is the evidence to be boxed into a particular format to suit your purposes. It NEVER made sense to me that when one refers to "lost tribes" it had to include the myth. The "lost tribes" myth became popularized probably more so after Spalding's death. But just the same people then just as now would appreciate the difference between the mythical part versus the historical part. The historical part is the biblical account of the Assyrians exiling the Northern tribes in 720 B.C. after which in the Bible they are unaccounted for. Any thing else is speculation and myth. If the focus is to account for where the Am. Indian came from and ever try to present a realistically true historical account ..why should a writer feel obligated to include the myth? Whatever spalding told them is how they perceived his story was going to be, and how they perceived his account of lost tribes related to the story.
Glenn you request evidence, but the evidence requires reasoning applied. It's not like we can interrogate the witnesses now.
I'm basically rejecting your claim, because within the context of other evidence in my opinion it's not probable they are confusing their recall with Ethan Smith's story, nor lying, nor confused. I don't see it as improbable that they should recall Spalding's story involving Am. Indian being descendants by blood to the lost tribes..and recall it as such...even though the myth has the lost tribes scatter to 4 corners or the world en masse in 720 B.C. I don't see a skeptic like spalding having to box himself into a story using that myth. In addition Spalding's story was evolving over time...so later witnesses could be introduced to a different version.
It may not be implausible. But please provide the evidence. You are the one that really seems to be trying to force what apparently was the prevailing ideas of the time and of Solomon Spalding into a story line that has little resemblance to the generally understood lost tribes story as set forth by witnesses such as Martha Spalding and Abner Jackson.
If you would provide some evidence, something that Solomon said or wrote on the subject, or something that the witnesses said that would indicate that Solomon had other ideas and that he viewed a lost tribes story to be a small group of people from one of the lost tribes, I would entertain your premise with more favor. I just have not seen anything yet that would cause me to deviate from what I have read.
The evidence is that he was a biblical skeptic. You really don't need more evidence than that. The evidence also is that so many of the witnesses described his story as incorporating "lost tribes". That doesn't mean he has to include the myth. The whole notion of the "lost tribes" is that historically they are unaccounted for after 720 B.C.
In Spalding's day there was speculation of where the moundbuilders came from, he had an intereset in this ..so why not use the unaccounted for lost tribes to write an account which would appear historical..it doesn't have to include the whole lost tribes, only that the blood line goes back historically to that group..and that would explain the ancestry of the am. indians.
Your focus is..'well what happened to the lost tribes?..Spalding's story had to talk about that.' and I'm saying no it didn't his focus was not the lost tribes..it was to write a historical account of where the Am. Indians came from.
Gosh we've been through this so many times Glenn.
You say you want evidence, but the real issue is not simply lack of evidence it is how the evidence which does exist is critically evaluated. You are not consistent in your critical evaluation of evidence. Anything which supports your theory ..you argue is strong evidence. So Book of Mormon witness statements you find is strong. And that which doesn't support your theory you pick apart and try to find anything to hang your hat on in order to justify dismissing spalding witnesses entirely.
It's blatantly obvious to me, how inconsistent the Smith alone and the Smith divine theorists are in their critical evaluation of evidence.
It's all very well and good to say each theory needs to stand on it's own, however if you are inconsistent in your critical evaluation of evidence you can make a theory stand while another falls.
Intellectual honesty require evaluating all the evidence with equal critical standards.