MORMONS
IN
SHOCK
Love
warns
of
danger
Amazing
Hidden Facts
on the
Book of Mormon’s Origin
Hidden?
If you’ve already heard all this....e-mail me and tell me. I find that MOST
people have not heard this, especially Latter-day Saints.
I’ve
promised FACTS, not speculation. Here they are. You be the judge.
(Reference
notes taken from "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon"
by
Cowdery & Scales, unless otherwise stated.)
1. FACT: A Rev. Solomon Spalding (sometimes
spelled Spaulding in records), a retired Congregational minister, wrote a
fiction novel (then called a romance, though this did not indicate that it was
a love-story). The novel was called Manuscript Found, but has since at
times been referred to as Manuscript Story. The story was written around 1812
and was inspired by the excavation of a nearby Indian mound, and was about the
migration of a group of Israelites to the new world.
2. FACT: The manuscript was read to
Spalding’s friends, relatives, neighbors, and parishioners between 1812 and
1815.
3. FACT: Spalding died in 1816. The
manuscript had previously been taken to a print shop for possible publication.
The shop was in Pittsburgh and was owned by Mr. R & Mr. J Patterson. Their
printer, a Mr. J.H. Lambdin was often seen by townsfolk with Sidney Rigdon.(pg.
95-96)
4. FACT: Spalding before his death told a
minister friend named Joseph Miller (see page 100) that "Rigdon had taken
it, or was suspected of taking it." Spalding’s widow also (see page 94)
stated as early as 1820 that she believed Sidney Rigdon had copied the
manuscript (remember, this was years before the Book of Mormon was published).
5. FACT: Oliver Cowdery’s law partner
(Cowdery was one of the original three witnesses to the Book of Mormon) in Tiffin
Ohio, Judge W. Lang, stated, "Rigdon got the original (Manuscript Found)
at the job printing office in Pittsburgh."
6. FACT: A Dr. J. Winter testified that he
saw Rigdon with the manuscript, and Rigdon told him that a Presbyterian
minister had brought "this" to the printers to see if it would pay to
publish it. (page 105)
7. Mrs. Amos Dunlap was the niece of Rigdon’s
wife. She stated that as a child she visited the Rigdon family (around
1826-27). "During my visit Mr. Rigdon went to his bedroom and took from a
trunk which he kept locked a certain manuscript. He came out into the other
room and seated himself by the fireplace and commenced reading it. His wife at
that moment came into the room and exclaimed, "What! you’re studying that
thing again? Or something to that effect. She then added, "I mean to burn
that paper." He said, "No, indeed, you will not. This will be a great
thing someday." (pg, 107)
8. Harvey Baldwin tells that his father heard
Rigdon preach in the church in Bainbridge and visited Rigdon’s home several
times. When he would arrive at the Rigdon home, he would often find Rigdon in a
room by himself, and each time Rigdon would hurriedly put away books and papers
he was examining, as if he did not wish them to be seen. (pg. 108)
9. FACT: Martin Harris, one of the three witnesses
to the Book of Mormon, was snowbound in a hotel in Mentor Ohio, with a man
named R.W. Alderman. Alderman states that he learned from Harris then that
"Rigdon had stolen a manuscript from a printing office in Pittsburgh, Pa.,
which Spalding....had left to be printed....Jo (Smith) and Rigdon did (print
it), as the Book of Mormon." (pg. 145)
10. FACT: Sidney Rigdon, during the 4-year
period between 1823 and 1827, was a minister, who kept an official itinerary record,
and in it were many gaps. He apparently made numerous trips from his home in
Bainbridge, Ohio, to Palmyra NY (250 miles) where Joseph Smith lived, being
gone for weeks at a time. (Ref. pages 118-120)
11. FACT: Although Rigdon denied having known
Smith before the Book of Mormon was introduced (around 1829) he was seen at
Joseph Smith’s home and reported to be with Smith by all of the following
according to their testimony: (see pages 125-on)
Able Chase, an acquaintance, a teenager at the time - "I saw
a stranger there who they said was Mr. Rigdon. He was at Smith’s several times,
and it was in the year of 1827 when I first saw him there, as near as I can
recollect."
Mr. Gilbert, proofreader for the Book of Mormon - he states that
in a conversation with a Mr. Lorenzo Saunders, who knew the Smiths well,
Saunders said "he knows that Rigdon was hanging around Smith’s for
eighteen months prior to the publishing of the Mormon Bible."
Mrs. S.F. Anderick, a neighbor stated (pg. 134) "Several times
while I was visiting Sophronia Smith at old Jo’s house, she told me that a
stranger who I saw there several times in warm weather and several months
apart, was Mr. Rigdon."
Daniel Hendrix, acquaintance of Joseph Smith and Rigdon: he related
hearing Joseph Smith tell people in 1828 about the "bonanza he had
found....golden tablets". "For the first month or two at least Joe
Smith did not say himself that the plates were any new revelation or that they
had any religious significance, but simply said that he had found a valuable
treasure in the shape of a record of some ancient people....He (Rigdon) and
Joseph Smith fell in with each other and were cronies for several months. It
was after Rigdon and Smith were so intimate that the divine part of the finding
of the golden plates began to be spread abroad.... Smith and Rigdon had hard
work to get funds together for the new Bible."
Mr. Pearne, former neighbor of Smiths told others he saw Smith
and Rigdon together before the Book of Mormon was published (pg. 143).
Mrs. Eaton, interviewed Smith’s neighbors regarding Rigdon, and
concluded that a stranger came to the Smith’s home in the summer of 1827, whose
name was Sidney Rigdon. (pg. 145)
12. FACT: Rigdon was a Campbellite Minister
in 1827-29, who had been excommunicated from being a Baptist minister because
of teaching heretical beliefs. During this time period before the Book of
Mormon came out, his congregation heard him often preach about a coming new
revelation (page 108) that would make the Bible outmoded, and he even seemed to
know it would speak of America’s ancient inhabitants, solve the mystery of the
mounds, there would be the return of miracles, and a new system of sharing all
things in common, and more. (pages108-116) Some state this information was
given as early as 1827, and was detailed enough that they concluded that he
must have known all about the Book of Mormon when he preached these things.
13. FACT: Rigdon himself told a
man named James Jeffries the following information, according to Jeffries:
"He and Joe Smith used to look over the M.S. and read it on Sundays.
Rigdon said Smith took the MS. and said, "I’ll print it," and went
off to Palmyra, New York." (pg. 104)
14. FACT: An acquaintance of both Rigdon and
Smith named Dr. J.C. Bennett stated the following in 1842:
"I will remark here...that the Book of
Mormon was originally written by the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, A.M., as a
romance, and entitled the "Manuscript Found," and placed by him in
the printing-office of Patterson and Lambdin, in the city of Pittsburgh, from
whence it was taken by a conspicuous Mormon divine, and re-modeled, by adding
the religious portion, placed by him in Smith’s possession, and then published
to the world as the testimony exemplifies. This I have from the
Confederation, and of its perfect correctness there is not a shadow of
doubt." (the Confederation refers to the inner circle of Smith’s friends).
15. FACT: Sarah Pratt, the wife of an early
Mormon leader, read this view of Dr. Bennett’s in a book he wrote, and said the
following:
"This certifies that I was well
acquainted with the Mormon Leaders and Church in general, and know that the
principle statements of John C. Bennett’s book on Mormonism are true."
16. FACT: (While the above could be referred
to as a hostile witness, consider the following:) Isaac Butts who knew Rigdon
from 1820 on, stated that when he came back to Ohio after Mormonism had made
converts there, people he had known earlier in New York WHO WERE CONVERTS to
the church told him that they had seen Sidney Rigdon much with Joseph Smith
BEFORE THEY WERE CONVERTED. (Rigdon supposedly was converted about the same
time as they were). (pages 142-43)
17. FACT: David Whitmer, the 3rd witness to
the Book of Mormon did not believe the "Spalding theory", but stated
in his booklet, "An Address to All Believers in Christ", that
the story had been printed in the Encyclopedia Britannica and the American
Cyclopaedia.
He believed Rigdon and Smith first met in the
winter of 1830. But he also states that Rigdon and Smith immediately became intimate,
and Rigdon was given the position of first councilor and vice president of the
church by the end of 1830. (The Bible prohibits putting a novice into
leadership so quickly.)
He states that the whole idea of the
Priesthood was not a part of the original church nor in the original
revelations (compare early sections of the 1830 Book of Mormon with their
counterparts in the Book of Commandments to see this is true), but it "all
originated in the mind of Sidney Rigdon." (Who is in control here?)
Elder was the highest office of the church originally, and about two thousand
had been baptized into the church by men who held only that office. Whitmer
outlines other doctrinal problems in his booklet, and states "If you
believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon;...then I tell you that in June,
1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to
"separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints.""
18. FACT: The manuscript of "Manuscript
Found" was FOUND in Hawaii in 1884, and is now at Oberlin College in
Oberlin, Ohio.
19. FACT: The manuscript body is handwritten
by Spaulding, and is 116 pages long (does that number ring a bell?). The Book
of Mormon is about 538 pages long. ( There would have been over two years of
time that Rigdon and Smith had to collaborate on and expand the manuscript,
according to the above-mentioned records and testimony).
20. FACT: There are many parallels between
the two documents:
Both have the same content or story line. The
Book of Mormon has much more religious or doctrinal content. Both documents
purport to give a condensed history of the extinct inhabitants of ancient
America.
Both manuscripts describe in similar terms
how the author came by the ancient records upon which the story is based.
Spaulding says the records are found in an artificial cave on the top of a
mound near his home. A lever is used to lift the heavy stone which covers the
entrance to the cave. The Book of Mormon says the records were in a stone box
buried in the ground near the top of a hill not far from his home. He, too,
uses a lever to lift a large stone that serves as a cover to the box.
Both tell that the author encounters
supernatural difficulties in removing the records from their hiding place.
Both relate that the author made a
"translation of the Old World language used in the records and that this
translation is a condensation of earlier civil and sacred records.
Both state that the condensed version thus
produced will be reburied along with the original so that it will remain
preserved to come forth in the future when the Gentiles (Europeans) inhabit
America.
Both describe a sea voyage with a great storm which causes them to pray for deliverance; both describe light and dark-skinned people, the same arts and sciences being known to the ancient people, a God-person who is white, the use of seer stones, a war to the death between two nations who were once brothers, and a final battle fought on a hill.
Even in some details we see resemblance: Both
Spalding and Smith have the group of travelers of about the same number;
both find America teeming with wild beasts; both groups appoint judges, have
all things in common, and urge each other not to intermarry with the natives.
In both accounts, the native Americans wear animal skins about their loins, shave
their heads and paint them red, and carry slings, bows and arrows as
weapons.
Both writers make the same mistake of stating
that the planets revolve about the sun, long before such knowledge would have
been known by humans. Both stories describe modern horses, domesticated
mammoths or elephants, the use of steel, and the cultivation of wheat in
ancient America, even though there is no archaeological evidence of any of this.
Theological concepts that are similar are
presented in the same order.
The first quarter of Spalding’s manuscript is
written in the first person, and the rest in the third person. The Book of
Mormon follows that pattern, and the change occurs at the same place in both
stories.
To quote Vernal Holley, who wrote Book of
Mormon Authorship: A Closer Look, page 38:
Identical or similar word combinations,
redundant sentences, parallelisms, contradictory thoughts in sentence
structure, indecision in the use of words, poor sentence composition, the use
of lengthy runs, biblical-like metaphors, and the use of King James Bible
English by both Spaulding and the Book of Mormon author are all further
arguments that Spaulding may have been the author of the Book of Mormon."
21. FACT: In 1839, Spaulding’s widow, Matilda
Spaulding Davison, made this statement:
"After the ‘Book of Mormon’ came out, a
copy of it was taken to New Salem, the place of Mr. Spaulding’s former
residence, and the very place where the "Manuscript Found" was
written. A Mormon preacher appointed a meeting there and in the meeting read
and repeated copious extracts from the "Book of Mormon." The
historical part was immediately recognized by all the older inhabitants, as the
identical work of Mr. Spaulding in which they had been so deeply interested
years before." (New Hampshire Patriot and State Gazette, Concord, N.H.,
May 6, 1839)
22. FACT: Eleven of Spaulding’s relatives and
friends, a former employee and landlord, and others all gave signed statements
of their belief that Spaulding’s writings were connected with Smith’s Book of
Mormon (E.D. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled, Painesville, Ohio, 1834).
23. FACT: Many of Smith’s neighbors, in their
testimony about him, also stated that he was lazy, was a liar, and in the mid
1820’s often engaged in digging at nighttime for buried treasures, using a seer
stone or peep-stone. Court records show he was convicted of being a
"glass-looker" (he was charging for fortune-telling about treasures
that did not materialize when dug for) in 1826. It is also a fact that as soon
as he had a good number of converts, he led them to sell their homes and farms
and give the money to the church (him) and go to Ohio. (OPINION: It
would appear that Smith found the treasure that enabled him to live the rest of
his life without having to do any manual labor.)
24. Before his death, Rigdon’s final words on
this subject were, "My lips are forever sealed." (Think, dear
reader....innocent people have nothing to hide!)
- - -
- - - - - -
While I understand the Mormon person’s NEED
to discredit all of the above, I would suggest that it is simply unreasonable
to suggest that EVERY ONE of the above people whose testimony is mentioned
above conspired against Joseph Smith in an ORGANIZED way to create such a
dovetailed story of fraud, and he ALONE is to be believed. May I suggest that
God has not asked us to make a PERSON the object of our faith.
I will not state any further editorial
conclusions about the Book of Mormon’s origin, but offer a final thought: You
may have had a good FEELING, or have felt your life is better because of the
Book of Mormon. If that is so, it is because I believe its original authors
chose to model it after some BIBLICAL CONCEPTS. To whatever extent we follow
God’s truths (and simply do right), we will be blessed and will feel better
about ourselves. But that does not qualify it as "divine" or a
"new revelation" any more than any other inspirational book is. And
in my article, "Facts and Feelings: Evaluating the Book of Mormon" (click here to read it), I show that even though this book
urges people to do right, there are also in it many teachings that CONTRADICT
the Bible. And that means it must not be given a higher status of
trustworthiness than it deserves. God wants us to worship in spirit and IN
TRUTH. John 12:48 says we will be judged by the words of Christ... not by those
of any other human (prophet)! He commands us to TEST the spirits and the
prophecies (II Thess 5:21, I John 4:1). It’s time to get back to the Bible.
Sincerely, Sharon Doty
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