The Nephites and "the animals on which they rode".

[Joseph Antley]

Lucy Mack Smith wrote in the biography of her son,

"During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them." (Biographical Sketches, 92)

According to Lucy, prior to Joseph finding the gold plates, he occasionally would reveal things about the ancient Nephites/Lamanites, which he was told by or deduced from Moroni or other revelation that he received.

Along with other aspects of their culture, Lucy recalls Joseph telling them about "the animals upon which they rode". I think that this implies at least two things: Joseph told the family that the Nephites/Lamanites "rode" on more than one type of animal and at least one of those animals weren't horses.

The Book of Mormon, however, never mentions the Nephites/Lamanites riding any animals, although it does mention "chariots" and "horses".

Considering the apologetic debate over "horses", "chariots", "elephents", "cureloms", and "cumoms", does Lucy's off-hand comment shed any light?

[charity's child]

Lucy Mack Smith wrote in the biography of her son,

"During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them." (Biographical Sketches, 92)

According to Lucy, prior to Joseph finding the gold plates, he occasionally would reveal things about the ancient Nephites/Lamanites, which he was told by or deduced from Moroni or other revelation that he received.

Along with other aspects of their culture, Lucy recalls Joseph telling them about "the animals upon which they rode". I think that this implies at least two things: Joseph told the family that the Nephites/Lamanites "rode" on more than one type of animal and at least one of those animals weren't horses.

The Book of Mormon, however, never mentions the Nephites/Lamanites riding any animals, although it does mention "chariots" and "horses".

Considering the apologetic debate over "horses", "chariots", "elephents", "cureloms", and "cumoms", does Lucy's off-hand comment shed any light?

I don't see that there has to be more than one type of animal. It could simply refer to more than one of the same type of animal. I do agree that they might not have been horses as we would recognize horses.

[Joseph Antley]

I don't see that there has to be more than one type of animal. It could simply refer to more than one of the same type of animal. I do agree that they might not have been horses as we would recognize horses.

If the "animals" is is just the plural of a single type of animal, I think that that type of wording implies it was something other than horses. It seems a strange way to state that the "ancient inhabitants" were riding horses.

[krose]

I would say that this indicates that he was working on the story for many years.

[DrW]

I would say that this indicates that he was working on the story for many years.

I would second that.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I would say that this indicates that he was working on the story for many years.

If this is the case, why is it never specifically stated in the BoM? I mean if he was working on his stroy here why would we not find those details pretty explicit in teh BoM?

[Nyal]

If this is the case, why is it never specifically stated in the BoM? I mean if he was working on his stroy here why would we not find those details pretty explicit in teh BoM?

I guess you could think of it as an early mental draft. Many writers use this technique while developing a story line or exploring complex characters.

[Uncle Dale]

I would say that this indicates that he was working on the story for many years.

hmmmmmm.....

Peter G. Bridgman, a young man then just about to enter the Methodist ministry, entered a complaint before a magistrate

against Smith for deceiving the people. He was arrested and tried... Smith was found guilty. But the object of the trial being

to compel him to leave the neighborhood, it was arranged that the officer in charge should give him a chance to escape.

His counsel having whisperered this in his ear, he embraced the opportunity given... He went into Pennsylvania, and afterward

returned to Broome County, New York, where he was again arrested and came near being treated to a coat of tar and feathers.

While there he was in possession of "Manuscript Found," or some part of it. This was in the year 1826 or 1827, and before he

had met Sidney Rigdon. He professed finally to have received his Bible from the angels, communicated to him while in the

tops of trees, for the purpose of receiving it. He read it repeatedly to many in that section; and often in the family of

Reuben Bridgman... That he had seen Spaulding's manuscript before his work in Chenango County was finished, is evident

from the fact; that the words Nephi and Mormon were well known then.

Mrs. Bridgman remarked to the writer of this, when asked What was in Smith's Bible, that it was mere nonsense, that principally

it related what I and Nephi [sic - "I, Nephi?"] and Mormon had done. This was at least three years before the book Mormon was

published...

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/IL/mischig.htm#071681

UD

[thesometimesaint]

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/response/qa/spaulding.htm

The Spaulding Manuscript is a fictional story about a group of Romans who, while sailing to England early in the fourth century A.D., were blown off course and landed in eastern North America. One of them kept a record of their experiences among eastern and midwestern American Indian tribes. The 175-page manuscript was first published as a 115-page monograph in 1885, some seventy years after the death of its author, Solomon Spaulding (sometimes spelled Spalding). The only known manuscript was lost from 1839 until its discovery in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1884. It was promptly published by both the Latter-day Saints and Reorganized Latter Day Saint churches to refute the theory of some critics that it had served as an original source document for the Book of Mormon, supposedly supplied to Joseph Smith by Sidney Rigdon.

Spaulding was born in Ashford, Connecticut, on February 21, 1761. He served in the American Revolution, later graduated from Dartmouth College, and became a clergyman. He subsequently lost his faith in the Bible, left the ministry, and worked unsuccessfully at a variety of occupations in New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania until his death near Pittsburgh in 1816. About 1812 he wrote Manuscript Found, which he attempted to publish to relieve pressing debts.

There are similarities in the explanation for the origins of both Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon. The introduction to the Spaulding work claims that its author was walking near Conneaut, Ohio (about 150 miles west of the place in New York where Joseph Smith obtained the gold plates), when he discovered an inscribed, flat stone. This he raised with a lever, uncovering a cave in which lay a stone box containing twenty-eight rolls of parchment. The writing was in Latin. The story is primarily a secular one, having virtually no religious content. A character in the novel possessed a seerstone, similar to objects used by Joseph Smith. However, none of the many names found in either volume matches any of those in the other, nor is there the remotest similarity in literary styles.

The first to assert that a direct connection existed between the Book of Mormon and Manuscript Found was Doctor Philastus Hurlbut, who was excommunicated from the Church in June 1833. Desiring to discredit his former coreligionists, Hurlbut set out in the ensuing months to refute Joseph Smith's claims for the origins of the Book of Mormon. He interviewed members of Spaulding's family, who swore that there were precise similarities between Spaulding's work and the Book of Mormon. He also located the neglected manuscript, but must have been disappointed to discover that it had no demonstrable connection with the Book of Mormon.

In 1834, Hurlbut was involved with Eber D. Howe in preparing a significant anti-Mormon publication, Mormonism Unvailed. Its final chapter dealt with the Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon. Howe admitted in the book that the only document known to have been authored by Spaulding had been found, but he asserted that this was not Manuscript Found. The title penciled on the brown paper cover was Manuscript Storyâ??Conneaut Creek. Howe speculated that Spaulding must have composed another manuscript that served as the source of the Book of Mormon, but no additional writings of Spaulding have ever surfaced. By the 1840s, the so-called Spaulding theory had become the main anti-Mormon explanation for the Book of Mormon.

Spaulding's manuscript, lost for forty-five years, was among items shipped from the office of the Ohio Painesville Telegraph, owned by Eber D. Howe, when that office was purchased in 1839 by L. L. Rice, who subsequently moved to Honolulu. Rice discovered the manuscript in 1884 while searching his collection for abolitionist materials for his friend James H. Fairchild, president of Oberlin College. Believers in the Book of Mormon felt vindicated by this discovery, and they published Spaulding's work to show the world it was not the source for the Book of Mormon.

Since 1946, no serious student of Mormonism has given the Spaulding Manuscript theory much credibility. In that year, Fawn Brodie published No Man Knows My History. This biography of Joseph Smith, hostile to his prophetic claims, dismissed the idea of any connection between Spaulding and Smith or their writings. Rigdon first met Joseph Smith in December 1830 after the Book of Mormon was published.

Nevertheless, some have continued to promote the Spaulding theory (e.g., see Holley). In 1977, graphologists claimed to have detected similarities between the handwriting of Spaulding and of one of the scribes who transcribed some of the Book of Mormon from Joseph Smith's dictation. After considerable media attention and further scrutiny, anti-Mormon spokespersons acknowledged that they had been too hasty. The handwriting evidence did not support a connection between Solomon Spaulding and Joseph Smith.

Bibliography

Bush, Lester E., Jr. "The Spaulding Theory Then and Now." Dialogue 4 (Autumn 1977):40-69.

Bushman, Richard L. Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism. Urbana, Ill., 1985.

Fairchild, James H. "Manuscript of Solomon Spaulding and the Book of Mormon." Bibliotheca Sacra, pp. 173-74. Cleveland, Ohio, 1885.

Holley, Vernal. "Book of Mormon Authorship: A Closer Look." Ogden, Utah, 1983; this booklet is reviewed by A. Norwood, Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 1 (1989):80-88.

Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 3, Spaulding Manuscript

Copyright

[charity]

Remember the ways in which we evaluate any evidence?

1. Was the person an actual witness or participant?

2. How soon after the event did the person committ the recount of the event to paper?

Recorded at the time, by the actual witness or participant is pretty powerful. Second hand accounts and those recorded any significant time after the event are problematic.

[Uncle Dale]

...

There are similarities in the explanation for the origins of both Manuscript Found and the Book of Mormon

....

Interesting that you should mention that particular fact ---

http://www.solomonspalding.com/bomstudies/fragment.htm

http://www.solomonspalding.com/bomstudies/fragmnt2.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap04.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SCIOTA/SRPpap12.htm

UD

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

I guess you could think of it as an early mental draft. Many writers use this technique while developing a story line or exploring complex characters.

That is a pretty good one. You expect me to believe that?

[cinepro]

If Lucy Smith's recollection is true, then it is problematic for any apologetic theory that asks us to discount statements made by Joseph Smith regarding Book of Mormon events, locations, culture, and peoples on the assumption that his knowledge originated only in a reading of the "text".

If he received enough divine tutoring to discuss the ancient Nephites in such a way ("in every particular"), then he was by far the most knowledgeable person of this dispensation regarding the Book of Mormon peoples. He would know more about "their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, their mode of warfare and also their religious worship" than anyone could ever hope to learn by study alone, and we would be treading in dangerous waters if we were to discount his statements or teachings on such things.

(Of course, considering the apologetic dismissal of Joseph Smith's own claims he himself made in the Wentworth Letter, this wouldn't be anything new.)

Remember the ways in which we evaluate any evidence?

1. Was the person an actual witness or participant?

2. How soon after the event did the person committ the recount of the event to paper?

Recorded at the time, by the actual witness or participant is pretty powerful. Second hand accounts and those recorded any significant time after the event are problematic.

If there's one thing I've learned from Church history (...pause so you can all fill in your own jokes...), it's that recollection of events gets more accurate and detailed as time goes on.

[Sargon]

I would say that this indicates that he was working on the story for many years.

As a believer, I sometimes think that Lucy conflates her memories. In this case, she combined her memories of Joseph telling about his experiences with Moroni and with her memories of him in later years teaching about the Book of Mormon.

She did the same thing with her husband's early dreams, which she conflated with Book of Mormon imagery.

[Nyal]

That is a pretty good one. You expect me to believe that?

Considering one preceded the other, why is that so unbelievable?

As a believer, I sometimes think that Lucy conflates her memories. In this case, she combined her memories of Joseph telling about his experiences with Moroni and with her memories of him in later years teaching about the Book of Mormon.She did the same thing with her husband's early dreams, which she conflated with Book of Mormon imagery.

Well...who said she conflated that? Is there any evidence to support that idea?

[urroner]

A Nephite on his horse:

[Sargon]

Well...who said she conflated that? Is there any evidence to support that idea?

I said it. Although, I'm sure I didn't think that up on my own. I believe I ran across the idea somewhere in my reading.

It is just a theory from a believer's perspective.

[Uncle Dale]

...recollection of events get more accurate and detailed as time goes on.

When my neighbor first told me about that fish that got away, it was only two feet long

and the struggle that nearly landed the creature in the boat, only took ten minutes....

He could tell the story in three sentences.

Now I have to listen to half an hour of "accurate and detailed" description before

he gets to the part where, after two hours' struggle, the "15 pound, salt-encrusted line

snapped with the loud report of a gunshot, sending me back upon the deck with multiple

bruises and abrasions, while the five-foot silvery swordfish sped off through the wind-blown

surf, out into the distant waters of the radiant ocean sunset..."

hmmmmmmmmmmmm...

UD

[AndyOne]

If this is the case, why is it never specifically stated in the BoM? I mean if he was working on his stroy here why would we not find those details pretty explicit in teh BoM?

Because it's implied for anyone other than the die-hard apologist!

[thesometimesaint]

Uncle Dale:

I've have read both. I've never said that there wasn't any similarities. Just that the actual value of them makes them far less convincing. The differences are many and glaring.

Also consider

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol...num=1&id=10

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol...um=2&id=584

http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=8&chapid=66

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Because it's implied for anyone other than the die-hard apologist!

I am not arugeing that they did ride or not, I just said that it never specificly states it. So if this was some idea that JS was throwing around for a made up sotry, I don' see why something like this wouldn't appear, "And now I Moroni got up on to my horse and fled." Nothing even remotly close that occurs once in the BoM.

[Nyal]

I said it. Although, I'm sure I didn't think that up on my own. I believe I ran across the idea somewhere in my reading.

It is just a theory from a believer's perspective.

That's cool. I just understood it as a statement of fact. My bad.

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle Dale:

I've have read both. I've never said that there wasn't any similarities.

...

Only a couple of the "similarities" in the respective finding of the records occur

in the actual text of the BoM -- nearly all of them are from the Times & Seasons

"history." But, if we go back to Oliver Cowdery's shorter report, of the same

early events, as published in the Messenger & Advocate, we no longer see

such a long list of thematic/vocabulary parallels.

Why on earth should the Oberlin Roman story so greatly resemble a few paragraphs

excerpted from the 1843 Mormon newspaper? It's absolutely uncanny, how the events

are expressed in the same sequence, using the same words, to convey the same message.

UD

[charity]

Uncle Dale, have you seen the FAIR article on how many things DO NOT parallel the Book of Mormon?

Something that comes to mind is that charming little account of how the Indian women "clean up nice" so they are attractive to the Romans. ?????

[Uncle Dale]

Uncle Dale, have you seen the FAIR article on how many things DO NOT parallel the Book of Mormon?

Something that comes to mind is that charming little account of how the Indian women "clean up nice" so they are attractive to the Romans. ?????

I am not arguing (for the moment) that we should here be considering

textual matches and mis-matches beween the Roman story and the BoM.

I am talking about the "finding of the ancient buried record in a hill" accounts

given in the 1843 Mormon newspaper and in the preserved Roman story.

Even highly respected LDS scholars such as Marvin Hill have remarked that

the resemblance between those two discovery accounts is amazing.

However, if we must compare the two narratives themselves, we might

talk about how Spalding's ancient American rode around on hairy elephants,

while the BoM Jaredites found ancient American elephants to be very useful

for their own civilization.

Is it possible that Jaredites ever rode about on ancient American elephants?

UD

.