Spalding: The Dead Horse that Won't Die

[Gervin]

I was speaking specifically concerning the starter of the thread.

Then why did you refer to "those beating it?"

If the scientific evidence were to confirm the "Spalding voice" in the Book of Mormon", it would not change the reliability of the witnesses. Their reliability can be determined to some extent by carefully analyzing what they said against the time frame and what has actually been discovered.

So the discovery of Spalding language in the Book of Mormon makes the lies of the witnesses simply a coincidence? That makes much sense.

[noel00]

I'd have to accept the Vogel/Chris Smith view, if that were the case which I don't think will happen. The "stone in the hat" theory is just plain silly.

[Glenn101]

So the discovery of Spalding language in the Book of Mormon makes the lies of the witnesses simply a coincidence? That makes much sense.

For one, I am not convinced that there has been any "Spalding language" found in the Book of Mormon. Have you read any of Ben McGuire's posts on the matter? Or are you referring to the Jockers study?

When you read all of the witnesses statements, not just the ones from Hurlbut, you will find that there are some fatal inconsistencies in the Hurlbut witnesses. If I remember correctly his witnesses are the only ones that remember the Book of Mormon names. (His daughter, Matilda Spalding McKinstry did declare that she had heard those names also, and had seen them in the manuscript that was in the trunk, when she was something like 80 years old.) I do not think that they were intentionally prevaricating, but after twenty years it is very possible that there memories were maybe judicially jogged.

The fact that the witness with the earliest memories of Spalding literary efforts, Oliver Smith, "remembers" those Book of Mormon names is fatal to a second manuscript version. And has been pointed out repeatedly, none of the Book of Mormon names that those witnesses thought they remembered are not found anywhere in the one and only manuscript that has been found.

Glenn

[4truth]

I was working 14 hours yesterday and was too exhausted to reply when I got home at 1am. I am starting to notice some complaints that I haven't responded to this or that, so let me repeat that I have a business to run (small though it is), and I am not a scholar with unlimited time to devote to this topic. I offer what I can when I can.

I'll just take the comments in order and see what happens....

Glenn wrote:

Each theory has to rise or fall on its own merits, vacuum or not. The Rigdon/Spalding theory is your pet, the one we are discussing.

Okay... one more time. The Book of Mormon exists. I am interested in settling the question of how it came to be. There are essentially three plausible explanations for how it came to be which are: the Official Version, Spalding/Rigdon, or Smith Alone. I realize that there are possibly sub-categories within each of these explanations, but generally speaking it comes down to one of these explanations. S/R is not so much my "pet" theory as it is simply the one that I believe explains the known data better than the alternatives.

Therefore when any given question arises about some aspect of how the BOM came to be I look at how each theory answers the question and weigh the pros and cons.

A strawman argument is a weak or sham argument set up by a debater so as to be easily refuted by the debater. I am setting up nothing, only drawing conclusions from the evidence or lack of evidence presented.

You are setting up a demonstrably false scenario as though that scenario were true. I am saying, no, you can't do that.

To take your last point first, it is hardly disputed that Spalding penned several different documents.

Bingo. And do you have the complete list of those documents he penned? No. So can you state with certainty that the Roman Story is the only document he ever penned featuring a tale of an ocean voyage to pre-Columbian America? No. In fact, you make that unsupported assertion from 280 years after the fact, whereas people who were there, who actually knew Spalding and were actually exposed to his writings assert just the opposite. With all due respect, their eyewitness testimony easily trumps your unsupported and very late assertion.

His daughter, Matilda, said that he wrote a story called the "Frogs of Wyndham" for her. It would help if you would identify your witnesses so that corroboration checks can be performed.

I've already identified my witnesses, the Conneaut 8 who are later supported by the Amity witnesses. You don't see their statements in their entirety on the Roper link you posted because he's not interested in being objective. They are:

John Spalding

Martha Spalding

Henry Lake

John Miller

Aron Wright

Oliver Smith

Nahum Howard

Artemus Cunningham

http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/1834howf.htm#pg278

I have not been able to find references to any witnesses that mentioned anything about Spalding writing a second romance manuscript before it was found that the one Hurlbut recovered had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon. I would be happy to check out any sources you may cite.

Why would you expect anyone to do that? That's an unreasonable expectation.

I have read repeatedly that Nehemiah King reported a connection in 1832 when listening to the missionaries preach from it, but I cannot find any direct quotes from him. There is no record of him confronting the missionaries about this also. Everything is second or third hand. Can you point me to a primary document?

Why would you demand a first hand account? Have you written first hand accounts about everything that every happened in your life? Are you suggesting that unless King wrote a first hand account (which managed to survive nearly 3 centuries) the event never occurred? Are second hand accounts always false? Your own Parley Pratt mentions a disturbance at an 1832 Conneaut meeting in which the BOM was being read to the public. Can you tell me that the undisclosed disturbance in Pratt's account had nothing to do with with Nehemiah King and/or nothing to do with alleged connections to Solomon Spalding's writings? Can you prove that King was not at that meeting? Because we have testimony from others who were there at the time who do tell us what that disturbance entailed. If your own Parley Pratt admits to a ruckus and we have witnesses telling us what the ruckus was all about, on what basis do you think we should reject what our witnesses are telling us?

Now as for the Conneaut witnesses Oliver Smith is the one most fatal to the second manuscript story.

??

Spalding lodged with Oliver for six months when he first moved to the Conneaut area in 1809. Oliver stated in the affidavit attributed to him that Spalding spent most of his leisure hours working on a manuscript, Oliver averred that he had read or heard read one hundred pages or more of the manuscript

...which pretty much rules out the (ridiculous) criticism Brodie makes that these witnesses were not very familiar with Spalding's manuscript.

and that Nephi and Lehi were two of the main characters but that there was no religious matter was included.

This would have to be the same manuscript that the other witnesses were describing also. None of them mention any other manuscript during that period of time. They all pretty much describe the same document and they all throw in some of the Book of Mormon names. I hope that you can see the disconnect there.

Actually no. I see no disconnect at all. You'll need to explain it.

Here are your options:

Oliver was knowingly lying.

Oliver was obviously mistaken but believed he was telling the truth.

Oliver was telling the truth.

I am interested in which option you choose.

All the best.

Roger

[Pahoran]

But, of course, Mormons will now say that such a split only began

in the fall of 1830, when Campbell refused to endorse Rigdon's

"2nd Chapter of Acts -- All Things in Common" experiment at the

Morley Farm at Kirtland.

In the LDS version of history, Rigdon was a happy camper with

Brother Alexander, spending many nights in the comfort of his

hospitality and many episodes at Alexander's dinner table and

preaching from Alexander-favoring Baptist pulpits.

Then, suddenly, for no other reason than a difference over

Christian communism, Rigdon splits away from Alexander -- to

the point that he abandons the ministry altogether, and,

according to the Times and Seasons account, becomes a farmer.

Meanwhile, the Campbellite Parley P. Pratt -- sent eastward on

a mission by Alexander -- returns to Mentor with a new Golden

Bible, and Rigdon is miraculously converted to a new church,

leaving poor befuddled Alexander in the apostate dust.

A pretty picture, no doubt.

I say it is a great whitewash -- retaining a scant few facts

of history, and filling in the rest of the scene with obscuring

paint -- designed to keep us from investigating Rigdon's actual,

earlier deviations from Campbellism...

UD

What "LDS version of history" is this, Dale? Does it actually exist anywhere? Or is it, like the so-called "Second manuscript," merely an artifact of necessity?

Regards,

Pahoran

[Pahoran]

After reading the first 23 pages on this topic, I am relatively convinced of one thing only. Joseph Smith could come down in Conference tomorrow and tell all the leadership.

congregation and saints at home this: "I am sorry, people. I lied. It was a hoax that became bigger that I thought. I lied about everything and with help and confidences

the B of M became a way for me to get what I wanted..blah..blah ..blah....

Now from what I have read from certain people here, I can readily "assume" that YOUR take on this would be..."that wasn't Joseph Smith, that was Satan himself! And little

five year olds next fast and testimony meeting would get up and say "I know the church is true, I know Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God." I don't think there is any way

that TBMs can see pass the possibilities and they have already decided..that IT IS TRUE! According to the tenants of the gospel, they cannot afford to be open in their

thinking and quite frankly have probably forgotten how. This baffles me because this contradicts free agency completely. IMO>

No..I am not a scholar, but God gave me a brain. With knowledge and common sense, I am able to come to my own conclusions about many things. Guess what?? I

can still get that same burning in bosom about things that I believe are true to me.

Hugs everyone. This is just my take on what I have read. Have a wonderful weekend!!

Jeanne:rolleyes:

There's nothing quite as economical as a just-so story that demonstrates the lofty superiority of the one telling it.

"I don't think there is any way that TBMs can see pass the possibilities," etc. That's right, Jeanne; you keep right on telling yourself that.

There's not a shred of evidence that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon met each other before the Book of Mormon was published. The unanimous and unwavering personal testimony of all the alleged participants flatly contradicts this claim.

Likewise, there's not a shred of evidence for the existence of the so-called "second manuscript." The Oberlin manuscript is Spaulding's story, the one the printers returned to his widow. The "second manuscript" is an imaginary construct, a completely ad hoc assumption that has nothing going for it except wishful thinking.

The Jockers study that is such an article of faith for the Spauldiots has been shown to be fatally flawed.

Every other attempt to blame poor long-dead Solly for the Book of Mormon has failed spectacularly; witness the notorious handwriting fiasco.

Therefore the only way anyone could fail to be overawed by this sinker of a "theory" is if they are simply incapable of seeing the truth?

This has to be a Tui Billboard moment.

Well Jeanne, it just so happens that God gave me a brain, too. With knowledge and common sense, I am able to come to my own conclusions about this idiotic "theory."

Guess what conclusions I've reached?

Regards,

Pahoran

[noel00]

"The Jockers study that is such an article of faith for the Spauldiots has been shown to be fatally flawed."

I do not think Jockers and Witton who have no dog in this fight would ruin their reputations as scholars by producing something that was "fatally flawed"

"I'd recommend reading the paper that Witten and I co-authored, a comparative study of five machine learning algorithms for authorship attribution. the key take away is that while NSC performed marginally better than the other four, all five did a pretty darn good job. Those, like Bruce, who take issue with our choice of NSC, are, in my opinion, ignoring the fact that we could have picked some other classification algorithm and gotten similar results"

Now how long will it take for the appearance of Bruce S?

[4truth]

Glenn wrote:

When you read all of the witnesses statements, not just the ones from Hurlbut, you will find that there are some fatal inconsistencies in the Hurlbut witnesses. If I remember correctly his witnesses are the only ones that remember the Book of Mormon names. (His daughter, Matilda Spalding McKinstry did declare that she had heard those names also, and had seen them in the manuscript that was in the trunk, when she was something like 80 years old.) I do not think that they were intentionally prevaricating, but after twenty years it is very possible that there memories were maybe judicially jogged.

So you state that only the Conneuat witnesses mentioned BOM names and then acknowledge that Matilda McKinstry did too?

He talked with my mother of these discoveries in the mound, and was writing every day as the work progressed. Afterward he read the manuscript which I had seen him writing, to the neighbors, and to a clergyman, a friend of his who came to see him. Some of the names that he mentioned while reading to these people I have never forgotten. They are as fresh to me to-day as though I heard them yesterday. They were "Mormon," " Maroni," "Lamenite," "Nephi"

-Matilda McKinstry

So, as you point out, Spalding's own adopted daughter refutes your earlier statement that Hurlbut's "witnesses are the only ones that remember the Book of Mormon names."

The fact that the witness with the earliest memories of Spalding literary efforts, Oliver Smith, "remembers" those Book of Mormon names is fatal to a second manuscript version.

How so?

And has been pointed out repeatedly, none of the Book of Mormon names that those witnesses thought they remembered are not found anywhere in the one and only manuscript that has been found.

So?

[Glenn101]

Actually no. I see no disconnect at all. You'll need to explain it.

Here are your options:

Oliver was knowingly lying.

Oliver was obviously mistaken but believed he was telling the truth.

Oliver was telling the truth.

I am interested in which option you choose.

All the best.

Roger

I do not know whether Oliver was knowingly lying or if he was mistaken and maybe led just a bit. But the fact remains that he said that Spalding stayed with him about six months in 1809 while working on his new home and spent most of his leisure hours working on a manuscript. Smith said that Nephi and Lehi were leading characters. Smith gives no hint that Spalding was working on a second manuscript, or a revision of a first story. As well acquainted with the process as he claims to have been, this is something that he would have known.

In the next couple of years, the other witnesses also testify to hearing Spalding read from the manuscript, and each of them identify some proper names from the Book of Mormon and the phrase "and it came to pass" as being in that manuscript. There is no mention of any second manuscript by any of those witnesses. Another brother Josiah Spalding also visited with Solomon just before he moved from Conneaut and noted only one manuscript. He did not remember any Book of Mormon words in it though and his description fits that of the Oberlin manuscript very well. He was pretty old then and admitted that his memory may not have been very good, so it is possible that he just did not remember, and just as possible that he did remember well enough since his description of the manuscript Solomon was working on is so close to the one now at Oberlin College.

Matilda Davison, the wife of Spalding, and her daughter only mentioned one manuscript when Hurlbut visited them. If there had been two, Davison would surely have questioned Hurlbut a bit more as to just which one he was looking for. When I say only one, I am talking about serious undertakings of novel length. As already noted, Solomon had written other papers and a short story called the Frogs of Wyndham, but none of those papers were near the length of his romance manuscript.

Now here is another problem. According to all accounts, Spalding is supposed to have started his new novel sometime in 1812. But there is one page about three fourths of the way through the manuscript where he uses the back of a letter for a page. The letter states in part "Fond parents, I have received 2 letters this Jan 1812." This is in a different handwriting and is on page 132 of a 171 page manuscript. It stands to reason that this letter was received sometime after that date and that Spalding was still working on that same manuscript for some time afterward. If he did start another manuscript afterward, it was not the one that his neighbors, brother, etc. heard him reading from during the years of 1809 - 1811.

The daughter, Matilda said that when she was young, about six, she remembered hearing those names, Maroni, lamanite, Nephite, etc. when her father was reading to her while they were in Conneaut. She also testifies that she saw the a manuscript in the trunk where her mother had stored all of her father's writings and that there was one much thicker than the rest upon which was inscribed "Manuscript Found". She remembers that she did not read through it, but frequently went through it superficially and that those same words were in that manuscript. This was the one Hurlbut obtained and is now at Oberlin COllege.

The last fact is that there are no Book of Mormon names in the manuscript at Oberlin College. The only way that those witnesses could be credible is to show some kind of evidence that the manuscript that Oliver Smith saw and read, the first manuscript that Solomon was known to have been writing is not the manuscript that is at Oberlin. Unless that can be established with some credibility, the statements of those Hurlbut witnesses are, to say the least, very suspect.

Glenn

Edited to add from another response by Roger (4truth)

From Glenn

And has been pointed out repeatedly, none of the Book of Mormon names that those witnesses thought they remembered are not found anywhere in the one and only manuscript that has been found.

4truth

So?

Because all of those witnesses said that they were in the manuscript when they are not. See above. If there is no second manuscript, their statements are false. There never was another manuscript.

[Glenn101]

"The Jockers study that is such an article of faith for the Spauldiots has been shown to be fatally flawed."

I do not think Jockers and Witton who have no dog in this fight would ruin their reputations as scholars by producing something that was "fatally flawed"

"I'd recommend reading the paper that Witten and I co-authored, a comparative study of five machine learning algorithms for authorship attribution. the key take away is that while NSC performed marginally better than the other four, all five did a pretty darn good job. Those, like Bruce, who take issue with our choice of NSC, are, in my opinion, ignoring the fact that we could have picked some other classification algorithm and gotten similar results"

Now how long will it take for the appearance of Bruce S?

Bruce's efforts have shown that he algorithms used in the Jockers study produce invalid results if the actual author is not included in a candidate set. The major flaw is that the NSC methods that were used did not provide any means to test for the possibility that none of the included candidates would be included in a set. Bruce is not taking issue with your choice of NSC. In fact he says that NSC is a good fit when changes are made that check the validity of the candidate set.

Glenn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Roger, its late. I am going to cover your other comments in the morning. But, I did want to put this here tonight for you to consider. You wrote this:

I've already identified my witnesses, the Conneaut 8 who are later supported by the Amity witnesses. You don't see their statements in their entirety on the Roper link you posted because he's not interested in being objective. They are:

I have read Roper's comments. They weren't very good - as you noted. Mostly because he was concerned with space. In reality, his comments seem terribly conservative. Here is a brief analysis of the 8 witness accounts that you reference. Take a look. I am not concerned with space. The link you provided does get the originals - so everyone can see that I am not trying to pull a fast one here.

Here is the John Spalding texts in its complete form:

Solomon Spalding was born in Ashford, Conn. in 1761, and in early life contracted a taste for literary pursuits. After he left school, he entered Plainfield Academy, where he made great proficiency in study, and excelled most of his class-mates. He next commenced the study of Law, in Windham county, in which he made little progress, having in the mean time turned his attention to religious subjects. He soon after entered Dartmouth College, with the intention of qualifying himself for the ministry, where he obtained the degree of A. M. and was afterwards regularly ordained. After preaching three or four years, he gave it up, removed to Cherry Valley, N. Y, and commenced the mercantile business in company with his brother Josiah. -- In a few years he failed in business, and in the year 1809 removed to Conneaut, in Ohio. The year following, I removed to Ohio, and found him engaged in building a forge. I made him a visit in about three years after; and found that he had failed, and considerably involved in debt. He then told me he had been writing a book, which he intended to have printed, the avails of which he thought would enable him to pay all his debts. The book was entitled the "Manuscript Found," of which he read to me many passages.

[4truth]

Glenn:

I do not know whether Oliver was knowingly lying or if he was mistaken and maybe led just a bit.

Well it's important to determine that because it makes a huge difference when we consider what he (and the other seven) were trying to communicate.

But the fact remains that he said that Spalding stayed with him about six months in 1809 while working on his new home and spent most of his leisure hours working on a manuscript. Smith said that Nephi and Lehi were leading characters. Smith gives no hint that Spalding was working on a second manuscript, or a revision of a first story. As well acquainted with the process as he claims to have been, this is something that he would have known.

I fully agree. And he's not the only one to emphatically mention the specific names of Lehi and Nephi. These are all key points, Glenn, and I've made them many times before in previous discussions with Ben and other Latter-day Saints. I am glad you recognize this.

In the next couple of years, the other witnesses also testify to hearing Spalding read from the manuscript, and each of them identify some proper names from the Book of Mormon and the phrase "and it came to pass" as being in that manuscript.

Correct again.

There is no mention of any second manuscript by any of those witnesses.

Nor would I expect there to be. The manuscript they are concerned with--the one that did strikingly resemble the BOM--is the important one. The Roman story was put on hold in favor of Manuscript Found. It was Manuscript Found that resembled the BOM, not Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek. You are actually making my case.

Another brother Josiah Spalding also visited with Solomon just before he moved from Conneaut and noted only one manuscript. He did not remember any Book of Mormon words in it though and his description fits that of the Oberlin manuscript very well.

Yes, I think Josiah may have been exposed to Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek.

He was pretty old then and admitted that his memory may not have been very good, so it is possible that he just did not remember, and just as possible that he did remember well enough since his description of the manuscript Solomon was working on is so close to the one now at Oberlin College.

Matilda Davison, the wife of Spalding, and her daughter only mentioned one manuscript when Hurlbut visited them. If there had been two, Davison would surely have questioned Hurlbut a bit more as to just which one he was looking for. When I say only one, I am talking about serious undertakings of novel length. As already noted, Solomon had written other papers and a short story called the Frogs of Wyndham, but none of those papers were near the length of his romance manuscript.

No one knows for sure what happened, but I think it was likely both Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek and Manuscript Found were recovered by Hurlbut.

Now here is another problem. According to all accounts, Spalding is supposed to have started his new novel sometime in 1812. But there is one page about three fourths of the way through the manuscript where he uses the back of a letter for a page. The letter states in part "Fond parents, I have received 2 letters this Jan 1812." This is in a different handwriting and is on page 132 of a 171 page manuscript. It stands to reason that this letter was received sometime after that date and that Spalding was still working on that same manuscript for some time afterward. If he did start another manuscript afterward, it was not the one that his neighbors, brother, etc. heard him reading from during the years of 1809 - 1811.

There are different theories about that. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's possible he worked on both for a while, or it's possible he worked on Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek while waiting to hear back from the publisher about Manuscript Found. But again, I am not sure what to make of that.

The daughter, Matilda said that when she was young, about six, she remembered hearing those names, Maroni, lamanite, Nephite, etc. when her father was reading to her while they were in Conneaut. She also testifies that she saw the a manuscript in the trunk where her mother had stored all of her father's writings and that there was one much thicker than the rest upon which was inscribed "Manuscript Found". She remembers that she did not read through it, but frequently went through it superficially and that those same words were in that manuscript. This was the one Hurlbut obtained and is now at Oberlin COllege.

All of your statements in the above were accurate up until your last sentence. You assume "that was the one Hurlbut obtained and is now at Oberlin COllege." I don't see any reason to assume that was the only manuscript Hurlbut obtained. There is evidence in the form of testimony that Hurlburt had MF. But even if all he recovered from the trunk was the Roman Story, it does not follow that a second manuscript could never have existed.

If your assertion is true, however, then Matilda is lying. If your statement is true, all the witnesses who emphatically mention Nephi and Lehi are lying. Or worse, they think they are telling the truth but we know they are really off in left field.

That's the problem YOU as an S/R critic have. You have to come to some sort of rational explanation for the statements as they are. Brodie started this ball rolling (interesting that you would emphatically agree with an apostate!) by claiming the witnesses were coerced into false memories by the evil Hurlbut. You seem to be agreeing with that. But that explanation does not make sense. I know from personal experience it doesn't.

I've told this story several times before (although not on MADB) so I will try to present it very briefly. As I was graduating from High School, I started reading a novel entitled Winds of War. It was a novel about the second world war and how the lives of the main characters were affected by it. That was in 1982-83. About a year and a half ago, I decided I could put S/R criticism to the test since I had never cracked the book open since I put it down well over 25 years prior. So I attempted to remember details from the book. The first thing that came to my mind was the name of the lead character: "Pug" Henry. His name was Victor, which I did not remember immediately because the author used his nickname most of the time and who could forget a name like "Pug"? Next I began to try to remember the secondary characters and slowly each one came to mind. I first remembered Pug's son as Brian Henry, but something didn't sound right. After some additional thought, I had it, it was Byron. Then his love interest Natalie Jastrow came to mind which in turn reminded me of her uncle Aaron. And then I was trying to remember the name of Pug's wife... I came up with Rhonda. Later, when I checked to see how well I did, the only name for a principle character I got wrong after more than 25 years was Rhonda. It was Rhoda.

The point is, despite Brodie's claims, humans can easily remember the names of the lead characters in a book they read more than twenty years ago. And if they get it wrong, they are probably not going to associate a name like Nephi for Lobaska or Lehi for Hadokam. Remembering Rhonda in place of Rhoda makes sense. The assertion that each of the Conneaut witnesses who emphatically claim to "well remember" Nephi and Lehi were really only exposed to the Oberlin manuscript is far-fetched in light of that. The one thing I was confident about was the name of the lead character--just like the Conneaut witnesses are emphatic about Lehi and Nephi... and as you point out, we don't find those names in the Oberlin Manuscript.

That convinces me we can throw Brodie's false memory logic out the window. These witnesses were not coerced into emphatically "remembering" names they were never actually exposed to. That is simply nonsense. Instead they were either lying through their teeth, or simply telling the truth.

Now... you tell me, Glenn... why would they lie? What did they hope to accomplish by lying?

All the best.

Roger

[4truth]

Hi Ben:

It's too late to try to respond now. I'll see how tomorrow goes.

All the best.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Ah, morning. The battle to get the kids off to school ...

Roger writes:

Okay... one more time. The Book of Mormon exists. I am interested in settling the question of how it came to be. There are essentially three plausible explanations for how it came to be which are: the Official Version, Spalding/Rigdon, or Smith Alone. I realize that there are possibly sub-categories within each of these explanations, but generally speaking it comes down to one of these explanations. S/R is not so much my "pet" theory as it is simply the one that I believe explains the known data better than the alternatives.

I disagree with the assumption that these are the only plausible explanations. I think that you characterization is poor (that is, this isn't what you actually mean at all). I think that your position is that there are only three possible explanations - to be "plausible" means to be credible, and I think that you only find one of these explanations to be credible. I think that we could come up with lots of possible explanations - much more than the three that you provide. We do much better with a more generalized labels. We might consider Joseph Alone, or Joseph with divine assistance, or Joseph with help, or no Joseph at all, but other modern authorship, etc. So, no, I don't agree that there are three possible explanations. And I think that making this the basic assumption taints every other part of this discussion that you engage in - particularly in how you use that notion as a prop - you say well, I have eliminated X and Y, and so whatever is left must be true. It's the shell game, and you have lifted two of the three shells, and made the assumption that the mark must be under the one that's left (but you aren't actually picking it up to look).

Therefore when any given question arises about some aspect of how the BOM came to be I look at how each theory answers the question and weigh the pros and cons.

And I don't think you really do this. In fact, I have never seen you really get into any detailed analysis of any theory other than the Spalding theory. But that is neither here nor there. Being the best solution to the problem from among a limited set of choices which may or may not include the actual solution doesn't help you know if you have the actual solution (and that is assuming that you are right about having chosen the best solution to the problem in the first place).

Bingo. And do you have the complete list of those documents he penned? No. So can you state with certainty that the Roman Story is the only document he ever penned featuring a tale of an ocean voyage to pre-Columbian America? No. In fact, you make that unsupported assertion from 280 years after the fact, whereas people who were there, who actually knew Spalding and were actually exposed to his writings assert just the opposite. With all due respect, their eyewitness testimony easily trumps your unsupported and very late assertion.

Spalding could of course have written 50 or 60 different manuscripts, and all but one of them were destroyed. Why not? There is no evidence to prove that he didn't ... But the corollary is equally amusing. Why not posit that there was a text written by Thomas Godfrey (an early American writer who died in 1763) - it was never published, but, Spalding, coming across it, appropriated it as his own, and retitled it as Manuscript Found. It was not Spalding's manuscript at all that Rigdon got his hands on, but a copy of the original text by Godfrey.

Now, of course you are going to suggest that there wasn't anyone who suggested that Spalding stole from Godfrey, which is true - but as I keep pointing out, none of the 1833 witnesses (or even the later witnesses stretching out for the next 50 years and beyond) seem to be familiar with a text other than the Book of Mormon. There is nothing in there comments which cannot be traced to either the Book of Mormon or to published accounts about it. Not a single bit. And this very strongly indicates that there wasn't some text that they knew from Spalding that they allude to, rather, their comments rely on a more recent familiarity with the Book of Mormon. At any rate, there isn't any possible way for you to disprove the whole Godfrey notion. An absence of evidence, of course, isn't always evidence of absence - but, in light of the fact that the accounts of your witnesses can all be accounted for without the need to suppose a second manuscript, it means that more than the statements of your witnesses is required for us to consider that it actually existed.

Ben M.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Roger writes:

Well it's important to determine that because it makes a huge difference when we consider what he (and the other seven) were trying to communicate.

I think I am suggesting that what they were trying to communicate was that Joseph was a plagiarizer. The rest of the details weren't really their own, probably were not supplied by them, and certainly did not require any familiarity at all with any Spalding manuscript to produce. Even John Miller's very interesting final comments - "When Spalding divested his history of its fabulous names, by a verbal explanation, he landed his people near the Straits of Darien, which I am very confident he called Zarahemla, they were marched about that country for a length of time, in which wars and great blood shed ensued, he brought them across North America in a north east direction." can be taken from Orson Pratt's (not Parley's) geography - comments about which had been published at least a year earlier. That in itself is such an odd coincidence if it isn't reliance, since Miller tells us this description he remembers - not from reading the text, but from personal conversation with Spalding - that Orson Pratt simply could not have known about. Given the raging debates even now over Book of Mormon geography, it seems pretty unlikely that not only would Pratt have come up with the same model of geography that Spalding based his book on (remember that the Book of Mormon isn't the same as the Spalding manuscript - it must have been modified), but that both descriptions use highly similar language to describe it. It is a problem for the Spalding theorist who wants to rely on Miller's account.

I fully agree. And he's not the only one to emphatically mention the specific names of Lehi and Nephi. These are all key points, Glenn, and I've made them many times before in previous discussions with Ben and other Latter-day Saints. I am glad you recognize this.

Yes. But its not just that they all mention them, its that they all mention them in more or less the same way. And that raises a problem. These are supposed to be isolated accounts. And yet, they all read the same. Its as if Spalding's manuscript only covered the first several chapters of 1 and 2 Nephi. What's even more interesting about this particular bit, is that Spalding's manuscript doesn't seem to reference the missing pages (that is, the real beginning of the text that Joseph prepared). Rather it starts right in with Nephi and Lehi and Nephi's text that replaces the missing pages. The last part that Joseph produced - and the part that he was least likely to have been able to prepare ahead of time (according to the Spalding theorists). Lehi is a rather secondary character (unless you are limiting yourself to the first 10 chapters). There is no discussion of Alma, or Mosiah. Yes we get the name Zarahemla (but as I point out, its clearly connected to Orson Pratt). No, I don't think that these "key points" really are all that key from my perspective Roger.

Nor would I expect there to be. The manuscript they are concerned with--the one that did strikingly resemble the BOM--is the important one. The Roman story was put on hold in favor of Manuscript Found. It was Manuscript Found that resembled the BOM, not Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek. You are actually making my case.

The beauty of using the name "Roman Story" is that it tends to distance the manuscript from its primary introduction - that is, the Roman Story was a "manuscript found". And you haven't (at least in this thread) suggested just similarities between the "Roman Story" and the Book of Mormon, but also parallels between the "Roman Story" and Joseph's 1838 personal history. It presents another problem for the Spalding theorist. Why would we care about parallels between the existing manuscript and both the Book of Mormon and Joseph's personal history? Oh, that's right. Because Joseph must be lying about his personal history (it must be a work of fiction based really on Spalding's unknown manuscript) and because, as you suggested yourself, the Manuscript Found must resemble the Roman Story in these places. Spalding didn't just write two romantic historical fantasies, both of which he fully expected people would read and take as legitimate history, they were effectively, identical stories. I suppose that could be reasonable.

Yes, I think Josiah may have been exposed to Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek.

And perhaps you could provide us with a few lines of the text by which to check the testimony?

No one knows for sure what happened, but I think it was likely both Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek and Manuscript Found were recovered by Hurlbut.

Oh, I believe this. The problem was that they weren't different manuscripts. It was the same text after all. But it didn't prove the allegations, and so it got carefully filed away.

All of your statements in the above were accurate up until your last sentence. You assume "that was the one Hurlbut obtained and is now at Oberlin COllege." I don't see any reason to assume that was the only manuscript Hurlbut obtained. There is evidence in the form of testimony that Hurlburt had MF. But even if all he recovered from the trunk was the Roman Story, it does not follow that a second manuscript could never have existed.

I disagree with you. Particularly since the Roman Story seems to fit the bill for the Manuscript Found. Particularly when you start suggesting how similar the two must have been ... that's not a good argument for two distinct novels.

If your assertion is true, however, then Matilda is lying. If your statement is true, all the witnesses who emphatically mention Nephi and Lehi are lying. Or worse, they think they are telling the truth but we know they are really off in left field.

I am okay with this. In fact, I think that one of these two scenarios is highly likely. I suspect that their memories were "coached" early on, and later were affected by published material.

That's the problem YOU as an S/R critic have. You have to come to some sort of rational explanation for the statements as they are. Brodie started this ball rolling (interesting that you would emphatically agree with an apostate!) by claiming the witnesses were coerced into false memories by the evil Hurlbut. You seem to be agreeing with that. But that explanation does not make sense. I know from personal experience it doesn't.

The texts themselves suggest though that something like this must have happened. There is a certain sense of irony that you who make such a great deal out of the parallels between the Book of Mormon and Spalding's existing manuscript to make a case that Joseph used Spalding's non-existant manuscript, and yet you turn a completely blind eye towards the pervasive reuse of the material in these accounts by the witnesses.

Now... you tell me, Glenn... why would they lie? What did they hope to accomplish by lying?

Well, since the statements were collected by an anti-mormon, we might be better off asking whether or not he would be willing to stretch the truth, and whether or not he believed that the historical parts of the Book of Mormon must have been based on a Spalding manuscript (much as you are asserting here).

Ben M.

[Glenn101]

No one knows for sure what happened, but I think it was likely both Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek and Manuscript Found were recovered by Hurlbut.

Please provide evidence to support that conclusion. If Hurlbut had obtained a second manuscript with those names in it, he would have trumpeted it to the world. He would have published the book himself rather than give the credit to E.D. Howe.

However, back to Matilda Spalding McKinstry, the daughter. She saw only one manuscript in that trunk large enough to be the genesis of a novel.

There are different theories about that. I'm not sure what to make of it. It's possible he worked on both for a while, or it's possible he worked on Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek while waiting to hear back from the publisher about Manuscript Found. But again, I am not sure what to make of that.

Until someone comes up with some evidence pointing somewhere else, that letter indicates only pages 1 through 132 were complete in January of 1812. Pages 133 and 134 are missing, but pages 135 to 171 are extant indicating that work on the manuscript continued for some time afterward. There is no evidence at this point of any other manuscript up to this point.

All of your statements in the above were accurate up until your last sentence. You assume "that was the one Hurlbut obtained and is now at Oberlin COllege." I don't see any reason to assume that was the only manuscript Hurlbut obtained. There is evidence in the form of testimony that Hurlburt had MF. But even if all he recovered from the trunk was the Roman Story, it does not follow that a second manuscript could never have existed.

The existence of a second manuscript anywhere, and especially in the trunk does not follow from any evidence. You are asking me to believe something that the only two witnesses to what was in the trunk have never even remotely inferred.

If your assertion is true, however, then Matilda is lying. If your statement is true, all the witnesses who emphatically mention Nephi and Lehi are lying. Or worse, they think they are telling the truth but we know they are really off in left field.

It is worse to be lying than to be off in left field. I don't think the daughter was lying. But she obviously was mistaken since that manuscript does not have any of the names that she recalled. At eighty years of age. she was more likely conflating rumors and myths that had bee noised about for years with her own memories. There also is the possibility that she was lying also, but I am not asserting that.

That's the problem YOU as an S/R critic have. You have to come to some sort of rational explanation for the statements as they are. Brodie started this ball rolling (interesting that you would emphatically agree with an apostate!) by claiming the witnesses were coerced into false memories by the evil Hurlbut. You seem to be agreeing with that. But that explanation does not make sense. I know from personal experience it doesn't.

I have never read Brodie's book, so any agreement would be coincidental. I don't have a problem as an S/R critic. you have the problem of producing sufficient evidence to make your theory or beliefs on the subject even slightly plausible. To do so, you must show with some evidence that there was a second manuscript because the manuscript at Oberlin college has none of the names from the Book of Mormon. That evidence has not been forthcoming.

I've told this story several times before (although not on MADB) so I will try to present it very briefly. As I was graduating from High School, I started reading a novel entitled Winds of War. It was a novel about the second world war and how the lives of the main characters were affected by it. That was in 1982-83. About a year and a half ago, I decided I could put S/R criticism to the test since I had never cracked the book open since I put it down well over 25 years prior. So I attempted to remember details from the book. The first thing that came to my mind was the name of the lead character: "Pug" Henry. His name was Victor, which I did not remember immediately because the author used his nickname most of the time and who could forget a name like "Pug"? Next I began to try to remember the secondary characters and slowly each one came to mind. I first remembered Pug's son as Brian Henry, but something didn't sound right. After some additional thought, I had it, it was Byron. Then his love interest Natalie Jastrow came to mind which in turn reminded me of her uncle Aaron. And then I was trying to remember the name of Pug's wife... I came up with Rhonda. Later, when I checked to see how well I did, the only name for a principle character I got wrong after more than 25 years was Rhonda. It was Rhoda.

Now how much thought did all of those witnesses put into this? They all seemed to have jumped onto the Spalding band wagon at once.

The point is, despite Brodie's claims, humans can easily remember the names of the lead characters in a book they read more than twenty years ago. And if they get it wrong, they are probably not going to associate a name like Nephi for Lobaska or Lehi for Hadokam. Remembering Rhonda in place of Rhoda makes sense. The assertion that each of the Conneaut witnesses who emphatically claim to "well remember" Nephi and Lehi were really only exposed to the Oberlin manuscript is far-fetched in light of that. The one thing I was confident about was the name of the lead character--just like the Conneaut witnesses are emphatic about Lehi and Nephi... and as you point out, we don't find those names in the Oberlin Manuscript.

That convinces me we can throw Brodie's false memory logic out the window. These witnesses were not coerced into emphatically "remembering" names they were never actually exposed to. That is simply nonsense. Instead they were either lying through their teeth, or simply telling the truth.

Now... you tell me, Glenn... why would they lie? What did they hope to accomplish by lying?

All the best.

Roger

If you have done your homework on Sidney Rigdon, you know that he had been a preacher aligned with Alexander Campbell for years. A split occurred between Campbell and Rigdon which seemed to come to a head in 1830. It was soon after this that the LDS missionaries came through preaching the restored gospel. Rigdon was converted and attempted to convert those of his congregations. He was partially successful, but also angered many people at his defection and efforts to enlist others in those defections. Some of those witnesses had neighbors who had been converted. Sidney Rigdon was not well thought by many in that neighborhood. Those feelings were still simmering when Hurlbut came to town a few years later. They, like many others, were willing to be convinced that the book of Mormon was a plagiarism of Spalding's romance. This is not an unusual occurrence.

Glenn

[4truth]

Hi Ben:

Do you type 1800 words a minute or what? It's a full time job just keeping up with you and Glenn... and I'm obviously not!

We have a common note about the move to Pittsburgh. There is the interesting common shared by several of how Spalding expected that his fiction would be widely read and accepted as history! The amazing thing though is that given how a few of them complained about their memories, and how twenty years had gone by

[Glenn101]

Yet here, talking about the parallels between Spalding witnesses, you are making the exact opposite case... you are agreeing with me that those parallels are not coincidental but result from common ground between them. My explanation for that common ground is simply shared experience! In other words, if the witnesses are telling the truth, what else would you expect but that their stories sound similar? Of course you would expect them to tell the same story in their own words, but they do exactly that!

The most interesting part is that those parallels, the descriptions of the manuscript, except for the names, are describing the Oberlin manuscript, especially the lack of religious material. (There, I managed to keep that fairly short for you. )

Glenn

[4truth]

Ben:

I disagree with the assumption that these are the only plausible explanations. I think that you characterization is poor (that is, this isn't what you actually mean at all). I think that your position is that there are only three possible explanations - to be "plausible" means to be credible, and I think that you only find one of these explanations to be credible. I think that we could come up with lots of possible explanations - much more than the three that you provide. We do much better with a more generalized labels. We might consider Joseph Alone, or Joseph with divine assistance, or Joseph with help, or no Joseph at all, but other modern authorship, etc. So, no, I don't agree that there are three possible explanations. And I think that making this the basic assumption taints every other part of this discussion that you engage in - particularly in how you use that notion as a prop - you say well, I have eliminated X and Y, and so whatever is left must be true. It's the shell game, and you have lifted two of the three shells, and made the assumption that the mark must be under the one that's left (but you aren't actually picking it up to look).

You're welcome to add another shell and then defend it. What I see you doing instead is not defending anything other than the nebulous idea of "nineteenth century production" which you know, of course, I (and every other critic) do not dispute. But even that has a semantic twist that somehow allows you to avoid defending the orthodox version in public but yet somehow (apparently) still cling to it philosophically in private. For all we know you may really believe that Brigham Young's moon men delivered the BOM already translated but whatever explanation you believe actually accounts for the existence of the BOM I have yet to see you defend.

And I don't think you really do this. In fact, I have never seen you really get into any detailed analysis of any theory other than the Spalding theory. But that is neither here nor there. Being the best solution to the problem from among a limited set of choices which may or may not include the actual solution doesn't help you know if you have the actual solution (and that is assuming that you are right about having chosen the best solution to the problem in the first place).

Fine. In your opinion, what is the actual solution?

Spalding could of course have written 50 or 60 different manuscripts, and all but one of them were destroyed. Why not? There is no evidence to prove that he didn't ... But the corollary is equally amusing.

Amusing? Why do you find that amusing? Witnesses who knew Spalding said he wrote many manuscripts. Apparently it is more frustrating to you than amusing.

Why not posit that there was a text written by Thomas Godfrey (an early American writer who died in 1763) - it was never published, but, Spalding, coming across it, appropriated it as his own, and retitled it as Manuscript Found. It was not Spalding's manuscript at all that Rigdon got his hands on, but a copy of the original text by Godfrey.

Now, of course you are going to suggest that there wasn't anyone who suggested that Spalding stole from Godfrey, which is true -

I love it! You're beginning to anticipate my arguments and then preemptively admit they're true! LOL. Pretty soon I won't have to type at all.

but as I keep pointing out, none of the 1833 witnesses (or even the later witnesses stretching out for the next 50 years and beyond) seem to be familiar with a text other than the Book of Mormon. There is nothing in there comments which cannot be traced to either the Book of Mormon or to published accounts about it. Not a single bit.

In the spirit of fairness, you may be correct about that. I will have to look into that question. I think the Straits of Darien thing fits that, but you, of course, are convinced he just lifted it from Pratt. More on that in a moment. {actually, I am coming back in here to add... what about all the non-textual-related context they include? You don't dispute that that material is uniquely their own, do you? Did Hurlbut invent that Spalding was building a forge, etc?}

And this very strongly indicates that there wasn't some text that they knew from Spalding that they allude to, rather, their comments rely on a more recent familiarity with the Book of Mormon. At any rate, there isn't any possible way for you to disprove the whole Godfrey notion. An absence of evidence, of course, isn't always evidence of absence - but, in light of the fact that the accounts of your witnesses can all be accounted for without the need to suppose a second manuscript, it means that more than the statements of your witnesses is required for us to consider that it actually existed.

And this of course is where word print studies, parallels and overlapping vocabulary enter the picture.

Now this comment is where things get interesting:

I think I am suggesting that what they were trying to communicate was that Joseph was a plagiarizer. The rest of the details weren't really their own, probably were not supplied by them, and certainly did not require any familiarity at all with any Spalding manuscript to produce. Even John Miller's very interesting final comments - "When Spalding divested his history of its fabulous names, by a verbal explanation, he landed his people near the Straits of Darien, which I am very confident he called Zarahemla, they were marched about that country for a length of time, in which wars and great blood shed ensued, he brought them across North America in a north east direction." can be taken from Orson Pratt's (not Parley's) geography - comments about which had been published at least a year earlier. That in itself is such an odd coincidence if it isn't reliance, since Miller tells us this description he remembers - not from reading the text, but from personal conversation with Spalding - that Orson Pratt simply could not have known about. Given the raging debates even now over Book of Mormon geography, it seems pretty unlikely that not only would Pratt have come up with the same model of geography that Spalding based his book on (remember that the Book of Mormon isn't the same as the Spalding manuscript - it must have been modified), but that both descriptions use highly similar language to describe it. It is a problem for the Spalding theorist who wants to rely on Miller's account.

So.... where to begin? First, we seem to have finally hit on a parallel that catches Ben's attention. You admit that is it an "odd coincidence" if it isn't "reliance" and of course, you're convinced it is reliance since Pratt's comments were published earlier than Miller's.

So then... where did Pratt come up with the idea, Ben?

All the best.

[4truth]

Glenn:

The most interesting part is that those parallels, the descriptions of the manuscript, except for the names, are describing the Oberlin manuscript, especially the lack of religious material. (There, I managed to keep that fairly short for you.

What about "the old scriptural style" and nearly every phrase commencing with "and it came to pass"? Except for a few poetic sections, that also does not describe the Oberlin Manuscript. And you are (apparently) merely parroting Brodie's argument that the Oberlin Manuscript is totally devoid of religious material. I know you said you haven't read Brodie, so apparently you are merely parroting someone else who has. Contrary to Brodie, the Oberlin Manuscript does contain religious material. It even has a chapter on religion.

But I will concede the point because I think the witnesses were referring to what Alexander Campbell describes as "every (religious) truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years", which obviously Spalding could not have included:

Campbell states:

This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies - infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man.

In my opinion, this oft quoted statement by Campbell illustrates a couple important things. First, there is indeed a lot of religious content in the BOM, but where did it come from? Again, how does each theory handle that question?

1. The orthodox version says it was all there in the plates and that real Nephites were (coincidentally?) having the same controversies hundreds of years before Campbell, Rigdon, & Scott were having them.

2. Smith Alone says that Joseph Smith came up with all that material. Here I say... okay, but that I have to agree with the Mormons that it sounds pretty far-fetched to think that a kid who was allegedly wondering which church to join and never quite made his mind up had all those controversies decided by 1829. I think Joseph was more concerned with finding buried treasure that settling the great theological debates prior to 1829. Rigdon, on the other hand, is another story....

3. S/R offers the best match... Rigdon. S/R alleges that there were no ancient Nephites and hence no coincidental disputes. S/R alleges that the religious material Campbell notes does not come from Joseph Smith but instead from the mind of Sidney Rigdon. Not coincidentally, we find that the controversies in the BOM are settled in Rigdon's favor and that when Rigdon disagrees with Campbell, the BOM takes Rigdon's position--hence Campbell's assertion that Smith's writes "every error" as well as every truth debated over the previous ten years.

Edited to add: And then, also not coincidentally, nearly two centuries down the road, Jockers word print study independently attributes those sections to Rigdon as well.

Once again, the best explanation of the data is provided by S/R.

All the best.

[Glenn101]

Glenn:

What about "the old scriptural style" and nearly every phrase commencing with "and it came to pass"? Except for a few poetic sections, that also does not describe the Oberlin Manuscript. And you are (apparently) merely parroting Brodie's argument that the Oberlin Manuscript is totally devoid of religious material. I know you said you haven't read Brodie, so apparently you are merely parroting someone else who has. Contrary to Brodie, the Oberlin Manuscript does contain religious material. It even has a chapter on religion.

I did not say the Oberlin manuscript was totally devoid of religious material. The witnesses stated that the Spalding manuscript was generally not a religious text. Which it is not. The Book of Mormon is. Religion is interwoven into just about every chapter of the Book of Mormon.

But I will concede the point because I think the witnesses were referring to what Alexander Campbell describes as "every (religious) truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years", which obviously Spalding could not have included:

Campbell states:

In my opinion, this oft quoted statement by Campbell illustrates a couple important things. First, there is indeed a lot of religious content in the BOM, but where did it come from? Again, how does each theory handle that question?

1. The orthodox version says it was all there in the plates and that real Nephites were (coincidentally?) having the same controversies hundreds of years before Campbell, Rigdon, & Scott were having them.

2. Smith Alone says that Joseph Smith came up with all that material. Here I say... okay, but that I have to agree with the Mormons that it sounds pretty far-fetched to think that a kid who was allegedly wondering which church to join and never quite made his mind up had all those controversies decided by 1829. I think Joseph was more concerned with finding buried treasure that settling the great theological debates prior to 1829. Rigdon, on the other hand, is another story....

3. S/R offers the best match... Rigdon. S/R alleges that there were no ancient Nephites and hence no coincidental disputes. S/R alleges that the religious material Campbell notes does not come from Joseph Smith but instead from the mind of Sidney Rigdon. Not coincidentally, we find that the controversies in the BOM are settled in Rigdon's favor and that when Rigdon disagrees with Campbell, the BOM takes Rigdon's position--hence Campbell's assertion that Smith's writes "every error" as well as every truth debated over the previous ten years.

You are going to have to back up your thesis here by actual examples of where there was a difference the Book of Mormon backed up Rigdon. The major cause of the split was Rigdon's insistence that the church should be practicing the same type of social system that the saints were in the New Testament, i.e. that "they had all things in common." Campbell disagreed with that decidedly. Rigdon believed in it and set up a communal type of congregation in Morely.

However, the "all things in common" is not part of the book of Mormon doctrine. That is one point he surely would have included in a book of scripture to prove his point.

Edited to add: And then, also not coincidentally, nearly two centuries down the road, Jockers word print study independently attributes those sections to Rigdon as well.

Once again, the best explanation of the data is provided by S/R.

All the best.

The last word is not in on that yet. But a later word is already in the works.

Glenn

[4truth]

Glenn:

I did not say the Oberlin manuscript was totally devoid of religious material. The witnesses stated that the Spalding manuscript was generally not a religious text. Which it is not.

Once again, I have to object to the way you phrased this. The witnesses stated that the Spalding manuscript they were exposed to was generally not a religious text but was rather a history of the Nephites and Lamanites. The Oberlin manuscript is generally not a religious text, but does contain religious material and even a chapter on religion and contains nothing about Nephites and Lamanites. Hence, I conclude that when the witnesses refer to religious material, they are referring to the religious controversies in New York Pennsylvania and Ohio in the decade or so prior to the publication of the BOM summed up well by Alexander Campbell, who, being a part of the controversy, was well qualified to recognize it.

The Book of Mormon is. Religion is interwoven into just about every chapter of the Book of Mormon.

Correct, and as I pointed out, S/R predicts that Rigdon rather than Spalding or Smith or Cowdery is largely responsible for those sections. Jockers' study could have falsified that prediction. Instead it supports it.

You are going to have to back up your thesis here by actual examples of where there was a difference the Book of Mormon backed up Rigdon.

How about miracles? Are there any such beasts in the BOM? You mention another:

The major cause of the split was Rigdon's insistence that the church should be practicing the same type of social system that the saints were in the New Testament, i.e. that "they had all things in common." Campbell disagreed with that decidedly. Rigdon believed in it and set up a communal type of congregation in Morely.

However, the "all things in common" is not part of the book of Mormon doctrine. That is one point he surely would have included in a book of scripture to prove his point.

Well uh.... actually he did... and not surprisingly right where Jockers predicts it should be:

7 And it came to pass that the disciples whom Jesus had chosen began from that time forth to baptize and to teach as many as did come unto them; and as many as were baptized in the name of Jesus were filled with the Holy Ghost.

18 And many of them saw and heard unspeakable things, which are not lawful to be written.

19 And they taught, and did minister one to another; and they had all things common among them, every man dealing justly, one with another.

20 And it came to pass that they did do all things even as Jesus had commanded them.

21 And they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ.

- III Nephi 26, 17-21

All the best.

[Glenn101]

Once again, I have to object to the way you phrased this. The witnesses stated that the Spalding manuscript they were exposed to was generally not a religious text but was rather a history of the Nephites and Lamanites. The Oberlin manuscript is generally not a religious text, but does contain religious material and even a chapter on religion and contains nothing about Nephites and Lamanites. Hence, I conclude that when the witnesses refer to religious material, they are referring to the religious controversies in New York Pennsylvania and Ohio in the decade or so prior to the publication of the BOM summed up well by Alexander Campbell, who, being a part of the controversy, was well qualified to recognize it.

Objection observed. The manuscript they were referring to was generally not a religious text, which fits the description of the Oberlin manuscript. Your conclusion concerning religious material is not warranted from the evidence. The witnesses were quite mistaken about the Lamanites and Nephites. No second manuscript is fatal.

How about miracles? Are there any such beasts in the BOM? You mention another:

Well uh.... actually he did... and not surprisingly right where Jockers predicts it should be:

All the best.

Nailed me on that one. However the events that transpired later where people stopped living that principle agrees more with Campbell than Rigdon.

4 Nephi 25 And from that time forth they did have their goods and their substance no more common among them.

Rigdon would have had that continue to the bitter end.

Glenn

[4truth]

Glenn:

Nailed me on that one

Yeah, I couldn't believe you wrote it, but thanks for being a good sport about it.

Earlier you wrote:

No one knows for sure what happened, but I think it was likely both Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek and Manuscript Found were recovered by Hurlbut.

Please provide evidence to support that conclusion. If Hurlbut had obtained a second manuscript with those names in it, he would have trumpeted it to the world. He would have published the book himself rather than give the credit to E.D. Howe.

However, back to Matilda Spalding McKinstry, the daughter. She saw only one manuscript in that trunk large enough to be the genesis of a novel.

First, note that I qualified that statement with: "No one knows for sure what happened, but I think..." ...okay... we're clear on that, right?

So then given that, observe:

The Mormon mystery developed. -- Doct. P. Hurlbert, 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 surprise of all in this region who know the character of the leaders in the bungling imposition, seems already to have 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.

Wayne Sentinel, Dec. 20, 1833

Now, here's the deal... Hurlbut has done his interviews and finally gets to the trunk. Can you imagine the moment? This is what he's been searching for for months. What does he find?

This is the first press release we have after that momentous occasion, given in New York at the end of 1833. According to that release, Hurlbut "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."

You think if all Hurlbut has is Manuscript Story Conneaut Creek he is going to put out a press release indicating (with confidence!) 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"? and that "The original manuscript of the Book was written some thirty years since..." ? Stop and think about what actually happened... (to paraphrase)

Hurlbut returns to Kirtland and immediately starts lecturing on his findings.

He shows the manuscripts and affidavits to the committee who had hired him and according to Briggs, they were satisfied that Hurlbut had indeed accomplished his mission and had the correct manuscript because it had the right names on it!

In the ensuing excitement, Hurlbut gets into a scuffle with Joseph Smith apparently threatening to wash his hands in Smith's blood or some such thing eventually resulting in a trail that comes out in Smith's favor.

From that point on, Hurlbut's demeanor changes dramatically. He loses the trial, hands everything over to Howe, marries a Mormon, leaves town and eventually settles on a previously Mormon owned farm.

He gives Howe the Roman Story and we never hear from Hurlbut again except for a few cryptic responses to the questions of later investigators.

He claims that he did not read the manuscript he pulled from the trunk until he got home! He claims to know nothing more.

Either the guy is the most incompetent bungler in history, or there is more to the story than he is letting on.

All the best.

[TAO]

Not to be contentious or anything, but...

Aren't you guys remembering that Rigdon didn't know of the Book of Mormon at the time of it's publication... in fact, it had been published several years before he met the missionary that introduced him to the church.