Joe Smidt [sic] the "Glass-Looker"

[Alf O'Mega]

In responding to Alf's comments, the theory at its core goes something like this (my comments here do not suggest that I find these individual points to be accurate).

The Gold Plates were a treasure. They were buried. They had a Guardian Spirit. Captain Kidd was a pirate who buried treasure. He spent a lot of time in the Comoros Islands. He must have buried some treasure in the Comoros Islands. Perhaps near the village of Moroni. Thus, the Gold Plates are buried in the Hill Cumorah by Moroni as a reflection of some story about Captain Kidd.

Just to be clear, my comments were only intended to establish that the idea of treasure slipping away through the earth is associated with the Book of Mormon and its origin story. It's not something you hear much about anymore, which is why it can be disorienting to people who encounter it for the first time after being raised on the Sunday School version.

[Benjamin McGuire]

One interesting thing that your biographical note fails to mention about Jason Rockwood Orton is that towards the end of his life he was a fairly prominent spiritualist. I suppose I will have to look around for some of those writings.

Confidential Experiences of a Spiritualist looks like it could be an interesting read. Also his article "Mr. Davis and the Old Testament" ... this particular story here - the Glass-Looker seems like such a mockery (which it probably is) but it seems that in his later life he seriously considered related issues.

Ben M.

[Mike Reed]

So are you going to answer my simple questions, or not?

Hamblin: It [the map]mentions that the small village of Meroni is on the Anjouan island, right?

Me: Does it? Not that it matters much, but it seems to me that the name marks an anchorage point on Anjouan

[Mike Reed]

It is a fictional story, published in a volume of fiction.

How can you be so sure? Is it all fiction, or just parts of it? Which parts?

What an interesting point you make here. What was it, do you think, about Prevost's book Histoire Generale Des Voyages that grabbed Joseph's attention?

I didn

[noel00]

I think another interesting name is "mormon" which Wes Walters says in his Mth meant "frightening". The word was used in bird books at the time refering to Puffin birds with such title as "Mormon Articus" http://web4.audubon.org/bird/boa/F44_G1c.html and http://www.wkonline.com/d/Mormon.html

[Mike Reed]

I want to repeat something I posted on another thread because it is relevant here. This is an excerpt from Alexander Lindey's book Plagiarism and Originality. Here are his nine vices of using parallels:

Yes. You have a habit of copy-pasting this list, I see. Remember Rick Grunder's response to it recently? Remember my comment to you? About how you claimed to have read Rick Grunder's entire 2000+ paged book (unbelievable, I might say), and yet paid no attention to the book's title page which explained that it was a "Bibliographic Source." {chuckle} How many bibliographic sources provide the sort of in-depth detailed scholarly analysis that you were demanding from Rick?

You similarly joust windmills in this thread, as you pretend to rebut my comments as though I had tried to prove Huggin's theory. Wrong again. I merely provided what has been asked for: a source pre-dating 1830 showing both names "Moroni" and "Comoro" together. I provided it after a mere day

[Benjamin McGuire]

Mike Reed writes:

How can you be so sure? Is it all fiction, or just parts of it? Which parts?

It seems to be all fiction. But that isn't the point, is it. It was included in a volume of fiction - that is, it was published as fiction. So whether or not some of it is based on fact is to some extent quite irrelevant. It would be interesting perhaps to use it to see what accounts the author was drawing from when he wrote it, but I think that its safe to say that he wrote it as fiction.

I didn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Mike Reed writes:

Yes. You have a habit of copy-pasting this list, I see. Remember Rick Grunder's response to it recently? Remember my comment to you? About how you claimed to have read Rick Grunder's entire 2000+ paged book (unbelievable, I might say), and yet paid no attention to the book's title page which explained that it was a "Bibliographic Source." {chuckle} How many bibliographic sources provide the sort of in-depth detailed scholarly analysis that you were demanding from Rick?

Yeah, my formal response to Grunder's work is well under way.

In response to your question, most of them do when dealing with authorship attribution. This is why I have significant issues with Grunder (and with you here) and with the Spalding proponents. Its not like this notion exists in some kind of vacuum. We have lots of material to work with, lots of criteria. There were some rather lengthy debates on the subject a hundred years ago which is when the basic premise of the two column format (which is a name for the process and not so much a visual description) was thrown out and most of the arguments based on it in the 18th and 19th century were discredited.

I have a lot to say about Grunder's introduction. But, let me give you an example of what is in Grunder's book. Three of his five hundred parallels are maps of Africa. The only parallel he produces from those maps is the word Comoros - related to this topic here. Now, Grunder isn't the originator of this argument. He doesn't reference Buchanan's work. When he talks about using books that he has owned, its a rather clever way of dealing with several problems that he doesn't want to deal with - but which he needs to, if his work is going to be taken seriously. So, he read Buchanan's article and then acquired some copies of related maps - which he then produces as parallels. Now, there is no mention of Moroni in his book (he couldn't find a map of Grand Comore in the right time frame with the city on it either). So he just leaves it at Comoros. Which is all well and good. But, the parallel in a single word which isn't even identical isn't a parallel that shows any kind of justification. We might as well ask why he didn't also use maps of Spain or maps of Hungary, or any other maps at all with a word similar to that one. Why? Because no one has yet formally made that suggestion. It is a flawed argument. Of course, in a single word, we are no longer talking really about an environmental issue. It's like Grant Palmer trying to assert that even though Joseph Smith encountered the Golden Pot, not through reading a text but through someone retelling him the story, that the phrase "green sward" represents some kind of significant parallel between the text of the Golden Pot and Joseph's own discovery narrative. That is, the only way these parallels make sense is by recognizing that Grunder is suggesting derivation and by extension that the Book of Mormon is a work of fiction (a notion which he wisely minimized in his 2008 book, but which he certainly didn't in his earlier self-published book on the same topic). And I suspect that Grunder has intentionally accumulated some texts for this project - that is, he has gone out of his way to find texts that others have alleged have a connection with the Book of Mormon and the writings of Joseph Smith.

I liked one parallel where he compared a statement alleged to be from Joseph Smith. Here is his source from an author named William Alcott:

Some of our students in commons and elsewhere, suppose themselves highly meritorious because they have adopted the plan of appointing one of their number to read to the company, while the rest are eating. But they are sadly mistaken. Nothing is gained by the practice. On the contrary, much is lost by it. The bow cannot always remain bent, without injury. Neither can the mind always be kept 'toned' to a high pitch. Mind and body must and will have their relaxations.

Here is the "Mormon Parallel":

". . . I have played ball with him [Joseph Smith] many times in Nauvoo. He was preaching once, and he said it tried some of the pious folks to see him play ball with the boys. He then related a story of a certain prophet who was sitting under the shade of a tree amusing himself in some way, when a hunter came along with his bow and arrow, and reproved him. The prophet asked him if he kept his bow strung up all the time. The hunter answered that he did not. The prophet asked why, and he said it would lose its elasticity if he did. The prophet said it was just so with his mind, he did not want it strung up all the time. . . . ["]

The parts that Grunder highlighted should be obvious. Now, are the texts related? Absolutely. Could the Mormon text have come from the Alcott text? Never in a million years. What connects them is a traditional story - the earliest known version that we have (although I suspect it too is not original) in the apocryphal Acts of John and the writings of St. Cassius (360-435 AD). R. Alan Culpepper, in his John, the son of Zebedee: the life of a legend (2000), provides a nice summary of the story (p. 196):

John was stroking a partridge when a hunter appeared and expressed surprise that the great apostle was amusing himself in this way. John asked the hunter why he did not keep his bow strung all the time, and the hunter answered that if he did so, it would soon be weakened from the constant strain. John replied that just in the same way, the mind needs to relax from time to time.

Cassian

[Bill Hamblin]

I have no objection to the claim that it is possible that JS got the names Cumorah and Moroni from a French map. ANYTHING is possible.

- It is possible that JS learned Yoruba mythology from an African Shaman.

- It is possible that JS learned of the Tibetan Book of the Dead from a Tibetan lama.

- It is possible that JS was learned Tantric Yoga from a Hindu Guru.

- It is possible that space aliens gave JS the golden plates.

None of these claims can be disproven. But, of course, there isn't the slightest bit of evidence for any of them. It is POINTLESS to argue about possibility.

So as to the Comoros-Moroni claim:

Negative

- Moroni was not the capital of the Comoros Islands in JS's day; it was a small village or anchorage. (Implied by the fact that Mike did not produce a map of the Moroni site on the Grand Comoros island is the likelihood that the village Moroni is not found on the Grand Comoros island, right Mike?)

- Standard English gazetteers don't mention Moroni.

- The Captain Kidd literature doesn't mention Moroni.

- The vast majority of contemporary maps (examined by Mike--though he won't tell us how many) don't mention Moroni.

- Early Mormon literature never once mentions Captain Kidd or the Comoros Islands, despite the alleged great interest or even obsession of JS with the topic.

Positive

There is ONE sixty year old French map with a minuscule anchorage named Meroni.

But, alas, JS did not speak French. The fact that this is the only map Mike could find with a site named Meroni on it is, in fact, evidence against the claim.

So, while it is possible that JS plagiarized the names Cumorah and Moroni from this French map, it is not a reasonable possibility. I never said it wasn't possible. I said there is no evidence for the claim. It is preposterous. And, despite all of Mike's bluster, there is still no evidence. (By the way, rhetorical posturing is not evidence.)

To have a rational discussion we must move beyond the fallacy of the possible proof. Mike refuses to do so. So I'm done discussing the issue with him.

[bjw]

I think the whole issue here is the "slippery treasure" motif, in that it supposedly connects the BoM to a 19th century origin. The "slippery treasure" motif was also associated with Captian Kidd, so if we can associate Joseph Smith with Captian Kidd, we could possibly prove the BoM has a 19th century origin. Now, the names Moroni and Camora are also associated with Captain Kidd.

So, is there more ancient motifs in the Book of Mormon than 19th century ones (ex. Antimasonic rhetoric, slippery treasures, etc.) because if the number of 19th century motifs outnumber the ancient motifs then we can declare the BoM to be 19th century origin. However, if there are more ancient motifs, then we can declare these are coincidence.

I was talking to my grandmother about this yesterday, and she had an idea that maybe JS wrote in the slippery treasure thing as a tribute to his treasure digging days, just as a little addition to the Nephite record, but the remainder of the BoM is authentic and inspired. I never thought of it like that but I guess it is maybe possible, since the book itself says if there are mistakes they are the mistakes of men.

[Bill Hamblin]

I think the whole issue here is the "slippery treasure" motif, in that it supposedly connects the BoM to a 19th century origin. The "slippery treasure" motif was also associated with Captian Kidd, so if we can associate Joseph Smith with Captian Kidd, we could possibly prove the BoM has a 19th century origin. Now, the names Moroni and Camora are also associated with Captain Kidd.

As Ben has demonstrated, Moroni is, in fact, no where associated with Captain Kidd. (Or, at least, no one has yet found such a link.)

Magic treasure is a universal folk lore. (Ever read Aladdin or Ali Baba?) Therefore, its evidentiary value of trying to identify a particular cultural background for the BOM is basically nil, since you will find it in every culture you compare the BOM with.