Tad Callister: A Case for the Book of Mormon

[Kevin Christensen]

On 10/19/2019 at 4:34 PM, Gervin said:

I believe it is part of the case against the Book of Mormon.  

BTW, besides Henry Lake, other family friends provided affidavits about Joseph and the Smith family.  Interesting reading.

Not a particularly good case.  (I have read it).  For instance, from John Gee, The Wrong Type of Book:

Quote

The nineteen-century concern with Latin and imitating is style and speech and writing is partly a product of the educational system of the time.  Reverend Spaulding's manuscript reflects this penchant for Latinate expression.  In Latin the term inquit, meaning "he said" or "she said," is placed after the first word of a quotation. Because Latin grammar was a model for English grammar, quotations that mimicked the inquit form became a point of good English style. Reverend Spaulding was trained in this, so it is not surprising that "Manuscript Found" typically introduces quotation in that following manner:

"I am not[,] says he, my most excellent father, I am not mistaken"

"I am[,] quoth he to himself, honored above all the other princes of the empire."

Further on, Gee observes that the complete absence of "and it came to pass" from the "Manuscript Found" shows that Henry Lake was lying when he says "I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding that the frequent use of 'And it came to pass,' 'Now it came to pass' rendered it [Spaulding's manuscript] ridiculous."

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/27/

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Edited October 30, 2019 by Kevin Christensen
typo

[Gervin]

On 10/29/2019 at 11:55 AM, Kevin Christensen said:

Not a particularly good case.  (I have read it).  For instance, from John Gee, The Wrong Type of Book:

Further on, Gee observes that the complete absence of "and it came to pass" from the "Manuscript Found" shows that Henry Lake was lying when he says "I well recollect telling Mr. Spaulding that the frequent use of 'And it came to pass,' 'Now it came to pass' rendered it [Spaulding's manuscript] ridiculous."

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/mi/27/

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

Sort of strange thing to lie about, don’t you think?  He reads the Book of Mormon, sees an exaggerated use of a phrase, then makes up a lie about seeing the same overuse from another book?  What possible motivation do you think he had?

[OGHoosier]

5 hours ago, Gervin said:

Sort of strange thing to lie about, don’t you think?  He reads the Book of Mormon, sees an exaggerated use of a phrase, then makes up a lie about seeing the same overuse from another book?  What possible motivation do you think he had?

Seems like a strange thing to lie about unless one was already inclined to lie regarding the Book of Mormon. The ubiquity of "and it came to pass" in the Book of Mormon is pretty distinctive and is prominent as one of the major parallelomania triggers. Seems like as good a subject of a lie as any.

That said, I don't know enough about Henry Lake to accuse him of lying, and so I won't. He could simply be making a mistake in recollection, he could have been misquoted, or maybe Spaulding listened and deleted all the "and it came to pass." I don't know and it doesn't particularly matter. What we do know is that there is no "now it came to pass" in Manuscript Found, so either Spaulding listened to Lake's criticism and edited it out of the manuscript or the conversation did not happen as Lake describes it.