manuscript of Solomon Spaulding will probably have to be
relinquished. That manuscript is doubtless now in the possession
of Mr. L. L. Rice, of Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, formerly an
anti-slavery editor in Ohio, and for many years state printer at
Columbus. During a recent visit to Honolulu, I suggested to Mr.
Rice that he might have valuable anti-slavery documents in his
possession which he would be willing to contribute to the rich
collection already in the Oberlin College library. In pursuance of
this suggestion Mr. Rice began looking over his old pamphlets and
papers, and at length came upon an old, worn, and faded manuscript
of about one hundred and seventy-five pages, small quarto,
purporting to be a history of the migrations and conflicts of the
ancient Indian tribes which occupied the territory now belonging
to the states of New York, Ohio, and Kentucky. On the last page of
this manuscript is a certificate and signature giving the names of
several persons known to the signer, who have assured him that,
to their personal knowledge, the manuscript was the writing of
Solomon Spaulding. Mr. Rice has no recollection how or when this
manuscript came into his possession. It was enveloped in a coarse
piece of wrapping paper and endorsed in Mr. Rice's handwriting, "A
Manuscript Story."
There seems to be no reason to doubt that this is the long-lost
story. Mr. Rice himself and others compared it with the Book of
Mormon and could detect no resemblance between the two, in general
or in detail. There seems to be no name or incident common to the
two. The solemn style of the Book of Mormon, in imitation of the
English scriptures, does not appear in the manuscript. The only
resemblance is the fact that both profess to set forth the history
of lost tribes. Some other explanation of the origin of the Book of
Mormon must be found if any explanation is required.
JAMES H. FAIRCHILD.
The means now of ascertaining whether the Book of Mormon came from
Spaulding's manuscript was completed. A _verbatim et literatim_
transcript was obtained from Mr. L. L. Rice by President Joseph F.
Smith, who in 1884 and 1885 was residing in the Sandwich Islands.
This, in 1886, was published by the "Deseret News" exactly according
to the transcript, with all its errors of grammar and orthography, as
also with all the alterations, erasures, etc., made by its author,
indicated. After a careful examination of it, I think everybody will
come to the same conclusion that President Fairchild did: namely, that
there is "no resemblance between the two, in general or in detail.
There seems to be no name or incident common to the two--a fact that
completely explodes the theory that Spaulding's manuscript was the
origin of the Book of Mormon. Mr. Rice is of the same opinion as
President Fairchild, though more emphatic in the expression of it. He
says:
I should as soon think the Book of Revelation was written by the
author of "Don Quixote," as that the writer of this manuscript was
the author of the Book of Mormon.
Then in a postscript to the letter from which the above is a quotation,
he says:
Upon reflection, since writing the foregoing, I am of the opinion
that no one who reads this manuscript will give credit to the story
that Solomon Spaulding was in any wise the author of the Book of
Mormon. It is unlikely that any one who wrote so elaborate a work
as the Mormon Bible would spend his time in getting up so shallow
a story as this, which at best is but a feeble imitation of the
other. Finally I am more than half convinced that this is his only
writing of the sort, and that any pretense that Spaulding was in
any sense the author of the other is a sheer fabrication. It was
easy for anybody who may have seen this, or heard anything of its
contents, to get up the story that they were identical.
Subsequently and in another letter he said:
My opinion is, from all I have seen and learned, that this is the
only writing of Spaulding, and there is no foundation for the
statement of Deming and others that Spaulding made another story,
more elaborate, of which several copies were written, one of which
Rigdon stole from a printing office in Pittsburg, etc. [19]
Mr. Rice finally deposited the original Spaulding manuscript with the
Oberlin College, where it now lies secure for the inspection of the
curious, and a standing refutation to the extravagant claims that have
been made respecting the part it played in the origin of the Book of
Mormon.
Let us now review the course of those who originated this Spaulding
theory, and foister it upon the world. It was evidently conceived
by "Doctor" Philastus Hurlburt, the enemy of the Prophet Joseph and
of Mormonism. He had heard of Spaulding's writings in Pennsylvania,
also at Conneaut, Ohio, and in his hatred of Mormonism determined to
show some connection between the writings of Spaulding and the Book
of Mormon, in the hope of destroying faith in the divine origin of
the latter. He appealed to other enemies of the Prophet, and with
their financial assistance started out to collect affidavits and
statements that would prove his theory. Hurlburt, under Mrs. Davison's
order, as already seen, obtained Spaulding's story "The Manuscript
Found," undoubtedly the identical story which Spaulding had read to
his neighbors on Conneaut Creek. This is proved by the fact that the
document which Hurlburt turned over to Howe [20] corresponds with every
description that is given concerning the size and character of the
manuscript.
Mrs. Davison, in her conversation with Jesse Haven, declares that
the manuscript would be "about one-third as large as the Book of
Mormon" [21] (that is, would produce about one-third of the printed
matter in that book.)
Mrs. McKinstry, in describing "Manuscript Found" which she had in
her hands many times, says that the manuscript was "about one inch
thick, and closely written." This agrees closely with the statement
of Mrs. Davison on the subject. Mr. Howe, in his book, declares that
the "Manuscript Found" in Mrs. Spaulding Davison's trunk was "in
Spaulding's hand writing, containing about one quire of paper." [22]
All witnesses who came in contact with this manuscript story declare
that the title of it was "The Manuscript Found;" or "Manuscript Found."
This is the statement of nearly all the witnesses on Conneaut Creek,
whose testimony appears in Howe's "Mormonism," and that it contained
the names of "Nephi," "Lehi," "Mormon," "Lamanites," etc., and was
based on the theory that the American Indians were the "Lost tribes
of Israel." But when Hurlburt returned to Conneaut with this precious
"Manuscript Found," according to Howe's own statement, it was not at
all what it had been represented to be. Howe says of the manuscript:
This is a romance purporting to have been translated from the
Latin found on 24 rolls of parchment in a cave on the banks of
Conneaut Creek, but written in modern style, and giving a fabulous
account of a ship's being driven upon the American coast while
proceeding from Rome to Britain a short time previous to the
Christian era; this country then being inhabited by the Indians.
This old manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing
witnesses, [23] who recognize it as Spaulding's.
The foregoing accurately describes the "Manuscript Found," since
obtained of Mr. L. L. Rice and published; and by both its title and
its size is identified to be the manuscript read by Spaulding to his
neighbors.
This manuscript must have been a very great disappointment to the
conspirators against the Book of Mormon. They had staked their all on
the fact of Spaulding's "Manuscript Found" being the foundation matter
of the Book of Mormon, but when found it proved to be so dissimilar
that they could not, with any face, undertake to maintain that this
manuscript was the source whence the Book of Mormon was derived. What
must be done to meet this dilemma? That those who had gone this far in
opposing the work of God would repent of their folly, and admit their
defeat would be too much to expect. No; instead of doing that they
resorted to the following subterfuge. I quote Howe:
This manuscript has been shown to several of the foregoing
witnesses who recognize it as Spaulding's, he having told them that
he had altered his first plan of writing, by going farther back
with dates, and writing in the old scripture style, in order that
it might appear more ancient. They say that it bears no resemblance
to the "Manuscript Found." [24]
Two things, in this statement, are extremely unfortunate for the
reputation of Mr. Howe, and those who have been beguiled into accepting
the theory of his book respecting the origin of the Book of Mormon:
First: The fact that in none of the statements of the witnesses who
heard Mr. Spaulding read his manuscript is there any account of his
having made two drafts of his story, one which he found too modern
to suit the antiquities of America, and written in modern style; and
the other going farther back in time and written in the old scripture
style, in order to make it appear more ancient. All this seems to have
been an after thought, a subterfuge, when it was learned that "The
Manuscript Found" did not warrant the theory that it was the foundation
of the Book of Mormon. The things it is here claimed were said by these
Conneaut witnesses concerning a second Spaulding Manuscript on American
antiquities, are not said _by_ them, but _for_ them by Mr. Howe.
Second: That Mr. Howe himself wickedly conceals the fact that this
old Roman story of Spaulding's was labeled "Manuscript Found;" and in
addition to concealing that fact declares that the witnesses say "that
it bears no resemblance to the "Manuscript Found," when, as a matter of
fact, this Roman story itself was the "Manuscript Found." Comment is
unnecessary; a bare statement of the facts expose the villainy of these
conspirators. [25]
Relative to the manner in which it is supposed the Spaulding manuscript
came into the hands of Joseph Smith, the theories differ. Howe supposes
that Lambdin, alleged partner of Patterson in the printing business at
Pittsburg, placed in the hands of Sidney Rigdon the "Manuscript Found,"
to be "embellished, altered, and added to as he might think expedient"
to transform it into what is now the Book of Mormon. [26] When Howe put
forth this theory, Lambdin had been dead some eight years. [27]
Query: Did Howe select this dead man as the medium through which the
Spaulding manuscript reached the hands of Sidney Rigdon, and thence
to Joseph Smith, for the reason that the dead man could not arise to
contradict it? We shall see that Patterson contradicted it when that
gentleman was appealed to in order to confirm his connection with
Sidney Rigdon.
The Rev. John Storrs, in the bogus signed statement he put forth as
coming from Mrs. Davison, represents her as saying that Rigdon became
acquainted with Spaulding's manuscript "and copied it," and that this
was a "matter of notoriety and interest to all connected with the
printing establishment." According to this "Davison Statement," the
manuscript was returned to Mr. Spaulding before he left Pittsburg
for Amity (where he died), and that the manuscript after this was
"carefully preserved" by Mrs. Spaulding, until delivered to Hurlburt,
in 1834.
Rev. Clark Braden, a Campbellite minister, in a protracted debate on
the Book of Mormon in Kirtland, 1884, declares that Sidney Rigdon stole
the Spaulding manuscript and that Mrs. (Spaulding) Davison--he should
have said rather the Rev. John Storrs, the real author of the "Davison
Statement"--was mistaken in saying that Rigdon "copied it" and returned
the original to Mr. Spaulding. [28]
Mrs. McKenstry's affidavit on the subject, published in Scribner's for
August, 1880, says he (Solomon Spaulding) loaned the manuscript to Mr.
Patterson; that he read it and returned it to its author, with the
suggestion that he "polish it up and finish it," and that he might make
money out of it; but when Mr. Patterson was appealed to for information
on the subject he said he had "no recollection of any such manuscript
being brought there (i. e., to his establishment in Pittsburg) for
publication." [29]
Mrs. Ellen E. Dickinson, grand-niece of Solomon Spaulding and the
author of "New Light on Mormonism," holds that the Spaulding manuscript
remained safely in the hands of the family until turned over to
Hurlburt. At this point she thinks several things may have befallen
the manuscript. One, that Hurlburt "sold the manuscript to the Mormons
for a sum of money which he used in purchasing a farm near Gibonsburg,
Ohio, where he now [1880] resides; and that the Mormons burned the
manuscript at Conneaut." Another, that "Hurlburt sold it with a sworn
agreement that it should not be given to the world until after his
death." Then she concludes:
There are circumstances which support both theories; but the
author's opinion, after a careful study of the matter, is, that
Hurlburt made a copy of the original manuscript, which he sold to
E. D. Howe, of Painsville, to use in writing the book "Mormonism
Unveiled," and sold the original to the Mormons, who destroyed it.
The life of Hurlburt since his return from his errand of duplicity
to Munson shows conclusively that he wishes to hide himself from
the world, and that he is burdened with a secret which he does not
intend shall come to light through any act or revelation of his
own. [30] * * * Beyond a shadow of doubt Hurlburt, after getting
the genuine Spaulding romance at Munson, destroyed it or saw it
destroyed by the Mormons at Conneaut, in 1834, after his being paid
for his share of this transaction. [31]
This theory Mrs. Davison maintains throughout her book with something
more than a half hysterical style meant to be very sensational.
Thus these originators and promulgators of the Spaulding theory,
having started with conjecture and falsehood, go on varying, changing,
and patching up their story until they are involved in innumerable
inconsistencies and contradictions, which constantly makes more
apparent the absurdity of this attempt to construct a counter theory
for the origin of the Book of Mormon to that given by Joseph Smith.
The theory, however, fails by dint of its own inconsistencies, and
by the discovery and publication of the manuscript with which the
theory started; and that in another way, and in addition to the fact
that there is no incident, or name, or set of ideas, common to the
two productions. The publication of the "Manuscript Found" not only
demonstrates that this particular manuscript was not the foundation
of the Book of Mormon, but it demonstrates, also, that no other
writings of Solomon Spaulding's could possibly be the Book of Mormon.
Spaulding's manuscript, as published, makes a pamphlet of some 112
pages, of about 350 words to the page, enough matter to give a clear
idea of his literary style. I am sure that no person, having any
literary judgment will think it possible for the author of "Manuscript
Found" to be the author of the Book of Mormon. Composition in writers
becomes individualized as distinctly as the looks, or appearance, or
character, of separate individuals; and they can no more write in
several styles than individuals can impersonate different characters.
True, by special efforts this latter may be done to a limited extent
by a change of tone, costume and the like, but underneath these
impersonations is to be seen the real individual; and so with authors.
One may sometimes affect a light, and sometimes a serious vein, in
prose and poetry. He may imitate a solemn scriptural style or the
diction of some Greek or Roman author, but underneath it all will be
seen the individuality of the writer from which he cannot separate
himself any more than he can separate himself from his true form,
features, or character. Since we have in this "Manuscript Found" enough
of Mr. Spaulding's style to determine its nature, if this manuscript of
his was used either as the foundation or the complete work of the Book
of Mormon, we should be able to detect Spauldingisms in it; identity
of style would be apparent; but these things are entirely absent from
every page of the Book of Mormon. Mr. Rice does not overstate the
matter when he says: "I should as soon think the Book of Revelation
was written by the author of "Don Quixote," as that the writer of this
manuscript was the author of the Book of Mormon." And again, he is
right when he says: "It is unlikely that any one who wrote so elaborate
a work as the Mormon Bible would spend his time in getting up so
shallow a story as this"--the Spaulding Story.
Another point at which the Spaulding theory goes to pieces is in the
utter inability of its advocates to bring together the parties to
the conspiracy in which the Book of Mormon is supposed to have had
its origin. They fail even to bring Joseph Smith in contact with the
Spaulding manuscript; they also fail to connect Sidney Rigdon with
the manuscript; they fail to bring together Joseph Smith and Sidney
Rigdon, previous to the publication of the Book of Mormon. In all these
things, vital to the maintenance of their theory, they fail. Joseph
Smith and Sidney Rigdon, until after the publication of the Book of
Mormon, are from 200 to 300 miles apart, with no means of communication
or of collaboration, which would be necessary if the Spaulding theory
were correct. Of the necessary extent and greatness of this conspiracy,
Elder George Reynolds justly remarks:
Whole families must have been engaged in it. Men of all ages and
various conditions in life, and living in widely separate portions
of the country must have been connected with it. First, we must
include in the catalogue of conspirators the whole of the Smith
family, then the Whitmers, Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery;
further, to carry out this absurd idea, Sidney Rigdon and Parley
P. Pratt must have been their active fellow-conspirators in
arranging, carrying out and consummating their iniquitous fraud.
To do this they must have traveled thousands of miles and spent
months, perhaps years, to accomplish--what? That is the unsolved
problem. Was it for the purpose of duping the world? They, at any
rate the great majority of them, were of all men most unlikely to
be engaged in such a folly. Their habits, surroundings, station
in life, youth and inexperience all forbid such a thought. What
could they gain, in any light that could be then presented to
their minds, by palming such a deception upon the world? This is
another unanswerable question. Then comes the staggering fact,
if the book be a falsity, that all these families, all these
diverse characters, in all the trouble, perplexity, persecution
and suffering through which they passed, never wavered in their
testimony, never changed their statements, never "went back" on
their original declarations, but continued unto death, and they
have all passed away (save a very few), proclaiming that the Book
of Mormon was a divine revelation, and that its record was true.
Was there ever such an exhibition in the history of the world of
such continued, such unabating, such undeviating falsehood if
falsehood it was? We cannot find a place in the annals of their
lives where they wavered, and what makes the matter more remarkable
is that it can be said of most of them, as is elsewhere said of
the three witnesses, they became offended with the Prophet Joseph,
and a number of them openly rebelled against him; but they never
retracted one word with regard to the genuineness of Mormon's
inspired record. Whether they were friends or foes to Joseph,
whether they regarded him as God's continued mouthpiece or as a
fallen Prophet, they still persisted in their statements with
regard to the book and the veracity of their earlier testimonies.
How can we possibly, with our knowledge of human nature, make
this undeviating, unchanging, unwavering course, continuing
over fifty years consistent with a deliberate, premeditated and
cunningly-devised and executed fraud! [32]
III.
_The Sidney Rigdon Theory_.
It will be seen, by those who have followed us through the treatise on
the Spaulding Theory, that Sidney Rigdon is considered a factor in that
supposed scheme. It is generally thought that it was he who supplied
the religious matter of the book, and who determined the parts of the
Hebrew scripture that should be interwoven in its alleged historical
parts. Such prominence, in fact, is given to Sidney Rigdon in bringing
forth the Book of Mormon that I decided to consider his connection with
it under this separate heading.
Mr. Sidney Rigdon always, and most emphatically, denied the story of
his connection with Patterson and his printing establishment. In the
January number (1836) of the "Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate"
he denounces Howe's book and those who advocated it. Referring to Mr.
Scott, Mr. Campbell and other professed ministers of the gospel, he
said:
In order to avoid investigation this brotherhood will condescend
to mean, low subterfuges, to which a noble-minded man would never
condescend; no, he would suffer martyrdom first. Witness Mr.
Campbell's recommendation of Howe's book, while he knows, as well
as every person who reads it, that it is a batch of falsehoods.
Later, in a letter to Messrs. Bartlett and Sullivan, written from
Commerce (afterwards Nauvoo), May 27, 1839, in a communication called
forth by the publication of the bogus statement purporting to come from
Mrs. Davison and published by the Rev. John Storrs, Elder Rigdon said:
Commerce, May 27, 1839. Messrs. Bartlett and Sullivan:--In your
paper of the 18th instant, I see a letter signed my somebody
calling herself Matilda Davison, pretending to give the origin of
Mormonism, as she is pleased to call it, by relating a moonshine
story about a certain Solomon Spaulding, a creature with the
knowledge of whose earthly existence I am entirely indebted to this
production; for, surely, until Dr. Philastus Hurlburt informed
me that such a being lived, at some former period, I had not the
most distant knowledge of his existence; and all I know about his
character is the opinion I form from what is attributed to his wife
in obtruding my name upon the public in the manner in which she is
said to have done, by trying to make the public believe that I had
knowledge of the ignorant, and, according to her own testimony, the
lying scribblings of her deceased husband; for if her testimony is
to be credited, her pious husband, in his lifetime, wrote a bundle
of lies for the righteous purpose of getting money. How many lies
he had told for the same purpose, while he was preaching, she has
not so kindly informed us; but we are at liberty to draw our own
conclusions, for he that would write lies to get money, would also
preach lies for the same object. This being the only information
which I have, or ever had, of the said Rev. Solomon Spaulding, I,
of necessity, have but a very light opinion of him as a gentleman,
a scholar, or a man of piety, for had he been either, he certainly
would have taught his pious wife not to lie, nor unite herself with
adulterers, liars, and the basest of mankind.
It is only necessary to say, in relation to the whole story about
Spaulding's writings being in the hands of Mr. Patterson, who was
in Pittsburg, and who is said to have kept a printing office, and
my saying that I was concerned in the said office, etc., is the
most base of lies, without even a shadow of truth. There was no man
by the name of Patterson, during my residence at Pittsburg, who had
a printing office; what might have been before I lived there I know
not. Mr. Robert Patterson, I was told, had owned a printing office
before I lived in that city, but had been unfortunate in business,
and failed before my residence there. This Mr. Patterson, who was a
Presbyterian preacher, I had a very slight acquaintance with during
my residence in Pittsburg. He was then acting under an agency, in
the book and stationery business, and was the owner of no property
of any kind, printing office or anything else, during the time I
resided in the city. [33]
One can but regret the tone and coarseness of this letter of Sidney
Rigdon's, but it cannot be denied but that it is a very emphatic
contradiction of the charge that he was connected with the Spaulding
manuscript theory of the Book of Mormon's origin, and it is very
natural that a man of the nervous, irritable temperament of Sidney
Rigdon would be very much vexed at connecting him with such a theory.
On the matter of Sidney Rigdon not being connected with the origin
of the Book of Mormon we have also the statement of Oliver Cowdery,
made on his return to the Church at Kanesville (now Council Bluffs),
in October, 1848, a statement that was made in the presence of 2,000
Saints. In the course of his remarks, Oliver Cowdery then said:
I wrote, with my own pen, the entire Book of Mormon (save a few
pages) as it fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph Smith, as he
translated it by the gift and power of God, by means of the Urim
and Thummim, or, as it is called by that book, "Holy Interpreters."
I beheld with my eyes, and handled with my hands the gold plates
from which it was transcribed. I also saw with my eyes and handled
with my hands the "holy interpreters." That book is true. Sidney
Rigdon did not write it. Mr. Spaulding did not write it. I wrote it
myself as it fell from the lips of the Prophet. [34]
Parley P. Pratt, who, with Oliver Cowdery, was the first to present the
Book of Mormon to Sidney Rigdon some six months after its publication,
is also on record as denying the story of Sidney Rigdon's connection
with the origin of the Book of Mormon. When the "Davison Statement"
was copied from the "Boston Recorder" into the "New York Era," Elder
Pratt promptly denied the falsehood. The "Era" published the "Davison
Statement" on the 20th, and in its issue of the 27th Elder Pratt
published a somewhat exhaustive treatise in which the following occurs:
The piece in your paper states that "Sidney Rigdon was connected
in the printing office of Mr. Patterson" (in Pittsburg), and that
this is a fact well known in that region, and as Rigdon himself
has frequently stated. Here he had ample opportunity to become
acquainted with Mr. Spaulding's manuscript (romance) and to copy
it if he chose. This statement is utterly and entirely false. Mr.
Rigdon was never connected with the said printing establishment,
either directly or indirectly, and we defy the world to bring proof
of any such connection. * * The statement that Sidney Rigdon is one
of the founders of the said religious sect is also incorrect.
The sect was founded in the state of New York, while Mr. Rigdon
resided in Ohio, several hundred miles distant. Mr. Rigdon embraced
the doctrine through my instrumentality. I first presented the Book
of Mormon to him. I stood upon the bank of the stream while he
was baptized, and assisted to officiate in his ordination, and I
myself was unacquainted with the system until some months after its
organization, which was on the 6th of April, 1830, and I embraced
it in September following.
Again, in 1840, in a work entitled "Late Persecutions of the Church of
Jesus Christ of Later-day Saints," referring to the persecutions in
Missouri, in the course of which he also gave an account of the rise
and progress of the doctrine of the Church, Elder Pratt says, relative
to this Spaulding story:
There is one story, however, which I will notice, because some
religious journals have given some credit to it. It is the story
of Solomon Spaulding writing a romance of the ancient inhabitants
of America which is said to be converted by Mr. Sidney Rigdon into
the Book of Mormon. This is another base fabrication got up by the
devil and his servants to deceive the world. Mr. Sidney Rigdon
never saw the Book of Mormon until it had been published more than
six months; it was then presented to him by the author of this
history. [35]
From another source there is also an emphatic denial of Sidney Rigdon's
connection with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. This is the
statement of Mr. Rigdon's son, John W. Rigdon. This gentleman wrote
a somewhat extended biography of his father, Sidney Rigdon, which he
placed in its manuscript form in the Church Historian's office, at
Salt Lake City, where it is now on file. Mr. John W. Rigdon's account
of his father's connection with the Book of Mormon agrees with the
statement of Elder Pratt; and then, near the close of his narrative,
he relates his own experience in connection with Mormonism, and his
attempt to learn the truth from his father respecting the latter's
early connection with the Book of Mormon. John W. Rigdon tells of his
own visit to Utah, in 1863, where he spent the winter among the Mormon
people. He was not favorably impressed with their religious life, and
came to the conclusion that the Book of Mormon itself was a fraud. He
determined in his own heart that if ever he returned home and found
his father, Sidney Rigdon, alive, he would try and find out what he
knew of the origin of the Book of Mormon. "Although," he adds, "he had
never told but one story about it, and that was that Parley P. Pratt
and Oliver Cowdery presented him with a bound volume of that book in
the year 1830, while he (Sidney Rigdon) was preaching Campbellism
at Mentor, Ohio." What John W. Rigdon claims to have seen in Utah,
however, together with the fact that Sidney Rigdon had been charged
with writing the Book of Mormon, made him suspicious; and he remarks:
I concluded I would make an investigation for my own satisfaction
and find out, if I could, if he had all these years been deceiving
his family and the world, by telling that which was not true,
and I was in earnest about it. If Sidney Rigdon, my father, had
thrown his life away by telling a falsehood and bringing sorrow and
disgrace upon his family, I wanted to know it and was determined
to find out the facts, no matter what the consequences might be. I
reached home in the fall of 1865, found my father in good health
and (he) was very much pleased to see me. As he had not heard
anything from me for some time, he was afraid that I had been
killed by the Indians. Shortly after I had arrived home, I went to
my father's room; he was there and alone, and now was the time for
me to commence my inquiries in regard to the origin of the Book
of Mormon, and as to the truth of the Mormon religion. I told him
what I had seen at Salt Lake City, and I said to him that what I
had seen at Salt Lake had not impressed me very favorably toward
the Mormon Church, "and as to the origin of the Book of Mormon I
had some doubts." "You have been charged with writing that book
and giving it to Joseph Smith to introduce to the world. You have
always told me one story; that you never saw the book until it was
presented to you by Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery; and all you
ever knew of the origin of that book was what they told you and
what Joseph Smith and the witnesses who claimed to have seen the
plates had told you. Is this true? If so, all right; if it is not,
you owe it to me and to your family to tell it. You are an old man
and you will soon pass away, and I wish to know if Joseph Smith, in
your intimacy with him for fourteen years, has not said something
to you that led you to believe he obtained that book in some other
way than what he had told you. Give me all you know about it, that
I may know the truth." My father, after I had finished saying what
I have repeated above, looked at me a moment, raised his hand
above his head and slowly said, with tears glistening in his eyes:
"My son, I can swear before high heaven that what I have told you
about the origin of that book is true. Your mother and sister,
Mrs. Athalia Robinson, were present when that book was handed to
me in Mentor, Ohio, and all I ever knew about the origin of that
book was what Parley P. Pratt, Oliver Cowdery, Joseph Smith and
the witnesses who claimed they saw the plates have told me, and in
all of my intimacy with Joseph Smith he never told me but the one
story, and that was that he found it engraved upon gold plates in
a hill near Palmyra, New York, and that an angel had appeared to
him and directed him where to find it; and I have never, to you or
to any one else, told but the one story, and that I now repeat to
you." I believed him, and now believe he told me the truth. He also
said to me after that that Mormonism was true; that Joseph Smith
was a Prophet, and this world would find it out some day. [36]
In addition to these solemn denials of Sidney Rigdon's connection with
this Spaulding theory, we have another means of testing whether or
not Sidney Rigdon was the author of the Book of Mormon. That test is
the one already referred to when considering the difference of style
between Spaulding's manuscript story, and the Book of Mormon. We have
enough of Sidney Rigdon's writings before us to determine his literary
style; namely, in the Historian's office we have in manuscript his
description of the land of Zion, Jackson County, which he was commanded
of the Lord to write. We have a number of his communications published
in the "Evening and Morning Star," and also the "Messenger and
Advocate." In these two publications also there are thirteen articles
on the subject of the "Millennium" from his pen, and after careful
comparison of his style with that of the Book of Mormon, I do not
hesitate to say that Sidney Rigdon, not only never did, but never could
have written the Book of Mormon. There are no phrases or conceptions
in the Book of Mormon that are Sidney Rigdon's. There is nothing in
common between his style and that of the Book of Mormon. There can be
no doubt about it; Sidney Rigdon as the author of the Book of Mormon is
impossible.
IV.
_The "Joachim" fragment of the Spaulding-Rigdon Theory_.
It was reserved for William Linn, author of the "Story of the
Mormons," [37] a pretentious work of nearly 650 pages, to go "a far
way" for an additional item which, in the full pride of an author who
has made a new discovery, he adds to the Spaulding-Rigdon theory of
the Book of Mormon's origin. This new item I have called the "Joachim
Fragment of the Spaulding-Rigdon Theory." Mr. Linn, with evident pride,
makes this mention of it in the preface of his book: "The probable
service of Joachim's 'Everlasting Gospel,' as suggesting the story of
the revelation of the plates, has been hitherto overlooked." [38] In the
body of his work he thus sets forth his idea of the part played by the
"Everlasting Gospel," sometimes called by other writers, "The Eternal
Gospel," and in the thirteenth century, when it was supposed to be in
circulation among the Franciscan order of monks, it is spoken of as
"The Book of Joachim."
That the idea of the revelation (i. e., of the existence of the
Book of Mormon) as described by Smith in his autobiography was
not original is shown by the fact that a similar divine message,
engraved on plates, was announced to have been received from an
angel nearly six hundred years before the alleged visit of an angel
to Smith. These original plates were described as a copper, and
the recipient was a monk named Cyril, from whom their contents
passed into the possession of the Abbot Joachim, whose "Everlasting
Gospel," founded thereon, was offered to the church as supplanting
the New Testament, just as the New Testament had supplanted the
Old, and caused so serious a schism that Pope Alexander IV took the
severest measures against it. [39]
This description of the origin of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel"
rests upon the respectable authority of Draper, in his "Intellectual
Development of Europe." [40]
Linn's argument is to the effect that this origin of the "Everlasting
Gospel" suggested the origin of the Book of Mormon because of the
resemblance between the celestial announcement of both, and also
because that both, according to his idea of them, were declared to
have the same purport--each was to be "a forerunner of the end of the
world." He also urges the frequent use of the phrase, "Everlasting
Gospel," in the discourses of the early Elders of the Church as
evidence that there was some connection between these two things,
the Book of Mormon and "The Book of Joachim." He further holds that
Sidney Rigdon, in the course of his ecclesiastical reading would come
in contact with the story of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel;" that it
would be just such a story as would be attractive to one of Sidney
Rigdon's temperament. Linn throughout his work assumes a connection
and collaboration between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon, and claims
that the latter suggested the story of the "Book of Joachim," as the
ground-work of Joseph Smith's account of the origin of the Book of
Mormon. Our author thinks that Rigdon may even have found sufficient
matter in relation to Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel," in Mosheim's
"Ecclesiastical History," to suggest the account he induced Joseph
Smith to give of the origin of the Book of Mormon, and makes the
following quotation from Mosheim in proof of his contention:
About the commencement of this [the thirteenth] century there were
handed about in Italy several pretended prophecies of the famous
Joachim, Abbot of Sora, in Calabria, whom the multitude revered
as a person divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious
prophets of ancient times. The greatest part of these predictions
were contained in a certain book entitled, "The Everlasting
Gospel," and which was also commonly called the Book of Joachim.
This Joachim, whether a real or fictitious person we shall not
pretend to determine, among many other future events, foretold the
destruction of the Church of Rome, whose corruptions he censured
with the greatest severity, and the promulgation of a new and more
perfect gospel in the age of the Holy Ghost, by the set of poor and
austere ministers, whom God was to raise up and employ for that
purpose
It is to be observed of this passage, as indeed of all that is said by
Mosheim upon the subject, that there is no account here of an angel
revealing the existence of the Book of Joachim to Cyril, or to any one
else, which is the chief item of resemblance between Joseph Smith's
story of the origin of the Book of Mormon and the alleged origin of
"The Everlasting Gospel," as related by Draper and Linn. Indeed, in the
closing lines of the very paragraph from Mosheim which Linn quotes as
being the possible source of Sidney Rigdon's knowledge of the "Book of
Joachim," it is stated that the Franciscans who accepted Joachim's book
maintained that Saint Francis, the founder of their Order, had "spoken
to mankind the true gospel, and that he was the angel whom Saint John
saw flying in the midst of heaven;" which is quite a different account
of this matter than that given by Draper. Whether or not Sidney Rigdon
had access to the same source of information as Draper had, is, of
course, not known; but certainly Draper did not obtain the account of
the angel appearing to Cyril from Mosheim. As a matter of fact, there
is much confusion and uncertainty among authorities respecting the
origin of this "Everlasting Gospel," and some question whether such a
book was ever put forth by Joachim. The work used at the time it was
current in the thirteenth century was very often confounded with an
introduction to the so-called "Everlasting Gospel," written, as Draper
says, by John of Parma; and as others say by Gerhard, a Franciscan
friar. The celebrated Dr. Augustus Neander, in his "General History of
the Christian Religion and Church," holds to this same theory. He says:
A great sensation was now created by a commentary on the "eternal
gospel," which after the middle of the thirteenth century the
Franciscan Gerhard, who, by his zeal for Joachim's doctrines,
involved himself in many persecutions and incurred an eighteen
years' imprisonment, published under the title of "Introduction
to the Eternal Gospel." Many vague notions were entertained about
the "eternal gospel" of the Franciscans, arising from superficial
views, or a superficial understanding of Joachim's writings, and
the offspring of mere rumor of the heresy-hunting spirit. Men spoke
of the "eternal gospel" as of a book composed under this title,
and circulated among the Franciscans. Occasionally, also, this
"eternal gospel" was confounded perhaps with the above-mentioned
"Introduction." In reality, there was no book existing under this
title of the "Eternal Gospel;" but all that is said about it
relates simply to the writings of Joachim. * * * The whole matter
of this work also seems to have consisted in an explanation of the
fundamental ideas of the Abbot Joachim, and in the application of
them to the genuine Franciscan order. [41]
This exhibits much confusion and uncertainty concerning the story of
Joachim and his book. Of course, it may be argued that this story of
the Book of Joachim, as told by Draper and repeated by Linn, would
furnish equally well the suggestion of the origin of the Book of
Mormon, whether it was the statement of an historical fact or only the
wild invention of a fanatical Franciscan, but it would be incumbent
upon those who make such an argument to prove that Sidney Rigdon had
knowledge of such a story.
Another suggestion may be argued that would tend to break down the
probability of the origin of the "Everlasting Gospel" suggesting the
origin of the Book of Mormon; and that is: Had Sidney Rigdon or any
one else taken the story of the revelation of the Book of Joachim to
Cyril and from it invented the account of the coming forth of the Book
of Mormon, he would very likely have taken other ideas attributed to
this very worthy but over-zealous and weak-minded man of the thirteenth
century. As, for example, Linn himself declares that the "Everlasting
Gospel was offered to the Church as supplanting the New Testament,
just as the New Testament had supplanted the Old," etc., a theory that
would very likely have caught the fancy of such a man as Linn conceives
Rigdon to have been. Yet Mormonism is as far removed from any such
conception as this, as the east is from the west; for Mormonism gives
full force to the present authority of both the Old and New Testaments
as containing the word of God, and the Book of Mormon nowhere supplants
these existing scriptures. Neander presents a more elaborate view of
some of the theories of this same Joachim, and represents him as
teaching the following:
The times of the Old Testament belong especially to God the
Father; in it, God revealed himself as the Almighty, by signs
and wonders; next, followed the times of the New Testament, in
which God, as the Word, revealed himself in his wisdom, where
the striving after a comprehensible knowledge of mysteries
predominates; the last times belong to the Holy Spirit, when the
first of love in contemplation will predominate. As the letter
of the Old Testament answers to God the Father, the letter of
the New Testament more especially to the Son, so the spiritual
understanding, which proceeds from both, answers to the Holy
Spirit. As all things were created by the Father through the Son;
so in the Holy Spirit, as love, all were to find their completion.
To the working of the Father--power, fear, faith, more especially
correspond; to the working of the Son--humility, truth, and wisdom;
to the working of the Holy Spirit--love, joy, and freedom. [42]
In like manner he takes up the Apostles Peter, James, and John as in
a way representing in the earth, respectively, the three periods in
the process of the development of the Church. I insist that if Sidney
Rigdon had become acquainted with that story of the "Everlasting
Gospel," as it is told by Draper, he would unquestionably also have
come to the knowledge of these theories of Joachim's; and if Sidney
Rigdon was the kind of character that Linn represents him to be, he
would unquestionably have taken up some of these vagaries and exploited
them, either in the Book of Mormon or in the subsequent development
of the Church and its system of doctrine. It is scarcely necessary to
say that none of these ideas of the thirteenth century man is to be
found in Mormonism, nor are any other of Joachim's ideas found in the
Latter-day dispensation of the Gospel. The mere matter of using the
phrase, "Everlasting Gospel," by the early Elders of the Church--and
for matter of that by the present ministry of the Church--in their
discourses and books, scarcely rises to dignity of a coincidence,
since we have the phrase suggested in the remarkable prophecy on the
restoration of the Gospel in the Revelations of St. John, [43] without
referring to any circumstance of the thirteenth century and the obscure
literature concerning the Book of Joachim.
This whole theory of the suggested origin of the Book of Mormon
from the story of the Book of Joachim, however ingenious it may be
regarded, breaks down as the Spaulding-Rigdon theory does, under the
absolute inability of all these speculators to show any connection,
or collaboration, between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon previous to
the publication of the Book of Mormon. Their inventions fail; their
speculations amount to nothing. It is impossible to show any contact
between Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon before the Book of Mormon was
published, therefore, whatever opportunity Sidney Rigdon may have had
to become acquainted with the story of Joachim's "Everlasting Gospel,"
that knowledge could play no part whatever in the coming forth of the
Book of Mormon.
V.
_Woodbridge Riley's Theory of the Origin of the Book of Mormon_.
This theory may be said, in a way, to be a reversion to that of
Alexander Campbell's; that is, a return to the theory that Joseph
Smith was the "author" of the Book of Mormon. Mr. Riley's book, of 446
pages, is a well written thesis on the "Founder of Mormonism." It was
published by Dodd, Mead & Company, 1902. It is a psychological study of
Joseph Smith the Prophet. The purpose of the work is set forth in the
author's preface, as follows:
The aim of this work is to examine Joseph Smith's character and
achievements from the standpoint of recent psychology. Sectarians
and phrenologists, spiritualists and mesmerists have variously
interpreted his more or less abnormal performances--it now remains
for the psychologist to have a try at them.
The work also has an introductory preface by Professor George Trumbull
Ladd, of Yale University, in which Mr. Riley's essay is very highly
praised. Indeed the work was offered to the Philosophical Faculty of
Yale University as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, and
before this the matter of the essay had been utilized in 1898 for a
Master of Arts thesis, under the title of "Metaphysics of Mormonism,"
so that from these circumstances we may venture the remark that Mr.
Riley's book is of highly scientific character, at least in its
literary structure, and has already attracted some considerable notice
in the world.
To the Latter-day Saints it will be interesting, and of value at least
in this, that they may accept it as one of many manifestations that
the other theories accounting for the origin of the Book of Mormon are
regarded as inadequate, if not exploded, since the learned find it
necessary to set forth now a new theory, both for the origin of the
Book of Mormon, and the life work of the Prophet Joseph.
Mr. Riley's conclusions, after patient consideration of what he regards
as the elements entering into the composition of the Book of Mormon,
are thus stated:
In spite of a continuous stream of conjectural literature, it is
as yet impossible to pick out any special document as an original
source of the Book of Mormon. In particular the commonly-accepted
Spaulding theory is insoluble from external evidence and disproved
by internal evidence. Joseph Smith's "Record of the Indians" is a
product indigenous to the New York "Wilderness," and the authentic
work of its "author and proprietor." Outwardly, it reflects the
local color of Palmyra and Manchester, inwardly, its complexity
of thought is a replica of Smith's muddled brain. This monument
of misplaced energy was possible to the impressionable youth
constituted and circumstanced as he was. [44]
As for the process by which the book was produced, our author conceives
it thus:
It was in western New York that the son of an obscure farmer gazed
in his magic crystal, automatically wrote "a transcription of gold
plates," dictated the Book of Mormon, and after strange signs and
wonders, started his communistic sect. [45]
Our author makes an extended pathological study of the prophet's
ancestry, and arrives at the conclusion that their mental peculiarities
and defects, culminate in epilepsy in Joseph Smith the Prophet. So
that we may say, roughly speaking, that Mr. Riley's explanation of
the origin of the Book of Mormon, and Mormonism, is that it has its
source in an epileptic, whose-hallucinations are honestly mistaken
for inspired visions, and who possesses partly conscious and partly
unconscious hypnotic power over others. And this theory is presented
seriously to one of the first institutions of learning in America as a
rational explanation of "Mormonism!"
Unfortunately for Mr. Riley's theory, however, another writer, an
authority in his chosen field of investigation, a writer of text books
for higher institutions of learning on this very subject, has spoken
with marked emphasis not only with reference to epilepsy in general and
the milder forms of its manifestation under the head of Paranoia, but
has spoken of it with special reference to Joseph Smith, and distinctly
separates him from such class of persons. Following are passages from
Mr. Dana's works upon the subject:
A certain rather small per centage of epileptics become either
demented or insane. True epilepsy is not compatible with
extraordinary intellectual endowments. Caesar, Napoleon, Peter the
Great and other geniuses may have had some symptomatic fits, but
not idispathic [primary] epilepsy. [46]
Again:
Paranoia is a chronic psychosis characterized by the development
gradually and soon after maturity of systematized delusion,
without other serious disturbances of the mind and without much
tendency to dementia. * * * With some the systematized idea takes a
religious turn, and the patient thinks he has some divine mission,
or has received some inspiration from God; or the idea may take
a devotional turn and the patient become an acetic. It is not,
however, to be assumed that all promoters of new religious and
novel social ideas are paranoics. Many of these are simply the
natural developments of ignorance and a somewhat emotional and
unbalanced temperament. The characteristics of the paranoic is
that his work is ineffective, his influence brief and trivial, his
ideas really too absurd and impractical for even ignorant men to
receive. _I do not class successful prophets and organizers like
Joseph Smith, or great apostles of social reforms like Rousseau as
paranoics_. Insane minds are not creative, but are weak and lack
persistence in purpose or power of execution. [47]
It is not possible in this writing to enter into an extended
consideration of this theory. Neither indeed is it necessary. One
consideration alone is sufficient to overthrow these fanciful
speculations of Mr. Riley. "Hitherto," says Renan in his Life of
Christ, "it has never been given to aberration of mind to produce a
serious effect upon the progress of humanity." [48] As stated by Dana,
the work of the paranoic is ineffective, his influence brief and
trivial, his ideas impractical and absurd. I believe that doctrine.
The dreams and hallucinations of the epileptic end in mere dreams and
hallucinations; they never crystallize into great systems of philosophy
or into rational religious institutions. They never result in great
organizations capable of perpetuating that philosophy and that religion
in the world. No matter how nearly genius may be allied to madness, it
must remain genius and not degenerate to madness if it exercises any
permanent influence over the minds of men, such as Mormonism has done
over a large body of people, and resulted in permanent institutions.
There is much glamor of sophistry, which may be taken by some for
profound reason and argument, in Mr. Riley's book, but one word answers
this so called philosophical accounting for our Prophet: The work
accomplished by him, the institutions he founded, destroy the whole
fabric of premises and argument on which this theory is based. Great
as was the Prophet Joseph Smith--and he was great; to him more than to
any other man of modern times was it given to look deep into the things
that are; to comprehend the heavens, and the laws that obtain there; to
understand the earth, its history, and its mission. He looked into the
deep things of God, and out of the rich treasure of divine knowledge
there, he brought forth things both new and old for the instruction
of our race, the like of which, in some respects, had not been known
in previous dispensations. But great as Joseph Smith was, rising up
and towering far above him is the work that he accomplished through
divine guidance; that work is infinitely greater than the Prophet,
greater than all the prophets connected with it. Its consistency, its
permanency, its institutions, contradict the hallucination theory
advanced to account for its origin. [49]
This theory of Mr. Riley's may be said to now occupy the attention of
men, but as the theories of Campbell, the Spaulding theory, and the
Rigdon theory of origin have one by one been discarded as untenable,
and inadequate for the purposes for which they were invoked, so,
too, will this epilepsy and hallucination theory of Mr. Riley's be
discarded, since it will fail to give an adequate accounting for
the Book of Mormon, which, so long as the truth respecting it is
unbelieved, will remain to the world an enigma, a veritable literary
Sphinx, challenging the inquiry and speculations of the learned. But to
those who in simple faith will accept it for what it is, a revelation
from God, it will minister spiritual consolation, and by its plainness
and truth draw men into closer communion with God.
Footnotes
1. "Limits of Religious Thought," Mansel, Preface.
2. Doctrine and Covenants, Sec. 35.
3. Mr. Campbell's criticism of the Book of Mormon was published in the
"Millennial Harbinger," Vol. II, pp. 86-96, February, 1831.
4. The same phrase appears in the testimony of the Eight Witnesses, as
published in the first edition of the Book of Mormon, and the preface
published in the first edition, but omitted in all other editions, is
signed "The Author."
5. See announcement of copyright privileges in first edition of the
Book of Mormon 1830. It is also copied into the History of the Church,
Vol. I, pp. 58, 59.
6. Yet, in a work as late as 1902, on the subject of Mormonism,
published by Dodd, Mead & Co., great importance is attached to this
"author and proprietor" phrase, and indeed much of the force of the
author's argument is based upon it. See "Founder of Mormonism" I,
Woodbridge Riley, chapter iv.
7. See Vol. II., chapter ix.
8. See Vol. II., chapter vii.
9. See "Latter-day Saints Messenger and Advocate," Vol. II, p. 242,
where Mr. Campbell is represented as recommending Howe's "Mormonism
Unveiled," which first set forth and was mainly devoted to the
Spaulding theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon.
10. Mormonism Unveiled, (Howe), pp. 278-287.
11. See Church History, Vol. I., chapter xxv; Vol. II., chapter iv.
12. By some, it is claimed that Mrs. Davison's statement was put forth in
the "Boston Recorder" as an affidavit, but I have never seen it in the
form of an affidavit. All versions of it that have fallen into my hands
are merely in the form of a signed statement.
13. See Thompson's "Evidences," pp. 176-7.
14. Times and Seasons, Vol. I., p. 47.
15. See Preface to "New Light on Mormonism."
16. See "Mormonism Unveiled," pp. 278-280.
17. When this fact was brought to light in the early controversy over
the subject, it was claimed by Messrs. Austin--Storrs--Clark, who
were responsible for this forgery, that "Woman" in the text was a
typographical error and should be "Mormon." See Clark's Gleanings "By
the Way."
18. The orthography is the affidavit's.
19. See letters of Mr. Rice to Mr. Joseph Smith, President of the
"Reorganized Church," "History of the Church of Jesus Christ,"
[Reorganized] Vol. IV., pp. 471-473.
20. This is confirmed by a letter written by Hurlburt himself, in 1881,
at the request of Mrs. Ellen E. Dickenson, as follows:
Gibsonburg, Ohio, January 10, 1881.
To all whom it may concern:
In the year eighteen hundred and thirty-four (1834) I went from Geauga
Co., Ohio, to Munson, Hampden Co., Mass., where I found Mrs. Davison,
late widow of the Rev. Solomon Spaulding, late of Conneaut, Ashtabula
Co., Ohio. Of her I obtained a manuscript, supposing it to be the
manuscript of the romance written by the said Solomon Spaulding, called
"The Manuscript Found," which was reported to be the foundation of the
"Book of Mormon." I did not examine the manuscript until I got home,
when, upon examination, I found it to contain nothing of the kind, but
being a manuscript upon an entirely different subject. This manuscript
I left with E. D. Howe, of Painsville, Geauga Co., Ohio, now Lake Co.,
Ohio., with the understanding that when he had examined it he should
return it to the widow. Said Howe says the manuscript was destroyed by
fire, and further the deponent saith not.
(Signed) D. P. HURLBURT.
21. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 245.
22. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288.
23. He refers to the witnesses living at Conneaut Creek, the substance
of whose testimony is previously quoted in his book, pp. 357-8.
24. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 288, (first edition, 1834).
25. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289, 290. "This manuscript received by
Hurlburt and by him given to Howe is the only Spaulding manuscript
written by Spaulding, making any reference to the antiquities of
America. It is the simon-pure and only "Manuscript Found." Against
this it is urged by our opponents that "no such title is discoverable
anywhere upon or in the body of the manuscript in the Oberlin library.
(American Historical Magazine, Sept. 1906, p. 386). And yet with
strange inconsistency the writer himself a few pages further on
admits--"It is even possible that this first manuscript [meaning the
one now at Oberlin], may at sometime have been labeled "Manuscript
Found." But what is better than any "label" on the manuscript inside
or outside; better than any admission of our opponent, is the fact
that this manuscript is the one Mr. Spaulding feigned to have found,
and that he pretended to translate into English. It is the "found"
manuscript, and the only one that Spaulding pretended or feigned to
have found. It is the one that Mrs. McKenstry says she had in her
hands "many times" at Sabine's after 1816; and that "on the outside of
this manuscript were written the words, "Manuscript Found." (American
Historical Magazine, March, 1909, pp. 190, 191.)
26. Howe's "Mormonism," pp. 289-290.
27. Ibid p. 289. Lambdin died 1826.
28. "Braden and Kelly Debate," p. 44.
29. Howe's "Mormonism," p. 289.
30. "New Light on Mormonism," p. 62.
31. Ibid p. 71.
32. Myth of the "Manuscript Found" (1883), pp. 35, 36. See also an
exhaustive treatise on the "Origin of the Book of Mormon", in the
"American Historical Magazine," published in New York by the American
Historical Society, during the years 1906-7; 1908-9. The articles in
support of the Spaulding theory are by Mr. Theodore Schroeder; and
the answer to these papers are by the author of this work, who hopes
to publish the discussion in his second volume on the "Defense of the
Faith and the Saints," now in course of preparation.
33. "Boston Journal." See also Smucker's "History of the Mormons,"
where the letter is given in full, pp. 45-8.
34. New Witnesses, Vol. II., pp. 250, 251.
35. "Late Persecutions," etc., Introduction, p. xi, xii.
36. "Church History," Vol. I., p. 122, 123.
37. Published by McMillan Co., 1902.
38. "The Story of the Mormons," Preface, p. vi.
39. "Story of the Mormons," Chapter ix, p. 74.
40. Vol. II, chapter iii.
41. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church,"
Vol. IV, pp. 618-20.
42. Neander's "General History of the Christian Religion and Church,"
Vol. IV, p. 227.
43. Revelations xiv: 6,7.
44. "The Founder of Mormonism," p. 172.
45. Ibid, p. 11.
46. "Nervous Diseases, Text Book on" (third edition), p. 408.
47. "Text Book of Nervous Diseases and Psychiatry" (sixth edition), pp.
649-50.
48. "Life of Christ," p. 105.
49. During the October conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, held in Salt Lake City, October, 1903, this writer
then made some remarks in criticism of Mr. Riley's book, at the close
of which remarks President Joseph F. Smith said:
"I have been delighted with the most excellent discourse that we have
listened to; but I desire to say that it is a wonderful revelation to
the Latter-day Saints, and especially to those who were familiar with
the Prophet Joseph Smith, to learn in these latter days that he was
an epileptic! I will simply remark, God be praised, that there are so
many still living who knew the Prophet Joseph well, and who are in a
position to bear testimony to the truth that no such condition ever
existed in the man."
See also "Defense of the Faith and the Saints." pp. 42-61.
CHAPTER XLVI.
OBJECTIONS TO THE BOOK OF MORMON (Continued).
I.
_Errors of Style and Grammar_.
One of the chief objections to the Book of Mormon from the first has
been the uniformity of its literary style, and the defects in its
language--errors in grammar, New York Yankee localisms, and the use
of modern words--unwarranted, it is claimed, in the translation of an
ancient record. Alexander Campbell, in his attack upon the Book of
Mormon, 1831, on this subject, said:
The book proposes to be written at intervals and by different
persons during the long period of 1020 years, and yet for
uniformity of style there never was a book more evidently written
by one set of fingers, nor more certainly conceived in one cranium
since the first book appeared in human language, than this same
book. If I could swear to any man's voice, face, or person,
assuming different names, I could swear that this book was written
by one man. And as Joseph Smith is a very ignorant man and is
called the "Author," on the title page, I cannot doubt for a single
moment but that he is sole "Author and Proprietor" of it.
He then proceeds to point out the same idioms of speech in the preface
to the first edition--the Prophet's own composition, of course--in
the testimony of the witnesses, and in various parts of the Book of
Mormon proving, as he claims, unity of style and identity of authorship
for the various books that make up the volume. He points out a large
number of errors in grammar, also, a number of supposed anachronisms,
modernism, etc., giving the pages where the defects occur. Indeed, so
ample was Mr. Campbell's criticism on this point, that he has furnished
the materials for this argument against the Book of Mormon which has
been repeated by nearly all subsequent writers. Howe, for instance,
takes up the refrain in this manner:
The style of the Book of Mormon is _sui generis_, and whoever
peruses it will not have doubt but that the whole was framed and
written by the same individual hand. [1]
Then follows quotations which he regards as justifying the conclusion.
Professor J. B. Turner of Illinois College, Jacksonville, Illinois, in
his "Mormonism in All Ages" follows in the same strain and uses like
illustrations. [2]
So also John Hyde in his "Mormonism." He perhaps is more elaborate in
his criticism on this point than any other Anti-Mormon writer excepting
Campbell. [3]
Samuel M. Smucker, also criticises in the same kind. [4]
So also Rev. M. T. Lamb devotes a chapter to the same kind of
criticism. [5]
Linn, adopts the same argument, and with some manifestations of glee,
quite unbecoming in a sober historian who professes to write at least a
serious history of Mormonism; but who, while he points to these defects
in grammatical construction, etc., he nowhere considers in any spirit
of fairness the evidences that tend to support the truth of the Book of
Mormon. [6]
The things to be considered in these objections, are:
First: does the uniformity of style exist: do the errors in grammar
exist; are there modernisms and localisms in the book, and more
especially in the first edition, since it was with this edition
that this criticism began? These questions must be answered in the
affirmative. The existence of uniformity of style, errors in grammar,
modernisms and localisms cannot be denied, as all know who have
investigated the matter. A comparison of current editions with the
first edition will disclose the fact that many of the most flagrant
verbal and grammatical errors have been corrected, besides many
unimportant changes, such as "which" and "that," to "who" and "whom,"
and vice verse, to conform to modern usage; [7] and many more such
corrections, without changing the slightest shade of statement or
thought, could still be made to advantage.
Many of these changes, perhaps most of them, were effected under the
supervision of the Prophet Joseph himself. In the preface to the second
edition published in Kirtland, 1837, the following occurs:
Individuals acquainted with book printing are aware of the numerous
typographical errors which always occur in manuscript editions.
It is only necessary to say, that the whole has been carefully
re-examined and compared with the original manuscript by Elder
Joseph Smith, Jr., the translator of the Book of Mormon, assisted
by the present printer, Brother Cowdery, who formerly wrote the
greatest portion of the same as dictated by Brother Smith.
In the third edition published at Nauvoo, 1840, this occurs on the
title page:
"_Carefully Revised by the Translator_."
Of course the fact that the Book of Mormon was published in a country
town, on a hand press, and by persons unfamiliar with book making, and
the proofs read by Oliver Cowdery, who was entirely without experience
in such work, will account for many errors verbal and grammatical. The
further fact that the employees at the printing establishment where the
book was published, where unfriendly to it, and were more anxious to
make it appear ridiculous than to turn out a good job, may account for
other errors that appear in the first edition. But after due allowance
is made for all these conditions, the errors are too numerous, and
of such a constitutional nature, that they cannot be explained away
by these unfavorable conditions under which the work was published.
Besides, examination of the fragment of the original manuscript, now
(1909) in possession of President Joseph F. Smith, discloses the fact
that many of the verbal errors in grammar are in the manuscript,
written as the Prophet dictated it.
Second: How are these errors in language to be accounted for? How is
it that errors in grammar are found in a work said to be translated
by the "gift and power of God, through the medium of the Urim and
Thummim?" Are these errors in language to be assigned to the Urim and
Thummim, or to God? Is it true, as stated by Professor Turner, that
such is the description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was
translated, that all accounts "agree in making the Lord responsible not
only for the thought, but also for the language of the book, from the
necessity of the case, for they [those who have described the manner
of translation] all claim that the words passed before Smith's eyes
while looking through the pellucid stones?" [8] Must we remember, as the
professor admonishes us to "remember," that according to Smith's story
"the Lord is responsible not only for the thought, but also for the
language of this new translation? The words of the translation being
read off through the stone spectacles?" [9]
For one, I refuse to accept this statement of the case. I do not
believe that the Lord is responsible for any defect of language that
occurs in the Book of Mormon, or any other revelation. On the contrary,
I stand with Moroni here: "And now, if there be faults [i.e. in the
Nephite record], they are the mistakes of men." [10] Also with Mormon:
"If there be faults, they be the faults of a man." [11]
If the Lord should speak directly to man without any intermediary
whatsoever, it is reasonable to conclude that his language would
be perfect in whatever tongue he spoke. If, however, he elected an
intermediary through whom to communicate his message to the world, the
language in which that message would be couched might, or might not, be
perfect, according as the intermediary was learned or unlearned in the
language through which the Lord communicated the revelation.
Third: Can these verbal errors, and errors in grammar, these modernisms
and localisms arise from equivalent defects in the original Nephite
records? That is to say, can these errors have been transferred from
the ancient Nephite language into our English idioms? I know how
unreasonable such a proposition as that will seem to readers in any
way familiar with translations. I speak of it, however, because there
are those friendly to the Book of Mormon who contend that such is the
case. Those who take this view believe that because the Prophet used
Urim and Thummim in the translation of the Nephite record, therefore,
the process of translation was a word for word bringing over from
the Nephite language into the English; that the instrument did the
translating rather than the Prophet, the latter merely looking into
Urim and Thummim as one may look into a mirror and tell what he sees
there reflected; and that, therefore, the translation was really an
absolutely "verbatim et literatim" translation of the record. They
further believe that since the instrument was of divine appointing it
could make no mistakes, and therefore if errors in the translation into
English occur it is because these errors were in the Nephite language
as recorded by Mormon.
As already remarked, to those at all acquainted with translation, this
will be recognized as impossible. They know that such a thing as an
absolute literal translation, or word for word bringing over from one
language into another is out of the question; that for the most part
such a literal translation would be meaningless, I give as examples the
following from the Latin:
1. "_Aversum hostem-videre_"--original. "Turned away--foe--to
see"--word for word. "To see a foe in flight"--translation. 2.
"_Non satis commode_"--original. "Not--enough--conveniently"--word
for word. "Not very conveniently"--translation. 3. "_Ad eas se
applicant_"--original. "To--these--themselves--attach"--word
for word. "They lean up against these"--translation. 4. "_Impii
est virtutem parvi estimare_"--original. "Of an impious man--it
is--virtue little--to value" word for word. "It is the mark
of an impious man to think little of virtue"--translation.
5. "_Christiani est quam plurimis prodesse_"--original. "Of
a Christian--it is--as very many--to do good" word for word.
"It is the duty of a Christian to do good to as many as
possible"--translation.
Fourth: Granting, as preforce we must, that there are verbal and
grammatical errors, together with modernisms and localisms, in the
English translation of the Nephite record; that the thought is
expressed not only in English idioms, but also, at times, in Western
New York localisms; that the whole body of phraseology is of the time
and place where the work of translation was done; and all the errors
are such as would be made by one circumstanced as Joseph Smith was as
to knowledge of the English language; and that these local idioms and
errors in grammar were not found in equivalent terms in the Nephite
language and brought over into English by a process of word for word
bring over--granting all these things, is there any way by which this
criticism, based upon the faulty English of the translation, may be
effectually met, and the truth still maintained that the translation of
the Book of Mormon was made by a man inspired of God, and aided by an
instrument of divine appointment?
I firmly believe that all these requirements can be met; that, as
a matter of fact, the defects in English in the Book of Mormon
constitute no real difficulty; that the difficulties, so far as they
exist, are of our own creation (I speak of those who accept the
Book of Mormon as a divine record); that our trouble arises through
having accepted too literally the necessarily second-hand accounting,
given by Martin Harris and David Whitmer, of the manner in which the
translation was done. Because it has been said that the Prophet saw
the Nephite characters in the Urim and Thummim; that the translation
would appear in English under these characters; that the Prophet
would read the translation to the scribe and that both characters and
translation would remain in Urim and Thummim until written--because
of this description of the manner of translation, our opponents have
insisted--and we by our silence have conceded to some extent--that
Joseph Smith had nothing to do with the translation except to see what
the instrument revealed and parrot-like repeat it; therefore it has
been concluded by our opponents that the translation must be attributed
entirely to the Urim and Thummim; and as it is unreasonable to think
that God, or a divine instrument provided by him for the purpose of
translating unknown languages--that is, that God directly or indirectly
could be charged with these errors in English--they have argued that
the translation was not inspired; that God had nothing to do with it;
that Joseph Smith's pretentions were blasphemous, and the Book of
Mormon untrue.
To this contention of our opponents we have either made no reply, being
quite generally of the opinion that there was little or no force in the
argument (a mistake in my judgment), or else have lamely and vainly
argued that the errors were in the original Nephite records, and were
brought over bodily into the translation, which is an absurdity.
The foundation for the answer to this objection and the argument by
which it is sustained was laid in Vol. I, chapter VII of this work,
where it is argued that the translation of the Book of Mormon was not
merely a mechanical process in which the instrument Urim and Thummim
did all and the Prophet nothing, except to give out to the scribe the
translation said to have appeared in the divine instrument. The Lord's
description of the manner of translating, by means of Urim and Thummim,
is cited there in proof that the translation was not mechanical; that
on the contrary it required deep thought, the employment, in fact, of
all the mental and spiritual powers of the translator; that it was
necessary for him to be in an exalted state of mind to get the meaning
of the Nephite characters at all. The thought, however, and the ideas
he obtained by concentrated mental effort, under the inspiration of
God; but the language in which the translation was thought out was
in such words and forms of expression as Joseph Smith could use; and
this mental translation in language was doubtless reflected in the
Urim and Thummim, where it remained until written by the scribe. And
now, as the Prophet Joseph was uneducated at the time of translating
the Nephite record, the language of his translation was in the faulty
English of one circumstanced as he was, and was of the period and place
when and where the translation took place. This I regard as a complete
answer to all the objections that can be urged upon the score of the
Book of Mormon's faulty English, and it is the only answer that can be
successfully made to it. Such faults as exist are the faults of men,
not of God. Such is the answer to this class of objections wherever
made against the scriptures, for this sort of objection is not confined
to the Book of Mormon. It has been urged with well nigh equal force
against the Bible. In fact, there are not wanting those who claim that
human speech, oral or written, is inadequate to convey a revelation
from God. [12]
"The human language," says one of these, "whether in speech or in
print, cannot be the vehicle of the word of God. The word of God exists
in something else. Did the book called the Bible excel in purity of
ideas and expression all the books now extant in the world, I would not
take it for my rule of faith, as being the word of God, because the
possibility would nevertheless exist of my being imposed upon." [13]
Again, the same author says:
Human language, more especially as there is not an universal
language, is incapable of being used as an universal means of
unchangeable and uniform information, and therefore it is not the
means that God useth in manifesting himself universally to man. It
is only in the Creation that all our ideas and conceptions of a
word of God can unite. The creation speaketh an universal language,
independently of human speech or human language, multiplied and
various as they be. It is an ever-existing original, which every
man can read. [14]
This writer may be objected to on account of the ribald nature of his
criticism of the Bible, but nevertheless, in the foregoing paragraph he
represents the views of a very large class of people--a class that I
fear is increasing rather than diminishing in numbers.
This author attacks the Book of Isaiah in the following fashion:
Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed
to Isaiah will find it one of the most wild and disorderly
compositions ever put together; it has neither beginning, middle,
nor end; and, except a short historical part, and a few sketches of
history in two or three of the first chapters, is one continued,
incoherent, bombastical rant, full of extravagant metaphor without
application, and destitute of meaning; a school-boy would scarcely
have been excusable for writing such stuff; it is (at least in
translation) that kind of composition and false taste that is
properly called prose run mad. [15]
Referring to the entire volume of Hebrew scripture our author says:
For my own part, my belief in the perfection of the Deity will not
permit me to believe that a book so manifestly obscure, disorderly,
and contradictory can be his work. I can write a better book
myself! [16]
Other authors of the same school, and in like spirit attack the Hebrew
scriptures. What is the reply to such attacks? Fortunately, on this
point, I have at hand the views recently set forth of a very learned
man, and one of high character, the Reverend Joseph Armitage Robinson,
D. D., Dean of Westminister and Chaplain to King Edward VII of England.
In a recent lecture delivered in Westminster Abby on the subject, "How
the Bible Was Written," he says:
The message of the Old Testament was not written by the Divine
hand, nor dictated by an outward compulsion; it was planted in the
hearts of men, and made to grow in a fruitful soil. And then they
were required to express it in their own language, after their
natural methods, and in accordance with the stage of knowledge
which their time had reached. Their human faculties were purified
and quickened by the Divine Spirit; but they spoke to their time
in the language of their time; they spoke a spiritual message,
accommodated to the experience of their age, a message of faith in
God, and of righteousness as demanded by a righteous God. [17]
So, also, Lyman Abbot, in a series of lectures on "The Bible as
Literature:"
Neither in ancient nor in modern theology is there a simpler, a
more comprehensive statement of the origin and character of the
Bible than in the single sentence with which the Second Epistle
of Peter describes it: "Holy men of God spake, moved by the Holy
Ghost." * * * According to this definition the Bible is written
by good men, and it is written by good men under the inspiration
or on-breathing of the Spirit of God. * * * * These men are not
amanuenses who write by dictation; they embody in their writings
their own experience, their own thought, their own life. Thus,
we should expect to find in the Bible the personal equation of
the writers strongly marked. We should expect, as the sunshine
developes each seed after its kind, so the shining of God on the
human soul would develop each germinant soul after its kind * * *
We see not men writing as clerks write, embodying only the work
of a dictator; we find in each one the stream, the current, the
color of his own personality. We shall expect, also, to find all
these men writing as Paul says he wrote: "We know in part, and we
prophesy in part," and "We see in a glass darkly." [18]
Views similar to those were entertained by the late Henry Drummond,
the author of "Natural Law in the Spiritual World." Referring to the
writers of the Hebrew scripture he said:
These men when they spoke were not typewriters. They were authors.
They were not pens. They were men; and their individuality comes
out in every page they wrote. Sometimes they write a better style
than they do at other times. Sometimes their minds are clearer and
their arguments more condensed and consecutive and logical. [19]
Look at some of the envolved theological statements in the
New Testament, and contrast them with the absolutely pellucid
utterances of the same author written on a different occasion, when
he was in a different mood. Those men were not mere pens, I repeat;
they were authors, and it is not the book that is inspired, so much
as the men. God inspired men to make an inspired book. * * * Just
as a scientific man in communication with nature reads its secrets,
drinks in its spirit, and writes it down, so a man who walks with
God catches the mind of God and gets revelations from God and
writes them down; religion is not the result of this, but the cause
of it. [20]
Jenyns in his treatise on the "Internal Evidences of the Christian
Religion" says:
Others there are who allow that a revelation from God may be
both necessary and credible; but allege that the Scriptures,
that is, the books of the Old and New Testament, cannot be
that revelation--because in them are to be found errors and
inconsistencies, fabulous stories, false facts, and false
philosophy; which can never be derived from the fountain of all
wisdom and truth. To this I reply that I readily acknowledge that
the Scriptures are not revelations from God, but the history of
them [i.e., the history of the revelations]. The revelation itself
is derived from God; but the history of it is the production of
men, and therefore the truth of it is not in the least affected
by their fallibility, but depends on the internal evidence of its
own supernatural excellence. If in these books such a religion as
has been here described actually exists, no seeming or even real
defects to be found in them can disprove the divine origin of this
revelation, or invalidate my argument. * * * If any one could show
that these books were never written by their pretended authors, but
were posterior impositions on illiterate and credulous ages--all
these wonderful discoveries would prove no more than this, that
God, for reasons to us unknown, had thought proper to permit a
revelation by him communicated to mankind, to be mixed with their
ignorance, and corrupted by their frauds from its earliest infancy,
in the same manner in which he has visibly permitted it to be
mixed and corrupted from that period to the present hour. If in
these books a religion superior to all human imagination actually
exists, it is of no consequence to the proof of its divine origin,
by what means it was there introduced, or with what human errors
and imperfections it is blended. A diamond, though found in a bed
of mud, is still a diamond, nor can the dirt which surrounds it
depreciate its value or destroy its lustre.
The point of Jenyns' argument is, that both in doctrine and ethics
the New Testament is so far superior, so far surpasses in sublimity
of idea and beauty of moral precept, all that is known amongst men
outside of the New Testament, and is so far removed from the uninspired
utterances of men that he claims the conclusion to be irresistible that
the Christian Scriptures derive their origin immediately from God; that
the knowledge which they teach is divine, no matter what faults may be
charged to the expression of this knowledge. From this view point he
becomes almost reckless in the admission of errors and defects in the
writers of the New Testament. He has been much criticized, in fact,
by the professional Christian ministry--for he was a layman as to his
relation with the church, a member of the British parliament--for the
admission of errors in the New Testament in the passage I have quoted
above, but I think unjustly so. What is needed, both as to the New
Testament scriptures and the Nephite scriptures, is a thoroughgoing
recognition of the fact that the truth is of more consequence than the
form in which it is expressed. The wheat is of more importance than the
chaff in which it grows, and which holds it until the thrashing and the
winnowing. The question is not so much is all the mine-ledge gold, but
is there gold in the ledge. [21]
The inspiration of God falls upon a prophet as a white ray of light
may fall upon a prism, which separates the white ray of which it is
composed--blue, orange, red, green, etc. The clearness of these several
rays and the sharpness with which they are defined will depend upon
the purity, and perhaps the position, of the prism through which the
white ray passes. So with the white ray of God's inspiration falling
upon men. It receives different colorings or expressions through them
according to their personal characteristics. While it is true that the
inspiration of God may be so overwhelming in its force at times that
the prophet may well nigh lose his individuality, and become merely
the mouth-piece of God, the organ through which the Divine speaks, yet
the personality of the prophet is not usually so overwhelmed; hence
each prophet preserves even under the inspiration of God his agency
and his personal idiosyncrasies. Thus Isaiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Amos,
Nephi, Mormon, Moroni, all preserve their individuality in conception
of ideas and in the expression of them, though inspired by the same
spirit. So also Joseph Smith imparted certain characteristics to his
translation of the Nephite record, notwithstanding the use of Urim
and Thummim and the inspiration of the Lord that rested upon him.
Just in what manner the Urim and Thummim was of assistance to him may
be beyond human power to at present explain, but of this we may be
certain, it was by no means the principal factor in the work; its place
must forever be regarded as secondary; it was an aid to the Prophet,
not he an aid to it; wonderful as it may be as a divine instrument
it could not be so marvelous as the mind of man, especially as the
mind of this man, Joseph Smith, this Seer, by way of pre-eminence; it
is Joseph the "Seer" who translated the Book of Mormon aided by Urim
and Thummim. This his statement: "Through the medium of the Urim and
Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God." [22] Mark
these words--"_I_ translated the record,"--not the Urim and Thummim. Of
course the Prophet recognizes in this, as he did in all his prophetic
work and his seership work, his obligation to the inspiration of
God, and surely I do not wish to detract from the inspiration of God
as a factor in his work. I merely desire to emphasize here that it
was the Prophet under the inspiration of God that did the work, and
that the divine instrument, Urim and Thummim, however wonderful,
was merely an aid to the Prophet, as "glasses" may be an aid to the
dim-sighted. But notwithstanding this aid provided by man's ingenuity,
it is the eye after all that does the seeing, though this contrivance
called "spectacles" helps the vision, and makes it more perfect. So,
analogously, but in some way unknown to us, the Urim and Thummim aided
the Prophet in his work of translation.
The defense of written revelation then against the existence of human
elements in it--evident limitations in the knowledge of prophets
concerning things other than the immediate matters on which they are
inspired of God; unequal expression of ideas, falling sometimes from
the sublime to the commonplace; lack of clearness and directness in
expression, circumlocution; [23] grammatical blunders; tautology;
sometimes long suspension of thought (a frequent fault of both Old and
New Testament writers), and some thought never completed at all--all
these and many other faults of mere construction,--disarrangement of
the mere garments of thought--are to be attributed to the weaknesses
of men and their limitations in knowledge, rather than to any fault
in the inspiration supplied of God. It is the body that is defective,
not the soul; the expression that is defective, not the inspired truth
struggling for utterance through the faulty diction of prophets,
ancient or modern--"If there be faults, they are the faults of men;
therefore, condemn not the things of God because of the faults of men,"
will yet come to be regarded as a golden text in defense of written
revelation.
II.
_Objections Based Upon the Existence of Passages in the Book of
Mormon Which Follow King James' Translation of the Bible Verbatim_.
It is objected to the Book of Mormon that there are found in it whole
chapters, besides many minor quotations, from King James' English
translation of the Bible. Since these chapters and passages in some
cases follow the "authorized English version" verbatim, and closely
resemble it in others; and as it is well known that in translating
from one language into another almost infinite variety of expression
is possible, the question arises, how is it that Joseph Smith in
translating from the Nephite plates by divine assistance follows so
closely an independent translation made in the ordinary way, by dint
of scholarship and patient labor, and by diligent comparison of former
translations. [24] This King James' translation was made by scholars of
the sixteenth century. It is well known that no two translations of the
same matter from one language to another, by different scholars, would
ever be alike, hence these passages from the Hebrew scriptures found
in the Book of Mormon, so closely resembling and in places following
word for word the language of the King James' translation, constitute a
difficulty, and what is regarded by some as an insurmountable objection
to the claims of the Book of Mormon. Nearly all the Anti-Mormon writers
raise this objection, though perhaps John Hyde, [25] 1857, makes the
most of it. Following him the Rev. M. T. Lamb, [26] 1887, and last, but
not least, Linn, [27] 1902.
This objection was most carefully and intelligently stated recently
(October 22, 1903), by Mr. H. Chamberlain, of Spencer, Iowa, U. S. A.,
in a letter of inquiry on the subject to President Joseph F. Smith, of
Salt Lake City, in the course of which he said:
I find that Christ in quoting to the people on this side of the
water, the third and fourth chapters of Malachi, quotes, according
to the Book of Mormon, in the identical text of King James'
version, not missing a word. I find chapters of Isaiah quoted
practically in the same way. I find that in many instances, in
his talks with the people, and to his disciples here, he used
the identical language of King James' version, not omitting the
words supplied by the translators. Now, I know that no two parties
will take the same manuscript and make translations of a matter
contained therein, and the language of the two translators be
alike; indeed, the language employed by the two parties will widely
differ. These translations are from different manuscripts, and from
different languages, and still it appears in the Book of Mormon as
King James' translation. I can conceive of no other way in which
such a coincidence could have occurred, within the range of human
experience, except where one writing is copied from another, and
then it takes the utmost care to get them exactly alike, word
for word, and letter for letter as this is. * * * Now, what I
want to know is, how do you as a Church account for these things
appearing in the Book of Mormon in the identical language of King
James' version, when we know his version is faulty, and the same
translators could not have made it twice alike themselves? Did
Joseph copy it from the Bible, or did the Lord adopt this identical
language in revealing it to Joseph? [28]
This communication was referred to the writer by President Smith for an
answer, which was written, and from which I quote:
"The difficulty which you point out of course has been recognized by
believers in the Book of Mormon, but I do not know that I can say that
the Church as yet has settled upon any explanation which could be
regarded as an authoritative view on the subject. Each one has been
left to settle the matter upon the lines which seem most reasonable
to him. As a matter of fact, though our opponents have frequently
called attention to the difficulty in question, it has not occasioned
any particular anxiety in the minds of our own people. Accepting the
overwhelming evidences that exist for the truth of the Book of Mormon,
we have regarded that difficulty, with some others, as of minor
importance, which would in time be satisfactorily settled. Still, I
realize the reasonableness of the objection that may be urged against
the Book of Mormon from the point of view from which you present the
subject, and realize that it constitutes a real difficulty; and one,
too, in which we have no word from the Prophet Joseph Smith, or those
who were immediately associated with him in bringing forth the Nephite
record, to aid us in a solution of the matter. We are left, therefore,
very largely to conjecture, based on the facts in the case, which facts
are most tersely put in your esteemed communication, viz:
"First. It is a fact that a number of passages in the Book of Mormon,
verses and whole chapters, run closely parallel in matter and
phraseology with passages in Isaiah, Malachi, and some parts of the New
Testament.
"Second. It is a fact that no two persons will make translations of the
same matter from one language into another, and the language of the two
translations be alike.
"Third. It is a fact that the translations of the words of Isaiah,
of Malachi, and the words of the Savior, in the Book of Mormon, are
generally supposed to be independent translations from different
manuscripts or records and from different languages.
"Then, of course, comes your question: how can the strange fact be
accounted for, viz., that the translations in the Book of Mormon
corresponding to Isaiah, Malachi and the words of the Savior, are in
the language of King James' translation?
"Of course, you will remember that according to the Book of Mormon,
the Nephite colony carried with them to America so much of the Old
Testament as was in existence at the time of their departure from
Jerusalem (600 years B. C.). The prophecy of Malachi, chapters 3 and 4
quoted in the Book of Mormon was supplied by the Savior. The Nephites
engraved portions of these scriptures in their records, and this
both in the Hebrew, and what the Nephites called the reformed--i.e.,
altered--Egyptian. I simply mention this in passing, that you may
remember afresh how these passages came to be in the Nephite record,
and that you may remember that the Nephites had the Jewish scriptures
in much the same form as they were to be found in Judea, 600 B. C. When
the Savior came to the western world and appeared to the Nephites,
he had the same message to present to them that he had presented in
Palestine; the same ordinances of the gospel to establish, a similar
church organization to found, and the same ethical principles to
teach. The manner of the Savior's teaching would doubtless lead him to
present these great truths in the same forms of expression he had used
in teaching the Jews, so that in substance what he had taught as his
doctrines in Judea he would repeat in America. This is mentioned also,
by the way, that it may appear reasonable to you that in a general
manner the Savior must have taught the people in the western hemisphere
substantially the same things that he taught the people in Palestine.
With this remembered, I think we find a solution of the difficulty you
present in the following way: When Joseph Smith saw that the Nephite
record was quoting the prophecies of Isaiah, of Malachi, or the words
of the Savior, he took the English Bible and compared these passages as
far as they paralled each other, and finding that in substance, they
were alike, he adopted our English translation; and hence, we have the
sameness to which you refer.
"It should be understood also, in this connection, that while Joseph
Smith obtained the facts and ideas from the Nephite characters through
the inspiration of God, he was left to express those facts and ideas,
in the main, in such language as he could command; and when he found
that parts of the Nephite record closely parallel passages in the
Bible, and being conscious that the language of our English Bible
was superior to his own, he adopted it, except for those differences
indicated in the Nephite original which here and there made the Book of
Mormon version of passages superior in sense and clearness. Of course,
I recognize the fact that this is but a conjecture; but I believe it
to be a reasonable one; and indeed the only one which satisfactorily
disposes of the difficulty you point out.
"There exists, however, another difficulty; and that is, while the
foreging explanation may account for the sameness in phraseology
between these Book of Mormon passages and King James' translation,
there remains to be accounted for the differences that exist between
these Book of Mormon passages and those which parallel them in King
James' translation. I am led to believe that you have been so absorbed,
perhaps, in tracing out the sameness in the expression that you have
failed to note the differences to which I allude, for you make the
claim of strict identity between the Book of Mormon and King James'
translation too strong when you say that there is used the "identical
language of King James' [29] version, not even omitting the words
supplied by the translators." Throughout the parallel passages, there
are here and there differences (with the single exception, perhaps, in
the chapters from Malachi, and even in these is a slight difference),
and a close comparison of these differences will show that in the
matter of supplied words by King James' translators, there are very
frequent changes, and in all the changes that appear, the Book of
Mormon passages are far superior in sense and clearness. I quote you a
few passages in illustration:
BOOK OF MORMON. BIBLE.
Thou hast multiplied the nation Thou hast multiplied the nation
and increased the joy; _and not_ increased the joy:
they joy before thee according they joy before thee according
to the joy in harvest, and to the joy in harvest, and
as men rejoice when they divide as men rejoice when they divide
the spoils!--II. Nephi xxix: 3. the spoil!--Isaiah ix: 3.
Here you will find the Book of Mormon passage more in harmony with the
facts in the case. How inconsistent the passage is in Isaiah, "Thou
has multiplied the nation and not increased the joy!" And yet that
statement is followed by this one--"they joy before thee according to
the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil!"
But in the Book of Mormon it is perfectly consistent, for there it
says "Thou hast multiplied the nation, _and increased the joy_." The
following passages also indicate the superiority of the Book of Mormon
version:
BOOK OF MORMON. BIBLE.
And when they shall say unto And when they shall say unto
you, Seek unto them that you, Seek unto them that
have familiar spirits, and unto have familiar spirits, and unto
wizards that peep and mutter; wizards that peep and mutter;
should not a people seek unto should not a people seek unto
their God, for the living to their God? for the living to
hear from the the dead.--Isaiah viii: 19.
dead?--II. Nephi xvii: 19.
As an illustration of my statement that Book of Mormon version of
passages is sometimes markedly different from our common English
version in the matter of supplied words, I quote you the following
passages. The supplied words in the Bible text are written in _italics_.
BOOK OF MORMON. BIBLE.
Say unto the righteous Say unto the righteous that
that it is well with them; for _it shall be_ well _with him_: for
they shall eat the fruit of their they shall eat the fruit of their
doings. doings.
Woe unto the wicked! for Woe unto the wicked! _it shall
they shall perish; for the reward be_ well _with him_: for the reward
of their hands shall be upon of his hands shall be
them.--II. Nephi xxiii: 10, 11. given him.--Isaiah iii: 10, 11.
If you will carefully compare the passages in the Book of Mormon,
and some of the chapters in Matthew, say the 12th chapter of III.
Nephi, with Matthew v; the 13th chapter of III. Nephi with Matthew 6th
chapter; the 14th chapter of III. Nephi, with Matthew 7th chapter, you
will also find throughout that there are differences between the two,
as much so as between the Catholic Bible (generally called the Douay
Bible) and King James' translation, which, of course, are independent
translations by different scholars. I give the following passages by
way of illustration:
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Matt. ch. v: verse 3. III. Nephi ch. xii: Matt. ch. v: verse 3.
verse 3.
Blessed are the Yea, blessed are Blessed are the
poor in spirit: for the poor in spirit poor in spirit; for
theirs is the kingdom who come unto me [30] theirs is the kingdom
of heaven. for theirs is the of heaven.
kingdom of heaven.
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Verse 4. Verse 4. Verse 5. [31]
Blessed are they And again, blessed Blessed are they
that mourn: for they are they that mourn, that mourn: for
shall be comforted. for they shall be they shall be comforted.
comforted.
Verse 6. Verse 6. Verse 6.
Blessed are they And blessed are all Blessed are they
which do hunger and they who do hunger that hunger and
thirst after and thirst after thirst after justice:
righteousness: for righteousness, for for they shall have
they shall be filled. they shall be filled their fill.
with the
Holy Ghost. [32]
Verse 7. Verse 7. Verse 7.
Blessed are the And blessed are Blessed are the
merciful for they the merciful, for merciful for they
shall obtain mercy. they shall obtain shall obtain mercy.
mercy.
Verse 10. Verse 10. Verse 10.
Blessed are they And blessed are Blessed are they
which are persecuted all they who are that suffer persecution
for righteousness persecuted for my for justice's
sake: for theirs is name's sake, for sake: for theirs is
the kingdom of theirs is the the kingdom of
heaven. kingdom of heaven. heaven.
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Verse 12. Verse 12. Verse 12.
Rejoice, and be For ye shall have Be glad and rejoice,
exceeding glad: for great joy and be for your reward
great is your reward exceeding glad, for is very great
in heaven: for so great shall be your in heaven; for so
persecuted they the reward in heaven, they persecuted the
prophets which were for so persecuted prophets that were
before you. they the prophets before you.
who were before you.
Chapter vi: verse 25. Chapter xiii: verse 25. Chapter vi: verse 25.
Therefore I say And now it came Therefore I say
unto you, take no to pass that when unto you, be not solicitous
thought for your Jesus had spoken for your
life, what ye shall these words, he life, what you shall
eat, or what ye shall looked upon the eat nor for your
drink; nor yet for twelve whom he had body what you shall
your body, what ye chosen, and said unto put on. Is not the
shall put on. Is them, [33] Remember life more than the
not the life more the words which meat: and the body
than meat, and the I have spoken. For more than raiment?
body than raiment? behold, ye are they
whom I have chosen
to minister unto
unto this people.
Therefore I say unto
you, take no thought
for your life, what ye
shall eat, or what ye
shall drink; nor yet
for your body, what
ye shall put on. Is
not the life more
than meat, and the
body than raiment?
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Verse 26. Verse 26. Verse 26.
Behold the fowls Behold the fowls Behold the birds
of the air: for they of the air, for they of the air, for they
sow not, neither do sow not, neither do neither sow nor do
they reap, nor gather they reap, nor gather they reap, nor gather
in barns; yet your into barns; yet into barns; and
heavenly Father your heavenly Father your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are feedeth them. Are feedeth them.
ye not much better ye not much better Are not you of
than they? than they? much more value
than they?
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Verse 27. Verse 27. Verse 27.
Which of you by Which of you by Which of you by
taking thought can taking thought can taking thought can
add one cubit unto add one cubit unto add to his stature
his stature? his stature? one cubit?
Verses 28, 29. Verses 28, 29. Verses 28, 29.
And why take ye And why take ye And for raiment
thought for raiment? thought for raiment? why are you solicitous
Consider the lilies Consider the lilies Consider the
of the field, how of the field, how lilies of the field,
they grow; they they grow; they toil how they grow; they
toil not, neither do not, neither do they labor not, neither
they spin: and yet spin; and yet I say do they spin. But I
I say unto you, that unto you, that even say unto you, that
even Solomon in all Solomon, in all his not even Solomon,
his glory was not glory was not arrayed in all his glory, was
arrayed like one of like one of arrayed as one of
these. these. these.
Verse 30. Verse 30. Verse 30.
Wherefore, if God Wherefore, if God And if the grass
so clothe the grass so clothe the grass of the field, which is
of the field, which of the field, which today, and tomorrow
today is, and tomorrow today is, and tomorrow is cast into the
is cast into the is cast into the oven, God doth so
oven, _shall he_ not oven, even so will clothe: how much
much more _clothe_ he clothe you, if you more you, O ye of
you, O ye of little are not of little little faith?
faith? faith?
KING JAMES' BIBLE. BOOK OF MORMON. DOUAY BIBLE.
Verses 31, 32, 33. Verses 31, 32, 33. Verses 31, 32, 33.
Therefore take no Therefore, take no Be not solicitous
thought, saying thought, saying therefore, saying:
What shall we eat? What shall we eat? What shall we eat:
or, what shall we or, what shall we or what shall we
drink? or Wherewith drink, or wherewith drink, or wherewith
shall we be shall we be clothed? shall we be clothed?
clothed? for after For your heavenly For after all these
all these things do Father knoweth that things do the heathens
the Gentiles seek: ye have need of all seek. For your
For your heavenly these things. But Father knoweth that
Father knoweth that seek ye first the you have need of all
ye have need of all kingdom of God and these things. Seek
these things. But his righteousness, ye therefore first the
seek ye first the and all these things kingdom of God,
kingdom of God and shall be added unto and his justice: and
his righteousness, you. all these things shall
and all these things be added unto you.
shall be added unto
you.
Verse 34. Verse 34. Verse 34.
Take therefore no Take therefore no Be not therefore
thought for the thought for the solicitous for tomorrow.
morrow: For the morrow, for the For the morrow
morrow shall take morrow shall take will be solicitous
thought for the thought for the for itself; sufficient
things of itself. things of itself. for the day is
Sufficient unto the Sufficient is the day the evil thereof.
day is the evil unto the evil
thereof. thereof. [34]
But how are these differences to be accounted for? They unquestionably
arise from the fact that the Prophet compared the King James'
translation with the parallel passages in the Nephite records, and when
he found the sense of the passage of the Nephite plates [35] superior
to that in the English version he made such changes as would give
the superior sense and clearness. This view is sustained by the fact
of uniform superiority of the Book of Mormon version wherever such
differences occur. It is also a significant fact that these changes
occur quite generally in the case of supplied words of the English
translators, and which in order to indicate that they are supplied
words, are printed in Italics. * * * * * I fancy to all this, however,
another inquiry will arise in your mind and that is since Joseph
Smith translated the Book of Mormon by means of the Urim and Thummim,
why is it that he did not give throughout a translation direct from
the Nephite plates, instead of following our English Bible, where
it paralleled passages on the plates, since translation by means of
the Urim and Thummim must have been so simple and so easy? It is at
this particular point where, in my opinion, a very great mistake is
made, both by our own people, and our friends in the world. That is,
translation by the Urim and Thummim is not so simple and easy a thing
as it might at first glance appear. Many have supposed that the Prophet
Joseph had merely to look into the Urim and Thummim, and there see,
without any thought or effort on his part, both the Nephite characters
and the translation in English. In other words, the instrument did
everything and the Prophet nothing, except merely to look in the Urim
and Thummim as one might look into a mirror, and then give out what he
saw there. Such a view of the work of the Urim and Thummim I believe to
be altogether incorrect. I think it caused the Prophet the exercise of
all his intellectual and spiritual forces to obtain the translation;
that it was an exhausting work, one that taxed even his great powers to
their uttermost limit; and hence, when he could ease himself of those
labors by adopting a reasonably good translation already existing, I
think he was justified in doing so."
Such was the answer made to Mr. Chamberlain's inquiries, and as the
reader will doubtless be interested to know how this answer was
received by this unprejudiced gentleman, I quote the following from his
letter in response to the explanation. [36]
Of course, I realize that if the Book of Mormon was not just what
it purported to be, the whole fabric [of Mormonism] must fall
to the ground, so far as being an inspired religion, and would
then only be worth what good one could get out of it as the best
organization or controlled religion on earth. * * * Upon studying
the Book of Mormon, I, of course, found these portions of King
James' version of our Bible, and judging it by the applied law of
human experience, as we lawyers learn to judge everything, I could
account for it in on other way, than that Joseph Smith copied it
therefrom, and I am free to say that your reasons for his so doing
are not only probable, but the only solution that can be given. * *
* I believe and think that your suggestion is the only theory upon
which it is possible to advocate its divine character. It seems to
me that God, so far as I know, has never supplied man with what he
already possessed, and Joseph Smith already had language with which
to express his ideas, and all that was required in addition from
God was, that he furnish him with the thought, and then let him
express it in his own language. I never could for a moment believe
that God is interested in placing his approval on King James'
translators' style of translating, nor upon the composition of the
English language therein adopted. I do not see wherein your theory
detracts in any manner from the value of the Book of Mormon, as
an inspired work acknowledged by God as authentic, nor makes more
impracticable the manner of its introduction.
II.
_Miscellaneous Objections Based on Literary Style and Language_.
The theory established that the language of the translation of the
Book of Mormon is Joseph Smith's, and that at least for extended
quotations from Isaiah and the New Testament writers he turned to the
common English version of the Bible and adopted it, the answer to all
objections based upon errors in literary style and grammar, and the
finding of many passages from the Hebrew prophets and New Testament
writers transcribed from King James' translation--is obvious:
(1) The language is Joseph Smith's; the errors in style and grammar are
due to his very limited education, for which the lack of educational
opportunities alone is responsible.
(2) To relieve himself somewhat of the mental strain in the work of
translation when he came to matter transcribed from the Hebrew prophets
into the Nephite record, or to instructions of the Messiah that
paralled his teachings to the people of Judea--of which there already
existed a reasonably good English translation--the Prophet adopted that
translation. [37]
The ideas underlying this explanation once adopted, it is equally easy
to meet the objections to the Book of Mormon based on the existence of
modern words and phraseology found in it; of provincialisms of the time
and place in which the translation was wrought; of phrases and words
from modern poets and religious exhorters. These words and phrases
made up the vocabulary of Joseph Smith; and his mode of expressing his
thought is that of the period and place in which he lived; and hence
the ideas obtained from the Nephite plates he couched in those modern
words, phrases and modes of expression familiar to him.
Sometimes, however, more is claimed for the existence of these
modern words, phrases and alleged quotations from modern poets than
is warranted. [38] For example: Campbell, Hyde, Lamb, Linn, and many
others, sarcastically remark that the words of Shakespeare are quoted
in a passage in the Book of Mormon accredited to Lehi, 2200 years
before Shakespeare was born! Linn puts it in this form:
Shakespeare is proved a plagiarist by comparing his words with
those of the second Nephi, who, speaking twenty-two hundred years
before Shakespeare was born, said, "Hear the words of a trembling
parent, whose limbs you must soon lay down in the cold and silent
grave, from whence no traveler can return." [39]
The theory already advanced as an explanation of the existence of
modern words and phraseology in Joseph Smith's translation of the
Nephite record is adequate as an explanation of such instances of
modernisms as this. [40] Through school books extant, or through
listening to itinerant preachers, the Prophet might have become
acquainted with such phraseology as this alleged quotation from
Shakespeare, and employed it where it would express some Nephite idea
or thought found in the Nephite record. Still, this alleged quotation
from the British poet, at least, is susceptible of another explanation.
In the book of Job I find two passages either of which, and surely both
of them combined, would furnish the complete thought, and for that
matter largely, the phraseology to both Lehi and Shakespeare. I quote
Job's language, and afterwards that of Lehi's and Shakespeare's, that
the reader may compare them:
1. _Job_, "Let me alone that I may take comfort a little before I
go whence I shall not return, even to the land of darkness and the
shadow of death." [41]
"When a few years are come, then I shall go the way whence I shall
not return." [42]
2. _Lehi_, "Hear the words of a parent whose limbs you must soon
lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can
return."
3. _Shakespeare_, "That undiscovered country from whose bourne no
traveler returns."
It will be observed that the passage from the Book of Mormon follows
Job more closely than it does Shakespeare, both in thought and diction;
and this for the reason, doubtless, that Lehi had been impressed with
Job's idea [43] of going to a land whence he would not return; and
Joseph Smith being familiar with Job, and very likely not familiar with
Shakespeare, when he came to Lehi's thought he expressed it nearly in
Job's phraseology; and undoubtedly Shakespeare paraphrased his now
celebrated passage from Job.
It is also objected that many of the prophecies of the Book of Mormon
respecting the earth-career of Messiah, especially the prophecies found
in first Nephi, are given sometimes in the language of accomplished
fact. [44] "Lehi," says Campbell, "was a greater Prophet than any of the
Jewish prophets, and uttered all the events of the Christian Era and
developed the records of Matthew, Luke, and John 600 years before John
the Baptist was born." He follows the general statement with a number
of passages illustrative of it.