Origins of Mormon Doctrine

[Hagoth]

It has become increasingly evident that Joseph Smith borrowed a lot of "original" Mormon doctrine from other sources. Examples include Josephus, Jasher, Thomas Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State, Thomas Taylor’s The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary, George Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry, Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven, Its Wonders and Hell, Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews.

Some recent attention has been given to the lectures of Professor John Smith, the first professor at Dartmouth College, who has multiple connections to Joseph Smith's family. First is that he was a direct relative of Joseph Smith Sr, as their fathers were first cousins. Second was that he developed much of the early curriculum at Dartmouth where Hyrum Smith attended Moor's Academy, the Dartmouth prep school that was housed on the Dartmouth campus. There, besides being in the presence of such interesting characters as Solomon Spaulding and Ethan Smith (besides later being the author of View of the Hebrews, he was Oliver Cowdery's minister), Hyrum would have learned all of John Smith's unorthodox theological theories.

A Dartmouth alumnus summarized Smith's lectures as:

-A concept of the preexistence derived from Greek philosophy
-Atonement covenant made before the earth was created
-Plan of salvation agreed upon in the preexistence
-Father, Son and sons of men were together in the preexistence
-Spiritual death was man's condition after the Fall
-Son's church would exist in all ages after the Fall
-Types and shadows of hte covenant found in the scriptures
-Oaths and covenants are Deity's legal structure
-Light, borrowed light and the light of reason would guide
-Melchizedek Priesthood is co-eternal with God
-Priesthood is the source of the Son's authority
-Aaronic Priesthood promised to Aaron's descendants
-Free Agency and the right to choose is integral to the plan
-Degrees of Glory is the structure of the Eternities
-Consecration to Christ is required for the highest exaltation
-Revelation required to know ultimate nature of God
-Spirit is a simpler form of matter
-The prosperity cycle is the natural direction of history
-Millions of peopled worlds
-Father argues for justice and Son argues for mercy

This list comes from Secret Combinations by Kathleen Kimball Melonakos.

John Smith also wrote a book in which he made his case that the Native Americans are Israelites, an idea that particularly excited his students Ethan Smith and Solomon Spaulding.

Melonakos also says that Dartmouth's original mission was to train ministers to evangelize the Indians, in an effort named The School of the Prophets.

One more note on Hyrum Smith. This kid was brilliant and I think he needs to be considered as a possible significant contributor to the Book of Mormon and Mormon doctrine in general. Could it be that Joseph was the band's lead singer, but Hyrum was the song writer? Hyrum was one of a very small number of applicants to get accepted into Moors, where the curriculum was advanced and vigorous. Freshman entry into Dartmouth required "that candidates be well versed in Latin and Greek languages, in Virgil, Cicero's Select Orations, Sallus, The Greek New Testament, Dalzell's Collectanea Graeca Minora, Latin and Greek Prosody, Arithmetic, Ancient and Modern Geography, and that he be able to accurately translate English into Latin (Melonakos, p. 74)

Is all of this just coincidental?

p.s. if that doesn't adequately weird you out, here's a list of eye-opening "coincidences" I found in George Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WqN ... sp=sharing

[jfro18]

Wow... that's not a coincidence, it's just that the entire family was inspired with the same exact thoughts as so many others he borrowed from.

Do we know what years those sermons/lectures were given? Would be curious to see how they lined up with Joseph's evolving theology...

[Mormorrisey]

I would love to get Melonakos' book, I just don't want to spend the 20 clams to do it! What a cheapskate. But thanks for the summary, Hagoth. Furthermore, for those like me, who don't have 20 bones right now to indulge their research in all things Mormon related, here's a shortened version of the larger book, an article Kathleen wrote for the John Whitmer Journal:

http://mormoncounterfeiting.com/wp-cont ... ersion.pdf

From all I've read though, her book is illuminating for the counterfeiting stuff in the Nauvoo period, but she stretches a bit to prove earlier counterfeiting from the Joseph Sr. years - but it looks like she's bang on with some of the theological challenges and context of where Joseph got his ideas. In the article, she quotes Brooke's The Refiner's Fire which, like Quinn, looks at the early magical world view, but connects it with alchemy and counterfeiting. Brooke's work is very interesting, and is a companion to Quinn. The more that I study the 19th century, they simply did not have the same scruples that 20th century people do when it comes to plagiarism, exaggeration, and just out and out lying, especially by preachers and itinerant religious figures. As long as the message came through loud and clear, how the message was received and/or communicated was simply irrelevant for many of these people.

Similarly, my own reading of the borderlands literature, which is now voluminous, suggests that the British North American (Canadian) and the American border, where the Smiths' clearly lived, was rife with smuggling, counterfeiting and the kind of stuff that Melonakos suggests is going on. So that is a second witness, so to speak. So I'll buy what she's selling.

[Hagoth]

Wow... that's not a coincidence, it's just that the entire family was inspired with the same exact thoughts as so many others he borrowed from.

Do we know what years those sermons/lectures were given? Would be curious to see how they lined up with Joseph's evolving theology...

They all pre-date Mormonism and were being taught when Hyrum was attending.

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

John Hajicek is currently writing a book about early mormon origins from documents he has collected. Heavy emphasis on the really early period of mormon history before Joseph Jr. and Oliver existed. Think vermont new israelites and the wood scrape incident type stuff. Congregationalist, Universalist and Methodist influences. I find the fact that the new israelites were doing counterfeiting operations interesting considering Oliver's later assignment to purchase the plates for the Kirtland Safety Society bank notes later on. Family business perhaps.

[Palerider]

Hagoth, don't forget that a good deal of the King Follett discourse came soon after Joseph began studying gnosticism with Hugh Nibley's jewish grand daddy. It's been too long since I read about it but I believe there's a direct quote in the Follett discourse from the Zohar, the main book of the Kabbalah. Of course Joseph claimed it all as originating with himself.

Here's a link for those interested:

http://gnosis.org/jskabb1.htm

[jfro18]

This is really interesting --- are the lectures in the book in whole or just the bullet points you posted here?

I saw that the author sells the digital only version for $9.95 for anyone who might want it: http://mormoncounterfeiting.com/order/

I saw a BYU study that *might* include this, but the study does not appear to be linked online so I can't get it to confirm. https://atom.lib.byu.edu/smh/19423/ - it's called Dartmouth Arminianism and it's Impact on Hyrum Smith and the Smith Family

Would be interested to see that too as well. This one almost seems too good to be true - especially since we've seen that the Aaronic/Melchizedek priesthoods appeared to originate with the Campbellite branch and made it to Joseph Smith by way of Sidney Rigdon.

Definitely a very interesting topic though!

[FiveFingerMnemonic]

Here is the link to pertinent portions of the lectures

http://www.mormonorigins.com/ProfessorJ ... tings.html

Keep in mind that the priesthood delineation idea is older than Campbell, as it seems to originate with the Scottish enlightenment preachers that came over to the US and Canada. We know of Alexander Crawford of the reformed baptists as the initial proponent of it (that we know of) and that movement pre-dates Campbell. The John Smith lectures do mention Melchezidek but it seems to be in the context of the biblical references from Hebrews rather than the reformed baptist teachings.

I think that link to John Smith is weak.

[Arcturus]

Is all of this just coincidental?

Fascinating Hagoth. Thank you for sharing. What is equally mysterious to me is how the heck you come across this stuff...

But seriously, these are gems of information that you just don't stumble upon. Do you read a lot of this stuff in your free time?

[Arcturus]

It has become increasingly evident that Joseph Smith borrowed a lot of "original" Mormon doctrine from other sources. Examples include Josephus, Jasher, Thomas Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State, Thomas Taylor’s The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary, George Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry, Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven, Its Wonders and Hell, Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews.

Has FAIR or any other apologists attempted to refute the similarities between Joseph's works and these sources? Would love to read the effort...

[moksha]

Hagoth, don't forget that a good deal of the King Follett discourse came soon after Joseph began studying gnosticism with Hugh Nibley's Jewish grand daddy. It's been too long since I read about it but I believe there's a direct quote in the Follett discourse from the Zohar, the main book of the Kabbalah. Of course Joseph claimed it all as originating with himself.

There is an interesting article in the latest Mormon Interpreter by Jeff Lindsey relating Joseph's work to Chinese SciFi author Liu Cixin's book, The Three-Body Problem.

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph ... e-fiction/

[jfro18]

It has become increasingly evident that Joseph Smith borrowed a lot of "original" Mormon doctrine from other sources. Examples include Josephus, Jasher, Thomas Dick’s Philosophy of a Future State, Thomas Taylor’s The Six Books of Proclus on the Theology of Plato, Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary, George Oliver's Antiquities of Freemasonry, Emanuel Swedenborg's Heaven, Its Wonders and Hell, Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews.

Has FAIR or any other apologists attempted to refute the similarities between Joseph's works and these sources? Would love to read the effort...

FAIR has taken a stab at a few of those. I read their rebuttal to accusations he borrowed the different heavens from Emanuel Swedenborg and IIRC they argued that there's no way to know Joseph even knew about it, and that you can find parallels in lots of ideas but it doesn't mean it wasn't from God. A BYU article I read the other day said that many early religious thinkers got revelation from God, so it's possible that Emanuel Swedenborg and Joseph Smith both got revelation from God about the different heavens.

I don't think FAIR has come up with a rebuttal yet to the Adam Clarke plagiarism in the JST because that's a really new problem, although I'm sure it will be there soon.

[Palerider]

Hagoth, don't forget that a good deal of the King Follett discourse came soon after Joseph began studying gnosticism with Hugh Nibley's Jewish grand daddy. It's been too long since I read about it but I believe there's a direct quote in the Follett discourse from the Zohar, the main book of the Kabbalah. Of course Joseph claimed it all as originating with himself.

There is an interesting article in the latest Mormon Interpreter by Jeff Lindsey relating Joseph's work to Chinese SciFi author Liu Cixin's book, The Three-Body Problem.

http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/joseph ... e-fiction/

I tried, I really did.....to read the entire article but sleep possessed me in the middle of the day. I could not escape it's clutches. I'll try again.

What weirded me out a little was how far this guy stretched to draw some sort of comparison between Joseph's magnificent thought processes and revelations and that of Chinese sci-fi literature.

And his going on and on about how innovative and highly advanced the Chinese were becoming in such a short time was a little embarrassing. I do really appreciate the advances China has made but is it lost on this person that the reason for their advancement has been that the U.S. has either outright given technology to them or they have stolen it from our tech industries?

And then he cheers on the Chinese advancement in patent law? Yeah, right, they steal our technology, make improvements and then expect us to honor their patent laws and buy the technology back from them.

Hey.....you know.....maybe the comparison between the Chinese government and Joseph Smith isn't so far removed after all.

By the way this is no reflection on the Chinese people themselves. Having spent quite a bit of time in San Francisco associating with many people freshly immigrated from China, I found them to be very good friends and colleagues.

[Ho Lee Turtle]

For those looking for another good source for discovering the similarities between Smith’s ideas and ideas and influences occurring around him, I discovered Rick Grunder’s work “Mormon Parallels” to be fascinating in many regards. I think it’s still possible to get copies. I’ve heard recently that there is an updated 2018 version out there, or soon to be released, as well.

http://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels.htm

[Corsair]

I don't think FAIR has come up with a rebuttal yet to the Adam Clarke plagiarism in the JST because that's a really new problem, although I'm sure it will be there soon.

I encountered a casual rebuttal recently. I have a good friend who is an apologist. He does not work for FairMormon, but he could. He is well versed in Nibley and more recently has been going through Brian Hales' book on plural marriage. I casually brought up Adam Clarke and apologist friend maintained his best composure. He simply waved it away acknowledging that the Joseph Smith translation of the bible was simply an inspired commentary based on other sources.

This is probably how it will come out. Some apologist will acknowledge the obvious parallels, but then state that this was part of Joseph Smith's education as a prophet. He was inspired to include only those ideas that were confirmed by God through revelation.

Of course, this stuffs a lot of LDS rhetoric down a memory hole. The grandiose descriptions of Joseph's inspired translation of the bible were supposed to have restored some plain and precious truths lost during the Great Apostasy. Now they have to tone that down because there is no definitive example of Joseph Smith translating anything.

[jfro18]

I encountered a casual rebuttal recently. I have a good friend who is an apologist. He does not work for FairMormon, but he could. He is well versed in Nibley and more recently has been going through Brian Hales' book on plural marriage. I casually brought up Adam Clarke and apologist friend maintained his best composure. He simply waved it away acknowledging that the Joseph Smith translation of the bible was simply an inspired commentary based on other sources.

If you listen to the mormondiscussions podcast with Haley Wilson, she mentions that the only faith-promoting excuse you can give is that JS mentioned that he was commanded to "seek knowledge out of the best books." Again, it goes against everything they said until the discovery was made, just as the Hill Cumorah is now not the Hill Cumorah because we know it doesn't have the remains of hundreds of thousands of soldiers or that the Lamanites aren't actually the Native Americans because DNA has proven it's a lie.

They will be moving the goalposts more and more as we learn more and more about just how much of a complete fraud Joseph Smith was.

[Hagoth]

This is really interesting --- are the lectures in the book in whole or just the bullet points you posted here?

Just the bullet points, so I have no idea how indicative the bullet points are of the actual content.

[Hagoth]

But seriously, these are gems of information that you just don't stumble upon. Do you read a lot of this stuff in your free time?

I get it from a rock in a hat.

[Arcturus]

I get it from a rock in a hat.

[Arcturus]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1qyTCSU ... oJid0/view

The above link will take you to the paper: Dartmouth Arminianism And Its Impact on Hyrum Smith And the Smith Family (Behrens 2006)

You read this before Hagoth? Pretty much parallels the stuff you've posted here. Thanks for sharing the Dartmouth connection.

I can't stop thinking about all this and would love to get more info on the Moor's Academy and Hyrum's experience there. Also, is this not a huge smoking gun in terms of doctrinal origins? Assuming the points in this paper are correct, how does one believe that Joseph had even one real revelation. The Dartmouth doctrines are too close to Mormonism. IMO this is a bigger issue than borrowing from Swedenborgism because of Hyrum's documented stay at Moor's. Thoughts?

Behren's conclusion:

Dartmouth College had significant influence on the LDS Church, both direct and indirect. The Dartmouth College Case saved Dartmouth College and provided the legal precedent to preserve the LDS Church in Nauvoo long enough for it to grow to critical mass. The Dartmouth Medical School played a significant role in saving Joseph Smith's leg. Hyrum's education at Moor's school provided a tutor for unschooled Joseph. Hyrum's exposure to Dartmouth's theology, cosmology, ancient language studies, architecture, Ethan Smith's son Lyndon, and Solomon Spaulding's nephew James Spaulding from Sharon, Vermont, who was attending the Medical School, all provided discussion material for tutoring Joseph during his long recovery from leg surgery that kept Joseph at home on crutches until the Smith family reached Palmyra. The future development of Mormon Doctrine so parallels the Dartmouth Lectures that it is hard not to perceive their stimulating possibilities. Perhaps those discussions prepared Joseph Smith in his 12th year to be "concerned for his soul" soon after the Smith family arrived in Palmyra and in a few short years to receive his First Vision. The rest we know as "Mormon History."