Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

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jfro18
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Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by jfro18 » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:53 am

I've been thinking about this lately because it's one of the few issues I personally don't know how to answer without using the apologist trick of giving 6 different possibilities-- if Joseph Smith made it up, how did he do it?

I've read about the Spaulding theory and the 3 hour Infants on Thrones podcast is a good listen covering the wordprint info and the history of the spaulding manuscripts. They also cover the circumstantial possibilities that Rigdon was involved with Smith earlier than previously thought.

We know (assume) he borrowed ideas/content freely from the KJV, Late War, View of the Hebrews, etc.

You can see the list of names JS took from Anthon's dictionary of names and the way he seems to write himself into the book.

But what does everyone think as to who wrote it and how? How could someone write such a long book that doesn't have more obvious problems? I don't believe for a second it's from God... but that's one area that's hard to answer without going in a lot of different directions.

Personally I tend to think that Joseph spent years thinking about this, effectively testing the stories when telling them to family and refining the general ideas. I think he spent nights planning out the next part by reading the KJV and other materials and then dictating that part the following day.

I have no idea if any or all of the scribes knew it was a fraud. I have a hard time believing that Cowdery didn't know, but without solid evidence he ever admitted it... it's a non-starter with most people. Then you have to wonder if Emma knew, if his parents knew, if his brothers knew, etc.

Just wondering what everyone though - maybe it's as simple as Bible fan fiction... just wish there was a more compelling answer.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Hagoth » Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:08 am

I'm beginning to lean toward the Melanakos hypothesis that it was a Smith family project. I think Hyrum may have played a significant part and Cowdery could very well have been complicit. But I still think it was mostly Joseph. I think he was a talented story teller and had an incredible talent for dictating coherent prose. I agree with you jfro18 that this was a work that was many years in the making. Martin Harris was totally duped and so was David Whitmer. I believe that when Joseph went for his daily walks while translating with Harris he was either going over his notes or mentally preparing the next block of dictation, but that he knew far in advance what the stories and characters would be.

Joseph didn't need to plagiarize Spaulding or Ethan Smith. They were all telling the same story that people had been telling and retelling in various forms since the earliest colonists.

When I read the Book of Mormon now I am sometimes impressed but mostly underwhelmed. When the magic wears off it's not nearly as compelling as I once thought.
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Lucidity » Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:17 am

I can very much echo what you’ve said here. I feel like I can pretty easily point to and explain everything that happened with the unfolding of Mormonism to a degree that I feel quite satisfied and confident.

Yet the Book of Mormon is the one remaining item that none of the explanations fully satisfy me. Like you I’m confident it’s a work of 19th century fiction, the evidence for that is overwhelming, but how exactly it managed to come about remains a bit of a mystery to me.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by blazerb » Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:29 am

I think it would have been impossible for JS to write the BoM. However, I think he was fully capable of dictating it. Maybe it was a family project, but I don't have that much difficulty just imagining JS spinning a verbal tale.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by wtfluff » Fri Nov 02, 2018 1:32 pm

I have no problem whatsoever saying: Joseph Smith wrote (dictated) the Book of Mormon.

The vast majority of human beings on earth aren't capable of writing the Book of Mormon, just like the vast majority of human beings on earth are not capable of writing the Lord of the Rings books, or the Eragon books, or the Harry Potter books.

Besides: If you take out the fork-lifted portions from King James, and "It came to pass" what's left?


Edit to add: Like others have said, the BoM is really not anywhere near a great literary work. How may of you have heard of: "The Book of Mormon Pride Cycle?" That's really all the BoM is: the same "Pride Cycle" story, told over and over, with new names interchanged, and a couple of other possibly semi-decent stories tossed into the mix. The only "complex" thing about the BoM is the confusing timeline. If it were in fact a "good book" then the timeline wouldn't be confusing, and would be seamlessly integrated with the story. :mrgreen:
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Hagoth » Fri Nov 02, 2018 3:43 pm

When people talk about what an amazing feat it was for Joseph to pull the BoM out of apparent thin air I think it's useful to put him in the company of other people who did similar things. Here are the comments I put together for my annotated version of the Book of Mormon Translation essay:
But is Joseph Smith entirely unique in producing a book that people assumed to be beyond his capacity? It turns out that he is not. Many others have produced books that appear to be miraculous. Let’s consider just a few examples from roughly the same time period as the Book of Mormon:

Philemon Stewart was a member of the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, a religious community commonly known as the Shakers. He produced the sacred text known as The Sacred Roll and Book, which he claims was dictated to him by an angel of God, and of which Martin Harris was also a witness to both the book and the angel. Part 1 of the shakers’ sacred scroll is over 400 pages long and was dictated in just 14 days, which is impressive even when compared to the 90-day claim for the Book of Mormon. Stewart disavowed all 'natural wisdom' and maintained that he 'knew nought of the subject' until it was 'opened and brought forward, word after word, by the mighty Angel.' (Stein, Inspiration, revelation, and scripture: The story of a Shaker Bible, Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society (Vol. 105, No. 2, p. 347). There is no question that Stewart produced an extremely impressive piece of work, especially considering that it was dictated in public before witnesses in just two weeks without any kind of notes.

In the early 1900s a poorly educated and otherwise unimpressive housewife named Pearl Curran suddenly began writing lengthy novels and poems without any previous writing experience, which she claimed were dictated to her by the spirit of a 17th century woman named Patience Worth. Curran would dictate lengthy and impressive novels easily, without notes, often for hours on end in front of audiences of marvelling onlookers. Her work gained high acclaim and the he renowned poet Edgar Lee Masters observed, “There is no doubt...she is producing remarkable literature.” The prestigious Braithwaite anthology listed five of her poems among the nation’s best published in 1917, and the New York Times hailed her first novel as a true “feat of literary composition.” She produced seven impressive novels, volumes of poetry, short stories, and plays that added up to nearly four million written words (Diliberto, Smithsonian Magazine, September, 2010). Curran seemed to be able to write detailed histories of periods long before her time, with dialects and vocabulary that she had supposedly never heard, and descriptions of places she had never been. Besides being so mind bogglingly prolific, Curran created literature that was extremely popular at the time and garnered wide acclaim from critics, which certainly cannot be said about the Book of Mormon.

James Strang was an early Mormon convert who claimed to have been appointed by Joseph Smith as his successor. Most members of the modern LDS church might be surprised to learn that upon Joseph’s death a large contingent of the church, numbering in the thousands, followed Strang rather than Brigham Young. These were predominantly those saints who did not want to participate in polygamy and those who still desired to follow a prophet, a calling to which Brigham made no claims. Strang, on the other hand, declared that he communed with angels, including Moroni, who showed him the location of buried ancient metal plates. Among those who followed Strang rather than Brigham were Emma Smith and her children, Joseph’s Mother Lucy, Joseph’s only living brother William, all of the living members of the eight witnesses, and the Three Witnesses except for Oliver Cowdery, who moved near to the Strangite community but never officially joined. Like Joseph Smith, Strang had eleven eyewitnesses of his plates. Unlike Joseph, it was the witnesses who were told where to find the plates and who dug them up themselves. Also unlike Joseph, the plates remained in the community for decades until they were supposedly borrowed by the Salt Lake LDS church for examination but never returned. Although he had only a grade school education Strang translated the contents of two sets of plates by the “gift and power of God” and produced the Voree Record and The Book of the Law of the Lord. The resulting texts contain many of the same Hebraisms that we find in the Book of Mormon (http://www.strangite.org/Chiasmus.htm).

Joseph’s own mother, Lucy Mack Smith, is another excellent example. Despite having no formal education, but having access to the exact same resources as her son, Lucy wrote a very intelligent and complex 500-page book, which she produced by dictating to a scribe. According to this essay’s own criteria of what it takes to compose a book, Lucy was also “incapable of writing a book.”
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:02 pm

John Hajicek claims to know who wrote it based on his aquisition of the 1837 Oliver Cowdery book of mormon with notes in Cowdery's handwriting that say where/who certain parts were "stolen" from. I don't think he will release pictures until he publishes a book or documentary and I also wonder if releasing such info would harm his collecting business. He may never tell.

I pestered him a bit about my theories and he would only say that anything congregationalist, universalist and methodist is important to understanding BOM doctrines (which seems obvious). He also agreed that you can't pin it to one source, but a conglomerate of different sources. He also said Alexander Crawford is very important to mormon origins.

Regarding my own theories, I think the Alma sermons come from New England theologian Jonathan Edwards and his later followers the Hopkinsians. The evidence for this is in the unique phrases that match Edwards sermons and parts of hopkinsian magazine from the 1820s. One such phrase I discovered is "probationary state" which is not found in any hebrew scripture but is everywhere in a sermon in Hopkinsian magazine 1824.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7dkOA ... te&f=false


Also check out this wikipedia article on New England Theology, especially the section on "New Divinity". Seems like many or all of those listed doctrines show up in the BOM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_theology

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Red Ryder » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:34 pm

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:02 pm
John Hajicek claims to know who wrote it based on his aquisition of the 1837 Oliver Cowdery book of mormon with notes in Cowdery's handwriting that say where/who certain parts were "stolen" from. I don't think he will release pictures until he publishes a book or documentary and I also wonder if releasing such info would harm his collecting business. He may never tell.

I pestered him a bit about my theories and he would only say that anything congregationalist, universalist and methodist is important to understanding BOM doctrines (which seems obvious). He also agreed that you can't pin it to one source, but a conglomerate of different sources. He also said Alexander Crawford is very important to mormon origins.

Regarding my own theories, I think the Alma sermons come from New England theologian Jonathan Edwards and his later followers the Hopkinsians. The evidence for this is in the unique phrases that match Edwards sermons and parts of hopkinsian magazine from the 1820s. One such phrase I discovered is "probationary state" which is not found in any hebrew scripture but is everywhere in a sermon in Hopkinsian magazine 1824.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7dkOA ... te&f=false


Also check out this wikipedia article on New England Theology, especially the section on "New Divinity". Seems like many or all of those listed doctrines show up in the BOM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_theology
Interesting theory and links. Do you know if these popped up in the Johnson brother's text analysis they did a few years ago that pinged against The Late War?
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by jfro18 » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:38 pm

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:02 pm
John Hajicek claims to know who wrote it based on his aquisition of the 1837 Oliver Cowdery book of mormon with notes in Cowdery's handwriting that say where/who certain parts were "stolen" from. I don't think he will release pictures until he publishes a book or documentary and I also wonder if releasing such info would harm his collecting business. He may never tell.
Talk about an all-time tease right there -- would be insane if those notes had anything that really gave clarity on what sources might've been used.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:55 pm

Red Ryder wrote:
FiveFingerMnemonic wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 5:02 pm
John Hajicek claims to know who wrote it based on his aquisition of the 1837 Oliver Cowdery book of mormon with notes in Cowdery's handwriting that say where/who certain parts were "stolen" from. I don't think he will release pictures until he publishes a book or documentary and I also wonder if releasing such info would harm his collecting business. He may never tell.

I pestered him a bit about my theories and he would only say that anything congregationalist, universalist and methodist is important to understanding BOM doctrines (which seems obvious). He also agreed that you can't pin it to one source, but a conglomerate of different sources. He also said Alexander Crawford is very important to mormon origins.

Regarding my own theories, I think the Alma sermons come from New England theologian Jonathan Edwards and his later followers the Hopkinsians. The evidence for this is in the unique phrases that match Edwards sermons and parts of hopkinsian magazine from the 1820s. One such phrase I discovered is "probationary state" which is not found in any hebrew scripture but is everywhere in a sermon in Hopkinsian magazine 1824.

https://books.google.com/books?id=7dkOA ... te&f=false


Also check out this wikipedia article on New England Theology, especially the section on "New Divinity". Seems like many or all of those listed doctrines show up in the BOM.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_theology
Interesting theory and links. Do you know if these popped up in the Johnson brother's text analysis they did a few years ago that pinged against The Late War?
I'm not sure if it was part of their original project, but I added my discovery to what I believe is another project of theirs at this link: https://www.bookofmormonorigins.com/

This is an annotated online book of mormon with links to matching possible sources within the verses themselves. I actually used this version for family scripture study for a time and would make a few comments about where certain verses were borrowed from until my wife got mad at me.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by EternityIsNow » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:16 pm

Red Ryder wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:34 pm
He also agreed that you can't pin it to one source, but a conglomerate of different sources. He also said Alexander Crawford is very important to mormon origins.
Do you mean Alexander Campbell?

Rigdon could have added Campbell's restorationist theology to the BoM, is that what he meant?

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:24 pm

EternityIsNow wrote:
Red Ryder wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 7:34 pm
He also agreed that you can't pin it to one source, but a conglomerate of different sources. He also said Alexander Crawford is very important to mormon origins.
Do you mean Alexander Campbell?

Rigdon could have added Campbell's restorationist theology to the BoM, is that what he meant?
Nope, Alexander Crawford was a reformed baptist minister in Canada who taught about the Aaronic and Mechezidek priesthood divisions before Mormonism and the Campbellites began. Campbell, Rigdon and Parley Pratt were associated with the reformed baptist movement before Campbell split off and they were also familiar with Crawford's teachings pre-mormon church.
In addition to these Book of Mormon teachings, other churches at the time—including ones with which many early Church members were familiar—taught about the priesthood. The Disciples of Christ, from which many early members of the Church converted, for example, had developed its own priesthood doctrines, influenced by Alexander Crawford, a Scottish minister living in Canada. In 1827, Crawford had delineated the existence of three distinct priesthoods: a patriarchal priesthood (which he also called a priesthood after the “order of Melchisedec”), an Aaronical priesthood (originally held by Aaron), and a priesthood held by Jesus Christ. Crawford regarded Melchizedek as a greater priest than Abraham, citing the fact that Abraham paid tithes to him; indeed, according to Crawford, Melchizedek was one of the key players in the order of the patriarchal priesthood. Crawford also considered the patriarchal priesthood and the Aaronical priesthood as branches of the Levitical priesthood. Alexander Campbell and the Disciples of Christ were influenced by Crawford’s ideas, although Campbell differed somewhat in his conception of the priesthood, arguing that God had given a “priesthood” to the tribe of Levi and a “high priesthood” to Aaron and his sons. [13] Regardless, as one historian has claimed, Campbell taught his understanding of priesthood “to many of his followers who [became] part of the Mormonite community and continued to believe the same doctrine.” [14]
https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/you-shall- ... priesthood

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by FiveFingerMnemonic » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:38 pm

To further clarify, the BOM does contain some campbellite type teachings, for example being against infant baptism, but there is so much more New England and New York theology involved in addition to the anti-masonic stuff to say that it was all Rigdon's doing or prove that he had a hand in it. That's my opinion anyway.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by EternityIsNow » Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:42 pm

Thanks for the ^^ explanation FFM. Makes sense, Crawford's ideas certainly are visible.

Who wrote it, theories must explain a lot...

My go at the chain of events (major ones):

1. Literature that is found in various ways in the BoM:

The Bible
The Adventures of Marco Polo
The Spanish Conquest of Mexico (and Peru, many accounts but a few were available in NY at the time)
Maps of the Middle East from the middle ages and on
The Late War
Books about the Pirate William Kidd

2. Books that appear to have influenced the BoM story:

Books about Free Masonry (story of Hiram Abiff)
A missing manuscript by Solomon Spaulding
View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith

3. Contemporary ideas that influenced the BoM:

Alexander Crawford (see above)
Alexander Campbell's sermons (restorationism, via Sydney Rigdon probably)
Other popular sermons

4. Likely chain of authors, each adding ideas and reworking the manuscript

Solomon Spaulding (history only version, many details about warfare borrowed from his Revolutionary War experience as a veteran)
Sydney Rigdon (added the pride cycle religious sermons, his last days rhetoric inspired by reading NT/Revelations, and Campbell's ideas)
Joseph Smith Sr (Lehi's dream, maybe added Mormon, so a patriarch has a voice in the book)
Hyrum Smith (added some gathering of Israel ideas from John Smith from Dartmouth, perhaps?)
Lucy Mack Smith (probably added the anti-alcohol messages, none of the others would have, did she add the slaying of Laban?)
Joseph Smith (inserted some of his own ideas but mostly just improved the wording, creating more powerful messages)
Oliver Cowdery (I've wondered if he added the Bible passages, don't think anyone else would have thought that was OK)

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and this may not be exactly how the parts fit together, but the point is that the diversity of ideas in the book point to multiple contributors, and there is a reasonable group of candidates here. The belief that Joseph could have written the book on his own seems to be derived from a latent hope (or mental programming) that most of the time these people were telling the truth. But in reality, to write this book and pass it off as authentic history, I think it is probable that most of these people were able to lie, some a little, some a lot. That was just an ugly part of the family business (glass looking, money digging, divination, palm reading, possibly counterfeiting). So we don't have to believe any of their accounts of how the book was 'translated'. But we can look at the type of process that would have been necessary to create the book, and I think it looks something like the above. More or Less.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Arcturus » Sat Nov 03, 2018 9:02 am

Hagoth wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 9:08 am
I'm beginning to lean toward the Melanakos hypothesis that it was a Smith family project. I think Hyrum may have played a significant part and Cowdery could very well have been complicit. But I still think it was mostly Joseph.
My leaning as well.
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by alas » Sat Nov 03, 2018 11:20 am

EternityIsNow wrote:
Fri Nov 02, 2018 8:42 pm
Thanks for the ^^ explanation FFM. Makes sense, Crawford's ideas certainly are visible.

Who wrote it, theories must explain a lot...

My go at the chain of events (major ones):

1. Literature that is found in various ways in the BoM:

The Bible
The Adventures of Marco Polo
The Spanish Conquest of Mexico (and Peru, many accounts but a few were available in NY at the time)
Maps of the Middle East from the middle ages and on
The Late War
Books about the Pirate William Kidd

2. Books that appear to have influenced the BoM story:

Books about Free Masonry (story of Hiram Abiff)
A missing manuscript by Solomon Spaulding
View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith

3. Contemporary ideas that influenced the BoM:

Alexander Crawford (see above)
Alexander Campbell's sermons (restorationism, via Sydney Rigdon probably)
Other popular sermons

4. Likely chain of authors, each adding ideas and reworking the manuscript

Solomon Spaulding (history only version, many details about warfare borrowed from his Revolutionary War experience as a veteran)
Sydney Rigdon (added the pride cycle religious sermons, his last days rhetoric inspired by reading NT/Revelations, and Campbell's ideas)
Joseph Smith Sr (Lehi's dream, maybe added Mormon, so a patriarch has a voice in the book)
Hyrum Smith (added some gathering of Israel ideas from John Smith from Dartmouth, perhaps?)
Lucy Mack Smith (probably added the anti-alcohol messages, none of the others would have, did she add the slaying of Laban?)
Joseph Smith (inserted some of his own ideas but mostly just improved the wording, creating more powerful messages)
Oliver Cowdery (I've wondered if he added the Bible passages, don't think anyone else would have thought that was OK)

I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and this may not be exactly how the parts fit together, but the point is that the diversity of ideas in the book point to multiple contributors, and there is a reasonable group of candidates here. The belief that Joseph could have written the book on his own seems to be derived from a latent hope (or mental programming) that most of the time these people were telling the truth. But in reality, to write this book and pass it off as authentic history, I think it is probable that most of these people were able to lie, some a little, some a lot. That was just an ugly part of the family business (glass looking, money digging, divination, palm reading, possibly counterfeiting). So we don't have to believe any of their accounts of how the book was 'translated'. But we can look at the type of process that would have been necessary to create the book, and I think it looks something like the above. More or Less.
Rather than these people actually writing parts, I suspect that Joseph wanted to put in their pet theories, so they would accept it as truth. So, for example, rather than Lucy writing part, Joseph put in the anti alcohol stuff to get her emotionally hooked. She felt strongly about alcohol, being as she was married to a drunk, and reading something that supposedly came from God and suggested alcohol was something God disapproved of, would give her that emotional warm fuzzy feeling of “I know this comes from God” because it backs up the God in my head.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by Hagoth » Sun Nov 04, 2018 9:20 am

Also, Joseph didn't have to have read those books. In his day, before social media and The Bachelorette, people actually sat around and talked about this stuff.
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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by felixfabulous » Mon Nov 05, 2018 11:09 am

I was totally on board with the Melakanos/Trebas theory that it was a Smith Family project. I started reading Dan Vogel's biography of Joseph Smith and think he brings up some good points that poke some holes in that theory. As Alas points out, so much of the BOM is meant to address the internal problems plaguing the Smith family and to bring unity. Joseph Sr. was a Universalist, Lucy was a Presbyterian. So much of the doctrine presented is meant to dismantle Universalism (showing the literal truth of the Bible, the divinity of Jesus and the need for an atonement) and to open up the possibility that people like Alvin would be saved (unlike Presbyterianism). I don't know that the Smith's would work together to make that happen, seems more likely that it was the product of a child trying to save his family. I think it's more likely that the Smiths played along, helped bolster Joseph and turned a blind eye to keep it going.

I view scripture as a human attempt to reach the divine, not the divine attempt to reach humans. I see the Hebrew Bible as the attempt of Israel to find a new religion and navigate the divine. I see the Book of Mormon as Joseph's attempt to unite his family around a Christian doctrine, talk about how the Native Americans fit into the House of Israel and explain the past and future of America. There is a lot of Masonic lore and themes and also a lot of anti-Masonic elements, to appeal to the closet Masons and those who were anti-Masons. I think he saw the dangers of less literal belief and secularization and the Book of Mormon was a sincere attempt to bring American people back to literal Christianity and unite his family. No matter what you think it is, I think he was successful in producing a narrative that resonated with a lot of people and addressed these questions that seemed to be on a lot of minds.

I don't know how to explain it, but I'm fascinated by the discussion.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by slavereeno » Mon Nov 05, 2018 4:47 pm

I wish we did have a better idea where the book came from. Chris Johnson's presentation where he reads passages from the book of Napoleon and the Book of Mormon side by side blew my mind. Wherever it came from, the Book of Mormon Author certainly had access to that book.

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Re: Friday Fun: Who Wrote the Book of Mormon (and How)?

Post by jfro18 » Mon Nov 05, 2018 6:01 pm

slavereeno wrote:
Mon Nov 05, 2018 4:47 pm
I wish we did have a better idea where the book came from. Chris Johnson's presentation where he reads passages from the book of Napoleon and the Book of Mormon side by side blew my mind. Wherever it came from, the Book of Mormon Author certainly had access to that book.
I'll have to look that presentation up.

When I first got into all the church issues I asked my wife to read 'Letter For My Wife.' She immediately zeroed in on the infographic where they have the passages side-by-side, which FAIR tore apart because of how they were condensed to give the impression that JS lifted them directly. That led to her doubling down early and never really being open again to this stuff... I wish CES/LFMY had been more careful there because that infographic is a bit misleading IMO.

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