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Then if you have read both you should know that they are NOT that similar. It is very doubtful that Joseph Smith ever saw Spaulding's manuscript as it was never published. Both L. L. Rice and James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, where the manuscript was taken after it was found, examined the manuscript, and both of them certified that the manuscript could not have been the source of the Book of Mormon.Of course.
Which manuscript are you referring to? Where is it that we can read it?It's not the Oberlin manuscript to which I was referring. Beyond that, I'd suggest that anyone reading this who is interested in the origins of the BOM check out the Wikipedia entry.
If you have really done your research you have to know the spaulding man. is not the source.
JS had a 3rd grade education, he did not write well. Even if he used the SM as a source he could not have written such a comprehensive 537 page book about people living in Jerusalem and sailing to the Americas in 590 bc and how they lived and their culture and wars and religion over about a 1000 years. It was impossible for JS to make up this story let alone write it.
Think again.
I'm on this forum as a whole to find fellowship and healing with actual Christians. I'm on this subforum specifically to truthfully answer Christians' questions about the cult that stole my life. This isn't a place for support of Joseph Smith. This is a place for Christians to engage their curiosity in your faith and to challenge you with the truth. If YOU came here seeking support for Joseph Smith, then that's what I find truly odd.Then it's odd that you are here, talking about Joseph Smith.
It is important to endure:I'm on this forum as a whole to find fellowship and healing with actual Christians. I'm on this subforum specifically to truthfully answer Christians' questions about the cult that stole my life. This isn't a place for support of Joseph Smith. This is a place for Christians to engage their curiosity in your faith and to challenge you with the truth. If YOU came here seeking support for Joseph Smith, then that's what I find truly odd.
If you're referring to my preoccupation with the LDS doctrine even though I left, I think I'm entitled. Learning the truth has been a traumatic experience and I'm still processing and likely will be for a long time. The Mormon church stole 30 years of my life, thousands of dollars from me, and damaged my ability to trust myself and other people. There's nothing you could say that would convince me that my desire to peel back the layers and understand what happened to me is unjustified. And if you tried, it would certainly look very callous and odd to the Christians here after I just described the suffering I have endured because of this cult.
How is it that a person could do all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, but Jesus does not recongnize that person, and asks them to depart?Jesus disagrees with you in Matthew 7:21-23. You should make sure you are "worhipping" the correct Jesus, not the lds version.
How is it that a person could do all these things in the name of Jesus Christ, but Jesus does not recongnize that person, and asks them to depart?
The answer is found in Matthew:
God gave us the Book of Mormon, no one has been able to prove otherwise.The best source for God is not the Book of Mormon.
This isn't a place for support of Joseph Smith.
This is a place for Christians to engage their curiosity in your faith and to challenge you with the truth.
If YOU came here seeking support for Joseph Smith, then that's what I find truly odd.
If you're referring to my preoccupation with . . .
There's nothing you could say that would convince me . . .
Which brings us to the point. JS did not write the BOM using any source. He translated he actual source (the gold plates) with the power and authority of God, who is complex and a masterful author.What I find interesting, is that the writing style is so complex that it precludes anyone other than a masterful author from being the sole person responsible for writing the content and messages within its pages. Definitely, not the work of someone with a third grade education.
"for example josiah priests the wonders ofrnature ofnature nature and providence displayed displayed1825 182 18255 contains a potpourri of topics ranging from
natural history and philosophy to religion and literature this work
includes a verbatim extract of all the salient arguments of ethan
smiths thesis of the hebraic origin of the american indians presented in the first edition of his view odthef rhe t rge hebrews 1823 9
the priest volume had already begun to circulate among manchester library patrons by late 1826
the concept of multiple world systems and of inhabitants in celestial orbs a in both time and space was thoroughly discussed in two
manchester library volumes by thomas dick one of the most prolific
advocates of the pluralist doctrine his philosophy of a future state
1829 and the christian philosopher 1823 deal extensively with
the notion that the universe is fully peopled both for the glory of god
and for the pleasure of man these volumes did not begin to circulate however until early 1830 brief extracts from dick s future
state later appeared in the latter day saint messenger andadvocate und a advocate
of december 1836
the geography of souuth america was first chronicled in full detail for european and american readers by the naturalist alexander
von humboldt in hisvs personal personalnarrative narrative of travels to the new
continent 1815 " https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2129&context=byusq
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V19N02_15.pdf
Inventing Mormonism |
"In 1652 Menasseh Ben Israel's Hope of Israel was published in England. This Jewish rabbi was a firm believer that remnants of the ten tribes of Israel had been discovered in the Americas (Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon, by Dan Vogel, 1986, p. 117, www.signaturebookslibrary.org/indian/preface.htm).
In 1775 James Adair published The History of the American Indians. He theorized that there were twenty-three parallels between Indian and Jewish customs. For example, he claimed the Indians spoke a corrupt form of Hebrew, honored the Jewish Sabbath, performed circumcision, and offered animal sacrifice. He discussed various theories explaining Indian origins, problems of transoceanic crossing, and the theory that the mound builders were a white group more advanced than the Indians (Indian Origins, page 105).
A popular book of Smith's day was View of the Hebrews, by Rev. Ethan Smith, printed in 1823, with a second edition in 1825.
LDS General Authority B. H. Roberts wrote extensively about the parallels between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon (see Studies of the Book of Mormon). Rev. Robert Hullinger gave the following summary of B. H. Robert's parallels:
According to Roberts's later studies, some features of View of the Hebrews are paralleled in the Book of Mormon. (1) Indians buried a book they could no longer read. (2) A Mr. Merrick found some dark yellow parchment leaves in "Indian Hill." (3) Native Americans had inspired prophets and charismatic gifts, as well as (4) their own kind of Urim and Thummim and breastplate. (5) Ethan Smith produced evidence to show that ancient Mexican Indians were no strangers to Egyptian hieroglyphics. (6) An overthrown civilization in America is to be seen from its ruined monuments and forts and mounds. The barbarous tribes—barbarous because they had lost the civilized arts—greeting the Europeans were descendants of the lost civilization. (7) Chapter one of View of the Hebrews is a thirty-two page account of the historical destruction of Jerusalem. (8) There are many references to Israel's scattering and being "gathered" in the last days. (9) Isaiah is quoted for twenty chapters to demonstrate the restoration of Israel. In Isaiah 18 a request is made to save Israel in America. (10) The United States is asked to evangelize the native Americans. (11) Ethan Smith cited Humboldt's New Spain to show the characteristics of Central American civilization; the same are in the Book of Mormon. (12) The legends of Quetzacoatl, the Mexican messiah, are paralleled in the Book of Mormon by Christ's appearing in the western hemisphere. . . . Roberts came to recognize that, at least in the case of Ethan Smith's book, such works were widely available (Joseph Smith's Response to Skepticism, by Robert N. Hullinger, Signature, 1992, pp. 183-184).
For more information the similarities between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews, see Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon, by David Persuitte.
Contrary to the above statement, the New England area abounded in literature speculating on the origin of the American Indian. In Smith's neighborhood there was a library, bookstore and newspapers.
Both Palmyra and Manchester had a lending library. Even though there is no evidence that Joseph Smith borrowed from the Manchester library, he could have used the Palmyra library. There were also plenty of other sources for information. Robert Paul, writing for the BYU Studies, observed:
Moreover, if Joseph had wished to explore the literary materials of the day, it would have been unnecessary to travel the five miles to Manchester when in Palmyra, only two miles distant, there were several bookstores and at least one library, the contents of which he would have been free to peruse. . . . As early as 1819, and occasionally thereafter, book auctions were held in Palmyra. . . . The availability of bookstores and libraries in Palmyra, together with the fact that the Smith family regularly obtained the Palmyra Register and later the Wayne Sentinel from the newspaper office which doubled as a bookstore, would have mitigated the need to travel nearly three times the distance to acquire literary materials from the Manchester area (BYU Studies, Summer 1982, p. 340).
Robert Hullinger commented on the popularity of View of the Hebrews:
View of the Hebrews circulated widely in New York. It was also condensed in Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence, one of the more widely circulated books of the Manchester rental library in 1827 (Joseph Smith's Response to Skepticism, p. 186).
The local newspapers occasionally ran stories about the Indians. The Palmyra Register for May 26, 1819, reported that one writer
believes (and we think with good reason) that this country was once inhabited by a race of people, at least, partially civilized, & that this race has been exterminated by the forefathers of the present and late tribes of Indians in this country (Palmyra Register, May 26, 1819).
Furthermore, the following was published in the Smith's local newspaper, the Wayne Sentinel, in 1825:
Those who are most conversant with the public and private economy of the Indians, are strongly of opinion that they are the lineal descendants of the Israelites, and my own researches go far to confirm me in the same belief (Wayne Sentinel, October 11, 1825).
The Book of Mormon parallels the views of Smith's day; it does not parallel archaeologists' findings today. This is one of the areas which demonstrate that the Book of Mormon was written in the 1820's, not 600 B.C. to 421 A.D."
Issue 107 - Salt Lake City Messenger
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2129&context=byusq
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V46N03_412b.pdf
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V19N02_15.pdf
Inventing Mormonism |
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2129&context=byusq
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V46N03_412b.pdf
Issue 107 - Salt Lake City Messenger
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V19N02_15.pdf
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2129&context=byusq
https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/Dialogue_V46N03_412b.pdf
Issue 103 - Salt Lake City Messenger
Issue 105 - Salt Lake City Messenger
http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/pdfnewsletters/134saltlakecitymessenger.pdf
Issue 114 - Salt Lake City Messenger
Where Did Joseph Smith Get His Ideas for the Book of Mormon?
Which brings us to the point. JS did not write the BOM using any source. He translated he actual source (the gold plates) with the power and authority of God, who is complex and a masterful author.
JS just plainly could not have done it, without the help from God.
Daniel, I’ll try to give a different answer to the question in the title.
Are you familiar with Emmanuel Swedenborg?
As a child, the only thing I knew about Joseph Smith and LDS is what my father told me. He said that they don’t believe that Jesus will return, that Jesus had already “returned” in a dream given to Joseph Smith. My Dad was wrong, he seems to have confused Joseph Smith with Emmanuel Swedenborg. But there are some striking similarities, as well as glaring differences.
Swedenborg taught that there are three levels in heaven. Joseph Smith taught that there are three levels in heaven. Swedenborg taught there is marriage in heaven, and that people do real work in heaven. (Apparently they enjoy the work they do there.) I hardly need to mention that JS believed there is marriage in heaven. Swedenborg is more generous to those who haven’t found marital happiness in this world. He taught that you can be single on earth, then go to heaven and find your ideal mate there and live happily for eternity. Or, you can be married, go to heaven, and then find a better mate than you had on earth. Swedenborg definitely did not teach multiple wives.
The life of Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772): Swedenborg was from a prominent family in Sweden and a serious scientist with real accomplishments for much of his life. When he was 56, he abandoned these pursuits and became a religious visionary. His religious writings are voluminous, much more so than some of his casual critics think. He claimed to interpret the Bible but his interpretations only make sense if you believe in his visions.
Are Swedenborgians Christians? Unfortunately, the answer seems to be no, although they are rather harmless compared to most sects beyond the boundaries of Christianity.
Swedenborg’s attitude toward the Trinity is a problem. He was a modalist: God acts as Father, God acts as Son, God acts as Holy Spirit. Thus, he failed to affirm the Trinity. Worse, he accused Christians of worshiping three separate Gods in the Trinity.
Swedenborg did not believe in a physical resurrection of Jesus Christ. He regarded the post-crucifixion appearances as spirit appearances. Likewise, he did not believe that Christ would physically return, so to Swedenborgians there is no Second Coming or Final Judgment in the usual sense. The visions of Swedenborg were the Second Coming. The Swedenborgian view of hell is very mild. Apparently those who go there wind up living in a hut in the desert in the afterlife.
The Swedenborgian Church, or the New Church, was not founded in Swedenborg’s lifetime. The New Church arose in England some decades after his death. I believe there are three churches of Swedenborgians today.
Swedenborg was widely read in the 19th century, particularly his most popular book, Heaven and Hell. In a story called Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven, Mark Twain either showed the influence of Swedenborg or maybe he was ridiculing it. The high points of Swedenborg’s views were widely known.
Swedenborg’s belief that there will be marriage in heaven, a heaven with three levels, the de-emphasis on hell, and the importance given to religious visions are all things Emmanuel Swedenborg has in common with Joseph Smith. Despite the importance given to the heavenly visions of the founder, modern Swedenborgians are not encouraged to have visions of their own.
#39 Messenger, Honesty with Mormons on SpaldingThen if you have read both you should know that they are NOT that similar. It is very doubtful that Joseph Smith ever saw Spaulding's manuscript as it was never published. Both L. L. Rice and James H. Fairchild, of Oberlin College, where the manuscript was taken after it was found, examined the manuscript, and both of them certified that the manuscript could not have been the source of the Book of Mormon.
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