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Document:
Walter Ralston Martin's
Maze of Mormonism (1962 ed) (1978 ed)
Notes:
The Maze of Mormonism, copyright © 1962 by
Walter R. Martin. Revised 2nd ed., copyright © 1978
Limited edition also published by Vision House, 1978.
Because of copyright restrictions,
only limited "fair use" excerpts are presented here.
Transcriber's comments
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Kingdom of Cults
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Martin's Homepage
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Martin's "Forward" in 1977 Spalding book
The Maze
of Mormonism
by
WALTER R. MARTIN, M. A.
Visiting Lecturer, English Bible,
The King's College, Briarcliff Manor, N. Y.
Z O N D E R V A N P U B L I S H I N G H O U S E
GRAND RAPIDS MICHIGAN
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[ 37 ]
2 A New Revelation -- The Mormon Bible
Aside from the King James Version of the Bible, which the Mormons accept as part of the Word of God "insofar as it is correctly translated," they have added Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price and the Primary volume, The Book of Mormon, to the canon of what they call authorized Scripture. The last mentioned is a subject of this chapter since it occupies a primary place in Mormon theology and therefore must be carefully examined. A great deal of research on the part of a number of able scholars and organizations has already been published concerning The Book of Mormon, and we have drawn heavily upon whatever documented and verifiable information was available. The task of validating the material was enormous, and so we have selected that information which has been verified beyond refutation and is available today in some of our leading institutions of learning (Stanford University, Union Theological Seminary, the Research Departments of the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and various other reputable collections of primary evidence).
It is a difficult task to evaluate the complex structure of The Book of Mormon, and the reader is urged to consider the bibliography at the end of volume if he should desire further and more exhaustive studies.
THE STORY OF THE ANCIENT PEOPLE
The Book of Mormon purports to be a history of two ancient civilizations which were located on the American continent. According to the Mormon version, the first of these great civilizations left the tower of Babel (about 2,250 B. C. by
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A NEW REVELATION -- THE MORMON BIBLE 57
These, and other instances, indicate that Smith was not only a poor scribe but a false prophet; and his prophecy concerning the restoration of Israel to Palestine clearly reveals that he anticipated the millennium in his own lifetime, whereas in reality the prophecy of Ezekiel 37 began to be fulfilled in 1948, more than a hundred years after his death.
The question quite naturally arises in summing up the background of the Book of Mormon -- Where did the book come from, since it obviously did not come from God? The answer to this has been propounded in great length by numerous students of Mormonism, particularly E. D. Howe, Pomeroy Tucker, and William A. Linn.
All concur that the Book of Mormon is probably an expansion upon the writings of one Solomon Spaulding, a retired minister who was known to have authored a number of "romances" with Biblical backgrounds similar in construction to the Book of Mormon. The Mormons delight to point out that one of Spaulding's manuscripts, entitled "Manuscript Story" was discovered in Hawaii some seventy-seven years ago, and it differed in many respects from the Book of Mormon.
But in his excellent volume (The Book of Mormon?), Dr. James D. Bales makes the following observation which is of great importance and agrees in every detail with our research over the last decade:
It has long been contended that there is a connection between the Book of Mormon and one of Solomon Spaulding's historical romances. The Latter-day Saints, of course deny such a connection.
What if the Latter-day Saints are right and there is no relationship between the Book of Mormon and Spaulding's writings? It simply means that those who so contend are wrong, but it proves nothing with reference to the question as to whether or not the Book of Mormon is of divine origin. One could be wrong as to what man, or men wrote the Book of Mormon, and still know that it was not written by men inspired of God. One can easily prove that the Book of Mormon is of human origin. And, after all, this is the main issue. The fundamental issue is not what man or men wrote it, but whether it was written by men who were guided by God. We know that men wrote it, and that these men, whoever they were, did not have God's guidance.
This may be illustrated by Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures -- the textbook of Christian Science Churches. Mrs. Eddy
58 THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
claims to have been its author, under God's direction. There are others who claim she re-worked and enlarged a manuscript of Mr. Quimby and of a Francis Lieber. The evidence seems to prove that such is the case. But what if those who so maintained failed to prove their case? Would that prove that it was inspired of God? Not at all. It would prove only that Quimby's manuscript had nothing to do with it. But it would not prove that some other uninspired being did not write it. Regardless of what human being or beings wrote Science and Health, it is of human, not divine, origin. Just so the Book of Mormon is of human origin and uninspired, even though it were impossible to prove what particular man wrote it.
It has not been maintained that all of the Book of Mormon was written by Spaulding. Thus, it has not been claimed that the theological portions were put in by him. These portions bear the imprint of Smith, Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon (see the proof offered in Shook's The True Origin of the Book of Mormon, pp. 126--). It is maintained, however, that some things, including a great deal of Scripture, were added to one of Spaulding's manuscripts and that his work was thus transferred into the Book of Mormon (see the testimony of John Spaulding, Solomon's brother; Martha Spaulding, John's wife: They maintained that the historical portion was Spaulding's. E. D. Howe, Mormonism Unveiled, 1834, pp. 278--, Shook, The True Origin of the Book of Mormon, pp. 94--).
The Mormons contend that the discovery of one of Spaulding's manuscripts demonstrates that it was not the basis of the Book of Mormon.
"I will here state that the Spaulding manuscript was discovered in 1884, and is at present in the library of Oberlin College, Ohio. On examination it was found to bear no resemblance whatever to the Book of Mormon. The theory that Solomon Spaulding was the author of the Book of Mormon should never be mentioned again -- outside a museum." (William A. Morton, op. cit., p. 6).
There are three errors in the above paragraph: viz. that Spaulding wrote but one manuscript; that the manuscript discovered in 1884 is the same one which non-Mormons have claimed constituted the basis of the Book of Mormon; that the manuscript in Oberlin bears no resemblance whatever to the Book of Mormon.
(a) Spaulding wrote more than one manuscript. This was maintained by D. P. Harlburt and Clark Braden before the Honolulu manuscript was found (Charles A. Shook, op. cit., p. 77). Spaulding's daughter also testified that her father had written "other romances." (Elder George Reynolds, The Myth of the "Manuscript Found," Utah, 1883, p. 104). The present manuscript story looks like a rough, unfinished, first draft.
(b) The manuscript found in Honolulu was called a "Manuscript Story" and not the "Manuscript Found." This Honolulu manuscript, The Manuscript Story, was in the hands of anti-Mormons in 1834. However, they did not claim that it was the manuscript which was the basis of the Book of Mormon. It was claimed that
A NEW REVELATION -- THE MORMON BIBLE 59
another manuscript of Spaulding was the basis of the Book of Mormon. (Charles A. Shook, op. cit., p. 77, 15, 185. The "Manuscript Found or Manuscript Story" of the Late Rev. Solomon Spaulding, Lamoni, Iowa: Printed and Published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1885, p. 10).
(c) Although the Manuscript Story has not been regarded as the Manuscript Found, which constituted the basis of the Book of Mormon, there is a great deal of resemblance between the Manuscript Story and the Book of Mormon. These points of similarity can be accounted for upon the basis that The Manuscript Story was the first, and rough, draft of one of Spaulding's works which he reworked into the Manuscript Found.
"Howe in 1834, published a fair synopsis of the Oberlin manuscript now at Oberlin (Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, 288) and submitted the original to the witnesses who testified to the many points of identity between Spaulding's 'Manuscript Found' and the Book of Mormon. These witnesses then (in 1834) recognized the manuscript secured by Hurlburt and now at Oberlin, as being one of Spaulding's, but not the one which they asserted was similar to the Book of Mormon. They further said that Spaulding had told them that he had altered his original plan of writing by going farther back with his dates and writing in the old scripture style, in order that his story might appear more ancient, (Howe's Mormonism Unveiled, 288)" (Theodore Schroeder, The Origin of the Book of Mormon Re-Examined in Its Relation to Spaulding's "Manuscript Found," p. 5).
This testimony is borne out by the fact that there are many points of similarity between the manuscript in Oberlin College and the Book of Mormon.*
It is then fairly well established, historically, that the Mormons have attempted to use a manuscript admittedly not the one from which Smith later copied and amplified the text of what is now known as the Book of Mormon as the basis for denying what eye witnesses have affirmed, namely that it was another Spaulding Manuscript (Manuscript Found) which Smith drew upon to fabricate the Mormon Bible.
Dr. Bales is right when he states:
There are too many points of similarity for them to be without significance. Thus the internal evidence, combined with the testimony of witnesses, as presented in Howe's book and reproduced in Shook's, show that Spaulding revised the Manuscript Story. The revision was known as the Manuscript Found, and
it became the
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* The Book of Mormon?, by James D. Bales, Ph.D., The Manney Company, Forth Worth 14. Texas, pp. 138-142.
60 THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
basis of the in at least its historical parts. Also its religious references furnished the germs of the religious portions of the Book of Mormon.
However, in ordinary conversation, and in public debate, on the Book of Mormon, it is unnecessary to go into the question of who wrote the Book of Mormon. The really important issue is whether or not the Book of Mormon is of divine origin. There are some Mormons who seem to think that if they can prove that Spaulding's manuscript had nothing to do with the Book of Mormon, they have made great progress toward proving its divine origin. Such, however, is not the case. And one should show, from an appeal to the Bible, and to the Book of Mormon itself, that the Book of Mormon is not of divine origin. *
Let us not forget that the "Manuscript Story" itself contains at least 75 similarities to what is now the Book of Mormon and this is not to be easily explained away.
Finally, students of Mormonism must, in the last analysis, measure its content by that of Scripture, and when this is done it will be found that it does not "speak according to the law and the testimony" (Isaiah 8:20) and it is to be rejected as a counterfeit revelation doubly condemned by God Himself (Galatians 1:8, 9).
Joseph Smith, the author of this "revelation," was perfectly described (as was his reward) in the Word of God almost thirty-three hundred years before he appeared. It would pay the Mormons to remember its message:
"If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder,
"And the sign or wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them;
"Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
"Ye shall walk after the LORD your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
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* The Book of Mormon?, by James D. Bales, Ph.D., pp. 146-7.
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THE MAZE
OF
MORMONISM
WALTER MARTIN
Regal Books
A Division of GL Publications
Ventura, California, U. S. A.
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[ 43 ]
TWO
MORMONISM'S
REVELATIONS
---
Divine Or Devilish?
According to Mormon history, Joseph Smith, Jr., was God's prophet sent to restore the gospel in our
age. However, his office was aided considerably by the addition of three new "scriptures" to God's
revelation previously given in the Bible. The Mormon Church maintains that there are four standard
works which are revelations from God and which supposedly form the basis for all Mormon doctrine:
The Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, and the Bible, "in so
far as it is correctly translated."
The earliest of these books, the Bible, is considered imperfect, having lost "many great and precious
truths." The Book of Mormon, mentioned in Chapter 1 contains the history of the early migrants
to the Western Hemisphere and the beginnings of Mormon doctrine. The second standard Mormon work,
Doctrine and Covenants, is revelation contemporary with the fledgling Mormon Church. It contains
revelations given through Joseph Smith (except for one by Brigham Young and the "Manifesto," to be
discussed later)
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Mormonism's Revelations / 53
after reading such changes to know that The Book of Mormon is not only unreliable but hopelessly
confused in its own pronouncements!
Finally, The Book of Mormon is betrayed by external evidences. Two areas of external study show
this clearly. Archeology has uncovered many of the errors in The Book of Mormon and removed it
permanently from the ranks of reliable historical writing. In addition, an investigation into its
origins has demonstrated that its prime author was more likely a retired Congregational
minister-turned-novelist than angel!
Archaology and the Book of Mormon
In a fascinating article by John Price (a former Mormon) which appeared in The Indian Historian
(Vol. 7, no. 3, 1974) * the following comments on The Book of Mormon from an archeological and
anthropological perspective appear. We are indebted to Mr. Price for a penetrating and revealing
analysis.
The Book of Mormon is a history of two migrant groups who came
from the Near East to the Americas, the Jaredites (reported in the Book
of Ether) and Lehi and his descendants (reported in the remaining books).
A third group of migrants, who came "from Jerusalem at the time that
Zedekiah, King of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon," is also
briefly mentioned...
The end to the Jaredites came with one war after another. In one battle
"many thousands fell by the sword."...
Finally, with "men, women, and children being armed with weapons of war,
having shields, and breastplates, and headplates" they fought and killed
each other off, except for Ether. Ether recorded the final chapter of his
people's history and "hid them in a manner that the people of Limhi did
find them."...
__________
* Used by permission of the publisher. All rights reserved. Copyright 1974 The American Indian
Historical Society. Reproduction in any form without the consent of the publisher is prohibited.
54 / THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
The following is a list of all the elements of identifiable material culture that are mentioned as
having been possessed by the Jaredites.
1. Fruit, grain, cattle, oxen, cows, sheep, goats, swine, horses, asses, elephants, and the honey bee.
2. Houses, tents, spacious buildings, thrones, prisons with doors, and large barges.
3. Silks and fine linen.
4. Metallurgy of gold, silver, iron, steel, copper, and brass. Extensive mining that "cast up mighty
heaps of earth to get ore."
5. Tools to plow, sow, reap, hoe, and thrash.
6. Swords of steel, shields, breastplates, and headplates.
7. Writings on engraved metal plates.
The second migration, of Lehi and his descendants, is more important for several reasons. Their history
constitutes the bulk of the text. They are given the true priesthood and sacraments, although these
are lost in time, just as they were lost in the Old World.... And a branch of these migrants, the
Lamanites, survive to become the American Indians of contemporary times, but cursed with dark skins.
The Lord brought Lehi, a Jewish prophet, his family, their spouses, and other followers out of
Jerusalem... The Lord directed them in the construction of a ship and the sailing of it to the
promised land, arriving about 589 B.C. "And it came to pass that after we sailed for the space of
many days we did arrive at the promised land; and we went forth upon the land, and did pitch our
tents ... we did put all our seeds into the earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem ...
we did find... that there were beasts in the forests of every kind, both the cow and the ox, and
the ass and the horse, and the goat and the wild goat ..."
Nephi, one of the sons of Lehi, kept the records of his people and founded one of the main branches
of the new immigrants, to be called Nephites...
"... And it came to pass that the people of Nephi did till the land, and of fruit, and flocks of
herds, and flocks of all manner of cattle of every kind, and goats, and wild goats, and also many
horses."
One Nephrite [sic]* branch traveled to a land called Zarahemla
__________
* All quotations in this book are reproduced exactly, including spelling and punctuation, as shown in
the original documents.
Mormonism's Revelations / 55
(south of the "narrow neck of land") where they met a people who had come "from Jerusalem at the time
that Bedekiah, king of Judah, was carried away captive into Babylon." These people had an engraved
stone which "gave an account of one Coriantumr, and the slain of his people." Later, the people of
Lemhi discovered the engraved gold plates of the Jaredites and their swords and armor.
"They planted corn, wheat"
Zeniff and his people were given the lands of Lehi-Nephi and Shilom where they rebuilt walled cities;
planted corn, wheat, barley, and fruits; kept flocks of animals; and made fine linen and "cloth of
every kind."...
Mormon, who lived in the fourth century A.D., abridged the plates that had been made by the Nephite
historians and buried them in a rock cairn in the Hill Cumorah before the battle of Cumorah. Later
in A.D. 421 Moroni added some additional plates to the same cairn. Moroni was the son of Mormon, the
last Nephrite survivor, and the protector of the plates. Fourteen hundred years later, in 1823-1837,
the same Moroni appeared as an angel to Joseph Smith and turned the plates in the earh in
the hill near
Smith's house over to him for translation into English.
The following is a list of all the elements of identifiable material culture that are mentioned as
having been possessed by the descendants of Lehi, and the people they met in Zarahemla.
1. Corn, wheat, barley, cows, oxen, horses, asses, sheep, goats, and swine. Grape wine and bread.
2. Tents, houses of wood and cement, gates, spacious buildings, towers, palaces, temples, prisons,
dungeons, burial in a sepulchre, walled cities, highways, and large sailing ships.
3. Short skin girdles; clothes of silk, linen, and "homely" cloth; and coats.
4. Metallurgy of gold, silver, iron, steel, copper, and brass. Coins of gold and silver. Ringlets and
bracelets of gold.
5. Axes, chains, a compass, seer stones, tools to till the ground, ladders, cups, and cords.
6. Bows and arrows, quivers, darts, javelins, swords, daggers, clubs, slings; metal armor of
breastplates, arm-shields, and head-shields; horse drawn war chariots; fortifications of earth works,
timber walls, and towers
56 / THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
for the defense of cities and in a great defensive line between Nephrites and Lamanites.
7. Writings in "reformed Egyptian" on engraved plates of gold, written engravings on stone, and written correspondance in the form of epistles.
8. Sacrificial and burnt offerings of the first of flocks.
Anthropological Prehistory
An impressive feature of New World prehistory is the extent to which it developed independently of
the Old World. The massive weight of evidence points to separate spheres of cultural history. The
aboriginal New World did not have wheat, barley, cows, oxen, horses or elephants (after about 5,000
B.C.), asses, sheep, or domesticated goats or swine. No Native Americans made grape wine or wheat
bread. Instead, native plants and animals were domesticated: corn, beans, squashes, potatoes, tomatoes,
manioc, turkeys, llamas, etc. The New World lacked the wheel (and therefore chariots); silk and linen;
metallurgy of iron, steel, and brass; and metal coins, chains, and armor. The Juredites and Nephrites
are portrayed as having had plow agriculture of wheat and barley and pastoralism of sheep and cattle,
but nothing remotely resembling this kind of culture has ever been found, either archaeologically or
ethnographically, in the aboriginal New World. The Book of Mormon portrays courts of judges ruling
in terms of written laws, a seven day week with a day of rest on the final day, and people paid wages
in gold and silver coinage where they are employed. Again, nothing like this has ever been found in
the aboriginal New World.
"There is no evidence"
There is evidence for rare New World landfalls by Old World sailing peoples prior to Columbus but these
were very recent (mostly after A.D. 1000) and usually of no significant cultural influence.... This was
not plow agriculture, the animal drawn plow was absent in the pre-Columbian world. It was hand
horticulture of corn or manioc or potatoes, not wheat and barley.
There are simply no gaps in the record of archaeological surveys and excavations large enough to admit
of the possible existence of Near Eastern style societies anywhere in the New World. It is simply
ridiculous today to claim that major Near Eastern style wars were fought by hundreds of thousands of
people in upper state New York
Mormonism's Revelations / 57
with metal swords and armor and horse drawn chariots. Not only is there no evidence for such phenomena,
but there is extensive evidence in that area for an indigenous shift from hunting to simple
horticultural societies, after they received corn, beans, squash, and other domesticates from
neighboring societies.
Joseph Smith as an Archaeologist
Amateur archaeology in the early 1800's in rural upper state New York focused on explaining the
existence of hundreds of large burial mounds in the region. They were filled with skeletons and
artifacts of pottery, stone, and occasionally of copper or even silver. There were eight of these
within twelve miles of the Smith farm. [6] It appeared that the workmanship of the pottery and copper
artifacts was finer than that of the local Iroquois, so it was felt that the Moundbuilders must have
been an earlier and greater civilization. Since the major evidence was burials, it was believed that
the whole region from western New York to Ohio had been the scene of a terrible war that brought an
end to an entire society, buried now in the mounds.
...In the early 1800's the Palmyra Register and Palmyra Herald, the newspapers of Joseph Smith's home
town, discussed how the civilized arts of the Moundbuilders were much greater than other Indians. It
was held that they were peaceful farmers who had been exterminated by savage hunters, who were the
ancestors of the modern Indians. It was common at the time to speculate about this local prehistory.
Joseph Smith's mother wrote that when her son was still in his teens (before 1824) he would create
stories about the American aborigines. "During our evening conversation, Joseph would occasionally give
us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants
of this continent, their dress, mode of travelling, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities,
their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare, and also their religious worship. This
he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life with them." [7]
__________
6 Fawn N. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith the Mormon Prophet.
(New York, Knopf, 1945), p. 19.
7 Ibid., p. 35.
58 / THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
The forts and burial mounds described in the Book of Mormon are, in fact, like those of the
Iroquois ...
In the course of his digging Smith apparently found a large copper breastplate. "It was concave on one
side and convex on the other, and extended from the neck downwards as far as the centre of the stomach
of a man of extraordinary size." He also acquired the seer stones that he referred to as the Urin and
Thummin, described by his mother as "two smooth three-cornered diamonds set in glass and the glasses
set in silver bows." One local story prior to the writing of the Book of Mormon told that a history
of the Indians had been found in Canada at the base of a hollow tree. Another story, reported in a Palmyra
paper in 1821, told of how diggers on the Erie Canal found engraved "brass plates," along with skeletons
and fragments of pottery. Smith apparently knew of Alexander von Humboldt's accounts of ruins in Central
America because he later cited them to support the authencicity of the Book of Mormon story. For
many of his ideas it appears that Smith drew heavily from View of the Hebrews; or the Ten Lost Tribes
of Israel in America by Ethan Smith, published
in 1823.
He later cited this work as well for support. He had his own convictions about such matters of current
religious controversy as infant baptism, the trinity, and church government. He knew the Moundbuilder
civilization theory and the currently popular theory that the Americas had been settled by lost tribes
of Israel. He then put all of these ideas together in what has turned out to be the most widely sold
and influential book on American prehistory ever written.
Price's astute analysis of the archeological travesty committed by The Book of Mormon is
confirmed by virtually every competent archeologist who has ever undertaken to examine, even in a
cursory fashion, the wild claims of the quasihistorical Book of Mormon. Even the National
Museum of Natural History of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., and National Geographic
Magazine have disavowed any truth to Mormonism's assertion of the archeological accuracy of
The Book of Mormon!
References for the quotations used by Mr. Price in his article are as follows: Omni 1:15; Ether 14:4;
15:15; 15:33;
Mormonism's Revelations / 59
1 Nephi 18:23-25; Enos 1:21; Mosiah 10:5; and Helaman 6:13.
The True Author of the Book of Mormon?
Widespread publicity accompanied the
1977 release
of a book examining the origins of The Book of
Mormon and has caused considerable consternation within the Mormon Church. Who Really Wrote the
Book of Mormon by researchers Howard Davis, Wayne Cowdery, and Donald Scales, has produced
substantial evidence to support the claim that The Book of Mormon actually was plagiarized from
an unpublished novel which had been written before 1816 by Solomon Spalding, a retired minister who
occupied his leisure time with composing stories and two novels.
When Mormonism first began its growth in the early 1830s, heated controversy arose concerning the
origin of its sacred book. Its followers, standing behind their prophet, Joseph Smith, Jr., sided
with him in declaring The Book of Mormon to be a new Bible, God's Word to man. Its opponents
refused to believe such a story, and an investigation was undertaken in order to ascertain the true
roots of the book. Spalding had died before this time (in 1816) and was unable to defend his novel
himself. However, his friends, relatives, and acquaintances were very familiar with his second novel,
Manuscript Found, and, upon hearing The Book of Mormon being read by Mormon preachers,
immediately recognized it as essentially the long-lost Manuscript Found. Dozens of affidavits
were gathered from Spalding's acquaintances and family attesting that Spalding was the source of the
poorly revised tale which Smith broadcast as The Book of Mormon. Additional affidavits were
gathered which confirmed the Spalding claim and which were sworn to by relatives and acquaintances
of Smith and other early Mormon leaders.
However, with poor communication and little organization,
60 / THE MAZE OF MORMONISM
the publication of these testimonies was sporadic. A massive Mormon campaign to counter the facts,
combined with a lack of organized rebuttal, caused the Spaulding controversy to die down before the
end of the century. Many people still referred to Spalding's novel as the possible source of The
Book of Mormon, but few people had the time or means of access necessary to compile all the
necessary information.
Almost thirty years ago, when I was first researching Mormonism, I examined a copy of Spalding's
first novel, Manuscript Story, which is still in existence and in the possession of
Oberlin College in Ohio. From a careful comparison of that work with The Book of Mormon, I
was convinced that Solomon Spalding was their common author. As a painter's strokes are unique, and
identify each of his varying pictures, so the author's strokes of style and personal mannerisms
uniquely identify each of his works. There was no denying that the two books were somewhat different,
but there was also strong evidence that the same author had originated both. [3] However,
I did not have the time necessary to exhaustively research the theory, and could only pray that
somebody with the time and resources could do what needed to be done on this important project.
Then in 1976 I was approached by three young men who had spent three years of their lives in an
intensive study of this very puzzle. Not only had they been the first to compile almost all of the
testimonies relating to the Spalding affair, but they had also traced the relationship between Smith
and Spalding in the person of Sidney Rigdon, one of Smith's closest confidants and a former sojourner
in Pittsburgh at the time Spalding was living there. Their work was astounding, their conclusion
apparently inescapable.
__________
3 See Mormon historian B. H. Roberts' analysis of parallels between The Book of Mormon and
Manuscript Story at Oberlin College.
Mormonism's Revelations / 61
As the crowning touch to their work, part of Spalding's original manuscript of his second novel,
which had been lost since around 1828, and which was in Spalding's own handwriting, has evidently
resurfaced! Twelve pages of manuscript writing has been examined by careful handwriting analysis and
attested to be in the handwriting of Solomon Spalding himself, and is a word-for-word portion of
the Book of Mormon! The bitter irony to the Mormon Church is that these pages have been preserved
all these years by the Mormon Church itself as a portion of the original Book of Mormon. No
Church official had been able to positively identify the handwriting of that section with the
handwriting of Smith or any of his known associates. And of course this would hardly have been possible
if it were actually the handwriting of Solomon Spalding! The Mormon Church has issued denials of this
identification but prohibits further examination of the documents in question.
A complete discussion of the Spalding origin of The Book of Mormon can be obtained by reading
Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? I have included here a copy of two of the handwriting
expert's testimonies identifying a portion of The Book of Mormon handwriting as that of Solomon
Spalding. I have also included a chronology concerning Sidney Rigdon and his association with both
Spalding and Smith (see following pages). Although Rigdon claimed that he knew nothing of Mormonism
before he was approached by Mormon missionaries in late 1830, the evidence shows that he knew Smith
long before that, was one of the primary instigators in the development of The Book of Mormon
and the new religion, and was probably the person who took Spalding's novel from the printshop in
which it lay before 1816. It was that manuscript (written by Solomon Spalding) which was added to
and revised religiously and then ultimately presented as The Book of Mormon.
At least ten people testified that Rigdon knew Smith before the beginning of Mormonism (Stephen H.
Hart, Rev. S. F. Whitney, Rev. Darwin Atwater, Adamson Bentley,
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Document:
Walter Ralston Martin's
Kingdom of the Cults (1965 ed.)
Notes:
The Kingdom of the Cults, copyright © 1965 by
Walter R. Martin. - Numerous revised editions.
Excerpts from 2003 edition inserted in blue.
Because of copyright restrictions only limited
"fair use" excerpts are presented here.
Transcriber's comments
|
On-line full text of the 2003 edition
|
"In the Shadow of Solomon Spalding" (1979)
[ 147 ]
Chapter 6
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER-DAY SAINTS
Historical Perspective
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is unique among all the religious cults and sects
active in the United States in that it has by far the most fascinating history, and one worthy of
consideration by all students of religions originating on the American continent.
The Mormons, as they are most commonly referred to, are divided into two major groups, The Church of
Latter Day Saints, with headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, and The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter Day Saints with headquarters in Independence, Missouri. Today, 134 [over
167] years after its founding, the Mormons [number more than 2,600,000
adherents,] own considerable stock in the agricultural and industrial wealth of America, and
circle the earth in missionary activities, energetically rivaling evangelical Christianity. The former
group, which is the main concern of this volume, makes its headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, and
claims a membership in excess of 2,000,000 [nine million] as of January,
1964. The smaller group is rapidly approaching the half million mark and has won acceptance in some
quarters as a "sect of fundamentalists." The Reorganized Church is briefly reviewed in this chapter,
but there can be little doubt that it has gained ground in the last 25 years and is composed of a
zealous group of dedicated people. They irritate the Utah Church consistently by pointing out that
court decisions have established their claim that they are the true church and Utah the schismatic.
From its founding 134 years ago the Mormon Church has been characterized by thriftiness, zeal, and an
admirable missionary spirit, and even before the advent of World War Two, it had more than 2,000
missionaries active on all the mission fields of the world. Since the close of World War Two, however,
and in keeping with the acceleration of cult propaganda everywhere, the Mormons have more than 15,000
[around 50,000] "missionaries" active today....
One interesting fact, however, accounts for this large missionary force, and that is the practice of the
Mormon Church to encourage its most promising young people, boys aged 20 and girls aged 23, to perform
missionary work....
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
149
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
Mormon historians] have for years either hidden
from their people or glossed over in an attempt to suppress certain verifiable and damaging historical
evidences. Such evidence the author has elected to review in the interest of obtaining a full picture of
Joseph Smith's religion.
Early Mormon History
The seeds of what was later to become the Mormon religion were incubated in the mind of one
Joseph Smith Jr., "The Prophet," better known to residents of Palmyra, New York, in 1816 as just plain
"Joe Smith."
Born in Sharon, Vermont, December 23, 1805, fourth child of Lucy and Joseph Smith, the future
Mormon prophet entered the world with the proverbial "two strikes" against him in the person of his
father and his environment.
Joseph Smith Sr. was a mystic, a man who spent most of his time
digging for imaginary buried treasure
(he was particularly addicted to Captain Kidd's legendary hoard!).
[This fact is, of course, well known to any informed student of Mormonism. Former Mormon
historian Dr. D. Michael Quinn has thoroughly documented the fact that both Joseph Smith Sr. and
Joseph Smith Jr. were avid treasure-seekers. In his book entitled Early Mormonism and the Magic
World View (1987), Quinn writes, "Joseph Smith, the founding prophet and president of the new church
organized on 6 April 1830, had unquestionably participated in treasure-seeking and seer-stone
divination and had apparently also used divining rods, talismans, and implements of ritual magic. His
father, one of the Eight Witnesses to the divinity of the Book of Mormon and later the church patriarch,
had also participated in divining and the quest for treasure." Quinn states on page 207 that Smith was
interested in treasure-seeking even after he became president of the LDS Church and that "occult
dimensions of treasure digging was prominent among the first members of the Quorum of the Twelve
Apostles, organized in 1835." In the past, Mormon historians have avoided every indication that Joseph
Smith owned a peep stone or seer stone. Dr. Quinn's aforementioned book includes photographs of
actual seer stones owned by Joseph Smith. It should be noted that D. Michael Quinn was
excommunicated from the LDS Church, in 1993, after refusing to keep silent about his unflattering
research. This newer honesty among Mormon historians is appearing in other books, like the revision of
The Story of the Latter-day Saints by J. B. Allen and G. M. Leonard, where they discuss Smith's
"youthful experiments with treasure-seeking" ]
Besides this failing he sometimes attempted to mint his own money, which at least once brought him into
decided conflict with the local constabulary. This fact is, of course, well known to any informed student
of Mormonism, and is bolstered by the testimony of the late Judge Daniel Woodward of the County Court of
Windsor, Vermont, a former neighbor of the Smith family. Judge Woodward went on record in the
Historical Magazine in 1870
with a statement to the effect that the elder Smith definitely was a treasure hunter and that "he also
became implicated with one Jack Downing, in counterfeiting money, but turned state's evidence and escaped
the penalty."
The mother of the future prophet was as much as her husband the product of the era and her
environment, given as she was to extreme religious views and belief in the most trivial of superstitions.
Lucy Smith later in her life "authored" a book entitled Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and His
Progenitors for Many Generations. When published by the Mormon Church in Liverpool, England,
however, it incurred the enduring wrath of Brigham Young, the first successor to Smith, who brought
about the suppression of the book on the grounds that it contained "many mistakes" and that "should it
ever be deemed best to publish these sketches, it will not be done until after they are carefully
corrected" (Millennial Star, 17:297-298, personal letter dated January 31, 1885).
Mrs. Smith, of course, was totally incapable of writing such a work, the "ghost writing" being done
by a Mrs. Carey [Martha Jane Knowlton Coray], who faithfully recorded what
came to be known as "Mother Smith's History." This work will be discussed as we progress, as we also will the
personal history of Joseph Smith Jr. It is merely mentioned now to indicate the contradictory views held by
the Mormon Church and by Smith's mother concerning the prophet's homelife, background, and religious habits.
I return now to the central character of our survey, Joseph Smith Jr. The year 1820 proved to be
the real beginning of the prophet's call, for in that year he was allegedly the recipient of a marvelous
vision in which God the Father and God the Son materialized and spoke to young Smith as he piously
prayed in a neighboring wood. The prophet records the incident in great detail in his book, Pearl of
Great Price (page 2, verses 1 through 25), where he reveals that the two "personages" took a
rather dim view of the Christian church, and for that matter of the world at large, and announced that a
restoration of true Christianity was needed, and that he, Joseph Smith Jr., had been chosen to launch the
new dispensation.
[The Mormon Church has always held the position that they alone represent true Christianity.
Mormon leaders have consistently taught that after the death of the apostles, true Christianity fell into
complete apostasy, making it necessary for a "restoration." Mormon Apostle Bruce R. McConkie, on
page 513 of his book Mormon Doctrine, writes, "Mormonism is Christianity; Christianity is
Mormonism... Mormons are true Christians." In 1995 Mormon Apostle Dallin Oaks stated that the
differences between "other Christian churches" and the LDS Church "explain why we send
missionaries to other Christians" (Ensign, May 1995, 84).]
It is interesting to observe that Smith could not have been too much moved by the heavenly vision,
for he shortly took up once again the habit of digging for treasure along with his father and brother,
who were determined to unearth
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151
Captain Kidd's plunder by means of "peep stones,"
"divining rods," or just plain digging. [4]
History informs us that the Smith clan never succeeded at these multitudinous attempts at treasure
hunting, but innumerable craters in the Vermont and New York countryside testify to their apparent
zeal without knowledge.
In later years, the "prophet" greatly regretted these superstitious expeditions of his youth and even
went on record as denying that he had ever been a money-digger. Said prophet Smith on one such
occasion, "In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the name of Josiah Stoal,
who lived in Chenango County, State of New York. He had heard something of a silver mine having
been opened by the Spaniards in Harmony, Susquehanna County, State of Pennsylvania, and had,
previous to my hiring with him, been digging in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After I went to
live with him, he took me among the rest of his hands, to dig for the silver mine, at which I continued to
work for nearly a month, without success in our undertaking, and finally I prevailed with the old
gentleman to cease digging after it. Hence arose the very prevalent story of my having been a moneydigger." [5]
This explanation may suffice to explain the prophet's treasure-hunting fiascoes to the faithful and to
the historically inept; but to those who have access to the facts, it is at once evident that Smith played
recklessly, if not fast and loose, with the truth. In fact, it often appeared to be a perfect stranger to him.
The main source for promoting skepticism where the veracity of the Prophet's explanation is concerned,
however, is from no less an authority than Lucy Smith, his own mother, who, in her account of the very
same incident, wrote that "one, Mr. Stoal, came for Joseph on account of having heard that he possessed
certain keys by which he could discern things invisible to the natural eye" (Linn, The Story of the
Mormons, page 16).
Further evidence, in addition to Mrs. Smith's statement (and prima facie evidence, at that), proves
beyond a reasonable doubt that the prophet was a confirmed "Peek-stone" addict, that he took part in
and personally supervised numerous treasure-digging expeditions, and further that he claimed
supernatural powers which allegedly aided him in these searches. To remove all doubt the reader may
have as to Smith's early treasure-hunting and "Peek-stone" practices, we shall quote two of the best
authenticated sources, which we feel will sustain our contention that Smith was regarded as a fraud by
those who knew him best. It should also be remembered that Joseph Smith Sr., in an interview later
published in Historical Magazine of
May 1870, clearly stated that the
prophet had been a Peek-stone enthusiast and treasure-digger in his youth, and, further, that he had also
told fortunes and located lost objects by means of a "Peek-stone" and alleged supernatural powers therein.
Substantiating Joseph's father's account of his rather odd activities is the testimony of the Reverend Dr.
John A. Clark after "exhaustive research" in the Smith family's own neighborhood.
"Long before the idea of a Golden Bible entered their minds, in their excursions for
money digging... Joe used to be usually their guide, putting into a hat a peculiar stone
he had through which he looked to decide where they should begin to dig" (Gleanings by
the Way, page 225, 1842).
[The proceedings of a court hearing dated March 20, 1826 -- New York vs. Joseph Smith—revealed
that Joseph Smith "had a certain stone which he had occasionally looked at to determine where hidden
treasures in bowels of the earth were... and had looked for Mr. Stoal several times." The hearing ruled
the defendant guilty of money-digging.
Peep-stone gazing was one of several occult practices deemed illegal in the 1820s. That Joseph
Smith's peep-stone gazing episodes met their challenge with the law is irrefutably documented. The
original court bill of 1826, charging Smith with "glass looking," was discovered by Rev. Wesley P.
Walters, in 1971, at the Chenango County Jail, Norwich, New York. The trial for the misdemeanor
crime cost two dollars and sixty-eight cents, which Smith apparently paid. A copy of the original court
bill is reproduced in Walter Martin's The Maze of Mormonism (Santa Ana: Vision House, 1978), 37.]
In 1820, Joseph Smith Jr. claimed a heavenly vision that he said singled
__________
4. Peep Stones, or Peek Stones: supposedly magical rocks which when placed in a hat and partially darkened
allegedly reveal lost items and buried treasure. Divining rods were sticks supposed to lead to treasure
or water, etc.
5 Millennial Star, Vol. XIV, Supplement, page 6.
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him out as the Lord's anointed prophet for this dispensation, though it was not until 1823, with the
appearance of the angel Moroni at the quaking Smith's bedside, that Joe began his relationship to the
fabulous "golden plates," or what was to become the Book of Mormon.
According to Smith's account of this extraordinary revelation, which is recorded in The Pearl of
Great Price (Chapter 2, verses 29-54), the angel Moroni, the glorified son of one Mormon, the
man for whom the famous book of the same name is entitled, appeared beside Joseph's bedside and
thrice repeated his commission to the allegedly awe-struck treasure hunter. Smith did not write this
account down until some years later, but even that fails to excuse the blunder he made in transmitting
the angelic proclamation. This confusion appears in the earlier editions of Doctrine and Covenants
and [1851 edition of] The Pearl of Great Price wherein Joseph Smith
identifies the former Moroni is named as messenger; yet in the latter, Joseph, with equal prophetic
authority, identifies the messenger as Nephi, an entirely different character found in the
Book of Mormon! This unfortunate crossing up of the divine communication system was later remedied
by thoughtful Mormon scribes who have exercised great care to ferret out all the historical and factual
blunders not readily explainable in the writings of Smith, Young, and other early Mormon writers. In
current editions, therefore, both the "revelations" agree by identifying Moroni as the midnight visitor.
However, whether Nephi or Moroni carried the message to Smith apparently makes little difference to the
faithful.
[The nightmarish blunder of crediting the revelation of the Book of Mormon to Nephi instead of
Moroni has never ceased to be a proverbial thorn in the side of Mormon historians. Try as they will, it
is impossible to erase it from the handwritten manuscripts of the Mormon Church history, which was
supervised by Joseph Smith during his life. A reproduction of the manuscript may be found in Jerald
and Sandra Tanner's Mormonism—Shadow or Reality (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987,
fifth edition), 136. Later, in 1842, these manuscripts formed the basis of the published history of
Mormonism, again, overseen by Smith before his death, where Nephi appears as the revelatory angel,
cf. Times and Seasons, vol. 3 (Nauvoo, Ill.: Times and Seasons), 753. The first edition of the Pearl
of Great Price (1851), with the subtitle "Choice selections of revelations, translations, and narrations
of Joseph Smith," contained the name Nephi because the unchallenged history of Mormonism had set such
a foundation.]
In 1827 Smith claimed to receive the golden plates upon which the Book of Mormon is alleged to
have been written. Shortly after this historic find, unearthed in the hill Cumorah, near Palmyra, New
York, Smith began to "translate" the "reformed Egyptian" [6] hieroglyphics, inscribed thereupon by
means of the "Urim and Thummim," a type of miraculous spectacles, which the angel Moroni had the
foresight to provide for the budding seer. The account of how Smith went about "translating" the plates
and of the attendant difficulties with one Martin Harris, his wife, and Professor Charles Anthon, a noted
scholar, will be dealt with more fully later in this chapter. However, the plot is obvious to anyone who
is even basically informed concerning the real character of Joseph Smith; so we will continue with the
prophet's history.
During the period when Joseph was translating the plates (1827-1829), one Oliver Cowdery, an
itinerant schoolteacher, visited Smith at the home of his father-in-law (who after some months, for the
sake of his daughter had received Joseph into his home) where he was duly "converted" to the
prophet's religion and soon after became the "scribe" who wrote down what Joseph said the plates read,
in spite of the fact that he never actually saw them. In the course of time, Smith and Cowdery became fast
friends; and the progression of their "translation" and spiritual zeal allegedly attained such heights that
on May 15, 1829, heaven could no longer restrain its joy; and so John the Baptist in person was speedily
dispatched by Peter, James, and John to the humble state of Pennsylvania with orders to confer the "Aaronic
Priesthood" on Joe and Oliver.
This amazing event is recorded in The Pearl of Great Price (Chapter 2, verses 68-73),
following which Oliver baptized Joe and vice versa; and they spent time blessing one another and
prophesying future events "which
__________
6 Reformed Egyptian is a non-existent language, according to every leading Egyptologist and philologist
ever consulted on the problem. However, the Mormons still maintain their claim with the full knowledge
that these are the facts.
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
153
should shortly come to pass." Smith was careful not to be too specific
in recording these prophecies, because of the fact that more often than not, Mormon prophecies did not
come in on schedule, which no doubt accounted for Smith's hesitancy in alluding to details.
From the now hallowed state of Pennsylvania, immortalized by Smith's initiation into the
priesthood of Aaron by John the Baptist, Joe returned shortly to the home of Peter Whitmer in
Fayette, New York, where he remained until the "translation" from the plates was completed and the
Book of Mormon published and copyrighted in the year 1830. On April 6th of this same year, the prophet,
in company with his brothers Hyrum and Samuel, Oliver Cowdery, and David and Peter Whitmer Jr.,
officially founded a "New Religious Society" entitled ["The Church of Christ"
(later to be named the Church of the Latter-day Saints [1834], and finally as the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints in1838).] Thus it was that one of the more virulent strains of American cults
came into existence -- Mormonism had begun in earnest.
Following this "momentous" occasion, a conference consisting of thirty men was called by the
"prophet" on June 1, 1830, at which time missionary efforts were decided upon and some of the
newly ordained elders were set aside to become missionaries to the Indians. In August
[September] of 1830, a zealous preacher, one Parley P. Pratt, was "converted"
to Mormonism, and allegedly in September [November], Sidney Rigdon, a powerful
Campbellite preacher from Ohio, "saw the light" and "converted" more than 100 of his congregation to
Smith's religion, which had begun to take root outside of New York State and Pennsylvania, for reasons
which we shall view a little later.
Sidney Rigdon and Parley P. Pratt, it should be noted, were almost from the day of their
"conversions" slated for greatness in the Mormon hierarchy, as was Orson Pratt; and it is their writings,
along with those of Young, Charles Penrose, and James Talmage, which best argue in favor of the
Mormon cause, even to this very day. The role Sidney Rigdon played in the Mormon saga will be
discussed in a later chapter, but it must be remembered that Rigdon was later accused of apostasy and
excommunicated from the Mormon Church [in 1844], largely because of his
famous "Salt Sermon," which was delivered in 1833 [sic] in Jackson County, Missouri. In the course of
its presentation, Rigdon soared to the heights of inflammatory rhetoric against the citizens of Jackson
County, Missouri, [when, on
Independence Day, 1838] virtually challenging
the whole state to do pitched battle with the "saints," who were subsequently terribly persecuted and expelled
in November of 1833 [1838].
This volatile bit of rabble-rousing did Sidney no good with his fellow Mormons; and it became known rather
bitterly as "Sidney's Salt Sermon," due to the fact that his text was drawn from Matthew and dealt with
salt having lost its savor. Rigdon's
devastating evaluation
of "Prophet" Smith from the "inside" is a
masterful piece of factual dissection and should be read by anyone tempted to deify the questionable
character of the first Mormon prophet.
Shortly after the Fayette meeting [on April 6, 1830], which officially began
the Latter Day Saints, the nucleus of the Mormon Church moved to Kirtland, Ohio, where in a period of six
years they increased to almost 16,000 souls. It was from Kirtland that Smith and Rigdon made their initial
thrust into Jackson County, Missouri, which ended in the previously recounted disaster. Joe and Sidney were
no strangers to persecution and suffered
the indignity
of an old fashioned "tar-and-feathering," accompanied by a trip out of town on the proverbial rail. While in
Missouri, Smith purchased sixty-three acres which he deemed "holy ground," and there marked the
exact spot on which he declared that the temple of Zion, the earthly headquarters of the kingdom of
Jesus Christ, was eventually to be built. It is an interesting fact of history that one small branch of the
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
Mormon Church (Church of Christ, Temple Lot) today owns that temple site and claims that it once
refused five million dollars from the Utah church for the "hallowed ground."
[Some of the more prominent divisions of the work of Joseph Smith have survived, though barely, to
this day. In the 1990 edition of his book, Divergent Paths of the Restoration, author Steven L. Shields
lists well over 100 "restoration" churches that claim Joseph Smith his first vision and the Book of
Mormon as their foundation. Most of their differences concern his work and revelations following the
Book of Mormon. To the far left are those who reject all or nearly all revelations since the early 1830s.
These are the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Independence, Missouri), The
Church of Christ, Temple Lot (Independence, Missouri), The Church of Christ (Bickerton,
Pennsylvania), and other factions. To the far right are the fundamentalist Mormon groups that sustain
every revelation of Smith and subsequent prophets through 1890. These often practice polygamy and
are mostly located in the Western United States, Canada, and Mexico. Some prominent groups are The
Church of the Firstborn, The Order of Enoch, and the communal clans of Johnson, Allred, Barlow, and
Musser.]
In Kirtland, also, the First Stake of Zion was established and a quorum of twelve apostles was
chosen, presided over by a First Presidency of three, supervised by the president, Joseph Smith, the
Seer. It appears that the chief reason for the Mormons moving to Kirtland, Ohio, however, was the
extreme unpopularity of Smith and his revelations among the people who knew him best and who
regarded his new religion as a sham and a hoax, thus hardly recommending them as prospective
converts. Smith, of course, had a revelation from God as authorization for the move. In fact, between
the years 1831 to 1844, the "prophet" allegedly received well over 135 direct revelations from God,
revelations which helped build Kirtland and, later, the Mormon metropolis of Nauvoo, where the infamous
practice of polygamy was instituted by Smith
[Smith's infamous practice of polygamy was instituted at Kirtland and later] confirmed by "divine
revelation." Some misinformed persons have declared that Smith was not a polygamist, but one needs only to
search the famous Berrian collection in the New York Public Library for volumes of primary information to
the contrary, written by Mormon men and women who lived through many of these experiences and
testified to the outright immorality of Smith and the leaders of the Mormon Church. Gradually, of
course, polygamy filtered down through the Mormon Church, so that it was necessary for the United
States government threaten to confiscate all Mormon property and to threaten them with complete dissolution
in order to stamp out the then widely accepted practice....
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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A New Revelation -- The Mormon Bible
Aside from the King James Version of the Bible, which the Mormons accept as part of the Word of
God "insofar as it is correctly translated," they have
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
157
added the Doctrine and Covenants, The Pearl of Great Price, and the Primary volume, the Book of
Mormon, to the canon of what they would call authorized Scripture. The last mentioned is a subject of
this chapter since it occupies a primary place in Mormon theology and therefore must be carefully examined.
A great deal of research on the part of a number of able scholars and organizations has already been published
concerning the Book of Mormon, and I have drawn heavily upon whatever documented and verifiable
information was available. The task of validating the material was enormous, and so we have selected that
information which has been verified beyond refutation and is available today in some of our leading
institutions of learning (Stanford University, Union Theological Seminary, the Research Departments of the
Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and others).
It is a difficult task to evaluate the complex structure of the Book of Mormon, and the reader is
urged to consider the bibliography at the end of this volume if he should desire further and more
exhaustive studies.
The Story of the Ancient People
The Book of Mormon purports to be a history of two ancient civilizations which were located on
the American continent. According to the Mormon version, the first of these great civilizations,
[named the Jaredites] left the tower of Babel (about 2,250 B.C., by Mormon reckoning), and emigrated
to the eastern coast of what we know as Central America.
The second group allegedly left Jerusalem somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 B.C., before the
destruction of the city and the Babylonian captivity of Israel. That group is alleged to have crossed the
Pacific Ocean, landing on the [west coast of] on the continent of South America
in what is now known as the country of Peru. According to the Mormons, the Book of Mormon is a
condensation of the high points of these civilizations. The author of the abridged book was a prophet named
Mormon. The book is "the translation of the abridgment of the record of these civilizations" and "includes
a brief outline of the history of the earlier Jaredite people, an abridgment made by Moroni, son of Mormon,
taken from the Jaredite record found during the period of the second civilization."
The Jaredites were destroyed as a result of "corruption" and were punished for their apostasy, their
civilization undergoing total destruction.
The second group, who came to America about 600 B.C., were righteous Jews, [led by
Lehi and later his son] the leader of which group was named Nephi. This group eventually met a fate
similar to the Jaredites' and were divided into two warring camps, the Nephites and the Lamanites (Indians).
The Lamanites received a curse because of their evil deeds, and the curse took the form of dark skin.
[Racism is a charge that has been leveled at the Mormon Church throughout their history by a
number of civil rights groups. Naturally, Mormons reject such claims by pointing to a small number of
African-American and Native-American members. The fact remains, however, that the god of
Mormonism elevates "white" races as supreme and has demeaned African-Americans and Native
Americans as "unrighteous." The Book of Mormon describes the Native-American curse as, "they were
white, and exceeding fair and delightsome; that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord
God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them" (2 Nephi 5:21). Post-1981 editions of the Book
of Mormon have deleted the strength of the racist overtones by changing the word "white," in the
original Book of Mormon, to "pure,"...]
The Mormons' record claims that Christ visited the American continent, revealed Himself to the Nephites,
preached to them the Gospel, instituted baptism, the communion service, the priesthood and other mystical
ceremonies.
The Nephites, unfortunately, proved to be no match for the Lamanites, and they were defeated by
them and annihilated in a great battle near the hill Cumorah in Palmyra, New York, approximately A.D. 428.
[The traditional
view held by the LDS Church is that the hill called Cumorah in the Book of Mormon is the same hill
where Joseph Smith dug up the gold plates. This would place the final battle between the Nephites and
Lamanites near Palmyra, New York, or near the Smith farm. This view has been vehemently challenged
by various Mormon scholars who hold to the view that the hill Cumorah of Book of Mormon fame was
located rather in central America. Both theories have serious flaws and because of this, it is doubtful
that a general consensus is forthcoming.]
Some fourteen hundred years later, the Mormons claim, Joseph Smith Jr. unearthed Mormon's
abridgment, which was written in reformed Egyptian hieroglyphics upon plates of gold, and with the
aid of Urim and Thummim (supernatural spectacles) translated the reformed Egyptian into English. It
thus became the Book of Mormon, which was published in 1830, bearing the name of Joseph Smith Jr.
as translator ["Author and Proprietor."]
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Archaeological Evidence
The Book of Mormon purports to portray the rise and development of two great civilizations. As to
just how great these civilizations were, some excerpts from the book itself adequately illustrate.
"The whole face of the land had become covered with buildings, and the people were as numerous
almost, as it were the sand of the sea" (Mormon 1:7).
"...fine workmanship of wood, in buildings, and in machinery, and also in iron and copper, and
brass and steel, making all manners of tools " (Jarom 1:8 and 2 Nephi 5:15).
"...grain ...silks ...cattle ...oxen ...cows ...sheep ...swine ...goats ...horses ...asses ...
elephants..." (See Ether 9:17-19).
"...did multiply and spread -- began to cover the face of the whole earth, from the sea south to the
sea north, from the sea west to the sea east" (Heleman 3:8).
two million Jaredites slain (See Ether 15:2).
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"...their shipping and their building of ships, and their building of temples, and of synagogues and
their sanctuaries..." (Heleman 3:14. See also 2 Nephi 5:15-16; Alma 16:13).
tens of thousands of the Nephites were slain (See Mormon 6:10-15).
"...swords... cimeters... breastplates... arm-shields... shields... head-plates... armor" (See
Alma 43:18-19; 16:13 and Ether 15:15).
"...multiplied exceedingly, and spread upon the face of the land, and became exceeding rich..."
(Jarom 1:8).
"...cities and inhabitants sunk in the depths of the sea..." and "...cities and inhabitants sunk in the
depths of the earth..." (See 3 Nephi 8:9-10, 14 and 9:4-6, 8).
In addition to the foregoing statements from the Book of Mormon, which indicate the tremendous
spread of the cultures of these races, there are some thirty-eight cities catalogued in the Book of
Mormon, evidence that these were indeed mighty civilizations, which should, by all the laws of
archaeological research into the culture of antiquity, have left vast amounts of "finds" to be evaluated.
But such is not the case as we shall show. The Mormons have yet to explain the fact that leading archaeological
researchers not only have repudiated the claims of the Book of Mormon as to the existence of these
civilizations, but have adduced considerable evidence to show the impossibility of the accounts given in
the Mormon Bible.
The following letter was addressed to the Rev. R. Odell Brown, pastor of the Hillcrest Methodist
Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia, an ardent student of Mormonism and its claims. Dr. Brown, in the
course of his research, wrote to the Department of Anthropology at Columbia University in New York
City. The answer he received is of great importance in establishing the fact that the Book of Mormon
isneither accurate nor truthful where the sciences of archaeology and anthropology are concerned.
Dear Sir:
Pardon my delay in answering your letter of January 14, 1957. The question which
you ask concerning the Book of Mormon is one that comes up quite frequently....
However,... I may say that I do not believe that there is a single thing of value
concerning the prehistory of the American Indian in the Book of Mormon and I believe
that the great majority of American archaeologists would agree with me. The book is
untrue Biblically, historically, and scientifically.
Concerning Dr. Charles Anthon of Columbia University, I do not know who he is
and would certainly differ with his viewpoint, as the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) tell it.
What possible bearing Egyptian hieroglyphics would have on either the Book of Mormon
or the prehistory of the American Indian I do not know.... I am,
Very sincerely yours,
Wm. Duncan Strong (Signed)
The Smithsonian Institution in Washington has also added its voice against the archaeological
claims of the Book of Mormon. Such a highly regarded scientific source the Mormons can ill
afford to ignore....
[1. The Smithsonian Institution has never used the Book of Mormon in any way as a
scientific guide. Smithsonian archaeologists see no direct connection between the
archaeology of the New World and the subject matter of the book.
2. The physical type of the Native American is basically Mongoloid, being most
closely related to that of the peoples of eastern, central, and northeastern Asia.
Archaeological evidence indicates that the ancestors of the present Native Americans
came into the New World—probably over a land bridge known to have existed in the
Bering Strait region during the last Ice Age -- in a continuing series of small migrations
beginning from about 25,000 to 30,000 years ago.
3. Present evidence indicates that the first people to reach this continent from the
East were the Norsemen who briefly visited the northeastern part of North America
around A.D. 1000 and then settled in Greenland. There is nothing to show that they
reached Mexico or Central America.
4. One of the main lines of evidence supporting the scientific finding that contacts
with Old World civilizations, if indeed they occurred at all, were of very little
significance for the development of Native American civilizations is the fact that none of
the principal Old World domesticated food plants or animals (except the dog) occurred
in the New World in Pre-Columbian times. Native Americans had no wheat, barley, oats,
millet, rice, cattle, pigs, chickens, horses, donkeys, or camels before 1492. (Camels and
horses were in the Americas, along with the bison, mammoth, and mastodon, but all
these animals became extinct around 10,000 B.C. at the time the early big game hunters
spread across the Americas.)
5. Iron, steel, glass, and silk were not used in the New World before 1492 (except for
occasional use of unsmelted meteoric iron). Native copper was used in various locations
in pre-Columbian times, but true metallurgy was limited to southern Mexico and the
Andean region, where its occurrence in late prehistoric times involved gold, silver,
copper, and their alloys, but not iron.
6. Mesoamerica and the northwestern coast of South America began several hundred years
before the Christian era. However, any such inter-hemispheric contacts appear to have
been the result of accidental voyages originating in eastern and southern Asia. It is by no
means certain that such contacts occurred; certainly there were no contacts with the
ancient Egyptians, Hebrews, or other peoples of Western Asia and the Near East.
7. No reputable Egyptologist or other specialist on Old World archaeology and no
expert on New World prehistory has]
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
163
[discovered or confirmed any relationship between
archaeological remains in Mexico and archaeological remains in Egypt.
8. Reports of findings of ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and other Old World writings in
the New World in pre-Columbian contexts have frequently appeared in newspapers,
magazines, and sensational books. None of these claims has stood up to examination by
reputable scholars. No inscriptions using Old World forms of writing have been shown
to have occurred in any part of the Americas before 1492, except for a few Norse rune
stones which have been found in Greenland. (Revised, May 1980.)]
(Letters from the Smithsonian Institution as recorded in The Book of Mormon Examined
by Arthur Budvarson, Utah Christian Tract Society, 1959, pages 35 and 36).
From this evidence, it is clear that the cities mentioned in the Book of Mormon are imaginary, that
elephants never existed on this continent, and that the metals described in the Book of Mormon have
never been found in any of the areas of contemporary civilizations of the New World. Here is not a
theologian attempting to discredit the Mormons on the basis of their theology, but recognized
archeological experts challenging the Book of Mormon on the basis of the fact that its accounts are
not in keeping with the findings of science. Mormon missionaries are generally reluctant to discuss these
areas when the evidence is well known, but it is evidence, and from the most authoritative sources.
[One of the most damaging claims against the archaeology of the Book of Mormon was the
publication of former Brigham Young University professor Thomas Stuart Ferguson's paper written in
1975. Ferguson founded the Department of Archaeology (later renamed Anthropology) at BYU for the
sole purpose of discovering proofs of the Book of Mormon. After twenty-five years of dedicated
archaeological research, the department had nothing at all to back up the flora, fauna, topography,
geography, peoples, coins, or settlements of the book and, in fact, he called the geography of the Book
of Mormon "fictional." In Ferguson's Manuscript Unveiled (Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry,
1988) the reader is treated to a wealth of insights into the sheer nonexistence of Book of Mormon
antiquities.]
The Mongoloid Factor
It is one of the main contentions of Mormon theology that Native Americans are the descendants of
the Lamanites and that they were of the Semitic race, in fact, of Jewish origin. As we have seen, this
claim is extensive in Mormon literature, and if evidence could be adduced to show that the American
Indian could not possibly be of Semitic extraction, the entire story of Nephi and his trip to America
in 600 B.C. would be proven false.
It is, therefore, of considerable value to learn that in the findings compiled both by anthropologists
and those who specialize in genetics that the various physical factors of the Mediterranean races from
which the Jewish or Semitic race spring bear little or no resemblance to those of the American Indian!
Genotypically, there is therefore little if any correlation, and phenotypically speaking, the
American Indianss are considered to be Mongoloid in extraction, not Mediterranean Caucasoids.
Now, if the Lamanites, as the Book of Mormon claims, were the descendants of Nephi, who was a
Jew of the Mediterranean Caucasoid type, then their descendants, the American Indians, would by
necessity have the same blood factor genotypically, and phenotypic or apparent characteristics, would
be the same. But this is not at all the case. Instead, the American Indian, so say anthropologists, is not
of Semitic extraction and has the definite phenotypical characteristic of a Mongoloid. A thorough study
of anthropology and such writers as W. C. Boyd (The Contributions of Genetics to Anthropology) and
Bentley Glass, the gifted geneticist
164
THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
of Johns Hopkins University, reveals that Mormon claims based
upon the Book of Mormon are out of harmony with the findings of geneticists and anthropologists.
There simply is no foundation for the postulation that the American Indian (Lamanites, according to the
Mormons) is in any way related to the race to which Nephi (a Semite) allegedly belonged.
Corrections, Contradictions, and Errors
There is a great wealth of information concerning the material contained in the Book of Mormon
and the various plagiarisms, anachronisms, false prophecies, and other unfortunate practices connected
with it. At best we can give but a condensation of that which has been most thoroughly documented.
Since the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, the first edition has undergone extensive
"correction" in order to present it in its current form. Some of these "corrections" should be noted.
[The former major revision of the Book of Mormon was in 1920. That standard edition is still found
in many public libraries and in millions of homes. In the latest revision, 1981, a subtitle was added to
the cover: "Another Testament of Jesus Christ," and no less than 100 verses were changed without
consulting the missing golden plates. A note closing the introduction to the 1981 edition says, "Some
minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition
contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication
manuscripts and early editions edited by the prophet Joseph Smith." Without blushing, the Mormon
Church boldly asserts the unfounded claim that the prepublication manuscripts agree with their most
recent changes. Our access to the handwritten copies of the original Book of Mormon deny such a claim
and proves once again that the Mormon Church will sacrifice truth for the sake of public relations.]
1. In the book of Mosiah, chapter 21, verse 28, it is declared that "King Mosiah had a gift from God"; but in
the original edition of the book, the name of the king was Benjamin -- an oversight that thoughtful Mormon
scribes corrected. This is not, of course, a typographical error, as there is little resemblance between the
names Benjamin and Mosiah; so it appears that either God made a mistake when He inspired the record or
Joseph made a mistake when he translated it. But the Mormons will admit to neither, so they are stuck,
so to speak, with the contradiction.
2. 1 Nephi 19:16-20:1, when compared with the edition of 1830, reveals more than fifty changes in
the "inspired Book of Mormon," words having been dropped, spelling corrected, and words and
phraseology added and turned about. This is a strange way to treat an inspired revelation from God!
3. In the book of Alma 28:14-29:1-11, more than thirty changes may be counted from the original edition, and
on page 303, the phrase, "Yea, decree unto them that decrees which are unalterable," has been expurged
[but strangely reappeared in 1981.] (See Alma 29:4.)
4. On page 25 of the edition of 1830, the Book of Mormon declares:
"And the angel said unto me, Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the eternal Father."
Yet in 1 Nephi 11:21, the later editions of the book read:
"And the angel said unto me: Behold the Lamb of God, yea even the son of the eternal Father."
5. The Roman Catholic Church should be delighted with page 25 of the original edition of the Book
of Mormon, which confirms one of their dogmas, namely, that Mary is the mother of God.
"Behold, the virgin which thou seest, is the mother of God."
Noting this unfortunate lapse into Romanistic theology, considerate editors have changed 1 Nephi 11:18
[(as well as 1 Nephi 11:21, 32; 13:40)] so that it now reads:
"Behold, the virgin whom thou seest, is the mother of the son of God."
From the foregoing, which are only a handful of examples of the more than two thousand changes
to be found in the Book of Mormon over a period of 131 years, the reader can readily see that it
is in no sense to be accepted as the Word of God. The Scripture says: "The word of the Lord endureth for
ever" (1 Peter 1:25); and our Saviour declared:
"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth" (John 17:17).
The record of the Scripture rings true. The Book of Mormon, on the other hand, is patently false in
far too many instances to be considered coincidence.
Added to the evidence of various revisions, the Book of Mormon also contains plagiarisms from the
King James Bible, anachronisms, false prophecies, and errors of fact that cannot be dismissed. Some of
these bear repetition, though they are well known to students of Mormonism.
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
165
The testimony of the three witnesses, which appear at the front of the Book of Mormon (Oliver
Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris) declares that "an angel of God came down from heaven,
and he brought and laid before our eyes, that we beheld and saw the plates, and the engraving thereon."
It is quite noteworthy that Martin Harris, in his conversation with Professor Anthon relative to the
material "translated" from these miraculous plates, denied that he had actually seen them
[with his "naked eyes."] In fact, when pressed, he stated, "No, I saw them
with the eye of faith" [(Recollections of John H. Gilbert, 1892, Typescript, BYU,
5-6)] which is vastly different from a revelation by an angelic messenger.
The Mormons are loath to admit that all three of these witnesses later apostatized from the Mormon
faith and were described in most unflattering terms ("thieves and counterfeiters") by their
Mormon contemporaries
[(cf. Senate Document 189, February 15, 1841,
6-9).]
A careful check of early Mormon literature also reveals that Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum wrote
three articles against the character of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, which in itself
renders their testimony suspect if not totally worthless [(cf. Doctrine and Covenants,
3:12; 10:7; History of the Church; 3:228, 3:232).
Mormons try to cover this historical predicament by saying that two of the three witnesses, Oliver
Cowdery and Martin Harris, were rebaptized into Mormonism. What they fail to reveal is more
significant: The Times and Seasons (2:482) published that Oliver Cowdery denied his Book of Mormon
testimony. He spent several years as a baptized Methodist before his rebaptism into Mormonism.
Martin Harris, likewise, has suspicious circumstances surrounding his rebaptism. He denied the
teachings of Brigham Young after rebaptism and was banned from preaching by Young because of their
differences. David Whitmer changed the details of his testimony concerning the angel with the golden
plates to say that it was a vision and not an actual visitation by an angelic person (An Address to All
Believers in Christ, p. 32). Certainly testimony from such unstable personalities is dubious at best.]
Plagiarisms -- The King James Version
According to a careful survey of the Book of Mormon, it contains 25,000 words from the
King James Bible. In fact, verbatim quotations, some of considerable length, have caused the Mormons
no end of embarrassment for many years.
The comparison of Moroni chapter 10 with 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; 2 Nephi 14 with Isaiah 4; and 2 Nephi
12 with Isaiah 2 reveal that Joseph Smith made free use of his Bible to supplement the alleged
revelation of the golden plates. The book of Mosiah, chapter 14 in the Book of Mormon, is a
reproduction of the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah the prophet, and 3 Nephi 13:1-18 copies Matthew 6:1-23.
The Mormons naively suggest that when Christ allegedly appeared on
the American continent after his resurrection and preached to the
Nephites he quite natrually used the same language as recorded in the
Bible. They also maintain that when Nephi came to America he brought
copies of the Hebrew scriptures, which account for quotations from the
Old Testament. The only difficulty with these excuses is that the
miraculous plates upon which they were all inscribed, somehow or
another, under translation, came out in King James English without
variation approximately a thousand years before this 1611 version was
written. Such reasoning on the part of the Mormons strains at the
limits of credulity and only they are willing to believe it.
There are other instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible including paraphrases of certain
verses. One of these verses (1 John 5:7) is reproduced in 3 Nephi 11:27. The only difficulty with the
paraphrase here is that the text is considered by scholars to be an interpolation missing from all the
major manuscripts of the New Testament, but present in the King James Bible, from which Smith
paraphrased it not knowing the difference.
Another example of this type of error is found in 3 Nephi 11:33-34, and is almost a direct quotation
from Mark 16:16, a passage now known to be an addition to that gospel by an overzealous scribe. But
Joseph Smith was not aware of this, so he even copied in translational variations, another proof that
neither he nor the alleged golden plates were inspired of God.
Two further instances of plagiarisms from the King James Bible which have backfired on the
Mormons are worth noting.
In the third chapter of the book of Acts, Peter's classic sermon at Pentecost paraphrases
Deuteronomy 18:15-19. While in the process of writing 3 Nephi, Joseph Smith puts Peter's paraphrase
in the mouth of Christ when the
166
THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
Saviour was allegedly preaching to the Nephites. The
prophet overlooked the fact that at the same time Christ was allegedly
preaching his sermon, the sermon itself had not yet been preached by Peter.
In addition to this, 3 Nephi makes Christ out to be a liar, when in
verse 23 of chapter 20 Christ attributes Peter's words to Moses as a
direct quotation when, as we have pointed out, Peter paraphrased the
quotation from Moses; and the wording is quite different. But Joseph
did not check far enough, hence this glaring error.
Secondly, the Book of Mormon follows the error of the King James
translation which renders Isaiah 4:5: "for upon all the glory shall be
a defence" (see 2 Nephi 14:5).
Modern translations of Isaiah point out
that it should read "For over all the glory there will be a canopy,"
not a defence. The Hebrew word, "chuppah," does not mean defence but a
protective curtain or canopy; Smith, of course, did not know this nor
did the King James translators from whose work he copied.
There are quite a number of other places where such errors appear,
including Smith's insistence in Abraham 1:20 that "Pharaoh signifies
king by royal blood," when in reality the dictionary defines the
meaning of the term Pharaoh as "a great house or palace."
The Revised Standard Version of the Bible renders Isaiah 5:25: "and their corpses
were as refuse in the midst of the streets," corectly rendering the
Hebrew suchah as refuse, not as "torn." The King James Bible renders
the passage: "And their carcases were torn in the midst of the
streets." The Book of Mormon (2 Nephi 15:25) repeats the King James'
text word for word, including the error of mistranslating suchah,
removing any claim that the Book of Mormon is to be taken seriously as
reliable material.
Anachronisms and Contradictions
Not only does the Book of Mormon plagiarize heavily from the King James Bible, but it betrays a
great lack of information and background on the subject of world history and the history of the Jewish
people. The Jaredites apparently enjoyed "glass" windows in the miraculous barges in which they crossed
the ocean; and "steel" and a "compass" were known to Nephi despite the fact that neither had been
invented, demonstrating once again that Joseph Smith was a poor student of history and of Hebrew
customs.
Laban, mentioned in one of the characters of the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 4:9), makes use of a
steel sword; and Nephi himself claims to have had a steel bow. [The ancient Jaredites
also had steel swords (Ether 7:9).] (the Mormons justify this by quoting Psalm 18:34 as a footnote
[to 1 Nephi 16:18] in the Book of Mormon, but modern translations of
the Scripture indicate that the word translated steel in the Old Testament (since steel was nonexistent)
is more properly rendered bronze. [Nahum 2:3, NASB, uses "steel" but it is taken from
the Hebrew word paladah, probably meaning iron.
William Hamblin, in his preliminary report entitled Handheld Weapons in the Book of Mormon
(1985), published by the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (F.A.R.M.S.) uses the
bronze argument as a possible justification for the rendering of steel in the Book of Mormon. He writes,
"Another possibility is to equate this Jaredite steel with the ‘steel' of the King James translation of the
Old Testament, which actually refers to the Hebrew word for bronze." The problem with using this
explanation to protect the Book of Mormon is that it defies Mormon history. Remember, numerous
contemporaries of Joseph Smith have claimed that Smith could not continue "translating" the gold
plates unless the scribe read each word back to him correctly. If the word steel in the Book of Mormon
should really have been bronze, it undermines the LDS claim that the book was translated by the gift
and power of God, since it shows that errors did creep into Joseph Smith's translation.]
Mormons sometimes attempt to defend Nephi's possession of a compass (not in existence in his time) by
the fact that Acts 28:13 states: "And from thence we fetched a compass." Modern translations of the Scripture,
however, refute this subterfuge by correctly rendering the passage: "And from there we made a circle."
Added to the preceding anachronisms is the fact that the Book of Mormon not only contradicts the
Bible, but contradicts other revelations purporting to come from the same God who inspired the Book of
Mormon. The Bible declares that the Messiah of Israel was to be born in Bethlehem (Micah 5:2), and
the gospel of Matthew (chap. 2, v. 1) records the fulfillment of this prophecy. But the Book of Mormon
(Alma 7:9, 10) states:
"...the son of God cometh upon the face of the earth. And behold, he shall
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
167
be born of Mary, at Jerusalem, which is the land of our forefathers. ..."
The Book of Mormon describes Jerusalem as a city (1 Nephi 1:4) as was Bethlehem described as a
separate town in the Bible. The contradiction is irreconcilable.
(page not fully transcribed, due to copyright restrictions)
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
(page not fully transcribed, due to copyright restrictions)
The question quite naturally arises in summing up the background of the Book of Mormon -- Where
did the book come from, since it obviously did not come from God? The answer to this has been
propounded at great length by numerous students of Mormonism, particularly E. D. Howe, Pomeroy
Tucker, and William A. Linn.
All concur that the Book of Mormon is probably an expansion upon the writings
of one Solomon Spaulding, a retired minister who was known to have written a number of "romances" with
Biblical backgrounds similar to those of the Book of Mormon. The Mormons delight to point out that
one of Spaulding's manuscripts, entitled "Manuscript Story," was discovered in Hawaii some seventy-seven
years ago, and it differed in many respects from the Book of Mormon.
But in his excellent volume (The Book of Mormon?), Dr. James D. Bales makes the
following observation, which is of
great importance and agrees in every detail with my research over the last decade:
It has long been contended that there is a connection between the Book of Mormon
and one of Solomon Spaulding's historical romances. The Latter Day Saints, of course,
deny such a connection.
What if the Latter Day Saints are right and there is no relationship between the Book
of Mormon and Spaulding's writings? It simply means that those who so contend are
wrong, but it proves nothing with reference to the question as to whether or not the Book
of Mormon is of divine origin.
One could be wrong as to what man, or men, wrote the Book of Mormon, and still
know that it was not written by men inspired of God. One can easily prove that the Book
of Mormon is of human origin. And, after all, this is the main issue. The fundamental
issue is not what man or men wrote it, but whether it was written by men who were
guided by God. We know that men wrote it, and that these men, whoever they were, did
not have God's guidance.
This may be illustrated by Science and Health With Key to the Scriptures -- the
textbook of Christian Science churches. Mrs. Eddy claims to have been its author, under
God's direction. There are others who claim she reworked and enlarged manuscripts by
Mr. Quimby and Francis Lieber. The
MORMONISM -- THE LATTER DAY SAINTS
169
evidence seems to prove that such is the case. But what if those who so maintained failed to prove
their case? Would that prove that Science and Health was inspired ofGod? It would prove only
that Quimby's manuscript had nothing to do with it. But it would not prove that some other uninspired
being did not write it. Regardless of what human being or beings wrote Science and Health, it is
of human, not divine origin. Just so the Book of Mormon is of human origin and uninspired, even
though it were impossible to prove what particular man wrote it.
It has not been maintained that [all] the Book of Mormon was written by Spaulding.
Thus, it has not been claimed that the theological portions were put in by him. Those
portions bear the imprint of Smith, Cowdery, and Sidney Rigdon (see the proof offered
in Shook's The True Origin of the Book of Mormon,
pages 126ff.). It is
maintained, however, that some things, including a great deal of Scripture, were added to one of
Spaulding's manuscripts and that his work was thus transferred into the Book of Mormon
(see the testimony of John Spaulding, Solomon's brother; Martha Spaulding, John's
wife): They maintained that the historical portion was Spaulding's. (E. D. Howe,
Mormonism Unvailed, 1834, 278ff; Shook, The True Origin of the Book of Mormon, pages 94ff).
The Mormons contend that the discovery of one of Spaulding's manuscripts
demonstrates that it was not the basis of the Book of Mormon.
"I will here state that the Spaulding manuscript was discovered in 1884, and is at
present in the library of Oberlin College, Ohio. On examination it was found to bear no
resemblance whatever to the Book of Mormon. The theory that Solomon Spaulding was
the author of the Book of Mormon should never be mentioned again -- outside a
museum." (William A. Morton, op. cit., page 6.)
There are three errors in the above paragraph: viz., that Spaulding wrote but one
manuscript; that the manuscript discovered in 1884 is the one that non-Mormons have
claimed constituted the basis of the Book of Mormon; that the manuscript in Oberlin
bears no resemblance whatever to the Book of Mormon.
(a) Spaulding wrote more than one manuscript. This was maintained by D. P.
Harlburt and Clark Braden before the Honolulu manuscript was found
(Charles A. Shook, op. cit., 77). Spaulding's daughter also testified that her father had
written "other romances." (Elder George Reynolds, The Myth of the "Manuscript
Found," Utah, 1883, page 104). The present manuscript story looks like a rough, unfinished,
first draft.
(b) The manuscript found in Honolulu was called a "Manuscript Story" and not the
"Manuscript Found." This Honolulu manuscript, The Manuscript Story, was in the
hands of anti-Mormons in 1834. However they did not claim that it was the manuscript
which was the basis of the Book of Mormon. It was claimed that another manuscript of
Spaulding was the basis of the Book of Mormon, (Charles A. Shook, op. cit., 77, 15, 185.
The "Manuscript Found or Manuscript Story" of the late Rev. Solomon Spaulding,
Lamoni, Iowa: Printed and Published by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter Day Saints, 1885, page 10).
(c) Although the Manuscript Story has not been regarded as the Manuscript Found,
which constituted the basis of the Book of Mormon, there is a great deal of resemblance
between the Manuscript and the Book of Mormon. These points of similarity can be
accounted for on the basis that the Manuscript Story was the first, and rough draft of one
of Spaulding's works, which he reworked into the Manuscript Found.
"Howe, in 1834, published a fair synopsis of the Oberlin manuscript now at Oberlin
(Howe's Mormonism Unvailed, 288) and submitted the original to the witnesses who
testified to the many points of identity between Spaulding's Manuscript Found and the
Book of Mormon. These witnesses then (in 1834) recognized the manuscript secured by
Harlburt and now at Oberlin as being one of Spaulding's, but not the one that they
asserted was similar to the Book of Mormon. They further said that Spaulding had told
them that he had altered his original plan of writing by going farther back with his dates
and writing in the old scripture style, in order that his story might appear more ancient."
(Howe's Mormonism Unvailed, 288; Theodore Schroeder, The Origin of the Book of
Mormon, Re-Examined in Its Relation to Spaulding's "Manuscript Found," page 5).
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
This testimony is borne out by the fact that there are many points of similarity
between the manuscript in Oberlin College and the Book of Mormon. [9]
It is fairly well established historically, then, that the Mormons have attempted to use a manuscript
that is admittedly not the one from which Smith later copied and amplified the text of what is now
known as the Book of Mormon as the basis for denying what eye witnesses have affirmed: that it was
another Spaulding manuscript (Manuscript Found) that Smith drew upon to fabricate the Book of
Mormon.
Dr. Bales is right when he states:
There are too many points of similarity for them to be without significance. Thus, the
internal evidence, combined with the testimony of witnesses, as presented in Howe's
book and reproduced in Shook's, shows that Spaulding revised the Manuscript Story.
The revision was known as the Manuscript Found, and it became the basis of the Book
of Mormon in at least its historical parts. Also its religious references furnished in part
the germs of the religious portions of the Book of Mormon.
However, in ordinary conversation, and in public debate on the Book of Mormon, it
is unnecessary to go into the question of who wrote the Book of Mormon. The really
important issue is whether or not the Book of Mormon is of divine origin. There are some
Mormons who seem to think that if they can prove that Spaulding's manuscript had
nothing to do with the Book of Mormon, they have made great progress toward proving
its divine origin. Such, however, is not the case. And one should show, from an appeal to
the Bible and to the Book of Mormon itself, that the Book of Mormon is not of divine
origin. [10]
Let us not forget that the Manuscript Story itself contains at least seventy-five similarities to
what isnow the Book of Mormon and this is not to be easily explained away.
Finally, students of Mormonism must, in the last analysis, measure its content by that of Scripture,
and when this is done it will be found that it does not "speak according to the law and the testimony"
(Isaiah 8:20) and it is to be rejected as a counterfeit revelation doubly condemned by God himself
(Galatians 1:8-9).
Joseph Smith, the author of this "revelation," was perfectly described (as was his reward) in the
Word of God almost thirty-three hundred years before he appeared. It would pay the Mormons to
remember this message:
If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or
a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying,
"Let us go after other gods," which thou hast not known, "and let us serve them;" thou
shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the Lord
your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul.
Ye shall walk after the Lord your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments,
and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.
And that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams, shall be put to death; because he hath
spoken to turn you away from the Lord your God, which brought you out of the land of
Egypt, and redeemed you out of the house of bondage, to thrust thee out of the way
which the Lord thy God commanded thee to walk in. So shalt thou put the evil away
from the midst of thee.
If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy
bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, "Let us go
and serve other gods," which thou has not known, thou, nor thy fathers; namely, of the
gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from
the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth:
Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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be able to speak, than
198
THE KINGDOM OF THE CULTS
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TRANSCRIBER'S COMMENTS
Walter R. Martin (1928-1989)
(under construction)
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