"................The Mormon Church was not originated by Joesph Smith at all.

The idea was born in the mind of of a Baptist Minster named Sidney Rigdon.

Contrary to the popular notion propelled by the LDS church, Joseph Smith did not just happen upon Ridgon and then covert him to his new ideas/gospel with the Book Of Mormon. Rather Rigdon was a familiar figure with the Smith family long before this "conversion" event ever happend. In fact Oliver Cowderey (Smith's cousin) was a member or Rigdon's congregation and close acquaintance with Rigdon. In fact, before the Book Of Mormon was ever supposedly discovered in the "Hill Cumorah," Rigdon was preaching that a 'new gospel'' would "soon be revealed."

What actually took place in that era of religious fervor--was that there was much speculation about the "indian mounds" and earth works that were prevelant in America. There was even much speculation that ancient Jews had traveled to America and so on. Two authors of that era wrote manuscripts with these themes, they were: "A View Of The Hebrews" written by Ethan Smith (of all names)...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/View_of_the_Hebrews

And the other book was entitled: "Manuscript Lost,: written by Soloman Spaulding...

http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/r.../spaulding.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solomon_Spalding

Sidney Rigdon was also a familiar figure within the publishing house which Spaulding at a time had his manuscript. At one point, the manuscript disappeared from the publisher, and later on his death bed Soloman swore that Rigdon stole his book.

LDS apologist will make are very real claim that these books bear little resemblence to The Book Of Mormon... and they are correct. But the premise of ancient Hebrews is present in both books, and in one book the premise that the manuscript was found burried in a "hillside" and then revealed.

New evidence suggests that is was Sydney Ridgon who actually wrote The Book Of Mormon, not Joseph Smith who claimed discovery and translation per church history. Rigdon did not
plagiarize these two books, rather he took the basic premise contained within them (and using his divinical training) turned them into a 'gospel like' narrative.

Joeph Smith at the time was widely known in upper state New York as a boy "treasure finder" and "folk seerer." As I mentioned before, Rigdon was a familiar person at the Smith residence--as was cousin Cowderey. In effect a "business arrangement" was struck between Smith (and his family) and Sidney Rigdon. Smith would claim discovery of "golden plates" (never seen by anyone BTW), and then later claim "translation" by the use of "seerer stones" widely known by all to be in his possession (prior to all of this FYI). A protracted process of phony translation (merely transcribing Rigdon's original version) the unfolded (where Smith read the "golden plates" by placing his face into his hat in which was his 'seerer stones'). The book was then published and then the agreed meeting/conversion occured off the big-bang with Ridgon.

Of course Rigdon was one of the first converts to this new church--and he immediately rose to the top of the new leadership structure. Actually in the early days, Rigdon did all of the talking for Smith, and in effect ran the show. What was going on at that time was that Rigdon envisioned using Joseph Smith as some of these "tent evangelist" use child preachers/healers (and the Book Of Mormon) as a recruitment gimick because Smith was a well known folk magic seerer/gold finder. But as time wore on, and as things evolved and grew, it was the more sociable Smith people turned to, not the dour whack-job Rigdon... and eventually it was Smith running the show completely. The early church was a financial scam from the get-go. Early convert were required to "concecrate" all their money, land and wordly possessions to the new LDS church, and of it was Smith and Rigdon who pulled the strings.

The banking failure/scam with the Bank Of Kirkland was a good example of this--during which both Smith and Rigdon were forced to flee to avoid being tarred and feathered.


There is a good short book on this whole subject...

http://www.amazon.com/Who-really-wro.../dp/0884490688

Also the Reformed LDS Church, now called "The Community Of Christ" changed their name in 2001, and at the same time dropped all requirement/s of belief that the Book Of Mormon is of divine origin, and also that Joesph Smith was a prophet of God. I think they did so because history and the truth is catching up with the Joseph Smith problem. Also I think that the old reorganize church has in its possession (or recently found) an original Sidney Rigdon copy of The Book Of Mormon--and for some reason is not relasing this as of yet. Perhaps due to a financial arrangment with the SLC chuch. Who knows?!

Your link to the "short book" is to the 1977 version. The authors have done extensive additional historical research since then, and a new version is available since 2005. It is not, however, a "short book": http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Wrote-Book-Mormon/dp/0758605277/ref=pd_sim_b_1



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/02/2013 06:06PM by RPackham.

Some of the best information is on
http://mormonleaks.com/

+1

Mormonleaks is a great resource - hopefully episode 6 is not too far off!

+100

Here here for MormonLeaks #6!

What a project...

Woo hoo! I have been obsessively checking the site on a daily basis lately.

Thanks Richard and a tip of the old translator's hat.

Seems pretty likely.

It always struck me oddly how Oliver Cowdery almost instantly became scribe . This along with an attempt to sell the copyright of something given by God . What's the old saying about a duck ...?

When the 116 pages were lost, the plan almost unraveled. Leaving it up to Smith by himself wasn't working out so that's when Cowdery stepped in to make it happen.

It's interesting that Rigdon had his wife destroy all of his private papers once he died.

I'm fairly certain that Joseph Smith, Jr. did indeed
write portions of the Book of Mormon -- perhaps with
some assistance from his mother and/or cousin Oliver.

What I conclude happened, is that the Smith family was
purporting to have possession of an ancient magical
book, at about the same time that Elder Sydney Rigdon
was adding notes and religious opinions to a pile of
texts, which included some prior writings regarding the
Israelite origin of the American Indians. While the
fictional "historical" narrative of those early
Americans was a creation of Solomon Spalding, the
details of their supposed religion were added, over
a period of several years, by Rigdon.

There is no reason to think that Rigdon actually planned
on having his stack of texts published -- and there is no
good reason to believe that the Smith family ever planned
on writing the contents of their purported golden book.

But -- somehow, Rigdon's texts came into the hands of the
Smiths, and by 1827-28 Rigdon was actively cooperating with
Joseph Smith, Jr., in the production of a manuscript that
might actually be submitted for publication.

My best guess is that the idea of establishing (restoring)
a church did not take a definite shape among the conspirators
until late 1828 or early 1829.

If this is actually what happened, then the Book of Mormon
should be characterized as the production of Rigdon, put
into its final form by Smith (with some help from Cowdery).
The Solomon Spalding parts of the text are mainly the
book's fictional history of Israelite Indians -- along
with bits and pieces of their religion, which Rigdon later
expanded into pre-Christian American Christianity.

UD

This was really good. It feels like the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle.

Fossils/genetic link to Cro-Magnon man
The cult of Yahweh and his Asherah
No global flood
The actual history of Israel through the new testament
The Smith family connection freemasonry
First multiple visions/accounts of restoration of the priesthood
seeing the plates with spiritual eyes
rock in a hat
polygamy/polyandry
Smith's boozing
Kinderhook plates
book of Abraham
blood atonement/Adam god/Moonanite quackers
Correlation cover up
Some truths aren't very useful
September 6/strengthening membership committee
Mesoamerican chronology not matching
lack of coins/swords/breast plates/city earthworks/bones
king james translation errors/ olives grow on trees not vines
DNA Amerindians/Polynesians
bizarre apologetic rewriting of history/mental gymnastics/manipulate the doubter from asking more questions

...and now this. Yeah I see the final picture.

I have thought of this before and it seems that the writing of the BOM was never intended to be used in starting a church. It was written by those mention above as a means to make money. Selling the book.

"Joseph looked into the hat in which he placed the stone, and received a revelation that some of the brethren should go to Toronto, Canada, and that they would sell the copyright of the Book of Mormon. Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery went to Toronto on this mission, but they failed entirely to sell the copyright, returning without any money. Joseph was at my father's house when they returned. I was there also, and am an eye witness to these facts. Jacob Whitmer and John Whitmer were also present when Hiram Page and Oliver Cowdery returned from Canada."

The original Title page (1830 edition) say;
Joseph Smith, Jr. The author and proprietor of this work.

This was changed in the 1837 edition to: Joseph Smith, Jr. the translator of this work.

I think after not being able to sell copyrights, they had to do something as they were all in need of money. In trying to sell the book locally with the yarn of; God told me to write this from gold plates I found, and Joseph being very charismatic in his speech. He was able to sell some and get a following. This grew into more than Joseph and company could have believed and money along with power starting coming in.
This in turn gave Joseph the opportunity to claim divine inspiration and to have been chosen of God.
this is why the BOM is closely related to the bible in it's beliefs and teachings but sooo very far from the D&C teachings. D&C are from Joseph and company.
This is also why the first vision, Priesthoods and other such crap come later and backdated (not mentioned until many years after the church started) to give tscc a reason for starting the church. It was not the original intent.

This is really cool! I bought that book a while ago, but have yet to crack it open. I'm anxious to see how much evidence they have for this theory, and if more damning evidence comes out in the future!

Odd how Sydney's trail goes mostly cold after the murderdom... but we know the schism was mostly a done deal beforehand due to the plygery and Joseph's freestyle freemasonry.

Methinks it would telling to look at the sort of followers he led north. I have two ggg-grandfathers who chose to cast their lot with BY and head west.

Of all the lds splinters, Briggy's was the biggest of the uh, pricks, his being the only one that clung to the above mentioned twin repugnancies.