So far I have found the following books that were written before the Book of Mormon that have undeniable signs of plagiarism by Joseph Smith. Is anyone aware of any others?

Bible King James Version (some word for word with errors and all)
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/curt_heuvel/bom_kjv.html

The Spalding Manuscript (Captain Moroni, Standard of Liberty, etc.)
http://mormonthink.com/influences.htm

Pilgram's Progress (i.e. story of Abinadi & Alma, Lehi, etc.)
http://www.salon.com/2012/10/31/who_really_wrote_the_book_of_mormon/

Heaven and Hell and its Wonders (Not for the BOM but for doctrines like the 3 Degrees of Glory, eternal marriage, outer darkness, etc.)
http://bibtruth.com/3deg.html

You are missing probably the most important - View of the Hebrews - Ethan Smith.

Also there is a claim that it largely plagiarizes Marco Polo but I don't know any of the details:
http://www.bookofmormonbookoflies.com/theevidence.php

Another one is Joseph Smith Sr.s Dreams:
http://www.bookofmormonbookoflies.com/pdfs/LucySmithBiographicalSketchesofJosephSmith.pdf

(Somewhere around chapter 8 I think).

Awesome thanks! Funny I own 2 of those books and had read only one, the Story of J.S. by His Mother. When I saw that he had Lehi's dream my thought as a member was, "Wow he got a preview vision of the Book of Mormon!" Lol how naive was I?

This is day 2 of my renouncing my Mormon beliefs and taking off the garments. I am seeing so many "duh!" moments from things I have learned in the past I am embarrassed that I didn't realize it sooner! Like for example when Oliver Cowdrey asked if he could try translating the plates and God said sure why not. Then when it didn't work God told him it was because he just asked and didn't study it out in his mind, but never mind anyway because we're in a hurry just let Joseph finish it.

Oh yeah there is also Shakespeare - Hamlet - not the strongest one but still interesting.
"...from whence no traveler can return;..." 2 Nephi 1:14
"...from whose bourn no traveller returns..." Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 1

Kind of an aside by I love Mark Twain's critique:
http://www.mtwain.com/Roughing_It/17.html

----
I am truly amazed at how deep the rabbit hole is - I just learn more and more and more crazy stuff and never seem to hit bottom.

Don't beat yourself up too bad - Mormonism has a story and approach that is amazingly effective at keeping people in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/2013 02:05AM by bc.

There is much more Shakespearian content than just that. And the theme of Oberlin manuscript story (Spalding) is the same as Romeo and Juliet.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2013 10:00AM by me.

you need to look up book of mormon tories

yes without the 's' lol

Holy crap! I just looked through the Mormon Tories page on MormonThink. That's checkmate right there, no way around it. I can't believe Joseph Smith did that to my ancestors, and to me! Lots of people died because of this! Well thank God for the internet. No wonder people are leaving in droves.

Read the book "Book of Mormon: Book of Lies" if this interests you. The authors make a very strong case that the book was plagiarized very heavily from a number of sources available to Joe Smith at the time. I believe one of the authors is a lawyer who specializes in plagiarism and they get pretty technical about it (without being boring).

This looks very interesting, just ordered it from Amazon, thanks!

The truth of the plagiarism is likely to be quite complex and convoluted. It is possible that a manuscript was copied heavily but no longer exists (or its in the church vaults!)
This website has some good historical background. It has some interesting analysis on the influence of the missing 116 pages. Something that I don't think 'Book of Mormon book of lies' fully takes into account.
http://mormonleaks.com/

What makes any theory "strong"? I think it's safe to say that a strong theory has explanatory and predictive power: it explains the totality of the evidence and allows predictions to be made that can then be verified.

That's why I have trouble with any theory about authorship of the Book of Mormon that ignores or dismisses explanations that are supported by large amounts of converging evidence from different disciplines (historical evidence and text analysis, for example).

In the case of "Book of Mormon: Book of Lies", the authors argue that the book is the sole product of members of the Smith family. The problem with this theory is that it does a poor job of explaining the totality of the historical and textual evidence.

I am not saying that the Smith family did not contribute to the contents of the Book of Mormon. In fact, I think Smith did contribute. Here is why I think this is the case:

- Recent computer text analyses indicates that Joseph Smith likely authored some sections of the Book of Mormon. Several of these attributions are for sections that have obvious historical links to Smith.
- Some passages of the Book of Mormon describe sinking buried treasures and use of seer stones
- Some passages of the Book of Mormon describe Joseph as a great Prophet
- Some passages of the Book of Mormon describe the Anthon episode
- Some content of the Book of Mormon likely reflects contributions from the Smith family (like the dreams of Joseph Smith Sr.)

So let's all agree that Smith likely contributed to the BoM.

But having agreed that Smith contributed is NOT the same thing as saying he was the only contributor. In fact, the totality of the evidence indicates that Smith had help, and not just from his own family. We have very strong evidence that people outside of the Smith family contributed to the Book of Mormon.

In the case of Spalding, for example, we have this:
- Eight witnesses in Conneaut, Ohio, gave sworn statements that Spalding wrote a book with the same "old style" English as the Bible, frequent use of "came to pass", many of the same names as the BoM, and with a similar storyline.
- Many more witnesses gave statements indicating that Spalding likely contributed to the Book of Mormon.
- Spalding was named as a likely author before anyone knew that he was connected to Sidney Rigdon.
- Recent computer text analyses attribute specific sections of the Book of Mormon to Spalding based on his usage of frequently used words in his known writing. These attributions align well with phrases that Spalding is known to have used in the Oberlin manuscript, with Spalding's known plagiarism patterns, and with with usage of the word "therefore".

In the case of Rigdon, we have this:
- The fact that Rigdon was named as a likely author before his connection to Spalding was known.
- Abundant historical evidence that ties Rigdon to Spalding
- Evidence that theology taught by Rigdon before 1830 appears in the Book of Mormon
- Evidence that Rigdon had foreknowledge of a new American scripture about to be released
- Recent computer text analyses attribute specific sections of the Book of Mormon to Rigdon based on his usage of frequently used words. These attributions align well with patterns in the front & back of BoM for usage of "Wherefore", Early Modern English usage of "that", and content similar to "View of the Hebrews".
- The appearance of a conversion sequence taught in 1828 by preacher Walter Scott (Rigdon's preaching partner) in the front & back of the Book of Mormon, the same sections where Rigdon's "word print" is strongest. Alexander Campbell (Rigdon's mentor) considered this to be conclusive proof of Rigdon's involvement.

I could go on and on...There is a LOT more evidence, much of it summarized at MormonLeaks.com.

Just to be clear...I do NOT wish to attack or disparage the authors of "Book of Mormon: Book of Lies". I'm glad they are working on this. They may have identified some plagiarized source documents used **by somebody** to fabricate the Book of Mormon. The problem is that they do not consider alternative explanations supported by a huge amount of historical and textual data.


And that's too bad.

3 little idiosyncrasies throughout all of Joe's productions . And I mean throughout ... ' and it came to pass ' / ' wherefore , therefore , and now ' / ' but behold ' .

there are hundreds of plagiarisms listed in Kendal Sheets book
For example, the Smiths copied a Marco Polo story about a battle at
exactly 58.33 percent of the way through each book. There is less than a
1/10,000 difference between the two placements in the two books.
Battles Fought between Nestardín and the King of Mien
and between Moroni and Zerahemnah.

The Nephites had cities sinking in the sea—“that great city of Moroni, have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea”—
and Marco Polo described an island sliding
into the ocean. The Smith story is at 80 to 81 percent into the text, and the Polo story is at 82 percent.

I have a copy of "Book of Mormon, Book of Lies", and I've been reading it.

I'm open to the possibility that some of the parallels given in "Book of Mormon, Book of Lies" could have resulted from plagiarism. But, at this point, I really can't tell. More data is needed. These alleged parallels could simply be the result of cherry-picking those parts of the Marco Polo tale that look roughly similar and that happen to line up in terms of their percentage of the way through the text while ignoring the parts of the tale that don't look similar and don't happen to line up at a similar percentage of the way through the text.

One thing I can say: these parallels are nothing like the strong plagiarisms identified by Tom Donofrio. Tom has shown that the Book of Mormon contains phrases very similar to those of Mercy Otis Warren and David Ramsey (chroniclers of the American Revolutionary War). DThese plagiarisms implicate Spalding as a contributor to the historical parts of the BoM text because Spalding's known writing plagiarizes the same authors. And these plagiarisms align with Spalding authorship attribution patterns made using modern text analysis methods.

Again, another big issue here is that "Book of Mormon, Book of Lies" completely ignores a huge volume of evidence implicating other people and other source documents in the authorship of the BoM.

mark MUNRO Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> the Smiths copied a Marco Polo story about a battle at
> exactly 58.33 percent of the way through each book.
> There is less than a 1/10,000 difference between the two placements in the two books.

This book is still on my reading list, however on the face of it the analysis based on the position of text in the two books seems a bit too contrived to me. It implies such an exact transcription that the parallels leave no alternative sources, including any ad lib by Smith or his scribes.

Considering the Book of Mormon Book of Lies authors are claiming two decimal places for the corresponding placement the additional of dozens of 'and it came to pass' phrases would displace the plagiarism by a significant amount, let alone differences in the accounts of events given in the lost 116 pages.

I feel this detracts from their work. It gives ammunition to the defenders of the Book of Mormon who will no doubt show a total lack of correlation at other exact points through the two texts.

Evidence of plagiarism between the Book of Mormon and other sources can still be significant regardless of the relative positions of the text. Based on the exerts on Amazon The Book of Mormon Book of Lies has still demonstrated likelihood of input from the The Travels of Marco Polo via sequences of very similar phrases close together in the text.

He used Swedenborg's theories of levels of heaven.

He was reading Thomas Dick's "Philosophy of a Future State" when he came up with the progression of man and Gods. The RLDS have his copy.

Dale Broadhurst has a collection of old newspapers online, probably at solomonspaulding.com. They have the same discussions and language that are found in the BoM, like the wave of anti Catholicism that ran through New England at the time using the term 'abomination'.

Alexander Campbell nailed it in his review of the BOM in 1831:

"This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies - infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man. All these topics are repeatedly alluded to. How much more benevolent and intelligent this American Apostle, than were the holy twelve, and Paul to assist them!!! He prophesied of all these topics, and of the apostacy, and infallibly decided, by his authority, every question. How easy to prophecy of the past or of the present time!!"

http://www.lds-mormon.com/campbell.shtml

Excellent quote - it's quite a coincidence that the ancient American's happened to have all the major religious issues of 1820 in mind and none of the issues in 2013.

As far as 3 degrees of glory & progression/plurality of Gods - neither of those concepts are in the Book of Mormon at all. In fact the theology in the Book of Mormon contradicts it.

Don Q:

Welcome aboard.

If you aren't laughing yet, you will be soon enough...

You are in good company here.

All the best,

Breedum

I am reading a book about Baruch Spinoza who lived in the 1600's. It said that the Jews in the Netherlands, who were merchants sailing routinely to the New World told stories of discovering that the Indians were really tribes of Israel. This idea apparently persisted for a long time and was pervasive. JS didn't come up with it, but just used what he read elsewhere.

on youtube there is a 1 hour and 30 minute video of a study done from all available books online from before 1823 the first book of napoleon and the late war are really interesting books. the guy tells how they fed the information into the computer and got their results pretty convincing

https://archive.org/details/latewarbetweenun00inhunt

It starts "Now it came to pass"

An interesting book that appears to be bit like the BOM in it's cadence; The First Book of Napoleon.

The book begins: "And behold, it came to pass in these latter days that an evil spirit arose on the face of the earth and greatly troubled the sons of men...."


https://archive.org/details/firstbooknapole00gruagoog

The main theory of this book, written in New England in 1820, is that the origin of the Native American Indians was from one of the ten tribes of Israel relocated to the Americas

http://www.mormonismi.net/pdf/voh.pdf

My thoughts are --

That we are asking the wrong question when we try to
determine which "books" Joseph Smith, Jr. had sitting
on his bookshelf in the Smiths' cabin in Manchester,
New York during the mid-1820s.

Such a scenario assumes far too much. For one thing, it
assumes that Joseph was a literate fellow who spent a
great deal of time reading his books and contemplating
their contents.

I ask -- does such a scenario match well with his methods
used in later years, to accomplish goals he wished to see
achieved?

Did he go out money-digging on his own? Did he show up
every day at the Grandin printshop to supervise the
publication of the Book of Mormon? Did he spend countless
hours do manual labor in the construction of the temples
in Kirtland and Nauvoo? When he ran for President of the
United States in 1844, did he compose his own political
platform and rhetoric?

Answer -- no.

Joe Smith's great talent was persuading people to do such
work for him -- think of Tom Sawyer and the fence painting.

Rather than asking which books Joe had on his bookshelf,
ask yourselves WHICH RESOURCES he logically had access to,
living on an isolated farm in upstate New York, just before
the Erie Canal was completed?

What sorts of human resources did he have access to?

Start with his mother, his brother Alvin and his other
brother, Hyrum (who attended Dartmouth campus before the
family moved to Pslmyra and Manchester).

At some point -- say, 1827-28 -- add cousin Oliver Cowdery
to that mix, along with Oliver's fellow pedestrian peddler,
Parley P. Pratt. By 1830, add William W. Phelps, Martin
Harris, the Whitmers, etc.

Research those possible connections, and WHAT THOSE PROPLE
WOULD HAVE READ AND STUDIED, before ever being members of
the "Gold Bible Company."

Hint -- Parley P. Pratt was a vociferous reader -- compare
his first two books with Ethan Smith's writings....

UD

One thing that doesn't seem to get as much credibility is Brother Hyrum . When I first read some of his journal entries , the thing that reached out and clubbed me over the head was his use of " mine" as an adjective .

One thing that goes unmentioned is that ANY books available in
the COUNTRY at the time influenced the environment and any
books written then were influenced BY the environment.

Joseph Smith didn't have to read any of the books mentioned
(other than the Bible--the verbatim passages are too spot-on)
to have them have influenced the Book of Mormon.

Joseph Smith TALKED to people. He heard people talking to
each other. He attended sermons and lectures. The books are
only one small snapshot of what was going on in Joseph Smith's
back yard.

In Joseph Smith's time it was "common knowledge" that there
had been a civilized race (as opposed to the "savage" Indians)
that occupied the land before Columbus. This "civilized" race
is credited with building the impressive mounds and earthworks
that the European settlers found. Since there was no
remaining remnant of this "civilized" race it was assumed that
they were wiped out by the "savage Indians."

Joseph Smith didn't need to ready Ethan Smith's book to learn
this--it was a the conventional wisdom of the people of his
time. The argument over which books were or were not in the
Manchester library is not a limitation over which books may
have influenced the BOM. Given the Erie Canal and a steady
stream of visitors, ANY book could have influenced the Book of
Mormon even if that book never made it to the Palmyra area.

The image of Joseph Smith secretly "researching" in the musty
tomes of the Manchester Library for material for his upcoming
"Golden Bible con" is totally unnecessary.

Good info about the book of mormon and the 1812 American War also known as The Late War:

http://wordtreefoundation.github.io/thelatewar/



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/22/2014 06:35PM by joan.

Re: "Book of Mormon, Book of Lies" and the Marco Polo connection, see my review at http://packham.n4m.org/sheets.htm

I think the Sheets theory is very shaky, although they do list some interesting parallels.

Note that this included the Book of Judith.