There's no way a guy in his 20s had the life experience to invent Mormon doctrine or write the BoM. He could have been a contributor, but it was clearly a group effort which shows up as differences in writing styles.

The congregation of the 1830 church was mostly his treasure digging buddies. Maybe Joseph was part gopher because his childhood rented property was full of holes his family (likely encouraged by Joe Sr) dug.

I wonder how many of them were in on writing the BoM.

Mormonism was and is a 19th century fraud that took advantage of the lack of education and authority on the American frontier.

The original scam was to get rich quick by selling the book, and when the perps saw that people believed the story, that's when they got the idea to start a fake religion.

The purported story is beyond preposterous and totally ridiculous.

It wasn't even original.

Many people had all kinds of theories about the origin of Indigenous Americans.

It's no different than making up a religion from the ideas of Erich von Däniken that were popular in the 1970s — which is in fact what Claude Vorhilion, a/k/a Raël did.


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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spalding%E2%80%93Rigdon_theory_of_Book_of_Mormon_authorship


A 2008 Stanford study (Jockers et al.) of the text of The Book of Mormon compared it to writings of possible authors and found a high probability that its authors were Spalding, Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery. It concluded, "our analysis supports the theory that the Book of Mormon was written by multiple, nineteenth-century authors, and more specifically, we find strong support for the Spalding–Rigdon theory of authorship. In all the data, we find Rigdon as a unifying force. His signal dominates the book, and where other candidates are more probable, Rigdon is often hiding in the shadows".[32] The study did not include Smith as one of the possible authors, arguing that because of Smith's use of scribes and co-authors, no texts can be identified with a surety as having been written solely by Smith.


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https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/10mkqnq/peter_ingersoll_a_friend_of_joseph_smith_from/

https://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2070181

One day he [Joseph] came, and greeted me with a joyful countenance. Upon asking the cause of his unusual happiness, he replied in the following language: ‘As I was passing, yesterday, across the woods, after a heavy shower of rain, I found, in a hollow, some beautiful white sand, that had washed up by the water. I took off my frock, and tied up several quarts of it, and then went home. On my entering the house, I found the family at the table eating dinner. They were all anxious to know the contents of my frock. At that moment, I happened to think of what I had heard about a history found in Canada, called the golden Bible; so I very gravely told them it was the golden Bible. To my surprise, they were credulous enough to believe what I said. Accordingly I told them that I had received a commandment to let no one see it, for, says I, no man can see it with the naked eye and live....’

“ ‘Now,’ said Jo, ‘I have got the damned fools fixed, and will carry out the fun.’ Notwithstanding, he told me he had no such book, and believed there never was any such book, yet, he told me that he actually went to Willard Chase, to get him to make a chest, in which he might deposit his golden Bible. But, as Chase would not do it, he made a box himself, of clap-boards, and put it into a pillow case, and allowed people only to lift it, and feel of it through the case.” - Peter Ingersoll, affidavit, quoted in Mormonism Unveiled, by E.D. Howe, pp. 235-236, 1834



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2025 06:49AM by anybody.

The sand story is compelling, but it would have to coincide with a nascent manuscript. Also, the available evidence indicates the original plan was to write a book for profit. Starting a religion was a pivot when the book didn't sell.

The BoM contains its own forensic evidence, as other posters have noted. We know with high probability where the text came from.

The death of Alvin, who was being groomed by Lucy Mack Smith to be a prophet, propelled Joseph into the position of prophet. Joseph et al may have intended Alvin to be the prophet of their proposed church. As it was, the job fell to Joseph.

The "Ma Mack" angle needs to be considered. She was a survivor. She had to be, married to Joe Sr. What if she was the mastermind behind the conspiracy? Why would she work so hard for a prophet son yet rely on the BoM to come about by accident? Was it she who chose the "front man"?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2025 07:40PM by bradley.

Gibson was a,Campbellite, forerunner of today's Church of Christ which still refers to itself as the restored church.


,

For Gibson read Rigdon.

>>There's no way a guy in his 20s had the life experience to invent Mormon doctrine or write the BoM.

I don't think so. The book isn't that well written or deep. He was into that kind of stuff. It sounds like what a young uneducated person would come up with in his environment, IMO. I would guess that he talked to a lot of people though.

and the historical "borrowing" from Ancient Roman history probably came from Spalding's manuscript.

An uneducated farm kid, even one with a fertile imagination, would not be able to copy stories from Ancient Rome because he wouldn't know about them.


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http://www.mormonthink.com/mormonstudiesrigdon.htm#14

Sidney Rigdon's Grandson Says Their Family Understood it to be a Fraud.

-- EDITOR TRIBUNE: -- In the intervals of my literary labors here I have many talks with men who were in Utah at a very early day, and occasionally with original Mormons or their sons.... [M]y chance talks with one of these are so agreeable that I report him briefly for you. Mr. Walter Sidney Rigdon is a citizen of Carrolton, Cattaraugus County, N. Y., and a grandson of Sidney Rigdon, the partner of Joe Smith. He talked with old Sidney hundreds of times about the "scheme of the Golden Bible," and his father still has many of the old Sidney's documents. "Grandfather was a religious crank," says Mr. Rigdon, "till he lost money by it. He started in as a Baptist preacher, and had a very fine congregation for those days, in Pittsburgh. There was no reason at all for his leaving, except that he got 'cracked.' At that time he had no ideas of making money. Indeed, while he was with the Mormons, his chances to make money were good enough for most men; but he came out of it about as poor as he went in."

[Mr.] Beadle, the reporter: -- "But how did he change first?"

"Well, he tried to understand the prophecies, and the man who does that is sure to go crazy. He studied the prophets and baptism, and of course he got 'rattled.' Daniel and Ezekiel and Revelations will 'rattle' any man who gives in his whole mind to 'em -- at any rate they did him, and he joined Alexander Campbell. Campbell then believed that the end of the world was nigh - his Millennial Harbinger shows that they 'rattled' all who listened to him in Ohio and other places; then grandfather got disgusted and decided on a new deal. He 'found' Joe Smith and they had a great many talks together befores they brought out the plates. None of us ever doubted that they got the whole thing up; but father always maintained that grandfather helped get up the original Spaulding book. At any rate he got a copy very early and schemed on some way to make it useful. Although the family knew these facts, they refused to talk on the subject while grandfather lived. In fact, he and they took on [a] huge disgust at the whole subject...."

I only report that part of Mr. Rigdon's talk which shows the history of the "Golden Bible," as accepted in the family. Of course, if Sidney Rigdon had wanted the world to believe the Smith story of the plates, he would have told them so. But, though the family do not care to ventilate it, he evidently taught them to treat the whole thing as a fraud.

J. H. Beadle. -- New York, April 7, 1888.
"The Golden Bible" (Salt Lake Tribune, 1888 -- full text on web)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/10/2025 11:20AM by anybody.

Mother Smith wrote the Joseph from a young age regaled the family with stories of the ancient inhabitants of the content to include their manner of war, agriculture, dress, religion and building.

Joseph also spent time in Salem where he could well have heard many a fantastic tale from sailors.

Best "plagiarism" in my opinion?

Fun fact... Moroni is the Capital city of Comoros, and had been for several hundred years by Joseph's time


The Jaredite barges strongly resemble the USS Turtle, the first combat submarine used in the revolutionary war.

Also, Mother Smith recounts several visions Joseph Sr relayed to the family, which oddly enough strongly resemble the dreams Lehi has im 1st Nephi.

dagny Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> >>There's no way a guy in his 20s had the life
> experience to invent Mormon doctrine or write the
> BoM.
>
> I don't think so. The book isn't that well written
> or deep. He was into that kind of stuff. It sounds
> like what a young uneducated person would come up
> with in his environment, IMO. I would guess that
> he talked to a lot of people though.

And didn't he have access to his grandfather's extensive library?

...which examines the possibilities as scientifically as possible through textual/stylistic comparison. No way to know if it's true, but it could well be...

The website is: https://mormonleaks.org

Well worth looking at.

(not that it matters...) ? Who paid for the printing of the 1st ed?


also: in the 1st edition the author is listed as Joe which is attested to by the eight witnesses; that was probably the first 'correction' / revision of the BoM bc in the second & subsequent eds, Joe is listed as the translator, including the witness stmnt.

That would be Martin Harris, who mortgaged his farm to print 5000 copies. No wonder his wife was pissed.

Cecil McGavin stated that 'Martin Harris was an unaggressive, vacillating, easily-influenced person who was no more pugnacious than a rabbit'. The perfect mark.

I want to know if the Harris family was ever reimbursed. Those first editions are worth a fortune.

it had to be paid off Unless it's still in the family without some sort of payment for the mortgage...

Six years ago the Church announced, beginning immediately, it has discontinued the "Martin Harris: The Man Who Knew" pageant that was getting prepared for the locals to do that summer just as was done every 2 years. The Hill Cumorah pageant was also discontinued. Their statement said. "The goal of every activity in the church should be to increase faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and to share his gospel message throughout the world. Local celebrations of culture and history may be appropriate. Larger productions, such as pageants, are discouraged."

https://www.deseret.com/2018/12/5/20660498/church-finalizes-pageant-decision-4-to-end-3-to-continue

Of course, it would be impossible for me to ask Why they did this as I learned through the correlation program to be an obedient sheep and the only "Y" in the Church is BYU so I don't need to deep think about anything & just focus on praying, paying, and obeying & not asking questions that aren't approved for me to think about. So, no questions please on why the hysteria about covering up our history of Martin Harris and the Hill Cumorah to bury them in the ground like the person with 1 talent in the Parable. We're just going to focus on Jesus. He's our master. He gave us the parables, like the one about the talents. Uh oh. I think I'll skip the parables as they are dangerous to my precious testimony.

David Icke claimed in article that the LDS nand Jehovah's Witnesses are run by the same people. Personally I doubt it although there is evidence of cross-pollination.

The antisemitic conspiracy theorist who thinks ancient Peruvian stones have magic powers and has to self-publish his books because no real publishing house wants anything to do with him?

You read that stuff?

Is Dallin Oaks reptilian too?

I don't see how the JWs would have anything to do with LDS Inc since they are competitors. The JWs don't seem to have access to the church's insane wealth, nor would the tightwads in SLC be inclined to share.