Posted by:
kimball
(
)
Date: March 07, 2012 03:15PM
I only got a couple paragraphs in before I couldn't take it any more. "Manuscript Found" was not in the bottom of the trunk. The document taken from the trunk was called "Manuscript Story," and Howe clearly referenced it as being completely different from "Manuscript Found."
We don't know, and will probably never know what happened to "Manuscript Found," but one thing we know for certain. "Manuscript Story" was definitely not used in the creation of the Book of Mormon. It's intellectually dishonest for apologists to equate "Manuscript Found" with "Manuscript Story," as all evidence, including Howe's own words, is to the contrary. I guess apologists like to cling to the word "Manuscript" and twist everything else to make it appear that the Rigdon-Spaulding theory is a fraud.
For you reference, here are Howe's words from "Mormonism Unvailed," printed in 1834, which this guy thinks is when the Rigdon-Spaulding theory was invented:
"The trunk referred to by the widow, was subsequently examined, and found to contain only a single M.S. book, in Spalding's hand-writing, containing about one quire of paper. This is a romance, purporting to have been translated from the Latin, found on 24 rolls of parchment in a cave, on the banks of the Conneaut Creek, but written in modern style, and giving a fabulous account of a ship's being driven upon the American coast, while proceeding from Rome to Britain, a short time previous to the Christian era, this country then being inhabited by the Indians. This old M. S. has been shown to several of the foregoing witnesses, who recognize it as Spalding's, he having told them that he had altered his first plan of writing, by going farther back with dates, and writing in the old scripture style, in order that I might appear more ancient. They say that it bears no resemblance to the 'Manuscript Found.'"
There was also a reputed copy of the 1830 Book of Mormon that Dr. Cephas Dodd had bought, in which he wrote the following on an empty page.
"This work, I am convinced by facts related to me by my deceased patient, Solomon Spaulding, has been made from the writings of Spaulding, probably by Sidney Rigdon, who was suspicioned by Spaulding with purloining his manuscript from the publishing house to which he had taken it; and I am prepared to testify that Spaulding told me that his work was entitled, "The Manuscript Found in the Wilds of Mormon; or Unearthed Records of the Nephites." From his description of its contents, I fully believe that this Book of Mormon is mainly and wickedly copied from it.
Cephas Dodd
June 5, 1831"
If this is accurate, then it shows that the Rigdon-Spaulding theory did not originate with Hurlebut and Howe, but was first mentioned 3 years earlier.
Of course, the maker of this blog will never listen to anything "anti" like this.