8 Rigdon’s own assessment of the Spaulding theory was both direct and forceful. 7 Emma Smith, the Prophet’s wife, declared that “no acquaintance was formed between Sidney Rigdon and the Smith family till after the Church was organized” and the Book of Mormon had already been published. Pratt personally gave him one after 15 October 1830. In creating his conjecture Philastus Hurlbut ignored the fact that Sidney Rigdon never even saw a copy of the Book of Mormon until Parley P. ![]() There are several other compelling reasons for relinquishing the Spaulding theory. ![]() When Rice, Fairchild, and several others compared the Spaulding manuscript with the Book of Mormon they “could detect no resemblance between the two, in general or detail.” Fairchild concluded that “the theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon in the traditional manuscript of Solomon Spaulding will probably have to be relinquished.” 6 Rice discovered the document in 1884 while searching through his collection of papers at the request of Oberlin College president James H. Rice bought the contents of Howe’s printing establishment in 1839 he unknowingly acquired the Spaulding manuscript and eventually transported it to Honolulu, Hawaii. But when Hurlbut made a closer examination of the Spaulding manuscript he did not find the parallels to the Book of Mormon that he had hoped for 4 and so he asserted that there must have been another manuscript written by Spaulding that was now “lost.” 5 Howe’s print shop in Painesville, Ohio-with a promise to the widow of future publication and a share in the profits. Philastus Hurlbut paid a visit to Spaulding’s widow and after being shown her husband’s unpublished document he took it with him to Eber D. This theory claimed that Sidney Rigdon wrote the religious parts of the Book of Mormon while the historical parts were plagiarized from an unpublished manuscript written in 1812 by Solomon Spaulding–Rigdon having secretly acquired the Spaulding document from a Pittsburgh printer named Jonathan H. 2 This theory postulated that Joseph Smith was too illiterate to have produced the Book of Mormon by himself and therefore must have received some assistance. 1īut in 1834 a new theory for the origin of the Book of Mormon was proposed by a man named Philastus Hurlbut. Brown) When the Book of Mormon was first published in March of 1830 its detractors believed that it did not have a divine origin as claimed, but was an impious fraud perpetrated solely by the Prophet Joseph Smith (who was listed on the title page of the book-in accordance with federal copyright law-as the “author and proprietor”). I know this has been refuted before, but can you help me understand this issue and get to the bottom of it?Ī. (by Matthew B. Q. I have heard that Joseph Smith plagiarized the writings of Solomon Spaulding to produce the Book of Mormon.
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