The Spaulding Theory started when a Mormon Hater named Philastus Hurlbut began trying to dig up dirt on Joseph Smith. In 1834, Hurlbut found a few people in Coneaut, Ohio, who claimed the Book of Mormon resembled a book written 20 years earlier by a man named Solomon Spaulding. Some of the witnesses even reported remembering names like Nephi and Zarahemla. Hurlbut traced down Spaulding’s widow and eventually found a book written by Spaulding titled “Manuscript Found.” However, Hurlbut must have been very disappointed once he read the manuscript. Not one name from the Book of Mormon is found in “Manuscript Found,” and the story barley even resembles that of the Book of Mormon. It is a story about Roman soldiers who are blown off course and land in the Americas. (Today the manuscript has been published and can be purchased at the BYU book store).

So Hurlbut did what any red-blooded Mormon Hater would do, he buried the manuscript. The Spaulding Theory became the standard Mormon Hating explanation for the Book of Mormon for the next 50 years. In fact, Hurlbut did such a good job propagating the rumor, that even to this day Mormon Haters will email me and tell me that Joseph Smith had Spaulding’s manuscript hidden in his hat when he was dictating the Book of Mormon.

In reality, the Spaulding Theory crashed and burned in 1884 when Spaulding’s manuscript was “found” and published for all to read.

There is no Solomon Spaulding connection to the Book of Mormon. No BofM rough draft has ever been found in Spaulding’s handwriting, Spaulding never wrote anything having to do with the BofM, not one word. Even after professional handwriting experts were hired by Mormon Haters to compare the handwriting of Solomon Spaulding to that of the original Book of Mormon script, they found no connection. It’s funny to think that Solomon Spaulding died before even hearing about the Book of Mormon or Mormonism, when today his name is so closely related to those two subjects.

Through lies and deceit, Mr. Hurlbut did his best to tarnish the validity of the Book of Mormon, but Solomon Sapulding did not write the book, that, I can assure you.

“Andrew says:

See B.H. Roberts’ Studies in the Book of Mormon, available through Signature Books.

Doug responds:

I also think its fair to say that no-one in 1930 believed in the “limited geography theory” including B.H. Roberts…

That’s exactly why I am done, Doug. That response is astounding – plain and simple.”

This is exactly why I’m done as well with you Ray.

As I brought up in the post you took that quote out of, B.H. Roberts was very conflicted in his beliefs about the origins of the BoM. His writings about the similarities between “View of the Hebrews” and the BoM are used all over the internet to show that he didn’t believe anymore in its historicity. So if he didn’t believe in it anymore, how does his idea of the limited geography theory make any sense? Also, my point was simply that new evidence has caused the church to change its beliefs in the “hemispheric model” and that change occurred in my life time. Andrew’s insistence that it was known back in 1930 based on something B.H. Roberts wrote is in direct contradiction with what every prophet has been teaching from JS to President Kimball. I even gave a personal example of hearing President Lee testify to everyone in our Stake that the Nephites met their end there. My goodness Ray, there’s even a monument on top of the Hill and the main reason the pageant has been acted out there since before I was born. I’ll even go one step further; I think if you asked the active members of your ward about the LGT, most wouldn’t have a clue. I know that’s how it is in my ward based on a discussion last year in Sunday school.

So, you want to get all offended because I don’t find something B.H. Roberts said has convincing evidence for the church adopting the LGT back in 1930, or even his belief in it, fine. Your failure to see my point is astounding to me as well- plain and simple!

Why don’t you just read the study? The link provided in post #51 works just fine… If after reading it, you want to further discuss what it means, please give me a call. Hopefully you still have my number…

I also discussed with Doug why I find a Rigdon source for the Book of Mormon so unlikely based on the historical record. For example:
1. Rigdon’s family, and even his own wife did not know Joseph Smith prior to Parley Pratt converting them. Ridgon’s own son carefully questions his family on this issue and he was convinced that none of them had previously met Joseph and they weren’t lying to him even when being grilled.
2. They lived hundreds of miles apart before the automobile. This is not an easy thing to over come if you are working on a book together and there can’t be any evidence or paper trail of what you are doing.
3. This belief makes the creation of the Book of Mormon inhuman rather than merely highly improbable. Joseph and Oliver spent all day every day working on this and there is overwhelming historical evidence that Joseph wasn’t reading someone else’s writings. What did he do? Not sleep the whole three months so that he could memorize the next day’s worth? Could you do that for even one day? Is it really feasibility that Joseph had the whole thing memorized in advance? Or are we going to discount the historical record or add everyone that said he had no manuscript to our conspiracy theory?
4. How do we explain the fact that the Book of Mormon specifically exalts Joseph and NOT Rigdon? Look up 2 Nephi 3 and read the whole chapter. Don’t miss v. 15. And this isn’t the only such reference to Joseph Smith in the Book of Mormon. Are you really suggesting that Rigdon wrote all of this and never once thought to do something similar for himself? This from a man that is well known to have had an ego problem with being under Joseph’s leadership. Rigdon never did understand that he couldn’t lead the Church and continued to try to his whole life. He wasn’t a modest guy who didn’t like the limelight.

But the biggest piece of evidence is Parley Pratt. He’s the one that introduced Rigdon to the Book of Mormon. There is plenty of evidence of this. And we know how and when it happened via multiple sources, so unless we want to add Parley and family to our ever growing conspiracy, we have to realize that what we are claiming is that Rigdon wrote the Book of Mormon, gave it to Smith, and then there was this HUGE coincidence that took place where one of Rigdon’s own flock just happened to be on a missionary journey, just happened to come across the Book of Mormon, just happened to be converted to it, and then just happened to bring it all back to Rigdon and went to great lengths to convince him to accept it too. And all, not very long at all after the Book of Mormon was published! This really strains credibility for me.

Actually, I said this wrong. If we find that it sometimes finds a hit even though we know we excluded the real author, then the premise is flawed. You don’t even need “always.”

Apparently this study doesn’t measure likelihood of authorship like the original study did, but relative chance of authorship of a given group. I can understand the skepticism that is being expressed over this. Here is what the authors need to do to lay this skepticism to rest:

1. Excluding Joseph Smith was not okay. Doing so on the grounds that you don’t have enough of his writings is even worse. The Book of Mormon has overwhelming evidence that Joseph did not directly write it, but a scribe did, so we don’t want to compare the Book of Mormon to that which Joseph wrote directly, but only to that which he used a scribe for. If the study is done with Joseph and he’s at the top, we can then discuss if this means Joseph wrote it directly or translated it loosely (as I believe) but the Spaulding/Rigdon side is dead. The fact that this was all overlooked is very fishy.
2. This study needs to be done with the same people but on a book we know they didn’t write but claims to be scripture. I would suggest the book of Matthew or some other gospel. If we end up with the same results, Spaulding and Rigdon at the top, then we’ll know that what it’s measuring is biblical language similarities. (Spaulding and Rigdon being ministers.)
3. This study needs to be redone with other authors that use Biblical language. I don’t have the list of who was used, but I’d imagine there are distinct style differences between Jules Verne and Parely Pratt vs. Spaulding and Rigdon who are ministers and “talked biblically.” Again, if we find that minster types often end up with high hits, then the original premise is flawed.
4. A similar study should be done on other books with Biblical sounding language (maybe Ellen White’s or Mary Baker Edding’s writings?) vs. ministers and non-ministers. If we find this methodology always finds a hit, even if we leave out the known author, then the premise is proven flawed.
5. A similar study should be done with an author of a book (whom we exclude) and known companions of the author so that we know they shared similar social circles and were familiar with each other’s writings. Again, if we find we often get a hit even though we know the real author is excluded, then we know the premise is flawed.

Since I don’t have access to the study yet, I don’t know how many of these above scenarios have already been run. Please note that I came up with this after a few moments of thought. This is an example of what I meant in my previous post: it’s really hard, perhaps cost prohibitive, to answer all the possible questions in a study like this. That’s why I am skeptical of the original wordprint study as well. Until everyone has had a chance to suggest alternatives and someone has paid for the alternatives to be tested, you just don’t know if you have something meaningful or not.

Until we’ve gone through at least the above suggested scenarios, all of which are extremely obvious, the only rational response (excluding the need for boosting our preconceived notions, though I understand the need) is skepticism towards the study. Kari has it right, this suggests a new path for study, it doesn’t do anything else yet and we’re years off from it even being particularly meaningful.

A while back Doug and I had a long phone conversation for fun. One of the things we discussed was this study in comparison with the previous wordprint studies. At the time Doug had only heard of the Rigdon study and knew nothing about it but already put some stock in it, though less then he does today. I asked him about his feelings on the previous wordprint studies that showed Rigdon and Joseph (as well as many others) had very little chance of being authors of the Book of Mormon. He admitted that he didn’t know anything about them. If I remember correctly, I pointed out his bias back then. Knowing nothing more than that two peer reviewed studies existed that had varied results, he already put more stock in the one against the Book of Mormon. (I might be remember that wrong, I admit.)

I explained to him that I am extremely skeptical of all such studies and used the pro-Book of Mormon study as an example. They really did go to great lengths to try to answer all possible questions. They split up the authors very carefully, not by chapter, so for example, the letter of Moroni is not attributed to Alma even though it’s in the book of Alma. (This was one of the objections Doug brought up immediately.)

They also compared it to other translated writings, to Spaulding. They really thought of everything.

And yet I just couldn’t bring myself to believe in it. The first problem is that I have no idea if word frequency actually means something. Secondly, there have, since the original study, be at least one case of an author being able to form two statisically significant wordprints, which throws further doubt on the whole underlying concept (though not nearly enough to completely write it off.)

I believe I asked Doug to send me a link if he ever found the info on the Rigdon study.

Doug, tell me if you remember any of this differently than I do or if you don’t remember it at all.

My point here is that I’m naturally skeptical of such studies. I admit that whole Bible Code thing (which is really very different, I admit) sort of led me to believe that you can never really trust a study like this. There are too many unanswered questions and always will be, thus there will always be reason to doubt.

And then there is out bias. We exalt the studies that confirm our beliefs (as Doug is doing) and immediately make up reasons to disbelieve ones that go against our beliefs. We go to such great lengths to suggest we’re just being reasonable, but the truth is our judgements were rigged from the outset.

(more in a sec)

Actually, I fully admit this.

The question is: can you?

“It will then fall…” The rest of what you write shows how much you really do have faith in this study. And “faith” is the correct word here.

It all started with the Bible Code. I don’t mean the lame book, I mean the peer reviewed journal paper by three Jewish scholars ( Doron Witztum, Eliyahu Rips and Yoav Rosenberg) eminent in the field of statisticians. They were published in Statisical Science, a peer reviewed journal.

They showed that there was a 99% chance that the codes found in the Torah were intentional and not random using the best statistics with unbelievers looking on and admiting the methodology was correct.

One of them later made an off the cuff statement: “well, if people can do the same with Moby Dick, I guess this doesn’t mean much.”

Guess what? Someone went on to do just such a study with Moby Dick as well and with the same results. Apparently Moby Dick also contains Jewish codes from God.

I’m afraid I’m not very trustful of statical studies on either side because of incidents like this. I don’t want to write off the wordprint studies on the Book of Mormon altogether, but I have to admit that I’m just not really convinced that human writing has a “finger print” at all. DNA is known to have a pattern. It IS a pattern. Word frequency may or may not have a pattern. We’re starting with the assumption that it does, but it might be a false assumption.

It may be that we really are just measuring randomness and finding patterns, like the Bible Code was. The evidence seemed so overwhelming, however. I questioned Alvin Rencher at length on his methodology and could find nothing wrong with it, but I remain so deeply skeptical and really don’t give it much thought. If pushed, I’d have to admit that there is a really good chance they are just finding patterns in randomness much or most of the time. But who knows, maybe with more study, we’ll find that the wordprint studies really do mean something.

Of course the issue is that it’s just too easy to build up a false cause/effect narrative as part of the process and literally not even realize you’ve done it. (For example, our Rabbi apparently were finding spells of names in Hebrew that matched better and discarding worse ones and didn’t even realize they were subconciously doing so.)

I wish I could get the study downloaded. I’m skeptical of this idea of a 90% probability, etc. I’m uncertain if Doug is misunderstanding that or if the study actually stuck it’s neck out that far. What does it mean? How did they determine a probability like that? I honestly don’t think such a thing is possible. Should I assume they are talking about p-value?

Doug, where are you getting your info? I can’t get the “free study” downloaded. Where did you find that it would give a low value if there were no matches?

Also, what is their explanation of why this study based on word frequency is better than the previous ones (Rencher’s or the later ones with non-members involved) that showed no match to modern authors at all? Better selection of words? Better method used? (MANOVA was used previously.) What is their claim here?

I cry foul on not using Joseph Smith in the study. The excuse that they don’t have his direct writings is lame since the question on everyone’s mind is “how high of a match is there if you take his writings known to not have been scribed by Rigdon.” This seems like more than mere oversight to me, all excuses aside.

At this point, I’m afraid this is just a study. I need a lot more info to understand what is really even being claimed.

See B.H. Roberts’ Studies in the Book of Mormon, available through Signature Books.

Doug responds:

I also think its fair to say that no-one in 1930 believed in the “limited geography theory” including B.H. Roberts…

That’s exactly why I am done, Doug. That response is astounding – plain and simple.

I’m not sure what to make out of B.H. Roberts, wasn’t he the one who thought “View of the Hebrews” had way to many similarities to the BoM. I also think its fair to say that no-one in 1930 believed in the “limited geography theory” including B.H. Roberts…

As a child I heard Harold B. Lee speak at the foot of the Hill Cumorah on the Sunday before the pageant started and state in his testimony that this was where the Nephites met their end. I guess his testimony was just speaking as a man and not as the prophet though…

Ok, I give…

I’m not going to debate you on all the evidence for and against the BoM. As you seem to think chiasmus is an example of Hebrew in the”reformed Egyptian” writings, I wonder if some of the spiritual writings of Rigdon possess this same effect. According to the study, Rigdon’s writings and Alma 36 is a good match… Care to take a look?

I say retreat as apologists have moved the Hill Cumorah to Central America and went from a hemispheric model to the limited geography theory in-light of archeological and DNA evidence just in my life time.

Doug, I also don’t want to derail this post into an ad nauseum debate over these other issues, but it’s important to note that what you dismiss so easily as “retreat” actually does nothing more than reflect more closely what the text of the book itself actually says. Refuting the Spaulding theory is the same, by taking the text itself more serious and actually studying it.

Just as a simple example, there is NO evidence whatsoever in the Spaulding manuscript that was found (or in “View of the Hebrews”) to explain something like chiasmus in the Book of Mormon – particularly some of the most intricate examples like Alma 36. There’s NO evidence anyone whom Joseph knew used chiasmus in ANY of their writings – not one single shred of evidence. You might dismiss that as “retreat”, but how in the world can you dispute that “further light and knowledge” has done at least just as much to refute Spaulding as it has to bolster it? There’s been WAY too much textual examination over the last few decades that points away from both Spaulding and “View of the Hebrews” to dismiss it as “retreat”.

Setting aside incorrect assumptions for the result of intensive study (“further light and knowledge”) is a bad thing? If someone discovered an obviously authentic ancient text from that same time frame and general foundation culture that mirrored the overall form of the linguistic patterns of the BofM and changed fundamentally how we view the book, would you reject it by deriding it as a “retreat” and laughing at a description of it as “further light and knowledge”? That’s close to what the chiasmus discoveries have done – at the very least, provided extremely compelling evidence that dismissing the BofM as a plagiarized fraud is not as simple as its critics tend to assert. Are you really saying that such “further light and knowledge” is meaningless – and embracing it signals a “retreat”? Would you say that about ANY other topic – or do you reserve that standard only for Mormonism?

If so, there really is nothing to discuss on this topic, since we are at an absolute impasse.

You’re always so hard on me. As someone who believed whole heartedly for years that the BoM was of ancient origins, I understand your bias against the study completely. For you it must be wrong or your faith is in vain. Not a pleasant thought…

Surprisingly, we approached this study with the same bias. After reading “No Man Knows My History” and believing that Oliver Cowdery may have helped JS write the BoM based on “View of the Hebrews” I thought the chances of Sydney Rigdon’s involvement was pretty low as well. I realize that without a provable connection between JS and SR prior to 1828, this study is not a death warrant for the authenticity of the BoM. Setting the study aside, apologists have their work cut out for them in explaining away the rest of the problematic issues with the text. (Let’s not derail this thread on those…)

The study is not finished yet of course. Some ambitious soul is going to find a way to include several hundred authors in the next run and show that Spaulding’s and Rigdon’s patterns are still the most likely authors of most of the non-biblical text. It will then fall to apologists to explain how so many chapters in the book have Spaulding’s voice print. As referenced in the study, Rigdon’s may have occurred due to his reading the book and changing his writing style to match. (The authors of the study find that highly unlikely but possible.) By making this argument, the apologists are admitting that the study does have merit and therefore would be at a loss to explain the Spaulding connection. I suspect another retreat after more work is done by the scientist.

I say retreat as apologists have moved the Hill Cumorah to Central America and went from a hemispheric model to the limited geography theory in-light of archeological and DNA evidence just in my life time. I’ve heard all the arguments why these retreats are ok as further light and knowledge comes out. Eventually I think the majority of church members are going to believe the BoM is a 19th century creation of inspired fiction. Given the survival instincts of the church, I’m sure there will be a plausible explanation why God can work in that way too…

What he is saying is that the thin Spaulding theory gained strength because a peer reviewed study suggested a high possiblity that there is a style match.

If said this way, it makes more sense. I DO think this adds three times the existing evidence. (Starting at a very low number, of course.)

The problem is that there is an equivalent study on wordprints that was also peer reviewed (by non-members) that claims there is no Spaulding or Rigdon or Smith match and it’s actually multiple authors. (I’m not refering to the Rencher study, but the follow on one that included non-members.)

I have studied that study quite a bit and I finally, after careful consideration, decided that stats just isn’t a good way to go about this. I have no idea if that study really means anything or not.

The word print study has been around a very long time to let people criticize it where as the new one has not. When that study came out, it was dismissed immediately by people against the Book of Mormon without any actual approach (initially) to suggest counter theories or explanation. I remember the Tanners dismissed it by “doing their own computer study” which consisted of finding patterns within the Book of Mormon itself and making up narratives about what Joseph was thinking when he wrote it. Bad bad bad.

The problem is that Doug is both right and wrong. He is right we can’t dismiss completely this theory, nor any theory, including the Mary Lincoln as author theory. He is right that this is a peer reviewed study and thus deserves some respect. And ultimately, it doesn’t matter to me because it was all based on faith to begin with.

He is wrong to dismiss the study that goes against his own beliefs. He is wrong to dismiss the ancient origins theory more so than the Spaulding theory when we are literally dealing with equivalent evidence: a statisical study that may or may not mean anything.

If this is all that you ask, I’ll conceded gladly. But then I have to conclude you didn’t understand my original point.

Let’s turn this around and see what I mean: will you conceded that the Book of Mormon might be of ancient origins if I conceded that it might not be and that really we don’t know for sure?

If you think a theory as thin as Spaulding should not be dismissed (and you are logically right here), then if you were being fair you should have accepted that an ancient origins theory shouldn’t be dismissed either. You should, at a minimum, be as open to that theory as you are to the Spaulding one.

But then belief in the Book of Mormon being ancient is a matter of faith and belief in Spaulding is not, so we shouldn’t even be trying to make a comparison here like we are. The fact that we can make such a comparison (and with Spaulding on the losing end no less) really does say something and exposes the reality of just how rational the whole debate really isn’t from the outset. The real truth is that we all walk by faith.

http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/fqn040v1

We would probably do well to compare Campbell and Rigdon (had we the tools) and compare the similarities between them and the similarities stated in the study. That should give us some perspective.

This is always a fair position to take, and an appreciated one as well. I would just maintain that while the Rigdon Spaulding Theories are certainly not concrete, there are connections which exist there that provide tennable avenues of thought explaining early Church history from perspectives in lieu of the traditional.

I feel that it would be slightly easier to change my writing style than to change my fingerprints (without disfiguring myself of course). I’ve been writing in various forms since I was very small. I’m younger than Sydney was at this time, but I remember one book in particular* that I read when I was perhaps 18 that completely changed the way I wrote (and the way I wanted to write). I read it and immediately desired to write “in that way,” because I loved how the author used the language. I put more clauses and commas in my sentences, and was more creative with subjects and verbs in a way that I ironically find difficult to describe. In another way, I feel that my songwriting style has definitely been influenced by the musicians that I listen to. It’s a conscious and an unconscious decision, I think. I’m no linguist, and I’m not sure my change in writing style would show up in a study like this. It would be interesting to see how that kind of a study would determine which writers or songwriters were influenced by which writers or songwriters, but I digress.

But that’s why that particular paragraph resonated with me. If Rigdon indeed was influenced by the Book of Mormon in the way he initially said he was (spiritually, mentally, emotionally), and if it truly made such an impression on him that he joined the church and met Joseph in such a small time, I feel that it’s not an impossibility for him to adapt his style to that of the book that changed his life. Perhaps an infinite improbability?

*- What book, you might ask? Why, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy of course.

First, as I’ve maintained all along, this is an interesting study not a smoking gun. If you read my initial inputs on this subject you’ll see where I indicated that at present there is no concrete evidence of JS knowing SR before 1830. If that evidence shows up one day, the history of the origins of the BoM would certainly take on a more “human” type explanation.

As for the idea that SR changed his writing style so dramatically after reading the BoM that these very subtle patterns in voice and style now mirrored the BoM, all I can say to that is wow. We’re talking about a Dartmouth trained minister who completely changes his style to that of BoM authors shortly after reading the book. I submit to you that it would probably be easier to change your fingerprints than teach yourself to write like that after a lifetime of writing in your own style. I believe the other explanation (he wrote the BoM) is far more plausible, but then that’s just me.

Thanks for your thoughts though, at least your thinking!

“We acknowledge that because our samples of Rigdon prose all come after 1830, some could argue that Rigdon’s prose was influenced by the Book of Mormon and not vice versa. To raise such an objection, however, one would have to argue that Rigdon was so influenced by the Book of Mormon that he consciously or unconsciously adopted, even internalized, the most subtle and unremarkable linguistic patterns found in certain portions of the text, but not in others.”

This is worth exploring, I think.