Who really wrote the Book of Mormon?

This is a long drawn out explanation of how the Mormons received the Book of Mormon. It is very well put together and sadly points out how deceived people really are.

Usually a person would need some inspiration from the "Spirits" to believe what has been presented by the founding Mormons. I just wish to share some great information that is based in facts and witnesses accounts.

Constructing an evidence based narrative for The Book of Mormon:
Craig Criddle
Ex Mormon Conference
Salt Lake City, Utah
October 10, 2009

•! The power of narrative
•! Roots
• Tracking authors like animals
• Restoration theology on steroids
•“Necessity is the mother of invention”
• Assembling the pieces

Ok Here we go and the presentation can be found here.
This site uses a lot of great information and it proves that Soloman Spaldings book, Manuscript Found that was never published was plagiarized by Sidney Rigdon.

“He [Sidney] was marked everywhere for a victim. All opposers
& gainsayers sought to destroy him they followed him with
slanders. They invented the most shameless calumnies that
corruption could devise and ceased not until I the Lord took him into exile and there alone I called upon him to perfect the work of separation which only could be done by becoming acquainted with the true character of Zion as well as that of the church of the
devil all of which required a full understanding of all the
revelations I the Lord had given him for the purpose of laying the foundation of Zion on the basis of eternal truth which required a long period of many years“God speaking in the 3rd person throughSidney about how great Sidney is.
Copying Book A & Book of the Revelations of Jesus
Christ To The Children of Zion Through Sidney Rigdon
Prophet & Seer & Revelator (1868).

Some more interesting points:
Art Vanick and colleagues have uncovered additional evidence that Rigdon fabricated the Book of
Mormon in Bainbridge, OH, in 1826-27. Ohio newspaper quotes of George Wilber (schoolteacher near Bainbridge, 1826-27)

Take the time to read this in its entirety.

Here is a 10 min video by Craig Criddle

                        And here is another good one:

The second one is 49 minutes long. It takes time but the real truth and the ability to show Mormons the truth and offer the real Jesus to them means everything..eternally.

Or if you want a shorter version of 3 minutes try this!

The evidence is compelling. The truth does not lie.  Everyone needs the real Jesus.

posted by Adam:

Arthur Vanick, Wayne Cowdery and Howard Davis, co-authors of the book “Who really wrote the Book of Mormon”, have come to the conclusion after years of research, that the Book of Mormon is the early 19^th century creation of a retired Congregationalist minister named Solomon Spalding instead of a historical record.

So, does the Book of Mormon hold up under scrutiny?

According to Vanick, Cowdery and Davis, the Book of Mormon contains some eye-witness testimony from people who claim to have witnessed Joseph Smith translating the Book of Mormon from golden tablets given to him from the divine realm. But extensive interviews of those eye-witnesses after the event revealed that they only witnessed the translation and the golden tablets with the “eye of faith”, and were not actual eyewitnesses physically present during the translation event or even witnesses of the golden tablets themselves. For example, they report of one particular instance where a pair of gentlemen who were with Joseph Smith at a pub/roadhouse, asked if they could see the tablets. His reply was no. Later, in his absence, when they had the opportunity to look under the sheet covering the tablets, all they saw were bricks. When confronted about this, Smith claimed that God knew they would look and transformed the tablets into bricks to confound them.

The story of Solomon Spalding starts off as that of a failed businessman who turned to writing as a last resort. He made two attempts at writing which produced the works “Manuscript Story” and “Manuscript Found”. His first attempt at writing, “Manuscript Story”, was a dismal failure which he gave up on after he realised the story was going nowhere. He then wrote “Manuscript Found” which was a story about these lost tribes of Israel coming to America. He took this to a publisher in Pittsburgh who agreed to publish it on the proviso that Spalding come up with some “front” money to help with the printing process. Spalding then dies before he is able to raise the money.

In 1814, however, during the period between the submission of Spalding’s manuscript to the publisher and Spalding’s own death, the manuscript disappears for a while. It is believed that Sidney Rigdon, a leather tanner and book binder, was responsible for this disappearance. He was seen by many witnesses frequenting the various printing shops and publishing houses in the area. One of the witnesses, Joseph Miller, a companion of Solomon Spalding in his later years, mentions in his letters that Solomon told him that he suspected Sidney of purloining his manuscript.

It is interesting to note that one of the bedrock claims of the Mormon Church to refute this theory is that Sidney Rigdon was not in Pittsburgh until 1820 or possibly 1822. It is because of this, that any claim of Sidney knowing Solomon or of his manuscript and then stealing it are dismissed as impossible.

The problem with this reasoning is that during that time, mail was not delivered to your house, you had to pick it up from the post office. Now if you did not collect your mail regularly, the post office would publish a list of people with mail waiting for them in the local newspaper. There exists such a list, dated Aug 1816, which contains not only Sidney Rigdon’s name but also Solomon Spalding’s, proving that they were both in Pittsburgh at the same time and their paths could have crossed.

The path from Sidney Rigdon to Joseph Smith comes via Oliver Cowdery. Oliver was Joseph’s second chief scribe and also his cousin. Oliver’s brother Erastus Cowdery lived in Ohio. And it is believed that during the time when Sidney was a preacher (of sorts) in Ohio that he and Erastus come into contact with each other because they were practically next door neighbours.

And it is because of Joseph Smith’s desire to be a modern day “prophet” and its requirement for a “book” that Solomon Spalding’s manuscript is discovered by Joseph Smith through his cousin and Sidney Rigdon.

It is probably important now to look at some of the similarities between Solomon Spalding’s manuscript and the Book of Mormon. The content of Solomon Spalding’s novel “Manuscript Story” can be found in the testimony of the witnesses who claim to have seen Sidney Rigdon in Pittsburgh during the time of Solomon Spalding. The testimony of those witnesses contains details of his manuscript because Solomon read it to them.

During those times Solomon was the nightly entertainment, and it was because of these readings and his constant use of the phrase “It came to pass” or some variant of this, that Solomon becomes known as “Old Come to Pass”. It is interesting to note that in the first edition (1830) of the Book of Mormon, the phrase “It came to pass” (or some variation of it) occurs over 1500 times.

Both texts are based on a story of the lost tribes of Israel coming to America. And both describe the discovery of a book in the same manner; in an Indian burial mound that had to be dug up, was contained in a box that was opened with a lever.

In the 19^th century, there was a popular theory that the Native American Indians were descended from the Jews, which, it is believed, triggered Solomon Spalding to write about it. An Australian (Mormon) biologist, Simon Southerton was excommunicated from the Mormon Church when he did some research into the DNA between the two and found absolutely no connection between the Jews and the Native American Indians.

An interesting side note, when it comes to the credibility of Joseph Smith, is that in 1826 Joseph was convicted of a crime called “Glass looking”. This was a practice of approaching individuals and claiming that they have been told by an Angel that there is buried treasure on their property. And by looking into his “seer’s stone” in his hat, he can then reveal that treasure’s location…for a price. A number of people were unhappy with him because of this and took him to court. Proof of this conviction came in the 1970’s when the actual court docket containing the arraignment and conviction of Joseph Smith was found by Rev Wesley Walters.

So how was the Book of Mormon first received by the public? When the Book of Mormon was first preached, a man and Justice of the Peace by the name of Erin Wright, stood up in front of everyone and is quoted as jokingly saying “By God, Old Come to Pass has come alive again”, a direct reference to Solomon Spalding.

How about Solomon Spalding’s original manuscript, does it still survive today? In the Church vaults in Utah, there exists pages ascribed to “the unidentified scribe” which are no longer available to the public – only those highly placed in the Mormon Church. Before they were hidden away (in the 1970’s), there was a great controversy due to the handwriting style of those pages. A handwriting expert at the time had identified the pages as written by Solomon Spalding.

Where did those pages come from? Well, around the 1840’s when Joseph Smith was building his home, eyewitnesses recall him placing some pages of a manuscript into the cornerstone and saying “You’ve caused me enough trouble”. He then sealed it up and built his home. Later in the 1880’s when his home was being torn down, this detail was remembered and those pages were retrieved and in surprisingly good condition. They did not know who wrote them so they ascribed them to “the unidentified scribe” because they could not match the handwriting to anyone they knew; Smith, Rigdon, Cowdery…etc. And because of the great controversy in the 1970’s that the handwriting matched Solomon Spalding’s, these pages are now believed, by those outside the Mormon Church, as being pages from Solomon Spalding’s original fictional novel “Manuscript Found”.

Well there you have it. A lot to chew on and hopefully some people will wake up.

2 Cor 11:4

For if one comes and preaches another Jesus whom we have not preached, or you receive a different spirit which you have not received, or a different gospel which you have not accepted, you bear this beautifully.