Dear Dennis,
It is great to make contact with you after all of these years. Leave it to Steve Herr to get people together. He has always been a good point man for that.
Well, where do we pick up after leaving Marion? You’re in Florida and I’m on the west coast. We have a home in Victorville, California, although we recently moved into a condo in Las Vegas (about three hours north of Victorville), which is about 10 degree hotter and just as dry. Still, it puts me 1.5 hours from Utah. Part of the move here was to try to keep ahead of the recession enough to keep from drowning in our underwater property and to wait until a president is elected who knows how important jobs are for the American economy.
I wrote to Steve to see what “discovery” he was telling you about. He wrote back and said that it was my research on Solomon Spalding. He told me that you were a Romney supporter for your area, but, as that, you also stand up for Christianity and do not take lightly mixing Mormonism with Romney’s politics. Sometime later we can perhaps exchange thoughts on Romney vs. Huntsman as Mormon candidates.
Since the time that we knew each other through the Bible study, the Lord has provided the venue for me to contribute to 16 books on the cults with a number of Christian writers (Martin, McDowell, Gomes, Zacharias, and others). One thing I learned the hard way is that you do not get rich writing books. Christian book publishers are about as tricky and conniving as anything secular. Be that as it is, my Solomon Spalding (a.k.a. Spaulding) research has ended up on a lot of books and it becomes a mess when we speak of people taking things without permission. That is sad, but true. Some of my boxes and files of research that I have loaned to writers on Spalding have never been returned to me even to this day. Walter Martin, though, stood in opposition to this kind of chicanery. He was about as honest as anyone could be in integrity, in fact, he insisted upon it and instilled such ethics in me.
On the Solomon Spalding theory and the Book of Mormon, it is not the easiest thing to prove to a Mormon. Many Christian apologists do not believe the Spalding connection to Mormonism either, including Sandra Tanner, who is what I consider to the world’s leading authority on Mormonism. I have spoken to her about it before, but she is unconvinced. Many years ago, when Jerald Tanner was alive, I was talking with him about it and he said, “Kurt, it is not that I try not to believe in it, it is just that I have never seen anything that connects the dots to complete the story. If you have something that can really show a direct connection between Spalding, Rigdon, and Smith, then it would make a big difference.”
Well, it happened after his death. The final connection that was discovered by William Moore, who was a collaborator with Davis and Cowdrey in their latest book, was a newspaper in Pennsylvania that has an 1816 mail call list with mail waiting for Solomon Spalding and Sidney Rigdon at the same time at the Pittsburgh post office. The Mormons, the deniers of the Spalding connection, and the Ridgon’s family have always said that Rigdon was not in Pittsburgh at the same time that Spalding was. Now a newspaper disproves each one of them. This was the dot-connection that Jerald Tanner never got to see and what forms the basis for the newest book by Davis, et al. I think that Steve sent you the link for that book on the Internet. It is posted on the Internet, in part, from the book The Spalding Enigma (CD version, 2000), as chapter 4, beginning at page 137. http://solomonspalding.com/Lib/Enig2000.htm
Some of the things that I found in connection to this have never been published and, quite unfortunately, one of the most important pieces of information has come up missing from my research files that I loaned to one of the writers. Some day, God willing, I’m going to re-trace my research on this and see if I can find it again (if it has not been stolen from the archive where I found it). From you position, the question is how do you effectively use Spalding in talking to Mormons.
First, Mormons have a built-in force-field that shields them against the name “Solomon Spalding.” At the mere mention of his name, you always get a knee-jerk reaction from any informed Mormon. It is so automatic, that I’ve accused them of having an “anti-Spalding nerve” engrafted in their central nervous system. Smile. Anyway, once you can soothe them long enough to say “stop jerking” when I mention his name, then you may find someone who is willing and listen to the evidence alone. They are few and far between.
I think that news articles have done more harm than good and that the Internet has done more good than harm. Knowing how news works, whether in print or a live, the reporter has strikes against him that makes his story harmful. First, he is too unfamiliar with the subject to handle such scant information that he receives in points and counterpoints to make a fair story. Second, he is limited by space or time in his report and cannot justify giving it more time than the least amount to just get something reported. The Internet has no such limitations, so that is why Dale Broadhurst’s websites www.solomonspalding.com and www.sidneyridgon.com and Art Vanick’s website at http://thedigitalvoice.com/enigma/ are so important. There is no reason to leave anything out. If the thinking Mormon could go to that site, they will find reproduced original documents and the things that tie it together in one neat package. Even the things that book publishers cut from a manuscript end up on the website because there is no limit to how much can be posted. Trust me, I have known Broadhurst for 30 years, when we first swapped research, and there are a lot of Mormons who are reading his website.
As far as your question, “I have a question. Steve Herr had reported that you and Walter made an important discovery regarding Mormon writings in the 70's and confronted the church. Could you tell me a little about what those were and the importance/effect?” Steve may have it a little wrong after so many years of being removed from it and his way of saying it is more of a one-line, short version. Probably the reason that he made this connection is because I was on Martin’s research team when The Maze of Mormonism was revised (1978) and the story that I’ll recap for you below is found on pages 59-65 of that book. The book has been out of print for too many years and can only be found on used book websites. I’ll briefly summarize it.
Walter Martin (and I) did not personally “confront” the Mormon church. He helped to encourage the researchers Davis, Cowdrey, and Scales, in 1976. That was the same year that I joined CRI as a missionary, so part of my work was in Mormon evangelism, which dovetailed nicely with working on the Spalding research. The confrontation between Martin and the Mormon Church is more along the line of him speaking out heavily in favor of the book Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon (Davis, Cowdrey, and Scales: Vision House, 1977). He did a cassette-taped sermon on it (which is available in MP3 through his daughter’s website www.waltermartininfo.com) and we updated his book The Maze of Mormonism (1978) with all of the new information.
This was over the idea of the three handwriting experts who initially agreed that several pages of the original Book of Mormon manuscript in Salt Lake City that the Mormon Church attributed to an “unknown” scribe was actually the handwriting of Solomon Spalding himself. That was the most astounding part of the story. If true, then the Mormon Church has been holding the evidence of the Spalding connection all of these years without knowing it. The Mormon Church reacted, but rather than giving solid proof or other reasonable answers like a team of handwriting experts who would oppose the three experts, they responded in three other ways. (1) They had their main historian answer the claims, Dean Jesse, which was strange, since he is not a handwriting expert. (2) They point at opposing Christian apologists who oppose the project, like Jerald and Sandra Tanner. This is the only time that I have ever heard Mormons suggest the Tanner’s writings. And the Tanners, who have always gotten along with me, so long as I do not talk about Spalding, but they are not handwriting experts. And, (3) The Mormon Church promoted the idea that the three hand writing experts disagreed, which is not what happened, but the Mormons confuse the story to confuse the inept.
The way that the showdown occurred was that the handwriting experts said that they have to see the original manuscripts in order to make a certain determination as to whether it was the same individual who wrote both examples that were provided in photocopy form. Each expert was noted in their fields. They were Henry Silver, Howard Doulder, and William Kaye. I met each of them during this project and I can vouch for what took place.
Initially, they were provided with ample samplings of Spalding’s handwriting and a section from the “unknown scribe” for the Book of Mormon. They were never told who the writer was for either manuscript copy and each one of them did not know that two other, independent experts had the same copies. All three of them unanimously agreed that it was the same person who wrote both samplings, but for complete assurance, they would have to see the original documents. It was at this time that they were told that it was Solomon Spalding and the Book of Mormon. At that point, one of the handwriting experts “withdrew” from the investigation and refused to go to Salt Lake City to see the originals. That was Howard Doulder.
Henry Silver gave an affirmative first opinion and once he saw the originals, he issued a second, “definite opinion” that they are one and the same writers. A copy of his second opinion is published in The Maze of Mormonism, page 63.
William Kaye gave an affirmative first opinion and once he saw the originals, he issued a second, “shows unquestionably” that it is one and the same person. A copy of his second opinion is published in The Maze of Mormonism, page 64.
Howard Doulder gave an affirmative first opinion and once he found out that it was the Mormon Church that he was dealing with, he withdrew from the investigation and refused to go to Salt Lake City to see the originals for comparison. He stated to a reporter at the Los Angeles Times, even after knowing it was the Book of Mormon document, that it was the same writer: “Doulder told the Times, "This is one and the same writer," assuming that the photocopied material he was furnished is a true copy of the original documents in Salt Lake.” Los Angeles Times, June 25, 1977. See http://www.truthandgrace.com/1977LATimes0625.htm . He later changed his story and said that he could not make a certain evaluation because he did not see the originals. He never said that it was false, he only throws a question on it by saying that he never got the opportunity to see if the photocopies that he had matched the originals. However, two world-leading handwriting experts did go to Salt Lake City and compare the photocopies with the originals and they were the same.
If I were to graph it, it would go like this.
| Handwriting Expert | First Opinion | Second Opinion |
| Henry Silver | The same person. | The same person. |
| William Kaye | The same person. | The same person. |
| Howard Doulder | The same person. | |
That is the story of what Steve was talking about. I played a part in the investigation as part of Walter Martin’s staff and as a researcher for his writings. I also traveled a large part of Ohio and Pennsylvania looking for documents back in that day. I discovered a few very important items, like an 1830 Book of Mormon with Aaron Wright’s signature in it denying that the “three witnesses” of the Book of Mormon were telling the truth. Aaron Wright was a personal friend of Solomon Spalding and gave testimony many times that Spalding’s material ended up in the Book of Mormon. The discovery of a handwritten note by him in a first edition of the Book of Mormon was amazing. That is reproduced in Davis, et al, new book. Much of the original book from 1977 is on the Internet at http://thedigitalvoice.com/enigma/wrw/1977DavA.htm
I hope that I have answered your question. If you would like to see what I have written about Mr. Romney during his last campaign, it is on my small website. Hugh Hewitt was promoting Romney. I do not have a problem if Christians want Romney as their president, but I have a problem with Hewitt or anyone else re-defining Mormonism as just another Christian denomination, as if it holds biblical truth. You can read it at http://www.utahgospelmission.org/ and by following the link on the right about Hewitt.
Love in Jesus,
No comments:
Post a Comment