NOM

Wow. I was just reading about the origins of the BOM sounds like it could be true , I don't have all the details but the story goes that Oliver Cowdrey new a guy that worked at a shop in Pennsylvania where a former pastor/writer had a manuscript of a book he had worked on and it was stolen by OC and given to joseph smith which later was published as the BOM ! 1st time I had heard this story and a book was written about it in the 1970s . Smoking gun for sure, thoughts.

Mackman wrote: ↑Fri May 25, 2018 12:47 am Wow. I was just reading about the origins of the BOM sounds like it could be true , I don't have all the details but the story goes that Oliver Cowdrey new a guy that worked at a shop in Pennsylvania where a former pastor/writer had a manuscript of a book he had worked on and it was stolen by OC and given to joseph smith which later was published as the BOM ! 1st time I had heard this story and a book was written about it in the 1970s . Smoking gun for sure, thoughts.

Sounds too good to be true. Do you have any other source material or links? Even without this 'smoking gun' there's enough validated historical evidence and a lack of physical evidence to prove the BOM isn't what the COB proclaims it to be.

That's the Spalding manuscript story... there are affidavits signed about it but it's definitely not a story that has enough corrobortion to do a whole lot with.

It's another source that JS could've used along with the KJ Bible, late war, view of the hebrews, etc, etc.

I still think JS using the KJV of the Bible is a bigger smoking gun - especially with using deutero-Isaiah chapters.

jfro18 wrote: ↑Fri May 25, 2018 8:19 am That's the Spalding manuscript story... there are affidavits signed about it but it's definitely not a story that has enough corrobortion to do a whole lot with.

It's another source that JS could've used along with the KJ Bible, late war, view of the hebrews, etc, etc.

I still think JS using the KJV of the Bible is a bigger smoking gun - especially with using deutero-Isaiah chapters.

The Johnson brothers do a good piece with this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAGasQ7j_ZI Their analysis is that the BoM is a mashup of several sources from the 1800's. The analysis was really compelling to me. At this point there is no question the work is of 19th century origins, but I still don't think there is enough evidence for a complete history as to how that came about. I guess I doubt it was directly copied from another source. Parts, even large chucks of it are either near misses or direct quotes to other sources, so its defiantly not the singularity the church claims it is either.

Yeah this is the age old Spaulding manuscript theory. It is thought that Spaulding had a couple manuscripts. If I remember correcty, the first one was textually analyzed and show similarities to the BoM writing style, but does not have a similar story. The second one that has never been found is thought to be the manuscript of the BoM. Some circumstantial evidence points to this conclusion. Most people consider the evidence for this theory to be really weak.

For me, Joseph wrote too much of himself into it. His identification with Joseph from the Bible who was told he would rule over his older brothers and the comparison th Nephi, and the "prophecy" about a guy named Joseph bring about new scripture. Yeah, I just can't see that Joseph copied someone else's writing for the whole book. Parts of it yes, just like he copied parts of KJV Bible.

IOT has on episode where they talk about a couple of ideas of where the BOM came from, including the Spaulding theory. It's an interesting listen. Both of the ideas they listen to are compelling in their own ways.

Spaulding died in 1816, the same year The Late War was published. So Spaulding could not have created the BoM original manuscript as a copycat of that style. Might certainly have been one of many sources but not likely a smoking gun.

On my mission a gentleman handed us a copy of manuscript found and proceeded to point out verses from Alma that match very closely with paragraphs in the manuscript. It was a huge dose of cogdis for me at the time. "Uncle" Dale Broadhurst of sidneyrigdon.com fame has also done a research paper doing a textual comparison analysis between the BOM and the Spaulding "manuscript found" and the most similar book is Alma. Also the beginning of manuscript found has Romans sailing to America and having major battles and burying their parchment records in a stone box for later discovery. Lots of parallels, but perhaps not quite compelling enough to be a source. There is a theory of a second manuscript that is purported to be destroyed that is said to be the BOM story, but there are several holes in the evidence linking Rigdon to JS so early for collaboration.

My thought is that the BOM type fictional stories were pervasive in the 19th century in many forms and JS capitalized on that common theme. It is unlikely one specific source will be discovered, but rather the book is a conglomerate of several.