Talk:Spalding–Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship

Points

There's a couple of important points missing in this article that really ought to be there:

1. Hurlbut had a serious, dedicated agenda to disprove the Latter-day Saint religion, this agenda held far higher priority to him than anything mundane like telling the truth, avoiding misquoting, tricking people into saying what he wanted them to say in an affidavit, editing their affidavit, etc. Some of the people who signed his affidavits later reported they had never met him or signed any such.

2. E.B. Howe, in reporting in his newspaper that the Book of Mormon had been plagiarized from Spalding's manuscript, was holding a card that he wasn't showing. He himself had "borrowed" the manuscript from Spalding and was keeping it in his files, unseen, unable to be checked. Another man bought his paper (and his files), and when he retired, he moved to Hawaii. The manuscript was eventually discovered among his papers in Hawaii. Howe was hiding it so it couldn't be checked, so that his claim of plagiarism could not be debunked. Friendly Person (talk) 23:30, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?

Why is there no mention of:

Cowdrey, Wayne (2005). Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House. ISBN 0758605277.

?

I think it is the latest book expounding on the Spalding–Rigdon theory?

TuckerResearch (talk) 05:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Broadhurst and Cowdrey

For good reason Cowdrey's book is not treated--it hardly qualifies as a scholarly work. Like his contemporary, Dale Broadhurst, and like Hurlbut and Howe from the start, the Spalding theory's proponents have never included any capable thinkers, but have operated in and promoted an artificial dichotomy which deludes casual and disinterested observers into thinking Spalding is the scientific alternative to the gold plates story. Here is one example of one major proponent's competence (http://www.mormonstudies.com/fragment.htm):

D. Broadhurst, in attempting to buttress the existence of the hypothetical second Spalding manuscript, asserts that Rigdon made use of the MS while dictating his own "biography." That the biography is written in third person, and heaps endless praise on Rigdon, and gives no indication of being truly autobiographical but was obviously written by a third party well acquainted with him, does nothing to deter Broadhurst from insisting that Rigdon could not dictate his own story without quoting from a MS he had stolen and committed to memory decades before. Or maybe Broadhurst imagines that Rigdon concealed Spalding's MS on his lap while dictating his extravagantly boastful history.

And remember, this MS has never been seen, but was only hypothesized when the extant MS was examined and determined to have little in common with the Book of Mormon. But Broadhurst and his ilk see Spalding in the haystacks--everything Smith and Rigdon wrote or dictated was based on Spalding's unpublished writings. Such is the intellect of the Spalding conspiratorialists, and such are the reasons that historians of even marginal competence have never taken the conspiracy seriously. --AGF 11/09/08 71.219.23.250 (talk) 21:10, 9 November 2008 (UTC)agfosterjr

1830

I deleted this text because it was essentially argumentative:

However, it still needs to be explained how Rigdon contributed to or influenced the Book of Mormon when he was first introduced to the Book of Mormon in Dec 1830 after it was published.

I actually agree with the statement, but that criticism needs to be made in some way that acknowledges what proponents of this theory say. The theory is, pardon me, essentially a conspiracy theory, and therefore discounts Rigdon’s accounts of his introduction to the Book of Mormon as unreliable, part of his plot to release the Book of Mormon under someone else's name. I personally find the story and the history that is known about Rigdon convincing against the S-R theory, regardless of the recent problematic computer analysis (Jockers et al.)—problematic for reasons that haven't been published and therefore can't be cited in the article—, but this article is about what the theory maintains, not about why people don't like it. If you want to put that argument back in, consider framing it in a way that acknowledges that theory proponents don't accept that Ridgon was introduced to the Book of Mormon in Dec. 1830 and in fact maintain the opposite. -Fenevad (talk) 23:42, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

A note on Believability

When considering how much weight to give to Sidney Rigdon's veracity, it should be noted that early Mormon movement leaders were not above fudging the truth. Three examples:

o Joseph Smith - translation of the 'Book of Abraham' from a source which was later shown to be a Egyptian funerary text. Apparently the LDS Church still accepts this as valid scripture as it is included in 'The Pearl of Great Price'.

o Emma Smith Bidamon - In The Last Testimony of Sister Emma, swore absolutely that Joseph Smith had but one wife - her. This was never supported by the Utah LDS Church and has recently been questioned by the Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) Church as well. Emma testified thus to her sons, particularly J. Smith III, who wanted that assurance as it was a cardinal tenet of the recently minted RLDS Church of which he was the prophet-president.

o Martin Harris - when closely questioned about seeing the golden plates, finally admitted he had seen them with his 'spiritual' eyes rather than the physical ones.Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 05:26, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Rigdon biography: moved url

As of about 2011 the url to the above cited treatment of Rigdon's "autobiography" has been moved to: http://www.solomonspalding.com/bomstudies/fragment.htm — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.50.104.162 (talk) 18:16, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Polemical last sentence

An IP person keeps putting in a first sentence that is arguable and lacks a citation of any sort. S/he keeps reverting me, so I'm taking it here. If you want to put in a quote from somebody saying that the theory isn't really taken seriously by most people anymore, then that might be a more appropriate way to get that (I think) legitimate point across,Kant66 (talk) 13:02, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

Whether the claim - that the theory has been "disproved" - is true or not, it needs a source; otherwise it has no place in the article. Macduff (talk) 13:39, 23 September 2011 (UTC)

This article is neutral

I have no dog in this race. I read this article and it seems very neutral. I feel that the people who insist on adding the "NPOV" tags are the ones with the "neutrality problem" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.8.8.2 (talk) 13:03, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Significant problems with NPOV, UNDUE, & OR

This article places WP:UNDUE weight on a fringe theory that has been widely discredited or ignored by Mormon scholars and reliable non-Mormon scholars, and fails to present the point of view of those who have discredited the theory, asserting instead, without sourcing, that only "Mormon apologists" state that the theory has been disproved or discredited. This article violates WP:NPOV by failing to present all of the reasons the theory fails to satisfy most standards of historical accuracy; it certainly fails to present the overall Mormon perspectives on the theory. See http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=17&num=2&id=584 for one example of a viewpoint that is not represented. This article contains enough unsourced or unreliably sourced assertions and arguments as to constitute WP:OR. Davidwhittle (talk) 18:55, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

This article needs improvement, but I think the charge of undue weight is stretching it a little. Mormon and non-Mormon scholars at accredited institutions like BYU and Stanford University have published several peer-reviewed articles on this topic within the past four years. That hardly counts as being ignored by the mainstream.

As far as the assertion that "This article violates WP:NPOV by failing to present all of the reasons the theory fails to satisfy most standards of historical accuracy" - it seems that very statement is calling for the abandonment of NPOV by demanding that the article take a side.

The authorship squabbling is less a "theory" than an intra-historical dispute that was *contemporaneous* with the 1830 publication of the Book of Mormon - i.e., the charge itself is not a theory but an accusation of plagiarism by first-hand witnesses; however, the speculation as to the details of how the plagiarism may have been pulled off is a theory. So it's both history and theory.

I've recently taken an interest in this topic and have been doing quite a bit of reading, and will attempt to supply citations to the uncited sections, time permitting. Fly by wright (talk) 00:40, 29 April 2012 (UTC)

IMHO, the idea of some NPOV in an article about religion (or which has serious religious implications), is ridiculous and hypocritical. (EnochBethany (talk) 04:48, 1 January 2013 (UTC))

I could remove the first OR added by Davidwhittle, after reading through relevant parts of Mormonism Unvailed (cf. the edit summary), and noting that this was Howe's own theory. However, I'm not so sure the others could be dismissed as summarily. JoergenB (talk) 19:41, 10 June 2013 (UTC)

Not really a "theory"

Calling this a "theory" is misleading. Looking at several definitions of "theory", I don't see how this is a theory. The LDS likes to cast aspersions on this by calling it a "theory" but this is NPOV and poisons the well. The Spalding-Rigdon story of the creation of the Book of Mormon and the one told by the LDS church are different histories of the same events and if the article is not to violate Wikipedia's principle of neutrality then they should be given the same weight. We don't refer to the "theory" of divine creation of the BOM. Of the two narratives the Spalding-Rigdon story historical, unlike the other one which has to be accepted as an article of faith. For this reason, Wikipedia's guidelines on neutrality should at least give these two stories equal weight. Senor Cuete (talk) 23:18, 13 July 2018 (UTC)

I disagree with you. There's nothing negative about the term "theory". For instance, the use of the term in the article on the Theory of relativity does not in any way imply that it's wrong, or incorrect, or somehow not as credible as another explanation. For most people, the term "story" will actually carry less weight - a story is just something that someone said. (I also think it's a bit pointless to try and avoid using the word "theory" in an article with the title "Spaulding-Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship.") EastTN (talk) 02:20, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

The "story"?

The way this article reads after somebody replaced most of the occurrences of "theory with "story" is just stupid. For example, the opening now says "The Spalding–Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship is the story that the Book of Mormon was plagiarized". That's a really nonstandard use of the word "story". Also, if it's called "The Spalding-Rigdon theory," it's not even consistent. I'm not Mormon or a historian, and I don't want to get dragged into any arguments here, so I'm leaving it alone, but somebody should do something. Mpalenik (talk) 13:15, 11 October 2018 (UTC)

Study Bias?

In the comparison of the studies done by Jockers et al and Schaalje, it seems relevant to point out that Schaalje is a Mormon who currently serves on the high council of his home stake, whereas Jockers at least has no obvious (to a cursory search) religious ax to grind. It would be more convincing to reference studies by non-Mormons (if any) which dispute the Jockers et al results.Jwilsonjwilson (talk) 04:15, 26 October 2018 (UTC)

Holley as a reliable source

The Vernal Holley source appears to have been added back in 2016. However, I am having trouble confirming that it qualifies as a reliable source. It looks to me like Holley was only an amateur researcher in this field, something akin to Jeff Lindsay in the world of Mormon apologetics (Holley just being on the opposite end of the apologetics spectrum). Holley's book was published by Zenos Publications - I can find no other information on them and no other books they published, so I suspect this is probably a self-published work. Therefore, I don't think the source qualifies as a RS which is why I'm removing it. Additional thoughts? --FyzixFighter (talk) 12:03, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

I would agree and I imagine Zenos was quite likely a vanity press. However, if Holley's theories/claims have been addressed by other authors in reliable sources I think it would be appropriate to include them. ITBF (talk) 12:43, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

Baloney. Zenos Publications “might” have been a vanity publisher? But you don’t know, so you removed the text about him? Sorry but this does qualify as a reliable source. Don’t censor. 2600:100E:B07C:DD2C:B157:3580:1DE3:5EDD (talk) 19:39, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

What other books did Zenos Publications publish? What were Holley's qualifications? If he was a noted expert in the field, it wouldn't matter if this was a SPS. --FyzixFighter (talk) 21:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)