This article was written by Jon Gary Williams. It appeared in the July 1985 edition of the "Christian Courier" published by the Church of Christ in Stockton, California.
Although some people believe the Book of Mormon to be an inspired writing, in truth it is nothing more than a fraudulent book. Mormons are taught that in the late 1820's Joseph Smith, by divine guidance, translated the Book of Mormon from some gold plates an angel (Moroni) told him to dig up near Palmyra, New York. It is claimed that these plates contained the history of people who journeyed to the Americas long before the time of Christ. One group, called the "Jaredites" is said to have come to Central America in 2250 B.C. After many years they died out. Another group, descendants of the Jews, came to South America in 600 B.C. Some of these people, known as the "Nephites" migrated to North America. Christ was supposed to have appeared to them in 34 A.D. The rest of these people, the "Lamanites" became the red-skinned American Indians whom God cursed. In 385 A.D. the Lamanites killed all the Nephites, except Moroni (the son of Mormon) who buried the gold plates. It is claimed that this same Moroni (this time as an angel) appeared to Joseph Smith in 1827 and revealed to him the gold plates. The platers were, presumably translated by Smith as he dictated to several different men.
On the very surface such a story is credulous! Common sense dictates that reasonable people reject this as a purely fictious acocunt.
But the question remains, "Where did Joseph Smith get such a story?" Did he make the whole thing up? Not likely, for Smith was not capable of such an extensive writing; and he was only eighteen when he claimed the angel told him of the gold plates. What then, is the origin of this book? The answer to this is now known!
For over 150 years it has been suspected that the Book of Mormon was actually a plagiarism of an unpublished, biblically styled, handwritten novel by Solomon Spalding (1761-1816) entitled "Manuscript Found." Many documented statements from people who knew Spalding's works point to the fact that he devoted much time to speculating about how people first came to the Americas. A number of people familiar with Spalding's novel "Manuscript Found" had testified in writing that it was one and the same as the Book of Mormon except for some modifications and religious matter which had been added.
Some of these witnesses state that Spalding's novel had been stoled from a print shop by one Sidney Rigdon, who was one of the original founders of the Mormon movement. Through the years the Mormon church has of course, rejected this informaiton. However, hard evidence has now surfaced which corroborates this conclusion and cannot be successfully denied!
In the mid 1970's three ex-Mormons began extensive research into the matter of the origin of the Book of Mormon. They are Wayne Cowdrey (descendant of one of the original Mormon leaders), Howard Davis and Donald Scales. The results of their research is now in book form entitled "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?"
Through close friends in the Mormon church, they were able with some difficulty, to obtain copies of portions of the original handwritten manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Their investigation centered around twelve pages of this manuscript which Mormon authorities for years had attributed to an "unknown scribe" since they did not match the handwriting of other pages. These twelve pages were obviously written by someone other than those to whom Joseph Smith was supposed to have dictated the Book of Mormon. But who was this person? When they compared these twelve pages with some known samples of Solomon Spalding's handwriting, they matched perfectly! There is no doubt that Spalding is the author if these twelve pages.
For some reason, whoever plagiarized from Spaldings Manuscript Found did not copy this part of his manuscript, but simply retained the original pages in his own handwriting. Handwriting experts have definitely identified these samples as belonging to the same person. The truth is, Spalding's work resurfaced as the Book of Mormon.
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