Is there evidence that the Book of Mormon was plagiarized from a *fictional* story by Solomon Spalding?

Question

I've recently run across the idea that Joseph Smith just plagiarized and changes a few major parts of a fictional story by Solomon Spalding.

Wikipedia says: "Whether or not Mr. Spalding wrote a fictional history as a basis for the Book of Mormon remains a matter of scholarly debate. Despite the signed statements in 1833 in support of this thesis, no manuscript closely resembling the Book of Mormon exists today. Consequently, although the Spalding authorship was accepted as fact throughout the 19th Century, today most historians reject the Spalding thesis as an explanation of the origin of the Book of Mormon."

Is this just being politically correct so as to not offend Mormons? If you wish to link me to more information, for or against this claim, feel free. Just don't link me somewhere extremely bias (as in mormoninformation).

I'm not meaning to disrespect Mormons here, I'm just wanting to find out whether their first "prophet" was nothing more than a lying plagiarizer. :P

Derek

Answer 1

Have a look at 2 books
1. The Ossian Chronicles by James MacPherson
2. Who Relly Wrote the Book of Mormon? by Cowdery Davis and Scales.

The first book has so many parallels with the BOM that it is not funny. The author said that he found it in a hill when he was the same age as Joseph and that he translated it. It was the story of an ancient land and its language. He recanted in later life and admitted that he didn't find gold plates and that he wrote it off the top of his head.

Answer 2

First, Joseph Smith did no longer declare to jot down the e book of Mormon. He translated it. once you translate something you do no longer declare to be springing up an unique artwork. Now, i assume you have self belief that Joseph Smith made up the e book of Mormon, so which you're in seek of for literary works that would desire to teach the commencing place of the e book of Mormon. I used to ask your self approximately what became in the View of the Hebrews. for a protracted time I heard that the e book have been misplaced to historians, and a few have been claiming that the e book of Mormon became rather written by utilising Ethan Smith. Then the View of the Hebrews grew to alter into accessible. it relatively is no longer something like the e book of Mormon. All those fake claims of the e book of Mormon critics can now be thrown out because of the fact we can rather evaluate the two books. There are passages in the e book of Mormon that come from the Bible. no question approximately it. they're needless to say marked as coming from the Bible. There are passages in the recent testomony which come from the previous testomony. Does this recommend the recent testomony writers have been plagiarists? on no account. The credibility of the recent testomony isn't diminished by utilising claims of plagiarism. neither is Joseph Smith's credibility lessened, in my view.

Answer 3

Here is a link debunking the theory. It contains a very extensive explanation of the history, evidence, debunking of this theory.

The short answer to your questions are: No, there is no proof that it was plagiarized. No, it is not just political correctness. No, Joseph Smith was not a plagiarizer.

http://www.lightplanet.com/response/spalding.htm

Answer 4

Joseph Smith was just a pimply faced adolesent when he had his "visions" of golden tablets.