Origin of the Book of Mormon
Adherents to the Latter Day Saint movement view the Book of Mormon as a work of divinely inspired scripture, which was written by prophets in the ancient Americas.
Smith preached that the angel Moroni, a prophet in the Book of Mormon, directed him in the 1820s to a hill near his home in Palmyra, New York, where the plates were buried.
The Book of Mormon shares a lot of text which literary analysis shows is coincident with other available literature at the time of its production such as the View of the Hebrews, the Spalding Manuscript (often seen spelled as "Spaulding"), or the King James Version of the Bible.
The label "Golden Bible" predates the Book of Mormon, as legends of such an artifact circulated in Canada and upstate New York while Smith was growing up in Vermont.
[9][10] The claim is also made that Smith was aided in the creation of the Book of Mormon by one or more co-authors, such as Sidney Rigdon or Oliver Cowdery.
Persuitte argues the wording of the revelations indicates at least one other secret collaborator, as "if he had some partners who had imposed it upon him in order to prevent him from gathering too much power to himself.
"[11] In contrast, co-authors Jerald and Sandra Tanner argue the early text of the revelation merely demonstrates that "Joseph Smith was not planning on doing any other work besides the Book of Mormon".
A pastor who lived near Cowdery, Ethan Smith, had written View of the Hebrews, another work that has been posited as a source for the Book of Mormon.
According to these histories, only after his own baptism did Rigdon travel to New York, first meeting Smith in December 1830, nine months after the Book of Mormon's publication.
Religious adherents to the Latter-day Saints Movement generally accept Joseph Smith's account that he translated an ancient record[14] compiled and abridged by Mormon, a pre-Columbian resident of the Western Hemisphere.
[16] According to the accounts of Joseph Smith and his associates, the original record was engraved on thin, malleable sheets of metal ("leaves") with the appearance of gold, and bound with three rings at one edge.
[18] Near the end of Moroni's life (approximately AD 421), he placed these plates along with several other items in a stone box in a hillside (now named Cumorah) near present-day Palmyra, New York.
[22] David Whitmer was similarly adamant that none of the Three Witnesses ever denied their affidavit that they had seen the angel Moroni, who showed them the plates of gold, and that The Book of Mormon was of divine origin – even though each of the three separated from Joseph Smith and the church they had helped him found.
Historian Fawn Brodie expressed suspicion regarding these affidavits, claiming that the style of the statements was too similar and displayed too much uniformity.
[40] Another purported source of the Book of Mormon is View of the Hebrews, first published in 1823 by Ethan Smith (no relation), a pastor in Poultney, Vermont.
[31][42] Book of Mormon witness and scribe Oliver Cowdery, and his family, had attended Ethan Smith's church since November 1821.
Prior to his book's publication, Ethan Smith advocated his views regarding the origins of Native Americans in sermons to his congregations.
In 1825, Ethan Smith published an expanded second edition of View of the Hebrews, the same year that Cowdery left Poultney for New York state.
The parallels that Persuitte presents cover a broad range of topics, including religious ideas about the responsibility of the American people in convincing the Indians of their "Israelite" origins and converting them to Christianity.
[48] Critics have claimed several passages and thematic material in the Book of Mormon are found in Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature, published in 1825.
