Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews: A Source for the Book of Mormon

L. Ara Norwood’s book review, “ Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon at FARMS (FARMS Review of Books, Vol. 2, No. 1, 1990, pp. 187-204) deals with one of the most significant anti-Mormon efforts to explain the Book of Mormon. His review of David Persuitte’s Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon discusses both strengths and weaknesses of Persuitte’s approach. It also shows that Persuitte’s analysis, even if unchallenged, at best accounts for less than 5% of the verses in the Book of Mormon. Further, the scattered parallels Pursuitte points to do nothing to explain away numerous elements pointing to ancient origins (things like chiasmus, Hebraisms, the accurate details from the Arabian peninsula, etc.).

Parallels between unrelated books are easier to find than you might think. I believe that the parallels between the Book of Mormon and Walt Whitmans’s The Leaves of Grass are more impressive than anything you’ll find by reading View of the Hebrews, but that is due entirely to chance since Whitman’s work came long after the Book of Mormon and obviously was not influenced by it (no, don’t try to craft an argument that Whitman was secretly collaborating with Mormons to account for these chance parallels!). The finding of parallels by itself means very little. (For additional discussion on proposed origins for the Book of Mormon, see my Mormon Answers page on Joseph Smith and alleged plagiarism.)

Less than 5% of the Book of Mormon “related” to View of the Hebrews? I bet if I put on my Sherlock Holmes hat and worked hard enough, I could find 7% to be “related” to Whitman. But that’s a 7% solution you don’t want to drink.

Author: Jeff Lindsay

58 thoughts on “Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews: A Source for the Book of Mormon

  1. Parallels between unrelated books are easier to find than you might think.

    How does this affect our perceptions of how strong the parallels are that Hugh Nibley finds between the Enoch material in the Book of Moses and the pseudepigrapha containing Enoch material?

  2. It would be time that critics took a serious look on the books they present as ‘evidence’ of plagarism. I suppose that The Golden Pot will be invoked by an ‘anonymous’ commentator in this thread. Or possibly, Grant’s Palmer book, Insider’s View of Mormon Origins or Cowdrey’s Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma. Any other books that I might be missing? Whilst amusing, their parallels could hardly provide evidence of authorship. In that sense, I like Jeff’s highly statirical sketch about the origins of the Book of Mormon. All the themes that run in the Book of Mormon would take a vast library, that is ever expanding. Knowledge on ancient poetry, military warfare tactics, ancient construction techniques, etc, would have been required to elaborate the Book of Mormon. It would be nice from critics to provide the list of books that Joseph actually utilised, from documentary evidences, i.e., that show that he actually had a copy of the book and read it.

  3. The 11/17/05 New York Review of Books has a review of the new Bushman bio of Joseph Smith. The review begins:

    “I, Nephi…,” the first words of the Book of Mormon—to some twelve million members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, or Mormons, a holy book—reminds me of a similarly brisk summons to attention: “Call me Ishmael,” the famous first words of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. In the Book of Mormon, the biblical Ishmael, son of Abraham, soon appears and helps the questing Nephi out of a spot of trouble with the locals….

    The truth is out! Joseph Smith plagarized Moby Dick!

  4. “I suppose that The Golden Pot will be invoked by an ‘anonymous’ commentator in this thread.”

    Hehe, already happened, although the commentator wasn’t anon. Sorry you missed that conversation, AG. It was several weeks ago and was quite lively.

  5. I think I read the wrong story. The authot was Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann, not the one I found. Carry on…

  6. Please note that Grant Palmer is not claiming that The Golden Flower Pot is the source for the Book of Mormon, but the source for Joseph Smith’s story of how he found and translated the Book of Mormon.

    The thinnest of evidence has been employed to make this connection. Keep in mind that Thomas Carlyle’s English translation of The Golden Flower Pot wasn’t published until 1827, long after Joseph claimed to have encountered Moroni and learned of the plates and his commission (1823). Residents in Palmyra were aware of Joseph’s claims before 1827. And Palmer has yet to turn up one shred of evidence that Joseph Smith was aware of The Golden Flower Pot, let alone had read or purchased a copy.

    Like I said, Moby Dick is a more likely source for the Book of Mormon. And don’t forget Jeff Lindsay prefers Leaves of Grass.

  7. Strange, I always thought there was an uncanny resemblence between the BoM and Green Eggs and Ham.

    “I, Nephi…”

    “Sam I am”

    See what I mean?

  8. Because of what I’ve read on this blog and Jeff Lindsay’s Book of Mormon evidence pages, I’m noticing things in the Book of Mormon that I haven’t seen before. I recently finished reading Helaman chapter 5, and I noticed how Helaman’s words to his sons Nephi and Lehi are marked off using a verbal form of quote marks in verses 5 and 13.

  9. Has anyone made claim that Oliver Cowdery was the real author of the Book of Mormon? After all, he was more educated than Joseph Smith, and had access to more literature.

  10. “Has anyone made claim that Oliver Cowdery was the real author of the Book of Mormon? After all, he was more educated than Joseph Smith, and had access to more literature.”

    I guess they could try. I mean he was Lucy Mack Smith’s 3rd cousin so he was obviously willing to lie for the cause! 😉

    One problem is that he didnt come on until after the 116 pages were lost. So some writing was going on at least before his arrival.

  11. Mike Parker: Has the New York Review of Books been made aware of how pathetically misinformed they are on the identity of Ishmael in the Book of Mormon? Apparently they think if two people have the same first name, they must be the same person.

  12. The NY Review of Books was reviewing Rough Stone Rolling, not the Book of Mormon, so I’m willing to cut them some slack.

    But my experience has been that most book reviewers know very, very little about the subject matter they’re reviewing.

    This is also true for journalists and the subjects about which they write.

  13. I’m constantly amazed by the number of critics of the Book of Mormon who claim its origins are in View of the Hebrews.

    Read the Amazon.com reader reviews of David Persuitte’s book (reviewed by Ara Norwood in Jeff’s blog post). It makes me wonder if any of these people have actually read Ethan Smith’s book.

    For example, this from one-hit-wonder musician and ex-Mormon Tal Bachman:

    “…Persuitte does a good job of covering just about every base there is: Joseph’s early career in confidence scheming, his early trial, the contradictory versions of the stories, etc. He is also very good when occasionally dealing with LDS apologetic arguments, which I think without exception are far more embarrassing than helpful to their cause, so bad are they.”

    Did Bachman read View of the Hebrews? Did he read Norwood’s review of Persuitte? It doesn’t seem so. In fact, I’d be surprised if he is aware of Norwood. For him, the case has been closed, and any attempts to refute it are “embarrassing.”

    Sad.

  14. What was funny to me were the anti-mormons who thought the book was a pro-mormon book, and therefore called it garbage. Ha.

  15. It seems that some critics don’t distinguish between a book being “authentic ancient writing” and being “scripture.” If I remember history class correctly, historical details tend to be so sketchy that archeologists take an “authentic ’til proven fake” approach with any document they’re lucky enough to find.

    Unlike your average ancient document, they demand that the Book of Mormon be “proven” authentic, even though the evidence for is much more convincing than the evidence against, in my opinion.

    That’s what you get for claiming to translate it by the power of God, I guess… it’s kind of awkward argue that it’s completely false if it’s authentic.

  16. Anonymous @12:19 AM maybe you would like to consider this version of 1 Nephi written in the style of Dr. Seuss.

    Most critics rehash writtings from previous anti Mormons, i.e., Tanners, Brodie, even Howe, in order to attempt a new approach. This is sad. Instead of proposing other points of discussion, they just reheat. Maybe The New Mormon Challenge is separated from the rest of the books. But I agree with Mike Parker, the commonality is quite sad.

    Samuel, yep too bad that I missed the discussion. But bet that those books were featured, together with such ‘classics’ as the Tanners Covering the Black Hole in the Book of Mormon and the Solomon Spaulding manuscript. Lets move on from those ‘sources’.

  17. Ryan: “Unlike your average ancient document, they demand that the Book of Mormon be “proven” authentic, even though the evidence for is much more convincing than the evidence against, in my opinion.”

    Ummm…what historian has seen the gold plates? We don’t have an ancient document anywhere, we have a putative translation.

    What Scholars have seen of the “source material” has been damning. Contrary to legend, Professor Anton did not agree that the characters off of the Gold Plates were Egyptian in origin.

    When informed that the Mormons claimed he validated the ancient origins of the BOM he quickly wrote a letter to refute that claim.

    The full text is as follows:

    New York, Feb. 17, 1834.
    Dear Sir — I received this morning your favor of the 9th instant,
    and lose no time in making a reply. The whole story about my
    having pronouncd the Mormonite inscription to be “reformed
    Egyptian hieroglyphics” is perfectly false. Some years ago, a plain,
    and apparently simple-hearted farmer, called upon me with a note
    from Dr. Mitchell of our city, now deceased, requesting me to
    decypher, if possible, a paper, which the farmer would hand me,
    and which Dr. M. confessed he had been unable to understand.
    Upon examining the paper in question, I soon came to the
    conclusion that it was all a trick, perhaps a hoax.
    When I asked the person, who brought it, how he obtained the
    writing, he gave me, as far as I can now recollect, the following
    account: A “gold book,” consisting of a number of plates of gold,
    fastened together in the shape of a book by wires of the same
    metal, had been dug up in the northern part of the state of New
    York, and along with the book an enormous pair of “gold
    spectacles”! These spectacles were so large, that, if a person
    attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to be
    turned towards one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in
    question being altogether too large for the breadth of the human
    face. Whoever examined the plates through the spectacles, was
    enabled not only to read them, but fully to understand their
    meaning. All this knowledge, however, was confined at that time
    to a young man, who had the trunk containing the book and
    spectacles in his sole possession. This young man was placed
    behind a curtain, in the garret of a farmhouse, and being thus concealed from view, put on the spectacles
    occasionally, or rather, looked through one of the glasses,
    decyphered the characters in the book, and, having committed
    some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain, to
    those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said
    about the plates having been decyphered “by the gift of God.”
    Everything, in this way, was effected by the large pair of
    spectacles. The farmer added, that he had been requested to
    contribute a sum of money towards the publication of the “golden
    book,” the contents of which would, as he had been assured,
    produce an entire change in the world and save it from ruin. So
    urgent had been these solicitations, that he intended selling his
    farm and handing over the amount received to those who wished
    to publish the plates. As a last precautionary step, however, he
    had resolved to come to New York, and obtain the opinion of the
    learned about the meaning of the paper which he brought with him,
    and which had been given him as a part of the contents of the
    book, although no translation had been furnished at the time by
    the young man with the spectacles.
    On hearing this odd story, I changed my opinion about the paper,
    and, instead of viewing it any longer as a hoax upon the learned,
    I began to regard it as part of a scheme to cheat the farmer of his
    money, and I communicated my suspicions to him, warning him to
    beware of rogues
    . He requested an opinion from me in writing,
    which of course I declined giving, and he then took his leave
    carrying the paper with him. This paper was in fact a singular
    scrawl. It consisted of all kinds of crooked characters disposed in
    columns, and had evidently been prepared by some person who
    had before him at the time a book containing various alphabets.
    Greek and Hebrew letters, crosses and flourishes, Roman letters
    inverted or placed sideways, were arranged in perpendicular
    columns,and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks, and
    evidently copied after the Mexican Calender given by Humboldt,
    but copied in such a way as not to betray the source whence it
    was derived.
    I am thus particular as to the contents of the paper, inasmuch as I have frequently conversed with my friends of the
    subject, since the Mormonite excitement began, and well remember that the paper contained any thing else but “Egyptian Hieroglyphics.”
    Some time after, the same farmer paid me a second visit. He
    brought with him the golden book in print, and offered it to me for
    sale. I declined purchasing. He then asked permission to leave the
    book with me for examination. I declined receiving it, although his
    manner was strangely urgent. I adverted once more to the roguery
    which had been in my opinion practised upon him, and asked him
    what had become of the gold plates. He informed me that they
    were in a trunk with the large pair of spectacles. I advised him to
    go to a magistrate and have the trunk examined. He said the
    “curse of God” would come upon him should he do this. On my
    pressing him, however, to pursue the course which I had recommended, he told me that he would open the trunk, if I would take the “curse of God” upon myself. I replied that I would do so with the greatest willingness, and would incur every risk of that nature, provided I could only extricate him from the grasp of rogues. He then left me.
    I have thus given you a full statement of all that I know respecting the origin of Mormonism, and must beg you, as a personal favor, to publish this letter immediately, should you find my name
    mentioned again by these wretched fanatics.
    Yours respectfully, CHAS. ANTHON.

    So I would suggest Ryan first, that you surely haven’t seen all the relevant evidence, so perhaps you should reevaluate your opinion.

    Second, the reason many don’t respect the ancient origin claim is that nothing certifiably ancient nor documentary exists to credit the Book of Mormon.

    We only have what Joseph et al gave us.

    The same pattern continues with the Book of Abraham, the Kinderplates and so on.

  18. Oh I get it. Dr. Anthon immediately told Martin Harris that it was fake and a fraud but refused to sign a letter to that effect. Martin immediately went home and told his wife it was a bunch of hokum and never had anything to do with Joseph Smith again. Um, not quite.

    Martin went home satisfied enough to later finance the printing of the BoM (which he had to sell 150 acres of his farm for), became one of the Three Witnesses for the BoM and never recanted his testimony.

    BYU Alter, did you ever think Dr. Anthon might be lying to protect his reputation, the story going around that he agreed the translation was correct? You never seem to think that the critics might have ulterior motives. Besides the fact that the later actions (and later statements) of Martin Harris belie the idea that he got a negative response from Dr. Anthon.

    Honestly, I think you can do better than this.

  19. “Second, the reason many don’t respect the ancient origin claim is that nothing certifiably ancient nor documentary exists to credit the Book of Mormon.”

    Byu Alter,

    I would enjoy hearing your explanation of how the ancient literary form of chiasmus turned up in the BoM.

    Further, I would enjoy hearing your explanation of how JS wrote of an ancient city that has the same name, meaning, and location as the equivalent in the BoM (Nahom).

  20. I wonder if Prof Anthon has accepted the gospel in the Spirit World.

    Does anyone know if his temple proxy work has been done?

  21. AE,

    Why would Martin Harris, who was skeptical already, come home glowing about Anthon’s approval of the characters if Anthon told him the characters were fake? Can a man be so delusional that he’s convinced himself that he’s not delusional so that he can be deluded by his own desire for delusion?

  22. Speaking as devil’s advocate here. Suppose Martin Harris was in on the hoax with Joseph Smith. That would have given him motive to lie about what Anthon said.

    But, even after leaving the church, or at least leaving the body of saints, he never recanted his testimony of witnessing the plates for himself.

    Does anyone know the name of the talk or “one man play” that someone did not too long ago? It contained the testimony of someone who was a little boy of a family with whom an aged Martin Harris spent a night with not long before his death. Martin gave a powerful testimony to the little boy, who went on to repeat it throughout his adult life into the 20th century.

  23. Is it correct that Martin Harris never recouped his investment or loan for the printing costs of the first edition of the Book of Mormon?

  24. Indy,

    I don’t know if Martin ever recouped his money. It can also be said of Dr. Anthon that in a different letter he claimed he had given Martin a letter stating that he believed the whole thing was a fraud, so his two statements do not match.

    The thing about the English boy and Martin Harris is found on the DVD of Teaching from the Doctrine and Covenants and Church History in the section “The Works and Designs of God.” It is found here:

    http://www.ldsvideo.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=534

    I am sure that a play has been made about it, I mean if you can write an opera about Abinadi, you can do anything! 😉

  25. I found this site a few nights ago. I must say that after reading each night my brain hurts. At any rate, GREAT blog. I’ll be a lurker, for sure. I’ve been a member all of my life but very ignorant when it comes to the “deep” gospel. Great blog. Keep it coming!

  26. BYU Alter,

    Obviously Martin Harris or Dr. Anton lied. You seem fairly willing to believe the only one of the two that had any reason to lie.

    Had Joseph Smith himself gone, then you might have an argument. If you claim Harris was in on it, why stay loyal to the fraud after he left the church?

    If you have a reasonable answer, you might have a point.

    If not, please don’t ever bring this argument up again. It doesn’t make you look very good– and that’s a shame, really, because you’re such a smart person.

    –John

  27. Mike Parker: ” Add to that the fact that Anthon gave two written accounts of the events of that day, and they conflict with each other.

    Sidney Sperry dealt with this decades ago, but, as usual, Book of Mormon critics are blissfully unaware of it.”

    I wasn’t blissfully unaware of that article actually. The difference you speak of has to do with whether Prof. Anthon gave Martin a written opinion or not, not about his verdict on the charaters.

    In both letters he asserts that the characters were not genuine.

    Also, the thesis of that essay in the end is complete conjecture. Sydney asserts that Martin should be believed over Prof. Anthon. The problem there is that the description we have of Martin’s account is actually what Joseph related.

    So on the one hand we have double hear-say, on the other we have two letters written by Anthon himself, both maintaining that the characters were not genuine.

    Let’s ask a question then: What motive would Joseph have to assert that Martin said the characters were geniune? It’ obvious.

    Also the essay argues that Prof. Anthon wouldn’t have been able to translate the characters anyways. If I’m not mistaken this occured pre-Rosetta stone so no one could translate Egyptian back then. So how is that relevant?

    Enlightening is the fact that now that we have the Rosetta Stone, and yet no one has been able to translate them still should tell you something. If they were truly Egyptian in origin at least some extrapolation would be possible.

    More likely is that you just can’t translate jibberish.

    To Samuel:

    You said: “Oh I get it. Dr. Anthon immediately told Martin Harris that it was fake and a fraud but refused to sign a letter to that effect. Martin immediately went home and told his wife it was a bunch of hokum and never had anything to do with Joseph Smith again. Um, not quite.”

    As Mike pointed out before, in one letter Prof. Anthon does claim to give Martin a letter to that effect. So why wouldn’t Martin turn his back on Joseph at that point? Come on, that’s easy. Martin was a person who believed strongly in the mystical. There was a dearth of scepticism among the people at the time. He was enamored with the advent of Joseph and the BOM. He felt it was important obviously.

    His desire for Anthon’s validation probably has a lot more to do with his wife than his own scepticism. Remember the 117 pages affair? That was ALL about his wife.

    Would Martin have a reason to lie about his encounter with Prof. Anthon? Yes. But we’ll never know will we? Because we only have what Joseph tells us.

    Samuel: “Honestly, I think you can do better than this.”

    So, you’re saying that your double hearsay account is more reliable than two source documents?

    Um…YOU can do better.

    Samuel: “I would enjoy hearing your explanation of how the ancient literary form of chiasmus turned up in the BoM.”

    First the presence of chiasmus does not make a document ancient. The D&C has Chiasmus. So do the words of men like Shakespeare, Goethe, even JFK.

    Remember, “…ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.”

    Samuel: “Further, I would enjoy hearing your explanation of how JS wrote of an ancient city that has the same name, meaning, and location as the equivalent in the BoM (Nahom).”

    Lets be clear, what was found in Arabia was an inscription on an altar that translated reads: “Biathar, son of Saw’d, son of Nawan, the Nihmite”

    S. Kent Brown in his FARMS article refers us to other examples of the use of NHM words in the area. “These Arab authors, Ibn al-Kalbi and al-Hamdani, refer variously to a pagan god known as Nuhum (Ibn al-Kalbi), a tribal ancestor named Nuham (Ibn al-Kalbi), and a region and a tribe called Nihm (al-Hamdani), all in southwest Arabia.”

    First, what we have is an altar, not necessarily a place. Second, it’s impossible to know what form NHM should be. Is it Nihm, Nuham, Nuhum or is it really Nahom? We’ll never know.

    I do concede that the word Nahom does exist in Arabic, and it also appears in the Ethiopian Old testament LINK. But certainly you’re not arguing this is a smoking gun? It’s absolutely no reason to act as smug as you do.

    What’s really sad is that to my knowledge this is the first piece of solid archeological evidence that even suggests a connection with BOM historicity.

    I hope you enjoyed… 😛

  28. John: “Obviously Martin Harris or Dr. Anton lied. You seem fairly willing to believe the only one of the two that had any reason to lie.”

    All people lie. No one reading this can honestly claim that they’ve never misrepresented the truth for selfish reasons.

    Do we all lack credibility then? No. Because you’ve lied in the past doesn’t mean you lie constantly.

    What’s most important about a person’s lies are the motives behind them.

    Professor Anthon wanted to be distanced from the Mormons, so he lied about cooperating with Martin’s request. Can we say that he lied about his analysis though? No, because he, in both letters, indicates that he didn’t believe the characters to be genuine.

    So yes, he lied, but his lie is far less relevent to our discussion. He wouldn’t have a reason to lie about the characters being false would he?

    Martin, and thus Joseph, on the other hand wanted to have validity for the Book of Mormon. This is the very thing we’re questioning and thus is far more relevant.

    John: “If not, please don’t ever bring this argument up again. It doesn’t make you look very good– and that’s a shame, really, because you’re such a smart person.”

    I’m flattered by the compliment, thank you.

    To be honest, I don’t see why you trivialize this issue. What Prof. Anthon wrote is very relevant to the subject. He clearly(and consistently) states that he didn’t believe the characters to be genuine.

    So were am I disinforming here?