One other who learned this was the Rev. Ethan Smith, a minister from the 1700s to the 1800s. He was a very respected man who loved the LORD and the Word of God. He wrote a great deal about the subject of ancient Israelites in America but did not publish it for a long time because he was afraid it would damage the great credibility and respect he had with people. (Even today, a lot of people get upset about this truthful teaching.)
The Rev. Ethan Smith talked about his beliefs with a close friend who expressed great interest in them. Therefore he shared his extensive research and writings with this man. This man was the Rev. Solomon Spalding.
Solomon Spalding underwent great changes after the French revolution of the early 1790s that began the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ or the ‘Age of Reason’. In 1795 he married a woman who was very worldly and very much interested in the things of this world. Spalding began to seek riches on earth rather than riches in heaven. He came to believe that the Bible was just a book by men that had a lot of good ideas, but that was used by men to control others.
Spalding started a lot of business ventures, each of which failed. He also wrote novels trying to come up with a best seller to get rich with, but nothing ever came of them in his lifetime that ended with an early death in 1816.
One of the manuscripts Spalding wrote was called ‘Manuscript Found or The Lost Tribes’. It told the story of an ancient manuscript that was dug up that told the story of ancient Israelites who came to America and came to be known as Indians. He wrote it in a Biblical style using Biblical writings that he thought were good things all throughout his novel. He did this because he thought the Bible had been a successful book and he thought he could capitalize on that success by copying it.
Spalding took the factual research of his old friend from many years earlier, Rev. Ethan Smith, and made up a fictional story using that research to try and make some money. Spalding gave names to characters such as Lehi, Nephi and Moroni.
The elderly Rev. Ethan Smith finally published his factual works in 1823 and 1825 in the first and second editions of his writings called ‘Views of the Hebrews’. The Rev. Ethan Smith was pastor of the Congregationalist church in the Vermont town where Joseph Smith grew up. Oliver Cowdery’s stepmother was also a member of Rev. Ethan Smith’s church.
The idea that Indians could be ancient Israelites was actually a fairly common topic of discussion in the 1810s and 1820s from Vermont downward into western New York, and western Pennsylvania and its border with eastern Ohio. All of these areas encompassed the areas traveled by Joseph Smith’s family and later by Joseph Smith himself.
Articles were published on the subject in local publications. The local Palmyra newspaper, to which the Joseph Smith family subscribed, also published articles on the topic of the Hebrew origin of the Indians, and employed many of the same arguments to support the idea as those found in almost hand-book form in the Rev. Ethan Smith’s work.
The headquarters of Joseph Smith’s "church" was in Ohio for a time in the early 1830s. Orson Hyde spoke in the Conneaut, Ohio schoolhouse in 1832 about the message from the Book of Mormon. An old friend of the late Solomon Spalding, the Honorable Nehmiah King left the meeting proclaiming that Hyde had just preached from the writings of Solomon Spalding. King had been Justice of the Peace when Spalding lived in Conneaut in the early 1810s. The man who followed King as Justice of the Peace, Aaron Wright, was another old friend of Solomon Spalding from that time. He gave the same testimony as King.
A group of Conneaut, Ohio townspeople gathered to investigate this possibility. They consisted of judges, lawyers, a doctor, legislator, a successful businessman and a prominent farmer. They went chapter by chapter through the Book of Mormon, compared it with Spalding’s ‘Manuscript Found’ and discovered that the story, style, and specific names were the same in each!
The Mormon church teaches that "Urim and Thummim" was used to translate the Book of Mormon. However, this explanation was not given until 1833 to disguise the truth as reported by the three witnesses of David Whitmer, Martin Harris and Oliver Cowdery, and by Joseph Smith’s own wife Emma. The testimony of all these agree. Following is the exact testimony of David Whitmer:
"I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man."
"I, as well as all of my father's family, Smith's wife, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, were present during the translation. . . . He [Joseph Smith] did not use the plates in translation"
You can read more details at:
http://www.irr.org/MIT/divination.html#return4Joseph Smith used a "seer stone". This was a very popular practice from the late 1700s until the early 1830s. Oliver Cowdery’s father used a "seer stone" and divining rods in the late 1700s and early 1800s, as did Oliver Cowdery in later years. Joseph Smith’s father took him down to southwest Pennsylvania to try and find treasure with a "seer stone" in the early 1820s, and lost his home to foreclosure when this scheme didn’t work. Joseph Smith himself was convicted in 1826 in New York for cheating people out of money using a "seer stone". The year 1826 is right in the middle of the precise time Smith later claimed that he was on a holy mission being guided by the angel Moroni – while he was defrauding people of money using an old scam.
By the 1830s, the old "seer stone" routine was finally beginning to become routinely exposed for the hoax that it was, so the explanation for the receiving of the Book of Mormon was changed in 1833 to "Urim and Thummim" that is never explained or described! The "Urim and Thummim" of Mormonism is a divining "seer stone" forbidden in the Old Testament that is a purely occult practice.
The Honorable Aaron Wright, former Justice of the Peace and friend to the late Solomon Spalding, wrote in 1833 about the Book of Mormon, "if it is not Spalding’s writings copied it is the same as he wrote and if Smith was inspired I think it was by the same Spirit that Spalding possessed which he confessed to be the love of money."
In 1909, the Mormon Historian and General Authority Brigham H. Roberts wrote in "New Witnesses For God" against the idea that the Book of Mormon was taken from earlier human sources than Joseph Smith claimed.
The Mormon "apostle" James Talmage received in 1922 some objections to the Book of Mormon from a historical standpoint. Talmage sent the objections to Roberts. The Mormon Historian Roberts, a General Authority of the church discovered at that time Ethan Smith’s "View of the Hebrews" and returned to Talmage a 141-page report that did not answer the objections, but rather supported them! The church then covered it up.
A man who did not believe the Bible is the Word of God, Solomon Spalding, wrote a fictional story based on factual information in order to get rich. He failed to acquire riches. Joseph Smith and his co-conspirators reworked the tale (a little) and declared it to be revelation from God, and cashed in as Spalding was never able to do. The con continues to this day with some still cashing in on the apostate bedevilment that is the Book of Mormon. One of the saddest things about all of this is that the truths about Israel and America are besmirched due to the lies of Mormonism.
Many besides Mormons have used the Bible for their own purposes including fame, power and riches. Smith, as well as his latter day cohorts, were and are not the first and (tragically) won’t be the last.
