So who wrote the Book of Mormon?--a historical view from Sapper Daddy

A Big welcome back to Sapper Daddy who writes about the Spaulding-Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon Authorship. I will mention that this--while very plausible--is not what your average mormon will tell you about who wrote the Book of Mormon or how it came to be. Mormons are often woefully ignorant of their history. The versions they are taught are highly cleansed. and now . . . Sapper Daddy!


I mentioned earlier about the Spaulding-Rigdon theory of Book of Mormon authorship.  So what it it? 

Solomon Spaulding was born in Connecticut in 1761, .  He, among other things, was an author.  In his various fictional works, he portrayed the Native Americans as lost peoples from the Old World (sound familiar?).  One of his works, entitledManuscript Found, circulated among his friends and family.  One of the places that Spaulding lived was in Northeastern Ohio in the town of Conneaut.  Spaulding moved to Pittsburg, where he attempted to get his work published, but on condition that he pay for the printing and make some revisions to the manuscript.  Spaulding never did get enough money to have his work published before his death in 1815.  The manuscript described a man named Lehi and his son Nephi and their family's journey to the New World from Jerusalem (again, sound familiar?) and their subsequent split into groups called Nephites and Lamanites.  The manuscript, for a time, disappeared from the printer's shop.  Spaulding suspected a young man who worked at the shop of having stolen and copied this manuscript.  His name was Sidney Rigdon.  Yes, the same Sidney Rigdon who was a close associate of Joseph Smith and at times Smith's closest confidant and friend. 

Rigdon became the pastor of a Baptist Church in Pittsburg.  Rigdon adopted many divergent beliefs from his Baptist faith, adopting many practices of of groups in the area that experimented with things like communitarianism and modern prophecy.  One thing to remember is that the context of the time and place was one of extensive religious revival, known as the Second Great Awakening.  The area around the Erie Canal where the early events of Mormonism took place was known as the Burned Over District because of all the revivalist preachers and prophets who frequented the area and condemned it to hell repeatedly.  As the Erie Canal was one of the largest building projects ever even contemplated in the United States with a rapid influx of workers and new immigrants into a previously area of wilderness, this area was in great upheaval.  Many of the workers were rough men, who alarmed many of the established settlers.  To cope with these gigantic, rapid changes in society, many residents turned to religion. 

Most important for the development of Rigdon's theology was the Baptist reformer Alexander Campbell.  Campbell believed that Christians needed to go back to a primitive church structure as he believed existed in the time of the apostles and that there was a great apostacy from the teaching of Christ in modern Christianity.  Ridgon's church split with those who followed him merging with a similiar congregation in the area to for what they called the Church of Christ.  By 1827, Rigdon had started to write his own version of Spauling's work, mixing it with biblical teachings to make his own scripture.  In 1828, Rigdon met Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery, who connected him with Joseph Smith.  With his own book of scripture complete, but needing a way to publish it that removed him from the process, they story of Joseph Smith's conversations with God and angels was perfect.  Together with Oliver Cowdery, Rigdon prepared the manuscript for publication with Smith's help.  Finding a way to dupe well-to-do farmer Martin Harris with Smith's gift of translation (probably reading scraps of the manuscript placed into a hat).  As part of the confidence scheme, Smith gained the trust of Harris and managed to get the book finally published.

This is of course a simplified explanation of a very detailed and very complex theory of where the Book of Mormon came from, but the pieces to seem to fit quite well and it does seem to explain where things came from.  I would encourage anyone interested to look at some of the recently published, peer reviewed, computer analysis-based publications that look at the text and attempt to determine who wrote which parts.  These publications seem to confirm that it was generally Rigdon, with some parts tied together by Cowdery.  


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