Was Joseph Smith a Prophet,
or a Plagiarist?

"On the answer to this question hangs the authenticity of the Book of Mormon.  On the authenticity of the Book of Mormon and its account of the personal visit of Jesus Christ to the Ancient Americans after His resurrection hangs the most powerful and conclusive evidences of the deity of Jesus Christ since Golgotha."¹

Before reviewing the many evidences of the truth of the Book of Mormon, the question of the Solomon Spaulding's manuscript needs to be put to rest.  Did Joseph Smith write the book himself, or copy parts of someone else's book to produce the Book of Mormon?

It was chronologically impossible for the Spaulding manuscript to be transferred or stolen from the print shop during its printing, which was the claim of opponents to Joseph Smith being the "author" of the Book of Mormon.

RLDS Church Historian, Richard Howard, wrote an article on this subject in the Saints' Herald, 1977.

Spaulding Theory Discredited

"Question 11 -- Did Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon get their working plan for writing the Book of Mormon from a lost manuscript written by a learned Presbyterian preacher, Solomon Spaulding?
Answer -- About 1810-1812, Solomon Spaulding wrote a fictional account about some American Indian tribes.  His manuscript disappeared.  Some years after the publication of the Book of Mormon in 1830, critics began asserting that Joseph Smith had obtained and used the lost Spaulding Romance as the basis for the Book of Mormon.  The  Spaulding manuscript was found in Honolulu, Hawaii in the 1880s, and is now on deposit in Oberlin College, Ohio.

President Fairchild of that college wrote: 'The theory of the origin of the Book of Mormon in the traditional manuscript of Solomon Spaulding, will probably have to be relinquished.  Mr. Rice, myself, and others compared it with the  Book of Mormon and could detect no resemblance between the two, in general or in detail.  There seems to be no matter or incident common to the two.   The solemn style of the Book of Mormon, in imitation of the English scriptures, does not appear in the manuscript.'

L Woodbridge Riley says: 'In spite of a continuous stream of conjecture, it is as  yet impossible to pick out any special document as an original source of the Book of Mormon.  In particular the commonly accepted Spaulding theory is insoluble from external evidence.'

Some writers have changed their theories.   Alexander Campbell declared Joseph Smith to be the author.  After the Spaulding theory appeared he abandoned his first position in favor of the Spaulding theory.  If Campbell were still alive he would have to change horses again.

The Encyclopedia Britannica now says; 'It was a contention of the early anti-Mormons, now however discredited, that the  Book of Mormon as puclibhed by Smith, was rewritten with a few changes from an unpublished romance, The Manuscript Found, written before 1812 by Solomon Spaulding, a minister.'

Spaulding was long associated with the Presbyterian Church and later occupied the pulpit of the Congregational Church.

E.Cecil McGavin wrote: 'The spirit of the Congregational Church is entirely foreign to the spirit of the Book of Mormon.  There are no points of similarity respecting any subjects or features, nothing in common which would indicate that one acquainted with that organization could possibly have written the basic outline of the Book of Mormon.' " (Criticisms of the  Book of Mormon Answered, by Roy Weldon, pgs. 13-14)

Lets Examine Some of the Claims and Criticisms
of the Book of Mormon

Footnotes
1. The Book of Mormon Evidences Joseph Smith A Prophet, by Roy Weldon, p. 3