B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon,
2nd edition (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992), 377
pages, paperback, ISBN 1-56085-027-2
Incredible as it may seem to many Latter-day Saints,
Brigham H. Roberts (1857-1933), an LDS General Authority
widely considered Mormonism's greatest apologist and
historian,1
expressed the grave doubt that the Book of Mormon is a
translation of ancient scripture. Elder Roberts reached
this conclusion after his research uncovered extensive
evidence that Joseph Smith borrowed the basic plot and
many details from other books. This evidence — long
suppressed because it is considered harmful to the
Mormon Church — is presented in detail in three essays
by Roberts, now published as Studies of the Book of
Mormon (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1992).
More than fifty years after his death, Roberts is still
well known through his many writings. They include the —
Introduction and Notes — to Joseph Smith's seven volume
History of the Church, the six volume A
Comprehensive History of the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints, Outlines of Ecclesiastical
History, and New Witnesses for God (3 vols).
However, in 1922 Roberts became aware of troubling
evidence that Joseph Smith borrowed much of the plot and
other details of the Book of Mormon from other books
readily available to him,2
in particular Josiah Priest's Wonders of Nature and
Providence, and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews.
For instance, it is often thought the Book of Mormon
claim that the American Indians are descendents of
Hebrew immigrants is a novel idea that young Joseph
Smith could not have invented. But Roberts discovered
from Priest's book, published in 1824, six years before
the first edition of the Book of Mormon (1830), that it
was the almost universal opinion of the ministers of New
England and the Middle States, that the Indians were the
descendants of the Hebrews (Studies, p. 153).
In Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, first
published in 1823, seven years before the Book of Mormon
(and in a second edition in 1825), Roberts discovered a
virtual ground plan for the Book of Mormon. In section
two of Studies of the Book of Mormon, entitled,
"A Book of Mormon Study," Roberts takes nearly 100 pages
to describe the specific parallels between Ethan
Smith's, View of the Hebrews and the Book of
Mormon.
Did Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews furnish
structural material for Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon?
Roberts was forced to admit that the evidence pointed in
this direction:
It has been pointed out in these pages that there are many things in the former book that might well have suggested many major things in the other. Not a few things merely, one or two, or half dozen, but many; and it is this fact of many things of similarity and the cumulative force of them that makes them so serious a menace to Joseph Smith's story of the Book of Mormon's origin ... The material in Ethan Smith's book is of a character and quantity to make a ground plan for the Book of Mormon (Studies, p. 240).
Having established that Joseph Smith had plenty of material from which to get his ideas for the Book of Mormon, Roberts moves to a second key question: Did the young Joseph Smith have enough naturally creative ability to weave together a narrative like the Book of Mormon:
... was Joseph Smith possessed of a sufficiently vivid and creative imagination as to produce such a work as the Book of Mormon from such materials as have been indicated in the preceding chapters ...? That such power of imagination would have to be of a high order is conceded; that Joseph Smith possessed such a gift of mind there can be no question (Studies, p. 243).
One of the things that convinced Roberts of this is the testimony of Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack Smith. She wrote the following about her son's creative abilities:
During our evening conversations, Joseph would occasionally give us some of the most amusing recitals that could be imagined. He would describe the ancient inhabitants of this continent, their dress, mode of travelings, and the animals upon which they rode; their cities, their buildings, with every particular; their mode of warfare; and also their religious worship. This he would do with as much ease, seemingly, as if he had spent his whole life among them (Studies, p. 243).
From this testimony it is apparent that Joseph was known
by his own family as quite a storyteller. And the
significance of this evening storytelling, Roberts
points out, is that Joseph was doing all this before he
had supposedly received the gold plates from the angel
Moroni (Studies, p. 244).
Based on this evidence, Roberts draws the following
conclusion:
These evening recitals could come from no other source than the vivid, constructive imagination of Joseph Smith, a remarkable power which attended him through all his life. It was as strong and varied as Shakespeare's and no more to be accounted for than the English Bard's (Studies, p. 244).
Statements like these help us understand why LDS
church leaders did not want the B. H. Roberts material
in circulation. And even today, many people are still
unaware of the evidence compiled by this well-known
Mormon apologist and historian. Fortunately, this
fascinating research is now easily accessible to any who
want a fuller understanding of the true origins of the
Book of Mormon.
Notes
1 Roberts was ranked the greatest intellectual in Mormon history in surveys by LDS scholars Leonard Arrington in 1969 and Stan Larson in 1993 — see Leonard J. Arrington, "The Intellectual Tradition of the Latter-day Saints," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 4 (Spring 1969), pp. 13-26 and Stan Larson, "Intellectuals in Mormonism: An Update," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 26 (Fall 1993), pp. 187-89.
2
Josiah Priest's Wonders of Nature and Providence was
published in New York state, only about twenty miles
from where the Smith family resided from about 1815 to
1830, and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews was
published in Poultney, Vermont, only a few miles from
Windsor, Vermont where Joseph Smith's family lived until
he was ten years of age. Roberts considered it
"probable" that Ethan Smith's book was "either possessed
by Joseph Smith or certainly known by him, for [it] was
surely available to him" — Studies of the Book of
Mormon, p. 153.