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Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma

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Don't let the title fool you. Even though it's called Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon? and it's published by a religious publisher, this is NOT a religious book; it's a book ABOUT a religious book. The historical mystery here makes for a fascinating tale, even for readers who have no interest in religious books and care nothing about Mormonism. Indeed, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself would have been hard-pressed to come up with a better detective story, or a more colorful set of characters to go with it.

As the story goes, on the night of the autumnal equinox in the year 1827, young Joseph Smith, Jr. encountered an angel. According to Smith, this angel, whose name was Moroni, gave him an ancient book written in strange hieroglyphics on sheets of gold. Later, after Smith had translated these hieroglyphics by miraculous means, and after this translation had been duly recorded by a carefully chosen scribe, the angel came again and took the original back. Smith's translation, which he called The Book of Mormon, was published in 1830 and shortly thereafter became the a cornerstone of a new religion. Today that religion is known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints--the Mormons--and Joseph Smith is the man they revere as their prophet. The inherently theocratic nature of Mormonism coupled with its obvious financial strength and political influence in today's world, explain why it might be useful to inquire further into the obscure historical origins of a faith which few, even those who are part of it, know much about.

Did Joseph Smith really get The Book of Mormon from an angel, or did it perhaps have some other, more mundane, origin? Although Smith is unquestionably one of the more important figures in 19th century American history, the nagging question of Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon? has never really been laid to rest except by those willing to accept Smith's version of events on strength of faith alone. In exploring the mystery, and the controversy surrounding it, the authors weave a fascinating tale of intrigue and conspiracy.

Let us begin with poor old Solomon Spalding, a well-educated but pathetic once-reverend who, amidst ill health and profound doubts about his faith, foresook his western New York ministry shortly after 1800 to speculate in real estate along the shores of Lake Erie--an area then on America's wild frontier. Perhaps he would have prospered, had it not been for the callous maneuverings of a nefarious partner with political ties to president Thomas Jefferson, or the general havoc wreaked upon his land and its tenants by the coming of the War of 1812. Unable to absorb the financial shock of this one-two punch, Spalding found himself not only broke, but in declining health. Up to that time, he had often occupied himself with writing for amusement. Now, apparently out of sheer desperation, he decided to compose a novel in hopes that the money raised from its publication could provide for his family once he was gone. He would call his fanciful work A Manuscript Found, and it would chronicle, in semi-Biblical style, the pre-Columbian settlement of the New World by jews from the Holy Land. The fate of the Lost Tribes of Israel and the ethnic origins of the American Indians were hot topics in those days.

Towards the end of 1812, under increasing pressure from creditors and fearing imminent invasion by the British from across Lake Erie, Spalding took his wife and daughter to Pittsburgh, where he again took to working on his novel while making ends meet as best he could. During this time he had dealings with the firm of R & J Patterson, which expressed interest in publishing his book and made suggestions concerning its completion. The high cost of city life being a burden, Spalding moved his small family to nearby Amity, PA in 1814, where he continued to write while managing the local roadhouse as a "temperence tavern." At the time of his death two years later, Spalding's novel seems to have been complete, or nearly so, but remained unpublished. Afterwards, the manuscript mysteriously disappeared.

According to the authors, this is where the Spalding Enigma begins; for it is their assertion that Spalding's historical romance eventually fell into the hands of Joseph Smith who, with secret help from two of his associates, clandestinely transformed it into the allegedly scriptural Book of Mormon, the text of which now comprises the backbone of the Mormon faith. Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon? The Spalding Enigma painstakingly sets-forth the story of how this could have happened, carefully examines the lives of those who seem to have been most closely involved with it, and postulates that this was perhaps one of the most successful hoaxes of all time.

As already noted, Conan Doyle, himself no stranger to Mormonism, could hardly have created a more colorful batch of characters. Foremost among these, of course, is Joseph Smith himself. While many may recognize his name, few are aware that he had been arrested, tried and convicted of con-artistry only four years before he founded Mormonism, or that he is on record as having told no less than three very different stories about the origin of The Book of Mormon. Did God really choose Smith and send an angel to him as alleged, or, like so many others before him, was Joseph just another clever human tempted by the lure of power and money?

Joseph Smith lived in western New York. The manuscript of Solomon Spalding's unpublished fiction lay on the shelves of the Pittsburgh firm of R & J Patterson some 300 miles distant. According to the authors, the person responsible for bringing Spalding's manuscript to the attention of Joseph Smith was the Rev. Sidney Rigdon, a colorful, somewhat notorious, mentally unbalanced, renegade Baptist preacher who was so convinced he was doing God's work that he had no qualms about the ends justifying the means. Perhaps Rigdon really did believe he was God's warrior in the movement to restore primitive Christianity to mankind, but to most of those around him, he was the sort of person everyone loved to hate--a process that usually began not long after they got to know him. According to Mormon history, Rigdon did not meet Smith until the fall of 1830. According to Who Really Wrote...?, the two had already known each other for several years by then, but had managed to keep it a secret. Naturally Rigdon had other secrets as well. Among them were that he had personally known Solomon Spalding, that members of his family also lived in Amity just a few doors from Spalding's roadhouse, and that among his closest friends was a clerk who worked for Spalding's intended publisher, R & J Patterson, during the same years Spalding was dealing with them. Indeed, a lady who had been the desk clerk at the Pittsburgh post office between 1812-16 later testified that she had known both Spalding and Rigdon during those years, and that Rigdon was well-known at the time as someone who was always hanging around the Pattersons' printing establishment. Although Rigdon denied having lived in Pittsburgh prior to 1822, the authors produce proof that both Rigdon and Spalding received their mail through the same Pittsburgh post office between 1812 and 1816.

This takes us to the third man in the triangle of early Mormonism--Joseph Smith's enigmatic cousin, Oliver Cowdery, a man about whose early life almost nothing was known until Who Really Wrote...? was published. As it turns out, Cowdery appears to have been the person responsible for first introducing Smith to Rigdon, and then secretly acting as their go-between. Later, he would play the role of Smith's scribe during the "translation" of The Book of Mormon in preparation for its publication. Although Smith and Cowdery have both recorded that their first meeting took place in April of 1829, the authors of Who Really Wrote...? present compelling evidence that these two cousins had known each other since at least 1822, if not earlier. They also reveal that the real reason the events of Cowdery's early life had to be omitted from Mormon history was because Smith and Cowdery had conspired to work a con-job on wealthy Martin Harris in order to induce him to cough-up $5,000 to finance the printing of The Book of Mormon. In order to accomplish their goal, Smith and Cowdery had to make Harris believe that they had been total strangers prior to 1829, and that God had only brought them together because he knew Joseph was in need of a scribe to complete "the work." Among Cowdery's other secrets were the fact that he had a brother and other relatives living in close proximity to Rigdon in Ohio, and that he himself had first met Rigdon while visiting these relatives in the mid-1820s.

Many of these troubling details would probably never have come to light had it not been for the efforts of Joseph Smith's prime antagonist, a man with the unlikely name of Doctor Philastus Hurlbut. (Doctor, by the way, was his name, not his title.) Shortly after joining the Ohio Mormons in 1832, Hurlbut was sent on a missionary journey to the area of Erie, PA. There he began to encounter people who seemed to be aware of the contents of The Book of Mormon even though they had never seen a copy. Upon inquiring, Hurlbut quickly learned that all of these folks had one thing in common--some of them were members of Solomon Spalding's family, and others were his friends and neighbors from the time he had lived in the area nearly 20 years before. All of them expressed familiarity with the fictional novel Spalding had been writing, and all said it was the same, or much the same, as Joseph Smith's Book of Mormon.

Suspicious that Smith was a prophet for profit, Hurlbut deftly maneuvered to have himself tossed out of the church, and then set off on a quest which would take him first to New York, where he quickly obtained dozens of highly revealing affidavits about Smith's early life and bad character from the alleged prophet's former neighbors, and then on to Massachusetts, where he succeeded in locating and interviewing Spalding's aged widow and now married daughter. The details of Hurlbut's quest, and the information he obtained, are unquestionably fascinating in their own right, even though Hurlbut himself, beset with allegations of sexual improprieties and even belated accusations of murder, turns out to have been no knight in shining armor. Hurlbut's findings, however, are not the end of this book, but the beginning.

Even though some might find it comfortable to dismiss this work as anti-Mormon, the historical perspective of Who Really Wrote...? is really more pro-Solomon Spalding than anything else. The authors are not attacking anything here; they are making an honest effort to shed new light on an old mystery. All things considered, the only readers likely to become upset by what they read are those whose minds were already made-up about Smith and Mormonism before they started reading it.

Although this 558-page volume sets out to explore the mystery of Who Really Wrote The Book of Mormon, employing these words as the primary title risks misleading potential readers into thinking it's a religious tract. Calling it simply The Spalding Enigma would have been more effective. Perhaps of greater concern however, is that because this book makes an honest effort to be as scholarly as possible (lots of informative endnotes, but unfortunately lacking an index), the reading does get a bit tedious in places. One possible shortcut is to skip the book's foreword, which consists of a lengthy, but largely gratuitous, homily written, no doubt, at the behest of the publisher.

While preachers, scholars, librarians and genealogists will undoubtedly find much valuable information in this book, it should also prove interesting to anyone attracted to history's unsolved mysteries. Some might even see it as the ultimate cold-case file.

I have read *ahem* my share of books on Mormon history, and this is one of the very best, hands-down.

The authors examine tax records, census records, poll tax documents, county histories, family histories, etc.--seemingly no stone is left unturned as they carefully trace which key player in the Spalding-Rigdon controversy was where and was in a position to know what.

Most discussions of the Spalding-Rigdon theory center around the Conneaut Witnesses, the people who knew Solomon Spalding and identified his story when they heard the Book of Mormon preached to them. I was amazed to learn of the hundreds of additional witnesses whose statements had remained forgotten or undiscovered until now, especially a man to whom an embittered Rigdon "spilled the beans" after his loss to Brigham Young for the leadership of the church.

The authors painstakingly trace the Spalding Manuscript from its genesis to its final incarnation as the Book of Mormon, and all the twists and turns in between. They deal with every objection to the theory ever raised since the very beginning--such as the reliability of Hurlbut, the witnesses' accuracy, and the manuscript taken from Mrs. McKinstry's trunk, for example--and thoroughly analyze and disect them point-by-point using counterexamples, eyewitness accounts, and other sources.

Mormon apologists have long been challenging critics to a) come up with a more plausible account of the creation of the Book of Mormon than their official one, and b) come up with original material. This book succeeds masterfully at both.

I'd always had nagging questions about how the Book of Mormon came to be, but this book answered each one of them clearly and decisively. In my opinion, if you only read a single book on Mormon history, this is DEFINITELY the one. Highly recommended!

I finished the book tonight. I was enthralled with the subject matter, and I read it with enthusiasm. I am as much a product of mormonism as anyone. I challenge anyone to claim more pioneer ancestry than myself. I split with mormonism, for my own purposes, at the age of 19. I probably don't need to explain to most why I was compelled to make a decision at this point. Anyhow, I was most receptive to the material in this book. Yet, living with my parents, I hid the book in fear of sparking holy jihad if you know what I mean. To date, my doubts have mostly been gut feelings. With the reading of this book and "Losing a Lost Tribe" I am beginning a process of methodical analysis of evidence. To say that there is any fully unbiased view on this subject probably isn't realistic. Obviously, the name Cowdrey in the list of authors is a give away that perhaps at least one of these authors carries it in their blood.

To those who vehemently discredit this book, it is completely understandable and acceptable. Your right to your faith is respected by the authors of this book in the afterword. They accept that you won't be dissuaded from your beliefs, and I firmly believe that this isn't their intent.

I started this book with the full understanding that history is an imperfect science at best. With the recent explosion of multimedia access to historical information, one may deduce from study that very few things in history are known for certain. The authors concede that the challenges of mormon history, assuming a conspiracy, are daunting due to the fact that those involved wouldn't want their history known. This same type of dilemma dates even to the time of Julius Caesar.

My enthusiasm for this book is admittedly fueled by my background. The names and places are part of my tutelage. I am admittedly a skeptic. This allowed me to read the full volume without fuming or turning red. To say this volume is disorganized is probably asking a bit much of mormon history. One must certainly try to be in more than one place at once to see all the nuances. The authors simply put the reader in several times and places. It's their style. I felt comfortable by the end of the book that I understood the conclusions the authors had come to. I knew when they were theorizing. It was easy for me to spot. I felt the book was well presented.

Certainly this book is best appreciated by one who is thoroughly interested in American religious history. It most certainly will not be appreciated by faithful Latter day saints. Don't even try reading it unless you are an official apologist, or you know that the material won't offend to the point of an apocalyptic rampage. I noticed 2 reviewers on this list to whom I wouldn't recommend the book. I don't know why you wanted to read it unless you care enough to make objective retorts. If you are happy with your faith, then stay away from this material!

I seek the truth. As long as mankind is able to think, they will demand evidence for historical occurences. It is the job of historians to present material such as is found in this book. I thank the authors of this book for their painstaking research; it's an obsession. I appreciate that most of their argument is theoretical. They acknowledge this. I choose to accept their theories as quite plausible.

Good luck to both "mormon" and "non-mormon" alike in your search for truth, knowledge, and peace of mind.

For those who give this book low ratings, while talking about reading it and praying, I have done that. I spent 40 years doing it. This is one of the books which shows the inaccuracies and obvious hidden history of the Mormon faith. The notes and ties are copious. For a Mormon reader, familiar with the characters and history, there is a gold mine of documentation of the Mormon practice of denying and hiding history, or in Mormon words, writing "faithful" history. According to Mormon history, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdrey did not meet until 1829, however Oliver was hired to teach at a local school in 1827. One of the people doing the hiring was Hyrum Smith. Oliver was also a printers devil in Palmyra in 1822. An employee of the printer wrote of an association with both Oliver Cowdrey and Joseph Smith.

Here is a little family information:
Mary Mack, sister of Joseph Smith's grandmother married Nathan Cowdrey Jr. a brother of Oliver's grandfather. This made them aunt and uncle to both Lucy Mack Smith and Oliver Cowdery's father. Oliver Cowdery's mother was second cousin once removed of Lucy Mack Smith. Oliver's great aunt married Obediah Gates who was either a brother or cousin of Lydia Mack Gates. If the relationship was brother, this would have made a second common aunt and uncle to both Oliver's father and Lucy Mack Smith.

And other information:
In 1821-22 Oliver Cowdery was attending school in Wells, VT and from there went to Palmyra, NY per historian Robert Parks. Parks was about the same age as Oliver, and was a school teacher in Wells for many years.

Orsamus Turner, a pioneer newspaper editor reported that while in Palmyra, Oliver Cowdery worked as a printer's devil with him. Orsamus Turner wrote that he (Orsamus) delighted in using ink to "once in a while blacken the face of [Joseph Smith,] the then meddling inquisitive lounger-but afterwards Prophet."

The book is full of documentation of relationships, people living in the same towns or being members of the same organizations at the same time.

Anyone familiar with Mormon apologetics will understand the need for the copious documentation. A very strong case is made for a troika of Smith, Rigdon and Cowdrey creating the book. The Campbellite doctrine found in the Book of Mormon is evidence of the early involvement of Rigdon.

One thing the "anti" and "pro" Mormons seemed to agree on was that Solomon Spaulding was not the father of the Book of Mormon, or even a distant relative. Fawn Brodie in 1945 (anti) and Richard Bushman in 2005 (pro) both reject the Spaulding theory.

Well, it appears there is more to the theory than generally believed. It's true that the Spalding manuscript held by Oberlin College in Ohio doesn't bear much resemblance to the the Book of Mormon. But Spalding's wife, brother, and friends say he produced a longer manuscript, from which he read to them on numerous occasions, which contained material that strongly resembles passages from the Book of Mormon. Naysayers believe that these folks had faulty memories due to age or were prompted into false recollections by the evil Doctor Philatus Hurlbut, an ex-Mormon out to "destroy" Joseph Smith.

The story line is pretty simple. Spalding placed his manuscript with a Pittsburg, Ohio printer. Sidney Rigdon frequented the print shop and either copied or stole the manuscript. Eventually, he hooked up with Oliver Cowdrey and Joseph Smith to produce the Book of Mormon. To cover their tracks, the three claimed never to have known each other. Mormon history has Cowdrey helping translate the gold plates in 1829 and Rigdon joining Smith's new church in 1830, after publication of the Book of Mormon.

There is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence to support the authors' theory. Of course, establishing facts about anything that occurred during that time period is chancy. Records are slim. Affadavits produced by "eyewitnesses" are often attacked as unreliable because of the the passage of time. More "offical" records - census data, newspaper accounts, etc. - provide some help. But the trail is understandably faint.

The book appears to have been extremely well-researched, although at least one other reviewer believes that the authors have held back evidence that contradicts their theory.

One amazing thing about the book is that the authors continually refer to Fawn Brodie in a manner that makes her sound like an apologist for Joseph Smith. Have Mormons ever hated anyone more than Brodie? Why they would try to paint Brodie with a pro-Joseph brush is inexplicable.

Moreover, the authors fall into that unfortunate category of people who dismiss Smith and the Book of Mormon while clinging to the infallability of the Bible. They are anxious to direct everyone to their own true version of Christianity - salvation through Christ without "any merit or worthiness on our part." While I do not believe that such a belief necessarily prejudices valid research, it certainly gives the pro-Mormon faction an opening to reject the book on the basis that it is simply out to "get" the LDS Church.

Does the Spaulding theory hold water? Well, you will have an enjoyable read while reaching your own conclusion.

When I first read the Book of Mormon, I questioned it's validity. Natives to both American continents where not nearly as advanced as the societies described in the BOM. Additionally, Native Americans had arrived far earlier that the BOM indicates. Then there was the literary issue of, "it came to pass," occurring again and again and again. Clearly it was not written by a first rate author. Mormon friends and relatives had always told me Joseph Smith could not have written the BOM, he wasn't well educated enough. This book answers the question of who really wrote the Book of Mormon. The level of detail involved in the research lends to its credibility; the research can easily be reviewed. The authors do an excellent job hypothesizing as to how Rigdon, Smith and Cowdrey may have come together to complete the book. What they left little doubt about was that Solomon Spalding wrote the basic story behind the BOM. Exactly how this happened no one will ever know. I was disappointed with the Christian message in the forward. This book stands alone as a well researched historical document. The question of whether or not Mormons are "Christian" should be left to another forum. This book will leave no doubt about who really wrote the BOM.

Only a few pieces of evidence presented in this book are really astonishing. Most of the evidences are small; but added up they deliver a more persausive argument, to me, that Joseph Smith is a false prophet than the Pro-Mormon literature offers in Smith's favor.

Not every puzzle is solved in a glitteringly bright climax; some are solved only by patience and an appreciation for both reason and intuition.

My primary reason for leaving the Mormon church is not connected to reason or to deductive arguments against it; I left because my heart tells me it is false. Now, after analysis, and after talking with missionaries, Mormon family members, and seekers from all spiritual directions, my mind tells me it is false, too.

The head can cloud the heart and the heart can cloud the mind. ...Finding truth, I've found, is rarely accomplished through "Eurekas," but more often through assimilating experiences, sifting them, checking for inconsistencies, listening to your inner self, and accepting you may be wrong.

I wouldn't say "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?" is tedious, or disorganized--I would just say that it's a book only for patient people, and people willing to do a little thinking and feeling for themselves.

The oft cited passage from Moroni contains, by the way, a logical fallacy. The scripture suggests that if you pray with "a sincere heart" then you'll be told that the Book of Mormon is true. This implies that if you pray with an insincere heart, then you'll receive the wrong answer. The subtext is: it's true because it's true. That is circular reasoning.

Also, disbelieving the affidavits of the friends of Spalding because so many years had passed between their hearing of the manuscript and their interviews with Hurlbut or Dickinson is understandable--but only to a point. Don't you remember the names of characters or scenes from movies that you only saw a couple of times twenty years ago? Would you be surprised if a person who read, and who had heard read the Book of Mormon, several times over a period of months in which missionaries visited them, remembered details of the story and characters' names?

If all the copies of the Book of Mormon were somehow destroyed today, do you believe that in fifty years, surviving Mormons (even ones who'd only been members for six months) wouldn't remember their holy book?

"Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?" is worth the money and time. It is dense. It isn't a Reader's Digest treatise on the origins of Mormonism. It's long, but worth it.

This volume examines the origins of the Book of Mormon based upon a hypothesis of the Spaulding Enigma. The Pro-Mormon challenge of "supplying a more plausible account" is hereby met.

Especially enlightening is the evidence given which centers around what the authors term is the main character in all this, one Sidney Rigdon. Previously having been stated that the Spaulding Enigma is falsified primarily due to no proof that Rigdon was near the vicinity nor had been of the alleged town around Pittsburgh where the availability to the purported Spalding manuscript was, they show evidence which is substantial from post office records showing indeed that both Rigdon and Spalding resided in the area.

Thus, the LDS has much explaining to do to those who seek to know the origin of their supposed sacred text. This painstaking and tedious work goes through the entire evidence with all its possible scenarios, evidences, and objections. Reasonableness permeates their investigation. This makes for tedious reading, which at times seems unbearable as to the careful examination of all angles and possiblities in the lifes of the key individuals, witnesses and testimonial evidence.

One questions who the target reader of this fine work is. If those interested in Mormonism such as this reviewer, then this painstaking, academic type approach is fine. However, if they seek out those of average interest, then much better organizational approach would have been warranted, e.g. Executive Summary style opening as in concluding pages 356ff, which pointers to the detailed, blow-by-blow chapters mentioned. Afraid might be lost to this massive reading requirement who need the highlights provided.

Documentation is superb along with useful appendices. Would have been aided by more info on author's backgrounds and qualifications.

Refer interested to Dr. Sparks excellent review also.

This book sets out to show that Joseph Smith, far from translating the Book of Mormon from mysterious golden plates revealed to him by the angel Moroni, actually plagiarized the book from a stolen manuscript. This has been a suspicion surrounding the Book of Mormon for almost as long as the Book of Mormon has come off the press. Yet it has never been shown how it was possible for Joseph Smith would have had access to Solomon Spalding's manuscript for "A Manuscript Found." Though, it has generally been accepted that the writing of the Book of Mormon, would have been miraculous in itself if Joseph Smith, whose education level was lacking, were to have written it himself.
The theory that the book proposes is that Sidney Rigdon stole this manuscript from Patterson's Printing Office in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania, where Solomon Spalding had tried to have it published as "A Manuscript Found." Later Sidney Rigdon gave the manuscript to Joseph Smith who plagiarized it, possibly changing some sections of it, and rewriting the first 116 pages of it after Mrs. Harris stole them after having devised a nice test to see if Joseph Smith really was translating golden plates. Her object was to have Joseph re-translate them, at which point she would compare the two copies. Joseph declined to re translate, saying that God would not let him do it for anger that he had lost the original translation!
The book shows that there was indeed a manuscript by Spalding entitled "Manuscript Found", whose story was well known to the inhabitants of Conneaut, and was remarkably similar to the story of the "Book of Mormon." Solomon Spalding was an ex Congregationalist minister, who had attended Dartmouth College. In other words he was a well educated man capable of writing. Evidently he wrote a lot, but spent most of his life in poverty and was never able to get anything published. He lived for a while in Pittsburgh where he tried to get the book published but never succeeded. Patterson's Printing Office in Pittsburgh, though, kept a copy of the manuscript awaiting a preface, and title page.
The book then shows that Sidney Rigdon, though he didn't live in Pittsburgh at this time, often frequented the city to obtain books, and befriended a kid by the name of Lambdin that worked for Patterson's Printing Office. Thereby, the book establishes the great possibility that Rigdon had opportunity to steal said manuscript from that office.
But if the theory is to hold water, Sidney Rigdon had to have known Joseph Smith prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. The book shows by citing signed affidavits and letters from the people of Palmyra, that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon did indeed know each other prior to the publication. They had become acquainted with each other during dubious treasure digging adventures years before, and were seen together at the Smith house in Palmyra by numerous people.
All said, the book makes the case. And when all said is done, it is easier to believe that Joseph Smith plagiarized the book from Solomon Spalding's manuscript, than that he translated it from mysterious Golden Plates for which there is no evidence. The evidence for the "Spalding Enigma" far outweighs the evidence for golden plates. In fact the only "evidence" for the golden plates, is the dubious word of Joseph Smith, and some treasure digging friends with imaginations poised to con.
That said, though the book has done the world a favor in compiling the evidence, it may have done better using footnotes rather than end notes. The notes are almost a book in themselves and filled with much amusing and insightful material, however trying to find them in the back of the book and follow along required the use of two bookmarks. It was very tedious. It also had the effect of obscuring the outline of the book. This book would be made better if its outline was made more prominent at the beginning. Often the details and evidence presented would weigh so much on the mind that a person would forget or get confused as to the point that was trying to be made. A chapter summarizing the basic argument of the book, and a preface to each chapter of the book summarizing the particular point of that chapter, or the objection being answered would have been immensely helpful.

The Spalding theory was not news to me when I began reading this book, but now based on the irrefutable evidence and facts that the three authors bring up, I am more than willing to accept it as fact.

Contrary to what Mormon apologists would have you believe, Solomon Spalding wrote more than one novel about the origins of the American Indians. (1) Caunute Creek (2) A Manucript Story, And finally (3) A Manuscript Found.

Several mormon apoligists insist that they were all one and the same manuscript, BUT then we would have to overlook the testimony of the freinds and aquatences of the Spalding family who all said that he discarded two earlier manuscripts in favor of A MANUSCRIPT FOUND. In their testimonies the mention many names fron Manuscript Found which they also said were mentioned in The Book Of Mormon such as NEPHI, LEHI, ZARAHEMLA, etc.

Those very same mormon apologists fail to mention that MANUSCRIPT FOUND was submitted for publication and then lost whil the other two were found in a trunk years later proving that they are wrong in saying that the three novels are one and the same.

Spalding, it was said by some of his freinds and even his brother, that he suspected a Mr. Sidney Rigdon of stealing his manuscript. (It a known fact that Rigdon Knew Joseph Smith Jr. personally.)

The book makes a solid case and I give it 5 stars.