Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon (2nd Edition) (Paperback)

~ (Author) "East Poultney, Vermont, at first glance appears to be not much different from numerous other small villages that dot the countryside of the Green Mountain..." (more)
Key Phrases: money digging activities, savage brethren, thou nation, Joseph Smith, View of the Hebrews, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Just as a growing interest in millennialism at the turn of the century has rejuvenated religious debate and questions of the fate of the world, so did Mormonism develop from millennial enthusiasm early in the nineteenth century. Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and a provocative, even controversial figure in history, believed that he had been given the authority to restore a corrupted Christianity to the true church. The primary source of Smith's latter-day revelation is The Book of Mormon, and to fully understand his role as the founder of the Mormon faith, one must also understand The Book of Mormon and how it came to be. Unfortunately, the literature about Joseph Smith and The Book of Mormon is permeated with contradiction and controversy.
This impressive work, now in an expanded and revised second edition incorporating new findings, presents new biographical information about Smith and resolves many of the controversies concerning his character. Through an extensive comparative analysis it posits as a probable conceptual source for The Book of Mormon, a book written by New England minister Ethan Smith entitled View of the Hebrew; or the Tribes of Israel in America. The results of this research were presented together for the first time ever in the first edition of this work and are instrumental in shedding much new light on the path Joseph Smith took toward founding the Church of the Latter-day Saints.

About the Author

David Persuitte is a technical editor living in Arnold, Maryland.

Product Details

• Paperback: 335 pages
• Publisher: McFarland & Company; 2 edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078640826X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786408269
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #944,614 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Comment by the author, April 23, 2006

By	David Persuitte - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I am the author of this book. I am writing this in response to the two reviewers who suggested that the reader visit a web-site review of my book by L. Ara Norwood. The review--which was published by FARMS, a Mormon apologetics group--in fact, ignores or misrepresents much of what I presented in my book, so I feel the need to respond.

Note that the current edition of my book was published in 2000, but the FARMS review is 16 years old and is of the 1985 edition. This is important because the current edition is much expanded over the 1985 edition and presents considerably more documentation, including numerous additional parallels between the Book of Mormon (BM) and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (VH). It also answers and refutes many of the criticisms found in the FARMS review and other Mormon sources

In referring to the chapters dealing with the early life of Joseph Smith, Norwood states: "All of these chapters are written to paint the particular portrait of Joseph Smith as conceived by Persuitte--that of a deceiver. Consequently, he borrows heavily from anti-Mormon sources for his information." In fact, most of my source documents were contemporaneous with Joseph Smith, and many consist of writings by friends and family of Joseph Smith. Much of this material deals with Joseph's "money-digging" confidence scheme. If Joseph did, in fact, engage in such a scheme, he was a deceiver. And, in fact, it is well established--and even accepted by knowledgeable Mormons--that Joseph did engage in a money-digging confidence scheme and was brought before a justice of the peace for engaging in that activity. Methinks Norwood doth protest too much when I was simply laying out the facts.

Concerning Part Three of my book, Norwood begins: "Here we have eight chapters loaded with comparisons between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. Much of this work seems to be original with Persuitte.... The comparisons, mostly parallels, deal with the common topics of the voyage to the land of promise, things of a prophetic nature, the division into two camps of people, wars, the cycles between righteousness and wickedness, the visitation of Christ, and the final battles". Norwood fails to mention that Ethan Smith's synopsis of his theory about the history of the ancient Americans is also a brief but accurate summary of the basic story line of the BM. Indeed, Norwood's run-down of the parallels shows that those parallels also follow the BM story line.

Norwood continues: "It is not my desire to present an exhaustive analysis of Persuitte's work. To do so would run several hundred pages.... I will, however, present a few of my findings on his comparison of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon." So Norwood admits that it would take several hundred pages to properly analyze my "eight chapters loaded with comparisons between" the two books. If my comparisons were as insignificant as he makes them out to be, why would it take several hundred pages to analyze them? Can only "a few" of his selective "findings" demonstrate that the remaining parallels are insignificant?

Norwood begins his analysis with the following: "A careful examination of the passages in the Book of Mormon treated by Persuitte reveals that most of them deal with one or two broad themes: the land of promise (i.e., America) or the gathering of Israel. This is interesting because much of the Book of Mormon deals with additional Christian doctrine, yet few of these doctrinal passages were accused of being the result of pilfering from View of the Hebrews." Here Norwood grossly misrepresents the content of the comparisons. There is much more than "one or two broad themes." For example, in passage after passage I present a considerable number of similarities that Ethan Smith's "savage" and "civilized" tribes have with the BM's Lamanites and Nephites, as well as descriptions of the wars that were fought between the respective factions. As for the additional Christian doctrines found in the BM but not in VH, how does that prove that Joseph Smith did not get his ideas for the BM from VH? After having been "inspired" by what he found in Ethan Smith's book, Joseph was perfectly free to expand on that material and bring in ideas from other sources--including, quite understandably, the Bible.

The following exemplifies Norwood's misrepresentations of the parallels: "Both [books] mention the idea of Lamanites/Indians being kind and loving to their wives and children. None can dispute that a parallel does exist. But what of it? Is anything so unusual about that? Would Joseph Smith need to rely on Ethan Smith to dream up such a concept?" Norwood fails to mention that this parallel is but one in a series of related, closely connected parallels about the character of the Lamanites/Indians, so that parallel was hardly as isolated as he makes it out to be.

Norwood continues by presenting his analysis of the percentage of verses in the individual books in the BM that would appear to have their source in VH. The percentages presented are small. But even if they are accurate, so what? The point is that Ethan Smith's book provided Joseph Smith with the inspiration for producing the BM. Again, once having got that inspiration, he was not obligated to use VH as his sole source of material. He was free to expand on that material by incorporating material from other sources (many of which I show in my book), including his own imagination.

Norwood states there is "mountains of evidence" to connect the BM with the ancient world. If that is so, why do professional non-Mormon archaeologists not accept the validity of the BM? In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that the BM has no basis whatsoever in the history of ancient America.

I could provide more refutations of Norwood's criticisms of my book, but I have reached Amazon's word limit. Read the book and make your own judgment.

20 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars proves beyond a doubt Joseph was a fraud, December 4, 2005

By	C. Fang "heloise83" (Salt Lake City, UT) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

For people who think that all anti-Mormon literature is written by prejuduiced evil people out to ruin the church's reputation this book proves that it is not so. This book is level headed, extremely well researched document of the origins of the Book of Mormon. Most of the evidence against Joseph Smith presented in the book are not from antagonistic parties, rather they are from sympathizers. Figures such as Lucy Mack Smith (Joseph's Mother), Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, David Whitmer, the Smith's families neighbors in Palmyra, and even Joseph Smith's own diary provide first person accounts of Joseph's character and the origins of the church that contradict the official line given by the church.

In this book I learned:

-Joseph Smith never had a "First Vision" where he saw God and Jesus Christ.
-The revival that Smith said occured in upstate New York in 1820 did not occur.
-Joseph Smith's own account of the finding of the Book of Mormon contradicts what he later says about it.
-Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon by looking into his hat, while the plates themselves were not in the house.
-The eleven witnesses who signed the testimony never saw the plates.
-Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews", published before the Book of Mormon gives the same account of the Ancient Americans as the Book of Mormon

I grew up in the LDS church and was a faithful member for ten years, but this book has convinced me beyond a doubt that Joseph Smith was a fraud and the church, consciously or unconsciously, is based on a lie.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very well documented! If you want the truth read this., January 4, 2009

By	Nicole Brooks "mercury996" (St George Utah) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

David Persuitte, a technical writer from Virginia, wrote the first edition of this book in 1985. Now, a decade and a half later, Persuitte has added many more facts in this, the 325-page second edition. This is extremely worthwhile reading for any serious student of Joseph Smith and the religion he founded in 1830.

Persuitte's premise is that Smith had few original bones in his body. Of course, it is obvious that Smith knew how to plagiarize because about a fifth of the Book of Mormon is copied straight out of the King James Version Bible, including the errors made by the English translators. Anyone who is honest would have to admit that Smith really didn't translate these words from the Book of Mormon "plates." But Persuitte believes that Smith also stole his ideas from the sources available to him in his day, especially from Vermont minister Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (first published in 1823), which had been published only a few years before. Using numerous side-by-side comparisons throughout much of the book and tying in other 19th century works and ideas, Persuitte is able to write, "Considered as a whole, this material makes it quite clear that The Book of Mormon was a product of the early nineteenth century rather than being a 'history' of ancient America" (p. 3).

All in all, this is a book fully worthy of reading and marking up before putting it back on the shelf for future reference. Persuitte has done a valuable service for all who want to know Joseph Smith's story form and unbiased standpoint.