Quoted By:
Similarities between his manuscript and the Book of Mormon are general and superficial. Spaulding’s fiction is about a group of Romans blown off course on a journey to Britain who arrive instead in America. One of the Romans narrates the adventures of the group and the history and culture of the people they find in America. A major portion of the manuscript describes two nations near the Ohio River. After a long era of peace between the two nations, a prince of one nation elopes with a princess of the other nation. Because of political intrigue, the elopement results in a great war between the two nations and the loss of much life but the ultimate vindication of the prince and his princess.
In 1833 a committee of Ohio residents hired Philastus Hurlbut, who had been excommunicated from the Church, to collect information about Joseph Smith and the origins of the Book of Mormon. They hoped to convince their neighbors that Joseph had deceived the poor into following him. As part of his task, Hurlbut spoke with several people from Ohio who claimed to have seen the Spaulding manuscript. These people signed affidavits asserting that the Book of Mormon was based on Spaulding’s story.
In spite of these claims, neither Hurlbut nor other critics of the Church published the Spaulding Manuscript at that time even though it was in their possession. Eventually, the manuscript was lost. In 1884, a man named L.L. Rice found the manuscript among some papers he had purchased, and he turned it over to Oberlin College in Ohio. Rice and JamesH. Fairchild, president of Oberlin College, examined the manuscript. Neither man was a member of the Church, and both certified that the manuscript could not have been the source of the Book of Mormon. The Church published Spaulding’s work in 1886.
Come unto Christ and stop the blasphemy.
