This was mentioned in another thread, but I found it fascinating.
Ethan Smith lived in Poultney, Vermont, the same town as Oliver Cowdery, who later served as Joseph Smith's scribe for the Book of Mormon. Ethan Smith also pastored the Congregational church that Cowdery's family attended from 1821 to 1826 while he was writing View of the Hebrews.
Numerous scholars have identified the significant parallels between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. In 1922 B.H. Roberts (18571933), a prominent LDS apologist and historian,[11] was asked by the LDS Apostle James E. Talmage to answer a non-believer's five critical questions. He produced a confidential report that summarized eighteen points of similarity between the two works.[12]
In a letter to LDS Church president Heber J. Grant and other church officials, Roberts urged
"all the brethren herein addressed becoming familiar with these Book of Mormon problems, and finding the answer for them, as it is a matter that will concern the faith of the Youth of the Church now as also in the future, as well as such casual inquirers as may come to us from the outside world."[13]
Roberts' list of parallels included:
extensive quotation from the prophecies of Isaiah in the Old Testament;
the Israelite origin of the American Indian;
the future gathering of Israel and restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes;
the peopling of the New World from the Old via a long journey northward which encountered "seas" of "many waters;"
a religious motive for the migration;
the division of the migrants into civilized and uncivilized groups with long wars between them and the eventual destruction of the civilized by the uncivilized;
the assumption that all native peoples were descended from Israelites and their languages from Hebrew;
the burial of a "lost book" with "yellow leaves;"
the description of extensive military fortifications with military observatories or "watch towers" overlooking them;
a change from monarchy to republican forms of government; and
the preaching of the gospel in ancient America.[14]
I have read some attempted rebuttals by Mormons, but the rebuttals are weak and depend on Mormons not looking into things for themselves.
Ethan Smith lived in Poultney, Vermont, the same town as Oliver Cowdery, who later served as Joseph Smith's scribe for the Book of Mormon. Ethan Smith also pastored the Congregational church that Cowdery's family attended from 1821 to 1826 while he was writing View of the Hebrews.
Numerous scholars have identified the significant parallels between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. In 1922 B.H. Roberts (18571933), a prominent LDS apologist and historian,[11] was asked by the LDS Apostle James E. Talmage to answer a non-believer's five critical questions. He produced a confidential report that summarized eighteen points of similarity between the two works.[12]
In a letter to LDS Church president Heber J. Grant and other church officials, Roberts urged
"all the brethren herein addressed becoming familiar with these Book of Mormon problems, and finding the answer for them, as it is a matter that will concern the faith of the Youth of the Church now as also in the future, as well as such casual inquirers as may come to us from the outside world."[13]
Roberts' list of parallels included:
extensive quotation from the prophecies of Isaiah in the Old Testament;
the Israelite origin of the American Indian;
the future gathering of Israel and restoration of the Ten Lost Tribes;
the peopling of the New World from the Old via a long journey northward which encountered "seas" of "many waters;"
a religious motive for the migration;
the division of the migrants into civilized and uncivilized groups with long wars between them and the eventual destruction of the civilized by the uncivilized;
the assumption that all native peoples were descended from Israelites and their languages from Hebrew;
the burial of a "lost book" with "yellow leaves;"
the description of extensive military fortifications with military observatories or "watch towers" overlooking them;
a change from monarchy to republican forms of government; and
the preaching of the gospel in ancient America.[14]
I have read some attempted rebuttals by Mormons, but the rebuttals are weak and depend on Mormons not looking into things for themselves.