The Spalding-Rigdon theory

The oldest naturalistic theory, revived by a 2008 stylometric paper, and why most critics as well as apologists reject it.

What the Church claims

Critics' own favorite theory, that Sidney Rigdon reworked a Solomon Spalding manuscript and fed it to Joseph, has been refuted, which discredits naturalistic explanations generally.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Holds up. The first half is right. Mainstream critics and apologists alike regard the Spalding-Rigdon theory as refuted, and the stylometric revival did not survive open-set reanalysis. The second half does not follow: one failed naturalistic theory says nothing about the others, and the strongest naturalistic accounts never rested on it. Holds up rather than strong, because the conclusion drawn is wider than the evidence supports.

The record

  • The theory originates in affidavits collected by Philastus Hurlbut in 1833 from Spalding's former neighbours in Conneaut, Ohio, and published by E. D. Howe in 'Mormonism Unvailed' (1834); Howe proposed that Rigdon obtained Spalding's manuscript at a Pittsburgh print shop.
  • The one Spalding manuscript known, recovered in Hawaii by Lewis L. Rice in 1884 and held at Oberlin College, is an unfinished story of Romans blown off course to America; both the LDS and RLDS churches published it because it bore little resemblance to the Book of Mormon. Proponents responded that a second, lost manuscript existed.
  • Fawn Brodie (1945) wrote that the chain of evidence 'breaks altogether' when it tries to prove Rigdon met Joseph before 1830; later critics including the Tanners abandoned it.
  • David Whitmer (1887): neither Joseph, Cowdery, Harris nor himself 'ever met Sydney Rigdon until after the Book of Mormon was in print'.
  • Matthew Jockers, Daniela Witten and Craig Criddle (Literary and Linguistic Computing 23:4, 2008) applied delta and nearest-shrunken-centroid classification to the chapters with seven candidate authors and reported that the results 'support the hypothesis that Rigdon was the main architect', with Spalding and Cowdery as contributors; Joseph Smith was not among the candidates.
  • G. Bruce Schaalje, Paul Fields, Matthew Roper and Gregory Snow (LLC 26:1, 2011) showed that closed-set NSC must assign every chapter to one of the supplied candidates, proposed an open-set extension, and found the reanalysis gave 'dramatically different results' from the closed-set study.
  • The Original Manuscript shows a spoken text with hearing errors, not a copied one, and every eyewitness described dictation without papers; a smuggled Rigdon manuscript would have had to be memorized.

The moving target

  • 2016-11-01: Rigdon discovered the book only after publication; the Spalding manuscript, when found, showed no resemblance.

The exchange

FAIR; Schaalje, Fields, Roper and Snow (2011)

The theory requires inventing a document, its contents and a delivery route; the recovered manuscript refuted it; the 2008 study was refuted by open-set stylometry.

The answer: On this point the apologists are right, and so are the leading critics: Brodie, the Tanners, Vogel and Davis all reject Spalding-Rigdon. The 1833 affidavits are late, leading, and collected by a man expelled from the church; the dictation evidence excludes a hidden manuscript; and the 2008 paper's design guaranteed that some listed candidate would 'win'.

What they get right: Apologists sometimes go on to treat the failure of this theory as the failure of all naturalistic theories. It is not: the current scholarly alternatives (Davis, Vogel, Taves) were built on the same evidence that sank Spalding-Rigdon.

FAIR; Matthew Roper

The Conneaut witness statements were gathered eight years after Spalding's death by a single hostile investigator, and they share phrasing, which is the ordinary signature of coached testimony.

The answer: That is a sound objection to the Conneaut statements and this page grants it. It does not reach the second half of the claim, which is where the overreach lives. Refuting Spalding-Rigdon refutes Spalding-Rigdon. It says nothing about the other naturalistic accounts, several of which exist precisely because Spalding-Rigdon failed, and treating one dead theory as a verdict on an entire class of explanation is the same move this site objects to when it is made in the other direction.

What they get right: The recovered Oberlin manuscript really did sink the original version of the theory, and the 2008 stylometry really was open-set flawed.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

There is no strong critical case for this theory and the site should say so. Its evidence is late hearsay, a manuscript that does not match, a stylometric study that excluded the obvious candidate, and a required meeting between Rigdon and Joseph for which no document exists. Its persistence on some skeptics' websites damages the credibility of better arguments. The honest lesson is methodological: theories that need a hidden written source fail against the Original Manuscript and the dictation witnesses.

The apologetic case

Rigdon's Campbellite theology does match parts of the book; the Conneaut witnesses did recall names like Nephi and Lehi; Rigdon's 1830 conversion was suspiciously swift; and a lost second manuscript is not impossible. Craig Criddle and Dale Broadhurst continue to assemble circumstantial chains. The 2008 study was peer reviewed and its authors defended their design.

What would change this

Discovery of a second Spalding manuscript with Book of Mormon names, or a document placing Rigdon with Joseph before 1830.

Sources

An independent project. Not affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or with any organization cited here. Summaries are written here; short quotations are attributed and linked. Every page names its sources so that it can be corrected, and every page can be challenged.