View of the Hebrews and the Indian-origins milieu

Whether Ethan Smith's 1823 book, or the lost-tribes literature it belongs to, supplied the Book of Mormon's premise.

What the Church claims

The Book of Mormon's account of Israelites in America is not derived from 19th-century speculation about the Indians as lost tribes.

Once the evidence is in, this claim: Holds up. No direct borrowing from View of the Hebrews has been shown, and the parallels Roberts listed are general enough to fit the period rather than the book, so the claim holds against the charge of dependence. It holds less well against the weaker observation that the premise was in the air in Joseph's decade, which the claim as worded does not actually deny.

The record

  • Ethan Smith published 'View of the Hebrews' in Poultney, Vermont, in 1823 (2nd ed. 1825), arguing that the American Indians descended from the lost tribes of Israel. The Cowdery family lived in Poultney and Ethan Smith pastored the Congregational church some of them attended.
  • Larry Morris (BYU Studies 39:1, 2000) found that no document links Oliver Cowdery to Ethan Smith's church or writings; the family lived in Middletown or New York from 1809 to about 1818, the 1818 baptismal record predates Ethan Smith's pastorate, and Oliver had probably left Vermont by 1825.
  • B. H. Roberts, a General Authority, compiled a study of the parallels in 1921-22 to warn church leaders of a coming attack; it was published in 1985 as 'Studies of the Book of Mormon'. FAIR holds that he wrote as a devil's advocate and publicly reaffirmed his testimony until his death.
  • John Welch's 'unparallels' list features of View of the Hebrews absent from the Book of Mormon (phylacteries, Quetzalcoatl, kosher laws, cities of refuge), and BYU's Religious Studies Center reprinted the 1825 edition in 1996 so readers could compare.
  • Joseph Smith himself quoted View of the Hebrews approvingly in the Times and Seasons of 1842-06-01, on phylacteries among the Indians, as supporting evidence rather than as a source.
  • Believing scholar Blake Ostler (Dialogue 20:1, 1987) concedes that the book's developed Christian theology, revival scenes and anti-Masonic material are best explained by the 19th-century milieu, while arguing that other forms are ancient.
  • Dan Vogel's position, as summarized in FAIR's own statement of the criticism, is that the general 1820s 'Indian origins' literature, not direct copying from Ethan Smith, supplied the premise.

The moving target

  • 2016-11-01: View of the Hebrews has totally different objectives and writing styles from the Book of Mormon.

The exchange

FAIR; Larry Morris; John Welch

The Cowdery-Ethan Smith link is undocumented; Roberts kept his faith; the two books differ far more than they agree; Joseph cited the book openly in 1842.

The answer: All fair, and critics who allege copying overreach. But the milieu argument does not depend on Cowdery or on copying. The claim that native Americans were Israelites was common property in 1820s New York, and the Book of Mormon's premise, its 'remnant of Jacob' language and its expectation of Indian conversion sit inside that conversation. Ostler, a believer, grants that the book's theology is that of the 1820s. Roberts's own parallels, whatever his faith, remain on the record.

What they get right: The books differ in genre and purpose, and the strongest 'parallels' are the shared thesis and the shared Bible. Nothing in View of the Hebrews explains the narrative.

FAIR; John Welch; Larry Morris

B. H. Roberts, who compiled the parallels, kept his testimony to the end and said he was constructing the strongest possible case against the book as an exercise for the Twelve, not stating his own conclusion.

The answer: What Roberts privately believed is not evidence about the text, and this is an appeal to the authority of one man's conviction rather than to anything in either book. What actually makes the claim hold up is the comparison itself: Ethan Smith supplies vivid, usable material — a buried book, the Urim and Thummim, the mound builders' ruins — that the Book of Mormon conspicuously does not use, and that is not how borrowing works. The Roberts point is the weakest thing in the defense and it should be dropped from it.

What they get right: Similarity of premise is not derivation. The two books are different genres doing different work, and the unparallels are the strongest thing in the apologetic case.

Both cases at full strength

The skeptics' case

As a source-text theory this is weak: no line of View of the Hebrews appears in the Book of Mormon, the Cowdery route is undocumented, and the books are of different kinds. As an environment theory it is strong. The idea that the Indians were Israelites, that their ancestors had been civilized, that a record might one day come forth, was in the air Joseph breathed, and the Book of Mormon adopts it wholesale together with the theological questions of 1820s Protestantism that Ostler concedes. Roberts's study matters less for its parallels than for its author's conclusion that a gifted young man in that environment could have produced the book.

The apologetic case

Similarity of premise is not derivation. Ethan Smith's book is a treatise and the Book of Mormon a narrative; Welch's unparallels show that where Ethan Smith supplies vivid, usable material the Book of Mormon ignores it. Joseph quoted the book in 1842 without embarrassment. And Roberts, who knew the parallels best, died a believer.

What would change this

Documentary evidence that Joseph or Cowdery read View of the Hebrews before 1829, or verbal parallels beyond shared biblical language.

Sources

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