A Critique of Chapter ___, "______"
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new after all. (Abraham Lincoln)
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. (Samuel Johnson)
As a way of hedging their bet on the likely chance that their foundational assertion (examined in articles 2 and 3), and their core precept and conclusion which rests thereon, might be fatally undermined (which they were, twice over), certain Spalding theorists have also asserted that there are various textual and thematic similarities between the extant Spalding manuscript and certain portions of the Book of Mormon, thus indicating that some of the Book of Mormon was plagiarized by the coconspirators, and that Solomon Spalding was, in part, the author of the Book of Mormon.
So, if it can be demonstrated that the few cursory similarities are relatively meaningless at best, and are the product of history repeating itself as written or translated by two individuals with shared idioms, then this fall-back assertion, proposition, and conclusion, are left without substantiation, and are fatally deflated.
(Mention of word print studies, LDS textual and thematic studies and comments, similar enough to be confused, but far from "the same as")
Whether it be scriptural history, secular history, or fictional history, there are patterns of human existence, and patterns of human speech, which inevitably repeat themselves. This is to be expected, particularly on a macro level.
The fact that an historian from a later period records certain events that are strikingly similar to what an historian from an earlier period has written, does not necessarily mean that the later historian is plagiarizing the earlier historian.
And, the fact that two contemporary historians, speaking in the idioms of their day, share certain themes in common, and even write in similar phraseology, does not necessarily mean that they are plagiarizing each other.
Even with these common-sense principles in mind, and contrary to what Marcus Antonius stated, not all things are the same. Through a casual reading, it should be made abundantly apparent that, while similarities do exist, the Bible story contains some marked different from the Star Wars Trilogy, Josephus is substantially different from War and Peace, and the Book of Mormon is quite different from the Spalding manuscript. (I am confident in letting the reader examine both books to determine the truth of this, themselves. Both books are available on-line by clicking on: Book of Mormon or Spalding manuscript.)
However, several resident of Conneaut, Ohio (__ miles from Kirtland) were under the stated impression that the Book of Mormon and Spalding manuscript were so similar as to be convinced that the former was derived (plagiarized) substantially from the latter. Hence, the Spalding theory was born.
Clearly others, such as Enigma authors, have been duly persuaded, and they offer up the statements of these several Conneaut residents as evidence in support of their theory.
Below I will examine the accuracy and soundness of these statement, and explore various influences, with the intent of determining how and why the Conneaut residents are sadly mistaken. I will leave questions of motives and character to the judgement of the reader.
"All things are the same—familiar in enterprise, momentary in endurance, coarse in substance. All things now are as they were in the day of those whom we have buried." (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Meditations, IX, 14)
"The most original authors are not so because they advance what is new, but because they put what they have to say as if it had never been said before. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Pretension almost always overdoes the original, and hence exposes itself. Hosea Ballou
Originality is nothing but judicious imitation. The most original writers borrowed one from another. The instruction we find in books is like fire. We fetch it from our neighbor's, kindle it at home, communicate it to others, and it becomes the property of all. Attributed to Voltaire (Francois Marie Arouet).—Tryon Edwards, Dictionary of Thoughts, p. 392 (1891). Unverified.
This sentence has also been translated as: "The original writer is not he who refrains from imitating others, but he who can be imitated by none."—The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 3d ed., p. 141 (1979).
Last updated 7/14/01