Spalding/Rigdon Theory
During the nineteenth century, some opponents of Mormonism speculated that Rigdon had obtained from a Pittsburgh publisher a manuscript for a historical novel written by one Solomon Spalding, and by reworking it and adding a theological component, had created the Book of Mormon. A 2008 computer analysis of the Book of Mormon text supports this theory, although the study does not include Joseph Smith Jr. in the author sample on the ground that few pure examples of Smith's writings are extant. Critics of the theory point out that there is no record of any meeting between Rigdon and Joseph Smith Jr. until December 1830, nearly a year after the Book of Mormon was published.
Read more about this topic: Sidney Rigdon
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“Don’t confuse hypothesis and theory. The former is a possible explanation; the latter, the correct one. The establishment of theory is the very purpose of science.”
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