Staff writer

chriscam@observer-reporter.com

Is it possible that in 1814 a man living in Amity wrote a novel that would become the basis for a religion now with 13 million members worldwide?

Wayne Cowdrey, Howard Davis and Arthur Vanick, authors of the book "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon? The Spalding Enigma" believe it is. Published in 2005, their book argues that a former preacher, Solomon Spalding (or Spaulding), wrote a manuscript that would later come to be known as the Book of Mormon.

Founded in 1830 in a small town in upstate New York, today the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has members in most countries of the world. In the Washington Ward there are three churches, in Washington, Monongahela and Waynesburg.

Along with the Bible, the Book of Mormon serves as scriptural basis for the LDS Church. In it, a man named Lehi leads his family from Jerusalem to the Americas in 600 BC. The book records succeeding generations of Nephites and Lamanites who often warred with each other. It also records that the resurrected Jesus Christ traveled to the Americas where he established his church.

Author Vanick recently spoke at the Lower Ten Mile Presbyterian Church at the invitation of the Amwell Historical Society. Spalding, who once operated a roadside tavern in Amity, is buried in the church cemetery.

Vanick's book claims that Spalding wrote a fictional tale known as "A Manuscript Found." Spalding was interested in indigenous Americans and the Lost Tribes of Israel, a hot topic in his day, and tied the two together in his tale.

Hoping his published manuscript would bring him a source of revenue, Spalding sought out Pittsburgh publisher R&J Patterson. Patterson agreed to publish the manuscript once Spalding provided the money to do so. But Spalding died before it could be published.

According to the Spalding Enigma, the manuscript was removed from the publisher by a man known as the Rev. Sidney Rigdon. Rigdon would later give it to Joseph Smith of Palmyra, N.Y., who they claim then used it to form the basis of his religion, Mormonism.

"The so-called Spalding Manuscript theory was long ago dismissed by serious historians," said Kim Farah, a spokeswoman for the LDS Church in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The Foundation for Apologetic Information and Research Web site is a non-profit group of LDS scholars devoted to providing well-documented answers to any criticism of the LDS church. FAIR has done extensive research to disprove claims that the Book of Mormon was derived from a fictional account.

Latter-day Saints believe Smith was a prophet told by God not to join any of the mainstream Christian denominations in Palmyra because they all contained incorrect doctrines. Instead, he was led to Hill Cumorah, about three miles from his family's farm, where he found the plates on which the Book of Mormon was printed by the angel Moroni, the last prophet to record the history of the former inhabitants. Printed in an ancient script, Smith was given implements with which to interpret the words into the Book of Mormon.

A lengthy review of Vanick's book has been made by Matthew Roper, a resident scholar and research assistant at Brigham Young University. In it, he provides evidence that those who have sought to discredit the Book of Mormon include people who were excommunicated from the church such as Dr. Philastus Hurlbut in 1834 and Fawn Brodie in 1948.

Roper also argues that the manuscript was not stolen from the Patterson print shop but that Spalding failed to complete it and, following his death, it was returned to his widow. Hurlbut would later ask Mrs. Spalding for this manuscript intending to prove it was the basis for the Book of Mormon. But he later returned it, saying there were not any comparisons.

"The Book of Mormon will always be an enigma for the unbeliever," Roper writes in his review of the 2005 Vanick book.

Smith first published the Book of Mormon in 1830. Thirty years later so much controversy surrounded the book and Smith's vision that even the forerunner of this newspaper, The Reporter, printed reports in 1869 from Spalding's Amity neighbors who claimed they had heard passages from the Book of Mormon first read to them by Spalding from his "A Manuscript Found."

And Alexander Campbell, founder of Bethany College and the Disciples of Christ church, also weighed in with his adverse opinion of Mormonism with a paper in 1832.

"This investigation is not yet complete," Vanick told his audience in Amity last month. "But we believe we can make as good a case as an angel giving (the book) to Joseph Smith."

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