Ethan Smith – View of the Hebrews

This book is about the early 19th century theory of where the Indians came from. Its contents will mean nothing to you (and probably bore you to death) unless you are very familiar with the Book of Mormon. After reading this book Joseph Smith may have decided to write “the most correct of any book on earth”. I guess he didn’t think Ethan Smith’s theories were “correct” enough. 😉 One of these days, I’m going to put together a comprehensive list of the parallels. B. H. Roberts missed quite a few of them. Once I read Ethan Smith’s book, I gave up hope that the Book of Mormon could be what it claims to be.

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An LDS site visitor writes:
I read “View of the Hebrews”. I thought that E. Smith did a rather good job in relating the then current view of the American Indians. Hugh Nibley talks about the coincidence of this book, in relation to the Book of Mormon. To me this is no coincidence. After I read this book I researched some of E. Smith’s sources. Sure enough this was an idea that was preached and expounded for many years previous to Joseph Smith’s existence. Unless Joseph Smith was a hermit, and he was not, there is no way he could not have discovered this American Indian theory on a set of Gold Plates he found.