John W. Welch reviews works related to B. H. Roberts and the BOM.
John W. Welch, "Reviewed Work(s): Studies of the Book of Mormon by Brigham H. Roberts, Brigham D. Madsen and Sterling M. McMurrin: Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon by David Persuitte: Trouble Enough: Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon by Ernest H. Taves," Pacific Historical Review 55, no. 4 (November 1986): 619–620
These three books, along with John L. Sorenson's An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (1985), have yielded a bumper crop of Book of Mormon books for the year 1985. In the three books here reviewed, however, there is lots of chaff that will need to be sifted.
Brigham Madsen's volume prints three working papers written sixty years ago by the fiery LDS Church leader B. H. Roberts. These papers had remained in the hands of Roberts's descendants until recently, although the basic points of these papers are not new. The first paper, "Book of Mormon Difficulties," is a 145-page memorandum in which Roberts lists difficulties he encountered in the 1921 scientific literature as he was responding to five questions asked about the Book of Mormon by a skeptical inquirer. The questions deal with Indian origins, linguistics, and pre-Columbian fauna, flora, and technology. The second paper, "A Book of Mormon Study," was hurriedly written in the spring of 1922. Its twenty chapters discuss purported similarities between the Book of Mormon and a book published in Vermont in 1823 (2nd ed., 1825) entitled View of the Hebrews; they also consider the proposition that the Book of Mormon is of human rather than divine origin, due to its supposed absurdities and nineteenth-century themes. The third, "A Parallel," is a brief summary of portions of the second. The ume also prints selected Roberts correspondence.
In these papers, Roberts the debater poses tough questions which he figures opponents of the Book of Mormon undoubtedly will raise. The documents are historically important and intriguing, deserving careful reading and explanation, both as to their content and as to what they meant to Roberts. Their presentation however, is not always quite as careful or helpful as it could been. For example, the introductory materials speak often Roberts's conclusions despite his express declaration that his conclusions remained undrawn, leaving the meaning of this research Roberts unclear. An important 1932 letter from Roberts about research is mentioned but not printed. Roberts's typescripts printed here with no indication of where and how he added them significant remarks and changes by hand. Several such date the writing of the study to 1922, a fact which invalidates of Madsen's account of when, how, and why Roberts did this search (pp. 24-26). More effort could have been made to show Roberts faithfully addressed similar Book of Mormon questions both before and after 1922, and how he made voluminous and hesitating religious use of the Book of Mormon from 1922 death in 1933. It also would have been helpful to provide readers with an up-to-date analysis of Roberts's questions.