Item Detail
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6326
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0
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0
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English
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Behind the Spalding Controversy
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Sunstone
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November/December 1977
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3
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Salt Lake City, UT
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Sunstone Education Foundation
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28-29
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The author gives an account of the resurfacing of the Spalding theory that was caused by researchers Howard Davis, Wayne Cowdery, and Donald Scales. They claimed that 1) Spalding actually wrote two novels, 2) the second was in biblical style, 3) Sidney Rigdon stole the second manuscript from the printer, 4) Rigdon knew Smith long before 1830, and 5) Joseph Smith expanded the purloined fiction into the Book of Mormon. They claimed that the handwriting in the unidentified scribe section of the Book of Mormon was similar to Spalding's handwriting. Of three handwriting experts one finally upheld their impression.