Many of the committee meetings at which I have been in attendance lately have been incident too consideration of articles submitted for examination, said articles having been written in reply to Bishop F[ranklin]. S. Spalding of the Episcopal Church, whose attack on the genuineness of Joseph Smith, Jr., as a translator, has aroused much interest and attention.
About two weeks ago there issued from a local printing establishment a booklet of 31 pages entitled:
"JOSEPH SMITH, JR.,
AS A TRANSLATOR.
An Inquiry conducted
By
R[igh]t. Rev[erend]. F[ranklin]. S. Spalding, D.D.,
Bishop of Utah.
With the kind assistance of capable scholars."
This is one of the efforts for which the R[igh]t. Rev[erend]. F[ranklin]. S. Spalding, D.D., has already become noted, said efforts having for their purpose the destruction of the faith of the young Latter-day Saints. The Bishop sets forth the proposition that the genuineness of "Mormonism" can properly be tested on the basis of the question, "Was Joseph Smith a true translator?" -- Inasmuch as the original characters from which the Book of Mormon was translated are not now accessible, the Bishop turns to the three plates called fac-similies appearing in the Book of Abraham, now incooperated in the Pearl of Great Price. He presents letters from eight orientalists or Egyptologists all of whom say that the explanation of these cuts given by Joseph Smith is wrong. Strange to say no two of them agree between themselves on all points. Moreover there is nothing new in Bishop Spalding's attack inasmuch as investigations of this kind have been made by our own people on earlier occasions, notably, 1903. I shall not attempt a discussion of the subject here. A number of replies to Bishop Spalding have already been written and clippings embodying these are preserved in my files. A point of seeming importance is that the oriental scholars whose opinions are quoted by Bishop Spalding all say that fac-simile #3, as it appears in the Pearl of Great Price, is a scene found in the "Book of the Dead" and that representations of this scene are common in the documents found with the mummies of Egypt. This would seem rather to be a argument in favor of the genuineness of the Book of Abraham pictures than otherwise. It is stated, however, that such representations were not common in Abraham's day and really date from a time 500 to 1000 years after [A]braham. This again fails as evidence against the genuineness of the original records as writings of Abraham. From the present state of our knowledge it would appear as probable that the
writing of Abraham constitute the original from which afterward arose the many and somewhat varied accounts and representations familiar to students of the Book of the Dead.
Among those who have replied to Bishop Spalding, each one writing from a different point of view are Elder B. H. Roberts, whose article appeared in the Salt Lake Tribune of Sunday; Elder J[anne]. M. Sjodahl, Editor of the Deseret news, whose article appears in today's news; and Dr. Fred J. Pack, whose article is to appear in the Christmas News to be issued on the 21st.
[Source: James E. Talmage, Diary]
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