Customer Reviews:
 Ultimately fails in its premise November 4, 2006
11 out of 21 found this review helpful
After having read many texts that show parallels between the Book of Mormon and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, this book by Persuitte is one of the best I have thus far encountered. Notwithstanding, it has many failings, not the least is (i) Persuitte's unequviocal acceptance of anti-Mormon claims against the Book of Mormon that have long been outdated, and (ii) his failure to explain away evidences conducive to Book of Mormon authenticity.
On the topic of (i), for instance, Perussuitte claims that the mention of synagogues in the Book of Mormon represents an anachronism in the Book of Mormon. Notwithstanding, the current paradigm among scholars is that synagogues existed *before* the exile, consistent with the Book of Mormon. Lee Levine, a non-LDS scholar from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel, has shown in his 2000 book, "The ancient synagogue: the first thousand years" that synaogues existed as chambers in city gates in the pre-exilic era. With the centralisation of Temple worship and animal sacrifice in Jerusalem contemporary with the Deuteronomic Reformation in 622 BCE, local congregations established buildings for the worship (without animal sacrifce) in these chambers that served as synaogues. The charge that synagogues in the Book of Mormon represents an anachronism is not another out-dated claim made against the Book of Mormon volume. Others could be dealt with, such as Perusitte's appendix on Book of Mormon archaeology, but I will suggest the reader to pursue "An ancient American setting for the Book of Mormon" by John L. Sorenson from 1985 that blows holes into most, if not all, the claims made against the volume.
On the issue of (ii), if the Book of Mormon, as Persuitte believes it to be, is 19th century fiction, he really should have dealt with the evidences LDS scholars and apologists cite as conducive to Book of Mormon historicity. For instance, *all* the Old World sites in the Arabian Peninsula have been discoverd, such as the River of Laman and Valley of Lemuel (1 Nephi 2:5-8); Shazeer (1 Nephi 16:11), Nahom (1 Nephi 16:34), and Bountiful (1 Nephi 17:5). In the case of Nahom, recent lime altars have been discovered attesting to the historicity of the name NHM and its function as a burial site comtemporary with the Book of Mormon, becoming the first archaeological artefacts attesting Book of Mormon historicity.
While much more could be said on why I feel this text fails, the above should be enough to give some food for thought. I will urge, however, people to read the Book of Mormon and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews themselves, and see that the latter could not possiblt be a source for the former, contra Persuitte.
I welcome sincere feedback at Robert.S.Boylan@nuim.ie
 In response to Bartlett.... June 14, 2006
2 out of 8 found this review helpful
Every once in a while books like this come out against the Church. They always get put down, but after a while someone else conjures up their "proof". It just takes a little thinking. If this book were true, the whole world would know about it's "findings" by now.
Can't the same thing be said about the Book of Mormon? If the Book of Mormon was true, why would they need missionaries to go around telling people that it is?
And how many times does one need to say that something is true. I mean, does someone need to say "I am a human being" for us to believe it. We can just tell, and if they were to say it all the time, we would get sick of hearing it, and we would go "no, really" after a while. If something is true, we usually can tell and we don't need someone to constantly tell it to us. When they constantly say that "This church is true", it almost seems that they are trying to convince us that it is, when it maybe isn't.
 Reply to Persuitte May 16, 2006
10 out of 23 found this review helpful
Allow me to chime in here. I won't bother to reply to everything Mr. Persuitte has said about my earlier review of the first edition of his book, though I concede none of his claims. I will, however, comment on his complaint that I misrepresent him when I claimed in my 1990 FARMS Review that he borrowed heavily from anti-Mormon sources in order to bolster his preconceived views that the Prophet Joseph Smith was a deceiver. Here on Amazon, Persuitte denies this and asserts that "most of my source documents were contemporaneous with Joseph Smith, and many consist of writings by friends and family of Joseph Smith."
The fact that most of his source documents were not anti-Mormon in origin in no way changes my original statement that he borrowed heavily from anti-Mormon sources.
A quick, cursory glance of his endnotes reveals that he depends on anti-Mormon sources at least 30 times in the first 8 chapters, including:
Two references to Fawn Brodie, two references to Jerald and Sandra Tanner, six references to Wesley Walters, fourteen references to E. D. Howe, four references to Abner Cole, and a couple of other references to various other anti-Mormon sources. All of these individuals share one thing in common: a fierce animosity towards the Prophet Joseph Smith, and some of these individuals made it a career for much or all of their adult lives to spend time trying to find new ways to slander his name.
I do not claim that Persuitte quoted only from anti-Mormon sources; I merely claim, and I stand by that claim, he borrowed heavily from anti-Mormon sources in these opening chapters. I don't think I'm the one protesting too much.
To those who wish to read my review of his first edition in full, one need only copy and paste the following into one's web browser:
http://www.farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=44)
Comment by the author April 24, 2006
27 out of 35 found this review helpful
I am the author of this book. I am writing this in response to the two reviewers who suggested that the reader visit a web-site review of my book by L. Ara Norwood. The review--which was published by FARMS, a Mormon apologetics group--in fact, ignores or misrepresents much of what I presented in my book, so I feel the need to respond.
Note that the current edition of my book was published in 2000, but the FARMS review is 16 years old and is of the 1985 edition. This is important because the current edition is much expanded over the 1985 edition and presents considerably more documentation, including numerous additional parallels between the Book of Mormon (BM) and Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews (VH). It also answers and refutes many of the criticisms found in the FARMS review and other Mormon sources
In referring to the chapters dealing with the early life of Joseph Smith, Norwood states: "All of these chapters are written to paint the particular portrait of Joseph Smith as conceived by Persuitte--that of a deceiver. Consequently, he borrows heavily from anti-Mormon sources for his information." In fact, most of my source documents were contemporaneous with Joseph Smith, and many consist of writings by friends and family of Joseph Smith. Much of this material deals with Joseph's "money-digging" confidence scheme. If Joseph did, in fact, engage in such a scheme, he was a deceiver. And, in fact, it is well established--and even accepted by knowledgeable Mormons--that Joseph did engage in a money-digging confidence scheme and was brought before a justice of the peace for engaging in that activity. Methinks Norwood doth protest too much when I was simply laying out the facts.
Concerning Part Three of my book, Norwood begins: "Here we have eight chapters loaded with comparisons between View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon. Much of this work seems to be original with Persuitte.... The comparisons, mostly parallels, deal with the common topics of the voyage to the land of promise, things of a prophetic nature, the division into two camps of people, wars, the cycles between righteousness and wickedness, the visitation of Christ, and the final battles". Norwood fails to mention that Ethan Smith's synopsis of his theory about the history of the ancient Americans is also a brief but accurate summary of the basic story line of the BM. Indeed, Norwood's run-down of the parallels shows that those parallels also follow the BM story line.
Norwood continues: "It is not my desire to present an exhaustive analysis of Persuitte's work. To do so would run several hundred pages.... I will, however, present a few of my findings on his comparison of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon." So Norwood admits that it would take several hundred pages to properly analyze my "eight chapters loaded with comparisons between" the two books. If my comparisons were as insignificant as he makes them out to be, why would it take several hundred pages to analyze them? Can only "a few" of his selective "findings" demonstrate that the remaining parallels are insignificant?
Norwood begins his analysis with the following: "A careful examination of the passages in the Book of Mormon treated by Persuitte reveals that most of them deal with one or two broad themes: the land of promise (i.e., America) or the gathering of Israel. This is interesting because much of the Book of Mormon deals with additional Christian doctrine, yet few of these doctrinal passages were accused of being the result of pilfering from View of the Hebrews." Here Norwood grossly misrepresents the content of the comparisons. There is much more than "one or two broad themes." For example, in passage after passage I present a considerable number of similarities that Ethan Smith's "savage" and "civilized" tribes have with the BM's Lamanites and Nephites, as well as descriptions of the wars that were fought between the respective factions. As for the additional Christian doctrines found in the BM but not in VH, how does that prove that Joseph Smith did not get his ideas for the BM from VH? After having been "inspired" by what he found in Ethan Smith's book, Joseph was perfectly free to expand on that material and bring in ideas from other sources--including, quite understandably, the Bible.
The following exemplifies Norwood's misrepresentations of the parallels: "Both [books] mention the idea of Lamanites/Indians being kind and loving to their wives and children. None can dispute that a parallel does exist. But what of it? Is anything so unusual about that? Would Joseph Smith need to rely on Ethan Smith to dream up such a concept?" Norwood fails to mention that this parallel is but one in a series of related, closely connected parallels about the character of the Lamanites/Indians, so that parallel was hardly as isolated as he makes it out to be.
Norwood continues by presenting his analysis of the percentage of verses in the individual books in the BM that would appear to have their source in VH. The percentages presented are small. But even if they are accurate, so what? The point is that Ethan Smith's book provided Joseph Smith with the inspiration for producing the BM. Again, once having got that inspiration, he was not obligated to use VH as his sole source of material. He was free to expand on that material by incorporating material from other sources (many of which I show in my book), including his own imagination.
Norwood states there is "mountains of evidence" to connect the BM with the ancient world. If that is so, why do professional non-Mormon archaeologists not accept the validity of the BM? In fact, there is overwhelming evidence that the BM has no basis whatsoever in the history of ancient America.
I could provide more refutations of Norwood's criticisms of my book, but I have reached Amazon's word limit. Read the book and make your own judgment.
Limited Perspectives Create False Realities- Flat Earth, etc. January 7, 2006
7 out of 29 found this review helpful
L. Ara Norwood wrote a supurb review or the First Edition (1985)of this book available at FARMS (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies) website.
It will be interesting to talk to the other reviewers of it, say 100 years hence.
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