Myth, Memory, and "Manuscript Found"

Roper discusses the regularly recurring Spaulding Rigdon theory of the origins of the Book of Mormon and disputes, once again, the claims that Joseph Smith based the Book of Mormon text on a manuscript by Solomon Spaulding. Roper refutes the existence of two Spaulding manuscripts and shows possible influences of Jedediah Morse’s Geography on Spaulding’s existing “Manuscript Story.”