Ethan Smith wrote View of the Hebrews to inspire his fellow Americans to "engage in the work by Heaven assigned" concerning the American Indians. He seems to have had no thought of using it to start a new religion for his own gain, and he doubtlessly would have been chagrined if he had learned that a young money digger from New York State had apparently done just that for himself. Yet, with a little reflection, he might have realized that his book virtually invited someone who was opportunistic and imaginative to use it for such a purpose.

Joseph, of course, did not hold up a copy of View of the Hebrews in sight of everyone and proclaim that it was God's plan for the restoration of the true church. Instead, it appears he produced his own book by appropriating many of the religious ideas and concepts about the American Indians that he found in Ethan Smith's book. After doing this, he was then able to present his book as a new revelation from God and to use it in establishing a new religion—one that put into action much of what Ethan Smith had exhorted.

Now that might seem to be a quite reasonable explanation of how Mormonism originated; but saying that, and proving it, are two different things. To prove it, one needs to show that there is a substantial connection between The Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews. One way to do that is to make an in-depth comparative analysis of Ethan Smith's book and Joseph Smith's latter-day revelation. If such an analysis reveals a significant number of similarities between the two books, then it can be reasonably said that the one had its origin in the other.

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Aside from the notion that the Indians were descended from the Ten Tribes of Israel as a whole, this summary of Ethan Smith's theory is also a somewhat brief but reasonably accurate summary of the basic story line of The Book of Mormon.

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To be sure, there are some differences in ideas between the two books. However, when the ideas in The Book of Mormon vary from those in View of the Hebrews, they tend to do so through a logical extension or variation of those that Ethan Smith expressed. There are even some statements in The Book of Mormon that are in direct opposition to certain statements that Ethan Smith made. Curiously, though, Joseph presented these statements in the form of an argument, almost as if he were trying to refute what the Vermont minister was saying. Actually, in light of what he was doing, Joseph was forced to oppose Ethan Smith on these particular points. We shall see why in the next chapter. It suffices now to note that an opposition of ideas, as well as a concurrence, can indicate influence.

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To understand how View of the Hebrews may have given Joseph the idea of creating The Book of Mormon, one must first understand that Ethan Smith's book expressed a viewpoint that had certain religious implications for the United States. The Vermont minister was not content with merely proving that the American Indians were descended from the Lost Tribes of Israel. He enthusiastically believed that the latter days were upon the earth, and he seemed sure that the finding of the Lost Tribes was but one of the events that would set the stage for the arrival of the Millennium. In his view, other events would be fulfilled when the Indians learned of their "heritage" in the Hebrew family, were converted to Christianity, and were restored to the land of their fathers along with the Jews. According to his interpretation of certain biblical prophecies, a great gentile nation would assist in accomplishing these things. That gentile nation, he zealously proposed, was America.

It would appear to be with a view of convincing the American people of their place in this divine plan that Ethan Smith wrote View of the Hebrews. Everything in his book seems designed· for that end, and he brought. it all together in the speech that he put into the mouth of the prophet Isaiah. That exhortation failed in its objectives, but it apparently had a considerable influence upon Joseph Smith as he was working out his ideas for The Book of Mormon. We have already seen some of the results of this influence; for example, that Joseph lifted from the exhortation the very statement of purpose that was put on the title page of The Book of Mormon.

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From these examples, there can be little doubt that Joseph produced The Book of Mormon with Ethan Smith's mission for the American people in mind. Of course, we have reason to believe' that Joseph's motives were different from those of the Vermont minister. The Mormon prophet could have seen that Ethan Smith's mission for the American people had an enormous potential as a source of power and wealth for whoever could manipulate it for his own purpose.

Still, there is a long path from Ethan Smith's exhortation to Joseph Smith's latter-day revelation. That exhortation itself did not suggest that the way to its fulfillment was by having someone make up a religious history of the ancestors of the Indians. How, then, did Joseph get such an idea?

We can only guess. Perhaps it came as a matter of course from the claims he made about the gold plates he had supposedly located with his peepstone, plates that he said had been inscribed with an account of the ancient inhabitants of America and the places where they had hidden their treasures. To impress the money diggers with his knowledge of ancient America, Joseph might have told them some tales that he worked up from Ethan Smith's book-particularly from Ethan Smith's theory of what had happened to the "Israelites" after their arrival in the New World. Later, after Joseph conceived of actually producing a book, Ethan Smith's religious views would naturally fit in.

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The mass of material Joseph found in View of the Hebrews certainly would have been sufficient to urge him toward the creation of The Book of Mormon. Even if he originally intended only to produce a book that he could pass off as a simple history of the ancient Americans, he could have found Ethan Smith's religious views constantly tugging at his mind. Thus, when events finally induced him to transform his history into a new revelation from Heaven, the change most likely came quite easily.