View of the Hebrews A book written by the Reverend Ethan Smith (1762-1849) that some since 1902 have suggested may have been a source for the Book of Mormon because it argues that the American Indians are the lost tribes of Israel. View of the Hebrews (1823; 2d expanded edition, 1825) was one of many books and pamphlets on religious topics published by the Reverend Smith between 1800 and 1839. He lived and ministered mostly in Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts.

The 1825 expanded second edition of View of the Hebrews is divided into four chapters, a conclusion, and an appendix. The first chapter, "The Destruction of Jerusalem," relies heavily on predictions of the coming destruction found in the Bible and the descriptions of its having happened found in the Wars of the Jews by Josephus. The second chapter, "The Certain Restoration of Judah and Israel," argues for that restoration, primarily from the Bible. In the third and longest chapter, "The Present State of the Jews, and of Israel," Reverend Smith presented ideas and information about what the American Indians said they believed about themselves, their history, language, religion, and customs. He obtained this information by reading almost everything that had been published on the subject, which was impressively broad; however, he relied most heavily on James Adair's History of the American Indians (1775), and Elias Boudinot's Star in the West (1814). The fourth chapter, "An Address of the Prophet Isaiah, Relative to the Restoration of His People," is the Reverend Smith's exposition of the eighteenth chapter of Isaiah and his call to Christianity to carry the gospel of salvation to the American Indians, who he said were the lost tribes of Israel.

Parts of the third chapter are most often said to be a source for the Book of Mormon. One argument is that both books identify the American Indians as children of Israel; yet, where Reverend Smith stated that the Israelites all traveled to the American continent by migrating as a group north and east through Russia and crossing over the Bering Strait land bridge, the Book of Mormon speaks of two boat migrations under the direction of the Lord. Where Reverend Smith spoke of the American Indians as all of the lost tribes of Israel, the Book of Mormon identities Lehi's family as stemming from Joseph's son Manasseh (Alma 10:3). Both books speak of a white leader who lived among the people, but Reverend Smith said that this leader lived with them for twenty years and called him a Moses; the Book of Mormon says that it was the resurrected Christ who visited them for a short time and then left. Where Joseph Smith, according to Emma Smith, did not know there was a wall around Jerusalem until he translated that information from the Book of Mormon plates, the Reverend Smith described Jerusalem's three walls in some detail (Briggs, 454). He also spoke of the Indian legend of a record book that was lost; Joseph Smith said the Book of Mormon is a translation of a buried record revealed by a holy angel. Both books speak of a division among the people into a good group and an evil group and note that the evil group won out over the good one. The Book of Mormon notes this is what had happened by A.D. 421; the Reverend Smith did not give a date but seemed to favor a much later time. Even in any similarities, View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon show such significant differences that it cannot be logically argued that the latter came from the former.