View of the Hebrews

The book View of the Hebrews was published in 1823, 7 years before the Book of Mormon.  This book, written by a minister, Ethan Smith, demonstrates that The Book of Mormon was not unique in its assertion that the Native Americans were descended from the house of Israel within a religious history framework. In fact, many theologians and common folk of the day believed that the “Indians” were descended from the Lost Ten Tribes. Oliver Cowdery, Joseph’s scribe for the Book of Mormon, belonged to Ethan Smith’s congregation and were neighbors in Poultney, Vermont, such that Cowdery likely would have been very familiar with View of the Hebrews and Ethan Smith’s ideas.  The book portrays a similar overall narrative to the Book of Mormon with many details surprisingly congruent with the Book of Mormon. Because of these obvious comparisons, many suspect View of the Hebrews to be source material for the content of the Book of Mormon. This book has so many similarities that LDS church historian B.H. Roberts analyzed the two and stated:

Did Ethan Smith’s View of the Hebrews furnish structural material for Joseph Smith’s Book of Mormon? It has been pointed out in these pages that there are many things in the former book that might well have suggested many major things in the other. Not a few things merely, one or two, or half dozen, but many; and it is this fact of many things of similarity and the cumulative force of them that makes them so serious a menace to Joseph Smith’s story of the Book of Mormon’s origin. - B.H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, pg. 240