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This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.
Critics claim that the Gadianton robbers are thinly disguised references to the anti-Masonic panic of Joseph Smith's era.
Many have speculated that the use of anti-masonic language in the Book of Mormon is 'proof' of 19th century authorship. The authors of these speculations fail to take into account four critical issues which discredit the association between the Gadiantion robbers of the Book of Mormon and the anti-Masonry of the opening decades of the 19th century [1826 through 1845].
1. Joseph Smith grew up with and was surrouned by Freemasons in his home. Both his father, Joseph Smith, Sr., and his elder brother Hyrum Smith were Masons in New York. It would seem unlikely that Joseph would be using anti-masonic language and terms, given his family's close connection and association with the institution of Freemasonry.
2. In 1842, Joseph Smith, Jr., became a Mason. Had Joseph intended to tie the Gadianton robbers to the Freemasons, it seems most unlikely that only 12 years later he would then join the very group which the critics' theories require that he oppose so vehemently in the Book of Mormon.
To credit the critics' theories, wrote anti-Mormon Theodore Schroeder, we must accept that
3. The Book of Mormon is a translation. As such its phrasing may sometimes reflect the time and place in which it was translated. Any similarity between the language of the anti-masonic movement and Joseph's translation can better be expained by Joseph using the language of his time and place rather than by a deliberate connection to anti-masonry.[2]
Some have claimed that the phrase "secret combination" was used exclusively in a Masonic context in Joseph Smith's day. This is simply not the case, however. In 1788, during the debates at New York's state convention to ratify the federal constitution, Alexander Hamilton stated:
And, in 1826, Andrew Jackson complained about Henry Clay's "secrete [sic] combinations of base slander."[note] Jackson was a prominent and well-known Mason, and his presidency was rich fodder for those who feared a Masonic conspiracy. Yet, despite the critics' claims that "secret combination" must refer only to Masons, a prominent Mason here complains about an attack on him in exactly those terms.
4. Furthermore, the Saints of the 19th century saw the Book of Mormon's prophecies of latter-day "secret combinations" fulfilled by the persecution which they received at the hands of American citizens and the U.S. government. They did not invoke the Masons, which suggests that those who knew Joseph Smith did not recognize anti-Masonic themes in the Book of Mormon.[4]
Given Joseph Smith's long family involvement with the institution of Freemasonry and the fact that he would, in 1842, become a Mason himself, it seems unlikely that anti-Masonry was the "environmental source" of the Gadianton robbers found in the Book of Mormon. The members of his day likewise had little enthusiasm for anti-Masonic sentiments.
Any similarities in language between some anti-Masonic agitators and the Book of Mormon are more plausibly explained by the fact that similar words can be—and were—used to describe a variety of different tactics and organizations.
The claim that "secret combinations" was always used to refer to Masons is clearly false.
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