View Of The Hebrews (1823) Ethan Smith

View Of The Hebrews (1823) Ethan Smith

Author: Victorian Vault

Year: 1823

View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith , a United States Congregationalist minister, who argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. This was a relatively common view during the early nineteenth century, as most Europeans and Americans had a view of history as biblical. Numerous commentators on Mormon history, from LDS Church general authority B. H. Roberts to Fawn M. Brodie, biographer of Joseph Smith, have noted similarities in the content of View of the Hebrews and the Book of Mormon, which was first published in 1830, seven years after Ethan Smith's book. Ethan Smith suggested that Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; this theory was held by many theologians and laymen of his day who tried to fit new populations into what they understood of Biblical history, which they felt encompassed the world. These tribes were believed to have disappeared after being taken captive by the Assyrians in the 8th century BC. Smith's speculation was inspired by the apocryphal 2 Esdras 13:41, which says that the Ten Tribes traveled to a far country, "where never mankind dwelt"—which Smith interpreted to mean Nor