View of the Hebrews
View of the Hebrews is an 1823 book written by Ethan Smith, a Congregationalist minister in Vermont, who argued that Native Americans were descended from the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, a relatively common view during the early nineteenth century. 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. Content Ethan Smith suggested that Native Americans were descendants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel; according to Mormon historian Richard Lyman Bushman, 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 to encompass the world. These tribes were believed to have disappeared after being taken captive by the Assyrians in the 8th century BCE. Mormon historian Terryl Givens calls the work "an inelegant blend of history, excerpts, exhortation, and theorizing." During Smith's day, speculation about the Ten Lost Tribes was heightened both by a renewed interest in biblical prophecy and by