The Book of Mormon, having long been a work of great interest to me, became a natural area of study for my Master's program. I was directed by Roy W. Doxey and Paul R. Chessman who brought to my attention several areas of the Book of Mormon which needed to be investigated for clarification and deeper understanding. The area which was settled on centered around a book which was written seven years prior to the publishing of the Book of Mormon. The controversy which surrounds the View of the Hebrews by Ethan Smith is similar to the "Spalding Manuscript" controversy which for many years plagued believers of the Book of Mormon. Similar in the sense that some are now claiming that Joseph Smith plagerized Ethan Smith when writing the Book of Mormon, this problem is different in that the Solomon Spalding controversy raged only while his manuscript was unavailable while the Ethan Smith controvery is warming as more people become aware of View of Hebrews.