Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_GlennThigpen]

Seems that the the OP of this thread has died.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

Seems that the the OP of this thread has died.

Glenn

I gave my key idea here, not long ago --- that Matt's Book of Mormon study
report provides a "texture map" of the Book of Mormon narrative which might
be very helpful in our determining which parts of the text were
were written by the same author. That is not the only possible use
for such comparative data on the Book of Mormon chapters, but it is representative
of the value I see in mapping the text.

About all that Bruce's rebuttal tells us, is that Isaiah probably did
not compose the non-Isaiah Book of Mormon chapters -- that "Latent" did that.
Not much value there for me. Bruce's study report does not help me
compare one portion of the text to another.

I would expect that Mormons, of all people, would be intensely
interested in deconstructing the text and studying how and why
it was put together in the form we received it in 1830.

But they are obviously not interested in critical analysis of the text.

We non-Mormons will be doing their work for them, I suppose,
for years to come. That is why Bruce was not out in front of
Matt's team with computerized studies -- but has been put into
the reactive position of apologetic rebuttal.

Thank God for Skousen and Gardner -- without them the current
LDS scholarship would still be totally 19th century. Schaalje and
Roper still have a chance to get into the game at a serious level.
We shall see if such folks ever do make a useful contribution...

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

We non-Mormons will be doing their work for them, I suppose,
for years to come. That is why Bruce was not out in front of
Matt's team with computerized studies -- but has been put into
the reactive position of apologetic rebuttal.

Thank God for Skousen and Gardner -- without them the current
LDS scholarship would still be totally 19th century. Schaalje and
Roper still have a chance to get into the game at a serious level.
We shall see if such folks ever do make a useful contribution...

UD

Bruce's expertise is not in critical text scholarship. But, as you, noted, Royal Skousen does have expertise in that field and has produced the seminal Book of Mormon critical text. No non LDS scholar has put in anywhere near that type of exhaustive effort. No non LDS scholar has put in anything near the research on Book of Mormon related topics that you can find available on the Maxwell Institute site. There is a wealth of scholarship on the Book of Mormon in many different fields that has gone practically unchallenged by any non LDS scholar.
The Hilton wordprint study on the Book of Mormon was, and still appears to be the best of the lot. The Berkeley Group spent something like ten thousand man hours over a seven year period in developing their processes, testing and refining them before publishing their results and conclusions. No other group has put that much time and effort to make sure their work was as error free as possible. They checked the authors both internally and externally.
Once Bruce made his peer reviewed extensions to the Jockers study, the results were similar to the Berkeley Group Study and the work of Larsen, Rencher, and Layton earlier in rejecting any of the nineteenth century authors that had been tested as possible authors.
If anyone who is critical of the Book of Mormon wishes to be taken seriously by LDS scholars and lay people, they need to produce serious scholarship that rebuts the LDS scholarship to date. The Jockers study was an attempt, but then, we have the response.

Glenn

[_Daniel Peterson]

We non-Mormons will be doing their work for them, I suppose,
for years to come. That is why Bruce was not out in front of
Matt's team with computerized studies -- but has been put into
the reactive position of apologetic rebuttal.

Thank God for Skousen and Gardner -- without them the current
LDS scholarship would still be totally 19th century. Schaalje and
Roper still have a chance to get into the game at a serious level.
We shall see if such folks ever do make a useful contribution...

John Sorenson, Grant Hardy, Terryl Givens, John Welch, John Clark, Noel Reynolds . . . No work? Not even in the game? Totally nineteenth-century?

Pardon me, Dale, but that's absolute rubbish.

[_Roger]

Hi Dr. Peterson:

I'm curious as to whether you would agree that a King James Bible was likely used in Book of Mormon production?

All the best.

[_Roger]

Glenn:

The Hilton wordprint study on the Book of Mormon was, and still appears to be the best of the lot.

From the perspective of a non-LDS layman, it appears that there is enough subjectivity in the results of these various studies as to render the combined results somewhat meaningless. Until the experts can agree on what objective conclusions can be drawn from the various studies we would appear to be locked into gridlock with each side picking and choosing which results tend to support their own thesis.

If Ben's earlier observation that Jocker's methodology works "very, very well" when the real author is in the mix, I take that as rather encouraging given that I don't believe Nephi was a real person (for reasons other than word print data). If Ben is correct in that observation then the only way Bruce's results are meaningful is if Nephi was indeed a real person.

That seems to be where we're at at this point. Those who are predisposed to think of the Book of Mormon as truly ancient will tend to latch on to Bruce's results as if they establish the text to be ancient. But I think Dale is correct to point out that Bruce seems to have stopped short of following the results to their ultimate conclusion.

I can't back this up because I am not an expert, but I strongly suspect that King James English in the Book of Mormon stacks the deck against any of the candidate authors which allows Bruce to associate a low probability to any potential 19th century author. This then, it would seem, is what allows Ben to suggest that when the real author is in the mix, the method works well--he's confident the real author is not in the mix, whereas I'm pretty confident they are.

All the best.

[_Uncle Dale]

We non-Mormons will be doing their work for them, I suppose,
for years to come. That is why Bruce was not out in front of
Matt's team with computerized studies -- but has been put into
the reactive position of apologetic rebuttal.

Thank God for Skousen and Gardner -- without them the current
LDS scholarship would still be totally 19th century. Schaalje and
Roper still have a chance to get into the game at a serious level.
We shall see if such folks ever do make a useful contribution...

John Sorenson, Grant Hardy, Terryl Givens, John Welch, John Clark, Noel Reynolds . . . No work? Not even in the game? Totally nineteenth-century?

Pardon me, Dale, but that's absolute rubbish.

Clark and Reynolds I might go back and read again, now and then.

None of the others have told me anything about how the text
really came together -- or, at least, nothing that impressed me
so much as Skousen's work (save for one Welch chart).

Deer are horses? Nephite compass directions are offset 40 degrees
from the path of the sun? A "chariot" is a dog travois? The Nephites
were constrained from sharing the Gospel with the native Americans?
Ships traveling to the Land Northward measured their journeys in
meters rather than hundreds of kilometers? Moroni carted the golden
plates from Guatemala to Lake Ontario?

One day I'll clean all the rubbish off my library shelves and put it
in storage along with the Fawn Brodie stuff. It's all equally useless
in my opinion.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...
If anyone who is critical of the Book of Mormon wishes to be taken seriously by LDS scholars and lay people, they need to produce serious scholarship that rebuts the LDS scholarship to date.
...

OK -- let's start with the LDS on-line 1830 Book of Mormon text.

If that project had been well prepared, then folks like
myself would not be reduced to transcribing a 590 page
book, just to know for certain the ratio of "come to pass"
per page of Ether.

I do not see "rebutting" LDS scholarship as my purpose in life.
I'm far more interested in panning out those few nuggets of
LDS text-critical analysis that are truly useful to the non-Mormon.

And -- I'd be most happy to surrender those tasks to a
handful of BYU grad students. It's tiresome stuff -- as
Mark Twain once reminded us, with his chloroform quip.

UD

[_Daniel Peterson]

Hi Dr. Peterson:

I'm curious as to whether you would agree that a King James Bible was likely used in Book of Mormon production?

All the best.

I think it's most likely that none was used. But the sources aren't absolutely conclusive on that.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
whether you would agree that a King James Bible was likely used in Book of Mormon production?
...

Reminds me of RLDS Book of Mormon class about a zillion years ago. We were
comparing the JST Isaiah to the Book of Mormon reproductions of Isaiah and KJV,
and (even way back then) commenting on the italicized words oddities.

The question came up -- as to whether or not Joseph Smith used
a KJV Bible in the production of his so-called "Inspired Version."
(The class consensus was that he did NOT)

And that opinion expressed, long after official RLDS publications had
published actual photos of the Smith KJV Bible that Sister Emma turned
over to the Church leadership, along with her two "JST" manuscripts!!

Seems that the operative motto back then must have been:
"Don't confuse me with facts -- my mind is already made up."

Oy vey!

UD