Glenn:
Taking Glenn's suggestion and looking at the D &C, I wrote:7 Yea, verily I say unto you again, the time has come when the voice of the Lord is unto you: Go ye out of Babylon; gather ye out from among the nations, from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
Sounds present tense to me.
And Glenn responded:
This is quoting out of context. Here is the header to section 133 from which quoted only verse 7. I will not quote the whole chapter.
1–6, The Saints are commanded to prepare for the Second Coming; 7–16, All men are commanded to flee from Babylon, come to Zion, and prepare for the great day of the Lord; 17–35, He will stand on Mount Zion, the continents will become one land, and the lost tribes of Israel will return; 36–40, The gospel was restored through Joseph Smith to be preached in all the world; 41–51, The Lord will come down in vengeance upon the wicked; 52–56, It will be the year of his redeemed; 57–74, The gospel is to be sent forth to save the Saints and for the destruction of the wicked.
So how is my quote out of context, Glenn? The fact is the very D & C chapter
you cited supports my point. So now I am taking the chapter you cited out of context? How so? It very plainly says: "The time has come..." How is that out of context, Glenn? You're the one taking it out of
their context!
Look at all the present tense in the header you just quoted!
are commanded to prepare
are commanded to flee
come to Zion, and prepare for
The restoration of the lost tribes from the north country was and is still in the future. It was not a part of the doctrine and beliefs of the early church that the American Indians are descendents pf the lost tribes.
They believed the whole thing was getting underway right then and there, Glenn. They believed the "winding up scene" would take place in less than 50 years.
From very early times in the church history, the members did not hold to a lost tribes in the Americas story.
Which is irrelevant.
They believed, erroneously, that Lehi and company had become the progenitors of most if not all of the American Indians, but they believed that the lost tribes were still lost to the world somewhere in an Old World far north country.
I don't think you can demonstrate conclusively what they believed. For example, I don't think you have demonstrated that when Martin Harris refers to the lost sheep of Isreal it is not a reference to the lost tribes, or at least a portion of them, or that he did not believe the Indians around him were a part of those lost-sheep-tribes.
In any event, as I stated earlier, given what you agree to here, all it takes is the notion that Lehi came from Isreal at the time of the dispersal and his story becomes a lost tribe story.
But, again, I don't see how I quoted anything out of context. Verse 7 is part of the chapter you yourself suggested supported your argument. I don't think it actually does. I think your argument comes from your own 21st century doctrine, which, as I said, is imposing your doctrine onto theirs.
Sure, Wright stood by his statement. When he saw the manuscript, and realized he had made a faux pas, he did what you are so really fond of, made an ad hoc explanation knowing full well that there was no other manuscript and could never be proven wrong.
On the contrary! You're producing an ad hoc response to Wright! Wright mentioned the fact that Spalding had many manuscripts
before Hurlbutt discovered MSCC. So being presented with one of Spalding's manuscripts
is not adverse evidence! It is not a faux pas! That's just you mischaracterizing things. You just don't want to acknowledge that Wright said Spalding had many manuscripts and then later Hurlbut finds evidence to support Wright's assertion. There is no reason to doubt Wright when he tells us Spalding wrote manuscripts and then, lo and behold, we find one of them!
The Jockers study did provide some false data. Bruce did prove that statistically. You have disdained that research, citing problems that you feel it has, but ignore the fact that the Jockers original study would suffer from the very same problems, as well as the ones that Bruce pointed out.
Well since Bruce is now here and presumably following this discussion, perhaps he could tell us if your assertion above is accurate. Did the Jockers study "provide some false data," Bruce?
If so, perhaps we could hear an explanation of what exactly is "false data."
My understanding is that IF ONE ASSUMES that the real author is among the candidate set, then Jocker's methodology is pretty good at selecting the correct one from the others. Is that a fair layman's assessment, Bruce?
Roger, you are overstating what Ben was saying.
I don't think so, Glenn. In fact, I suspect it is actually you who has overstated things a bit when you earlier (many pages back) asserted that Bruce's study virtually eliminates all of the potential 19th century authors as viable candidates. That, I think is an overstatement, but perhaps Bruce could comment on that as well.
On the other hand, Ben never said that I was misquoting him. Of course, like you, he thinks the real author
is not among the candidate set, but the fact remains that (whether right or wrong)
he asserted that when the real author
IS among the candidates, then Jocker's methodology is quite accurate--again, that's according to Ben.
From that, it certainly follows that there is no more likely 19th century author than Joseph Smith. And Joseph Smith was indeed among the candidate set in Jocker's most recent study.
He used lexical tools to find parallels for you in other nineteenth century works in response to your assertion that all of the parallels that have been culled from the Manuscript Found must mean something.
That's a different question. I disagree with Ben on that. But that's a totally different issue than Ben stating that Jocker's methods are very good when it comes to selecting the true author from a candidate set.
The fact that only Conneaut area witnesses make claims about a connection between the Book of Mormon is something that has already been dealt with. There is no mention by any of the missionaries that went through the area of anyone jumping up in any of the meetings and spouting off about the Book of Mormon being like Solomon's story.
Nor would we expect there to be. If I remember correctly Pratt mentions a general disturbance but is not specific.
They converted one person, Erastus Rudd, who was a near neighbor and in whose home Daniel Tyler said that a lot of that manuscript was written.
The Conneaut area witnesses had one common denominator. Philastus Hurlbut. They were contaminated by him and by popular but erroneous beliefs about the Book of Mormon. Josiah Spalding, on the other hand, had not been contaminated by Hurlbut, and provided a pretty accurate description of the manuscript that now resides at Oberlin College.
Well at least I think if you are suggesting that Hurlbut induced these people to lie (as opposed to confabulating their honest memories) I think you're on more solid ground than Dan. But then you need to explain why they would all lie. Were they anti-Mormons? Was it a conspiracy?
I don't think so. Because if that were the case, then you'd have an ever expanding conspiracy when more people come out of the woodwork to corroborate the Conneaut lies
without Hurlbut's influence.
That Josiah presents a fairly accurate picture of MSCC does not mean it had to be the only manuscript, Glenn.
Actually Aaron Wright did not pointedly say or write anything of the kind. As you are well aware, that unsigned draft letter is in the handwriting of one Philastus Hurlbut. You do not know if what was written was a direct quote from Wright, or how much was an interpolation by Hurlbut himself.
This just doesn't fly, Glenn, because all the Conneaut witnesses, including Wright, had ample opportunity to set the record straight if they thought Hurlbut had manipulated their statements. Howe's book was published and circulated right there in their immediate vicinity. At that point, they would have been minor celebrities. They had plenty of opportunity to set the record straight, and none of them ever did.
Here is where you are assuming as true something that has not been established by any fact. Orson Pratt has never been connected with the 116 pages, or with the production of the Book of Mormon at all. But that is the problem with the S/R theory. It assumes as fact many events for which there is no evidence, but on which the theory depends.
No I'm not. I'm not assuming it as true, I am merely suggesting that Jocker's data implicates Parley Pratt to a certain extent, but not conclusively. Parley was in the right place at the right time, so it's possible he knew more than he let on. Given that Orson is Parley's brother it stands to reason that Orson could have gotten inside information about where Lehi landed from his brother, who would have been exposed to the Book of Lehi. That is all plausible speculation, Glenn, but I am not assuming it is true.
If you read John Miller's statement, he said that the straits of Darien was described verbally and did not indicate that it was part of Solomon's mythical second manuscript. As has been pointed out, none of the other Conneaut witnesses produced those specific names. Their description of the landings are so vague as to be unusable as to where in the Americas Solomon landed his people. Maybe because they really couldn't remember, even though many of them supposedly had heard that story repeatedly.
Yes, you are correct to point out that Miller claimed Spalding told him verbally as opposed to putting it in the manuscript. Good point. I thought one other witness mentioned Darien, but I might be mistaken about that.
Ben's statement is accurate, which Matt Jockers also tacitly acknowledged. Have you read his comments so much earlier in this thread?
Yes. As you might recall I commented on them.
He also acknowledged that Bruce's work has produced some positive refinements to his original work.
Correct. But to my knowledge, nothing that negates Ben's assertion.
You just cannot assume that the correct author or authors are in any set of candidates.
Actually I can do exactly that. For me, there is zero possibility that any Nephite is responsible for any of the Book of Mormon content. That means that the most likely possible 19th century candidate author is Joseph Smith Jr. Unless you can come up with a better 19th century candidate author and explain why, I am content to think of Joseph Smith as easily fulfilling that role. Jocker's latest test includes Joseph Smith among the candidates and Spalding and Rigdon still show up as more likely authors than Smith for many of the chapters. How do you explain that? How would Bruce explain that--in layman's language preferably.
What Bruce did was develop a method to check for the possibility that actual author was not in the mix.
Well if he actually did that, and after a lot of peer review it passes muster, then perhaps Dan and marg and I should all convert to Mormonism. Either that or start looking for samples of Lucy Mack Smith's writing. If Bruce actually accomplished that and concluded that Joseph Smith was not an author, I'd love to hear Dan's response.
You concerns, as I have pointed out, with Bruce's work are equally applicable to the original Jockers study. Either way, absolute conclusions of authorship based on the original Jockers study are invalid.
It would be nice if Bruce could either agree with or clarify the assertions you are making here.
"...a pious lie, you know, has a great deal more influence with an ignorant people than a profane one."
- Sidney Rigdon, as quoted in the Quincy Whig, June 8, 1839, vol 2 #6.