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

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale,

Of course Mr. Vogel has nowhere near the education, qualifications,
professional experience and publishing history that you do, Doc.

All might be better if one of you two would consent change his Christian
name. (Beyond that small existential overlap, I see no justification for our
mentioning the two of you fine fellows in the same breath.)

As for defending Fawn Brodie -- and arguing against a multiple authorship
for the Book of Mormon -- I truly feel that those are lost causes. The
volume obviously is a composite of authorship "voices," obtained from
multiple sources. Unfortunately the Gentile scholars have yet to make
that interesting discovery: and I'm beginning to doubt they ever will.
I. W. Riley will outlive us all, in his vaunted literary deductions.

It wasn’t too long ago that you were touting Jockers et al. as the upcoming proof for multiple Spalding authors. So I hope you don’t mind if I take with skepticism your assertion that the Book of Mormon is “obviously a composite of authorship ‘voices,’ obtained from multiple sources.” As for my education, qualifications, and publishing history, I have enough to expose the Spalding theory for the silly absurdity that it is.

[_Dan Vogel]

Glenn,

Roger, you do not know anything about the history of the early church. And now you are trying to interpret LDS scriptures for us.

And he accuses me of bloviating!

I already explained to him recently (and many pages ago in relation of Harris) that finding the lost sheep of the house of Israel was spiritual Israel being gathered to the church. This was the same as Protestants believed generally from Paul’s writings. The Jews are to gather to Old Jerusalem, and the Indians, believing Gentiles (those adopted and grafted in, Jacob 5), and eventually the ten tribes, and to gather to the New Jerusalem.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Of course Mr. Vogel has nowhere near the education, qualifications,
professional experience and publishing history that you do, Doc.

I'm not quite sure, UD, what you're trying to say, nor, even, whether you're sneering or being serious.

But I'll be serious: Dan V. and I disagree very fundamentally about a whole range of things. I think he's seriously misguided (as he does me). But, while it's true that he lacks a Ph.D. -- which doesn't matter nearly as much to me as you might think it does -- he has a very impressive record of publishing.

All might be better if one of you two would consent change his Christian name. (Beyond that small existential overlap, I see no justification for our mentioning the two of you fine fellows in the same breath.)

Not a bad idea. I propose that he change his name to Beelzebub. It has a nice ring to it, and he would stand out from the common herd.

[_GlennThigpen]

When Nephi wrote (which of course, I don't believe in the first place) he would not have been attempting to write in emulation of King James English. He would allegedly have been writing in the mysterious "reformed Egyptian."

He would have been writing in reformed Egyptian, a written, but not a spoken language. The ideas, phraseology would have been Hebraic.

When the Book of Mormon was translated (which of course, I don't believe it ever was) whoever produced the "translation" was attempting to emulate King James English, which was not the contemporary dialect of either Joseph Smith or his society. It was an archaic dialect even in Joseph Smith's day (with the possible exception of some obscure puritanical groups).

Good point there. Royal Skousen has demonstrated that the English translation of the Book of Mormon was written in even more archaic English than the King James era. Do we know of any groups that were speaking and writing 1500's English in the U.S. during the early 1800's?

So when Bruce asks: "Not only ‘to what extent would emulation of King James English affect the results’ but also ‘to what extent would emulation of King James English differ from author to author.’"I have to ask myself which authors is he referring to? He can't be referring to Nephi or Mormon, he can only be referring to potential 19th century authors--which you insist his study has ruled out (at least with regard to the most likely suspects). So I wonder about the question. Which authors is he referring to?

If he's referring to 19th century authors, then if we discover noticeable variance in King James emulation patterns (whether that is even possible I do not know) then, it would appear that such a variance would support S/R. I don't see how it would support either S/A or S/D.

If we find a noticeable variance in archaic English patterns among the Book of Mormon authors, it would support multiple authorship, whether it be Nephites or nineteenth century authors. If the variances produce more than four authorship styles, especially several more than four authorship styles, that does not support the S/R theory.

It might be helpful if someone were to work with the Book of Mormon authors themselves using the NSC method, sort of revisiting the work done by Larsen, Rencher, and Layton. Their pioneering work in the seventies, built upon other works such as by Mosteller and Wallace, detected 21 different authorship styles, not Including Isaiah and Jesus. It would be interesting to see if the NSC methodology would generally follow those results. Twenty-one authors would be too much except for even die-hard S/R theorists to provide even an ad hoc explanation for. (Maybe).

Glenn

[_Dan Vogel]

Bruce,

Would it be possible to use the 1830 Book of Mormon preface as a sample for Joseph Smith and see how it compares to the rest of the Book of Mormon?

Yes it would. But since the preface is small, the results might not be definitive. I’ve been meaning to look at this for a long time. What do you expect the preface to show?

The wording of the Preface relies heavily on D&C 10, a May 1829 revelation, which brings up a question about comparing the language of the early revelations to the Book of Mormon. This would be a larger sample of Joseph Smith’s emulating the KJV. However, would we also expect language to vary according to genre, meaning religious rhetoric vs. historical narrative? Should we not chose a portion of the Book of Mormon closer to D&C in style?

[_Dan Vogel]

DCP,

I'm not quite sure, UD, what you're trying to say, nor, even, whether you're sneering or being serious.

But I'll be serious: Dan V. and I disagree very fundamentally about a whole range of things. I think he's seriously misguided (as he does me). But, while it's true that he lacks a Ph.D. -- which doesn't matter nearly as much to me as you might think it does -- he has a very impressive record of publishing.

You’re so kind, Dan.

Not a bad idea. I propose that he change his name to Beelzebub. It has a nice ring to it, and he would stand out from the common herd.

Lord of the Flies above the common herd. Now that’s an interesting image! Remember, Dan, only God is my judge.

[_Daniel Peterson]

You’re so kind, Dan.

I know. I'm often criticized for it.

[_Dan Vogel]

Glenn,

He would have been writing in reformed Egyptian, a written, but not a spoken language. The ideas, phraseology would have been Hebraic.

Emulating KJV could also look Hebraic.

Good point there. Royal Skousen has demonstrated that the English translation of the Book of Mormon was written in even more archaic English than the King James era. Do we know of any groups that were speaking and writing 1500's English in the U.S. during the early 1800's?

Skousen didn’t show that the entire Book of Mormon was written in 1500s English, but showed only a few samples where bad wording could be construed as 1500s English. As with Hebraisms, there is no consistent pattern to make an assessment that can apply to the whole Book of Mormon. They could be accidental constructions, or possibly relate to the Quaker dialect handed down from 1500s England. More investigation need to be done.

If we find a noticeable variance in archaic English patterns among the Book of Mormon authors, it would support multiple authorship, whether it be Nephites or nineteenth century authors. If the variances produce more than four authorship styles, especially several more than four authorship styles, that does not support the S/R theory.

I don’t see now the variance in archaic English could relate to ancient authors.

It might be helpful if someone were to work with the Book of Mormon authors themselves using the NSC method, sort of revisiting the work done by Larsen, Rencher, and Layton. Their pioneering work in the seventies, built upon other works such as by Mosteller and Wallace, detected 21 different authorship styles, not Including Isaiah and Jesus. It would be interesting to see if the NSC methodology would generally follow those results. Twenty-one authors would be too much except for even die-hard S/R theorists to provide even an ad hoc explanation for. (Maybe).

I see your point, but remain skeptical of trying to identify different styles based on word frequencies. Are we to believe Alma’s literary style survives Mormon’s copying (possibly into a more corrupted Reformed Egyptian) and Joseph Smith’s translating into archaic English?

[_Roger]

Dan wrote:

I don’t see now the variance in archaic English could relate to ancient authors.

Exactly. We don't agree all that often so it stands out when we do.

Glenn writes:

If we find a noticeable variance in archaic English patterns among the Book of Mormon authors, it would support multiple authorship, whether it be Nephites or nineteenth century authors. If the variances produce more than four authorship styles, especially several more than four authorship styles, that does not support the S/R theory.

I think Glenn is confusing variance in authorship styles (which is to be expected with multiple authors) with variance of KJV emulation.

Perhaps Glenn can explain how variance due to emulation of King James English could possibly occur in the 1830 Book of Mormon translation and if it does occur, who would be responsible for it.

[_Uncle Dale]

...Beelzebub. It has a nice ring to it, and he would stand out from the common herd.

You'll have to help me out here, Doc. My command of biblical
Hebrew puns is very limited -- as is my knowledge of the various
Semitic cognates. *

But doesn't the word have the same tonal ring to it as would
the Hebraic "Lord of Nothing?" -- a sort of laughing up one's
priestly sleeve at the lack of substance in a false god?

If so -- you've sold me on the proposed nomenclature update.
I'll just call him BaalZee, for short. -- So as not to impinge
upon celestial forum niceties...

UD

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* I'm forever confusing Arrakis Mu'Addib with
Abraxas al'Dhubaab: I'm a total failure in Ugaritic...