It seems Ted Chandler wants to hold on to his erroneous arguments for O-MS being a copied rather than dictated document. He has added to his site "2nd Reply to Dan Vogel."
http://mormonstudies.com/scribe.htm
The following is my response.
NOT UNDERSTANDING SKOUSEN'S SYMBOL SYSTEM
In my last response, I tried to explain how Chandler misunderstands Skousen's symbol system. In his response, he demonstrates that he has expanded his appreciation of Skousen's system. He begins by quoting Skousen's explanation of his symbols for overwriting:--
Braces { } are used to show overwriting of the text on the manuscript. In many instances, a single letter was partially overwritten in order to make the letter read more clearly. In such cases, there was no intended change in the letter. For instance, in 1 Nephi 2:17 ... Oliver Cowdery partially rewrote the sentence-initial ampersand:
... {&}I spake unto Sam
If the text is changed or a whole letter is overwritten, I specify both the original text and the correcting text, separated by a vertical bar. In 1 Nephi 2:11 ..., Oliver Cowdery first started to write foolish with Florida, but then overwrote his partially written l with an o:
... because of the f{l(-)|o}olish imma{g}ionations of
Sometimes the overwriting occurred because the scribe ran out of ink while writing the word. In such a case, there is normally a note stating that this was the cause of the overwriting. In 1 Nephi 12:2 ... scribe 3 rewrote the first e of beheld when he ran out of ink writing the word:
other & i b{e | e}held wars and rumers of wars and great
--(Skousen 2001, 22)
From this, Chandler argues:--
Despite the fact that Skousen distinguishes these three situations, Vogel declares concerning the second example (foolish) that "Skousen's example on page 22 is a slip of the pen," and "a malformed letter can also look like another letter." But is it a mere slip of the pen to eliminate two o's and write Florida instead? I would describe this more as a slip in attention. An "l" is not a malformed "o," and Skousen does not indicate that he regarded any letter as malformed or that a malformed letter was being corrected by attempting to write the letter again correctly. In fact, this example is evidence that Skousen is talking about two different letters. If Skousen thought that he was dealing with a malformed letter, he would have represented it as he did in either example 1 or 3, as a partial overwrite or as the same letter repeated, not as the correction of one letter by a different letter.
Chandler is playing games here by trying to split hairs about the definition of "slip of the pin" and "slip of attention", which are not different at all. Of course, "slip of the pin" is figurative, and refers to various unintentional scribal errors mistakes. When Cowdery starts to write foolish with Florida, but then overwrites his partially written l with an o, it is easy to see how the error occurred due to being rushed and not because he was copying a badly written original text. The same argument that Chandler uses--an "l' is not a malformed "o"--can be used to argue against his supposition that the original from which Cowdery was presumably copying was difficult to read. Furthermore, Chandler misrepresent my position, because I did not claim that all his examples result from malformed letters, only that most of them do. Specifically, I said Skousen's example with "foolish" was a "slip of the pen", and did not refer to it as a malformed letter. My discussion of malformed letters followed this, and my examples were "n" and "r", or visa versa, and "r" and "s" or visa versa. So, Chandler's argument above conflates the two discussions, which renders his comments irrelevant.
Vogel provides a photo from the Oliver Cowdery Letterbook of the word "present" written by Oliver Cowdery to show that there are similarities in the way Cowdery formed different letters. Vogel says that the "p" resembles an "f," but he doesn't show us how Cowdery formed his "f." Also, Cowdery did not attempt to correct any of the letters by overwriting them to make them clearer. What we need is photos from the O-MS of actual changes in the manuscript.
Of course, more photos and a more thorough examination would have been preferable. But with one photo I showed what Chandler didn't show on his site, which was his responsibility to do in the first place before publishing his incomplete research on the web. And that is how similar some of Cowdery's letters were, such as "f" and "p", "r" and "s", "n" and "r". Readers of my post could see right away how 19th century penmanship differed from present styles, and how a rushed scribe could conceivably form letters that look like other letters. For example, when Chandler gives us 104 examples from O-MS where Cowdery corrects "r" to "n" (e.g., "amorg" to "among") it is more reasonable to conclude that Cowdery was correcting his own penmanship, than it is to conclude that he had misread the poor penmanship of another scribe (which happens to have handwriting very much like his own) while mindlessly copying letter-by-letter from another document.
Vogel cites two examples that I used in which "lard" is changed to "land" and "sone" is changed to "sore." He states: "So, although the words look like 'lard' and 'sone', Cowdery intended to write 'land' and 'sore'." My question is, how does Vogel know what Cowdery intended to write? Perhaps he was writing what he thought he saw.
Of course, no one knows what was in the mind of the scribe when such errors occurred, which is what Skousen wanted to avoid with his system. However, although he fails to realize it, it was Chandler who raised issues of intentionality when he insisted that nonsensical words (like "amorg" and "sone") were written as the scribe intended it, which he repeats in the last sentence above. It is he who is challenging all the eyewitness statements attesting to Joseph Smith's method of dictating the Book of Mormon. So, it is he who first moves into the murky waters of intentionality. As argued above, it is easier to believe Cowdery's own penmanship is responsible for 104 corrections of the same letter, which happens to be two very similar looking letters. In such cases, did Cowdery intend to write "amorg" or "among"? Or is Skousen being too exacting?
Vogel states: "These are examples of where the malformed letters can make nonsensical words, but what if the similarity in lettering makes sense either way? Skousen handles those situations in a different way ...." He then says that this "subtle distinction ... was lost on Chandler". Actually, Vogel doesn't understand the distinction that Skousen is making. Skousen is not using different symbols to distinguish between nonsense words and words that make sense. He uses one set of symbols to represent letters that are legible and the other symbols to represent situations where he was not really certain what letters were written because they were difficult to read. But in either case, the reading can produce either nonsense words or words that make sense. Vogel says, "With malformed letters, Skousen is apparently going solely on appearance because there is no ambiguity in meaning." This makes no sense to me. Vogel is saying that Skousen saw clearly, for example, that a letter was a malformed "n," but nonetheless designated it as a "r" overwritten by an "n." Why wouldn't Skousen simply represent it as an "n" overwritten by an "n," since he actually has a symbol for this purpose? And, by the way, none of the examples that I have used fall into the ambiguous category.
None of Chandler's examples fall into the ambiguous category (e.g., [x|y] instead of {x|y}), which means that they all fall into the category where the word is nonsensical, and therefore not likely an intentional mistake. This is an important distinction, which Chandler obscures. I quoted Skousen's explanation that [s|r] represented situations where a difficult reading could result in different words, both with meaning. Skousen gives the following example:--
For instance, in 1 Nephi ... there are two examples of the past-tense verb bare which could also be read as bore , although bare (with a capital B ) seems to have been scribe 2's intended spelling:
26 B[a|o]re record & they B[a|o]re record according to the
--(Skousen, 1:18-19)
In this example, the similarity between "a" and "o" results in uncertainty since "Bare" and "Bore" are real words. Interestingly, Chandler gives 5 examples of where Cowdery's "o" looks like an "a", and 28 examples of where his "a" looks like an "o"--except in these instances the results were nonsensical words. Chandler's 5 examples of the former are as follows:--
when yu=you feel these swelling mations=motions ye will begin (303:13)
we do not desire to men of blaod=blood (368:21)
the tiibulations=tribulations of aur=our warfare (441:21)
the Sons of thase=those men which Ammon brought down (441:23)
deliver up our Prisoners an=on exchenge=exchange (449:27)
Did Cowdery intentionally write "mations", "blaod", "aur", or "thase"? Or is it more reasonable to conclude that Cowdery wrote what looked like an "a" because his "a" and "o" look similar and he was in a hurry, and so he came back and fixed it? In the last example, Skousen still used {a|o}n instead of [a|o]n because in context "an" makes no sense.
Chandler's difficulty in understanding my explanation probably derives from his lack of experience transcribing and editing historical documents, and the many pitfalls involved in any system of editing symbols. Skousen's effort to avoid issues of intentionality, while being as exacting in his transcription as possible, oddly and ironically makes it appear he thought the scribe intended to write "amorg" and "sone". To clarify this issue, I wrote Skousen on 23 February 2007 as follows:--
Royal,
Thanks for responding. I want to understand your method better. I'm aware of the difference between {x|y} and [x|y], although I don't think Chandler is. But I want to make sure I'm representing you correctly.
Chandler: the Lord hath concecrated this lard=land unto me (165:29)
Skousen: the Lord hath concecrated this la{r|n}[d] unto me (165:29)
Chandler: the tempest began to be exceding sone=sore (147:25)
Skousen: the tempest [be]gan to be exceding so{n|r}e (147:25)
In these two examples, are you trying to convey the idea that the scribe corrected his penmanship because his "n" looked too much like an "r", and visa versa, as opposed to {r} or {n} corrections? In other words, do you understand that the similarity between the scribe's "r" and "n", together with the hast of writing, lead to a malformed letter that was indistinguishable from a real letter, but the wrong one? You don't think the scribe intentionally wrote nonsensical words like "lard" and "sone"?
It would be helpful to understand what you were thinking in these situations.
Sincerely,
Dan Vogel
To which Skousen kindly responded on 24 February 2007:--
Dear Dan,
Your interpretation is correct. I don’t think the scribe intended to write “lard” or “sone”, but he noticed that his n looked like an r, so he overwrote it (for “land”); similarly, his r in “sore” looked like an n, so he overwrote it with an r. But of course one can’t prove what the scribe intended, but it sure looks that way to me.
A case of {r} or {n} means that the scribe wrote a r and then overwrote part of it, but both the first and the second are r’s. Sometimes, there are things like {r|r}, which means that the whole r was overwritten. This sometimes happens when the scribe’s quill runs out of ink.
Best wishes, Royal.
Vogel hasn't produced any credible evidence that Skousen was dealing with malformed letters in the examples that I have used, which is critical for his argument. Vogel also doesn't seem to realize that if his interpretation were correct, then in any particular instance we would have no way of knowing whether a scribe had actually written two different letters or was merely correcting a malformed letter. That would render Skousen's work absolutely worthless as a critical text.
Again, I think Chandler is oblivious to the difficulties transcribers and editors of historical texts face. The fact that Cowdery corrected the same mistake 104 times, together with the fact that the letter being corrected looks very similar to the overwrite, should have been clue enough for Chandler that it was in no way evidence for his theory.
CHANDLER'S STRANGE LOGIC
Vogel asks, "What scribe copies letter by letter nonsensical words?" I haven't made this claim.
Yes, Ted, you have. It is what is necessary for your theory to be true. Nearly all your examples are nonsensical words, which you have argued are proof mindless copying. In his original presentation, Chandler states:--
These errors indicate clearly that the scribes were misreading rather than mishearing the text. The errors often involve pairs of letters that are formed similarly when written but are pronounced differently when spoken. ... Furthermore, many of the errors result in nonsense words or render nonsensical the meaning of the sentence in which they occur. It is apparent that the scribes were copying an unfamiliar hand and that their task produced confusion and tedium. Deciphering the original text and constantly looking back and forth between the original and the copy for long periods of time made them prone to committing copying errors, mistaking one letter for another. And, the mechanical and tedious nature of the task, which impaired their ability to concentrate, led them to make even nonsensical errors. There may also be other contributing factors that we are not aware of, such as the condition of the manuscript that was being copied, the lighting in the room where the scribes worked, and distractions, such as conversations that may have been going on while the scribe worked.
In order to copy nonsensical words, the scribe cannot be copying word-for-word, but letter-for-letter. Not likely. The harder it is to read the original, the more likely it is for the scribe to use context to decipher the difficult word. They might mistake one word for another, but the only time a scribe would write letter-for-letter would be with the Book of Mormon's unusual names, and then, there is a real possibility of mimicking uncertain letters. But why would a scribe mimic the handwriting of the original of words well known to him? What Chandler imagines is nonsense.
But if a scribe is copying a text and is not certain what a written word is, he may have to puzzle it out as he goes along, realizing what the word is only after he has written down an incorrect letter that would produce nonsense. So, the word would not have been nonsense to him, but only uncertain.
Here, despite his denial above, Chandler describes a scribe writing letter-for-letter. Chandler plays another definition game, attempting to distinguish between "nonsensical" and "uncertain" words, although it was he who first used the first term. As Chandler imagines it, the scribe writes the "uncertain" word down, then realizes it's "nonsensical", then "puzzles it out", then corrects the letter to make a real word. Having transcribed thousands of pages of historical documents, this process makes no sense to me, especially when it is used to explain hundreds, if not thousands, of scribal errors in O-MS. It's not only ridiculous, it would make the job much harder. If a scribe really operated in this manner, how would dittography and haplography occur? Chandler also assumes that the words were always corrected immediately after writing the word, but he doesn't explain how he knows this. Moreover, how a scribe can accidentally write nonsensical words letter-for-letter, yet immediately realize this, is a mystery to me. In reality, the scribe reads the word or words, then writes it down. If a word is difficult to read, he looks at the words around it to help him decipher the word, then he writes it down.
Writing an incorrect letter can also be due simply to scribal inattention. For example, Bruce Metzger, Professor of New Testament Language and Literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, says that "even with the strongest determination to copy a text without error, a scribe copying a text of considerable length will almost inevitably introduce changes in the wording. It is understandable that mistakes can arise from inattentiveness brought on by weariness" (http://www.biblicalstudies.org.uk/artic ... zger3.html). Also, Orville Jenkins suggests that some errors in biblical manuscripts are due to mechanical copying:
Mechanical copying -- Not Information Processing
Copying texts was a form of devotion and worship, not a cognitive process as modern, analytical westerners might think, with our focus on information and personal knowledge. Cognitive interaction with the text as you copied it was not a big part of the process of copying of the biblical texts in the historical process before the development of printing.
To get an idea how this might work, talk to a copy-typist about their process of typing from a printed page. I have been told by many that they do it mechanically, not interacting with the information. The latter hinders their focus on the process of getting the letter sequence through their fingers to the keyboard. Copyists have told me they often are only vaguely aware of what they were typing, and sometimes cannot even tell you what the article said.
http://orvillejenkins.com/theology/oldermss.html
Joseph Smith's scribes were not professionals with training in copying manuscripts, and they were most likely more concerned with copying the text than with understanding what was being copied.
How ancient copyists, who copied the same texts over and over, tell us about Cowdery and the other armature scribes is unclear. There is nothing in this quote that supports Chandler's assertion that the Book of Mormon scribes would copy letter-by-letter. A copyist copying word-for-word doesn't think of meaning of the text either. Jenkins is describing how easy errors can inter into copied texts, but you have to read the rest of his discussion to find out what kinds of errors he is talking about. Interestingly, the kind that Chandler thinks results from mechanical copying is not listed. Instead, under "One-Letter Word Variations", Jenkins says:--
One-letter differences are another version of phonetic confusion. In theological developments, the pair homoousios (same substance) and homoiousios (similar substance) split the church east to west finally after centuries of wrangling. This muddle was further complicated by the different connotations between the meaning of the available words to discuss the question in Latin and Greek.
There is a difference between the scribe writing the wrong but similar word, and writing a nonsensical word. Jenkins doesn't describe anything like what Chandler is proposing for Book of Mormon scribes. When you have over a hundred examples of the exact same mistake, it is more reasonable to look to scribe and not the source for the problem.
Vogel accuses me of "speculating some far fetched scenarios to explain away Skousen's evidence." I don't see anything far fetched about my explanations of Skousen's examples. I stated that Skousen's first example of mishearing "an" as "and" could as easily be explained as a visual misreading. The use of an ampersand by the scribe does not disprove this, since he could simply have replaced a written "an" with the ampersand.
Doesn't this response demonstrate exactly what I was saying? How does "an" look like "and" or "&"? Moreover, Chandler had abandoned his own thesis to escape Skousen's evidence. Skousen had argued that scribe 2 misheard and for an in 1 Ne. 13:29.
O-MS: & because of these things which are taken away out of the gosple of the Lamb & exceeding great many do stumble
In Skousen's words: "The use of the ampersand (&) shows that the error was not based on visual similarity. Hearing an, the scribe interpreted it as the casual speech form an' for and." (67)
To escape the implications of this evidence, Chandler abandons his theory that the scribes are mindlessly reading and copying the text letter-for-letter, and instead argues that the scribe misreads "an" for "and" and, and instead of writing "and" writes "&". Wow! Far fetched ... and incoherent!
In Skousen's second example of mishearing "reed" as "weed," I also suggested that visual misreading might have been the cause for the error. However, upon further investigation, I see that this example is based upon a mere assumption. In the O-MS, the text reads simply: "shall wither even as a (dred) dried weed." There is no indication that the scribe changed "weed." However, in the P-MS, "weed" was changed to "reed." Skousen has merely assumed that because of this change in P, "reed" was also the word dictated to the scribe for the O-MS. But this assumption can't be proven from the text of O itself. So it is possible that "weed" was correctly copied by the scribe in O. Perhaps a change was made in P because Cowdery saw a similarity to Isaiah 19:6: "dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither."
Skousen proposes the reading of "reed" as likely given the similarity to Isaiah 19:6.
Skousen's third example is mishearing "beat" as "meet." I suggested that since either word fits the context of the sentence, which reads "for it was they who did (meet) beat the Lamanites" (Alma 57:22), Cowdery may have simply decided to change the word. The Book of Mormon provides examples of both uses.
in which the Nephites did beat the Lamanites (Mormon 1:11)
in the which they did beat the Nephites (Mormon 4:19)
being prepared to meet the Lamanites (Jarom 1:9)
went forth without arms to meet the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they did meet the Lamanites (Mosiah 20:25)
they were prepared to meet the Amlicites (Alma 2:13)
the army which was sent by Moroni, which was led by a man whose name was Teancum, did meet the people of Morianton (Alma 50:35)
he marched with the remainder to meet the Lamanites (Alma 52:26)
we did meet the spies of our armies (Alma 57:30)
Moroni and Pahoran went down with their armies into the land of Zarahemla, and went forth against the city, and did meet the men of Pachus (Alma 62:7)
In fact, "meet" seems to be the preferred word in Alma, which suggests that it may have been original.
I'm not sure what point Chandler is trying to make with his examples, but in context, Alma 57:22 makes more sense with "beat" than with "meet":--
And now behold, it was these my sons, and those men who had been selected to convey the prisoners, to whom we owe this great victory; for it was they who did beat the Lamanites; therefore they were driven back to the city of Manti.
That doesn't prove Cowdery misheard the word, but the similarity in sound between the two words does open the possibility that he did. Otherwise, Chandler has to postulate that the original MS contained poor wording that Cowdery later improved. None of Chandler's examples use "meet" when "beat" would be the better choice.
Skousen's fourth example is two instances in which "him" was replaced by "them." I suggested that since "him" occurs twice in the text before the incorrect occurrence, Cowdery could have become confused. This is not a far fetched explanation, and even Vogel admits that this is possible. In the second example, I suggested that Cowdery might have incorrectly anticipated what the next word was going to be. Again, this is not far fetched, and both Skousen and Vogel use scribal anticipation to explain errors. Apparently, this is an illegitimate explanation only if I use it.
No, Ted, not because YOU used it, but because you used it incorrectly--meaning you used it only as a convenient excuse, not because it made sense or explained the text. Skousen had argued:--"One particular difficulty for the scribe occurred whenever Joseph Smith pronounced unstressed 'em (for either them]/i] or [i]him)." (68) And then gave the following two examples:--
O-MS: & behold they saw him <a> comeing & they hailed him but he sayeth unto <him> them not
O-MS: wherefore Akish administered it unto his kindreds & friends leading (<%him%>|them) away by fair promises
So, the question is: what made the scribe anticipate "him" instead of "them" since the context would not lead him to anticipate "him"? In the first especially, "he sayeth unto him"? Nevertheless, Chandler's "anticipation"-argument is another instance where he abandons his mindless letter-by-letter thesis.
Skousen's fifth example is an uncorrected "Sons" in O that was changed to "Son" in P. Skousen claims that the error was due to the word "see" which follows "Son" so that when the phrase "Son see" was dictated, Cowdery could not tell if "Son" was singular or plural. But, of course, if "see" was written closely to "Son," Cowdery could have mistakenly seen "Son" as "Sons." And, again, the O-MS does not provide definitive proof that "Sons" was an error. The assumption that it was an error depends on the change in P.
Another far fetched counter to Skousen's evidence. Similar to the meet/beat change, "son" fits the context better and has an explanation as a typical error that occurs in orally dictated. The plural in O-MS in Alma 41:14 is an obvious error. Alma was speaking directly to Corianton about his brothers:--"Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren ..." Alma 39-42 are Alma's words to Corianton, and it makes no sense for Alma to suddenly address all his sons in the middle of speaking to Corianton. "Son" appears 29 times in these chapters, and only one of them had been plural before being corrected. And that one instance just happens to precede "see". While Skousen's explanation makes perfect sense (and is a common mistake in oral dictation), Chandler's suggestion that "son" and "see" were mistakenly seen as "sons see" because they were written close to one another is ludicrous.
CHANDLER'S BURDEN TO PROOF
Vogel engages in far more creative speculation than I to explain away the examples that I provided of dittography and haplography. Here are some of his comments.
"Or is it evidence that Joseph Smith was struggling with impromptu dictation of a difficult passage?"
"or Joseph Smith correcting himself when he added a dependent clause."
"Rather, the type of correction one would expect in impromptu dictation, when Joseph Smith change [sic] his mind about word ordering."
"Again, probably Joseph Smith adding an adjective after dictating the noun."
"Most likely Joseph Smith rephrasing."
"Joseph Smith saying 'Israel' and then deciding to qualify the term."
These were not "creative speculations", they were reasonable explanations for what appeared in the text. The bottom line was that Chandler's examples of dittography and holography were not definitive. Most of his examples were easily explained as Joseph Smith's changing direction in his dictation, so that a word or partial word gets canceled and then repeated later, usually in the same sentence. These instances were not evidence of the scribe's accidentally skipping ahead to the wrong word and immediately correcting himself. A dittograph or haplograph either repeats or deletes a word or phrase because the eye skips forward or backwards because there is repetition of the same words. Even Chandler's link to Jenkins gives the following definition of haplography, although he doesn't use the term:--
There are other common ways errors may be introduced in the copying process: irregularity of texts/lines in the manuscript you are copying ca[n] make it difficult to keep your place phrase to phrase; the eye can skip [to] [t]he same word in the next line or passage, leaving out one or more words or even whole lines of text when the eye moves from manuscript to copyscript and back to manuscript.
--http://orvillejenkins.com/theology/oldermss.html
I gave the following example of haplography from P-MS [<phrase> = above the line insertion]:--
Page 165: therefore the king couldD not confer the kingDom upon him; <neither would Aaron take upon him the kingdom> neither was any of the Sons of Mosiah willing to take upon them the kingDom
Here Hyrum Smith missed a phrase because his eye skipped to the next neither. Cowdery restored the lost phrase.
Chandler gave the following examples of what he thought were haplographs:--
I had smote off his (own) head with his own sword (73:49)
and Laban also (d) was a descendant of joseph (80:5)
how is it (how great things) that ye have forgotten how great things (84:25-26)
it came to pass that (I) after i had praid unto the lord (88:47-48)
for the plates uppon which i make a (pe) full account of my people (94:44-45)
come to the (Re) knowlledge of the true masiah their lord and their redemer (98:14-15)
i desire to be hold (to) t(re)he things which my father saw ... thy father saw the tree (101:4-7)
have been lifted up (above) by the power of God above all other Nations (119:11-12)
& (pre) most precious parts (120:40)
I did slay (bea) wild beasts (136:1)
make himself a (Ru) King & a ruler over us (137:21)
O house of (I) Jacob which are called by the name of Israel (153-54: 38, 1)
the Lamanites could not come upon us by (many) night and slay us which they attempted many times (450:9)
None of these have repeated words or phrases to explain why the scribes eye would accidentally skip ahead. Note also that Chandler's explanation requires to scribe to immediately correct the mistake, which is another abandonment of his theory that the scribes were mindlessly copying letter-for-letter. Given the absence of haplographic evidence, it seems much more reasonable to suggest that either Joseph Smith changed direction in his dictation, started to say one thing, decided to interject another phase, and then resumed the original thought, or that the scribe in the rush of keeping up with the rate of dictation was about to skip ahead but caught himself on the first, second, or third letter of the incorrect word. These are not creative speculations, but far more reasonable reconstructions than Chandler's attempts to escape Skousen's evidence. My explanations, however, are not necessary since Chandler's examples are not evidence of visual copying in the first place.
Vogel argues that I ignore eyewitness testimony regarding the manner in which Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon by placing his seer stone in a hat and dictating without benefit of manuscript or books. But Vogel himself ignores parts of these eyewitness testimonies. For example, Emma Smith stated that Joseph did not have the ability to write the Book of Mormon, but Vogel believes that he did.
Again, Chandler attempts an argumentum ad hominem (circumstantial), or argument from personal circumstances. Even if I were inconsistent in my use of Emma's testimony, that would not release Chandler from the obligation to respond to my evidence and argument. Emma and many other eyewitnesses described Joseph Smith's method of dictating the Book of Mormon, which Spalding advocates must deal with and not brush aside with fallacious arguments like this one. Emma's opinion about Joseph Smith's literary abilities has nothing to do with her observations. Historians are not forced to either accept everything a witness says or nothing. That is a false dichotomy. Because of her belief about Joseph Smith's abilities and her observation that there was no MS from which he read, Emma concluded that he was inspired. We are in no way bound by her opinion, but we are obligated to consider he observations, especially when they are attested to by many others.
People like Martin Harris and David Whitmer said that during the translation process, sentences in English would appear to Joseph, which he read off to the scribe, and the sentences would not disappear until the scribe had made a correct copy. But Vogel gives a quite different view of the translation process, as we have seen from his comments, claiming that changes in O are evidence of Joseph Smith's struggles, corrections, and rephrasing during dictation.
Again, Harris and Whitmer can speak only to what they observed, which was similar to what Emma said about Joseph Smith's method of dictation. It is likely their descriptions of what was seen in the stone was told to them by Joseph Smith. If Joseph Smith hesitated or changed direction in his dictation on occasion, that would not change the general description Harris and Whitmer gave. Besides, in such rare instances, he could always make the excuse that he misread what was written on the stone--after all he was unlearned. Still, the occasional evidence of Joseph Smith's changing direction in his dictation doesn't impeach the testimonies of many witnesses to the extent that Chandler and other Spalding advocates are justified in introducing the concept that the scribes really copied the text from a proto-BOM MS.
We have also seen that some of the words in O were not changed until the P-MS was produced, so the eyewitness descriptions were incorrect. If Vogel thinks that the testimonies of eyewitnesses give a false description of the actual translation process, why does he think that they are reliable concerning the lack of source material? Joseph Smith undoubtedly did use the stone in a hat trick, just as he had during his money-digging ventures, to convince people to believe in his powers. It is probable that initially Joseph used a dictation method with Emma and Martin Harris acting as scribes, but we do not have the manuscript that they produced. But I think that Smith also attracted willing accomplices, like Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer, who were ready to aid him in his deception.
I accept the eyewitness testimonies as essentially reliable. It is clear that Joseph Smith put his seer stone into his hat and then dictated sentence by sentence. The scribe would read the sentence back, and if it was correct Joseph Smith would dictate another sentence. That fact is not impeached because corrections were later made to P-MS. I understand that Spalding advocates need to impeach this testimony, but their failure to do so is a serious reason why the theory has no explanatory power.
Chandler actually provides us with a good example of how Spalding advocates deal with testimony they don't like. Emma and Harris were telling the truth about the hat trick, but Cowdery and Whitmer were accomplices and probably lied about the hat trick. Chandler implies that the lost 116 pages were probably inferior to the Book of Mormon we now have. While the most-often quoted part of Emma's 1879 statement to Joseph Smith III describes her observations during her work as scribe, she also said "O. Cowdery and J. S. wrote in the room where I was at work" (EMD 1:539). So, the neat division between different witnesses that Chandler imagines doesn't exist. Furthermore, David Whitmer wasn't the only eyewitness at Fayette. The following is the affidavit of Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery obtained by William E. McLellin:--
. . . "Richmond, Ray Co., Mo. Feb 15th 1870--I cheerfully certify that I was familiar with the manner of Joseph Smith's translating the Book of Mormon. He translated the most of it at my Father's house. And I often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating. He would place the director in his hat, and then place [-] his <face in his> hat, so as to exclude the light, and then [read?] to his scribe the words (he said) as they appeared before him.
--William E. McLellin, Letter to "My Dear Friends," February 1870, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, RLDS Church Library-Archives, Independence, Missouri. (EMD 5:260)
Nevertheless, despite his lack of familiarity with early Mormon sources, I find what Chandler has suggested to be wildly absurd. To escape counter evidence, he is willing to concede that Joseph Smith dictated the 116 pages with his head in the hat, without any MS. Wow! What happened to the Rigdon-Spalding MS theory? Again, we see him abandoning his own theory to save his theory. This is how false theories are proven wrong. One ad hoc rationalization upon another until it becomes untenable. Ted, perhaps it's time to accept the implications of the head-in-the-hat evidence and relinquish your far fetched interpretations about O-MS?
BETTER BUT INCONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE
Vogel claims that my examples are ambiguous and are not definitive because there is no word or words repeated in the text that would cause the scribe's eye to skip to the wrong place in the manuscript while copying. I think that fatigue and confusion are sufficient to explain why the scribe's eye might have skipped to the wrong place in the text, but to satisfy Vogel, I offer some further examples of dittography and haplography.
Dittography
and Was baptsd of him and after that he was baptised (of) i beheld the hevens (105:29-30)
upon your crimes (h(-)) to harrow up your (cr) Soul if it were not (340:35)
Interesting, and certainly better examples than previously offered, but still not definitive. Here is what a definitive dittography might look like:--
and Was baptsd of him and after that he was baptised (of him and after that he was baptised) i beheld the hevens (105:29-30)
Or, at least, more of the strikeout portion than one word or part of a word. Again, Chandler's reconstruction assumes the scribes were not mindlessly copying a text letter-for-letter. Is he willing to drop his original arguments, which were no more than corrections of bad penmanship, for dittographic and haplographic evidence? He can't have it both ways. If so, he will have to admit that they are not definitive.
In these two examples one does not know if Joseph Smith was going to say something else than what comes after the canceled word. Chandler only assumes a dittograph occurred because there is a repetition of words. There is a difference between my stating that dittographs occur because the eye of the scribe skips back to the same words, and Chandler's assumption that any similar situation is a dittograph. Thus, one might be more confident that Chandler's second example was a dittograph if it had appeared as follows:--
upon your crimes (h(-)) to harrow up your (crimes to harrow up) Soul if it were not (340:35)
As it is, the cancellation of cr leaves too much ambiguity as to why the scribe started to write "crimes", especially when he had to hold a lot of words in his head and write rapidly. That's why I said there are not definitive dittographs in O-MS. There are also no definitive haplographs, despite the following examples given by Chandler:--
Haplography
[1] I know of myself not of the (Carnal mind) (but of) (the spiritual) (tempral but of) (the spiritual) temporal but of the spiritual not of the Carnal mind but of God (320:24-25)
[2] if ye keep not his (presance) commandments ye shall be cut off from his presance (328:18)
[3] we will seek not your (liv) blood but we will spare your lives (369:5)
[4] & delivered up his (Sim) sword & his Simetar (369:11)
[5] it came to pass that (same s)e Ameleckiah took that same servant(s) (395:26)
[6] they did drink & were merry & by (th) & by they were all drunken (437:34)
Example 1 shows evidence of struggling for the right wording (either by Joseph Smith or the scribe), but there is no evidence for haplography. The others are just more of the same. Unlike the example I gave above from P-MS, these are not definitive haplographs. In my example, an entire phrase had been left out because the scribes eye skipped forward, which required the scribe to return and insert the missing phrase above the line. None of these are examples do that. Instead, all require very alert scribes, not mindless copyists. All errors are caught immediately, sometimes only after a few letters, which might be expected of alert scribes writing from dictation, but not those mechanically copying from another text. As explained in my previous response, a scribe holding words in his head and trying to keep up with the rate of dictation might accidentally skip ahead, leaving out part of the sentence, quickly discover, and quickly correct it (hence no need for interlinear corrections). What Chandler has done is simply look for instances of this kind of correction where plausibly a subsequent grouping of similar words could suggest haplography. What he leaves out of the equation is the numerous times the same kind of correction occurs without the plausible repetition, which can be demonstrated by his own previous attempt to find haplography in O-MS.
Haplography:
[1] I had smote off his (own) head with his own sword (73:49)
[2] and Laban also (d) was a descendant of joseph (80:5)
[3] how is it (how great things) that ye have forgotten how great things (84:25-26)
[4] it came to pass that (I) after i had praid unto the lord (88:47-48)
[5] for the plates uppon which i make a (pe) full account of my people (94:44-45)
[6] come to the (Re) knowlledge of the true masiah their lord and their redemer (98:14-15)
[7] i desire to be hold (to) t(re)he things which my father saw ... thy father saw the tree (101:4-7)
[8] have been lifted up (above) by the power of God above all other Nations (119:11-12)
[9] & (pre) most precious parts (120:40)
[10] I did slay (bea) wild beasts (136:1)
[11] make himself a (Ru) King & a ruler over us (137:21)
[12] O house of (I) Jacob which are called by the name of Israel (153-54: 38, 1)
[13] the Lamanites could not come upon us by (many) night and slay us which they attempted many times (450:9)
--(numbers and bold added for convenience)
The underlined words above indicate that different words precede Chandler's proposed haplographic evidence. This problem is why Chandler prefaced his evidence with:--
Vogel claims that my examples are ambiguous and are not definitive because there is no word or words repeated in the text that would cause the scribe's eye to skip to the wrong place in the manuscript while copying. I think that fatigue and confusion are sufficient to explain why the scribe's eye might have skipped to the wrong place in the text, but to satisfy Vogel, I offer some further examples of dittography and haplography.
But if the scribes were so tired and confused, how is it that they caught their mistakes so fast? When dittography and haplography DO occur the scribe is usually unaware of it; if it is caught, it is generally by a proof reader. It is unusual for a scribe to catch the error before completing the word. I have also proofed thousands of pages of the copied MS History of the Church (Books A-2 through E-2), but I don't recall having seen the kind of haplography that Chandler lists (although it's possible they were all erased). On the other hand, I have seen many examples of entire phrases added above the line that were inadvertently omitted. Skousen has explained--and I concur with him--that the scribes in rushing to keep up with the dictation sometimes accidentally skipped ahead. I also suspect that the scribe, at least some times, was repeating the words to Joseph Smith as he was writing the words, and Joseph Smith stopped him in mid-word. These seem more reasonable to me than what Chandler's scenario requires.I have no doubt that Vogel will find some imaginative ways to explain away these examples as well.
The issue isn't who is using imagination to reconstruct, because everyone is. The point is: whose reconstructions explains the physical evidence better and are more likely, given everything we know. It's not enough for Chandler's counter explanations be merely possible, although I think them unlikely. He has to have compelling evidence since he is challenging all the eyewitnesses.There are also many places in O where text was omitted and then inserted above the line. Here are some examples.
[\words/ = interlinear insertions]
be like unto this River continually running into \the fountain of/ all righteousness (62:19I beheld the Church of the Lamb of god & its \numbers/ were few (122:3-4)
the thing which our father meaneth concerning \the grafting/ in of the natural branches (127:21-22)
in as much as ye will not \keep (his) my commandments/ ye shall be cut off from (his) \my/ presance (169:4-5)
do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites of the \incorrectness of the/ traditions of their fathers (265:1-2)
we will try the hearts of our brethren whether they will \that ye shall/ come into their land (270:11)
& speak with the Trump of God with a (c)voice to shake the earth \& cry/ repentance unto every People (277:24-25
I am grieved because of the hardness \of your heart/ yea that ye will (289:14)
as my mind caught hold upon this thought I \cried within my heart/ O Jesus thou Son of God have mercy (323:18-19)
for the blessings of liberty to rest upon \his brethren/ (long) so long as there should (381:24)
among all the People of the Lamanites which was composed of the \Lamanites & the/ Lemuelites & the Ishmaelites (395:34)
by pulling down the banks of earth they were \filled/ up in a measure with their dead (404:10-11)
did bring forth unto them \therefore they/ did seek to cut (all) off the strength (407:35)
it was easier to keep the city from falling into the hands of the Lamanites \than to retake it from them/ he supposed that they would easily maintai(r)n that City (468:20-21)
in the com(n)mencement of the \(forth) fortyeth year of the/ Reign of the Judges o(r)ver the People (487:26-27)
None of these are haplographic corrections. There are no repeated phrases that confused the scribes. Yet Chandler wants to make something out of these interlinear insertions.These examples raise a number of questions. When were the insertions made - immediately or at a later time? If later, how was the correct text determined, if there was no source manuscript? If the scribe was copying a source manuscript, the examples demonstrate that through inattention the scribe could omit text even without word similarities drawing his eye to the wrong place in the manuscript.
Why do these insertion point to mistakes a copyist makes in copying a MS? They are the kinds of corrections that the eyewitnesses implied were made at the time of dictation. Undoubtedly some errors were not discovered or correct until Cowdery was copying the text into P-MS. One way or another, they had to be corrected, with or without a proto-BOM MS. So, the only thing this evidence challenges the exaggerated claims of Whitmer and others about the writing remaining on the stone until the scribe had written everything perfectly.
