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There will be more than one. It takes a bit of time to get the ones I have reasonably acessible into this forum (and where I live, I don't immediately have access to all of the resources I would like, so some will take a bit longer). But since I have it handy, this first one comes from Dennis MacDonald's 1994 book, Christianizing Homer - The Odyssey, Plato, and The Acts of Andrew (Oxford University Press). Yes, I am crticial of his method, but this description is fairly short, and not too hard to understand. Others will follow. This from page 303:

Criteria for Literary Dependence

I will test the hypothesis against five criteria: (1) density and order, (2) explanatory value, (3) accessibility, (4) analogy, and (5) motivation. It will be seen that The Acts of Andrew statisfies each criterion brilliantly.

Density and order pertains to the parallels between two documents; the more one finds, the stronger the case for literary connection between them. Conversely, the fewer the parallels, the weaker the case. One ought also to ask if the alleged parallels between the two texts follow a similar or radically different order of presentation. Sometimes, for example, one may find loose similarities between two texts - shared vocabulary, tale-types, motifs, or characterizations - but the mere presence of these similarities does not require literary influence. On the other ha, when similarities appear in the same order, the case for literary dependence strengthens, especially in cases where there seems no other explanation for the order of these items in the hypertext.

By explanatory value I mean the ability of the alleged parallels between hypotext and hypertext to account for otherwise inexplainable difficulties in the latter. Stated otherwise, if one can understand a text perfectly well without appeal to its dependence on an antecedent, the case for that dependence diminishes; the more difficulties in the text the hypotext explains, the surer the case for influence.

One may find striking parallels between two texs, but they carry little weight if the author of the hypertext could not have had access to its alleged target, and this is what I mean by accessibility. Thus, the more widespread the circulation of the alleged hypotext, the more plausible the case that it might have influenced the hypertext.

The case for the influence of one text on another gains credibility if one can demonstrate that the same hypotext influenced other texts as well. On the other hand, if there are no other examples of such influence, one might well be suspicitous of influence in the case at hand. It is this issue that I examine under the criterion of analogy.

When authors rewrite texts, they have some reason for doing so. The project may be friendly to the hypotext: a commentary, a translation, or an imitation; it may also be transgressive: a parody, a travesty, or a transvaluation. Whatever the reason, the author apparently thinks that the desired taks would be accomplished best by recomposing. Therefore, when one argues for influence of one text on another, one ought to be able to explain why the author went to the trouble, that is, his or her motivation.

This page is also important:

https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/divinity/r ... parallels/

Rather than going immediately to other methodologies, why don't you use this one to form your argument. What is it about this one, that enables you to evaluate and reach whatever conclusion you have concerning Tom Donofrio's article..and whoever else's work on illustrating parallels between Spalding's Roman story and other works, between Book of Mormon and other works. And whatever other parallels you are interested in.

The first reason, Marg, would be quite simply that MacDonald's methodology has been highly criticized in the past (and continues to be criticized). I would prefer something from Hays. But, I don't have much directly handy from Hays that would apply. I have his criteria (which I used in my forthcoming essay) but that generally is used to apply to a specific kind of borrowing: literary allusions (which are generally concerned with some additional kinds of issues beyond simply identifying parallels and such).

The second reason is that it is virtually impossible (as everyone understands) to prove negatives. Which is to say that I am not interested in trying to reformat Roger's argument around this method, and this kind of method isn't that useful in such a structured way to disprove it.

But, if you wanted a general outline, it would go something like this:
________

Referring to the 1838 discovery narrative and the so-called Roman story.

1: Density and Order

In this particular argument we have lists of parallels. There are not a lot of parallels. The one advantage is that many of them do seem to come in the same order in both texts. However, the nature and order of these parallels is in part explained quite well by the kind of narrative - that they share similar themes (of discovery). And so caution has to be exercised to show that there is something more here that is outside of what we might expect in narratives of discovery, and that these issues in the text are also shared. Further, the differences between the two texts are significant enough to make us question such a reliance.

2: Explanatory Value

I don't actually see any difficulties in the 1838 discovery narrative that would otherwise be inexplicable. Not only does the story seem to be coherent, but, it also matches in details to earlier accounts of the same discovery (which are not asserted to be taken from the so-called Roman Story). So, for example, in the 1833 affidavit of Willard Chase, we have the stone box containing the record, and so on. Given that this is at least a third hand account, these details must have been in fairly wide circulation prior to the 1838 discovery narrative. There are other early accounts which also include these kinds of details.

3: Accessibility

Accessibility is an issue - since there isn't any historical record that indicates that Rigdon had met with Smith prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. Furthermore, we can suggest with some confidence (as others have already made this statement here in these forums) that Smith didn't actually come into possession of the Roman Story - rather the claims are about a similar text which has never been found. Accessibility remains a very big issue.

4: Analogy

Clearly, the Roman Story did not have wide circulation. More to the point, none of the 1833 affidavits manage to actually provide us with unique details from the so-called Roman Story or the alleged Manuscript Found which could not be directed back to the Book of Mormon itself or published accounts about the Book of Mormon.

5: Motivation

Laziness has been suggested - but really, no reasonable motivation has been offered for Joseph to reuse the details he had already been sharing about the discovery, but doing so in a way that draws clearly from this undiscovered text.
_________

That would be how I would start.

By the way, my forthcoming article (should only be 7 or 8 weeks now according to the editors) has a very detailed methodology which I then follow in my presentation. I know it doesn't help right now. But, it will be available soon. And it presents a case of literary dependence in the Book of Mormon.

Benjamin McGuire wrote:The first reason, Marg, would be quite simply that MacDonald's methodology has been highly criticized in the past (and continues to be criticized).

Ben if you are not willing to use an expert's reasoning in your argumentation against parallels, they why are you posting his work?

The second reason is that it is virtually impossible (as everyone understands) to prove negatives.

Certainly the burden to prove that the parallels are meaningful in determining if an author likely borrowed from other's work is on those making that claim. That is what Tom Donofrio's 61 page printed out essay is about. I certainly think he has established beyond a shadow of doubt that Spalding himself borrowed from other others of his day. And that the Book of Mormon author also borrowed from some of those same authors therefore tying Spalding to the ?Book of Mormon via similar borrowed authors. Tom is able to show by examples that not only words were borrowed but themes and concepts. You are absolutely right it is difficult to counter an argument that is well presented and established with facts which can be objectively evaluated and verified.

Which is to say that I am not interested in trying to reformat Roger's argument around this method, and this kind of method isn't that useful in such a structured way to disprove it.

I see, but the implication by posting this expert's expertise and opinion of parallels in general is that it counters Tom Donofrio's essay found here. Early American Influences on the Book of Mormon by Tom Donofrio. But without you presenting an argument, I fail to see how.

But, if you wanted a general outline, it would go something like this:
________

Referring to the 1838 discovery narrative and the so-called Roman story.

We've been through this before Ben. The discovery narrative by Smith in 1838 being remarkably similar to the one in the Roman Story needs to be appreciated within a context. That being when Smith in 1838 gave his discovery narrative of plates, he was already accused of plagiarizing a Spalding's work. Smith is unlikely to have ever seen Roman story, to have known what was contained in detail in that story, he would have only likely have known the general outline based upon Howe's book and that Howe had seen it after being given it by Hurlbut. By 1838..that Roman Story was not around, no one was evaluating it, and in fact it became lost only to resurface in 1884.

The parallels between the discovery narrative of that unseen by Smith Roman Story and Smith's own tale of discover of plates...is only one very small portion of noted parallel evidence. I don't even think Tom makes mention of them. Roger is pointing them out, because of it is too coincidental that Smith happens to tell a strikingly similar discovery narrative scenario to Roman story, written by the very author Spalding who Smith has been accused of plagiarizing from, albeit another work of Spalding's. It is quite reasonable to assume Spalding used the same discovery narrative theme in another novel that witnesses claimed he had written for publcation.

Now when you take all the data, consider it in context those parallels become highly probable to indicate that Smith borrowed the idea of that very same discovery narrative from Spalding's novel.

You can nit-pick the discovery narrative parallels to death Ben, but they are but one small piece of the puzzle. Not only is there all the other evidence supportive of the S/R theory which supports the claim that Smith/Book of Mormon writer likely borrowed from a Spalding novel, but there are extensively other parallels which Tom elaborately points out, example after example of where Spalding likely borrowed from and where the Book of Mormon writer likely borrowed from and low and behold...the souce texts borrowed are some of the same. nd this can be determined despite not having the main work by Spalding claimed to have been plagiarized from for the Book of Mormon..Spalding's Manuscript Found.

Ok so let's look at your criticism of only the D.N. parallels:

Density and Order

In this particular argument we have lists of parallels. There are not a lot of parallels. The one advantage is that many of them do seem to come in the same order in both texts. However, the nature and order of these parallels is in part explained quite well by the kind of narrative - that they share similar themes (of discovery). And so caution has to be exercised to show that there is something more here that is outside of what we might expect in narratives of discovery, and that these issues in the text are also shared. Further, the differences between the two texts are significant enough to make us question such a reliance.

We obviously don't have a lot of parallels when ONLY the discovery narrative is being examined because narrative in and of itself is not extensive. But the D.N is only a small portion of parallel evidence, so to criticize the D.N for not having a "lot" of parallels is ..quite frankly disingenuous. The argument of what the parallels indicate does not rest on the limited D.N storyline. This attempt to exclude other data and take the D.N out of context, in order to argue your position, is intellectually dishonest. I don't like to accuse you of that Ben, but that is what the evidence indicates by how you are arguing your position.

Nest you argue to explain away the parallels because similar themes are used. Yes Ben however again the parallels exist within a context. Smith had already been accused of plagiarism before the Roman story ever showed up. Smith likely never saw the Roman Story that was handed over to Howe by Hurlbut. It was acknowledged by Howe, Hurlbut and Spalding witnesses that the Roman story was not the one the Book of Mormon used to plagiarize from. Hence at the time, no one thought the Roman story to be significant in proving plagiarism and for all intents and purposes it was discarded. So Smith not knowing what the Roman story contained ..happens to come up with a D.N. strikingly similar a few years later. The Roman story likely had a similar theme to Manuscript Found in fact witness said it did, but that it went further back in time. And for sure if the Book of Mormon borrowed from Manuscript Found it would have a similar theme, so to argue that "similar theme" means little given the context in this situation..is once again simply disingenuous. You need to consider context of evidence.

And your last sentence.."the differences between the two texts are significant enough to make us question such a reliance." What differences are significant Ben. Once again context is important, no one is claiming the Roman story was used for plagiarism all that is being claimed is that Spalding's Roman story likely had some similar themes to another story of his which was likely plagiarized from. So of course it is expected that the 2 text will not be conguent in themes.

2: Explanatory Value

I don't actually see any difficulties in the 1838 discovery narrative that would otherwise be inexplicable. Not only does the story seem to be coherent, but, it also matches in details to earlier accounts of the same discovery (which are not asserted to be taken from the so-called Roman Story). So, for example, in the 1833 affidavit of Willard Chase, we have the stone box containing the record, and so on. Given that this is at least a third hand account, these details must have been in fairly wide circulation prior to the 1838 discovery narrative. There are other early accounts which also include these kinds of details.

It is not as if the evidence for how Smith found plates is strong. It is not as if some objective witnesses went to where he allegedly dug them up and observed something had even in fact been dug up, in fact the opposite. When some went to the alleged hil, they could find nothing dug up, no earth unturned. The plates don't exist for verification in fact were never objectively verified. Apparently they were not even necessary even in Smith's storyline of how the Book of Mormon was written. So it seems quite likely, that the storyline by Smith of finding plates was a concocted one and that being the case, why assume he concocted it on his own. Given he's been accused of plagiarizing and given what I've explained above a likely scenario is he borrowed the D.N from Spalding who we know for a fact wrote one well before Smith ever did.

3: Accessibility

Accessibility is an issue - since there isn't any historical record that indicates that Rigdon had met with Smith prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. Furthermore, we can suggest with some confidence (as others have already made this statement here in these forums) that Smith didn't actually come into possession of the Roman Story - rather the claims are about a similar text which has never been found. Accessibility remains a very big issue.

Well I'm glad you are catching on that the Roman story is not the one alleged to have been plagiarized from. Both Spalding and his wife, thought Rigdon had taken the manuscript. Apparently Mrs. Spalding had mentioned to Smith's brother and someone staying in her brother's home with her, Anne Treadwell that Rigdon had taken an in interest in and taken the manuscript home. Of course that doesn't prove Rigdon did. But I believe at the time the manuscript would have been taken if it had been, Rigdon lived within a few hours walk of Pittsburg and being as he was an avid reader, Pittsburg would have been the source of reading material. So simply because Rigdon denied having access is no reason to assume that as fact.

4: Analogy

Clearly, the Roman Story did not have wide circulation. More to the point, none of the 1833 affidavits manage to actually provide us with unique details from the so-called Roman Story or the alleged Manuscript Found which could not be directed back to the Book of Mormon itself or published accounts about the Book of Mormon.

And this is all the more reason why it looks highly likely that Smith borrowed the narrative from Spalding. Had that D.N in the Roman Story been in circulation that would have warned Smith to refrain from using it in 1838. It's because he was unaware of what the Roman story contained and that it was similar to Spalding's Manuscript Found that he would not have felt it necessary to concern himself with borrowing from Spalding. He simply was not aware that a connection could be made which would point to him plagiarizing from a Spalding work.

Motivation

Laziness has been suggested - but really, no reasonable motivation has been offered for Joseph to reuse the details he had already been sharing about the discovery, but doing so in a way that draws clearly from this undiscovered text.

Ignorance Ben, had he known what the Manuscript Roman story contained as per discovery narrative outline, had he known that outline was similar to Manuscript Found, had he known Manuscript Roman story would ever surface showing a strikingly similar D.N to the one he employed..he would have been alerted to and aware it best he not use it.

And now we see the reasons why I felt that bringing up actual methods was rather pointless. I did like being called intellectually dishonest again - I suspect that you are rather free with the term Marg (at least apparently you seem to throw it around with some regularity ....)

At any rate, I wanted to highlight just a couple of things:

(1) you write:

It is quite reasonable to assume Spalding used the same discovery narrative theme in another novel that witnesses claimed he had written for publcation.

This is the linchpin of all your arguments.

It is also quite reasonable to assume that Spalding didn't use the same discovery narrative in another novel that witnesses claimed he had written for publication. You have this incredible dillema (at least as far as I see it). On the one hand, everyone can see quite clearly that the so-called Roman story isn't the source for the Book of Mormon. It looks nothing like the parade of witnesses claims. There isn't any meso-American stuff in there. No Nephi, no Lehi. And the similarities aren't really very good (which is why most people abandonded the theory). You want to suggest that this non-extant mansucript - this second novel is close enough to this Roman story that you can suggest that similarities between it and the Book of Mormon are consequential, and yet also assert that it must be different enough to incorporate all of these other details that were supposed to be in the Spalding story, and yet clearly are not in the known manuscript.

So, I think that this asumption is rather caused not by any real evidence, but by desire to be right in the argument. You add this:

... no one is claiming the Roman story was used for plagiarism all that is being claimed is that Spalding's Roman story likely had some similar themes to another story of his which was likely plagiarized from.

What is this based on? What evidence do you have to support this? What parts of the Roman story are similar to the other alleged novel, and which parts aren't? How can you tell the difference between the two? Again this is an assumption based not on any kind of evidence, but on a desire for evidence.

(2) You write:

Smith had already been accused of plagiarism before the Roman story ever showed up.

What exactly does this mean? Suppose that I accuse you of some heinous crime? Does this mean that you committed it? Of course we don't have any of the text (I don't think you can provide a single sentence even of this unknown text to compare to the Book of Mormon) and yet your assumptions allow you to accept what are to me clearly suspect accounts in the 1833 witnesses as fact. You keep going back to the idea that accusations of plagiarism are some kind of evidence that plagiarism actually occured. But this isn't the case. We might as well accept Campbell's 1831 accusations about how the book was written as well, right? (Except of course that his views aren't really compatible with the Spalding theory).

Obviously you aren't really interested in any kind of formal method for evaluating parallels. After all, you are far more interested in simply taking Donofrio at face value - when clearly his method allows us to take any to literary works and claim that one plagiarized the other. You suggest that it is too "circumstantial" - but we wonder what a situation would look like that wasn't too circumstantial (and I think that you are really just using superlatives to try and make your point rather than basing your claim on any kind of rational basis). And I certainly loved your final comment:

Ignorance Ben, had he known what the Manuscript Roman story contained as per discovery narrative outline, had he known that outline was similar to Manuscript Found, had he known Manuscript Roman story would ever surface showing a strikingly similar D.N to the one he employed..he would have been alerted to and aware it best he not use it.

This doesn't actually explain why he was using it in the first place. It explains why he might have felt safe plagiarizing it, but it doesn't explain why he needed to plagiarize something - and in particular this Spalding novel.

I think in the end, your argument - despite this cry for overwhelming context - is rather weak. It relies on a number of not only unproven claims, but claims that seem impossible to either prove or disprove. So let me once more summarize.

Your theory requires:

1) Spalding writes two novels. One of these is known to exist, the other is believed to exist but no one has seen it, and we have no description of its contents that can be verified. Those accounts which detail alleged content can quite easily be connected back to published accounts about the Book of Mormon - and they do not contain elements that seem to be unique to the unknown Spalding text. There is, based on the available evidence, no need to suppose that such a text exists, but yet, there we are.
2) The two novels share a number of features (despite being quite different in other ways). There is, of course, no way to verify this.
3) Even though Joseph never saw or handled the existing Spalding manuscript, the similarities between the Book of Mormon and the 1838 discovery narrative to the existing Spalding manuscript must occur in the areas where the existing manuscript and the unknown manuscript are similar. Thus allowing us to claim that these parallels show that parallels must exist between the Book of Mormon and the 1838 discovery narrative and the unknown Spalding manuscript. This must be the case even though we do not have the unknown manuscript with which to compare, and even though (particularly with the 1838 discovery narrative) none of the early witnesses you flaunt actually mention any of these parallels in their statements.
4) Because of this evidence (speculative and unprovable) we can of course declare that the early witnesses must have been right all along, plagiarism had to happen, and so on.

I think what I enjoyed the most was how you simply tried to side-step all of the concerns laid out in the methodology. You turn the criteria which MacDonald uses of accessibility around. It was the fact that it wasn't widely available that should lead us to conclude that it was borrowed. Obviously, every argument works in your favor - no matter how absurd or rediculous.

Don't call me intellectually dishonest.

Benjamin McGuire wrote:(1) you write:

It is quite reasonable to assume Spalding used the same discovery narrative theme in another novel that witnesses claimed he had written for publcation.

This is the linchpin of all your arguments.

It is also quite reasonable to assume that Spalding didn't use the same discovery narrative in another novel that witnesses claimed he had written for publication. You have this incredible dillema (at least as far as I see it). On the one hand, everyone can see quite clearly that the so-called Roman story isn't the source for the Book of Mormon. It looks nothing like the parade of witnesses claims. There isn't any meso-American stuff in there. No Nephi, no Lehi. And the similarities aren't really very good (which is why most people abandonded the theory). You want to suggest that this non-extant mansucript - this second novel is close enough to this Roman story that you can suggest that similarities between it and the Book of Mormon are consequential, and yet also assert that it must be different enough to incorporate all of these other details that were supposed to be in the Spalding story, and yet clearly are not in the known manuscript.

You are missing the reasoning why it is reasonable to assume Spalding used the same discovery narrative.

If we were talking about text from 2 different authors it would not be reasonable to assume 2 different authors would use same D.N. in fact that's why it's remarkable that J. Smith has a strikingly similar D.N to the one employed by Spalding. But the mere fact we are talking about one author writing 2 similar texts is a reasonable assumption to make especially when witness had noted he wrote more than one piece of work and later when shown the Roman story said that was not the one they had referenced in their statements.

Keep in mind when the witnesses made their statements alleging plagiarism there was no Spalding manuscripts available. Spalding was long dead and for all they knew, any of his work had long disappeared. They had no idea anything of Spalding's would be found.

So yes Ben it is reasonable to assume that Spalding wrote another manuscripts just as the witnesses remembered which went back further in time which he had intended for publication.

You say:

You want to suggest that this non-extant mansucript - this second novel is close enough to this Roman story that you can suggest that similarities between it and the Book of Mormon are consequential, and yet also assert that it must be different enough to incorporate all of these other details that were supposed to be in the Spalding story, and yet clearly are not in the known manuscript

Well Ben we know what the D.N is in the Roman Story. We know that Smith never saw the Roman Story when he presented a similar D.N. on his own for finding the plates. His presentation of a strikingly similar D.N links him strongly to Spalding. And when you couple that with witnesses alleging plagairism before they knew any of Spalding's works could even be located that reinforces their credibility. So what Manuscript Found is non existent, one can still use Roman Story a known spalding work to link Smith to Spalding if as in this case it appears Smith is using ideas and words from Spalding..exemplied in the Roman story.

So, I think that this asumption is rather caused not by any real evidence, but by desire to be right in the argument.

Well I am looking at the evidence and letting it lead me to the conclusion. I'm accounting for all the evidence. You on the other hand wish to ignore the strikingly similar D.N between Roman story and J. Smith's D.N. and if there was no reason to suspect plagiarism, if no witnesses ever made that statement and there was simply no reason other than those D.N parallels you'd have a point. But when you add up the pieces to the puzzle they start forming a picture. They reinforce each other. Like I said you want to dismiss evidence, I don't. And I'm not using it without justification.

You add this:

... no one is claiming the Roman story was used for plagiarism all that is being claimed is that Spalding's Roman story likely had some similar themes to another story of his which was likely plagiarized from.

What is this based on? What evidence do you have to support this? What parts of the Roman story are similar to the other alleged novel, and which parts aren't? How can you tell the difference between the two? Again this is an assumption based not on any kind of evidence, but on a desire for evidence.

Ben there are the D.N similarities between Roman Story and Smith's personal D.N account. Then there are the parallels between Spalding's work and Mercy Otis Warren among others, then the parallels between the Book of Mormon writer and Warren and others..then the witnesses who before any of this evidence was even available talked about the Book of Mormon borrowing from Spalding's work. The manuscript Roman story was a working uncompleted manuscript then one taken to the printer obviously complete. the similar D.N of Spalding's roman story and Smith supports witnesses claims that Book of Mormon writer borrowed from Spalding. Ben, the evidence to support that a completed manuscript which dealt with America, Indians, their wars which had some similar themes to Roman story but not the particular novel completed by Spalding is strong. I'm letting the evidence take me to where it leads, you are wishing to deny evidence, to remove evidence from context and nit pick at it.

(2) You write:

Smith had already been accused of plagiarism before the Roman story ever showed up.

What exactly does this mean? Suppose that I accuse you of some heinous crime? Does this mean that you committed it? Of course we don't have any of the text (I don't think you can provide a single sentence even of this unknown text to compare to the Book of Mormon) and yet your assumptions allow you to accept what are to me clearly suspect accounts in the 1833 witnesses as fact.

You have to think Ben. It is significant that the witnesses claimed plagiarism when no works of Spalding's was necessarily ever going to turn up. Smith had a strikingly similar D.N but he had no idea that the roman story manuscript had a D.N. He wasn't privy to that information. And no one thought Roman story was significant at the time, and it was lost, until found by accident in 1884.

You keep going back to the idea that accusations of plagiarism are some kind of evidence that plagiarism actually occured.

Gosh Ben...finding evidence later of plagiarism is evidence which supports the earlier accusations by witnesses that a Spalding manuscript had been plagiarized from

But this isn't the case. We might as well accept Campbell's 1831 accusations about how the book was written as well, right? (Except of course that his views aren't really compatible with the Spalding theory).

Ben there is a lot more evidence than solely the D.N similarities. When all the bits of data fit within a puzzle the bigger picture forms. Some evidence is stronger others, some reinforce other data. The conclusion is strengthened by how well all the data fits together.

Obviously you aren't really interested in any kind of formal method for evaluating parallels. After all, you are far more interested in simply taking Donofrio at face value - when clearly his method allows us to take any to literary works and claim that one plagiarized the other.

Ben no one has stopped you from presenting a formal method. But you presented one, added no argument and when I asked for your argument you said that that particular method has weaknesses. You shouldn't simply present an expertise's work on parallels as if that means you have presented an argument. As I said I don't see anything that you quoted as tearing apart or weaken Tom Donofrio's work. Tom Donofrio's work involved much more than 2 works and Tom doesn't drawn any conclusion who wrote the Book of Mormon ..his findings suggest Spalding borrowed from various authors who wrote about the Am. Rev. War. Parallel analysis indicates the Book of Mormon writer as well borrowed from same authors using same themes. One uses that evidence and lets it take on to a concusion which supports the S/R theory that Spalding's work was plagiarized from.

You suggest that it is too "circumstantial" - but we wonder what a situation would look like that wasn't too circumstantial (and I think that you are really just using superlatives to try and make your point rather than basing your claim on any kind of rational basis).

Ben I use all the evidence, you are the one wanting to ignore Tom's article and what can be objectively gleaned from it. You want to take evidence out of context and downplay it's significance in relation to other evidence. Youare the one who had a conclusion and want to only allow the pieces fo data that will support it and disallow anything which weakens it.

And I certainly loved your final comment:

Ignorance Ben, had he known what the Manuscript Roman story contained as per discovery narrative outline, had he known that outline was similar to Manuscript Found, had he known Manuscript Roman story would ever surface showing a strikingly similar D.N to the one he employed..he would have been alerted to and aware it best he not use it.

This doesn't actually explain why he was using it in the first place. It explains why he might have felt safe plagiarizing it, but it doesn't explain why he needed to plagiarize something - and in particular this Spalding novel.

Ben we can't get into Smith head and no know he did something, but we can assume that if he was unaware of what the Roman Story contained in detail, unaware that it contained a D.N..that he'd not fear using it, despite that he knew he'd been accused of plagiarizing from Spalding.

I think in the end, your argument - despite this cry for overwhelming context - is rather weak. It relies on a number of not only unproven claims, but claims that seem impossible to either prove or disprove. So let me once more summarize.

Your theory requires:

1) Spalding writes two novels. One of these is known to exist, the other is believed to exist but no one has seen it,

This is disingenuous argumentation. The witnesses do not claim to have not seen it.

and we have no description of its contents that can be verified.

Generally criminals do like to get rid of evidence. Not finding the manuscript is what one would expect, whether it got taken from Hurlbut and he kept quiet about it because he might have been threatened or whether it was never returned to the widows trunk from the printers..in any case not having the Manuscript is not unexpected.

Those accounts which detail alleged content can quite easily be connected back to published accounts about the Book of Mormon - and they do not contain elements that seem to be unique to the unknown Spalding text.

Of course ..the Book of Mormon was available to the witnesses to read, so they could have fabricated it all. But there are lots of witnesses, with little reason to lie, not all connected who all support the same claim. And then there is the D.N which further supports their claim and it is independent to anything they had to say.

There is, based on the available evidence, no need to suppose that such a text exists, but yet, there we are.

When put into context with all the other data there is good reason to suppose such a text existed.

2) The two novels share a number of features (despite being quite different in other ways). There is, of course, no way to verify this.
3) Even though Joseph never saw or handled the existing Spalding manuscript, the similarities between the Book of Mormon and the 1838 discovery narrative to the existing Spalding manuscript must occur in the areas where the existing manuscript and the unknown manuscript are similar.

Ben ..Roman story had D.N. ..Smith's 1838 D.N was strikingly similar. Witnesses said Spalding wrote another manuscript than Roman story. It is not an unreasonable assumption to make that Spalding used same D.N for Manuscript Found as he did for his earlier work in progress Roman Story.

Thus allowing us to claim that these parallels show that parallels must exist between the Book of Mormon and the 1838 discovery narrative and the unknown Spalding manuscript. This must be the case even though we do not have the unknown manuscript with which to compare, and even though (particularly with the 1838 discovery narrative) none of the early witnesses you flaunt actually mention any of these parallels in their statements.

Ben none of the witnesses got into details and one wouldn't expect them to after 20 years. You are really expecting too much to expect that the witnesses would have recounted that Spalding wrote a D.N in both manuscripts. Hurlbut was unaware of 2 different manuscripts and wouldn't have thought to probe them on that. They didn't seek Hurlbut he sought them. Hurlbut decided the questions to ask answered but they didn't aggressively try to present statements themselves which would nail Smith.

4) Because of this evidence (speculative and unprovable) we can of course declare that the early witnesses must have been right all along, plagiarism had to happen, and so on.

Plagiarism was likely to have happened.

I think what I enjoyed the most was how you simply tried to side-step all of the concerns laid out in the methodology.

Ben you are dreaming, you didn't lay out any concern of any merit.

You turn the criteria which MacDonald uses of accessibility around. It was the fact that it wasn't widely available that should lead us to conclude that it was borrowed. Obviously, every argument works in your favor - no matter how absurd or ridiculous.

Don't call me intellectually dishonest.

I don't like to call anyone intellectually honest..but when when they look at evidence which is obvious to any objective rational person and deny it, they I can only think of one explanation for that.

As an example when you argue against the parallels in Tom 's essay by saying many of them are "one word" and I have printed out his essay and it's 61 pages with few being one word...the only thing that I can explain it with is intellectual dishonesty. That is an inability or refusal to look at evidence fairly, and objectively. It is not an unusual phenomenon, particularly when evidence flies in the face of an individual's faith based beliefs.

And the problem is if someone is intellectually dishonest there's generally no way one can reason through argumentation to a most likely conclusion because that person is not interested or not able to look at the evidence objectively and let the evidence lead them to the most likely conclusion. Instead they have the conclusion and all they are interested in is finding support for that conclusion or belief.

Marg writes:

You are missing the reasoning why it is reasonable to assume Spalding used the same discovery narrative.

No, actually, I am not.

If we were talking about text from 2 different authors it would not be reasonable to assume 2 different authors would use same D.N. in fact that's why it's remarkable that J. Smith has a strikingly similar D.N to the one employed by Spalding. But the mere fact we are talking about one author writing 2 similar texts is a reasonable assumption to make especially when witness had noted he wrote more than one piece of work and later when shown the Roman story said that was not the one they had referenced in their statements.

Look, I am not sure how this bolsters your argument. The witnesses noted that the so-called Roman story was different specifically because the Roman story clearly didn't match their expectations of plagiarism.

Keep in mind when the witnesses made their statements alleging plagiarism there was no Spalding manuscripts available. Spalding was long dead and for all they knew, any of his work had long disappeared. They had no idea anything of Spalding's would be found.

I know. Isn't this convenient? It doesn't help your argument. The fact remains that all of these witnesses appear to have been coached. Their own statements show remarkable similarities, using the same phrases and words to describe the plagiarism, and, more importantly, not a single one actually refers to anything that can be shown to be uniquely dependant on a Spalding text. It is all taken - not from a Spalding story - but from the Book of Mormon. This means that the statements of the witnesses aren't reliant on some Spalding text, but on the Book of Mormon text and the published accounts about it. All of their unique characteristics can be drawn from the Book of Mormon and the published accounts of it. There is no need to assume some second source to fully explain the comments of the witnesses.

So yes Ben it is reasonable to assume that Spalding wrote another manuscripts just as the witnesses remembered which went back further in time which he had intended for publication.

No, its not. And in fact, as I noted, it would be odd for Spalding to write a second novel, so different from the first (it would need to be a different story entirely - no Romans at all for example), and yet he is supposed to reuse his discovery narrative. How many authors do you know that do this kind of thing? Perhaps you could list a few for us.

Well Ben we know what the D.N is in the Roman Story. We know that Smith never saw the Roman Story when he presented a similar D.N. on his own for finding the plates. His presentation of a strikingly similar D.N links him strongly to Spalding. And when you couple that with witnesses alleging plagairism before they knew any of Spalding's works could even be located that reinforces their credibility. So what Manuscript Found is non existent, one can still use Roman Story a known spalding work to link Smith to Spalding if as in this case it appears Smith is using ideas and words from Spalding..exemplied in the Roman story.

First of all, the D.N. isn't strikingly similar to the so-called Roman story. Second, no one alleged plagiarism of Smith from Spalding's so-called Roman story in his 1838 discovery narrative. These are merely distractions to cover the real problem - that the parallels aren't that good. In fact, you yourself admit that the only way to make this argument is to make it in light of the other assumptions you make, and not by looking at the parallels themselves (as I think you have said in this very thread - "The discovery narrative by Smith in 1838 being remarkably similar to the one in the Roman Story needs to be appreciated within a context.")

You are still asserting that claims of plagiarism are actually worth something. Prove them. Show that they are fact instead of carefully manufactured fiction. Then we can accept them as evidence.

Well I am looking at the evidence and letting it lead me to the conclusion.

No. You are letting your assumptions and ideology lead you to a conclusion. I really don't see a lot of evidence here.

You on the other hand wish to ignore the strikingly similar D.N between Roman story and J. Smith's D.N. and if there was no reason to suspect plagiarism, if no witnesses ever made that statement and there was simply no reason other than those D.N parallels you'd have a point. But when you add up the pieces to the puzzle they start forming a picture. They reinforce each other. Like I said you want to dismiss evidence, I don't. And I'm not using it without justification.

I am not ingnoring the similarities. I pointed out that they were simply not as significant as you suggested. In fact, unless I agree with all of your assumptions and your hypotheticals, there is no reason to believe that the witnesses were accurate in either their recollections or their statements. And the fact that you have to assert that these witnesses are reliable to make give your argument a basis is telling me that you agree that the parallels by themselves are not special enough to make your case. Most of your puzzle pieces though aren't based in any factual evidence but in your personal claims of what is reasonable to believe. And I want to see more factual evidence, not subjective personal beliefs - since we clearly don't agree on what are reasonable assumptions on some of these issues.

Ben there are the D.N similarities between Roman Story and Smith's personal D.N account.

Yes, but these don't actually mean anything. Similarities occur all the time between texts and narratives without suggesting any connection. As one expert noted (if you want I can pull the reference for you - but I am going to paraphrase for the moment) - finding parallels in texts is a lot like using parallel lines in geometry. The lines go on infinitely, and never actually touch. Parallels are not bby themselves useful tools to demonstrate a connection between texts.

Ben, the evidence to support that a completed manuscript which dealt with America, Indians, their wars which had some similar themes to Roman story but not the particular novel completed by Spalding is strong.

However you are missing the point. I want to know what parallels exist between the two Spalding texts. I want you to be specific. You are suggesting that there must be points of contact - but conveniently, all of the points of contact converge on similarities between Smith's discovery narrative and the so-called Roman story. This is what we call an unfalsifiable theory. Perhaps you could suggest to us which parts of the D.N. were taken from Spalding's unknown manuscript that aren't reflected in parallels with the so-called Roman story? The evidence isn't strong, it's non-existent.

I'm letting the evidence take me to where it leads, you are wishing to deny evidence, to remove evidence from context and nit pick at it.

I repeat myself ... there isn't evidence. You only have a lot of conjecture. It's easy to let your conjecture lead you to where you want to go. What issues do you think contradict your theory? Any difficulties at all? Where is your argument falsifiable?

You have to think Ben. It is significant that the witnesses claimed plagiarism when no works of Spalding's was necessarily ever going to turn up. Smith had a strikingly similar D.N but he had no idea that the roman story manuscript had a D.N. He wasn't privy to that information. And no one thought Roman story was significant at the time, and it was lost, until found by accident in 1884.

The question is why you think that the witnesses are credible in their claims. What is the basis for their charges of plagiarism? Let's be more specific. What passages in the Book of Mormon parallel which passages in the unknown text such that we can assume plagiarism occured instead of being simply a suggestion made through others by early critics? Perhaps we should just accept Campbell's claims about the authorship made in 1831 - oh wait, its not really compatible with the Spalding theory is it ....

Gosh Ben...finding evidence later of plagiarism is evidence which supports the earlier accusations by witnesses that a Spalding manuscript had been plagiarized from

Really now. This isn't what you have though. What you are claiming is that you have parallels between Smith and a text for which Plagiarisim was never claimed (so you say). These similarities you suggest are there because the unknown manuscript was just like the so-called Roman story on these points (although you have no real basis for this - no one historically every discussed this point, and there is no actual evidence that a discovery narrative in Spalding's alleged other story resembled the one his so-called Roman story. So, you don't have evidence of later plagiarism. You just have a claim of plagiarism based on your suggestion that the other unknown manuscript must have resembled the so-called Roman story (but with nothing more than your personal assertion that this is a reasonable belief).

Ben there is a lot more evidence than solely the D.N similarities. When all the bits of data fit within a puzzle the bigger picture forms. Some evidence is stronger others, some reinforce other data. The conclusion is strengthened by how well all the data fits together.

Actually, it only fits well together if we start assuming that your assertions and personal beliefs are actually fact and not fiction. Most people - both currently and historically do not agree with you. It seems like a completely rational point of view to disagree with you here.

As I said I don't see anything that you quoted as tearing apart or weaken Tom Donofrio's work.

I think that if we accept this method, it destorys Donofrio's work. I think that is quite clear.

The noted expert in this field is a man named Richard Hays. I am working on getting a more detailed copy of his methodology. The one I have is an older version primarily aimed at looking at allusion as a means of intertextuality. However, quoting another book on Hays (Quoting Abasciano's Paul's use of the Old Testament in Romans 9.1-9, he mentions this:

The well-known pitfalls of 'parallelomania', which exaggerates parallels and facilely assumes dependence based on similarity lies potentially on the path of any investigation of this sort. Hays has provided what has become an almost standard list of criteria 'for testing claims about the presence and meaning of scriptural echoes in Paul', which we have adapted for use as the basic crieteria of this investigation ... Ciampa and Knowles adopt Hays' list outright; Keesmaat and Mohrmann do so with minimal modification; others adopt certain of Hay's criteria, and all these studies acknowledge dependence on his discussion. Thompson is notable for the most thorough and rigourous discussion if these issues.

For me, I am no longer really that optimistic that you will try to engage anything. Donofrio is clearly not a scholar in this field. I don't think you have actually read any scholarship in this field. I think that you are simply avoiding it - because you enjoy - as Abasciano points out - using exagerated parallels and making the assumption that any similarity implies dependence - despite what this meas for the vast majority of western literature. In other words, you are clearly adopting parallelomania as your primary methodology. And I am not sure that I really need to take the time to contest this any more at this point, since anyone who is familiar with that discussion will recognize quickly and easily how you engage in it.

Ben I use all the evidence, you are the one wanting to ignore Tom's article and what can be objectively gleaned from it.

I already made a rather formal response to Tom's article. His single response to me was the phrase "well, I know it when I see it". My response was linked to in another thread. I don't really see the need to repeat my statements here. My position hasn't changed any.

You want to take evidence out of context and downplay it's significance in relation to other evidence.

There is no real context - its all fiction you create. There is no evidence. You cannot point out a single phrase in Spalding's missing text and say that Joseph Smith borrowed from this phrase right here. It is all conjecture. It is a deck of cards which ultimately rests - as I continue to point out - not on any kind of fact based reasoning, but on your assertions of what we could reasonably expect the relationship between the so-called Roman story and Spalding's alleged missing text to be.

Ben we can't get into Smith head and no know he did something, but we can assume that if he was unaware of what the Roman Story contained in detail, unaware that it contained a D.N..that he'd not fear using it, despite that he knew he'd been accused of plagiarizing from Spalding.

This isn't a reason for using Spalding for the Book of Mormon in the first place though. And again you haven't addressed the fact that the elements which you point out as parallels between the discovery narrative and the so-called Roman story occur in earlier accounts of the discovery (prior to the 1838 account), and yet these individual tellings don't really resemble the Roman story at all ... so was Joseph merely grabbing little details on the way to the grand plagiarism? I think the theory is largely incoherent, not a logical or rational series of propositions resulting in your conclusions.

This is disingenuous argumentation. The witnesses do not claim to have not seen it.

Exactly. And you haven't seen it, and I haven't seen it. So for you to claim that it not only exists, and that it resembles the so-called Roman story isn't disingenous? I suggest that you are simply creating fiction when you suggest this - because you can't prove it - you can only make statements about what you personally believe is reasonable.

Generally criminals do like to get rid of evidence. Not finding the manuscript is what one would expect, whether it got taken from Hurlbut and he kept quiet about it because he might have been threatened or whether it was never returned to the widows trunk from the printers..in any case not having the Manuscript is not unexpected.

Convenient for your argument isn't it. And yet, ultimately meaningless - since if there is no second manuscript, the situation is explained equally well. But I do like how you manage to identify them as criminals ....

Of course ..the Book of Mormon was available to the witnesses to read, so they could have fabricated it all. But there are lots of witnesses, with little reason to lie, not all connected who all support the same claim. And then there is the D.N which further supports their claim and it is independent to anything they had to say.

Which ones aren't connected? The D.N. doesn't actually support their claims, since they never made claims that had anything to do with either the D.N. or the so-called Roman story (per your description).

When put into context with all the other data there is good reason to suppose such a text existed.

No there isn't. Most of the "other data" are just your personal opinions, and have no supporting evidence. Like your claim that the discovery narrative in the so-called Roman story resembles anything in the unknown manuscript.

Ben ..Roman story had D.N. ..Smith's 1838 D.N was strikingly similar. Witnesses said Spalding wrote another manuscript than Roman story. It is not an unreasonable assumption to make that Spalding used same D.N for Manuscript Found as he did for his earlier work in progress Roman Story.

This is an unreasonable assumption. It is unreasonable for several reasons. But most importantly, it is a rather unfalsifiable claim. In other words, since you are protected from having to actually provide real evidence for you claims, you can pretty much suggest whatever you want to. But, to have a discovery at a Roman fort, with a Latin text on parchment seems a bit out of place in your mesoamerican story with Lehi and Nephi. So obviously, there are (as I pointed out) going to be difficulties to your assertion that you are glibly ignoring.

Ben none of the witnesses got into details and one wouldn't expect them to after 20 years.

Ahhh, so now we have a problem. After 20 years, isn't it reasonable that they are making a mistake and the so-called Roman story is in fact the only manuscript? Isn't it rather noteworthy and quite likely that the details that they do remember are all coming from the Book of Mormon and published accounts about it rather than from some unknown text?

Hurlbut decided the questions to ask answered but they didn't aggressively try to present statements themselves which would nail Smith.

And you said you couldn't get into Smith's head. I see you have no problems here. Why is it that the witnesses' accounts are all so similar in language and content?

Plagiarism was likely to have happened.

No it didn't actually happen. But you have my curiousity piqued. How likely? 50%? 70%?

Ben you are dreaming, you didn't lay out any concern of any merit.

I disagree actually. But that's hardly going to be the concern now is it, since I don't think you took it seriously ....

I don't like to call anyone intellectually honest..but when when they look at evidence which is obvious to any objective rational person and deny it, they I can only think of one explanation for that.

I would have to respond by suggesting this. It seems clear to me (and to lots of other rational and objective individuals) that your version of the Spalding theory is based largely on personal assertions and not on significant or even real evidences. Your calling me intellectually dishonest - and I have noted that you say this to others - is simply a caustic of way of saying "well, you don't agree with me, so you must not be a rational individual". I think that the same sorts thing could be turned around. Personally, I think that no rational or objective person would come to the conclusions that you come to - or even make the arguments you make. Does this mean that I should view you as intellectually dishonest? Ignorant perhaps? I don't know - you tell me.

Question for you Ben: Can one show using parallels between texts that the writer/writers/ of the Book of Mormon borrowed concepts, phrases and words from those texts?