DAN VOGEL DISCUSSES THE SPALDING/RIGDON THEORY

[_marg]

Dan writes:

However, Chandler's argument for copying involves too many people being in a conspiracy and afterwards lying about how the Book of Mormon was dictated. It seems easier--if one is going to ignore the eyewitness testimony--to assert that Joseph Smith read the text from behind the curtain. But the eyewitness testimony is there, and Spalding advocates need to include it in their speculations.

Could you please list the people which would have to be involved in a conspiracy if a manuscript was out in the open during the better part of the Book of Mormon making process?



Could you also answer my question regarding what percentage of the O manuscript exists? And who is able to view a copy of it? edit: I have looked into this and no need to answer.

Also who are the known scribes in the O ms.? How many are unknown? And why are any unknown? edit I've looked into this as well and found the answers and will make comments later on this.

[_Uncle Dale]

Well, you seem a little impatient. Perhaps if you give it more time, you just might get your wish. I wish I had
more time to devote to this thread, but I'm trying to tackle each issue at a time and not get too scattered.
It's my effort to make it a meaningful exchange. Do you think we are finished talking about dictation?

I'm pretty much through with that subject. I'll look at Ted's site in the near future to see what else he might
have to say about the matter. If others want to continue with that topic, I can be more "patient," I suppose.
Without trying to beat my own drum too much for sympathy, I will say that I have long runs of s-l-o-w days,
interspersed now and then with shorter lucid periods. I just want to budget my "alert" time accordingly.

It doesn't sound like you have grasped the significance of that evidence. You seem content to leave it in
the realm of the fuzzy ideas.

Well, Dan, we can't all grasp the same things with equal clarity and excitement, I suppose. I learned long ago
in discussions of Mormonism that what is NOT argued is generally more significant than what IS argued. When
a person in this "game" chooses not to belabor a point, I'd say count it as a tacit "win" and move on -- even if
your discussion partner is merely passing that particular point by, as having little significance for him/her.

You worry about "too many variables in the writing process", but are willing to transform random phrases
into exacting charts. That's puzzling to me.

I was always better at counting visible objects in front of me, than I was at arguing complex points of the law --
perhaps that is why I never had any inclination to become an attorney.

Mormons tell me that Solomon Spalding could not have written so much as a paragraph of the Book of Mormon, because
the style and subject matter have nothing in common with his known writings. And, that since this point is well
established in the minds of all objective investigators, the testimonial evidence can be thown aside without the
need of any close examination.

So ---- I count words and try to communicate what I've counted. If charts and graphs are not serving well as a
means of communication, I suppose I could resort to some other method. At any rate, Vernal Holley showed me
parts if the Book of Mormon that could have been written by an author like Spalding, over 30 years ago -- so I have never
been much impressed by the LDS/RLDS argument that he was incapable of composing any of its contents.

But I'm willing to discuss whatever you want--just go at my pace.

At some point I'd like to know if you agree with Fawn Brodie, in her assessment of Rigdon's one reported
confession (of having met with Joseph Smith, Jr. "on Sundays" in "Ohio" to compile the Book of Mormon). If that one reported
confession can be discredited with Brodie's logic, then that would leave only Rigdon's denials still standing, as his
known remarks on the subject, I suppose.

Dale

[_marg]

If others want to continue with that topic, I can be more "patient," I suppose.
Without trying to beat my own drum too much for sympathy, I will say that I have long runs of s-l-o-w days,
interspersed now and then with shorter lucid periods. I just want to budget my "alert" time accordingly.

The reason I will continue is because I want to give Dan an opportunity to present his evidence and then I'd like to appreciate it.

For myself if Smith dictated the Book of Mormon it doesn't destroy the Rigdon/spalding theory. I've always perceived the process of the Book of Mormon, as being one in which Smith did read/dictate from sources, Rigdon, KJV, his own and together with Cowdery working with him created the completed Book of Mormon. I would think Smith would want to dictate in order to have a hands on involvement and appreciation of what is in the Book of Mormon and to have personal input with his own additions and changes. Smith would be foolish to allow a scribe to copy text, with no involvment on his part..given the extent of role he intended to play in Mormonism. At the same time, on occasion he probably would leave them to copy and could review it later.

Also I disagree with Dan that the presumption is that Book of Mormon scribes and main witnesses to the scribes writing, were telling the truth. He's not made a convincing argument why such a presumption should rest in light of the fact that this Book of Mormon and claims for it indicate it was a hoax.

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale,

I'm pretty much through with that subject. I'll look at Ted's site in the near future to see what else he might
have to say about the matter. If others want to continue with that topic, I can be more "patient," I suppose.
Without trying to beat my own drum too much for sympathy, I will say that I have long runs of s-l-o-w days,
interspersed now and then with shorter lucid periods. I just want to budget my "alert" time accordingly.

I'm willing to let the subject rest, although I haven't finished responding to Chandler's site. I also owe Marg a response on the subject of Skousen's hearing evidence.

Well, Dan, we can't all grasp the same things with equal clarity and excitement, I suppose. I learned long ago
in discussions of Mormonism that what is NOT argued is generally more significant than what IS argued. When
a person in this "game" chooses not to belabor a point, I'd say count it as a tacit "win" and move on -- even if
your discussion partner is merely passing that particular point by, as having little significance for him/her.

Well, I'm not just responding to you, but also to Chandler and those (like Shades and Marg) who are influenced by his arguments.

I was always better at counting visible objects in front of me, than I was at arguing complex points of the law --
perhaps that is why I never had any inclination to become an attorney.

All you have done is illustrated what might be fallaciously gathered information. To find similar vocabulary when discussing similar topics in a similar manner is hardly surprising. Yet some of your parallels seem forced. Add to this questionable methodology the unlikelihood that a MS was used during Joseph Smith dictation, and you have serious problems with your evidence.

Mormons tell me that Solomon Spalding could not have written so much as a paragraph of the Book of Mormon, because
the style and subject matter have nothing in common with his known writings. And, that since this point is well
established in the minds of all objective investigators, the testimonial evidence can be thown aside without the
need of any close examination.

First, it seems to me that Spalding advocates are too preoccupied with countering Mormon apologists, rather than establishing Spalding on its own legs. Second, the use of similar phraseology in a few chapters of the Book of Mormon is not the same as studying writing style and over-all vocabulary (the same goes for so-called word-print studies). Assuming Rigdon was the redactor, I find it difficult assigning to him the Book of Mormon's bad grammar, Yankee dialect, poorly executed imitation KJV language, over-the-top Bible-like stories, unsystematic and contradictory theology. On the other hand, the style and language of the Book of Mormon compare favorably with Joseph Smith's other scriptural productions. Anyone who doubts Joseph Smith had a powerful command of language should read the letters he dictated in Liberty Jail. Joseph Smith's clerk, Howard Coray, recalled hearing Joseph Smith preach--

I sat and listened to his preaching at the stand in Nauvoo a great many times when I have been completely carried away with his indescribable eloquence--power of expression--speaking as I have never heard any other man speak.

--as quoted in Mark L. McConkie, Remembering Joseph , 199.

I think what we are looking for in Book of Mormon authorship is someone who has a powerful command of the spoken word, but not in the written (just as the prophets in the Book of Mormon said of themselves). The author of the Book of Mormon was more concerned with message than with realism. In my view, education and maturity would have gotten in the way of anyone trying to write something as mythic and poetic as the Book of Mormon. So, I think Spalding advocates (and Mormon apologists as well) grossly underestimate Joseph Smith, which is exactly how con men succeed.

So ---- I count words and try to communicate what I've counted. If charts and graphs are not serving well as a
means of communication, I suppose I could resort to some other method. At any rate, Vernal Holley showed me
parts if the Book of Mormon that could have been written by an author like Spalding, over 30 years ago -- so I have never
been much impressed by the LDS/RLDS argument that he was incapable of composing any of its contents.

All I'm saying is that the charts can be misleading in giving the false impression that there is some kind of precision in your methodology.

At some point I'd like to know if you agree with Fawn Brodie, in her assessment of Rigdon's one reported
confession (of having met with Joseph Smith, Jr. "on Sundays" in "Ohio" to compile the Book of Mormon). If that one reported
confession can be discredited with Brodie's logic, then that would leave only Rigdon's denials still standing, as his
known remarks on the subject, I suppose.

I don't understand your fascination with Brodie. I don't think about her that much, because despite her engaging writing style she is outdated. We know so much more than she did. Note that I haven't used Rigdon's denials. This is because he would have denied his involvement whether he was guilty or not. That's why I used Pratt to show that his conversion was the result of a series of fortuitous and chance circumstances.

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

The reason I will continue is because I want to give Dan an opportunity to present his evidence and then I'd like to appreciate it.

Thanks. That's all I'm after. A discussion of the issues and letting everyone make up their own minds what they want to think.

For myself if Smith dictated the Book of Mormon it doesn't destroy the Rigdon/spalding theory.

Maybe not. But it forces advocates to make drastic modifications and invent ad hoc hypotheses to accommodate the full range of evidence.

I've always perceived the process of the Book of Mormon, as being one in which Smith did read/dictate from sources, Rigdon, KJV, his own and together with Cowdery working with him created the completed Book of Mormon.

Believe what you will, but the eyewitnesses would have seen Joseph Smith reading from any MS. They explicitly denied the possibility of Joseph Smith's use of a Spalding-Rigdon MS.

I would think Smith would want to dictate in order to have a hands on involvement and appreciation of what is in the Book of Mormon and to have personal input with his own additions and changes.

According to eyewitnesses, he had total control over what was dictated.

Smith would be foolish to allow a scribe to copy text, with no involvment on his part..given the extent of role he intended to play in Mormonism. At the same time, on occasion he probably would leave them to copy and could review it later.

This would involve a wide conspiracy and a massive coverup, for which there is no evidence.

Also I disagree with Dan that the presumption is that Book of Mormon scribes and main witnesses to the scribes writing, were telling the truth. He's not made a convincing argument why such a presumption should rest in light of the fact that this Book of Mormon and claims for it indicate it was a hoax.

Evidence indicates the Book of Mormon is not historical, true. But that is no reason to turn victims into perpetrators. The facts of dictation are well attested to by both believer, non-believer, and former followers. To assume they were all lying because it contradicts your theory is to beg the question. You must find independent reasons for why so many would be untruthful. How can one hope to reconstruct the past if one is willing to set aside more certain evidence for less certain evidence?

Every time you argue that Mormon witnesses can't be trusted because of who they are, I wonder how that is different than apologists who automatically distrust apostate testimony. How can one trust someone out to get Joseph Smith, they ask? Since there is no such thing as unbiased testimony where Mormonism is concerned, historians must determine the reliability and credibility of testimony on a case-by-case basis. The witnesses in this case are very credible, which makes your attempt to categorically dismiss them rather desperate.

[_Uncle Dale]

it seems to me that Spalding advocates are too preoccupied with countering Mormon apologists,
rather than establishing Spalding on its own legs. Second, the use of similar phraseology in a
few chapters of the Book of Mormon is not the same as studying writing style and over-all vocabulary
(the same goes for so-called word-print studies)....

The more I attempt to converse with you, Dan, the less it seems that I am communicating -- (or at least the
less I seem to be getting across of what it is that I wish to convey). So I'll try doing it again in list format:

1. I am not attempting to "prove" any theories -- I'm content to let others take on so laborious a task

2. I am not attempting to "establish Spalding" at the expense of discovering historical sources, ideas and facts.

3. I have had to fight tooth and nail to RLDS superiors to to get what little accomplished that has so far been done.
I do not care about "Mormon apologists;" I care about obstructionists, whether they be Saints or Gentiles.

4. If somebody else can tell me something new and useful, about more "few chapters of the Book of Mormon," I would be
happy to listen to them. But if they begin by telling me that no Book of Mormon chapters came from Spalding, then do not
expect me to take such people very seriously.

I posted a little on-line today about "fancy charts" ---- no doubt the content will change next time I proofread and
update that web-site. But, for the benefit of those who have an interest in such things, I'll place an excerpt here:

THE BOOK OF SOLOMON:
CHARTS & GRAPHS
or.
A picture is worth 1000 words

If I look out upon my backyard garden and see that several clumps of weeds have grown up among my flowerbeds, how might I communicate my unexpected discovery? My next-door neighbor, having glanced at the same sight, might say to me: "I see only flowers in view and no weeds at all." I could spend a good deal of time trying to tell him why I think that certain flowering plants are "weeds," and what exactly I mean by a "clump," and why the my discovery of those weeds is a matter of importance to me. Or -- I could take a snapshot of my garden, circle the images of the weeds in bright red ink, and draw lines from the encircled images over to an attached list of names of common weeds. My neighbor might still disagree with my calling those indicated plants "weeds," but at least he would know where they were located in among my flowerbeds.

It is for this very reason that over the years I have created a number of charts and graphs for the Book of Mormon text and for the Oberlin Splding manuscript text. I've already presented a detail from one of those sets of charts in the first section of my Introduction, to quickly and clearly show what I consider to be the physical limits of what Vernal Holley first called the "Book of Solomon." My purpose here is not to try and prove a Solomon Spalding authorship with any number of colorful graphics: rather, I just wish to thus point my finger and say to my scholarly neighbors, "Don't you see the weeds?"

In his oral response to my 1982 Mormon History Association presentation, "The Secular and the Sacred," Dr. Lester E. Bush, Jr. opined that such Book of Mormon charts had no particular significance in developing arguments pro or con in regard to the Spalding-Rigdon authorship theory for the Book of Mormon. Dr. Bush did not challenge the accuracy of the charts presented in my earlier paper, "A New Basis for The Spalding Theory," as accurately depicting the "Nephite Record's" reproduction of biblical Old Testament and New Testament quotations and phraseology in that 1982 paper, but he was singularly unimpressed with my attempt to overlay those two depictions with a third chart, indicating "Spaldingish" passages in the same Mormon book. Exactly why Bush could not accept my application of the same illustrative methods for Spalding as he could accept for the biblical language continues to escape my understanding, but his main criticism appears to have been that my charting of the Spaldingish language in the book was neither quantatively precise nor linguistically unique. In other words, I had failed to convince him that my marking of the Spaldingish Book of Mormon sections made use of an exhaustive and rigorous statistical methodology whereby all the words and phrases in common with Spalding's writings were assigned a proper distribution weight, deviation from the mean numerical ranking, etc. And, on the other hand, had I carried out such an exhaustive and precise selection of the words and phrases to be depicted in my color-coded, generalized chart, Bush would have still argued that the charted results would be meaningless, until the same procedure had been carried out upon numerous other pre-1830 fictional writings in English, and those results charted and referred to in order to provide a proper context for my visual presentations.

More recently a noted author of several books and articles dealing with Mormon origins, Dan Vogel, has complained in postings at the Mormon Discussions Board, that the creation of such illustrative graphics is "perhaps committing the fallacy of 'impossible precision.'" Dan thus provides a criticism exactly opposite to Dr. Bush's complaint about there being a seeming lack of precision in these "fancy charts" (as Dan Vogel calls them). His explanation is that the graphics "are only as good as the research that they illustrate. But that's where I have the most difficulty. We need to examine your use of parallel evidence to see if you have established Spalding as the source for the phraseology. Otherwise, your charts simply beg the question if we take them as proof of something." At least the latter critic has mentioned the possibility of examining the garden to see if there are truly any weeds there. The former Mormon scriptures expert (Dr. Bush) dismissed the entire subject as being unworthy of any further investigation.


So, Where's the Proof?

Both Bush and Vogel have made the mistake of thinking that my illustrations are an attempt at providing proof of the Spalding-Rigdon (or Spalding-Rigdon-Smith) Book of Mormon authorship theory. I have no intention of using them as a demonstration of any sort of "proof." They are illustrations of a "new basis" for a theory, and as such they are meant to call the reader's attention to certain ideas and possibilities. Still, in my publicizing Vernal Holley's old assertion of there being a "Book of Solomon" embedded within the books of Alma and Helaman, I am voicing a personal opinion that further textual investigation is not only warranted -- it will eventually become a key point in our deciding in favor or in disfavor of these authorship claims.

Since some critics have assumed that the production of these graphs is little more than subjective whimsy, I'll take a little space here to give a demonstration of the quantitative methodology I've applied to their production. I'll begin by referring back to an enlarged and enhanced version of the same chart I spoke of earlier:



Here the visual message presented is: "In the 1830 Book of Mormon, chapters XX-XXX of Alma tell the story of Captain Moroni -- this is the part of the book which most resembles the known writings of Solomon Spalding."

Now that visual message may be true or false -- easily accepted or endlessly refuted -- but that is all that the chart is really saying. It serves as an invitation for the reader to look more closely at that particular section of the Nephite Record, to see if any of it truly does read like the fictional narratives of Solomon Spalding. Once a reader has decided to consider such an assertion, I'd advise him or her to take a closer look at the chart, to see what secondary information it might communicate. The observer will see that the "Spaldingish" text is shown in red and that some sections not so Spaldingish is shown in light green. In several instances these green sections are located at or near the book's internal chapter breaks. In addition to this, there is an adjoining red section comprising a little more than the first chapter of Helaman. Thus, I've visually depicted a secondary discovery -- that the text less resembling Spalding's language generally occurs at or near narrative transitions from one chapter (or topic) to another. Such a distribution of "alien" textual segments may indicate the handiwork of an editor, who has changed or expanded the language at these regular breaks in the continuing story.


One Picture Explains Another

The skeptical reader might at this point be questioning as to how I determined which parts of the chart to color red (as being Spaldingish) and which parts to color green (as being not so Spaldingish)? I will here provide a second, more complex and detailed picture, in order to help explain the generalized red and green Alma-Helaman graphic.



This chart of the "Book of Solomon" has been reduced in size to fit easily into this web-page, but the full-sized original is also available for viewing here:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrt2.gif

Three different sets of data pertaining to the same section of the 1830 Book of Mormon text are illustrated here. The most "subjective" of the data sets compiled for this illustration went into the construction of the bottom column chart, where Spaldingish language was determined to apply to the generalized contents of any 1830 Book of Mormon page having more than fifteen significant phraseology parallels in the Oberlin Spalding manuscript. For this testing of the text, 515 shared word-strings were identified in the two sources (Book of Solomon and Oberlin manuscript) and the occurrences of those phraseology parallels were counted for each page in a color-coded html version of the 1830 Book of Mormon's Alma XX-Helaman I.

Of course I was the one who decided which 515 word-strings to chart out, and I was the one who decided whether or not the results had any significence. Another investigator might pick a different set of phraseology parallels to use in such a study. And a different investigator might set the boundary level for "Spaldingish" at a higher number than fifteen occurrences in a single page. Thus, while I do not think my word-strings identification and computational mathematics can be much criticized, I'm forced to agree with Dr. Bush's 1982 conclusion, that such charting is still a highly subjective exercise.

For that very reason I added two additional graphs atop my page-by-page bar chart, to serve as correction indicators, in case my initial chart was wildly inaccurate for one reason or another. The topmost line graph connects values ranging from about 90% to over 98%, for the amount of Spalding/Book of Mormon word overlap on pages 340 to 411 of the 1830 Book of Mormon. These percentages were taken from the formula derivatives located at the top of each page in the color-coded text selection previously mentioned. In the case of this upper line graph, the patterns of vocabulary overlap there shown correspond roughly with the patterns of highs and lows portrayed in the bar chart. This is to be expected, since vocabulary and phraseology are closely inter-connected items, and pages containing a relatively high count of Spaldingish word-strings should naturally also contain a relatively high percentage of overlap with Spalding's fiction vocabulary.

The second line graph (with the heavy blue line), is a highly generalized representation of a section of computer output showing the distribution of non-contextual words in the Book of Mormon which correspond most closely with the same word frequencies in the Oberlin Spalding manuscript. In other words, where "word-print" frequencies best match with the distribution of the same non-contextual vocabulary in Spalding's writings, the blue line rises -- and where the match is not so strong, it falls. The amplitude of the graph line has been purposely shortened here, so as to provide only a general view of its pattern, corresponding to the "Book of Solomon" pages. When the study from which this information was extracted is published, I will update my composite chart with a higher resolution image of the line's ups and downs.

To sum up: My original 1980 color-coded chart was derived from a combination of quantitative analysis and subjective determinations regarding the similarity of portions of the two texts. The original inspiration for that study came as a result of my recognizing thematic similarities between parts of the Book of Mormon and Solomon Spalding's extant writings. My recognition of those story-line similarities was reinforced by my discovery of shared phraseology in Spalding and the Nephite Record. That is, a common set of mutually used word-strings that were put together to convey the same narrative messages or ideas in the two supposedly unrelated texts. The perceived patterns of occurence for these thematic parallels and word-strings have been reinforced by my discovery of similar patterns in the frequency of shared vocabulary (word overlap) in the two sources. And, finally, my view of how all of this can be fit together, so as to describe the physical limits of the "Book of Solomon" is enhanced (rather than diminished) by recent discoveries in Solomon Spalding word-print analysis. With all of these signs pointing in the same direction, I am convinced that the LDS edition's Alma 43:1-63:17 and Helaman 1:1-3:12 represent a largely undigested Spalding contribution to the Book of Mormon. The more I have learned in this matter, the stronger that conviction has become.

My final complex, detailed illustration, then, represents the compiled and sorted data standing behind the first chart I presented on this web-page. I have taken the trouble to provide this view behind the scenes, so as to reassure those readers who might otherwise suspect that I construct my illustrations out of thin air. That is most definitely not the case, and I hope that in the future these "fancy charts" will not be condemned as examples of some whimsical attempt on my part to achieve "impossible precision" in proving anything.

I was long counciled and advised by leaders in the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints not to "waste my time" in looking into the complexities of the "Spaulding lie," since that authorship theory had been long ago "exploded" with the publication of the one and only fictional story written by Mr. Solomon Spalding. The pressure I felt upon me, to avoid further inquiry and reporting, was continual and a constant hindrance in my seeking out and obtaining research materials and scholarly assistance. I sincerely doubt that so much as ten percent of the useful achival material held by the LDS and RLDS (CoC) churches has yet been examined, for its possible use in helping to confirm or refute the multiple facets of the Spalding-Rigdon authorship explanation. Nearly thirty years have now passed, since I drafted the first of my "fancy charts" and began to take Mr. Holley's "Book of Solomon" assertions seriously. I can only hope that another thirty years need not be wasted, before others begin to take those claims just as seriously.

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol1.htm

See original web-page for links and context.

I will continue to update and expand this series of web-pages as time and stamina permit. If there is any
particular data or anaysis that anybody wishes me to explain in greater detail, I can try and do that.

If anybody is interested in seeing me compare, side-by-side, some of Spalding's silly battle stratagems,
nighttime exploits, and improbable bloodless victories, with their Book of Mormon Alma-Helaman
counterparts (ala my 1980 and 1982 JWHA & MHA papers), I would be happy to do that -- showing in
quantitative terms the overlap in story theme, common phraseology count, common vocabulary percentages,
and non-contextual word-print data. I can do all of this -- but it takes time and effort and I have no reason
to waste my time on matters folks have already firmly decided in their heads, one way or the other.

Or, we can by-pass the "fancy charts" remarks and go on to the Spalding claims witnesses, etc.

Dale

[_Dr. Shades]

If anybody is interested in seeing me compare, side-by-side, some of Spalding's silly battle stratagems, nighttime exploits, and improbable bloodless victories, with their Book of Mormon Alma-Helaman
counterparts (ala my 1980 and 1982 JWHA & MHA papers), I would be happy to do that[.]

Yes, please! I would LOVE to see that. When I read the Oberlin Spalding Manuscript, I was taken aback with how similar the strategem was between Spalding's Hadoram/Bombal battle and Smith's Moroni/Zerahemnah battle.

If you have anything similar, please share.

[_Uncle Dale]

If anybody is interested in seeing me compare, side-by-side, some of Spalding's silly battle stratagems, nighttime exploits, and improbable bloodless victories, with their Book of Mormon Alma-Helaman
counterparts (ala my 1980 and 1982 JWHA & MHA papers), I would be happy to do that[.]

Yes, please! I would LOVE to see that. When I read the Oberlin Spalding Manuscript, I was taken
aback with how similar the strategem was between Spalding's Hadoram/Bombal battle and Smith's
Moroni/Zerahemnah battle.

If you have anything similar, please share.

My 1980 and 1982 JWHA and MHA papers get into this sort of thing just a little:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap10.htm
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap11.htm

Vernal Holley also discusses the subject just a little in his booklet:
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs2/2001vern.htm

I do not recall now whether it was Lester Bush or Wayne Ham who criticized my citation of Teancum's
nighttime, enemy-slaying exploit (as being a parallel with Spalding's similar episode). Whichever gentleman
it was -- he pointed out that the same story is told by Homer, by Virgil, by MacPherson, and by Southey. Also
David's encounter with the sleeping King Saul has thematic similarities with the Teancum tale. In fact, the
David exploits in general may have served as a basis for parts of Spalding, the Book of Mormon, or both.
David's bloodless capture of Jerusalem by stratagem is a good example.

Given the widespread occurence of these sorts of stories, all though literary history, it would be a mistake
for us to think that they only have parallels in Spalding and the Book of Mormon. However, once that idea
is kept in mind, it can be rather fun to plot out the Book of Mormon battle oddities alongside of Spalding.

I can do a bit of that -- pointing out common story elements in how the troops move, what they do, what
the setting is, what the ridiculous outcomes are, etc.

If Dan is interested, I can do a little of that here ---- if not, perhaps my own web-site would eb a better venue.

Uncle Dale

[_Dan Vogel]

Dale,

More recently a noted author of several books and articles dealing with Mormon origins, Dan Vogel, has complained in postings at the Mormon Discussions Board, that the creation of such illustrative graphics is "perhaps committing the fallacy of 'impossible precision.'" Dan thus provides a criticism exactly opposite to Dr. Bush's complaint about there being a seeming lack of precision in these "fancy charts" (as Dan Vogel calls them). His explanation is that the graphics "are only as good as the research that they illustrate. But that's where I have the most difficulty. We need to examine your use of parallel evidence to see if you have established Spalding as the source for the phraseology. Otherwise, your charts simply beg the question if we take them as proof of something." At least the latter critic has mentioned the possibility of examining the garden to see if there are truly any weeds there. The former Mormon scriptures expert (Dr. Bush) dismissed the entire subject as being unworthy of any further investigation.

My point was that the charts give the false impression that there is some kind of mathematical precision in your identification of Spalding phraseology. And now I'm glad to hear you acknowledge this fact.

With all of these signs pointing in the same direction, I am convinced that the LDS edition's Alma 43:1-63:17 and Helaman 1:1-3:12 represent a largely undigested Spalding contribution to the Book of Mormon. The more I have learned in this matter, the stronger that conviction has become.

I would like to see you make your case here. In looking at the various links, I found your presentation of your evidence difficult to follow and analyze. So I think it would be helpful if you show here step-by-step exactly how you decide what is a Spalding word string.

Thus, while I do not think my word-strings identification and computational mathematics can be much criticized, I'm forced to agree with Dr. Bush's 1982 conclusion, that such charting is still a highly subjective exercise.

Let's see how this subjective exercise works. Show us you best Spalding text you think made it into the Book of Mormon. Or show us Book of Mormon text that you think has the most Spalding influence. What I'm asking for is a demonstration of your methodology. You have given us a scan of a page from the Book of Mormon that has underlining and charts, but you haven't shown us how the underlines relate to the Spalding MS.

If anybody is interested in seeing me compare, side-by-side, some of Spalding's silly battle stratagems,
nighttime exploits, and improbable bloodless victories, with their Book of Mormon Alma-Helaman
counterparts (ala my 1980 and 1982 JWHA & MHA papers), I would be happy to do that -- showing in
quantitative terms the overlap in story theme, common phraseology count, common vocabulary percentages,
and non-contextual word-print data. I can do all of this -- but it takes time and effort and I have no reason
to waste my time on matters folks have already firmly decided in their heads, one way or the other.

This would also be interesting. Of course it's going to take time, but it doesn't have to be all at once. And you are more prepared to cut and paste than anyone here. Why moan about those who might not agree with you? At least you are getting some meaningful critique.

[_Uncle Dale]

I would like to see you make your case here. In looking at the various links, I found your presentation
of your evidence difficult to follow and analyze. So I think it would be helpful if you show here step-by-step
exactly how you decide what is a Spalding word string.

I began this on-again, off-again 30-year study when I inherited a list that Vernal Holley had compiled for his
little volume, "Book of Mormon Authorship." Due to mounting publication costs and a need to reduce the size
of that publication, Vernal gave me several folders of his discarded study materials. A couple of years before
he finally got his first edition together, I submitted his list as an illustrative supplement to a working paper I
prepared for Richard P. Howard. When Howard expressed no particular interest in the subject, I recycled the
list as part of my 1979 grant proposal to Jeffery Holland:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap01.htm#pg56a
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap01.htm#pg69a

Exactly how Vernal compiled his list, he never said. What he did tell me, was that he was not about to waste
his time, marking up his LDS edition of the Book of Mormon and his 1910 edition of Spalding's story, by
underlining such trivial textual parallels as "it is," or "they went," or "but behold!"

The first examples of what Vernal termed "significant word affinities" that I recall him pointing out to me, were:

Spalding: those who shall die... in the cause of their country and their God
B. of M.: they have died in the cause of their country and of their God

Spalding: Determined to conquer or die,
B. of M.: they were determined to conquer in this place or die

Spalding: It is impossible to describe the horror of the bloody scene . . .
the blood and carnage
B. of M.: It is impossible... to describe... the horrible scene of
the blood and carnage

I recall not being overly impressed with the examples he shared with me. I supposed that the word-strings
shared by the two texts (which for some reason had caught his attention) could be explained as coincidences.

Later, when I set about compiling new lists of my own from scratch, I called upon the computer programming
skills of an old Michigan friend, the late Bill Williams. In the days before e-mail, Bill would send me packages
of mainframe computer print-outs, listing thousands of two-word and three-word combinations he had
discovered were shared by both texts. The vast majority of these extracts were of the "it is," and "they went"
variety of word-string identities, but occasionally Bill would happen upon a dozen or so words strung out in
the approximate same order in both texts, frequently interrupted in their identity by extraneous modifiers, etc.

I am thus the recipent of lengthy compilations from those two old friends, and have only needed to resort to
my own wits, in uncovering a few hundred more, rather mundane examples, to help flesh out my color-coded
"Book of Solomon" html file, here:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol0.htm

To locate additional word-strings (which Vernal and Bll had either missed or never given to me), I simply used
the search function in a word-processing program in which I had opened both source documents at once. The
task was a tedious one -- but was mostly completed in one weekend of home computer work.

The problem with the html coding, is that the underlining function (which I've used to indicate word-strings)
will not display a double underline. Thus, where I have located overlapping word-strings, I cannot show their
overlap easily in a web-page.

Hopefully the above explanation provides some insight into how I developed the 515 word-strings used in
the construction of my "Book of Solomon" charts. I long ago donated my old, hand-typed compilations used
for reference in writing my graduate studies project papers and constructing their charts, to the Marriott Library
in SLC. If you are curious to see by-products of those parallels compilations, look at the color-coded underlinings
in my own LDS Book of Mormon and LDS 1910 Spalding edition (which are mostly duplications of Vernal's earlier work):"
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/SRPpap16.htm
http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/lds1910a.htm

The big question I have left unanswered, is "What is a SIGNIFICANT textual parallell?" For some types of statistical
analysis, every single word-string in a text must be tabulated and reviewed. Obviously this can only be easily
accomplished by dedicated, automatic computer comparisons software. In such cases, "significance" is generally
a mathematically derived value, indicating the highest occurring deviations from a mean, or median, or some
other accepted baseline figure. In such as case, perhaps a ten-word phraseology parallel, with the identical words
occurring in the same order, found only in a Shakespeare play and a pre-existing Earl of Oxford diary, might
be considered "significant" because of its perceived one-in-a-billion chance of popping up in two unrelated sources.

Then again, if that same ten-word phraseology parallel were later discovered to have pre-dated both sources,
and to have been a part of a widely-circulated invitation to the Queen's birthday celebration -- then the ultimate
"significance" of the oddity might fade considerably for students of Shakespearean play origins.

So, hopefully I've exhausted your patience with this long answer, and will not have to reveal all of my stage
magician's secrets in this public forum.

UD