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

[_harmony]

You suggest that God "wrote" the Book of Mormon - but clearly, God didn't "write it".

Thank you. It's important to remember this.

At most, the only role God plays in the process is in the so-called translation.

This is important to remember too.

Believers see God interacting only in a very limited way in the production of the Book of Mormon (and of course, for those that have even considered it, there is this difference between those who favor a loose translation and those who favor a tight translation).

And this is a line of bull. Believers do NOT see God as acting in a limited way... on the contrary, believers see the hand of God in every word. I've lived with a BIC DUP true believer for 40 years, and that is NOT what he or any of his relatives believes.

So, even if we decide that a man wrote the Book of Mormon in some sense (or even in multiple senses), I think it doesn't change the discussion much at all from the perspective of a believer - partly because we believe from the outset that men are largely responsible for the book, for the original gold plates, for nearly ever part of the process (historical and modern) which was required to provide us with this book.

Again: baloney. Blasphemy, even. My entire ward would be horrified at that statement.

In other words, it didn't really matter as long it was agreed that a man (and not God) wrote the book.

Which you just supported.

And often this set such a low evidentiary bar that bad arguments had become quite commonplace. That is, if all you have to do is to compete with the angel, than almost anything you provide will be better than that. But, as I noted, this has changed quite a bit in the last couple of years.

Not from a true believer's perspective.

[_harmony]

As for wide spread secondary masking of Joseph Smith by the unobserved author, that should not be found. The secondary probabilities should pretty much follow the primary pattern of the original Jockers study.

I don't see how "proving" Joseph Smith wrote the book helps "prove" that Nephites existed.

[_GlennThigpen]

As for wide spread secondary masking of Joseph Smith by the unobserved author, that should not be found. The secondary probabilities should pretty much follow the primary pattern of the original Jockers study.

I don't see how "proving" Joseph Smith wrote the book helps "prove" that Nephites existed.

I think you missed the point entirely, or rather got it backwards. The results of the Schaalje paper lend credence to the proposition that Joseph Smith, not any othe nineteenth century denizen are the authors of the Book of Mormon. That is the only thing that is at issue here. The Schaalje paper does not prove or disprove the existence of Nephites, nor does it even attempt to do so.
Without reading the paper, you are working from an empty cup.

Glenn

[_harmony]

I think you missed the point entirely, or rather got it backwards. The results of the Schaalje paper lend credence to the proposition that Joseph Smith, not any othe nineteenth century denizen are the authors of the Book of Mormon. That is the only thing that is at issue here. The Schaalje paper does not prove or disprove the existence of Nephites, nor does it even attempt to do so.
Without reading the paper, you are working from an empty cup.

Glenn

Well, I can see where it would be fascinating to figure out who wrote it, since we can't trust Joseph's word for anything, but isn't this like trying to figure out how many angels dance on the head of a pin?

It doesn't matter who wrote it, if Nephites didn't exist. Once a person agrees that it's just a story, it's a matter of plagerism of an idea, not truth or historical evidence.

[_MCB]

the proposition that Joseph Smith, not any othe nineteenth century denizen are the authors of the Book of Mormon.

Are you aware that Jockers responded to this criticism after the paper was published, and were able to get enough authentic Joseph Smith writings to look for that, and did find that he was a MINOR author?

I do need to make some re-revisions on that.

[_Uncle Dale]

...The secondary probabilities should pretty much follow the primary pattern of the original Jockers study.

Not really -- in nearly all cases the secondary attribution is zero.
I take that to mean the word-prints of the various 19th century
writers match those of the respective Book of Mormon chapters at zero
percent (statistically speaking).

That is indeed amazing.

On the other hand, Bruce's data appears to show that the word-print
for Enos matches that of Joseph Smith at the 100% level, with no
secondary attribution.

Oh well, Bruce has provided you link to his data on "the other board".

Glenn

As I said -- if the non-sectarian statisticians agree with his
conclusions -- (or, if even a couple of them do) -- then the
Jockers findings are dead in the water.

It is not a matter of peer-review having allowed Bruce's paper
to be published in the first place -- it is a matter of acceptance by
the scientific, scholarly community, that Bruce's conclusions best
fit the compiled data.

Until the scholarly consensus becomes more clearly visible, the best
you can currently say is that there are two competing explanations
for Book of Mormon authorship -- one of which (Matts') is relative,
and the other (Bruce's) which is absolute.

If Bruce's method is the correct one -- then the next logical step is
to compare the word-prints of other early 19th century writers to
the Book of Mormon, using his methodology, to see if ANYONE ever scores
NEAR "latent's" massive set of 100% attributions.

Next on the list of author candidates would be Lucy Mack Smith
and W. W. Phelps. There is insufficient literary material from Martin
Harris, Hyrum Smith, etc., for testing -- and David Whitmer would
be a real long-shot.

UD

[_MCB]

W. W. Phelps

That one is a new one on me. What evidence do we have that would make him a candidate?

[_GlennThigpen]

the proposition that Joseph Smith, not any othe nineteenth century denizen are the authors of the Book of Mormon.

Are you aware that Jockers responded to this criticism after the paper was published, and were able to get enough authentic Joseph Smith writings to look for that, and did find that he was a MINOR author?

I do need to make some re-revisions on that.

Yes, I am aware that Jockers added Smith to the mix, using the original methodology. It did not establish Smith as a minor author. That study only gave probabilities relative to the other authors in the candidate set, not absolute probabilities.

Glenn

[_MCB]

That study only gave probabilities relative to the other authors in the candidate set, not absolute probabilities.

True. but when one looks at which places Jockers found likelihood of Joseph Smith content, it matches with Vogel's contention of autobiographical content. Of course, it might actually be Lucy. Until we put her into the recipe, the jury is still out, as you said.

[_Uncle Dale]

W. W. Phelps

That one is a new one on me. What evidence do we have that would make him a candidate?

Let's say that Bruce's findings are reliable, and that NONE of the
19th century author-candidates thus far tested have ANY input.
The next set of author-candidates to test would be those people
who early on promoted/benefited from the Book of Mormon, who also left behind
a considerable amount of writing (for word-printing).

W.W. Phelps would be among the names on that second-tier list.
He promoted Mormonism as early as 1830, wrote a fictional history
of ancient New York, and can be easily word-printed.

UD