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

[_CaliforniaKid]

Yes, it's quite polished. However, the present text may have been edited prior to publication.

[_CaliforniaKid]

The conjecture that a person attempting to imitate the KJV style will alter his non contextual wordprints is just that, conjecture.

It's a carefully reasoned conjecture, not something I just pulled out of thin air.

In any event, I agree that more testing needs to be done. One fairly simple test would be to have a half-dozen people write pseudo-KJV texts and see if the texts can be matched with their proper authors using the Hilton and Jockers wordprinting methods. But that work hasn't been done (so far as I'm aware). Until it is done, I will remain deeply skeptical of the use of these methods on the Book of Mormon.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
One fairly simple test
...

Forsooth, I prithee that thou wouldst beseech the holy
angels, that perchance they might vouchsafe thee aught
thou needest, peradventure thou dost this thing thyself....

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

Until it is done, I will remain deeply skeptical of the use of these methods on the Book of Mormon.

If any of them were to attribute authorship of the Book of Mormon to you, I would be skeptical too.


Glenn

[_CaliforniaKid]

If any of them were to attribute authorship of the Book of Mormon to you, I would be skeptical too.

How knowest thou I have not written this thing? ;)

[_Roger]

Well now it's all cleared up! Uncle Dale wrote the Book of Mormon! Case closed.

[_Roger]

Chris:

So if you are correct, do you see any value at all in either Jockers or Schaalje's studies? If so, what would that be?

[_MCB]

In any event, I agree that more testing needs to be done. One fairly simple test would be to have a half-dozen people write pseudo-KJV texts and see if the texts can be matched with their proper authors using the Hilton and Jockers wordprinting methods. But that work hasn't been done (so far as I'm aware). Until it is done, I will remain deeply skeptical of the use of these methods on the Book of Mormon.

We already have Josh Anderson's "The Book of Zelph." and Christopher Nemelka's "Sealed Portion" I would suspect that Nightlion's production also imitates KJE, and we could also look at Brian David Mitchell's. We also have James Strang's "Book of the Law of the Lord" http://www.mormonbeliefs.com/book_of_the_law.htm
Perhaps the algorithm of people imitating Book of Mormon language could be developed from a composite of those works.

My mother spoke South Dakota ENGLISH, my father spoke somewhat Missourian, I never read anything, growing up, that was in anything other than plain English. I just don't have the knack for writing in pseudo-KJE that you people have.

[_Dan Vogel]

I’m not convinced on the reliability of word counts and statistics in these matters. I have more confidence in the testimony of the eye witnesses, who say Joseph Smith dictated the text hour after hour and day after day. I’m more comfortable with historical and textual analysis. If I considered any kind of stylistic analysis, it would be the kind that considers sentence structure (e.g., frequency of subordinate clauses, etc.) as was done for the Book of Mormon many years ago at BYU.

I’m also not satisfied when the analysis is limited to Joseph Smith’s holographic letters. One writes differently than they speak, and the Book of Mormon is a spoken book. If the Book of Mormon is a dictated document, then one should at least include letters Joseph Smith dictated, like his long letters from Liberty Jail, which are far more comparable to the Book of Mormon. The early revelations dictated from the same stone in hat should also be included.

[_Roger]

Hi Dan:

I’m not convinced on the reliability of word counts and statistics in these matters.

What if error patterns were discovered that were not evenly distributed throughout the 1830 text?

All the best.