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

[_Uncle Dale]

...
Dale, how often did Rigdon use that word in his other writings?

The base text I've been using for my Rigdon vocabulary comparisons is:
http://premormon.com/resources/r010/Sidney4.txt

The base text I've been using for my Cowdery vocabulary comparisons is:
http://premormon.com/resources/r010/Oliver4.txt

The base text I've been using for my Spalding vocabulary comparisons is:
http://solomonspalding.com/docs/oberlin9.txt

The 1830 Book of Mormon text I've been using is:
http://premormon.com/resources/r009/1830-B_o_M.htm
{remove underlines in B_o_M -- Shades has set up this MB not to read those letters}
(hint: use "View:html source" in your web-browser to see modern LDS verse numbers)

You can get an idea of Rigdon and Spalding vocabulary overlap with
the 1830 Book of Mormon in this spreadsheet:
http://premormon.com/resources/r009/Concord1.xls

Same as above, but with Cowdery added in:
http://premormon.com/resources/r009/1830voc3.xls

Would you say that Smith & Helpers is a new theory, blending Smith only with S/R, or is it a subset of S/R?
...

The Spalding-Rigdon authorship theory is a sub-set of the Smith+helpers theory.

Here are some variations:

1. Joseph Smith + Alvin Smith
2. Joseph Smith + Hyrum and Lucy Mack Smith
3. Joseph Smith + Oliver Cowdery
4. Joseph Smith + Cowdery + Lucy Mack Smith
5. Joseph Smith + Sidney Rigdon
6. Joseph Smith + Cowdery + Rigdon
7. Joseph Smith + Cowdery + Rigdon (+ Rigdon's editing of Spalding)
8. Joseph Smith + Spalding

The last sub-theory was the one favored by Emily Dickinson and Vern Holley --
speculating that Joseph obtained a Spalding manuscript in Onondaga Hollow,
from the home of Spalding's brother-in-law. I see no basis for that notion.

There is a parallel theory, of Joseph Smith obtaining some Spalding manuscript
materials in the Batavia, NY area in the mid-1820s, from Spalding relatives. This
idea was set forth even before Howe's book was published. But no real evidence.

UD

[_MCB]

No "expedient" for Rigdon, one each for Cowdery and Spalding.

Thanks for the logic exercise.

[_Uncle Dale]

No "expedient" for Rigdon, one each for Cowdery and Spalding.
...

Look at chapter VIII in the Book of Commandments:
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/RigWrit/1833_BoC.htm#pg020b

This is the last "revelation" Jockers attributes to Cowdery for a
significant span in the Book of Commandments. Even though it
appears to be condemning Cowdery's ability to produce scripture,
it may have been "expedient" for Cowdery to write his own
divining rod obituary --- very odd.

Joseph Smith was known to use big words like "expedient" and
"peradventure." Exactly why an illiterate farmboy would have
aspired to mouth such extracts from the King's English is unknown.

Maybe you can talk Doc Peterson into releasing the Joseph Smith
base text that the BYU scholars are nowadays consulting, in order
to produce such reports as Bruce's latest paper???

???

UD

[_MCB]

Maybe you can talk Doc Peterson into releasing the Joseph Smith base text that the BYU scholars are nowadays consulting, in order to produce such reports as Bruce's latest paper???

Did NASA find Quakers on the moon?

Joseph may have learned those big words from his co-workers.

[_GlennThigpen]

At this point all you have is conjecture which does not square with what is actually known.

?? Of course it squares with what is actually known. What it doesn't "square" with is Rigdon's irate denials--but that is pretty much what I would expect.

Okay, I am going to quote an excerpt from a letter written by one William Small who had been present at the 1842 interview of Robert Patterson by John E. Page.

"While I was living in Pittsburgh in 1841, at the time so much was said of the Book of Mormon, and in connection with the Solomon Spaulding Story. It was stated that the Spaulding manuscript was placed in Mr. Patterson's hands for publication, and that Sidney Rigdon was connected with him at the time. In connection with John E. Page I called upon General Patterson, the publisher, and asked him the following questions, and received his replies as given:

Q. -- Did Sidney Rigdon have any connection with your office at the time you had the Solomon Spaulding manuscript?
A. -- No.

Q. -- Did Sidney Rigdon obtain the Spaulding story at that office?
A. -- No.

He also stated to us that the Solomon Spaulding manuscript was brought to him by the widow of Solomon Spaulding to be published, and that she offered to give him half the profits for his pay, if he would publish it; but after it had laid there for some time, and after he had due time to consider it, he determined not to publish it. She then came and received the manuscript from his hands, and took it away. He also stated that Sidney Rigdon was not connected with the office for several years afterwards. Gen. Patterson also made affidavit to the above statement.
Your brother in Christ,
William Small."
Philadelphia, Sept. 13th, 1876."

Here the publisher himself is denying that Rigdon had anything to do with the printing office during the time that the manuscript was in the office. He also denied that Rigdon ever took the manuscript. Rebecca Eichbaum's testimony is irrelevant on this matter. She ceased to have any connection with the post office in 1816.

So we have two accounts of the manuscript being in the printer's office, and two accounts of it being returned (1) Solomon Spalding and (2) Solomon's widow and and affirmation that Rigdon had no connection with the office during that period of time and that he did not take the manuscript, by the publisher himself, who does seem to have had a direct knowledge of the events.

Those facts and Patterson's statement that Rigdon was not connected with the office for several years afterward squares with Rigdon's "irate denials".


The fact that Rigdon's whereabouts are not known from historical sources is not evidence of opportunity. You are accusing him of doing something that you have no evidence for and for which the actual testimony is that he did not do it.

Keep on keepin' on!

All the best.

And that I will,
Glenn

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale writes:

1. The Smith-alone crowd says that Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon text, all by himself -- thinking up its contents, vocabulary, phraseology, etc., as he went along.

2. The Mormons say that ancient American Nephites wrote it.

3. The Smith+helpers crowd says that multiple sources went into the text, with Smith acting as the final editor.

Which of those three theories best explains the following? --

"the Lord hath said... that the righteous should sit down in his kingdom, to go no more out..." (Amulek -- Oliver Cowdery? -- Alma 34)

"O how do I delight... to think of rest in God in his kingdom -- of being in a holy heaven, where pain and sin never shall enter -- to go no more out..."

"Memoirs of the Rev. Timothy Pitkin"
Connecticut Evangelical Magazine
Volume 5 (1812) p. 342

One of the problems you have Dale, as I pointed out, is this terrible tunnel vision. This phrase isn't all that uncommon in early American literature. All of these references have as their source the King James Bible - from Revelations 3:12 -

Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out:

I can find dozens of examples of this phrasing in many places. There isn't any need to draw the specific connection you attempt to draw. As I noted earlier, the moment we can find such a phrase in multiple sources is the moment it becomes absolutely useless for authorship attribution purposes. Your evidence is circular.

Ben McGuire

[_Uncle Dale]

...
I can find dozens of examples of this phrasing in many places.
...

No -- you will not be able to reproduce such citations here.

Oliver Cowdery places the "in his kingdom" before the words
"to go no more out." He may have been parroting Alma 34,
but he was not quoting the KJV Revelation passage in the
context and meaning of his 1829 communication

Your best bet would be to say that John the Revelator was
incorrectly trying to quote Amulek, but left off the words
"in his kingdom."

The Alma wording matches the 1812 Pitikin wording much more
closely than it matches the wording in Revelation.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...He also denied that Rigdon ever took the manuscript.
..

"Took the manuscript" from where?

1. From the Patterson book and stationery store?
2. From the Patterson brothers' publishing office?
3. From the printshop of Silas Engles?
4. From the printship of Butler and Lambdin?
5. From the Butler and Lambdin publishing office?
6. From J. H. Lambdin's split-off portion of "the office?"

All Mr. Patterson was saying is that Sidney Rigdon did not
take any manuscript from the Patterson firm. Elsewhere
Patterson says that he turned the manuscript over to Engles.

How any Spalding manuscript made its way back into the
hands of Mr./Mrs. Spalding, history does not record. Probably
one of the Patterson brothers turned down the opportunity
to have the story published, and it went from the hands of
Mr. Engles back into the hands of the Spalding family, c. 1813.

Sidney Rigdon's association would have been with Engles and
with Lambdin -- not with the Patterson brothers.

UD

[_Benjamin McGuire]

I don't think you understand Dale. The specifics are largely irrelevant in this case. "In his kingdom" is not an uncommon phrase. "To go no more out" is not that uncommon. Finding them together is not that difficult a task. But apart from that, you have to deal with the evidence of the Book of Mormon. The notion occurs four times in the text.

3 Nephi 28:40

And in this state they were to remain until the judgment day of Christ; and at that day they were to receive a greater change, and to be received into the kingdom of the Father to go no more out, but to dwell with God eternally in the heavens.

Helaman 3:30

And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out.

Alma 7:25

And may the Lord bless you, and keep your garments spotless, that ye may at last be brought to sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and the holy prophets who have been ever since the world began, having your garments spotless even as their garments are spotless, in the kingdom of heaven to go no more out.

Alma 34:36

And this I know, because the Lord has said he dwelleth not in unholy temples, but in the hearts of the righteous doth he dwell; yea, and he has also said that the righteous shall sit down in his kingdom, to go nor more out; but their garments should be made white through the blood of the lamb.

So, in the Book of Mormon we have pieces of a formula. You want to make a fuss over the "in his kingdom", but in fact, that seems to just be the expression of a common formula that isn't so specific in verbage. The Book of Mormon also has "in the kingdom" twice, and "into the kingdom" once. So to see your specific a formula as having special meaning is I think not a good approach.

But here is one:

1826: I bless God, Betty, that he so upholds you in this trying hour; and may he continue to support you till your summons shall arrive to enter into his everlasting kingdom. Should we be permitted to meet no more in this world, may we meet in a holier and happier, to go no more out for ever.

There are many, many such texts, particularly if we use all three phrases from the Book of Mormon (in his kingdom, in the kingdom, into the kingdom). A larger issue is the way that the Book of Mormon texts combine the phrase from Revelations ("to go no more out") with Matthew 8:11, which reads:

And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Two of the four verses in the Book of Mormon use this language in some detail - and simply add the "to go no more out".

You offer us Pitikin who wrote:

"O how do I delight, at least, I think I do delight - to think of rest in God in his kingdom - of being in a holy heaven, where pain and sin never shall enter - to go no more out - to think of perfect - perfect holiness - perfect obedience! - To die is gain."

And you want to compare the "rest" to "sit down", but, when we look at the Book of Mormon, that "sit down" is a part of the formula, and seems to come from the larger context also provided in Matthew 8.

So, again, I don't agree with you Dale. What you see is what you want to see. There is nothing in this text to suggest the connection you are trying to make.

[_Uncle Dale]

...There is nothing in this text to suggest the connection you are trying to make.

As you'll recall, I began with the Jockers' identification of Alma 34
as marking a high point in matching up with the Cowdery word-print.
So, I traced back a number of shared word-strings in Alma 32-33-34
and Oliver Cowdery's writings.

One of those shared sets of phraseology is the example that I cited.

It does not matter if ten, a hundred, or a thousand writers echoed the
1812 Pitkin phraseology. It probably was not original with him -- it was
perhaps verbiage typical of late 18th century sermons.

If you locate examples prior to 1812, they might be worth looking at.

Nor does it matter that other spots in the Book of Mormon more or less
echo the Alma 34 example. If you can point out a precursor passage
dictated before Alma 7 and 34, please do that. The Alma 7 phraseology
and vocabulary also share a high overlap with Cowdery. Alma 7 is also
attributed to Cowdery in Jockers' 2010 study update. It looks like Oliver
composed BOTH the Alma 7 and Alma 34 passages to me.

What would be more useful in this instance, would be for you to
explain how the lengthy word-string set ended up in Alma 34.

Unless you can demonstrate that Alma the younger and Amulek spoke
Elizabethan English, I do not think you can say that the KJV translators
copied the wording from Alma 34.

Unless you can demonstrate that Joseph Smith, Jr. in 1828-29 was
wont to vocalize such phrases, I do not think you can attribute the
dictation of Alma 34 to sheer coincidence.

Unless you can demonstrate that God Almighty was wont to echo the
sermon phraseology of late 18th century American preachers, I do
not think you can attribute the wording of Alma 34 to Divine prompting.

The most reasonable explanation is the same one we keep encountering
for the parroting of KJV passages throughout the Book of Mormon --
that the contents of an earlier text were made to influence the contents
of a later text, through the mediation of a reader/writer like Smith -- or
like Cowdery.

No matter how far you might wish to stray from that premise, I believe
that reasonable investigators will push you back to the fact that texts
like Alma 34 echo pre-1830 English language publications, and not the
revelations of Nephite prophets.

You have not accounted for the process by which that set of words
fell from the lips of Joseph Smith, Jr., and into the ears of Mr. Cowdery,
and onto the pages of the "dictated manuscript" ----- Who chose them?

UD