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

[_Roger]

Glenn:

We are going in circles.

Roger, this is a strawman. We are only talking about the Rigdon/Spalding theory here. Evidence of Nephi as a real person is irrelevant to this discussion.

No it isn't. That you want it to be irrelevant is obviously true, but it is integral to the question of where the Book of Mormon actually came from. It is an integral part of the Official Version answering that question. If Nephi (and the others) never existed then the theory you hold as explaining why there is such a thing as the Book of Mormon has to be rejected, leaving us, best as I can tell, with only two other options. It is quite relevant, Glenn.

I guess that is the crux of the problem. Accepted standards of evidence and literary analysis does not work for the Rigdon/Spalding theory. But it does not matter if you are not interested in learning why you methods do not work. They only work for you and those who believe as you do and have no impact on reality.

First, I do not know whether "accepted standards of evidence and literary analysis does not work for the Rigdon/Spalding theory" but I suspect that statement does not accurately reflect reality. Regardless, whether it does or does not, I am confident that the two opposing theories for the existence of the Book of Mormon suffer from the same (if not greater) weaknesses.

Dan Vogel, I think, could probably argue pretty well that taking his point of view requires the fewest violations of "accepted standards of evidence and literary analysis" in order to arrive at his conclusions--or he may even argue that his conclusions do not violate them at all because he's already applied Occam's razor to shave off whatever is "unnecessary"--but I fail to see how you can support your Book of Mormon production theory at all using "accepted standards of evidence and literary analysis"? I do not see how your theory even gets off the ground if we are going to hold each theory up to that metric. Ben won't even attempt to go there without adopting a viewpoint that resembles Dan's.

I note also the implication of your last sentence that apparently I am not living in reality. I suppose that would be nice, if it were true, but given that every year at this time I am forced to stop other activities in order to pay uncle Sam what he believes to be rightfully his is an indication that my reality is all too mundane.

All the best.

[_MCB]

Glenn, I have no argument with Vogel's contention that there is Joseph Smith autiobiograpical material in the Book of Mormon. However, it is primarily in I and II Nephi and Jacob, although there are sporadic accounts of frustration with treasure-digging later.

And Jockers found Smithian material in those early chapters, just like Vogel predicted.

[_Roger]

Ben:

My suggestion (which has been made repeatedly in this forum - and at least once in this thread) is really quite simple. All we have to do is ignore the claims of Joseph Smith. We can take them completely off the table. The question of whether the Spalding theory is a good or bad theory can be answered without having to deal with Joseph Smith's version at all. As far as I can tell, it is the comparison that you and Dale want because for a certain audience, anything juxtaposed with the angel can seem reasonable (even if it really isn't).

So, my suggestion is that we evaluate the claims of parallels and literary borrowing while working from the assumption that the Book of Mormon is entirely a modern production.

In light of the fact that there is no standard by which to measure a translation from reformed Egyptian into English coupled with your criticism of Dale's summation as follows:

A. It was composed, as the book itself claims, by ancient Americans
B. It was written by the man who in 1830 called himself its "author"
C. It was partly written by that "author," from multiple modern sources

Your option A is still facetious Dale - because in the context of examining particular words and phrases, in English no less, whatever ancient American author there might have been certainly didn't write in English. And so for us to be comparing words and phrases, you have to include the notion that it was allegedly translated in 1830 in some fashion, and that the translation process is the process that results in the choice of English words and phrases that are found in the book. But yet, in your arguments here in this thread on that topic, you repeatedly impute the English phrasing and verbiage to the ancient American author and not to the translator. So, I don't accept your list of three simple options - because you are not merely presenting three simple options. And you are not seriously accepting Joseph Smith's version of events or presenting them as one of the options here.

I asked what solution you would propose to SOLVE that dilemma (as highlighted above in your own words)

You are now proposing that the solution is to:

ignore the claims of Joseph Smith.

Which is it?

[_GlennThigpen]

Glenn:

We are going in circles.

Roger, this is a strawman. We are only talking about the Rigdon/Spalding theory here. Evidence of Nephi as a real person is irrelevant to this discussion.

No it isn't. That you want it to be irrelevant is obviously true, but it is integral to the question of where the Book of Mormon actually came from. It is an integral part of the Official Version answering that question. If Nephi (and the others) never existed then the theory you hold as explaining why there is such a thing as the Book of Mormon has to be rejected, leaving us, best as I can tell, with only two other options. It is quite relevant, Glenn.

All the best.

The Spalding/Rigdon theory soars or falls flat on its own merits. Even if Nephi was not areal person, it does not make the Rigdon/Spalding theory any more or less tenable. There are several competing theories also. The View of the Hebrews theory. The automatic writing theory. Each of those theories has to be evaluated, not against another theory, but against itself and the evidence for or against it. They have no relationship to each other.

Glenn

[_MCB]

OKAAY-------

[_GlennThigpen]

Glenn, I have no argument with Vogel's contention that there is Joseph Smith autiobiograpical material in the Book of Mormon. However, it is primarily in I and II Nephi and Jacob, although there are sporadic accounts of frustration with treasure-digging later.

And Jockers found Smithian material in those early chapters, just like Vogel predicted.

MCB, I am going to quote Matt Jockers from an earlier post in this thread.

The paper we wrote was designed to answer the question of who among the suspect candidates was the most likely. That's it. ----------------- Our work was designed to rank a closed set of candidates who had been suggested by other researchers as possible authors. From my point of view our results showed simply that one candidate in the set was more likely than another (for any given chapter).

To make any more of this is something that Matt says he never intended, although the person who actually wrote the paper drew some hard and fast conclusions.

The Jockers study is all relative and extrapolating Smith biographical material or Spaulding or Rigdon goes well beyond what Matt has stated.

Glenn

[_MCB]

When Jockers' results (which should be regarded with caution when individual chapters are under discussion) support the individual chapters in which there is substantial Smithian material, Jockers and Vogel's stars go higher. They support each other. Very simple.

Even a caveman can do it.

Although Vogel many not be happy at the rest of Jockers' results, he can be happy with that.

[_GlennThigpen]

When Jockers' results (which should be regarded with caution when individual chapters are under discussion) support the individual chapters in which there is substantial Smithian material, Jockers and Vogel's stars go higher. They support each other. Very simple.

Even a caveman can do it.

Although Vogel many not be happy at the rest of Jockers' results, he can be happy with that.

But what is the actual percentage, the actual chance that the percentage is correct? When Bruce's extensions are applied, the percentage is insignificant. The original "attributions" are meaningless.

Glenn

[_MCB]

None so deaf as those who hear, yet refuse to understand.

[_MCB]

None so deaf as those who hear, yet refuse to understand.