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

[_GlennThigpen]

[quote="Uncle Dale]
My point is -- to show that it is not merely the NSC
attributions which tie these texts together; but also
their phraseology -- their sharing of lengthy word-strings
unique to those 9 texts (or at least rare elsewhere in
Mormon scripture).

Alma 3 and 5 should be somewhat similar, if they are
both early Alma sermons. Alma 34 should not be so
similar, since it is ostensibly the writings of Amulek.

Note also the following phraseology which ties Alma 5-6
to Alma 33. While shorter portions of the shared word-strings
can be found elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, the full and
lengthy textual overlap is confined to 5, 6, and 33:

UD[/quote]

Dale, I don't think your reasoning about shared phraseology between different scriptures and even different prophets includes all possibilities. Alma and Amulek were contemporaries and actually preached together, so it would not be surprising to note shared phraseology between them. But even without that, inspiration can also be included as a common source for phraseology.
I would expect that you can go back through the Bible and find common phraseology among the different books of that tome also, spread over a wide age spectrum.
If you do not accept any type of divine inspiration, then you must seek other explanations, of course, and there we will always disagree.

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

The discussion on the Conneaut witnesses seems to have been curtailed after the lost tribes were not found.

Glenn

[_MCB]

The discussion about the Conneaut witnesses becomes a useless game when the opposition consistently comes back with "We can't see the manuscript with our own eyes, so therefore it never existed." We can see it through the eyes and ears of the witnesses, but you say they lie, or were deceived.

Confronted with such logic, we then try other approaches, knowing that the opposition cannot see the fallacies in their own witnesses and original manuscript.

II Nephi 32 was a Cowdery chapter, according to Jockers, yet 37.6 percent was taken from the New Testament.

[_GlennThigpen]

[quote="MCB"]The discussion about the Conneaut witnesses becomes a useless game when the opposition consistently comes back with "We can't see the manuscript with our own eyes, so therefore it never existed." We can see it through the eyes and ears of the witnesses, but you say they lie, or were deceived.

Confronted with such logic, we then try other approaches, knowing that the opposition cannot see the fallacies in their own witnesses and original manuscript.
[quote]

That has not been the focus of the discussions I was having. I was discussing evidence of possible memory confabulation. I have had no response to the lost tribes issue since marge said she did not understand my point, which is that four of the eight Conneaut witnesses stated that Spalding's story was about the lost tribes being brought to America and becoming the ancestors of the American Indians. I also noted that all of the witnesses stated that the Book of Mormon historical parts read the same, almost identical, and according to Aron Wright, some parts verbatim as Spalding's story. Based on that, we logically should find a lost tribes motif in the Book of Mormon. But we do not. There is a problem there with the witnesses statements.

Glenn

[_MCB]

The response is very simple. Smith & Co. changed the story to fit their agendas. The lost tribes story would not fit an anti-Semitic agenda. People running from a sick society would fit such an agenda.

[_GlennThigpen]

The response is very simple. Smith & Co. changed the story to fit their agendas. The lost tribes story would not fit an anti-Semitic agenda. People running from a sick society would fit such an agenda.

But then it would not have read the same as or be nearly identical to the Spalding story which all eight witnesses affirmed that it did. I don't have time to add more right now, but if you think this through, the lost tribes motif poses severe credibility problems for the Conneaut witnesses just by itself.

Glenn

[_MCB]

Parts are

nearly identical to the Spalding story which all eight witnesses affirmed that it did.

Hurlbut may have paraphrased inaccurately in order to strengthen his case. Common anti-Mormon strategy, unfortunately.

[Bedlamite]

...shared phraseology between different scriptures and
even different prophets includes all possibilities.
...

You still are not understanding the point I wish to make.

Attempts to compare relatively long Book of Mormon
word-strings shared with 19th writers have been dismissed,
out of hand, by Mormon apologists, as signifying nothing --
even when the respective texts also share a high similarity
of frequently used non-contextual words.

So -- setting aside that sort of comparison for the time being,
we can compare the Book of Mormon texts against themselves.
That is, we can compare one section of the text against another
section of the text -- in order to establish comparative methods
which the LDS will accept as significant.

For example, in both the sections of Alma that I have been
comparing throughout this current thread, we can discover
the same language being used -- to an extent greater than
is evident in other sections of the book. Take this phrase:
"garments... made white, through the blood of Christ" -- it
occurs in both sections I've been exploring; and immediately
before another lengthy string I have previously pointed out:
"will come to redeem his people."
Two other shared phrases: "for the Lord God hath spoken it" and
"of the fruit of the tree of life" -- Sheer coincidence?

There are also numerous shorter shared word-strings, such as:
"the things of the world,"
"And now... I would that ye should"
"the things which have been spoken concerning the..."
"for the Lord God hath spoken it"
etc., etc., etc.

While the reason for this striking language overlap may indeed
"include all possibilities," it is not so much the reason I am
here pointing out, as the method of comparison.

Is it possible to develop some method[s] of textual comparison
which can quantitatively describe the degree of similarity of
language in two or more separated Book of Mormon sections?

If Mormons will ever agree that it is possible to thus compare
(and mathematically rate) such texts, then perhaps they can
also be convinced that the same methods can be used to
compare portions of the Book of Mormon to EXTERIOR TEXTS,
such as the Book of Commandments, Cowdery's "revelation," etc.

UD

[_GlennThigpen]

Parts are

nearly identical to the Spalding story which all eight witnesses affirmed that it did.

Hurlbut may have paraphrased inaccurately in order to strengthen his case. Common anti-Mormon strategy, unfortunately.

So, are you saying that Hurlbut actually authored those affidavits? They are purported by other S/R advocates as being the actual words of the signatories.

Glenn

[_MCB]

I will let Dale address that.