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

[_MCB]

Anticipating the coming condemnation for my parallelomania.....

My form of parallelomania is perhaps more vulnerable, but when I suggest those leads as areas for further research, I'm safe.

Jeffersonian Deist

Very strong similarity.

What I have difficulty with is your search for commonalities in phraseology. I have difficulty understanding how you do it. Is there any kind of computerized program that can do that more easily than an extreme familiarity with the texts involved?

[_Uncle Dale]

...parallelomania.....

Just suppose that the following sequence represented my inquiry:

1. I locate the "having partook" and "of an elegant" word-strings
in an imperfect document transcript.

2. I announce to the world that since the two word-strings occur
in close proximity, it would be worthwhile to look into the matter.

3. An LDS opponent points out that those word strings occur
occasionally in various known pre-1830 texts -- no big deal...

4. In response to that, I show that the 1801 document came
from Richfield, NY -- where Spalding was living at the time.

5. The hypothetical LDS critic says that I'm wasting my time,
chasing false leads and engaging in unwarranted speculation.

6. Finally, I get a scan of the actual document in my hands,
and discover Spalding's name next to those word-strings.

7. My LDS accuser then boasts that I've demonstrated
no real proof that Spalding wrote the text in question,
etc. etc. etc.

The story of my life....

UD

[_MCB]

An LDS opponent points out that those word strings occur
occasionally in various known pre-1830 texts.

Isn't that in itself evidence that it arose from the culture and the language of the time in which it was written (1810 to 1830)?

Of course, other than Biblical sources, I have found parallels from literature written after 1000 AD, but before 1500. And all from the same genre (early British and Scandinavian literature, which itself was heavily embroidered).

[_Roger]

Hi Dale. Good to hear from you.

There are participants in this extended forum who really do conduct
investigative research, and who occasionally inform us of something
from that past that is truly germane to Mormon history, scriptures, etc.

But those folks appear to have put their communications of anything
really useful here "on hold" and are offering nothing that even begins
to address Dr. Peterson's original intent for this thread.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here. Most of us on this thread (myself included) are laymen who are not in a position to add much in terms of new developments in anything other than observation and possible new perspectives on old information. Those of us that are in such a position (apparently) don't conduct investigative research into the question of multiple authors (apparently) because they've come to the conclusion that Joseph Smith is solely responsible for the Book of Mormon.

What I find interesting about Solomon's writing is his fairly low frequency of grammatical errors. While MSCC is not by any means a shining example of great literary prowess, it is fairly sound grammatically, as are the examples you posted. The 1830 Book of Mormon, as Dan might point out (since it serves his theory) is anything but grammatically sound.

How do we S/R theorists reconcile that? To add to the dilemma, Dan would point out that: "Miller claimed passages in the Book of Mormon were taken verbatim from Spalding’s MS." So here we are again, with the S/R critic claiming victory. If the Book of Mormon represents a verbatim copy of Spalding, then why do we see so many grammatical errors in 1830 text? To emphasize the point, Dan would then highlight the Joseph Smith prophecies and biographical parallels he's been touching on here. And to ensure that we have no viable response he would point out that we can't use a non-extant manuscript as proof for anything because:

you can’t use ignorance as an argument. This is also a fallacy of possible proof, with the added twist that no matter what was in the 116-page MS, it wouldn’t be evidence against your theory. Not only can’t your theory be tested, it can’t be disproved either.

So then, having effectively eliminated our potential appeal to the fact that we don't know precisely what the structure, content and storyline of MF might have looked like and having ruled any speculation on the matter off limits, and yet at the same time allowing himself the freedom to argue that it does not currently exist therefore it must never have existed, Dan rests assured that he's effectively backed the pesky S/R theorists into a corner from which there is no escape.

The problem, of course, is that no S/R theorist ever claimed Solomon Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon. And yet that is the corner S/R critics want to force us into. In their attempt to box us in they point out that Miller uses the word "verbatim" and from that conclude that even if Spalding wrote another manuscript it HAD to look exactly like the Book of Mormon because Miller uses the word "verbatim"--never mind the fact that the first 116 pages were lost and even Joseph Smith doesn't claim to have faithfully reproduced them. So they are willing to take the testimony of the Conneaut witnesses at face value when it serves their purpose of backing S/R critics into a corner.

As a side note, I might add that this kind of attitude is not conducive to adding much of anything useful to the question of multiple authors. Rather it is much more conducive to bolstering a single author framework by boxing in the most viable opposing hypothesis. I am therefore not surprised that nothing of much use is being added to the discussion at this point.

Regardless, the attempts at boxing S/R in are shallow. No S/R proponent ever claimed that Solomon Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon. The S/R theory does not claim that Solomon Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon. So attempts to show that "Spalding’s not the Book of Mormon’s author" are meaningless.

I am also aware that grammatical error distribution patterns in the 1830 text are consistent with an S/R framework. I wonder whether Dan has taken a look at the error distribution patterns in the 1830 text and how he can mesh the results with Joseph Smith as sole content producer for the Book of Mormon text.

All the best.

[_Uncle Dale]

An LDS opponent points out that those word strings occur
occasionally in various known pre-1830 texts.

Isn't that in itself evidence that it arose from the culture of the time in which it was written (1810 to 1830)?

Yes -- I look at the situation in those terms. I try to place any
such discoveries of language parallels within the greater context
of when, where, why and how such word-strings occurred.

But the fact that a significant number of those cited words
appear in the same order in BOTH texts, and serve a similar
purpose (of introducing a speaker's address at a gathering
of compatriots, etc.), seems to me to be a fact that falls
outside of the "totally by coincidence" realm of possibility.

So -- I propose closer inspection, and the Mormons (and the
Smith-alone advocates) propose less closer inspection.

By "less closer" -- I mean that they often divert their readers
from the main topic at hand, and send them off on a goose
chase of dismissals, of the "anybody could have written it" sort

I say: "This could be a piece of the historical puzzle."

LDS respond: "There is no such puzzle -- we know the truth."

UD

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

Perhap's I stumbled across a apart which differs to the rest of the book. The introduction which I read year's ago I had problems with as well. While I understand it would appear likely that the problem I'm having is because I accept the S/R theory...I believe it's much more than that.

The interpretation of Laban, which you quote below, is somewhat different than most other psychological treatments in the book.

You appear to be accepting dreams which are highly detailed, written I believe in Lucy's book in which she's recalling of Joseph Sr. and herself which occurred decades previously. Personally my dreams are never that vivid, and I can barely recall them upon awakening let alone hours, day, years and decades later. It would seem to me that quite possibly the Book of Mormon has dreams written in..and that could be Smith's input..but that later Lucy's dreams are manufactured and not necessarily by her, for her book.

The dreams constitute a text, and it’s that text that I’m analyzing. No one can say what was in Lucy’s and Joseph Sr.’s dreams. Nevertheless, I make an argument for Lucy changing the meaning of her dream after Joseph Jr.’s founding of the restored church. Lucy dictated her MS to Martha Coray, and there is no evidence that these dreams were manufactured by someone else. Lucy received a final draft, which was published by Orson Pratt in 1853 with Lucy’s permission. In fact, Abner Cole in the Palmyra newspaper for 1831 (I believe) mentioned that Joseph Smith’s founding of a church was in fulfillment of the Sr. Smith’s dreams.

So then what you do is take the dreams and storyline in the Book of Mormon and look for parallels to Smith and family...but the part I disagree with the most is your added psychoanalysis. Finding parallels is not difficult. If you are focused on finding parallels you will find them, but that doesn't mean there actually is a valid connection and a valid reason to psychoanalyze. And that's what the critic was criticizing you for.

The critic was saying that the parallels don’t prove Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. He was defending the Book of Mormon’s historicity, without acknowledging the same problem exists for his ancient parallels. Finding parallels isn’t difficult. That’s why I wasn’t offering them for evidence for Joseph Smith’s authorship over an ancient one. Joseph Smith’s authorship is assumed. I have already rejected the Book of Mormon’s antiquity based on other matters, like historical and literary anachronisms, not to mention the lack of direct confirmation, which I also discuss in the book. My aim was to reconstruct the Smith family dynamics—using family systems theory—and then use that reconstruction to find insights into Joseph Smith’s motivations and belief system. Since Joseph Smith wasn’t writing a novel, but was producing a text that would be the foundation of a movement, the text reflects what he thinks and feels about himself and the world. Of course this is interpretive, and some aspects of my analysis are more compelling than others. Penetrating the deception and exploring the secret life of Joseph Smith is difficult, but I believe I have been able to get closer to Joseph Smith’s inner world than anyone had previously.

Let's look at this:

You write: " It was fitting that Joseph’s book began with a family that was, in many ways, comparable to the Smith family. Both were displaced and disinherited, having left the land of their inheritance to settle in a more promising region. More importantly, both were conflicted over religion, particularly over the validity of a father’s dreams."

-First of all, when people move more often than not they move to find something more promising,otherwise they wouldn't be moving. So a parallel to that is meaningless.
-The Smith family were not disinherited, they had a farm, Lucy was $1,000 given as a wedding gift but Joseph Sr. in his business venture which was high risk... lost all they had. rom that point forward they struggled and moved to find something better. This isn't the same as Nephi's family per the story. Moving is common in everyone's lives, every person has a moving story.

My statement here is that Joseph Smith could identify with Lehi’s family, not that there was a unique parallel here. Both families lost their inheritance by trickery, and they left settled areas for the wilderness. Note, too, I said “in many ways”, so it’s the accumulating effect. Yet, I’m not using such parallels to prove Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, but to find possible meaning the text had for Joseph Smith, as well as some of the first readers.

-The dream in the Book of Mormon was written perhaps by Smith, the dream recalled by Lucy Smith was written well after when the dream was supposed to have occurred, I believe it was allegedly 1811 that Joseph Sr. had the dream you are referring to. But why accept her dream stories at face value, who on earth remembers dreams decades ago anyhow..and with detail.

Most dreams are forgotten because no one makes an effort to remember them. That’s why some people keep dream journals. One of the differences between now and Joseph Smith’s day is that we don’t value dreams the same way they did. There are many biographies written in the 19th century that give elaborate accounts of dreams, especially ones that involve religious themes. As I said, Lucy had good reason to remember these dreams.

- both were conflicted over religion? That's a storyline the smith's created after the Book of Mormon was written. They were no more conflicted than anyone else. I also don't get where you see that Nephi and Lehi were conflicted.

Part of Joseph Smith’s success was that his family was typical of families in the burnt over district. The degree of conflict isn’t at issue, it’s Joseph Smith Jr.’s response to it. Not many families claimed to resolve the conflict by revelation and finding gold plates. The balance of the statement that you didn’t mention is—“… particularly over the validity of a father’s dreams.” How many families were at an impasse due to the father’s dream/visions? I didn’t say Nephi and Lehi were conflict; I said they were allied against the older siblings. Lucy and here three oldest children joined the Presbyterian Church; both Josephs refused to go.

I will here note what you haven’t responded to and move on:

Both are large in stature
Both are middle children
Both are allied with the father (and favored over older siblings)
Both support their fathers’ dream/visions (against older siblings who are allied with the mother)
Both interpret and correct their fathers’ dreams
Both supersede and supplant their fathers

As I pointed out to you Dan, Joseph had no moral dilemma in promoting a type of polygamy which treated women as breeding animals and slaves. You have not established that he ever had great morals previous to the Book of Mormon. You are assuming he has moral dilemma's without establishing that he ever had.

What would you accept as evidence that Joseph Smith had a moral dilemma producing the Book of Mormon? That is, a way that doesn’t require mind reading. The polygamy thing is later. Many sincerely religious people commit sin. So behavior isn’t necessarily an indication of sincerity. Because it seems obvious to me that one of Joseph Smith’s goals was to overcome his family’s division over religion and unite them in his church, I think he was sincere in at least some of his motives, even if his personal morals weren’t what would be considered good. Joseph Smith was promoting religion through deception. Pious fraud—religious deception—implies moral dilemma. Lying for the Lord does also. If he wrote the Laban-Nephi encounter, he understood the principle of moral dilemma. Everyone faces moral dilemmas—saints, sinners, even atheists.

On a deeper level, the story of Laban perhaps reflected an aspect of Joseph’s relationship with his father. Whereas Lehi represented the idealized Joseph Sr., the drunken Laban personified the side of Joseph Sr. that the son most hated–the backsliding Universalist and the sword-bearing treasure seeker that Joseph Jr. wanted extinguished. With God’s permission, the son symbolically slays the evil father with his own weapon, that is, through belief in magic, hidden treasures, and inspired dreams, thus allowing the good father to emerge. Nephi’s beheading of Laban may also symbolize an attack on Joseph Sr’s tendency to intellectualize and allegorize the Scriptures, the trait undoubtedly inherited from his own father, Asael, and reinforced by his Unitarian–Universalist leanings. In this sense, Joseph Jr. wanted to free the Bible from the intellectualizing grip of his father and those like him, to interpret the scriptures for himself more literally and through the spirit of God. Thus like Nephi, Joseph Jr. crossed moral boundaries and used deception to take the Bible from the errant father and deliver it to the inspired dreamer father. (note 8)

Wow you show great creativity. Do you really believe any of the above?

I've only pulled out a few paragraphs to comment on. Perhaps this chapter9 is not indicative of the rest of the book, but even if I was a Smith alone advocate, I wouldn't be accepting your psychoanalysis and I'd appreciate finding parallels while ignoring the dissimilarities..is far from good science or reasoning.

As I said, this was partly inspired by Robert Anderson’s book. This is probably the most Freudian I get in the entire book, but it has to do with the narcissist’s habit of splitting as a defense mechanism. Because they have difficulty integrating the complexity of life—they have polarized concepts of good and bad. I’m arguing that the drunken Laban represents the bad father (including Joseph Sr.’s drinking problem), and that Lehi represents the good father. This is rather tame compared to Anderson’s analysis. But even setting aside the psychoanalysis, Joseph Smith would be drawing from his own experience to create characters. Again, this is interpretive, not proof. I do point out dissimilarities, as is evidenced thus far in my discussion of the differences between Lehi’s dream and Joseph Sr.’s—the latter has all members of the family at the tree, while the former has only those who support Lehi’s visions.

[_Uncle Dale]

...How do we S/R theorists reconcile that?
...

I propose that this 1801 extract shows that Spalding could
(and did) use proper English, when composing writings meant
for an audience --- and not just as his private scribblings.

But we must avoid as much as possible the presentism that
would conclude that Spalding was using improper English in
writing "having partook," etc.

We moderns would say "having partaken," -- but we are not
living back in post-colonial America, when standard English
was not yet "set in stone" to accord with modern standards.

Hugh Nibley called this sort of inquiry "the comparative method,"
and in making our comparisons we need to remember to look
back at the literary and social context of a pre-1830 era.

And -- I think that we need to admit that even the very most
Spaldingesque portions of the Book of Mormon need not be taken
as unadulterated, pure language from Spalding's original writings.

I think we also need to preserve enough rational analysis to know
that Mr. Spalding had sense enough not to present his Oberlin MS
as a final, polished narrative, ready for Silas Engles' pressroom.

Back in the days when I was known to have consumed more than
a few beers, before making entries in my personal journal, I was
wont to scribble out an incoherent rigamarole of daily records --
not meant for anybody's eyes but my own. My wife happened upon
one of those old booklets recently -- and suggested that I burn them.

I wonder if that was Josiah Spalding's conclusion, when he looked
over his brother's Roman story in 1812?

UD

[_MCB]

I wonder if that was Josiah Spalding's conclusion, when he looked
over his brother's Roman story in 1812?

Perhaps it was Josiah who provided the criticism, and suggested an entirely new direction, and supplied sources. Didn't he live in a city where he had more access to such sources?

[_Roger]

Dan wrote (with emphasis mine):

The critic was saying that the parallels don’t prove Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon. He was defending the Book of Mormon’s historicity, without acknowledging the same problem exists for his ancient parallels. Finding parallels isn’t difficult. That’s why I wasn’t offering them for evidence for Joseph Smith’s authorship over an ancient one. Joseph Smith’s authorship is assumed. I have already rejected the Book of Mormon’s antiquity based on other matters, like historical and literary anachronisms, not to mention the lack of direct confirmation, which I also discuss in the book. My aim was to reconstruct the Smith family dynamics—using family systems theory—and then use that reconstruction to find insights into Joseph Smith’s motivations and belief system. Since Joseph Smith wasn’t writing a novel, but was producing a text that would be the foundation of a movement, the text reflects what he thinks and feels about himself and the world. Of course this is interpretive, and some aspects of my analysis are more compelling than others. Penetrating the deception and exploring the secret life of Joseph Smith is difficult, but I believe I have been able to get closer to Joseph Smith’s inner world than anyone had previously.

That particularly candid statement is revealing. Joseph Smith's authorship is assumed. And from that standpoint, Dan looks at the text in an effort "to find insights into Joseph Smith’s motivations and belief system." If this is a viable method--making an assumption of authorship and then looking at the text for clues that might support the assumption--then S/R proponents should be allowed to do the same thing.

While I agree that Joseph Smith is the most likely contributer for certain portions of the Book of Mormon text, he is not the most likely contributer for all of it. But Dan's assumption only allows for gaining insight into what Joseph Smith "thinks and feels about himself and the world" because his assumption is that only Joseph Smith contributed content to the text.

Therefore, given the restriction of his own assumption, Dan must conclude that Joseph Smith cared passionately about infant baptism, communal living, salaried clergy and other doctrines that are more suited to the way in which Sidney Rigdon "thinks and feels about himself and the world" than Joseph Smith.

It is the assumption that limits the interpretation of the data. When we include Rigdon as another possible contributor to the text, we discover that certain portions of the text are better matched to Sidney than to Joseph.

[_Uncle Dale]

...Joseph Smith's authorship is assumed.
...

As it is "assumed" in so many cases.

I once took an LDS Institute class, in which the instructor
was convinced that Joseph Smith, Jr. was the actual
"author" of History of the Church, up through the
section for June of 1844.

Joseph is also "assumed" to have written the Book of Moses,
all of the "revelations," etc.

He supposedly dictated this to his scribe:

...Behold I am Oliver I am an Apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ Behold I have written the things which he hath commanded me for behold his word was unto me as a burning fire shut up in my bones and I was weary with forbearing and I could forbear no longer Amen -- written in the year of our Lord and Savior 1829 -- A true copy of the articles of the Church of Christ &c....
http://premormon.com/resources/r010/010CowAlma2-clr.htm

Whether in or out of the body, I know not -- and whether
behind a curtain or not, the spirit forbiddeth my saying.

UD