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

[_GlennThigpen]

...If you do not accept the existence of God or that he did appear to Joseph, then you must, of course, find something else to explain how the Book of Mormon came to be.
...

I've heard this sort of thing asserted by Mormons all my life, and it has often
puzzled me. Coming out of a Reorganized heritage, I never thought of people
who rejected Joseph Smith's scriptural publications, historical accounts, etc.,
as not "accepting the existence of God." So it was difficult for me to wrap my
mind around the LDS professions in this regard.

----------------
A little clarity on this allegation would be welcome, I'm sure.

Uncle Dale

Dale, please reread the quote excerpt you made from my post. It includes two different types of people, those who do not believe in the existence of God, such as marge and Dan (and maybe you) and those who do not believe that God appeared to Joseph Smith. That second includes anyone who does believe in God but does not believe that He appeared to Joseph Smith. I thought that was pretty clear.

Glenn

[_Uncle Dale]

...
I thought that was pretty clear.
...

I've never thought of Latter Day Saints "believing" in God. Unless we
are speaking of unbaptized children, or severely mentally challenged
people, I would say that a born-again member should know for certain
of God's lovingkindness and salvation.

But, seeing Mormons drift into apostasy, I suppose that some of them
were never truly born again, and do not have an irreversible experience,
personally with Heavenly Father -- do not really know what personal
revelation entails, and mouth "lip service" testimonies.

All of that to one side, I am still unsure whether you are saying that
explanations for 19th century authorship originally came from atheists,
or just from Christians so corrupted in their faith as not to know the
truth when they encountered it.

Do you understand the precept, that a person may be fully justified
by God, and made righteous -- and yet reject the Book of Mormon as
an authentic "Nephite" production?

UD

[_Roger]

Glenn:

You are reading my mind now?

Nope. Never claimed to.

The divine provenance theory has not been proven to have any fatal flaws, except of course, that no one has proven the existence of God.

The existence of God is not what the Smith-Divine theory rests on. Of course, if there is no God then the way you think the Book of Mormon came to be can't be true, but I'm willing to grant that part of it. I'm even willing to accept that Moroni could have been a real angel (although, I think I'm going way out on a limb on that one). What I said was that those essential aspects of your theory (or the way in which you think the Book of Mormon came to be) have no explanatory power in the real world. You seem to acknowledge that when you say:

The divine provenance aspect is not really a theory. It is the story behind the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. If you do not accept the existence of God or that he did appear to Joseph, then you must, of course, find something else to explain how the Book of Mormon came to be.

Sure, but the way this is phrased is somewhat misleading. I don't reject the Official story of how the Book of Mormon came to be because I "don't accept the existence of God or that he did appear to Joseph," --it's not that simple. I am open to the notion that God exists and could therefore have appeared to Joseph. But there are too many tangible reasons to conclude that he did not. I've mentioned just a few, for example, there is zero evidence for any Nephite city. Zero evidence for any Nephite chariot or battlefield. Zero evidence that reformed Egyptian was ever a real language spoken and understood well enough to be used as the preferred script to record the events of the Book of Mormon. There are no plates, when there is no good reason why they should not exist. The notion that the angel had to take them (even granting his existence!) is a serious flaw in the Official story, Glenn. It is a far greater problem than a missing Spalding manuscript (when we know Spalding did write at least one ms somewhat resembling the Book of Mormon and, by george, that ms actually does have some parallels to the Book of Mormon and Smith's discovery narrative!). I can't compare the Book of Mormon with the plates because there are no plates and scholars can't even compare the Book of Mormon with examples of other reformed Egyptian translations because there are none.

Those are indeed fatal problems and those aren't the only ones. As Dan mentioned, David Wright has clearly shown that the Isaiah variants are destructive responses to the italics of the 1611 KJVB. Whoever made the changes was under the false impression that the italics were corruptions of the original. But that idea is what was actually erroneous and, as Dan pointed out, the changes often resulted in a corruption of the underlying Hebrew. That is yet another fatal flaw for the Official story.

I am not an advocate of the automatic writing theory. I just said that it is one of the theories on the provenance of the Book of Mormon. It is an observed phenomonon. I pointe to the case of Pearl Curran and Patience Worth as an example.

Sure. And I agreed it could be argued as an alternative to Smith-Divine, Smith-Alone or S/R but I think the evidence of con-artistry from Joseph's early years would work against it.

I believe in the existence of God the Father ans Jesus and that the Book of Mormon was produced by inspiration, but have no way to prove that they do exist nor that the Book of Mormon is an inspired translation.

But it's not that simple Glenn. It's not merely that you can't prove how you believe the Book of Mormon came to be, it's worse than that. You have to overlook contrary evidence and the only way you can deal with it is by saying we have to accept some things on faith. That's like ad hoc reasoning on steroids. I can accept the existence of God and even potential angels on faith, but saying that the plates no longer exist because the hypothetical angel was required to take them (for inexplicable reasons) is asking too much. Saying that Indians don't have Hebrew DNA because Lehi's group was too small, is asking too much. Saying there are no examples of R.E. because it was only a scribal language and the only thing written in R.E. was the Book of Mormon plates, is asking too much. There is simply no equivalent to that kind of (il)logic from either Smith-Alone or S/R. And you can't simply blame it on the gentile's lack of faith. It's not my fault that YOUR theory has serious problems.

The S/R theory does not provide the answers. It has always been a theory long on speculation and short on evidence.

The S/R theory does not provide ALL the answers, but neither do any of the alternatives. And those alternatives have their own areas of speculation.

This thread started out about the Jockers wordprint study. Dan made some points in a previous post conveying his distrust of wordprint studies that I think should be explored. And maybe some of the authors of some of those studies, or someone with some expertise in those fields, might just weigh in on the subject.

I hope so. But even if wp studies are found to be weak, that still would not disprove S/R. The kind of evidence Dale, Holly and others have raised, some of which we have been discussing here, remains with or without wp studies. The error patterns remain. The vocabulary patterns that Dale is working on remain. The wherefore/therefore shift remains. The parallels remain. And the testimonies of the S/R witnesses have not been impeached.

To me the two theories that best explain the existence of the Book of Mormon are Smith-alone and S/R. So to me, determining which of those two best accounts for all the data is the best chance we have of determining how the Book of Mormon really came to be. In my opinion, Dan's version of Smith-alone suffers from his unwillingness to consider the possible use of any outside source other than the Bible. And he can only safely consider the Bible because the evidence, in that case, is overwhelming. But no Book of Mormon witness ever acknowledges that a Bible was used. And the strong implication from them is that every word came from the stone. But Dan realizes that can't be the case. He knows the stone was merely a prop in a show designed to deceive people. So, using ad hoc reasoning, he concludes that no Book of Mormon witness ever mentions the Bible because no one ever asked! --the implication being that if someone would have thought to ask, the honest Book of Mormon witnesses surely would have acknowledged that a Bible was indeed used!

That is certainly weak speculation at best. Marg and I have argued that the Book of Mormon witnesses were devoted followers of and/or close friends and family of Joseph Smith so one should be extremely cautious about taking them at their word. And yet a large part of Dan's premise rests on how trustworthy their word is. I find it remarkable that Dan is so willing to simply accept their word at face value--and yet still (rightly so in my view) reject the miraculous elements of their testimonies. The only way he can make sense of that is to claim they were all duped by Joseph Smith, but that they were otherwise completely objective observers who would never embellish their testimonies--or leave out key information--to further the cause.

If I want to know the truth about Warren Jeffs or David Koresh or Saddam Husein or Osama Bin Laden, should I just believe everything their followers and family have to say about them?

So if early Book of Mormon witnesses give every indication of being radical, religious fanatics who were devoted to their charismatic leader, why should I not be skeptical of their testimonies of how the Book of Mormon came to be?

[_Roger]

Dale wrote:

What would matter, is that the stone was put to use, in order to
concentrate Joe's thoughts -- or perhaps even aid him in disassociating
entirely from mundane thoughts -- in order to enter a revelatory trance
state, from which oracles were issued.

That may be the case for the liberal C of C member who is also willing to reject the actual existence of ancient Nephites or the LDS on their way to apostasy, but I suspect not for the Smith-alone advocate or the Automatic writing proponent, although possibly so for the latter.

That sort of reasoning reminds me of LDS attempts to salvage the Book of Abraham. It doesn't have to match the original because the original was merely a catalyst to revelation. Problem is that flies in the face of what was originally claimed. Again, such a response can appropriately be labelled "ad hoc logic on steroids."

In the specific case of the Smith-alone advocate representative we have on this thread, he has already conceded (after some prodding on my part) that the stone was indeed merely a prop. So if that is the case, then what other alternative is there than that the prop was used as part of an act of deception? Dan agrees no words ever actually appeared in the stone, and yet the witnesses claim they did. Clearly then, from both our perspectives, they were either deceived or knew more than they tell us. Apparently Dan thinks it was all the former, I think it was mostly the latter. But either way, the stone would have simply been a stage prop and we have evidence that exactly such a stage prop was indeed employed by Smith in a similar effort to fool people in the months and years leading up to the Book of Mormon translation.

But the situation only requires a prop when there are people around who need to be fooled. There was no need to "use the stone" to find buried treasure unless there was someone around who needed to be convinced that Joseph could actually see things in the stone. Similarly with regard to Book of Mormon translation, no such prop is necessary if everyone in the room is in on the con. And if someone not in on the con enters the room, the prop was readily available.

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale wrote:

What would matter, is that the stone was put to use, in order to
concentrate Joe's thoughts -- or perhaps even aid him in disassociating
entirely from mundane thoughts -- in order to enter a revelatory trance
state, from which oracles were issued.

That may be the case for the liberal C of C member who is also willing to reject the actual existence of ancient Nephites or the LDS on their way to apostasy, but I suspect not for the Smith-alone advocate or the Automatic writing proponent, although possibly so for the latter.

That sort of reasoning reminds me of LDS attempts to salvage the Book of Abraham. It doesn't have to match the original because the original was merely a catalyst to revelation. Problem is that flies in the face of what was originally claimed. Again, such a response can appropriately be labelled "ad hoc logic on steroids."

In the specific case of the Smith-alone advocate representative we have on this thread, he has already conceded (after some prodding on my part) that the stone was indeed merely a prop. So if that is the case, then what other alternative is there than that the prop was used as part of an act of deception? Dan agrees no words ever actually appeared in the stone, and yet the witnesses claim they did. Clearly then, from both our perspectives, they were either deceived or knew more than they tell us. Apparently Dan thinks it was all the former, I think it was mostly the latter. But either way, the stone would have simply been a stage prop and we have evidence that exactly such a stage prop was indeed employed by Smith in a similar effort to fool people in the months and years leading up to the Book of Mormon translation.

But the situation only requires a prop when there are people around who need to be fooled. There was no need to "use the stone" to find buried treasure unless there was someone around who needed to be convinced that Joseph could actually see things in the stone. Similarly with regard to Book of Mormon translation, no such prop is necessary if everyone in the room is in on the con. And if someone not in on the con enters the room, the prop was readily available.

I suppose that there came a day in Joe's life, when he realized that magical
stones really provided no magic at all. But whether he came to this realization
at age 10, or age 20, or age 30, I do not know. He was raised in a society in
which many people actually believed in magic -- in divining rods -- in peepstones
and buried treasures guarded by evil spirits.

Joe did not remain immersed in that milieu forever -- but he did carry around
magical talismans in his pocket up until the time of his death. Even if he did
not know God, he evidently believed in some sort of Supernatural.

It would be helpful if we could somehow get inside of his mind, in order to
discover what he truly accepted as fact -- and what he merely professed
to others, in order to gain control over them, their money, their women...

But I'm very skeptical that we can utilize pop psychology in order to uncover
Joe's secret thoughts. I'm afraid that there has been far too much of that
sort of speculation (passed off as true history and true biography) already.

Did Smith EVER believe in Nephites? No matter where that fiction first arose;
were they EVER real in his young mind? I do not suppose we can answer that
kind of question. But I'm willing to stand briefly on common ground with Glenn,
to say that Smith thought peepstones magical and Nephites historical -- if only
as a boy, before his amazing rise to power.

UD

[_Uncle Dale]

...I'm willing to stand briefly on common ground with Glenn,
to say that Smith thought peepstones magical and Nephites historical
...

That much said, it should be clearly evident that Joe Smith
could NOT see things under the ground by magical powers.
He was NOT the 1826 equivalent of ground penetrating radar.

So -- at least by 1826 (and his hearing at So. Bainbridge)
Joe was aware of the fact that he was NOT locating any
buried treasures with his peepstone. He knew that such
pretensions were a fraud -- whether or not he had truly
believed in that superstition previously.

The New York Minerva of August 27, 1825 printed an
article on divining rods, and the writer concluded:

To discover where the supposed treasure is, whether in a natural or artificial state, the searchers, beside the use of the rod, pretend to possess traditionary stories, to have received monitions by dreams thrice occurring, to have a knowledge of certain inscriptions upon rocks or marks upon ancient trees, directing to the objects of their future wealth. But their firmest reliance, or rather their last resort, is in the alleged efficacy of the Mineral Rod. This instrument when properly employed, is affirmed to be so strongly attracted by the precious metals, as to be capable of leading the person who holds it directly to the spot where they lie in concealment. Some really believe in its power, while others employ it as an engine of imposture, to cheat their avaricious and credulous neighbours.

http://olivercowdery.com/smithhome/smithrod.htm#1825Min

"...others employ it as an engine of imposture, to cheat..."

By 1826 Joe Smith must have realized that his peepstone
was being employed for just that purpose -- to cheat --

But reports say that Joe began his con-artist pretensions
by using a divining rod, and not his later peepstone. Joe's
father appears to have always been a rod con-artist, who
never graduated to peepstones.

But Joe must have understood, by the early 1820s at least,
the natural limitations of the divining rod. The rodsman
could only direct his dupes on so many unproductive hunts
for buried treasure, before they realized the fraud.

The peepstone con-artist, on the other hand, could
always resort to depictions of his "seers' powers" to
explain how "slippery treasures" moved underground, away
from the money-diggers' excavations. The peepstone con
man could tell his followers that he SAW the buried gold
and silver slipping away to some new location -- and thus
avoid the embarrassment of the false divining rod results.

At the time Joe was telling his followers that he SAW their
sought-after buried treasures slipping away, he must have
been using his peepstone as part of a knowing fraud. When
116 pages of Nephite record turned up missing, Joe KNEW
that his peepstone could NOT locate the stolen pages.

So, I'd say that Joe's belief in divining rod powers and in
peepstone powers must have faded by the early 1820s.
If he believed in such stuff as a boy, then surely when he
reached adulthood he understood that he could NOT
discover hidden objects by supernatural powers. Such
stuff was reserved for the fantasies of Solomon Spalding,
who spoke of pornographic peepstones, that could
display the lovemaking of couples behind closed doors to
the criminal peeping tom.

But -- and I pause here, to reflect for a moment -- Is it
possible that the use of peepstones served to place Joe
in a trance-like altered state of consciousness? I think
that is a very real possibility, and that we should not be
quick to dismiss Joe's own belief in himself as some sort of
a "seer."

True -- he could not see buried Nephite treasures under
the hillsides of Manchester. But he could allow his vivid
imagination to sweep him away, on flights of fancy, some
of which were perhaps induced by alcohol or other drugs.

My guess is that the peepstones employed by Joe were
used as something more than simple "props" to his hoaxes.
I'm open to the possibility that -- at times -- Joe really
believed he was seeing supernatural visions of heavenly
messengers, buried Nephite cities, or even the very words
& actions of preColumbian Christians of the 6th dispensation

UD

[_Dan Vogel]

Roger,

But it's not that simple Glenn. It's not merely that you can't prove how you believe the Book of Mormon came to be, it's worse than that. You have to overlook contrary evidence and the only way you can deal with it is by saying we have to accept some things on faith. That's like ad hoc reasoning on steroids.

In such case, it’s best to focus on historicity issues, and not get side-tracked into an emotional/spiritual paradigm. Glenn’s testimony is not evidence, at least not the kind that is transferable in public situations. In most instances dealing with supernatural claims, we would find it difficult to test. But in Joseph Smith’s situation, it’s different. He tried to provide physical evidence for his claims, which can be tested.

I can accept the existence of God and even potential angels on faith, but saying that the plates no longer exist because the hypothetical angel was required to take them (for inexplicable reasons) is asking too much. Saying that Indians don't have Hebrew DNA because Lehi's group was too small, is asking too much. Saying there are no examples of R.E. because it was only a scribal language and the only thing written in R.E. was the Book of Mormon plates, is asking too much. There is simply no equivalent to that kind of (il)logic from either Smith-Alone or S/R. And you can't simply blame it on the gentile's lack of faith. It's not my fault that YOUR theory has serious problems.

The Limited Population Theory is ad hoc. The Maya didn’t know Lehi existed, and Lehi didn’t know the Maya existed—it’s like they lived in different dimensions. To harmonize the Book of Mormon with known facts, the apologists invented the Limited Geography Theory, which distorts the Book of Mormon. Some believers, even BYU professors, are beginning to reject this ad hoc theory for the traditional hemispheric geography, because that’s what the Book of Mormon describes. Apparently, they are less concerned about the insurmountable problems hemispheric geography creates.

To say the Book of Mormon plates contained the only examples of Reformed Egyptian is plain wrong. Nephi’s small plates were added to Mormon’s plates. Mormon says both Egyptian and Hebrew were used “among” his people. Oliver Cowdery was promised to translate “many other records” (D&C 8 and 9). Nephi also had large plates written in the same language, and the brass plates were also written in Egyptian. The scriptures were also written on combustible material, and were once used to make a bonfire—enough to burn people in (Alma 14). Mormon said he abridge only a hundred of the records he had available to him. We have plenty of evidence of Mayan writing, but no Hebrew or Egyptian.

In my opinion, Dan's version of Smith-alone suffers from his unwillingness to consider the possible use of any outside source other than the Bible. And he can only safely consider the Bible because the evidence, in that case, is overwhelming. But no Book of Mormon witness ever acknowledges that a Bible was used. And the strong implication from them is that every word came from the stone. But Dan realizes that can't be the case. He knows the stone was merely a prop in a show designed to deceive people. So, using ad hoc reasoning, he concludes that no Book of Mormon witness ever mentions the Bible because no one ever asked! --the implication being that if someone would have thought to ask, the honest Book of Mormon witnesses surely would have acknowledged that a Bible was indeed used!

I’m a little jaded by parallels between the Book of Mormon and pre-1830 sources and people who claim too much. If one argues that a source was used to produce the Book of Mormon, it better be very clear and compelling. But that’s not likely since Joseph Smith had his head in the hat and relied on memory. I don’t have to use ad hoc reasoning against your argument from silence. You can’t make the argument, so I don’t have to answer with anything—let alone an ad hoc. Your expectation that the witnesses mention the Bible is unreasonable to begin with, and their argument that the Spalding MS couldn’t have been used because Joseph Smith’s head was in the hat isn’t contradicted by not mentioning the Bible. Your problem is that you don’t know when you’ve lost the argument.

That is certainly weak speculation at best. Marg and I have argued that the Book of Mormon witnesses were devoted followers of and/or close friends and family of Joseph Smith so one should be extremely cautious about taking them at their word. And yet a large part of Dan's premise rests on how trustworthy their word is. I find it remarkable that Dan is so willing to simply accept their word at face value--and yet still (rightly so in my view) reject the miraculous elements of their testimonies. The only way he can make sense of that is to claim they were all duped by Joseph Smith, but that they were otherwise completely objective observers who would never embellish their testimonies--or leave out key information--to further the cause.

I haven’t just accepted their word. I have mentioned evidence supporting their characters were good—and I got no serious response. The only thing you and Marg said is that they were religious fanatics and for that reason can’t be trusted. Moreover, there are multiple witnesses, even non-Mormons, who testify to the same thing. Arguing that the stone and hat were brought out for these non-believers is ad hoc. By miraculous elements in their testimonies, I take you mean what Joseph Smith told them he was seeing in the stone. That doesn’t disqualify them as dependable witnesses. I don’t discount the rhetorical situation in which Whitmer and Emma, for examples, related their testimonies. They were shaping personal experience and memory to respond to claims about Spalding, which colored their statements.

If I want to know the truth about Warren Jeffs or David Koresh or Saddam Husein or Osama Bin Laden, should I just believe everything their followers and family have to say about them?

What truth? Whose truth? Is the only alternative to “believe everything”? Most of our information about the above characters (interesting that you chose such notorious persons) comes from disaffected members. The same is true of Harris, the Whitmers, and Emma. Why? Because only the small circle around these people have the information (“truth”) you seek. I’ve discussed this before, so I hope you listen this time. Apologists distrust non-Mormon and “apostate” testimony. Any negative or unfavorable testimony is labeled “anti-Mormon” and not trusted. Non-Mormon critics suspect anything favorable or positive. So what’s left? How are you going to find the “truth” about those people you named if you cut out everyone in their inner circle? Is it reasonable to supplant primary testimony with witnesses who never met Joseph Smith a day in their lives? Or who have any testimony regarding the Book of Mormon’s actual production? Is it reasonable to do violence to the historical record because a group of witnesses thinks they remember the contents of a MS read to them twenty years previous? The only external evidence supporting their testimony contradicts them. Yet the Mormon witnesses are supported by the extant MS of the Book of Mormon, that it was a dictation. The loss of the 116 pages also supports their testimony. Multiple witnesses, some friendly, some foe, some former members, solid members of their communities—what more do you want?

So if early Book of Mormon witnesses give every indication of being radical, religious fanatics who were devoted to their charismatic leader, why should I not be skeptical of their testimonies of how the Book of Mormon came to be?

Being skeptical and dismissing their testimonies out-of-hand are different things. A religious fanatic might be induced to lie for a good cause, but you still are obligated to demonstrate that that is what happened in this case. At the time many of them gave their statements, they were no longer in the grips of Joseph Smith’s charisma—he was long dead. These testimonies were given independently, at different times, and yet generally consistent.

[Guest]

post deleted due to accidental repetition

[_Dan Vogel]

post deleted due to accidental repetition

[_marg]

I intend to respond to you by tomorrow Dan regarding this ad hoc issue. You are so far out to lunch in your reasoning, it's hard to believe that you are being honest when you argue.

However please tell me where I ever said the part you wrote, which I've underlined...because that is not the reason I said one must be skeptical of the Book of Mormon witnesses.

The only thing you and Marg said is that they were religious fanatics and for that reason can’t be trusted.