Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_Roger]

Tobin wrote:

Now as I've already pointed out how anglicized latin word factum is made plural by adding 's' into factums. What Roger responds with is an idiotic diversion that to be equivalent here, the anglicized form should have been facta and the pluralization should have been factas. That is ridiculous.

Tobin, I was under the impression that you understand what we're talking about. Are you being intentionally obtuse or you really don't get it?

I am simply using the example you brought up in a manner that is analogous to the situation we find between the KJV and the Book of Mormon with regard to "cherubims" and "seraphims." You are correct (but not in the manner you think): the resulting redundant plural "factas" is ridiculous, just like "cherubims" is ridiculous.

Let's consider another word that ends in ' I'm '. Pilgrim is such a word and just like cherubim. The same rules apply here. There is no reason an English speaker should know that Cherubim is the anglicized derivation of the latin plural word Cherubi, just like the native English speaker would not know that the pilgrim is the anglicized derivation of the PLURAL indefinite danish word pilgrimme (the latin root is peregrinus). The natural and grammatical way to let the English reader know it is meant as a plural would be to add 's', and that is exactly what we see in BOTH instances (pilgrim -> pilgrims, cherubim -> cherubims).

Except for the glaringly obvious fact that "pilgrim" is singular while "cherubim" is plural.

Nice try though.

[_Roger]

Tobin wrote:

So do you believe that the Bible was translated in error in these instances Albion?

It's not a question of belief. Errors are errors. Cherubims and seraphims are simply grammatically incorrect. There's no getting around this. These errors appear in both the KJV and the Book of Mormon and are incorrect in both.

The problem is that the mistakes are much more harmful to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon than the Bible. Why? Because of the supernatural claims that were attached to the coming forth of the "English translation" of the Book of Mormon. Whether you want to give God credit for helping Joseph study it out in his mind, or whether you want to simply take David Whitmer, Emma Smith and other early TBM's at their word, the fact is, radical claims are made about the level of divine involvement in the 1829 Book of Mormon "translation" as compared to the English translation of the Bible.

No one claims that the KJV translators could gaze into a magical stone that provided them with the correct English words. No one claims that they were translating in ignorance by the gift and power of God from an unknown language with no way of checking errors while no one is allowed to view the original source. On the contrary, they were language experts translating from the knowledge they had of two (or more) known languages from extant documents that anyone who knew how to read the original could check. If they still introduced errors into the text, that says nothing about the authenticity of the first originals.

Claiming otherwise would be like me claiming that because the 1830 Book of Mormon uses the term "seraphims" therefore Alma wasn't inspired. Assuming we agree (for the sake of discussion) that Alma was a real person, I can't blame him for Joseph Smith's errors. I'm confident Tobin would never let me get away with that, whether he's ignoring me or not.

So the problem is the radical claims that surround the production of the 1830 Book of Mormon. And that problem is dramatically compounded when we factor in the hard truth that there are no extant golden plates. That is truly unfortunate, because we have virtually no way of checking accuracy. We simply have to take Joseph Smith's word for it that those plates existed at some point in time. And to make matters worse, there is no such thing as "reformed Egyptian." Joseph Smith defenders can't point to extant examples of other documents written in this mysterious language. That's another critical problem. Again, we have to just take Joseph Smith's word for it that such a language existed at some real point in American history.

[_jo1952]

So doing evil is God's eternal purpose? Doesn't that make God evil?

Hello Tobin!

It's been quite a while since I have posted here on MD. This thread caught my eye and I am inclined to jump into it.

I have come to believe that "evil" does, indeed, serve God's purposes. However, this does NOT make God evil. "Evil" is presented by God as a learning tool. As such, it is up to each individual to use or abuse it; to experience evil as both its victim and its perpetrator. It is through this experiencing that we learn how to either progress, or to become stuck by the choices we make as a result of those experiences as either its victim or its perpetrator. Our choices indicate whether we love good above evil, or vice versa. As such, dealing with evil is actually a blessing.

Now, since it is God's purpose to bring about the eternal life of ALL of His spirit children, He allows us to learn through our experiencing evil. Without those experiences, we cannot progress and be born of the Spirit. He will not take away our free agency to make our own choices. However, He will not allow us to endlessly become stuck "doing" evil or "becoming" permanently evil. His purpose is for us to spiritually "become" One with Him.

I believe that those spirits who do "become" evil...choosing to do so rather than to become One with Him, will eventually be re-organized in order to begin anew their personal journey in the eternities. He wants to share all that He has....for all of us to become heirs. If we do not become joint-heirs with Jesus Christ in this particular world system, we will be given opportunities to become heirs in other world systems....an endless repeating cycle of physical worlds without end so that all will ultimately become spiritually One with Him.

As far as the "Elect" are concerned..... It is my belief that as our spirit awakens, the incarnation in which we become one of the few who be that find it (eternal life), that is the incarnation we are called "Elect". In other words, ultimately, each spirit will be chosen (though I prefer a more in-depth understanding because God knows the past, the present, and the future simultaneously....so I like to use a definition which encompasses God's "identifying" a spirit as one who will become an Elect in an incarnation) as "Elect" during that incarnation in which God knows that they will overcome and go no more out.

Shalom,

jo

[_marg]

Jo and Tobin and anyone else carrying on discussion about what God would or would not do or what evil is...is not from what I can gather (perhaps I'm wrong) relevant to the opening topic of this thread.

This is the celestial forum and it is not fair to those who wish to treat a topic seriously, who present facts and reasoning to have it side-railed onto faith based assertions about God..for which facts and reasoning on pretty much irrelevant.

[_Res Ipsa]

Brad Hudson:

Are you still out there? You seem to be a reasonable skeptic when it comes to parallels. I would like to hear rational (as in non-TBM) reasons why we should be skeptical of parallels.

Hi Roger. In my view, finding meaning in parallels is simply an exercise in finding patterns in subsets of large amounts of data and trying to decide whether they have meaning. To properly discount chance as an explanation, we have to define the relevant universe of data and determine the conditions under which a pattern is unlikely to be the result of chance. For many types of data, we can use probability theory to do that. The result is, before we go looking for the patterns, we have defined what will constitute a meaningful pattern (unlikely to be explained by chance).

Most textual analysis based on parallels skips these steps. Instead, people sift through large amounts of data (data mining) to look for patterns without first attempting to define what would constitute a meaningful pattern. When they find something they recognize as a pattern, they assume it has meaning and then assign a meaning to it. But they fail to make any serious attempt to determine the odds that the pattern they found is due to chance.

I see use of KJV language and exact phrases as distinct issues from anachronism and mistranslations. I think anachronisms and incorporation of erroneous translations in the Book of Mormon are strong evidence of a human author. I suppose you could posit a trickster god, who prompted Smith to incorporate errors and anachronisms into the Book of Mormon as some kind of test. Short of that, why would a loving god try to deceive his children? I've heard folks make the case that Yaweh engaged in deception in the Old Testament, but I thought the argument was weak. Jesus seemed to be a straight shooter. So the notion of a deceptive trickster god does't seem consistent to me with existing scripture.

I agree. Moreover, if God is trying to trick humans, I would think God is going to win in that game. So, assuming God is not trying to trick us, it sure looks like anachronisms, grammatical errors and translation errors are difficult to reconcile when it comes to the Book of Mormon precisely because of the specific supernatural claims of its origins by early TBMs. While Paul, for example, describes the Hebrew scriptures as "God-breathed" the claim made by early Mormons is that the English version of the Book of Mormon is God-produced. Folks like Tobin disagree with this, precisely because it is difficult to attribute the mistakes in the 1830 version to God, hence the need to give Joseph more credit. But that is a double-edged sword. How much credit must we give Joseph Smith for the content we see in the 1830 Book of Mormon? Apparently just enough to blame him for the errors, but not enough to obliterate the claim that the work was translated by the gift and power of God. A fine line to be treading indeed!

On the other hand, if you believe the Bible to be the word of God, why would you expect God to sound different in different books of scripture?

Because the works were produced at different times, in different places, speaking different languages in different cultures. If it's the same God we would certainly expect consistency in things like doctrine, but why would we expect God to communicate to us today in the dialect of Abraham Lincoln?

To me, this is where we start question begging. What voice would a reasonable God use for new book of scripture in the 1830s if the voice used in existing scripture was from several centuries earlier? I have no idea, and so can't really draw any conclusion from the parallel language style.

And if you were God, and you wanted to give the world a new book of scripture, what what style of language would you adopt? I think I would put it in the style of the existing book of scripture, which I think at that time was the KJV. There's no deception or trickery required -- simply select the "voice" that followers will recognize as the voice of scripture.

That is certainly reasonable, Brad, but on the other hand, why wouldn't you simply put it in the common language of the culture into which you're going to introduce the book? Isn't that at least equally reasonable?

Yes, I think it would be at least equally reasonable. From that, I conclude that I can't conclude anything from that particular parallelism.

But if we consider it from a skeptical point of view, consider this... if Joseph Smith was a con-man, do you think his fraudulent Bible would be more effective at pulling in dupes when it completely emulates the language style of Joseph Smith or when it attempts to emulate the KJV Bible? I think the latter.

Which is exactly the reason why I think it would be reasonable for God to do the same thing -- effectiveness in having the book be accepted.

As to the parallels, given the sheer volume of sentences and phrases in both books, why would it be surprising to find parallel sentences or phrases if the books are the word of the same God? But like I said, I'm generally skeptical of conclusions drawn from parallels.

It wouldn't be surprising to find some phrases matching up here and there. What I think would be surprising (or indicative of borrowing) is when you have multiple sentences lining up and/or a large amount of parallels or, even better, a series of parallels that follow a similar or identical sequence.

I think I am correct to assert that even many TBM apologists accept that certain portions of the Book of Mormon are direct copies of the KJVB. Certainly there are sections that quote the Bible. I believe the (thinking) apologist, when confronted with that, makes the case that Joseph must have realized that Nephi (or whoever) was quoting from the Bible, so, to save time, he just opens the Bible and copies the verse. I don't think this is even denied by many LDS apologists.

So the question I have is, how many parallels does it take before one can safely conclude borrowing took place?

Well, that is the $64,000 question. I have no idea, which is why I'm skeptical. If we were talking randomly produced data, I could use probability theory to do that. But this isn't randomly produced data. Maybe if we took 1000 random people and asked them to write a book of scripture with the same general plot as the Book of Mormon in the style of the KJV, we could get a feel for how often we could expect parallels to occur. But in the absence of any data at all, I don't see a way to answer your question.

Well, I do have a short story. In college, my roommate and I played a game called "word assassination." The first person would say a word, and the second would say the first word that didn't pop into his mind. The first would then try to find a connection between the two words. And the first person always "won," because due to the nature of language, it is always possible to draw a connection between two words. So, which would be "meaningful" connections and which would not? I dunno.

[_Tobin]

Jo and Tobin and anyone else carrying on discussion about what God would or would not do or what evil is...is not from what I can gather (perhaps I'm wrong) relevant to the opening topic of this thread.

This is the celestial forum and it is not fair to those who wish to treat a topic seriously, who present facts and reasoning to have it side-railed onto faith based assertions about God..for which facts and reasoning on pretty much irrelevant.

Hi marg,

I think you are missing the point. One of the chief criticisms aimed at the Book of Mormon is that it is not perfect. Fundamentalists like LittleNipper don't believe in the Book of Mormon because it fails to be a perfect book like they believe the Bible is. Other Mormon critics also make this assumption even if they don't believe in the Bible or God. And if Joseph Smith was not perfect (ie Joseph Smith was God's sock puppet) in how he conveyed, then it must not be scripture. My point was if God can compel us to be perfect in one thing, why doesn't God compel us to be perfect all the time? The answers from LittleNipper is God is just fickle about it. He can force man to perfectly convey the Bible, but nowhere else. Why? Because he's decided not to. I find this view to be patently absurd and it implies that man is just God's toy. God allows us to do evil and then judges us for it, not because we choose to do evil (or good). No, instead God chose to do this to us for his own purposes (and possibly amusement).

[_Roger]

Brad:

Hi Roger. In my view, finding meaning in parallels is simply an exercise in finding patterns in subsets of large amounts of data and trying to decide whether they have meaning. To properly discount chance as an explanation, we have to define the relevant universe of data and determine the conditions under which a pattern is unlikely to be the result of chance. For many types of data, we can use probability theory to do that. The result is, before we go looking for the patterns, we have defined what will constitute a meaningful pattern (unlikely to be explained by chance).

Most textual analysis based on parallels skips these steps. Instead, people sift through large amounts of data (data mining) to look for patterns without first attempting to define what would constitute a meaningful pattern. When they find something they recognize as a pattern, they assume it has meaning and then assign a meaning to it. But they fail to make any serious attempt to determine the odds that the pattern they found is due to chance.

So how would you "make a serious attempt to determine the odds that the pattern" is not due to chance?

To me, this is where we start question begging. What voice would a reasonable God use for new book of scripture in the 1830s if the voice used in existing scripture was from several centuries earlier? I have no idea, and so can't really draw any conclusion from the parallel language style.

I agree. Attempting to read God's mind is problematic. Which is why I prefer to focus on what we actually have and look at it from a skeptical point of view to see if we can make sense of the data from that perspective.

Which is exactly the reason why I think it would be reasonable for God to do the same thing -- effectiveness in having the book be accepted.

But I think if we're looking at it strictly in terms of odds, here's what we arrive at... God has several options, all of which are viable. He can copy the Biblical style, he can adopt Joseph's style, he can go with contemporary English or he can dazzle everyone with an amazingly poetic and grammatically perfect translation. Let's face it, if God really wanted to, He could have seen to it that the translation was utterly flawless. If I were God, that's the one I would have chosen, especially in light of the fact that I wasn't going to allow any language experts to see the original documents.

Joseph Smith's options, on the other hand, are limited. There's no way he can make a flawless translation, so that is out. He can go with contemporary English, but even then his mistakes are going to come through and there will be no authoritative voice to the whole thing. It won't sound like what everyone is used to scripture sounding like, it will simply sound like a contemporary book with a lot of elementary grammar errors. But if he copies the Biblical language that everyone is used to, it at least sounds like what everyone is used to calling scripture.

So the fact that the Book of Mormon does emulate KJV English tends to lean more toward the Joseph did it, than the God did it explanation. I don't think it breaks down to a simple 50/50 chance. But it gets even more interesting when we consider the errors, which is one of the points I've been making on this thread. How likely is it that God is going to introduce errors into the text? How likely is it that Joseph Smith (or the other humans who helped produce the Book of Mormon) are responsible for any errors? Unless we're postulating a trickster God, I think it's safe to assume the errors come from humans. Agreed?

So the question I have is, how many parallels does it take before one can safely conclude borrowing took place?

Well, that is the $64,000 question. I have no idea, which is why I'm skeptical. If we were talking randomly produced data, I could use probability theory to do that. But this isn't randomly produced data.

Bingo. That seems to be our problem. Because this obviously isn't randomly produced data, there will always be some level of subjectivity in the analysis. Nevertheless, I think it can reach a point where the data becomes compelling. It's sort of like the much ridiculed obscenity statement that went something like: I'm not sure how to define it but I know it when I see it.

The problem is, even when we agree on some pre-determined standard, it can always be argued that the standard is arbitrary - especially by those who have an interest in so arguing.

Well, I do have a short story. In college, my roommate and I played a game called "word assassination." The first person would say a word, and the second would say the first word that didn't pop into his mind. The first would then try to find a connection between the two words. And the first person always "won," because due to the nature of language, it is always possible to draw a connection between two words. So, which would be "meaningful" connections and which would not? I dunno.

Again, the subjectivity problem. But what about what I mentioned earlier.... sequence. If vessr comes up with 500 parallels, that's pretty impressive, but a skeptic (or someone who wants to believe that God and Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon) could still chalk them all up to chance. But what if within that large group, he found a set of, let's say 5 parallels that follow a similar or identical sequence. What then?

All the best.

[_Roger]

Tobin wrote:

I think you are missing the point. One of the chief criticisms aimed at the Book of Mormon is that it is not perfect. Fundamentalists like LittleNipper don't believe in the Book of Mormon because it fails to be a perfect book like they believe the Bible is. Other Mormon critics also make this assumption even if they don't believe in the Bible or God. And if Joseph Smith was not perfect (ie Joseph Smith was God's sock puppet) in how he conveyed, then it must not be scripture. My point was if God can compel us to be perfect in one thing, why doesn't God compel us to be perfect all the time? The answers from LittleNipper is God is just fickle about it. He can force man to perfectly convey the Bible, but nowhere else. Why? Because he's decided not to. I find this view to be patently absurd and it implies that man is just God's toy. God allows us to do evil and then judges us for it, not because we choose to do evil (or good). No, instead God chose to do this to us for his own purposes (and possibly amusement).

While the latter is a possibility, it is certainly not an attractive one and also does not comport with the nature of God as described in the Bible. If such is the case, then humanity is doomed to be pawns in the hands of a God who is out to trick us and has the power to thoroughly do so.

So I agree with Tobin (surprised Tobin?). I don't think God is toying with us. Marg, I'm sure, will agree with that too, except that marg is convinced that God cannot toy with us because God does not exist. (Unless she's changed her views on that recently) (by the way, hi marg!)

In terms of the KJV Bible vs. Book of Mormon/"perfect book" vs. "non perfect" neither is. At least in their current state. But that tells us very little about how they were in their respective original states. It only tells us that in the intervening translations, God was not involved enough to prevent mistakes from entering the picture.

So from the perfect vs. non perfect point of view, I agree that neither the KJV Bible nor the Book of Mormon in their current states are "perfect;" from which it follows that if we are going to be consistent and we accept the KJV Bible as scripture, we should also accept the Book of Mormon as scripture. But that is a seriously incomplete picture. There are additional factors that must be considered, and when they are considered, the Book of Mormon fails while the Bible (regardless of version) does not.

In their haste to defend Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon from rabid critics like myself, a common misconception nearly always occurs among TBMs when I bring up the "cherubims" "seraphims" objection. They erroneously jump to the conclusion that I am suggesting the Book of Mormon is not scripture because it contains errors. That is not quite what I am suggesting. But the difference is a subtle one, so the mistake is easy to make.

For the sake of discussion, I can grant the possibility that Nephi and Alma, etc. were inspired prophets on the same level as say, Moses or David. I can grant the possibility that they wrote their respective portions of the Book of Mormon and that they were inspired in doing so and they produced a fairly error-free version of that. I can even grant that the originals need not be completely error free, for, as Tobin points out, God can use imperfect vessels to communicate His truth.

So then... aren't I weakening my own criticism of the Book of Mormon with such a generous concession? Not really. Why not? Because of the testimony of early Book of Mormon witnesses. Because of the original claims of the divine manner in which the Book of Mormon was allegedly translated into English. As Skousen points out, they were unanimous in claiming that God did it. Joseph merely read the words that God made appear in the stone. But this is extremely problematic for guys like Tobin. The problem is not that rabid critics like Roger or dogmatic fundamentalists are imposing an unrealistic standard for the Book of Mormon to live up to (as Tobin would have us believe). Instead, the problem is that early Book of Mormon witnesses - True Believing Mormons who were there in the room when this was all happening and in some cases participated - those are the ones who are imposing an impossible standard for the Book of Mormon to live up to. This is why Joseph Smith defenders like Tobin protest against the testimonies of their own founding fathers (and mothers) and ultimately must reject the "unrealistic" portion of their testimonies, and instead passionately cling to the D & C 9 version - all the while ignoring the significance of the contradiction between the two versions.

What I am suggesting is that it's highly unlikely that God is going to introduce errors into the text - and I think we can all agree on that. On the contrary, we would expect that God knows how to speak English and is quite familiar with English grammar. Therefore, to such an extent that we do find errors in the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon, I think we can all agree that they came from human beings, not God.

I suggest that "cherubims" and "seraphims" are blatant errors because they are redundant plurals. I suggest that when you understand the nature of the error, you realize there is no way around this but to acknowledge it as an error. Tobin, on the other hand, disagrees, because he believes that if it can be shown that "cherubims" and "seraphims" were used properly by other early English translators, then, it follows that God is free to use the same words in the Book of Mormon, (or Joseph Smith is free to use the words, depending on how much one wants to connect the text with Joseph Smith) and what I am identifying as a problem is really not a problem. So if Tobin is right, he saves the Book of Mormon from unfair criticism.

This also has an impact on the allegation of Biblical borrowing - which, amazingly, is the topic of this thread. This is important, because if "cherubims" and "seraphims" are mistakes (as I suggest) then it follows that God would have known better than to allow them into the text of the Book of Mormon. The testimony of David Whitmer and Emma Smith and others suggests that it should have been impossible for these errors to have been introduced into the text because, according to their testimony, God was actively checking for errors and would not allow the translation to proceed unless everything was correct. The only way these errors could have escaped God's watchful eye is if God didn't understand that "cherubims" and "seraphims" are redundant plurals OR God was not a part of the process at all. I think we can rule out an ignorant God. Which leaves us with only one possibility: God was not involved and the error was introduced by a human. But which human?

On the other hand, if Tobin is correct and every English translator worth his salt freely used the terms "cherubims" and "seraphims" and, more importantly, that this usage itself renders the terms grammatically correct, then he saves the Book of Mormon whether God OR Joseph Smith is responsible for the text. Therefore, the only way this works for Tobin, is if the terms "cherubims" and "seraphims" are not mistakes. God is, of course, free to use the terms if they are grammatically correct, and Joseph is obviously free to use them for the same reason and, since the words are correct, it does not follow that someone must have copied them from the KJV Bible.

So it makes a big difference whether or not these terms are grammatically correct or whether they are errors. If they are indeed errors (and they are!) then Tobin's line of defense of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon suffers a huge blow. If he's correct, he's singlehandedly saved the Book of Mormon from an unfair attack.

Now, let's consider the possibility that I am correct when I suggest that "cherubims" and "seraphims" are mistakes and there's no getting around that. What are the implications for borrowing text? (The topic of this thread) The implications are this: The errors could not have come from God. Since they are errors that DO appear in the KJV Bible and the Book of Mormon, and since we find them immersed within other KJV - Book of Mormon parallels (and even quotes from the KJV Bible), it is reasonable to conclude that whoever produced this portion of the Book of Mormon was copying portions of the text from the KJV Bible.

[_Res Ipsa]

So how would you "make a serious attempt to determine the odds that the pattern" is not due to chance?

I don't have the faintest idea. I can't get beyond the first step, which would be to define the circumstances under which a parallel sentence construction is reliable evidence of copying from the KJV v. some other explanation. And we need to do that before we sift through the data looking for parallels.

I agree. Attempting to read God's mind is problematic. Which is why I prefer to focus on what we actually have and look at it from a skeptical point of view to see if we can make sense of the data from that perspective.

I can't envision how to set up a test that uses the structure of the text to determine whether or not the Book of Mormon to be genuine scripture without purporting to read God's mind. At some point, the test is based on assumptions about what God would or would not tell/inspire Smith to write.

But I think if we're looking at it strictly in terms of odds, here's what we arrive at... God has several options, all of which are viable. He can copy the Biblical style, he can adopt Joseph's style, he can go with contemporary English or he can dazzle everyone with an amazingly poetic and grammatically perfect translation. Let's face it, if God really wanted to, He could have seen to it that the translation was utterly flawless. If I were God, that's the one I would have chosen, especially in light of the fact that I wasn't going to allow any language experts to see the original documents.

Joseph Smith's options, on the other hand, are limited. There's no way he can make a flawless translation, so that is out. He can go with contemporary English, but even then his mistakes are going to come through and there will be no authoritative voice to the whole thing. It won't sound like what everyone is used to scripture sounding like, it will simply sound like a contemporary book with a lot of elementary grammar errors. But if he copies the Biblical language that everyone is used to, it at least sounds like what everyone is used to calling scripture.

So the fact that the Book of Mormon does emulate KJV English tends to lean more toward the Joseph did it, than the God did it explanation. I don't think it breaks down to a simple 50/50 chance. But it gets even more interesting when we consider the errors, which is one of the points I've been making on this thread. How likely is it that God is going to introduce errors into the text? How likely is it that Joseph Smith (or the other humans who helped produce the Book of Mormon) are responsible for any errors? Unless we're postulating a trickster God, I think it's safe to assume the errors come from humans. Agreed?

Sorry, not agreed. Computing odds is meaningless when we aren't dealing with a random process. The number of options available to God compared to Smith is meaningless unless the choices are being made randomly. I'm not saying the odds are 50-50 -- I'm saying it's meaningless to assign odds at all.

Bingo. That seems to be our problem. Because this obviously isn't randomly produced data, there will always be some level of subjectivity in the analysis. Nevertheless, I think it can reach a point where the data becomes compelling. It's sort of like the much ridiculed obscenity statement that went something like: I'm not sure how to define it but I know it when I see it.

You may be right that, at some point, the data becomes at least persuasive. But what is that point? If I rule out God as a possible source of the Book of Mormon, then I'm persuaded that Smith copied at least some sections of the Book of Mormon from the Bible. (All that Isaiah stuff, for example.) But, if God is a possibility, I'm not persuaded the structure of the text can tell us much, if anything.

The problem is, even when we agree on some pre-determined standard, it can always be argued that the standard is arbitrary - especially by those who have an interest in so arguing.

That's why we'd also have to devise some kind of test to see if our standards actually had predictive value.

Again, the subjectivity problem. But what about what I mentioned earlier.... sequence. If vessr comes up with 500 parallels, that's pretty impressive, but a skeptic (or someone who wants to believe that God and Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon) could still chalk them all up to chance. But what if within that large group, he found a set of, let's say 5 parallels that follow a similar or identical sequence. What then?

I'm not sure I'm following. I don't know whether 500 parallels is impressive. I do know that the human brain is terrible about recognizing randomness and chance in a set of data. Our brains tend to discount the presence of randomness and to impose non-existent patterns on random data. So, the number of parallels tells me absolutely nothing.

As for your hypothetical, what counts as a parallel? What does "similar" sequence mean? And how would it be evidence that Smith cribbed from the KJV as opposed to God cribbing from the KJV?

All the best.

And also to you.

[_vessr]

Roger, Brad:

Both of you have been in communication on this thread. (Thanks to both of you for getting the thread back on track.) Brad has responded to Roger’s thoughts above. I’d like to respond to one of Roger’s thoughts and Brad’s response to it.

Roger wrote, in part: “If vessr comes up with 500 parallels, that's pretty impressive, but a skeptic (or someone who wants to believe that God and Joseph Smith produced the Book of Mormon) could still chalk them all up to chance. But what if within that large group, he found a set of, let's say 5 parallels that follow a similar or identical sequence. What then?”

Brad responded in part: “I don't know whether 500 parallels is impressive. I do know that the human brain is terrible about recognizing randomness and chance in a set of data. Our brains tend to discount the presence of randomness and to impose non-existent patterns on random data. So, the number of parallels tells me absolutely nothing.”

“As for your hypothetical, what counts as a parallel? What does ‘similar’ sequence mean? And how would it be evidence that Smith cribbed from the KJV as opposed to God cribbing from the KJV?”

Brad remains skeptical, and Roger hasn’t had or hasn’t taken the opportunity yet to respond to Brad.

I would be pleased to send each or either of you the set of 500 parallelisms that I am alleging. I picked out three for Brad earlier, and I believe Brad was impressed with two out of the three. Maybe one of you can provide an object methodology for determining whether a parallelism has occurred and how sequences within a parallelism could be determined. As for the evidence that Smith cribbed from the KJV rather than God, I would propose that, based upon an earnest review of the parallelisms that I’ve produced, there is more evidence that a man made them rather than God, but perhaps we need a methodology for determining that.