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

[_bschaalje]

MCB said:

Your assumption of open set, sets up your means of analysis.

True, but I don’t see how ‘open-set’ is an assumption. ‘Closed set’ is an assumption, and a very strong one at that. But ‘open-set’ is simply doing away with that assumption. And from work with the Hamilton texts, it appears that allowing the candidate set to be open results in very little loss of author-identification power even the set of candidates really is closed.

The Spaldingites assume closed set, while acknowledging that there are other possible authors available.

I don’t see how assuming a closed set, but acknowledging that the set might be open, helps anything. The damage is done by assuming a closed set.

The Stanford study lined up fairly well with Dale's previous results. It substantiated partial Spalding authorship in approximately the same textual units where Broadhurst's study predicted they would be found. We will see.

But as you can see from the PCA plots, Spalding’s authorship features are very different from all but 1 or 2 of the Book of Mormon chapters. There is no meaning in the Stanford study’s attributions. I fully agree that we will see.

[_MCB]

Effects of KJE make the situation more difficult to pin down. We will see.

[_bschaalje]

Effects of KJE make the situation more difficult to pin down. We will see.

Closed set attribution will not be of any help in dealing with archaic language.

[_Kishkumen]

Let me clarify my comment.

Still, it does not represent a failure of the peer review process that the Jockers et al. study was published.

[_MCB]

Still, it does not represent a failure of the peer review process that the Jockers et al. study was published.

Remember that the people who complain about the fact that the Jockers et al. study was published are used to their own inbred peer review process. They only trust one that is financed by LDS Inc.

[_Kishkumen]

Remember that the people who complain about the fact that the Jockers et al. study was published are used to their own inbred peer review process. They only trust one that is financed by LDS Inc.

In Nomad's case, that is a generous assumption.

[_MCB]

In Nomad's case, that is a generous assumption

One of my personality flaws-- hoping for the best with each individual.

[_aussieguy55]

It's interesting when one is an amatuer in these matters of the S/R theory to think wow they have done a kinghit on Jockers et al. Then a response to the paper in an email by one of the authors of the first paper, many flaws in the Schaalje paper are pointed out which I as a amatuer I did not see. The case in my opinion is definately not closed. I'll ask the author if I can put their comments up here.

[_Fifth Columnist]

I never thought Criddle's study was very persuasive. But I was prejudiced against the Spaulding theory from the beginning due to the historical record. I read the historical record and it points to a very different translation process than that proposed by Criddle.

As an aside, my view is that Joseph Smith "translated" it exactly how it says in D&C 9 - he studied it out in his mind - i.e., made it up drawing from a reservoir of 19th century ideas, concepts, etc. that he had absorbed up until that time - and if it felt a burning in his bosom from time to time he interpreted that as God confirming the correctness of the "translation."

I was reading some accounts of the Book of Mormon translation today and came across the accounts of Joseph's surprise about walls being around Jerusalem.
"And one time while translating, where it speaks of the walls of Jerusalem, he stopped and said, 'Emma, did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it.' When I informed him it had, he replied, 'O, I though I was deceived.'"

I think this account fits nicely with my view. If God was revealing the text directly to him, including the part about walls around Jerusalem, I can't imagine how he could possibly think he was deceived. However, if he was studying it out in his mind, experiencing a confirming bosom burning sensation, and then writing it down, then I can see how he could believe he had been deceived. I don't know how this story fits with the Spaulding view.

[_Kishkumen]

I haven't ever been persuaded by the Spalding-Rigdon Theory, but I tend to like the people who advocate it.