William Davis' paper in Dialogue evaluates Skousen and Carmack's Early Modern English model

[drumdude]

It’s fitting that DCP decided to whine about misinformation today. He himself knows very well how to peddle it as this thread shows.

[I Have Questions]

For the past thirty-six years, Royal Skousen, now a retired Brigham Young University professor of English language and linguistics, has devoted his acute and precise scholarly intelligence to the textual history of the Book of Mormon. His effort has gone under the title of “The Book of Mormon Critical Text Project.”

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/the-journ ... r-project/

An additional striking linguistic fact that has emerged from the Critical Text Project is this: Some of the curious English of the original Book of Mormon text seems to reflect an underlying Hebrew or Semitic original.

Peterson presumably thought this project had unearthed “proof” that the Book of Mormon was ancient. It would make his name were he to be attached to it. Hence the funding he threw at it. William Davis (along with Carmack & Skousen getting too carried away and having to embarrassingly retract much of what they claimed) just destroyed that dream.

36 years of Skousen’s life has been spent on this.

From the comments on that article

Kent BrooksbyAugust 2, 2024
"The Book of Mormon is a creative and cultural translation of what was on the plates, not a literal one. Based on the linguistic evidence, the translation must have involved serious intervention from the English-language translator, who was not Joseph Smith." Royal Skousen, "The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Part Five This alone is enough for me not to care one bit about any of Royal Skousen's thoughts on the Book of Mormon and its origin. Call me old fashioned, but I still believe that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet of God.

Kent seems to be taking the position that Skousen asserting that intervention came from someone else is undermining the idea that Joseph Smith was a Prophet who translated the plates.(Skousen himself suggested William Tyndale in conversation with Peterson)

I think I may, in a few firesides some years back, have helped this nonsense along by relating a humorous anecdote about a conversation I had with Professor Skousen. When he first began to tell me about the evidence he was finding for the unexpected presence of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon, I was mystified. “What does this mean?” I asked him. “How do you explain it? What would account for it? Where did it come from?” He responded, with a smile, that maybe William Tyndale was on some sort of committee in the spirit world. “Are you serious?” I asked? “Oh, I don’t know,” he answered. “Maybe half-way.”

[drumdude]

I’ve just read the first half of this paper. I am absolutely stunned at how much Skousen missed. The discussion of the deficient and non-deficient actors in the miracle story is a must read.

It shows a very plausible and damning mechanism for how Joseph misunderstood the texts he was copying from, and left evidence of it in the Book of Mormon.

This is really, really great stuff. And it didn’t take 35 years and half a million dollars to produce. It makes Skousen look like he wasted that whole time just painting bulls eyes rather than doing any real work.

DCP should again be deeply, deeply ashamed of the low quality of scholarship produced on his watch. It’s utterly embarrassing.

Everyone here needs to read the full paper. It’s well worth your time.

[I Have Questions]

Peterson’s paid half a million dollars to unwittingly prove the Book of Mormon is a fake…Folks, you just can’t make this up!