Berkeley Group Wordprint Study of Book of Mormon

[_Mad Viking]

OK, I found my limb, and I going to go way out on it. I understand, even if I am not convinced of, the theory behind the word print studies. For the sake of argument I will assume that the theory is sound.

The application of this theory seems to be spurious with regard to the translation of the Book of Mormon. The reason for this is that the translation of the Book of Mormon is not really a translation in the traditional sense of the word. Joseph Smith was not able to read egyptian (reformed or otherwise). Depending on the topic of discussion, believers propose that Joseph produced the Book of Mormon through one of two methods. These being 1) “loose” translation, or 2) “strict” translation. In either case the information is received from god and transcribed by which ever scribe Joseph had working with him at the time.

During “loose” translation Joseph received ideas or concepts that he put into his own words and relayed to the scribe. Since this method allows Joseph to put the text into his own words his speaking style will be present in the English version of the text. This proposed method of translation is supported by the various corrections that have been made to the Book of Mormon. In it’s original form, the Book of Mormon was peppered with colloquial verb conjugations that have since been deleted under the assertion that the concepts as originally given to Joseph are what need to be preserved vis a vis the exact language.

During “strict” translation Joseph receieved the text of the Book of Mormon word for word and relays it to the scribe. Per this method, there is no room for Joseph to rephrase things or add his own wording to the translation. This proposed method of translation is supported by the several witnesses’ accounts of how the book was received. The vast verbatim quotations from the King James version of the Bible prior to its existence further necessitate this method of translation.

Ignoring (for the sake of argument) the consistent manner in which these two theories are employed as the defense of Joseph’s prophethood requires, it appears that the wordprint study results have an impact on which method of translation can be proposed in conjuction with the results. The word print study proposes to demonstrate that the non-contextual word patterns in the Book of Mormon are such that the book has to have been written by different authors. If this is the case, one must abandon any proposition that Joseph was allowed to put the ideas/concepts of the Book of Mormon, as receieved from god, into his own words. If he had done so, would not have the wordprint analysis have shown that the speech patterns in the English version of the Book of Mormon were Joseph’s?

Furthmore, proposing that a direct translation (real translation) from egyptian (reformed or otherwise) to english, would result in the “Old English” speaking style of the Book of Mormon strains credulity. If one proposes that god gave to Joseph the words exactly how they were to be written (“strict” translation), then god must have done so by translating the reformed egyptian to “Old English”. Hence, while the ancient american prophets each authored their respective books, god had to translated it into english to give to Joseph. Thus, any english word print patterns would be god’s and not the original authors’. The fact that these studies propose various authors throws a monkey wrench into both proposed methods of translation.

EDIT: Please don't propose that god fabricated different english wordprint pattern for each Book of Mormon author so that when these studies would be performed we could be able to distinguish the authors. My head might explode.

[_Scottie]

What does it matter??

If any group finds that the wordprint is the work of a single man, the apologists say "Well of COURSE it is!! Mormon abridged it. Why would you expect anything else??"

If it's not, the apologists say, "Well of COURSE it's multiple people. Have you READ the book??"

Scottie,

What if a word print study matched the Book of Mormon with several men like Joseph Smith, OC, and SR?

What would the apologetic argument be?

Well, if it matched Joseph Smith, they would say that he used a loose translation.

I don't know much about this. Can they match multiple authors? We don't know what role OC or SR had in the Book of Mormon. Were they just giving ideas and Joseph Smith did the storytelling? Did they actually write parts of the Book of Mormon?

[_beastie]

EDIT: Please don't propose that god fabricated different english wordprint pattern for each Book of Mormon author so that when these studies would be performed we could be able to distinguish the authors. My head might explode.

Yeah but God could have fabricated different english wordprint pattersn for each Book of Mormon author so that when these studies would be performed we could be able to distinguish the authors.

Besides, quit telling God what he should have done!! God's ways are not man's ways. (except when God is being jealous, greedy, manipulative, violent, abusive, telling his alpha males to have lots of females... then God's ways match man's ways pretty well)

[_Mad Viking]

EDIT: Please don't propose that god fabricated different english wordprint pattern for each Book of Mormon author so that when these studies would be performed we could be able to distinguish the authors. My head might explode.

Yeah but God could have fabricated different english wordprint pattersn for each Book of Mormon author so that when these studies would be performed we could be able to distinguish the authors.

Besides, quit telling God what he should have done!! God's ways are not man's ways. (except when God is being jealous, greedy, manipulative, violent, abusive, telling his alpha males to have lots of females... then God's ways match man's ways pretty well)

I realize that I am a noobie here, but I don't understand how you can be so obtuse with regard to my head exploding. Luckily, it turned out to only be a little *pop*, so the mess wasn't too big.

[_guy sajer]

I'm following a discussion on another board (one lacking the quality membership of the Great and Spacious Trailer Park), and the abridged version of the conversation goes something like this:

Critic: FARMS sucks.

TBM: Yeah? Then why isn't anyone seriously dealing with their claims? (Included was the obligatory reference to Owen and Mosser.)

Critic: Which claim hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: This one. (Technically not FARMS, but nevermind...)

Critic: [Lots of links that criticize the earlier wordprint study done at BYU, but none addressing the Berkeley Group's.] How can you say this hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: Your references are obsolete. Owen and Mosser were, and still are, right: no one is willing or able to deal with serious defenses of Mormonism, and this proves it.

Critic: *crickets chirping* (Granted, this group is pretty slow moving, so I'm sure a response is forthcoming...)

At any rate, I attempted to find out what I could as far as criticism of the Berkeley Group's study goes, and, sure enough, there are a few mentions of it and some wave of the hand dismissals, but nothing that I found particularly impressive. Are my Google skills deficient, or is this TBM correct in charging that no critics, for whatever reason, have seriously dealt with the findings of the Berkeley Group? Maybe there have been in print, but not online?

Has anyone gone the rounds with a TBM on this before?

Let's see if I got this right.

Single author for Book of Mormon = Authentic, genuine history of real civilization of Hebrew emigrants to the New World, revealed to Joseph Smith by an angel, translated (well, dictated) by looking into a rock in a hat.

Yep, that makes perfect sense. The conclusion definitively follows--there can be no other explanation.

[_Mad Viking]

I'm following a discussion on another board (one lacking the quality membership of the Great and Spacious Trailer Park), and the abridged version of the conversation goes something like this:

Critic: FARMS sucks.

TBM: Yeah? Then why isn't anyone seriously dealing with their claims? (Included was the obligatory reference to Owen and Mosser.)

Critic: Which claim hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: This one. (Technically not FARMS, but nevermind...)

Critic: [Lots of links that criticize the earlier wordprint study done at BYU, but none addressing the Berkeley Group's.] How can you say this hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: Your references are obsolete. Owen and Mosser were, and still are, right: no one is willing or able to deal with serious defenses of Mormonism, and this proves it.

Critic: *crickets chirping* (Granted, this group is pretty slow moving, so I'm sure a response is forthcoming...)

At any rate, I attempted to find out what I could as far as criticism of the Berkeley Group's study goes, and, sure enough, there are a few mentions of it and some wave of the hand dismissals, but nothing that I found particularly impressive. Are my Google skills deficient, or is this TBM correct in charging that no critics, for whatever reason, have seriously dealt with the findings of the Berkeley Group? Maybe there have been in print, but not online?

Has anyone gone the rounds with a TBM on this before?

Let's see if I got this right.

Single author for Book of Mormon = Authentic, genuine history of real civilization of Hebrew emigrants to the New World, revealed to Joseph Smith by an angel, translated (well, dictated) by looking into a rock in a hat.

Yep, that makes perfect sense. The conclusion definitively follows--there can be no other explanation.

Actually, they are proposing that a wordprint pattern that indicates multiple authors validates the Book of Mormon. I propose that this contradicts the methods of "translation" supported by believers.

[_beastie]

I realize that I am a noobie here, but I don't understand how you can be so obtuse with regard to my head exploding. Luckily, it turned out to only be a little *pop*, so the mess wasn't too big.

I hadn't seen a head explode all day, so I couldn't help myself. I still didn't *see* it, but I'm pretty sure I heard it. ;)

[_Jersey Girl]

Actually, they are proposing that a wordprint pattern that indicates multiple authors validates the Book of Mormon. I propose that this contradicts the methods of "translation" supported by believers.

But which multiple authors? Are you saying that they're proposing that a wordprint pattern of the scribes validates the Book of Mormon?

[_Jersey Girl]

Can someone tell me why the Berkley study was based on the number of rejections instead of the number of matches?

This makes no sense to me.

[_Ray A]

And finally, I believe that John Tvedtnes has said he does not support the use of wordprints as evidence for the Book of Mormon for some of the reasons cited above.

This is Vedtnes criticism of word print studies: http://farms.BYU.edu/display.php?table=review&id=259

Although cautious about catergorisation, he concluded by agreeing with Keller:

I found Keller's examination of individual author word use to be an important contribution to the study of the Book of Mormon, although I disagree with some parts of his categorization methodology. However, I suspect that in his final conclusions he and I see eye to eye, for he wrote that "even though there is yet much refinement necessary in the tools being used, clear differences are seen between individual author uses of the thirty measured word clusters, indicating important differences in word use" (p. 11). No summary I might write could say it better.

The word cluster study indicates that the Book of Mormon was not authored by one person, because the styles are not consistent.