Book of Mormon (er, -- of Solomon)

[_Uncle Dale]

UD:

While Ben is apparently off having a life somewhere, can you give me your opinion of this conversation so far... specifically are Ben's arguments valid? and if so how valid?

I suppose, that when it comes to statistical analysis, what he has to say is
"valid" within a certain framework of reference.

Where I think he gets himself in trouble, is in attempts at redirecting our
attention to the entire Book of Mormon -- as though it were some monolithic
structure, and not a library of texts.

The Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, from their very first summaries in the
public press, have always divided the Book of Mormon into sub-sections, some
of which are more attributable to Spalding, Rigdon, Isaiah, or even Joseph Smith.

If we go looking for that part of the book's text, which most closely resembles
the biblical writings of Isaiah (or of the 3 Isaiahs) -- I do not think it a fair or
reasonable use of our investigative efforts to always look at the book as a
whole. There are obviously certain parts of the book where Isaiah's word-print
registers at a much higher degree of relative probability than others. There
are also parts of the book where Isaiah's use of language registers at a
higher degree of intensity and clustering than in others.

It would obviously be a mistake to say that the over-all resemblance of the
Book of Mormon is so unlike Isaiah, as to make a contribution from his pen
very unlikely --- even if statistical analysis of the whole book demonstrated
that conclusion to be true.

Let's say that we defined a word-print for Isaiah, making use of a base text
composed ONLY of those Isaiah chapters NOT found in the Book of Mormon -- and that we
did the same thing for vocabulary and phraseology. Nowhere in the Book of Mormon would
we find very lengthy, exact quotations from the biblical Isaiah of our limited
selection --- but we could still map out the "hot spots" of textual similarity. And
I'm convinced that those "hot spots" would coincide in all three methods of
textual analysis we've used -- as well as coinciding with the exact spots where
we knew in advance that we would find actual Isaiah material.

I think Ben has yet to contemplate the relevance of our attempting to do something
similar for Spalding and Rigdon.

Or am I (are we) correct to note the convergence of results in pretty much the areas where
we would expect them if there is a connection between Spalding and the Book of Mormon?
...

Depends upon what you mean by "pretty much." Ben points out that battle stories will
naturally contain some similar vocabulary and phraseology -- even if they are totally
unrelated battle stories. He has yet to demonstrate that to be true for word-prints.

Where we find Spalding in the Book of Mormon is "pretty much" where we would expect to find
Spalding in the "Roman story," because we are using the Roman story as a base text.

But -------> what if.... What if we could take those Book of Mormon Spalding "hot-spots" and
derive a word-print from them -- derive a vocabulary list from them -- derive a list
of phraseology from them. No "Roman story" consulted, at that point of study.

What would the distribution of high correspondence levels in the Book of Mormon THEN look
like? Not "first generation" matches, directly with the Roman story -- but rather,
"second generation" matches, made by comparing Book of Mormon text against Book of Mormon text --
what might we see then?

Then, I think that the Book of Mormon results we would be pondering, would NOT look
"pretty much" like what we had at first expected. SOME of the results would,
of course -- Alma, Mosiah and Ether would still register high on the comparisons
scale. But OTHER parts of the Book of Mormon, less easily identifiable with Spalding might
then stand out, before our inspection.

If then, those secondary, not-so-easily-discovered texts were closely examined,
my guess is that they would generally be MUCH MORE "RELIGIOUS" than are the
"Spaldingish" sections of the Book of Mormon that we "pretty much" expected to find, at first.

IF JOCKERS' WORD-PRINT ANALYSIS WELL MATCHED such a compilation of
"secondary," less easily identifiable Book of Mormon sections (call them "warm spots") --
THAT COULD RESULT IN MAJOR SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES.

Follow my train of thought here?

UD

[_Roger]

UD:

I suppose, that when it comes to statistical analysis, what he has to say is
"valid" within a certain framework of reference.

Where I think he gets himself in trouble, is in attempts at redirecting our
attention to the entire Book of Mormon -- as though it were some monolithic
structure, and not a library of texts.

I have also not found the reasons he suggests the text should be viewed as monolithic to be very compelling--especially from a believer's point of view which accepts that the Book of Mormon is a composite of various books from various authors. The only logic I can see applying from that perspective is that the common thread is Mormon's abridgment but 1. Mormon is not alleged to have abridged the entire work, is he? and 2. An abridgment is not the same thing as authorship.

The Spalding-Rigdon authorship claims, from their very first summaries in the
public press, have always divided the Book of Mormon into sub-sections, some
of which are more attributable to Spalding, Rigdon, Isaiah, or even Joseph Smith.

Agreed, so if one is to apply objective criticism to the S/R theory, one must at least produce tests that hinge on the thesis rather than a strawman. This seems pretty basic.

If we go looking for that part of the book's text, which most closely resembles
the biblical writings of Isaiah (or of the 3 Isaiahs) -- I do not think it a fair or
reasonable use of our investigative efforts to always look at the book as a
whole. There are obviously certain parts of the book where Isaiah's word-print
registers at a much higher degree of relative probability than others. There
are also parts of the book where Isaiah's use of language registers at a
higher degree of intensity and clustering than in others.

It would obviously be a mistake to say that the over-all resemblance of the
Book of Mormon is so unlike Isaiah, as to make a contribution from his pen
very unlikely --- even if statistical analysis of the whole book demonstrated
that conclusion to be true.

Exactly.

Let's say that we defined a word-print for Isaiah, making use of a base text
composed ONLY of those Isaiah chapters NOT found in the Book of Mormon -- and that we
did the same thing for vocabulary and phraseology. Nowhere in the Book of Mormon would
we find very lengthy, exact quotations from the biblical Isaiah of our limited
selection --- but we could still map out the "hot spots" of textual similarity.

That's a great idea. Has it been done? I see one potential snag... most scholars think there were at least two Isaiahs, no?

In any event, I would still suspect that the word print would show high correspondence whereas the vocabulary might not be extraordinary--especially if we were to compare those results with another study that compares those Isaiah chapters that ARE found in the Book of Mormon. In that case, we would expect both methodologies to register very high--something off the charts like Ben's Warren/Ramsay results.

And
I'm convinced that those "hot spots" would coincide in all three methods of
textual analysis we've used -- as well as coinciding with the exact spots where
we knew in advance that we would find actual Isaiah material.

I think Ben has yet to contemplate the relevance of our attempting to do something
similar for Spalding and Rigdon.

Any numbers for Rigdon yet?

Depends upon what you mean by "pretty much." Ben points out that battle stories will
naturally contain some similar vocabulary and phraseology -- even if they are totally
unrelated battle stories. He has yet to demonstrate that to be true for word-prints.

Well, if he were to accomplish that, wouldn't that throw doubt on the very validity of word-printing itself?

Where we find Spalding in the Book of Mormon is "pretty much" where we would expect to find
Spalding in the "Roman story," because we are using the Roman story as a base text.

But -------> what if.... What if we could take those Book of Mormon Spalding "hot-spots" and
derive a word-print from them -- derive a vocabulary list from them -- derive a list
of phraseology from them. No "Roman story" consulted, at that point of study.

What would the distribution of high correspondence levels in the Book of Mormon THEN look
like? Not "first generation" matches, directly with the Roman story -- but rather,
"second generation" matches, made by comparing Book of Mormon text against Book of Mormon text --
what might we see then?

Wouldn't Ben argue that this is circular and therefore not reliable?

Then, I think that the Book of Mormon results we would be pondering, would NOT look
"pretty much" like what we had at first expected. SOME of the results would,
of course -- Alma, Mosiah and Ether would still register high on the comparisons
scale. But OTHER parts of the Book of Mormon, less easily identifiable with Spalding might
then stand out, before our inspection.

An interesting approach. I think Ben would simply argue that the resulting mystery author would simply be someone other than Spalding and that the level of correspondence between Book of Mormon Spalding-like sections with other Book of Mormon not-so-Spalding-like sections is perfectly reasonable from a Nephites-were-real point of view and that that is totally different from correspondence with the Roman Story. In other words, it doesn't demonstrate that the writer of the RS is the writer of those sections and, furthermore, it can probably be twisted into evidence for Mormon's abridgment.

Where I think such an approach might be useful to the S/R thesis is to then compare the results with Jocker's.

If then, those secondary, not-so-easily-discovered texts were closely examined,
my guess is that they would generally be MUCH MORE "RELIGIOUS" than are the
"Spaldingish" sections of the Book of Mormon that we "pretty much" expected to find, at first.

IF JOCKERS' WORD-PRINT ANALYSIS WELL MATCHED such a compilation of
"secondary," less easily identifiable Book of Mormon sections (call them "warm spots") --
THAT COULD RESULT IN MAJOR SIGNIFICANT DISCOVERIES.

Follow my train of thought here?

I think so, but, again, if S/R critics like Ben are going to assert that Jocker's method is flawed from the get-go, then anything corresponding with it or compared to it is also unacceptable.

But from our point of view, what would you theorize about the "warm spots"? Sections of the Book of Mormon that originated from Spalding but went through a number of revisions and embellishments via Rigdon, Smith & Co.?

All the best.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
I see one potential snag... most scholars think there were at least two Isaiahs, no?

True -- but we know where the biblical division lines are drawn. That can help us
understand what we might select from the non-BoM Isaiah.

Any numbers for Rigdon yet?

I think Ben is still resting up from Christmas.
My own "spot checks," say that Moroni and
the latter part of 2nd Nephi would be Rigdon
hot-spots.

Wouldn't Ben argue that this is circular and therefore not reliable?

Yes -- but people told Columbus he was going to sail off the edge of
a flat earth. Sometimes the fruits of discovery are worth the jibes
of the critics.

An interesting approach. I think Ben would simply argue that the resulting mystery
author would simply be someone other than Spalding and that the level of
correspondence between Book of Mormon Spalding-like sections with other Book of Mormon
not-so-Spalding-like sections is perfectly reasonable from a Nephite...

But what if we get the same author for 1st Nephi (no Mormon editing),
3rd Nephi (Mormon's editing) and Moroni (no Mormon editing)? Results
could be problematic to the standard LDS authorship attributions.

But from our point of view, what would you theorize about the "warm spots"?

Possibly hunks of Spalding material that are not much like the Roman story in
vocabulary and phraseology, but still have some word-print correspondence.

THAT discovery might provide the key to sorting out authorship attributions
(and redaction patterns) using more traditional, literary-critical methods.

UD