DiscussMormonism.com

In another thread here I recently provided images of three
charts depicting the 1830 Book of Mormon, in which the pages
corresponding well with the known writings of Solomon Spalding
were displayed in bright colors.

Taking the data from those three charts, I can list here, with a
high degree of confidence, the most "Spaldingish" Book of Mormon pages.

By a purely mechanical method, I had my PC calculate the 26
most Spalding-like pages in the 1830 Book of Mormon (from
among my study outcomes for Mosiah, Alma & Ether) the results,
in descending order were:

Mos. 221
Alma 374
Mos. 205
Alma 372
Alma 373
Alma 341
Alma 394
Hel. 410
Hel. 409
Mos. 195
Alma 402
Alma 388
Alma 343
Alma 365
Alma 371
Alma 391
Alma 360
Mos. 194
Alma 363
Alma 392
Eth. 539
Alma 385
Alma 386
Alma 383
Mos. 215
Mos. 216

In order to correlate these old page numbers with the
modern LDS edition of the Book of Mormon see here:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol0.htm
with accompanying chart, here:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrt2.gif

and

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookEth1.htm
with accompanying chart, here:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtE2.gif

and

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookMos1.htm
with accompanying chart, here:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtM2.gif

Although there are a few other spots in the Book of Mormon that
read much like Spalding's fiction, the sections depicted
in the above three web-pages cover about 90% of
the "highest quality" shared language "matches."

You might call those compiled results by a new name --
"The Book of Solomon." The compilation matches very
closely with the conclusions published in the recent
Spalding/Book of Mormon word-print study from Stanford University.

Dan Vogel -- it's your move.

Uncle Dale

UD:

Hi Dale, good to see you posting again.

the sections depicted
in the above three web-pages cover about 90% of
the "highest quality" shared language "matches."

Is there a way to quantify how "Spaldingish" these pages are?

All the best.

Thanks for posting Uncle Dale. The links will keep me busy for a while!

Roger wrote:UD:

Hi Dale, good to see you posting again.

the sections depicted
in the above three web-pages cover about 90% of
the "highest quality" shared language "matches."

Is there a way to quantify how "Spaldingish" these pages are?

All the best.

I'll try paste in an excerpt from my Excel spreadsheet below:

1 Mos. 221 : Sp + 0.983 17 1.031
2 Alma 374 : Sp + 0.981 20 1.028
3 Mos. 205 : Sp + 0.98 20 1.025
4 Alma 372 : Sp + 0.96 26 1.021
5 Alma 373 : Sp + 0.967 21 1.02
6 Alma 341 : Sp + 0.963 22 1.017
7 Alma 394 : Sp + 0.96 23 1.015
8 Hel. 410 : Sp + 0.966 20 1.015
9 Hel. 409 : Sp + 0.969 19 1.012
10 Mos. 195 : Sp + 0.969 19 1.011
11 Alma 402 : Sp + 0.963 21 1.009
12 Alma 388 : Sp + 0.977 13 1.007
13 Alma 343 : Sp + 0.949 24 1.004
14 Alma 365 : Sp + 0.965 17 1.004
15 Alma 371 : Sp + 0.955 22 1.004
16 Alma 391 : Sp + 0.972 14 1.004
17 Alma 360 : Sp + 0.939 26 1.002
18 Mos. 194 : Sp + 0.968 16 1.002
19 Alma 363 : Sp + 0.955 19 1
20 Alma 392 : Sp + 0.964 15 0.998
21 Ether 539 : Sp ? 0.974 9 0.995
22 Alma 385 : Sp ? 0.981 6 0.994
23 Alma 386 : Sp + 0.962 13 0.993
24 Alma 383 : Sp + 0.966 12 0.992
25 Mos. 215 : Sp + 0.943 19 0.99
26 Mos. 216 : Sp + 0.928 24 0.99


Those are the top most "Spaldingish" -- based upon the number you
see in the fifth (right-hand) column.

That number is derived by adding the percentage of Book of Mormon/Spalding
shared vocabulary for any particular page, to the ratio of shared
phraseology (word-strings) on the same page. For example in the
bottom entry (#26 in the list) the percentage of Spalding's vocabulary
occurring in that page is 92.8% and the number of shared
tabulated word-strings is 24 (see above list). When we convert
that word-string occurrence on Mosiah p. 216 to a ratio of
word-strings per words on the page, we get 6.2%. Adding the
value of that ratio to the earlier 92.8%, we arrive at a total of
99% -- which is why Mosiah page 216 is at the bottom of the list,
and Mosiah page 221 (with 103.1%) is at the top of the list.

On each of my three "Book of Solomon" web-pages I have included
data tables near the end of the web-page (for Mosiah, Ether and
the last 1/3 of Alma). The Vocabulary overlap with Spalding is given
as a percentage for each Book of Mormon page in the lists. Also the ratio of
the Phraseology overlap with Spalding is provided on the same
line for each page. Since the two numbers were derived in the
same way (based upon the same word count on that page) they
can be added together, to produce a relevant sum total. Those
sum totals can then be sorted by their values, providing the
"quantification" you ask for.

The three tabulations, with the necessary data, are here:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookEth1.htm#data
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookMos1.htm#data
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol0.htm#data

Combine all three tables into a single spreadsheet, and you'll
have the necessary data to rank-order the "Spaldingishness"
of any particular page in those three runs of 1830 Book of Mormon
pages --- sorry, I don't have the rest of the book deconstructed.

Once I post similar data for the entire 1830 Book of Mormon,
I'll be able to sort its entire set of 588 pages, and inform you
of the LEAST Spaldingish page (which I suppose will located
in 2nd Nephi, in one of the Isaiah chapters).

Then --- then, it will be time to start the process all over, and
search out the shared vocabulary and phraseology for Rigdon.

Want to bet that the similarly derived Rigdon language data
will also correspond very closely to Jockers' word-print results?

Those who say that the Book of Mormon came from the pen of a single
author are badly mistaken. These sorts of textual study results
mark the end of the Smith-alone authorship hypothesis.

Uncle Dale

Danna wrote:Thanks for posting Uncle Dale. The links will keep me busy for a while!

As mentioned in my other reply here, I'll start working on the Book of Mormon's
shared language with the known writings of Sidney Rigdon soon.

My guess is that the Spalding language study results and the Rigdon
language study results will, eventaully, fit together like a hand and a
glove --- that is, where Spalding's voice is very weak in the Book of Mormon,
Sidney Rigdon's voice will be very strong, and vice versa.

I also predict that tabulation of the Spalding and Rigdon language
results will correspond closely with the word-print results coming
out of the Stanford University Book of Mormon investigations.

That will be an important discovery, if it proves true.

There is no particular reason why an author's frequently used
non-contextual "word=print" should correspond closely to any
random selection of vocabulary/phraseology matches in the Book of Mormon,
UNLESS that author was the writer of that examined selection.

Theoretically, an author's word-print distribution in one of his
texts (or across a set of his texts) should remain relatively
uniform, regardless of the subject matter. It is the subject
matter which largely determines the vocabulary and the
phraseology in any descriptive or narrative text. If the match
of documented vocabulary and documented phraseology is
very strong, in various sections of a lengthy text, that match
alone is good evidence for common authorship. However,
when a particular author's "word-print" can be overlaid
directly upon those instances of vocabulary/language matches,
THEN the probability of one author, writing all the matching
selections, increases in proportion to the "fit" of that same
word-print overlay.

Jockers' determination of Book of Mormon sections probably written by
Solomon Spalding, overlays very well with the results of my
own examination of vocabulary and phraseology shared by
the Book of Mormon and Solomon Spalding.

Like I said, Jockers' results were a perfect 26 out of 26,
when compared with my own, independent determination
of the topmost 26 Spaldinglike pages in the 1830 Book of Mormon.

I find that fascinating.

UD

UD:

and Mosiah page 221 (with 103.1%) is at the top of the list.

Wow. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think I'm hearing you say (in plain English) is that Mosiah, page 221 is 3% more like Spalding's writings than the known sample coming from Spalding? I must be misunderstanding something. Unfortunately I don't have the time to figure it out at the moment since I have a wedding to videotape, but I will definitely return to this thread when I get back this evening.

All the best!

Roger wrote:UD:

and Mosiah page 221 (with 103.1%) is at the top of the list.

Wow. Correct me if I'm wrong, but what I think I'm hearing you say (in plain English) is that Mosiah, page 221 is 3% more like Spalding's writings than the known sample coming from Spalding?

I suppose that is an intuitive sort of inference --

If we take any particular page from Solomon Spalding's known writings,
the "shared vocabulary" will already be 100% -- any percentage above that
figure in our calculations will have to come from a phraseology addition.

For example, if the average number of what I've determined to be
"significant word-strings" on a typical Spalding writings page is 20;
and the number of words counted is 500 -- then the "addition" would
be an extra 4% -- giving a grand total of 104%. Just from my own
rough estimations, I'd guess that a Spalding page chock-full of his
peculiar phrases might reach a count of as high as 50 per 500 words,
or a "surcharge" of 10%.

For rough estimations, suppose that a "high end" narrative block from
Spalding's own writings added up to 110% of vocabulary percentage,
and phraseology percentage -- then the 110% would be near the top
of what the quantitative sorting of his pages might produce --- say, a
range of from 100% to 110%.

In that case, we might consider a "perfect" example of Spalding's
language use in some other text (say, the Book of Mormon) to
approach that 110%, top-notch figure.

I'd say that a 103% match in the Book of Mormon is about the highest
sort number we can ever expect to uncover, using my methodology.
A 103% number represents a "good match with Spalding" plus a
three percent "kicker," just to let us know we've reached the high end.

In a perfect, automated computerization of my method, all word-strings
of three contiguous words (or longer) found in Spalding's known writings
would be "mapped" across the entire Book of Mormon. Also, the entire
catalog of Spalding's vocabulary would be "mapped" across the same text.

I do not have the resources to conduct such a rigorous comparison of
the two sets of texts. But, if it could be accomplished, we might thus
locate a couple of dozen "near 100%" matches with Spalding's language
on various Book of Mormon pages.

Hopefully somebody will now feel inspired to conduct the more rigorous,
automated comparison testing.

UD

Uncle Dale wrote:...
Hopefully somebody will now feel inspired to conduct the more rigorous,
automated comparison testing.
...

A thought just crossed my mind.

I've documented runs of pages in Alma and at the end of Ether
(as well as a smaller section in Mosiah), which bear a strong
resemblance to Solomon Spalding's language. They should
all be texts written by DIFFERENT Nephite/Jaredite authors.

What if a new word-print study demonstrated that all three
sections of "Spaldingish" text very likely came from the SAME writer?
We would not even have to mention Spalding's name. -- If Zeniff,
Alma/Mormon, and Ether/Moroni in the Book of Mormon are all from the SAME
author, then something is very wrong with the Nephite Record.

I wonder if the whiz kids in the BYU Computer Dept. would be
interested in running a computerized cross-comparison for
"word-print "authorship analysis, on those three Book of Mormon/Spalding
textual "hot-spots"?

Perhaps not....

UD

UD:

Those who say that the Book of Mormon came from the pen of a single
author are badly mistaken. These sorts of textual study results
mark the end of the Smith-alone authorship hypothesis.

That's quite an assertion! Of course I agree with you, but, as you know, paradigm shifts generally don't occur overnight. Whether this is the end of the beginning or the beginning of the end, it will be interesting to see the response from the Smith-alone crowd. Those that I have attempted to discuss this topic with online seem to lose interest rather quickly.

In any event I certainly hope this catches the attention of a lot of people.

For rough estimations, suppose that a "high end" narrative block from
Spalding's own writings added up to 110% of vocabulary percentage,
and phraseology percentage -- then the 110% would be near the top
of what the quantitative sorting of his pages might produce --- say, a
range of from 100% to 110%.

Okay so trying to look at this in anticipation of the criticism that is sure to come... I suppose we are going to start hearing things like "It's just not that impressive" while Jeff Lindsey madly works to duplicate the results with two unrelated authors. So is this a fluke?

Here's what it looks like from my perspective, tell me if I'm off.... you list 26 pages. You chose those pages because they already appeared to resemble Spalding's writings in your opinion and because the Jocker's study indicates a high correlation with Spalding. Of those pages, virtually every one of them is 99% "like" Spalding's known writings or higher. Correct so far?

So then the question has to be raised, is it even possible to attribute such results to "coincidence"? If we were looking at some random phenomenon here, I would think you might get a page or two with relatively high correspondence, but 26 pages over 99%? I guess what I'm asking is, is this a slam dunk?

Want to bet that the similarly derived Rigdon language data
will also correspond very closely to Jockers' word-print results?

Something tells me it just might.

If you do this with Rigdon, we should predict that Rigdon is going to rank fairly low on these 26 pages, correct? But probably fairly high elsewhere? In other words, given the high correlation with Spalding on the 26 pages you listed, it would appear that on those pages there was little if any manipulation by Rigdon or Smith/Cowdery; rather they seem to be almost pure, unedited Spalding. Correct?

Okay... so after I typed the above, I read this:

that is, where Spalding's voice is very weak in the Book of Mormon,
Sidney Rigdon's voice will be very strong, and vice versa.

Good! I think I am understanding this! So how about this... are there--or do you think there will be--some pages where there is something of a 50-50 split between Rigdon & Spalding? If so, that might indicate that those are pages where Rigdon was doing a lot of editing and embellishing.

There is no particular reason why an author's frequently used
non-contextual "word=print" should correspond closely to any
random selection of vocabulary/phraseology matches in the Book of Mormon,
UNLESS that author was the writer of that examined selection.

I think this is an important point, but it's still a bit difficult for the lay person to grasp. Plain English? It's probably no fluke?

Theoretically, an author's word-print distribution in one of his
texts (or across a set of his texts) should remain relatively
uniform, regardless of the subject matter. It is the subject
matter which largely determines the vocabulary and the
phraseology in any descriptive or narrative text. If the match
of documented vocabulary and documented phraseology is
very strong, in various sections of a lengthy text, that match
alone is good evidence for common authorship. However,
when a particular author's "word-print" can be overlaid
directly upon those instances of vocabulary/language matches,
THEN the probability of one author, writing all the matching
selections, increases in proportion to the "fit" of that same
word-print overlay.

In other words........ it really looks like Spalding wrote (at least) those 26 pages and attributing that to coincidence doesn't work. (Though, no doubt, some will try).

Very exciting, Uncle Dale!

All the best!

Roger wrote:UD:

Those who say that the Book of Mormon came from the pen of a single
author are badly mistaken. These sorts of textual study results
mark the end of the Smith-alone authorship hypothesis.

That's quite an assertion! Of course I agree with you, but, as you know,
paradigm shifts generally don't occur overnight. Whether this is the end of the beginning
or the beginning of the end, it will be interesting to see the response from the
Smith-alone crowd. Those that I have attempted to discuss this topic with online seem
to lose interest rather quickly.

It is a line of investigation and discovery which does nothing to help them. If they
had any decent rebuttal, it would come in the form of their uncovering new evidence
to support their assertions -- but they cannot produce any such thing. About the
best they can some up with is another recollection or two, of young Smith having
told Nephite stories before the book was published --- no useful evidence there.

In any event I certainly hope this catches the attention of a lot of people.

Those who take the trouble to examine the current state of textual analysis
will be impressed. Even Mormons with unshakable testimonies will concede
that the text has more than one author, and that linguistic studies of the
book will tend to prove that fact.

For rough estimations, suppose that a "high end" narrative block from
Spalding's own writings added up to 110% of vocabulary percentage,
and phraseology percentage -- then the 110% would be near the top
of what the quantitative sorting of his pages might produce --- say, a
range of from 100% to 110%.

Okay so trying to look at this in anticipation of the criticism that is sure to come...
I suppose we are going to start hearing things like "It's just not that impressive"
while Jeff Lindsey madly works to duplicate the results with two unrelated authors.
So is this a fluke?

At this point I really do not care what the LDS defenders come up with -- they
are no longer my intended audience.

Here's what it looks like from my perspective, tell me if I'm off.... you list 26 pages.
You chose those pages because they already appeared to resemble Spalding's writings
in your opinion and because the Jocker's study indicates a high correlation with Spalding.
Of those pages, virtually every one of them is 99% "like" Spalding's known writings or
higher. Correct so far?

Pretty much so -- except for the fact that I had no expectation that even half of my
"eyeball choices" for Spalding authorship would be upheld by word-print study
results. I slowly came to that realization over the last few days -- but still have
to pinch myself, to make sure I'm not dreaming. I would have been happy just to
have seen half of my list of "guesses" end up with Jockers' supporting data --
26 out of 26 was unexpected -- until I got near the end of the calculations.

So then the question has to be raised, is it even possible to attribute such results
to "coincidence"? If we were looking at some random phenomenon here, I would think
you might get a page or two with relatively high correspondence, but 26 pages over 99%?
I guess what I'm asking is, is this a slam dunk?

Well, Ben McGuire or Nevo can produce the same results from out of the writings
of Ethan Smith, or Josiah Priest, or some such early 19th century worthy, then
perhaps I'll settle down a bit. But they won't. The best they can do is to show how
much of the Book of Mormon is like a KJV Bible (and that doesn't help their cause).

Want to bet that the similarly derived Rigdon language data
will also correspond very closely to Jockers' word-print results?

Something tells me it just might.

If you do this with Rigdon, we should predict that Rigdon is going to rank fairly
low on these 26 pages, correct?

Correct.

But probably fairly high elsewhere? In other words, given the high correlation with
Spalding on the 26 pages you listed, it would appear that on those pages there was
little if any manipulation by Rigdon or Smith/Cowdery; rather they seem to be almost
pure, unedited Spalding. Correct?

That is my provisional conclusion. I can't see how any other answer fits.

Okay... so after I typed the above, I read this:

that is, where Spalding's voice is very weak in the Book of Mormon,
Sidney Rigdon's voice will be very strong, and vice versa.

Good! I think I am understanding this! So how about this... are there--or do you
think there will be--some pages where there is something of a 50-50 split between
Rigdon & Spalding? If so, that might indicate that those are pages where Rigdon was
doing a lot of editing and embellishing.

I expect to find evidence of such pages here and there -- but I think that Rigdon
will show up mainly under "his own voice," paraphrasing Spalding or making
insertions into existing Spalding story sequences. It is that sort of redaction that
we must begin looking for -- the "edges"of where a Rigdon insertion begins and
ends, in a text otherwise mostly attributable to Spalding.

There is no particular reason why an author's frequently used
non-contextual "word=print" should correspond closely to any
random selection of vocabulary/phraseology matches in the Book of Mormon,
UNLESS that author was the writer of that examined selection.

I think this is an important point, but it's still a bit difficult for the lay person to grasp.
Plain English? It's probably no fluke?

We'll have to get the Rigdon results laid out in front of us (maybe next year)
before we can begin to articulate the evidence in such a way that a "lay person"
can grasp it. Right now, I'm just happy that you can grasp it.

Theoretically, an author's word-print distribution in one of his
texts (or across a set of his texts) should remain relatively
uniform, regardless of the subject matter. It is the subject
matter which largely determines the vocabulary and the
phraseology in any descriptive or narrative text. If the match
of documented vocabulary and documented phraseology is
very strong, in various sections of a lengthy text, that match
alone is good evidence for common authorship. However,
when a particular author's "word-print" can be overlaid
directly upon those instances of vocabulary/language matches,
THEN the probability of one author, writing all the matching
selections, increases in proportion to the "fit" of that same
word-print overlay.

In other words........ it really looks like Spalding wrote (at least) those
26 pages and attributing that to coincidence doesn't work. (Though, no
doubt, some will try).

Very exciting, Uncle Dale!

All the best!

It gets better....

More later,

UD