DiscussMormonism.com

I've been trying in my own way to confirm or disconfirm the
2008 Stanford University's authorship attributions for the
Book of Mormon text.

Since I have no word-print programs/skills of my own, I fell
back upon locating and documenting shared vocabulary and
shared phraseology with Solomon Spalding in the 1830 Book of Mormon.

I only checked out Mosiah, Alma and Ether -- as my time for
such work is limited.

My charting of the vocabulary and phraseology that the Book of Mormon '
shares with Spalding in these three books did not always
result in a perfect match with the Stanford team's results,
but I'm satisfied that where they discerned high levels of
Spalding's "voice" in the Book of Mormon are generally the same sections
of that text, in which I'm finding high levels of shared language.

I'll paste in a large composite chart for the three books below:



click on the image in order to see a clearer version...

Dale

To my untrained eye the charts look remarkably similar.

Excellent work Uncle dale, and complimentary to Jockers et al. A wonderful synthesis will be in store for us, should you publish your findings.

Roger wrote:To my untrained eye the charts look remarkably similar.

Mormon critics have argued that the 2008 Stanford University word-print
study was "rigged for Rigdon," and set up in such a way that some
Book of Mormon chapters would appear to have a probable Sidney Rigdon
authorship -- while other chapters would appear to have a probable
Solomon Spalding authorship.



If this is truly the way in which Jockers, Criddle and Witten crafted
their 2008 computerized analysis, they did not do a thorough job in
fabricating the Solomon Spalding "voice" in their word-print study
results. According to my own spot-checking, that is.

In the last 1/3 of the book of Alma, the Jockers team evidently
missed "rigging" for Spalding their study results for chapter 55.
Here my own inspection of the 1830 Book of Mormon text shows
a relatively poor correlation with Solomon Spalding's phraseology.
While an average page of Alma exhibits between nine and ten
significant shared word-strings with Spalding's writings, pages
for Alma chapter 55 display considerably less than that average,
with two-thirds of those pages dipping down as low as seven.
So, when the Stanford team attributed this chapter's authorship
to Solomon Spalding, they obviously did not craft their "rigging"
very carefully:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrt2.gif

Examples of even worse correlation with Spalding's phraseology
and vocabulary can be seen when we chart out the text for
Mosiah and Ether in the 1830 Book of Mormon:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtM2.gif
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtE2.gif

The Stanford team attribute Mosiah chapter 8 to Spalding's
authorship -- but my own inspection of that chapter shows
that its shared phraseology with Spalding dips far below
the average 9.2 significant word-strings per page, while
its shared vocabulary with Spalding registers far below
the average of 93.3 % exhibited on the average Mosiah page.

Likewise the Stanford team attributes Ether chapter 1 to
Spalding's pen -- but two of its pages are below average
on phraseology overlap and one of its pages is below
average on shared vocabulary with Spalding.

But I've saved the worst examples for the last. In the 1830
Book of Alma text, many of the pages that the
Stanford team attribute to Spalding's authorship fall
far short of the average 9.3 shared significant word-strings
for Alma's text, in general:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrtA2.gif

To sum up -- While the Stanford team may have indeed
"rigged" their word-print results to show a high authorship
probability for Sidney Rigdon in some parts of our
Book of Mormon (I've never checked Rigdon's language),
their "rigging" for matches with Solomon Spalding's
demonstrated use of language came out rather imperfect.

Perhaps they need to tweak their computer programs, to
turn out a better set of matches with Spalding's use of
language, as discernible in this master chart of his
shared phraseology in the 1830 Mosiah, Alma and Ether:
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/phrchrt3.gif

Uncle Dale

As you know, Viking and Mexican content (985 to 1520 AD) is lining up well with findings of Spalding's style of writing in Jockers's study and yours. New revision to be delivered soon.

MCB wrote:...Viking and Mexican content...

I still cannot fathom where Solomon Spalding got hold of Scandinavian
historical information -- perhaps from some obscure pre-Conquest
British history that focused upon the Danish rule, or something...

However, I can point out rather assuredly as to where Spalding
found his "Mexican" source material:

http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1604Acos.htm
http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1806Clv1.htm
http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1805sout.htm
http://olivercowdery.com/texts/1814Humb.htm

UD

Uncle Dale wrote:

I still cannot fathom where Solomon Spalding got hold of Scandinavian
historical information -- perhaps from some obscure pre-Conquest
British history that focused upon the Danish rule, or something...

UD

Maybe he found it in a stone box on this continent. ; () I am still searching. Have ordered several books.

There was a Sharon Turner who published a translation of Beowulf in 1805, also a history-ethnology of England on that date.