A Divine Origin of the Columbia Chess Chronicle, 1888

[_Bret Ripley]

It's like how Morton Smith overused genuine Clementine linguistic forms in the Secret Gospel of Mark

Sorry to interrupt, but I have a Mr. Crossan holding for you on line two ... he sounds a bit miffed.

[_Johannes]

Thanks, Lemmie. This is worse than I thought. This fellow is one of the ghost committee theorists?

[_Johannes]

It's like how Morton Smith overused genuine Clementine linguistic forms in the Secret Gospel of Mark

Sorry to interrupt, but I have a Mr. Crossan holding for you on line two ... he sounds a bit miffed.

[_Lemmie]

Thanks, Lemmie. This is worse than I thought. This fellow is one of the ghost committee theorists?

I think mostly by his association with Skousen. As I've read recent posts by him at MD&D, he seems pretty touchy about being associated with it and he insists he is arguing only for a 16th century text; where it came from is not his concern.

His insistence on not being involved may have come from seeing the ghost committee idea get roundly mocked in multiple discussions online. Around that time, I remember Peterson weighed in, offering $100 to anyone who could prove Skousen or Carmack had published in support of the idea, apparently in an attempt to salvage their reputations on the matter. http://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterso ... itics.html

Unfortunately, DCP also published in the same blog entry his own first hand account of Skousen talking about it, obviating his efforts to move responsibility away from Skousen pretty solidly:

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.”

When challenged in his comment section that this constituted an admission of Skousen's involvement, he responds with something about how his second-hand testimony account of hearing Skousen say it doesn't actually rise to the level of evidence.

It didn't help, however, when he also posted this comment in the same discussion:

There's no question that Professor Skousen used to mention the idea.

Carmack just doesn't seem to want to be involved with any of this, I daresay with good reason.

[_Johannes]

Very interesting, Lemmie. Thanks for the information. THis bit genuinely surprised me:

Unfortunately, DCP also published in the same blog entry his own first hand account of Skousen talking about it, obviating his efforts to move responsibility away from Skousen pretty solidly:

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.”

I'd assumed that the "ghost committee" idea was a joke. But no, here it is - albeit in plausibly deniable, "half-way" serious firm.

[_Kishkumen]

I am a proponent of the ghost committee theory, or GCT.

[_Philo Sofee]

And if this doesn't work out, they can always fall back on the Holy Ghost Committee....

[_Fence Sitter]

Symmachus,

There has been a response over at MAD to your post here that I though might interest you.

I've been looking at that short, 1888 pseudo-biblical text with greater than 50% periphrastic did (about 1,280 words). A few things I've noticed are the following:

The 1888 text overuses "did say" to the detriment of "said" (6 of 8 = 75%). The Book of Mormon uses "did say" about 1% of the time, sensitive to earlier tendencies. Non-emphatic periphrastic did wasn't implemented so indiscriminately in the Book of Mormon, often matching early modern tendencies.

The 1888 text uses both exceeding and exceedingly with following adjectives. The Book of Mormon consistently uses exceeding with adjectives (exceedingly with most past participles), and it has 57 instances of "exceeding great", never "exceedingly great" — very consistent use different from 19c style, which had begun to mix usage, even with great.

The 1888 text has two instances of has, no hath. The earliest text of the Book of Mormon is more than 90% hath, higher than Shakespeare, and similar to various 17c writers.

The 1888 text has biblical "go to" twice. The earliest text of the Book of Mormon uses the less-common archaic "go to it" twice.

The 1888 text has "this wise", possibly an error for biblical "on this wise" (10 times). This is found in the Book of Mormon eight times. But the earliest text also has "in this wise" once (mh0718), which was more common in Early Modern English than "on this wise", though missing from the King James Bible.

The 1888 text has "now did the words of the wise men smote upon the ears of the people" — there isn't anything like this in the King James Bible or the Book of Mormon. Perhaps this is a typo.

The 1888 text mentions "preceding verses"; the Book of Mormon doesn't ever mention verse(s).

In short, Book of Mormon language is so much more sophisticated and archaic than this 1888 text or any pseudo-biblical text I've looked at

See here

[_Lemmie]

And Nevo, earlier in the same thread, made an excellent point about the inadequacy of the databases and the lack of systematic study on which Carmack bases his conclusions:

The credit belongs to Symmachus on the other board, not me (we are not the same person, I'm sorry to report). The newspaper article he cites mimics KJV style in an exaggerated, over-the-top fashion (the title gives it away: "Ye Ancient Chronicles of Gotham"). This was the nineteenth-century equivalent of the Hitler parody video, although the genre was well past its prime by 1888. According to the Israeli historian, Eran Shalev, pseudo-biblical writing peaked in popularity between 1770 and 1830. While many offered comic treatments of contemporary events, others were serious in tone (like Gilbert Hunt's The Late War). Most pseudo-biblical writing appeared in local newspapers (like Obadiah Dogberry's [Abner Cole's] "Book of Pukei"), so they aren't easily discovered in Google Books and other databases of 19th century writings. I know Carmack has looked at a few examples of pseudo-biblical writings (by Hunt and Snowden) but I don't think he has made anything like a systematic study. There are dozens if not hundreds of examples of pseudo-biblical writing during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/708 ... 1209842286

[_Stem]

champtasch:

In short, Book of Mormon language is so much more sophisticated and archaic than this 1888 text or any pseudo-biblical text I've looked at

That settles it for me. the mere use of the descriptor "sophisticated" proves Joseph couldn't have written it. I don't' know about "archaic" but sophisticated means something here. If Joseph did it there's no way we could call it sophisticated. If a bunch of ghosts got together after they died, having lived in the 16th century presumably, and wrote the English Book of Mormon so it could be dictated to Joseph, then sophisticated is the exact word we'd have to use to describe it. It's a perfect fit. Not only is Carmack correct, it wasn't written in the 19th century, well, not all of it anyway because there are random phrases that pre-date that era, but now we can safely say that doing it by the gift and power of God means dead people in ghostly form wrote it so the lines could appear glowing off of a rock.

This is the best defense I've ever seen. There is so much more evidence for the Book of Mormon, much more than the Book of Abraham, which also means tons more than the Documentary Hypothesis.