Early Modern English Question

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Here's my attempt riffing off Gad's hot take:

Joseph Smith got the Kindle version of the Book of Mormon off his iStone. Reception was spotty at best. That's why sometimes the Book of Mormon has a tight translation, and sometimes Joseph Smith had to go off memory producing a loose translation.

Best not to give it much thought.

- Doc

[Guest]

I don't know how anyone, other than desperate cheerleaders looking for a spark for their team, would consider Early Modern English anything but Joseph Smith trying to sound biblical mixed with his backwoods mode of speaking. Carmack continually deflects from questions about Early Modern English perhaps being part of how people from upstate N.Y. may have spoken at the time. (Please refer to discussions on MD&D with Physics Guy, Carmack [champatsch], and Clark Goble). {I tried to find the relevant discussion over there but their search function won't allow finding conversations over a month ago}

Remember the Book of Mormon was dictated and not written. Carmack instead refers to what was written at the time instead of looking at what was spoken, which is quite different. Combine that with the fraudster wanting to sound otherworldly and biblical for his dupes and voila. Another key to this is that Carmack admits that the Early Modern English finds its way into the D&C and the supposed temple lot revelation. So, Carmack has to take the position that he recently did on the interpreter radio show a little while back that Early Modern English is supposedly a holy language. https://interpreterfoundation.org/inter ... y-31-2020/

The right answer of course is that finding Early Modern English in the D&C and Temple Lot "revelations" shows that Joseph was playing to an audience.

[_Lemmie]

Another issue for me is Carmack’s argument that a portion-not all- is in Early Modern English. And not a continuous portion, but words here, phrases there, syntax sometimes used but not always, etc. Then he concludes Smith couldn’t have written it because he didn’t naturally use these Early Modern English parts. But Smith did dictate it word for word off the rock, so my question is this: how did the natural Early Modern English speaker know any FUTURE words, usage and syntax?

Which is more likely, an Early Modern English speaker translating reformed Egyptian AND mixing a future language into his work, or Smith trying to imitate the past?

[_Dr Exiled]

Another issue for me is Carmack’s argument that a portion-not all- is in Early Modern English. And not a continuous portion, but words here, phrases there, syntax sometimes used but not always, etc. Then he concludes Smith couldn’t have written it because he didn’t naturally use these Early Modern English parts. But Smith did dictate it word for word off the rock, so my question is this: how did the natural Early Modern English speaker know any FUTURE words, usage and syntax?

Which is more likely, an Early Modern English speaker translating reformed Egyptian AND mixing a future language into his work, or Smith trying to imitate the past?

That is a great question and I am sure Carmack won't have a satisfactory answer for that one other than ..... God.

[_Gadianton]

Right, I don't recall that one getting brought up. I concur with Dr. E. it's a great question.

My guess is they would say they don't know why and that they've rescinded the ghost committee theory. They would say it doesn't matter, because all that's required to exclaim, "how could he have known!" is that the 15th century stuff be there at all.

[_Dr Exiled]

Right, I don't recall that one getting brought up. I concur with Dr. E. it's a great question.

My guess is they would say they don't know why and that they've rescinded the ghost committee theory. They would say it doesn't matter, because all that's required to exclaim, "how could he have known!" is that the 15th century stuff be there at all.

It's so transparently faulty, though. Lemmie rightly points out that the ghost committee could not have known about later english when they were doing their strange work. I remember Lemmie first pointing that out some time ago and I asked Carmack the question over at MD&D prior to being banned and he never responded. What a crazy theory. Do Carmack and Skousen have daddy issues? If I were in charge of the fund, I would be running the other direction from this theory. How could he have known? How could rational people believe such? The ridicule level is increased with this theory. It makes even former Mormons cringe. However, those in charge of the fund have to deal with many strange and silly theories. As long as the fund keeps getting donations, who cares if there are sightings of the three nephites or if a ghost committee may have brought forth the Book of Mormon? Money buys respectability I guess.

[_churchistrue]

My summary (not my belief about the Book of Mormon but my perception of the Early Modern English Theory:

A defining characteristic of the Book of Mormon is that it largely written in Early Modern English. Early Modern English grammar, phrases, and vocabulary are used pervasively in the Book of Mormon that are far outside the frequency and patterns of other pseudo-biblical 19th century text mimicking the Early Modern English in the King James Bible. The Book of Mormon is clearly a cultural and creative translation, since it includes a heavily modern and humanistic element that best correlates to a 16c Protestant Reformation perspective. However, in addition to a 16c humanistic translator or translation committee's influence, there also are words, phrases, and ideas that must have been contributed later. So the Book of Mormon text should best be seen as a 16c loose translation of an ancient record, that has been updated and massaged to keep it understandable and relatable for its 19c audience. Joseph Smith has no influence on the text and his role in its production is limited to dictating the text to his scribe off the seerstone by the power of God.

Some of you guys might enjoy the podcast I've been doing, especially episodes 4 and 5 on Book of Mormon Content and Translation. https://www.churchistrue.com/blog/mormo ... isode-one/

[Guest]

Carmack may well, for all I know, have shown that the Book of Mormon includes a bunch of grammatical constructions which would have been common in the 16th century but would not have been considered correct in later periods. I can't judge how good his case for this is, but I note that he hasn't yet published it in any mainstream linguistics, history, or religious studies journal. That's a red flag, because if his case were solid there would be no reason why any journal would refuse to publish it just because of its Mormon connections. From a non-Mormon point of view the only conclusion from Book of Mormon Early Modern English would be that Smith or his confederates had access to a previously unknown Early Modern English text. That would be surprising but hardly unthinkable. On the contrary I think scholars would love to think about it, if the solid evidence of Early Modern English grammar in the Book of Mormon were really there.

The problem that even I see with Carmack's claims is that there an obvious alternative hypothesis: Smith tried to imitate King James English but failed through incompetence. Exaggerating what he thought were KJB archaisms, he overshot the mark and produced a bunch of even more archaic archaisms. This is not an easy hypothesis to test, because there are no other cases of an uneducated guy in Smith's time and place dictating a fake ancient scripture. It's nevertheless an immediately plausible hypothesis, to non-Mormons.

It might be possible to test the overshooting hypothesis experimentally, by just asking random people today to try to speak Bible-ese. Or maybe theoretical linguistics would suggest some likely patterns of hypercorrection, which could be checked.

To his credit Carmack has tried to do an easy test of the overshooting hypothesis, by looking at the grammar in a handful of published texts that were written in pseudo-Biblical English by educated authors as a sales gimmick. Unfortunately Carmack seems to be willfully blind to the inadequacy of this control group.

Excessively archaic English just comes across as bad English—people have always mocked the Book of Mormon for its awful grammar—and no authors writing for profit want that kind of reaction to their books. So people writing for sale are motivated to keep the archaism down to an amusing but not disturbing mild level; educated people revising written drafts before publication are also able to keep their archaism mild. An author who is trying to put over a hoax, in contrast, can't afford to downplay his archaism too much, and an uneducated author who is dictating a single draft will not be able to do accurate archaism precisely.

So the fact that Carmack's other pseudo-Biblical texts are much less archaic than the Book of Mormon doesn't prove that Smith wasn't trying to do pseudo-Biblical English, any more than the fact that my free-throw percentage is much lower than LeBron's proves that I'm not trying to sink baskets.

[_moksha]

What a crazy theory. How could rational people believe such? It makes even former Mormons cringe.

If it is so crazy, then why is it consistently one of the top-funded projects in Mormon research? Are you trying to insinuate that LDS financial donors are daft? Perhaps they too sense emanations from the 15th Century. Es possible, si?

[_Dr Exiled]

What a crazy theory. How could rational people believe such? It makes even former Mormons cringe.

If it is so crazy, then why is it consistently one of the top-funded projects in Mormon research? Are you trying to insinuate that LDS financial donors are daft? Perhaps they too sense emanations from the 15th Century. Es possible, si?

I recently conducted a seance, trying to summon the Ghost Committee, a la the 70's Shazam series and/or the Isis series (I am partial to Isis). Someone completely different appeared to me, saying that the Early Modern English theory was the craziest thing those on the other side had ever heard. Entonces, no es posible. Lo que es posible son problemas de estomago.