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Last week DCP was sincerely asked by one of his regular commentors what the presence of Early Modern English means for the Book of Mormon.

“DCP” wrote: DanielPeterson baxter999
7 days ago

baxter999: "What exactly does the dictated text being Early Modern English mean?"

DCP: Dunno. Not exactly, anyway.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

After spending close to a million dollars on this “research” DCP still can’t explain what it means. But that hasn’t stopped him from lashing out at anyone who dares question or expresses their opinion.

Everybody Wang Chung wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 12:11 am

Last week DCP was sincerely asked by one of his regular commentors what the presence of Early Modern English means for the Book of Mormon.

“DCP” wrote: DanielPeterson baxter999
7 days ago

baxter999: "What exactly does the dictated text being Early Modern English mean?"

DCP: Dunno. Not exactly, anyway.

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeters ... qus_thread

After spending close to a million dollars on this “research” DCP still can’t explain what it means. But that hasn’t stopped him from lashing out at anyone who dares question or expresses their opinion.

Sounds like it means that DCP just blew a million bucks with nothing to show for it. All they've done is shown that Joseph Smith knew his KJV very well. Which we already knew.

Could someone post a few of those Early English sentences from the Book of Mormon?

For example: "A Knyght ther was, and that a worthy man, that fro the tyme that he first bigan to riden out, he loved Mormanie, trouthe and honóur, fredom and curteisie."

Tom:

Would you happen to have a ballpark figure—or an exact one—on how much money Interpreter has paid to Skousen?

I honestly suspect they are just trying their best to make sure Royal Skousen's life's work has not been a complete waste of time with obviously no useful conclusions after such deft and thorough scholarship on the matter. It is truly one of the saddest spectacles I have ever seen in Mormonism.

The last solid figure I had was $329,289.65: viewtopic.php?p=18288#p18288

I don’t know if Dr. Skousen received additional funding in 2021 or this year. A specific line expense for Critical Text volume III appeared for the last time in the Interpreter Foundation’s expense report for the fourth quarter of 2020.

Thank you, gentlemen, for the salubrious pushback on my post...

I was about to add my thoughts. But, this sentence brought me up short. Maybe some do not realize the impact of such limiting language. But it does have an impact. An ice-cold, divisive impact.

At some point, one would think we could just address participants in --and even readers of-- a discussion without language that acknowledges only half of them.

Marcus wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:14 am

Thank you, gentlemen, for the salubrious pushback on my post...

I was about to add my thoughts. But, this sentence brought me up short. Maybe some do not realize the impact of such limiting language. But it does have an impact. An ice-cold, divisive impact.

At some point, one would think we could just address participants in --and even readers of-- a discussion without language that acknowledges only half of them.

I hear this, but believe the intention was merely to acknowledge the few who pushed back on his message, each of whom to my knowledge are male. Unless I’ve missed something upthread.

Separately, I was hoping Marcus would weigh in because it amazes - blows the mind - that Intetpreter continues to support an apologetic in which Early Modern English stands as one of the two MOST convincing evidences for Book of Mormon historicity. This is easily seen in Rasmussen’s “Estimating the Evidence” work of half-humor, half-apologetic, pornography project. His essays are sprinkled with incorrectly applied math, and the stench of bad science remains on the site. It is ironically, one of the strongest evidences against the intellectual seriousness of Interpreter.

The reason I bring this up via Marcus is: apologetically speaking, Early Modern English objectively is stronger evidence of a 19th century creative effort than a pre-Christian ancient epoch. And, if the strongest evidence in favor of a mathematical development can be validly (and more simply) argued to prove the opposite conclusion, then in practice we would expect 100% of serious scholars to dismiss the project out of hand. Is there any reason to expect otherwise? This one point in Kyler’s misguided work is so clearly a case of motivated reasoning, there’s no point in engaging. It’s flat earther level of stupidity.

I’m convinced this is why Kyler refused an easy $10,000 when I offered it if he would subject his essays to a thorough review by a sitting BYU professor of stats. While BYU isn’t Stanford, my experience is that most of its professors in the hard sciences are actually quite serious scholars who really do give a damn about their academic reputations.

Dr Moore wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:28 am

Marcus wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:14 am

I was about to add my thoughts. But, this sentence brought me up short. Maybe some do not realize the impact of such limiting language. But it does have an impact. An ice-cold, divisive impact.

At some point, one would think we could just address participants in --and even readers of-- a discussion without language that acknowledges only half of them.

I hear this, but [ I ] believe the intention....

Of course. The good intention is always there. You make a strong point, but we are a small group of contributors and readers and I'm just past the point where not intending to exclude is an acceptable excuse for exclusionary language.

Separately, I was hoping Marcus would weigh in because it amazes - blows the mind - that Intetpreter continues to support an apologetic in which Early Modern English stands as one of the two MOST convincing evidences for Book of Mormon historicity. This is easily seen in Rasmussen’s “Estimating the Evidence” work of half-humor, half-apologetic, pornography project. His essays are sprinkled with incorrectly applied math, and the stench of bad science remains on the site. It is ironically, one of the strongest evidences against the intellectual seriousness of Interpreter.

The reason I bring this up via Marcus is: apologetically speaking, Early Modern English objectively is stronger evidence of a 19th century creative effort than a pre-Christian ancient epoch. And, if the strongest evidence in favor of a mathematical development can be validly (and more simply) argued to prove the opposite conclusion, then in practice we would expect 100% of serious scholars to dismiss the project out of hand. Is there any reason to expect otherwise? This one point in Kyler’s misguided work is so clearly a case of motivated reasoning, there’s no point in engaging. It’s flat earther level of stupidity.

I spent some time this afternoon reviewing past threads documenting Early Modern English arguments and marshalling some specific arguments. I'll post some comments soon for the various gentlepeople following the thread.

Marcus wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 22, 2022 1:14 am

Thank you, gentlemen, for the salubrious pushback on my post...

I was about to add my thoughts. But, this sentence brought me up short. Maybe some do not realize the impact of such limiting language. But it does have an impact. An ice-cold, divisive impact.

At some point, one would think we could just address participants in --and even readers of-- a discussion without language that acknowledges only half of them.

It’s the academic LARPing. There are very few female professors in the idealized (fantasy) academic halls of 100 years ago.