Berkeley Group Wordprint Study of Book of Mormon

[_TrashcanMan79]

I'm following a discussion on another board (one lacking the quality membership of the Great and Spacious Trailer Park), and the abridged version of the conversation goes something like this:

Critic: FARMS sucks.

TBM: Yeah? Then why isn't anyone seriously dealing with their claims? (Included was the obligatory reference to Owen and Mosser.)

Critic: Which claim hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: This one. (Technically not FARMS, but nevermind...)

Critic: [Lots of links that criticize the earlier wordprint study done at BYU, but none addressing the Berkeley Group's.] How can you say this hasn't been dealt with?

TBM: Your references are obsolete. Owen and Mosser were, and still are, right: no one is willing or able to deal with serious defenses of Mormonism, and this proves it.

Critic: *crickets chirping* (Granted, this group is pretty slow moving, so I'm sure a response is forthcoming...)

At any rate, I attempted to find out what I could as far as criticism of the Berkeley Group's study goes, and, sure enough, there are a few mentions of it and some wave of the hand dismissals, but nothing that I found particularly impressive. Are my Google skills deficient, or is this TBM correct in charging that no critics, for whatever reason, have seriously dealt with the findings of the Berkeley Group? Maybe there have been in print, but not online?

Has anyone gone the rounds with a TBM on this before?

[_Scottie]

What does it matter??

If any group finds that the wordprint is the work of a single man, the apologists say "Well of COURSE it is!! Mormon abridged it. Why would you expect anything else??"

If it's not, the apologists say, "Well of COURSE it's multiple people. Have you READ the book??"

[_The Dude]

Two comments about the material in this link:
http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon ... eley_Group

I don't know much about this methodology, but it seems to me that two writing samples from the same author might not be matched if they were written in very different styles or at very different times in the author's stylistic development. For example, if the Berkley group sampled my missionary journal or a fantasy role playing module I wrote in my high school years, and compared it to a scientific grant proposal I wrote this year, would they expect to identify different authors or the same author? The linked article doesn't tell us what writing samples were used to represent J. Smith, O. Cowdery, or S. Spaulding. I think it is important to know this.

Second, the linked article ends with typical apologetic greed, claiming that if critics do not accept the word print evidence and accept Joseph Smith's miraculous tale of angels, gold plates, translation by stone-in-hat, etc, then they must "identify multiple authors for the text, and then explain how Joseph acquired it and managed to pass it off as his own." No, they don't have to do that. Critics can logically reject a supernatural explanation for crop circles without providing a complete naturalistic explanation that satisfies all believers in the supernatural. Mysteries about in this world, but only a fool would cry "angel" at each of them.

[_GoodK]

Critics can logically reject a supernatural explanation for crop circles without providing a complete naturalistic explanation that satisfies all believers in the supernatural. Mysteries about in this world, but only a fool would cry "angel" at each of them.

Sig line.

[_Daniel Peterson]

I don't know much about this methodology, but it seems to me . . .

Sig line.

[_The Nehor]

Critics can logically reject a supernatural explanation for crop circles without providing a complete naturalistic explanation that satisfies all believers in the supernatural. Mysteries about in this world, but only a fool would cry "angel" at each of them.

Perhaps, but I'd give a little more credence to the angel claim if the only person who witnessed the events in question claimed that an angel was involved. Saying UFOs make crop circles is a guess unless someone saw the UFO making the crop circle.

[_GoodK]

Perhaps, but I'd give a little more credence to the angel claim if the only person who witnessed the events in question claimed that an angel was involved.

Like that Muhammed guy, the pedophile that invented Islam?

[_The Dude]

I don't know much about this methodology, but it seems to me . . .

Sig line.

Oh, this would be far more quotable, don't you think?

"I admit I'm a pompous windbag, a despicable liar, and a venal character assassin, but it seems to me..."

(Pointers on sly self-deprecation are welcome! Thanks.)

[_The Nehor]

Perhaps, but I'd give a little more credence to the angel claim if the only person who witnessed the events in question claimed that an angel was involved.

Like that Muhammed guy, the pedophile that invented Islam?

I do think it's more likely that Muhammed saw an angel like he claimed then that the billboard in front of my house is redone by angels every month. The angels on the billboard is a valid theory but I have nothing beyond it being a possibility. Muhammed at least claims to be an eye-witness. Did he see an angel? Maybe.

[_CaliforniaKid]

Hi trashcanman,

A few thoughts. First of all, the Berkeley study relied partly on non-contextual words in the English text of the Book of Mormon that aren't actually present in Hebrew. Second, the Berkeley group claimed to have verified that their method was valid in translation by applying it to a few English translations of German texts. This isn't necessarily the same as using it on translations from Hebrew, which is quite a bit further removed from English than German. Third, the Berkeley Group did not compare the Book of Mormon to the wordprint of Sidney Rigdon, whom many Spalding theorists (including our dearest Uncle) believe had something to do with its production. Fourth, the Berkeley study assumed singular (rather than composite) authorship for each of the two Book of Mormon books they tested, Alma and Nephi. (Again, D'Unk would not approve.) Fifth, the Berkeley Group admitted that wordprint studies might not return accurate results if the author had imposed an external structure (like chiasmus?) on the text. Sixth, the Berkeley researchers admitted that wordprint techniques that work for one kind of text or set of literary parameters might not work for all others (like texts written in imitation of pseudo-scriptural Jacobean style?). And finally, I believe that John Tvedtnes has said he does not support the use of wordprints as evidence for the Book of Mormon for some of the reasons cited above.

Best,

-Chris