Marg writes:
Why shouldn't there be evidence of it being ancient if it truly were ancient and the text was physically discovered?
Most forgeries work this way. Have you ever heard of the Archko volume? The three different books of Jasher? Is the Book of Esther actually history? Is it an ancient text? The issue you are going to run into with all of these questions is that the narratives of their discoveries, while interesting, rarely have a lot to do with the conclusions about the texts. The evidence for ancient texts is found from within the texts themselves - particularly for alleged translations of otherwise unknown origins.
So let me ask you my question again (and we are getting a bit off topic which is the question of parallels between Joseph Smith's later discovery narrative and Spalding's so-called Roman Story). Do you believe that these questions - the question of the validity of the parallels or the question of whether or not the Book of Mormon can be determined to be an ancient or modern work based soley on the evidence of the text? I ask because I am not terribly interested in the religious aspect of this discussion. I am not interested for several reasons. Among them is the kind of issues being raised by you and Roger here. I am sure this probably has something to do with your past discussions with other LDS, but I think I am probably approaching the topic quite a bit differently than any other LDS you have talked to on this issue. If we can determine whether the parallels are valid, or the Book of Mormon is ancient without appealing to the religious tradition, then there isn't any need to bring it up. It becomes a distraction.
If you have to appeal to the religious tradition, I want to know why? Does an appeal to the supernatural lower your evidentiary bar sufficiently that you feel that you don't need to actually demonstrate your claims?
Those who assert it is ancient surely should have the burden to prove it as such. I see no reason why an text truly ancient would be difficult to establish.
I might be interested in this discussion once the current one is finished if you want. Until then, lets try to get back on topic. What about the parallels ....
The evidence that it a 19th century production is far greater than it is ancient. What on earth is text from the KJV of Bible doing in an ancient text historical text allegedly written pre KJ times...that is one piece of data supporting a counter argument it is not ancient. And what data is there that it is ancient.
In the early 1990s, Logos software company released one of the first translations of the Dead Sea Scrolls biblical texts on CD-Rom. It's traslation was about 96% identical with the KJV. Where it differed, it reflected either a variant reading taken verbatim from the ASV, or a unique reading from the scrolls themselves. This reflected a rather longstanding tradition of using such base texts when translating ancient records (and there is no question that the Dead Sea Scrolls texts were ancient). Part of the reason is that it eliminates two potential concerns - 1) that they can avoid dealing with controversy is passages where there has been long standing debates over meaning, and 2) that they can make the text accessible to the lay person without having to provide a complex apparatus. Abegg, et al., in the much more recent Dead Sea Scrolls Bible did neither, and included instead a fairly complex apparatus required to identify when a reading came from an alternate source than the traditional text. My point here is that there is no question that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century production. But, a text can be both of 19th century production and reflect a translation of an anciet text - even including anachronisms and translation artifacts. The questions dealing with these kinds of texts historically come from several different issues.
Now, don't get me wrong I really don't care if you think its a work of modern fiction. This whole line of thinking started with someone asking me about whether I thought the text was a 19th century production. And, I think almost everyone would agree with me (I cannot imagine anyone not agreeing with me) that it clearly is. So that isn't the real question - which I was trying to point out. Now, lets get back to the topic of parallels.
I just read T. Donofrio's response to you in your criticism of his work..and he notes that you have no evidence for your accepted theory and apply a different criterial standard to his. It simply is intellectual dishonesty Ben. He points out "the borrowings in the Book of Mormon are obvious and inescapable." And that's very true Ben, no amount of word game playing by you can change that. Call it what you will "intertextual" rather than plagiarism..it still points to the obvious, that Spalding borrowed from other authors. And given the evidence of witnesses statements that names were the same and they recognized Spalding's work in the Book of Mormon it points to Spalding's work plagiarized and Spalding's own borrowings from other others carried over into the Book of Mormon as well.
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/parallel2.htm
Actually, I do have evidence for an accepted theory. If I provide a list of sources, would you be willing to read them? And no, it isn't the case the Spalding necessarily plagiarized. This is why you may need to revisit the definition of plagiarism. Using common stock phrases that exist in the English language isn't plagiarism. If I can find some author who uses most of the kinds of language you use here in this thread, can I accuse you of plagiarism? Plagiarism is a deliberate use of someone else's material and passing it off as your own. It works to some extent in this discussion because - while inaccurately applied to Joseph Smith (who never passed off the work as his own), we understand what you mean by it. But, you can't really plagiarize an entire cultural millieu of texts. We can talk about how sources may have influenced one another - this is called intertextuality - but to actually show dependance is much more difficult. There is plenty on the internet to look at if you want ... and while you keep bringing up the witnesses, lets review just a second what assumptions your use of the witnesses implies:
1) There is a second manuscript. No one has seen any of it, no one has ever quoted from it. The only references we have to a second manuscript are late, and come after the discovery of Manuscript Found, and cotain nothing unique to identify them.
2) That this unknown manuscript is similar enough to the Roman Story to assert that the discovery in the unknown manuscript is like that of the Roman Story. This despite the fact that a substantial amount of the text is required to have occured in mesoamerica (following the witnesses).
3) That these witnesses were capable of remembering the details of their exposure to Spalding's story decades later.
4) That they were given information not included in the story about how to understand the rather unique names provided in that story.
5) That they were not coached at all in giving their witness.
Now pardon me for being skeptical, but I think this requires a good deal more than you are giving before anyone should consider these witnesses to plagiairism. In fact, we haven't really gotten past point 2. There simply isn't enough in the parallels you provide to assert that Joseph Smith borrowed from a manuscript like the Roman Story when giving his discovery narrative. Nor have we even gotten a reasonable motive for borrowing from the unknown manuscript where it is similar to the Roman Story for the discovery narrative ...
As far as Donofrio, you might notice that Dale himself agreed with me there. Seeing as we can find hundreds if not thousands of similar phrases between any two texts (and a parallel in a single word?), what use does Donofrio have?