Roman Story & Book of Mormon Similarities

[Guest]

Roger writes:

Ben wants to leave his faith out of discussion as though it plays no part in his selection of Book of Mormon production theories, but the fact of the matter is that the official theory relies exclusively on faith.

Roger, let me ask you the simple question I asked Marg. Does proving or disproving the Spalding theory require us to look at the orthodox story of the Book of Mormon? If not, then why bring it up? If it does, then explain to me what the role is of the Orthodox position in proving or disproving the Spalding theory?

I suggest that we can talk about the Spalding theory without worrying about whether or not there were plates (after all, the Spalding theory doesn't require them). I want to examine the evidence you provide for the Spalding theory - and instead, when I present my arguments, its not my arguments you try to address, but my alleged beliefs. Why is that?

So instead, he prefers to argue as though he were Dan Vogel which eliminates the "angel" question and eliminates simply accepting that the work is ancient on the basis of an internal good feeling.

Not at all. For the sake of arguing whether or not the Spalding theory is valid or not, I propose we start from the position that the Book of Mormon is a piece of modern fiction. That should (I assume) be the most favorable start for the Spalding theory. If it can't stand up to scrutiny under that assumption, it certainly won't stand up to scrutiny under any other model of production.

And if we allow for plagiarism then we're rejecting eyewitness testimony--which, I believe Vogel and Metcalfe don't want to do--unless we are going to give Joseph a remarkable ability to memorize very large chunks of text.

And plagiarism is what you are trying to demonstrate here, and the point I am trying to contest. And the issues of memorization, of witnesses, and so on are completely irrelevant when you have two texts that you are comparing and making claims about.

And let's face it Ben, you're not simply out to disprove parallels because you like disproving parallels. You have a vested interest in whether the parallels are significant since--if our argument is correct--then your faith is misplaced.

Not really. I don't have the same kind of appreciation of the Spalding theory that you do. I know that it has been rejected nearly universally except by a very small minority.

I love, for example, a short review (about 7 pages) made of Ellen Dickenson's book New Light on Mormonism published in Bibliotheca Sacra in 1886 (Oberlin), completely trashing her book (which by the way also claims that Hurlbut successfully sold the non-existent manuscript to the Mormons). At any rate, I certainly don't feel threatened by it. And I suspect that you haven't really bothered to look up any of my prior arguments on this issue (which is ok, but I do have a long history of dealing with this particular topic).

I don't see where you're going (Ben) with your above list of parallels, unless you want to claim that Mercy Otis Warren or David Ramsey were also authors who were associated with the Book of Mormon prior to 1838.

The point is quite simple. This kind of language - this "spaldingish language" isn't really spaldingish at all. It was quite common. I can find these kinds of phrases in hundred of books in the 19th century. And in the same kinds of quantities and qualities as Dale produces. This suggests quite clearly that you cannot make an argument of plagiarism from Spalding on the basis of this language. This language can come from Joseph's environment, and not from any one particular source or another.

In the first place, prior to Tom Donofrio, can you cite anyone who testified prior to 1834 (MU) that Smith copied the Book of Mormon from Mercy Otis Warren or David Ramsey because Rigdon had borrowed a ms from either of those authors?

This is not my argument. Although it is interesting that I already suggested that this would be the response. The biggest problem is that using your kind of method and decision making process, we can prove quite certainly that every author who has ever written a book has plagiarized some other author. In fact we could demonstrate that you are plagiarizing right now as you type responses to me. That is a rather ludicrous assertion. From the Spalding theory, this comes in because very few (if any) of the proponents of the Spalding theory have every actually taken the time to read much early 19th century literature. I have collected and read it for decades. So I don't see the kinds of parallels you see as being particularly noteworthy or unique or special.

In the second place, Donofrio's argument--which I find compelling--is that Spalding copied from Warren and Ramsey. You seem to think that is bunk... well can you concisely state your reasoning in simple laymen's terms for so rejecting Donofrio's arguments? Because again, his logic seems to make sense.

And I supect that you would. But its not. His argument can be used, as I note, to prove that an English translation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days is a plagiarism of the Book of Mormon (actually that's a fun excercise I engaged in once - to show how using that same logic, most of the religious leaders who were opposed to the Book of Mormon plagiarized from it ....).

So it seems you want me to believe that the similarities I think I see between Warren and Spalding aren't examples of plagiarism but simply the result of a common subject among contemporary writers and the similarities I think I see between Spalding and Smith aren't examples of plagiarism but simply the result of a common subject among contemporary writers. In short, you don't want me to follow what my own common sense is telling me.

Because obviously, your common sense isn't being very sensical. And your "I know it when I see it" isn't really a very solid argument.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Roger,

I see you are going over Cowdery's book.

As far as Lehi, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah, it creates some interesting issues, since Noah wasn't an Israelite, Japheth wasn't an Israelite, the book would not have been about Israelites, and so on. That account isn't usually given a lot of credit simply because it is very late, and because it isn't consistent with anything else in known comments that we have. It does seem quite fabricated. On the other hand, the idea that the Jaredites were descendants from the Noah's children is quite well known in various interesting traditions in Mormon culture ...

One of the things which hasn't really been done, is to have someone suggest how the unknown manuscript and Roman Story are related if they have such discrepancies in content (accepting the witnesses as accurately describing the unknown source).

[_Uncle Dale]

Roger,

I see you are going over Cowdery's book.

As far as Lehi, the son of Japheth, the son of Noah, it creates some interesting issues, since Noah wasn't an Israelite, Japheth wasn't an Israelite, the book would not have been about Israelites, and so on. That account isn't usually given a lot of credit simply because it is very late, and because it isn't consistent with anything else in known comments that we have. It does seem quite fabricated. On the other hand, the idea that the Jaredites were descendants from the Noah's children is quite well known in various interesting traditions in Mormon culture ...

One of the things which hasn't really been done, is to have someone suggest how the unknown manuscript and Roman Story are related if they have such discrepancies in content (accepting the witnesses as accurately describing the unknown source).

One possibility here -- that Lehi was the brother of Jared in one of Spalding's pseudo-histories.
Spalding would have had access to the Voltan traditions cited by Clavigero -- of Voltan having
been a descendant of Noah -- of his having seen the Tower of Babel -- migrating to the Americas.

Jaredites were not Israelites -- Voltan was not an Israelite -- Lehi, the son of Japheth need not
have been an Israelite either.

But, since we are here knee-deep in speculation, let's go neck-deep and see what happens.

The "Book of Lehi" is lost and must be re-constructed. Sidney Rigdon has lost his highly annotated
draft of Spalding's story to the flames of Mrs. Martin Harris' fireplace and must come up with
replacement material in a hurry. His earlier drafts of Spalding's story are fragmentary and in
great disorder. What to do?

Rigdon decides to re-cycle parts of the annotated epic unscathed by Mrs. Harris' fire. He excerpts
parts of the Mulekite migration from its previous place amongst Spalding's pages and moves it
forward to replace the lost Book of Lehi. All of the "Lehi, the son of Japheth" references are
scrapped, as are all the "migration over the Behring Straits" references. What can be salvaged
from Rigdon's earlier drafts of the "Book of Lehi" becomes the Jaredite account, and is tacked onto
the Book of Mormon as a sort of appendix. So as not to confuse "Lehi, the son of Japheth" with
Rigdon's manufactured "Lehi, the father of Nephi," Rigdon erases "Lehi" from the salvaged
Jaredite account and copies the example he finds there of the unnamed "brother of Shared."
Thus, "Lehi, the son of Japheth" becomes "the brother of Jared" and is totally divorced from
any narrations concerning Nephites and Mulekites.

Some version of my above explanation would account for the several witnesses (including the
Mormon elder, Erastus Rudd) remembering that Spalding wrote about a migration across the
Behring Straits. No such account occurs in our present Book of Mormon, and the Conneaut
witnesses (and other corroborating testimony) of the Behring Straits migration comes out looking
rather idiotic. Bits and pieces of the Behring Straits migration (or migrationS -- with the original
Spalding Lehi, followed later by Spalding's Israelite Nephi) are preserved in the Jaredite migration,
including the notion of ocean-crossing "barges" -- a vessel better suited for crossing the narrow
Behring Straits than the expansive Pacific Ocean.

Would Spalding have had any interest in the Noah and Voltan trasitions? Perhaps so -- in the
Library of Congress' "Romance of Celes" (cataloged under Spalding's name as its author) we
find an account of biblical peoples inhabiting the moon, etc. Here is an interesting excerpt:

At length the conference met, and all the learning and ability
of the Antedeluvians were displayed in the true poetic and
laconic style of Moses and the Prophets. They related the
tradition of the flood, of the ark and the preaching of Noah
whom the people looked upon as a mad man or a fool; but
now they were ready to receive

instruction from heaven; They were ready to believe in one
God if he would at this time manifest himself as he did on the
day they were about to sacrifice the young prince, Lamech,
our captive, heard them with evident sorrow...
http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRP14p16.htm

Whether this stuff is traceable back to Solomon Spalding of Ashford, CT (or only to the
pen of his younger second cousin and namesake) I do not know.

Perhaps it would be helpful if we could examine those Conneaut witness
statements collected by Hurlbut, but never published by Howe. I think they
were transferred to Lewis L. Rice when he bought Howe's newspaper office
and were taken to Hawaii, to the home of Rice's son-in-law, Dr. John Whitney.
Upon Whitney's death the preserved Rice papers were donated to the
Hawaii State Archives (in the 1930s).

Maybe I need to go over to Honolulu and spend some time in the library there?

UD

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale, its all still a distraction on the issue of similaties between the Roman Story and the Book of Mormon discovery narrative in question ....

[_Uncle Dale]

Dale, its all still a distraction on the issue of similaties between the Roman Story and the Book of Mormon discovery narrative in question ....

True enough.

The two discovery stories overlap each other in theme, vocabulary and sequence,
but they also overlap other treasure discovery accounts.Unless somebody is willing
to conduct exhaustive studies of this phenomenon, that's about all we can say.

Some day perhaps somebody will uncover additional discovery accounts, which they
will assert resemble either Spalding's or Smith's, even more than the two stories
currently in front of us overlap each other.

What, for example, would the Spalding advocates do, if Dan Vogel unearthed a
pre-Spalding document, preserved in the Smith family, which paralleled the
Times and Seasons publication almost word-for-word, but with the discoverer's
name being that of Solomon Mack?

There is a natural linkage between the Smith and Spalding discovery stories and the
actual texts that they purport to have discovered (Spalding's account being pure fiction,
of course). Let me say that a different way -- Smith's discovery account leads us to
read the text he purportedly found, which in turn helps explain the circumstances of
Smith's discovery. Same thing for Spalding. After reading the Roman story -- even though
it is incomplete -- we can better explain why and how he found his ancient text.

In both cases we see that a narrator/editor has "hid up" his ancient record, to come forth
to the future European colonizers of the Americas. This narrator may or may not have been
"the last of his race," but it is evident that the American civilization which produced the
"hid up" record has become extinct.

These similarities -- and many more -- are partly revealed in the two respective discovery
stories. But we can only make full sense of the discovery's importance by reading the text.

At some point we exhaust all of our possible remarks and how the Smith and Spalding
discoveries are alike or different. Perhaps we have reached that point in this thread.

The two discovery stories, however, lead us into the purported ancient buried accounts.
I have been criticized for pointing out some narrative parallels on-line, that require the
reader to actually consult the Book of Mormon, in order to discern a parallel I felt was
worth referencing. Perhaps I should have consigned such examples to an appendix. At
any rate, either the discovery stories spark our interest enough, so that we move on
to reading the Book of Mormon and Spalding's preserved writings, or.........

or, they do not.

I suppose that for 99.9999% of people who have heard of the Book of Mormon, our discussions up
to this point would be totally uninteresting.

Were we to move on, and consider WHAT the two respective texts revealed to us, about
WHY there was a discovery to be made --- were we to move in that direction, perhaps
we might shave that daunting percentage down to something like 98%.

Progress?
I wonder.

UD

[_Roger]

UD:

Maybe I need to go over to Honolulu and spend some time in the library there?

Make a vacation out of it... I hear it's nice over there.


Ben:

Dale, its all still a distraction on the issue of similaties between the Roman Story and the Book of Mormon discovery narrative in question ....

Distraction or not, I like to hear Dale speculate.

[_Roger]

Ben:

That account isn't usually given a lot of credit simply because it is very late, and because it isn't consistent with anything else in known comments that we have. It does seem quite fabricated.

Usually isn't given any credit by who? mikwut claims nobody looks at this stuff.

I would think it would be difficult to simply dismiss it since it comes from John Spalding, who's other account is early and who happens to be the brother of Solomon Spalding. You're telling me that John Spalding made the Japheth thing up from.... from where...? newspapers?

[_Roger]

Ben:

Roger, let me ask you the simple question I asked Marg. Does proving or disproving the Spalding theory require us to look at the orthodox story of the Book of Mormon? If not, then why bring it up? If it does, then explain to me what the role is of the Orthodox position in proving or disproving the Spalding theory?

No, in general it does not require it. Neither is there justification for ignoring the other production theories. The Book of Mormon was not created in a vacuum. It is a real book so it must have a real explanation. If the Spalding connection is not valid, then I would fall back to Smith-alone, which is apparently what you really want me to do. But as we all know, neither of those "theories" are the official one. Therefore I think the merits (or lack thereof) of all three positions should be open for discussion and evaluation.

I suggest that we can talk about the Spalding theory without worrying about whether or not there were plates (after all, the Spalding theory doesn't require them).

Since you obviously think there really were plates, I have a difficult time determining how sincere you are when you obviously don't want that perspective to be open for criticism along with the other two explanations and therefore I wonder how objective you can be.

I want to examine the evidence you provide for the Spalding theory - and instead, when I present my arguments, its not my arguments you try to address, but my alleged beliefs. Why is that?

In the first place, to the best of my knowledge, I have addressed every argument you've laid out on this thread. You may not like or agree with my responses, but I have addressed your arguments.

In the second place, your beliefs about how the Book of Mormon came to be are relevant to a discussion about how the Book of Mormon came to be.

I brought up the parallels not because I enjoy looking at parallels but because these particular parallels add support to the Spalding/Rigdon authorship claims for the Book of Mormon.

Not at all. For the sake of arguing whether or not the Spalding theory is valid or not, I propose we start from the position that the Book of Mormon is a piece of modern fiction. That should (I assume) be the most favorable start for the Spalding theory. If it can't stand up to scrutiny under that assumption, it certainly won't stand up to scrutiny under any other model of production.

That would be fine, except that you don't really believe that. Forgive me for thinking that Dan Vogel can make a better case for that than you can. But since you really want to adopt Dan's position, maybe you could answer the plagiarism question I've asked about 3 times now?

here.... this is the perfect example of why you shouldn't attempt to argue for Dan:

And if we allow for plagiarism then we're rejecting eyewitness testimony--which, I believe Vogel and Metcalfe don't want to do--unless we are going to give Joseph a remarkable ability to memorize very large chunks of text.

And plagiarism is what you are trying to demonstrate here, and the point I am trying to contest.

Well Dan doesn't. A true skeptic of the Book of Mormon does not contest that plagiarism has occured within the pages of the Book of Mormon. Shoot even DCP might be willing to concede that! And yet here you are apparently contesting any and all plagiarism assertions associated with the Book of Mormon. I see why you don't want to allow the discussion to move into these areas.

And the issues of memorization, of witnesses, and so on are completely irrelevant when you have two texts that you are comparing and making claims about.

Nope. Not for me. It's totally relevant to the question: where did the Book of Mormon come from? I know you want to limit the view and limit the line of questioning, but I don't. If it involves Book of Mormon production, it's fair game.

And let's face it Ben, you're not simply out to disprove parallels because you like disproving parallels. You have a vested interest in whether the parallels are significant since--if our argument is correct--then your faith is misplaced.

Not really. I don't have the same kind of appreciation of the Spalding theory that you do. I know that it has been rejected nearly universally except by a very small minority.

Not really? Can you really say that with a straight face? You're telling me if a Spalding manuscript is the basis for at least part of the Book of Mormon then your faith isn't misplaced? I know you don't think that is the case, I'm just saying if it is, then the Book of Mormon is not what you think it is.

I love, for example, a short review (about 7 pages) made of Ellen Dickenson's book New Light on Mormonism published in Bibliotheca Sacra in 1886 (Oberlin), completely trashing her book (which by the way also claims that Hurlbut successfully sold the non-existent manuscript to the Mormons). At any rate, I certainly don't feel threatened by it. And I suspect that you haven't really bothered to look up any of my prior arguments on this issue (which is ok, but I do have a long history of dealing with this particular topic).

Sounds like an interesting book...

I don't see where you're going (Ben) with your above list of parallels, unless you want to claim that Mercy Otis Warren or David Ramsey were also authors who were associated with the Book of Mormon prior to 1838.

The point is quite simple. This kind of language - this "spaldingish language" isn't really spaldingish at all. It was quite common. I can find these kinds of phrases in hundred of books in the 19th century. And in the same kinds of quantities and qualities as Dale produces. This suggests quite clearly that you cannot make an argument of plagiarism from Spalding on the basis of this language. This language can come from Joseph's environment, and not from any one particular source or another.

In the first place you claim hundreds and yet what you provide comes from Donofrio and what you have stated about the information he provides supports his conclusions. In the second place, in the case of the discovery narratives, there is more to it than simple parallels, there is similar chronology of events and prior claims that were made about a definite connection between the authors of the works in question.

In the first place, prior to Tom Donofrio, can you cite anyone who testified prior to 1834 (MU) that Smith copied the Book of Mormon from Mercy Otis Warren or David Ramsey because Rigdon had borrowed a ms from either of those authors?

This is not my argument. Although it is interesting that I already suggested that this would be the response.

You suggested it because I previously told you it would be! I've been open about this from the start... you call the situation "typical" and yet you can't duplicate it. That is the situation you find yourself in, try as you might to deny or downplay it.

The biggest problem is that using your kind of method and decision making process, we can prove quite certainly that every author who has ever written a book has plagiarized some other author. In fact we could demonstrate that you are plagiarizing right now as you type responses to me. That is a rather ludicrous assertion.

From the Spalding theory, this comes in because very few (if any) of the proponents of the Spalding theory have every actually taken the time to read much early 19th century literature. I have collected and read it for decades. So I don't see the kinds of parallels you see as being particularly noteworthy or unique or special.

Dale has read at least as much as you. Probably more. He sees parallels.

In the second place, Donofrio's argument--which I find compelling--is that Spalding copied from Warren and Ramsey. You seem to think that is bunk... well can you concisely state your reasoning in simple laymen's terms for so rejecting Donofrio's arguments? Because again, his logic seems to make sense.

And I supect that you would. But its not. His argument can be used, as I note, to prove that an English translation of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days is a plagiarism of the Book of Mormon (actually that's a fun excercise I engaged in once - to show how using that same logic, most of the religious leaders who were opposed to the Book of Mormon plagiarized from it ....).

Well that's pretty obvious Ben... when one is quoting the Book of Mormon or BOMish language to criticize it then one can certainly build up a pile of similarities. That's just common sense which is what you apparently only want me to use selectively.

If you can show commonalities between Jules Verne and the Book of Mormon then it seems to me you are showing that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century production rather than an ancient text. Such comparisons do not work against a Spalding connection but reinforce it. Nobody claimed in 1832 that Verne and the Book of Mormon were connected and because Verne's writings came later we know that Smith could not have borrowed from Verne, but they did make that claim about Spalding and Spalding's writings did come before Smith's and, amazingly, we do see parallels. Try as you might, you can't get away from that. And that is signficant. I admit it's not quite a slam dunk, but significant nonetheless.

[_Uncle Dale]

...
Ben:

The biggest problem is that using your kind of method and decision making process, we can prove quite certainly that every author who has ever written a book has plagiarized some other author. In fact we could demonstrate that you are plagiarizing right now as you type responses to me. That is a rather ludicrous assertion.

From the Spalding theory, this comes in because very few (if any) of the proponents of the Spalding theory have every actually taken the time to read much early 19th century literature. I have collected and read it for decades. So I don't see the kinds of parallels you see as being particularly noteworthy or unique or special.

Dale has read at least as much as you. Probably more. He sees parallels.
...

The mere identification of "parallels" in the Smith and Spalding discovery stories means very little.
The mere identification of "parallels" in the Book of Mormon and the extant Spalding writings means very little.

These phenomena are only of interest because (before the parallels were ever tabulated) we
have some old testimony professing that Spalding wrote part of the Book of Mormon.

There is a way to make the "parallels" possibly mean more --- to have some greater significance.

1. Determine a quantifiable method by which to exhaustively locate and document "parallels."

2. Map out the quantified data across a diagram of Book of Mormon sections (chapters will do).

3. Determine whether the pattern of distribution of the "parallels" data is even or clustered.

4. If the parallels are clustered, then apply computerized word-print analysis to determine if
"non-contextual" word distributions in the Book of Mormon align with the "parallels" distribution.

5. If word-print analysis indicates that different parts of the Book of Mormon were written by different
authors (and one of them was Spalding), then study the authorship distributions, in order
to try and explain such things as sequence of writing, chronology of writing, process of
compilation and redaction, etc.

6. If a coherent explanation for 19th century multiple authorship can be articulated, then
publish those findings and put the information into the hands of historical and literary
researchers --- allow third parties to contribute ideas, suggestions, corrections, etc.

7. Look for "hard evidence" to support the refined authorship theory.

8. If no such evidence can be found, then admit that Ben or Dan (or both) may be right,
and the Spalding-Rigdon explanation for the Book of Mormon may be wrong.

Trouble is ---- nobody seems interested in pursuing this line of investigation.

UD

[_marg]

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.

In response to your comment... "But, a text can be both of 19th century production and reflect a translation of an anciet text." of course any ancient text as long as its language can be decoded, can be written in any other known language, or even time period language as in the case with different time periods for english as long as the language being translated into contains words which express the same concepts. So you aren't offering much insight into solving the question why would Elizabethan english be used by those who wrote the Book of Mormon.

Elizabethan english is from the time period around 1600, not from the Book of Mormon's alleged historical period which is pre 400 A.D. If we ask the question why would the Book of Mormon be written in 1600 period English incorporating words like ye, thou, thee, and whatever else they used in the Book of Mormon ...we could come up with these 2 theories.

1) J.Smith had some plates with Reformed Egyptian words written pre 400 A.D. and he translated word by word into 1600 Elizabethan english. Elizabethan english was not the english J. Smith used, nor commonly spoken, in his day.

2)Spalding was writing a manuscript and in order to make it sound ancient he used Elizabethan english.

Now in evaluating the 2 theories one has to ask ..is there any purpose in theory 1 for Smith to use Elizabethan english? Any benefit? Any good reason? Well in answer to those questions, there appears to be no benefit, no purpose, no good reason to use 1600 english. Elizabethan english did not have a greater vocabulary than the english used in 1830. Was not superior in expressing concepts. And to boot, it wasn't even commonly spoken by the intended audience. It appears to serve no benefit to use to translate an ancient text, over modern 1830 english.

For theory 2, when we ask the same questions we can see there is one benefit. The author simply wanted to give the text an "old english" sound to give the appearance of being ancient, similar to the KJV Bible written in Elizabethan english which is a translation text stemming from Greek and Hebrew written in ancient times.


In comparing theories, theory # 2, offers a good reason for the author to use 1600 A.D. English whereas in theory #1, there appears no benefits, in fact it doesn't make sense to translate for the contempory reader into a language they don't commonly use and that is in no way superior.

Although I don't generally like to employ Occam's Razor, it seems to apply here. Ben you are choosing a theory which makes no sense, it's convoluted. There is absolutely no reason that Elizabethan english was needed to be used. It ended up being used only as a literary device to give the story the appearance of sounding ancient.

Note: I will not be replying further tonight