Roman Story & Book of Mormon Similarities

[_Nevo]

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?

Yes there is actually.

The Book of Mormon purports to be a book of scripture. The language of scripture in the 1830 was that of the King James Version of the Bible. As Paul Gutjahr explains, "Smith wrote imitating King James English, playing on the long-standing association of Elizabethan English with the sacred propagated by the predominance of the King James Bible. No longer the common idiom in nineteenth-century America, the unique Elizabethan English conjured up visions of the sacred for American readers. Many of the later arguments against revising the King James Bible revealed how many Americans saw Elizabethan English as the only appropriate language in which to unfold the holy words of Scripture" (Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999], 153).

The revelation that Joseph Smith received in July 1828 (D&C 3) was expressed in KJV idiom, as were all of the subsequent revelations he received over the months and years that followed. Joseph Smith's 1832 account of his First Vision was, Philip Barlow observes, "in part unconsciously, laced with biblical expressions, revealing how thoroughly the boy’s mind was steeped in the words and rhythms of the Authorized Version. For instance, Joseph describes his prayer in the woods as 'my cry in the wilderness' . . . Joseph does not say the Lord 'spoke to me' but rather, he 'spake unto me.' The nascent Prophet was telling a sacred story, and this demanded a sacred language, which for him meant the English of the King James Bible" (Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of Latter-day Saints in American Religion [New York: Oxford University Press, 1991], 14).

As Barlow puts it, when Joseph heard the voice of Deity, he "heard him speak in both biblical and Bible-like language" (Barlow, 15). Naturally it made sense for Joseph to render his translation of the Book of Mormon, a Bible-like volume of scripture, in sacred, Bible-like language.

[_Roger]

UD:

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

Hasn't some of it been done?

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.

Isn't this what has occured with at least Alma? I think I've seen you state that you feel confident enough to at least identify Spalding as the author of a portion of Alma... correct?

[_Roger]

UD:

You really need to just start speculating more online so we can get it recorded. Based on the amount of material you know, sooner or later you're bound to hit on the correct speculation--probably sooner:

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

...let me stop you there... is there any testimonial evidence linking Spalding to the term "Mulekite"?

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.

I've read this 3 or 4 times now and I'm still not sure I'm following it... but assuming I'm getting what you're saying, how does that fit in with the book of Omni and Words of Mormon...?

To me Omni reads like it's been highly edited and for whatever reason not much besides the names are left. It gets to the point where it's basically just one name after another.... since we're speculating, how does that fit in to a Spalding framework?

Also... doesn't that present potential internal consistency problems when it comes time to merge the replacement text into what was retained of the original?

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.

Wait... a Mormon elder knew about Spalding's writings???

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.

Still not sure I'm following... I assume you are suggesting that Spalding wrote of two separate landings--one at Behring; one at Darien?--and that the 116 page loss for some reason forced Rigdon to abandon references to the Behring crossing?

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

I would certainly say so. You never know what you might find!

[_Uncle Dale]

...
is there any testimonial evidence linking Spalding to the term "Mulekite"?

None that I know of -- though some witnesses knew the Spalding name Zarahemla.

I suppose the Mulek story was plagiarized from the old account of Jeremiah helping members
of Zedekiah's family escape the destruction of Judah/Jerusalem. In one telling of the story,
I think Jeremiah takes the daughter(s) to Ethiopia and/or England.

I've read this 3 or 4 times now and I'm still not sure I'm following it... but assuming I'm getting what you're saying, how does that fit in with the book of Omni and Words of Mormon...?

To me Omni reads like it's been highly edited and for whatever reason not much besides the names are left. It gets to the point where it's basically just one name after another.... since we're speculating, how does that fit in to a Spalding framework?

Not sure -- need to think about that one.

Also... doesn't that present potential internal consistency problems when it comes time to merge the replacement text into what was retained of the original?

I'm going on the assumption that Spalding was very repetitive in his storytelling -- that he wrote
several versions of the migration/colonization/wars/extermination story. If so, then the Mulekite
migration might have resembled some of the Book of Lehi -- at least it was a close enough match
that Martin Harris did not complain that the Book of Mormon story was radically different than
what he had written down from dictation.

At any rate, the Mulekite story is missing from the Book of Mormon.

Wait... a Mormon elder knew about Spalding's writings???

Yeah -- as related by my ancestral family member, Daniel Tyler:
http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/LD ... htm#011678

I assume you are suggesting that Spalding wrote of two separate landings--one at Behring;
one at Darien?--and that the 116 page loss for some reason forced Rigdon to abandon references
to the Behring crossing?

Lehi (Voltan) traveled with his band, from the Tower of Babel, through Asia, to Alaska.

Nephi (an Israelite) traveled with his band, from the Jerusalem of King Josiah's day, through
Afganistan or Persia, through Asia, to Alaska.

Mulek (a Judahite) traveled with his band to Central America, landed and founded Zarahemla.

Then Mrs. Harris burned the first two migration stories, and Rigdon moved the third one.

UD

[_marg]

The Book of Mormon purports to be a book of scripture. The language of scripture in the 1830 was that of the King James Version of the Bible. As Paul Gutjahr explains, "Smith wrote imitating King James English, playing on the long-standing association of Elizabethan English with the sacred propagated by the predominance of the King James Bible. No longer the common idiom in nineteenth-century America, the unique Elizabethan English conjured up visions of the sacred for American readers. Many of the later arguments against revising the King James Bible revealed how many Americans saw Elizabethan English as the only appropriate language in which to unfold the holy words of Scripture" (Paul C. Gutjahr, An American Bible: A History of the Good Book in the United States, 1777-1880 [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999], 153).

The revelation that Joseph Smith received in July 1828 (D&C 3) was expressed in KJV idiom, as were all of the subsequent revelations he received over the months and years that followed. Joseph Smith's 1832 account of his First Vision was, Philip Barlow observes, "in part unconsciously, laced with biblical expressions, revealing how thoroughly the boy’s mind was steeped in the words and rhythms of the Authorized Version. For instance, Joseph describes his prayer in the woods as 'my cry in the wilderness' . . . Joseph does not say the Lord 'spoke to me' but rather, he 'spake unto me.' The nascent Prophet was telling a sacred story, and this demanded a sacred language, which for him meant the English of the King James Bible" (Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of Latter-day Saints in American Religion [New York: Oxford University Press, 1991], 14).

As Barlow puts it, when Joseph heard the voice of Deity, he "heard him speak in both biblical and Bible-like language" (Barlow, 15). Naturally it made sense for Joseph to render his translation of the Book of Mormon, a Bible-like volume of scripture, in sacred, Bible-like language.

So you are proposing a theory that J. Smith chose Elizabethan english because it sounded sacred. Well I would agree, the writers of the Book of Mormon wanted to use KJV biblical language..because it sounded like the local english bibles which were most common in the area at that time..and so for Smith and Rigdon, they wanted the Book of Mormon to be treated sacred. This in no way provides any evidentiary data that the Book of Mormon is a translated ancient text.

[_Roger]

Ben:

You wrote the following to marg but I'd like to respond as well:
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.

My opinion is the discovery narratives are small enough that it is difficult to say one way or another if all you're going to use is the texts. I think any rational, objective person can say, yeah, there are parallels there. But then you can pull out other narratives with a similar line of parallels so that the same rational person might say, gee, I guess for some reason parallels just happen coincidentally and if that's all there is to it, then that ends the discussion. But as I keep pointing out, that is not all there is to in this case. Not only are there parallels, but the story narrative progesses in a similar chronology. And not only that, but Spalding was associated with Smith long before 1838. And not only that, but if we actually take a good look at the rest of Spalding's extant document we can come up with even more parallels between it and the Book of Mormon. At some point the converging coincidences give the appearance of being non-random.

So you may be able to make determinations about two texts in a classroom and move on, but this is the real world and I think all the relevant data should be considered.

Now as to the question of whether or not one can determine whether the Book of Mormon is ancient merely by textual analysis, I would be skeptical. I would think any answer would be tentative.

The thing is, when we look at Biblical texts we know they are ancient because we have ancient copies. There may be some disagreement over who really wrote what or even just how ancient any given book is, but no one questions whether they are truly ancient in the way we have to question Book of Mormon authenticity. No one, for example, thinks the Gospel of Matthew was really written in the 17th century, because we have ancient copies of Matthew.

That's the problem with the Book of Mormon. There are no ancient copies. Nothing. Not only that, but there is not even a known case of "reformed Egyptian." We don't even have a modern sample of reformed Egyptian. There may be speculation about what it might be, but there is no known sample of reformed Egyptian. This is a huge problem. This is what forces you into attempting to determine the age of the text by simply using textual analysis. So no, I really don't think textual analysis is conclusive either way.

On the other hand, you are apparently willing to concede--even apparently by using textual analysis--that the Book of Mormon is a product of the 19th century, which says to me that you recognize a lot of 19th century writing in the Book of Mormon text. I agree. That makes the case that it is really ancient that much harder to make.

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.

But there are specific claims being made about the alleged translation of the Book of Mormon that--for whatever reason--both believers and Smith-alone non-believers want to accept to varying degrees. The believer should be bound by the eyewitness accounts that have God not only giving the translation but checking the errors. Many believers I've encountered are wishy-washy on that. But if you're going to argue that 19th century idioms and phrases worked their way into the Book of Mormon to the extent that it becomes noticeable then you also need to recognize that they came from God. When you start allowing for Smith's language to enter the mix, then who is responsible for the final product? God or Smith? It can only be God according to the witnesses. When you inspect the 1830 text it becomes very difficult to see it as coming from God and having been checked for errors by God.

The non-believer, but Smith-alone advocate, still wants to accept the eyewitnesses when they claim that Smith dictated word for word.... they just don't accept that the words came from God. I suppose the logic here is to allow for duped witnesses. But the problem of known cases of plagiarism is not adequately answered from this perspective. King James mistakes should not be in the Book of Mormon unless somebody copied them there. Joseph may have had the amazing ability to memorize large chunks of text, but even so, when you open the door to plagiarism (whether directly copied or dictated) from one text (KJVB), what is the rationale to limit it to only one text? There is none. So Smith-alone advocates are fine with the notion that Smith copied Swedenborg, Ethan Smith, etc. Well if you're okay with that level of plagiarism getting into the Book of Mormon, then why not Spalding? What's the rationale--again from a Dan Vogel perspective--of excluding the one author from the list of "possibly plagiarized from" that people had been associating with Smith from almost the very beginning of Mormonism? I don't see a justification for that from a non-believer's point of view. Sure, I can see it from the believer's point of view, but not from a truly skeptical, non-believer, Smith-alone advocate.

The Spalding theorist is not bound by the testimony of the Book of Mormon witnesses but rather is open to whatever the text seems to be indicating and is open to the testimony of early Spalding witnesses. I can hear the protests... why accept Spalding witnesses and reject Book of Mormon witnesses? Mainly because the Spalding witnesses are backed up by the parallels. You see this as circular, but I sure don't.

The fact of the matter is when it comes to the Book of Mormon eyewitnesses like David Whitmer and Emma Smith, we have to either accept what they are telling us--that God gave the translation word for word and even corrected errors--or we are going to say that the witness testimony is not trustworthy. If Smith's language and mistakes get past God then the eyewitness testimony is not accurate. If the KJVB was plagiarized--and the evidence is overwhelming--then the Book of Mormon eyewitness testimony is not accurate.

If the Book of Mormon eyewitness testimony is not accurate and plagiarism is granted, then there is no good reason for excluding consideration of plagiarism from Spalding.

[_Roger]

Ben:

At the risk of posting too much to respond to, I will go ahead and make another comment regarding your position on parallels as expressed in your online critique of Donofrio's research... in support of your criticism you cite M.D. Hooker's criticism of Dennis R. MacDonald's thesis that the Gospel of Mark parallels Homer and therefore Homeric Epics influenced Mark's gospel: (bold is mine)

(Hooker)

To be sure, some of MacDonald’s parallels are intriguing, but they cannot on their own provide an explanation of what Mark is doing. Odd details in Mark’s narrative do sometimes ‘echo’ events in Homer’s story (like the feast where participants sat in nine units of ‘five hundred men’) and sometimes provide contrasts (as with the storm, in which Odysseus was awakened but was helpless to do anything). But are these parallels and contrasts deliberate? Or are they accidental? … After all, as MacDonald admits, ‘feasting and sleeping [and] journeys are common in ancient writings; these and other similarities do not require mimesis’ (p. 127). … One is left wondering why – if MacDonald is right – Mark should have chosen to depict Jesus in this way, sometimes in imitation of Odysseus and sometimes in contrast to him. What would Mark have hoped to achieve? … MacDonald’s suggestion is that he ‘crafted a myth to make the memory of Jesus relevant to the catastrophies of his day’, and that he was ‘adapting cultural monuments to address new realities’ (p. 190). So was Mark’s Gospel simply a re-telling of Homeric myth? … To show that there are similarities in plot and theme between two authors is one thing, to prove dependence is quite another. That there are certain parallels between two narratives is hardly surprising, for similar themes reappear constantly in stories told by very different people. But suggestions that there is deliberate mimesis can easily topple into parallelomania.[4]

(Ben)
The application here should be self-evident to Donofrio’s studies[5]. With Donofrio’s work however, we are faced with even greater difficulties. Unlike MacDonald, Donofrio offers no discussion of method, no discussion of criteria used to evaluate the texts. There is simply the presentation of unqualified evidence. Because of this, we are left to infer the method (if any was used) and to evaluate the evidence for and against Donofrio’s proposition without the advantage of understanding his own process.

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/parallels.htm

Now then, on the basis of this reasoning--and I do find it reasonable--Ben now wants to apply the same critique to the parallels between the Spalding discovery narrative and Smith's 1838 discovery narrative. In the first place, I haven't seen how Ben wants to apply this in the case of each specific parallel in the discovery narratives... so whether he can do that or not is an open question.

But more importantly, the above scenario IS NOT an equivalent to what we are discussing here.... in order for the above to actually become the equivalent, we'd have to have something like the following....


For the sake of discussion let's say Mark writes his Gospel in A.D. 50. But then in A.D. 52 a follower of Mark named Frank becomes disillusioned and heads out to find evidence against Mark's Gospel. In the process he learns that there are people living nearby who--upon hearing the Gospel of Mark read--immediately made a connection with a manuscript they had heard their deseased buddy Homer read from many times. (Homer having died about 20 years previous). So Frank sets out and gets a number of testimonies from these people who all unanimously claim that they heard Homer read his story years ago and it had "Christians" and dudes named "Luke" and "John" and they were all followers of "Jesus" who was a worker of miracles.

Trouble is, Homer's manuscript is nowhere to be found. But Frank manages to get his hands on another of Homer's manuscripts, but is dissapointed when he doesn't see the names in it. Instead he sees an incomplete story that talks about another miracle worker named Julius who starts a rebellion in Rome and gains some followers. He shows this manuscript to some of the people he had interviewed earlier and they claim that this is not the ms they were refering to, but that Homer wrote more than one ms.

Later on in 58 A.D., Mark is pressured to write an account of how he met Jesus and he tells about being a fisherman and casting his nets and Jesus comes up and says: Follow me and I will make you fishers of men."

When people start looking at Homer's existing ms they begin to notice something weird.... for in it Homer tells his readers of how he met Julius... he says he was a fisherman out fishing one day and this guy walks up and says: You can catch fish, but if you come with me we'll catch some men."

Now you add that to the parallel phenomenon that H.D. Hooker already admits are "intriguing" and do you think Hooker might then want to give MacDonald's conclusion another round of consideration?

I do.

[_marg]

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.

I don't know those examples and I'm not interested in knowing them either. I think circumstances/data surrounding any text help to determine probable age. The circumstances/data surrounding Book of Mormon indicate a 19 century production, that data includes Spalding with parallels to others you noted, Warren as well as data involving Smith Rigdon, Cowdery...all the data points to fairly recent creation.

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?

Ben I think the presumption is that the Book of Mormon is a modern work. If it's ancient then who found it, where, what is the physical evidence that shows it to be ancient, what language is used which shows it to be ancient. Etc. Now Smith and Co or the Mormon church can make claims..but they are unreliable as truth. Essentially they are no more than claims without any evidence to support their claims.

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.

Ben I think you should quit harping on saying your religious views are being constantly brought up. The only time I bring them up is when they are relevant to what you bring to the discussion. In Mikwut's case if his argument against me is to attack me peronally instead of focussing on the issues, then I'll attack him and if it means bringing up his religious views I'll do it to illustrate a relelvant point. And if you criticize that something shouldn't be used as evidence...i.e. Nehemiah King evidence which is a chain involving
Aaron Wright and Hurlbut then I'll call into question how you evaluate evidence. In otherwords it is disingenuous to put a very high standard of proof to the point that it is virtually impossible to meet and then for yourself put a low standard easily met. What I expect is a reasonable and objective evaluation of evidence, all evidence that's relevant to the main question in consideraton along with focus on issues not personal attacks.

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?

See above. I am interested in looking at and evaluating evidence, fairly and objectively, within reason. by the way, you were quite sly when you started asking me questions about Nehemiah King. You knew in advance where you were going with that. Your whole point was to dismss evidence relating to him because no signature to any statement had ever been obtained. It so happens he had died once Hurlbut began investigating. So even though there is evidence as to what he said and did, you intended to raise the bar so high that unless a signed statement had been obtained you were arguing that evidence should be ignored. You weren't even going to allow it to be put to the side and considered along side other evidence to determine it's likely probability and value. I believe that was when I brought up your religious beliefs to point out, you treat evidence which favors your beliefs and that includes anything favoring the (secular) Smith only theory because it is much more congruent with your beliefs. I didn't bring up your beliefs to slam you solely on your beliefs..or to put a stop to allowing you to discuss further. But we can not go further in discussion if there isn't consistency and fairness in evaluating evidence.

. 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.

I've addressed this in another post. It boils down to based on the circumstances surrounding how the Book of Mormon came into existence that it is a 19th century written piece. Now other than mere assertions, you need evidence to demonstrate that it is actually ancient.

Actually, I do have evidence for an accepted theory. If I provide a list of sources, would you be willing to read them?

Well you'd have to provide the list. I have no intention of going on a wild goose chase. So I'd have to evaluate that list to see if it is likely worth reading. I'm sure you'll take that as me being closed minded..but there is so much B.S. out there in the world and to some extent one has to filter it out, as there just isn't enough time to waste on too much garbage.

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.

I did have a good look at Tom Donofrio's list of parallels, 61 pages printed off the net. He convinced me that Spalding used words and phrases of a few people who had written along a similar theme I believe "Am. revolutionary war" Tom's work was extremely impressive.

As far as rest of your post I'll have to continue tomorrow.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

Dale writes:

There is a way to make the "parallels" possibly mean more --- to have some greater significance.
...
Trouble is ---- nobody seems interested in pursuing this line of investigation.

The problem with this line of reasoning is fundamental.

If the texts share common themes - like warfare - which are not evenly distributed throughout the text, then parallels in the warfare content will also not be evenly distributed throughout the texts - and so it wouldn't provide evidence of borrowing - merely that similar notions were used when discussing similar content. This is one of the reasons why all of the early 19th century material dealing with wars (like those dealing with the American Revolution) show a high degree of similarity in places with both the Book of Mormon and Spalding. This is one of those areas of coincidental parallel caused by using similar language (i.e. early 19th century english) to describe the same kinds of things that you find associated with warfare. Commaders, troops, movement of troops, supplies, and so on. Since the Book of Mormon isn't exclusively about warfare, those kinds of parallels will naturally be bunched up in the chapters of the Book of Mormon which are primarily about warfare.

[_Benjamin McGuire]

marg writes:

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.

I think that's rather irrelevant though to the issue. Why would some 20th century translator of the Dead Sea Scrolls also use Elizabethan English to do so? We can claim lots of possible answers - but that also is beside the point.

One good question to ask is that if the Book of Mormon is a translation, who is its intended audience? If it is a work of fiction, who is its intended audience? And how do these audiences dictate the kind of language being used? Do you think that in Joseph's day, Elizabethan English was uncommon? Perhaps another good way to put it is this simple question (which isn't all that hard to make some guesses at). In 1829 Daniel Webster publishes an Eglish Dictionary. How many times in that English Dictionary is either the KJV or Shakespeare quoted? My point in that, of course, is that finding some Elizabethan English in a "translation" is not an indicator that it isn't a translation.

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.

Whats fun about this, is that it comes from a supporter of the Spalding theory. How many hypotheticals and assumptions and such go into that theory?

Actually, if it was in fact an actual translation, I can think of a number of logical reasons why that language would be used ... and so apparently can a number of traslators of the Dead Sea Scrolls.