DrW wrote:Panopticon,
Very interesting OP.
The Jockers et al (2008) word print study suggested that Solomon Spaulding was an original author of certain sections of the Book of Mormon text. I do not recall if Ethan Smith was included in the analysis for a word print match and the Abstract to the paper provides no information about Ethan Smith specifically.
Reassessing authorship of the Book of Mormon using delta and nearest shrunken centroid classification*Matthew L. JockersDepartment of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Daniela M. WittenDepartment of Statistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Craig S. Criddle+ Author Affiliations
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
Correspondence:
Matthew L. Jockers, Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA. E-mail:
mjockers@stanford.eduAbstractMormon prophet Joseph Smith (1805–44) claimed that more than two-dozen ancient individuals (Nephi, Mormon, Alma, etc.) living from around 2200 BC to 421 AD authored the Book of Mormon (1830), and that he translated their inscriptions into English. Later researchers who analyzed selections from the Book of Mormon concluded that differences between selections supported Smith's claim of multiple authorship and ancient origins. We offer a new approach that employs two classification techniques: ‘delta’ commonly used to determine probable authorship and ‘nearest shrunken centroid’ (NSC), a more generally applicable classifier.
We use both methods to determine, on a chapter-by-chapter basis, the probability that each of seven potential authors wrote or contributed to the Book of Mormon. Five of the seven have known or alleged connections to the Book of Mormon, two do not, and were added as controls based on their thematic, linguistic, and historical similarity to the Book of Mormon. Our results indicate that likely nineteenth century contributors were Solomon Spalding, a writer of historical fantasies; Sidney Rigdon, an eloquent but perhaps unstable preacher; and Oliver Cowdery, a schoolteacher with editing experience. Our findings support the hypothesis that Rigdon was the main architect of the Book of Mormon and are consistent with historical evidence suggesting that he fabricated the book by adding theology to the unpublished writings of Spalding (then deceased).
http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/content/23/4/465.abstract
Assuming that Solomon Spaulding claimed copyright for his "Manuscript xx" stories, could the word print findings, as described above, be considered as evidence in an infringement action?
If so, how strong would this evidence be as compared to what you have described for plagiarism from Ethan Smith?
Thanks in advance for your response.
I personally find much of the Spaulding/Rigdon theory compelling. Aside from the word print analysis, which is not a mature science, there is plenty of evidence linking Spaulding, Rigdon, and Smith. In addition, there are parts of the Book of Mormon that read like they were written by a more mature individual who was conversant in the Campbellite rhetoric.
However, I also know the theory has some big holes, such as Manuscript Found being missing, the existence of another book by Spaulding that doesn't have quite so striking of parallels with the Book of Mormon, and the obvious bias of Doctor Hulbut, who put together the affidavits linking Smith with Spaulding.
Brodie didn't buy the Spaulding theory, but she didn't have access to all of the information we have today.
To answer your question, if we discovered Manuscript Found, I have no doubt that there would be a good claim for copyright infringement. However, given the problems, I stick with the theory that Joseph Smith probably wrote it with others, including Cowdery, Rigdon, etc.