Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_Roger]

How did I miss this:

marg, What you're really asking me is whether I would expect Cowdery to act as Hudson thinks Hudson would act if Hudson were in Cowdery's place. My honest answer is: "I have no freaking idea." The world is filled with people who don't do what I'd imagine I would do if I were in their shoes. That doesn't make them liars, or bad people or even wrong.

Here's a guess that's as good as any other. If I were in Oliver's position and (1) I truly believed Joseph Smith was a prophet; and (2) I truly believed Smith was translating the Book of Mormon at God's direction and under God's guidance, I'd (1) not think to even question at all; (2) find a way to discount or rationalize the potentially threatening evidence; or (3) ask Joseph why he was copying and accept whatever explanation he provided. Why is this my guess? Because (1) that's how psychological studies say that true believers react when presented with facts that potentially threaten their beliefs and (2) It's exactly how I responded to such information when I was a believing Mormon. So which is a better predictor of what I'd do in Oliver's situation: how I'd like to believe I would react or what actually studies tell us about how people in that situation typically react combined with my own reaction under comparable circumstance?

So this is useful, I think. Let's run with this. Oliver is surprised to see the Bible, feels threatened, asks Joe and Joe provides a satisfactory answer. Then why not mention that a Bible was used? If the answer is satisfactory, why not include it along with the other testimony of how the Book of Mormon came to be?

If the answer is: "it was not a big deal" then I suggest you need to rethink why Oliver would feel the need to question Joe in the first place.

[_marg]

So this is useful, I think. Let's run with this.

LOL..I don't know why I find that funny. You know all this arguing..and we've got the Stanford word print studies that support rigdon, spalding , Cowdery and I think even Smith having input into the Book of Mormon. Have they yet included Smith in the study? If I recall correctly they have but I could be wrong, because I know initially they had difficulty finding material they could rely on. I haven't looked at that study in a long time.

[_Res Ipsa]

I've agreed that one discrete section of the Book of Mormon was created by copying or memorizing text from Isaiah. I'd lean toward outright copying, especially if the study of italics you cited is credible. Do you know if it's been critically examined anywhere? The other part of the Book of Mormon I'd flag as a likely candidate for outright copying would be the words of Jesus in 3 Nephi, but I haven't focussed on it.

I don't know whether David's article has been critically examined. It was published in Vogel's American Apocrypha.

Thanks. I read it and no red flags popped up, but i always like to read any back and forth in the literature that discusses the original article. These things get vetted by people much smarter than me. I wonder it would be possible to extend the analysis by looking at something like vessr's list of parallels. Just thinking out loud. What would it mean if a high percentage of those parallels contained within them changes to italicized words? Do you think that would be stronger evidence of copying as opposed to attempts to recite or summarize? /derail

Once you agree that Smith or Cowdery or someone copied directly from the Bible (as opposed to memory) any portion of the Book of Mormon text, you've ruled out the exclusive method that was claimed: dictation while Joseph's head was in the hat - at least for those sections. You're postulating something from the text without the support of any of the witnesses. And again, at least to my mind, something they are denying by omission.

I think there is a fact you are assuming without sufficient evidence: that all the witnesses knew about the copying of Isaiah. If you want to go through the translation descriptions of each witness (I think there's a good list in MormonThink), I'll tell you why I don't think they give us any good reason to believe that the witnesses (aside from Cowdery) knew about the copying of Isaiah.

I can't tell you the number of times I had a file where the adjuster believed that the only reasonable conclusion was that the insured had submitted a fraudulent claim, only to find with additional investigation that there were in fact several reasonable conclusions. That's my long-winded way of saying I think we're moving onto shaky ground.

Fair enough. Give me a more reasonable conclusion. Why do none of the Book of Mormon witnesses ever mention that a Bible was used?

Moving into shaky ground means we should be wary of drawing any conclusions. Leaving aside Cowdery for the moment, I think lack of knowledge that the Bible was used is at least as reasonable as intentional lying. Some of the witness descriptions are also decades after the events -- given the way memory works, it's also reason to believe that it was something they didn't remember. We all think that certain events must be burned into our brain -- that may be true, but our later recall of even dramatic events is often wrong. With Cowdery, I'm really torn between him being fooled and him being a co-conspirator with Smith (or others). Part of my hesitancy results from reading about how con men and magicians work. Lost of really smart people who should know better get fooled by con artists, snake oil salesman, ponzi schemers, religious charlatans. Read about some of Randi's debunkings -- it's pretty eye opening. The human capacity for self deception is pretty damn scary.

I think we have to be extremely careful to parse through what the witnesses actually witnessed -- separate what they actually saw and heard from what someone told them. That's very difficult because we have only brief snippets of description, some made decades after the fact, with no indication that anyone asked detailed questions about the process.

Agreed.

Which raises the question: based on what the witnesses said, what do you think each of them directly witnessed? Did each witness observe the translation each and every day? Did they even observe it for an entire session. Why do they say that words appeared to Smith on the stone?

]You probably know this material better than I -- do we have record of anyone asking these witnesses about a Bible?

To my knowledge, no. I suspect that is the case since Dan Vogel and I and marg were debating a couple years ago and Dan never produced a witness who was asked directly about the use of a Bible. The witnesses do, however, respond to the charge that a Spalding manuscript was used and, not surprisingly, they deny it.

Either I've never read these denials or I've forgotten them. Is there any evidence that these witnesses saw a Spalding manuscript being used?

<snip>

There is a world of difference between being around when the process was occurring and actually paying attention.

Correct. Secrecy of how this all went down seems to be a key component, especially by Smith himself. Call me cynical, but that very fact alone raises red flags for me.

Secrecy is one of the many things about Smith that raises red flags for me. If I recall correctly, there is an account of him being asked to describe the translation process and he refused to discuss it. At the same time, other folks apparently saw the process described it. One account was in the Times and Seasons, right? So, yes, I'm suspicious of the fact that Smith wouldn't describe something that he really didn't attempt to keep secret. I find one other thing curious: I don't think Cowdrey talks about the hat. He talks about use of the Urim & Thummin, but not the hat or stone. (Please feel to correct my memory.) His description sounds more "party line," than the rock in a hat story, so it nudges me toward thinking Cowdery was an insider and not a dupe.

One thing I think we can be sure of: the descriptions of what Smith saw in the hat are not eyewitness testimony. None of these witnesses say they put their heads in the hat and saw something, let alone looked at the same time as Smith.

Nor do they deny it. And we are indeed told that Oliver attempted to translate. How that allegedly went down, we are not told. It seems to me, if you're going to trust these witnesses, there is about as much reason to reject the idea that they ever peeked in the hat or saw the stone's LED screen while peeking over Joseph's shoulder, as there is that they weren't alarmed by the use of a Bible. The fact is, they give pretty darn certain testimony about words appearing in the stone. It's not like Whitmer hesitates or qualifies his statement by saying this is all just his speculation.

Of the 11 or 12 witness descriptions listed in MormonThink, only three describe what Joseph saw in the stone. They vary slightly in details. But they are stated as descriptions of what Joseph saw. Nothing in any of the accounts indicates in any way that any of the witnesses looked in the hat and saw the words themselves. So, what was their basis for describing what Joseph saw? How could they know what Joseph saw unless Joseph (or someone else) told them? And the fact that someone does not deny a fact is a very unreliable basis for concluding that the fact is true. If you want to play guessing games with the internal thought processes of the witnesses, wouldn't it be an even stronger testimony to say "I looked in the hat myself and I saw the words on the stone?" Why leave that part out? Under the facts we have, an interpretation equally plausible to "the witnesses intentionally lied by omission" is "the witnesses relied on Joseph's description of what he saw in describing the process." Or, perhaps, "Martin Harris decided himself on what Smith was seeing and told that to Whitmer and Knight, Sr.

<snip>

And it's not clear to me from the snippets how some of the witnesses concluded that the words would not go away if there was an error in what the scribe wrote. Was that also something somebody told them? Or did they witness Smith saying "Oliver, you misspelled Zarahemla. You have to correct it before we can go on." I can't tell from the snippets.

Correct. So if we are going to believe portions of their testimony, how do we filter out truth from fiction?

I suppose the best answer is "go ask a historian." If you want a one lawyer's perspective, I'm happy to give it. Here's what I did in my fraud work. First, encourage the witness to tell the story in her own words. Led the witness as little as possible. Ask questions designed to elicit as much detail as possible. Especially focus on getting information about facts that (1) you have already attempted to verify; or (2) you know it is possible to verify. After you've elicited as much description as possible, confront the witness with any evidence that contradicts their story and ask them to explain. If they do, elicit detail aimed at factual claims that are verifiable. Then, attempt to verify the explanations. Before concluding that a witness is lying, make an honest effort to construct an interpretation of facts that is consistent with the evidence and that does not require the witness to have lied. If that's not possible, try to construct an interpretation of facts that requires the fewest amount of lies. Try to consciously avoid evaluating the witness's truthfulness based on what how you think you would have behaved in that situation.

If you do that and are required to conclude that the witness has lied to you, don't rely on the uncorroborated testimony of that witness. But don't try and guess at what is true based solely on the fact that you know the witness has lied.

How do you adapt that to the situation presented here, when you can't interview the witnesses and the opportunity for factual corroboration is limited? I still think a critical part of the analysis is to make an honest attempt to interpret the facts in a way that minimizes the number of lies/liars. So, before you can persuade me that, say, Whitmer lied by not disclosing the copying of Isaiah, you're going to need to provide persuasive evidence that Whitmer knew the copying had taken place. You and I are looking at the facts through critical eyes. Whitmer appears to be looking through believer's eyes. I think we have to consider that the difference in stances means that things that are important to you and me were not necessarily important to Whitmer. Or Knight, Sr. Or the others who described the translation process. Unlike us, they believed that God was involved in the translation. And so, like millions of Mormons today, the correspondence between 2 Nephi and Isaiah wasn't important to them.

The research on lying is pretty complicated. On the one hand, research indicates that we all lie constantly. On the other hand, few of us perceive ourselves to be liars. I don't know what to make of that, but it makes me hesitant to accuse someone of consciously lying unless I have pretty damn good evidence.

Anyway, I'm into my third glass of wine and that's all I've got for now.

Cheers.

[_Res Ipsa]

I apologize for this off topic post!

The last several pages of this thread has been a profoundly beautiful example of kind and courteous discussion!

It was a sincere pleasure to have read it!


Peace,
Ceeboo

Thanks Ceeboo. I'm glad you are enjoying it. I am too. I've learned new stuff (like the article about the italics and Jeff's Leaves of Grass parallel experiment). And I don't think you need to apologize for popping in to comment.

[_marg]

What is it that you know about Cowdery that leads you to conclude he wouldn't react to any information that would undermine his belief that Smith was a prophet in accordance with the backfire effect?

Brad because he's obviously not trustworthy.

The Book of Mormon testimony statement is a big clue unless he's delusional...but there is no reason to assume he was delusional or even a gullible type person.

It's just too convenient for Cowdery to claim to have seen angels, god, the urim and thummin for which there's no evidence and to be the main one helping Smith write the Book of Mormon and have a vested interest in the success of the religion.

According to http://www.mormonleaks.com Cowdery in a 40 day period before the Book of Mormon was completed May-15-June 25, 1929, he claimed to have received 3 different angelic visits. may 15, 1829 John the Baptist, later same day Peter, James and John (resurrected apostles of Jesus Christ)..and June 25, 1829. ..Moroni.

Apparently April 3 1836 he claimed he and Smith were visited by resurrected biblical prophets Moses, Elias, and Elijah and by Jesus Christ.

Are you willing to give him the benefit of doubt and believe him?

[_marg]

I agree, it's impossible. But the exercise is useful as an example of how parallel sentence structure can occur by chance as opposed to deliberate copying. I think the dissimilar theme cuts both ways. Given the dissimilar theme, one could argue that it's surprising how many parallels Lindsay could find -- the implication being the likelihood of random parallels is greater than we may otherwise think. I suspect you're right about uniqueness v. common usage, although I'm a little hesitant to draw a firm conclusion without actually investigating other sources.

I did look into plagiarism last night a bitand found there are various plagiarism detection programs but while they are useful for pointing out when thereis reason to suspect plagiarism they all still require an individual to evaluate. And I think that's probably because it takes an individual to evaluate context..to determine if the words have been stolen..as opposed to a random occurrence.

With the Leaves of Grass there is no reason to suspect plagiarism of the Book of Mormon whereas in the Book of Mormon there is justified reason to suspect plagiarism with the KJB. Even if the plagiarism occurred by memory, even if it occurred subconsiously it is still plagiarism. Since it is possible to be so familiar with the KJB..that one could inject willy nilly phrases from it, the examples vessr gives don't provide that much help in evaluating how the Book of Mormon was prepared. But if we add in what I've been discussing such as reasons why one is justified to conclude Cowdery is untrustworthy as a witness, that there is good reason to think he and Smith worked with a Bible available..then it's really not much of a leap of reasoning to assume that many of those parallel phrases Vessr listed may have been picked up by using the KJB. It's not crucial evidence, it's not necessary very strong evidence but it's another piece.

The wordprint study by Stanford I suppose is a type of plagiarism detection program in which it can rank the potential authors as to their probable % input and where that input is most likely in a book.

Evaluating the parallels such as Tom Donfrio's just like any evidence should be considered in context with other data/evidence known.

[_Res Ipsa]

The first time I considered Cowdery and how he'd react to a Bible present was this morning, pretty much just before I wrote you. It was Roger's post that got me thinking about it. I agreed as you may have noticed in a previous post that I could see the possibility of witnesses if they happened to view a Bible present with Smith and Cowdery in the translation process, not necessarily thinking it important to mention in interviews. So I could accept that possibility even though I think it's very weak that the witnesses said nothing about a Bible present. But then I started thinking about Oliver and his involvement..and how much of Isaiah was present in the Book of Mormon. He would have known when he was writing the parts which were Isaiah...it wasn't just a few lines. Roger pointed out that many of the KJB italicized words were changed. That takes effort..so that even if someone had good memory to be able to quote Isaiah..doing so while changing many of the italized words would be extremely difficult without the material present. So I do not believe that Smith dictated Isaiah from memory. So if Oliver is sitting there day after day, with smith dictating..it would be impossible in my opinion for Smith to hide the Bible or sheets of paper and read from it..without Cowdery being aware. And if Cowdery is aware and he's bought into this whole business which Smith claims....that Smith is dictating ancient writings..then copying from the modern Bible...would show Smith's not being guided by a God as is claimed.

You see Brad I don't come from a religious background. I can appreciate people buy into religious extraordinary claims especially when they've been indoctrinated or had that sort of influence from a young age. But Oliver while he may have been religious was new to this venture...and he had a vested interest. Even though it's a religious venture doesn't mean he wouldn't have been skeptical about..if he truly believed Smith a prophet. And if truly believed Smith a prophet and bought into it all, then why not accept polygamy.

And of course then there is the ridiculous testimony in the Book of Mormon which is just too absurd to have ever happened.

So when I evaluate the evidence that I know and ask what is more likely...that Cowdery was a dupe, either never saw the Bible or thought nothing of the Bible present, and I'm aware that Oliver was suspiciously silent about the whole process..I ask myself what is most likely to have happened. The options are he truly believes it all, and he's telling the truth in the Book of Mormon witness statement or he's in on it with Smith and the 2 of them are putting together this Book of Mormon with material present..and most likely explanation given the evidence ...is he's in on it.

And as far my bias, I couldn't care less whether Smith acted alone or Smith and Co along with prepared material concocted the Book of Mormon. I have no vested interest in this other than a hobby interest of sorts..which at this point is not much of a hobby even.


by the way..there have been bits of information that I've picked up over the years from which with time I came to the conclusion he had to be have been in on it with Smith. I haven't really given Mormonism much thought for the last year. It's just bits and pieces that have accumulated over the time I have taken an interest. For example I believe I read he had a business partner when he was long out of Mormonism and he confided it was a scam. It's obvious to me the whole thing was a scam anyhow. As to why he wouldn't have been vocal about that publicly - he had lots to lose and nothing to gain doing so. The negative repercussion to admit publicly he was in on the scam would have been enormous and may have subjected himself and family harm.

As far as the backfire affect and the position I hold I don't think that's what's going on with me. This is not the sort of belief they are talking about. It's not important to me personally what actually happened..it is a mystery I find interesting.

If I sounded like I was implying the backfire effect was at play in your posts here, I apologize. I was using it only in response to the scenario you gave me upthread -- where Cowdery is a true believer and then witnesses the copying. Given that scenario, I think the backfire effect provides a good explanation for Cowdery not saying anything about the copying. I was responding to a hypothetical scenario, not trying to assess all the evidence about Cowdery.

I haven't ever sat down and tried to figure out how Cowdery fits into the overall story. If I looked at all the evidence, I might very well agree with your conclusion.

[_Res Ipsa]

I agree, it's impossible. But the exercise is useful as an example of how parallel sentence structure can occur by chance as opposed to deliberate copying. I think the dissimilar theme cuts both ways. Given the dissimilar theme, one could argue that it's surprising how many parallels Lindsay could find -- the implication being the likelihood of random parallels is greater than we may otherwise think. I suspect you're right about uniqueness v. common usage, although I'm a little hesitant to draw a firm conclusion without actually investigating other sources.

I did look into plagiarism last night a bitand found there are various plagiarism detection programs but while they are useful for pointing out when thereis reason to suspect plagiarism they all still require an individual to evaluate. And I think that's probably because it takes an individual to evaluate context..to determine if the words have been stolen..as opposed to a random occurrence.

With the Leaves of Grass there is no reason to suspect plagiarism of the Book of Mormon whereas in the Book of Mormon there is justified reason to suspect plagiarism with the KJB. Even if the plagiarism occurred by memory, even if it occurred subconsiously it is still plagiarism. Since it is possible to be so familiar with the KJB..that one could inject willy nilly phrases from it, the examples vessr gives don't provide that much help in evaluating how the Book of Mormon was prepared. But if we add in what I've been discussing such as reasons why one is justified to conclude Cowdery is untrustworthy as a witness, that there is good reason to think he and Smith worked with a Bible available..then it's really not much of a leap of reasoning to assume that many of those parallel phrases Vessr listed may have been picked up by using the KJB. It's not crucial evidence, it's not necessary very strong evidence but it's another piece.

The wordprint study by Stanford I suppose is a type of plagiarism detection program in which it can rank the potential authors as to their probable % input and where that input is most likely in a book.

Evaluating the parallels such as Tom Donfrio's just like any evidence should be considered in context with other data/evidence known.

LOL. I did exactly the same thing and found exactly the same programs. And I agree: it looks like they use google like searches to spot possible plagiarism, but leave it to us humans to figure it out. I also looked at plagiarism policies at several universities, but they didn't get into how they know it when they see it.

Actually, in the context of our overall discussion, the difference between dictating from the text and recitation from memory is very important. Roger makes the claim that all of the witnesses that described the translation process intentionally lied by not disclosing that Smith used a Bible. If all of vessr's 500 parallels are due to Smith grabbing a Bible and reading for two words or three words or a partial phrase or a whole phrase, that dramatically increases the odds that someone other than Cowdery was witness to dictating from the Bible. On the other hand, if vessr's parallels represent attempts to recite or summarize scripture, or are due to chance, then we have no reason to believe that the witnesses other than Cowdery witnessed dictation.

There's one thing I think you're saying that I don't agree with: that the existence of strong evidence or lots of pretty good evidence strengthens a piece of evidence that, in isolation, would be weak. I think when you do that, you end up drawing conclusions beyond what the totality of events supports. Let's use Criddle's metaphor of the dots. Weak evidence is a light dot, strong is a dark dot. The shade of each dot rides on the its own strength. Together, they may form a pattern. But adding a black dot doesn't mean we get to make all the light gray dots darker. For example, suppose we found some DNA at a murder scene and the lab report says there is a 50% chance it's the DNA of our suspect. The next day, the suspect confesses and produces pictures of the murder documenting how he killed the victim. What is the chance that the DNA is from our suspect? Still 50%.

The fact that there is a baseline of parallels that we should expect between any two books isn't changed by some other evidence of some deliberate copying. The randomness still exists, and we can't ignore it by pointing to other evidence. Let's say we generated a list of all parallel word order between the Book of Mormon and a popular novel from that day. When we compare it to what we find when studying lots of books for which there is no evidence of copying, we see that the parallels between the Book of Mormon and the novel are exactly what we would expect to find due to chance. Now, add a witness who says there was a copy of that novel sitting on the shelf in Whitmer's home. That doesn't change the analysis of the parallels. Together, the two pieces of evidence support the conclusion that Smith had access to the novel, but didn't copy from it. Now let's add a witness who says he overheard a conversation where Emma said Joseph copied from the novel. What do we have? Does the witness statement change the parallels evidence? No. That evidence still doesn't differ from what we'd expect to find if there was no copying. What we have is two pieces of conflicting evidence, and we have some more investigating to do.

[_Res Ipsa]

What is it that you know about Cowdery that leads you to conclude he wouldn't react to any information that would undermine his belief that Smith was a prophet in accordance with the backfire effect?

Brad because he's obviously not trustworthy.

The Book of Mormon testimony statement is a big clue unless he's delusional...but there is no reason to assume he was delusional or even a gullible type person.

It's just too convenient for Cowdery to claim to have seen angels, god, the urim and thummin for which there's no evidence and to be the main one helping Smith write the Book of Mormon and have a vested interest in the success of the religion.

According to http://www.mormonleaks.com Cowdery in a 40 day period before the Book of Mormon was completed May-15-June 25, 1929, he claimed to have received 3 different angelic visits. may 15, 1829 John the Baptist, later same day Peter, James and John (resurrected apostles of Jesus Christ)..and June 25, 1829. ..Moroni.

Apparently April 3 1836 he claimed he and Smith were visited by resurrected biblical prophets Moses, Elias, and Elijah and by Jesus Christ.

Are you willing to give him the benefit of doubt and believe him?

I'm not following your reasoning at all. Are you saying that untrustworthy people are immune from the backfire effect? Couldn't Cowdery be both untrustworthy and a true believer? Or untrustworthy and delusional? In fact, if you told me you had seen all the heavenly visitors Cowdery had, my first thought would be delusional.

[_Res Ipsa]

Roger and marg, I think we need to have a general discussion on the topic of how we should interpret behavior of the people we are talking about. If what we are interested in figuring out what happened and why, what is the best way of going about that.

There's probably some technical history term that applies here, but the best I can do is "substituted judgment." The clearest example is when marg asked me what I would have done if I were in Oliver's position. But it's not the only example. Here's the problem: the three of us are sitting around, reviewing facts, having the luxury of pouring over details and thinking about what happened, and then we expect these people in history to behave as if they were complete rational thinkers who should be expected to make the same decisions we think we would make. And when they don't conform to those standards, we dismiss them as liars or untrustworthy.

in my opinion, that is seriously flawed reasoning. It's flawed because it flies in the face of all the evidence about how people actually behave when living their lives in real time. People that we think of as rational do irrational things. They make decisions based on an emotional reaction, and then use reasoning to rationalize the action. They all lie sometimes. They change their stories because memory isn't a snapshot of reality and can change drastically over time. Every lawyer knows that eyewitness testimony is not reliable and yet we all pretend like it is, which is how we end up with innocent people on death row.

When I try to interpret the behavior of any of these people, imposing my standards of behavior based on Monday morning quarterbacking,when I know that I don't even follow those standards in real time, is probably least likely approach to getting an accurate picture of what happens. If the evidence that Roger believes supports the S/R theory requires substituted judgment of this type, he's never going to persuade me.

From the research, I know that my perception of how I make decisions differs significantly from how I actually make decisions. I know that what I expect to see and hear significantly affects what I actually see and hear. I know my memory is not an accurate record of my perceptions. I know I've remembered things clearly, that on further investigation, were just flat wrong.

If we can't base our interpretation of what these folks did based on what research tells us about how people behave, and instead use our own inaccurate image of how we'd like to t think we behave, then trying to figure out what actually happened is, in my opinion, a waste of time.