Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_Roger]

Lot's of good stuff here. I'll be out all day, but will try to respond sometime when time permits.

All the best.

[_marg]

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.

It is a reasonable assumption but it's a very weak one on it own. If these witnesses truly believed what Smith was doing then observation of a Bible present should certainly be a significant concern to any true believer. It would indicate God isn't involved (for reasons I've mentioned previously) but it's a weak speculation because each one of them did not claim to observe for long periods of time and we know the Bible plagiarism is scattered with some significance in a few areas in the Book of Mormon. When you look at the stanford word print studies they have the Bible content concentrated in a few areas other than Nephi 2..but there are many areas where it's not of any noted significance. So of course the witnesses could have observed during those times.

However Oliver is a different witness to the others and as far as the case is concerned much more important a witness than the others. He was the main scribe for most of the time, he was much more involved in the whole process that the rest. It is a much stronger assumption that not only should Oliver have been aware of when the Bible was quoted but would have had to have observed its presence if read from. Because of his extensive involvement, his lack of explicit disclosure of the process is a telling bit of data on its own. Honest people with significant events and trying to convince others want to reveal as much detail as possible. People who have something to hide, generally are vague or silent about detail. As you have noted... what the witnesses claim (other that Cowdery) re the stone is not something they could have known personally. It sounds like a party storyline they've been given to tell. And the way they word this observation they don't make clear that they didn't observe personally. They word it to give the impression they did observe personally observe the actual stone and letters appearing. So I tend to think these witnesses were in on it to some extent as well, but that's not as clear as with Cowdery and also not that important to the case.

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.

It's not that important to the case (in my opinion) whether they observed a Bible or not. But it is important to the case if a Bible was likely present at times and copied from because it's another piece of data supporting the hypothesis that Cowdery was in on it with Smith.

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%.

How about...during the initial years there were lots of witnesses who claimed they were well familiar with a Spalding manuscript he was working on because he read to them or they had a chance to read his work in progress. Without that piece of data there is no reason for Tom Donofrio to find parallels or even search, no reason for the Jockers/word print study to include spalding as a potential author.

As the data accumulates and supports the spalding hypothesis, each bit of data becomes stronger. One piece of data might be questionable but as more data accumulates, questionable data can become much stronger.

In your above example re DNA..I think it's a matter of understanding what DNA results mean. I'm rather ignorant on that. Given that ignorance, off the cuff it appears to me a 50% finding would be evidence that indicates the suspect wasn't the killer...because it should have been a higher match if it was the suspect's blood. So there may be a reason for this low percentage (whatever it is), but since I don't have the expertise I don't know what the possibilities are. But with an actual picture and confession the DNA is not needed. I suspect that low percentage is not evidence the suspect was there but at a certain threshold %, it would be strong evidence that they were there. Just because there is no blood evidence to place a suspect there doesn't mean they weren't there, but positive evidence is good evidence (unless it had been placed there) that they were there.

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.

The randomness or negative evidence is not important. It's the positive evidence that is. The positive being the complexity and degree to which strings of words are parallel between the 2 books. We think for example that it is much more likely that isaiah was copied with the material present as opposed to memory because of the extent or amount of complex sentences identical to what is in the KJB. We didn't do that mathematically but we know from experience that it wouldn't be easy for anyone to remember that length of text with that complexity. And then when we added the information that many KJB italicized words had been changed... that further strengthened the hypothesis that the material from the Bible was likely present and copied..as opposed to memorized.

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.

Every 2 random books are going to have some parallels to some degree. But how unique, complex and/or similarity of idea the sentences suspected of plagiarism are is what will help to indicate if they've been copied. And the more sentences that are unique and parallels the stronger the case that plagiarism occurred.

So it's not a function of a determining a baseline. The plagiarism could be only one line or a few ..but that bit may be so unique that it is most likely copied. So you could have 2 books with a let's say 20 parallels not very unique but possibly plagiarized and yet have another 2 books with only a few lines which are highly indicative of being plagiarized because of the uniqueness or the idea content and how it's expressed that strongly indicate being plagiarized. The first could possibly be random given the nature of the parallels not being particularly unique..perhaps the theme is a very common one or the phrases or words are common...and yet as I said the second case of a few lines but very unique highly indicative of plagiarism.

So I think your idea that we need a baseline is flawed. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone when whole unique sentences with same idea content and couple that with uncommon themes... exist in 2 different books, that it's highly suspect plagiarism is involved. And if we add to this that there is good reason to suspect this based upon witness evidence..that strengthens the case further.

[_marg]

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.

So do you think given Cowdery was delusional and actually saw angels, God, Jesus, Moses, Moroni, John the Baptist at various times over an extended period of time? Does he have a vested interest/motivation for claiming these visions?

Why is he only delusional at particular times such that those delusional claims are useful as support for Mormonism? If delusional why not at times when it has nothing to do with Mormonism?

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.

Also while I think the backfire effect is of some interest, I agree for many perhaps most it's very difficult to change their deeply ingrained patterned thinking..and the more it's challenge the more they may seek reasons to reinforce it..it is only an idea, not a law of human nature that is applicable to all or in every circumstance.

It generally is true in my opinion for deeply ingrained religious beliefs..for people to change those beliefs and patterned thinking. And especially when those beliefs are fundamental to an individuals worldview. The mark of a high critical thinker is that they are open and willing to change beliefs upon new information which justifies it...so this backfire effect is not applicable all the time.

I see no reason to assume Cowdery's world view about Smith being a prophet was deeply ingrained over time. I see this religous venture as something very new in Cowdery's life, ...and it was a business venture with potential personal and financial benefits..so he's motivated to promote it.

in my opinion you are placing too much emphasis on this back fire effect as if it is a law applicable to all under all circumstance and assuming it applies to Cowdery for this instance of belief in Smith as prophet and Book of Mormon has true history and of God, when there is little justification to do so.

[_Res Ipsa]

It is a reasonable assumption but it's a very weak one on it own. If these witnesses truly believed what Smith was doing then observation of a Bible present should certainly be a significant concern to any true believer. It would indicate God isn't involved (for reasons I've mentioned previously) but it's a weak speculation because each one of them did not claim to observe for long periods of time and we know the Bible plagiarism is scattered with some significance in a few areas in the Book of Mormon. When you look at the stanford word print studies they have the Bible content concentrated in a few areas other than Nephi 2..but there are many areas where it's not of any noted significance. So of course the witnesses could have observed during those times.

Your second sentence is a perfect example of what I've labeled "substituted judgment." Do you have any sort of study or literature to support the notion that this is how a true believer would behave? It's the exact opposite of the reading I've done on the subject. It's what confirmation bias is all about -- discounting or ignoring evidence that is counter to their belief.

You're reaching another conclusion that I don't think you've supported with evidence-- that anything other than 2 Nephi involved Smith dictating from a physical Bible. It might be time to look at all 500 of vessr's parallels now to see how difficult it would be to dictate those parallels without reading from the Bible in front of witnesses. If we have no good reason to believe a witness saw Smith dictate from a Bible, then there is no basis to accuse them of deliberately lying because they didn't say anything about a Bible.

If you think about it, the notion that Joseph dictated from a Bible out in the open in front of witnesses is completely contrary what you've described as Joseph's secretiveness. If dictating from the Bible was as devastating to Smith's credibility as you think it is, why in the world would Joseph do it? Why, under your scenario, would every other witness recognize the significance of this problem other than Smith?

You're taking true believers and holding them to how you think a perfect skeptic would behave. Here's what would be consistent with what we know about confirmation bias, backfire effect, etc: none of these folks would even think it odd in the slightest that a prophet of God, translating a book for God, would have God's other book (the Bible) with him at all times. Why wouldn't a prophet of God have and read from the Bible frequently? To a true believer, it's going to be the most natural thing in the world. He could carry it with him, read it during breaks in the translation process. It would be really kind of clever -- just like a good magic trick or con. As long as he has his head in his hat while dictating to his scribe, why would anyone who thinks he's a prophet acting on god's orders question the presence of a Bible?

However Oliver is a different witness to the others and as far as the case is concerned much more important a witness than the others. He was the main scribe for most of the time, he was much more involved in the whole process that the rest. It is a much stronger assumption that not only should Oliver have been aware of when the Bible was quoted but would have had to have observed its presence if read from. Because of his extensive involvement, his lack of explicit disclosure of the process is a telling bit of data on its own. Honest people with significant events and trying to convince others want to reveal as much detail as possible. People who have something to hide, generally are vague or silent about detail. As you have noted... what the witnesses claim (other that Cowdery) re the stone is not something they could have known personally. It sounds like a party storyline they've been given to tell. And the way they word this observation they don't make clear that they didn't observe personally. They word it to give the impression they did observe personally observe the actual stone and letters appearing. So I tend to think these witnesses were in on it to some extent as well, but that's not as clear as with Cowdery and also not that important to the case.

I agree that Oliver is in a significantly different position from the others who describe the translation process. But I don't agree with your reasoning from how the witnesses phrased their descriptions. With the exception of Whitmer, I don't think any of those descriptions were any sort of attempt to give a detailed account of the translation process. I've interviewed lots of witnesses and read lots of witness testimony. When you ask people a question about an event, they will tell you what they believe happened without identifying how they know. You have to specifically ask them "how do you know?" Did you see it happen?" "Did someone tell you?" "Is it just something you concluded based on what you did see and hear?" The fact that these snippets don't distinguish between what they saw, what they heard, what they were told, and what they concluded tells me nothing about whether these witnesses were "in on it."

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.

It's not that important to the case (in my opinion) whether they observed a Bible or not. But it is important to the case if a Bible was likely present at times and copied from because it's another piece of data supporting the hypothesis that Cowdery was in on it with Smith.

I'm not sure which "case" you mean. It seems very important to the case Roger was making about the witnesses who described the translation process.

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%.

How about...during the initial years there were lots of witnesses who claimed they were well familiar with a Spalding manuscript he was working on because he read to them or they had a chance to read his work in progress. Without that piece of data there is no reason for Tom Donofrio to find parallels or even search, no reason for the Jockers/word print study to include spalding as a potential author.

That would give us a good reason to look for signs of plagiarism. But, if we did a methodical analysis of parallels and the results were what we should expect as a result of chance (in parallel quantity and quality), the parallels themselves do not support the existence of plagiarism. We may find other evidence that makes the case for plagiarism as a whole better, but that would not make the evidence from the text stronger.

As the data accumulates and supports the spalding hypothesis, each bit of data becomes stronger. One piece of data might be questionable but as more data accumulates, questionable data can become much stronger.

I couldn't disagree more. It's like putting weights on a balance scale. Weak evidence is light, strong is heavy. The overall balance will change as we add evidence to either side of the scale. But as the scale tips in one direction, we don't change the size of the other weights. If we do, that's confirmation bias and increases the chance of misconstruing the data.

<snip>

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.

The randomness or negative evidence is not important. It's the positive evidence that is. The positive being the complexity and degree to which strings of words are parallel between the 2 books. We think for example that it is much more likely that isaiah was copied with the material present as opposed to memory because of the extent or amount of complex sentences identical to what is in the KJB. We didn't do that mathematically but we know from experience that it wouldn't be easy for anyone to remember that length of text with that complexity. And then when we added the information that many KJB italicized words had been changed... that further strengthened the hypothesis that the material from the Bible was likely present and copied..as opposed to memorized.

Anytime you have randomness as part of a measurement process, you have to identify, estimate, and hopefully remove, the randomness from the "real" data. If you don't, you're inevitably going to interpret chance as meaningful. In contrast to the above, I agree with how you described the reasoning process with Isaiah -- the italics data strengthened the total weight of evidence in favor of dictating 2 Nephi from the Bible. But, the italics evidence does not change the likelihood that Smith could have recited 2 Nephi from memory.

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.

Every 2 random books are going to have some parallels to some degree. But how unique, complex and/or similarity of idea the sentences suspected of plagiarism are is what will help to indicate if they've been copied. And the more sentences that are unique and parallels the stronger the case that plagiarism occurred.

Agreed. When I said in the above example that the parallels we found were what we'd expect to find as a result of chance, I intended to include quantity and quality of the parallels.

So it's not a function of a determining a baseline. The plagiarism could be only one line or a few ..but that bit may be so unique that it is most likely copied. So you could have 2 books with a let's say 20 parallels not very unique but possibly plagiarized and yet have another 2 books with only a few lines which are highly indicative of being plagiarized because of the uniqueness or the idea content and how it's expressed that strongly indicate being plagiarized. The first could possibly be random given the nature of the parallels not being particularly unique..perhaps the theme is a very common one or the phrases or words are common...and yet as I said the second case of a few lines but very unique highly indicative of plagiarism.

We aren't going to be able to devise a test that will tell us with 100% accuracy that a word sequence is a result of intentional copying. That doesn't mean we can ignore the randomness in the data. If you don't account for it, you will get false positives.

So I think your idea that we need a baseline is flawed. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone when whole unique sentences with same idea content and couple that with uncommon themes... exist in 2 different books, that it's highly suspect plagiarism is involved. And if we add to this that there is good reason to suspect this based upon witness evidence..that strengthens the case further.

Failing to take account of randomness that we know is present and relying on what we think is "obvious" is a surefire formula for getting the wrong answer.

[_marg]

I won't be able to read or respond tonight.

[_Res Ipsa]

I won't be able to read or respond tonight.

No rush, Marg. It's hard for me to keep up with you anyway.

[_marg]

Hey I just got on the computer and started reading your post.

[_marg]

Your second sentence is a perfect example of what I've labeled "substituted judgment." Do you have any sort of study or literature to support the notion that this is how a true believer would behave? It's the exact opposite of the reading I've done on the subject. It's what confirmation bias is all about -- discounting or ignoring evidence that is counter to their belief.

What studies are you talking about that deal with an individual claiming to be a prophet, who is translating ancient plates via divine guidance with scribes ... and all the rest that Smith claimed...and followers such as wife family and friends..all with a vested interest. All I'm saying is that given the claims Smith made and what he was doing..under those particular unique claims and circumstances.. that a Bible present would indicate he might be copying from it. But this is all moot anyhow. Other than Oliver ...they aren't important witnesses. They aren't reliable witnesses.

You're reaching another conclusion that I don't think you've supported with evidence-- that anything other than 2 Nephi involved Smith dictating from a physical Bible. It might be time to look at all 500 of vessr's parallels now to see how difficult it would be to dictate those parallels without reading from the Bible in front of witnesses. If we have no good reason to believe a witness saw Smith dictate from a Bible, then there is no basis to accuse them of deliberately lying because they didn't say anything about a Bible.

I'm not sure but I think you've misread what I've said. To keep it short, I'm saying Cowdery is the important witness..the others aren't reliable. If you think the position to hold is that they (all the Smith witnesses including Oliver) are honest trustworthy reliable witnesses ..then please explain why.

If you think about it, the notion that Joseph dictated from a Bible out in the open in front of witnesses is completely contrary what you've described as Joseph's secretiveness. If dictating from the Bible was as devastating to Smith's credibility as you think it is, why in the world would Joseph do it? Why, under your scenario, would every other witness recognize the significance of this problem other than Smith?

I think you might be confusing some of what Roger may have written versus myself. If Smith dictated from a Bible to Cowdery out in the open..then he's not translating from plates under divine guidance.

You're taking true believers and holding them to how you think a perfect skeptic would behave. Here's what would be consistent with what we know about confirmation bias, backfire effect, etc: none of these folks would even think it odd in the slightest that a prophet of God, translating a book for God, would have God's other book (the Bible) with him at all times. Why wouldn't a prophet of God have and read from the Bible frequently? To a true believer, it's going to be the most natural thing in the world. He could carry it with him, read it during breaks in the translation process. It would be really kind of clever -- just like a good magic trick or con. As long as he has his head in his hat while dictating to his scribe, why would anyone who thinks he's a prophet acting on god's orders question the presence of a Bible?

That's a response for Roger.

I agree that Oliver is in a significantly different position from the others who describe the translation process. But I don't agree with your reasoning from how the witnesses phrased their descriptions. With the exception of Whitmer, I don't think any of those descriptions were any sort of attempt to give a detailed account of the translation process. I've interviewed lots of witnesses and read lots of witness testimony. When you ask people a question about an event, they will tell you what they believe happened without identifying how they know. You have to specifically ask them "how do you know?" Did you see it happen?" "Did someone tell you?" "Is it just something you concluded based on what you did see and hear?" The fact that these snippets don't distinguish between what they saw, what they heard, what they were told, and what they concluded tells me nothing about whether these witnesses were "in on it."

I'll await your response on why you think these witnesses should be assumed trustworthy and reliable.

It's not that important to the case (in my opinion) whether they observed a Bible or not. But it is important to the case if a Bible was likely present at times and copied from because it's another piece of data supporting the hypothesis that Cowdery was in on it with Smith.

I'm not sure which "case" you mean. It seems very important to the case Roger was making about the witnesses who described the translation process.

The case on who wrote the Book of Mormon.

That would give us a good reason to look for signs of plagiarism. But, if we did a methodical analysis of parallels and the results were what we should expect as a result of chance (in parallel quantity and quality), the parallels themselves do not support the existence of plagiarism. We may find other evidence that makes the case for plagiarism as a whole better, but that would not make the evidence from the text stronger.

I think the key factor in determining parallel copying/plagiarism is uniqueness in wording along with context/theme.

As the data accumulates and supports the spalding hypothesis, each bit of data becomes stronger. One piece of data might be questionable but as more data accumulates, questionable data can become much stronger.

I couldn't disagree more. It's like putting weights on a balance scale. Weak evidence is light, strong is heavy. The overall balance will change as we add evidence to either side of the scale. But as the scale tips in one direction, we don't change the size of the other weights. If we do, that's confirmation bias and increases the chance of misconstruing the data.

ok

Anytime you have randomness as part of a measurement process, you have to identify, estimate, and hopefully remove, the randomness from the "real" data. If you don't, you're inevitably going to interpret chance as meaningful. In contrast to the above, I agree with how you described the reasoning process with Isaiah -- the italics data strengthened the total weight of evidence in favor of dictating 2 Nephi from the Bible. But, the italics evidence does not change the likelihood that Smith could have recited 2 Nephi from memory.

If "italics data strengthened the total weight of evidence in favor of dictating 2 Nephi from the Bible"..then the probability of Smith reciting from memory decreased.

>>>snip

[_Roger]

Brad:

Absolutely. Although you do raise an interesting question about the burden of proof. In fraud claims, we actually use the standard "clear, cogent, and convincing evidence." But, as I said, I'm perfectly happy with preponderance of the evidence.

You mentioned you are an ex-Mormon, and I think I remember you saying you are an attorney... specifically fraud? If you don't mind sharing, what was it that caused you to leave Mormonism and would you now characterize Joseph Smith as a "fraud" or a con-man?

[_Res Ipsa]

Perhaps. But there's more to consider. In previous discussions, marg and Uncle Dale presented good reasons to suspect Emma Smith and Oliver Cowdery of lying. I also pointed to David Whitmer's changing stories. I think witness credibility is an issue here.

A problem that I see as unavoidable is that you want to consider all this in the absence of God being a part of the process, but virtually every early Mormon witness claims that God was indeed a crucial part of the process. How do we deal with that? Since you want to exclude the God factor, I think it is up to you to explain how you are going to get around that? When virtually every early Mormon witness tells us that God did this, or God did that, on what basis are you going to reject that, and, more importantly, on what basis are you going to accept anything else they claim?

I have good reasons to expect everyone lies and every one's story changes over time. It's what humans do. Instead of using specific events to label people and reason from there, which is prone to fundamental category errors, I think it's more helpful to focus on the reliability of specific pieces of information or statements. Reliability of evidence is much broader than whether a given witness has ever lied. if that were the criteria, given sufficient information, I'd be able to show you some lie every witness you rely on for the S/R theory has lied.

There is a difference between "God was not involved in the translation process" and "Oliver Cowdery" was not involved in the translation process." When I say I'm leaving God out of the process, I'm saying the former, not the latter. I''m rejecting the former because there is no god to be involved in the translation process. The fact that a particular witness believes something that is false is not a ground for simply ignoring everything that witnesses says. If that were the standard, I'd have to accuse every Christian of being a liar. That would be nonsensical.

Based on what we've discussed, I think intentional lying by omission is less plausible than other possible explanations.

Fair enough. Tell me why.

Because we don't have evidence that witnesses other than Oliver witnessed Smith dictating from the Bible.

Some of these witnesses turned hostile toward Smith, yet none accused him of copying from the Bible.

So because they never publicly went back on their Book of Mormon testimony I should believe their testimony?

Of course not. What you shouldn't do is accuse them of deliberately concealing copying from the Bible. Do you believe that Smith pretended to translate by putting his face in the hat? If you do, then you believe that some of what these witnesses said was true.

What good would ratting out Smith have served them? Would it have been in their interest, after their deep involvement in Mormonism to have come clean in front of the world because they have disagreements with Joseph Smith? And if they did, would they have reason to fear for their lives?

You're asking me to substitute judgment here. The fact is, a number of people "ratted out" Smith at various times and for various reasons. Sometimes people rat out the leader or the con man, even if it doesn't create a flattering picture of themselves. I don't put a great weight on the fact that no one ratted him out, but I think it is a piece of evidence that points against the witnesses knowing that Smith dictated from the Bible.

In general, the more people that have to be complicit in intentional lying, the harder it is to keep the lie secret.

Are Warren Jeffs, Jim Jones and David Koresh's followers willing to lie for them? Or are they simply deluded enough to convince themselves they're not lying? I believe that a cult-like devotion and peer pressure was operating among early Mormons.

I do, too. I also think cult leaders are deceptive with their own followers, and so I'm careful not to accuse people of lying without carefully scrutinizing the evidence. That's also why I'm not making any sort of blanket statement that the witnesses can or can't be trusted.

At this point, I find several potential explanations more plausible:

1. No one said anything about the Bible because no one asked the witnesses. (I haven't independently investigated whether that is the case.)

This is Dan Vogel's position. I think it's weak. So let's assume you're right. How would they have responded if someone had asked them about a Bible?

Asked them what about the Bible? And what are we assuming the witnesses knew? The specifics are very important.

2. No one volunteered information about use of the Bible because they didn't feel it was important. (What you describe as Vogel's theory)

Apparently smart people are willing to accept this. I find it much weaker than to believe they did not mention a Bible because they knew it would have conflicted with their testimony that God was providing the Book of Mormon word for word and even checking for errors.

I don't worry about what smart people think, unless they are experts trained in the relevant field. Then I pay more attention. Smart people believe all kinds of crazy things. I'm having some trouble because you keep lumping people together into categories when there are materials differences in what we know about them. For example, I believe only Whitmer's description can be characterized as "testimony." Some of the recollections are decades old. Only three people described the part about words appearing in the hat. Before we can infer that any given witnesses was lying by omission, we have to establish that (1) the witnesses were aware of the information allegedly being omitted; (2) Given the context, we can fairly expect that the witness would have understood that the information was important; and (3) the witness intended to deceive by not disclosing the information.

Again, you need to be specific about the context of the statement and the knowledge of the witness.

3. No one witnessed the copying of Isaiah other than Smith and the scribe at the time of the copying.

Smith hardly gave any details. This makes him suspect in my mind. The scribe was likely Cowdery. So at the very least, you have some Book of Mormon material that is not being produced in the way the witnesses unanimously claimed it was being produced. It comes down to how do we explain that? You and Vogel think we explain that by saying it was not a big deal to the otherwise credible witnesses and no one ever asked. I explain it by saying they were devoted to Smith and highly invested in the cause of Mormonism. Maybe they convinced themselves the whole thing was of God, maybe not. Either way, they lied by omission.

I'm not sure what Smith being closed-mouth has to do with the translation witnesses. It certainly would lead me to wanting to take a look at all the evidence. But, if he's hiding things, why would you assume he's not hiding them from his followers? Roger, you keep glossing over the critical step: providing evidence that any witness other than Cowdery knew that "some Book of Mormon material" was being produced in a way other than what the witnesses actually saw and reported. And if, as you say, the translation witnesses were devoted to Smith and highly invested, they would be likely to rationalize, minimize, or explain away any information that conflicts with those beliefs.

I have to ask you, is it important to the S/R theory that the translation witnesses intentionally lied when describing the process?

How do we decide which version is best supported by the evidence? If marg and I can provide rational reasons why it sure looks like Emma and Oliver and David lied in other situations would that make any difference?

I don't have an opinion as to which of my three is closest to the mark. I think they are more likely than yours because yours assumes all the translation witnesses observed Smith dictating from the Bible when there is no evidence supporting that assumption. Lying in other contexts isn't going to help because everyone tells lies in some context-- even the witnesses you'll cite in support of the S/R theory.

I disagree with your "not agreed." ; ) There is justification for the shift in burden. We've just established (by agreement) that some of the Book of Mormon was produced in a manner not supported by any witness from which we are getting this whole story. I would argue that it's not only not supported, but that it contradicts the strong implications of their testimony. I realize you and Dan disagree, but you're wrong. : ) So the question is, who is right? We can't proceed happily from this point unless one of us caves. We can agree to disagree, but the entire outcome is going to depend on how we view the motivation and credibility of these witnesses.

Then we should stop our discussion until somebody finds evidence that any witness other than Cowdery observed Smith dictating from the Bible. If there is such evidence, then we'd need to talk about it.

marg and I agree. Once we've established that a method was used that is not supported by the witnesses, then items which otherwise could be viewed as either a product of chance or borrowing must be viewed in light of the fact that we've already established that borrowing took place.

Ok, I think I see where you're going here, and I suspect we're at a fatal impasse. If you and marg are going to argue that Smith copying or borrowing passages from the Bible is evidence that he copied from other books, we're not going anywhere. We've already established a clear motive for Smith to do so: a desire to make the Book of Mormon sound like scripture by imitating the voice of existing scripture. Unless you can establish a similar motive with respect to other books, I think your argument takes a huge leap at this point that is not supported by evidence.

[quote=Brad]]Vessr's parallels could easily be the product of Smith attempting to recite or summarize passages he'd studied on his own. [/quote]

So what? Either way, Smith is borrowing material.

Yes, but he can do that with his head buried in a hat, which is consistent with all the translation witnesses.

Second, even if Smith copied a certain percentage of text from the Bible, there is still a baseline of duplicate word order that we would expect to see in the absence of copying. You haven't attempted to estimate or eliminate chance.

We eliminated chance when we agreed that definite borrowing took place in some instances. Whether other instances are chance or not is somewhat irrelevant.

No, you didn't. The baseline due to chance is always there. You have to account for it. Any actual "borrowing" would be in addition to the chance parallels. What will happen is that you will fool yourself into thinking the evidence for meaningful parallels is stronger than it really is by assuming that parallels due to chance are actually due to "borrowing."

The best example of this so far is Vessr's "puffed up" parallel. The person proposing borrowing as a hypothesis retains the burden of proof that the duplication is due to "borrowing" as opposed to chance.

We'll sacrifice vessr's "puffed up" parallel to make you happy. : )

I appreciate the sentiment, but agreeing on the parallel most likely to be due to chance won't make me happy. Acknowledging that evidence of some copying or borrowing does not remove the parallels due to chance would make me happy.