Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_zeezrom]

But what would a smoking gun look like to someone convinced of the Book of Mormon's divine origin?

It would have to look like this:

To whom it may concern,

I, Joseph Smith Jr. made it all up. I lied about everything.

Sincerely,

Joseph Smith

Witnesses:
[insert 12 signatures here]

[_Shulem]

I fail to see the similarities.





Kidding, these similarities you have quoted are what really got my attention.

My hearth went THUMP when I saw that. I thought for a second you lost your mind. Thank goodness you didn't.

And yes, the army of 2000 special chosen men is really going to threaten the testimonies of a lot of LDS people. Mormon youth need to be told this. Their testimonies are tender and not developed. I'd like to strip the testimonies from as many youth as we can! Hell yeah! This is a party! Taken down the Mormon church with one big wrecking ball. Poor Monson, when he gets wind of this it will likley give him a stroke!



Paul O

[_palerobber]

But what would a smoking gun look like to someone convinced of the Book of Mormon's divine origin?

It would have to look like this:

To whom it may concern,

I, Joseph Smith Jr. made it all up. I lied about everything.

Sincerely,

Joseph Smith

Witnesses:
[insert 12 signatures here]

Hoffman again.

[Guest]

Please don't let Tobin derail this thread. He's idiotic and it's completely transparent. You don't have to respond to him. No one worthwhile is fooled by him.

Agreed. Tobin's defense is the Book of Mormon had gold plates. Wow, I'm convinced. This book isn't a smoking gun, and the apologists will come up with some defenses that TBMs will swallow, but this book takes away the apologetic argument that the Book of Mormon was unique and nobody from the early nineteenth century could write something like that. Not only is it not unique, but it's exactly what you would expect to get from someone trying to pass off a book of scripture.

[_renewed]

One of the authors has noted that regarding the list of matches found here: http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/#more-56

These matches are weighted for rarity, so if you see a score of 0.25 (the highest per-4gram value in this study) then it means that in 5000 randomly selected books from the period 1500 to 1830, there were fewer than 4 other occurrences of that 4gram. In other words, of you see a book like this one that shows up with over 200 such 4grams, this is highly significant. This book was almost certainly read by the author of the Book of Mormon (who we believe to be Joseph Smith).

http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/commen ... e_book_of/

[_Yong Xi]

I spoke with God last night. He told me he didn't know anyone by the name of "Tobin".

I"m serious. Really, I am.

If you don't believe me, ask God yourself.

[_Shulem]

Wow. Just finished reading this thread. I don't have much hope for the intellectually dishonest apologists out there but this will certainly be the catalyst for many who are questioning to make their exit.

Yes, infact I think this has become even too big for the apologists to handle because it's going to rock the Mormon church to the very foundations. Their entire religion is now become a giant question mark. The First Presidency and the Council of The Twelve are going to have to step in and address this. They won't have a choice. Should this story go viral it will prove catatrophic to the church.

This is a day to celebrate! Let us have a moment of silence and shed some tears of joy.



Paul O

[_renewed]

The authors updated their page to link to this site and point out some discoveries from this thread--look under the graphic:

http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/#more-56

[_Tobin]

Oh my!!! Let's deal with some of this supposedly convincing nonsense shall we?

We already know Joseph didn't have the plates in front of him when he translated.

That is meaningless. Joseph Smith couldn't read the plates. God had to show him the translation.

We already know he had a specific King James version of the Bible in front of him and he transferred portions of it into the Book of Mormon, mistakes and all.

We know this? I don't remember an account of him translating the Book of Mormon with the Bible in front of him. And the reason the Bible verses are in the Book of Mormon is not for our benefit. We have the Bible. It was for the Lehites.

We already know that the text is littered with anachronisms.

We do? Such as? My point is, such supposed anachronisms as you might imagine have been addressed by Mormons long ago.

We already know there is not one shred of archaeological evidence for the Book of Mormon.

And that is completely unconvincing. Plenty of things have happened in the past that we don't have archaeological proof of.

If people can still believe that the Book of Mormon is a history of real people that left Jerusalem in 600BC in the face of all that then they are hardly going to be sidetracked by the Hunt book?

Most Mormons can believe in the Book of Mormon and unblinkingly dismiss your arguments in a second. Your reasons don't amount to very much in my opinion at all.

[Guest]

One of the authors has noted that regarding the list of matches found here: http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/#more-56

These matches are weighted for rarity, so if you see a score of 0.25 (the highest per-4gram value in this study) then it means that in 5000 randomly selected books from the period 1500 to 1830, there were fewer than 4 other occurrences of that 4gram. In other words, of you see a book like this one that shows up with over 200 such 4grams, this is highly significant. This book was almost certainly read by the author of the Book of Mormon (who we believe to be Joseph Smith).

http://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/commen ... e_book_of/

So, it looks like he is saying that they have chosen clusters of four words (4grams) and compared them with a random sampling of 5000 books from the period of 1500 to 1830 other than the Book of Mormon. The results showed that there were 200 identical 4grams in the Book of Mormon and Hunt.

I would like to see this unpacked a little more. The jump from the discussion of how often a 4gram appears in the random sample set to the discussion of the overlap between Hunt and the Book of Mormon is a little confusing. It appears like he is saying that the highest instance you get of any 4gram in the entire random sample is 4 other works. Any 4gram only appears in a maximum of four of the works in the sample. So, the fact that the Book of Mormon and Hunt have an overlap of 200 4grams is astounding, given the likelihood of a random overlap.

Am I reading this correctly?