Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Runtu]

I do agree that Hunt's book destroys many of the apologetic arguments we've read in the past. I don't see how they held water anyway.

Ever the cynic.

In my view, the original apologetic arguments were pretty flimsy to begin with. The Hunt book makes some of them untenable.

[_Tim the Enchanter]

On p. 104 it speaks of the ditch around the fort that was filled with the bodies of the slain. We see this same kind of build up in Alma 53:4 where the timbers were on top of the ditch and they used the dirt of the ditch to support the timbers.

I believe Alma 49 provides even more of a direct similarity to this part of Late War.

20 But the men of Croghan were prepared for them ; and they let loose their weapons of war upon them, and set their destroying engine to work, and smote the men of Britain, hip and thigh, with great slaughter.

21 And the deep ditch that surrounded the fort was strewed with their slain and their wounded.

22 So the host of Britain were dismayed and overthrown, and fled in confusion from the fort into the forest ; from whence, in the dead of the night, they went into their vessels, and departed from the place.

23 Now the loss of the men of Britain was about an hundred two score and ten ; and of the men of Columbia there was one slain and seven wounded.

20 Thus they were prepared, yea, a body of their strongest men, with their swords and their slings, to smite down all who should attempt to come into their place of security by the place of entrance; and thus were they prepared to defend themselves against the Lamanites.

21 And it came to pass that the captains of the Lamanites brought up their armies before the place of entrance, and began to contend with the Nephites, to get into their place of security; but behold, they were driven back from time to time, insomuch that they were slain with an immense slaughter.

22 Now when they found that they could not obtain power over the Nephites by the pass, they began to dig down their banks of earth that they might obtain a pass to their armies, that they might have an equal chance to fight; but behold, in these attempts they were swept off by the stones and arrows which were thrown at them; and instead of filling up their ditches by pulling down the banks of earth, they were filled up in a measure with their dead and wounded bodies.

23 Thus the Nephites had all power over their enemies; and thus the Lamanites did attempt to destroy the Nephites until their achief captains were all slain; yea, and more than a thousand of the Lamanites were slain; while, on the other hand, there was not a single soul of the Nephites which was slain.

24 There were about fifty who were wounded, who had been exposed to the arrows of the Lamanites through the pass, but they were shielded by their ashields, and their breastplates, and their head-plates, insomuch that their wounds were upon their legs, many of which were very severe.

25 And it came to pass, that when the Lamanites saw that their chief captains were all slain they fled into the wilderness. And it came to pass that they returned to the land of Nephi, to inform their king, Amalickiah, who was a Nephite by birth, concerning their great loss.

[_Spanner]

I think the Late War will be devastating to Book of Mormon authorship word print studies like Jockers, Criddle. If the Late War was included in their analysis, I think their methods would have almost certainly predicted that the Book of Mormon was written by Hunt ... and we all know that isn't true.

I think this research will round out Criddle's theory quite nicely - it will extend the discussion of use of additional sources to create the biblical style of the Book of Mormon. I look forward to seeing his analysis of this material.

[_Fence Sitter]

I do agree that Hunt's book destroys many of the apologetic arguments we've read in the past. I don't see how they held water anyway.

Ever the cynic.

In my view, the original apologetic arguments were pretty flimsy to begin with. The Hunt book makes some of them untenable.

The strength of those apologetic arguments lie in the inability of the average TBM to understand their weaknesses while at the same time citing them as proof of the Book of Mormon divine origin. The Hunt book makes it easy for an average TBM to now understand why those arguments are no longer valid as it allows one to point out the Hunt book as a uninspired 19th century example of all those purportedly unique conditions in the Book of Mormon.

[_Ten Bear]

Well it makes more sense than asking Mitchill's or Anthon's opinion on what the "Caractors" meant since at that time neither one of them was capable of reading Egyptian let alone reformed Egyptian.

It made sense to me even before. Joseph wanted Dr. Mitchell to see the "Caractors" and perk right up with a gleeful attitude of recognition having just reviewed the Detroit Manuscript where similar (exact?) symbols where discovered. That kind of "ah-ha" from Dr. Mitchell would have propelled the Book of Mormon into the spot light. But, as we find, it wasn't to be.

[Guest]

I think the Late War will be devastating to Book of Mormon authorship word print studies like Jockers, Criddle. If the Late War was included in their analysis, I think their methods would have almost certainly predicted that the Book of Mormon was written by Hunt ... and we all know that isn't true.

I think this research will round out Criddle's theory quite nicely - it will extend the discussion of use of additional sources to create the biblical style of the Book of Mormon. I look forward to seeing his analysis of this material.

As mentioned upthread, like Spanner and Fifth Columnist, I certainly think that application of delta and/or nearest shrunken centroid (NSC) analysis of the Book of Mormon text, with an expanded possible author set, would yield useful results.

In their published NSC study, Jockers, Criddle, et al. decided to exclude Joseph Smith from their analysis because they felt insufficient bona fide examples of his writings were available. As is well known, their analysis showed signals for Sidney Rigdon, Parley Pratt and Oliver Cowdery in many sections of the Book. Pratt and Solomon Spaulding signals were strongest in Ether, Mosiah, Alma, and the first part of Helaman.

Not surprisingly, when faithful Mormon Dr. Bruce Shaalje did include Joseph Smith writing samples in a similar analysis, neither Joseph Smith or Sidney Rigdon were indicated as probable authors of the Book of Mormon. (It should be acknowledged here that extensive copying by Joseph Smith of other authors for the express purpose of writing or embellishing the Book of Mormon would tend to mask Joseph Smith's own signal, because these turns of phrase would not normally show up in his everyday correspondence or speech.)

What would be interesting now is to include Hunt, and a few more contemporary controls, and see in which areas of the text the Hunt signal is strongest and how this overlaps, and/or alters, the signals from other likely authors.

Any strong correspondence between Spaulding signal and the Hunt signal, if found, would be especially interesting.

[_Mary]

Craig Criddle (is very busy right now, but gave me permission to quote him) just added this perspective to the pot.

"At the MormonLeaks site, we discuss widespread use of Early Modern English (King James English) and the phrase "it came to pass" on Slide 23 in Episode 2.

http://mormonleaks.com/library/episode-02/

Slide 23 reads:

"Writing in the Old Style was a popular fad in America at the time Spalding wrote Manuscript Found"

We also say,

"from the mid-1740's through 1830, some American authors adopted a Pseudo-Biblical style of writing. Robert Dodsley (1744) wrote the first such text, beginning with the lines: "Now it came to pass in the year One thousand sixty and six...William of Normandy...landed in England."

So it does not surprise me that we have other texts with such wording from that time period.

In addition, I should point out that Smith and the Smith family were not the only people who could have had contact with texts written in the "old style". Rigdon, Pratt and Cowdery could also have had contact. And any Spalding text was likely edited by Rigdon and Pratt. In our attributions, Pratt is the second most likely author for many of the texts that we attributed to Spalding.

One final point...our text analyses at MormonLeaks are based on frequently used words, not phrases. This is an important distinction in methodology. Plagiarism of phrases is common, but phrase plagiarism is unlikely to change the authorship attribution unless it is extensive. This is because it is difficult for an author to consciously change his/her usage of frequently used words, like "the", "to", "of", "which", and so on.

Episode 02
mormonleaks.com
Episode 02"

Of particular interest is his comment on methodology. (my bold)

[_marg]

Greetings, Madison. It is possible that someone else wrote the Book of Mormon. The problem is, of course, that the consensus position among LDS scholars on the most obvious candidate for an alternative author, Solomon Spalding, is to treat the possibility as a joke.

LDS scholars are motivated to treat the theory as a joke. Not exactly an unbiased source to rely on for perspective.

The historical and textual cases are rather weak, in my view. They are somewhat better than I had assumed. But, so much of the historical case rests on the plausibility of Sidney Rigdon's proposed activities on a certain date when he was supposedly in "X" location, etc., etc., that I can't take that line of attack seriously.

In "Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon" by Cowdery, Davis and Vanick (2001) p 136 it presents new evidence that there was published a list of outstanding mail to be picked up by the post office ..and in that ist dated June 30, 1816 both Sidney Rigdon and Solomon Spalding are listed as having mail held for them. There are other dates as well for which both had mailed not yet picked up.

quote on p 137

"The importance of this material cannot be overstated, for not only does it provide incontrovertible proof Sidney Rigdon's presence in Pittsburgh well before 1821, but it places him there during the very time SolomonSpalding is known to have beeninvolved with the Patterson brothers seeking publication of "A Manuscript Found". At the same time, any question of Mrs. Eichbaum's credibility is effectively laid aside by the fact that these new revelations firmly support her 1879 statement in two extremely critical areas.

First of all, Mrs. Echbaum states she was "well acquainted with all the stated visitors at the office who called regularly for their mails" and "distinctly " identifies Sidney Rigdon as being one of these people. "I knew and distinctly remember Robert and Joseph Paterson, J. Harrison Lambdin, Silas Eagles and Sidney Rigdon," she says.

The Spalding text we do have just doesn't read like the Book of Mormon in the way Hunt does. It has the wrong style and feel to it. I would say that it is a generic cousin, but not so much a stylistic one. At least a more distant one.

I'm sorry but for you to write the above shows you have a very poor understanding of the Spalding theory. The Spalding witness talk about another book Spalding was reading to them as he was writing it..and that story was written in biblical style.

The spalding theory can still incorporate this Hunt book you are discussing. Spalding was writing his story before 1816..and wanting to get it published around 1816. Spalding plagiarized from other well known works in his day ..see Tom Donofrio's work on this. Those writing the Book of Mormon could easily have used Spalding's work as well as Hunt's because the theory does not theorize only one writer..it theorizes Rigdon, Cowdery, Smith and others involved and that is backed up with the Stanford word print analysis..and that they incorporated/plagiarized from material..plus added bits of their own.

[_Runtu]

I'm sorry but for you to write the above shows you have a very poor understanding of the Spalding theory. The Spalding witness talk about another book Spalding was reading to them as he was writing it..and that story was written in biblical style.

There's the rub: this is like the "missing scroll" theory for the Book of Abraham. You can't insist on textual dependence on a text you don't have. It can't be done.

[_BartBurk]

I hope this isn't the so-called October Surprise. If it is it is underwhelming to say the least.