Possible Modern Source for the Book of Mormon

[_Quasimodo]

Oh, I should add one more thing. I have actually met Chris Johnson a few times. I was a gospel doctrine teacher in his mother's ward. I was always impressed with his character. He was dedicated to the church and was committed to living the gospel. Luckily for us, he was more committed to seeking the truth and humble enough to accept it when he found it. Some of the church's sharpest tools are no longer in its shed.

Oh, I'd quibble about the sharpness of this tool.

But then, you would. The Johnson brothers totally left out any consideration of Star Trek in their process.

[_DrW]

Jake29,

Tobin has me on permanent ignore so I don't mind performing the following vital public service. What follows is a standard disclaimer we provide to new posters here regarding Tobin.

You may have seen some reference to this earlier in the thread, but Tobin is the local troll and consummate time waster. His main goal, it seems, is to derail or deflect criticism of the LDS Church, even though he claims not to believe in the historicity of Book of Mormon.

As you will soon find out if you engage him, he claims to have spoken with God directly, and is stock response to pretty much every issue is that others should do the same In his usual mode, no matter what facts you bring up against the LDS Church, he will argue against you. In fact, pretty much no matter what you say, he will disagree.

Nobody here will blame you if you just ignore him. He has half the folks on this board on ignore anyway. If you do decide to engage him, you might want to cut it off after two or three replies, tops.

He is famous for his many variations of "nuh-uh". He does it better and more often than most three year olds.

[_Nevo]

The Johnson brothers are using a iterative source separation algorithm and it is showing that the Book of Mormon was influenced by the following books, in order of influence: the 1822 Koran, The First Book of Napoleon, The Late War, The Rights of Christ, and Strengths in Weakness Manifest.

And this bizarre result should make us highly skeptical that the Johnsons' method can tell us anything meaningful about possible modern sources for the Book of Mormon.

I agree with Chris Smith that it is unlikely that Joseph Smith read and was influenced by both The First Book of Napoleon and The Late War. I doubt he saw either text. But he may have been influenced by the larger genre to which these books belonged (a handful of examples of pseudobiblical writing appeared in Joseph Smith's local newspaper in the 1820s).

As Chris notes, "It seems more likely that the distinctive nature of what these authors were doing—writing pseudo-biblical narratives—led them to independently invent some of the same distinctive phrases and/or to independently mutate biblical phrases in some of the same distinctive ways."

[_palerobber]

bizarre how, Nevo?

[_Quasimodo]

And this bizarre result should make us highly skeptical that the Johnsons' method can tell us anything meaningful about possible modern sources for the Book of Mormon.

I agree with Chris Smith that it is unlikely that Joseph Smith read and was influenced by both The First Book of Napoleon and The Late War. I doubt he saw either text. But he may have been influenced by the larger genre to which these books belonged (a handful of examples of pseudobiblical writing appeared in Joseph Smith's local newspaper in the 1820s).

As Chris notes, "It seems more likely that the distinctive nature of what these authors were doing—writing pseudo-biblical narratives—led them to independently invent some of the same distinctive phrases and/or to independently mutate biblical phrases in some of the same distinctive ways."

I'm not sure that it is important that Joseph Smith had read these books himself (although I do think it is quite possible).

What is important is that these books were common and part of the intellectual culture at the time. The themes presented in these books would have presented themselves in minister's sermons, etc. of the time and there is no doubt that Joseph Smith was familiar with those.

You don't need to have ever watched the Simpsons to know who Homer is.

[_Tim the Enchanter]

I agree with Chris Smith that it is unlikely that Joseph Smith read and was influenced by both The First Book of Napoleon and The Late War. I doubt he saw either text. But he may have been influenced by the larger genre to which these books belonged (a handful of examples of pseudobiblical writing appeared in Joseph Smith's local newspaper in the 1820s).

As Chris notes, "It seems more likely that the distinctive nature of what these authors were doing—writing pseudo-biblical narratives—led them to independently invent some of the same distinctive phrases and/or to independently mutate biblical phrases in some of the same distinctive ways."

It's more than just occasional shared common phrases. Compare a portion of Alma 49 to Late War Chapter XXIX.

In both cases, in the space of a few verses, the commonalities are (1) a host of bad guys comes to war against the (2) good guys in a fort. The good guys are (3) prepared, the good guys (4) slaughter the bad guys, whose bodies (5) fill up the ditch around the fort, and the surviving bad guys (6) flee into the forest/wilderness.

See Alma 49:20-25 and Late War Chapter XXIX verses 20-23.

If Joseph Smith didn't pull from Late War, would you expect to see similarities such as this? This is more than just common phrases. This is a common story.

Is your contention that Gilbert Hunt independently created the same story that originally occurred in an ancient Nephite battle and that Joseph Smith (perhaps ignorant of the Late War though it was used for school children in the region in which he lived at a time he was of school age) later translated the Book of Mormon which contained a record of the battle that Gilbert Hunt somehow independently created?

[_ElGuapo]

Agreed. I get that people don't want to sound unscholarly by assuming without direct evidence that Joseph actually read Late War or Napoleon. But he could read, could he not? He learned history, right? I mean he picked this stuff up somewhere. I think what the Johnsons' research is telling us is that these books are the most likely candidates for a spot on Joseph's reading shelf.

You don't need to have ever watched the Simpsons to know who Homer is.

It's a great point, but in this case he didn't just know who Homer was. He's quoting lines and retelling stories from Simpsons nonstop. To me I think this is the biggest hit the Book of Mormon has taken since Simon Southerton. These sources have immense explanatory power for why the Book of Mormon is what it is. People who hang on because the book Joseph wrote is too miraculous to be a fraud have just been shown the exit sign.

[_Gadianton]

(quote fifth-c)The Johnson brothers are using a iterative source separation algorithm and it is showing that the Book of Mormon was influenced by the following books, in order of influence: the 1822 Koran, The First Book of Napoleon, The Late War, The Rights of Christ, and Strengths in Weakness Manifest.

And this bizarre result should make us highly skeptical that the Johnsons' method can tell us anything meaningful about possible modern sources for the Book of Mormon.

Hmmm...I'm not sure which study Fifth C was pulling from, but I do remember the 2-gram study showing better results for Napoleon than Late War, and the 4-gram study better for Late War, so this may be the 2-gram results.

Initially I dropped a sentiment Similar to Chris's, that I have a hard time imagining Joseph Smith using two sources, I mean, what I'd want to avoid is patching the Book of Mormon together with random books. At the end of the day, of course, if Joseph Smith used 27 books to create the Book of Mormon then that's what he did. But we'd want to see some method to the madness.

I have gone back over the 4-gram data and I believe it is compatible with Mosiah priority. So a little speculation here, as the Late War influence is waning by 1 Nephi, could very well be room for 1 Napoleon. Maybe Duane can publish those 4-grams on their blog since he's lurking...;)

We know Joseph Smith was sneaky thanks to David Wright's analysis of the Isaiah material, good motivation to believe he was open to pulling material from elsewhere and cover his tracks.

[_Gadianton]

If Joseph Smith didn't pull from Late War, would you expect to see similarities such as this? This is more than just common phrases. This is a common story.

And the culmination of the common story you see in late Alma correlate to the peak of the 4-gram density. The interesting thing is that the 4-grams don't uncover exact phrases or the same precise context. If Joseph Smith was sneaky enough to fudge the KJV italics in the Isaiah passages, we would not expect him to simply lift text word-for-word or make too many simplistic replacements.

[_Nightlion]

Agreed. I get that people don't want to sound unscholarly by assuming without direct evidence that Joseph actually read Late War or Napoleon. But he could read, could he not? He learned history, right? I mean he picked this stuff up somewhere. I think what the Johnsons' research is telling us is that these books are the most likely candidates for a spot on Joseph's reading shelf.

You don't need to have ever watched the Simpsons to know who Homer is.

It's a great point, but in this case he didn't just know who Homer was. He's quoting lines and retelling stories from Simpsons nonstop. To me I think this is the biggest hit the Book of Mormon has taken since Simon Southerton. These sources have immense explanatory power for why the Book of Mormon is what it is. People who hang on because the book Joseph wrote is too miraculous to be a fraud have just been shown the exit sign.

And exactly where in this Late War is the gospel of Jesus Christ done precisely right, rediscovered amidst apostate Christianity? eh.....SHOW ME! Where did Joseph purloin that? You guys are filled with madness chasing a ball of light through the woods.