William Davis' paper in Dialogue evaluates Skousen and Carmack's Early Modern English model

[Marcus]

There is a fascinating new paper from William Davis, published in the Dialogue, that comments on the Early Modern English theory, among other things.

I am reading the paper now, but here is the conclusion to give a taste:

Joseph Smith's Spiritual Language: The Presence of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon

2025, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought

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Conclusion
While this essay does not provide a comprehensive survey of every textual phenomenon that Skousen and Carmack employ to assert their theory of “tight control,” the information presented here nevertheless offers more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that Joseph Smith’s participation in the translation work was far more involved than a simple process of transmitting a preexisting, pretranslated work to his scribes.

Rather, the English-language text of the Book of Mormon points ineluctably to Joseph himself as the source of the English rendition.
The textual characteristics reveal much about the translator: The language came from a fallible source—specifically, a translator who was a non-native speaker of Early Modern English, despite adopting some of its characteristics; a translator who did not have perfect command of the specific meanings of all the words being used (or occasionally misspoke and used similar but incorrect words); and a translator prone to human error, especially when adapting KJV structures and patterns to new forms and contexts. The attribution of such idiosyncratic meanings and defective constructions to God, his angels, his sacred instruments, or some other divine agent results in a strained and implausible position to maintain.

By restoring Joseph Smith to the power, function, and title of being an actual translator, we enhance our understanding of the nature of his revelations. In doing so, we also clarify the message and meaning of the Book of Mormon. As one of the many possible insights that such a view would bring, there is perhaps no greater opportunity than recovering the final intentions for the text of the Book of Mormon. In this important and consequential regard, the 1840 third edition of the Book of Mormon—the last edition that Joseph Smith personally edited and corrected—would assume authoritative status over the earlier versions. Royal Skousen’s work to recover the earliest (spoken) version of the text would then prove invaluable as a means to observe the original expression of the ideas, but it would be the 1840 revision of the work that would provide the foundational text for analysis to determine authoritative readings. Understanding the nature of the text as being the product of Joseph Smith’s “loose control” translation thereby provides a crucial and essential foundation for future explorations of the Book of Mormon.

https://www.academia.edu/130179615/Jose ... load-paper

[bolding added by me.]

[Dr Exiled]

I heard a voice from beyond ... E. Packer coming back from the grave, railing against the gays, the intellectuals, and those that diminish the importance of Early Modern English. It is God's holy language and a way for sons to prove themselves worthy of their fathers' celebrity.

[drumdude]

This is fascinating. Skousen is by all accounts a very smart man and well versed in linguistics. You would expect him to be especially sensitive to discrepancies like these (and more importantly, their plain implications):

a translator who was a non-native speaker of Early Modern English, despite adopting some of its characteristics; a translator who did not have perfect command of the specific meanings of all the words being used (or occasionally misspoke and used similar but incorrect words); and a translator prone to human error, especially when adapting KJV structures and patterns to new forms and contexts.

I wonder if he actually did see these, and chose not to mention them. In any case, he is either incompetent or willfully ignorant.

It’s a shame that the LDS church has turned so many academics into shills. Egyptologists, linguists… Hell you might as well have a professional LDS historian assert, with full weight of their secular PhD, that the Nephite peoples really existed too. It’s sad to see them exposed like this.

[Alphus and Omegus]

Unfortunately that paper seems to require at least registration and maybe payment.

[I Have Questions]

This is fascinating. Skousen is by all accounts a very smart man and well versed in linguistics. You would expect him to be especially sensitive to discrepancies like these (and more importantly, their plain implications):

a translator who was a non-native speaker of Early Modern English, despite adopting some of its characteristics; a translator who did not have perfect command of the specific meanings of all the words being used (or occasionally misspoke and used similar but incorrect words); and a translator prone to human error, especially when adapting KJV structures and patterns to new forms and contexts.

I wonder if he actually did see these, and chose not to mention them. In any case, he is either incompetent or willfully ignorant.

Wasn't he receiving lots of donor money from Interpreter, which would have dried up pretty sharp had he expressed those kinds of findings?

[Physics Guy]

If we can consider that Smith was an imperfect translator of a source text, whether in ancient Reformed Egyptian or in Early Modern English, then why not consider the possibility that Smith was an imperfect imitator of King James Bible English, making up his own text? This has always been the glaring flaw in the Carmack-Skousen theory. All the features of the Book of Mormon language that seem more archaic than the King James Bible would make sense as clumsy exaggerations ("hypercorrections") of KJV archaisms.

Carmack at least has long been aware of the problem, in principle. He just doesn't take it seriously enough. He has tried to show that other books from around Smith's time that were also written to sound like the King James Bible show some quite different grammatical patterns from the Book of Mormon. This only shows, however, that Smith was not the same kind of KJV-imitator that these other authors were—by no means does it show that Smith was no kind of imitator. In fact it's obvious that his efforts at sounding Biblical would be different from the efforts by educated authors.

These other contemporary authors were much more formally educated than Smith. They had leisure to edit before publication. And they were consciously writing to entertain a paying audience, not to deceive anyone, so they had an incentive to avoid overdoing their fake archaism to the point of making their texts hard to read. All of these factors make it quite unlikely that the "Biblese" of educated professional writers would overdo its archaic style to the point of looking like Early Modern English grammar.

Smith, on the other hand, was trying to produce a text that really sounded super-Biblical, even if that meant it sounded strange in places. A bit of weird grammar would only add to the mystery of his text; what he had to avoid at all costs was letting his text sound too much like something that someone like him might have written easily. And he was a poorly educated farmhand whose efforts at sounding Biblical could easily include more clumsy hypercorrections than the writings of an educated author.

If a clumsy translator could screw up Early Modern English, then a clumsy faker could screw up King James English enough to make it look like Early Modern English in some ways. This is the much more likely explanation for everything that Carmack and Skousen have found.

[PseudoPaul]

Skousen/Carmacks model was always very silly, and it had to be propped up by finding ways to ignore disconfirming evidence.

[I Have Questions]

Skousen/Carmacks model was always very silly, and it had to be propped up by finding ways to ignore disconfirming evidence.

Does anyone know where their project is up to at the moment? Is Interpreter still throwing money at Skousen for this?

[Marcus]

Skousen/Carmacks model was always very silly, and it had to be propped up by finding ways to ignore disconfirming evidence.

Does anyone know where their project is up to at the moment? Is Interpreter still throwing money at Skousen for this?

I thought they wrapped it up, or at least Skousen announced he was done.

I'm still curious about that $100+ hardcopy that Tom bought, which he then found was superceded by Skousen retracting around 70% of their 'Early Modern English' findings. Was there an addendum issued? Were the bound hard copies replaced?

[Everybody Wang Chung]

Someone made a lot of money off this silly project. Tom or Dr. Scratch posted the financials a few years ago that showed Skousen received almost $300,000.00 for one year's work on the project. That's insane.