Response to Jockers, Criddle, et al., Now Available

[_Dan Vogel]

Marg,

Dan I have been listening. Read what I say, I do not accuse you of saying they were lying. No you have not said they were lying. What I said to Glenn was “As I explained to Dan, if your argument is the conneaut witnesses mention of lost tribes was because they "thought" "the Book of Mormon was about lost tribes, then you are accusing them of lying. That's not simply a matter of confusion, that's deliberate deception.” Whether it is false memories or a matter of the witnesses thought that the Book of Mormon was about lost tribes and that’s why they said Spalding’s manuscript was about that as well…even if you aren’t explicitly accusing them of lying..when one critically evaluates that argument, it boils down to accusing them of lying.

I know what you said to Glenn, but you were wrong then as you are now. I have always argued that the witnesses were sincere in their belief that Spalding’s MS had the names of Nephi and Lehi, but they were nevertheless wrong—it was a false memory created by various suggestions in 1833.

You appear to be so argumentative that you won’t even allow me my position.

[_marg]

I know what you said to Glenn, but you were wrong then as you are now. I have always argued that the witnesses were sincere in their belief that Spalding’s MS had the names of Nephi and Lehi, but they were nevertheless wrong—it was a false memory created by various suggestions in 1833.

You appear to be so argumentative that you won’t even allow me my position.

I think your position is not warranted. The items for example of a highly repetitive phrase, common in the Bible "and it came to pass" and King Jame English writing style are not easily confusable items. One can associate those with the Bible, which can aid in one's memory.

So you haven't made an argument which justifies that these items which are easily remembered due to high repetition and association with the Bible could possibly have been implanted by Hurlbut in all the witnesses or that the witnesses would have confused these items in the Book of Mormon with Spalding's MSCC.

[_GlennThigpen]

I think your position is not warranted. The items for example of a highly repetitive phrase, common in the Bible "and it came to pass" and King Jame English writing style are not easily confusable items. One can associate those with the Bible, which can aid in one's memory.

Two problems. Source confusion for "it came to pass". You noted that it is used in the Bible also, which is a more probable source for the witnesses remembering that phrase.

Also, according to Royal Skousen, the Book of Mormon is not really written in King James, English but in 1500's and 1600's English, some of which predate the Bible by decades.

Here is a link to one article. http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/insights/?vol=25&num=5&id=436

Here are a couple of quotes:
"The original text includes unique kinds of expression that appear to be uncharacteristic of English in any time and place; some of these expressions are Hebraistic in nature."

And " The original vocabulary of the Book of Mormon appears to derive from the 1500s and 1600s, not from the 1800s.

This last finding is quite remarkable. Lexical evidence suggests that the original text contained a number of expressions and words with meanings that were lost from the English language by 1700. On the other hand, I have not been able thus far to find word meanings and expressions in the text that are known to have entered the English language after the early 1700s"

Now how did Solomon come up with all of those items that did not come from the nineteenth century, and not even from the Bible. How did all of those authors, i.e. Rigdon, Spalding, Pratt, et al, manage to collaborate on a book without injecting nineteenth century expressions and meanings?

Skousen has not been on the job long. He has only been working on the text of the Book of Mormon for a little over twenty years.

This is some of the scholarship on the Book of Mormon that is being ignored by many critics.

Glenn

[_marg]

And that is the very point I was making. When you change a story, you do not call it by the same name, especially if it has little resemblance to the original story. If the lost tribes had been turned into a story of a family from one of the tribes, it would not have read or sounded like a lost tribes story., and it would not have been reported a a lost tribes story. Solomon had studied to become a man of the cloth, and although many of the Conneaut may not have been well versed with the geography of the Old world where the lost tribes were supposed to have been taken, there were others also trained in Biblical lore, such as Etahn Smith. If Solomon hoped that "it would be believed by many people as much as the history of England" he would not have struck new ground, especially if he wished to keep his real views hid "under a bushel."

Glenn ..Solomon wouldn't have hoped it would be viewed as literal..except to make money from sale of the book. He would obviously had he changed the myth, appreciated he was expanding on it.

With regards to "When you change a story (myth), you do not call it by the same name, especially if it has little resemblance to the original story."..so then I should not refer to any Mormon or Mormonism as being Christian or a story about development of Christianity in America?

Also Glenn, I don't think the witnesses thought Spalding was telling a story about all the lost tribes, but rather that the story was about Am. Indians being descended from individuals whose ancestry is part of the dispersal of the lost tribes in 723 B.C.

[_marg]

I think your position is not warranted. The items for example of a highly repetitive phrase, common in the Bible "and it came to pass" and King Jame English writing style are not easily confusable items. One can associate those with the Bible, which can aid in one's memory.

Two problems. Source confusion for "it came to pass". You noted that it is used in the Bible also, which is a more probable source for the witnesses remembering that phrase.

Sooooo you are suggesting they are confusing MSCC with their common knowledge of the Bible? But source memory involves associations with that memory. In otherwords the memory we are talking about is whatever Spalding read to them. So they would have memories of him reading, who was reading, where they were, perhaps time of day, other people around and those memories they associate with whatever Spalding was reading. So when it comes to recall it's not just a matter of recalling what he read first, but recalling where they were, what was happening at the time etc. The Bible in this case is not a source memory. It is a memory in the knowledge base,but it's not part of the source memory for when spalding read to them. Now if they had vague recall of everything ..that is the Book of Mormon brought no vivid recall back of anything..so that whatever spalding read was only vaguely remembered then one might argue they are confusing their general knowledge base of the Bible with Spalding's manuscript. But given they say they had clear recall on some items then that's not indicative of them being susceptible to confusion with the Bible.

Also, according to Royal Skousen, the Book of Mormon is not really written in King James, English but in 1500's and 1600's English, some of which predate the Bible by decades.

Here is a link to one article. http://maxwellinstitute.BYU.edu/publications/insights/?vol=25&num=5&id=436

Here are a couple of quotes:
"The original text includes unique kinds of expression that appear to be uncharacteristic of English in any time and place; some of these expressions are Hebraistic in nature."

And " The original vocabulary of the Book of Mormon appears to derive from the 1500s and 1600s, not from the 1800s.

This last finding is quite remarkable. Lexical evidence suggests that the original text contained a number of expressions and words with meanings that were lost from the English language by 1700. On the other hand, I have not been able thus far to find word meanings and expressions in the text that are known to have entered the English language after the early 1700s"

Now how did Solomon come up with all of those items that did not come from the nineteenth century, and not even from the Bible. How did all of those authors, i.e. Rigdon, Spalding, Pratt, et al, manage to collaborate on a book without injecting nineteenth century expressions and meanings?

Skousen has not been on the job long. He has only been working on the text of the Book of Mormon for a little over twenty years.

This is some of the scholarship on the Book of Mormon that is being ignored by many critics.

Oi vey ..Glenn, you say the Book of Mormon is not written in 1800 english..what is your point? No one is suggesting Spalding wrote in everyday english and King James english is from the 1500 or 1600's. I have at one time investigated its, don't feel like doing that now,but essentially the writers of the Book of Mormon were attempting to duplicate the language used in the common Bible used then... the King James version.

[_marg]

Ok so I believe I finally figured out what Glenn and Dan see in the lost tribe myth that I didn't..and that is that near the end of times according to the Esdras myth the lost tribes will return to Israel so if that is the case why would descendants of lost tribes living in Israel ever leave Israel.

However it may be that Spalding didn't follow or believe that myth...but that he informed his listeners his characters were lost tribe descendants whose ancestry at some point went to Judah and assimilated with the population. People believe that today so why shouldn't Spalding. And I know what you are going to say Glenn, that he wouldn't have referred to them as lost tribes because of his theological training. But if the ancestors of the characters were exiled from Northern Israel, then they would be of the lost tribes..their written history lost after being exiled.

Ok Glenn here are some questions for you. Esdras passage which you quoted was written in the first Century C.E. But speculation about Lost tribes of N. Israel didn't start at that point..I assume. Do you agree? If so, then when did speculation start about Lost tribes start in the Bible and what did that speculation entail and how did it differ to that of passages in Esdras?

[_GlennThigpen]

Oi vey ..Glenn, you say the Book of Mormon is not written in 1800 english..what is your point? No one is suggesting Spalding wrote in everyday english and King James english is from the 1500 or 1600's. I have at one time investigated its, don't feel like doing that now,but essentially the writers of the Book of Mormon were attempting to duplicate the language used in the common Bible used then... the King James version.

marge, read the article. There is no way that three or four different authors, (or even one) for that matter could write consistently in fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds English, especially using phrases and meanings that were not and are not extant in the Bible, which would have been their source material. Do you have linguistics training?

Glenn

[_GlennThigpen]

Ok so I believe I finally figured out what Glenn and Dan see in the lost tribe myth that I didn't..and that is that near the end of times according to the Esdras myth the lost tribes will return to Israel so if that is the case why would descendants of lost tribes living in Israel ever leave Israel.

They left because God told them to, according to the Book of Mormon. At that point in time, Lehi did not know his ancestry, according to the Book of Mormon. But all of this is irrelevant to the story.

However it may be that Spalding didn't follow or believe that myth...but that he informed his listeners his characters were lost tribe descendants whose ancestry at some point went to Judah and assimilated with the population. People believe that today so why shouldn't Spalding. And I know what you are going to say Glenn, that he wouldn't have referred to them as lost tribes because of his theological training. But if the ancestors of the characters were exiled from Northern Israel, then they would be of the lost tribes..their written history lost after being exiled.

Because that was not something that anyone was talking about. It would not be a lost tribes story. That is something that you just cannot logically do. You cannot logically condense a story about the lost tribes down into a small group of people and still expect it to read as a lost tribes story. It does not matter what Solomon actually believed, it is what the witnesses reported and what they would have understood about a lost tribes story.

Ok Glenn here are some questions for you. Esdras passage which you quoted was written in the first Century C.E. But speculation about Lost tribes of N. Israel didn't start at that point..I assume. Do you agree? If so, then when did speculation start about Lost tribes start in the Bible and what did that speculation entail and how did it differ to that of passages in Esdras?

I don't know when speculation began about the lost tribes and their fate. But speculation about the lost tribes somehow migrating to the Americas and becoming the ancestors of the Amrican Indians has been ongoing since the 1600's. The passages in Esdras is what fueled that speculation, that America is the "further country, where never mankind dwelt."

Glenn

[_Dan Vogel]

Glenn,

marge, read the article. There is no way that three or four different authors, (or even one) for that matter could write consistently in fifteen hundreds and sixteen hundreds English, especially using phrases and meanings that were not and are not extant in the Bible, which would have been their source material. Do you have linguistics training?

I’m not sure this works as an argument for or against Spalding’s authorship since it is quite possible that Joseph Smith (as translator or author) was imitating a pseudo-KJV language influenced by the Quakers he knew, who spoke in that manner since George Fox founded them in 1500s England. Also, Wes Walter’s MA thesis included discussion of the artificiality and grammatically incorrect use of the KJV language in the Book of Mormon.

[_MCB]

the artificiality and grammatically incorrect use of the KJV language in the Book of Mormon.

I have studied that myself. Very bad KJE.