Book of Mormon: "never again will it be known as a simple hoax."

[_Meadowchik]

Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and/or Solomon Spaulding was/were consciously aping the language of the King James version of the Bible. The King James version was published in 1611, not too terribly far removed from the 1500s.

Problem solved; controversy over.

Now that we're in Edinburgh, I keep finding myself say English words the way the Scots say them, closer to their accent. We've only been here a month, but mirroring the speech patterns, including inflections and vocabulary, is totally natural. Doing so in English (as opposed to speaking other languages) really makes this behavior stand out to me, more than ever: humans learn to mimic instinctively.

So if Joseph and his associates were familiar with the language patterns of their Bibles, as they indeed were, they could have easily switched between the modern speech and the style of the religious speech they often committed to memory.

[_Gadianton]

Joseph Smith, Sidney Rigdon, and/or Solomon Spaulding was/were consciously aping the language of the King James version of the Bible. The King James version was published in 1611, not too terribly far removed from the 1500s.

Problem solved; controversy over.

right, and another layer, but their response will be that the phrases they are looking at don't appear in the KJV.

maybe my google skills suck, but the only place I've found the phrase, "they was yet wroth" is in Skousen's own Book of Mormon.

I agree it could be bad grammer that's accidentally good (assuming that this phrase was really the height of poetry in the 16th century and really was in the original text) but I doubt it comes directly from or has a serious influence from the KJV.

[_Lemmie]

I never thought the Book of Mormon was a simple hoax.

That's what cracks me up. Maybe the commenter doesn't quite realize how he sounds:

"Never again will it be known as a simple hoax. From now on, the Book of Mormon will be rightfully known...as a complex hoax!"

[_Lemmie]

It was a known fact in the 1800s that spoken, not written, English in the Eastern states was different from the English written and spoken in Great Britain. And its form was closest to the same spoken type of English of the early 1600s when the first colonists arrived.

Excellent point, tapirrider. From all I've read, Joseph Smith was a tremendous mimic, and every bit of important language he absorbed would likely come out in his sessions with his scribe. More to the point, as your quote demonstrates, it would be expected that his verbal mimicry would be captured by the scribes. If I recall correctly, I've only seen Carmack compare the Book of Mormon to Smith's written work, but I'm not totally sure about that.

Based on Smith's well known propensity for story-telling, why would Carmack not consider verbal expressions of the time when he is attempting to date the Book of Mormon? It would be more in keeping with how the LDS church says the "translation" occurred.

[_Lemmie]

Lemmie,

I'm having a bit of an issue wrapping my head around the entirety of the claim. This thesis is about as plump of an onion as the apologists have ever handed over to the rest of humanity in the guise of carefully measured facts. "We've done the analysis, and the Book of Mormon's original text is nothing short of prosaic English from the fifteenth century."

Where to begin? It appears one must first devour two volumes and 25 years of one man's life to answer that question. But I don't have 100$ and a couple spare years to study two fat books just to see. So what? the apologists will say, one could say that about any other scholarly report, and that in no way invalidates the claim. True, except that normally, it's not up to a layman like myself to become an expert in a field I know nothing about to get a feel for the claim, because other comparable scholars will review and we can get summaries from a variety of expert sources. The problem here is that it appears this research, at the present time, like most of what the apologists produce, is of little interest to the scholarly world. Again, they will claim, they guard the work of a modern day Mendel, as time will bear out. Fortunately, if time doesn't bear it out, they'll have another whopper of a theory to fuel the engines in the future.

I've tried to understand what's going on here. But the situation is a little complex, and so, I would like to share some concerns, and I admit some of them may be easy to refute by someone with the right knowledge of the situation, but where else to start without dropping a hundred bucks and a huge time investment into a subject beyond obscure?

It's a point that Peterson presses, in my opinion, quite disingenuously. He repeatedly argues that Carmack's papers in the Interpreter are "peer-reviewed." He fails to note, however, that in order to peer-review an article in the Mormon Interpreter, a referee "must not be hostile to LDS truth claims."

Of course, requiring that of a referee completely destroys any semblance of unbiased fairness, and in fact renders his definition of "peer review" as incompatible with any other working definition of peer review on the planet.

My first concern, as Dr. Shades discussed years ago, is that this project is the brainchild of one man's personal quest, with no oversight or feedback from outside sources, with the exception of in recent years partnering with this Carmack fellow. We know that there are criticisms from among the apologist's ranks, WS even bore testimony against this work, but it's all ideological -- the loose translation guys with theories in the water aren't going to let their own life-long hobbies sink. Has anyone within the ranks of the apologists carefully reviewed this work and provided any critical feedback of any kind? From what we're hearing, either the LT guys wave it off, or those hopeful drink it up as beyond dispute.

As I said, this is one fat onion. You begin thinking, okay, how are they going to control for what's really 15th century, and what isn't? Is this going to be another exercise in seeing a face in a toasted cheese sandwich? Just because the Late War doesn't share some of the phrases, wouldn't a better question be, does the Late War also have its own unique 15th century phrases? I don't think this is an easy kind of proposition for establishing serious controls.

But it's worse, because peel deeper, and just what is the original text of the Book of Mormon under examination anyway? We don't have the original text. A couple of the phrases I looked up mentioned in the summary article that gets recycled through the years don't exist in any Book of Mormon I can find online, except for one place.

Recall, that this apparently all started with Skousen himself providing his own Book of Mormon that was supposed to best reflect what the original text would have read. Here's an excerpt from that project:

A typographical facsimile of the surviving pages of the original manuscript based on the latest techniques of computer analysis and ultraviolet photography...multispectral imaging...edited by Royal Skousen.....even greater problem is that 72 percent of that document is no longer extant. In contrast, the printer's manuscript...intact since 1903..RLDS...fill in the gaps of original...comparisons reveal that Oliver made about three textual mistakes per page copying from original to printers...so unperceived errors are undoubtedly contained in those portions that we cannot check against the OM, nevertheless...not completely unrecoverable

By working backward from the printer's manuscript and the 1830 edition (one sixth of which was typset directly from the OM), as well as other early editions, it is possible to reconstruct in large degree the original text of the Book of Mormon using the standard techniques of critical scholarship.

And you guessed it, it's only within this "reconstructed" text that I found a couple of the phrases claimed to be 15th Century.

What I gather from the description of reconstructing, is that this reconstructing wasn't an easy task, but took a couple of decades of research to accomplish. That leaves me incredibly uneasy about the project as a whole. I mean, if they can go to an old typset and clearly show that the Book of Mormon said "they was yet wroth" and not "they were yet wroth", then great, now it's on to evaluating the usage of a mere 4-gram phrase. But given the great difficulty of coming up with the "earliest text", there must be some subjectivity here that needs reviewing by other experts before we should accept the phrases scrutinized were actually believably phrases there in the first place. It's also disheartening that Skousen himself has joined in the charge that (I believe, correct me if I'm wrong) the critics are out of their depth, demonstrating clear political motive that wasn't as obvious years ago.

The faithful summary of what's going on here is something like this:

A textual critic spends 20 years studying various representations of the Book of Mormon in a vacuum, coming up with what would be the most honest first edition yet published. He's not an apologist, a critic, nor does he bow to the whims of Salt Lake City, insisting on full control over what gets produced. He is, of course, a believing member, but with a tough spirit and full devotion to scientific truth, he goes ahead and reveals the earliest text in all its bad grammar and embarrassing moments, to the chagrin of his believing, scholarly friends. Perhaps they warned him, "Brother, if you print this, the critics will have a field day with it. Life is hard enough for we apologists already, please be careful with how you represent the most sacred writings of the prophet Joseph Smith." But all that mattered was the truth of the task at hand, and so it was what it was. But then, Lo, after the fact, while continuing to study the material, a triumphant discovery: the bad grammar the scholar gritted his teeth and published anyway, shockingly, in actuality is the most elegant of 15th century prose! And then, what to make of such a thing? One thing we know for certain, is that Joseph Smith couldn't have come up with 15th century poetry accidentally. Whether or not the words were dictated by an angel, we know the most important thing: the critics are all wrong.

The cynical summary of what's going on is something like this:

A Mormon scholar loosely associated with apologetics wishes to restore the original Book of Mormon text. As he gets into it, of course he's wondering, what on earth is going to be the use of any of this? Early on, he stumbles upon a phrase that seems Old English -- he is a linguist and may have read the Canterbury tales or Macbeth at some point, and what if the Book of Mormon really is a literary masterpiece, but with the English from a bygone era? And so during the hard task of reconstructing the text, the target is in mind, and certainly there would be opportunities in those places most difficult to reconstruct, to assure it hits the target. And with the book finally unveiled, a continuing effort to frame it according to what had been envisioned all along as the evidence to test was under construction.

Wow. I knew Skousen had held complete control over his work, but adding in that "72 percent of that document is no longer extant" is stunning. Literally, then, tbe re-creation of the "original" document allows for the input of only ONE SINGLE PERSON to determine almost 3/4ths of the content.

Gadianton, I would only add in an additional summary, in between your faithful and critical summaries: a neutral summary.

The problem is, even in a neutral summary, one would have to allow for the subconscious influence on one's decisions, meaning that, exactly like the critical summary, it is entirely plausible that Skousen could have inserted 15th century elements, albeit subconsciously.

Bottom line, the most gullible approach possible to this entire situation would be to simply take Skousen's word (and by extension, Carmack's also) for everything.

Of course, that is Peterson's sweet spot and he does not disappoint. He posted this on MD&D earlier today:

Trust me on this: Royal Skousen believes the Book of Mormon to be a divinely revealed ancient text. He certainly isn't drifting toward agnosticism on that point -- and if there's anybody on Planet Earth less inclined to disingenuousness and/or to flattering leaders than Royal is, I haven't met (and can scarcely conceive of) that person.

Incidentally, too, Stan Carmack doesn't teach at BYU and doesn't even live in Utah.

Well, there you have it. And by the way, Peterson says the 8 Witnesses were equally trustworthy. Thankfully, that's not the method commonly accepted as proof, by any academic, anywhere, ever.

[_Philo Sofee]

So is my surmise right that perhaps you are not finding this persuasive? Is that the conclusion?

[_Lemmie]

So is my surmise right that perhaps you are not finding this persuasive? Is that the conclusion?

You are prescient beyond your years, philo sofee.

[_Philo Sofee]

So is my surmise right that perhaps you are not finding this persuasive? Is that the conclusion?

You are prescient beyond your years, philo sofee.

QUIET MAN! The church might hear about it and ask me for advice. On the other hand I could perhaps regain a little of my tithing paid through the years.......?

[_moksha]

I know, my common sense is telling this guy is just mocking Carmack, ...

Seemed to me to be good-natured tongue in cheek, where a simple hoax can be transformed into a formidable foma.

[_Dr Exiled]

I suspect that Skousen and Carmack are fabricating a hoax of their own.

4 years after Joseph Smith died, this book was published:

Dictionary of Americanisms, A Glossary of Words and Phrases, Usually Regarded as Peculiar to the United States, by John Russell Bartlett, 1848

And on page iii I read this:

"On comparing these familiar words with the provincial and colloquial language of the northern counties of England, a most striking resemblance appeared, not only in the words commonly regarded as peculiar to New England, but in the dialectical pronunciation of certain words, and in the general tone and accent. In fact, it may be said, without exaggeration, that nine tenths of the colloquial peculiarities of New England are derived directly from Great Britain; and that they are now provincial in those parts from which the early colonists emigrated, or are to be found in the writings of well accredited authors of the period when that emigration took place.

It may be insisted, therefore, that the idiom of New England is as pure English, taken as a whole, as was spoken in England at the period when these colonies were settled."
https://books.google.com/books?id=9sVUA ... &q&f=false

It was a known fact in the 1800s that spoken, not written, English in the Eastern states was different from the English written and spoken in Great Britain. And its form was closest to the same spoken type of English of the early 1600s when the first colonists arrived.

Skousen and Carmack have proposed that Joseph Smith could not have known the grammar of an earlier English period. Nonsense. Published writings of the 19th century give hints that he very likely could have spoken in such a way in casual conversation. Mormons can't have their cake and eat it too. If Mormons want to insist that Joe was a poor uneducated farm boy then we have to consider the form of his casual vocal speech patterns.

I think this is key to understanding why the search for Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon is a waste of time.