Book of Mormon Borrowings from the New Testament

[_marg]

What does everyone else think? Is my bias blinding me to the impressiveness of Lindsay's parallels? Or are they just not that impressive?

I'm going to throw out some ideas here

- the number of parallel words strings of 3 or more is only one factor to consider amongst others in determining plagiarism..because plagiarism can also occur if only a small amount of text has been copied...so only a few parallel word strings wouldn't necessarily eliminate plagiarism

other factors to consider:

- the uniqueness of parallel words

- the number of unique words in a string

- the sequence of words

- whether the ideas or themes are the same

- whether there is reason to suspect plagiarism as a possibility

-whether the parallel phrases are common phrases


So I think the problems with Leaves of Grass is that # 1 there is no reason to suspect plagiarism of it in the Book of Mormon, in fact it's impossible

But if it was possible, the themes are not similar to the Book of Mormon. Many of the strings appear to be common phrases with words which are quite common. And there really aren't many parallel phrases containing unique words.

[_ludwigm]

[I'm going to throw out some ideas here

As did I.

In English, shovelling words together make sentences.
In Hungarian, the words should be conjuged, declensed, inflected and integrated with suffixes and prefixes - then they can become a sentence. Sometimes...

[_Res Ipsa]

Wow... lot's of activity. Interesting stuff. Brad, I could tell you would be a good skeptic... but, sheesh. You're as bad the LDS apologists! (Kidding)

I have fun. I think I'm consistently tough on arguing from parallels no matter who is using them.

I leave God out of it because of the errors. The errors demonstrate that God was not involved. God would have known how to speak English. The witnesses have God providing every word and checking for errors. That is simply not consistent with what we find in the 1830 text. What we find is a text that is riddled with grammatical errors that are consistent with errors made by Joseph Smith and other early Mormons, but the bulk of those errors do not come from the KJV sections. (The cherubims/seraphims thing I mentioned earlier is the exception, not the rule.) Most of the really egregious errors are found in the narrative sections that are not quoting from or borrowing from the KJV. In other words, the "translator's" command of English improves when he's copying from the KJV.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree on that. I'm not willing to guess at what the Christian God would do. His actions do not conform to my notion of rationality. Or, more relevantly, whatever his standard of rationality is, I don't understand it. So, all of my opinions here are qualified by the caveat "as long as we don't consider God as having a role."

But there is yet another interesting phenomenon at work when we take a close look at the KJV borrowings. That is: how the Book of Mormon author responds to the phenomenon of KJV italics. David Wright has done an extensive study of this and the findings are very interesting. You can read the whole thing online at http://user.xmission.com/~research/central/isabm2.html

Here is some of what Wright points out:

"A peculiarity of the KJV is the use of italics to mark words which do not have exact correspondences in the original biblical languages."

...

There is evidence that early Mormons knew the significance of italicized words in the KJV and were even, like many at large, suspicious of them. Two of W. W. Phelps' editorials in The Evening and Morning Star refer to the phenomenon. In January of 1833 he wrote of the greatness of the BM over the Bible:

"The Book of Mormon, as a revelation from God, possesses some advantage over the old scripture: it has not been tinctured by the wisdom of man, with here and there an Italic word to supply deficiencies.--It was translated by the gift and power of God....9"

...

"Examination of the variants themselves shows more clearly that the BM Isaiah text responds to italicized words in the KJV."

...

"The words omitted are those that translators would normally insert in translation for smooth conceptual and idiomatic flow in English. That these are missing is an indication that Smith was working with the KJV and struck them from the text. It also suggests that he did this at times rather mechanically.19 This is more transparent in cases where the want of italicized words yields an ungrammatical and even incomprehensible reading. A recurring phrase in Isaiah 5:25; 9:12, 17, 21; 10:4 is that God's "anger is not turned away, but his hand _is stretched out still." In the BM parallel passages the verb "_is" is absent producing the syntactically incomplete phrase "his hand stretched out still" (2 Ne 15:25; 2 Ne 19:12, 17, 21; 20:4).20 The difficulty had to be remedied in later editions of the BM by restoring the verb.21 The KJV's translation is wholly legitimate here. In Hebrew, nouns, adjectives, and adverbials can stand in predicate relationship to another noun without the verb "to be" being expressly stated. English idiom demands the verb "to be" in such cases. The lack of this verb is not only a sign that the italics of the KJV are being deleted, but of an ignorance of Hebrew (see Part 4, note 53)."

There is obviously much more that Wright points out, but the basic idea that Wright, in my opinion, demonstrates conclusively is that the author of the Book of Mormon was operating under the false impression that KJV italics were a corrupted translation and needed to be "fixed." The problem is that the "fixing" often made things worse. It turned a grammatically correct sentence into an incorrect sentence. And Wright documents several examples of this occurring.

Again, God would have known that the KJV italics did not need fixing and he would have understood that proposed "fixes" that ended up in the 1830 Book of Mormon text were not fixes. Whoever produced the Book of Mormon, did not understand this.

In light of this, we can reasonably "leave God out of it."

As I said, I'm not willing to read the mind of God. I have no idea of what God's opinions are about the nuances of Bible translations. I leave God out because I believe in no such entity.

I'm willing to concede that getting that close of a match on that volume of material without copying it is virtually impossible.

Great. From that concession, I think some other things logically follow. Tell me if this is reasonable. We've just agreed that a KJV Bible was copied. Either that or Joseph Smith had an amazing ability to memorize. Those are our only 2 rational options at this point. As marg points out, either way, the Book of Mormon text borrows from the KJV.

I've agreed that one discrete section of the Book of Mormon was created by copying or memorizing text from Isaiah. I'd lean toward outright copying, especially if the study of italics you cited is credible. Do you know if it's been critically examined anywhere? The other part of the Book of Mormon I'd flag as a likely candidate for outright copying would be the words of Jesus in 3 Nephi, but I haven't focussed on it.

If we can agree on that, then we need to explain why none of the witnesses mention the fact that a Bible was used. Dan Vogel (a proponent of S/A - Smith/Alone) explains it by arguing that the early TBMs who were in the same room as Joseph "translated" would have thought nothing of Joseph or Oliver, copying from a Bible. They could have still believed that Joseph was a prophet, receiving revelation from God, getting a large amount of the Book of Mormon text from the stone, but also allowing Oliver to copy the KJV Bible and they never mentioned it because they didn't think it was anything worth mentioning.

In my opinion, trying to read the minds of witnesses also requires a high degree of skepticism. I worked for several years in assisting insurance companies investigate cases of suspected insurance fraud (arson, staged thefts, staged accidents). I learned that trying to figure out why a witness said or didn't say or do something by imposing my perceptions of what a person would do was a very risky proposition -- especially when based on limited data. I can't tell you the number of times I had a file where the adjuster believed that the only reasonable conclusion was that the insured had submitted a fraudulent claim, only to find with additional investigation that there were in fact several reasonable conclusions. That's my long-winded way of saying I think we're moving onto shaky ground.

I think we have to be extremely careful to parse through what the witnesses actually witnessed -- separate what they actually saw and heard from what someone told them. That's very difficult because we have only brief snippets of description, some made decades after the fact, with no indication that anyone asked detailed questions about the process. You probably know this material better than I -- do we have record of anyone asking these witnesses about a Bible? Did anyone ask them specifically how much time they spent actually observing the translation process? There is a world of difference between being around when the process was occurring and actually paying attention.

One thing I think we can be sure of: the descriptions of what Smith saw in the hat are not eyewitness testimony. None of these witnesses say they put their heads in the hat and saw something, let alone looked at the same time as Smith. They say Smith saw something. That means they are repeating what somebody else told them. And it's not clear to me from the snippets how some of the witnesses concluded that the words would not go away if there was an error in what the scribe wrote. Was that also something somebody told them? Or did they witness Smith saying "Oliver, you misspelled Zarahemla. You have to correct it before we can go on." I can't tell from the snippets.

I don't think that's reasonable. To my way of thinking, they did not mention the fact that a Bible was copied because doing so would have conflicted with their testimony that God was causing every word to appear in the stone and it would have called into question whether God was involved at all. They had a vested interest in the success of the Book of Mormon, so they intentionally lied by omission; by presenting incomplete testimony which omitted key details.

Anytime you find yourself saying "I don't think that's reasonable" when what you are talking about is an interpretation of someone else's behavior, that should trigger a high level of skepticism about your own thinking. To be a good skeptic, that's when you have to critically examine your own assumptions and try to poke holes in your own theory. Because the fact is, neither of us has any way of knowing what would be reasonable behavior for these individuals at the time and in the context that these statements were made.

Here's what we don't know: under what circumstances did Smith copy/borrow from Isaiah? Who witnessed the copying? If they did witness the copying, would that have been so important to them that they would volunteer it? In my opinion, concluding that these individuals intentionally lied by omission based on the what you've presented is unjustified.

If we agree that a Bible was copied, doesn't that reasonably follow? I think so, and if so, the only method that avoids that but still has Joseph dictating the whole thing is that Joseph must have had some amazing memorization skills. I think these are our only two options in light of the evidence considered so far.

Based on what we've discussed, I think intentional lying by omission is less plausible than other possible explanations. Some of these witnesses turned hostile toward Smith, yet none accused him of copying from the Bible. In general, the more people that have to be complicit in intentional lying, the harder it is to keep the lie secret. At this point, I find several potential explanations more plausible:

1. No one said anything about the Bible because no one asked the witnesses. (I haven't independently investigated whether that is the case.)
2. No one volunteered information about use of the Bible because they didn't feel it was important. (What you describe as Vogel's theory)
3. No one witnessed the copying of Isaiah other than Smith and the scribe at the time of the copying.

I understand you are saying that the Book of Mormon writer was trying to write in the "voice" of the KJB..basically Elizabethan English, but unless they are very familiar with the wording in the KJB..it's not likely they would duplicate strings of words. If lots of parallels were found it would only be because of familiarity or memory. But if all we care about is whether they likely had the KJB on hand and we've already said they likely did for the Isaiah..then there is little reason to assume it wasn't on hand for other passages as well.

Agreed. This logically follows. And in light of this, it is much more likely that the rest of vessr's parallels also represent borrowing, whether direct or indirect. Once we've established that a Bible was used for at least some of the text, then the burden shifts to one of demonstrating why these other parallels are not examples of what we've already established.

Not agreed. There is no justification for a shift in the burden of proof. First, there is a substantial difference between copying, as was done with Isaiah, and duplication of word order in the two books. The former requires at least one witness other than Smith (unless the Original Manuscript of the relevant sections of 2 Nephi are in Smith's handwriting). The latter could be done entirely by Smith without any witnesses. Vessr's parallels could easily be the product of Smith attempting to recite or summarize passages he'd studied on his own. Second, even if Smith copied a certain percentage of text from the Bible, there is still a baseline of duplicate word order that we would expect to see in the absence of copying. You haven't attempted to estimate or eliminate chance. The best example of this so far is Vessr's "puffed up" parallel. The person proposing borrowing as a hypothesis retains the burden of proof that the duplication is due to "borrowing" as opposed to chance.

But as you shrink the length and quality of the parallels, my confidence also shrinks. At some point, I don't trust my common sense to distinguish between chance and intention, because I know that my brain is inclined to find intention even when no intention is present. Where is that point? I dunno. That's why I'd like some data.

But again, if we agree that a Bible was used for some of the passages, then chance is no longer on the table - or at least is greatly diminished. We've already made the most difficult leap which is establishing dependence in the first place. Once we've done that, we've shown that something was occurring that nobody ever admitted happened. The shorter parallels simply add to the "preponderance of evidence."

Disagree. What we are trying to do is extract a signal from noise. The noise is always there unless you identify it and take it out. The fact that you can find a signal doesn't mean the noise is more likely to become signal. The noise is still there. Assume I ran a study on randomly selected texts and could conclude, with some level of confidence, that I should expect to find X number of 2 word parallels, X number of 3 word parallels, X number of 4 word parallels, due to chance. That's the noise. If we find a greater incidence of parallels with statistical significance between the Bible and Book of Mormon, that could be evidence of intentional copying. So would a confession that a specific section of the book was copied. But neither of those things mean we should expect to find less noise. The evidence that Isaiah was copied says nothing about the likelihood that "puffed up" represents the noise.

You also haven't shown that any of the witnesses actually witnessed the borrowing (other than perhaps Oliver).

In short, I think you're way out on a limb when you conclude that the witnesses were intentionally lying. I don't see any sign that you've vetted your own reasoning.

[_Res Ipsa]

And I am reacting somewhat to where Roger wants to take the argument: parallels between the Spaulding manuscript and the Book of Mormon.

Does this mean you are familiar with the Spalding authorship claims and are skeptical of them?

What it means is that you've said you are going to apply what we are talking about to a different factual scenario, and so I should be careful of drawing general conclusions that ignore possible differences in the specific factual context. I am generally familiar with the Spalding/Rigdon theory. I try to be skeptical in stance toward any theory of authorship. I view it as an interesting puzzle, but I'm not convinced there is sufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion with any degree of confidence.

marg, I'm sorry, I must really be explaining my point poorly. I'm not proposing that we take the Book of Mormon and look through millions of books so that I can cherry pick the one with the most matches. I'm just looking for a baseline. If I could do it from scratch, I'd take a number of pairings of books written in the same time period in roughly the same location, look for every identical sequence of words from three words up, and then take an average. Then I'd have data on the number of identical word sequences I should expect due to chance.

I'm not assuming anything other than that skeptical thinking requires understanding the role of chance before basing a conclusion solely on the existence of parallel word sequences.

But that's really not very practical for this discussion is it? If it is, I say, go for it and let's see what you come up with. But I doubt it is practical.

No, it's not practical. But that doesn't mean we just get to ignore the role of chance. If we do, we are drawing unjustified conclusions from the facts. What we do is reduce the weight of the questionable parallels as evidence.

I think what might be practical, however, is to locate a few of the best examples we can find of 19th century parallels that we have every reason to believe occur by chance. Once we do this, we can then see how they measure up to vessr's and Holley's parallels. It will be a subjective comparison, but at least not just shooting in the dark. If we can agree that the best of vessr's parallels and the best of Holley's parallels are of a better quality than the best of what we can find from random occurrence, then at least we've had some fun and can draw our own conclusions.

It may be practical, but I'm not persuaded it's a reliable method. When something is only potentially marginally better than shooting in the dark, it's best not to shoot at all. There is so much subjectivity and bias in this approach that I don't think we can get beyond wild ass guessing. We all know which parallels are coming from which source, which introduces obvious biases. You're already persuaded of which parallels are more significant, so you can't avoid the obvious biases there. We have no criteria for what would constitute "best" parallels, and there was no attempt to define any criteria before you jumped in and conducted a comparison.

Jeff Lindsay is a smart guy. I love his sense of humor. His whole web page about the Book of Mormon being copied from Leaves of Grass is meant to show the absurdity of claiming the Book of Mormon was copied from other sources. So to some extent, Lindsay has done our work for us. He lists parallels that he implies are as good or better than what other's have claimed about Book of Mormon parallels. And of course, the point is that the Book of Mormon couldn't have borrowed from Whitman since Leaves of Grass was published 25 years after the Book of Mormon.

Sorry, I don't trust Lindsay to do the necessary legwork. He lists parallels that he happens to spot. And because he's writing to prove a point, he spends only the time and effort he thinks he needs to prove his point. So I don't accept his Leaves of Grass piece as being a sufficient basis for evaluating the significance of parallels (beyond the fact that some baseline of parallels is expected when comparing writings).

<snipped stuff from Lindsay>

Actually, I'm not very impressed with these parallels. Lindsay's humor and hype do a good job at making them appear impressive, but - and I don't know how to say this any better - they just feel random. In other words, if I was just a guy on the street with no interest in Mormonism and Lindsay came up to me with these parallels, I don't think I would conclude that the Book of Mormon borrowed from Grass.

You've put your finger on the fundamental problem: you're relying on what "feels" random. And one thing we know is that human feelings about randomness are wildly off the mark. Have you done any reading on this topic? If not, I highly recommend it. Human beings do not have a reliable feel for randomness. If you give them two sets of data, one random and one designed to be what people think of as random, people are fooled. What feels "random" to us is an absence of pattern. But random data are filled with patterns -- that's the nature of randomness.

What does everyone else think? Is my bias blinding me to the impressiveness of Lindsay's parallels? Or are they just not that impressive?

--okay after re-reading, I have to add this disclaimer... a random guy on the street who doesn't know anything about the Book of Mormon might conclude that Smith copied from Whitman based only on these parallels. But when one is familiar with the Book of Mormon, then the parallels are not that impressive. Am I wrong?

See, I'm sure it's unintentional, but you've already loaded the dice in several ways. First, you identified the source of the parallels research. Second, you've told us your opinion before asking ours. Third, you've stated your opinions through the prism of your opinions about the Book of Mormon.

There are ways to reduce or remove the bias, but they're very difficult to set up. And none of them involve sifting through large amounts of information, looking for patterns, and then assigning meaning to the patterns.

[_Res Ipsa]

- the number of parallel words strings of 3 or more is only one factor to consider amongst others in determining plagiarism..because plagiarism can also occur if only a small amount of text has been copied...so only a few parallel word strings wouldn't necessarily eliminate plagiarism

At this point, I think it would be a good idea to formulate a rigorous definition of plagiarism. What is it exactly that we are trying to find?

If plagiarism includes any intentional copying from a source, I don't think we can ever necessarily eliminate plagiarism absent proof that one author could not have had access to the access to the other's work. For example, suppose I write two sentences. In one, I'm going to open today's New York Times at random, point to a word, and copy that word into my next sentence. In the other, I'm going to change the copied word into something I didn't copy from the New York Times. Is there a reliable way to determine which sentence is which? If not, then ruling out plagiarism can't be the goal.

other factors to consider:

- the uniqueness of parallel words

I agree, but have trouble identifying uniqueness and figuring out a measure for it. I suppose one way might be to test other sources for use of the same word or string of words. The more common the usage of the subject word or string in writing or speech in the relevant context (time, location, etc.) the less likely we'd have a case of intentional copying. I'd suggest my analysis of vessr's first parallel way back upthread, where I looked to find if the phrase "for to keep" was uncommon usage, as a rough example.

- the number of unique words in a string

that seems a sensible factor to me -- the more unique words, the stronger the inference of deliberate copying.

- the sequence of words

I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I'd say that the longer the sequence of identical words, the stronger the inference of deliberate copying. On the other, the best way to conceal deliberate copying is to change a few words here and there. So I'm not sure how to evaluate this factor.

- whether the ideas or themes are the same

I'm conflicted on this one, too. On the one hand, similar ideas and themes could indicate deliberate copying, even if the exact words are not used. On the other hand, the chance of random matches of word sequence should increase if we select two books written on the same subject. For example, I think we'd reasonably expect more chance matches in two books on whaling than we would between a book on whaling and one on knitting. So this is another factor I'm not sure how to evaluate.

- whether there is reason to suspect plagiarism as a possibility

I think this goes into the overall evaluation, but I'd want to be careful as how we view this. As I've explained above, I think we have to account for random hits. The random hits don't go away just because we have reason to suspect plagiarism. So I'd have to say we look at what this evidence is and figure out what it means on a case by case basis.

-whether the parallel phrases are common phrases

I think I'd lump this in with "uniqueness."

So I think the problems with Leaves of Grass is that # 1 there is no reason to suspect plagiarism of it in the Book of Mormon, in fact it's impossible

But if it was possible, the themes are not similar to the Book of Mormon. Many of the strings appear to be common phrases with words which are quite common. And there really aren't many parallel phrases containing unique words.

I agree, it's impossible. But the exercise is useful as an example of how parallel sentence structure can occur by chance as opposed to deliberate copying. I think the dissimilar theme cuts both ways. Given the dissimilar theme, one could argue that it's surprising how many parallels Lindsay could find -- the implication being the likelihood of random parallels is greater than we may otherwise think. I suspect you're right about uniqueness v. common usage, although I'm a little hesitant to draw a firm conclusion without actually investigating other sources.

[_marg]

Ok Brad here's an exercise,

imagine you are Joseph's scribe when he is dictating to you the sections in the Book of Mormon in which he is supposed to be translating what Nephi 2 has translated from Hebrew Isaiah into Reformed Egyptian. And you truly believe God is helping him do this, that Smith is writing a new scripture with God's guidance. You believe the storyline that all other religions have become corrupted and even the Bible is corrupted. But Smith open up a King James Bible in order to dictate to you and he even makes some changes where the KJB has some italicized words. Would this not raise a red flag for you? Wouldn't you wonder what on earth he's using the Bible for when he's supposed to be translating some plates written by prophets in Reformed Egyptian whether it is by studying it out in his mind or a head in the hat method.

I'm not sure whether it's known which scribe wrote this portion, apparently Oliver Cowdery was the main scribe for the majority of the Book of Mormon. Never mind the issue that no one mentioned a Bible was used, but if you were a scribe..and for argument sake assume you truly believe what Smith claimed to be doing...wouldn't you immediate think there's a problem if he's reading to you from the Bible when he's supposed to be translating an ancient scribe's writing with the help of a God?

Aren't you being a little bit too easy, non skeptical of the fact that while the evidence is strong that the KJB was copied..that no scribe mentions it.

I agree with you that many parallels with the KJB could be a function of Smith being so familiar with the KJB..that he's able to insert phrases willy nilly which parallel the KJB. I'm not particularly interested in trying to figure out for this situation whether any of the parallels are by "chance" because in this case I don't think there's any relevancy..when it's obvious in this case that that the KJB was plagiarized. So the main issue really is ..if plagiarized and KJB was copied directly which is most likely given the extent of copying of Isaiah as well as changes to italicized words..then as Roger argued..that should have raised a red flag..to anyone who truly believed what Smith claimed to be doing.

If one is going to be skeptical with regards to what the parallels indicate in this situation..the skepticism should not be on whether the KJB was plagiarized because that's a given..it's obvious. Rather the skepticism should be on if plagiarized to such as extent that the Bible was likely present for a main section portion of it..then skepticism should be on the lack of truthfulness of at least one scribe..in this case I believe it's likely Oliver Cowdery for not mentioning a Bible. That omission ..the scribe would know would be a form of lie..because it is so signficant given the data of what Smith was supposed to be doing.

Now Oliver Cowdery was pretty much silent about the entire process (If I recall correctly)..which leads me to be highly skeptical about his involvement and his truthfulness. At the very least had a Bible been used during the process..that's not a minor issue ..it's extremely significant given the data/claims being made.

[_Roger]

Brad:

It may be practical, but I'm not persuaded it's a reliable method. When something is only potentially marginally better than shooting in the dark, it's best not to shoot at all. There is so much subjectivity and bias in this approach that I don't think we can get beyond wild ass guessing.

Okay, I give up. I think the available evidence in this case is just never going to be enough to satisfy you. We can continue to discuss it, but no matter what, it's all just going to be a matter of opinion and we're not likely to agree.

The way I approach the issue goes like this....

The Book of Mormon exists. One way or another it came to be. I realize this is only my opinion, but the way I see it there are 3 main contenders to answer the question "How did the Book of Mormon come to be?"

1. S/D - Smith/Divine. This is the official Mormon version (however that may currently be defined). I'm blatantly showing my bias, but a key problem with this version is that there seem to be several different versions so it's difficult to know how to compare it to the other versions. Also, this version includes God and you don't accept that such an entity exists.

2. S/A - Smith/Alone. From my perspective there are at least two versions of this theory. What I call S/A/V for Vogel's version and S/A/T for the Tanner's version. The difference between the two is that Dan's version only allows for copying from a Bible and accepts the testimony of early Mormon witnesses - in my view uncritically; in his view unless they give him reason not to. From what I can figure out, the Tanner's version of S/A is much more skeptical of early Mormon witnesses and also allows for copying from more than just a Bible.

3. S/R - Spalding/Rigdon. Admittedly there are also variations of this theory, but the most popular, which is the one I lean toward, has Rigdon obtaining a copy of Spalding's manuscript then adapting it and embellishing it over several years, then handing it over to Joseph Smith to "bring forth" as a new Bible from his seer stone.

So the way I see it, these are the best options we have to choose from. It's possible that the Book of Mormon was dropped in New York state by Martians intent on playing a huge joke on earthlings, but I prefer to focus on the three most likely contenders and then, from that group, see if the evidence points to one of them over the others.

[_Res Ipsa]

marg, What you're really asking me is whether I would expect Cowdery to act as Hudson thinks Hudson would act if Hudson were in Cowdery's place. My honest answer is: "I have no freaking idea." The world is filled with people who don't do what I'd imagine I would do if I were in their shoes. That doesn't make them liars, or bad people or even wrong.

Here's a guess that's as good as any other. If I were in Oliver's position and (1) I truly believed Joseph Smith was a prophet; and (2) I truly believed Smith was translating the Book of Mormon at God's direction and under God's guidance, I'd (1) not think to even question at all; (2) find a way to discount or rationalize the potentially threatening evidence; or (3) ask Joseph why he was copying and accept whatever explanation he provided. Why is this my guess? Because (1) that's how psychological studies say that true believers react when presented with facts that potentially threaten their beliefs and (2) It's exactly how I responded to such information when I was a believing Mormon. So which is a better predictor of what I'd do in Oliver's situation: how I'd like to believe I would react or what actually studies tell us about how people in that situation typically react combined with my own reaction under comparable circumstance?

I checked. Oliver was the scribe for 2 Nephi.

I think the evidence is very strong that Isaiah was copied into 2 Nephi. (I believe the article on italics only examined the Isaiah passages.) The OM is in Cowdry's handwriting, which I think is fairly good evidence that Cowdry witnessed Smith reading from the Old Testament instead of sticking his face in his hat. But even that's somewhat speculative. I'd love to be able to ask the question: was there ever a time when Smith dictated to you but wasn't visible to you? If Smith was a good con man, it's not unreasonable to consider that he may have arranged a circumstance under which he dictated when he wasn't fully visible to Cowdry. (My best of all possible worlds would be to send James Randi back in time, let him observe the entire process, and tell me what he thinks.)

Skepticism means reasoning from evidence, and critically examining each step in the chain of reasoning. Nothing that we've discussed so far is evidence that supports the conclusion that any witness other than Oliver saw Smith dictating from the Bible as opposed to sticking his head in his hat. Even Oliver is problematic, as the evidence is circumstantial and somewhat speculative. Now, you want to jump to "Oliver wasn't truthful." But that's based on the fact that you think the copying of Isaiah is important. We don't have evidence of what Oliver thought, other than a snippet where he described the process. I am not willing to make that jump based on that kind of speculation -- that's not skepticism. Rather, it's making a subjective judgment of someone's honesty based on lots of subjective assumptions and precious little evidence. in my opinion, that's the opposite of skepticism.

Now I want to be very clear. I am not saying that the evidence is persuasive that Oliver was honest. I'm saying that the evidence is insufficient, and in the absent of sufficient evidence, the skeptical position is to decline to reach a conclusion either way.

[_Res Ipsa]

Brad:

It may be practical, but I'm not persuaded it's a reliable method. When something is only potentially marginally better than shooting in the dark, it's best not to shoot at all. There is so much subjectivity and bias in this approach that I don't think we can get beyond wild ass guessing.

Okay, I give up. I think the available evidence in this case is just never going to be enough to satisfy you. We can continue to discuss it, but no matter what, it's all just going to be a matter of opinion and we're not likely to agree.

The way I approach the issue goes like this....

The Book of Mormon exists. One way or another it came to be. I realize this is only my opinion, but the way I see it there are 3 main contenders to answer the question "How did the Book of Mormon come to be?"

1. S/D - Smith/Divine. This is the official Mormon version (however that may currently be defined). I'm blatantly showing my bias, but a key problem with this version is that there seem to be several different versions so it's difficult to know how to compare it to the other versions. Also, this version includes God and you don't accept that such an entity exists.

2. S/A - Smith/Alone. From my perspective there are at least two versions of this theory. What I call S/A/V for Vogel's version and S/A/T for the Tanner's version. The difference between the two is that Dan's version only allows for copying from a Bible and accepts the testimony of early Mormon witnesses - in my view uncritically; in his view unless they give him reason not to. From what I can figure out, the Tanner's version of S/A is much more skeptical of early Mormon witnesses and also allows for copying from more than just a Bible.

3. S/R - Spalding/Rigdon. Admittedly there are also variations of this theory, but the most popular, which is the one I lean toward, has Rigdon obtaining a copy of Spalding's manuscript then adapting it and embellishing it over several years, then handing it over to Joseph Smith to "bring forth" as a new Bible from his seer stone.

So the way I see it, these are the best options we have to choose from. It's possible that the Book of Mormon was dropped in New York state by Martians intent on playing a huge joke on earthlings, but I prefer to focus on the three most likely contenders and then, from that group, see if the evidence points to one of them over the others.

You know your evidence better than I do, so I'm not in a position to argue. The thought process you've outlined raises an additional red flag for me. Deciding there are a finite number of alternatives and then trying to figure out a best fit can be problematic unless you have very good reason to believe you've really got all the possible explanations. Are what you've outlined really all the possible explanations? Because if they aren't, then you may in fact be overlooking the best fit explanation.

I think you stand a better chance of reaching justified conclusions when you take each explanation somebody proposes, but the burden of proof on them, and evaluate their proposed explanation in light of the evidence you have. What that means is you are going to run into many questions where the answer you reach is: "the evidence is not sufficient to support any of the proposed explanations." But that's one of the consequences of trying to be a rational skeptic.

Although I view "how was the Book of Mormon actually written?" as an interesting puzzle, I feel no compulsion to reach any sort of decision. The answer may very well be: There's not sufficient evidence and there will likely never be sufficient evidence to reach a well-supported conclusion."

That doesn't bother me in the slightest.

[_marg]

marg, What you're really asking me is whether I would expect Cowdery to act as Hudson thinks Hudson would act if Hudson were in Cowdery's place. My honest answer is: "I have no freaking idea." The world is filled with people who don't do what I'd imagine I would do if I were in their shoes. That doesn't make them liars, or bad people or even wrong.

Here's a guess that's as good as any other. If I were in Oliver's position and (1) I truly believed Joseph Smith was a prophet; and (2) I truly believed Smith was translating the Book of Mormon at God's direction and under God's guidance, I'd (1) not think to even question at all; (2) find a way to discount or rationalize the potentially threatening evidence; or (3) ask Joseph why he was copying and accept whatever explanation he provided. Why is this my guess? Because (1) that's how psychological studies say that true believers react when presented with facts that potentially threaten their beliefs and (2) It's exactly how I responded to such information when I was a believing Mormon. So which is a better predictor of what I'd do in Oliver's situation: how I'd like to believe I would react or what actually studies tell us about how people in that situation typically react combined with my own reaction under comparable circumstance?

How many people have been in the situation that Oliver was in. Just because many people are religious doesn't mean they been in a comparable situation.

We are talking about extraordinary claims here..and even as a believer you would have appreciated that..had you been in Oliver's shoes. Smith is claiming to be a prophet...not a prophet that Oliver has been indoctrinated into believing his entire life. Smith is dictating a book supposedly comparable to the Bible. His claim is that he's translating what has been written on plates by some ancient people. Oliver is educated, articulate, by trade he became a lawyer. And you are telling me that if you were in his shoes..you wouldn't necessarily suspect anything wrong with Smith copying from a Bible..when he claims to be translating via divine guidance?

I checked. Oliver was the scribe for 2 Nephi.

I think the evidence is very strong that Isaiah was copied into 2 Nephi. (I believe the article on italics only examined the Isaiah passages.) The OM is in Cowdry's handwriting, which I think is fairly good evidence that Cowdry witnessed Smith reading from the Old Testament instead of sticking his face in his hat. But even that's somewhat speculative. I'd love to be able to ask the question: was there ever a time when Smith dictated to you but wasn't visible to you? If Smith was a good con man, it's not unreasonable to consider that he may have arranged a circumstance under which he dictated when he wasn't fully visible to Cowdry. (My best of all possible worlds would be to send James Randi back in time, let him observe the entire process, and tell me what he thinks.)


Skepticism means reasoning from evidence, and critically examining each step in the chain of reasoning. Nothing that we've discussed so far is evidence that supports the conclusion that any witness other than Oliver saw Smith dictating from the Bible as opposed to sticking his head in his hat. Even Oliver is problematic, as the evidence is circumstantial and somewhat speculative. Now, you want to jump to "Oliver wasn't truthful." But that's based on the fact that you think the copying of Isaiah is important. We don't have evidence of what Oliver thought, other than a snippet where he described the process. I am not willing to make that jump based on that kind of speculation -- that's not skepticism. Rather, it's making a subjective judgment of someone's honesty based on lots of subjective assumptions and precious little evidence. in my opinion, that's the opposite of skepticism.

Now I want to be very clear. I am not saying that the evidence is persuasive that Oliver was honest. I'm saying that the evidence is insufficient, and in the absent of sufficient evidence, the skeptical position is to decline to reach a conclusion either way.

From Craig Criddle's article
http://sidneyrigdon.com/criddle/rigdon1.htm#3

"Scientific inquiry is like a dot-to-dot puzzle, where the dots themselves have to be uncovered in some way. Each dot is a piece of evidence or data. The idea is to reveal as many dots as possible, then connect them as simply as possible. Data that seem clear are dark dots, whereas uncertain data are faint. When only a few faint dots are available, the picture is unclear. But as the dots accumulate, and become darker, a relatively reliable pattern often emerges. The more testable the pattern and more replicable the results of experiments designed to test it, the more reliable the pattern is. The peer review process seeks to ensure that the dots are shaded and located correctly and then connected using short straight lines so that the overall picture is interpreted correctly."

In other words Brad, one should consider the data/evidence within the context of other data..in order to form the best fit explanation.

One needs to also evaluate the evidence and that requires more than skepticism. In addition if one has reason to assume evidence exists and it's absent that can be considered evidence. So in the situation with Oliver Cowdery in which he's certainly no dummy, he's supposed be helping Smith as scribe, he's extremely familiar with the Book of Mormon and its contents. I believe he's the scribe for about 80 % of it. I think he also was the one to take it to the printers. So he's the one with the most control over it. He's obviously knowledgeable about the claim that Smith is writing via divine guidance and he's supposed to be translating from ancient plates.

Yet you don't think that if Smith went behind a curtain or attempted to hide the Bible from oliver that he wouldn't have been aware of it..and given the claims being made by Joseph of translating ancient plates that he wouldn't have thought that wrong.

Skepticism ..is not the end all be all of critical thinking. When it leads to poor evaluation of the evidence..such as ignoring absence of evidence when it's reasonable to assume that evidence should exist..that's not good critical thinking. And evidence should be evaluating keeping in mind that it should be considered along with other evidence, not simply isolated and evaluated on its own. So for example when you evaluate Oliver as a witness one should consider the sort of claims being made ..and whether someone of Oliver's intelligence, his role in the affair, the length of time he spent as scribe, the control he had over the process...and consider whether a Bible present would have raised issues for him. Also evaluating Oliver requires evaluating his claims in the witness statement in the Book of Mormon.