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The account of Harris meeting Anthon is literally in the Book of Mormon. 2 Nephi 27 And somehow, Anthon's telling of his meeting with Harris is more aligned with the Book of Mormon than the official 1838 JS History account

Fair point that the curtain was simple and nobody objected. But I think that’s because of what people thought was happening in 1828. Anthon informs us in 1834 that Harris initially said nothing in 1828 about a divine or supernatural process. According to Harris, Anthon endorsed the translation when he understood the "decypherment" to be the result of a natural process. Then take the account from Joseph’s 1838 history as told by Martin: Joseph had copied characters off the plates and made a translation of some of them, and Martin carried both to Anthon to have the translation checked. Whatever one thinks of Anthon’s later denials, the people involved clearly understood the work at that stage as reading an actual ancient script, the kind of thing scholars like Mitchill and Anthon could verify the decipherment. And it seems they both did verify initially, at least before the story shifted to the supernatural. The reason I tend to push back on defenses of a supernatural method like yours is that I don’t think the early accounts require one. According to Martin’s own account, Mitchill and Anthon, the most learned men he could find in New York in 1828, were at first satisfied with the characters and with the sample translation. Everyone involved treated it as something scholars could check. The story only turned supernatural when the angel came up, and Anthon withdrew. I sometimes wonder how the Book of Mormon would have been received if the supernatural elements had never come up, and Martin had come home with that certificate intact. Apologies, I should have explained better. What I had in mind is this Lorenzo Brown account 1880: “After I got through translating the Book of Mormon, I took up the Bible to read with the Urim and Thummim. I read the first chapter of Genesis and saw things as they were done…the whole passed before me like a grand panorama.” (source) It’s late and Matthews argues there’s no evidence a stone was used in the actual JST. There's only this report that Joseph first “looked at” the Bible with it. Orson Pratt said Joseph stopped needing the instrument once he was experienced. So the most I’d claim is that the Genesis work may have begun with the stone, and that the method then moved from instrument to inspiration. Interestingly that’s the same direction I think the numerous accounts of mutliple methods of translation show.

Yes. The unspoken premise - that you torture puppies for fun and profit - is false and imaginary, but I smuggled it in. So it is with you various statements and their false and imaginary unspoken premises. No, that is not my position. At all. And I'm simply pointing out that you should stop torturing puppies for fun and profit. You are free to disregard my posts. There is also no need for you to continue to torture puppies, and yet here we are. Again: I still watch some of Dan's content, but his social media stuff is coming across more and more as self-aggrandizing, conclusory, stirring-the-pot, politicized, click-baity, berating and dunking on amateurs, etc., and less about thoughtfully distilling and presenting the nuances and complexities of biblical scholarship to a lay audience. That is sort of the risk you take when you make yourself a social media content creator. Clicks count. Edgy and provocative stuff gets clicks. I have also pointed to his statements to Dehlin and Rogan and elsewhere, and explained at length why I find them problematic. I have also said that I am reconsidering my assessment. I find it interesting that you are coming to the Dan's defense as regarding his devotion to the truth claims of the Church. If he really does believe in the tenets of our faith, it would be odd to see you white knight for him. Alternatively, if he is instead subversive in his intent (that is, we assume the worst about his comments re: "offering ... reasons for people {that is, Latter-day Saints} to feel justified in not remaining faithful," and calling this a "sweet spot" and indicative that he is "doing something right," and his appreciation for compliments from the most prominent anti-Mormon alive, who is "cheering" him on), then I could certainly understand why folks like you and SU would - like Dehlin - be happy about "cheering" him on. That said, I am reconsidering my assessment. Again, from a previous post: You might be right. My personal interactions with Dan were really quite unpleasant and offputting, so perhaps personality conflicts have unduly affected my assessment of him. Baseless and inflammatory accusations from online strangers from the likes of anonymous posters like some on this board are standard fare for online discussions, but I guess I expect more from a scholar of Dan's stature. I also find fair portions of his social media content to be grating insofar as he mixes personal invective and dunking and ridicule into his commentary on biblical scholarship. Nevertheless, you've made some solid points. Thank you for your input. Thanks, -Smac

Though not mutually exclusive, the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah could still exist and belong in the theology while still being wrong to worship her instead of the Lord of Israel. When King Hezekiah took out Nehushtan the Brazen Serpent of Moses (and Asherah which was there for 2/3rds of the temple's existence) because people were burning incense to it instead of the Lord has not much to do with whether Nehushtan had a rightful place in the theology of the temple when they first put it in there.

The puppies are imaginary. Dan is a real person that you seem to feel it is your duty to go after for subversion and being a wolf in sheep's clothing. You liken him to others who have been excommunicated by the Church for subversion all because he uses his scholarly approach to questions about the scriptures. I'm simply pointing out that if you are looking for faith, visions, the supernatural, you should stick to General Conference and the carefully collated lesson manuals the Church puts out. For those that are interested in a more scholarly nuanced understanding of the scriptures, then Dan may help with that. If you don't like what he writes, then look elsewhere to find someone that already agrees with you. No need to call him names and attempt to rally support in his ousting from the Church. If that is not your intent, what is the reason you feel the need to attack Dan and his methods?

Actually, it does. Positivism is not a strawman because the larger academic world has long been dominated by Positivism, a world view on which moderates what counts as evidence, which voices count as authoritative, which questions get asked, who gets published and reviewed. It is directly akin to a famous comment Bacon I quoted. Where Bacon declare "don't theorize" he also exposes exactly his problem, a refusal to become self critical, to think about his own assumptions in comparison to another set of assumptions that explain the same observations in a different way, and it happens, solves problems that he does not engage. I notice that you have not acknowledged that I pointed out a set of interlocking serious issues with your statement that "Time is linear, therefore the Book of Mormon is not ancient." I pointed out that the primary Book of Mormon authors and editors post-date the New Testament, that both Mormon and Moroni reported personal encounters with the Risen Jesus (who, I think, was not ignorant of the New Testament), which, in concert with the report that the Risen Jesus also appeared to the Nephites earlier and told them many things, more of which were not recorded than were recorded, and that the translator of the Book of Mormon was not isolated from the New Testament before beginning his efforts, and therefore was open to influence from the single most influential text and translation in his culture and language, your assumptions of an easy, open and shut case, has serious and legitimate competition that you have no acknowledged or addressed, in exactly the same way that Bacon does not consider how his interpretation of his observations of heavenly motions might be accounted for by another theory, and indeed how that theory might better account for planetary motion, just as other theories, such as explored at depth and in detail by John Sorenson in Mormon's Codex, and Brant Gardner in The Book of Mormon as History, and literally hundreds of other scholars publishing via Interpreter and Maxwell Institute, account for countless details in the Book of Mormon that your easy dismissal does not so much as acknowledge as problems worth mentioning in public. Back in 1953 Hugh Nibley pointed out Blass’s rules for authenticating historical documents, based on the experience of Renaissance scholars dealing with the flood of new manuscripts: What was remarkable about Barker’s approach in comparison to most non-Latter Day Saint scholars is that it actually allows that assumption to inform her test. She reads it against the Jerusalem 600 BCE context that it claims for itself, rather than uncritically supposing that it must be a 19th Century fabrication by Joseph Smith, maybe persons unknown. And that is the point Nibley made: “If one assumes that it is true, its features at least become testable.” Price began, as Professor Midgley observes of some LDS scholars, and most outside critics do, and that is “to approach the text of the Book of Mormon already knowing, from sources exterior to the text, both the questions and the answers.” It also happens that arguments that a particular set of words and titles used in the Book of Mormon are or are not anachronistic, is always subject to revision in light of new evidence. For instance, Elsewhere, Roper has considered generally all of the major claims of anachronism that have been put forward against the Book of Mormon, and has demonstrated that the general tendency is towards resolution. And you demonstrate that you have not carefully considered what I actually wrote here, let alone what I have published elsewhere. I did not only cite Barker. I also linked James Charlesworth's 1978 paper on the Book of Mormon, in which he offered his own suggestions for dealing with apparent anachronisms in the Book of Mormon via translator influence, which suggestions were preceded by Hugh Nibley in Since Cumorah, and followed later by Blake Ostler in his 1987 Dialogue essay on the Expansion Hypothesis. And besides that, your dismissal of Barker simply does not account for the many credentialed scholars who appreciate and champion her work. Those who voted her to the Presidency of the Society for Old Testament Study in 1998 clearly saw something in her work that you do not. Those Doctors who invited her to speak and work at a range of Universities in the UK actually exist. The Archbishop of Canterbury awarded her the Lambeth Doctor of Divinity because he appreciated her work. She has 18 books in print. (Do you?) In a review of The Risen Lord, Professor John McDade said: And when giving the Gifford lectures, N.T. Wright notes that Barker has done "remarkable work in alerting scholarly and popular circles to a temple based understanding". Barker has never had a formal academic post, around this time she served as President of the Society for Old Testament Study, she was invited by the Centre of Advanced Religious and Theological Studies at Cambridge to devise a research project. She later withdrew, and the essays she produced as seed for that project along with six essays that she had previously published in various journals was published in 2002 as The Great High Priest: The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy. Far from being isolated, in 2008, Margaret Barker, Robin Griffith-Jones, Laurence Hemming, Susan Parsons and Bishop Geoffrey Rowell organized a Temple Studies Group to promote “study of the Temple in Jerusalem, believing that the worldview, traditions, customs and symbolism of the Temple were formative influences on the development of Christianity.” The group successfully organized symposia for several years running, up to 2018 and COVID. After the publication of Temple Themes in Christian Worship, the Archbishop of Canterbury awarded her a Lambeth Doctor of Divinity “in recognition of her work on the Jerusalem Temple and the origins of Christian Liturgy, which has made a significantly new contribution to our understanding of the New Testament and opened up important fields for research.” In 2015, scholar Crispin Fletcher-Louis, in the introduction to the first volume of Jesus Monotheism, mentions Margaret Barker as “a muse to many of us, albeit from beyond the immediate confines of Oxford on the cosmology and religious experiences nurtured by Israel’s Temple.” A noted scholar like Andrei Orlov at Marquette incorporated her journal articles into the syllabus for his classes. So if the Academy in general is committed to a secular view of the Bible, and various other academics in schools run by Evangelicals or Catholics or whomever, and many of them do not publicly endorse Barker's work in ways that would directly challenge the paradigm communities upon which their careers were built and lively-hoods depend, that is the way of things. Paradigm change takes generations, particularly in religious matters. Depicting her as isolated does not account for this kind of thing. She has not been adopted by the majority, but she has her champions in many notable places. FWIW Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

The idea of changing the method because of the number of observers kind of makes sense (barely), but I don't think the statements we have match that at all. Stone in the hat is used for both private situations (Emma and Martin) and public situations (David and Isaac). Curtain is used in private situation (Martin) and public (Martin). Sorry, this doesn't make sense to me. I think it is pretty certain that he started with a curtain. And he already had simple explanation for why he needed the curtain and why they couldn't look behind the curtain. Why does he need a different way? It is simple, easy, and accomplishes everything he needs. And people appear to have had no problems with it; the blanket is actually rarely mentioned in the statements so either it wasn't used or people were so accepting that they felt like they didn't need to mention it. JST is not the Book of Mormon. And I believe all accounts have him reading from the Bible for the JST. I don't know of any that say Joseph didn't have a Bible directly in front of him. We even have the Bible that he used for most of the JST - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/bible-used-for-bible-revision/1. Statements from the JST about him having a Bible in front of him can't be used for evidence of the Book of Mormon translation. We actually are pretty sure that all of the Original Manuscript that we contain (which includes the Isaiah sections) was all dictated. All the errors that are seen are dictation errors, none are copying errors. And there would be no point for Joseph to dictate something from his hat and not have it written down. None of the statements about using the hat indicate that a scribe wasn't present or not writing it down. You have to remember that they are rushing through this. They spend 5+ hours a day on this. He isn't taking a lot of breaks or doing magic shows for visitors. The number of days available and the amount of words that were recorded just makes it difficult to include him doing a dictation show with out it being included in the Book of Mormon. A curtain and warnings fit perfectly for someone doing a pre-written manuscript. But they also fit perfectly for his supernatural story (plates that no one is allowed to see). Honestly, it is the stone in the hat that doesn't fit his supernatural story (why the existence of the plates if he doesn't even use them?). But the stone in the hat, in my mind, forces Joseph to either be telling the truth, memorizing it, making itl up on the spot, or some mixture of the memorization and invention. The reason why I got the white hat was to determine if a manuscript could be read from it as that would add another way for it to work and after experimenting with it, I just don't see that being feasible. So, I can't add "reading a pre-existing manuscript" to the possibilities. So, I'm back to memorization and on-the-spot invention. Why do you find it telling? He is told to not show anyone the plates. He needs to copy a few characters. He thus needs to do it behind a curtain. I don't see anything from this that even tells us anything about how he actually did the translation. This just tells us that he had some physical object that no one was supposed to see but there are other statements that tell us that as well. I'll wait for your post, but you are talking about a different thing than what I'm talking about. I'm saying the visit of 1828 to those 3 is too late for the content of the Book of Mormon. But yes, before 1828, Joseph may have heard of those things and may have incorporated them into his story (I don't think we even need to say he heard about it from those three vs he heard about in the environment he was in). But the 1828 visit is too late to trigger a lot of changes to the story. And the "Harris visited all three two months before the translation started" makes it seem like Joseph knew about the contents of the visit for 2 months. Harris visited Joseph for a day or two in March, went back to Palmyra, came back for 2 weeks, then went back to Palmyra, and then returned to actually start the translation around April 12. So Joseph knew about the visits at most 1 month before and more like 2-3 weeks before. Still not that much time to actually change his story.

Quite a few loaded statements here. I hope you stop torturing puppies for fun and profit. Those are my thoughts. You just don't like them for some reason. Thanks, -Smac

Seems like this wording ("victim blaming or victim shaming") is begging the question and inverting the presumption of innocence to a presumption of guilt. Again, your comment here ("a woman might not report a rape right away"), as applied to Jane Doe, begs the question and inverts the presumption of innocence. I fully agree that these are potential responses. I think it is also possible that Jane Doe consented to the sexual contact that night. There is evidence for that possibility. Denying that evidence and that possibility stacks the deck, makes an accusation alone evidence unto itself, begs the question, and inverts the presumption of innocence. Hence the need to resist the mob mentality and rush to judgment, and to attempt to dispassionately evaluate the evidence. I acknowledge all of this. Applied specifically to Jane Doe, though, this begs the question. Thanks, -Smac

Is it possible to get to the truth in regards to this allegation? In the sense of the U.S. legal system yielding an evidence-based assessment of the evidence and a reasoned and fair conclusion derived therefrom, yes. Our system is far from perfect, but it's quite good, and about as good as we can hope to get. None of us is in a position to act as a judge or jury in a legal sense, but we each of us can evaluate events and allegations and evidence and draw reasonable inferences and conclusions (or, alternatively, refrain from doing so). We do this all the time on this board. Just look at how many conversations have we had about Joseph Bishop and McKenna Denson, Tim Ballard, Ammon Bundy, the SEC issue, the Huntsman lawsuit, Nemo the Mormon, Mark Lamb, Paul Adams, Mark Lehnhof Stevens, Masterpiece Cakeshop, James Hamula, Shawn Gooden, Abraham Issac Cruz Hernandez, and so on. Sometimes the issues are pretty straightforward, sometimes not. I think it's quite likely that Joseph Bishop did some terrible things while president of the MTC, but I also think McKenna Denson fabricated and mischaracterized a lot of stuff. I think many of the allegations against Tim Ballard are substantively true, but I also think there has been some overreach. Ammon Bundy is straightforward. James Huntsman's allegations were not really borne out well at all. Paul Adams clearly did some evil things. I have an acquaintance who was sexually assaulted. After charges were filed, the accuser tracked her down at her work (janitorial work on campus) and arm-barred her against a wall. She got a TRO against him. There was forensic evidence. Despite all this, the prosecutor dropped the charges. I firmly believe my acquaintance, and was greatly discouraged at the outcome. I also have an acquaintance who was falsely accused of rape. He had "hung out" with a young woman twice, then ended things. A few weeks later, she posted an accusation of rape against him on an "Am I Dating an A7sh&^e" Facebook group (with tens of thousands of members). He lost his job as a direct result of this, and he also had a (female) friend end their friendship because of the accusation (she had seen the FB post). He could not find a lawyer who would help him with a civil case. I ended up helping him a bit until he found a law firm that would take his case. They negotiated a settlement involving a retraction of the accusation and an agreement to not repeat it. This cost him thousands of dollars of his own money. I firmly believe my acquaintance (I know him very well, her allegation was vague and fairly falsifiable, and she withdrew it), and was gratified with the outcome but troubled that my acquaintance's life was so damaged. I have no reflexive skepticism of allegations of sexual assault, but I think they need to be treated in essentially the same way as are allegations of other types of misconduct. Presumption of innocence, hold off on a rush to judgment, hold off on mobocratic rage, evaluate the evidence, let things play out before reaching any firm conclusions. I haven't seen that much here. I think there is value in the public being informed and educated about the allegations, the facts, the evidence, and so on as pertaining to serious and important issues. Sometimes these matters don't garner The Cornell matter seems to be a cause célèbre that is creating a sort of fever pitch rush to judgment and mob mentality, without sufficient regard for examining the evidence dispassionately. Thanks, -Smac

I was commenting on your call to have Dan excommunicated because you think he is subverting members and is a wolf in sheep's clothing. Dan's job is not to tell faith based stories, but rather to give insight, context, understanding of biblical times and how scholars view the origins of the BoM. Others, such as church leaders have a job of making the origins of the BoM faith based and ignore all the data that Dan brings up. I don't think his job is to pick and choose what you want to hear him say because you find his data does and a scholarly evaluation does not support the faith based viewpoint you have or of the Church. Those were my thoughts. You just don't like them for some reason.

There are two more scenarios. One: she is really the queen of heaven mentioned by Jeremiah. The Jews were burning incense and pouring out drink offerings to her instead of God. Two: she is the imagination from the mind of men.

They would (and they have in other rape cases). Unfortunately, most don't have the knowledge necessary to provide a reasoned assessment of this kind of evidence and they unintentionally end up victim blaming or victim shaming because of their ignorance. This website is very short and explains some of the different ways that a person being sexually assaulted might legitimately respond in the moment. It's doesn't include all the different ways, just some typical ones. https://rapecrisis.org.uk/get-help/tools-for-victims-and-survivors/understanding-your-response/fight-or-flight/ This website discusses the many legitimate reasons that a woman might not report a rape right away. Sometimes it takes a woman a while to even be able to admit to herself that she was sexually assaulted (this most often happens when the rapist was someone that she knew or when she thinks that people aren't going to believe her and she knows she's going to suffer a second time from the consequences of reporting it. It takes a while for many women to weigh the pros and cons of speaking out). https://jacksonhealth.org/blog/2018-01-25-five-reasons-sexual-assault/

Is it possible to get to the truth in regards to this allegation? And if it is possible to get to the truth here on this message board, what would that accomplish outside of the message board? (I guess I'm asking, how viable is your stated goal and what is the positive outcome you are expecting should you achieve it)

Opposite really. My opinion is that a variety of methods and combinations of methods were used, and the method would be dependent on the conditions in the room (lighting etc) and the number of observers in the room and whether or not they were hostile witnesses or sympathetic etc. Because sitting behind a curtain and telling observers that they will be struck dead if they look behind it is super sus and people were starting to ask why he needed the curtain. Isaiah is just an example, memorized sessions could have been from the Bible or the Book of Mormon or from any other manuscript memorized in advance. Other than Emma's comment about the walls of Jerusalem, we have no accounts describing the content being dictated so we can't know if what was being dictated ever even makes it into the Book of Mormon. We have no idea what was dictated in the presence of observers. I tend to agree with you that it would not be Isaiah because I believe the evidence points to Isaiah being read directly from an open Bible, and there is one account of Joseph dictating JST with a Bible open in front of him. If that's the case, it shows that there were times when Joseph was dictating from an open book, so we might add that to the list of methods above. Curious why you find these as being something to expect if Joseph was really translating. A curtain that could hide a pre-wrtitten mansuscript and penalties for those that get too curious sound like the kind of thing someone hiding a pre-written manuscript would do. I find it truly interesting that Joseph was deciphering characters off the plates using large spectacles behind a curtain before February 1828, before the translation began. And that he was handing around the results. That's the earliest account I have found and its very telling that the very first attempts at translating the gold plates were concealed behind a curtain. As for Bradish, Mitchill and Anthon informing the content of the Book of Mormon. It would not be too late as Bradish visited Egypt and Jerusalem in 1821. There would have been 8 years for Harris or the Smiths to cross paths with him on his trips back to Palmyra. Mitchill's theories on America being the Garden of Eden and a great battle of extinction between a light skinned and a dark skinned race 60 miles from Palmyra were in print since 1821. Anthon's Classical Dictionary was in print in 1825 with another edition in 1827. Harris visited all three two months before the translation started, but the material had been circulating for years before. I'm writing up more on this, and will post to another thread some day rather than derail this one.

And this is another reason why I think you have a difficult time understanding how women think when under threat or at least believe they are. I've been litigating for 22 years now. I've observed dozens and dozens of judges in hundreds of hearings, and many more dozens of lawyers in hearings and depositions and such. The question above is not definitive, but it's well within the boundaries of fair and reasonable inquiry in a legal setting. I think most other lawyers and judges examining these issues would ask the same questions I am asking. And I'm not drawing any hard or definitive conclusions. I'm presenting evidence and a reasoned assessment of it. I have no commitment to inculpating Jane Doe or exculpating the frat guys, or vice versa. The text message exchange between Jane Doe and her roommate at 3:05 a.m. may well end up being an important piece of evidence. I surely would spend a lot of time on it if I was an attorney involved on either side. Thanks, -Smac

I believe the phrase is assuming facts not in evidence…at least on TV it is, lol. What facts do you think I am assuming? We work with the evidence we have and draw reasonable inferences therefrom. Thanks, -Smac

You want me to stop participating in this discussion, then? Okay. I have never suggested that. There is a lot of evidence that has been made publicly available. We can examine that evidence to some extent. Thanks, -Smac

And this is another reason why I think you have a difficult time understanding how women think when under threat or at least believe they are. And why I don’t see your pursuit of truth as that objective since you are apparently relying on your gut to speculate about what a woman might do in her situation rather than research actual women’s reactions under threat. I don’t even rely on personal experience because I get that not all women will respond as I did or as my friends and acquaintances who were assaulted did. I go and look at studies. Unfortunately we have a very large base of women to draw from who can relate how they experience assault and responded to it. For example: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11251444/ It’s around 40-50% of women who experience tonic immobility in trauma (the freezing response that often includes denial, etc), which includes sexual assault. Count me as one of them. Happens to guys too. Might be even more traumatic to them when it happens given how our culture expect men to respond when attacked. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Michael-King-49/publication/233184867_Adult_male_rape_and_sexual_assault_prevalence_re-victimisation_and_the_tonic_immobility_response/links/56e95bcd08ae77f87278f900/Adult-male-rape-and-sexual-assault-prevalence-re-victimisation-and-the-tonic-immobility-response.pdf A more accessible article summarizing findings that reflects in particular on the Cornell case and what should actually be expected if educated about actual reactions in real life: https://www.womenshealthmag.com/health/a74083702/sexual-assault-survivors-psychology/ Fight, flight, or fawning…. Ensuring they do not anger the person confronting or assaulting them, hoping that will more likely let them get out alive, pretending it’s not even happening to them as in disassociation…not every woman will go to “help me” or “scream bloody murder” and go for the eyes or crotch in an uncertain situation. In fact, we have to often be trained to do so and are told to practice, practice, practice. I hadn’t had any self defense classes by that point and we didn’t train when I did either. I like the more modern ones much better where women don’t just visualize or model, but actually get to hit a very wel protected aggressor. And this downplaying, denial, disassociation, etc can be extended long after the assault or trauma: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11705429/ As would typically happen in cases where it was consensual and in cases where it wasn’t, but the victim is in shock and/or denial or doubling down on fawning. I understand such behaviours are common enough in assault and trauma cases they are listed in the DSM 5 under PTSD and ASD. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207191/box/part1_ch3.box16/

I believe the phrase is assuming facts not in evidence…at least on TV it is, lol. If you want to find the truth, only deal with the facts dispassionately, shouldn’t you determine if she was the one who used the phone before pooh-poohing any speculation? Didn’t you just say as much? There is of course the option she was in full control of her body, her mind, and her phone even though she had consumed a large amount of alcohol earlier and continued to do so and as I just googled, drunkenness peaks around 1 to 1.5 hours after consumption and can last from 2 to 6 hours…don’t know it this is average for men and women, as I understand women are more susceptible due to size. Google states she was likely drunk for at least 9-10 hours, having started with six shots of vodka at her sorority house, continuing at 2 bars until 10:30 pm when she went to the frat house. Campus police has her self reporting as 5 out of 10 drunk…as if self reporting when drunk would be accurate. It would appear she was familiar with alcohol, but this incident had her drinking excessively for her as well as lacking experience with the drugs, ketamine and marijuana. I don’t think I could have accurately judged how intoxicated I was with either ketamine or cannabis the first time I used either. In fact I know I couldn’t with cannabis because I described my experience to a doctor at an opiate class saying it didn’t do much for me and his eyes opened up and he said I was much more under than I thought and was likely close to having my breathing shut down (due to other medications I was taking). Fun times. But let’s assume even with the amount of alcohol she had partaken over time, she hadn’t consumed enough nor did the addition of more intoxicants push her past her actual limit and she was exaggerating her intoxication level when taking to campus police. If she did have enough presence of mind to realize she was being assaulted, maybe she had enough presence of mind to realize it could turn ugly fast if the men became aware she was alerting someone to the rape. It’s not uncommon for women to have been killed to cover up an assault. So she didn’t even if she had a free moment. Its really odd you seem to think if men were actually raping her, they wouldn’t be paying attention to what she was doing to make sure any text she sent was harmless for them. Or that they wouldn’t tell her to answer the text so as to not alert anyone to come look for her, etc. But perhaps they, unlike her, were actually too intoxicated to take in their surroundings and there were no issues with her texting because they were just laying around consensually having sex, while she checked her phone for messages (ouch, doesn’t bode well for their dignity). Talking about the guys who said they were group taking drugs and making out with her with her awareness and permission, not just the two she had (idiotically imo) initially agreed to or the one(s) that deny any involvement. Apparently one of the first guys (speaking for both) stated in a text message he and the other were too intoxicated to stop other guys from entering the room and joining the fun which led to it getting “way out of hand”. Seems odd he would see it as way out of hand, but she would see it as consensual. Out of hand generally means out of control. Out of control implies lack of consent because it is not what is expected and no one is controlling it so consent can be properly gotten. Hmmm….Maybe he was just a lot more drunk than she and thus it was distorted for him. Not saying any of this is what happened. I am passionately and subjectively exploring possibilities…all of them, not just one side. Could keep going with other ideas, need to post this before it gets blocked for too long since verified. PS: not commenting on lawyer stuff because not a lawyer or lawyer adjacent, unlike the psychological stuff…have some training and experience there in psychology (not massive of course unlike others on this list including MustardSeed, the professional) and some minor, very minor experience about how women think….including personal experience being under assault (not rape, restriction as he backed off when I blame my dad for not allowing me to date him…and guess what, I didn’t call out even though there was a police station likely within shouting range, not did I mention it to anyone or called it an assault until years later nor was I anything but my usual friendly self when I saw him in class the next day…and the rest of the year, so embarrassed and humiliated by it, didn’t think I had anything to feel victimized about as he didn’t hurt me and I had willing gone on one date with him).

Then why are you doing it here instead of some criminal or law website where people are more familiar with such things? It appears our comments are not that insightful in regards to finding the truth of what happened. No one here has any personal connection or ability to question those involved in the investigation, etc. I hung out in Websleuths while as I trying to ascertain the truth of the Daybell missing kids. Got a lot of good info there. Also the freedom forums as there were people much more familiar with the circumstances. I shared info here because I thought people would be interested, but I don’t think I expected to get any significant tidbits of truth to determine the facts of the crime, if there was one, here. That would have been unexpected even though there was a much closer connection with the Daybells here than there is connection with the Cornell case. This is a religious themed message board. Also things related to the LDS faith and culture. Cornell case facts is very off topic. Now if you want to discuss the moral implications, that is relevant to a religious setting…but that’s neither objective or dispassionate conversation.

That's all right. You are incorrect. I don't "enjoy" discussing this topic at all. It is altogether unpleasant. It is, however, important. The American judicial system relies heavily on an adversarial process, in which allegations are presented by an self-interested party (the plaintiff) and are responded to by the self-interested party who is subject of those allegations (the defendant). It is the job of advocates on both sides to collect evidence, examine it, and present it to a factfinder (the judge or jury). The plaintiff's narrative is vetted by the defendant's efforts, and vice versa. In the end, the goal is, or ought to be, to ascertain - as best as we can - the truth of what happened. It's not about "for the sport of it" at all. Not for me. It's about getting to the truth. Allegations of sexual assault are very serious, and ought to be treated as such. They should also be carefully and dispassionately examined. Thanks, -Smac

I’m sorry Smac I find it very difficult to engage with you. I suspect you just enjoy debate for the sport of it and I don’t want to participate in that anymore. peace

She had enough presence of mind to send a context-appropriate response to her roommate while she was being sexually assaulted, but she did not have enough presence of mind to mention the then-ongoing sexual assault? And the frat guys who were allegedly were sexually assaulting her saw her receiving and sending text messages during a sexual assault, and did nothing about it? They used force to facilitate the sexual assault (see paragraph 173), but they did not use force to keep her cell phone away from her during the sexual assault? Yes, that could have happened. Could it also be that she sent the text during a consensual encounter (that is, again, how she characterized her multiple threesomes in her 2024 statement)? Yes. If a woman is being sexually assaulted, and if she has an opportunity to contact a friend and alert the friend of what is happening, wouldn't it seem likely that she would make use of that opportunity? I agree. It is also possible that she received the text message and sent a response without having been prompted or coerced. Again, her 2024 statement gives no indication that the sexual contact was nonconsensual. And she did not mention any of this stuff about texts between her and her roommate. Not in 2024. Not in 2026. Thanks, -Smac