champatsch

What I wrote above and below is confusing and not well worded. I wrote and edited the first part of the first sentence, and then did not adjust the wording of the second part of the first sentence to fit the edit. Rewrite: The opening rate of "those which" (~75%) fits a pseudo-archaic assumption best (and shows Joseph Smith to be an exceptional pseudo-archaic author). The closing rate of "those which" (~8%) also fits a pseudo-archaic assumption, but the low relative percentage was not as likely a distribution for such an author, since "those which" was more persistent than "they|them which" historically, and personal "those which" was used by 2 of 25 pseudo-archaic authors, while personal "they|them which" was used by just 1 of 25.

No, that is not the general or specific point I am trying to make. Nor am I trying to make a precise mathematical claim. (I used some simple math to point to the extreme improbability of nonconscious production.) Specifically, I am trying to point out that it was extremely unlikely for Joseph Smith to randomly (nonconsciously) switch this particular English usage in 3 Nephi. (The "those which" to "they|them which" shift is clear, since the chi-square value is large.) [Both personal "those which" and personal "they|them which" are archaic, because of the personal which usage. The latter is somewhat more archaic.The latter is found in only 1 of 25 pseudo-archaic texts. The former is found in 2 of 25 pseudo-archaic texts. Both were unlikely for Joseph Smith to employ, if he had been acting as a pseudo-archaic author. But the former was more likely than the latter. The opening rate of "those which" (~75%) fits a pseudo-archaic assumption (and shows Joseph Smith to be an exceptional pseudo-archaic author), but the closing rate (~8%) does not fit a pseudo-archaic assumption. A pseudo-archaic assumption requires highly conscious linguistic manipulation by Joseph Smith, in order to achieve the sharp distributional difference.  More generally, those who assume he was a pseudo-archaic author think that he repeatedly reminded himself during the dictation to employ personal which more often than not (that or who only about 42% of the time), including this 3pl usage. (As noted, they even think Joseph Smith knew more about many aspects of Early Modern English than an editor of the Shakespeare, since that is the comparative textual reality.) So they think he consciously manipulated his PRP usage, his contrastive preference for "he that,", his 3pl pronominal usage (those|they|them) followed by which, and so on and so forth. Many such things were extremely unlikely, and they support the position that Joseph Smith received a revealed text.] Generally, I am also trying to point out that there is a complex English usage shift in the Book of Mormon that points to Joseph Smith not being able to control it. So, for those who think he did control the narrative and the wording, it means that they think that he consciously decided to shift his English usage, with most shifts beginning in 3 Nephi, along with the most well-known shift of wherefore occurring in Ether. The extreme unlikelihood that he successfully implemented a broad English usage shift is exemplified by this specific shift of "those which" to "they|them which," which seems to be an unlikely one for him to contemplate and implement, as also is the case of the shift to heavy conjunction save usage at the expense of except. And so forth. [In 1829, Joseph Smith dictated beginning at today's Mosiah 1. By the end of Helaman, he had dictated slightly more than half the words he would dictate that year for the Book of Mormon, outside of biblical passages. By 3 Nephi 7, it was about 57.5% of the nonbiblical words (about 145,000 words outside of biblical passages). There are many linguistic markers of a general English usage shift around that point, although Joseph Smith was the only person dictating the text. There are syntactic, lexical, and morphological usage shifts. For example, there is a shift to more archaic negation (i.e. without do-support), both in the past tense and the present tense (involving did and with do|doth|does). Various differential rates for the many shifts can be calculated. The clear, strong shifts support shifts with weaker signals.]

Even if we say that Joseph Smith was as likely to use "they|them which" as "those which" after 3 Nephi 7, the probability of randomly dictating at least 104 of the former (out of 113 opportunities) is less than 10^-16. The real probability, given the established tendency of 74.6% "those which," is less than 10^-50.

The last thing I will mention at this point about personal relative pronouns in the Book of Mormon is the following interesting usage shift: A comparison of “they | them which” with personal “those which” [ n = 235, χ² ≐ 103.82, p < .0001 ] "they | them which" "those which" % they | them Mosiah 1 to 3 Nephi 7 31 91 25.4 3 Nephi 8 to Words of Mormon 104 9 92.0 These are interchangeable in meaning, both are archaic, both are in the King James Bible, and there is more of "they|them which" than "those which" in the Bible. Though both are found in abundance in the 16c, the former is somewhat more archaic than the latter, since usage rates of "they|them which" dropped off more quickly over time. Only the pseudo-archaic text written by the editor of Shakespeare has all three like the Book of Mormon, which as shown has 235. White's text has 21, which amounts to slightly less than half the Book of Mormon's usage rate. Only one other pseudo-archaic text has any personal "those which," so it was uncommon in such texts. This also supports my claim that Joseph Smith must have consciously tracked his PRP usage in order to dictate all the personal which that he did. Furthermore, we learn from this set, which shows a dramatic usage shift, that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe that he consciously shifted to using much more "they|them which" in the book of 3 Nephi than "those which." This is an additional tracking complication. Of course this is highly unlikely, but he must have done so, if he worded his own dictation, since the above would not have resulted by chance (the odds of the above occurring randomly are vanishingly low). We see an established pattern of 75% "those which" abruptly shifting to only 8%, and the reality of the shift is supported by many other English usage shifts that occur around this point.

Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he consciously shifted from using slightly more of the personal relative pronoun who(m) than that, before 3 Nephi 8, to using much more that than who(m) after that point (from 47.7% that before 3 Nephi 8, to 67.4% that). This is supported by dozens of verifiable usage shifts that occur in the book of 3 Nephi, such as whosoever to whoso and archaic subordinate that rates abruptly increasing from 2% to 54%, in the book of 3 Nephi.

Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he consciously broke from his general pattern of mostly personal which in using "he that" most of the time, not "he which." But in agreement with the general tendency, he dictated "they which" most of the time, not "they that" or "they who(m)." Relative pronoun usage after the pronouns he and they can be counted in hundreds of thousands of text fairly accurately, by excluding examples with intervening punctuation. Such a scan shows that this contrasting usage was a tendency of a small percentage of early modern authors. For example, Andrew Willett wrote with something close to the Book of Mormon's pattern of "he that|which|who" and "they that|which|who." The last author found to write something close to this contrastive pattern was born 200 years before Joseph Smith, William Day. Contrary to speculation, John Bunyan wrote similarly to the strong biblical pattern of mostly "he|they that."

Another thing that those who think Joseph Smith authored or worded the Book of Mormon believe is that he carefully tracked his personal relative pronoun usage while he dictated in 1829 ( that | which | who(m) ). This is of course highly unlikely, but they must believe it, in light of various details of historical and pseudo-archaic relative pronoun usage. Specifically, Joseph Smith dictated about 60% personal which (e.g. "the angel which spake" 2n0609), even though no one was speaking or writing that way in the 1700s or 1800s. (The rest of the usage is about 40% that or who(m), with more that than who(m).) Sixty percent which is not at all like the King James Bible, which is about 85% personal that (the main usage coming out of Late Middle English) and only about 10% which. And 24 of 25 pseudo-archaic authors used less than 10% which. Most of these authors exhibit a modern preference for who(m). The lone exception is an 1863 text written by R. G. White, an editor of Shakespeare. Its personal which usage rate is close to 20%. In addition, the Book of Mormon is more archaic than White's text, in many different ways, so another thing they believe is that Joseph Smith knew more nonbiblical archaic English than an editor of Shakespeare.

Overall, those who entertain secular notions wrt the Book of Mormon are quite credulous, in a number of ways. They are protected in their credulity by academic priorities. Here is just one of many ways they are credulous wrt Book of Mormon English usage. American English speakers and writers preferred except to save; the Book of Mormon has mostly save, which is a rare thing among texts with large numbers of except. AmE native speakers employed these two words as prepositions almost all the time; the Book of Mormon as conjunctions almost all the time. Historically speaking, the conjunction save was used as a coordinator most of the time; in the BofM, as a subordinator almost all the time. Conjunctive use was almost always "save that S"; in the BofM, almost always "save S." Overall, the Book of Mormon's save usage is unique textually. It is archaic in formation, and very frequently marked for the subjunctive mood, both synthetically and analytically. For the credulous, Joseph Smith generated the above as a matter of routine pseudo-archaism, even though there is no support for the above BofM usage among any pseudo-archaic text. (The above is also very different from biblical usage.)

This is ultimately non-explanatory, since most English syntactic expression cuts across these, and there is also a range of obsolete lexical meaning that did not persist over the centuries. Some things were obsolete very early. The above is readily generated with AI tools these days. Indeed, such things are now routinely found in peer review: AI lightening the workload for academics. The above amounts to a data-poor, academic position statement. No data-driven explanations will be offered for the strongest evidence, just unsubstantiated, academically acceptable potentialities. What ought to be offered are hundreds of concrete explanations. Recall that no one ever spoke English (from the 1300s forward) with something like the verbal complementation pattern of the Book of Mormon (n > 700, strongly finite). Joseph Smith did not speak that way. And it is a written style much more than an oral style, but no one ever wrote an original English composition that approaches what the Book of Mormon has. Only an older, long text could have something approaching it, and almost all of these are now in the digital databases. Recall that people did write with the interesting personal relative pronoun usage of the Book of Mormon, but only in the middle of the early modern period – not after or before. It is neither biblical nor pseudo-archaic in formation. And Joseph Smith did not speak that way. And so on. Even if the above points were relevant to a linguistic analysis of the Book of Mormon, it would not explain the English usage shift. The complex shift mostly occurs somewhere in 3 Nephi and it is mostly to greater archaism. It indicates multiple authorship, yet only one person dictated the original Book of Mormon text. It simply does not matter what obscure explanation might be offered based on region, genre, class, or ephemeral / noncanonical status. In terms of the shift, recall that Metcalfe wrote about t|wherefore in 1993, and someone noticed the whoso|ever shift in the 1980s. I noticed a strong shift to "after|before|because that" and save, and now many others. As mentioned, I have identified 30+ usage shifts, and some things, such as the save shift, show additional patterns. An overall shift is real and rules out Joseph Smith wording it.

Another type of phraseology to consider is "of which hath been spoken." This one requires some background. The original Book of Mormon text has "of which hath been spoken" twice, "of which have been spoken" twice, "of whom (it) hath been spoken" twice, and "of which has been spoken" four times. (The Book of Mormon was originally about 92% hath and 8% has and about 97% doth and 3% does; see the first edition.) The Book of Mormon has one example with an it and nine without an it. There are no intervening or accompanying adverbs in the Book of Mormon phraseology (non-subject adverbs like already), although these often occurred in the past, in addition to the bare usage without any adverbs. Both "of which it hath been spoken" and "of which hath been spoken" occurred earlier, and almost exclusively before 1690. I have seen one outlier in 1735, with an intervening already in the subject slot: "of which already hath been spoken". Pretty much the same thing for "of whom (it) hath been spoken". Usage like "one of which hath been spoken of" is distinct syntax, since "one of which" is the subject of hath. Usage with an expletive it or an adjective|adverb in the role of subject was more persistent (e.g. adjectives like enough|sufficient and the adverb more). There are a few examples of this phraseology in other revelatory output: in the Doctrine and Covenants and in the witness statements. There is also one at the end of the 1830 preface, which is frequently derivative of section 10. Some of these examples of "of which hath been spoken" could have been the result of revelation; some could have been derivative. So far I have noted two early modern texts with two examples of this phraseology. The usage without a subject was rare by the early 1700s. It was very rare by the early 1800s. So far I have verified only one example of "of which has been spoken" in Google Books, in a Church of Ireland magazine in 1832: "The advantage of which has been spoken regards the public". There is one example of "of which already has been spok'n" in 1687. (Already is not a subject in these, since it could have co-occurred. In contrast, it could not grammatically co-occur with words like more, enough, or sufficient.) The largest databases currently do not have "of whom (already) has been spoken" before 1830. I have not found "of which have been spoken" elsewhere. (Properly excluded are cases similar to "[some of which] have been spoken|mentioned . . . .") Two of these occur in the original Book of Mormon text where which is plural, so they are cases of proximity agreement. This was grammatical in the absence of an expletive it. That is, *"of which it have been spoken" would have been ungrammatical. There is one "of whom hath been spoken" in the Book of Mormon. There are at least seven without an overt subject in texts between 1550 and 1685. The one that is most similar to the Book of Mormon's bare usage was written around the year 1600, and can be found at least twice in Google Books: c 1600, Google Books, 33 • Google Books, 439 The book lying in her window, her maid (of whom hath been spoken) took it up, There is one "of whom it hath been spoken" in the Book of Mormon, which was later edited to has. There are at least five with it in texts, between 1563 and 1710. Here is the earliest one, which also has periphrastic did: "The begynnynge of Rome was at that tyme as the Kynge Salmanasar (of whome it hath been spoken) dyd raygne ouer the Assyrians." 1563, EEBO A09568, 13. The Book of Mormon sentence with "of whom hath been spoken" has two examples of periphrastic did: "And it came to pass that he did teach and minister unto the children of the multitude, of whom hath been spoken, and he did loose their tongues." (3n2614) Here is a rare example of "did teach and minister": 1590, EEBO A10609, 207 P. Martyr saith, there were two sorts of Elders: the one which did teach and minister the Sacraments, and did gouerne with the Bishops: Here is a rare example of "do loose their tongues": 1600, EEBO A13159, 223 to restraine such turbulent spirits . . which . . do loose their tongues with ouermuch liberty The above sentence from 3 Nephi 26:14 is early modern in character in at least five different ways. No text is like the Book of Mormon in this phraseology, which was almost entirely used between 1550 and 1735. It is highly unlikely that Joseph Smith worded this phraseology.

A comparison of “they | them which” with “those which” in the 1829 dictation of the Book of Mormon. Dictation order they | them those % they | them Mosiah 1 to 3 Nephi 7 31 91 25.4 3 Nephi 8 to Words of Mormon 104 9 92.0 The Yates chi-square test is one of the highest of 30 tests of shifting English usage: [ n = 235, χ² ≐ 103.82, p < .0001 ]. For example, the therefore to wherefore shift is higher. This is an interesting dataset and it adds to the improbability of what is generally believed: that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon. For such a theory to be correct, he must have intuited all kinds of archaism, including rare and obscure archaism. In this case, he needed to intuit that “they | them which” referring to persons was more archaic than “those which,” and then proceed to implement a usage shift. The implementation was highly unlikely. More generally, it was unlikely for Joseph Smith to dictate more than 50 percent of personal relative pronouns as which, since out of 25 pseudo-archaic authors, not one wrote with even 20 percent personal which; almost all such authors did not even employ which 10 percent of the time. Specifically, it was unlikely for Joseph Smith to dictate as much “they|them which” as he did (135 examples), since only one of twenty-five pseudo-archaic authors wrote with any, and he was an editor of Shakespeare (R. G. White, eighteen examples). It was unlikely for Joseph Smith to decide to switch from using mostly “those which” up to 3 Nephi 7, to almost all “they|them which” after that. It was unlikely for him to successfully implement such a decision: to go from dictating “those which” 91 times up to 3 Nephi 7, but only nine times after that.

Yes, I am quite familiar with the view of his 2011 book. I am an expert in this area – beyond him in expertise. Consider the beginning of the 1829 dictation. This opening verse has, for the most part, fairly simple syntax, persistent over centuries. The way the revelation worked for the names is that Joseph Smith saw them spelled out in English. He did not just hear them, because he corrected scribal spelling of names in some cases, even when the scribal spelling was phonetically appropriate English spelling. So in mh0101, at a minimum, Zarahemla and Benjamin (twice) were revealed as visible words to Joseph Smith. Perhaps even "king Benjamin." The idea for the view that the Book of Mormon text was the result of a hybrid of revealed thoughts and revealed words is that the rest was not shown to Joseph Smith as words; rather, it was revealed as thoughts. In this case, it looks like three or four stretches of thought, broken up by three occurrences of two names. As far as lexical choice, disputes and strife were more common than contention in the 19c, rest was more likely than remainder, and life more likely than days. In the latter case, however, days is more appropriate in the sense of time of rule. The more likely choices were appropriate as pseudo-archaic wordings as well. We might even question whether Joseph Smith would have begun with just "now" rather than "and now." The Ngram viewer suggests that he would have preferred just "now": https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=And+now+there+was%2CNow+there+was&year_start=1701&year_end=1829&corpus=en&smoothing=0. And would he have used "all" three times? Perhaps not. As far as syntax, "people who" was more likely than "people that," which was much more likely than "people which." Only one of 25 pseudo-archaic authors used "people which," three times, and he was an editor of Shakespeare. So he was highly literate and much more knowledgeable in nonbiblical Early Modern English than Joseph Smith. ("People that|who(m)" occur 63 times in 25 pseudo-archaic texts.) One general point is that the entire personal relative pronoun complex of the Book of Mormon is archaic but not biblical or pseudo-archaic in formation (it is mostly which). So the which in mh0101 was probably revealed as a word, perhaps even "people which" revealed as a unit. And as mentioned, inconsequential syntax being revealed as words, like personal which, implies specific revelation of important substantives. This supports the real possibility that contention and remainder were revealed as words. Here I will leave it at that. So, what are we left with? A discontinuous revelation of words and thoughts, at times highly discontinuous. I see such a hybrid revelation as problematic and difficult for a human to parse. This is one reason I do not support such a view.

My position is that it is a revealed text, not a hybrid result from revealed words and revealed thoughts. Names revealed as words; biblical passages revealed as words, since they are not paraphrastic and no Bible was used; syntax revealed as words, in many different syntactic structures, since they are not what Joseph Smith would have produced as a pseudo-archaic author; usage shifts show that many items were controlled throughout, or there would not be sharp changes in usage patterns; some substantives revealed as words, since he was not familiar with various contextual usage. Furthermore, because syntax is of minor importance compared to substantives and so much syntax was tightly controlled, this implies tight control of substantives (lexical items). What then is left for revealed thoughts, and what exactly do those who believe in revealed thoughts actually believe? The many exclusions to revealed thoughts means that if the Lord waited for Joseph Smith to word things in his mind from revealed thoughts, then the Lord continually overrode the way Joseph Smith had worded things. He would have come up with a way to word a clause, and the Lord would have changed many different aspects of his wording. In many cases, most of clauses and sentences would have been reworded by the Lord, with most of Joseph Smith's wordings not implemented. Because the process would have often approached a limit of complete override, one possible reaction by Joseph Smith would have been to wait for the Lord to present the wording, without any attempt to word the thoughts, since partial override was likely, and complete override was possible. The above would have occurred in 1828. By 1829, in dictating Mosiah 1, Joseph Smith probably excercised the faith necessary to receive revealed words, and then dictated them.

The above really does not answer the question I posed. Indeed, notice the contradiction between Nibley, who incorrectly concluded that names were always spelled out, and evidence from the MS that the scribe sometimes incorrectly spelled what he heard, as in the case of Zenock|Zenoch and Coriantummer|Coriantumr. If they had been spelled out by Joseph Smith, the scribe would not have written the incorrect spelling. Apparently it is not understood by many that revealed thoughts does not produce names, which are words inherently. So how do those who think that only thoughts were revealed to Joseph Smith account for the names, which are words?

The general point is that if you meant first, by someone else, the Lord; then, in order to communicate that, specification was needed. Someone else is singular. People first think of someone who created an English-language translation while living on earth. People then might think of someone who did that in heaven, who had lived on earth. People then might think of God. What they will not think of is that many people might have been involved in creating the English-language translation, under the direction of the Lord. That is a viable speculation. One of the strawmen used by those who do not accept that Joseph Smith did not word the Book of Mormon is to say that the alternative is a single early modern translator. Someone else's translation sounds like it might mean that, which might be confusing to some. It is a strawman because the Book of Mormon does not just have Early Modern English in it. It is not a text of a particular decade or a particular author of the past. I have a question: For people who think that Joseph Smith worded the Book of Mormon from revealed thoughts, what was the mechanism for Joseph Smith dictating all the nonbiblical, unfamiliar names of the text?

Do people default to thinking "the Lord" or "God" when they read "someone else"? No, they do not.

(2 Nephi 27:24) the Lord shall say unto him that shall read the words that shall be delivered him Joseph Smith did not choose the wording. Of course he inadvertently made some dictation errors, like a human. And scribes misheard and miswrote. Most but not all of those were caught when the scribe read back what had just been written down. It is not someone else's translation. It is either the Lord's translation or a translation made under the Lord's direction. (3 Nephi 21:11) whosoever will not believe in my words—which am Jesus Christ—which the Father shall cause him to bring forth unto the Gentiles and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles It is a wide time period – 1390 to 1770 perhaps. Most people nowadays use the Oxford English Dictionary on a computer, not with a magnifying glass: the online third edition and the second edition on CD (which can be transferred to a drive). One problem with using Webster's is that a particular meaning might be missed. Another is the implication, in the absence of clarification, that the meaning of nonbiblical words is from 1820s American English. Another is that obsolescence is not clearly indicated in Webster's, which that article discusses. And so forth. That said, of course there is meaning persistence in many cases so there is no problem.

This is an example of why it is important to first determine that Joseph Smith did not translate the English of what he dictated (translate used in the default sense of taking words of a source language and turning them into words of a target language). So much of the discussion here is secondary. Here, webbles accepts the possibility that Joseph Smith might have worded the Book of Mormon, despite a large amount of counterevidence. Elsewhere I saw that calm invoked Webster's ADEL for word meaning in the text, even though that flawed dictionary does not adequately cover the text's word meaning. Do not take my word for its flaws, consider an appraisal from the early 1960s by someone who knew nothing about Book of Mormon English usage: Joseph W. Reed, Jr., "Noah Websters Debt to Samuel Johnson," American Speech 37, no. 2 (May 1962): 95–105. https://www.jstor.org/stable/453145. Consider an archaic meaning for the following. This will be new to most of you, although many of you might have sensed that there was something odd about adopting the typical meaning of the phrase "from time to time" in this context: Here is the archaic contextual meaning, which is not in Webster's ADEL: "At all times; continuously, or for an extended period; in an unbroken succession. Obsolete. (a1500–1679)." Oxford English Dictionary, “'from time to time' in time (n., int., & conj.), sense P.3.j.ii,” March 2026, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/9257664969. Perhaps some here recall a few things I mentioned about the non-verbal save usage of the Book of Mormon, and that it is textually unique, in an overall sense. First, Joseph Smith (and his mother Lucy) subconsciously preferred except over save, but he dictated more save than except. Using a Helaman | 3 Nephi boundary, the Book of Mormon shifts from about thirty-five percent save, relative to except, to about eighty-three percent. Both of these realities argue that if Joseph Smith worded the non-verbal save of the dictation, then it was all done consciously against preference, without any biblical, pseudo-archaic, or contemporary impetus to do so. Second, the preferred usage of Joseph Smith and his contemporaries, including his mother Lucy, was to employ except and save as prepositions the vast majority of the time; yet they function as conjunctions in the Book of Mormon the vast majority of the time. In the Book of Mormon, except occurs as a conjunction almost every time, and save occurs as a conjunction about ninety-one percent of the time (177 of 194), relative to the prepositional use. Third, contemporary usage of the conjunction save was uncommon and strongly favored the form “save that S” (see the OED for this appraisal). The Book of Mormon is almost entirely “save S,” without the complementizer that (175 of 177; two exceptions: 1 Nephi 18:15; 1 Nephi 22:4). Fourth, the conjunction save in the Book of Mormon almost always functions as a subordinator. The historical and contemporary tendency was to employ save as a coordinator to a higher degree than in the Book of Mormon (my observation from repeated scanning of large textual databases). Fifth, the Book of Mormon has 70+ examples of pro-form "save it were." Currently, only five original instances are known before 1830, in five British texts. There is also an 1828 northern English example (not pro-form), with a literal it. (The Book of Mormon has four with a literal it.) Pro-form "save it were" is one way of many that the Book of Mormon is more British than American in its English usage. And so on and so forth (e.g. save . . shall | should"). In short, almost everything about non-verbal save is different from what the Book of Mormon would have, if Joseph Smith had authored it. A reasonable conclusion is that Joseph Smith did not word the non-verbal save usage of the Book of Mormon. An unreasonable conclusion is that he did.

Let me clarify that the first ¶ above, on circular reasoning, is a general statement about internally comparing Joseph Smith's revelatory language. The interesting points to be made from "if it so be" in the Book of Mormon are as stated in the last ¶ above. Another relevant point is that Book of Mormon syntax is not necessarily a translation artifact; perhaps most of the time it is not. For example, the periphrastic did of the Book of Mormon is not the result of it being translated from another language, as the potential source languages of the Book of Mormon did not have such syntax. It is the result of that aspect of earlier English being used in the English-language translation that the Lord carried out.

I don't think JS was wording the revelations in the D & C, anymore than he was wording the text of the BOM. Witnesses all said that he "dictated" the revelations. Yes, this is circular reasoning by Analytics. Joseph Smith's revelatory language, even derivative revelatory language, cannot be used as evidence for or against Joseph Smith's ability to produce a specific item of revelatory language in the Book of Mormon. Once again, Analytics shows a lack of insight and makes missteps. D&C 67 suggests that Joseph Smith did not word Doctrine and Covenants revelations, otherwise others who were more literate would have been able to equal or surpass the expressive brilliance of the revelations, which are full of formal, literate, and archaic language. Remember that the Book of Mormon is more British than American in its expression, on balance. It is also more written than oral in its style in various ways, of which hath been spoken. "If it so be" was still used, rarely, in the 19th century. It was used at a much, much higher rate earlier than later. The argument relative to "if it so be" is exactly how I presented it earlier in this thread. It is not what Analytics implies in what he just wrote, quoted above. In a corpus of 25 pseudo-archaic authors, assembled without bias (with the help of two people who think Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon), four of the pseudo-archaic authors only used the biblical form, "if so be." Bunyan only used the biblical form. The Book of Mormon only used the nonbiblical form of rhetorical if, 42 times, six times with subjunctive, modal shall, marking the usage as archaic. The usage rate shifts at 3 Nephi 16 dramatically. Joseph Smith supposedly dictated the Book of Mormon based on familiarity with King James English. This is evidence against that. The position that Joseph Smith worded these is incoherent and weak. It is quite annoying having to spell this out time and time again to supposedly bright, analytical minds.

If the Book of Mormon did not have scores of archaic linguistic elements (lexical items, syntactic items, syntactic patterns) that are not found in pseudo-archaic texts, then it would appear to be a pseudo-archaic text in its English usage, and Joseph Smith could have worded it. To be clear, the Book of Mormon could still be unique linguistically and nevertheless have the hallmarks of a pseudo-archaic text, if it did not have many different types of archaic outliers. You seem to be hung up on the label Early Modern English. I have already explained this more than once. Are you trolling, playing games? I do not routinely ascribe things to any specific person, to different members of a ghost committee, which at this point is a trite, uninteresting phrase. Others say that Joseph Smith was influenced by John Bunyan, Jonathan Edwards, and/or someone else. Davis recently provided a possible 'ghost committee' list. In addressing these one-sided claims, which ignore many items of counterevidence, I point to various usage and say that it makes as much sense, from a textual standpoint, to say that Joseph Smith was also apparently influenced by other remote and obscure authors. Of course he was not. I just point out that ascribing influence to Bunyan, Edwards, or someone else, while not acknowledging counterevidence, is special pleading. I suppose what you mean by shooting all over the place is that the text has vocabulary and syntax that show usage diversity. Well, yes, it does. And so do other lengthy texts, though not to the extent of the Book of Mormon, which suggests that Joseph Smith did not author it, and which is why it is a philological text, as it were. Comparative study shows what all of its varied vocabulary and syntax compares to. It also shows what possible pseudo-archaic expression might be. It is proper and accurate to note, for example, that the Book of Mormon's 18 examples of subjunctive "save . . shall" usage correspond to usage found in texts between 1590 and 1700, and that there are currently no known examples of potentially frequent "save he|they shall" syntax, so that Joseph Smith, like everyone else of his time, was not exposed to the usage. Perhaps you are dismayed that the text has turned out to have all sorts of unexpected, identifiably archaic usage that is not in potential comparison texts: obsolete vocabulary in context, all sorts of literate, archaic usage, like the above type with 18 examples. In many ways, it is different from what most people have thought about it, including me. If you are disconcerted at the textual realities, then you have my sympathy. Perhaps I might be so bold as to apologize by proxy that it has Late Middle English elements in it, as well. I have little interest in first debating weaker evidence in relation to possible divine origins, involving so much disputable human action and reaction. The stronger evidence, the English linguistic evidence, indicates divine origins, since Joseph Smith did not have tacit linguistic knowledge (competence) of so much of the text he dictated. That informs on plate provenance and translation accuracy. Linguistic competence is of course different from being able to read familiar words. Anyone can read familiar English words and not know the syntax or contextual meanings. In all this discussion, I have of course assumed that you possess sufficient linguistic insight and acumen to understand these things, even though you have repeatedly given cause to doubt such an assumption.

The above sets up strawmen and false premises. Actually, it is falsifiable. It just does not turn out the way you want it to, so you are complaining about it. If the Book of Mormon was mostly like a pseudo-archaic text, even like R G White's 1860s text (Shakespeare editor) or O'Connor's early 1800s text (a man of extensive reading and literary acquirements), then Joseph Smith might could (ha!) have worded it. The Book of Mormon goes far beyond their efforts at reproducing earlier English. Let's see, Joseph Smith, not a Shakespeare editor, did not grow up on an Irish estate with a massive library. Hmm. Of course it never was about only Early Modern English (which I've mentioned multiple times recently – what is your problem), or only internally consistent Early Modern English, or only frequencies of use. Sometimes such things can be pointed to, sometimes not. Of course the English language is a continuum, over many centuries, and we use differentiating labels out of convenience, based on a variety of linguistic features, ignoring many other features. In the above case, however, "save_CS X shall_SUBJ" was usage of the label Early Modern English, verifiably so. All of the except and save usage of the Book of Mormon is properly classified as Early Modern English, since that is when the Book of Mormon's usage was most prevalent.

The existence of plates ought to be privileged, since Joseph Smith did not word the Book of Mormon. He did not lie about receiving the text by the gift and power of God, nor about the plates. Here is the distribution of the subordinating conjunctions except and save heading clauses with subjunctive, modal shall. Book of Mormon usage is not pseudo-archaic in nature and is independent of biblical and Bunyanesque usage. Texts | Corpora “except . . shall” “save . . shall” 1611 King James Bible 3 0 Pseudo-archaic corpus (25 texts, 1740–1888) 0 0 Bunyan corpus (39 texts, 1656–1688) 2 0 1829 Book of Mormon 17 18 This was brilliant, archaic usage by Joseph Smith, if he had worded it, which he did not. As previously mentioned, when we look for some of the above save syntax of the Book of Mormon ("save_CS <personal.subject.pronoun> shall_SUBJ") in the largest earlier databases (EEBO, ECCO, Evans, Google Books), there are currently no true positives. The Book of Mormon has seven. This might be called overuse, but it is not. So far I have found, dating from 1593 to 1700, nine examples of "save_CS what shall_SUBJ." The syntax often appears in official declarations and legal settings. These contexts are where this formal syntax seems to have been mostly used, and with a constrained subject, what.

Spake as a past participle: another case of independent early modern usage. King James Bible: 0; 25 pseudo-archaic texts: 0; 39 Bunyan texts: 0; Book of Mormon: 14. The Book of Mormon has the second most of any text. One 1646 text by John Bastwick has just over 30. Usage was at its highest in the middle of the 1600s, but uncommon compared to spoken and spoke. Shakespeare and Donne have one example each. Unlike "did have," which only occurs about a dozen times in EEBO, past-participial spake occurs about 200 times. It continued into the 1700s, the usage rate dropping off over time to become rare by the early 1800s. ECCO's true positives are mixed in with many false positives and a lot of reprinted earlier examples. The Book of Mormon has one example of "had been spake," which was very uncommon early modern usage. As a passive, the syntactic context resists the tendency to use a past-tense verb form for a past participle. In searching for "been spake," I noted four or five original examples, from the late 1500s to the late 1600s. Alexander Campbell in his 1831 Delusions pamphlet pointed it out for ridicule. Like most, he did not know early modern usage very well. He also mocked the referential phraseology "of which hath been spoken," which was almost exclusively early modern usage and also "overused" in the Book of Mormon. More on that later.

None of this occurs in isolation. It is just one of 100+ interesting aspects of Book of Mormon English that are not pseudo-archaic in character. The general argument has never been that the Book of Mormon is an early modern text, in a strict sense. Obviously not, since I noted late modern aspects in a 2014 paper. It is, however, mostly early modern in character, if we judge things by the verb phrase, which is the proper way to do it, as opposed to judging things by non-verb phrases. Because there are late middle aspects as well, it could be thought of as a philological text in its English usage. Overuse of "did have" (overuse from an early modern perspective) does not indicate authorship by Joseph Smith, since there was no pseudo-archaic production of "did have." The reason it was so little used in the past, and not in pseudo-archaic texts, was that periphrastic did was never used with auxiliary verbs or with the verb be, and have often functioned as an auxiliary verb, and so the language resisted the use with main verb possessive have in the 1500s, with restricted use in the 1600s, before its demise. Non-emphatic "did have" could not have persisted into the 1700s, since the usage died out generally. It is not how Joseph Smith spoke, nor how he would have dictated from a presumed pseudo-archaic impulse. The Book of Mormon overuses many different aspects of earlier English. I really don't see the point in going over this, however, since it is obvious from various things I have mentioned: monotransitive causatives, ditransitive causatives, monotransitive permissives, ditransitive permissives, (same thing for other verbs, like command), if it so be, save it were, save it be, except it were, except it be, save . . shall, save . . should, spake as a past participle, of which hath been spoken, plural mights, object they, more part phraseology, etc. All of these, and dozens more, are "overused". Because there are dozens of linguistic features from Late Middle English and Early Modern English that are overused and not in pseudo-archaic texts (or rare in those texts), involving thousands of instances, obviously Joseph Smith did not word them. Since you ought to get this point, but do not get it, I won't be spending any more time clarifying things for you. The Book of Mormon reads like a written text in various ways, including verbal complementation, archaic subjunctive marking, repetition of prepositions and possessives, etc. It is more written than oral in style, and because it was dictated, it is another point in favor of Joseph Smith not wording it.