champatsch

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.

Here's a follow-up to what I wrote yesterday about "did have" in the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith dictated sixteen instances of non-emphatic, nonbiblical “did have,” an uncommon early modern periphrasis.[1] Roger O’Connor, a pseudo-archaic author who wrote with high levels of “did <infinitive>” (more than 1,100 instances), did not employ “did have” even once, although he had many opportunities to do so.[2] Joseph Smith also dictated archaic, non-emphatic “do have” and “doth have” once each, which rarely occurred earlier.[3] Texts | Corpora did have do have doth have 1611 King James Bible 0 0 0 Pseudo-archaic corpus (25 texts) 0 0 0 Bunyan corpus (39 texts) 0 0 0 1829 Book of Mormon 16 1 1 Early English Books Online 12 3 0 He also dictated early modern variational usage of “thou didst” alternating immediately with “and did” (Alma 39:3) and “did thou” varying almost immediately with “thou didst” (Ether 12:31). This is attested early modern variation which resulted from differential syntactic influences. Periphrastic “«do» have” and didst ~ did variation fit with the Book of Mormon’s frequent usage of various types of little-known Early Modern English. [1] The approximately 60,000 texts of the freely available portion of the EEBO corpus have between four and twelve instances of “did have” (1496–1691), depending on strictness of interpretation. There are four simple, early examples: 1496, https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A06811, [91]; 1534, A00387, 75; 1534, A68860, [27]; 1576, A09316, 96. These are the most representative examples of the Book of Mormon’s “did have” usage. The latest one in EEBO is probably an emphatic instance, because of the accompanying use of indeed: “as indeed they did have it” (1691, A45242, 309). Another later example occurs in a legal context (1659, A52921, 24); such usage, often with adverbs, was persistent. One is a conjoined case, “did have and hold” (1651, A28585, 279), which can be distinguished as involving a verb compound. Five are poetic instances, influenced by meter and rhyme. [2] Roger O’Connor’s curious history of Ireland titled Chronicles of Eri was written around 1800 and published in 1822; as indexed in WordCruncher, it has approximately 131,000 words. There are seven instances of “did eat” in his book and none of ate. The Book of Mormon has one of “did eat” and two of ate, weakening claims of biblical “did eat” influence. [3] I have not found an example of periphrastic, non-emphatic “doth have” (Alma 32:23), but “do have” (Alma 9:23) occurs at least three times in the EEBO corpus: 1565, https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A00179, [37]; 1648, A27810, [273]; 1665, A44793, 8.

Here is another way that the Book of Mormon is different from pseudo-archaic writings and Bunyan's usage. Texts | Corpora the more part the more part of X a more part the more parts 1611 King James Bible 2 0 0 0 Pseudo-archaic corpus (25 texts) 0 0 0 0 Bunyan corpus (39 texts) 0 0 0 0 1829 Book of Mormon 0 21 1 2 The reason Bunyan didn't use "more part" phraseology is because it was mainly usage of the 16c and earlier. Also, Joseph Smith could have imitated the Bible's short form, with no post-modifying phrase, 13 times, without any loss of information. But he did not. The Book of Mormon appears to be independently archaic because of the two rare early modern variants. The plural variant occurs from Late Middle English to Early Modern English. It can be seen in early statutes. The indefinite variant was the rarest. One plural variant is in the first edition of Holinshed's Chronicles (1577, HC), but it was changed in the second edition (1587) to the singular. Statutory compilations of earlier English law have many examples of "more part" phraseology. Besides those, the Book of Mormon has the most occurring in a text since the early 1600s. HC might have the most. It has about 50 that are adverbial, which read "for the more part." The adverbial use occurs twice in the Book of Mormon, in 1 Nephi 9. And HC has about 110 examples of non-adverbial "the more part." Most of these, at least 90, have a post-modifying phrase, as in the Book of Mormon. There was rare, sporadic usage of "the more part" in the 1800s, and such examples are used to explain this stand-out Book of Mormon usage naturalistically. The text's rare variants are conveniently ignored, since hardly anyone knows about them, and many other archaic outliers are ignored. Obviously, if Joseph Smith worded the "more part" phraseology of the Book of Mormon, then he did it consciously, and he happened to hit on two rare variants. Also, he consciously dictated dozens of different types of archaic outliers, involving thousands of instances. Just the "did <infinitive>" outlier alone constitutes 1,600 instances, including 16 of the rare early modern variant "did have." He had to consciously dictate non-emphatic, non-contrastive periphrastic did more than 1,500 times, over many weeks, including the rare variant "did have," which is not in the above comparison texts, but does occur in earlier English, primarily in the 1500s. Of course, modern "did have" usage, which everyone was exposed to, was emphatic or poetic or a legal use. This is different from what Joseph Smith dictated. Even Bunyan was exposed to some of this emerging, later usage, and it did not lead to him using "did have" in the rare 16c way.

One has to be quite credulous to think that Joseph Smith composed the conjunction save usage of the Book of Mormon, as well as many other things, some of which I've recently mentioned. "Save it were" does not occur in a vacuum of no other conjunction save usage. It is discussed as if it occurred in a vacuum, however, in order to make it seem more plausible that Joseph Smith automatically used it more than 70 times. We are apparently expected to believe that dozens of pro-form instances of "save it were" were worded by Joseph Smith, even though it isn't found elsewhere before the Book of Mormon more than once, and in few texts, of British origin. The three earliest sources are Scottish English: 1646, 1684, 1749 (Scottish folk song, reprinted). There are also three examples of pro-form "save it was" in the Book of Mormon. This usage was rarer historically than "save it were." The reason it was rarer is because the subordinate clause was normally overtly marked as subjunctive by the use of singular were. Pro-form "except it <be>," according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is where the phrase was used instead of repeating the principal verb, similar to how a pronoun is used instead of repeating a preceding noun. As I see it, the "it <be>" was used (after the subordinating conjunctions except or save) instead of repeating a preceding subject and verb. "Except it be|were" primarily occurred in the early modern period, when "except it be|were" occurred at its highest rate and most frequently in texts, in absolute terms. Before the Book of Mormon, pro-form "save it was" occurs in 1684: "I carefully declin’d the looking but never so overly into any Book of this nature; save it was that sacred one, wherein our Religion is most divinely established" (EEBO B18463, [14]). The way I read it, what James Canaries meant in context by "save it was that sacred one" was something like "except that I did carefully examine that sacred book." Other examples of "save it was" that I have seen are not pro-form, even the other one in Canaries' book, which is followed by a that-clause. Tyndale has one where save is a coordinating conjunction, "save it was flat." These can be discerned because the it is literal, not an expletive. In other cases, "save it was" is part of an impersonal expression, which although the it is an expletive, the phrase is not a pro-form use. (So, to avoid running into interpretive errors, some syntactic awareness is needed.) Pro-form "save it was," then, is one reason why I view the conjunction save usage of the Book of Mormon as early modern. Another reason is the text's brilliant "save <subject> shall <infinitive>" usage, where shall is a subjunctive marker. For those who might not know, subjunctive, modal shall is used in many contexts in the Book of Mormon where it is not even used in the King James Bible. For instance, in subordinate clauses headed by archaic "inasmuch as." This early modern usage is not in pseudo-archaic texts or John Bunyan's writings, either. Also, subjunctive, modal shall occurred at its highest rate in the 16c. After the 1500s, it declined in use over the centuries. It is also characteristic of a formal, written style. The heavy subjunctive, modal shall use is another reason, along with its heavy finite verbal complementation, that the Book of Mormon reads like a written text, despite being dictated. So, because the Book of Mormon has "save <subject> shall <infinitive>" usage far beyond any known text, and it is quintessential early modern usage, and because pro-form "save it was" was rare early modern usage, it is quite reasonable to view the conjunction save usage of the Book of Mormon as early modern, which of course Joseph Smith did not author.

Here is some Late Middle English in the Book of Mormon. There is no textual support for Joseph Smith formulating this syntax. As noted below, this is impersonal, simple dative syntax; me is not accusative. There is no evidence of later analogical formation in English. It is not a mistake of the dictation: dictated on three different days, in two different locations, weeks apart, makes sense contextually. And so on. Naturalistic explanations are stipulative. Alma 54:11 But behold, it supposeth me that I talk to you concerning these things in vain, or it supposeth me that thou art a child of hell. Jacob 2:8 And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God, The Words of Mormon 1:2 And it supposeth me that he will witness the entire destruction of my people. Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. suppose, verb, definition I.i.4: “† intransitive. impersonal with complement and indirect object. him supposeth: it seems to him. Obsolete. rare.” a1393. www.oed.com/dictionary/suppose_v?tab=meaning_and_use#19727882.

Here is a distributional difference between “sore afraid” and “exceeding fraid,” both archaic phrases. The latter has so far been verified in three seventeenth-century writings, dated 1642, 1648, 1676.[1] The word morphology is archaic: no {-ly} on the adverb and an aphetic participial form, originally derived from the verb affray, used since the 1300s. Two of these were authored by women, shown below. The original Book of Mormon text is independently archaic in this regard, but we have been told repeatedly that Joseph Smith was just imitating the Bible or John Bunyan or any number of authors who commentators can present as plausible sources. Texts | Corpora “sore afraid” “exceeding fraid” 1611 King James Bible 23 0 Pseudo-archaic corpus (25 texts) 5 0 Bunyan corpus (39 texts) 2 0 1829 Book of Mormon 0 4 [1] Brilliana Harlay, 1642, https://books.google.com/books?id=w8c_AAAAcAAJ (1854); Anne Yemans, 1648, https://name.umdl.umich.edu/A67808; Benjamin Keach (1640-1704), 1676, https://books.google.com/books?id=3RxkAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA204.

It has recently been proposed that Joseph Smith was influenced by some of John Bunyan's writings (1628–1688) in formulating Book of Mormon English. In his Dialogue article, Davis also suggests these authors as possible influences: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), John Milton (1608–1674), Richard Baxter (1615–1691), John Flavel (ca. 1627–1691), Isaac Watts (1674–1748), Philip Doddridge (1702–1751), John Wesley (1703–1791), Samuel Johnson (1709–1784), and James Hervey (1714–1758), since their works were in accessible libraries. In short, we now have it proposed that Joseph Smith was a highly literate author of some sort. We are led to ask: Was he highly literate or not? Was he a pseudo-archaic author, or just dictating his own unique form of sacred | spiritual language that is not pseudo-archaic, even though he was not fluent in Early Modern English? These things might strike some as possibly incoherent. Davis considered very little counterevidence to his theory of Bunyanesque influence on Book of Mormon English. Today I will show you some counterevidence related to rhetorical if. Oxford English Dictionary, “'if so be' in if (conj. & n.), sense P.2,” December 2025, https://doi.org/10.1093/OED/7755464232. In the days to come, I might be able to mention other things. (For the next 10 days I only have limited time to write anything here, since my partner, who usually takes care of dozens of animals, large and small, is away. But I might be able to offer one substantive item a day.) We are supposed to believe that Joseph Smith authored the Book of Mormon based on his great familiarity with the King James Bible and his familiarity with writings such as Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress (1678) and Holy War (1682). As mentioned, I put together a corpus of 25 pseudo-archaic writings with help from E. Shalev and D. Johnson. I also put together a corpus of 39 writings by Bunyan, including the above two, mainly from EEBO texts. This is what we see in terms of rhetorical if in the comparison texts: Texts | Corpora if so be if it so be 1611 King James Bible 13 0 Pseudo-archaic corpus (25 texts, 1740–1888) 5 0 John Bunyan corpus (39 texts, 1656–1688) 9 0 1829 Book of Mormon 0 42 John Lydgate’s Troy Book (1412–1420) 13 21 The last entry shows us that both rhetorical if variants were Late Middle English phrases. Though not in Lydgate's Troy Book, "if it so be" was the minority form. Both show limited persistence into Late Modern English. Lydgate's 21 instances of "if it so be" is the most I've counted in a text besides the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith dictated 39 of these from 3 Nephi 16 on; before that only three. Four of Bunyan’s nine examples are quotes or paraphrases of biblical language. The King James Bible also has five in the Apocrypha. Matthew 18:13 has a well-known example: “if so be that he find it.” Four pseudo-archaic authors in the corpus produced the five examples of "if so be". The Book of Mormon’s “if it so be” usage is arguably archaic in nature because of six instances of subjunctive, modal shall governed by the phrase (e.g. “if it so be that these last grafts shall grow” Jacob 5:64) [plus 1 Nephi 17:13, 1 Nephi 19:19, 2 Nephi 1:7, 2 Nephi 1:9, 2 Nephi 3:2, 2 Nephi 6:12]. We are supposed to believe that the above was rather automatic for Joseph Smith — something he could have readily done. Just another aspect of his sacred | spiritual language. The Google Books database has over 20 billion words in it between 1801 and 1829, because of ever increasing publishing rates. I don't think it's too much to ask for someone to find six examples of "if it so be that . . shall <infinitive>" published in that time span. After all, Joseph Smith produced six in just 252,350 nonbiblical words in 1829 (0.0013% of the words).

What languages fall in this category? As mentioned, cause causatives began in the 1300s as heavily infinitival, increasing over the centuries toward 100%. Because of publishing rates and the above, the early modern period has the largest number of finite causatives. So far I have found fewer than 10 early modern texts with more than 10 finite causatives (and fewer than 20), and they were translations from Latin or French. Of course, those are the primary languages, along with other Romance languages, that early modern texts were translated from. Perhaps someone who knows biblical Hebrew can let us know what its tendencies are. About a year ago, I asked a linguist, who is a language typologist, what languages around the world prefer generally. I think the terms he used for finite and infinitive verbal complementation were balanced and deranked. He said deranked (infinitival) was the majority construction.

Analytics position on Book of Mormon English boils down to calling all of it Joseph Smith's sacred language (even though he does not actually believe it is sacred since he thinks Joseph Smith made it up). For him, it seems to be a rare sister of pseudo-archaic English, which was automatic for Joseph Smith and no one else, and which he can safely mock, in an academic sense, without knowing that much about it, since almost no one does. As mentioned, the position he has adopted is repeatedly stipulative and ad hoc. Somehow he is an expert who has figured it out without comparatively studying a large amount of data. He also ventures into expatiating on how academics regard the study of the Book of Mormon as pseudo-science. Since he brought it up, we might as well consider how Wright's work on biblical passages might be an example of pseudo-science. Wright did not analyze all of the biblical passages. There are fewer than 17,500 biblical words in the Book of Mormon, and he did not study them all. In academic work, he would have been expected to analyze all of them, at least generally, since the number of words is not very large. Since it is a niche field, and since he reached an academically acceptable conclusion, he could get away with this neglect, and receive praise for his deficient work. He did not compare the passages against what Joseph Smith dictated in 1829, he did not collate them against the 11 King James books they correspond to, he did not arrive at reliable, comprehensive numbers of non-matching readings, he did not mention the advance preparation it would have required, he did not determine that most italicized words remain intact in Book of Mormon readings (focusing on a possibly non-representative subset that gave him a desired conclusion), etc. In view of the above, this strikes me as a prime example of pseudo-scientific inquiry. And consider Analytics' approach to Book of Mormon English, as well as that of many others. Also pseudo-science: a lack of expertise while drawing conclusions feigning expertise. Where is the academic honesty in that? Well, academic research in many fields, especially in fields amenable to distortion, is not ultimately about truth-seeking. Priorities lie elsewhere. Truth-seeking began to go by the wayside many decades ago. In the case of the Book of Mormon, especially its English usage, rarely was there truth-seeking. Sometimes the neglect was the result of malice, sometimes it was the result of ignorance, etc.

Much earlier I mentioned causative constructions in the Book of Mormon, mostly with cause (235) but also with make (10). Here I will just focus on the former, since there are more than 200 and so we see a statistically clear pattern. A causative has a dependent verb that the verb cause governs. A simple example is "they caused that he should be bound" (Alma 30:29). This is an example of a finite causative. An infinitive causative would be "they caused him to be bound." Here are a few things we know. The Book of Mormon is almost 60% finite, even though English causatives were historically among the least finite of verbs of influence. In general, finite complementation was characteristic of formal, written registers. Thus the Book of Mormon's high levels of finite complementation, in many contexts, but especially after verbs of influence, marks this aspect of the text as written, despite Joseph Smith dictating it. This is one more reason of many that calls into question his wording the Book of Mormon. In the 1820s, English speakers spoke with infinitive causatives because these began in the 1300s as more than 90% infinitival (Cuyckens, Lowrey, in Explorations in English Historical Syntax, 2018) and the infinitive use generally increased over time, approaching 100%. Therefore it is inaccurate/wrong to say that this reflects an archaic dialect that Joseph Smith spoke; this has been one incorrect fallback position to explain Book of Mormon English. The Book of Mormon's frequent use of finite causatives (136) is not a pseudo-archaic artifact of Joseph Smith's dictation because pseudo-archaic authors used infinitive causatives: in 25 pseudo-archaic texts (1740–1888), a corpus of almost 600,000 words that I put together after consulting Eran Shalev and Duane Johnson, there are more than 100 causatives and no finite causatives. My reasonable conclusion is that finite causatives were revealed to Joseph Smith word for word. When I mentioned to McGuire that I could not find a text with 36 finite causatives, let alone 136, he pointed me to a 2017 translation of a 17c Yiddish text by Faierstein that had 66 finite causatives. McGuire did not give me additional details about this translation's causatives. Though irrelevant to Book of Mormon authorship, Faierstein's written translation turns out to be quite different from Joseph Smith's oral "translation" of causatives (in quotes because it is not the default meaning). First, the 2017 translation is only about 24% finite, even though Faierstein knew multiple languages (which Joseph Smith did not in 1829), probably four or more, but at least three. The Book of Mormon is about 58% finite. Second, the translation is close to twice as long as the Book of Mormon, and more than twice as long if we exclude biblical quotations. The 66 finite causatives normalize to 31, relative to the Book of Mormon's 136. Third, the embedded modal use is odd in its frequent use of will and non-use of shall, while the Book of Mormon's modal use is not odd, historically speaking. It is what we expect that early modern translators might have used. Faierstein's modal usage is what we might expect of a pseudo-archaic, literal translator. Fourth, the 2017 translation does not have any ditransitive causatives and the Book of Mormon has 12 (ditransitive causatives were obsolete by about 1725 – Lowrey 2018 views them as obsolete by about 1700). The Book of Mormon's 12 ditransitive causatives are well above any other text and are characterized by frequent "did cause" usage, which peaked in English around 1590. The Book of Mormon has a large amount of syntax that fits usage of the second half of the 1500s. Translated early modern texts that have between 10 and 20 finite causatives suggest that the Book of Mormon's 136 finite causatives could have been the result of the Lord having the Book of Mormon translated (before delivery to Joseph Smith) from a language or languages that employed many finite causatives. This is speculation, of course, which I am just mentioning here as one of many possibilities.

No, that is not correct. It was unlikely for him to use "save it were" more than 70 times (as a pro-form expression) since it does not occur more than two or three times in other texts, and it rarely occurs before the Book of Mormon and not in American English sources, and it is not an isolated archaism of the language he dictated. There is both specific and general internal textual support for viewing it as an archaism. Indeed, the heavy use of this rare syntax is one of many archaic syntactic outliers in the text. Of course it is possible that there is an American English example somewhere before the Book of Mormon. They do begin after the Book of Mormon, in an 1837 poem and Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter (1850). But that is not explanatory. In general, Book of Mormon English is more British than American in style. A large amount of the syntactic matching of the text is found much more often in British sources than American sources. "Save it <be>" syntax is one of these that is much more British in style rather than American. It is also rather poetic and literary in style. "Save it were" is not an isolated archaism of the Book of Mormon. There is even support for it being an archaism from other subordinating conjunction save usage. The save syntax where the subordinate clause is marked as subjunctive by the modal auxiliary shall is archaic usage (18×), and the Book of Mormon has much more of it than any text. This particular shall usage marks it as formal, written language in style. It is not pseudo-archaic usage or biblical usage or modern usage. Here are 7 of the 18, the ones with third person pronouns. This usage is currently not in the largest databases before 1830. Moroni 7:38 save they shall have faith in his name Moroni 7:43 save he shall be meek and lowly of heart 1 Nephi 3:7 save he shall prepare a way for them 2 Nephi 5:22 save they shall repent of their iniquities 2 Nephi 9:42 save they shall cast these things away 2 Nephi 30:6 save they shall be a white and a delightsome people 2 Nephi 33:5 save he shall be of the spirit of the devil If this subjunctive “save he | they shall” syntax had been commonly used before 1830, there would be examples in Google Books, which currently has more than 25 billion words published before 1830, or ECCO (about 9 billion words), or EEBO (about 1.5 billion words). The dataset consists of two potentially frequent three-word phrases. Yes, there are examples with except, but there is no textual evidence of analogizing from except. This illustrates the general point that analogical extension in language is not automatic or predictable. English, historically speaking, compartmentalized some of its except | save usage. The conjunction save usage of the Book of Mormon, which is unique in an overall sense, is a strong point in favor it being viewed as a text not authored by Joseph Smith. Here are the Book of Mormon's 16 examples of "they which" occurring in object position, immediately following the object trigger. There is no text that has anything like this set, and only one verified example so far, dated 1659. Object they usage was almost always "they that" or "they who". "They which" would have been Joseph Smith's 9th choice of 9 options in this context. Like those around him, he preferred "those who" in this context. aa3136 he clapped his hands upon all they which were with him hn1312 it is because of they which are righteous that it is saved hn1618 unto they which shall be at Jerusalem 3n1805 unto all they which shall believe 3n1923 I pray . . for all they which shall believe on their words mi0810 unto they which are accountable and capable of committing sin 1n1913 as for they which are at Jerusalem, . . they shall be scourged 1n1920 I have workings in the spirit . . for they which are at Jerusalem 1n2204 from the knowledge of they which are at Jerusalem 1n2205 concerning all they which shall hereafter be scattered 1n2211 unto they which are of the house of Israel 2n1003 among they which are the more wicked part of the world 2n1021 unto they which are upon the isles of the sea verb 2n1022 the Lord remembereth all they which have been broken off 2n2709 the words of they which have slumbered in the dust verb 2n2907 I remember they which are upon the isles of the sea This is also evidence that Joseph Smith did not author the bad grammar of the Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon English is quite amazing, in many respects. Attempts to explain it naturalistically are highly stipulative.

Various aspects of non-verbal save point away from 19c authorship by Joseph Smith. American English speakers in the early 1800s preferred except over save; the Book of Mormon is the opposite. We can see the except preference in Lucy Mack Smith's dictated book and to a limited degree in Joseph Smith's early letters (few examples – all except). American English speakers used except and save as prepositions most of the time (with phrases); the Book of Mormon uses them as conjunctions (with clauses) the vast majority of the time. Lucy and Joseph used them as prepositions almost all the time. Lucy's book is a better resource for this, since it is longer and there are many more examples to consider. Two broad categories of conjunctions are coordinating and subordinating. Coordinating conjunctions head predicative clauses, often referred to as main clauses. Subordinating conjunctions head subordinate clauses, often in the subjunctive mood. Save, in the past, when functioning as a conjunction, was mainly used as a CC. It was used as a CS to a more limited degree than except, from what I have been able to determine thus far. In the Book of Mormon, save functions as a CS most of the time. The Book of Mormon probably has well beyond ten times the amount of save functioning as a CS than any other text. As the main subtype, the text has 130 instances of "save it <be>," the vast majority where save is a CS. So far the most I have verified in another text is five. In the case of "save it was," save is a CS in the text 3 times, which was rare past usage. In most textual examples of "save it was", save is a CC. So far I have seen "save_CS it was" in the writing of a Scottish minister, James Canaries, dated 1684. Similarly, "save_CS he|they shall" occurs in the Book of Mormon 7 times. In this case, I have not found an example before the Book of Mormon yet. For some reason, there was hardly any analogizing from except historically. The subjunctive, modal shall marking is archaic, of course. So far I have seen approximately 10 examples of "save_CS what shall . . ." in the 17c. Quoting, in part, Skousen, The King James Quotations in the Book of Mormon (2019), 225: "The Anchor Bible Dictionary has First Isaiah (Isaiah 1–39), Second Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55), and Third Isaiah (Isaiah 56–66), as well as separating out an additional post-exilic “Little Apocalypse” from Isaiah 24–27, assigned to yet another author." Deutero-Isaiah, in part, follows from references to Cyrus in Isaiah 44, 45. Of course academic treatments reject prophecy, so where the Isaiah text has a predicted item, then it must have been authored later. One bit of hard evidence for unity is the following. "In Isaiah 49:25 the earlier, pre-exilic Qal Passive for the verb לקח ‘to take’ occurs in the Masoretic text (that is, as יקח ) instead of the later, post-exilic Niphal (that is, as ילקח ), which occurs in the Qumran scroll for this passage. Hendel notes that “in late Biblical Hebrew the Qal Passive is extremely rare”, so the Qal Passive verb form in Isaiah 49:25 provides additional evidence that Isaiah II reflects earlier usage. Hendel’s discussion of early versus late Biblical Hebrew is found in the appendix, “Linguistic Notes on the Age of Biblical Literature” (see pages 115–116 and its accompanying notes on pages 158–164), to his book Remembering Abraham (Oxford University Press, 2005)."