Ryan Dahle

There are a number of significant differences that I believe render this as a false analogy. As a refresher, here is what you said: You of course are trying to evoke the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy, in which someone identifies a piece of data and then, after the fact, comes up with a false or illogical explanation as to how they predicted it (or they might inflate the significance of the prediction itself). In this case, the analogy makes an illogical claim about why the text's opening phrase is "extraordinarily unlikely" to occur. Virtually every text has lengthy n-grams that are unlikely to show up precisely in other texts, especially if they involve unique terms such as a proper name. So there is actually nothing unique about having unique n-grams of this length in a text. And there is nothing unique about stories beginning with a phrase that is related to the content of the story. I'm guessing you already know this. In contrast, there actually does seem to be something highly unusual about an author using a high concentration of multifaceted archaism (in grammar, lexis, and syntax) that very likely wasn't in his linguistic environment. This constitutes actual evidence, backed up by lots of data (billions of words worth). You might dispute how strong the EMoE data is (which is a separate issue for now), but you would have to admit it is in an entirely different class of evidence. It potentially means something significant (i.e., Smith was highly unlikely to produce the BofM) whereas we both agree that the n-gram phrase at the beginning of the BofM means essentially nothing. And that different starting point changes everything because your preferred authorship theory is that Smith wrote the text. If he didn't likely have the capacity, that is a big a problem for your theory. My preferred authorship theory is that it was revealed to Smith by revelation. And since divine beings would have the capacity to produce these textual features, this theory has an obvious advantage. The precise motivations for why the candidate authors under either theory would produce this specific language can't really be guessed with any degree of confidence. It is essentially just an unknown. So, compared to the capacity disparity, the unknown and ultimately unpredictable motivations basically amount to non-evidence. Which means my translation theory has an obvious advantage on the issue that matters most: the potential capacity of the respective candidate authors to produce the text. I'm not sure why this is so hard to understand. If my preferred authorial candidate could likely write the words and yours almost certainly couldn't write them, then that is not anything like the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. This is because both theories, of necessity, have to predict that their candidate authors can actually produce the language of the text! That is just the underlying logic of authorship claims. It is the first and most important hurdle of prediction that needs to be addressed. And your candidate essentially fails when it comes to this logically necessary and most fundamental prediction. The fact that my theory couldn't predict precisely what specific textual features my preferred candidate author might use is essentially irrelevant, not merely because your theory wouldn't be able to predict these same features either but because the factor of motivation is inherently subordinate to the factor of capacity. So my main point is just that your analogy does not have corresponding elements to virtually any of these additional lines of reasoning and therefore is irrelevant. It's apples to oranges.

I'm not sure that clears things up, especially as it relates to your previous statement: "Furthermore, when evaluating the likelihood of seeing the totality of the evidence, you need to make that estimate before looking at the evidence, not after." Sounds like you had a very chronological meaning to begin with. I honestly have no idea what the clarification means. In a general way, it seems obvious that we all assess new data in light of principles of logic that we have already developed in our paradigms. So there has to be some prior basis of logic that we use to assess new phenomena. But that just seems pretty fundamentally self-evident to me. I'm not sure if that was your intent, but if so, I guess I agree. I think the issue isn't just that the expectation was made "after the fact." It is that the expectation is not logical on multiple levels of analysis. But, ultimately, this isn't analogous to what is being claimed about EmodE.

Here's the problem though. Anyone could posit that any potential entity or known individual could possibly have written the text. You could claim Smith created the text. Or you could claim he or someone close to him created it, perhaps in collaboration. Or you can claim it was written in the 19th century, but that the authorship simply isn't know. Or you could claim it was written in the 15th century, and then redacted by unknown individuals, and that Smith gave some final edits. And so on. Each party gets to pick its own preferred explanation for each set of data, at what ever level of specificity they think is most reasonable based on what they believe the evidence can best support. Which really means there is essentially an infinite number of possible explanations (ranging from very general to very specific) for any set of data, as well as particular items within that set. Obviously, it is impossible to assess the comparative probability of all possible explanations simultaneously in the same analysis. It is typically easiest, especially when different parties have reached different conclusions, to simply test their preferred explanations against one another, in relation to specific sets and items of data. More theories could conceivably be thrown into the mix, meaning it is mathematically possible to assess multiple theories at the same time, but I assume that could get unwieldly pretty quickly, especially when assessing very large and complex sets of data. So, while each party should certainly keep in mind that there are always more explanatory options out there (really an infinite number of them), it is technically impossible to truly "be exhaustive" in any analysis. I certainly have considered that other individuals could possibly be the author of the text. But my preferred theory is that the wording of the text almost exclusively came through Joseph Smith alone (as revealed by revelation, with perhaps minimal input from others caused by scribal errors and such). I have lots of reasons for that, only one of which involves the text's archaic features. But since we initially seemed to be only discussing a certain subset of textual features, it didn't seem relevant to start commenting on all possible factors that could be relevant for any other authorial candidates.

Woops. Haha. I thought you were another board member who goes by a similar sounding alias (someone who definitely would have known a lot about this topic). My bad, and my apologies.

Well, yes and no. They certainly don't bring up these issues when they publish in secular venues. And some of these scholars are gun-shy about being apologetic in any of their publications. But there are also quite a few who have published very prolifically in apologetic contexts. I'm not sure what the ratio is, but there are definitely examples that fit your description of avoiding the debate.

"{A}ll of this data" have been publicly available for quite a while, some for many decades. Anyone "outside of the LDS scholarly domain" has had ample opportunity to do "peer review." This has happened a bit, but not much. I think this is mostly attributable to indifference and/or studied avoidance. It must also be recognized that there is very little secular peer-reviewed material that is overtly critical of LDS truth claims. So, to be fair, critics of the church are essentially in the same boat that apologists are in. They try to leverage secular scholarship to their advantage, just as believers do. But the secular scholars themselves are generally not interested in the debate, and they do not frame their research specifically as a critique of LDS claims. It is one thing to say, for example, that much of the data of the Book of Mormon is not directly corroborated by secular research in Mesoamerican studies. That is absolutely true and fair. But it is quite another thing altogether to say that secular Mesoamerican scholarship itself argues that the Book of Mormon is highly implausible, or to imply that there is a secular scholarly consensus about this point. That just isn't so. Most secular scholars have never mentioned the BofM in their research, and are likely not familiar enough with it or its claims to provide an informed critique. They have certainly never conducted the type of macro-Bayesian analysis that Analytics is so fond of (and which I also think has utility when carried out responsibly) in connection to all relevant claims and data. They rarely engage in hypotheticals relevant to BofM claims, such as assessing the possibility of small incursions of ANE colonies into the Americas and so forth. They often admit there is still so much we don't know, and leave the door open to new discoveries. Thus, for critics to claim that there is some kind of scholarly consensus against the Book of Mormon would be sort of like LDS apologists claiming there is a scholarly consensus in favor of the BofM's ANE literature features. It just isn't so. Most scholars involved in ANE studies don't have any idea that their research is relevant to LDS truth claims. Instead, we are the ones leveraging their material and making the connections. It is the same with critics. They are, by and large, the ones interpreting secular scholarship in connection to LDS truth claims (rather than the secular scholars themselves). So I just think the issue of peer review is ultimately irrelevant in these contexts, except in the narrow sense that LDS scholars do have systems of peer-review in some of their publishing outlets, in which legitimate scholars with both secular training and familiarity with LDS research are called upon to review each other's works. It has limitations, I know. But it is better than nothing. And I think we have actually done much better in this regard than the critics. They have mostly turned to social media platforms and rarely have other critics with relevant scholarly training who help critique and review their critical material of the Church. Thus, ironically, I think the believers actually have somewhat of an advantage in this area, as we are by and large more "scholarly" in our approach to many faith-relevant topics than the critics are. And, to be quite honest, we generally just have more qualified scholars (often with more relevant secular training) in our camp than they do on most topics. That isn't true for every topic or subtopic, but I can almost guarantee that we would win the day in the macro-analysis. This is especially so if you look at individuals who have both secular scholarly training and are also deeply familiar with LDS research topics. We unquestionably have an advantage on that front.

At the same time, many Latter-day Saint scholars have published regularly in secular peer-reviewed venues, and many of them have degrees in higher education from secular universities. It's actually sort of funny. When I look at those who are actually engaged in many of the apologetic debates, those with the most secular knowledge plus awareness of LDS claims and theology tend to be Latter-day Saints. Whenever you see outside academics trying to engage with LDS scholars, you will often find that their expertise in their secular field often doesn't prepare them well to engage with LDS truth claims. Just watch the interview with Robert Ritner on Mormon Stories. He had no idea what most of the apologetic claims and arguments were. He constantly needed RFM to help explain things to him, even really basic stuff. Which means that he was essentially not dealing with LDS scholarly claims directly. For the most part, he was getting a filtered, reductive, anti-Mormon caricature of the claims and then responding to those. A very similar thing happened with Michael Coe. Their non-interview materials were more responsible, but they still never really fully engaged with apologetic arguments. Very rarely will you find an outside scholar who is both an expert in their field and also able to successfully interact with and critique LDS scholarly material in a way that responsibly deals with apologetic claims and evidence. What this tells me is that there is no objective arbitrators in this arena. The nature of the religious claims means virtually anyone and everyone has some skin in the game. It is enough for me that many LDS believers also happen to be legitimate scholars, and that much support for LDS truth claims is built on top of responsible scholarship in a variety of fields.

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They were? How do you know? And how do you account for D&C 17:1? It is also interesting that Oliver Cowdery essentially showed up at Smith's door because of independent personal revelation and interest. Smith barely knew him for a few months when Oliver witnessed the plates and the angel. The same is true for David Whitmer, and all of the Whitmers who testified of seeing the plates. Only Martin Harris knew Smith for longer. But he also was quite skeptical in many ways, and struggled to believe. Essentially, it was a HUGE risk for Smith to produce the Book of Mormon and then predict that others would have a very specific divine revelation about the plates and other artifacts, before that revelation occurred. He still barely knew most of these people. And everything could have fallen apart if the initial witnesses didn't have the precise type of "hallucination" (or whatever someone wants to call it) to convince them of Smith's claims. Critics aren't dealing with this fact. Imagine if you are Oliver, David, and Martin. You are sincere. You really think Smith is a prophet, based on some of his previous claims and his dictation of the Book of Mormon. You walk into the woods. And then nothing happens. No promised revelation. You try to get yourself to have the vision. You open yourself up to that idea. But there is no angel clothed in glory. No plates. No other artifacts. It seems to me that if Smith was lying or deluded to begin with, that is BY FAR the most likely outcome. He would have never found witnesses to corroborate such audacious claims. I personally can't think of anyone I know that I could trick into believing they saw an angel and plates in the woods, when indeed they saw nothing. Not a single person, much less three. It would be an extraordinarily unlikely result.

Yes. Vogel's theory accounts for a very small portion of the data, and doesn't deal with most potential counter-arguments. It is also mainly a historical explanation and doesn't really deal with most lines of positive evidence in the text, pointing away from Smith's authorship.

I'm not saying the text is a ray gun. It wasn't an analogy meant to illustrate certain principles of evidence, not an example of evidence equivalent to the BofM. They have very different types of evidentiary strengths. I'm guessing you haven't been paying attention to lots of the evidence accumulated about the text. But the bigger problem is that as soon as your theory relies on the possibility of Smith learning everything from his environment, the theory becomes inconsistent with the historical evidence pertaining to Smith's education and poverty, as well as the nature of the translation. You can't reasonably have Smith widely reading and accessing all sorts of arcane information from rare or expensive books and then remembering those details well enough to synthesize them in a complex text like the Book of Mormon. Not only can this not explain all of the data (because lots of features, contrary to your claim, weren't known in 1829), but it just is not plausible based on the historical data about Smith's life and circumstances. There would also be another problem. If Smith was widely having conversations with people and reading from esoteric books and thinking about such things, his family and acquaintances would likely have noticed. I don't think anyone in 1829 could likely have written the text. But I think it would help naturalistic theories considerably if the text was written by a scholar or someone with a lot of literary experience and success. It would also help considerably if they weren't required to dictate the text in a fast-paced translation without revisions. Even if you strip away all those hurdles, I still think there are some archaic features of the text that very likely couldn't have been imitated. But, again, the historical evidence would strongly militate against another author.

Very different degrees of literary experience and scholarly study, when they each respectively used their archaism, based on the available historical evidence. I haven't looked at his writings and life close enough to say. Lot's of creative people feel inspired to some degree. Hard to say what he means specifically by that, based on his statements. But it doesn't really matter to me, in the context of this discussion. LDS theology can accommodate other people having spiritual gifts and interreacting with spiritual entities, whether divine or demonic. Inasmuch as people claim to have received a text by revelation, it can't be used as evidence of what others can do naturally, until that claim is either verified or disputed. You have to look for examples of texts which are undisputedly naturalistic in origin as a control for what other individuals could do naturalistically. Yet even if Very did implement this feature via naturalistic means, as Hawthorne did, it wouldn't all of a sudden make it likely that Smith implemented this archaic feature and all of the others. All it does is make the naturalistic theory slightly more plausible. What you would really need to do, in order to turn the tide, is demonstrate that most all of the archaism was present in fairly appreciable degrees in texts close to 1829. Stan has already been accounting for rare instances of preservation across the board for many examples. So this is nothing new.

First you want to take in the totality of the evidence, but now you mostly want to focus on a particular phrase. Why not try to deal with the totality of the archaic features? In any case, this seems to just be ignoring the fact that there is a major CAPACITY difference in the two theories. Divine beings have capacity that Smith wouldn't. That inherently creates an imbalance in each theory's explanatory power. Divine beings could produce the text's depth and breadth of archaism, if they so desired. Smith very likely couldn't, since he wouldn't even know what the features were and wouldn't likely be able to mimic so many of them in his oral dictation. So, no, it doesn't seem like the evidence is "equally unlikely" under both theories. And Joseph Smith in 1829 was no Nathaniel Hawthorne or Jones Very. It's apples to oranges. But I think we at least agree it was "unlikely" and not "impossible" that Smith encountered this phrase in his environment. Assuming he encountered all the rest and assimilated them into his vocabulary is much more "unlikely" and much closer to "impossible."

It's funny you bring this up because one of the findings from Skousen and Carmack is that the text seems to have been "filtered" for a modern audience. It is archaic, but it seems to very selectively use archaism that would be understandable in the early 19th century environment. In fact, it seems to do this in a way that the Bible itself actually doesn't. Here is how Skousen states it: "The vocabulary of the text has been filtered so that no truly obsolete words from Early Modern English get through (except in the long quotations from the King James Bible, with its archaic examples like besom, carbuncle, tabret, and crisping pin). Nonetheless, the words that occur in the Book of Mormon proper are recognizable as current words in English, but they often take on archaic meanings that neither Joseph Smith nor his scribes understood. Thus we end up with a very complex and interesting mixture of specific language usage, but definitely not an ignorant mishmash of language imitative of the biblical style." Likewise, the archaic syntax is all understandable. This seems like it allows the text to simultaneously (1) retain an archaic form adjacent to the KJV, (2) not just be a shallow imitation of the KJV, and (3) be generally accessible for Joseph Smith and the initial 19th century audience. In any case, the text never specifically stipulates what "after their manner of language" means on a technical level. Does it have to literally be Smith's own native linguistic patterns? Or could it simply be in a language he can understand. I would assume the latter, but it doesn't really matter since either interpretation (and probably others) are reasonably on the table. In short, your claim that "this theory contradicts the very message of the book it is trying to defend" is really just you imposing a narrow interpretation that isn't logically necessary, while probably also just not being aware of the findings from Skousen and Carmack on this front.

That simply just isn't true. The prediction can come either before or after. It just depends on the nature of the phenomenon being assessed and at what level of analysis it is being observed. What matters most is that the theory is based on reliable data and valid interpretations of the data. Take the alien analogy for example. Before I told you I was abducted by aliens (in my very hypothetical scenario), you would have had no idea what type of evidence might emerge to support my claim. It could be all sorts of things. The Bayesian approach doesn't require one to predict all possible outcomes and then try to guess which of the potential outcomes might be most likely. That is often impossible and is usually a waste of time. Instead, we are most often confronted with data, and then we seek out an explanatory theory that can best account for that data. In the alien analogy, it is only after I show you the shrink gun that you can begin to assess how probable that specific item of evidence might be under the competing theories. And there is just no way that you could specifically know I would be given a shrink gun as evidence. What if the aliens instead gave me a device for teleporting, or a way to read minds, or some other type of tech that is too advanced for humans? What if it wasn't tech at all. What if, instead, they altered my biology and made it so I could now read minds, and then I start telling you everything you are thinking? Point is, there are so many things that could possibly arise from an advanced, currently unknown alien civilization that it is impossible to reliably predict what type of strong corroborating evidence might be available to support my claim. The same is true for the EModE data. There is no way to reliably predict what the text might specifically look like under the "revealed text" theory, since it is being produced by an unknown entity. But when the text shows remarkable evidence that it wasn't produced by Smith, and when all of the historical evidence points to Smith as an author, the naturalistic explanation struggles and the supernatural explanation is simultaneously made much more plausible.

This is irrelevant since I was, of course, already including the totality of the linguistic data in my assessment. But I assumed Joseph Smith was the preferred candidate author under your theory. And the only textual data of any significance under that theory is the EModE archaism. If the entirety of the text was representative of Smith's own linguistic environment, we wouldn't be having this conversation in the first place, as that data wouldn't be significant as evidence under either competing hypothesis.

If you want to posit someone else, it may help to better account for the EModE data, but then you of course lose the battle on historical evidence, since virtually all the data on that front points toward Joseph Smith. So pick your poison. I assumed Smith was your preferred authorial candidate, based on our previous discussion.

No. I'm just treating it as unknowable. You have to remember that in the context of these competing theories, there are two primary factors that are being assessed: (1) capacity and (2) motivation. I assume under the naturalistic theory, motivation doesn't really play into it much. I'm guessing you assume Smith inadvertently used the archaic features. Either that, or he somewhat intentionally did so, presumably to make the text sound more archaic. Either way, his motivation, if he had one, wouldn't actually be reliably known, since he never disclosed it. So the only crucial factor would be capacity. And we have a lot of data and reasons to suspect he couldn't produce the archaism in the text. On the other hand, under the supernatural theory, the motivation also wouldn't be known. Yet under this theory divine beings would definitely have the capacity to produce the features of the text. So it's not just that "unknowable" automatically means "favorable." It is that "unknowable" only applies to the factor of motivation, which to me seems far less significant than the factor of capacity. Here is another somewhat relevant analogy. If I were to walk into the kitchen and see that dinner was unexpectedly made, and if there were only two real options in this context (my 8 year old and my 15 year old) who could have made dinner, I would obviously choose the one who had the greater capacity, especially when I wouldn't be able to determine or guess the exact motivation for either of them to have carried out that action. Strongly disconfirming evidence for one factor (capacity) trumps the unknown variable in another factor (motivation). Fair enough. But that still is only unexpected when it comes to the issue of motivation/purpose (the factor I have already admitted isn't known) in contrast to the more significant and testable issue (capacity). Again, you seem to be missing the fact that there are two different variables at play. When you compare the fact that we don't know why a divine translation would have a certain set of features, in contrast to the fact that Joseph Smith almost certainly couldn't produce these features himself, it becomes pretty obvious which explanation has the advantage. Same thing with the alien analogy. The fact that humans almost certainly can't build shrink ray guns with current technology is far more significant than the mere fact that I don't know why the alien's might give me such an item.

I think I would frame this particular issue this way: What are the chances of seeing extensive, multifaceted archaism in the Book of Mormon if the wording of the text was revealed to Joseph Smith by revelation? What are the chances of seeing extensive, multifaceted archaism in the Book of Mormon if Joseph Smith worded the text himself? Under the revealed text theory, the capacity for a divine being to produce this type of feature wouldn't really be questioned. God or angels would presumably be able to produce a translation in any dialect of any language. So the real question is simply motivation and purpose. Unfortunately, we don't know enough about divine realms to be able to establish or rule out most possibilities on this front. I've thought of several purposes that I think are not implausible. Perhaps this EmodE dialect was used (1) for the BofM to generally align with the vernacular of the KJV, (2) for the BofM to have its own distinct flavor of archaism, symbolically suggesting the text is congruent with the KJV but not just an imitation of it, (3) for the BofM to possess another line of evidence, short of proof, for apologetic purposes, and (4) for the BofM to piggyback (i.e., build upon/adapt) an already existing EModE version of the same text that may already have existed in the Spirit world, thus joining the two texts together in a way. None of these possibilities can be tested and verified, but neither can they be disproven. So, essentially I am left with one or more divine beings who (under this theory) have the capacity to implement this unique textual feature, but whose motivation to do so is essentially unassessable. This makes it very difficult to provide a precise Bayesian estimate for this data. I certainly don't think the specific suite of archaic features could be specifically predicted. But I would say that, if the words were revealed to him through a divine process, there might be up to a 20% chance of something about the English text not reflecting Smith's own native dialect. In contrast, this type of multifaceted archaism seems highly implausible under a naturalistic theory. Again, I have no idea what the precise chances would be, but I would give Smith far less than 1 in 1000 of being able to produce the combined archaic grammar, lexis, and syntax of the Book of Mormon, in the frequencies and varieties that they show up in. That probability may seem too low, but some of these textual features, on their own, can't be found in Smith's time period, even when searching through corpora with many billions of words. A similar type of logic arises in the alien scenario I presented. You seemed to think that "the likelihood ratio would heavily favor the alien-abduction hypothesis" (assuming the shrink gun is real and checks out as legit). You admitted this would be the case, even if I couldn't explain any of the motivations or purpose for the abduction or the gun. In this scenario, it seems the chances that I or someone else in the world could produce a shrink-ray gun would probably be more like 1 in many billion. So I grant that evidence may be far stronger. But it is essentially the same principle. When someone makes an extraordinary supernatural claim and then the evidence is found to back that claim up, the supernatural explanation is substantially improved and the naturalistic theory is weakened.

Duplicate

I think when we really get into the lives of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, however, we see evidence of bias in favor of Smith's claims, but also a pretty significant degree of skepticism, doubt, and willful independence. I think it is hard to just paint them with a single brush. There are lots of factors that make them strong witnesses, but also lots of factors that somewhat reduce their credibility or strength to some degree. Sometimes things cut both ways at once, along different lines. For instance, Smith's family members knew him growing up. That simultaneously makes them more likely to be biased in his favor but also somewhat less likely to be deceived by all of his claims. They saw him over the years in a way that his new associates didn't. Jesus, after all, was rejected by his own closest society. The evidence is a wash, but I think the witnesses come out pretty strong as a set. It definitely moves the needle--at lot-towards increasing the plausibility of Smith's claims. I also don't think these are the strongest lines of evidence. For me, I think the collective wordplay data is the single strongest line of evidence, especially when I look at how scholars independently prioritize such data in analogous secular contexts. But there is a whole host of research after that. I see the combined witnesses as substantially opening the door to faith. The complexity of the text opens it considerably further. But then the host of ANE linguistic and literature features (especially wordplay) get things across the finish line for me. This is all subordinate to personal spiritual experiences, but at this point I would be pretty much convinced by the secular evidence alone, I think.

Perhaps. But it depends a lot on how one views the totality of the evidence. You'll notice that critics of the Church generally don't lean towards fraud or conspiracy anymore. They apparently feel compelled by the collective weight of the evidence to view these individuals as being sincere. Not saying fraud has to be completely eliminated as an option, but it makes lots of behavior difficult to explain, even despite the points you raised. Which, I assume, is why that theory isn't generally preferred even by critics.

I'm not sure the courtroom should be the only lens through which to look at the data. It seems that history, generally, is probably a more appropriate tool. But I can see an approach where both avenues can be explored. They are related in many ways, but history generally does not have the capacity of the court room to get at certain details. On the other hand, it has certain advantages as well, such as not being nearly limited by time. The accumulation of evidence can grow and grow over decades, and so forth. But the courtroom can give us many helpful and unique lessons and principles for evaluating this type of evidence, as well.

You are missing the larger point. There is always the possibility that Smith could have stumbled across some item or another of archaism in some old text. But when you look at the data as a whole--(1) the degree that Smith was able to mimic biblical archaism, including many items of rare biblical archaism, (2) his implementation of so many features of extrabiblical archaism that were either very rare or absent in his 19th century-environment, often in a variety of variants, and then (3) the need to recognize how unusual it is for most people to be able to notice the technicalities of archaic syntax and assimilate them into their own working vocabulary--you are left with an extraordinary improbability. Every item in the list that Royal and Stan have accumulated over the years reduces the likelihood that Joseph Smith could have accomplished what you are suggesting he did. That is now a lot of data. If this were just one or two archaic turns of phrase, I doubt Stan would be making his argument. Instead, we find systemic, multi-faceted archaism on a whole host of levels. That is something very different. And I'm guessing you will understand why Nathaniel Hawthorne and Joseph Smith should not be treated as equally likely to come across or notice rare archaic forms.

Yes. I think the eye-witness testimony amounts to very strong supporting evidence. I don't think it is the same as a "shrink ray gun." There are limitations to testimonial evidence. But there is also a cumulative strength to the testimonial evidence of the Restoration, once you account for all of the factors involving the Three Witnesses and Eight Witnesses and informal witnesses. When viewed as a whole, they are very hard to account for using a consistent alternative naturalistic explanation. And, of course, it must be remembered that testimony is still often used as key evidence in most modern legal systems. In most other situations, when three people attest to the same fact--even an unusual fact, such as witnessing a murder--that tends to hold a lot of evidentiary weight. If you had eight more who testified that the murderer indeed possessed the murder weapon, that would substantially increase the case for the prosecution. And so on. I think any objective observer would have to acknowledge that Joseph Smith's ability to attain the degree of corroborating eye-witness testimony for several of his core claims is really quite extraordinary. His plan, if he were a deceiver, would have been far more likely to fail than succeed, especially if one concedes that the witnesses were essentially sincere in their beliefs (as many critics now believe). However, with these extraordinary claims being supported by such extraordinary evidence, critics can't just sit back and rely on their a priori skepticism of the supernatural to do all the heavy lifting. It seems they would need an actual counter-theory that could explain this extraordinary array of witnesses. Yet, as you have rightly pointed out, no such theory has been forthcoming. Notions, like the idea that Smith induced joint hallucinations, are only plausible to those who have already ruled out anything that smacks of supernaturalism. In almost any other circumstance, such an explanation would never fly. Imagine, for instance, if the defense attorney tries to argue in court that the three eye-witnesses to the murder were all just hallucinating, without any evidence for hallucinatory drugs or hypnosis or anything of that nature. No real evidence. Just the fact that people sometimes mistake what is in their mind for objective reality. That type of vague appeal to hallucination would never work in the court of law. It is an extraordinarily weak counter explanation. The only reason critics feel it is valid is that the alternative (an angel and gold plates) is contrary to their extreme default skepticism. And they will almost always pivot back to that point when the positive evidence pushes them up against the wall. I would have much more respect if they would just concede that the witnesses provide strong lines of confirming evidence, even if it doesn't quite compel them personally to believe. That is a much more reasonable stance, imo. But they can't have that. The supernatural explanation must be completely vacuous in their worldview. So they stretch way too hard to make truly extraordinary lines of evidence seem essentially worthless and insignificant.