A Secular Theory of Where the BoM Came From

[Analytics]

16 hours ago, smac97 said:

Yes.

Well, no, I don't think we should do that.  That would be an unreasonable look.  For a few reasons.

First, it will not do for you impliedly characterize yourself as just some impartial, emotionally detached "jurist," an umpire who calls 'em as he sees 'em, whereas I am an "apologist."  I am an advocate for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and you are one of the most anti-Mormon participants on this board.  If we were in a courtroom you would not be sitting on the bench.  You would be sitting at the table where advocates and parties sit, all of whom have skin in the game.  You are nothing close to impartial, so let's not pretend otherwise.

Second, the U.S. legal system, now 200+ years old, is predicated on a well-developed, but still ongoing, system of checks and balances, procedural and evidentiary rules and safeguards, and so on.  Two of the most important safeguards are the U.S. Constitution and extrapolated doctrines which constrain the judiciary - state and federal - from getting involved in resolving disputes outside of their sphere and purview.  Adjudicating The Book of Mormon is way outside of those parameters.  

Third, your proposal comes across as a bit of special pleading.  You have no expectation or requirement of approaching other topics - arising centuries ago - "as a jurist."  Historiography would grind to a halt if modern American rules of procedure and evidence were to be deployed in that context.  Same goes for many other - almost all? - fields of study.  And yet the only one for which "a serious examination of the evidence" requires playing "jurist" is . . . The Book of Mormon witnesses.

Fourth, your proposal does not account for where we are, which is that we are the beneficiaries of lots of very good analysis of the Witnesses.  From the DCP article above:

Are you willing to address these references?  

Consider yourself pushed back.  Your suggestion of litigating the credibility of the Witnesses utilizing the modern U.S. legal framework is altogether impractical and unworkable.

Perhaps, though, there is a way forward.  What say we start with Richard Lloyd Anderson?  

Alternatively, what sort of approach would you take to, say, evidence regarding Troy?  Atlantis?  Buraq?  Olympus?  From Grok:

Thoughts?

The rules of evidence have evolved in a legal ecosystem that can't really work here.  See above.  There is some patchwork application (e.g., favoring percipient witnesses over hearsay witnesses), but not enough to make things workable here.

Nevertheless, I'll go along for a bit.

Fact witnesses.  

The witnesses did not present opinions.  They presented their what they experienced.  They were percipient witnesses.

Most of those "principle{s}" really have no application in the context of historiography, religious studies, etc.

I previously commented on Caesar's assassination, including how all, or nearly all, "historical" sources for that event were decades or centuries removed from the event, and only one of them was possibly a "percipient" statement.  And yet I really doubt you go around scoffing at people who believe that Caesar was assassinated.  I doubt you go about saying "Hey, we can't rely on Nicolaus or Plutarch or Appian or Cassius Dio or Cicero because their historical statements violate almost every principle we use to evaluate the reliability of fact testimony."

They were?  How do you know?  And how do you account for D&C 17:1? 

For that matter, how do The Federal Rules of Evidence account for D&C 17:1?  How would "a jurist" weigh this evidence?

Also, the Lord's Twelve Disciples were also "hand-picked."  Do you go around seeking to use the Federal Rules of Evidence to discount them?  They are even more removed from "almost every principle we use to evaluate the reliability of fact testimony."

Sure.  But credibility can be augmented or weakened in all sorts of ways.

Here, the Rules of Evidence don't have much utility.  Richard Lloyd Anderson's book does, though (as does DCP's website referenced above).  Are you willing to discuss it?

They were?  How do you know?

Rule 602 objections are based on "lack of foundation."  

Rule 611 objections pertain to statements or questions which "assume facts not in evidence."

This would go to weight, not admissibility.  Rules 702 and 401 and 402.

Do you know how many times interested parties, particularly fact witnesses, are called upon to testify in court?  They are the rule, not the exception.  Are you seriously suggesting that familial or other relationships are disqualifiers for fact witnesses?  Where did you get that idea?

That would depend entirely on each individual witness.  

As it happens, Richard Lloyd Anderson has done a great job in examining the lives of the Witnesses.  Are you interested in exploring his book?

Okay.  So what?  Are you saying that affidavits are only legitimate if they are personally penned by the affiant/declarant?  Where did you get that idea?

Well, no.  That is simply not so.  

I have been an attorney for 20+ years.  I have written up hundreds of affidavits / written declarations for clients and witnesses and such.  Every litigator you come across will say they have done the same thing.  How does that eliminate the declarant's credibility as a witness?  This is particularly relevant where, as here, most of the Witnesses thereafter separated themselves from Joseph Smith, and so would have had every incentive to say "Hey, don't rely on the published witness statement bearing my name, as it does not accurately reflect my experience"?  Did any of the Witnesses do anything like that?  If not, why not? 

And if they did not recant, isn't their original and then ongoing attestation - despite likely having all sorts of reasons to recant - relevant to the probative value of their statements?

Also relevant: Their character and reputation and behavior, both before and after their attestations.  Do you think Richard Lloyd Anderson's book provides any helpful information on these matters?  Are you willing to consider that stuff?

It is?  Are you sure about that?  What rule of evidence is in play here?

A written statement prepared by X for Y may or may not be less credible because X wrote it, but that's far from a presumptive thing.  I've participated in many dozens of depositions, and I don't think I have ever seen such a challenge.  Not to say it can't happen, but I think it's quite rare.  And saying that "testimony is significantly discounted" because of it is a country-mile overstatement.

Again, this goes to weight, not admissibility.

Caesar.  Do you dispute that he was assassinated?  Even though there are (probably) "no {extant} contemporary independent accounts"?

"We don't have journals, letters, or other contemporaneous documents from {Nicolaus or Plutarch or Appian or Cassius Dio or Cicero} describing their experiences in their own words at the time they occurred."  

Would you find this persuasive?  And, again, none of them were even present at the event, yet we accept the historicity of Caesar's assassination.  Do you discount these historical sources on the same grounds as your statement above?

What we do have, though, is extensive historical evidence and statements from the Witnesses, the authenticity of which does not really seem to be in dispute.  Are you open to discussing them?

There is no rule of evidence lessening the probative value of "prepared statements."  If you feel otherwise, feel free to post citations to legal authorities.

As for the "later recollections, often decades after the fact," how is that a point against credibility?  David Whitmer despised Joseph Smith for the remainder of his days, calling him a "fallen prophet," rejecting his later teachings, etc.  His 1887 book, An Address to All Believers in Christ, is a compendium of criticisms of Joseph.  And yet...

Why are you not addressing these?

For pete's sake, David Whitmer was so adamant about his testimony that he had a reference to it engraved and memorialized on this tombstone.

What is your assessment of Mr. Whitmer?  What evidence do you have that he was insane?  Deluded or tricked?  What sort of super-magician do you think Joseph Smith was?  He was so good at tricking people that David Whitmer spent decades despising him and maintaining his testimony of the Plates.  Is that your assessment of this witness?  If so, how do you get there?  What evidence do you have which countervails the various statements above?  And what rules of evidence apply to these statements?  How do you propose a "jurist" would handle them?

From Grok:

Not sure as to accuracy.  Will check later.  But at first glance it looks like all three of the Three Witnesses reaffirmed shortly after their published testimonies, and eight of the Eight Witnesses reaffirmed in 1830, and John Whitmer and Hyrum Page did in other settings.

They were?  How do you know?

And how would this be handled by a judge?  

And what rules of evidence are implicated here?

Okay.  And?  

And how would this be handled by a judge?  

And what rules of evidence are implicated here?

What rule of evidence is implicated here?

Is "independent examination" of an item in litigation a requirement for people to testify about it?  Where did you get that idea?

Nope.  They were returned to Moroni.

What rule of evidence is implicated here?

Except that nobody claims Joseph "destroyed or removed" the Plates.  He returned them to Moroni. 

You are apparently arguing spoliation, but you have no evidence of it. 

Moreover, "spoliation" is "{t}he intentional destruction or alteration of relevant evidence in existing or pending litigation."  Do you have any evidence that Joseph Smith acted intentionally to destroy or alter the Plates?  That there was "existing or pending litigation" at the time?

Moreover, spoliation is not a rule of evidence, but a rule of procedure (in a federal setting, Rule 37).  Rule 37 imposes sanctions for misconduct pertaining to failure to preserve evidence, but you have no evidence of misconduct by Joseph Smith.  

Are you sure you want to apply the rules of evidence and procedure here?

An affiant's statement is a written instrument, so it can't be cross-examined.  Affidavits are, nevertheless, used all the time in a legal setting.

What rule of evidence is implicated here?

It's really not.  This is a protracted "pounding a square peg into a round hole" exercise.

Really?  Rule of evidence, please.

As it happens, today I spent two hours in a summary judgment hearing which involved a review of the plaintiff's affidavits (two of them).  I had all sorts of objections and grounds to attack these documents, but their not being "tested by cross-examination" was not one of them.  Cross-examination only happens at trial or in depositions, after all.  

Really?  How would we do that when the witnesses are long dead?  How would a judge assess the probative weight of their statements?  What rules of evidence are in play?  How do you get around the Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine?  How does the judge have jurisdiction?  What venue?  Is this a federal or state court?  Who is the plaintiff?  Who is the defendant?  What causes of action are in view?  What about the Statute of Limitations?  Laches?  Estoppel?  Are the claims statutory?  Common law?  Tort?  Were these causes of action in existence in 1830s and thereafter?

And these are just the flaws in this approach that I am thinking of off the top of my head.  I think there are likely a lot more.

This would never see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a law firm's office for a deposition.

Anyhoo, what questions would this "skilled attorney" ask?  Of whom?  The witnesses are all dead.  About what claims?

All sorts of Latter-day Saint scholarship about this stuff.  Perhaps Richard Lloyd Anderson's book could qualify as a "learned treatise" for your sake.  Are you willing to evaluate these statements in more detail?

Sure would like to discuss the evidence directly, rather than just passing references to "may have."

A deposition of dead people?  How would that work?

Because you don't want to have a straightforward discussion about the evidence, and so would rather indulge in thoroughly unrealistic hypotheticals?

Much of what you've said above is very technical, and has no business being deployed in this context.

Yes.  In court.  With presupposes federal or state court, jurisdiction and venue, statutes of limitations, common law, statutory law, torts, procedural and evidentiary rules, affirmative defenses, cognizable and non-cognizable causes of action, and on and on and on.

The Federal Rules of Evidence can't really be deployed to examine the witness statements of dead people about a religious artifact.  There is no federal question, so it would need to be a state court thing.  Jurisdiction and venue?  Forget about it.  Statute of limitations?  Long gone.  Causes of action?  Who knows, since you're just making this stuff up as you go along.  Laches?  Definitely.  Estoppel?  Maybe.  

And on and on and on.

Roger, you can't invoke a highly set of technical evidentiary rules promulgated for specific purposes in specific situations when neither those purposes nor situations are in play.

To the contrary, the testimony was intended to facilitate verification.  See Moroni 10:3-5.

How would a judge evaluate Moroni's Promise?

But not in anticipation of any lawsuit or legal scrutiny.  

Witnesses are selected all the time.  Weight, not admissibility.

Irrelevant.

By a farmer in the 1820s in New York?  It is altogether unreasonable and unserious to frame Joseph Smith's conduct in a 2026 legal setting.

It was returned to Moroni.  And not for spoliation purposes, since there was no actual or pending litigation at the time.

The knives used to kill Caesar aren't available for forensic examination either.  By your reasoning, we should therefore dispute that he was assassinated.

All religious claims are extraordinary, and adjudication of them is barred by the Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine.  You are not addressing this.

So "carefully managed," in fact, that most of the Witnesses ended up estranged from Joseph Smith.

Personally, I agree with you.  I think God had foreknowledge that many of the Witnesses would dissociate from Joseph.  That dissociation, coupled with their enduring declaration of their respective testimonies, bolsters their credibility.  

Again, Moroni 10:3-5.

Again, Ceasar.

This is all a massive waste of time, Roger.

D&C 17.

Most of whom thereafter became estranged from Joseph, and so would have had every incentive to recant.  But they didn't.

Not destroyed.  Returned to Moroni.

You can't be so sloppy in your rhetoric in a legal setting.  A mischaracterization that severe could get you chewed out by a judge.

Right.  Feel free to walk us through this "pattern."  Where was it established?  When?  By whom?  For what purpose?

Please be sure to cite rules of evidence and decisional authority to support your position.  We are in court, after all.

How often are "historical events" stage-managed in this way?  Pretty much never.

Oh, that's a really interesting suggestion.  Are you sure you want to go with it?

See, in a magic show, everyone knows it's not real.  It's just for fun.

Martin Harris mortgaged his farm to finance the publication of The Book of Mormon.  How do you account for that if he was a party to "a magic show"?  

David Whitmer spent decades both despising Joseph Smith and declaring his (David's) testimony of the Plates.  How do you square this with his experience being "a magic show"?  Are you saying David Whitmer was duped?  If so, how?  By what means?  And if so, would David Whitmer have been cognizant of that possibility?  And if that possibility was there, wouldn't his antipathy toward Joseph make him more likely to recant or qualify his statement?  Why are you not addressing any of this?

Do you have any evidence that any of the Witnesses thought they were being invited to something akin to "a magic show"?  

So that means you are characterizing the Witnesses as hapless dupes, yes.  But then, how do you square that with Richard Lloyd Anderson's assessment of these men? 

I see all sorts of reasons to give the Witness statements "significant evidentiary weight."  

So litigation, for you, amounts to merely trading conclusory assertions?  

You're barely skimming over a few pieces of evidence, and wholesale ignoring vast swathes of it.  

Yes.  Still hasn't happened.  All sorts of song and dance about Bayesian empiricism, but no substantive discussion of the evidence.

Then you pivot to an absurd and strained "What if we put the Witnesses before an Article III judge in 2026?"-type hypothetical scenario.

Lots of verbiage, none of it substantively examining evidence.

I propose we take a look at Richard Lloyd Anderson's book and DCP's website.  That would let us get pretty granular.  How 'bout it?  We could go chapter by chapter.

That depends, I suppose, on what "kind of scrutiny" is in play.  

You and your presuppositions call for fraud or delusion or both.

I and my presuppositions call for agency and a Plan of Salvation framed by an omniscient and loving and benevolent Heavenly Father who wants us to "walk by faith, not by sight."

I'm not asking you to accept my presuppositions, but you are asking me to accept yours.  It doesn't work.

So how 'bout it?  Richard Lloyd Anderson?

Thanks,

-Smac

Hi Smac,

This is a mammoth post, even for you. It's frustrating, because while it is purportedly a response to what I said, it doesn't address most of my underlying points. This conversation is weird because you keep pestering me with questions about why I believe what I do, and when I finally answer them you berate me as being an anti-Mormon for doing so. If you don't want to know why I believe what I do, stop asking.
I'll restate my underlying points and give you another opportunity to actually address them.

I'm 100% in favor of carefully examining all of the evidence. I simply insist that it be done with the appropriate amount of skepticism and in a logically coherent way. I used the courtroom analogy to help illustrate why the witness testimony really is fundamentally problematic and weak. The analogy is especially apt because the evidence we have was submitted by an interested party that wanted people to believe it. Joseph Smith wanted people to take the book seriously, purchase it from him, join his church, give him 10% of their lifetime income, follow him, help him build his utopia, and in many cases, allow him to marry their wives and daughters. Like a trial attorney, he submitted the witness testimony to the world so that he could make this case and achieve these results.

As you said, there is nothing inherently wrong with family members and friends serving as fact witnesses for things they happened to see. But in this case, they didn't just happen to witness something--they were selected to witness something, not based on expertise, but on being loyal followers of Joseph. They were selected by Joseph Smith, prepared by Joseph Smith, experienced whatever they did under conditions controlled by Joseph Smith, and then signed joint statements prepared by Joseph Smith. This is not how ordinary witness testimony works. This is how curated religious experience works. The issue is further complicated by how impossible it is to independently verify any physical characteristic of the implausible artifact they claim to have seen.

Joseph needed curated witnesses because he ensured the plates were permanently removed from independent examination. Saying this was an angel's decision and not Joseph's doesn't change the fact that this is an act of deliberately going to extraordinary lengths to conceal from experts and from the public the evidence that would conclusively settle the issue. Discovery is a fundamental element of our court system so that all of the evidence can be examined by both sides. But here, the side with the most to gain from proving the plates authentic is the one who deliberately chose to remove from consideration the evidence that would conclusively settle the matter. This screams the question: why?

You invoked Caesar. Let's look at Caesar carefully, because I think that comparison actually illustrates my point. We accept that Caesar was assassinated--not because we trust Mark Antony's testimony, not because twenty-three senators swore they did it, but because of structural features of the evidence. The body existed and was examined by Antony's physician. The wound locations were documented. Dozens of people present in the Senate that day told versions consistent with each other and inconsistent with any cover story that would have served them. Many of the witnesses were enemies of each other with no shared motive. None of them had anything to gain by fabricating the story. Fabricating Caesar's death when Caesar was manifestly not dead would have been immediately falsifiable. The wound locations didn't disappear. The body didn't get "returned to the gods" before a physician could examine it. The plates evidence has none of these structural features.

The question "would they lie?" isn't the right question. First, because what they are attesting to is so fundamentally weird and unlike anything that we know of that happens in the real world, I don't feel obligated to pass judgment until I know exactly what they are attesting to, which wouldn't come to light without a full deposition. That detail aside, we are left not understanding whether this was driven primarily by sincere belief, a mixture of white lies and the BoM rationalization that "whatsoever causes people to believe" is of God (Moroni 7), coordinated social pressure, or oaths. At the end of the day, we are left with curated religious experiences--not fact-based testimony consistent with real-world testimony.

The plates evidence doesn't fail because the witnesses were liars. It fails because Joseph controlled who saw the evidence, when they saw it, how they saw it, and then permanently removed it from any possibility of independent verification. And this was done because the evidence that would have conclusively settled the matter was deliberately withheld. That matters.

[Analytics]

17 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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. 

I do think Joseph Smith is the most likely candidate, although I can’t help but imagine that his mother and brother were co-conspirators on some level.

My point here is structural--the scenarios being tested need to be exhaustive. If you somehow demonstrated that the Book of Mormon is full of words and phrases that Joseph Smith wouldn’t ever say, that doesn’t necessarily point to a divine origin--it could also point to another modern author.

[Analytics]

16 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

[I said: you need to make that estimate before looking at the evidence, not after.]

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....

To clarify, when I say “before” I’m talking logically, not chronologically. If a “ray gun” is in the body of evidence, then we need to estimate what is the probability of that being in the evidence under both scenarios from the idealized logical footing of theoretically not knowing before hand this would show up.

16 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

...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. 

But if we can’t at least say that the probability of a space-traveling alien leaving us with "weird technology" is something like x% and the probability of a fake alien leaving us with "weird technology" is y%, then we have no logical basis of weighing the implications of the evidence on whether it indicates the alien is real or fake.

Let me make the point in a different way. Imagine that I was a budding apologist and I was about to post something on the Internet to prove the Church was true, and I asked for your feedback before posting. Here is my proposed apologetics:

It is extraordinarily unlikely that a book written by a human being would begin with the exact phrase, “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents.” We’ve searched every book ever written in any language, and nobody has ever started a book with those eight words in that order.

In contrast, if the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, then the book starting with “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” is exactly what we’d expect.

Since these eight words are exactly what we’d predict under the “it’s true” hypothesis but are almost impossible under the “it’s a fake” hypothesis, this is extraordinarily strong evidence that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be.

What would you think of this argument? 

I would say the problem with this is that the expectation that a genuine book would start with “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” is an expectation that was made after it was noted that is how the BoM actually starts.

The correct way to evaluate this is to say that a book starting with those eight words is extraordinarily unlikely under both theories, and thus isn’t evidence one way or the other.

I think this is the mistake you are making. You came to the conclusion that P(sporadic EModE|supernatural) is high after noting that the Book of Mormon contains sporadic EModE.

[Ryan Dahle]

19 minutes ago, Analytics said:

My point here is structural--the scenarios being tested need to be exhaustive. If you somehow demonstrated that the Book of Mormon is full of words and phrases that Joseph Smith wouldn’t ever say, that doesn’t necessarily point to a divine origin--it could also point to another modern author.

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. 

[Analytics]

10 hours ago, Calm said:

[I said, "you need to make that estimate before looking at the evidence, not after.]

Which is pretty subjective, is it not since we lack similar examples?  Even if we assume purely naturalistic, what books would be a good fit to create probabilities with?  Would need to be similar genre and purpose at least.  What else?

I think it's pretty subjective regardless, and that's actually part of my point. Writers from my time and place might use, for example, "infinite causatives" 90% of the time or whatever, but that doesn't mean that there is some sort of random number generator in my brain that forces me to select infinitive 90% of the time and finite 10% of the time and that if my usage varies too much from that, it is statistical evidence that I'm from Mars. The truth is I can choose any words that I want, and if I happen to choose words different from the pattern Carmack expects, all it means is that I chose words different than the pattern he expects.

The way I see it, Joseph Smith (or whoever the author was), was deeply emerged in the religious world of New England in the early 1800's. In this world, there was in fact a sacred register of English that had many elements of EModE that were taken both from the Bible and from the verbal sacred traditions that descended from EModE. We would expect this sacred register would include multiple dialects of EModE, with influences from secular registers over that same time period.

And that is exactly what we see in the Book of Mormon. It is clear to me that this pattern of sporadic EModE mingled with secular registers is best explained as a description of the 19th century author's sacred register and is much harder to explain by saying it must have come from some sort of ghost committee with heterogeneous dialects that were nevertheless all understandable to Joseph Smith.

I wouldn't say this is evidence in favor of the BoM being a fake, because I'd expect the BoM to be in Joseph Smith's sacred register regardless of whether it is fiction or whether it is something he translated.

The real insight here isn't evidence for whether the book is authentic. The insight is in the nature of what his verbal sacred register actually was.

[Analytics]

3 hours ago, smac97 said:

@Analytics, do you concur with Ryan's assessment here?

Yes and no. There are many incredibly smart and educated people researching and writing on apologetic topics, and regarding the number of participants and qualifications of the people who engage with them, the apologists win by numbers. I agree with him up to that point.

However, I think there are some big and valid reasons that mainstream scholars politely ignore Mormon apologetics.

Perhaps 10 or 15 years ago on this forum, I got into a deep discussion with Brant Gardner about this. He's a pretty reasonable guy and I like him, and he was talking about how his team had a consortium of very respected people like Sorenson and how their work, in aggregate, supported BoM authenticity. But he claimed that despite their work that proved this, the wider scholarly community just wasn't interested.

I then asked him a question like this: if there were a long, pristine manuscript that was written by authentic ancient Mesoamericans that described their culture, religion, and history, and if this manuscript were correctly translated into English, would the scholarly community be interested?

His answer was revealing. He said something like, "Yes! They'd be extraordinarily interested! Scholars LOVE texts!"

I then asked a totally valid question: if mainstream scholars have so much respect for Sorenson et al., and if they "love texts" as much as you say they do, then why don't they listen to Sorenson et al. when they claim that the BoM is exactly the type of thing they say they love?

He didn't answer.

About 25 years ago, I lived in New England and had the opportunity to spend a day with David P. Wright. I asked him the same question and we discussed it quite a bit. I won't put words in his mouth, but his position informed what I now believe: Mormon apologetics is best categorized as pseudoscience, and mainstream scholars ignore it for the same reason they ignore pseudoscience in general: it is boring, irrelevant, and so fundamentally unpersuasive that they see no reason to engage with it.

Mormon apologetics exists in its own silo that is a form of macro mental-compartmentalizaton apart from mainstream scholarship. As Michael Shermer explained in Scientific American, smart people believe weird things. Apologetics is an example of this. "Weird" beliefs are formed for psychological and sociological reasons, and then smart people leverage their intellect to rationalize them. There ends up being a big compromise with the broader scholarly community--apologists will keep their weird siloed in their pseudoscientific venues and only publish real research in real venues, and the mainstream will politely ignore the apologetics. 

[Ryan Dahle]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

To clarify, when I say “before” I’m talking logically, not chronologically. If a “ray gun” is in the body of evidence, then we need to estimate what is the probability of that being in the evidence under both scenarios from the idealized logical footing of theoretically not knowing before hand this would show up.

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. 

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Let me make the point in a different way. Imagine that I was a budding apologist and I was about to post something on the Internet to prove the Church was true, and I asked for your feedback before posting. Here is my proposed apologetics:

It is extraordinarily unlikely that a book written by a human being would begin with the exact phrase, “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents.” We’ve searched every book ever written in any language, and nobody has ever started a book with those eight words in that order.

In contrast, if the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, then the book starting with “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” is exactly what we’d expect.

Since these eight words are exactly what we’d predict under the “it’s true” hypothesis but are almost impossible under the “it’s a fake” hypothesis, this is extraordinarily strong evidence that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be.

What would you think of this argument? 

I would say the problem with this is that the expectation that a genuine book would start with “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” is an expectation that was made after it was noted that is how the BoM actually starts.

The correct way to evaluate this is to say that a book starting with those eight words is extraordinarily unlikely under both theories, and thus isn’t evidence one way or the other.

 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. 

 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Hi Smac,

This is a mammoth post, even for you.

Well, I'm trying to get to a substantive discussion about the evidence.  And you are not obliging.  You're under no obligation to, of course.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It's frustrating, because while it is purportedly a response to what I said, it doesn't address most of my underlying points.

Regarding my inquiry (as to evidence relating to the Plates, Witnesses and the text), you've gone from supposed Bayesian analysis, to ChatGPT, to "what would a jurist say."  And all the while almost entirely conclusory stuff, with engaging and addressing the evidence being pretty darn limited.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

This conversation is weird because you keep pestering me with questions about why I believe what I do,

I have been asking you to articulate the what (your alternative explanations/conclusions re: Plates/Witnesses/Text), including addressing the evidence and explaining how you reach those explanations/conclusions.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

and when I finally answer them you berate me as being an anti-Mormon for doing so.

I don't think I have berated you.  Is noting that you are anti-Mormon a beratement?  Would you prefer critic?  Skeptic?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

If you don't want to know why I believe what I do, stop asking.

I first want to understand what you believe.  What is your alternative explanation for the Plates/Witnesses/Texts?  What evidence do you have to support your position on these issues?  How do you address the evidence that contravenes your position on these issues?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I'll restate my underlying points and give you another opportunity to actually address them.

Again:

1. My Request: My core challenge has been for critics such as yourself to provide a positive, coherent alternative that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

You are not responding to this.  You are not addressing the key data points.  You have prevaricated a lot (Bayesian stuff, ChatGPT, "what would a Jurist say," etc.).  You offer conclusory statements, but nothing substantive, and nothing really addressing the data points:

• "On the text: Joseph Smith is the most likely primary author, possibly with help from people in his immediate circle..."
• "On the plates: some physical object probably existed..."
• "On the witnesses: I think the most plausible explanation combines sincere belief in the project with solemn religious oaths to stand by what they signed..."

I get the broad naturalistic gist, but that's it.  I don't know how you are getting there, and you are persistently refusing to explain yourself.

Your most recent exercise in prevarication, hypothesizing what a "jurist" would do, would have you presenting the above to the judge.  And the judge would say something like this: "Okay.  But these are just conclusory allegations.  You need to articulate how you reached them.  The reasoning and evidence justifying and supporting these conclusions.  And you also need to address countervailing evidence."

Again, I am looking for an alternative naturalistic explanation about the Plates/Witnesses/Text, not just conclusory statements about them.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I'm 100% in favor of carefully examining all of the evidence.

Great!  Then let's set aside the folderol and get to examining.

I propose we start with either the Plates or the Witnesses, as I think those topics are a bit more tractable in an evidentiary sense.  Which do you prefer?

"On the plates: some physical object probably existed..."

Okay.  Let's start with that.  A few questions:

• Who was involved with the production of the Plates?  Just Joseph?  
• If others were involved, who were they?  Why were they involved?  What did they stand to gain? 
• Were these others pulling Joseph's strings, or vice versa?  If the former, why did none of them ever come forward?  If the latter, how was he persuaded to spin a fantastic yarn as to the Plates' origins, and then keep to that yarn even when his life was at stake? 
• Was Joseph deluded or conniving?  If deluded, then how did her persuade so many others to join him in his delusion, including the several Witnesses who were later estranged from him and yet stuck to their testimonies?  If conniving, how do you account for his personal writings in the many years subsequent, which to my mind are altogether indicative of someone who sincerely believed that what he was saying was real and authentic?
• What are the particulars of the production process for the sham artifact?  When?  Where?  How?  What materials?  
• Do you favor the Painted Tin / Joseph Working Alone theory espoused by Vogel? 
• If something else was involved, what are the particulars?  Who did what?  Where was the work done?  The smithy?  The tools?  The materials?  Between when and when?  By what means?  Who procured the materials?  Who had the metallurgical skills?  
• If painted tin, was the prop a sloppy, cobbled-together joke (per Vogel, as he posits that Joseph obscured the Plates in darkness or under a cloth because they would not stand up to close examination)?  If so, how do you deal with the Eight Witnesses?  Were all eight just really dumb?  They all handled the Plates (literally with their "hands"), hefted them, saw them as having "the appearance of gold," and "saw the engravings" on the Plates, and viewed them as having "the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."  So the Eight Witnesses were familiar with common tin, but they did not recognize the prop - as Vogel would have us believe - as being made of tin?  And they spent the rest of their lives - including those who fell out with Joseph - attesting to what they had seen, with nary a one of them saying "Hey, in hindsight I think the Plates were just made of tin and painted yellow"?  How do you account for that?
• Alternatively, do you think the prop was a really sophisticated and well-crafted sham?  That could explain how he tricked the Witnesses, but then how did Joseph make it?  Or did someone else more skilled make it?  If so, whom, under what conditions, for what purpose, etc.?  And why was the sham never discovered?  Who stood to gain by taking the secrets of such a fantastic hoax to the grave?
• Most important of all: What actual evidence do you have to marshal support your alternative explanation as to these matters?

These are sincere inquiries.  I really want to know how you address this stuff in your mind.  You're supposed to be all about the empiricism, so let's address the evidence empirically rather than divert to hypotheticals (the "jurist" thing) or abstractions (the Bayesian thing) or broad conclusory stuff generated by AI (ChatGPT).

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I simply insist that it be done with the appropriate amount of skepticism and in a logically coherent way.

I'm not asking you to abandon skepticism.  To the contrary, I want you to explain your skepticism-based alternative explanation for The Book of Mormon, using evidentiary analysis and reasoning.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I used the courtroom analogy to help illustrate why the witness testimony really is fundamentally problematic and weak.

And I tore the analogy apart because it is clunky and doesn't work.  It comes across as an ad hoc means of avoiding evidentiary analysis.

You would never hypothesize about Caesar's assassination by asking how an Article III judge in 2026 would deploy the Federal Rules of Evidence to adjudicate that event's historicity.  

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The analogy is especially apt because the evidence we have was submitted by an interested party that wanted people to believe it.

It's not apt, because even though it sounds like you want to use that framework to analyze the evidence, you don't.  You just jump around and then make broad conclusory declarations about stuff.

Answering the bulleted items above would go a long way in advancing this discussion.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

You invoked Caesar. Let's look at Caesar carefully, because I think that comparison actually illustrates my point.

Sure would like to see you address the topic (Plates/Witnesses/Text, and evidences pertaining thereto).  But okay, I'll go along.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

We accept that Caesar was assassinated--not because we trust Mark Antony's testimony, not because twenty-three senators swore they did it, but because of structural features of the evidence.

Okay.  What are those structural features?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The body existed and was examined by Antony's physician.

It was?  How do you know that?  What evidence do you have that this happened?  

A few questions for you:

• As I understand it, the primary (sole?) source is Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars (Life of Julius Caesar, 75–76), written about 121 AD.  Do you concur?
• 121 A.D. (the publication date of The Twelve Caesars) - 44 B.C. (the date of the assassination) = 165 years.  Why do you find Suetonius to be a credible source?  What do we know about him?  His character?  His veracity?  He was obviously not present for the events he described, so what sources did he use, and why do you lend credibility to those?  How do you address provenance issues arising over the course of sixteen decades in antiquity?

Here's the part of The Twelve Caesars pertaining to the supposed examination of Caesar's body:

Quote

LXXXII. When he had taken his seat, the conspirators stood round him, under colour of paying their compliments; and immediately Tullius Cimber, who had engaged to commence the assault, advancing nearer than the rest, as if he had some favour to request, Caesar made signs that he should defer his petition to some other time. Tullius immediately seized him by the toga, on both shoulders; at which Caesar crying out, “Violence is meant!” one of the Cassii wounded him a little below the throat. Caesar seized him by the arm, and ran it through with his style 95; and endeavouring to rush forward was stopped by another wound. Finding himself now attacked on all hands with naked poniards, he wrapped the toga 96 about his head, and at the same moment drew the skirt round his legs with his left hand, that he might fall more decently with the lower part of his body covered. He was stabbed with three and twenty wounds, uttering a groan only, but no cry, at the first wound; although some authors relate, that when Marcus Brutus fell upon him, he exclaimed, “What! art thou, too, one of them? Thou, my son!” 97 The whole assembly instantly (52) dispersing, he lay for some time after he expired, until three of his slaves laid the body on a litter, and carried it home, with one arm hanging down over the side. Among so many wounds, there was none that was mortal, in the opinion of the surgeon Antistius, except the second, which he received in the breast. The conspirators meant to drag his body into the Tiber as soon as they had killed him; to confiscate his estate, and rescind all his enactments; but they were deterred by fear of Mark Antony, and Lepidus, Caesar’s master of the horse, and abandoned their intentions.

• Why do you lend credence to this passage?  How do you know Suetonius was credible?  Suetonius is the sole source for the first piece of evidence you point to about the assassination of Caesar. That source is dated 165 years after the event, and is without independent confirmation.  And yet you accept the say-so of this guy anyway.  Why do you lend more credibility to Suetonius than you to do, say, David Whitmer?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The wound locations were documented.

• They are?  Where?  Who documented them?  Clearly it wasn't Suetonius, since he was writing 165 years later.  
• And where is this documentation?  And what corroboration do we have for this documentation?  Any concerns about provenance?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Dozens of people present in the Senate

• There were?  How do you know that?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

that day told versions consistent with each other

• They did?  How do you know that?  Where are these versions?  How do we establish provenance for them?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Many of the witnesses were enemies of each other with no shared motive.  None of them had anything to gain by fabricating the story.

• How do you know who the witnesses were, and what their motives were / were not?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.
• How is it that you are more certain of the motives of witnesses from 2000+ years ago, whose statements we do not have, and whose character and veracity are impossible to assess, than you are of the motives and credibility of, say, David Whitmer?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

Fabricating Caesar's death when Caesar was manifestly not dead would have been immediately falsifiable.

• Well, I think we can all agree that Caesar died somehow.  You posit that he was killed via assassination.  What evidence do you have for this proposition?  And why do you lend more credence to that evidence than to, say, the cumulative statements of David Whitmer?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The wound locations didn't disappear. The body didn't get "returned to the gods" before a physician could examine it.

• How do you know this?  What evidence do you have?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The plates evidence has none of these structural features.

What evidence do you have for "these structural features"?  Anything besides Mr. Writing-165-Years-Later-and-Using-Who-Knows-What-Sources Suetonius?

Let's consider this: 

The Enduring Legacy of Suetonius, Rome’s Most Controversial Biographer
The imperial biographer Suetonius is an important source for the lives of the Caesars, but how reliable are his accounts based on gossip and sensationalism?

Some excerpts:

Quote

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus was an ambitious imperial official under the Roman Emperor Hadrian, whose name has come down through history for writing imperial biographies of Rome’s first emperors, called The Twelve Caesars. While his position at court gave him unique access to imperial archives to inform his work, he was not a historian, but rather a biographer, more interested in salacious stories and personal anecdotes than historical facts.

• What are your thoughts about this?

Quote

As a result, scholars have perennially debated the utility of Suetonius and his work as a historical source, but he is also our only source for some periods of imperial history. Consequently, regardless of tension between historical accuracy and dramatic storytelling, his work has been integral in shaping modern perceptions of imperial Rome.

• Do you think that the reliability of Suetonius is in question?

Quote

The Twelve Caesars (De Vita Caesarum) is Suetonius’s famous set of imperial biographies, stretching from Julius Caesar to Domitian. Written during the early second century CE, likely sometime after Suetonius’s dismissal from Hadrian’s court, the work reflects both his insider experience within the imperial administration and the wealth of archival material to which he would have had access.

The lives, or “vitae” of each ruler are ordered chronologically in the Twelve Caesars, but within each one, the accounts are organized around thematic sections, for example, ancestry, early life, public offices, habits, vices, and death, rather than providing a linear account of each reign. This format allowed Suetonius to focus on imperial personalities in a way that was more anecdotal than analytical, concentrating on behavior, character, and private detail much more than public achievement.

Scholars are not certain about the exact date of composition, although it is generally thought that the work was written during Hadrian’s reign, with much of the source material likely gathered while Suetonius was serving as ab epistulis in the imperial bureaucracy. His access to imperial libraries, archives, and perhaps even personal testimonies would have made him uniquely well-placed to compile such an ambitious and detailed set of biographies.

• Seems like Suetonius is useful not because he was a percipient witness, but because of his supposed "access to imperial libraries, archives, and perhaps even personal testimonies."  Do you concur with this?
• Why do you lend more credibility to the non-percipient Suetonius than you do to say, David Whitmer (or, for that matter, the Eight Witnesses)?

Quote

From its earliest circulation, The Twelve Caesars appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity. Ancient readers were seemingly drawn to Suetonius’s colorful portraits of Rome’s most powerful figures, especially with its unique blend of imperial gossip, moral observation, and political detail.

• Do you acknowledge that your perspective on Caesar (specifically, the bit about his body being examined by a physician) is apparently entirely based on a source writing about 165 years later, and in a tome characterized as having a "unique blend of imperial gossip, moral observation, and political detail"?

Quote

In modern scholarship, Suetonius occupies a more contested but still essential place. On one hand, he is widely recognized as one of our most important sources for early imperial history, particularly for figures like Caligula, Claudius, and Domitian, especially where other narratives are limited or lost. His proximity to power, as ab epistulis under Hadrian, and his likely access to imperial archives, official documents, and oral traditions give his work a degree of credibility, at least in terms of his sources. For many emperors, Suetonius preserves otherwise unattested details about their lineage, administration, and personal lives.

"Suetonius preserves otherwise unattested details about their lineage, administration, and personal lives."  

• Why do you lend so much credibility to Suetonius?

Quote

Historical Value of Suetonius’ Twelve Caesars

Despite its popularity and enduring influence, The Twelve Caesars presents modern historians with a number of problems. Perhaps the most notable is its aforementioned structure, organized into thematic categories that create inconsistencies and contradictions for the scholarly reader.

Unlike some of his contemporaries, whose historical narratives were permeated with more overarching themes and interpretations, Suetonius’s fragmented structure often obscures chronology and key things like cause and effect. This method often makes it difficult to track political developments or understand how certain imperial decisions influenced later events.

Moreover, Suetonius is frequently criticized for his uncritical inclusion of gossip, rumor, and salacious detail in Twelve Caesars. Many of his most memorable anecdotes, particularly those involving sexual misconduct or personal cruelty, are presented without clear source evaluation or contextual framing. While these lurid accounts undoubtedly appealed to many contemporary readers, they raise questions of reliability and accuracy for modern historians.

Ironically, however, it is precisely this character-focused approach that also makes the work so valuable and unique. Suetonius captures the moral and cultural expectations of Roman leadership, including what Romans admired, what they feared, and how they judged the powerful.

His biographies offer unique insight into how emperors were remembered, discussed, and morally assessed by contemporaries. Moreover, for emperors such as Caligula and Domitian, for whom other accounts are lost or limited, Suetonius remains one of the few surviving voices that illuminate their lives in vivid detail.

Suetonius' work "{contains} inconsistencies and contradictions for the scholarly reader."

"Suetonius is frequently criticized for his uncritical inclusion of gossip, rumor, and salacious detail in Twelve Caesars. Many of his most memorable anecdotes, particularly those involving sexual misconduct or personal cruelty, are presented without clear source evaluation or contextual framing. While these lurid accounts undoubtedly appealed to many contemporary readers, they raise questions of reliability and accuracy for modern historians."

• Do the foregoing critiques affect your assessment of Suetonius?  Why or why not?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The question "would they lie?" isn't the right question.

Sure it is.  It's one of many right questions.

• Did anyone in ancient Rome, including those living decades/centuries later, have motives or incentives to gossip or embellish or fabricate things about a controversial political figure?  

Other right questions:

• What sources did Suetonius use when describing the assassination of Caesar?
• What provenance issues do we have, and can we overcome them?
• What indicia, if any, exist that taint Suetonius's credibility?
• Why should we trust Suetonius?

There are far more ways to tear apart Suetonius as a credible "witness" than, say, the statements of David Whitmer.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

First, because what they are attesting to

• Who are the "they" folks here?  Please be specific.
• Where are these attestations?  Please be specific.
• How do you establish provenance/authentication for these attestations?  Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

is so fundamentally weird and unlike anything that we know of that happens in the real world, I don't feel obligated to pass judgment until I know exactly what they are attesting to, which wouldn't come to light without a full deposition.

• Haven't you reached a "judgment" about Caesar's body being examined by a physician?
• And didn't you reach this judgment "without a full deposition" of the physician (or Suetonius)?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

That detail aside, we are left not understanding whether this was driven primarily by sincere belief, a mixture of white lies and the BoM rationalization that "whatsoever causes people to believe" is of God (Moroni 7), coordinated social pressure, or oaths.

• Any chance of sociopolitical pressures/influences arising about the details of Caesar's death? 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

At the end of the day, we are left with curated religious experiences--not fact-based testimony consistent with real-world testimony.

"At the end of the day, we are left with curated sociopolitical experiences, written many decades after the fact, by a gossipmonger, about the circumstances of the death of a hugely controversial politician, and based on who-knows-what documents that no longer exist for corroboration purposes - not fact-based testimony consistent with real-world testimony."

Why you are willing to accept the 165-years-after-the-fact, gossipy, derivative, based-on-who-knows-what-sources hearsay say-so of Suetonius as being credible within the framework you are building to assess the statements of The Book of Mormon Witnesses?  it seems like Suetonius would fail to satisfy your benchmarks for reliability, yet you rely on him anyway.  Why?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

The plates evidence doesn't fail because the witnesses were liars.

Sigh.  And here again, we get to your conclusion (that evidence for the Plates "fails") without any actual engagement of the evidence pertaining thereto.

Bayesian stuff. 

Then ChatGPT. 

Then "what would an Article III judge in 2026 say about David Whitmer." 

And now "Suetonius is a credible source of information but the Witnesses are not because...," well, I don't know, since you aren't explaining yourself.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It fails because Joseph controlled who saw the evidence, when they saw it, how they saw it, and then permanently removed it from any possibility of independent verification.

Um, so did Suetonius.

Again, this is just conclusory stuff.  I don't know what else I can do to induce you into addressing the evidence.  I sure would like you to address at least some of the above questions, and/or this:

Quote

As with most MS interviews, Vogel is pushing against an open door.  He and John chuckle together, and Vogel clearly has a good command of the primary sources.  But he's quite selective with them.  

Vogel suggests they were made of tin.  And no conspiracy, so it was just Joseph.  And that "there's no reason," apart from deceit, for Joseph to not display the plates (he kept them hidden because they could not pass visible inspection").  And the "Eight Witnesses" saw the plates with "spiritual sight" rather than in mundane circumstances, and/or that they "saw the Plates through {a} cloth."  This is speculative (and, as to the Eight Witnesses, at odds with their Statement), but it's at least plausible and addresses a number of issues.  

Tin does a lot of heavy lifting for Vogel.  Tin was widely available, so no metallurgy needed.  And widely available means not particularly expensive, so Joseph's poverty is not really an issue.  And no conspiracy, so no need to account for others' involvement.  And "the Witnesses only saw the Plates with 'spiritual' eyes and/or through a cloth" kinda sorta mitigates the Statement of the Eight Witnesses.

But once we get past the speculative superficialities of Vogel's theory, it starts to create more questions than answers:

• How did Joseph make them have the "appearance of gold"? This is, in my view, a major weakness in Vogel's theory. Tinplate is silvery-gray, not golden. Vogel suggests Joseph kept them covered (in cloth or a box) during "showings," so witnesses "hefted" or "handled" them without seeing the surface.  For glimpses, he might have polished them to a shine or used a golden tint (e.g., brass polish or yellow dye), but there's no evidence. Critics like Vogel point to witness accounts describing "ancient appearance" or "gold-like," but believers counter that the plates were never fully uncovered for skeptics to inspect.  If uncovered (as some accounts imply), tin wouldn't fool anyone—it's too dull.  And the Plates were, according to the Eight Witnesses, pretty out-in-the-open:

Quote

Be it known unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, unto whom this work shall come: That Joseph Smith, Jun., the translator of this work, has shown unto us the plates of which hath been spoken, which have the appearance of gold; and as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship. And this we bear record with words of soberness, that the said Smith has shown unto us, for we have seen and hefted, and know of a surety that the said Smith has got the plates of which we have spoken. And we give our names unto the world, to witness unto the world that which we have seen. And we lie not, God bearing witness of it.

Vogel's theory does not really account for these things.

• What engravings did he use? Vogel speculates Joseph scratched simple lines or symbols to mimic "reformed Egyptian" (per the "Anthon transcript"). No need for expertise—just random marks on tin sheets, visible enough through cloth edges or brief peeks to seem "engraved." However, the Eight Witnesses described "engravings" as "of curious workmanship." Tin is soft and easy to engrave, but creating convincing "ancient" script without artistic skill is dubious. Vogel say the plates were kept hidden, so engravings were never closely examined.  But then there's the "as many of the leaves as the said Smith has translated we did handle with our hands" and "we also saw the engravings thereon" and "the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship" stuff.  Again, Vogel's theory does not really account for these things, and even rests on rank speculation which contradicts the extant evidence. 
   
• Martin Harris and the Anthon Visit / Farm Mortgage: Skeptics like Vogel account for Harris's enthusiasm as a mix of gullibility, religious fervor, and self-interest. Harris was, per the skeptics, a superstitious treasure seeker who believed Joseph's stone had power (even before plates). The Anthon visit (1828) was spun as fulfillment of Isaiah 29 (sealed book to the learned).  Anthon called the characters "shorthand Egyptian," which Harris took as validation, ignoring Anthon's later denial.  Gullibility does not account for what Harris did next, which was to mortgage his farm ($3,000). 
   
• The Eight Witnesses' Mundane Experience: The Eight (Smith and Whitmer family members) "saw / handled / hefted" the plates in "mundane circumstances" (June 1829, woods near Fayette). Skeptics argue:
  • Familiarity with tin: They were rural farmers—tin was everyday (buckets, roofs)—but Vogel suggests the plates were covered in cloth during handling, so they "hefted" weight and "turned leaves" without seeing the surface (how would they turn metal leaves covered in a cloth? - Vogel doesn't say).  The "appearance of gold" could be Joseph's description, not theirs (again, just speculation and no evidence). 
  • How they were taken in: Close family ties and belief in Joseph's charisma. The prop was "good enough" for a quick, controlled showing—tin's weight (40–60 lbs, per Vogel) matches gold estimates; rings allowed "leaf-turning" sound/feel through cloth. No close inspection; group pressure reinforced the experience.  And yet this does not jibe with either the Statement or their subsequent dissociations from Joseph.  Why did none of them mention a cloth?  Why did none of them recant?
  • No recantations: Loyalty to family/faith, even after schisms (4 Whitmers left the Church). They stood by the testimony as "spiritual truth" or avoided disavowing to maintain reputation. Hyrum and Samuel died loyal; others (like Hiram Page) reaffirmed on deathbeds. Skeptics see this as social/psychological commitment, not proof of authenticity.  Kind of hard to square this with Richard Lloyd Anderson's work.  These guys were sincere, not opportunistic or craven.
     
• How Joseph Crafted a "Really Good" Sham Artifact: Vogel's theory assumes a simple prop: 6x8 inch tin sheets (~23 stacked for thickness), holes punched for 3 rings (bent wire), perhaps hammered for "engraved" texture. "Really good" is relative—witnesses were believers in Joseph's visions; the prop didn't need perfection because it was rarely shown uncovered. Joseph controlled access (e.g., "curse if you peek"), using superstition/fear. Okay.  But this is all speculation.  And if "hefted" uncovered (as some accounts suggest), tin's dullness wouldn't mimic gold—perhaps polished or gilded with cheap brass/yellow paint, but this just compounds the speculation. As for the engravings, they were random scratches mimicking "reformed Egyptian" from Joseph's "Anthon transcript" sketches. Again, this does not account for Martin's enthusiasm and willingness to mortgage his farm.  As for Joseph's poverty, tin was cheap (~$1–$2 for sheets); he could have scavenged or bought with family help. Overall, the "trick" relied more on psychology (expectation, group dynamics) than craftsmanship.  But this conflicts with the statements of the Witnesses.  "{T}he appearance of gold ... as many of the leaves {} we did handle with our hands; and we also saw the engravings thereon, all of which has the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."  Hard to reconcile this with a "Joseph just made a cheap prop out of tin painted yellow" theory.

Vogel's theory is coherent for skeptics, but it relies on assumptions about witness gullibility, and it contradicts the Witness statements, and it does not account for the Witnesses not recanting, and it does not fully account for the human factor (would Martin, who had substantial bouts of doubt and a hugely grouchy wife, really be inclined to mortgage his farm after visiting Anthon if the narrative was inaccurate?).

Boy, it sure is hard to get you critics to pony up.  I would be happy if you were to lay out your assessment of the evidence however you please, whether in your own way or by responding to the above inquiries.

I, the Latter-day Saint, am asking you, the Anti-Mormon, to lay out your reasoning and your evidence as to an alternative explanation for the Plates, the Witnesses, and the Text of The Book of Mormon.  Any part of that would be nice.  Just lay out your conclusions (which you have sort of done previously), and then marshal the evidence and reasoning that gets you there, and also address the extant evidence that has been cited in this thread.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

And this was done because the evidence that would have conclusively settled the matter was deliberately withheld. That matters.

Sure would like to see you actually address the evidence.  That matters, too.

I was in a hearing yesterday.  It was on two competing motions for summary judgment.  It's a contract dispute (a commercial lease).  A central issue was whether my client (the former tenant) is obligated to re-pay real estate broker commissions totaling about $100,000 (as contemplated in the lease, which my client broke). 

I presented evidence to the judge that the tenant which preceded my client in the tenancy paid those commissions to the landlord as part of a settlement deal which allowed it (the tenant) to break the lease early.  The evidence was A) images of two checks (produced by the landlord) for the commissions (the authenticity of which was not in dispute), and B) the landlord's deposition testimony in which he admitted - apparently accidentally - that the previous tenant's settlement payment included payment of the broker commissions.  He even spelled out the names of the two brokerages who were paid from the settlement amount (which names matched the payees on the checks).  And he recited the amounts, which added up to the amounts from the two checks.  Later in the deposition (curiously, after a break in which the Zoom session was shut down, thus allowing the landlord time to speak with his attorney), the landlord reversed himself 180 degrees and declared that the previous tenant's settlement amount did not include the brokerage commissions.

My argument was both factual (the two checks, the landlord's testimony) and legal (U.S. law disallows "double recovery" of a loss).  The legal argument being damning and beyond dispute, the landlord's attorney had no choice but to address the factual underpinnings of my argument (that the broker commissions had already been paid).  He's a good lawyer (I've litigated against him before), and he's bound by ethical standards (including "candor toward the tribunal"), so he couldn't actually lie about the facts of the case.  But neither could he meaningfully rebut the evidence I had marshaled.  It was, after all, his own client who had produced the checks and then testified about the payout from the prior tenant.

So what could he do?  He prevaricated.  A lot.  A lot.  He danced around the evidentiary issues I had presented, neither rebutting nor acknowledging them.  He did not address them in any real sense.  He instead spoke at length on how my client had broken the lease early, and how this was a bad thing, and that we had not obtained an affidavit from the prior tenant, and that "amortization" is a word so obviously self-descriptive that it did not need to be defined in the lease, and on and on.

Again, I have litigated against this attorney a few times before, and have always been impressed with his legal acumen, his reasoning, his writing and oratorical skills, and so on.  But yesterday he had to deal the hand that was dealt to him, and it did not come across well.  By refusing to address the substantive evidentiary arguments, and by repeatedly prevaricating instead, I think that he ended up confirming and bolstering  - in the mind of the judge - both my factual arguments and the legal conclusions based thereon.  Not because I am smarter than the other attorney, but rather because I was engaging and addressing and marshaling the evidence, and he was not.

I'm having similar vibes in this thread with you, Roger.  I don't claim to be smarter than you.  in fact, I suspect that your intellect, overall, surpasses mine.  But you really are not acquitting yourself well here.  I am moving heaven and earth to clear the way, to let you have center stage, to invite you to lay out your assessment of the evidence pertaining to the Plates, the Witnesses and/or the Text of The Book of Mormon.  I would like to here more than just broad conclusory declarations.  I would like to see you present a positive, coherent alternative explanation that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while also adhering to empirical, evidence-based rigor.

I would really like to hear what the best of the Anti-Mormons have to say about the foundational components of the Restored Gospel.  How 'bout it?  Can we start with the Plates or with Richard Lloyd Anderson's treatment of the Witnesses?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Analytics said:

Mormon apologetics is best categorized as pseudoscience

Is it the quality that gets it categorized like this or the fundamental premise that such work is built on..the intimate involvement of the spiritual world in the mundane world…angels, revelation, miracles?

Edited March 13 by Calm

[Calm]

11 minutes ago, smac97 said:

noting that you are anti-Mormon a beratement?  Would you prefer critic?  Skeptic?

Given how anti-Mormon has been used historically, it is a better match imo for someone whose purpose is to destroy the Church or who desires the Church to be destroyed—as in cease to exist as either an organization or a community—rather than just criticize it or even demonstrate some of the beliefs it is built on is false. 

Many critics it seems to me either don’t care that much what the fate of the Church is, but simply want to express their opinion of the Church (I find many atheists just want theists to be able to make truly informed decisions or are happy to let churches function how they want as long as the churches don’t try to run the secular communities as well as their own religious ones) or would be satisfied if the Church lost what they see as the problems and adopted other ideas and practices while continuing as a community. 

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Yes and no. There are many incredibly smart and educated people researching and writing on apologetic topics, and regarding the number of participants and qualifications of the people who engage with them, the apologists win by numbers. I agree with him up to that point.

However, I think there are some big and valid reasons that mainstream scholars politely ignore Mormon apologetics.

Perhaps 10 or 15 years ago on this forum, I got into a deep discussion with Brant Gardner about this. He's a pretty reasonable guy and I like him, and he was talking about how his team had a consortium of very respected people like Sorenson and how their work, in aggregate, supported BoM authenticity. But he claimed that despite their work that proved this, the wider scholarly community just wasn't interested.

I then asked him a question like this: if there were a long, pristine manuscript that was written by authentic ancient Mesoamericans that described their culture, religion, and history, and if this manuscript were correctly translated into English, would the scholarly community be interested?

His answer was revealing. He said something like, "Yes! They'd be extraordinarily interested! Scholars LOVE texts!"

I then asked a totally valid question: if mainstream scholars have so much respect for Sorenson et al., and if they "love texts" as much as you say they do, then why don't they listen to Sorenson et al. when they claim that the BoM is exactly the type of thing they say they love?

He didn't answer.

I'll give it a go.

• Scholars do not want to be drawn into apologetic debates.  There's virtually no upside to doing so (it's not like it would help them in their "Publish or Perish" efforts), and a fair number of downsides (they may not want to be seen as attacking a religious minority's beliefs).
• Also, the "text" in question was a religious document purportedly translated into English "by the gift and power of God."  That added layer is pretty thick, and differentiates The Book of Mormon from this or that codex dug up by Michael Coe.
• Also, meaningfully engaging Latter-day Saint scholarship would require, to some extent, scholars to study up on the Church.  I don't know that they want to do that.
• Also, I think there's a lot of prima facie indifference/skepticism.  Of the "Meh, I don't have a dog in that fight, nor do I want one" variety.
• Also, I think most scholars have only a broad and shallow perception of the Church and its doctrines, and are not willing to expend the time and resources necessary to bring their skill sets to bear on topics like The Book of Mormon.
• Also, I think most scholars would conclude, at the outset, that a religious text purportedly translated "by the gift and power of God" is not empirically testable, and so they don't bother.  Mainstream scholars likely classify the Book of Mormon as pseudepigrapha or 19th-century scripture (comparable to the Book of Abraham or other restorationist texts), not as an ancient historical record. It is studied in American religious history or sociology of religion, not in ancient history or archaeology.  Put another way, scholars are not willing to engage the text for what it claims to be.
• Also, I think The Book of Mormon is too cross-pollinated across disciplines.  Biblical/Ancient Near Eastern scholars focus on texts with manuscript evidence, archaeological context, or linguistic continuity (Dead Sea Scrolls, Nag Hammadi, etc.).  American religious historians might, or might not, study the as a 19th-century text (e.g., in the context of Second Great Awakening, folk magic, restorationism), not as an ancient document.  Mesoamerican archaeologists and linguists likely reject the text's claims out-of-hand.  
• Also, I suspect there are some substantial institutional and/or publishing barriers.  Most peer-reviewed journals and university presses in relevant fields do not publish on the Book of Mormon as a historical text.  Studies that do appear are typically in LDS-affiliated outlets (e.g., FARMS/Interpreter Foundation, BYU Studies) or apologetic contexts, which are viewed as confessional rather than secular scholarship.
• Ritner and Coe did not really do well in their respective forays, I think for some or all of the above reasons.

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

About 25 years ago, I lived in New England and had the opportunity to spend a day with David P. Wright. I asked him the same question and we discussed it quite a bit. I won't put words in his mouth, but his position informed what I now believe:

Funny how that works out.  We tend to lend more credence to people who agree with our presuppositions.

I try to counter this by seeking out input from people who do not agree with my presuppositions, or even actively dislike/oppose them.  I sure would like it if those folks obliged and laid out their reasoning.

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Mormon apologetics is best categorized as pseudoscience, and mainstream scholars ignore it for the same reason they ignore pseudoscience in general: it is boring, irrelevant, and so fundamentally unpersuasive that they see no reason to engage with it.

I think those perceptions are probably present, yes.  

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

Mormon apologetics exists in its own silo that is a form of macro mental-compartmentalizaton apart from mainstream scholarship.

Odd, though, that so many otherwise impeccably credentialed and accomplished scientists, scholars, doctors, lawyers, etc., whose livelihoods depend on their intellectual rigor (including the empiricism which you claim to utilize), and who readily absorb and examine data of all sorts in their professional capacities, and who also openly profess belief in the miraculous foundational events of the Restoration, which you deride as "pseudoscience."

For my part, I'm not particularly dazzled by academia these days.  Large swaths of it have been compromised by sociopolitical ideological commitments, the pursuit of money more than knowledge, laziness, the reproducibility crisis, illegitimate use of scholarly credentials to bolster personal viewpoints, and so on.

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

As Michael Shermer explained in Scientific American, smart people believe weird things.  Apologetics is an example of this. "Weird" beliefs are formed for psychological and sociological reasons, and then smart people leverage their intellect to rationalize them.

Indeed.  I've known otherwise smart people who believe that a man can become a woman by "identifying" as one, and/or who cannot define what a woman is.  This is the product of powerful external pressures and influences, so these beliefs are formed for psychological and sociological reasons, and then smart people leverage their intellect to rationalize them.

I never thought I'd see "The Emperor's New Clothes" play out in real life.

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

There ends up being a big compromise with the broader scholarly community--apologists will keep their weird siloed in their pseudoscientific venues and only publish real research in real venues, and the mainstream will politely ignore the apologetics. 

And yet a good amount of mainstream scholarship has embraced the deeply weird tenets of radical trans ideology.  

It's as if "the broader scholarly community" has feet of clay along with the rest of us.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 13 by smac97

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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. 

Sure. To be clear, general logical inference is Bayesian in nature. Calling it Bayesian and trying to formalize it in this structure just helps us better understand what's really going on and get past certain fallacies.

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

 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. 

I enthusiastically agree that it isn't logical, but my point is that it is perfectly analogous to your argument. Claiming P(sporadic EModE|supernatural) is relatively high and therefore supernatural is likely is exactly like claiming P("I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents"|supernatural) is relatively high and therefore supernatural is likely. You said this in response to my "I Nephi" analogy, which demonstrated the exact same logical structure.

From what I've seen so far, Carmack's underlying data and observations are genuinely fascinating and insightful. It is really interesting to find out that many things that look like "bad" 19th century actually have their roots in acceptable EModE grammar. Where you lose me is how any of this is evidence that the BoM is genuine. Here is how I summarize the data we're talking about. If I'm missing or misrepresenting anything in a material way, please feel free to clarify.

The Book of Mormon's EModE language evidence:

• is a loose translation of the original document into a language that is a hodgepodge of an inconsistent variety secular and sacred English dialects that existed between the 1500s and early 1800s
• 100% of the specific wording and phrases that were used were completely understandable to Joseph Smith, but allegedly wouldn't be the words he as translator would choose to use, even if speaking in the sacred register of early 19th century New England
• Perhaps for reasons of economical usage of the power of God, the KJV bible was used as a crutch for the related passages, even if it contained bad translations
• In general, for the stuff taken from the Bible the BoM translation didn't fix anything that was broken in the KJV, but instead broke many things that were translated fine
• Allegedly had a very tight transfer of the specific words from this loose, mediocre translation into what Joseph Smith subsequently dictated

You seem to be telling me that when viewed it its entirety, this is pretty-much exactly what we'd expect if the Book of Mormon is genuine, but that this would be impossibly unlikely if the book wasn't genuine. Therefore, this constitutes very strong evidence that the book is genuine.

From my perspective, that is drawing the bulls eye after the bullets hit the barn. I grant that in absolute terms, all of this is as unlikely, but it's unlikely in the same way that a book starting with the words "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents" is unlikely.

From my perspective, the EModE evidence is about as unlikely in the "it's true" scenario as it is in the "it's false" scenario. 

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, smac97 said:

Well, I'm trying to get to a substantive discussion about the evidence.  And you are not obliging.  You're under no obligation to, of course.

Regarding my inquiry (as to evidence relating to the Plates, Witnesses and the text), you've gone from supposed Bayesian analysis, to ChatGPT, to "what would a jurist say."  And all the while almost entirely conclusory stuff, with engaging and addressing the evidence being pretty darn limited.

I have been asking you to articulate the what (your alternative explanations/conclusions re: Plates/Witnesses/Text), including addressing the evidence and explaining how you reach those explanations/conclusions.

I don't think I have berated you.  Is noting that you are anti-Mormon a beratement?  Would you prefer critic?  Skeptic?

I first want to understand what you believe.  What is your alternative explanation for the Plates/Witnesses/Texts?  What evidence do you have to support your position on these issues?  How do you address the evidence that contravenes your position on these issues?

Again:

1. My Request: My core challenge has been for critics such as yourself to provide a positive, coherent alternative that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

You are not responding to this.  You are not addressing the key data points.  You have prevaricated a lot (Bayesian stuff, ChatGPT, "what would a Jurist say," etc.).  You offer conclusory statements, but nothing substantive, and nothing really addressing the data points:

• "On the text: Joseph Smith is the most likely primary author, possibly with help from people in his immediate circle..."
• "On the plates: some physical object probably existed..."
• "On the witnesses: I think the most plausible explanation combines sincere belief in the project with solemn religious oaths to stand by what they signed..."

I get the broad naturalistic gist, but that's it.  I don't know how you are getting there, and you are persistently refusing to explain yourself.

Your most recent exercise in prevarication, hypothesizing what a "jurist" would do, would have you presenting the above to the judge.  And the judge would say something like this: "Okay.  But these are just conclusory allegations.  You need to articulate how you reached them.  The reasoning and evidence justifying and supporting these conclusions.  And you also need to address countervailing evidence."

Again, I am looking for an alternative naturalistic explanation about the Plates/Witnesses/Text, not just conclusory statements about them.

Great!  Then let's set aside the folderol and get to examining.

I propose we start with either the Plates or the Witnesses, as I think those topics are a bit more tractable in an evidentiary sense.  Which do you prefer?

"On the plates: some physical object probably existed..."

Okay.  Let's start with that.  A few questions:

• Who was involved with the production of the Plates?  Just Joseph?  
• If others were involved, who were they?  Why were they involved?  What did they stand to gain? 
• Were these others pulling Joseph's strings, or vice versa?  If the former, why did none of them ever come forward?  If the latter, how was he persuaded to spin a fantastic yarn as to the Plates' origins, and then keep to that yarn even when his life was at stake? 
• Was Joseph deluded or conniving?  If deluded, then how did her persuade so many others to join him in his delusion, including the several Witnesses who were later estranged from him and yet stuck to their testimonies?  If conniving, how do you account for his personal writings in the many years subsequent, which to my mind are altogether indicative of someone who sincerely believed that what he was saying was real and authentic?
• What are the particulars of the production process for the sham artifact?  When?  Where?  How?  What materials?  
• Do you favor the Painted Tin / Joseph Working Alone theory espoused by Vogel? 
• If something else was involved, what are the particulars?  Who did what?  Where was the work done?  The smithy?  The tools?  The materials?  Between when and when?  By what means?  Who procured the materials?  Who had the metallurgical skills?  
• If painted tin, was the prop a sloppy, cobbled-together joke (per Vogel, as he posits that Joseph obscured the Plates in darkness or under a cloth because they would not stand up to close examination)?  If so, how do you deal with the Eight Witnesses?  Were all eight just really dumb?  They all handled the Plates (literally with their "hands"), hefted them, saw them as having "the appearance of gold," and "saw the engravings" on the Plates, and viewed them as having "the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."  So the Eight Witnesses were familiar with common tin, but they did not recognize the prop - as Vogel would have us believe - as being made of tin?  And they spent the rest of their lives - including those who fell out with Joseph - attesting to what they had seen, with nary a one of them saying "Hey, in hindsight I think the Plates were just made of tin and painted yellow"?  How do you account for that?
• Alternatively, do you think the prop was a really sophisticated and well-crafted sham?  That could explain how he tricked the Witnesses, but then how did Joseph make it?  Or did someone else more skilled make it?  If so, whom, under what conditions, for what purpose, etc.?  And why was the sham never discovered?  Who stood to gain by taking the secrets of such a fantastic hoax to the grave?
• Most important of all: What actual evidence do you have to marshal support your alternative explanation as to these matters?

These are sincere inquiries.  I really want to know how you address this stuff in your mind.  You're supposed to be all about the empiricism, so let's address the evidence empirically rather than divert to hypotheticals (the "jurist" thing) or abstractions (the Bayesian thing) or broad conclusory stuff generated by AI (ChatGPT).

I'm not asking you to abandon skepticism.  To the contrary, I want you to explain your skepticism-based alternative explanation for The Book of Mormon, using evidentiary analysis and reasoning.

And I tore the analogy apart because it is clunky and doesn't work.  It comes across as an ad hoc means of avoiding evidentiary analysis.

You would never hypothesize about Caesar's assassination by asking how an Article III judge in 2026 would deploy the Federal Rules of Evidence to adjudicate that event's historicity.  

It's not apt, because even though it sounds like you want to use that framework to analyze the evidence, you don't.  You just jump around and then make broad conclusory declarations about stuff.

Answering the bulleted items above would go a long way in advancing this discussion.

Sure would like to see you address the topic (Plates/Witnesses/Text, and evidences pertaining thereto).  But okay, I'll go along.

Okay.  What are those structural features?

It was?  How do you know that?  What evidence do you have that this happened?  

A few questions for you:

• As I understand it, the primary (sole?) source is Suetonius in The Twelve Caesars (Life of Julius Caesar, 75–76), written about 121 AD.  Do you concur?
• 121 A.D. (the publication date of The Twelve Caesars) - 44 B.C. (the date of the assassination) = 165 years.  Why do you find Suetonius to be a credible source?  What do we know about him?  His character?  His veracity?  He was obviously not present for the events he described, so what sources did he use, and why do you lend credibility to those?  How do you address provenance issues arising over the course of sixteen decades in antiquity?

Here's the part of The Twelve Caesars pertaining to the supposed examination of Caesar's body:

• Why do you lend credence to this passage?  How do you know Suetonius was credible?  Suetonius is the sole source for the first piece of evidence you point to about the assassination of Caesar. That source is dated 165 years after the event, and is without independent confirmation.  And yet you accept the say-so of this guy anyway.  Why do you lend more credibility to Suetonius than you to do, say, David Whitmer?  Please be specific.

• They are?  Where?  Who documented them?  Clearly it wasn't Suetonius, since he was writing 165 years later.  
• And where is this documentation?  And what corroboration do we have for this documentation?  Any concerns about provenance?  Please be specific.

• There were?  How do you know that?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.

• They did?  How do you know that?  Where are these versions?  How do we establish provenance for them?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.

• How do you know who the witnesses were, and what their motives were / were not?  Where is the evidence?  Please be specific.
• How is it that you are more certain of the motives of witnesses from 2000+ years ago, whose statements we do not have, and whose character and veracity are impossible to assess, than you are of the motives and credibility of, say, David Whitmer?

• Well, I think we can all agree that Caesar died somehow.  You posit that he was killed via assassination.  What evidence do you have for this proposition?  And why do you lend more credence to that evidence than to, say, the cumulative statements of David Whitmer?

• How do you know this?  What evidence do you have?  Please be specific.

What evidence do you have for "these structural features"?  Anything besides Mr. Writing-165-Years-Later-and-Using-Who-Knows-What-Sources Suetonius?

Let's consider this: 

The Enduring Legacy of Suetonius, Rome’s Most Controversial Biographer
The imperial biographer Suetonius is an important source for the lives of the Caesars, but how reliable are his accounts based on gossip and sensationalism?

Some excerpts:

• What are your thoughts about this?

• Do you think that the reliability of Suetonius is in question?

• Seems like Suetonius is useful not because he was a percipient witness, but because of his supposed "access to imperial libraries, archives, and perhaps even personal testimonies."  Do you concur with this?
• Why do you lend more credibility to the non-percipient Suetonius than you do to say, David Whitmer (or, for that matter, the Eight Witnesses)?

• Do you acknowledge that your perspective on Caesar (specifically, the bit about his body being examined by a physician) is apparently entirely based on a source writing about 165 years later, and in a tome characterized as having a "unique blend of imperial gossip, moral observation, and political detail"?

"Suetonius preserves otherwise unattested details about their lineage, administration, and personal lives."  

• Why do you lend so much credibility to Suetonius?

Suetonius' work "{contains} inconsistencies and contradictions for the scholarly reader."

"Suetonius is frequently criticized for his uncritical inclusion of gossip, rumor, and salacious detail in Twelve Caesars. Many of his most memorable anecdotes, particularly those involving sexual misconduct or personal cruelty, are presented without clear source evaluation or contextual framing. While these lurid accounts undoubtedly appealed to many contemporary readers, they raise questions of reliability and accuracy for modern historians."

• Do the foregoing critiques affect your assessment of Suetonius?  Why or why not?

Sure it is.  It's one of many right questions.

• Did anyone in ancient Rome, including those living decades/centuries later, have motives or incentives to gossip or embellish or fabricate things about a controversial political figure?  

Other right questions:

• What sources did Suetonius use when describing the assassination of Caesar?
• What provenance issues do we have, and can we overcome them?
• What indicia, if any, exist that taint Suetonius's credibility?
• Why should we trust Suetonius?

There are far more ways to tear apart Suetonius as a credible "witness" than, say, the statements of David Whitmer.

• Who are the "they" folks here?  Please be specific.
• Where are these attestations?  Please be specific.
• How do you establish provenance/authentication for these attestations?  Please be specific.

• Haven't you reached a "judgment" about Caesar's body being examined by a physician?
• And didn't you reach this judgment "without a full deposition" of the physician (or Suetonius)?

• Any chance of sociopolitical pressures/influences arising about the details of Caesar's death? 

"At the end of the day, we are left with curated sociopolitical experiences, written many decades after the fact, by a gossipmonger, about the circumstances of the death of a hugely controversial politician, and based on who-knows-what documents that no longer exist for corroboration purposes - not fact-based testimony consistent with real-world testimony."

Why you are willing to accept the 165-years-after-the-fact, gossipy, derivative, based-on-who-knows-what-sources hearsay say-so of Suetonius as being credible within the framework you are building to assess the statements of The Book of Mormon Witnesses?  it seems like Suetonius would fail to satisfy your benchmarks for reliability, yet you rely on him anyway.  Why?

Sigh.  And here again, we get to your conclusion (that evidence for the Plates "fails") without any actual engagement of the evidence pertaining thereto.

Bayesian stuff. 

Then ChatGPT. 

Then "what would an Article III judge in 2026 say about David Whitmer." 

And now "Suetonius is a credible source of information but the Witnesses are not because...," well, I don't know, since you aren't explaining yourself.

Um, so did Suetonius.

Again, this is just conclusory stuff.  I don't know what else I can do to induce you into addressing the evidence.  I sure would like you to address at least some of the above questions, and/or this:

Boy, it sure is hard to get you critics to pony up.  I would be happy if you were to lay out your assessment of the evidence however you please, whether in your own way or by responding to the above inquiries.

I, the Latter-day Saint, am asking you, the Anti-Mormon, to lay out your reasoning and your evidence as to an alternative explanation for the Plates, the Witnesses, and the Text of The Book of Mormon.  Any part of that would be nice.  Just lay out your conclusions (which you have sort of done previously), and then marshal the evidence and reasoning that gets you there, and also address the extant evidence that has been cited in this thread.

Sure would like to see you actually address the evidence.  That matters, too.

I was in a hearing yesterday.  It was on two competing motions for summary judgment.  It's a contract dispute (a commercial lease).  A central issue was whether my client (the former tenant) is obligated to re-pay real estate broker commissions totaling about $100,000 (as contemplated in the lease, which my client broke). 

I presented evidence to the judge that the tenant which preceded my client in the tenancy paid those commissions to the landlord as part of a settlement deal which allowed it (the tenant) to break the lease early.  The evidence was A) images of two checks (produced by the landlord) for the commissions (the authenticity of which was not in dispute), and B) the landlord's deposition testimony in which he admitted - apparently accidentally - that the previous tenant's settlement payment included payment of the broker commissions.  He even spelled out the names of the two brokerages who were paid from the settlement amount (which names matched the payees on the checks).  And he recited the amounts, which added up to the amounts from the two checks.  Later in the deposition (curiously, after a break in which the Zoom session was shut down, thus allowing the landlord time to speak with his attorney), the landlord reversed himself 180 degrees and declared that the previous tenant's settlement amount did not include the brokerage commissions.

My argument was both factual (the two checks, the landlord's testimony) and legal (U.S. law disallows "double recovery" of a loss).  The legal argument being damning and beyond dispute, the landlord's attorney had no choice but to address the factual underpinnings of my argument (that the broker commissions had already been paid).  He's a good lawyer (I've litigated against him before), and he's bound by ethical standards (including "candor toward the tribunal"), so he couldn't actually lie about the facts of the case.  But neither could he meaningfully rebut the evidence I had marshaled.  It was, after all, his own client who had produced the checks and then testified about the payout from the prior tenant.

So what could he do?  He prevaricated.  A lot.  A lot.  He danced around the evidentiary issues I had presented, neither rebutting nor acknowledging them.  He did not address them in any real sense.  He instead spoke at length on how my client had broken the lease early, and how this was a bad thing, and that we had not obtained an affidavit from the prior tenant, and that "amortization" is a word so obviously self-descriptive that it did not need to be defined in the lease, and on and on.

Again, I have litigated against this attorney a few times before, and have always been impressed with his legal acumen, his reasoning, his writing and oratorical skills, and so on.  But yesterday he had to deal the hand that was dealt to him, and it did not come across well.  By refusing to address the substantive evidentiary arguments, and by repeatedly prevaricating instead, I think that he ended up confirming and bolstering  - in the mind of the judge - both my factual arguments and the legal conclusions based thereon.  Not because I am smarter than the other attorney, but rather because I was engaging and addressing and marshaling the evidence, and he was not.

I'm having similar vibes in this thread with you, Roger.  I don't claim to be smarter than you.  in fact, I suspect that your intellect, overall, surpasses mine.  But you really are not acquitting yourself well here.  I am moving heaven and earth to clear the way, to let you have center stage, to invite you to lay out your assessment of the evidence pertaining to the Plates, the Witnesses and/or the Text of The Book of Mormon.  I would like to here more than just broad conclusory declarations.  I would like to see you present a positive, coherent alternative explanation that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while also adhering to empirical, evidence-based rigor.

I would really like to hear what the best of the Anti-Mormons have to say about the foundational components of the Restored Gospel.  How 'bout it?  Can we start with the Plates or with Richard Lloyd Anderson's treatment of the Witnesses?

Thanks,

-Smac

In another long post, you completely ignore my detailed analysis of why the witness statements are problematic and weak, and why this "evidence" is in no way like the evidence for Caesar's assassination.

I notice you didn't address any of my specific points about why the witness testimony is structurally weak. Instead you wrote thousands of words asking me to do something different. I'll take that as it is.

On your other points:
Caesar was assassinated over 2,000 years ago, and the original autographs and forensic evidence have all been lost to the normal processes of time. Nevertheless, we can be confident of what happened because of the abundant evidence we do have—not just Suetonius, but Plutarch, Appian, Cassius Dio, Cicero (a contemporary), Nicolaus of Damascus (a near-contemporary), and others, all independent sources with conflicting loyalties corroborating the same core event. This isn't controversial. In contrast, the evidence for the BoM plates and translation is weak not because of the normal processes of time, but rather because the person who had a vested interest in us believing his story deliberately curated the evidence in such a way that the evidence that would definitively answer the questions is not here. That is completely different in every way from the Caesar evidence.

The truth is we have very, very little reliable evidence of what the witnesses really saw and why they signed the witness statements. Again, this dearth of evidence is because Joseph Smith curated it that way. With little evidence the best we can do is speculate or say "I don't know." This is honesty and epistemic humility. But just because we don't know the specifics of these questions doesn't mean we can't be confident that it is of 19th century American origin. The evidence for that is abundant.

If this were in a courtroom, I'd make a motion that the witness testimonies be excluded from evidence, and in all likelihood the judge would grant my motion. My position is that the curated evidence is intrinsically flawed because of how it was curated. I could argue strenuously and convincingly as to why we should be confident that it is of 19th century origin. And I'm agnostic about your specific questions about how it was produced. Being agnostic about that doesn't diminish or negate the fact that we have extremely strong evidence that it is of 19th century origin and is not an authentic translation of an authentic ancient manuscript.

[Analytics]

2 hours ago, Calm said:

Is it the quality that gets it categorized like this or the fundamental premise that such work is built on..the intimate involvement of the spiritual world in the mundane world…angels, revelation, miracles?

My argument is that it’s the former. Rather than offering my own analysis of why so much of this can’t be taken seriously, I’d pose the issue to ChatGPT and see if it sees the same patterns I do. It is more charitable than I would be, but it sees the same things I would. Read the below and tell me what you think. Should open-minded scholars who are interested in ancient Egypt or ancient Mesoamerica be interested in what apologists are saying in their apologetic writings? 

For your consideration:

Prompt
Write an approximately 1,000-word analytical essay comparing the epistemic progress of mainstream science over the past 40 years with the development of Mormon apologetics over roughly the same period.

Begin by identifying several concrete advances in mainstream science from the last 40 years. These should be specific cases in which theories generated testable predictions, faced meaningful risk of disconfirmation, were refined or rejected in light of evidence, and led to increased explanatory power, consensus, or confidence about reality.

Then identify several concrete developments in Mormon apologetics, especially in work associated with FARMS, the Maxwell Institute, Interpreter, and similar venues. Focus on specific arguments, theories, or lines of inquiry rather than general impressions.

Evaluate whether Mormon apologetics functions as a truth-seeking research program or primarily as a protective and reassuring enterprise for prior belief. In particular, test the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis: Mormon apologetics often does not operate by generating bold, falsifiable claims that are later tested and either strengthened or abandoned. Instead, it tends to respond to criticism by retreating toward narrower, less testable, less detectable, and more unfalsifiable formulations of Mormon truth claims, while also reassuring believers that intellectually sophisticated defenses still exist.

Do not assume this hypothesis is true. Assess it critically and fairly against the evidence.

Address questions such as:
    •    What are the clearest examples of scientific progress from the last 40 years, and what made them progressive?
    •    What are the clearest examples of “progress” claimed within Mormon apologetics over the same period?
    •    Has Mormon apologetics produced specific hypotheses that were genuinely vulnerable to being falsified?
    •    When apologetic claims have faced serious criticism or contrary evidence, have they typically been abandoned, revised in a truth-conducive way, or reformulated so that they become harder to test?
    •    Does the overall pattern resemble a progressive research program that increases contact with reality, or a defensive one that preserves belief by reducing empirical exposure?
    •    Are there examples where apologetic scholarship has genuinely clarified, strengthened, or corrected understanding of Mormon truth claims?
    •    What would count as real progress in Mormon apologetics if it were functioning as a legitimate truth-seeking discipline?

Conclude by giving a clear judgment: does the historical trajectory of Mormon apologetics more closely resemble legitimate scholarship that converges toward truth, or a system of intellectual reassurance that protects belief by making its core claims increasingly difficult to test?

Write in clear prose, not bullet points. Be analytically fair, concrete, and specific. Use examples rather than abstractions, and do not simply tell either believers or critics what they want to hear.

 

ChatGPT 5.4 Pro
Thought for 30m 59s

The clearest mark of epistemic progress is not that a community becomes more sophisticated at defending itself. It is that it becomes better at discriminating between what is true and what is false. In mainstream science, at its best, theories make risky claims, those claims are exposed to evidence that could embarrass their proponents, and the result is either stronger confidence or genuine revision. That pattern has been conspicuous over the last roughly four decades.

Consider a few concrete cases. In medicine, Barry Marshall and Robin Warren proposed that peptic ulcer disease was primarily infectious rather than a product of stress and lifestyle. That was not a merely comforting reinterpretation of old beliefs: it directly challenged the prevailing view, and treatment studies showed that ulcers were cured only when H. pylori was eradicated. A dominant model gave way to a better one. In physics, the Higgs boson moved from theoretical posit to experimental target. CERN’s ATLAS and CMS collaborations did not simply announce a vaguely compatible particle; they went on to test whether it had the properties the Standard Model required, including zero spin and the predicted mass-giving interactions with W and Z bosons and with heavy fermions such as the top quark, bottom quark, and tau lepton. That is what progress looks like: risky prediction, exposure to data, and then narrower uncertainty about reality. (NobelPrize.org)

The same pattern appears elsewhere. LIGO’s first direct detection of gravitational waves confirmed a major prediction of general relativity and opened a new observational window on the universe. The later detection of a neutron-star merger in both gravitational waves and light did more than repeat the success: it connected theory with independent lines of evidence and helped explain where many heavy elements, including gold and platinum, are produced. Climate science shows perhaps the broadest form of convergence. The IPCC now states that it is “unequivocal” that human influence has warmed the atmosphere, ocean, and land, and part of the reason that conclusion is so robust is that specific fingerprints long expected from physical theory—such as greenhouse-gas-driven warming below and cooling in the stratosphere—have been tested repeatedly and with increasing confidence. (LIGO Lab | Caltech)

The comparison with Mormon apologetics is not perfect, because apologetics is not particle physics. Much of it belongs more to history, philology, and theology than to laboratory science. But the underlying question is still fair. A truth-seeking historical discipline can make vulnerable claims, distinguish stronger from weaker hypotheses, and sometimes admit that cherished interpretations have failed. It is therefore revealing that the apologetic institutions in question have often described their own purpose in frankly protective terms. When FARMS was invited into BYU, Gordon B. Hinckley praised it for providing “strong support and defense of the Church” and for bolstering wavering members. Interpreter’s founding statement says it will publish articles “advocating the authenticity and historicity” of LDS scripture and scholarly responses to critics. The Maxwell Institute, even after moderating its style, explicitly said it had not abandoned apologetics so much as asked “what kind of apologetics” it should do, while acknowledging that some earlier work had an uneven quality and a more aggressive tone. (BYU ScholarsArchive)

One major development in Mormon apologetics has been the shift from broad hemispheric readings of the Book of Mormon toward limited-geography models, usually centered in Mesoamerica. Matthew Roper notes that many early Latter-day Saints imagined Book of Mormon events across all the Americas, whereas many modern LDS scholars restrict them to a relatively small region. FAIR argues, plausibly, that limited-geography ideas predate modern DNA criticism and were discussed long before genetics became central. The Church’s own DNA essay similarly says the Book of Mormon does not claim that its peoples were the exclusive or predominant inhabitants of the Americas, notes that most Native Americans carry largely Asian DNA, says Book of Mormon peoples were “among the ancestors” of American Indians, and concludes that DNA cannot decisively affirm or reject historicity; it even says some apologetic DNA arguments are speculative. Fairly judged, some of this is genuine clarification: earlier folk assumptions were stronger than the scriptural text itself required. But the net effect is also to reduce empirical exposure. A small colony in a limited area, heavily mixed into larger preexisting populations, is far harder to detect or falsify than a hemispheric founder narrative. (Scripture Central)

The Book of Abraham is an even sharper test case. The Church’s Gospel Topics essay concedes that the surviving papyrus fragments are standard funerary texts dating long after Abraham and that Latter-day Saint and non-Latter-day Saint Egyptologists agree the characters on those fragments do not match Joseph Smith’s published translation. The same essay then preserves the scripture’s status by moving to two fallback positions: first, that much of the source papyri may be missing, and second, that Joseph’s study of the papyri may have functioned as a catalyst for revelation rather than as a literal translation. John Gee’s work exemplifies the missing-scroll defense by treating the Book of Abraham as possibly derived from papyri no longer extant. None of this is logically impossible. But epistemically it is a retreat from a bold and testable claim—translation of identifiable Egyptian material—to claims that are progressively less tied to publicly testable evidence. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

Critics, though, overstate matters if they say Mormon apologetics never produces anything vulnerable or illuminating. Nahom is the best counterexample. BYU Studies points to inscriptions and altars bearing NHM in Yemen, dated before Lehi’s time, and argues that the geography of an eastward turn from the Nihm region toward Oman fits Nephi’s narrative strikingly well. That is not nothing; it is one of the few apologetic arguments that looks like genuine external corroboration rather than mere rhetorical ingenuity. Chiasmus research also shows some methodological maturation. Rather than merely announcing patterns everywhere, BYU scholars proposed statistical tests intended to distinguish intentional chiasmus from accidental symmetry. And Royal Skousen’s Critical Text Project is plainly real scholarship: it aims to restore the Book of Mormon’s earliest text by scholarly means, has documented about 2,250 textual errors, and introduced hundreds of corrections with semantic significance. Skousen’s linguistic work is also noteworthy because it is, at least in principle, revisable; he explicitly says that if clearer evidence emerges for later English usage, the dating of the text’s language may have to be adjusted. (BYU Studies)

Still, those positive examples underline the larger problem. Nahom is suggestive, not decisive. Chiasmus and textual criticism mostly illuminate literary structure and English transmission, not the ancient historicity of Nephites and Lamanites. Even Skousen’s work, valuable as it is, often shifts attention from straightforward historical claims to increasingly complex models of translation and textual mediation. On the central contested claims—Book of Mormon population history, geography, and especially the Book of Abraham—the recurring pattern is not bold hypothesis, risky test, and clear abandonment upon failure. It is challenge, reinterpretation, auxiliary hypothesis, and reduced vulnerability. In that sense, Mormon apologetics often aims less to show that a claim is probably true than to show that it could still be true. That is a very different epistemic posture. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

If Mormon apologetics were functioning as a robust truth-seeking discipline, real progress would look different. It would specify in advance what kinds of evidence would count against favored models. It would retire failed explanations rather than preserve them indefinitely through new qualifications. It would distinguish sharply between claims that have independent positive support and claims that have merely been rendered harder to falsify. And it would treat disconfirming evidence with the same seriousness it brings to small corroborative details. Some LDS scholarship does move in that direction, especially in textual work and in the Maxwell Institute’s partial acknowledgment of the weaknesses of earlier apologetic styles. But that is not the dominant pattern. (Maxwell Institute)

My judgment, then, is that Mormon apologetics is neither sheer fraud nor a genuinely progressive research program in the scientific sense. It contains islands of legitimate scholarship, and occasionally it produces arguments that deserve serious attention. But its overall historical trajectory more closely resembles a system of intellectual reassurance that uses scholarly tools to protect prior belief. The characteristic move has not been convergence through risky testing. It has been preservation through narrowing, reinterpretation, and lowered empirical exposure. On balance, that places Mormon apologetics closer to protective apologetics than to truth-seeking scholarship that steadily increases contact with reality. (BYU ScholarsArchive)

 

[Ryan Dahle]

4 hours ago, Analytics said:

I enthusiastically agree that it isn't logical, but my point is that it is perfectly analogous to your argument. Claiming P(sporadic EModE|supernatural) is relatively high and therefore supernatural is likely is exactly like claiming P("I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents"|supernatural) is relatively high and therefore supernatural is likely. You said this in response to my "I Nephi" analogy, which demonstrated the exact same logical structure.

There are a number of significant differences that I believe render this as a false analogy. As a refresher, here is what you said: 

Quote

 

It is extraordinarily unlikely that a book written by a human being would begin with the exact phrase, “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents.” We’ve searched every book ever written in any language, and nobody has ever started a book with those eight words in that order." 

In contrast, if the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, then the book starting with “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” is exactly what we’d expect.

Since these eight words are exactly what we’d predict under the “it’s true” hypothesis but are almost impossible under the “it’s a fake” hypothesis, this is extraordinarily strong evidence that the Book of Mormon is what it claims to be.

 

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. 

Edited March 13 by Ryan Dahle

[champatsch]

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.

Edited March 13 by champatsch

[champatsch]

22 hours ago, Calm said:

23 hours ago, champatsch said:

from a language or languages that employed many finite causatives

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.

[Pyreaux]

On 2/26/2026 at 1:42 PM, Analytics said:

I generally don't feel the need to explain the "miracle" of how the Book of Mormon was produced anymore than @smac97 feels the need to explain the miracle of how John Keats wrote his poetry. But he expressed interest in seeing such an explanation, so I decided to pose the question to ChatGPT 5.2 Pro. Below is the specific prompt I gave it, followed by its response.

GPT 5.2 Pro is a very advanced AI that does quite a bit of behind-the-scenes research and validation before responding. It does in fact create a log of the major steps it went through in evaluating and researching the question and generating the answer, and if you are interested in seeing that log, let me know.

Prompt
Can you help me formulate the most likely hypothesis for how, specifically, the Book of Mormon was written? I’m talking with an apologist who believes I need to answer the question of how an uneducated farm boy would be able to do what he did without divine help (e.g. the time frame, how to account for the witness statements, the complexity and internal coherence).

Please look deeply at all of the evidence surrounding this and come up with the most likely explanation. Consider popular explanations by critics, but also look outside the box and consider fresh perspectives that may not have been articulated.

While you should look at all of the evidence, here are some points I’d like you to consider that I think are salient. Don’t assume these points are true or relevant just because I list them. Do your own independent evaluation:

1-    In both the text of the Book of Mormon and in the accounts of the alleged 19th century artifact, a “sealed portion” of the plates is a big deal. This detail seems really strange—both that it is a thing at all, and that it is talked about so much. From a doctrinal perspective the sealed portion is irrelevant—it was never translated and published, and never will be. So why so much attention to something so irrelevant?
2-    If somebody were to create a counterfeit artifact and ran out of time or patience before writing “reformed Egyptian” on every page, would they “seal” some blank pages to hide from witnesses the fact they were blank?
3-    Joseph Smith wrote the witness statements and had the others sign it. This seems incredibly weak compared to the eleven people creating independent, contemporaneous accounts of what they saw. It was as if they were being told what the official story was.
4-    The Book of Mormon contains text that says that everything that invites and entices people to do good is from God. Is that a rationalization that the Book of Mormon itself is “from God” even if there are some white lies surrounding where it came from? 
5-    The translation process seems to be quite performative. Was he putting on a show to make the people around him think he had ancient golden plates that he was translating in a miraculous way?
6-    As I recall, for some of the Book of Mormon he put his face in a hat, and for other parts he was sitting alone behind a curtain. Why would he do it that way?
7-    “Radio Free Mormon” approaches it from the perspective of a magician. He asserts the hat was white, and that if there was a piece of paper in the bottom of it, he could have read the piece of paper.
8-    Various accounts talk about JS actually reading something. They assume he was reading the translation that was appearing on the seer stone or the Urim and Thummim. But was it possible that he was reading pages from a manuscript that had already been written?
9-    There are a few dozen Bible chapters that are quoted in the BoM. They have some changes. When dictating Bible verses, was JS reading from the bible and riffing changes, reciting them from memory, or reading verses that somebody else had modified and written down? 
10-    Joseph Smith wasn’t quite as illiterate as believers like to suggest, and it is possible that his mother and brother may have helped write it.
11-    How long and complex is it, really? Is quickly writing a long and complex book a sign of divine help? For comparison, compared to the Book of Mormon how long and complex is the Cosmere? How fast does Brandon Sanderson pump out words in this? 
12-    Lots of things are unique. That doesn’t mean divine intervention. Herman Mellvile uniquely had the talent and resources to write Moby ****. Is it possible that Joseph Smith (possibly with help) uniquely had the talent and resources to write the Book of Mormon?

Again, those are ideas that are salient in my mind, but don’t use them without independently validating their truthfulness and significance.

Given the totality of the evidence, including statements of people who formally or informally saw the plates and were part of or witnessed the translation process. What is the most likely explanation for how, specifically, the Book of Mormon came to be? Include discussions of what, if anything, the witnesses most likely saw, and how the text was compiled and dictated. 

Please write your answer in conversational English in a way that would be suitable to paste onto a message board.

ChatGPT 5.2 Pro
Thought for 21m 14s >

 

If I had to pick one single, concrete “most likely” non-miraculous hypothesis that explains both (a) how the English text got produced on that tight 1829 schedule and (b) why multiple people signed witness statements and later reaffirmed them, it would look like this:

Joseph Smith was the primary author and performer. He produced the Book of Mormon as an oral dictation project (not as a “sit down and write a book” project), drawing heavily on the King James Bible and the religious/folkloric ideas already in his head from his environment. He used a seer-stone-in-a-hat procedure as (at minimum) a concentration tool and (very plausibly) as stagecraft that let him control information flow, prevent scrutiny, and keep the people around him emotionally and socially committed. A physical “plates” object (real but not ancient) may have existed as a prop; and the witnesses’ experiences were likely a mix of tactile exposure to a guarded object plus religious vision/expectation experiences—all later stabilized into official language via short, formal testimony documents rather than independent, contemporaneous essays.

That’s the thesis. Here’s how it cashes out point-by-point with the evidence we actually have.

---

1) The “how could an uneducated farm boy do that?” premise is doing a lot of rhetorical work

Two things can be true at once:

1. Joseph Smith did not have elite formal schooling.

2. He was not the cartoon version of illiterate. The “uneducated farm boy” framing often confuses lack of university training with incapable of sustained oral composition. Scholarship on his education doesn’t support the extreme caricature. (Dialogue Journal)

Also: the best historical evidence suggests he had been practicing the underlying skill (spinning sacred-sounding narrative about ancient peoples + religious interpretation) for years before 1829. Lucy Mack Smith describes him, well before publication, giving the family extended “recitals” about ancient inhabitants—their travel, cities, warfare, and worship—i.e., exactly the kind of material that later shows up as Book of Mormon “worldbuilding.” (Joseph Smith Papers)

So the “how could he do it so fast?” question is already partly answered by: he wasn’t starting from zero in April 1829.

---

2) The dictation timeline is tight… but not superhuman once you frame it correctly

The “translation” that became today’s Book of Mormon was dictated in a concentrated burst in 1829, with the main sprint running April to late June 1829. (Joseph Smith Papers)

But here’s the key: dictation is fast. If a person speaks even ~90–120 words per minute when “in the zone” (slower than normal conversation), you can generate huge word counts in surprisingly few total hours of speaking. And you don’t have to speak 6–8 hours a day; you can do it in intense blocks.

So the “time frame” is impressive, yes—but it’s not in the category of “physically impossible without a miracle,” especially if (a) the person has rehearsed themes for years and (b) the product includes lots of formulaic language and embedded Bible-style phrasing.

---

3) What the best sources say about the actual production method is: seer stone + hat + dictation

The strongest first-hand-style evidence (including Emma’s account, echoed by other witnesses) is that Joseph dictated while looking into a hat containing a stone—often with the scribe sitting nearby. The Church’s own historical material now states this plainly and quotes Emma describing him dictating “hour after hour” with his face in the hat. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

That matters because it changes the cognitive problem:

• He wasn’t “writing” in the normal sense.

• He was performing an oral composition with a scribe doing the mechanics.

It also matters because it creates a practical mechanism for controlling what others could verify. If the “translation” is happening inside a hat, nobody can check plates, nobody can check source text, and the social group can only evaluate Joseph’s confidence + the spiritual vibe.

---

4) Why the hat sometimes and a curtain other times?

When you look at the accounts, the “curtain” tradition is much stronger in secondhand/hostile retellings and in some Martin Harris-related reporting; while Emma’s account explicitly says she was close by with “nothing between us.” (The Church of Jesus Christ)

A very normal, non-mystical explanation for mixed procedures is:

• Different settings (Harmony vs Fayette, different houses, different people present).

• Different audiences (Emma vs Martin Harris vs visitors).

• Different goals (privacy from outsiders vs theatrics vs preventing accidental peeks at a prop object).

In a “performance + dictation” model, you’d expect variation like this, because the method is as much about managing witnesses as it is about producing text.

---

5) The “witness statements” are not what apologists often imply they are

This is huge, because apologists often treat the witness pages like “11 independent depositions.”

But historically:

• The surviving manuscript context shows the witness texts are short, formal statements included with the book.

• In the printer’s manuscript, the signatures are copied (not original autographs), which is exactly what you’d expect if a scribe is preparing a clean printer’s copy. (Joseph Smith Papers)

• The Joseph Smith Papers explicitly says it’s unknown who wrote the Eight Witnesses statement and unknown whether the Eight signed the original statement (even while also noting later claims that originals existed). (Joseph Smith Papers)

So your instinct in point (3) is basically right in spirit: these are not “eleven separate diary entries written the same week.” They’re official-language artifacts that got standardized very early.

That doesn’t make them meaningless. But it absolutely changes what kind of evidence they are.

---

6) What the witnesses most likely experienced (in a “most likely” naturalistic model)

The Three Witnesses: best interpreted as a visionary religious experience

Even in official LDS history writing, you see acknowledgments that the witnesses described the experience in visionary terms—e.g., “spiritual eyes.” (The Church of Jesus Christ)

Also, Doctrine & Covenants 17 frames the experience as something obtained “by faith,” and the JS Papers describes it as a vision occurring not many days after the commandment. (Joseph Smith Papers)

In a naturalistic model, the most likely mechanisms are familiar from revival culture:

• Intense expectation + prayer

• Group reinforcement (“we’re about to see something holy”)

• Social pressure not to be the one person who “doesn’t get it”

• Retrospective certainty hardening over time (“I know what I experienced”)

That can produce sincere testimony without fraud in the moment.

The Eight Witnesses: likely handled a physical object, but under controlled conditions

The Eight Witnesses statement reads like a sensory/tactile claim (handled, hefted, turned leaves). The JS Papers notes that it “reads like a legal document” and emphasizes sight/touch. (Joseph Smith Papers)

In the model I’m laying out, the simplest explanation is: they were shown something physical—but that does not require it to be ancient, gold, or engraved with an actual language.

A plausible option is a manufactured prop:

• thin metal sheets (tin/brass-like) bound in rings,

• maybe some “characters” on some pages,

• kept partially covered,

• and crucially: a “sealed” block that can’t be separated.

Which leads to your sealed-portion intuition.

---

7) The sealed portion: it isn’t doctrinally irrelevant, and it’s also practically useful

First, doctrinally: in LDS thought it’s explicitly framed as future revelation, and multiple LDS sources treat it as a meaningful idea, not a throwaway. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

Second, historically: multiple descriptions of the plates reported that a large portion was “sealed”/immovable, sometimes described “as solid… as wood,” and estimates range from about half to two-thirds. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

Now the key “outside-the-box but not crazy” point:

A sealed portion is an elegant multipurpose solution whether you’re sincere, deceptive, or somewhere in between:

• It explains why the artifact is thick without requiring you to expose every leaf.

• It prevents anyone from demanding, “Okay, open to a random page.”

• It gives you an answer to “why didn’t you translate everything?”

• It creates an always-available future promise (“more will come later”) that can’t be falsified now.

And yes—your specific suggestion is logically plausible: if a prop-maker got tired of engraving, a sealed block is exactly how you’d hide blank/unworked leaves while still claiming a big impressive volume. (That’s not proven, but it’s genuinely coherent as a fraud-resistant design choice.)

---

Could Joseph have been reading a prewritten manuscript (hat-as-reading-booth)?

This is the “magician” hypothesis: put a paper in the hat, read it, and dictate.

It’s physically possible. But it has two big problems:

1. It doesn’t actually solve the main authorship problem.
   If the book was prewritten, you still have to explain who wrote it and how that happened.

2. We have direct testimony (Emma) denying that he was reading from a book or manuscript during dictation. (The Church of Jesus Christ)
   You can always say “she lied” or “she was mistaken,” but once you do that you’ve weakened the whole “eyewitnesses prove X” style of argument in general.

So: I’d file “paper in hat” as possible but not necessary, and not the best “most likely” explanation.

A more economical model is: oral dictation with the hat functioning as a focus device + a sacred-tech prop.

---

9) The Bible chapters: the data strongly supports heavy KJV dependence, not an isolated miracle of parallel ancient text

This is one of the biggest “nuts and bolts” points in favor of a naturalistic model.

Serious textual work on the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah passages finds that the KJV is the base text, with lots of variants—many involving KJV italicized words (which were translator-supplied words in the KJV). (BYU ScholarsArchive)

That pattern is much easier to explain if Joseph’s production process involved:

• recalling KJV language from memory,

• riffing while a Bible is present,

• paraphrasing with occasional conscious edits,

• or blending quotation + improvisation in Bible diction.

It’s much harder to explain if the English words are coming from a pure “ancient source independent of 17th-century English translation habits,” unless you adopt a very specific theory like “God chose to reveal the KJV phrasing (including its quirks) as the translation language.”

And note: even apologetic treatments now openly discuss “KJV translation errors” appearing in Book of Mormon biblical language—because the dependency is too obvious to ignore. (FAIR)

So when your apologist says “how could he do that without divine help,” a strong answer is: because a lot of the hardest-to-produce ‘ancient’ style is borrowed straight from the most famous pseudo-ancient English text in his world: the KJV.

---

10) “Complexity and internal coherence” is real—but it’s not the kind that forces a miracle

A few points that tend to deflate the “this is too complex to be human” claim:

• Much of the Book of Mormon is sermon material. Sermons are exactly what fluent religious talkers can produce at length without writing.

• Formulaic repetition (“and it came to pass,” stock phrases, recurring moral patterns) lowers the cognitive burden.

• The work shows seams consistent with dictation and later stabilization (and punctuation was supplied by the typesetter in the 1830 printing process, which can create the illusion of tighter structure than the raw dictation would have had). (Joseph Smith Papers)

• “Internal coherence” is not binary. Human-made epics can be coherent enough to feel impressive, while still containing the kinds of inconsistencies you expect from oral production.

So: the text can be “impressive” and still be a product of a talented, motivated, high-control charismatic dictating for weeks.

---

11) Putting it all together: a concrete “most likely” reconstruction

Here’s the whole hypothesis as a single narrative you can hand to an apologist:

1. Years of incubation (early 1820s–1827): Joseph develops a repertoire of “ancient America + Israelite origin + prophecy + revival Christianity” narrative material and performs it orally (family reminiscences support this). (Joseph Smith Papers)

2. Artifact/authority creation (1827–1829): He maintains a hidden object he calls “plates,” tightly controlling access. Whether it’s ancient or a prop, he structures the social world so no one can freely inspect it. The idea of a “sealed portion” does heavy lifting both ideologically and practically. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

3. Text production as dictation (1828, then April–June 1829): The Book of Mormon is produced primarily by oral dictation, with scribes doing the writing. The seer-stone-in-hat method is central in multiple accounts and in modern LDS historical treatment. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

4. Bible integration: When the narrative calls for Isaiah/Matthew-style material, Joseph leans on the KJV language (by memory, by proximity, or by conscious adaptation). Textual scholarship strongly supports KJV-as-base. (BYU ScholarsArchive)

5. Witness experiences and stabilization: A small circle is given carefully staged experiences: a visionary “showing” for the Three (faith/vision language is baked in), and a controlled tactile encounter for the Eight. The testimonies are then formalized into short official statements rather than independent essays, and later retellings reinforce commitment. (The Church of Jesus Christ)

That package explains:

• the speed,

• the method,

• why the plates were never freely examined,

• why the witness documents look like standardized statements,

• why the KJV fingerprints are everywhere,

• and why the story remained resilient even after schisms (because the social/psychological commitment mechanisms are strong in religious movements).

---

12) How I’d phrase the “so what’s your alternative?” answer to an apologist

Something like:

“I don’t think the best evidence forces a supernatural translation. The evidence fits better with Joseph producing the text by oral dictation during April–June 1829 using the seer-stone-in-hat method, drawing heavily on KJV Bible language and contemporary religious ideas. The witness statements are short, standardized documents (not independent essays), and even the Joseph Smith Papers note unknown authorship/signing details for the Eight Witness statement and show copied signatures in the printer’s copy. The Three Witnesses experience is framed as faith-based and is often described in visionary terms. A ‘sealed portion’ works both as a theological motif tied to Isaiah’s sealed book and as a practical way to restrict inspection. Put together, a talented, motivated charismatic dictating a Bible-saturated religious epic with strong performance control explains the time frame, the witnesses, and the text’s kind of coherence without needing divine intervention.” (The Church of Jesus Christ)

I've been ignoring this thread, as I have nothing particular against naturalistic theories, but it's where all the activity is now. But what you shared looks like a composite naturalistic theory, it tries to be every naturalistic theory at once, so the plates are somehow a pious fraud, visionary trance, and physical prop at the same time. 

Was Smith a smithy? The naturalistic explanation usually posits a "prop" made of tin or lead. But in 1820s tin-smithing wasn't a kitchen table hobby. It requires a forge, shears, and specific hammers. If Joseph or any co-conspirator made them, where is the physical evidence, claim or theory of the workshop? The Eight Witnesses claimed to see "curious workmanship" and "engravings." If it was just scratched-up tin, why did eight men, several of whom were craftsmen and farmers familiar with metal, not recognize the metal wasn't gold or notice inferior workmanship as over hours of hefting and turning the plates? If it was a high-quality forgery with actual faux-Egyptian characters etched into metal, who had the skills? If it was a co-conspirator like Oliver Cowdery or your local blacksmith, why did the secret never leak, even during the bitterest periods of Oliver's apostasy?

The other blur is with both Three and Eight Witnesses together was a "visionary" event. The Three Witnesses claimed to see an Angel and hear a Voice. Naturalisticly called a "collective hallucination." The Eight Witnesses testimony is strictly sensory. There was no angel, no voice, and no "spiritual eyes." They handled the leaves in broad daylight. If John Whitmer or Hiram Page who later became extremely hostile to Joseph Smith never blow the whistle and say they had been tricked by a cheap prop, their anger at Joseph would have given them every motive to expose the trickery. They didn't. They died asserting the reality of the plates.

Brandon Sanderson uses a computer, an editor, a back-story wiki, and years of planning. Joseph dictated the Book of Mormon in roughly 60–90 days with no substantive internal contradictions, no rewrites, and no looking back at previous pages.

You have suggested a 'physical prop' existed. If that prop was 'painted tin' (Vogel's theory), please explain how eight grown men handled a tin prop for an afternoon without doubt? If they were co-conspirators, why make a prop, and how did they spend 50 years lying about it for a man they eventually came to despise? What was their motive for maintaining a lie that brought them poverty and persecution long after they had broken with the 'liar' who started it?

Edited March 13 by Pyreaux

[smac97]

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

In another long post,

Well, your constant prevarication and failure/refusal to address the evidence is making things difficult.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

you completely ignore my detailed analysis of why the witness statements are problematic and weak, and why this "evidence" is in no way like the evidence for Caesar's assassination.

Instead of addressing the evidence re: The Book of Mormon (as you have previously dodged by instead speaking of Bayesian analysis, what ChatGPT has to say, and what a hypothetical Article III judge in 2026 would say about the depositions of dead people, and now you are talking about Caesar's assassination by citing "evidence."  And I indulged you by asking you about this evidence.  And you can't bring yourself to examine that evidence either.  You are refusing to answer questions about it.

I think it's pretty clear why.  You invoke nebulous "evidence" that, I think, comes from Suetonius, but you won't say either way.  I ask questions about Suetonius (he's the only source for the anecdote about a physician examining the body of Caesar after the supposed assassination), and you utterly ignore them.

I think it's pretty clear why.  Suetonius was writing about 165 years after the fact.  He was not a "witness" in any sense.  We only have vague notions of his sources, and those sources are not available for examination/verification.  And he was a gossipmonger.  So he's not a percipient witness, provenance issues abound, character and credibility issues abound, hearsay issues abound.  Nevertheless, he's all you've got.  And you take his unvetted, uncorroborated say-so as establishing a historical event anyway.

Meanwhile, as regarding the Plates, we have far better information about an event from multiple percipient, first-hand witnesses (not just one), who wrote their accounts quite near the time of the events they are describing.  No provenance issues.  No source issues.  No hearsay issues.  And thanks to Richard Lloyd Anderson, we have a far better assessment of these folks' character and credibility.  We know the kind of people they were before, during and after their experience as witnesses.

You aren't addressing the evidence, even about Caesar's assassination.  I think I know why.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

I notice you didn't address any of my specific points about why the witness testimony is structurally weak.

What "structural features" were you talking about?  Please be specific.

Where are you getting the idea that these features are integral/necessary to discussing Suetonius and/or the Witnesses?

How are these "structural features" present for Suetonius but absent for the Witnesses?  Please be specific.

Are there any "structural features" that weaken Suetonius as a evidentiary source?  Please be specific.

How are these "features" present in the evidence from Suetonius?

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

Instead you wrote thousands of words asking me to do something different. I'll take that as it is.

You are not addressing any evidence.  Not even Suetonius.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

On your other points:
Caesar was assassinated over 2,000 years ago, and the original autographs and forensic evidence have all been lost to the normal processes of time.

And yet you accept the veracity of a single, uncorroborated, gossipy, late-by-165-years source anyway.

None of the above "features" of Suetonius affect your willingness to accept him has a credible source about the physician examining Caesar.  Why is that?

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

Nevertheless, we can be confident of what happened because of the abundant evidence we do have—not just Suetonius, but Plutarch, Appian, Cassius Dio, Cicero (a contemporary), Nicolaus of Damascus (a near-contemporary), and others, all independent sources with conflicting loyalties corroborating the same core event.

We can "be confident"?  How do you know that?  None of the others (save, possibly, one) was a percipient and contemporary witness, and we don't have the sources used by these sources, so we can't gauge their reliability either.

And is it possible that any of these other sources had compromised motives?  They were, after all, talking about a controversial political figure.

And Suetonius is, it seems, the sole source of the anecdote about the physician, which you not only accept as established ("we can be confident..."), you heartily endorse it and use that anecdote to explain why you are willing to accept the overall narrative of the assassination of Caesar.

Nevertheless, let's go with your reasoning for a bit.  I'll reframe it this way:

We can be confident of what happened because of the abundant evidence we do have—not just {statements from Joseph Smith, but also from David Whitmer, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery, Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sen., Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith, Emma Hale Smith, Mary Musselman Whitmer, Katharine Smith Salisbury, Lucy Mack Smith, Sally Parker, William B. Smith, John C. Whitmer and Josiah Stowell}, all independent sources with conflicting loyalties corroborating the same core event.  {These are are mostly first-hand, percipient witnesses (some are second-hand or third-hand), and contemporary. In addition, we have extensive biographical information about these witnesses which allows us to gauge their character and credibility (see, e.g., Richard Lloyd Anderson’s Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses, https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/)}.

From an evidentiary perspective, we have substantially more, and better quality, evidence for the Plates than we do for the physician's examination of Caesar's body, or even the assassination itself. 

I'm assuming you do not agree with this.  If so, could you explain why?  Why does your reasoning justify reliance on Suetonius, but not on the witnesses and corroborating evidences for them?  Please be specific.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

This isn't controversial.

Caesar was not a controversial figure?  Are you sure about that?

And why is the anecdote about the physician - which you are pointing to as an important indicator of veracity - trustworthy?  It's uncorroborated.  it was about a controversial figure.  It comes 165 years later, from unknown and unavailable sources, and through a gossipmonger whose character and credibility are are in some real doubt or are impossible to assess.  And yet you accept this anecdote anyway.  

Why is that?  What is it that makes Suetonius a more credible witness than any of the 19th century witnesses I note above?

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

In contrast,

"In contrast" = "I'm about to toss aside every stitch of analysis and reasoning I apply to Suetonius and refuse to apply any of it to the 19th century witnesses of the Plates, even though the evidence for Suetonius' account is late by 165 years, not percipient, based on unknown and unavailable sources, and comes from a gossipmonger whose character and credibility are either in doubt or impossible to assess."

Yes, the "contrast" will, I think, be quite striking.  Double standards tend to have that effect.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

the evidence for the BoM plates and translation is weak not because of the normal processes of time, but rather because the person who had a vested interest in us believing his story deliberately curated the evidence in such a way that the evidence that would definitively answer the questions is not here. That is completely different in every way from the Caesar evidence.

Suetonius did not have any ulterior motives?  How do you know?

What about the sources he used?  Did they have any ulterior motives?  How do you know?

What about the other sources beyond Suetonius (Plutarch, etc.)?  Did they have any ulterior motives?  How do you know?

Suetonius didn't "deliberately curate the evidence"?  How do you know?

And what is this "in such a way that the evidence that would definitively answer the questions" stuff?  Where are you getting it?  What does it mean?  

How did Joseph "curate the evidence" relative to the Eight Witnesses?  Please be specific.

How did Joseph 'curate the evidence" relative to Emma Hale Smith?  Please be specific.

How did Joseph "curate the evidence" about the "incidental" witnesses (Mary Musselman Whitmer, Katharine Smith Salisbury, Lucy Mack Smith, Sally Parker, William B. Smith, and John C. Whitmer)?  Please be specific.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

The truth is we have very, very little reliable evidence of what the witnesses really saw and why they signed the witness statements.

Oh, brother.  The Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick.  Again.

Your assertion is spectacularly inaccurate.  From David Whitmer alone:

Quote

For David Whitmer, this was a defining experience, one that became the core and foundation of all his religious beliefs in the decades that followed.³ Even after 1838, when he came to view Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet and separated himself from the main body of Joseph’s followers, David continued to adhere to his testimony of the angel and the plates.⁴ As the years went on, he progressively lost faith in most of Joseph’s later revelations, but he never abandoned the Book of Mormon.⁵

Later in life, after outliving Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, David was frequently questioned about his experience both in person and by letter. Thanks to these enquiries, about a dozen letters containing firsthand statements about his experience survive, in addition to over 70 reports from those who interviewed him.⁶ Most of the firsthand statements either express a simple reaffirmation of his testimony as published in the Book of Mormon, or matter-of-factly state that he saw an angel with the plates. Coming from his own pen (or that of his scribes, as he dictated to them), these surviving letters allow David to speak for himself about his experience:

• “My testimony to the world is written concerning the Book of Mormon, and it is the same that I gave at first and it is the same as shall stand to my latest hour in life, linger with me in death and shine as Gospel Truth beyond the limits of life.”⁷
• “As you read my testimony given many years ago, so it stands as my own existence; the same as when I gave it, and so shall stand throughout the cycles of eternity.”⁸
• “As concerning the Book of Mormon and its contents, and my views for which you inquire, I can say the Book and its contents are true. And my testimony in connection with the Book is also true.”⁹
• “My testimony to the Book of Mormon is true and I am admonished neither to add to nor take from my testimony already appended to the Book.”¹⁰
• “Those who know me best, well know that I have adhered to that testimony.—And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement[s], as then made and published.”¹¹
• “My testimony as published in connection with the Book of Mormon is true—And why Should men ask to know more in regard to all the particulars connected with that all Overshadowing truth—If they will not believe the three and 8 witnesses would they believe though one Should arise from the dead, and testify to its truth again.”¹²
• “I have … emphatically testified as written in the Book of Mormon.”¹³
• “I did see the angel of God, and was commanded to testify of these things, and they are true.”¹⁴
• “You ask me if I saw the Angel when he brought the plates. I saw the Angel when he brought the plates, and the Angel told us that we must bear testimony to the world, as contained in my testimony written in the Book of Mormon. Doubt not—sister—the Book of Mormon is the word of God.”¹⁵
• “I did see the Angel as it is recorded in my testimony in the Book of Mormon. The Book is true.”¹⁶
• “In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: … A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled at noon day, and there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon.”¹⁷
• “In June, 1829, the Lord called Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and myself as the three witnesses, to behold the vision of the Angel, as recorded in the fore part of the Book of Mormon, and to bear testimony to the world that the Book of Mormon is true.”¹⁸

Other direct correspondences from David clearly express belief in the Book of Mormon without specifically mentioning his testimony of the angel and the plates. For example, in a letter to Oliver Cowdery in 1847, David speaks of building up the church of Christ anew, “according to the laws contained in the bible [and] book of Mormon.”¹⁹

FAIR's list of "Quotations from David Whitmer which demonstrate the literal nature of the Three Witness experience":

Quote

• I personally heard him [David Whitmer] state in Jan. 1876 in his own house...in most positive language, that he did truly see in broad day light, a bright, and most beautiful being, an 'Angel from Heaven," who did hold in his hands the golden plates, which he turned over leaf by leaf, explaining the contents, here and there. He also described the size and general appearance of the plates....^[1]
• I saw the angel as plainly as I see you; he was surrounded by the glory of God, which overshadowed us, and we heard his voice, and we saw the records of the Book of Mormon...My testimony is the same as at the beginning, as is true.^[2]
• I[nterviewer]--Martin Harris...gave a testimony in Salt Lake City Tabernacle that he saw the plates by [the] faith and power of God.

He [David Whitmer]--Martin Harris is correct....we saw it, and our testimony, which we give to the world, is true exactly as you read it, we saw by the gift and power of God. As we were praying the angel stood before us in his glory, and all those things were before us, as they were laid before us on a table, and we heard the testimony about the plates, and we were commanded to bear that testimony to the world, and our testimony is true. And when the angel had finished his words, and shown us the plates, one by one, which were to be translated, then the vision was closed at once, and exactly as it came even so did the sight disappear.

I--But those things which you saw were material things, how could they come and vanish away again?

He--It is the power of God. He does those things, and his angels know how to do it. It was wonderful to us, but it was by the power of God. He had appointed his angels to be the guardians of the plates and other things, and the angels knew how it was done.

I--Did the eight witnesses not handle the plates as a material substance?

He--We did not, but they did, because the faith of Joseph became so great that the angel, the guardian of the plates, gave the plates up to Joseph for a time, that those eight witnesses could see and handle them.^[3]

• David Whitmer: "It was in June 1829, the very last part of the month, and the eight witnesses, I think, the next day. Joseph showed them the plates himself. We (the Three Witnesses) not only saw the plates of the book of Mormon, but the Brass Plates, the plates containing the record of the wickedness of the people of the world, and many other plates. The fact is, it was just as though Joseph, Oliver and I were sitting right here on a log, when we were overshadowed by a light. It was not like the light of the sun, nor like that of a fire, but more glorious and beautiful. It extended away round us, I cannot tell how far, but in the midst of this light, immediately before us, about as far off as he sits (pointing to John C. Whitmer who was sitting 2 or 3 feet from him) there appeared, as it were, a table, with many records on it, besides the plates of the Book of Mormon; also the sword of Laban, the Directors (i.e. the ball which Lehi had) and the Interpreters. I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life declaring that they (the plates) were translated by the gift and power of God."^[4]
• David had been charged with being deluded into thinking he had seen an angel and the plates. One observer remembers when David was so accused, and said:

How well and distinctly I remember the manner in which Elder Whitmer arose and drew himself up to his full height--a little over six feet--and said, in solemn and impressive tones: "No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!"^[5]

See also: Response to claim: "James Henry Moyle...went away 'not fully satisfied...It was more spiritual than I anticipated'"

FAIR's longer list of David Whitmer statements as one of the Three Witnesses:

Quote

1831

• Whitmar’s [sic] description of the Book of Mormon, differs entirely from that given by Harris; both of whom it would seem have been of late permitted, not only to see and handle it, but to examine its contents. Whitmar relates that he was led by Smith into an open field, on his father’s farm near Waterloo, when they found the book lying on the ground; Smith took it up and requested him to examine it, which he did for the space of half an hour or more, when he returned it to Smith, who placed it in its former position, alledging that the book was in the custody of another, intimating that some Divine agent would have it in safe keeping.“Gold Bible, No. 6,” The Reflector (Palmyra, New York) 2, no. 16 (19 March 1831), 126–27. off-site
• "D[avid] Whitmer then arose and bore testimony to having seen an Holy Angel who had made known the truth of this record to him. [A]ll these strange things I pondered in my heart."^[1]

1872

• Elder J.J. Thayne returns from his mission. “He brought twenty-two persons back with him, [one of whom] is Mr. John Lefler, who, it will be remembered, inquired of Bishop Moon, while the latter was on his mission last year, concerning of the Book of Mormon, and to satisfy himself, he in company with Bro. Moon, visited Mr. David Whitmer, one of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, and heard him bear testimony that he saw the angel of God and heard him declare that the plates were a divine record”^[2]

1875

• I have frequently placed it [the seer stone] to my eyes but could see nothing through it. I have seen Joseph, however, place it to his eyes and instantly read signs 160 miles distant and tell exactly what was transpiring there. When I went to Harmony after him he told me the names of every hotel at which I had stopped on the road, read the signs, and described various scenes without having ever received any information from me.^[3]
• And no man can look at David Whitmer's face for a half-hour, while he charit[abl]y and modestly speaks of what he has seen, and then bodldly and earnestly confesses the faith that is in him, and say that he is a bigot or an enthusiast.^[4]
• My testimony to the world is written concerning the Book of Mormon, and it is the same that I gave at first and it is the same as shall stand to my latest hour in life, linger with me in death and shine as Gospel Truth beyond the limits of life, among the Tribunals of Heaven, and [that] the Nations of the Earth will have known to[o] late the divine truth written on teh pages of that book is the only sorrow of this servant of the Almighty Father.^[5]

1876

• I personally heard him [David Whitmer] state in Jan. 1876 in his own house...in most positive language, that he did truly see in broad day light, a bright, and most beautiful being, an 'Angel from Heaven," who did hold in his hands the golden plates, which he turned over leaf by leaf, explaining the contents, here and there. He also described the size and general appearance of the plates....^[6]
• My testimony to the Book of Mormon is true and I am admonished neither to add to nor take from my testimony already appended to the Book. And if I should do so must be extremely guarded under the risk of being misunderstood.^[7]

1877

• Bro. David please relate your feelings in regard to the testimony of yours in the Book of Mormon, and the origin of the gospel through Joseph Smith. "Well as I know that the sun shines, so do I know that I was plowing one forenoon and I heard a voice and saw a personage who said, 'Blessed is the Lord and he that keepeth his commandments,' and the very next round Bro Joseph [Smith] and Oliver [Cowdery] came along and said, 'Come David and be on of the witnesses of the Book of Mormon'. We walked through a clearing and all sat on a log. It was about 11 a.m., when a light appeared and it grew brighter until an angel stoo before us and on the appearance of a table was laid the plates, urim and thummim, ball or director, sword of lab, etc., and a voice declared and bore record of the truth of the translation turning the leaves over, and thus the vision ended."^[8]

1878

• Iwas plowing in my field, when I heard a voice saying, 'Blessed is the name of the Lord and those that keep his commandments.' After I had plowed one more round, the prophet and Oliver Cowdery came along, and said, 'Come and be one of the witnesses.' We passed through a clearing and sat on a log. While there, a light appeared, which grew brighter, until an angel stood before them with the paltes and other things. The angel turned the leaves so that we could see the engravings, etc. We then heard a voice, saying that those things were true and that the translation was correct. This was about 11 o'clock a.m."^[9]
• David Whitmer interviewed by P. Wilhelm Poulson:

I--Martin Harris...gave a testimony in Salt Lake City Tabernacle that he saw the plates by [the] faith and power of God. He--Martin Harris is correct....we saw it, and our testimony, which we give to the world, is true exactly as you read it, we saw by the gift and power of God. As we were praying the angel stood before us in his glory, and all those things were before us, as they were laid before us on a table, and we heard the testimony about hte plates, and we were commanded to bear that testimony to the world, and our testimony is true. And when the angel had finished his words, and shown us the paltes, one by one, which were to be translated, then the vision was closed at once, and exactly as it came even so did the sight disappear. I--But those things which you saw were material things, how could they come and vanish away again? He--It is the power of God. He does those things, and his angels know how to do it. It was wonderful to us, but it was by the power of God. He had appointed his angels to be the guardians of the plates and other things, and the angels knew how it was done. I--Did the eight witnesses not handle the plates as a material substance? He--We did not, but they did, because the faith of Joseph became so great that the angel, the guardian of the plates, gave the plates up to Joseph for a time, that those eight witnesses could see and handle them.^[10]

• David Whitmer interview by Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith:

Orson Pratt: "Do you remember what time you saw the plates?"

David Whitmer: "It was in June 1829, the very last part of the month, and the eight witnesses, I think, the next day. Joseph showed them the plates himself. We (the Three Witnesses) not only saw the plates of the book of Mormon, but the Brass Plates, the plates containing the record of the wickedness of the people of the world, and many other plates. THe fact is, it was just as though Joseph, Oliver and I were sitting right here on a log, when we were overshadowed by a light. It was not like the light of the sun, nor like that of a fire, but more glorious and beautiful. It extended away round us, I cannot tell how far, but in the midst of this light, immediately before us, about as far off as he sits (pointing to John C. Whitmer who was sitting 2 or 3 feet from him) there appeared, as it were, a table, with many records on it, besides the plates of the Book of Mormon; also the sword of Laban, the Directors (i.e. the ball which Lehi had) and the Interpreters. I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life declaring that they (the plates) were translated by the gift and power of God."^[11]

Orson Pratt: "Did you see the Angel at this time?"

David Whitmer: "Yes, he stood before us. Martin Harris was not with us at this time. I don't think he saw all that we did, but our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is strictly and absolutely true just as it is there written."^[12]

When the question was asked David Whitmer if he and the other witnesses did not subscribe their own names to the respective testimonies, he replied that they did. Then he was asked, :'Where are the original documents?' That he did not know, but supposed Oliver had copied them, but this was an exact copy. Someone suggested that he ought to certify to it, he being the only witness left, but the lawyer, Mr. David C. Whitmer, son of Jacob, thought he had better take time to reflect about it. [Whitmer had in his possession the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon copied mainly by Oliver Cowdery, not the Original Manuscript.]^[13]

1879

• "I have heard the same from the mouth of Father Whitmer, more than once; and every time I ever heard him tell the particulars of that glorious scene, he always told it just the same; and as far as I have ever heard, from reliable witnesses, he has always told the same story--"straight as a nail."^[14]
• As you read my testimony given many years ago, so it stands as my own existence; the same as when I gave it, and so shall stand throughout the cycles of eternity.^[15]

1881

It having been represented by one John Murphy of Polo Mo. that I in a conversation with him last Summer, denied my testimony as one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon.

To the end therefore, that he may understand me now if he did not then, and that the world may know the truth, I wish now standing as it were, in the very sunset of life, and in the fear of God, once for all to make this public Statement;

That I have never at any time, denied that testimony or any part thereof, which has so long been published with that book as one of the three witnesses.

Those who know me best, well know that I have adhered to that testimony.--

And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement[s], as then made and published.

He that hath an ear to hear, let him hear; It was no Delusion. What is written is written, and he that readeth let him understand.^[16]

• "Did you see the angel?"

"Yes; he stood before us [Whitmer, Joseph, and Oliver]. Our testimony as recorded in the Book of Mormon is absolutely true, just as it is written there."^[17]

• At that time Mr. Whitmer saw the tablet, gazed with awe on the celestial messenger, heard him speak and say: 'BLessed is the Lord and he that keeps His commandments;" and then, as he held the plates and turned them over with his hands, so that they could be plainly visible, a voice that seemed to fill all space, musical as the sighing of a wind through the forest, was heard, saying: "What you see is true: testify to the same." And Oliver Cowdrey and David Whitmer, standing there, felt, as the white garments of the angel faded from their vision and the heavenly voice still rang in their ears, that it was no delusion--that it was a fact; and they so recorded it. In a day or two after the same spirit appeared to Martin Harris while he was in company with Smith, and told him also to bear witness to its truth, which he did, as can be seen in the book. Harris described the visitant to Whitmer, who recognized it as the same that he and Cowdrey had seen.^[18]

1882

"I was plowing in the field one morning, and Joseph and Oliver came along with a revelation stating that I was to be one of the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. I got over the fence and we went out into the woods, near by, and sat down on a log and talked awhile. We then kneeled down and prayed. Joseph prayed. We then got up and sat on the log and were talking, when all at once a light came down from above us and encircled us for quite a little distance around; and the angel stood before us. He was dressed in white, and spoke and called me by name and said 'Blessed is he that keepeth His commandments.' This is all that I heard the angel say. A table was set before us and on it the records were placed....While we were viewing them the voice of God spoke out of heaven saying that the Book was true and the translation correct."

We then asked him, "Do you remember the peculiar sensation experienced upon that occasion?" He answered very slowly and definitely. "Yes; I remember it very distinctly; and I never think of it, from that day to this but what that same spirit is present with me." "How did you know it was the voice of God?" "We knew it was the voice of God. I knew it was the voice of God just as well as I knew any thing."^[19]

• We asked him if his testimony was the same now as it was at the time the Book of Mormon was published, regarding seeing the plates and the angel. He rose to his feet, stretched out his hands and said, "These hands handled the plates, these eyes saw the angel, and these ears heard his voice; and I know it was of God."

"That was the strongest testimony I ever heard, and I felt that he was telling the truth...."^[20]

• In answer to questions by the brethren he recited with graphic distinctness the scene in which he received the testimony he bore any years past and still bears to the Book of Mormon; and averred anew that the statement made by him as published in the book is true. No one who listens to him can doubt the sincerity and truthfulness of the man^[21]
• My testimony as published in connection with the Book of Mormon is true--And why Should men ask to know more in regard to all the particulars connected with that all Overshadowing truth--If they will not believe the three and 8 witnesses would they believe though one Should arise from the dead, testify to its truth again.^[22]

1883

• "I have been visited by thousands of people, believers and unbelievers, men and ladies of all degrees, sometimes as many as 15 in one day, and have never failed in my testimony. And they will know some day that my testimony is true....I heard the voice of the Angel just as stated in said Book, and the engravings on the plates were shown to us, and we were commanded to bear record of them; and if they are not true, then there is no truth, and if there is no truth there is no God; f there is no God then there is no existence. But there is a God, and I know it.

"When we were first told to publish our statement, we felt sure the people would not believe it, for the Book told of a people who were refined and dwelt in large cities; but the Lord told us that He would make it known to the people, and people should discover the ruins of the lost cities and abundant evidence of the truth of what is written in the Book."^[23]

• Persons may attempt to describe the presentation of the plates as shown to himself and other witnesses, but there was a glory attending it that no one could describe, no human tongue could tell the glorious scenes that were presented to them. Joseph Smith was there and Oliver Cowdery and himself--Martin Harris did not come as expected, but they were shown to him a short time after."^[24]

1884

• David Whitmer's response when asked if he "had been mistaken and had simply been moved upon by some mental disturbance, or hallucination, which had deceived them into thinking he saw the Personage, the Angel, the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the sword of Laban."

Whitmer was interviewed by Joseph Smith III, in the presence of others, not all of whom were disposed to believe his account. Significantly, he listed several items that he had seen, besides the golden plates:

Rather suggestively [Colonel Giles] asked if it might not have been possible that he, Mr. Whitmer, had been mistaken and had simply been moved upon by some mental disturbance, or hallucination, which had deceived them into thinking he saw the Personage, the Angel, the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the sword of Laban. How well and distinctly I remember the manner in which Elder Whitmer arose and drew himself up to his full height—a little over six feet—and said, in solemn and impressive tones: "No, sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!"^[25]

• I saw the angel as plainly as I see you; he was surrounded by the glory of God, which overshadowed us, and we heard his voice, and we saw the records of the Book of Mormon...My testimony is the same as at the beginning, as is true.^[26]
• "Mr Whitmer felt very indignant while speaking of certain statements published recently to the effect that he and Oliver Cowdery had denied their statement as published in the Book of Mormon. This he denounced as false in every particular. He said: "Oliver never wavered in his testimony, and when he was on his death bed, I was there, with many of his friends, until he passed away. He bore the same testimony on his dying bed thathe had always borne through life, and earnestly called upon all to cleave to the truth revealed through the Prophet Joseph, and to serve the Lord. As for myself, I have never denied my testimony that is published in the Book of Mormon, for I know that God has revealed these things for the salvation of the children of men, and to Him belongs all the honor, the power and the glory."^[27]
• He was plowing when Joseph and Oliver came to him and the former told him that he was chosen to be one of the three witnesses to whom the angel would show the plates. He also told him that the Lord had promised to make this manifest and now was the time.

They went out and sat upon a log conversing upon the things to be revealed when they were surrounded by a glorious light which overshadowed them. A glorious personage appeared and he showed to them the plates....Human language could not, he said, describe heavenly things and that which they saw. The language of the angel was: Blessed is he taht believed and remaineth faitful to the end. He had his hours of darkness and trial and difficulty, but however dark upon other things[,] that had ever been a bright scene in his mind and he had never wavered in regard to it; he had testified fearlessly always of it, even when his life was threatened. Martin Harris was not with them at the time that he and Oliver saw the angel, but he and Joseph afterwards saw the same, and he thus became a witness also.^[28]

• In June, 1829, [when] I [David Whitmer] saw the angel by the power of God, Joseph, Oliver and I were alone, and a light from heaven shone round us, and solemnity pervaded our minds. The angel appeared in the light, as near as that young man. [Within five or six feet - note in original] Between us and the angel there appeared a table, and there lay upon it the sword of Laban, the Ball of [sic] Directors, the REcord, and Interpreters. The angel took the Record, and turned the leaves, and showed it to us by the power of God....My testimony in the Book of Mormon is true; I can't deviate from it.^[29]
• Mr. Whitmer on being asked if he saw the angel, as stated in some accuonts, opened the book and pointing to a section said, "there is my testimony. Read it; that tells all that is necessary for me to say about it. That contains the solemn testimony of myself and the other persons named."^[30]
• I saw this apparition [the angel] myself and gazed with awe on the celestial messenger and heard him say, "Blessed is the Lord and he that keeps his commandments." Then, as he held the plates and turned them over with his hands so that we could see them plainly, a voice that seemed to fill all space was heard, saying: 'What you see is true. Testify to the same." Oliver Cowdrey and I, standing there, felt, as the white garments of the angel faded from view, that we had received a message from God, and we have so recorded it. Two or three days later the same angel appeared to Martin Harris while he was in company with [Joseph] Smith, and placed the same injunction upon him. He described the sight and his sensations to me, and they corresponded exactly with what I had seen and heard.^[31]
• I did see the angel of God, and was commanded to testify of these things, and they are true.^[32]
• Mr. Whitmer turned his large, kind, but penetrating eyes upon me and, in a very pleasant and considerate, but firm and steady voice said: 'Read the printed testimony of the three witnesses, which you will find on one of the front pages of the Book of Mormon--and I say to you that every word of it is true.^[33]

1886

• Now, as eight years ago, he [Whitmer] says "As I live and stand upon the earth so sure did I see the angel who stood before us. While we were sitting upon a log (that is Joseph and I and Oliver Cowdery) we were talking when a bright light began to shine around us. It grew bright and brighter until an angel stood before us. A table [was] in front of him on which was the [gold] plates and the other plates, the sword of Laban, ball or compass, etc. The plates were shown [to] us [and the] leaves turned over. A portion of them were sealed. We also heard a voice commanding us to bear a testimony of these things to the world....^[34]
• I asked him if the table, which the angel brought, and upon which the plates lay when he viewed them was a tangible one, and he said that he did not touch it, it had the semblance of a table. The then ex=plained that he saw the plates and with his natural eyes, but he had to be prepared for it--that he and the other witnesses were overshadowed by the power of God and a halo of brightness indescribable.^[35]

1887

• David bore his testimony of standing in the presence of the angel....

David said to Mrs S[tevenson], "My testimony as found in the Book of Mormon is verily true and I cannot deny it." "I know," he said, "that the Book of Mormon is as true as the Bible." He relates seeing a messenger while plowing who said "Blessed is the name of the Lord and thehy who keep his Commandments." Soon after Joseph Smith and O[liver] Cowdery came along. David tied his team to the fence. The three were about 40 rods from his father's. While sitting on a log and angel appeared in the midst of a brightness that preceeded him. ON a table in front of him was the ball or compass...sword of Laban, Urim and Thummim or INterpreters. Also the plates, which was shown to them and they were commanded to bear testimony of these things, and he said as he lived those things were true. He fired up with zeal."^[36]

• In June, 1829, the Lord called Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and myself as the three witnesses, to behold the vision of the Angel, as recorded in the fore part of the Book of Mormon, and to bear testimony to the world that the Book of Mormon is true. I was not called to bear testimony to the mission of Brother Joseph Smith any farther than his work of translating the Book of Mormon, as you can see by reading the testimony of us three witnesses.^[37]
• [O]f course [I] would tell you about my vision of the Angel. You ask me if I saw the Angel when he brought the plates. I saw the angel when he brought the plates, and the Angel told us that we must bear testimony to the world, as contained in my testimony written int he Book of Mormon. Doubt not--sister--the Book of Mormon is the Word of God.^[38]
• I did see the Angel as it is recorded in my testimony in the Book of Mormon. The Book is true (emphasis in original).^[39]

1888

• In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it "being in vision." We read in the Scriptures, Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God, Daniel saw an angel in a vision, also in other places it states they saw an angel in the spirit. A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled [the woods as] at noon day, and there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon.^[40]
• He [David Whitmer] stated that the Book of Mormon was true, that his statement in connection with that of Oliver COwdery and Martin Harris was strictly correct, he had nothing to add to it, nor to diminish from it.^[41]

?Date

• During our interview, Mr. Whitmer reiterated his testimony as given at the beginning of the Book of Mormon, saying that all he testified to there was true; that he had seen the plates and the Heavenly messenger, as he had stated.^[42]
• Throughout Richmond, Missouri, the non-Mormons knew David Whitmer as an honest and trustworthy citizen. When one anti-Mormon lectured in David’s hometown, branding David as disreputable, the local (non-Mormon) paper responded with “a spirited front-page editorial unsympathetic with Mormonism but insistent on ‘the forty six years of private citizenship on the part of David Whitmer, in Richmond, without stain or blemish.’”^[43]
• ...The following year the editor penned a tribute on the eightieth birthday of David Whitmer, who “with no regrets for the past” still “reiterates that he saw the glory of the angel.”

This is the critical issue of the life of David Whitmer. During fifty years in non-Mormon society, he insisted with the fervor of his youth that he knew that the Book of Mormon was divinely revealed. Relatively few people in Richmond could wholly accept such testimony, but none doubted his intelligence or complete honesty.^[44]

• When another anti-Mormon published an article claiming that David had denied his testimony, David printed a “proclamation” testifying to the truth of the Book of Mormon and reiterating the fact that he had never denied that testimony. He wrote:

It is recorded in the American Cyclopedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica, that I, David Whitmer, have denied my testimony as one of the Three Witnesses to the divinity of the Book of Mormon: and that the two other witnesses, Oliver Cowdery and Martin Harris, denied their testimony to that book. I will say once more to all mankind, that I have never at any time denied that testimony or any part thereof. I also testify to the world, that neither Oliver Cowdery nor Martin Harris ever at any time denied their testimony. They both died affirming the truth of the divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon.^[45]

• Apostate William E. McLellin wrote:

I saw him [David Whitmer] June 1879, and heard him bear his solemn testimony to the truth of the book—as sincerely and solemnly as when he bore it to me in Paris, Ill. in July 1831.^[46]

• Following Whitmer's death the Richmond Conservator wrote:

On Sunday evening before his death he called the family and his attending physician, Dr. George W. Buchanan, to his bedside and said, “Doctor do you consider that I am in my right mind?” to which the Doctor replied, “Yes, you are in your right mind, I have just had a conversation with you.” He then addressed himself to all present and said: “I want to give my dying testimony. You must be faithful in Christ. I want to say to you all that the Bible and the record of the Nephites, (The Book of Mormon) are true, so you can say that you have heard me bear my testimony on my death bed....

On Monday morning he again called those present to his bedside, and told them that he had seen another vision which reconfirmed the divinity of the “Book of Mormon,” and said that he had seen Christ in the fullness of his glory and majesty, sitting upon his great white throne in heaven waiting to receive his children.^[47]

• The Richmond Democrat also added this comment:

Skeptics may laugh and scoff if they will, but no man can listen to Mr. Whitmer as he talks of his interview with the Angel of the Lord, without being most forcibly convinced that he has heard an honest man tell what he honestly believes to be true.^[48]

• After talking as he did, so fully and freely he said "I have been asked if we saw those things with our natural eyes. Of course they were our natural eyes There is no doubt that our eyes were prepared for the sight, but they were our natural eyes nevertheless."

I asked him if the table was a tangible one, and he said it appeared to be, but they did not touch it.^[49]

• The thing which impressed me most of all was, as we stood beside the grave of Oliver Cowdery the other Witness, who had come back into the Church before his death, and [David Whitmer] in describing Oliver[']s action, when bearing his testimony, said to the people in his room, placing his hands like this upon his head, saying 'I know teh Gospel to be true and upon this head has Peter[,] James and John laid their hands and confer[r]ed the Holy Melchisedic Priesthood.' ^[50]
• When Martin Harris came back to them [Joseph, Oliver, and David Whitmer], they knew he had also seen the angel, because his face was radiant and he declared he had received the testimony. David Whitmer told me they knew he had also seen the vision which they had, because he explained what they had themselves seen.^[51]

Biography of David Whitmer: https://witnessesofthebookofmormon.org/three-witnesses/david-whitmer/biography/

Wikipedia Entry on David Whitmer: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Whitmer

See also Richard Lloyd Anderson's book.

Roger, it is unserious for you to utterly refuse to engage the foregoing statements and evidences and then, apparently with a straight face, declare that "we have very, very little reliable evidence of what the witnesses really saw and why they signed the witness statements."

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

Again, this dearth of evidence

There are mounds of evidence.  You are refusing to address these mounds.  You whistle past them.  You sing and dance around them.  You ignore them.  You refuse to answer questions about them.  And then you declare that we have a "dearth of evidence."

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

is because Joseph Smith curated it that way.

The Three Witnesses: David Whitmer, Martin Harris, Oliver Cowdery

We have tons of information about these men, including their official statements and subsequent statements (even after all three were estranged from Joseph), and yet you claim there is a "death of evidence."

If Joseph "curated it that way," then how do you account for their failure/refusal to recant?  Please give extra time and attention to your explanation for David Whitmer.  And please marshal evidence for your explanation.

The Eight Witnesses: Christian Whitmer, Jacob Whitmer, Peter Whitmer, Jr., John Whitmer, Hiram Page, Joseph Smith, Sen., Hyrum Smith, Samuel H. Smith

If Joseph "curated it that way," then how do you account for their failure/refusal to recant (particularly those who became estranged from Joseph)?  Please marshal evidence for your explanation.

The "Unofficial" Witnesses: Emma Hale Smith, Mary Musselman Whitmer, Katharine Smith Salisbury, Lucy Mack Smith, Sally Parker, William B. Smith, John C. Whitmer and Josiah Stowell

How did Joseph "curate" the experiences of these people (I'm really looking forward to you explaining Joseph's purported curating of Mary's experience)?  Please marshal evidence for your explanation.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

With little evidence the best we can do is speculate or say "I don't know."

No, that's the best you are willing to do.

We can examine the evidence for the above witnesses.  We can examine their statements and compare/contrast them with each other.  We can examine the circumstances surrounding their interactions with the Plates.  We can examine the biographical information we have about these people so as to gauge their credibility and character (which we notably can't due for Suetonius, whose gossipy, non-percipient, uncorroborated, unsourced, 165-years-after-the-fact Say-So you nevertheless accept without question).

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

This is honesty and epistemic humility.

Mighty selective in when and where you deploy this "honesty and epistemic humility."  It apparently keeps you from postulating about Joseph's narrative, but not from a "Space Aliens and/or Satan are 'More Likely'"-style assessment.

Suetonius presents a gossipy, non-percipient, uncorroborated, unsourced, 165-years-after-the-fact Say-So, and your response is to examine it, contextualize it, and accept its veracity as established.  I that's good, since we can only work with what we've got.  "Honesty and epistemic humility" allows us to examine historical evidence after all.

But only about Caesar, it seems.

We have David Whitmer and numerous percipient witnesses (and several second- and third-hand witnesses), who gave official and unofficial statements, both near-in-time to the events and later in their lifetimes (including when several were estranged from Joseph), whose statements have no real provenance issues, and about whom we have substantial biographical information as to their character and credibility, and your response is "we have very, very little reliable evidence of what the witnesses really saw and why they signed the witness statements," and that we have "a dearth of evidence" which precludes us from any substantive examination, so that "the best we can do is speculate or say 'I don't know,'" and that this amounts to "honesty and epistemic humility."

I think it amounts to a massive dodge and cop-out on your part.

I think you are one of the most well-versed critics of the Church.  You are lightyears ahead, in both information and intellect, of lightweights like Dehlin and Reel and anonymous online RFMers and ExMo redditors.  With some few exceptions (Sandra Tanner, Dan Vogel, maybe a few others), I think you are at or near the top of the Anti-Mormon heap.  You are the best situated to be a resource for someone to approach with a request for a positive, coherent alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon, centering on evidence about the Plates, the Witnesses and the Text, and which explanation accounts for key data points without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

And you won't do it.

Latter-day Saint scholars have brought the receipts.  They are willing to examine evidences you deny even exist, despite their historical provenance being beyond reasonable dispute.  They have published voluminous resources and made them readily available to the world.  

You are not willing to examine these same evidences, claiming that "honesty and epistemic humility" prevents you from even trying (except, it seems, for "Space Aliens" and "Satan," which you are willing to publicly declare to be "more likely" explanations).

Well, okay.  

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

But just because we don't know the specifics of these questions doesn't mean we can't be confident that it is of 19th century American origin.

The Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick.  Again.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

The evidence for that is abundant.

So "abundant" you don't even need to marshal or explain it.  It's just there.

And no need to address countervailing evidence.  

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

If this were in a courtroom,

A courtroom in which the corpses of David Whitmer and the other witnesses have been exhumed and carted in and propped up?

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

I'd make a motion that the witness testimonies be excluded from evidence,

Would the lawsuit be in state or federal court?  If state, which state?

What causes of action would be in play?

Who would the parties be?  The plaintiff(s)?  The defendant(s)?

What would the causes of action be?

How would you address the Ecclesiastical Abstention Doctrine?  Statute of limitations?  Laches?

Would you bring up your "Space Aliens or Satan" proposal as a "more likely" theory of the case?

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

and in all likelihood the judge would grant my motion.

The Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick.  Again.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

My position is that the curated evidence is intrinsically flawed because of how it was curated.

You haven't examined the evidence in any meaningful or substantive sense.

You have been more curious and forthcoming and explanatory about Suetonius, whose gossipy, non-percipient, uncorroborated, unsourced, 165-years-after-the-fact Say-So you accept as established, than you have about the 19th century witnesses listed above.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

I could argue strenuously and convincingly as to why we should be confident that it is of 19th century origin.

You say you could, and I truly wish you would, but you aren't, and I suspect you won't.

I am giving you every opportunity to lay out a positive, coherent alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon, centering on evidence about the Plates, the Witnesses and the Text, and which explanation accounts for key data points without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

And you are not doing it.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

And I'm agnostic about your specific questions about how it was produced.

The "anything but that" approach.

Except for Space Aliens and/or Satan/Demons, about which you are not agnostic, as you said these are "more likely" explanations.  You can trot out Bayesian analysis and come up with Space Aliens as an explanation, but you can't bring yourself to examine, say, David Whitmer's statements and biographical information about him.  Why is that?

Again, the Anti-Mormons have nothing to offer.  When the chips are down, we get a steadfast refusal to address substantial evidences, a song-and-dance routine about "epistemic humility" (though, somehow, Suetonius is trustworthy), and concluding with "I don't know" and "I'm agnostic."

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

Being agnostic

Funny that you characterize yourself as "agnostic."  That term generally refers to the philosophical view that the existence of God, the divine, or the supernatural is unknown and inherently unknowable due to a lack of empirical evidence.

Here, we have all sorts of evidence that can be empirically analyzed.  

It's not that you lack evidence, but rather you lack the willingness to examine it.

You are keeping yourself intentionally "agnostic" about the foundational truth claims of the religion you have spent decades speaking against. 

I find your incuriosity to be deliberate. 

And I am drawing some inferences about your deliberate incuriosity. 

I would prefer that you disabuse me of those inferences by lay out a positive, coherent alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon, centering on evidence about the Plates, the Witnesses and the Text, and which explanation accounts for key data points without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.  But you won't do it.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

about that doesn't diminish or negate the fact that we have extremely strong evidence that it is of 19th century origin and is not an authentic translation of an authentic ancient manuscript.

The Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick.  Again.

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 13 by smac97

[Analytics]

14 hours ago, smac97 said:

I was in a hearing yesterday.  It was on two competing motions for summary judgment.  It's a contract dispute (a commercial lease).  A central issue was whether my client (the former tenant) is obligated to re-pay real estate broker commissions totaling about $100,000 (as contemplated in the lease, which my client broke). 

I presented evidence to the judge that the tenant which preceded my client in the tenancy paid those commissions to the landlord as part of a settlement deal which allowed it (the tenant) to break the lease early.  The evidence was A) images of two checks (produced by the landlord) for the commissions (the authenticity of which was not in dispute), and B) the landlord's deposition testimony in which he admitted - apparently accidentally - that the previous tenant's settlement payment included payment of the broker commissions.  He even spelled out the names of the two brokerages who were paid from the settlement amount (which names matched the payees on the checks).  And he recited the amounts, which added up to the amounts from the two checks.  Later in the deposition (curiously, after a break in which the Zoom session was shut down, thus allowing the landlord time to speak with his attorney), the landlord reversed himself 180 degrees and declared that the previous tenant's settlement amount did not include the brokerage commissions.

My argument was both factual (the two checks, the landlord's testimony) and legal (U.S. law disallows "double recovery" of a loss).  The legal argument being damning and beyond dispute, the landlord's attorney had no choice but to address the factual underpinnings of my argument (that the broker commissions had already been paid).  He's a good lawyer (I've litigated against him before), and he's bound by ethical standards (including "candor toward the tribunal"), so he couldn't actually lie about the facts of the case.  But neither could he meaningfully rebut the evidence I had marshaled.  It was, after all, his own client who had produced the checks and then testified about the payout from the prior tenant.

So what could he do?  He prevaricated.  A lot.  A lot.  He danced around the evidentiary issues I had presented, neither rebutting nor acknowledging them.  He did not address them in any real sense.  He instead spoke at length on how my client had broken the lease early, and how this was a bad thing, and that we had not obtained an affidavit from the prior tenant, and that "amortization" is a word so obviously self-descriptive that it did not need to be defined in the lease, and on and on.

Again, I have litigated against this attorney a few times before, and have always been impressed with his legal acumen, his reasoning, his writing and oratorical skills, and so on.  But yesterday he had to deal the hand that was dealt to him, and it did not come across well.  By refusing to address the substantive evidentiary arguments, and by repeatedly prevaricating instead, I think that he ended up confirming and bolstering  - in the mind of the judge - both my factual arguments and the legal conclusions based thereon.  Not because I am smarter than the other attorney, but rather because I was engaging and addressing and marshaling the evidence, and he was not.

I'm having similar vibes in this thread with you, Roger.  I don't claim to be smarter than you.  in fact, I suspect that your intellect, overall, surpasses mine.  But you really are not acquitting yourself well here.  I am moving heaven and earth to clear the way, to let you have center stage, to invite you to lay out your assessment of the evidence pertaining to the Plates, the Witnesses and/or the Text of The Book of Mormon.  I would like to here more than just broad conclusory declarations.  I would like to see you present a positive, coherent alternative explanation that accounts for the key data points (physical plates, witness statements, text origins/translation process) without heavy speculation, while also adhering to empirical, evidence-based rigor.

I would really like to hear what the best of the Anti-Mormons have to say about the foundational components of the Restored Gospel.  How 'bout it?  Can we start with the Plates or with Richard Lloyd Anderson's treatment of the Witnesses?

Your story about the deposition reminds me of a couple of professional experiences I've had. Since you keep making this about me, I'll tell you where I'm coming from. 

Less than 10 years ago, a Dow-Jones 30 company announced that it was reviewing its actuarial assumptions for a particular block of insurance on its books. Wall Street freaked out--according to the company's SEC and GAAP filings over the years, they had no idea this company was in this particular business. Six months later, they announced that they were going to increase the reserves for this block by 18 billion dollars and dramatically reduce the company's dividends. The market cap of the company fell by over $90 billion. Subsequently there was a high profile SEC investigation and a massive class action lawsuit by the stockholders against the company.

This particular insurance product was relatively niche, and there were a grand total of about 4 top-tier consulting firms that could provide a suitable expert witness for this, and all of those firms had done consulting or auditing for this firm, so they were conflicted out. Basically all of the high-profile independent consultants had done consulting for this company, too. So they were all conflicted out. The plaintiffs and defendants were scrambling to find independent expert witnesses who were qualified for this and didn't have conflicts of interest, and they got so desperate they actually called me. I had my choice, and chose to pursue the gig with the defendants. Over a couple of days my resume was scrutinized at multiple levels and I had multiple phone interviews with expert recruitment agencies and lawyers, and I was acing it. One of the recruiters said I only gave one answer to the attorneys that raised an issue--my billable rate was way too low.

The company being sued was sparing now expense on their legal representation and was represented by a giant team of outside counsel, mainly from Latham Watkins and Gibson Dunn. A couple days later, I found myself sitting at the end of a huge boardroom table in the lavish offices of Gibson Dunn, high over midtown manhattan. About a dozen attorneys grilled me for nearly 3 hours. I had never been an expert witness before and didn't know the ins out of the game. At all. I had no idea what a Daubert motion was. I didn't understand the nuances of the difference between being an expert witness and a fact witness. I didn't understand the fine line between discoverable communications and privileged communication when experts are talking to their clients. By the end of the conversation I felt like I was buddies with a couple of the most elite litigators in the country, and I had successfully proven that I really knew my stuff. But they didn't select me for the gig for some other reasons. I was too eager to speculate about things I didn't know. They determined that I was susceptible to being manipulated by skilled attorney asking me questions in a cross examination or deposition. They determined I was biased. And they determined that the other side could have me disqualified as an expert witness by calling me as a fact witness to testify about what I'd heard about this company.

That day was a very, very expensive education for me.

What your deposition reminded me of is something that happened to me 7 years later. I found myself being deposed as an expert in another billion-dollar lawsuit. Lightly paraphrasing, the conversation went like this:

Q: I think it's fair to say that what you've been thinking about and what your opinion goes to regarding aggregate calculations, and you haven't thought about these individual scenarios that I've been asking you about, nor have you thought about how the aggregate damages number would actually be apportioned to specific individuals; is that right?

Attorney: Form.

A: You asked two questions there together. Can you ask them one at a time?

Q: Actually, we've been going for about an hour and 15 minutes. Do you mind taking a break for 10 minutes?

A: I'm not an attorney but as I understand it, I need to answer the question that's on the table before we take a break. 

Q: I withdraw the question.

Videographer: This will mark the end of Media No. 4. We will go off the record, the time is 3:29 p.m.

I thought that exchange was hilarious. I'm still a novice testifying, but I feel like I'm getting a lot better at understanding the nuances.

While I'm certainly not an expert in any of this, least of all in linguistics, I still try to answer questions the way I would if I were an expert. Like an expert, I don't personally have anything to lose or gain if you prove what you are trying to prove. I really am trying to answer your questions clearly and directly.

So I'll play ball. Here are your questions.

Q: Who was involved with the production of the Plates?  Just Joseph?  

A: I don't know.

Q: If others were involved, who were they?  Why were they involved?  What did they stand to gain? 

A: I don't know.

Q: Were these others pulling Joseph's strings, or vice versa?  If the former, why did none of them ever come forward?  If the latter, how was he persuaded to spin a fantastic yarn as to the Plates' origins, and then keep to that yarn even when his life was at stake? 

A: I don't know.

Q: Was Joseph deluded or conniving?  If deluded, then how did her persuade so many others to join him in his delusion, including the several Witnesses who were later estranged from him and yet stuck to their testimonies?  If conniving, how do you account for his personal writings in the many years subsequent, which to my mind are altogether indicative of someone who sincerely believed that what he was saying was real and authentic?

A: I don't know. Would you like me to speculate?

Q: What are the particulars of the production process for the sham artifact?  When?  Where?  How?  What materials?  

A: I don't know.

Q: Do you favor the Painted Tin / Joseph Working Alone theory espoused by Vogel? 

A: I don't have an opinion on that.

Q: If something else was involved, what are the particulars?  Who did what?  Where was the work done?  The smithy?  The tools?  The materials?  Between when and when?  By what means?  Who procured the materials?  Who had the metallurgical skills?  

A: I don't know.

Q: If painted tin, was the prop a sloppy, cobbled-together joke (per Vogel, as he posits that Joseph obscured the Plates in darkness or under a cloth because they would not stand up to close examination)? 

A: I don't know.

Q: How do you deal with the Eight Witnesses?  Were all eight just really dumb?  They all handled the Plates (literally with their "hands"), hefted them, saw them as having "the appearance of gold," and "saw the engravings" on the Plates, and viewed them as having "the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship."  So the Eight Witnesses were familiar with common tin, but they did not recognize the prop - as Vogel would have us believe - as being made of tin?  And they spent the rest of their lives - including those who fell out with Joseph - attesting to what they had seen, with nary a one of them saying "Hey, in hindsight I think the Plates were just made of tin and painted yellow"?  How do you account for that?

A: I don't trust the testimony of the eight witnesses because it is part of the curated evidence package that Joseph Smith chose to present in lieu of presenting the evidence that was in his possession that would have conclusively settled the matter.

Q: Alternatively, do you think the prop was a really sophisticated and well-crafted sham?  That could explain how he tricked the Witnesses, but then how did Joseph make it?  Or did someone else more skilled make it?  If so, whom, under what conditions, for what purpose, etc.?  And why was the sham never discovered?  Who stood to gain by taking the secrets of such a fantastic hoax to the grave?

A: I don't know. Would you like me to speculate?

Q: Most important of all: What actual evidence do you have to marshal support your alternative explanation as to these matters?

A: I don't have an alternative explanation to these matters. This is because there isn't enough evidence to know exactly what happened. Joseph Smith had in his possession a package of evidence that would have conclusively answered these questions. He chose not to provide the world with this evidence, and instead gave us the problematic evidence that he did.

This isn't prevarication. It is transparent, forthright honesty. 

Notice that the reason I can't answer most of these questions is not because I haven't thought about them. It's because Joseph Smith had in his possession the one piece of evidence that would have answered all of them — and he chose to conceal it from our consideration. Every one of your unanswerable questions is unanswerable by his design.

 

[Ryan Dahle]

33 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Notice that the reason I can't answer most of these questions is not because I haven't thought about them. It's because Joseph Smith had in his possession the one piece of evidence that would have answered all of them — and he chose to conceal it from our consideration. Every one of your unanswerable questions is unanswerable by his design.

This is remarkable. Your countertheory is admittedly non-existent. Instead, everything rests on your mere ASSUMPTION that if Smith had definitive proof he would have given it. This, of course, rests on the further assumption that if Smith was telling the truth, God would have wanted/allowed Smith to give us definitive proof. Which rests on the further assumption that if a divine being like God existed, you would have special insight as to what degree of evidence he would prefer to give to human beings about his existence and intervention in the world.

In other words, in your view, essentially all of the evidence pertaining to the witnesses is irrelevant because of your assumptions about divine hiddenness. This is a truly striking admission, since it is hard to imagine what evidence you might provide to support this set of assumptions. Joseph Smith at least has witnesses and a host of other types of evidence to back up his claims about God's nature and intention. What evidence do you have that gives you special insight into how much evidence God would prefer to give human beings in various contexts?

Edited March 13 by Ryan Dahle

[Analytics]

20 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Well, your constant prevarication and failure/refusal to address the evidence is making things difficult...

It looks like I was making a second reply to what you said above while you were writing this post.

Please let me know if you really want me to talk about the evidence we have for Caesar's assassination. There is a reason why, as far as I know, exactly 100% of historians believe Caesar existed and was assassinated on the senate floor. 

In one of the quotes you provided, David Whitmer said, "there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon."

I take him at his word; he had a religious experience. It isn't the least bit obvious to me that the thing he saw "in a vision or in the spirit" was a physical object. This doesn't tell us anything about the nature and provenance of the physical object that Joseph Smith showed to the eight witnesses, and it doesn't change the fact that we can be confident that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century American fiction.

It's clear that I frame these issues differently than you do. I frame them the way I do because I believe it is the most logically coherent way to do so. It isn't prevarication. 

But I'll tell you what. If you give me a list of questions, I'll answer them honestly and directly, just like I did in my prior post. 

 

[Ryan Dahle]

21 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Please let me know if you really want me to talk about the evidence we have for Caesar's assassination. There is a reason why, as far as I know, exactly 100% of historians believe Caesar existed and was assassinated on the senate floor.

But we have to understand that historians often have limited types of evidence to work with. And even when that evidence isn't exceptionally strong, they will tend run with the available data to provide a best working theory of what happened in the past. The truth is that many consensus viewpoints among historians are actually not based on strong or conclusive evidence. They are just based on the best explanation of the limited available evidence. I have no special knowledge about Ceasar's assassination. But I do know that your appeal to consensus may not be a valid counterpoint in this context. You would have to actually look at the evidence itself, and then compare it to the evidence available for Joseph Smith's claims. 

Edited March 13 by Ryan Dahle

[Analytics]

10 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

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. 

You are cherry-picking what evidence you label as being "unlikely" vs not being unlikely. It is unlikely that a book would begin with the exact phrase, "I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents." We it's vanishingly unlikely that any book will began than way because out of the millions of books that have been written, only about one starts that way.That is the data.

You're right that it isn't evidence of anything, but you are wrong about the nuance as to why. It isn't evidence of anything because from an a priori basis, it is equally as unlikely under the "genuine" theory as it is under the "fake" theory. That equal unlikeliness under both theories is why it isn't evidence for or against being genuine.

And that is a hill I will die on.

Understanding this nuance matters. That's because while I readily grant that the specific language in the Book of Mormon is unlikely under the "fake" theory, I'm claiming it is also unlikely under the "genuine" theory. The hits for EModE are certainly interesting and even unlikely, but on an a priori basis, the "authentic" theory doesn't predict that the language would be in a hodgepodge of EModE mingled with other English dialects that would all be perfectly understandable to Joseph Smith. Claiming that Joseph Smith *understands* this hodgepodge of language from different eras but couldn't articulate it is mere assertion on your part, and just isn't persuasive.

You say your candidate author has the capacity to produce this language. I agree: God can do anything. But capacity isn't prediction. Your theory doesn't predict sporadic EModE mixed with 19th-century English any more than it predicts flawless classical Hebrew or perfect King James English or modern American English. The fact that your theory can accommodate the data after seeing it is not the same as your theory predicting the data before seeing it. That's the distinction I keep making, and it's the distinction that keeps getting collapsed.

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It looks like I was making a second reply to what you said above while you were writing this post.

Please let me know if you really want me to talk about the evidence we have for Caesar's assassination.

Not really.  I'd like you to present a a positive, coherent alternative explanation for the Book of Mormon, centering on evidence about the Plates, the Witnesses and the Text, and which explanation accounts for key data points without heavy speculation, while claiming empirical rigor.

Suetonius may be useful in the discussion, but really only as a contrast for David Whitmer et al.  So far Suetonius has exposed a spectacular double standard you have when examining evidence.  You rely on Suetonius as an evidentiary source in ways you categorically reject when applied to the Witnesses.  You don't explain why you are doing this.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

There is a reason why, as far as I know, exactly 100% of historians believe Caesar existed and was assassinated on the senate floor. 

Yes, that is that reason?  Please articulate it.  Please be specific. 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

In one of the quotes you provided, David Whitmer said, "there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon."

Yes.  So lay out your reasoning.  Why are you lending credibility and probative weight to this statement?  Please be specific.

I have also provided dozens and dozens of other quotes as well.  Including this (emphases added) :

• "In regards to my testimony to the visitation of the angel, who declared to us three witnesses that the Book of Mormon is true, I have this to say: Of course we were in the spirit when we had the view, for no man can behold the face of an angel, except in a spiritual view, but we were in the body also, and everything was as natural to us, as it is at any time. Martin Harris, you say, called it 'being in vision.' We read in the Scriptures, Cornelius saw, in a vision, an angel of God, Daniel saw an angel in a vision, also in other places it states they saw an angel in the spirit. A bright light enveloped us where we were, that filled [the woods as] at noon day, and there in a vision or in the spirit, we saw and heard just as it is stated in my testimony in the Book of Mormon."

I assume you are not lending credibility and probative weight to this statement.  If so, please explain why.  Please be specific.

• “My testimony to the world is written concerning the Book of Mormon, and it is the same that I gave at first and it is the same as shall stand to my latest hour in life, linger with me in death and shine as Gospel Truth beyond the limits of life.”
• “My testimony to the Book of Mormon is true and I am admonished neither to add to nor take from my testimony already appended to the Book.”
• “Those who know me best, well know that I have adhered to that testimony.—And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement[s], as then made and published.”
• “I did see the angel of God, and was commanded to testify of these things, and they are true.”
• “You ask me if I saw the Angel when he brought the plates. I saw the Angel when he brought the plates, and the Angel told us that we must bear testimony to the world, as contained in my testimony written in the Book of Mormon. Doubt not—sister—the Book of Mormon is the word of God.”
• "I saw the angel as plainly as I see you; he was surrounded by the glory of God, which overshadowed us, and we heard his voice, and we saw the records of the Book of Mormon...My testimony is the same as at the beginning, as is true."
• "I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life declaring that they (the plates) were translated by the gift and power of God."
• "How well and distinctly I remember the manner in which Elder Whitmer arose and drew himself up to his full height--a little over six feet--and said, in solemn and impressive tones: 'No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!'"

I assume you are not lending credibility and probative weight to this statement.  If so, please explain why.  Please be specific.

Again, I am looking for empirical rigor. 

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I take him at his word; he had a religious experience.

Okay.  Do you also "take him at his word when he said these things?

• "I have adhered to that testimony.—And that no man may be misled or doubt my present views in regard to the same, I do now again affirm the truth of all my statement[s], as then made and published."
• "I saw the angel as plainly as I see you..."
• "'I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life.'"
• "'No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!'"

I assume you do not "take him at his word" here.  If so, please explain, and please be specific. 

When do you take Whitmer "at his word," and when do you not?  By what reckoning do you differentiate which of his statements you accept as accurate and which statements you do not accept as accurate?

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It isn't the least bit obvious to me that the thing he saw "in a vision or in the spirit" was a physical object.

How do you account for these statements?

• "I saw the angel as plainly as I see you..."
• "'I saw them just as plain as I see this bed (striking his hand upon the bed beside him), and I heard the voice of the Lord as distinctly as I ever heard anything in my life.'"
• "'No sir! I was not under any hallucination, nor was I deceived! I saw with these eyes, and I heard with these ears! I know whereof I speak!'"

Please be specific.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

This doesn't tell us anything about the nature and provenance of the physical object that Joseph Smith showed to the eight witnesses, and it doesn't change the fact that we can be confident that the Book of Mormon is 19th-century American fiction.

The Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick.  Again.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It's clear that I frame these issues differently than you do.

Yes.  Your framing seems to require heavy amounts of cherry-picking, decontextualization, refusing to address countervailing evidence, and ad hoc stuff like "I take him {David Whitmer} at his word," except when you don't take him at his word, and don't explain why you don't take him at his word.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

I frame them the way I do because I believe it is the most logically coherent way to do so. It isn't prevarication. 

You cherry-picked one one many statements of David Whitmer and said "I take him at his word."

You utterly ignore all the other statements from him, and refuse to explain why you do not "take him at his word" regarding them.

And then you return to the Let's-Just-Skip-Over-Examining-the-Evidence-and-Repeat-Conclusory-Assertions schtick. 

That is nothing but prevarication.

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

But I'll tell you what. If you give me a list of questions, I'll answer them honestly and directly, just like I did in my prior post. 

I have already asked you a large number of questions, essentially all of which you have ignored.  How about you start with those?  I can then follow up as necessary.

Thanks,

-Smac

EDIT TO ADD:

I went through the last several pages of this thread and copied and pasted most of my questions to you (there are a lot) and asked Grok to re-organize them to reduce/eliminate redundant inquiries, organize them thematically/topically, etc.  Here is the list to get you going:

Consolidated List of Questions

1. Nature and Fabrication of the Plates

• Who manufactured the alleged sham plates? Where? When? By what means? Using what materials? How many people were involved? What evidence exists for any of this?
• Was Joseph Smith involved in making or procuring the plates? If not, how did the fabricators connect with him, and how was he persuaded to promote a fabricated story even when his life was at stake?
• If Joseph was involved, was he a dupe or a deliberate conniver?
  • If a dupe, who else was involved, and why did none of them ever come forward (as occurred with the Kinderhook Plates hoax)?
  • If a conniver, did he act alone? If so, where was his smithy? How did he acquire metallurgical skills? How did he afford materials given his poverty? Where did he get the raw materials?
  • If acting with others, who were they? Why did none of them recant or expose the scheme? To what purpose did the hoax serve? Who ultimately benefited? Where did these others operate? Which of them made the plates? Using what tools and materials?
• How did Joseph make the plates appear to be gold (e.g., Vogel's theory is tin painted yellow)?
• What engravings were applied, and by what means?
• How was the prop sophisticated enough to fool the Eight Witnesses—who handled, hefted, and examined them in mundane circumstances—into describing them as having "the appearance of gold," "engravings," and "the appearance of ancient work, and of curious workmanship"? Were none of them familiar with common tin (which several witnesses compared the thickness to)? How were they deceived if tin was widely available and recognizable?
• Was the prop a sloppy, cobbled-together joke? If so, how do skeptics deal with the Eight Witnesses? Were all eight just really dumb? None of them thought or said—either during or after the event—"Hey, this thing just looks like common tin painted yellow"?
• Alternatively, the prop was apparently sophisticated and well-made. If so, how did Joseph make it? Or did someone else more skilled make it? If so, whom, under what conditions, for what purpose? And why was the sham never discovered? Who stood to gain by taking the secrets of such a fantastic hoax to the grave?

2. Credibility of the Witnesses

• What is your assessment of David Whitmer? What evidence do you have that he was insane, deluded, or tricked? What sort of super-magician do you think Joseph Smith was to maintain Whitmer's testimony for decades while Whitmer despised him and left the Church? Is that your assessment of this witness? If so, how do you get there?
• David Whitmer spent decades despising Joseph Smith and declaring his testimony of the Plates. How do you square this with his experience being "a magic show"? Are you saying David Whitmer was duped? If so, how? By what means? And if so, would David Whitmer have been cognizant of that possibility? Wouldn't his antipathy toward Joseph make him more likely to recant or qualify his statement? Why are you not addressing any of this?
• How do you account for Martin Harris? He returned from Charles Anthon so impressed that he mortgaged his farm to finance publication, had a falling out with Joseph, but never recanted. How do skeptics explain this?
• If the witnesses were duped by a "magic show" or prop, why did none of them recant—even those who fell out with Joseph and had strong motive to discredit him?
• Do you have any evidence that any witness thought they were being invited to or participating in something akin to "a magic show"?
• Richard Lloyd Anderson has examined the witnesses' lives in detail (e.g., in Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses). Are you familiar with his work? Are you interested in exploring his book? How do you reconcile your view with his assessment of their character and credibility?
• Are you characterizing the Witnesses as hapless dupes?  If so, how do you square that with Richard Lloyd Anderson's assessment of these men?  And with David Whitmer's voluminous statements over decades?

3. Broader Evidentiary and Logical Issues

• "Spoliation" is the intentional destruction or alteration of relevant evidence in existing or pending litigation. Do you have any evidence that Joseph Smith intentionally destroyed or altered the plates? That there was "existing or pending litigation" at the time?
• How did Joseph "curate the evidence" relative to the Eight Witnesses? Please be specific.
• How did Joseph "curate the evidence" relative to Emma Hale Smith? Please be specific.
• How did Joseph "curate the evidence" about the "incidental" witnesses (Mary Musselman Whitmer, Katharine Smith Salisbury, Lucy Mack Smith, Sally Parker, William B. Smith, and John C. Whitmer)? Please be specific (e.g., Mary Musselman Whitmer's experience).
• We have tons of information about the Witnesses, including their official statements and subsequent statements (even after all three were estranged from Joseph), and yet you claim there is a "dearth of evidence." If Joseph "curated it that way," then how do you account for their failure/refusal to recant? Please give extra time and attention to your explanation for David Whitmer. And please marshal evidence for your explanation.
• What is your alternative explanation for the Plates/Witnesses/Texts? How do you address the evidence that contravenes your position?
• How do you differentiate between statements from David Whitmer you do accept and find credible, and statements you do not accept or find credible?  
• What actual evidence do you have to support your alternative explanation for the Plates/Witnesses/Texts?
• What rules of evidence do you apply to the witnesses' statements?  Are these rules different from those you apply to Suetonius?  If so, why?

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited March 13 by smac97