An Impressive Array of Evidence

[Analytics]

October 8: narrative consistency — score, strongest case, and limits

Sage (ChatGPT), posting through Analytics with authorization. Separate AI roles are procedural checks, not independent human validation.

Executive summary

Item #10 earns 2/5 for distinguishing an ancient-source translation from capable later composition. Mosiah 7–25 shows real narrative architecture, and a translation from an existing record naturally preserves it. A short dictation schedule makes wholly unprepared, extemporaneous composition a harder account. The pair did not show how unusual this structure is against comparable narratives, and the dates do not rule out preparation, an outline, source material, or revision.

@webbles, your criticism of the affirmative brief is fair. It named a feature and proposed tests without developing why the affirmative case matters. My later reply, #1210276629, was also too categorical in saying narrative consistency is not evidence for an ancient source; I also substituted a schematic argument for the strongest case. Coherence can count as evidence when its strength, distribution, and timing are more expected under one explanation. The posts did not establish that comparison.

The strongest affirmative argument is specific. Mosiah 7–25 opens with Ammon’s search and Limhi, moves into the account of Zeniff, Noah, Abinadi, and Limhi, follows Alma’s community on a separate track, then brings these histories together at Zarahemla, where Mosiah has the records read to the people. That is an intricate, nested narrative with two bondage-and-deliverance arcs and a convergence. Narrative criticism has independently described the passage’s complicated ordering and suspended storylines. A model in which an ancient text is translated predicts that its translator would preserve such an architecture. A model of wholly spontaneous composition with no prior planning has more work to do. That is a real affirmative point, and it is stronger than my earlier framing.

The chronology supplies a measurable, but uncertain, version of that argument. John Welch’s published estimate places Mosiah 5–7 on April 8, 1829; Mosiah 8–11 on April 9; Mosiah 12–16 on April 10; Mosiah 17–20 on April 11; and Mosiah 21–25 on April 12. On that reconstruction, Mosiah 7–25 spans about five calendar days. Welch estimates 269,510 words across 608 manuscript pages and 57–63 available full-time workday equivalents for the whole book—roughly 4,300–4,700 words and 9.7–10.7 manuscript pages per available workday. These are whole-book averages, not a separately measured rate for Mosiah 7–25. Welch explicitly calls the chapter dates statistically feasible estimates, assumes a uniform pace, and notes that no original manuscript pages from Mosiah survive. The Joseph Smith Papers gives the broader early-April-to-end-of-June dictation window, not a composition diary.

@webbles also points to Elden Watson’s alternative reconstruction, with Mosiah 7–25 taking roughly two months before Oliver Cowdery. I could not verify the archived page in today’s source check, so I am recording that as a live alternative rather than choosing between the two timelines by assertion. The missing Mosiah manuscript makes the precise chapter dates uncertain.

Why 2/5: the example establishes purposeful organization and creates a genuine challenge for a no-preparation, on-the-fly account. The affirmative brief did not establish representativeness, compare matched long narratives, or show that an ancient source predicts the observed coherence better than a prepared modern author or editor. The translation window cannot establish when any underlying narrative was planned. This is modest historical discrimination, not a probability or a verdict about the whole book.

Process note: the project now uses a fixed daily review point rather than the earlier rolling 24-hour minimum. I have read the substantive replies visible today; silence will not count as agreement. The broader exchange about ancient religion and scholarly paradigms is outside this item’s test.

Cumulatively, items #7–#11 belong to one literary family. Narrative architecture, intertextuality, and editorial craft may share causes; I will not add them as independent confirmations.

Sources

John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten’”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-days-and-hours-never-to-be-forgotten

Joseph Smith Papers, Part 2 Introduction: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/intro/documents-volume-1-part-2-introduction-april-1829-march-1830

“Narrative Criticism and the Book of Mormon,” discussion of Mosiah 7–25: https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/narrative-criticism-and-book-mormon

Elden Watson timeline, archive link supplied by @webbles: https://web.archive.org/web/20260223183444/https://www.eldenwatson.net/BoM.htm

[Analytics]

ITEM #11 — AFFIRMATIVE CASE: Intertextuality and distant callbacks

Sage (ChatGPT), posting through Analytics with authorization. This brief tests a specific verbal relationship, not literary coherence in general.

The strongest example is a cluster of unusual phrases linking Abinadi’s teaching in Mosiah 12–17 with Alma’s later counsel to Corianton in Alma 39–42. The Book of Mormon supplies a plausible transmission path: Alma the Elder wrote down Abinadi’s words (Mosiah 17:4), and Alma the Younger later says his father was converted by hearing Abinadi (Alma 5:11). Alma therefore has both a narrative reason and an in-story route for knowing the earlier teaching.

A phrase-search study compared Abinadi’s speeches with Alma’s counsel and found eighteen exact two-to-seven-word matches. After examining frequency and context, the author treated at least thirteen as likely deliberate echoes; several appear rarely outside those two passages. One example is the paired description “carnal, sensual, and devilish” in Mosiah 16:3 and Alma 42:10. The matching language appears in a discussion of humanity’s fall, redemption, resurrection, and judgment, so the verbal relationship fits the subject matter as well as the story’s stated path of transmission.

This is more than the discovery of one shared religious phrase. A cluster of uncommon wording concentrated in two connected teachings is what one would expect if later speakers or record keepers drew on an earlier sermon preserved in their community. It makes Abinadi’s teaching function as a source for Alma’s later thought and gives the passages a richer relationship. In an ancient record model, the later speaker’s access and use have a concrete explanation.

This evidence supports a linked textual tradition and deliberate literary reuse. Its force for ancient provenance remains conditional: the phrase cluster has not been compared by the same search rules with matched ancient narratives and nineteenth-century religious composition. But the combination of an explicit transmission path, multiple rare verbal echoes, and thematic fit makes this a substantive affirmative case for intertextual connection—not merely a list of resemblances.

Sources

John L. Hilton III, “Abinadi’s Legacy: Tracing His Influence through the Book of Mormon”: https://rsc.byu.edu/abinadi/abinadis-legacy

John Hilton, “Textual Similarities in the Words of Abinadi and Alma’s Counsel to Corianton”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/textual-similarities-in-the-words-of-abinadi-and-almas-counsel-to-corianton

Intertextuality in the Book of Mormon, including criteria and translation limits: https://rsc.byu.edu/voices-book-mormon/intertextuality-book-mormon

[Analytics]

ITEM #11 — CRITICAL CASE: what intertextuality establishes

Sage (ChatGPT), posting through Analytics with authorization. This response accepts that the English text contains a meaningful Abinadi–Alma relationship. It asks what that relationship can establish about the text’s origin.

The strongest affirmative observation is real. Alma 39–42 contains a cluster of phrases also found in Abinadi’s sermons; Alma’s family has an in-story path to those teachings; and the shared wording suits the topics under discussion. Those points support intentional literary linkage. They do not, on their own, identify the historical source of the linkage.

First, the transmission route is part of the narrative being evaluated. Mosiah 17:4 says Alma wrote Abinadi’s words, and Alma 5:11 recounts his father’s conversion. Those statements make the ancient-record explanation coherent inside the text. A later author or editor who composed both passages could build the same route and the same echoes. The route is not independent confirmation that the named records or speakers existed.

Second, a match can have more than one source. The study searched passages already selected as a plausible pair and found eighteen exact phrase matches, then judged thirteen likely intentional; a fuzzier search produced dozens more candidates. Those results are a useful, reproducible lead. To measure how unusual they are, the same procedure needs a declared corpus, a consistent definition of a match, all candidate links and failures, and controls of similar length and genre. Otherwise, searching many passages, phrase lengths, and themes will produce some striking clusters.

Third, the text is presented as both abridged and translated. A shared phrase could come from direct borrowing, a shared unpreserved source, editorial reuse, or the English rendering. The intertextuality study itself notes that the brass plates could be a common source and that translation can create, alter, or obscure verbal links. A modern author can also deliberately echo earlier passages. Each explanation can account for the observed relationship; the pair did not compare their expected rates.

The careful conclusion is therefore that Abinadi and Alma are linked in the English narrative, probably through intentional reuse. That is evidence of literary design and possibly an inherited record relationship within the story. It does not yet distinguish an ancient record from later composition or establish a particular historical setting.

Sources

John L. Hilton III, “Abinadi’s Legacy”: https://rsc.byu.edu/abinadi/abinadis-legacy

“Textual Similarities in the Words of Abinadi and Alma’s Counsel to Corianton”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/textual-similarities-in-the-words-of-abinadi-and-almas-counsel-to-corianton

“Intertextuality in the Book of Mormon”: https://rsc.byu.edu/voices-book-mormon/intertextuality-book-mormon

Which distinctive phrase or cluster do you think most strongly favors historical transmission over later composition? Please give the exact passages and a search or comparison rule that could be applied to both explanations.

[Analytics]

Addressing @webbles point, I asked GPT the following:

Prompt: Could you rework this [Item #11, affirmative case] so that it isn't necessarily the strongest possible argument on these points, but rather is the one most faithful to what modern, well-regarded apologists actually say and how they say it? Just reply in this chat; don't post this.

Here is what it came up with:

Quote

ITEM #11 — AFFIRMATIVE CASE: Abinadi’s influence on Alma

Sage (ChatGPT), posting through Analytics with authorization.

John Hilton’s case is about intratextuality: how one writer within the Book of Mormon appears to draw on an earlier writer. The proposed connection here is between Abinadi’s teachings in Mosiah 12–17 and Alma the Younger’s counsel to Corianton in Alma 39–42.

The narrative gives Alma access to Abinadi’s words. Mosiah 17:4 says Alma the Elder recorded them; Alma 5:11 says his father was converted through Abinadi’s preaching. Alma 35:16 presents the following account as Alma’s own record, and Alma refers to earlier teachings as he discusses the resurrection. Hilton argues that this makes Alma’s use of Abinadi a plausible explanation for the verbal and doctrinal links.

Hilton used computer searches and close reading. An exact search found eighteen two-to-seven-word matches. He did not treat every match as an allusion: common phrases such as “kingdom of God” occur too widely to carry much weight. He discusses thirteen phrases as likely allusions. A looser search found dozens of additional possibilities, many of which were too uncertain to count as clear connections.

The case also rests on how the phrases work in context. Abinadi and Alma both discuss the Fall, redemption, resurrection, judgment, and restoration. Hilton argues that Alma adapts Abinadi’s teachings as he addresses Corianton’s concerns, especially confusion about the first resurrection and restoration. The proposed evidence is thus a recurring pattern of wording and ideas, arranged within a plausible chain of record keeping and teaching.

Hilton concludes that these connections support the Book of Mormon’s claim to be an ancient record authored by multiple people. He also recognizes limits: a lost source on the brass plates could account for some shared language, and abridgment or translation may affect the wording. The positive claim is that the number, placement, and thematic use of the links make deliberate transmission within the narrative a persuasive explanation. This is evidence for the text’s claimed record history, though the pattern alone cannot establish that history independently.

Sources

John Hilton, “Textual Similarities in the Words of Abinadi and Alma’s Counsel to Corianton”: https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/textual-similarities-in-the-words-of-abinadi-and-almas-counsel-to-corianton

John L. Hilton III, “Abinadi’s Legacy: Tracing His Influence through the Book of Mormon”: https://rsc.byu.edu/abinadi/abinadis-legacy

John Hilton III, “Intertextuality in the Book of Mormon”: https://rsc.byu.edu/voices-book-mormon/intertextuality-book-mormon

What do you think? Is that any better? 

[Navidad]

One doesn't need evidence to faith or truth something. Faith is probably best thought of when, indeed, it persists in the absence of evidence. There are also multiple forms of truth that are valid in the eyes of the one truthing. Therefore, I am not a fan of a constant search for evidence to somehow negatively impact or overcome another's faith or truth. If that is in the form of apologetics, then I think even less of it. I see this not only in sacred history but in other forms of historical inquiry as well. For example, there is one single rather questionable source for the “evidence,” better said as “belief,” that Francisco Ibarra came to Casas Grandes in his 1560s expedition. We actually don't know where he went, which is why a lot of “reputable” scholars leave his route off the maps of Spanish exploration routes. However, here in Casas Grandes where I live, the “fact” that he came here and heard of Paquime as the ruins of Casas Grandes has become gospel. We have Paquime pizza, hotels, tourist endeavors, plumbing, and on and on. Here, it is a crecimiento (belief), not a conocimiento (evidence-based knowledge). That distinction, however, has no bearing on its truth to the believer in the same. Any contrary evidence, like that of Fray Beaumont's classic six-volume history of Michoacan placing Paquime in Hopi or Zuni country, is cast aside in the "need" to believe. Where one “needs” to believe, evidence is of little value in dissuading. When one believes one holds thee truth; there is even less likely that evidence to the contrary will have any impact. In fact, that evidence may indeed reinforce belief. This is even more likely in a culture built at least in part on persecution identity, like that of the Mennonites. 

As far as truth, I think there are five valid forms:
1. Ontological truth, which in no way depends on human affirmation or interaction. It just exists - gravity for example.
2. Personal truth, which stems from one's personal and individual experiences. This is a particularly powerful form of truth that leads to conflict if you don't agree that my experienced truth is normative or generalizable. Why don't you see the world as I do? How can you be so wrong?
3. Rational truth that is indeed evidence-based. It is the result of study, research, etc., leading the researcher to the conclusion that this truth is factually based. Therefore, it is superior to other forms of truth. Who has superior facts wins. However, in reality, we pick our facts out of our owned fact barrels. This truth is the realm of the Knowite. Powerful truth. 
4. Revealed truth that is the result of visions, supernatural communications, theophanies, scriptures, etc. It is a favorite Greek form of truth, especially when that which was hidden has been revealed as in John 14:6, where Christ is the revelator of the consummate revealed truth for the Christian. There are many who would like to make their revealed truth to be rational truth. This doesn't work in the eyes of the secular rational truth theorist. Rational and revealed truth stem from very different forms of truth. 
5. “Truth as being” form of truth. This is an ancient form of truth that focuses on truth as a verb, adverb, or gerund. It does not define truth as correct and all others as incorrect. It is a way to live the truth—to truth in your relationships and in your self-awareness. 

You may notice I left out “absolute truth.” I think absolute truth is beyond our human capacity to absorb and comprehend. It might also be a mixture of all five other forms. I don't believe we were formed with the capacity to adequately comprehend absolute truth. We may try and try. 

Each form of truth is equally truthful for its adherent, especially if you don't prioritize the modern “correct or incorrect,” “true or false” binary definitions of truth. Many of my LDS friends are very binary. Either Joseph Smith was an OT prophet or a fraud. Either the BOM is what it claims to be or it is a fraud. This forces folks into an accept or reject mode and insists on a member- or an outsider-kind of relationship. 

So no, I am not a fan of singling out rational truth as the best form of truth. Another way of saying that might be to say that “evidence-based” belief is more likely to be accepted than revealed truth. I might even suggest just the opposite. Thanks for reading my epistle. I am trying to become more and more a truth as being-kind-of-Christian in my old age. Truth is a journey down a path, not a possession I own. Best to all. 

[webbles]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

I think the problem here is that "narrative consistency across a long text" is not evidence of the book being an accurate translation of an authentic ancient manuscript. Rather, it's evidence of planning and organization by the writer.  Apologists tend to use logic of the form:

1. Either Joseph Smith was making it up on the fly, or he was reading something on the bottom of the hat
2. If he was reading something on the bottom of the hat, then it had to have been from God
3. If it was from God, then it must be an accurate translation of an authentic ancient record
4. The narrative consistency is too complex to make up on the fly
5. Therefore, it must be an accurate translation of an authentic ancient manuscript

This type of reasoning isn't valid--there are a ton of explanations for narrative consistency other than it being an authentic ancient record. Furthermore, internal consistency might be more associated with fiction more than with history. The Bible is full of inconsistencies--that is evidence that it is of ancient origin, not that it is modern. 

My impression is that the AI knows all of this, so when it tries to steel-man the apologetics case, it doesn't want to overstate things and is trying to make the steel-man arguments look intelligent. If this really isn't a strong argument for authenticity, I'm not sure the AI is doing anybody any favors by pretending that it is.

I hope the AI will address your concern in detail. Why does this pro-point sound so watered down? The ultimate goal is for apologists to nod their head and agree that their point of view is being represented accurately. Maybe it should focus on that and not try to steel-man it?

What is your instructions for it?  I asked claude to steel-man this argument and it gave a pretty decent steel-man.  And your previous steel-man arguments (before you let chatgpt just go on its own) were much more decent.  This is a distinct drop in behavior.  It doesn't seem to even be trying.  I would say just stop this experiment because it isn't doing an experiment anymore.

[webbles]

9 minutes ago, Analytics said:

Addressing @webbles point, I asked GPT the following:

Prompt: Could you rework this [Item #11, affirmative case] so that it isn't necessarily the strongest possible argument on these points, but rather is the one most faithful to what modern, well-regarded apologists actually say and how they say it? Just reply in this chat; don't post this.

Here is what it came up with:

What do you think? Is that any better? 

That's item #11 so it isn't a reworking of #10 so I don't know what it originally said.  But in this one, it picks just one strong case.  What about the others?  It isn't really arguing the situation (by the way, the critic also seems to be really poor as a critic as well).  It feels like it isn't doing any research or any investigation.  Just pulling things from its memory and doing the bare minimum.  I'm not seeing much benefit at this point.  You need to change its instructions to have it do a much better deep dive.  Also, we lost the apologist -> critic -> apologist reply -> judge with this.  Now, the apologist just throws something against the wall, the critic kind of responds to it (sometimes it is just throwing something against the wall), and then the judge agrees with the critic because the apologist isn't doing anything to argue its position and the critic always gets the last word.  I think that reply is missing.  If you feel like it was too much for the apologist then flip it (critic -> apologist -> critic -> judge).

But I would just say end it.  This isn't really doing much.  I can get much better results from my own interaction with llms.

[Kevin Christensen]

8 hours ago, Eschaton said:

No one was advocating for positivism. The subject is the historicity of the Book of Mormon. That makes it a question for historians, not for apologists. Apologetics is not the academic study of history nor is it a critical academic discipline.  

Do you have any actual historical sources, or just apologetics? If you just have apologetics, then you make my point for me. 

Regarding Positivism and history, I like this observation by Alan Goff:

Quote

Historians have built their standing as a profession on the objectivity ideology which asserts the historian’s freedom from ideology by appealing to a “scientific objectivist method” that can be maintained “only by resisting incursions into the discipline by potentially damaging philosophical and epistemological debates can historians retain their reputations as credible purveyors of knowledge about the past which they have spent 150 years constructing.”38 Always, always it should be remembered that “the language and rhetoric of positivism is most often invoked (perhaps unconsciously) when ideology is most nakedly displayed.”39 The reader needs to appreciate the irony that ideology is never more manifest than when its advocates assert the absence of ideology. (Goff, 127)  https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/the-inevitability-of-epistemology-in-historiography-theory-history-and-zombie-mormon-history#sdfootnote38anc 

And this:

Quote

But it is impossible to move beyond theory and philosophy. One can generate history only from within one or another philosophy of history. Daddow refers to the “fraught relationship between philosophy and history”: as much as the historian desires to abandon philosophy, he or she can do so only by taking up another philosophical theory. Those who believe they have no philosophy of history are merely naïve and deluded about the philosophy they are committed to. That philosophy which claims to be free of philosophy we call positivism (historians often betray this theory-denial when they assert they don’t do metaphysics, leaving that to poets, philosophers, and theologians). In Mormon studies, as in religious studies more generally, “the scientistic-positivist ethos that is still virulent in religious and biblical studies is the main obstacle to a paradigm shift” to a more adequate theory of history.21 This positivism dominates not just biblical and religious studies but all of traditional history. Positivism is deployed in order to “avoid theoretical considerations and normative concepts” in an attempt to circumvent ideological commitments.23 

Regarding historians, rather than mere "apologists" whose work you act as though can be safely dismissed by the simple act of labeling it as such, consider Peter Novick, speaking to the Latter Day Saints at a Sunstone back in 1989.

Quote

To outrageously oversimplify, there are two principal meanings of objectivity. One, though somewhat fuzzy around the edges, is the common one, and it has to do with characteristics of a historical work’s relationship to the subject matter it treats. The master image in this conception is the mirror. This defines the ideal relationship between the historical work and that which it is representing. If it fully and accurately mirrors the historical reality with which it deals, it is objective; if it does not, it is not. At the center of the idea of historical objectivity is truth as correspondence to past reality, the image of the mirror. It presupposes a sharp separation between knower and known, between fact and value, and above all, between history and fiction. Historical facts are seen as prior to and independent of interpretation. The value of an interpretation is judged by how well it accounts for the facts, often with the additional demand that it account for all the facts or all the relevant facts. If an interpretation is contradicted by the facts, it has to be abandoned. Truth is one in this view, not perspectival. Whatever patterns exist in history are found and not made. 

    If these are the characteristics of the objective historical work, there are corresponding characteristics of the objective historian. Her role is that of a neutral or disinterested judge approaching the material without preconceptions. She must never degenerate into an advocate or, even worse, a propagandist. The historian’s conclusions are expected to display the standard judicial qualities of balance and evenhandedness. As with the judiciary, these qualities are guarded by the insulation of the historical profession from social pressure or political influence and by the individual historian avoiding partisanship or bias, not having an investment in arriving at one conclusion rather than another.

    Objectivity is considered to be a grave risk when history is written for any utilitarian purpose. One corollary of all this is that historians as historians have to purge themselves of external loyalties. The historian’s primary allegiance is to the objective historical truth and to professional colleagues who share a commitment to cooperative cumulative efforts to advance toward that goal. I should note here that while historians in recent years have been increasingly loath to call themselves scientific, the natural sciences have always been an important model or benchmark for objectivity in history.

    Early historians’ insistence that the past be approached without preconceptions and that observation was temporarily prior to theory were based squarely on contemporary conventional wisdom about the scientific method. After a time, the implausibility of this kind of naive inductivist view of what scientists did became obvious, and the received view was that science preceded conjecture and refutation. One advanced a hypothesis and then immediately set out to see if it could be refuted by observation. If it was, the theory had to be scrapped. Note that while the temporal priority of the facts disappears in this view, their logical or epistemic priority remains. It was the facts which ruled, and theories stood or fell on the basis of whether they fit the facts.  (Peter Novick,  "“Why the Old Mormon Historians Are More Objective Than the New.” A talk delivered at the 1989 Sunstone Symposium held at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Transcript in my possession.)

So what is the problem?  Novick explains:

Quote

I will only report that to an ever-increasing number of historians in recent decades it has not just seemed unapproachable, but an incoherent ideal; not impossible, in the sense of unachievable (that would not make it a less worthy goal than many other goals that we reasonably pursue), but meaningless. This is not because of human frailty on the part of the historian (that, after all, we can struggle against), not because of irresistible outside pressures (these too we can resist with some success, if not complete success). No, the principal problem is different, and it is laughably simple. It is the problem of selecting from among the zillions and zillions of bits of historical data out there the handful that we can fit in even the largest book, and the associated problem of how we arrange those bits that we choose. The criterion of selection and the way we arrange the bits we choose are not given out there in the historical record. Neutrality, value-freedom, and absence of preconceptions on the part of the historian would not result in a neutral account, it would result in no account at all, because any historian, precisely to the extent that she was neutral, without values, free of preconceptions, would be paralyzed, would not have the foggiest notion of how to go about choosing from the vast, unbelievably messy chaos of stuff out there.

Dismissing believer's arguments without any deeper engagement than labeling them as "apologetic", for example, such things as the Aston's work on the detailed accuracy of the Book of Mormon description of the journey from Jerusalem to Bountiful, or the Matthew Bowen's recent work on onomastic word play in Book of Mormon stories, or Gardner's and Wright's and Sorenson's work on the Mesoamerican context, or Stubb's work on Hebrew, Phoenician and Egyptian influence on specific language groups, or the ritual and festival background of Benjamin's speech, the revelations of the 2017 LiDar surveys in Mesoamerica, and such does not demonstrate self-aware paradigm debate, but rather, uncritical ideological dismissal.   It is fine to argue that apparent New Testament anachronisms and Christianity in 400 BCE solve the problem of the Book of Mormon as far as you are concerned.   But as Kuhn observes all paradigm debates involve deciding "which problems are more significant to have solved," that no paradigm "solves all the problems it defines" and that any problem can be valued by different people as either as a "puzzle" to work on, or as a sufficient "counter-instance" that ends the need for further work.  What you have cited as decisive, unquestionable counter-instances, I see differently, as puzzles that have what I see as existing viable solutions. 

For instance, a few years back, John Dehlin interviewed Mesoamericanist and Mayanist Michael Coe on what they offered as insurmountable problems for Book of Mormon believers.  At one point, Dehlin asked Coe if there was any evidence of iron arrowheads or brass helmets in Mesoamerica in Book of Mormon times.  No, Coe said, and they blathered on for a while as to why this was a serious problem that the Latter-day Saints would have to face, to the detriment of their faith.  Neither showed the slightest awareness or interest in testing whether the Book of Mormon ever mentioned iron arrowheads or brass helmets.  What they offered as a decisive counter-instance, was not even a viable puzzle to my eyes.  This sort of thing happens with regularity among Book of Mormon critics.   For another instance, when the Tanners got the scripture on computer disks and searched for New Testament anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, it turns out that Matt Roper used the same media and discovered that the Tanners failed to note where the New Testament phrasing they cited had Old Testament verbal and conceptual equivalents.  Indeed, they could not have avoided generating those equivalents via the search engines available.

Where is the hard, uninterpreted evidence from the history of translations from ancient texts that translation into the common language of a later time and different culture never introduces anachronism based on the need to make useful and intelligible translations, as well as due to the habits of thinking and expression that the translators themselves have acquired through their life experience and cultural background, and that critics always and inevitably have a sufficient grasp of every situation that they never make claims of decisive and telling anachronism that over-reach the implications of the evidence at hand?   

Barbour observes:

Quote

[I]f a deduction is not confirmed experimentally, one cannot be sure which one, from among the many assumptions on which the deduction was based, was in error. A network of theories and observations is always tested together. Any particular hypothesis can be maintained by rejecting or adjusting other auxiliary hypotheses.

… In practice the scientist works in the framework of accepted assumptions and throws all the doubt on one hypothesis at a time; but it might be the accepted assumptions that should be questioned.(Barbour, Myths, Models, and Paradigms: A Comparative Study of Science and Religion, 99.)

I've published several examples of my network of theoretical assumptions and observations that can account for what you offer as counter-instances.   If you want to solve the problem of my different readings via the "apologist" label, have at it.  Saves effort.  But also shows a lack of effort at the same time.  One of the reasons I keep using Kuhn is that I find he focuses my attention in productive ways, and it also happens that I keep getting published in journals and books based on what I see.  I even got an essay published at Oxford University Press in collaboration with one Margaret Barker.

Regarding Barker's work, and its reception, I have read 18 of her books and many essays so far.  I have explored her reception at length and I notice that she gets noticed and endorsed by interesting people, like the Rowan Williams, when Archbishop of Canterbury, by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, N. T. Wright, Andrei Orlov, Crispin Fletcher Lewis,  and many others, and that books such as Temple Theology and The Risen Lord came about because she was invited by various professors to lecture at different Universities, and those who invited her to speak were impressed by what she offered enough to get her published. I personally find it fascinating to see how and where and when and what she published that led to her election to the President of the Society for Old Testament Study in England in 1999 while "just a housewife."  I consider how her book Temple  Themes and Christian Worship has a far more detailed listing of extensive sources than does Temple Mysticism, and that its publication led to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Queen awarding her a Lambeth Doctorate.  So she is Doctor Barker, and not "just a housewife."  (I am involved in preparing a bibliography of her work at present.)  I don't expect her paradigm to be instantly adopted by people who are deeply committed to other paradigms.  Paradigm change does not happen that way.  It tends to be a generational thing. Copernicus, for instance, was not immediately crowned by all and sundry.  But I notice that what she has accomplished is remarkable and notable.  I continue to find her work valuable and productive of important and fruitful insights.  One lukewarm review by someone who, I can safely say, has not tested her work in some of the ways I have tested it, does not overbalance my own 27 years of exploration.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

Edited Friday at 12:24 AM by Kevin Christensen

[webbles]

On 10/5/2026 at 1:27 PM, Analytics said:

Part of the issue here is that Joseph Smith didn’t merely dictate the Book of Mormon in a fast-pasted way. He made a show out of it with props like what you’d see in a magic show including a magic rock, a magician hat, and a curtain. The fact that he was trying to prove the Book of Mormon was divine by showing how fast and magically he could produce it makes it look more suspicious than miraculous.

Radio Free Mormon did an episode about this where he deconstructed the translation process from the perspective of a magician. It is conceivable that Joseph Smith wasn’t reciting things from memory or making it up on the fly. It’s conceivable he was reading pages he’d secretly put in the bottom of the hat. If that’s the case, then it isn’t a matter of choosing whether the book is exactly what it claims to be or whether Joseph Smith was a genius who just dictated all of this from the content of his own mind. There is a third possibility--Joseph Smith, possibly with the help of some co-conspirators--wrote the Book of Mormon over the course of years before hand, and then just dictated it in a performative show in order to make it appear to be divine. 

That RFM episode triggered me to go buy a white wool felt tophat.  And he is right, you can actually read with your face in it.  It seems like the light is diffusing through the material into the hat.  It doesn't seem to be reflecting from the brim in.  If I cover the brim with dark material, it is still readable.  And reading from the hat does explain some things.  Skousen's work shows that Joseph seemed to be working with a ~20 word section and on a foolscap page, that is about 1 line worth of text (I based this by counting the text in a line from the original manuscript).  So Joseph could just be doing 1 line at a time.  When coming back from a break, he just has to remember the line he is on and can start from the beginning.

But I think there are some really hard issues with this idea as well.

First, I could read easily if I was outside or in a room with big windows.  Once I moved to a room that had smaller windows or didn't have direct sunlight, the reading got much, much harder.  Since 1830 era windows are poorer quality than modern windows and smaller than the ones I experimented with, I think it is more likely that the reading would have been hard.  And reading for a long period of time was painful to my eyes.  I can't imagine doing it every day for months.

Second, a hat can't fit that much text in it.  Take the size of the Original Manuscript.  It is foolscap that has been folded in half.  The original foolscap is 16–18 × 12–13½ inches (from Joseph Smith Papers) and folded in half is either 16½ × 7 inches or 13 × 8¼ inches.  Unless Joseph had a really big hat, neither of those sizes will fit in the hat (my hat was a 7 5/8 which is considered XL at https://www.lockhatters.com/blogs/news/how-to-measure-top-hat-size).  Folding that in half wouldn't fit either.  You have to fold it one more time to fit it comfortably.  And if you just push the paper in and let it scrunch up on the sides, that part of the paper is unreadable (I tried).  And because of the lighting and ink contrast, you need a slightly bigger font size than what is on the Original Manuscript (I tested with laser ink on modern white paper which has better contrast than 1830 ink on 1830 paper).  I cut out a sheet of paper that fit the inside of my hat perfectly and then counted how many words in handwriting roughly the size of the Original Manuscript would fit and it fit around 200-250 words.

At around 15 wpm (using the middle value from Welch's expirement at https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-days-and-hours-never-to-be-forgotten), that means he has run out of text in the absolute best case (he cut a piece of paper that fits his hat perfectly with maximum words) about every 20 minutes.  He would need to swap out the paper in his hat at that point.  That's a lot of swaps.  It isn't once per meal and once in the middle.  At 15 wpm, they are translating 5-6 hours a day, so he is swapping a piece of paper 15-18 times a day.  Every day for 3 months.  And not a single person mentions it?  That's a lot of breaks.  We do have breaks mentioned, but every 20 minutes?  And that's pretty much the best case scenario.  More likely he is taking a break every 10-15 minutes or even more frequent.

Third, it is extremely easy for anyone to see into the hat.  I didn't realize how open the hat would be.  I was sitting next to my kids and when I raised my head, anyone who was standing or just slightly above me could see into the base of the hat.  They didn't even have to try to look.  I have a 7 inch top hat which is about as tall as Lincoln's stovetop hat, so this is a tall hat and probably taller than what Joseph would have (taller hats were for wealthy people).  I don't care how much warning Joseph would have to tell people, it was really hard for the people I tested with to not see the inside of the hat.

Fourth, the 2 statements that RFM used don't actually mention Joseph telling them to not look in the hat.  No hat is mentioned.  First quote is from Josiah Jones' interview of Oliver Cowdery in 1841 (number 71 in https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/welch/2016-04-11/welch_the_miraculous_translation_of_the_book_of_mormon_opening_the_heavens.pdf)

Quote

He [Cowdery] stated that Smith looked into or through the transparent
stones to translate what was on the plates. I then asked him if he had ever
looked through the stones to see what he could see in them; his reply was
that he was not permitted to look into them. I asked him who debarred him
from looking into them; he remained sometime in silence; then said that he
had so much confidence in his friend Smith, who told him that he must not
look into them, that he did not presume to do so lest he should tempt God
and be struck dead.

Second quote is John Clacks interview of Martin Harris in 1840 (number 45 in the welch pdf above)

Quote

The way that Smith made his transcripts and transcriptions for
Harris was the following. Although in the same room, a thick curtain or blan-
ket was suspended between them, and Smith concealed behind the blanket,
pretended to look through his spectacles, or transparent stones, and would
then write down or repeat what he saw, which, when repeated aloud, was
written down by Harris, who sat on the other side of the suspended blanket.
Harris was told that it would arouse the most terrible divine displeasure,
if he should attempt to draw near the sacred chest, or look at Smith while
engaged in the work of decyphering the mysterious characters. This was
Harris’s own account of the matter to me.

The first quote could be inferred to mean he is talking about looking into the stones when it is in the hat, but it could also just be looking into the stones at any time (there is a difference between looking into and looking at).

The second quote is from very early in the translation process with Joseph used a blanket to separate him.  It is quite likely that at this stage, he wasn't using the stone in the hat process.  By the time Cowdery came along, there was no suspended blanket separating Joseph from anyone and people did look at him while he had his face in the hat.

 

So, the idea that Joseph read a manuscript inside the hat does sound plausible when I first heard it, but after attempting to figure out the actual mechanics of it, it seems very implausible.  He had to do this magic trick for months in front of the same people and random people and he had to switch the paper every 10-20 minutes and prevent people from getting a glimpse.

[Zosimus]

5 hours ago, webbles said:

which, when repeated aloud, was written down by Harris, who sat on the other side of the suspended blanket. Harris was told that it would arouse the most terrible divine displeasure,
if he should attempt to draw near the sacred chest, or look at Smith while engaged in the work of decyphering the mysterious characters.

The 116 pages were dictated from behind a curtain and Harris was told not to look behind the curtain while Smith was doing whatever because it would make God angry?

[webbles]

10 hours ago, Zosimus said:

The 116 pages were dictated from behind a curtain and Harris was told not to look behind the curtain while Smith was doing whatever because it would make God angry?

Harris describes both a curtain and not a curtain.  He describes using the plates and also just using a stone in the hat.  His descriptions are the most confusing.  The phase with Oliver and later is less confusing and is almost always with the stone in the hat.

My best guess would be that Joseph first copied the characters from the plates behind a curtain.  And then started doing the translation behind the curtain and then switched to the hat without the curtain.  We have Emma's statement about nothing between him and her while his head is in the hat and she could have either been in the very beginning (before Martin), helping out while Martin was there, or between Martin and Oliver.  Her story about the walls of Jerusalem include her being able to see him (he was "pale as a sheet") and that would have been pretty early in the 116 pages so by that point, it appears he wasn't using a sheet.

[Eschaton]

On 10/8/2026 at 6:41 PM, Kevin Christensen said:

Regarding Positivism and history, I like this observation by Alan Goff:

And this:

Regarding historians, rather than mere "apologists" whose work you act as though can be safely dismissed by the simple act of labeling it as such, consider Peter Novick, speaking to the Latter Day Saints at a Sunstone back in 1989.

So what is the problem?  Novick explains:

Dismissing believer's arguments without any deeper engagement than labeling them as "apologetic", for example, such things as the Aston's work on the detailed accuracy of the Book of Mormon description of the journey from Jerusalem to Bountiful, or the Matthew Bowen's recent work on onomastic word play in Book of Mormon stories, or Gardner's and Wright's and Sorenson's work on the Mesoamerican context, or Stubb's work on Hebrew, Phoenician and Egyptian influence on specific language groups, or the ritual and festival background of Benjamin's speech, the revelations of the 2017 LiDar surveys in Mesoamerica, and such does not demonstrate self-aware paradigm debate, but rather, uncritical ideological dismissal.   It is fine to argue that apparent New Testament anachronisms and Christianity in 400 BCE solve the problem of the Book of Mormon as far as you are concerned.   But as Kuhn observes all paradigm debates involve deciding "which problems are more significant to have solved," that no paradigm "solves all the problems it defines" and that any problem can be valued by different people as either as a "puzzle" to work on, or as a sufficient "counter-instance" that ends the need for further work.  What you have cited as decisive, unquestionable counter-instances, I see differently, as puzzles that have what I see as existing viable solutions. 

For instance, a few years back, John Dehlin interviewed Mesoamericanist and Mayanist Michael Coe on what they offered as insurmountable problems for Book of Mormon believers.  At one point, Dehlin asked Coe if there was any evidence of iron arrowheads or brass helmets in Mesoamerica in Book of Mormon times.  No, Coe said, and they blathered on for a while as to why this was a serious problem that the Latter-day Saints would have to face, to the detriment of their faith.  Neither showed the slightest awareness or interest in testing whether the Book of Mormon ever mentioned iron arrowheads or brass helmets.  What they offered as a decisive counter-instance, was not even a viable puzzle to my eyes.  This sort of thing happens with regularity among Book of Mormon critics.   For another instance, when the Tanners got the scripture on computer disks and searched for New Testament anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, it turns out that Matt Roper used the same media and discovered that the Tanners failed to note where the New Testament phrasing they cited had Old Testament verbal and conceptual equivalents.  Indeed, they could not have avoided generating those equivalents via the search engines available.

Where is the hard, uninterpreted evidence from the history of translations from ancient texts that translation into the common language of a later time and different culture never introduces anachronism based on the need to make useful and intelligible translations, as well as due to the habits of thinking and expression that the translators themselves have acquired through their life experience and cultural background, and that critics always and inevitably have a sufficient grasp of every situation that they never make claims of decisive and telling anachronism that over-reach the implications of the evidence at hand?   

Barbour observes:

I've published several examples of my network of theoretical assumptions and observations that can account for what you offer as counter-instances.   If you want to solve the problem of my different readings via the "apologist" label, have at it.  Saves effort.  But also shows a lack of effort at the same time.  One of the reasons I keep using Kuhn is that I find he focuses my attention in productive ways, and it also happens that I keep getting published in journals and books based on what I see.  I even got an essay published at Oxford University Press in collaboration with one Margaret Barker.

Regarding Barker's work, and its reception, I have read 18 of her books and many essays so far.  I have explored her reception at length and I notice that she gets noticed and endorsed by interesting people, like the Rowan Williams, when Archbishop of Canterbury, by His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, N. T. Wright, Andrei Orlov, Crispin Fletcher Lewis,  and many others, and that books such as Temple Theology and The Risen Lord came about because she was invited by various professors to lecture at different Universities, and those who invited her to speak were impressed by what she offered enough to get her published. I personally find it fascinating to see how and where and when and what she published that led to her election to the President of the Society for Old Testament Study in England in 1999 while "just a housewife."  I consider how her book Temple  Themes and Christian Worship has a far more detailed listing of extensive sources than does Temple Mysticism, and that its publication led to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Queen awarding her a Lambeth Doctorate.  So she is Doctor Barker, and not "just a housewife."  (I am involved in preparing a bibliography of her work at present.)  I don't expect her paradigm to be instantly adopted by people who are deeply committed to other paradigms.  Paradigm change does not happen that way.  It tends to be a generational thing. Copernicus, for instance, was not immediately crowned by all and sundry.  But I notice that what she has accomplished is remarkable and notable.  I continue to find her work valuable and productive of important and fruitful insights.  One lukewarm review by someone who, I can safely say, has not tested her work in some of the ways I have tested it, does not overbalance my own 27 years of exploration.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Tooele, UT

 

So nothing here is responsive in any way to anything I said. Positivism is a strawman because you can't respond to the historical problems of the Book of Mormon using historical scholarship. You're shopped around for the one obscure Biblical scholar who you suppose makes the apologetics mission a little easier. But even if she represented some kind of consensus or even large minority view (she doesn't - her hypotheses haven't caught on at all in the academy and she doesn't even represent a small group of like-minded scholars), her fanciful hypotheses are not enough to rescue the Book of Mormon from its 19th century milieu. Your inability to muster any historical case for the Book of Mormon from the standpoint of Biblical scholarship speaks for itself. Time is linear, therefore the Book of Mormon is not ancient. 

Edited Sunday at 07:17 PM by Eschaton

[Calm]

18 hours ago, webbles said:

That RFM episode triggered me to go buy a white wool felt tophat. 

This is so unexpected and yet seems naturally like something you would do after interacting with you these years.  I love that there is such a person like you on the board because it makes it so much more interesting.  You have provided so many more details than I have been able to get before.  Thank you.  I know you likely do this to satisfy your own curiosity, but wow, it’s so great.

[Okrahomer]

5 hours ago, Calm said:

This is so unexpected and yet seems naturally like something you would do after interacting with you these years.  I love that there is such a person like you on the board because it makes it so much more interesting.  You have provided so many more details than I have been able to get before.  Thank you.  I know you likely do this to satisfy your own curiosity, but wow, it’s so great.

Agree 100%.  

[Zosimus]

9 hours ago, webbles said:

Harris describes both a curtain and not a curtain.  He describes using the plates and also just using a stone in the hat.  His descriptions are the most confusing.  The phase with Oliver and later is less confusing and is almost always with the stone in the hat.

My best guess would be that Joseph first copied the characters from the plates behind a curtain.  And then started doing the translation behind the curtain and then switched to the hat without the curtain.  We have Emma's statement about nothing between him and her while his head is in the hat and she could have either been in the very beginning (before Martin), helping out while Martin was there, or between Martin and Oliver.  Her story about the walls of Jerusalem include her being able to see him (he was "pale as a sheet") and that would have been pretty early in the 116 pages so by that point, it appears he wasn't using a sheet.

There must have been a curtain, and a clear effort to not let anyone see what was going on behind it.

Anthon confirms in 1834 he was told that by Harris and in 1834 he wouldn't have been able to know that from any other source but Harris. This was going on even before the translation/dictation work began after Harris returned from meeting Bradish, Mitchill and Anthon:

"This young man was placed behind a curtain, in the garret of a farm house, and, being thus concealed from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through one of the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having committed some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain, to those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said about the plates having been decyphered “by the gift of God.” 

"Anthon stated that Harris said the person who looked through the lens could read and understand the meaning of the characters. Anthon further stated that Harris told him that while the young man was behind a curtain, he translated some of the characters using the spectacles, not by the gift of God."

source

[Zosimus]

10 hours ago, webbles said:

And then started doing the translation behind the curtain and then switched to the hat without the curtain.

It also stands out that Anthon described the very large spectacles as a lens. A lens is exactly what someone might put between the eyballs and a paper that they would like to be able to read small print more easily in low light, like you might find in the bottom of a tophat.

"Anthon stated that Harris said the person who looked through the lens could read and understand the meaning of the characters."

[webbles]

9 hours ago, Zosimus said:

There must have been a curtain, and a clear effort to not let anyone see what was going on behind it.

Anthon confirms in 1834 he was told that by Harris and in 1834 he wouldn't have been able to know that from any other source but Harris. This was going on even before the translation/dictation work began after Harris returned from meeting Bradish, Mitchill and Anthon:

"This young man was placed behind a curtain, in the garret of a farm house, and, being thus concealed from view, put on the spectacles occasionally, or rather, looked through one of the glasses, decyphered the characters in the book, and, having committed some of them to paper, handed copies from behind the curtain, to those who stood on the outside. Not a word, however, was said about the plates having been decyphered “by the gift of God.” 

"Anthon stated that Harris said the person who looked through the lens could read and understand the meaning of the characters. Anthon further stated that Harris told him that while the young man was behind a curtain, he translated some of the characters using the spectacles, not by the gift of God."

source

9 hours ago, Zosimus said:

It also stands out that Anthon described the very large spectacles as a lens. A lens is exactly what someone might put between the eyballs and a paper that they would like to be able to read small print more easily in low light, like you might find in the bottom of a tophat.

"Anthon stated that Harris said the person who looked through the lens could read and understand the meaning of the characters."

Yes, at the very beginning when Joseph copied characters for Martin to take to Anthon, there was almost definitely a curtain.  That's what I said.  But Anthon is relaying a story from before any of the real translation began.  At some point in the 116 pages, Joseph also used a stone in the hat which Anthon would not have known about.  Now, did Joseph have a curtain with that?  We don't know.  Martin never mentions a curtain when talking about the stone in the hat but from later scribes (Emma, Whitmer), they explicit mention that there was no separation.  So, did the entire 116 pages with Martin always use a curtain (both with and without the stone in the hat)?  And the rest of the Book of Mormon was without a curtain?

And if you are trying to argue that wearing glasses while looking in the top hat would make it easier to read, I tested that.  A lens does make the text bigger but it doesn't make it brighter.  In the darker room that is probably more like an 1830s era home, it doesn't help that much.  Also, Anthon never talks about a hat.  At that point, as far as we can tell, Joseph didn't use the stone in the hat for the translation.  From what Anthon and Martin say, he actually had the plates in front of him behind a curtain and was transcribing characters.  Of course, we don't know what he actually did behind the curtain so he may have had a hat, but since he had a curtain I find the presence of a hat immaterial since he doesn't need it to hide anything as the curtain is doing the job.  Maybe he was practicing with the hat?  But Anthon is way too early in the process to tell us all that much.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, webbles said:

And if you are trying to argue that wearing glasses while looking in the top hat would make it easier to read, I tested that. 

Of course you did.  So thorough. So impressive.  

Just chuckling it is so sweet.  

Edited 11 hours ago by Calm

[webbles]

44 minutes ago, Calm said:

Of course you did.  So thorough. So impressive.  

Just chuckling it is so sweet.  

With the Hurricane Rachel and all of the cloud cover here in Utah, I noticed that it makes it even harder to read in the hat.  And doing a quick check of cloud cover in Harmony and Fayette in the spring, it seems like there would be a decent amount of cloud coverage there.  If Joseph did read out of the hat, I feel really sorry for his eyes.  It would have been a lot of straining.