Spin-off from the Spalding-Rigdon Thread

[Uncle Dale]

...

not speaking for Matt

...

He is the acknowledged LDS authority on the topic,

and I included mention of his name in the thread title,

and so we cannot totally ignore the two links I posted

for his contributions.

However, since my opening post referenced OTHER sources

than just Matt, we can discuss Russel Anderson's conclusions,

(or your own) and still operate within the thread bounds.

Correct?

UD

[hagoth7]

How broad was God's reach in preparing people's minds/hearts for the restoration?

I'm still enough of a Latter Day Saint, not to dismiss this sort of thinking.

If we extend our viewpoints to include even the ideas, visions and hopes of

numerous 19th century non-Mormons, then perhaps we can find places for almost

everyone in "God's plan."

I'm comfortable with that expansive point of view. I think it has validity.

....

[hagoth7]

However, if Solomon Spalding never composed fiction in "King James" English,

then he obviously did NOT contribute any extensive text to the Book of Mormon.

One can't prove it either way regardless....barring discovery of such a text.

(As fascinating of a question as it might be....)

But, beyond just that -- if the preponderance of the evidence indicates that

Spalding never wrote fiction in archaic English, then a much stronger case

can be made for the belief that the "Roman story" must have been the document

his old associates remembered reading and having read to them. Correct?

?

Barring some gamechanger like time travel, it simply can not be proven that Spalding never wrote additional works.

So it's merely an academic question...a merry go round...that doesn't stop unless people decide to get off.

Wouldn't you agree? (Or is there something I'm overlooking?)

[wenglund]

He is the acknowledged LDS authority on the topic,

and I included mention of his name in the thread title,

and so we cannot totally ignore the two links I posted

for his contributions.

However, since my opening post referenced OTHER sources

than just Matt, we can discuss Russel Anderson's conclusions,

(or your own) and still operate within the thread bounds.

Correct? UD

I have no problem with you mentioning as many people as you wish who have researched and written on the topic. My concern is with you insinuating words into those people's mouths. I trust you understand the difference. Correct?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[MCB]

Yes, Hagoth, there is a possible game-changer. If Spalding wrote the text which was eventually adapted into the BoM, what were his sources? I still have enough RLDS in my cultural heritage to ask that question.

[Uncle Dale]

...

insinuating words

...

May I make a suggestion here, Wade?

You type up whatever apology you feel should have been forthcoming,

in response to your postings --- and I'll digitally subscribe my

name to that confession of insinuating.

But, in exchange you must add something substantial to the thread

discussion, such as responding to the opening question:

After reading Matt Roper's recent papers, and similar articles

responding to claims for multiple 19th century authorship (Spalding,

Rigdon, etc.) for the Book -- how comfortable are you with this

historical conclusion:

Solomon Spalding only ever wrote one piece of manuscript fiction,

and it was not composed in old fashioned (Elizabethan/KJV) English.

1. Totally agree ( )

2. Not convinced one way of the other ( )

3. Totally disagree ( )

OK?

UD

[Bernard Gui]

I'd guess that less than a day's research has ever been

conducted in New England, for Spalding correspondence, his

family documents, etc. Until somebody has the incentive to

actively search out such materials, the years prior to his

death remain relatively undocumented.

I find this statement shocking and revealing. A second SS story in "Bible" style is the Holy Grail of anti-Mormonism!

It's shocking because of the apparent admission that no one knows what they are talking about.

It's revealing because it is evidence of the house of cards that has been built on a fragment of information.

This whole thing reminds me of something Anthony Heinrich (a 19th-century American musician) wrote on one

of his pieces...

"Many a castle has been built in the sky. Why not build one higher?"

Can someone please indicate one portion of the BoM that is suspiciously Spaldingish,

or statistically verified Spalding?

Bernard

[Uncle Dale]

I find this statement shocking and revealing

...

It reveals my continual poverty -- that's for certain.

The only means by which I was able to spend day after day in

the Kirtland region of northeastern Ohio, digging out Spalding's

old records, etc., was at the expense of the United Methodist

Church.

The only way I was able to make trips to Pittsburgh, to research

Rigdon's past, his family, Spalding's tenure there, etc., was at

the expense of a friend who inserted me into his vacation travels.

As for New England investigations, I never had enough cash to

venture beyond Albany, and had poor luck trying to do research

via letters to archive librarians, etc.

S. S. Osborn claimed to have encountered a Spalding fiction manuscript

near Ethan Smith's old church in Rutland Co., Vermont. Ethan Smith's

grandson asserted that Solomon Spalding and Ethan Smith were in close

contact regarding such manuscripts. Spalding's widow is reportedly

buried in or adjacent to the Ethan Smith family burial plot in Mass.

Spalding's family founded the town immediately east of Ethan Smith's

Vermont congregation. I would have given all I possessed, just to

spend a week researching in Rutland County. Unfortunately, at the

time, my net assets amounted to about fifty dollars.

The old Puritans held the belief that they could discern who

was pleasing unto the Lord, by their worldly success. I've

heard my wife's Jewish relatives make similar statements about

the origins of blessings in financial terms.

Looks like I failed life's lucre test...

UD

[Bernard Gui]

It reveals my continual poverty -- that's for certain.

I know the feeling. 40 years of teaching school and still don't have two dimes to rub together.

The old Puritans held the belief that they could discern who

was pleasing unto the Lord, by their worldly success. I've

heard my wife's Jewish relatives make similar statements about

the origins of blessings in financial terms.

Looks like I failed life's lucre test...

The way I see it, no matter how much money you have, someone else is going to get it.

You do pass the uncle test, though.

Ethan Smith's grandson asserted that Solomon Spalding and Ethan Smith were in close

contact regarding such manuscripts.

What were the circumstances for this assertion and when was it made?

When you use words like "reportedly," "asserted," or "claimed," how much credence do you give the information

that has been "reported"? Or do you see that as a clue that there is more to be discovered?

If you don't mind, I would like to see the best Spaldingism in the BoM...

Bernard

[Glenn101]

Well, it's always interesting to hear what the Stanford folks

have to say -- but I was hoping for a discussion here of the

notion that Solomon Spalding only ever wrote a single work of

historical fiction, and that it was not composed in archaic

English.

Evidently that is not a topic of great interest to the readers

here -- so, if there is some additional aspect of the S-R theory

addressed by Matt Roper and/or other recent reports, we can move

on to some other topic, than the numbers and characteristics of

Spalding manuscripts. I want to at least make an attempt at

providing Wade with a proper explanation of our original purpose.

UD

Dale, as I see it, a second manuscript is pretty crucial to any theory involving Solomon Spalding. If I am not mistaken, existence of such a manuscript is supported only by the witnesses queried by Hurlbut. Without that manuscript, the next best hope is for a scientific study that definitely establishes Spalding as a contributor, and/or Rigdon using material cobbled from a Spalding manuscript.

The Jockers/Criddle study provides a spark of hope in that direction, but Bruce Schaalje has raised some questions, at least in my mind, about the methodology here on this board and in a paper he submitted to Literary and Linguistic Computing in April of last year. The paper has yet to be published, but has not been rejected that I know of. Maybe going through a rigorous peer review process?

In any event, unless some definitive evidence can be found for the existence of the second manuscript, we will have to wait on further developments in the wordprint field which will clearly refute the findings of the Berkley group. I don't think the Criddle study has so far. But I am interested in how others see this.

Glenn

[Uncle Dale]

...

What were the circumstances for this assertion and when was it made?

It is best known from the appendix in David Persuitte's book,

I suppose. But, other than that, it caused some stir among the

RLDS in the late 1880s and some references can be seen in the old

Saints' Heralds of that period. The actual newspaper

article is a paraphrase of the grandson's statement to a Cleveland

reporter, and appears to be a bit jumbled. I suspect that there

may have been some follow-up discussion in newspapers of that

period (or that the grandson had more to say elsewhere). I've

never completed my research on the matter. But you can start here:

http://www.sidneyrigdon.com/dbroadhu/OH/miscoh05.htm#042487

When you use words like "reportedly," "asserted," or "claimed," how

much credence do you give the information that has been "reported"?

Or do you see that as a clue that there is more to be discovered?

I've almost always functioned as a researcher. Other folks are free

to make use of my findings, as best suits them. For example, you'll

find numerous fragments of my investigations in the published works

of Mike Marquardt and other students of Mormon history.

Since I rarely write papers on my several topics of research, I'm

content to use words like "evidently," and to let other writers

determine whether the evidence is strong or weak.

Way back in high school, on the student newspaper, I was advised to

always obtain at least two independent, unrelated sources for any

reported "fact" --- three, if it was on a controversial topic.

In documenting Mormon history it is often impossible to locate two

independent sources for some asserted fact -- say, Joseph's front

tooth was either cracked, chipped, broken, or broken out. How

should such contradictory assertions be mentioned by historians?

How do we know whether old reports came from totally independent

sources, or not?

My general rule of thumb, is that agreeing reports from Mormon and

anti-Mormon sources are a bit more reliable than two agreeing reports

from the "same side of the fence."

If you don't mind, I would like to see the best Spaldingism in the BoM...

...

Vernal Holley was working on that question when he passed away. I fell

heir to some of his compilations (in addition to my own). I have a bit

of that stuff on the web.

When we speak of "best," there is always the problem of subjective

disagreement. Thus, quantifiable data is often more useful than one

person's mere opinion. I can tabulate all the words in Spalding's

known vocabulary, and then numerically rank each page in the BoM

as to how "Spaldingish" its vocabulary is -- that's one firm method,

but it doesn't tell us very much. Even if we discover succinct patterns

of high vocabulary overlap distributions throughout the Book of Mormon,

those "runs" of "Spaldingish" language could well be due to coincidence.

We can try and quantify phraseology (word-strings) as well -- but that's

tedious work. I have not completed a rigorous comparison of Spalding's

phraseology in the BoM, but have done some spot checking.

We can also attempt to categorize thematic (storyline) similarities --

but such stuff is difficult to quantify in hard numbers.

Word-print studies are still in their infancy.

Perhaps the best I could do would be to point you to examples of

each sort of textual comparison, and let you determine for yourself

which parts of the Book of Mormon are most like Spalding's prose.

Here are some starting places on the web:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap10.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap11.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/SRPpap12.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/SRPpap16.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookSol0.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookMos1.htm

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/MEDIA/BookEth1.htm

UD

[Uncle Dale]

...

If I am not mistaken, existence of such a manuscript is supported only by the

witnesses queried by Hurlbut.

...

Actually, there is quite a bit more evidence than that.

My original intent, in opening this thread, was to provide noel00

with some space in which to review that material, in consultation

with the two recent Roper papers and other, similar LDS reporting.

We have not progressed very far down that path so far. And I'm

still waiting to see if Noel has any interest/input on the topic.

More later (I hope).

UD

[hagoth7]

...

[Glenn101]

Actually, there is quite a bit more evidence than that.

My original intent, in opening this thread, was to provide noel00

with some space in which to review that material, in consultation

with the two recent Roper papers and other, similar LDS reporting.

We have not progressed very far down that path so far. And I'm

still waiting to see if Noel has any interest/input on the topic.

More later (I hope).

UD

Okay, I will await that evidence.

Glenn

[wenglund]

May I make a suggestion here, Wade?

You type up whatever apology you feel should have been forthcoming,

in response to your postings --- and I'll digitally subscribe my

name to that confession of insinuating.

But, I wasn't looking for an apology. I was looking for you to either substantiate your insinuation, or retract it. How about that suggestion?

In fact, let me go ahead and make a helpful change to your OP that is less prone to creating misperception and more prone to engendering a substantive response:

Do you agree with the conclusion that the extant manuscript is what the Conneautt and other witnesses had, in part, read themslves, or had read to them, by Solomon Spalding, more than a decade prior to hearing about the Book of Mormon?

My answer would be, yes. My explanation for why I believe this may be found HERE.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Uncle Dale]

But, I wasn't looking for an apology. I was looking for you to either substantiate your insinuation, or retract it. How about that suggestion?

In fact, let me go ahead and make a helpful change to your OP that is less prone to creating misperception and more prone to engendering a substantive response:

My answer would be, yes. My explanation for why I believe this may be found HERE.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Would you include Mr. Leffingwell among the "Conneaut witnesses?"

Would you disallow Robert Patterson, Sr.'s statements (to Samuel Williams

and to John E. Page) for any particular reason?

UD

[Bruce Schaalje]

Craig's latest comments

"If you are committed to a supernatural explanation --as Bruce is-- then no naturalistic explanation is acceptable. The contrary is also true, and it is a basic assumption of science. Science does not admit supernatural explanations: naturalistic explanations are considered far more probable and, in fact, have repeatedly defeated supernatural explanations. When my lab group does experiments and we get unexpected results, we do not invoke fairies or vampires or angels. We assume that natural explanations exist, and we perform experiments to identify the likely causal agents.

It would take a supernatural miracle to rescue your misanalysis of your data, but I don

[wenglund]

Would you include Mr. Leffingwell among the "Conneaut witnesses?"

Yes, though as a hearsay witness rather than eye/ear witness (see: HERE)

Would you disallow Robert Patterson, Sr.'s statements (to Samuel Williams

and to John E. Page) for any particular reason?

No. As you may be well aware, I was more than happy to consider all the staements presented by the Spaldinists, and felt no need to summarily rule any of them out. Like you, I found useful bits of information in all of them, though what I found has led me to a somewhat different perception than you.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Bruce Schaalje]

I just read Wade Englund's post. If we were to have fun with a formal application of Bayes updating rule to the topic of this thread, I think it would be much more fruitful to start with

A = (the extant manuscript is what the Conneautt and other witnesses had, in part, read themslves, or had read to them, by Solomon Spalding, more than a decade prior to hearing about the Book of Mormon)

Bruce

[wenglund]

I just read Wade Englund's post. If we were to have fun with a formal application of Bayes updating rule to the topic of this thread, I think it would be much more fruitful to start with

A = (the extant manuscript is what the Conneautt and other witnesses had, in part, read themslves, or had read to them, by Solomon Spalding, more than a decade prior to hearing about the Book of Mormon)

Bruce

I am all for this regardless of whether the results may be in my favor or not.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[noel00]

It would take a supernatural miracle to rescue your misanalysis of your data, but I don

[Uncle Dale]

Yes, though as a hearsay witness rather than eye/ear witness

(see: HERE)

...

Are you categorizing the journalist's interview with

Leffingwell as "hearsay," or Leffingwell's actual assertions,

(of having been a school teacher at Conneaut, etc.) as "hearsay?"

Do you notice no common point in the Leffingwell source and

the Robert Patterson, Sr. source?

UD

[Bruce Schaalje]

Noel,

PCA is a simplistic way of getting a general sense of the data. There are other tools that can be used to see how data cluster, like hierarchical classification. I've done some of that with the chapters of the Book of Mormon.

Experts in the authorship attribution domain have developed and tested a variety of techniques for analysis of closed sets of candidate authors. Matt and Daniel, for example, have tested 5 different machine learning methods, and found that NSC (one of two methods we used for analysis of Book of Mormon authorship), tied with regularized discriminant analysis as the top performing methods, with 0/70 cross validation errors. Heres the paper;

Jockers, Matthew L. and Daniela M. Witten. "A Comparative Study of Machine Learning Methods for Authorship Attribution." Literary and Linguistic Computing, 2010; doi: 10.1093/llc/fqq001.

http://www.stanford....tFederalist.pdf

(Matt and Daniela also say a few words about PCA in the above paper)

Craig

C

[noel00]

Well, Bruce, this does sound fun, but it's way beyond my time availability and priorities right now. This will just have to be hashed out over time. Craig

[Glenn101]

Well, Bruce, this does sound fun, but it's way beyond my time availability and priorities right now. This will just have to be hashed out over time. Craig

We have some interested on lookers from both sides of the fence. Hope that you can find the time soon.

I hope that Craig et al will see fit to post their comments here rather than waiting for Bruce's paper to be published in the LLC. It requires a lot of money to subscribe to that Journal. Bruce seems willing.

Glenn