Spalding: The Dead Horse that Won't Die

[4truth]

I can see right now there is no way I am going to keep up with this discussion. So be it. I will interject as time allows.

Ben wrote:

Actually, what I think is that any proposal of authorship of the Book of Mormon needs to be considered on its own merits and not as a reflection of comparison (i.e. my theory makes more sense than theory X). There doesn't need to be a "credible alternative" to discover that any particular theory is bad. Just as we shouldn't have to make the argument that theory X is good by comparison to theory Y.

I will say it again... the Book of Mormon exists. It had to come from somewhere. So far as I know we have the following:

1. We can accept the official version of how it got here

2. We can accept that Joseph Smith produced it all by himself with no divine help

3. We can accept that Joseph Smith produced it with help from other humans

I see no other valid options. IF there are indeed no other valid options, then, logically one of the above options has to explain the BOM.

However, in making any argument, you ought to be able to deal with various other arguments and their claims. I simply do not choose to defend the orthodox version of the Book of Mormon's origins. Not because I don't think it is possible, but because there seems to be no value to it in these specific discussions. Inevitably (and it has never happened otherwise) the argument is reduced to the angel question. And since that seems to be the barrier beyond which reasonable discussion with the critics falls apart, there simply is no incentive to go there.

I don't have a problem with postulating the existence of angels. I have a theological difference of opinion with Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon as to whether or not angels were ever living humans, but I am willing to acknowledge that IF Joseph Smith's account of the coming forth of the BOM accurately reflects what actually occurred, then my conception with regard to angels as not being disembodied humans must be wrong. Based on a lot of factors, however, I reject Joseph Smith's account, so for the time being my theology of angels remains unharmed by Joseph Smith's testimony.

The point is, claiming you can't defend your own position because I do not even accept the possibility of the supernatural does not work with me. I am perfectly willing to grant the possibility of the supernatural, BUT, by the same token, you can't just appeal to the supernatural as a means of explaining things either. In other words, I accept, for example, the assertion that "we cannot examine the golden plates because Moroni has removed them" as a valid possibility... but a very weak possibility in comparison to the more likely (natural) explanation that they never existed in the first place. In other words, if a valid natural alternative explanation exists, I will be more inclined to accept it over the supernatural explanation even though I am still open to the supernatural as a possibility.

Whether or not golden plates ever existed IS quite relevant to the debate of OV (Official Version) vs. SA (Smith Alone) vs. SR (Spalding/Rigdon) since the OV requires that real golden plates inscribed in reformed Egyptian actually existed at some point just like SR requires that a non-extant manuscript by Solomon Spalding existed at some point. When we start comparing the evidence/testimony in favor of the existence of MF (Manuscript Found) vs. the evidence/testimony in favor of the existence of golden plates, we find that the witness statements in support of the golden plates are laced with inconsistencies (as Vogel points out in American Apocrypha). The SR witness statements may contain some minor inconsistencies but (in my opinion) nothing as damaging as the many inconsistencies Vogel points to.

So an objective look at the evidence with regard to that question might conclude in favor of Smith Alone, since that is the only viable explanation that requires no non-extant material. True... but then Smith Alone still has to explain how the BOM got here by Joseph Smith's capabilities. As Mormon's aptly point out, it would seem Joseph had to have some pretty remarkable abilities if he is responsible for the whole thing.

This is what I mean about taking a position to defend when considering how the BOM got here and reasonably considering the pros and cons of each. I do not consider one theory in a vacuum, rather, I consider what I believe are the (only?) three viable options and then evaluate them all together on equal footing to see which explanation best answers any given set of questions.

My main concern is to answer the question: where did the BOM come from? not to defend any given theory.

More later.

All the best.

[Glenn101]

This is what I mean about taking a position to defend when considering how the BOM got here and reasonably considering the pros and cons of each. I do not consider one theory in a vacuum, rather, I consider what I believe are the (only?) three viable options and then evaluate them all together on equal footing to see which explanation best answers any given set of questions.

My main concern is to answer the question: where did the BOM come from? not to defend any given theory.

More later.

All the best.

I think that one of the points that Ben was trying to make is each theory should stand or fall on its own merits. That is one of the reasons he is not even mentioning the divinely inspired translation theory. We are only dealing with the Spalding/Rigdon theory and its merits or lack thereof.

By the way, I haven't heard from you on my common sense question. Maybe you missed it.

Glenn

[Benjamin McGuire]

Roger writes:

1. We can accept the official version of how it got here

2. We can accept that Joseph Smith produced it all by himself with no divine help

3. We can accept that Joseph Smith produced it with help from other humans

For number three there is a virtually unlimited number of options - each quite distinct. You can't suggest, for example, that if 1 and 2 can be shown to be highly unlikely that the Spalding theory by extension becomes highly likely. And this is where the discussion begins to break down with you. Essentially you seem to be equating position 3 exclusively with the S/R theory.

Just something for you to think about.

Ben M.

[4truth]

Glenn:

By the way, I haven't heard from you on my common sense question. Maybe you missed it.

My time is severely limited. I have an appointment to get to right now. I will respond as time allows.

Ben:

For number three there is a virtually unlimited number of options - each quite distinct. You can't suggest, for example, that if 1 and 2 can be shown to be highly unlikely that the Spalding theory by extension becomes highly likely. And this is where the discussion begins to break down with you. Essentially you seem to be equating position 3 exclusively with the S/R theory.

Just something for you to think about.

Agreed. I do not equate option 3 exclusively with S/R. But once we have eliminated options 1& 2 then we can have the debate of which humans were the most likely helpers.

Gotta run.

All the best.

[Pahoran]

Agreed. I do not equate option 3 exclusively with S/R. But once we have eliminated options 1& 2 then we can have the debate of which humans were the most likely helpers.

This is amazing. Did you actually read Ben's argument?

You are not going to salvage the Spaulding theory, the most frequently disproven theory of origins since the "dirty shirt" theory of abiogenesis, by knocking over its competitors. It will have to stand or fall on its merits.

But then again, perhaps you already understand this. That would certainly explain why you are so determined to avoid having the merits of this theory subject to examination.

Incidentally, I take issue with the title of this thread. The Spaulding theory isn't "the dead horse that won't die," it's "the dead horse that some ideologues can't bear to bury."

Regards,

Pahoran

[4truth]

Hi Glenn:

Roger, let's do an exercise in common sense. you have stated that you are a business man and I will accept your word on that, and go so far as to assume that your business is profitable.

Now I have this scenario for you. You walk away from your business lock stock and barrel, then take a scheme to an uneducated underage boy with no business experience and convince him to be a front man for another, very risky business. There will be no signed contracts, nothing with your name on them. You will have no protection whatsoever.

Sounds good????

If you waded thru my opening posts and still want to post on this thread, you deserve a medal! So the least I can do is respond to your exercise in common sense.

First, my business is a very small, father-son operation, so I would not classify myself as a "businessman" at least not with the connotations that brings to my mind, but, yes, I certainly get your point, and no, that would be pretty stupid.

But that's not what Rigdon did.... assuming that's where you're going with this.

All the best.

[4truth]

Before I move on from Glenn, I suppose I should also address this:

I think that one of the points that Ben was trying to make is each theory should stand or fall on its own merits. That is one of the reasons he is not even mentioning the divinely inspired translation theory. We are only dealing with the Spalding/Rigdon theory and its merits or lack thereof.

Again, I don't "deal" with the theories in a vacuum. I consider them side by side on a level playing field. We have a certain amount of data that has to be explained. Which explanation best explains it? It's really pretty simple.

All the best.

[Uncle Dale]

...

an uneducated underage boy with no business experience and convince

him to be a front man for another, very risky business

...

My guess is that when Sidney Rigdon got to know Joseph Smith, Jr.,

he truly believed that he had found his "choice seer," the boy

destined to hold the keys to the seventh dispensation of the gospel.

I also tend to think that Rigdon believed that the Last Judgment

and Millennium were only months away -- a couple of years at most --

and that what he and Smith were doing together would open the way

for Jesus Christ to descend from the heavens, upon the banks of

the Missouri River, and from thenceforward to reign a thousand years.

If I am correct in my estimations of Rigdon, "business" was purely

a secondary concern for him. He wanted his family properly housed,

clothed and fed -- but he was not seeking after riches.

The "risky" part of the venture was nothing new. Christian martyrs

had died by the hundreds and thousands in past ages. Rigdon and

Smith were both ready to risk the very lives of their families, in

their rebellion at Far West, in the fall of 1838. They obviously

believed in what they were doing -- but kept certain parts secret.

UD

[4truth]

Hi Pahoran:

This is amazing. Did you actually read Ben's argument?

Yep. Read some parts at a more brisk pace than others, though, so I may need to go over it again to get the full impact. Since my time is limited and I don't read all that quickly to start out with, I may miss some things. Hopefully you and Ben can be charitable about that.

You are not going to salvage the Spaulding theory, the most frequently disproven theory of origins since the "dirty shirt" theory of abiogenesis, by knocking over its competitors. It will have to stand or fall on its merits.

Wow. You've packed a lot into two sentences. First, S/R doesn't need salvaging. It's been around since 1833 and we're still talking about it. As far as your characterization that it is "the most frequently disproven theory of origins since..." --that's obviously your opinion, which, you're entitled to. As to knocking over it's competitors... I disagree since--best as I can tell--one of those explanations has to be the real one. As to: "It will have to stand or fall on its merits." I'm fine with that, so long as both of the competing theories have to do the same.

But then again, perhaps you already understand this. That would certainly explain why you are so determined to avoid having the merits of this theory subject to examination.

If the S/R theory has been "disproven" then the weakness of its merits should become apparent in comparison to the alleged strengths of the competitors. Having said that, let me start the ball rolling... I fully recognize that the weakest component of S/R is that it postulates a manuscript we can't examine. This is a frequent, but valid, complaint I hear from Ben. And the second weakest component is the motivation of Rigdon--which I think Glenn's question was setting up to address. I think those are valid criticisms. I also think there are reasonable answers and I think those answers become even more reasonable when compared to some of the answers the other theories are forced to give in response to their weakest components.

Incidentally, I take issue with the title of this thread. The Spaulding theory isn't "the dead horse that won't die," it's "the dead horse that some ideologues can't bear to bury."

That you take issue with the thread title is duly noted.

All the best.

[noel00]

I have often wondered if I were to present a "show and tell" in front of an audience who knew little of the Book of Mormon's origin, I could use three props:

1: A stone in a hat, along with some metal plates under a cloth which only a few close family and others have seen.Someone would be sitting at a table with a bunch of blank paper. - Smith looked in the stone, rattled off what he saw to his scribe who wrote it down. I'd demonstrate to the audience.

2. A pile of books, including Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, a copy of B H Roberts book, Studies of the Book of Mormon (pp.151 - 319) Smith wrote the BOM using the material available to him at the time

3 A picture of Solomon Spalding, Rigdon, a copy of the Jockers et al paper, a photosopy of the newspaper item that showed Rigdon was in Pittsburgh - The S/R theory is that Smith was the front man, for the production of a Book of Mormon based on a stolen manuscript of a Solomon Spalding by Rigdon who subequently added his own material to it.

If I expanded on all three to the audience which theory do you think they would find more credible?

Bruce S attacks the validity of NSC as a tool. Jockers and Wittin in Literary and Linguistic ComputingVolume25, Issue2Pp. write

" We compare and benchmark the performance of five classification methods, four of which are taken from the machine learning literature, in a classic authorship attribution problem involving the Federalist Papers. Cross-validation results are reported for each method, and each method is further employed in classifying the disputed papers and the few papers that are generally understood to be coauthored. These tests are performed using two separate feature sets: a

[TAO]

I have often wondered if I were to present a "show and tell" in front of an audience who knew little of the Book of Mormon's origin, I could use three props:

1: A stone in a hat, along with some metal plates under a cloth which only a few close family and others have seen.Someone would be sitting at a table with a bunch of blank paper. - Smith looked in the stone, rattled off what he saw to his scribe who wrote it down. I'd demonstrate to the audience.

2. A pile of books, including Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, a copy of B H Roberts book, Studies of the Book of Mormon (pp.151 - 319) Smith wrote the BOM using the material available to him at the time

3 A picture of Solomon Spalding, Rigdon, a copy of the Jockers et al paper, a photosopy of the newspaper item that showed Rigdon was in Pittsburgh - The S/R theory is that Smith was the front man, for the production of a Book of Mormon based on a stolen manuscript of a Solomon Spalding by Rigdon who subequently added his own material to it.

If I expanded on all three to the audience which theory do you think they would find more credible?

Well, I could also supply with point 2, counters to it that prove it worthless, and with point 3, literary tests proving none of the men wrote it, and then where would we be? Exactly where we are right now... cuz those things have already been applied to 2 and 3. Ultimately, faith is the only thing that will tell you the answer.

[4truth]

Uncle Dale wrote:

My guess is that when Sidney Rigdon got to know Joseph Smith, Jr.,

he truly believed that he had found his "choice seer," the boy

destined to hold the keys to the seventh dispensation of the gospel.

I also tend to think that Rigdon believed that the Last Judgment

and Millennium were only months away -- a couple of years at most --

and that what he and Smith were doing together would open the way

for Jesus Christ to descend from the heavens, upon the banks of

the Missouri River, and from thenceforward to reign a thousand years.

If I am correct in my estimations of Rigdon, "business" was purely

a secondary concern for him. He wanted his family properly housed,

clothed and fed -- but he was not seeking after riches.

The "risky" part of the venture was nothing new. Christian martyrs

had died by the hundreds and thousands in past ages. Rigdon and

Smith were both ready to risk the very lives of their families, in

their rebellion at Far West, in the fall of 1838. They obviously

believed in what they were doing -- but kept certain parts secret.

Exactly.

One reason S/R critics believe they have "disproven" the S/R theory is because what they have really thrown doubt on is their own caricature of what the S/R theory really postulates. To assume that Rigdon went into this thing looking only at it from the standpoint of a "business venture" is to misjudge what Rigdon was all about. Certainly, as you say, he wanted his family to be well cared for, but the restoration of all things was foremost in his mind. Success or failure in business was secondary.

Like you, I am convinced Rigdon believed in Smith's abilities as a seer and he saw Smith as God's choice. I also think Sidney really believed there were ancient Nephites and that Spalding's manuscript was a true translation of their ancient books. And I think Sidney believed he was authorized by God to add to that ancient revelation with modern revelation in order to usher in the millenium, all of which took precedence over business.

All the best.

[noel00]

I think No. 1 option would be the one that would have the audience either shaking their heads in disbelief or chuckling.

[Glenn101]

Hi Glenn:

If you waded thru my opening posts and still want to post on this thread, you deserve a medal! So the least I can do is respond to your exercise in common sense.

First, my business is a very small, father-son operation, so I would not classify myself as a "businessman" at least not with the connotations that brings to my mind, but, yes, I certainly get your point, and no, that would be pretty stupid.

But that's not what Rigdon did.... assuming that's where you're going with this.

All the best.

If the Rigdon/Spalding theory is correct, that is almost exactly what he did. He was the pastor of a congregation in Mentor Ohio when Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery came to toen in 1830. As one of his sons, John put it, " Now in 1827 Sidney Rigdon went to Mentor Ohio & commenced to preach the doctrine, he soon had quite a large congregation. They built a church, he again seemed to be on the high road to fame & fortune."

He left that congregation and never played more than second fiddle to Joseph Smith.

Glenn

[TAO]

I think No. 1 option would be the one that would have the audience either shaking their heads in disbelief or chuckling.

And I think number 2 option and number 3 option would have the audience wondering why people tried to formulate them when they could so easily be proven wrong.

[4truth]

Hi Tao:

Well, I could also supply with point 2, counters to it that prove it worthless, and with point 3, literary tests proving none of the men wrote it, and then where would we be? Exactly where we are right now... cuz those things have already been applied to 2 and 3. Ultimately, faith is the only thing that will tell you the answer.

Well I think this illustrates pretty well my original point that the Book of Mormon exists and therefore requires some (rational) explanation. And we can't (or shouldn't) just look at one possible explanation in the absence of competing explanations and just rip that explanation to shreds without also seeing if the other explanations fare any better.

When you say "faith is the only thing that will tell you the answer" I have faith that my brain can make rational conclusions based on real data. I have faith that since the book exists, a rational explanation for it must also exist--even if the best explanation actually does require supernatural events.

But in this case, I don't think it does. In my opinion, there are too many real problems with the Official Version even overlooking the required supernatural component. Of course if I start rattling off all the weak components to the Official Version, who knows where that will lead... maybe some information some people haven't considered but more likely a lot of protests and sub-debates over how problematic the problems are. As a quick example, let me mention two weak areas to the Official story to illustrate my point.

1. The official version requires golden plates that are no longer extant.

2. The official version requires the real existence of ancient Nephites but no extra-BOM evidence for their existence exists.

We can debate the nuances of those weak areas--ie. is there some indirect evidence for Nephites?--but at the end of the day, they are still weaknesses that have to be taken into consideration when trying to figure out where the BOM came from... and the key reason they ARE important is that a weakness for one of the theories may also be a strength for a competing theory.

In this case, the fact that there are no extant golden plates and there is no direct evidence for Nephites outside of the BOM not only works against the official version, it also works in favor of the other two competing theories.

If faith is merely a mechanism to avoid challenging questions then I reject it. But if it's merely having passion and confidence in whatever theory you hold, I'm all for it.

All the best.

[Glenn101]

I have often wondered if I were to present a "show and tell" in front of an audience who knew little of the Book of Mormon's origin, I could use three props:

1: A stone in a hat, along with some metal plates under a cloth which only a few close family and others have seen.Someone would be sitting at a table with a bunch of blank paper. - Smith looked in the stone, rattled off what he saw to his scribe who wrote it down. I'd demonstrate to the audience.

2. A pile of books, including Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, a copy of B H Roberts book, Studies of the Book of Mormon (pp.151 - 319) Smith wrote the BOM using the material available to him at the time

3 A picture of Solomon Spalding, Rigdon, a copy of the Jockers et al paper, a photosopy of the newspaper item that showed Rigdon was in Pittsburgh - The S/R theory is that Smith was the front man, for the production of a Book of Mormon based on a stolen manuscript of a Solomon Spalding by Rigdon who subequently added his own material to it.

If I expanded on all three to the audience which theory do you think they would find more credible?

If you just took the Book of Mormon and the Oberlin manuscript and had those people read both, then asserted that the book of Mormon was based on that manuscript, how credible do you think you would be in their eyes?

Bruce S attacks the validity of NSC as a tool. Jockers and Wittin in Literary and Linguistic ComputingVolume25, Issue2Pp. write

" We compare and benchmark the performance of five classification methods, four of which are taken from the machine learning literature, in a classic authorship attribution problem involving the Federalist Papers. Cross-validation results are reported for each method, and each method is further employed in classifying the disputed papers and the few papers that are generally understood to be coauthored. These tests are performed using two separate feature sets: a

[4truth]

Glenn:

If the Rigdon/Spalding theory is correct, that is almost exactly what he did. He was the pastor of a congregation in Mentor Ohio when Parley P. Pratt and Oliver Cowdery came to toen in 1830. As one of his sons, John put it, " Now in 1827 Sidney Rigdon went to Mentor Ohio & commenced to preach the doctrine, he soon had quite a large congregation. They built a church, he again seemed to be on the high road to fame & fortune."

He left that congregation and never played more than second fiddle to Joseph Smith.

So what you're saying is that Rigdon left whatever financial security he had in Mentor for a purpose he strongly believed in. That's exactly what we're saying.

[Uncle Dale]

...

He left that congregation and never played more than second fiddle to Joseph Smith.

...

The Clapps, who were then playing landlord to Sidney, rejected his

conversion to Mormonism and rejected him -- throwing him out of

the cabin they had provided for him at Mentor.

Rigdon was already on shaky ground with the Mentor congregation.

His antics had gotten them thrown out of the Grand River Baptist

Association in 1828 and in 1830 Rigdon had a big fight with

Alexander Campbell (his superior) in the Mahoning Baptist Association.

Very few of the Mentor congregation went over into Mormonism. A few

months later, Parley P. Pratt was complaining that his old associates

in that church would not even allow him through the door.

So, despite John W. Rigdon's glowing recollections of his father

(he was a baby at the time) at Mentor, history says otherwise.

They people who really stayed loyal to Rigdon were impoverished

members of the commune on the Morley farm and a few neighboring

folks in Kirtland. Those people were not major lights among the

Reformed Baptists, but several of them became notable Mormons.

I say that Rigdon gave up nothing to join the Mormons -- nothing

that he was not already on the verge of losing anyway.

Within days of his baptism, he was helping to re-write the Bible.

No such future was in store for him among the Reformed Baptists,

who already had a new Bible, prepared by Alexander Campbell.

Within days of his baptism, Rigdon was the recipient of a divine

revelation, placing him in authority over Joseph Smith and calling

him a John the Baptist of the new movement. The Book of Mormon and

a subsequent revelation identified Rigdon as the spokesman for the

Choice Seer who would open the last dispensation. No such future was

in store for him among the Reformed Baptists, who already had their

leader in Elder Campbell, and who did not accept modern "revelations."

Had the Mormons not been thrown out of Jackson County in 1833,

Rigdon's future would have been a bright one -- as the First Counseler

to the President of the Church. That was a far higher honor than he

had ever been granted under Alexander Campbell.

Rigdon was moving up in the religious world. John W. Rigdon cannot

be trusted as an eyewitness prior to 1837-38.

UD

[TAO]

Well I think this illustrates pretty well my original point that the Book of Mormon exists and therefore requires some (rational) explanation. And we can't (or shouldn't) just look at one possible explanation in the absence of competing explanations and just rip that explanation to shreds without also seeing if the other explanations fare any better.

Hello there too. Well first off, rational is a POV. There is no absolute 'rationality' in the world. And no, it's fine if you look at possible explinations, I was simply responding to her sarcasm.

When you say "faith is the only thing that will tell you the answer" I have faith that my brain can make rational conclusions based on real data. I have faith that since the book exists, a rational explanation for it must also exist--even if the best explanation actually does require supernatural events.

Ah actually, the reason I say 'faith is the only thing that will tell you the answer' is because the world out there is a mess of evidence and counter evidence. Gathering all that evidence, and using it to justify something that will never be proved or disproven is kinda pointless, so my testimony becomes based on faith, not on evidences which will never come to fruititon (either for or against).

But in this case, I don't think it does. In my opinion, there are too many real problems with the Official Version even overlooking the required supernatural component. Of course if I start rattling off all the weak components to the Official Version, who knows where that will lead... maybe some information some people haven't considered but more likely a lot of protests and sub-debates over how problematic the problems are. As a quick example, let me mention two weak areas to the Official story to illustrate my point.

okay, lemme here them.

1. The official version requires golden plates that are no longer extant.

2. The official version requires the real existence of ancient Nephites but no extra-BOM evidence for their existence exists.

1. It is explained that the Golden Plates have been rehidden.

2. Quite on the contrary,there is more evidence FOR existence of Nephites than there is against it. Of course, this is inconsequential to my faith.

Oh yah, piece of advice, don't use Wikipedia for Mormonism, it sometimes is more biased than it claims.

We can debate the nuances of those weak areas--ie. is there some indirect evidence for Nephites?--but at the end of the day, they are still weaknesses that have to be taken into consideration when trying to figure out where the BOM came from... and the key reason they ARE important is that a weakness for one of the theories may also be a strength for a competing theory.

Precisely, there are weaknesses, there are strengths. But ultimately, neither side will gain an edge over the other, for neither side can prove the other wrong in entireness.

In this case, the fact that there are no extant golden plates and there is no direct evidence for Nephites outside of the BOM not only works against the official version, it also works in favor of the other two competing theories.

As I said, there are evidences, it's just critical sites tend to avoid looking for them.

If faith is merely a mechanism to avoid challenging questions then I reject it. But if it's merely having passion and confidence in whatever theory you hold, I'm all for it.

Nah, for me, faith is realizing that ultimately, the world may not be as it seems, and that we must live it with purpose to have a chance at getting anything done.

Life could all be a dream, but if it isn't, I have confidence that I did my best. I used my senses, be it sight, smell, taste, hearing, touch, or the spirit, I used them all to go throughout life.

In other words, there is no reason to bias your spiritual feelings over the ones of the five senses, for they could equally be as wrong.

All the best.

Thanks, I'm going to be now, g'night all.

[4truth]

I am enjoying all the input, but I don't want Ben to think I am ignoring him. On the other hand there's no way I can respond to everything he posted and even if I spent the necessary 6 or so hours, the result would be long and, no doubt, boring.

So let me go straight to what I think is one of, if not, Ben's strongest point(s). It went like this:

Alright then, let's issue a challenge based on that. Pull your best set of sequential parallels from Verne to the BOM and let's have a look. To qualify, they will need to take place within the span of approximately two chapters from each work.

Ok. So I spent about 20 minutes working this up this morning. Here is the list (following the pattern you used in the other thread). For my sources, I am using 1 Nephi 17-18 and Around the World in 80 Days chapters 17 and 18 also. Both texts I took from Gutenberg. I ended up with 15 sequential parallels in the two chapters in my rather cursory examination.

1. Both narratives detail a journey. 2. During this journey, the travelers stop at a place filled with fruits and 3. near the seashore. 4. Gathering up many of these fruits, the travelers 5. board a ship and set sail. 6. During the first part of the voyage, there was a constant wind. 7. The wind develops into a storm, called a

[noel00]

http://www.stanford.edu/~mjockers/pubs/LLCPrePrintFederalist.pdf

[noel00]

If you just took the Book of Mormon and the Oberlin manuscript and had those people read both, then asserted that the book of Mormon was based on that manuscript, how credible do you think you would be in their eyes?

The point and problem: The authors of most of the Federalist papers are known. They have been the test bed for many authorship attribution studies in the past which have been consistent in attribution for those whose author had not been identified. Bruce's contention is that if the true author is not included in a candidate set, the NSC algorithms will produce invalid results.

He demonstrated that problem by using the NSC methods on the Federalist papers known to have been authored by Hamilton. However, in his candidate set he excluded Hamilton. Rigdon was one of the candidates that he did include and Rigdon came out the overall winner, 28 of 51, Pratt 12 of 51, and Cowdery, 11 of 51.

With Hamilton in the mix, he was the winner every time. Not even close.

Glenn

How do you know that it would be the Oberlin manuscript rather than the other MF?

[Benjamin McGuire]

Noel writes:

Bruce S attacks the validity of NSC as a tool. Jockers and Wittin in Literary and Linguistic ComputingVolume25, Issue2Pp. write

" We compare and benchmark the performance of five classification methods, four of which are taken from the machine learning literature, in a classic authorship attribution problem involving the Federalist Papers. Cross-validation results are reported for each method, and each method is further employed in classifying the disputed papers and the few papers that are generally understood to be coauthored. These tests are performed using two separate feature sets: a

[Benjamin McGuire]

Roger writes:

One reason S/R critics believe they have "disproven" the S/R theory is because what they have really thrown doubt on is their own caricature of what the S/R theory really postulates.

This simply isn't true. Here are some of the reasons why I believe that the S/R theory doesn't work:

1: There is no evidence of another Spalding manuscript. We don't have a single word from the missing text that can be demonstrated as being from that missing text.

2: There is no evidence that Rigdon knew Joseph Smith prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. They claim to have never been introduced.

3: The production of the Book of Mormon requires a conspiracy theory. There is no actual evidence of such a conspiracy.

4: The Book of Mormon does not look or read like the existing Spalding manuscript.

5: There is evidence that the 1833 witness accounts were based on a common template - either as a text prepared by Hurlbut, or as a text coached by him.

Do I need to go on? I certainly could. This isn't based on a caricature of what the S/R theorists believe, its based on the fact that S/R theorists do not have actual evidence but massive quantities of speculation. Things could change. We could certainly find new documentation that indicates some part of the S/R theory could be accurate. But, such evidence hasn't apparently come forward in 180 years of looking for it.

To assume that Rigdon went into this thing looking only at it from the standpoint of a "business venture" is to misjudge what Rigdon was all about. Certainly, as you say, he wanted his family to be well cared for, but the restoration of all things was foremost in his mind. Success or failure in business was secondary.

But, motivation is certainly an issue. After all, if we are talking about a book that was substantially written by Smith, Cowdery and Rigdon (and perhaps even Pratt), then why the need for a Spalding manuscript at all? What was so unique about the Spalding text that its existence is even necessary to explain the Book of Mormon? The real truth behind the matter is that Spalding theorists like to claim that it is the early witnesses that make the theory credible - and yet, they minimize the impact of the early witnesses who claimed that Smith wrote it, the early witnesses that claim that it was translated ... it is really a classic example of a theory that is assumed as absolute truth, and then a search for evidence that proves it. And here we are, 180 years later, and no proof. Just a house of cards. Over time the evidence for Spalding has not gotten any better (if anything it has gotten worse), and thus the shift from external to internal evidence and the subsequent leap at the Jockers' study that all of the S/R theorists have made. As I suggested earlier - will the S/R theorists abandon Jockers if a subsequent study, reviewed in the same peer review process, is published in the same journal and dismantles the earlier study? I am not sure that they will. Their willingness to cling to the Jockers study without understanding the argument being made doesn't argue that they will.

Like you, I am convinced Rigdon believed in Smith's abilities as a seer and he saw Smith as God's choice. I also think Sidney really believed there were ancient Nephites and that Spalding's manuscript was a true translation of their ancient books. And I think Sidney believed he was authorized by God to add to that ancient revelation with modern revelation in order to usher in the millenium, all of which took precedence over business.

And now mind reading. This is pure speculation - no evidence here.

Ben M.