Criddle, Jockers, et al., on Book of Mormon Authorship

[Fifth Columnist]

Second, we know things like genre and time i.e.(early Rigdon versus late Rigdon) influence a persons word print. Is it known to what extent dictation versus writing influences a persons word print? Understandably Schaalje et al only use letters written in JS handwriting to derive his word print. The BOM on the other hand was almost entirely dictated so even if JS was the sole author of the BOM would his dictated word print be the same as his written word print? Now I am no historian neither am I an expert in stylometrics. However it is my understanding a good portion of the D&C was dictated by JS the D&C like the BOM frequently uses archaic language. Is it possibly using carefully selected sections from the D&C to derive JS dictated wordprint and hence control for both archaic language and dictation?

I think the biggest problem with even trying to use word print studies to determine authorship is that Royal Skousen has determined that the Book of Mormon was written in 17th century English. If that is the case, then who could possibly be the author? I think a method must be devised to control for the use of archaic language.

I would like to see someone perform word print studies to determine whether the Book of Mormon was authored by the same person that authored the early sections of the D&C (the sections received in 1830-1831; need to develop a methodology to choose the sections), the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible (especially heavily edited areas such as Matthew 24 and the book of Moses), and/or the Book of Abraham. For example, the D&C sections from 1830-1831 (or book of Moses or Book of Abraham) could be used to create a word print for an unknown author (Author X). The word print could then be thrown into the mix with the other potential candidates to determine if Author X is the most likely author of the Book of Mormon.

[Uncle Dale]

...

the Book of Mormon was written in 17th century English.

...

Yes -- we see vocabulary and idioms which outdate even the KJV Bible --

but not consistently applied. The language of the "small plates" and

of the final four or five books is sometimes more elevated -- more

authoritative -- less commonplace than that of Mosiah, Alma and Helaman.

But, for the most part, the book is still intelligible. A good deal of

its verbiage is similar to the KJV Bible, which most readers can still

comprehend even in 2011.

One thing is for certain -- Nephites did not write in archaic English;

so we cannot blame the old-fashioned narrative upon ancient Americans.

Nor do I suppose that "17th century English" is the speech of God Almighty.

The archaic English is there in that book (and in the JST, the BoA, and

even the "Book of John Whitmer") because 19th century writers put it there.

But ---- does the application of archaic English affect the measurement

of frequently occurring, non-contextual words in "wordprinting" analysis?

Possibly so. The introduction of innumerable "and it came to pass" clauses

would naturally alter the word-print patterns, based upon "it," "and, "to," etc.

The use of the emphatic tense would alter the word counts for "did" and "do."

Instead of saying "I went," the writer would say "I did go." And, instead of

saying "you go," the writer would say "thou goest" or "thou dost go."

The introduction of a great deal of "17th century English" into a writer's

prose might at least offset his/her word-print -- like music changing an octave.

That is why I've suggested doing some quantitative analysis of old writers

who composed prose both in their "natural" personal style, and in purposely

archaic English (such as KJV emulation). There are a few such examples available,

and we could probably learn something from testing them.

I wonder how far back in time (and to what geographic locality) we would have

to travel, in order to find English speakers who were fluent in 1st Nephi idiom,

as their contemporary vernacular? Probably to the Puritans of the English Civil

War -- to Oliver Cromwell, and his parents and grandparents.

I wonder why that is so?

UD

.

[Glenn101]

I think the biggest problem with even trying to use word print studies to determine authorship is that Royal Skousen has determined that the Book of Mormon was written in 17th century English. If that is the case, then who could possibly be the author? I think a method must be devised to control for the use of archaic language.

Actually, if I remember correctly, Skousen says that the Book of Mormon was written in fifteenth century English. The Bible is written in 17th century English. This is just another little kink in the story of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

Glenn

[Fifth Columnist]

I would like to see someone perform word print studies to determine whether the Book of Mormon was authored by the same person that authored the early sections of the D&C (the sections received in 1830-1831; need to develop a methodology to choose the sections), the Joseph Smith translation of the Bible (especially heavily edited areas such as Matthew 24 and the book of Moses), and/or the Book of Abraham. For example, the D&C sections from 1830-1831 (or book of Moses or Book of Abraham) could be used to create a word print for an unknown author (Author X). The word print could then be thrown into the mix with the other potential candidates to determine if Author X is the most likely author of the Book of Mormon.

I made the following clarification on the other board and thought I should post it here as well.

Joseph Smith brought forth a number of documents that were purported to have been written by various ancient figures or God. The point of what I am suggesting above is to check these texts (the Book of Mormon, the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, and the sections in the D&C received by Joseph Smith) were all brought about through Joseph Smith, but authorship was ascribed to someone else (e.g., Mormon, Nephi, Moses, Abraham, God (D&C sections), etc.). However, if the analysis shows a high probability that they were produced by the same author, then Joseph Smith is that guy. If the analysis shows, however, that the word print of the different texts are in fact different (each portion of text alleged to be authored by the likes of Moses, Abraham, Nephi, etc. are all different), then FARMS will be writing an article touting the results. If the analysis shows that the Book of Mormon had a different author, but the rest had the same author, then it may bolster the Spaulding thesis.

[Uncle Dale]

...If the analysis shows, however, that the word print of the different

texts are in fact different...

If I'm reading Bruce's latest paper correctly, the vast majority of

BoM chapters must be assigned to "latent" and not to the tested

Joseph Smith word-print. Didn't Smith's authorship attributions fall

within the margin of error for the study -- so low as to be zero?

If Smith has thus been ruled out of any BoM authorship, then our

discovering shared word-prints in the BoM and other standard works

texts would necessarily have to exclude Smith. How could other

19th century writers have made any contributions to the standard

works texts, without Smith's involvement and input?

Thus, while the latest (unpublished) Jockers textual study attributes

some D&C chapters to Smith, Cowdery and Rigdon, I would imagine that

any new report from Bruce and his BYU associates would discount or

exclude such findings --- based upon the discovery that no 19th

century author wrote the BoM, and thus no BoM word-print can be

found in the other latter day scriptural writings.

Correct?

UD

added:

Then there is the recent Roper paper, on Joseph Smith, BoM geography,

word-prints, etc. --- I wonder where all of that will lead to?

.

[Glenn101]

Then there is the recent Roper paper, on Joseph Smith, BoM geography,

word-prints, etc. --- I wonder where all of that will lead to?

.

Dale, which paper is this? Is it a Maxwell Institute publication?

Thanks,

Glenn

[Uncle Dale]

Dale, which paper is this? Is it a Maxwell Institute publication?

Thanks,

Glenn

Yeah --

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=22&num=2&id=805

Matt was a co-author on Bruce's recent paper -- and he mentions

some more word-print analysis going on at BYU in this second report.

UD

[Fifth Columnist]

If I'm reading Bruce's latest paper correctly, the vast majority of

BoM chapters must be assigned to "latent" and not to the tested

Joseph Smith word-print. Didn't Smith's authorship attributions fall

within the margin of error for the study -- so low as to be zero?

My thought is that Joseph Smith's ordinary word-print doesn't match his revelation word-print. He changes voice when revealing God's word. This is one reason why I would like to compare the authorship of the other revelations.

If Smith has thus been ruled out of any BoM authorship, then our

discovering shared word-prints in the BoM and other standard works

texts would necessarily have to exclude Smith.

Or Smith has a different word print when he goes into revelation mode.

How could other

19th century writers have made any contributions to the standard

works texts, without Smith's involvement and input?

From the historical record, I don't think they could have. I think the Book of Abraham, Book of Moses, and most of the D&C revelations had to come from Joseph Smith. If they do not match his word print, then Joseph has the ability to change his word print when he is receiving revelation or it must be someone else's word print such as God or his angels. I suppose some other human could be the author, but that is completely incongruent with the historical record.

Thus, while the latest (unpublished) Jockers textual study attributes

some D&C chapters to Smith, Cowdery and Rigdon, I would imagine that

any new report from Bruce and his BYU associates would discount or

exclude such findings --- based upon the discovery that no 19th

century author wrote the BoM, and thus no BoM word-print can be

found in the other latter day scriptural writings.

That would probably be Bruce's assumption, but I would like to see him run the tests and show that it is true. I worry that if Bruce ran the tests and the data was not faith promoting that it would not be published. BYU seems to take a dim view of publishing things that don't support the Church's position.

Jockers' analysis seems interesting, but it sounds like he is using the same word prints of Smith, Cowdery, and Rigdon to run the tests. I would like to see Jockers or Bruce (his methodology seems preferable right now) run the studies I suggested above. I think it would help put the accuracy of the findings in perspective. For example, if the new tests produced inconsistent results, then we would know that something is wrong.

[Fifth Columnist]

Yeah --

http://maxwellinstit...22&num=2&id=805

Matt was a co-author on Bruce's recent paper -- and he mentions

some more word-print analysis going on at BYU in this second report.

UD

When developing Wilford Woodruff's word print, the paper notes "(Thus we did not utilize texts from Woodruff's diaries, since his personal writing style differs from his more public exposition.)" I think this supports my view that Joseph Smith's revelatory writing style is very different from his ordinary writing style.

[Uncle Dale]

...I think this supports my view that Joseph Smith's revelatory writing style is very different from his ordinary writing style.

Yes, I understand your theory -- but I'm not sure how it would work.

Just to make things simple, let's say that my own word-print

includes the words "and," "but," "so," "they," & "if" at the

ratio of 6:1:1:2:3 -- also that my MB posting "voice" uses those

words in the ratio of 12:1:1:5:7.

How on earth would I remember to sustain my two different word-prints,

consistently, throughout a large number of communications?

And the example I just gave is nowhere near as complex as actual

word-printing of frequently used, non-contextual words in a writer's

communications/publications.

If the same person wrote all of the non-biblical chapters of the

1830 BoM AND all of the 1833 Book of Commandments chapters, then

we might expect to see much greater consistency throughout both

sets of texts. There are, of course, many shared words and phrases,

but I think that superficial similarity masks a deeper phenomenon

of varying word-prints.

Perhaps some "outsider" will take an interest in this subject and

eventually present us with reliable analysis, not addressed to

either an LDS audience nor a skeptical non-LDS readership -- but

just as pure statistical discovery and reporting. That would be good.

UD

[Glenn101]

Yes, I understand your theory -- but I'm not sure how it would work.

Just to make things simple, let's say that my own word-print

includes the words "and," "but," "so," "they," & "if" at the

ratio of 6:1:1:2:3 -- also that my MB posting "voice" uses those

words in the ratio of 12:1:1:5:7.

How on earth would I remember to sustain my two different word-prints,

consistently, throughout a large number of communications?

And the example I just gave is nowhere near as complex as actual

word-printing of frequently used, non-contextual words in a writer's

communications/publications.

If the same person wrote all of the non-biblical chapters of the

1830 BoM AND all of the 1833 Book of Commandments chapters, then

we might expect to see much greater consistency throughout both

sets of texts. There are, of course, many shared words and phrases,

but I think that superficial similarity masks a deeper phenomenon

of varying word-prints.

Perhaps some "outsider" will take an interest in this subject and

eventually present us with reliable analysis, not addressed to

either an LDS audience nor a skeptical non-LDS readership -- but

just as pure statistical discovery and reporting. That would be good.

UD

While a person can change writing styles in accordance with genre or to imitate another writer, it seems to be the consensus of the word print studies that use non-contextual word pattern use that such usage does not change with genre or even age. Larsen, Wrencher, and Layton noted the case of an author who wrote a finish for an uncompleted Jane Austen novel. She was able to imitate the style admirably, but an analysis of her non-contextual word usage with that of Austen showed clear differences. See "Who Wrote the Book of Mormon: A Word Print Analysis" by Larsen, Wrencher, and Layton. It is available on the Maxwell Institute web site.

Glenn

[Uncle Dale]

...it seems to be the consensus of the word print studies that use non-contextual word pattern use that such usage does not change with genre or even age.

...

On the other hand, I can envision a person's oral communications

exhibiting at least a slightly different pattern from a word-print

derived from his written material.

In 6th grade I had a teacher who drove us all crazy with

countless "And, well, ah, er..." sorts of hesitations in his

classroom lectures. I would guess that a word-print

constructed from transcripts of that guy's lectures would

differ, at least in part, from his written works word-print.

Again, if I took a couple of hundred pages of your own writings,

and inserted "and it came to pass" into every paragraph, along

with changing all your verbs to emphatic tense ("did go" = went),

I suppose that I could thus alter your derived word-print.

I'll better trust the "consensus" when I see more extensive

data to back it up.

In the case of the Book of Mormon, we have many instances where

the book itself professes to have a base text changed by a later

editor. Assuming that assertion is correct (no matter whether we

are talking about Nephites or about 19th century contributors),

I'd guess that editorial insertions and paraphrases could greatly

change the word-print of a pre-existing text.

This stuff looks more like art than science to me.

UD

.

[Fifth Columnist]

While a person can change writing styles in accordance with genre or to imitate another writer, it seems to be the consensus of the word print studies that use non-contextual word pattern use that such usage does not change with genre or even age.

I guess these guys didn't get the memo: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=22&num=2&id=805

Here is the quote from their paper "(Thus we did not utilize texts from Woodruff's diaries, since his personal writing style differs from his more public exposition.)"

Larsen, Wrencher, and Layton noted the case of an author who wrote a finish for an uncompleted Jane Austen novel. She was able to imitate the style admirably, but an analysis of her non-contextual word usage with that of Austen showed clear differences. See "Who Wrote the Book of Mormon: A Word Print Analysis" by Larsen, Wrencher, and Layton. It is available on the Maxwell Institute web site.

How is this relevant to whether the same author may have different word prints in different contexts?

[Glenn101]

How is this relevant to whether the same author may have different word prints in different contexts?

That is the point. The non-contextual word pattern usage does not seem to change with genre or over time.

Glenn

[Fifth Columnist]

That is the point. The non-contextual word pattern usage does not seem to change with genre or over time.

You cited Larsen's study to show that one author tried to mimic another author's writing style (Jane Austen) but the two authors still had different word prints. That says nothing about whether a single author may have a different word print in different contexts.

[Glenn101]

You cited Larsen's study to show that one author tried to mimic another author's writing style (Jane Austen) but the two authors still had different word prints. That says nothing about whether a single author may have a different word print in different contexts.

I am going to have to dig out the actual report, but what that is showing is that the author could not disguise or change her unconscious non-contextual word use pattern, even though she adopted a jane Austen "voice". If that author had been writing a history paper, her non-contextual word use patterns would be the same.

For work since the Larsen, Wrencher, Layton model see "On Verifying Wordprint Studies" here.

Glenn

[Uncle Dale]

For some reason the R graphing function I used did not space the spikes perfectly evenly. However, if you count the number of dots or spikes between (and including) 20 and 50, you will see that there are 31 of them as there should be. The Isaiah chapters in the range of chapters 1-100 are chapters 20-21, 29-30, 34-46, and 80. The Isaiah chapters correctly assigned to Isaiah by open-set NSC were chapters 21, 30, 34-38, and 40-46. In other words, of the 18 Isaiah chapters in this range, 14 (78%) were correctly assigned to Isaiah. Not perfect, but not bad. There were also some false positives in this range of chapters, namely chapters 22, 25, 31, 32, 47, 48, 50, 52, 64, 69, and 78. This is not surprising given the pca plot in Figure 10. Also, keep in mind that we did not use the separate KJV Isaiah chapters as training texts. Rather, we composited sequential chapters until we had at least 1000 words in each training text.

Another way of looking at it is that in the first 100 chapters, 14 of the 18 Isaiah chapters were correctly assigned to Isaiah, and 71 of the 82 non-Isaiah chapters were correctly assigned as not being Isaiah, for an overall correct-classification rate of (14+71)/100 = 85%. This rate is even higher if you consider all 239 chapters of the Book of Mormon.

For the sake of comparison, Jockers/Criddle assigned 63 chapters to Isaiah/Malachi (compared to our total of 35 chapters). I don't know how many actual Isaiah chapter they misclassified, but in any case they had a lot more false positives than we had.

This is interesting -- thanks for the clarification.

I see that two of the attributions only plot at the 80% level. So, I suppose

that you also came up with a secondary attribution at 20% or below?

Would you mind posting on the web all of your Fig. 11 percentages, by chapter?

Dale

I'm renewing my request for Bruce to divulge this detailed data.

In the case of Matt's 2008 report, much of his work was reconstructable

from the raw data posted as a supplement on-line.

If Bruce would do the same, then we would have his Joseph Smith, Jr.

word-print available, along with the percentages of his authorship

attribution findings.

I realize that "latent" takes up the vast number of primary attributions,

but the exact percentages seem nowhere available, and the secondary

attributions are not even depicted.

This professional lapse should be corrected, I believe.

Uncle Dale

.

[J Green]

Interesting thread.

Some good questions have been posed about genre, archaic language, and other issues. But what about translation? Does an author's non-contextual word in his or her translations differ from his or her normal writing? Or do you simply throw this under the subject of genre?

Let's take Suzanne Levine as an example. When she translates a work by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, does her non-contextual word use differ from when she translates something by Jorge Luis Borges or Manuel Puig? And do these instances differ from her own writing in The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction?

What about Nahguib Mahfouz, since this is his year? Do all of Raymond Stock's translations of Mahfouz have similar non-contextual word use? If so, is it different from the translations of others, such as the upcoming volumes by Aida Bamia and Nancy Roberts (released by AUC Press)? Similarly, does Shelton's translation of Don Quixote have a different word-print from Ormsby's translation of the same work?

I agree that genre seems to be an important factor, but translation appears to be a critical one as well.

Thoughts?

[Glenn101]

Interesting thread.

Some good questions have been posed about genre, archaic language, and other issues. But what about translation? Does an author's non-contextual word in his or her translations differ from his or her normal writing? Or do you simply throw this under the subject of genre?

Let's take Suzanne Levine as an example. When she translates a work by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, does her non-contextual word use differ from when she translates something by Jorge Luis Borges or Manuel Puig? And do these instances differ from her own writing in The Subversive Scribe: Translating Latin American Fiction?

What about Nahguib Mahfouz, since this is his year? Do all of Raymond Stock's translations of Mahfouz have similar non-contextual word use? If so, is it different from the translations of others, such as the upcoming volumes by Aida Bamia and Nancy Roberts (released by AUC Press)? Similarly, does Shelton's translation of Don Quixote have a different word-print from Ormsby's translation of the same work?

I agree that genre seems to be an important factor, but translation appears to be a critical one as well.

Thoughts?

Research in this area indicates that the original author's wordprints survive a careful translation. Here is an excerpt from an article by John Hilton "On Verifying Word Print Studies: Book of Mormon Authorship".

We also studied English translations of semiclassical texts written by different German authors. These academic translations were all carefully done by the same German-to-English translator. The wordprint measurements regarding translations provided three significant results: (1) each

translated author is consistent within himself; (2) when several German authors are translated by the same person, the English rendition of each

author is clearly separable from the others; and (3) the translator

[Bruce Schaalje]

I'm renewing my request for Bruce to divulge this detailed data.

In the case of Matt's 2008 report, much of his work was reconstructable

from the raw data posted as a supplement on-line.

If Bruce would do the same, then we would have his Joseph Smith, Jr.

word-print available, along with the percentages of his authorship

attribution findings.

I realize that "latent" takes up the vast number of primary attributions,

but the exact percentages seem nowhere available, and the secondary

attributions are not even depicted.

This professional lapse should be corrected, I believe.

Uncle Dale

Whoa. Dude. It

[Uncle Dale]

...you can find it here...

I tried several different possible log-ons -- and finally hit upon

"password" as a workable user-name entry.

I then tried the 50 most common passwords -- but none of them worked.

I'll have to ask a pal of mine who does occasional computer security

anti-hacking checks, to advise me on a possible useable password.

Or -- if you wouldn't mind creating a temporary one -- for just

an hour so so -- perhaps I could use that, to get at the data.

UD

[TAO]

I tried several different possible log-ons -- and finally hit upon

"password" as a workable user-name entry.

I then tried the 50 most common passwords -- but none of them worked.

I'll have to ask a pal of mine who does occasional computer security

anti-hacking checks, to advise me on a possible useable password.

Or -- if you wouldn't mind creating a temporary one -- for just

an hour so so -- perhaps I could use that, to get at the data.

UD

I think the information is in the link in the side-tab... but maybe that's not it... can't tell =P.

[Bruce Schaalje]

I tried several different possible log-ons -- and finally hit upon

"password" as a workable user-name entry.

I then tried the 50 most common passwords -- but none of them worked.

I'll have to ask a pal of mine who does occasional computer security

anti-hacking checks, to advise me on a possible useable password.

Or -- if you wouldn't mind creating a temporary one -- for just

an hour so so -- perhaps I could use that, to get at the data.

UD

Try this.

[Bruce Schaalje]

Try this.

OK that didn't work either. I'll just attach it to this.

probability matrix.txt

[Uncle Dale]

OK that didn't work either. I'll just attach it to this.

Wow!

I'm not easily impressed, but I'm absolutely stunned. So many 100%s!!!

Thanks you.

Dale

ps -- The word-print of Enos really matches that of Joseph Smith by 100.00%?

Does the word-print for the BoM Preface match Smith's at that same level?