Book Of Mormon: New Evidence Of 19Th Century Origin

[Storm Rider]

That is one of my major problems with most of these criticisms. There is broad assumptions one who saw what when and then tying that into the "creation" of the Book of Mormon. All of this assumes that all of these assumptions were kept secret throughout their mortal days on earth even in the face of some pretty strong disagreements.  

 

There are those who will ignore everything in a focus on the commonalities and proclaim they have found the truth. There are others who will focus on the words of others during the day and thus declare the truth. As for me, I listen, I read, I ponder and nothing comes close to what I read today; what the Spirit declares, and what those who were actually involved stated. To date, I have neither read nor heard of anything that overcomes that simple formula; I am just sayin. 

[jkwilliams]

That is one of my major problems with most of these criticisms. There is broad assumptions one who saw what when and then tying that into the "creation" of the Book of Mormon. All of this assumes that all of these assumptions were kept secret throughout their mortal days on earth even in the face of some pretty strong disagreements.  

 

There are those who will ignore everything in a focus on the commonalities and proclaim they have found the truth. There are others who will focus on the words of others during the day and thus declare the truth. As for me, I listen, I read, I ponder and nothing comes close to what I read today; what the Spirit declares, and what those who were actually involved stated. To date, I have neither read nor heard of anything that overcomes that simple formula; I am just sayin.

It cuts the other way, too. These possible parallels rest on the assumption that someone involved in the production of the Book of Mormon was familiar with Hunt's book, which seems a reasonable assumption given that it was widely used as a school text and Oliver Cowdery was a schoolteacher. But parallels teased out of the Book of Mormon, such as the possible Near Eastern names, rest on the opposite assumption that Joseph Smith could not have been familiar with them. So, what do we make of these parallels? Your answer is instructive: it depends on your beliefs. If you believe the spirit has told you the Book of Mormon is true, you're going to interpret things much differently than someone who doesn't hold that same belief.

[maklelan]

I have not read this entire thread, so this may have already been mentioned, but I did a quick Google Books search and found several publications from the turn of the nineteenth century that link the phrase "curious workmanship" with weapons, and even specifically "weapons of war":

 

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

 

I think there are a lot of compelling conceptual and terminological correspondences between these two texts, and I would lean toward concluding this book played some role in the development of Cowdery and/or Smith's literary vernacular, but it may just be the book with the highest concentration of phraseology parallel to the Book of Mormon that happened to have literary currency during Cowdery and/or Smith's upbringing. 

[jkwilliams]

I have not read this entire thread, so this may have already been mentioned, but I did a quick Google Books search and found several publications from the turn of the nineteenth century that link the phrase "curious workmanship" with weapons, and even specifically "weapons of war":

 

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

http://books.google.com/books...

 

I think there are a lot of compelling conceptual and terminological correspondences between these two texts, and I would lean toward concluding this book played some role in the development of Cowdery and/or Smith's literary vernacular, but it may just be the book with the highest concentration of phraseology parallel to the Book of Mormon that happened to have literary currency during Cowdery and/or Smith's upbringing.

Here's a good summary of what some people find striking about the "curious workmanship" usage:

So, the author of this comment ran a Google search. I have too. What you get are numerous references to architectural elements and artisan items, including weapons, "of curious workmanship." I found one interesting reference in a book written in the 1840s to a "ball of curious workship." I have seen the words boat or ship pop up somewhere in the vicinity of the phrase "of curious workmanship."

What I do not see is any other text that refers to all three kinds of items as being curious of curious workmanship or connected to items of curious workmanship.

That is a crucial difference. That is the difference between a "meh" and something that merits serious attention. Yet this fellow who did the Google search evidently did not go much further than noting that weapons, balls, and ships show up connected to, or somewhere close to the phrase "curious workmanship."

Here's the thing: so do other items.

Neither Hunt nor the Book of Mormon refer to architecture being of curious workmanship.

Why not?

Why is it especially in the context of all three kinds of items and not others that these two books, and evidently no others, refer to "curious workmanship."

That is striking.

[cdowis]

del

Edited October 22, 2013 by cdowis

[canadaduane]

I am frankly at a lose at to why you are using the copyright notice at all. Shouldn't this analysis be limited to the portion of the text that is allegedly a translation from an ancient text? 

We are trying to be as "mechanical" as possible in that we create an algorithm and let it do its thing. If we were to remove parts by hand, it may impact things in unpredictable ways. That said, the copyright notice is so common, it essentially adds zero weight to the match.

[Peppermint Patty]

"Mimick" is an interesting word, clearly implying that the BOM is using this book as a source.

 

Can you give us some very specific examples of many mimicked "phrases and concepts".  Is "many" more than five, 15, 30?  How many words are in these phrases -- a mimicked paragraph, sentence,  a phrase of two or three words?  What "concepts" are mimicked, and what specific phrases are used -- are these concepts something that we can find elsewhere  in hundreds or thousands of books? 

 

Let's see what you got before we start talking about the problems of loose translation.

 

Let's see what you got.

cdowis,

 

The link I provided shows a lot of specific and general examples of terms, phrases and themes. Hope this helps.

[thesometimesaint]

Folks - this is lighting up some LDS-related sites:

 

http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/#more-56

 

Seems a cursory textual analysis of works published pre-1830 has yielded some clue as to books that influenced the BOM!

 

About as useful as claiming that because the King James version of the Bible uses the language of the time. It must have influenced the peoples of the Old Testament.

[Kevin Christensen]

Chiapas doesn't work all that well, either, IMO. I know a guy who insists that Zarahemla is Cajamarca, Peru.

I've got Sorenson's Sourcebook, and have seen lots of proposed locations, including the Malay peninsula. That is why I cite Larry's work on the details of the Sidon which shows that the details fit only one candidate in the Western Hemisphere. I'm one of those people who thinks that such details matter. The problems with a Peru location for Zarahemla go beyond the river. Try making sense of the tactical situation on the Eastern coast during the wars in Alma, for instance. (See the details in Sorenson's Mormon's Map.) And consider the details Larry Poulson's FAIR presentations, showing how specific locations cast light on interconnected details in the narratives.

And some details matter more than others. If I have the river, which is mentioned more often than horses, I think I'm in a far better position than if I have a horse bone and no river. And if the river fits with other details, say relative to city building with cement, the rise and fall of major civilizations, a major volcanic event, and a lake with a submerged city, I'm willing to put up with a few open issues. A paradigm is what a person uses to approach unsolved problems, not a completed solution.

Blake Ostler's Expansion theory is helpful, but is also dated. Most of his proposed expansions have to do with the Book of Mormon seeming too Christian before Christ, something that Alexander Campbell had jumped on back in 1831. In my opinion, Margaret Barker's reconstruction of First Temple theology changes everything. Her first book was published in 1987, the same years that Ostler published in Dialogue. What had seemed anachronistic to everyone now makes sense in the purported context. And since Campbell was a restorationist, and a contemporary of Joseph Smith, who had better access to books and education, it strikes me as tricky to explain how things that struck Campbell as obviously wrong would not have also seemed just as obviously wrong to a Joseph Smith engaged in composing something out of the 19th century Palmyra environs Zeitgeist.

And while various people have compared Mosiah 1-5 to a revival, I'm not inclined to take them seriously unless they also acknowledge and discuss the essays in King Benjamin's Speech:

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/book/king-benjamin-s-speech-that-ye-may-learn-wisdom/

Especially, this one:

http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1087&index=8

A while back, I wrote this, to lay out the issues.

http://www.ldsmag.com/1/article/1644

This is just the sort of content and detail and significance that computer based searches for phrases available to Joseph Smith will never be able to detect. It all occurs at a higher level of abstraction than a machine search can comprehend.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Peppermint Patty]

Here's a good summary of what some people find striking about the "curious workmanship" usage:

 

 

jkwilliams,

 

What happens if you search google books for  the terms stripling and 2000?  Is there anywhere else these terms appear other than The Book of Mormon and The Great War? I would search myself, but can't seem to work my way around google books to well.

[maklelan]

Here's a good summary of what some people find striking about the "curious workmanship" usage:

 

 

With a grand total of four occurrences in the Book of Mormon, that specific usage is not really a correspondence I would call "striking," particularly in light of the variants of the phrase to which one has to appeal to gather up the parallels ("curious works," "curious vessels"). Why don't we bring up Hel 6:11's "curious workmen"? That has nothing to do with weapons or balls or ships; it has to do with mining ore. The link between torpedoes shaped like balls and the Liahona, which was shaped like a ball, is also tenuous. Not only is the phrase not exact, but are we really to conclude that the author thought up the Liahona and then drew the phrase "curious workmanship" (a different phrase) not from his previous usage of the phrase (1-2 Nephi were rendered last), but from the overlap of the word "ball" with the same word in a description of torpedoes? Why use "curious workmanship" instead of "curious works"? Someone might argue that the reference to a "clock" and the concept of two "spindles" indicates a link, but the Hunt text is not referring to the hands of a clock, but to the sprockets and inner mechanisms, and I don't think Joseph Smith would have misunderstood that. No, I think that's stretching things a bit too thin, and if we're going to go that thin, why not mention Exod 35:32:

 

31 And he hath filled him with the spirit of God, in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all manner of workmanship;

32 And to devise curious works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in brass

[maklelan]

jkwilliams,

 

What happens if you search google books for  the terms stripling and 2000?  Is there anywhere else these terms appear other than The Book of Mormon and The Great War? I would search myself, but can't seem to work my way around google books to well.

 

Well, this book from 1810 mentions striplings who had "risen in their country's cause," only to be killed by an enemy of war. In the next paragraph it mentions another "regiment of 2000 men."

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=nS8aAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA249&dq=stripling+2000&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J6NmUpL4L5P_yQHLwYH4Dg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=stripling%202000&f=false 

 

These two books actually contain the phrase "stripling warrior":

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=Pe5LAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA429&dq=stripling+warrior&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KaRmUqWhAdOkyAGozICoCg&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=stripling%20warrior&f=false

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=NoQHAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA253&dq=stripling+warrior&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KaRmUqWhAdOkyAGozICoCg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=stripling%20warrior&f=false

 

The phrase appears to have been used in some popular poetry from the turn of the 19th century.

Edited October 22, 2013 by maklelan

[Peppermint Patty]

Well, this book from 1810 mentions striplings who had "risen in their country's cause," only to be killed by an enemy of war. In the next paragraph it mentions another "regiment of 2000 men."

 

http://books.google.com/books?id=nS8aAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA249&dq=stripling+2000&hl=en&sa=X&ei=J6NmUpL4L5P_yQHLwYH4Dg&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=stripling%202000&f=false 

Thanks!

[nealr]

 

The lawsuit also does not fit tightly with the biblical pattern but loosely and Blake explains this as being expansion of the text. I would agree but I believe the text that he is expanding is an ad hoc rendering of a biblical type trial. I would expect this to be the case if JS had access to a KJV bible which the paper acknowledges. He would have read numerous examples of this and had a general outline to pattern his fictional account after.  It's very simple logic. I've actually heard apologists say that there is no proof that JS ever owned a KJV Bible. I always counter this with the word for word transliteration of the KJV text to the BOM in so many instances is in fact PROOF that he owned a KJV bible.

 

 

This is what is called circular reasoning, or question begging. 

 

I know that Blake alludes to a chance that Joseph may have read these things in the Old testament and used them to produce these passages but he dismisses any chance of Joseph actually consciously doing it. Why? If I were writing a book in which I was attempting to imitate biblical writings, I would examine the source closely for patterns, language etc. I would say that if we establish the fact that these forms can be recognized (and I think his paper has), then it stands to reason that Joseph could have recognized them. And furthermore, the presence of these forms in the text of the BOM seems to indicate that he did in fact recognize them at least on some level.

 

 

And more question begging.

 

So I of course stand by my original assertion. This text forces the loose translation theory which in my opinion is very problematic but not nearly as untenable as the tight translation theory has now become.

 

 

Yeah, I keep hearing people say this, but I don't get it. When I translate Latin, I can render it in innumerable ways that are all (more or less) the same degree of literalness, or "tightness." I can make my translation sound more like the KJV, or more like contemporary speech. I can achieve all of this without "loosening" my translation. I see no reason to assume that because contemporary expressions are evident in the text (as evidenced by similarities to this and other books) it necessarily means that the translation was "looser." 

 

I also don't think that the idea of a "loose" translation is all that problematic, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

[nealr]

We are trying to be as "mechanical" as possible in that we create an algorithm and let it do its thing. If we were to remove parts by hand, it may impact things in unpredictable ways. That said, the copyright notice is so common, it essentially adds zero weight to the match.

 

Forgive for being frank, but this sounds like a load of BS to me. Removing what is not intended to tested (and I can't see why the copyright notice, and even the introductory material, would be intended to be tested) could only improve the results. But hey, what do I know, I'm just a history major?

 

Good luck with the study, in any event. 

[jkwilliams]

This is just the sort of content and detail and significance that computer based searches for phrases available to Joseph Smith will never be able to detect. It all occurs at a higher level of abstraction than a machine search can comprehend.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

As I said, I haven't worried about the Johnson brothers' computer-based search, just saying that I find the style, content, and themes of Hunt's book to be remarkably similar to the Book of Mormon. Does my impression have any evidentiary weight? No, obviously not. But, computer studies aside, the clear and striking similarities demand to be addressed, IMO. If we're going to, say, compare the Book of Mormon to obscure ancient Assyrian "hits," we ought to be consistent in looking at contemporary hits as well.

This isn't the end-all and be-all of criticism of the Book of Mormon, but it is extraordinarily interesting, at least to me, and ought to be looked at.

Edited October 22, 2013 by jkwilliams

[jkwilliams]

With a grand total of four occurrences in the Book of Mormon, that specific usage is not really a correspondence I would call "striking," particularly in light of the variants of the phrase to which one has to appeal to gather up the parallels ("curious works," "curious vessels"). Why don't we bring up Hel 6:11's "curious workmen"? That has nothing to do with weapons or balls or ships; it has to do with mining ore. The link between torpedoes shaped like balls and the Liahona, which was shaped like a ball, is also tenuous. Not only is the phrase not exact, but are we really to conclude that the author thought up the Liahona and then drew the phrase "curious workmanship" (a different phrase) not from his previous usage of the phrase (1-2 Nephi were rendered last), but from the overlap of the word "ball" with the same word in a description of torpedoes? Why use "curious workmanship" instead of "curious works"? Someone might argue that the reference to a "clock" and the concept of two "spindles" indicates a link, but the Hunt text is not referring to the hands of a clock, but to the sprockets and inner mechanisms, and I don't think Joseph Smith would have misunderstood that. No, I think that's stretching things a bit too thin, and if we're going to go that thin, why not mention Exod 35:32:

First of all, those aren't my own remarks that I quoted. I do agree with these thoughts from an anonymous member of the church, cited elsewhere (take it however you wish):

It would be all too easy to point to individual motifs and language to show how problematic it would be to assume some special connection with the Book of Mormon. But its the clustering of examples in one text in a particular time and place that makes the argument for some kind of close relation suggestive. You're right xxxxx, that "curious workmanship" was a common term used in the early 19th century and it is thus quite difficult to point to literary dependence in a situation like this. However, it may nevertheless be worth noting that contrary to the prevalent usage you refer to, the Late War and the Book of Mormon use "curious workmanship" to refer to all the same kinds of things: weapons, boats, and ball-like entities. Which is really striking, IMO, since the closest biblical usage deals with the "curious work" of the tabernacle (Ex 35) and an architectural usage was common in the 19th century. I don't know, I'll have to look into it more.

******

I agree, it is sad that the issue has to be so divisive and emotional to distract us from giving it the careful attention it deserves. One the one hand, it is sad that people are gleefully accepting news of a book disconfirming the authenticity of the Book of Mormon (since this raises questions about ideological conditioning and confirmation bias and suggests as well that leaving Mormonism has been a traumatic experience at some level), and on the other hand it is sad that others all too readily dismiss the argument of literary influence on the Book of Mormon because of the uncomfortable implications it carries.

At any rate, the book probably is at one level or another an argument against historical authenticity, since it pushes toward understanding the Book of Mormon text in terms of the literary and stylistic conventions of the early 19th century rather than as an ancient text. Pseudo-biblical writing provides a context for the Book of Mormon that has not been fully explored before and needs to be seen as an authorial device as well and not merely understood for how it shaped the way the Book of Mormon was read by its first readers. If the style was authorial in nature, it points to a much larger and indeed CREATIVE hand of Joseph Smith in the final product of the Book of Mormon than most traditionalists have hitherto been willing to give him credit.

At least you agree that this deserves some looking into instead of a hand-waving dismissal. Incidentally, your response here sounds suspiciously similar to the response of a lot of critics to Book of Mormon parallels to ancient documents. In both cases, one side is looking for parallels, and the other side is trying to invalidate the parallels. The moral of the story is that, when trying to establish parallels, one must be careful and rigorous. Of course, people are going to see what they want to see, no matter what.

[wenglund]

Folks - this is lighting up some LDS-related sites:

 

http://askreality.com/hidden-in-plain-sight/#more-56

 

Seems a cursory textual analysis of works published pre-1830 has yielded some clue as to books that influenced the BOM!

 

Since when does "influence" = "origins"?

 

While modern language will typically "influence" the wording of translations of ancient documents, does the modern language negate the ancient "origins" of those documents?

 

In other words, if Egyptian documents from the old kingdom (circa 3000 BC) are translated into modern English (from the late 17th century AD), does that mean the Egyptian documents originated no earlier than the 17th century AD?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[jkwilliams]

Since when does "influence" = "origins"?

 

While modern language will typically "influence" the wording of translations of ancient documents, does the modern language negate the ancient "origins" of those documents?

 

In other words, if Egyptian documents from the old kingdom (circa 3000 BC) are translated into modern English (from the late 17th century AD), does that mean the Egyptian documents originated no earlier than the 17th century AD?

 

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

It's not just the language but also the content and themes that are remarkably similar. Does that mean one is the source for the other? No, but there may be some fascinating intertextuality going on here, at least I think there clearly is. YMMV

[maklelan]

First of all, those aren't my own remarks that I quoted.

 

At least you agree that this deserves some looking into instead of a hand-waving dismissal. Incidentally, your response here sounds suspiciously similar to the response of a lot of critics to Book of Mormon parallels to ancient documents. In both cases, one side is looking for parallels, and the other side is trying to invalidate the parallels. The moral of the story is that, when trying to establish parallels, one must be careful and rigorous. Of course, people are going to see what they want to see, no matter what.

[jkwilliams]

I know those weren't your remarks, and I wasn't directing my critique at you. While I don't know what is suspicious about me sounding like a Book of Mormon critic, I do exercise caution in looking for parallels. In fact, the first paper I ever published was on that:

 

https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/selections-2007-religious-education-student-symposium/ancient-studies/latter-day-saints-and

That's good. Caution in such matters is what is required, IMO. And I wasn't slamming you by saying you sounded like a BofM critic; it's just interesting how we all tend to follow the same patterns. I could probably get a paper from that.

[cognitiveharmony]

This is what is called circular reasoning, or question begging. 

 

 

 

 

And more question begging.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I keep hearing people say this, but I don't get it. When I translate Latin, I can render it in innumerable ways that are all (more or less) the same degree of literalness, or "tightness." I can make my translation sound more like the KJV, or more like contemporary speech. I can achieve all of this without "loosening" my translation. I see no reason to assume that because contemporary expressions are evident in the text (as evidenced by similarities to this and other books) it necessarily means that the translation was "looser." 

 

I also don't think that the idea of a "loose" translation is all that problematic, but I'll leave it at that for now. 

 

 

 

 

I'm sorry nealr but I'm not sure I understand how this could possibly be circular reasoning. Circular reasoning is using two or more evidences to solely prove each other in a circular fashion eventually returning to the first. I am in now way doing this. I am simply saying that the fact that Joseph used forms from a book that would take a close examination of that book to reproduce is evidence that he had in fact closely examined the book and used it. This is simple logic, not a logical fallacy such as circular reasoning.

 

Your comments about a loose translation are probably just a misunderstanding of terms. In your mind it would still be a "tight" translation but when compared to the definitions in Blake's paper along with the idea in general, it would be a loose translation. Not to mention the fact that the loose translation theory deals with a "revelatory" component that is not present in your analogy and has a profound effect on the definition.

[canadaduane]

Forgive for being frank, but this sounds like a load of BS to me. Removing what is not intended to tested (and I can't see why the copyright notice, and even the introductory material, would be intended to be tested) could only improve the results. But hey, what do I know, I'm just a history major?

 

Good luck with the study, in any event. 

The copyright notice changed over time, so its wording will still have some indication of relationship to other books in its time. Today, we just give "copyright [year]" but that was not always the case.

 

It's possible that our hypothesis is not clear, which would add understandable confusion. We believe that any literary work is a remix of previous works (some transmitted in writing, some verbally, etc.), and that the Book of Mormon is a literary work. If this is true, then we should be able to trace contemporary influence from other books to the Book of Mormon. This is what our search algorithm is built to find--top matches that have the least influence from the KJV or Douay-Reihms bibles with the highest "relatedness score" to the Book of Mormon.

 

So, just to be clear: we aren't trying to prove the Book of Mormon is a literary work--we're saying, "What if it is?" and starting from there.

[Alvino]

You do understand that the underlying assumption in this type of study is that any given text being analyzed is influenced by all the books to which it is compared, right?

 

It is like the stylometry or wordprint studies comparing the text of the Book of Mormon to various individuals, like Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Sydney Rigon, etc.  These studies comparies the patterns of word usage between the text and writings from these individuals and calculates which person's writing style most closely matches the text of the Book of Mormon.  The whole study is set up to produce a result showing that the Book of Mormon most closely matches one of these individuals' writing style.  It does not allow for the possibility that the Book of Mormon came from an ancient source.  It assumes from the outset that it is the result of one those previously mentioned individuals. 

 

This type of study is the exact same thing- it is designed to rank power of influence independent of whether that influence actually existed.  It is amazing that these types of studies continue to impress people.

 

There isn't such an assumption.

 

 

From the OP link: "I just finished my baseline analysis with Duane on 130,000+ books published prior to 1830, and presented this at the conference on Saturday. It looks like “The First Book of Napoleon” (1809) influenced the creation of “The late war, between the United States and Great Britain, from June 1812, to February 1815 : written in the ancient historical style” (1816) by Gilbert J. Hunt, which was adapted for the use of schools in New York.

 

[...]

 

Using a size-independent matching scale, Hunt’s The late war transmitted textual influence to The Book of Nullification highest (0.37), followed by The Book of Mormon (0.24), and finally Chronicles of Eri (0.08). The influence from The First Book of Napoleon on Hunt’s The late war was 0.06, all of which were significantly higher than the baseline scores, indicating textual transmission, or common influence."

 

How it is you got from the OP article, if you read it at all, that they assume ALL the pre-1830 130,000+ books compared influenced the BoM is a bit puzzling.

[jkwilliams]

So, just to be clear: we aren't trying to prove the Book of Mormon is a literary work--we're saying, "What if it is?" and starting from there.

Ultimately, I don't think you can prove it's a "literary work." (I'm assuming you mean a 19th-century literary creation rather than revealed scriptures.) All written text is literary in nature--some would say even fictive in part--so we should expect influence from the culture and literature of the day. Where things get problematic is when you insist that a given work, such as the Book of Mormon, was revealed word for word and was not influenced at all by the surrounding culture. I don't think there are too many people who believe that; however, just writing/translating it in English affects the content.

Fascinating stuff, and I look forward to your more formal publication.