Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

[Rajah Manchou]

5 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

I see people wrapping themselves around trees trying to come up with some wild theories and it really gets crazy.  I guess there is some appeal in imagination.  

That's Mormonism for you. From Day One it was all about getting wrapped up in some pretty audacious stuff. Pure imagination/revelation.

“As a Jewish Gnostic, I am in no position to judge Joseph Smith as a revelator, but as a student of the American imagination, I observe that his achievement as national prophet and seer is clearly unique. … Ralph Waldo Emerson and Walt Whitman were great writers, Jonathan Edwards and Horace Bushnell major theologians, William James a superb psychologist, and all these are crucial figures in the spiritual history of [the United States]. Joseph Smith did not excel as a writer or as a theologian, let alone as psychologist and philosopher. But he was an authentic religious genius.” - Harold Bloom

[JarMan]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

There is no such "goal" that I am aware of, JarMan.  In fact, this unexpected quandary is the last thing that anyone suspected or even considered.  The data came forth from basic research begun by me over 40 years ago in 1974, and continued brilliantly by Royal Skousen in 1988.  My objective was to create a critical text of the Book of Mormon (Skousen's Yale edition is the best result of that long-term effort).  No one sought to find EModE grammar and vocab during that effort.  That just happened to become apparent as the research went forward.  Moreover, there is as yet no rational explanation for the phenomenon.

I agree this project wasn't undertaken with the mentioned "goal" in mind. But this interchange between Brant and champatsch shows that this goal means something to champatsch now (the goal being to show that Joseph couldn't have produced the language of the text). I agree with the idea that Joseph couldn't have produced the text based on a myriad of reasons, one of which is the dialect. At the moment, the discussion seems to be centered on the significance of the EModE in Joseph's early revelations. I am simply suggesting that from a scholarly perspective, it ought to be conceded that Joseph's own dialect contained some amount of EModE  at the time of the early revelations. My point is that this concession doesn't necessarily falsify the assertion that Joseph couldn't have produced the Book of Mormon. It just means that this data point needs to be explained and I offered two different approaches for an explanation.

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I'd be more than happy to accept a rational theory of some sort.  Please come forth with one, JarMan.

My own theory has the original text being produced in Latin no earlier than about 1635. The translation to English would have taken place sometime after that, but I don't know when or by whom or over what period of time. Based on my current understanding of the data I am suggesting at least two unique translators corresponding with the wherefore/therefore break. It's possible that the second translator came at a later time and made some modifications to the previously translated first part. I'm also considering the idea that all or a portion of the Book of Moroni was added by a separate author. Perhaps this "Moroni" made other emendations to the text, as well. These emendations as well as those of the second translator might be a way to account for some of the more modernish English if either or both of these processes happened some time after the original English translation of the first part. If I understand correctly, I don't think the process I just described is that different from how much of the bible was produced.

6 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I don't believe in supernaturalism anyhow, JarMan, so I don't favor any supernatural theory.  I accept the same secular modes of transmission as we have with the Bible (scribes, editors, transmission, hidden, etc.).  I don't see a need for supernaturalism at all.  Perhaps you think of a seerstone as supernatural, even though you'd never make that claim about your I-Phone or Google Translate.

I think I do see the seer stone as supernatural which is one reason I'm open to alternate explanations for how Joseph read the text he was dictating. Not that I've heard a plausible explanation yet, but there could be one in the future.

[Robert F. Smith]

56 minutes ago, JarMan said:

............................................ this interchange between Brant and champatsch shows that this goal means something to champatsch now (the goal being to show that Joseph couldn't have produced the language of the text). I agree with the idea that Joseph couldn't have produced the text based on a myriad of reasons, one of which is the dialect.

You have it backward, JarMan:  The EModE data force one to posit a pre-translation.  That is not Carmack's goal.  Why would anyone want that quandary?

56 minutes ago, JarMan said:

At the moment, the discussion seems to be centered on the significance of the EModE in Joseph's early revelations. I am simply suggesting that from a scholarly perspective, it ought to be conceded that Joseph's own dialect contained some amount of EModE  at the time of the early revelations. My point is that this concession doesn't necessarily falsify the assertion that Joseph couldn't have produced the Book of Mormon. It just means that this data point needs to be explained and I offered two different approaches for an explanation.

True enough.  One can imagine that 2 Ne 27:20-21 explain why the early revelations and BofM both contain EModE.  Joseph simply could not have known that language.  We have an alien Lord with a sense of humor.

56 minutes ago, JarMan said:

My own theory has the original text being produced in Latin no earlier than about 1635. The translation to English would have taken place sometime after that, but I don't know when or by whom or over what period of time. Based on my current understanding of the data I am suggesting at least two unique translators corresponding with the wherefore/therefore break. It's possible that the second translator came at a later time and made some modifications to the previously translated first part. I'm also considering the idea that all or a portion of the Book of Moroni was added by a separate author. Perhaps this "Moroni" made other emendations to the text, as well. These emendations as well as those of the second translator might be a way to account for some of the more modernish English if either or both of these processes happened some time after the original English translation of the first part. If I understand correctly, I don't think the process I just described is that different from how much of the bible was produced.

I think I do see the seer stone as supernatural which is one reason I'm open to alternate explanations for how Joseph read the text he was dictating. Not that I've heard a plausible explanation yet, but there could be one in the future.

If the first translation took place around 1540, that would place it at the heart of EModE production and the highest matching rates of that style.  The later emendations or addenda you suggest are the only real way to account for the later words and vocab in both the early revelations and the BofM.  The mixture poses a problem, but there is never a need for supernaturalism -- and LDS theology does not allow supernaturalism in any case.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The way language works is that there is a statistical sense of acceptable and grammatical. That changes with time, but never smoothly or completely. At the time the Book of Mormon was dictated, Early Modern English wasn't an archaic form--it was a particular flavor of ungrammatical. Regardless of how well the poor grammar reflected acceptable grammar from a long time previous, it had not been grammatical for a long time. So how do we get Early Modern English, forms that were clearly later than that, forms that were very close to Joseph's time, and finally, some that aren't found in the contemporary dataset--all in the same document? The easiest answer is that we are seeing a particular idiolect--and ungrammatical imitation of KJV language that gets it wrong in ways that had been wrong for a long time.

The problem with that, as described by Carmack, is that the EModE grammar and vocab which had become extinct (not obsolete, but gone) cannot have been present in the BofM in the 19th century.  Carmack claims that we know this by statistical likelihood in some cases, and by total absence in others.  Expressions, grammar, and syntax which survived over time cannot be used because they are not dispositive.  The basic sysem of EModE was long gone, and was not even present in the KJV style which we can all see, i.e., those elements of the language stream which survived are not the ones which are diagnostic -- for the same "stratigraphic" reasons you have voiced (I am thinking of pottery typology here as well).  Rare examples which we can see in the KJV don't count, because there are other items which appear in high statistical averages in the BofM which don't comport with KJV-style.  At the same time, the BofM is not solely and only in EModE.  It (and contemporary revelations) include late/recent stuff mixed with the EModE stuff.  That should be impossible, since no one alive in 1830 should have been able to combine both materials.

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The result is to suggest that both the Book of Mormon and the early revelations were created in pieces by someone who was not fluent in English, or by multiple individuals who added their own ungrammatical phrases but representing different time periods of ungrammaticality. Although Carmack indicates the Early Modern English occurs with great frequency, it is not exclusive. It coexists with things that don't fit. So either we take the parsimonious answer that the reason that it appears that we have the same English behind the early revelations and the Book of Mormon, or we have to invent a committee. Maybe we might see that for the Book of Mormon, but it is difficult to imagine how that works for the revelations.

I am all for parsimony, but I see no easy, simple, elegant explanation.  I have been hoping that a powerful analytical mind would offer something meaningful, and I have enjoyed all the back and forth between you and Carmack.  But where is the payoff?  😎

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Of course there is an explanation. Joseph's language informed the English text, and rather than a complex description of a somehow ancient, contemporary, future text--we are seeing a description of Joseph's version of imitative KJV English. If we don't include Joseph, we have to suggest that the later revelations had a different source. That is always possible, because declaring it unknowable covers a lot of sins--but it seems more parsimonious to suggest the same God, the same inspiration, and the same person creating the English text.

I apologize, but I don't understand this. The Early Modern English is not diagnostic. It is dependent upon the assumption that it became obsolete. The methodology by which it has been declared diagnostic is flawed and cannot provide accurate information about whether those forms could have been present in Joseph's idiolect. Descriptive is not diagnostic.

Well, in archeological/stratigraphic terms, the diagnostic artifacts appear to be intrusive in later levels.  Was a rodent or some other party moving things around?  Is someone playing with us?

[JarMan]

27 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You have it backward, JarMan:  The EModE data force one to posit a pre-translation.  That is not Carmack's goal.  Why would anyone want that quandary?

I don’t mean the goal of the whole project. I’m talking strictly about the current dialogue. Champatsch is adamant Joseph is not responsible for producing the text. I agree, but I think the EModE in Joseph’s early revelations is not adequately addressed by simply claiming it came to him through the seer stone. This is what I understand champatsch’s position to be.  I think the better explanation is that Joseph picked up some archaic language in 1828 working on the lost portion. This would have been before the early revelations in question. 

43 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

and LDS theology does not allow supernaturalism in any case.

What do you mean? Aren’t angels supernatural?

[Brant Gardner]

5 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The problem with that, as described by Carmack, is that the EModE grammar and vocab which had become extinct (not obsolete, but gone) cannot have been present in the BofM in the 19th century. 

And that is precisely the problem. The technique used to make that decision does not yield that conclusion--unless you are predisposed to want to make the data fit that model. The comparative data set may not be comparable. The times in the dataset are not based on a living language, but on what was recorded in a text (there is, of course, no other option--but it is still the wrong comparative data). Finally, the results are sporadic, without providing any clear indication of time depth. Many words obsolete in one search can be found close to Joseph's time, so the assumption of extinction is questionable. When the method also would have to say that Joseph couldn't translate because he couldn't know future grammar or vocabulary, the evidence points to problems with the methodology and the conclusions drawn from that methodology. (I need to make sure that I reiterated that I am not talking about the methodology for the description of the syntax, but only for the dating.)

When some of those things are found in documents also dictated by Joseph but not the Book of Mormon, we have two options. Joseph or making up a committee of divine revelation-givers who are unique to Joseph, never existed for any other recorded prophet, and never managed to actually learn English.

If the hypothesis is that there is language that Joseph couldn't know because it was extinct, then we also need to know how the translator could know language that had not yet become current. The answer to that has been that it is unknowable, but could have been a committee. Celestial translators don't have erasers? Joseph managed to fix the grammar (some of it) only 7 years later, but the divine translators couldn't figure out how to fix old grammar for a couple hundred years?

[Brant Gardner]

5 hours ago, JarMan said:

 This is what I understand champatsch’s position to be.  I think the better explanation is that Joseph picked up some archaic language in 1828 working on the lost portion. This would have been before the early revelations in question. 

The problem with this hypothesis is that the lost portion also came from the seer stone, and if Joseph learned it from that process you haven't changed the argument, simply shifted the exact argument slightly further in time--without making any significant change.

[champatsch]

Let me explain to others the impossibility of Gardner's position:  Joseph must have been saturated or imbued with biblical idiom to produce all the blended-in biblical phraseology, as well as lengthier King James passages. As a result, his archaizing language elsewhere, which wasn't explicitly incorporating biblical phraseology, would have been pseudo-biblical—except that it isn't!  The grammar and syntax are archaic but they are non-biblical, very different from that of pseudo-biblical authors.  His position destroys his position.  His methodology and theory have little linguistic analysis behind them, so he is left with theorizing and focusing on methodology. Gardner has summarized the work of others, relating to this linguistic question, but he himself hasn't carefully considered a lot of linguistic data; he looks at a small amount data, but you need to look at a lot to be able to decide this particular issue. And you need to do comparative work. Skousen's position is based on descriptive and comparative linguistic work, starting with the manuscripts and printed editions, continuing with lexical studies, and finishing with grammatical and syntactic work.

Those sympathetic to Gardner's ideology will follow him and his extremely unlikely position. And if you are one who prefers to view the Book of Mormon as ahistorical, you can get that with Gardner much more easily than you get that with Skousen.  With Gardner, Joseph was able to word the Book of Mormon. So if you favor thinking that he created it out of his own mind, well, there you have it: whatever the level and nature of Book of Mormon archaism, Joseph was able to produce it—the Gardner stipulation.

In the course of this thread, I have found that Gardner has done the following: he has mis-stated that the language of the Book of Mormon is a case of incorporating archaisms into a modern vocabulary; he has suggested that early Doctrine and Covenants revelations must represent Joseph's archaizing language—a position that is difficult to establish; he has suggested that we have taken unfair advantage by positing the Lord as translator or director of translation, when his position has the Lord implanting ideas in Joseph's mind; he has argued that our methodology is flawed, refusing or being unable to shift perspectives, suggesting a lack of versatility. On this basis, I have concluded that he has not operated in good faith, and that he may not operate in good faith going forward. I will engage him on the grounds of serious linguistic study, and not on the grounds of distracting irrelevancies.

[clarkgoble]

Not to speak for Brant, but it seems the alternative position to your own is that Joseph's brain/environment was involved in various ways but not solely. That is that one can't simply neglect Joseph's mind/environment in the form of the final product. While that allows for the possibility of conscious involvement it doesn't necessitate it. Many assume there was some measure of conscious involvement due to D&C 9 but what degree isn't clear. But of course the product could involve Joseph's mind without it consciously involving his mind. After all we have no idea how the U&T worked.

To the empirical question, I think you're mischaracterizing his position somewhat. If I follow Brant correctly he's arguing the text and archaic and contemporary (with Joseph) elements therefore the latest elements date the text. To really make that work he has to identify unambiguous elements that existed in say 1800-1829 but didn't exist before. While I've not read the full thread I'm not sure he's done that yet. On the other hand for those arguing a early translation have to eliminate later elements from the text. Again I don't think that necessary step's been done.

That said I think Brant is being a bit dismissive of the older language by bringing up committee as a rhetorical put down. Of course it's a committee translation of some sort since Joseph can't read the plates. So either we have a single mind (not Joseph) doing the translation in which case we have to ask who that would be and how they learned English. If it's linking minds to get the source combined with product languages then you have a committee. Those aren't the only possible models of course. A computer-like ideological translation that in part privileges conceptual translations by what's in Joseph's mind is a possibility too. That however doesn't explain the more archaic English usages where the KJV isn't really being quoted/paraphrased. Simply assuming those forms were in Joseph's environment (a position I once held) seems to be less and less plausible the more one looks closely.

Let's be honest when you start getting into questions of how the translation worked any hypothesis will sound ridiculous - especially given the nature of the translation which is very loose and which appears to have a strong bias towards quoting/paraphrasing KJV snippets.

 

Edited March 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Brant Gardner]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Let me explain to others the impossibility of Gardner's position:  Joseph must have been saturated or imbued with biblical idiom to produce all the blended-in biblical phraseology, as well as lengthier King James passages. As a result, his archaizing language elsewhere, which wasn't explicitly incorporating biblical phraseology, would have been pseudo-biblical—except that it isn't! 

If only we could start talking about the same thing. Your description of the text is fine. Suggesting that it wasn't Joseph doesn't change the nature of the text. The text actually exists and can be described. So the question isn't about the text and what it does, but who did it. 

Your suggestion that it could not have been Joseph is based on the absence of evidence, but a very selective absence that doesn't consider the rest of the data for examining the language. So the description of what the text is has not been the question. Your assumption that Joseph couldn't have a grammar that was ungrammatical in specific ways depends on not finding it. Except that you did find it in early revelations, but the hypothesis requires that Joseph not be the one--so now the revelations were somehow written down in archaic language that was ungrammatical to the contemporary population.

The problem isn't the description, it is the suggestion that Joseph couldn't do it based on a flawed methodology.

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His methodology and theory have little linguistic analysis behind them, so he is left with theorizing and focusing on methodology. 

You are not doing a very good job of understanding the issue. I don't need to discuss linguistics when it isn't a linguistic problem. You have created a hypothesis about what Joseph could not do based on a methodology that has produced the precise evidence needed to show that the methodology doesn't support your hypothesis. You have found modern terms that Joseph couldn't have used, but an Early Modern English translator could not. The crowning evidence is that the text couldn't have had anyone write it because it contained information from the future (of course, God knows the future, but He were to bother with that, why bother with the archaic?). The evidence of that method of declaring that Joseph couldn't do it is based on flawed data that contradicts the hypothesis.

Now, could Joseph have intentionally imitated those forms? I agree that you are correct. He could not have decided to intentionally add archaic forms. However, if those ungrammatical forms were part of his idiolect--particularly in the way he wrote sacred language, then they appear because they were retained. As you know from linguistics, it is not unusual to have some forms remain, and many ungrammatical forms were once more acceptable. That is how language works. 

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Skousen's position is based on descriptive and comparative linguistic work, starting with the manuscripts and printed editions, continuing with lexical studies, and finishing with grammatical and syntactic work.

Skousen does wonderful descriptive work. You do wonderful descriptive work. When you both use a flawed methodology to support a non-linguistic ideological point, I disagree.

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And if you are one who prefers to view the Book of Mormon as ahistorical, you can get that with Gardner much more easily than you get that with Skousen.  With Gardner, Joseph was able to word the Book of Mormon. So if you favor thinking that he created it out of his own mind, well, there you have it: whatever the level and nature of Book of Mormon archaism, Joseph was able to produce it—the Gardner stipulation.

It would probably help discussions if you actually read things I have written. I am aware that you have skimmed them, but since your descriptions often don't match what I said in the text, I assume skimming only. I suppose that is where you get the idea that I think Joseph could have produced the Book of Mormon. I believe there is significant evidence that he did not. As for whether or not Joseph could have produced the words--well that is the issue we are discussing. You say he could not. I say he could.

What evidence do we have that he could not? There is none. There is only an absence of data that appears to suggest that the absence is based on the data available and not an actual absence. When we see these forms in things like the Plot of Zion, the parsimonious explanation is that the same entity produced the English text--and Joseph was right there. We can also easily explain how revelation could continue to be inspired when those forms eventually go away as Joseph was surrounded by a different language community. Otherwise, we have the problem of trying to understand why a divine entity finally learned more grammatical English. If you are going to suggest using a larger dataset, I suggest that you need to follow the suggestion. 

The translation of the Bible shows a high similarity in process and emphasis with the Book of Mormon biblical sections. We see the influence of language changes around italicized words in both cases, and where the excision of the italicized word led to an ungrammatical sentence. Confirmation that a relative modern mind is working on this issue comes in the recent discovery of the influence of Clarke's Commentary on the translation of the Bible. While there is a lot less data to work with there, the non-syntactic evidence suggests that we have the same mind working on both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.

In addition to anomalies in the English that you are tracing through syntax, there are anomalies in the cultural content of the text. Regardless of where one places the Book of Mormon in the New World, the translator was not fluent in the native language or customs. None of those bleed through, and the agricultural references are Old World based and not New World. So the translator was more fluent in English than Nephite plate text. The translator was more fluent in Old World culture than New World. The way in which the KJV passages are used in expository sections in the KJV is more complicated than borrowing, and show a reworking of concepts (Nicholas Frederick's work).

If you want to really understand translation, I would also encourage you to widen your dataset. There is a lot more to consider.

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In the course of this thread, I have found that Gardner has done the following: he has mis-stated that the language of the Book of Mormon is a case of incorporating archaisms into a modern vocabulary;

I quoted you. You are the one who provided the evidence that archaisms either continued, or that there were futurisms. When the data show that range of dating, separating it into discrete units is interesting, but demanding that the discrete units are evidence of a very unusual construction is beyond the data.

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he has suggested that early Doctrine and Covenants revelations must represent Joseph's archaizing language—a position that is difficult to establish;

Really? That should be the default position. The grammar changes over time. Someone learned to improve the grammar. Joseph knew more in 1837 and so wanted to correct some of the things that he then found ungrammatical in the Book of Mormon. More difficult is to explain how it wasn't Joseph. So far, other than your declaration that it wasn't, the evidence is that certain things were absent before Joseph--except that the methodology to demonstrate that is flawed. The way the Doctrine and Covenants was developed clearly shows that there was no concept of a God-breathed text. The edits were made to clarify a thought. Obviously, Joseph knew what the revelation intended, and was willing to change wording to improve understanding. That is not the process your are describing, but it is known from textual comparisons.

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he has suggested that we have taken unfair advantage by positing the Lord as translator or director of translation,

I don't recognize that one. 

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when his position has the Lord implanting ideas in Joseph's mind

Yes. This is cognitive linguistics, not descriptive linguistics. I am simply talking about how any person generates sentences. We might assume we think in sentences, but the evidence is that meaning occurs even beyond that. This is crucial for translation studies when we understand that a translator doesn't simply exchange one word for another, but attempts to function on the level of meaning as expressed in language.

As with other issues, you are mixing up the concept of translation with the dictation of the final text. In your hypothesis, there was a non-Joseph translator who generated the text. That non-Joseph translator had to understand, and then generate language. The process is no different. As you have noted, we can have a functional translation that was given to Joseph to read. So your continued misunderstanding of what I have said about what the Lord did doesn't change a single thing about translation--only the person of the translator.

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he has argued that our methodology is flawed,

Correct. To which you have issued no defense. I would love to hear it, since I have been using your evidence as the examples of why it is flawed. Please, instruct me as to why a method that cannot accurately date the vocabulary or syntax of an entire text requires that I believe it accurate for a portion of the text.

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refusing or being unable to shift perspectives, suggesting a lack of versatility.

I'm not sure what this is. It seems to be one of your repeated suggestions that I refuse to change my mind because I am too involved with my own hypothesis. Yet, I haven't defended any hypothesis. I am examining your hypothesis, and in particular, your conclusion that Joseph could not have produced the language of the text. That conclusion is based on a flawed methodology that no amount of descriptive linguistics will change--because it deals with a different question.

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On this basis, I have concluded that he has not operated in good faith, and that he may not operate in good faith going forward. I will engage him on the grounds of serious linguistic study, and not on the grounds of distracting irrelevancies.

May I please have a definition of how one operates in good faith? I have been trying, but obviously not succeeded to your standards. Would you explain them, please?

After many interchanges, I have found:

1) where you began suggesting that we had to have a tight translation and not a functional one--you did understand that there was a difference in the way the terms were used. More recently you have suggested that we could have a functional translation of the Nephite text, and a tight transmission of that text. So, we agree that there could be a functional translation. The linguistic data you cite have nothing to do with the nature of the translation, so I think we have come to an agreement. Functional translation works. 

2) Skousen has suggested that there is some evidence for Joseph controlling spelling, and I agree with that information. 

3) You and Skousen emphasize that Joseph read what he dictated. The evidence convinced me, and I agree (and said so in the 2011 book, though I think you skimmed that part).

4) I agree with your description of the elements of the text. 

5) We agree right up to the point where we have to suggest a person responsible for the translation. I suggest Joseph. You suggest not-Joseph. By the nature of the argument you use for not-Joseph, it also could not have been any native speaker of English at any point in time from Early Modern English to Joseph's era. Your methodology for dating indicates that no one has that version of English as their native language.  

I think that is a lot of agreement. However, we have that one issue of whether or not Joseph could have produced the language. That is where we must have some evidence. We know that Joseph was involved, so suggesting anyone else requires evidence. Suggesting that he couldn't because neither Joseph, nor anyone else, could use that grammar really sounds good--except that the methodology used to make that conclusion can easily lead to a false conclusion because you are attempting to prove a negative. Negatives are notoriously difficult to prove. In this case, the same datasets used to show obsolescence also show a future problem. Since that is highly likely to be a recording error (that is, the required comparative data were not recorded at appropriate times), then the entire methodology is suspect.

I have a hard time understanding why serious issues with the methodology you use to suggest that Joseph could not be the translator are "distracting irrelevancies." I suspect that very few people are very interested in Early Modern Syntax, but rather in what it means--and what it means is wrapped up in your conclusion that it couldn't be Joseph. That conclusion is based on a flawed methodology. That is directly relevant.

 

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The problem with this hypothesis is that the lost portion also came from the seer stone, and if Joseph learned it from that process you haven't changed the argument, simply shifted the exact argument slightly further in time--without making any significant change.

I'm not assuming any portion of the Book of Mormon came from the seer stone. I'm assuming it came from an existing English text. It may have been transmitted through the seer stone, but that's different than coming from the seer stone (whatever that may mean). As for the early revelations, I think those were given by Joseph in his own dialect, some of which he had picked up in the process of reading/dictating the text of the lost pages. Thus, before Joseph started on the process of translation his dialect would have been typical of his time and would not have included archaic elements identified in the Book of Mormon.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

And that is precisely the problem. The technique used to make that decision does not yield that conclusion--unless you are predisposed to want to make the data fit that model. The comparative data set may not be comparable. The times in the dataset are not based on a living language, but on what was recorded in a text (there is, of course, no other option--but it is still the wrong comparative data). Finally, the results are sporadic, without providing any clear indication of time depth. Many words obsolete in one search can be found close to Joseph's time, so the assumption of extinction is questionable. When the method also would have to say that Joseph couldn't translate because he couldn't know future grammar or vocabulary, the evidence points to problems with the methodology and the conclusions drawn from that methodology. (I need to make sure that I reiterated that I am not talking about the methodology for the description of the syntax, but only for the dating.)

When some of those things are found in documents also dictated by Joseph but not the Book of Mormon, we have two options. Joseph or making up a committee of divine revelation-givers who are unique to Joseph, never existed for any other recorded prophet, and never managed to actually learn English.

If the hypothesis is that there is language that Joseph couldn't know because it was extinct, then we also need to know how the translator could know language that had not yet become current. The answer to that has been that it is unknowable, but could have been a committee. Celestial translators don't have erasers? Joseph managed to fix the grammar (some of it) only 7 years later, but the divine translators couldn't figure out how to fix old grammar for a couple hundred years?

I have no model which can fit the data, and don't know what "celestial translators" might be, nor why they may have done what the did (whatever that was).  I have listed several unworkable options, and am hoping that someone else can come up with a rational explanation.

[Robert F. Smith]

21 hours ago, JarMan said:

..............................What do you mean? Aren’t angels supernatural?

Of course not.  Angels are as real and natural as you or me.  So is God.  A lot of things "seem" magical or supernatural, but that only indicates our lack of knowledge as to how those things take place.  In the NT, Jesus can read minds, and he can walk through walls.  The notion that something is supernatural is a contradiction in terms and a copout.

Edited March 17, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[Exiled]

12 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have no model which can fit the data, and don't know what "celestial translators" might be, nor why they may have done what the did (whatever that was).  I have listed several unworkable options, and am hoping that someone else can come up with a rational explanation.

Joseph Smith wanted to sound biblical when he was creating his works.  Doesn't that fit the data?

[Robert F. Smith]

5 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Joseph Smith wanted to sound biblical when he was creating his works.  Doesn't that fit the data?

Not at all.  Anyone could try to ape KJV-style, and nearly all scholarly translators did just that on into the early 20th century.  It sounded good.

The data provide an extinct language unrelated to that effort to sound Holy -- a set of EModE grammatical structures which were unavailable for anyone to copy.

[Exiled]

1 minute ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Not at all.  Anyone could try to ape KJV-style, and nearly all scholarly translators did just that on into the early 20th century.  It sounded good.

The data provide an extinct language unrelated to that effort to sound Holy -- a set of EModE grammatical structures which were unavailable for anyone to copy.

EmodE books like the 1611 KJV were still in circulation back then, right?  Joseph Smith's immediate family and uncles and cousins were interested in religion and probably had access to the 1611 edition.  Also, maybe Joseph had access to old Shakespeare manuscripts from the local library or other books (perhaps from Luman Walters as alluded to in the Book of Pukei)?  Certainly it is a possibility that Joseph Smith, wanting to have his book accepted as any pseudopigraphist would, would use archaic, biblical sounding language?

[JarMan]

28 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I have no model which can fit the data, and don't know what "celestial translators" might be, nor why they may have done what the did (whatever that was).  I have listed several unworkable options, and am hoping that someone else can come up with a rational explanation.

Maybe we're all missing the obvious explanation. Maybe there were a series of translations that built on each other as with the KJB. There was Wycliffe and Tyndale and Coverdale and others and then the final KJB some 200 years after Wycliffe. Should we expect the KJB, then, to have a dialect that represents an actual dialect at some moment in history? Or is it more likely that we would see signs of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries in the text variously weighted according to the respective influences of the translators? 

[stemelbow]

38 minutes ago, Exiled said:

EmodE books like the 1611 KJV were still in circulation back then, right?  Joseph Smith's immediate family and uncles and cousins were interested in religion and probably had access to the 1611 edition.  Also, maybe Joseph had access to old Shakespeare manuscripts from the local library or other books (perhaps from Luman Walters as alluded to in the Book of Pukei)?  Certainly it is a possibility that Joseph Smith, wanting to have his book accepted as any pseudopigraphist would, would use archaic, biblical sounding language?

Yeah well and what is scripture anyway?  It's not as if the person or various people who wrote about Moses knew much about Moses outside of some perhaps incredibly deficient source.  Joseph says translated by the gift and power of God and automatically we assume that means God had some hand in its authorship as if he has to tie into some reality.  Perhaps he had different levels of inspiration that come to any and all of us?  As it is, we still can't in any reasonable way say that the Book of Mormon as written for our day was on the plates, nor that the plates were actually carved upon anciently.  For all we know they are a prop manufactured by God's messengers to help inspire young Smith.  or perhaps they were not even that.  

[Exiled]

15 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Yeah well and what is scripture anyway?  It's not as if the person or various people who wrote about Moses knew much about Moses outside of some perhaps incredibly deficient source.  Joseph says translated by the gift and power of God and automatically we assume that means God had some hand in its authorship as if he has to tie into some reality.  Perhaps he had different levels of inspiration that come to any and all of us?  As it is, we still can't in any reasonable way say that the Book of Mormon as written for our day was on the plates, nor that the plates were actually carved upon anciently.  For all we know they are a prop manufactured by God's messengers to help inspire young Smith.  or perhaps they were not even that.  

Do you subscribe to an inspired fiction model? I personally think that is where the evidence leads, either inspired or not, but fiction nonetheless.

[stemelbow]

14 minutes ago, Exiled said:

Do you subscribe to an inspired fiction model? I personally think that is where the evidence leads, either inspired or not, but fiction nonetheless.

Yes.  It seems to be fiction (in nearly every case I've seen we have to first assume non-fiction in order to conclude non-fiction)  and it certainly provides inspiration for people (that I won't deny).  

Edited March 16, 2018 by stemelbow

[JarMan]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

EmodE books like the 1611 KJV were still in circulation back then, right?  Joseph Smith's immediate family and uncles and cousins were interested in religion and probably had access to the 1611 edition.  Also, maybe Joseph had access to old Shakespeare manuscripts from the local library or other books (perhaps from Luman Walters as alluded to in the Book of Pukei)?  Certainly it is a possibility that Joseph Smith, wanting to have his book accepted as any pseudopigraphist would, would use archaic, biblical sounding language?

What Carmack has shown is that the Book of Mormon contains oodles of EModE that is not in the Bible. He has allso studied other pseudo biblical texts as a baseline. He’s made a convincing case that the language of the Book of Mormon could not have been created simply by aping biblical language. 

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, JarMan said:

What Carmack has shown is that the Book of Mormon contains oodles of EModE that is not in the Bible. He has allso studied other pseudo biblical texts as a baseline. He’s made a convincing case that the language of the Book of Mormon could not have been created simply by aping biblical language. 

It seems like eliminating the world is a bridge too far in this case. Perhaps JS adapted other EmodE texts or made his own constructions from what he read or heard?

[JarMan]

16 minutes ago, Exiled said:

It seems like eliminating the world is a bridge too far in this case. Perhaps JS adapted other EmodE texts or made his own constructions from what he read or heard?

The EModE in the Book of Mormon is far too complex to imitate without 1) being an expert and 2) having a database of texts to analyze. Nobody who has read Carmack's papers (that I am aware of) is suggesting solely imitation. Brant is suggesting that the EModE survived in an isolated pocket such that it was Joseph's natural dialect, or at least that significant elements of it survived. My understanding of his position is he would consider imitation to be a secondary cause, though I don't want to put words into his mouth. One of the problems with this theory, as Carmack has pointed out, is that the writing from Joseph's time does not contain the EModE we see in the Book of Mormon. Much of it was obsolete by then, at least according to the databases of texts being studied. So this makes Brant's hypothesized "pocket" very mysterious since there's no evidence it existed outside of Joseph's own writings.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

It seems like eliminating the world is a bridge too far in this case. Perhaps JS adapted other EmodE texts or made his own constructions from what he read or heard?

I can't speak for him but I was rather skeptical of his position so I went out and tested it against various corpus likely available to Joseph Smith. Many of the archaic uses he found simply weren't in the texts I examined. So I changed my views on the subject. The main alternative is that there were pockets of archaic usage that had persisted orally in some communities. Now that's pretty difficult to falsify but apparently there were linguistic records looking at a lot of dialects. I've not looked at those - beyond my skill set - but if I recall Stanford did examine many of those. (Correct me if I'm misremembering) 

Anyways those skeptical of Stanford's claims really have the burden to examine the various records of non-standard speech and show it was available in Joseph's environment. Simply assuming it was seems a bit problematic.

Now the significance of all this seems a different issue. I confess I don't buy the idea of a 17th century author/translator. What it means I can't say though.

3 hours ago, JarMan said:

What Carmack has shown is that the Book of Mormon contains oodles of EModE that is not in the Bible. He has allso studied other pseudo biblical texts as a baseline. He’s made a convincing case that the language of the Book of Mormon could not have been created simply by aping biblical language. 

Not just not in the Bible but not in books available to Joseph. You can confirm this with a limited dataset simply by using Google Books and searching for some of the forms he lists. (Note Google Books is not a great dataset, but it's useful to get started) Spending a misbegotten day doing just that was what initial convinced me. Stanford was also kind enough to list more formal datasets you can test across. (Do a search to find the links - it's in a thread from last fall as I recall)

All that said, I think we also have to go the other direction and look at quotations, paraphrases and language use that post-date the 17th century. The ironically pseudonymned "ChurchIsTrue" has a bunch although he's limited himself to 3 word phrases undermining its significance quite a bit. But he has a few that are probably worth running agains the older datasets that Stanford used. (I don't have time to do this as I'm heading into surgery in a few days) 

Just using something like "demands of divine justice" has quite a few examples in the decades prior to the BoM translation. While again using the limited dataset of Google, you don't find that in earlier centuries -- although there are a few similar phrases. There's similar ones to that suggesting a late 18th to early 19th influence.

Edited March 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Calm]

"I'm heading into surgery in a few days"

Major?  Will be thinking of you even if minor.