Where did the Book of Mormon come from?

[stemelbow]

12 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

 

I really haven't seen any argument that Joseph could have created the text that can account for the text. I haven't seen any argument that a committee could have done it either.

YOu haven't seen any argument or you haven't seen any argument you can accept?  

it seems to me it's quite possible that the text came from Joseph and/or associates.  If the witnesses to the dictation were fooled, ,which is possible, then Joseph could have figured out a way to trick them, as he read off the words.  Or if the witnesses were in on it, to some extent, then we have written accounts of an embellished experience, which is also possible (and more than possible considering our mortal penchant for exaggeration and embellishment).  

There's no further argument to be made, ti seems to me.  The book appeared.  Joseph claimed to have participated in producing it.  He claims it came by the gift and power of God, but seemingly doesn't define what that means.  We cant' even prove God exists, so why we default or feel an appeal to Him defeats any possibility of Joseph, or Joseph and associates, creating the text is beyond me.  

Truth is the text can be shamelessly inspirational to millions of people and it still need not have God as it's author or participator.  the possibility is if any text inspires someone or some people to do something good, and any of those texts are written by men, it is possible God helped inspire.  

 

[Bernard Gui]

On 3/9/2018 at 9:32 AM, Rajah Manchou said:

For example, the Rechabite accounts are probably based on some distant historical event. You mentioned the Lemba having "Cohen" DNA. Groups in nearby Comoros Islands and Madagascar have the same DNA, and according to the researchers who did some of the testing it dates back to the first temple diaspora period...600 BC. The same is true for the Malabar Jews in India (although their migration tends to date younger). So I get somewhat bothered when people joke about Joseph Smith's crazy idea that Jews sailed across the sea in 600 BC. There is absolutely evidence for it.

In the parable of the olive tree, Zenos says the natural branches of the olive tree were hidden in the “nethermost parts” of the vineyard. Some were placed in poor ground. They flourished for a time, but eventually they too became corrupt. Do you think this could explain your discoveries?

[cdowis]

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

 

It seems to me it's quite possible that the text came from Joseph and/or associates. 

Sin cd you are calling yourself as a witness, tell us your experience in reading and studying the Book of Mormon.

• How often have you read and studied the entire book.
• Have you found anything that was special to you personally -- specific verses or chapters
• Are there any verses that you have memorized to guide you in your life, or was your experience totally devoid of any spiritual meaning.
• Have you had a conversation with God -- has He spoken to you through he Spirit, or anything that you could call a relationship with Heavenly Father in any specific circumstances -- in church, with personal prayer, etc.

Perhaps your opinion is based on a personal issue, rather than with the book itself.

Edited March 19, 2018 by cdowis

[smac97]

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Quote

I really haven't seen any argument that Joseph could have created the text that can account for the text. I haven't seen any argument that a committee could have done it either.

YOu haven't seen any argument or you haven't seen any argument you can accept?  

Brant can certainly speak for himself, but I think his main point is A) the lack of coherent argument about B) Joseph Smith creating the text of the Book of Mormon, which argument C) can account for the text of the Book of Mormon.

Of these, the accounting for the text bit appears to be the most important piece.  Critics just cannot formulate a coherent explanation for the text that accounts for the text itself.  Instead, we usually see counter-explanations that are 1) vague, 2) overwhelmingly speculative, 3) devoid of any support of competent, probative evidence, and 4) largely contrived by avoiding/ignoring extant evidence (including, notably, the text itself).

To illustrate my point:

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

it seems to me it's quite possible that the text came from Joseph and/or associates.  If the witnesses to the dictation were fooled, ,which is possible, then Joseph could have figured out a way to trick them, as he read off the words.  Or if the witnesses were in on it, to some extent, then we have written accounts of an embellished experience, which is also possible (and more than possible considering our mortal penchant for exaggeration and embellishment).  

And there it is.  A counter-explanation that is 1) vague, 2) overwhelmingly speculative, 3) devoid of any support of competent, probative evidence, and 4) largely contrived by avoiding/ignoring extant evidence (including, notably, the text itself).

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

There's no further argument to be made, ti seems to me. 

I understand that is your position.  Perhaps you can understand why I find such vague and facile counter-explanations to be unpersuasive.  You aren't engaging the text.  And you are foreclosing any need to engage the text ("There's no further argument to be made" other than a vague, cobbled-together bit of evidence-free guesswork).  You aren't accounting for it.  And you aren't accounting for the witnesses, either ("If the witnesses .. were fooled...").  No evidence.  No analysis.  

Don't get me wrong.  There are plenty of aspects of Joseph Smith's story that are not really susceptible to empirical analysis or evidentiary scrutiny.  For example, the existence of angels is not really subject to evidentiary analysis.  That said, there are topics like A) the existence of the Gold Plates, B) testimonial evidence about the Plates, C) character evidence about the witnesses to the Plates (and circumstantial evidence about them as well), D) the short time frame in which the text we now have was "written," and - perhaps most important of all - E) various textual evidences in The Book of Mormon.  These are, I think, a lot more susceptible to reasoned and evidence-based discussion.

But I seldom see such a "reasoned and evidence-based discussion."  Like Brant, I have not seen any argument that Joseph Smith could have created the text that accounts for the text (or, for that matter, for the testimonial evidence from the witnesses pertaining to the existence of the Plates, the credibility of the witnesses themselves, the timeframe for dictating the translation, the absence of materials from which Joseph could have cribbed, and so on).

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

The book appeared. 

Well, no.  We are not talking about an image of the Virgin Mary on a tortilla.  The text of the Book of Mormon did not simply "appear."  The book was written.  It came from somewhere.  It is several hundred pages long.  Someone wrote it.  Someone had to have fairly extensive knowledge of a wide variety of fields.  Someone had to formulate a 1000-year record abridged into 500+ pages.  Someone had to come up with personal names, and place names, and geographies, and events, and doctrical expositions, and chiasmus, and accurate depictions of olive culture, and a many, many other matters.

I previously noted that counter-explanations for the Book of Mormon are pretty much always "vague."  "The book appeared" typifies that.  "The book appeared" does not account for the text.  That was, I think, Brant's point.  I agree with that point.

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Joseph claimed to have participated in producing it.  He claims it came by the gift and power of God, but seemingly doesn't define what that means.  We cant' even prove God exists, so why we default or feel an appeal to Him defeats any possibility of Joseph, or Joseph and associates, creating the text is beyond me.

I'm not sure that is happening here.  The Mormons have a coherent, albeit not "empirical," explanation as to the origins of the Book of Mormon, one which largely accounts for the text.  Its contents.  Its complexity.  Critics, on the other hand, haven't been able to present a coherent explanation for the origins of the Book of Mormon that does so by accounting for the text.

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Truth is the text can be shamelessly inspirational to millions of people and it still need not have God as it's author or participator. 

There is some truth to that.

8 hours ago, stemelbow said:

The possibility is if any text inspires someone or some people to do something good, and any of those texts are written by men, it is possible God helped inspire.  

Agreed.

Thanks,

-Smac

[JarMan]

9 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

As I mentioned, parallelism is a flawed methodology. Depending upon how you couch the parallel, things may be made to appear parallel that wouldn't otherwise. I appreciate you belief that no other model comes close to this collection, but the collection itself depends upon the interpretive spin and not on stronger connections. 

For example, you have "wars against robbers." Stated that simply, it would seem that it could be a parallel. However, the literary use of the Gadianton Robbers in the text works very differently from anything that would be described as simply as that. "Burning of heretics" places a particular interpretation on the events--but one that is not exclusive to your timeframe. It could have been much, much earlier.

What would have been impossible for your small circle of men is the very close connections between specific time periods, specific locations, and known events that we know from archaeology and are described in the Book of Mormon (and not just one, and the timing stays accurate through cultural/historical changes). None of that would be available. As a quicker example, within the last 20 years archaeologists have found that there were Mesoamerican societies that were not based on kingship, but on a more collective concept where the people had a voice (the Book of Mormon is not Republican, something Richard Bushman discovered when trying to write about its Republicanism for the US bicentennial).

“Parallelism is a flawed methodology” is a pretty broad statement. Certainly it is subject to confirmation bias and other problems but we can’t simply ignore all parallels either. In response to the few issues you brought up I’ll offer some additional information. Regarding republican government in the Book of Mormon I’m well aware of Bushman’s paper on the subject and I can’t think of anything in it I disagree with. However, I’m not talking about 19th Century American republicanism. Mine is a 17th Century model and I’m actually talking about 16th/17th Century Dutch republicanism. There are quite a few similarities here. For instance, in the Dutch Republic religious strife between the provinces led to serious civil unrest. The leaders in the influential province of Holland favored religious freedom and religious tolerance from one province to the next. This system was ultimately challenged by a faction that wanted a single state religion and a monarch to govern them. This finally led to the execution, imprisonment, or banishment of the opposing leaders and a prince was retained for a handful of years and a state religion implemented. (The Holland leaders had no Captain Moroni to raise the title of liberty to defend and preserve their rights.) The antagonists’ religion in this conflict resembles the religion of the antagonists in the Book of Mormon (Calvinism as compared to the Zoramite religion) while the protagonists’ religion are also a match (Arminianism as compared to the Nephite religion). The ongoing civil feud between the Zarahemla Nephites and the Zoramite Nephites quite resembles the feud between the Armenians from the capital of the Dutch Republic (Holland) and the Calvinists from the rest of the republic. The substantial difference between the two conflicts is the ultimate outcome.

The burning of heretics is another issue you bring up. In another thread I brought up ten or twelve specific parallels between the incidents in the Book of Mormon and those in 16th Century Europe. It’s true, as you pointed out, that this practice was not unique to this time.  It began in Eurasia in earnest a few hundred years earlier. But that is beside the point. There was no similar practice in Joseph’s milieu nor do we find the parallels in Mesoamerica. Most, if not all, of the Book of Mormon details can be found in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs which makes it a good candidate for having an actual influence on the Book of Mormon text.

The last issue you brought up is the war against robbers. I don’t think I’m exaggerating by saying that one of the parallels here is truly remarkable. I know you’ve shown interest on this topic and have written about it. I’ll just copy and paste a portion of a post from another thread from a few months back where I compare the robbers of 3 Nephi to an actual robber leader from Roman history named Tacfarinas.

Quote

Tacfarinas’ army composition and tactics

Composed of dissenting Roman troops and Berber tribesmen

Lived in mountains and wilderness

Raids in Roman territory capturing booty and killing many, retreat to the mountains and wilderness

Tried siege warfare, but defeated when Roman armies broke the siege by attacking the siegers

Gadianton Robber army composition and tactics

Composed of dissenting Nephites (1:28, 3:10) and Lamanites (1:29)

Lived in mountains and wilderness (1:27, 4:1)

Laid waste to cities, killed many (2:11, 4:1), retreat to mountains and wilderness (2:17, 4:13)

Tried siege (4:16) but defeated when Nephites attacked the siegers (4:21-22)

 

Roman army tactics

Built up and manned fortifications on edge of province

Brought in experienced General from Rome

Offered a pitched conventional battle and prevailed rather than fighting them in the wilderness and mountains

United with some of the Berbers to fight Tacfarinas’ armies

Ended the conflict for a time by killing Tacfarinas’ brother

Ended the war for good by killing Tacfarinas

Offered amnesty to soldiers to dissent from robber army

Nephite army tactics

Built fortifications round about and manned them with troops (3:14)

Brought in Gidgiddoni, the chiefest Nephite captain (3:18)

Against the requests of people who wanted to pursue them into the wilderness, Gidgiddoni instead opted to meet them in a conventional battle and prevailed (3:20-21)

United with some of the Lamanites to fight Gadianton Robber armies (2:11-14)

Ended the conflict for a time by killing Giddianhi (4:14-15)

Ended the war for good by killing Zemnarihah (4:28-29)

Gave freedom to captured soldiers on oath of keeping peace (5:4)

 

Tacfarinas’ attempt at diplomacy

Sent envoys to Rome

Claimed to be fighting a war of liberation

Offered peace for land

Promised never-ending war if terms weren’t accepted

Roman emperor outraged to be addressed by a mere robber as if he was a legitimate leader

Gadianton Robbers’ attempt at diplomacy

Wrote a letter to Nephite governor (3:1-10)

Claimed to be fighting to regain their rights and government (3:4, 10)

Offered peace for land (3:6-8)

Promised a war of extinction if terms weren’t accepted (3:8)

Nephite governor “exceedingly astonished” (3:11) and would not be threatened by a robber (3:12)

 

In an epic coincidence, the Roman conflict with Tacfarinas ended in the year 24 AD while the Nephite conflict with the robbers in 3 Nephi ended somewhere between 22 AD and 25 AD (5:7).

The connection here with the 17th Century is that my hypothetical 17th Century writer knew this history and referred to it in some of his writings. So it didn’t happen in the 17th Century, but it was known in the 17th Century. Was this story known to Joseph? I doubt it. Can we find the same level of similarities in Mesoamerica? Of course not.

[Ryan Dahle]

On 3/16/2018 at 6:23 AM, 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 think that the crux of the disagreement is really about how likely it is that the growing body of archaic syntactic features in the Book of Mormon could have been preserved in Joseph’s environment and yet have escaped the textual record. We know that it’s possible for dialectic features to sometimes elude the textual record. But when I look at the array of syntactic features identified by Carmack, some of which were textually extinct for some time before 1829, they don’t strike me as the types of things that the locals in Joseph’s environment would have been perpetuating under the textual radar—especially when looked at as a comprehensive set.

I live in a rural community that has a variety of “hick” expressions, and it’s true that some individuals can turn it on or off, so to speak, and that it mostly manifests in non-formal communications. But the variety of non-standard dialectic features are not nearly as extensive or syntactically nuanced as the archaic variation that Carmack finds in the Book of Mormon. Moreover, I think I have seen repeated examples of how the non-standard features in our local dialect sometimes surface in letters to the editor, personal letters, journals, and a number of other personal documents—as well as some more formal writings, including fiction that attempts to portray the local dialectic color.

Thus I think the important question is this: Have any of the discovered examples of this phenomenon come anywhere close to the syntactic situation we see with the Book of Mormon?

If not, then Gardner’s theory about Joseph’s plausible environmental exposure to these dialectic features has no true analogous precedent. And if so, then Carmack’s conclusions about the significance of his finds may be overstated.

The difficulty of proving negatives is really all about the constraints of the situation. For instance, it would actually be easy to “prove” that a full-sized African elephant isn’t currently standing on a given football field. Simply surveying the field from the stands could verify this negative claim. In contrast, it would be very difficult to prove that an ant wasn’t crawling somewhere on the field. Even thorough and systematic analysis might easily miss an ant.

Are the archaic syntactic features in the Book of Mormon an elephant or an ant? Or maybe something in between? Are they the types of things that could easily be isolated, preserved, and remain textual elusive, or are they the types of linguistic features that, when taken as a whole, would very likely show up at some point in the personal or formal writings of Joseph Smith or members of his community.

It should also be remembered that the argument for negative evidence cuts both ways. Critics of LDS scholarly apologetic material often point to the possibility that Joseph Smith had access to a variety of texts that could have informed him about the ancient world. For example, it’s certainly possible that Joseph had access to 1 Enoch material, and it’s possible that he had access to translated copies of the Book of Giants, 2 Enoch, and 3 Enoch that somehow never made it into the textual record until well after his translation of the Book of Moses. But it seems like special pleading when critics evoke these potentialities as plausible or probable explanations for the extensive similarities between these texts and Joseph Smith’s Enoch material. The critics can always say, “Well you can’t prove that Joseph didn’t have access to these texts” but when the critics have to essentially invent Joseph’s access to texts that hadn’t yet been discovered in his day in order to explain the Book of Mormon’s dependence on them, then you know your apologetic argument is probably on the right track.

Is this situation somewhat analogous to Gardner’s assumptions about the variety of archaic syntactic features in the Book of Mormon. Or is Gardner actually justified in supposing that the Book of Mormon’s extensive array of archaic syntactic features were used enough in Joseph’s environment for him to assimilate them into his dialect but that they, for some reason, never made it into the textual record? I honestly don’t know the answer to this, but I think it is the core of the debate and is probably the area that needs the most further investigation if there is to be progress towards a consensus.

[Brant Gardner]

24 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

But when I look at the array of syntactic features identified by Carmack, some of which were textually extinct for some time before 1829, they don’t strike me as the types of things that the locals in Joseph’s environment would have been perpetuating under the textual radar—especially when looked at as a comprehensive set.

My issue with Carmack's hypothesis is precisely your statement that some of the features had become extinct. Let's say that the data suggested that they were rare, but still around in Joseph's day. How does that change the hypothesis? All of the descriptive statements remain the same. What changes is the declaration that these features mean that Joseph couldn't have produced those forms. 

Now, what if we look at the way Carmack defended the thesis of extinction and find that he found that the forms were extinct in England, but didn't look in America? (This is an example, and I know full well that he looked at American publications) That would also suggest that while he didn't find anything, that the possibility exists that it was because he looked in the wrong place. If I am looking for Olmec artifacts and declare that they must have been extinct at a certain period because they are not found in New York--I might be correct that they are not found in New York, but I looked in the wrong place. The real problem of extinction is that the place to look is incredibly narrow and there aren't many artifacts for comparison. What we would need is Joseph's oral language (not printed texts from more educated areas) and particularly when Joseph was attempting to make something sound like biblical language (so even early letters might legitimately not have the features, but still have been part of the different literary effort.

Next, we find that while some of the features examined couldn't be found, there are some unusual features that were found closer to Joseph's time--and which were not yet available in Early Modern English. What does that tell us? We have two choices. The text was written according to the most recent vocabulary and syntax, or it was modified sometime after the original was written--but without altering the earlier forms. The first possibility would suggest that the forms were not extinct. The second, which I believe Carmack has suggested, would require at least two different translators at different times. At the very least, it tells us that the methodology used to declare extinction and therefore the impossibility of Joseph using those forms is problematic. The data, if taken as a whole and not split into different translators, would suggest that there was a single possible translator who did use a mixture of the old forms and newer ones.

Finally, we have Carmack's information that the methodology not only suggests that there were extinct forms, but there were prescient forms. That is, there are syntactic forms and vocabulary that cannot be found until after the publication of the Book of Mormon. So we have a single methodology that is unreliable for dating the translation of the document. If the methodology cannot tell us that the forms were extinct, and one of the perfectly logical ways to read the data is that it wasn't extinction but rather that they were not found in the places examined--we get a translator that is so close to Joseph's time that it becomes difficult to see why any other translator is required.

Quote

Thus I think the important question is this: Have any of the discovered examples of this phenomenon come anywhere close to the syntactic situation we see with the Book of Mormon?

I would say yes. Carmack clearly says no. We are both looking at the exact same data.

In the early revelations and in the Plot of Zion, Carmack found these archaic forms.  (see Interpreter Foundation article) These revelations came through the seer stone, but were not translations. The Plot of Zion is certainly religiously motivated, but it is a design for a city plan. In those cases, we see the forms in texts Joseph dictated. I think both Carmack and I would agree that the same person (or persons in Carmack's case?) dictated the documents. When I see those supposedly extinct forms in those revelations, I see evidence that they existed as part of Joseph's vocabulary. When Carmack sees them (because he has already decided that they are diagnostic of not-Joseph) someone else wrote out those revelations and the Plot of Zion to be put on the seer stones for Joseph to read.  I am unaware of any explanation for the divine dictator-of-revelations to have been the one who learned only Early Modern English, and not the one who made the more recent edits to the Book of Mormon text that were closer to Joseph's time and would not have appeared as grammatical errors that the Early Modern English did at the time off the revelations.

[JarMan]

22 hours ago, Rajah Manchou said:

Somehow this gets in there:

"And thus prophesied Joseph, saying: Behold, that seer will the Lord bless; and they that seek to destroy him shall be confounded; for this promise, which I have obtained of the Lord, of the fruit of my loins, shall be fulfilled. Behold, I am sure of the fulfilling of this promise. And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. And he shall be like unto me; for the thing, which the Lord shall bring forth by his hand, by the power of the Lord shall bring my people unto salvation." - 2 Nephi 3:14-15

There aren't many ways to explain those two verses without appealing to either revelation or a 19th century addition made by someone familiar with Joseph Smith. How would a 17th century model explain this? Is this the vaticinium ex eventu you are referring to? How does that work?
 

I had a thread on this chapter in the Book of Mormon a while back, but I’ll try to give you the pertinent points. There are two moderns mentioned in this prophecy. The first is the new Moses who will write the writings of the fruit of the loins of Joseph, son of Lehi. The second is the new Aaron, the spokesman who will declare it.

The first part of verse 15 (and maybe more) is likely Joseph’s expansion. Joseph appears to be writing himself into the prophecy as being the new Moses. He does a very similar thing a few years later in D&C 100:9 where Sydney Rigdon is called to be Joseph’s spokeman. This is an apparent reference to 2 Nephi 3:18 or, in other words, Joseph is identifying Sydney as the new Aaron. He is retroactively writing Sydney into the prophecy.

But I think Joseph gets it wrong on both accounts. The new Moses is really my 17th Century prophet and the new Aaron is really Joseph. Ironically, it’s my 17th Century prophet who first wrote himself into the prophecy as the new Moses but Joseph interprets these verses as referring to him. (What could give more prophetic credibility than being a new Moses?)

This particular chapter is significant to my 17th Century hypothesis in an additional way: the vaticinium ex eventu, or prophecy after the fact. Joseph of Egypt is here making a prophecy (as related by Lehi) but there’s really no way Lehi could have known this prophecy. He had no written record of Joseph. Thus it appears that this Joseph of Egypt prophecy is nothing more than a literary device to add weight to what is being said. It is a known event that is retrospectively put into the mouth of a beloved prophet—a device sometimes also seen in other holy books. The reason this is significant is that Grotius does the same thing with Joseph of Egypt in his play Sophompaneas. He puts a prophecy of known events into the mouth of Joseph. Both Josephs even make similar prophecies. In Sophompaneas Joseph alludes to the future Moses and predicts the Hebrews and Egyptians will one day unite under a new religion, obviously referring to Christianity. This is similar to the Book of Mormon Moses prophecy and the prophecy in verse 12 relating to the joining of the two different peoples from the new and old worlds. 

[Glenn101]

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

I would say yes. Carmack clearly says no. We are both looking at the exact same data.

In the early revelations and in the Plot of Zion, Carmack found these archaic forms.  (see Interpreter Foundation article) These revelations came through the seer stone, but were not translations. The Plot of Zion is certainly religiously motivated, but it is a design for a city plan. In those cases, we see the forms in texts Joseph dictated. I think both Carmack and I would agree that the same person (or persons in Carmack's case?) dictated the documents. When I see those supposedly extinct forms in those revelations, I see evidence that they existed as part of Joseph's vocabulary. When Carmack sees them (because he has already decided that they are diagnostic of not-Joseph) someone else wrote out those revelations and the Plot of Zion to be put on the seer stones for Joseph to read.  I am unaware of any explanation for the divine dictator-of-revelations to have been the one who learned only Early Modern English, and not the one who made the more recent edits to the Book of Mormon text that were closer to Joseph's time and would not have appeared as grammatical errors that the Early Modern English did at the time off the revelations.

Brant, part of Stanford's argument is that a person would have to be immersed in the EmodE, pretty much to speak it naturally, if I understand him correctly, which is why he is saying that the EmodE, especially to the extent that it is used in the Book of Mormon.  is diagnostic of not Joseph. Yours seems to be a rather circular argument. If there were isolated pockets of people speaking extensive EmodE that Joseph with whom Joseph may have come into contact, it would still seem that he would have only picked up bits and pieces pf the grammar and syntax. Neither Sharon, Vermont nor the Palmyra area were isolated areas. Especially Palmyra, being as close to the Erie Canal.

   It is sort of like a person from one of the northern states living and working for a couple of years in the South. He or she may return home able to imitate a southern drawl and some of the vernacular, but many of the idioms, etc. would not become an innate manner of speaking. The unique Southern dialects are not as pronounced in these latter years as they were previous to the communications explosion of the past few decades though.

The Lord has not revealed why He did a lot of things. But the Holy Ghost is almost surely very conversant in all languages (as is the rest of the God head), and also a bit of a prophet, to be able to divine phrases that had been and were to come.

Glenn

[Rajah Manchou]

30 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Neither Sharon, Vermont nor the Palmyra area were isolated areas.

One thing often overlooked is the space between Sharon and Palmyra. Joseph Smith lived within 5 miles of Dartmouth for a significant portion of his childhood. This was the center of Biblical Hebrew scholarship in America at the time, the very center in fact. The leading figure was a Smith, the "best linguist in all of New England" according to Judah Dana.

Biblical Hebrew in Colonial America: The Case of Dartmouth

I don't think it likely that the Smiths had found a pocket of 16th century Shakespearian Hillbillies in Hanover. It was more likely the exact opposite: they had access to a wide range of ideas and literature. Joseph Smith lived less than five miles away from hundreds, if not thousands, of Hebrew, Aramiac, Arabic and Latin speaking scholars with the mission to convert Native Americans to Christianity.

The argument that the Smiths were isolated country bumpkins without access to books and nuanced theological ideas falls apart here:

Dartmouth Arminianism And Its Impact on Hyrum Smith And the Smith Family

[Rajah Manchou]

2 hours ago, JarMan said:

I had a thread on this chapter in the Book of Mormon a while back, but I’ll try to give you the pertinent points. There are two moderns mentioned in this prophecy. The first is the new Moses who will write the writings of the fruit of the loins of Joseph, son of Lehi. The second is the new Aaron, the spokesman who will declare it.

The first part of verse 15 (and maybe more) is likely Joseph’s expansion. Joseph appears to be writing himself into the prophecy as being the new Moses. He does a very similar thing a few years later in D&C 100:9 where Sydney Rigdon is called to be Joseph’s spokeman. This is an apparent reference to 2 Nephi 3:18 or, in other words, Joseph is identifying Sydney as the new Aaron. He is retroactively writing Sydney into the prophecy.

But I think Joseph gets it wrong on both accounts. The new Moses is really my 17th Century prophet and the new Aaron is really Joseph. Ironically, it’s my 17th Century prophet who first wrote himself into the prophecy as the new Moses but Joseph interprets these verses as referring to him. (What could give more prophetic credibility than being a new Moses?)

This particular chapter is significant to my 17th Century hypothesis in an additional way: the vaticinium ex eventu, or prophecy after the fact. Joseph of Egypt is here making a prophecy (as related by Lehi) but there’s really no way Lehi could have known this prophecy. He had no written record of Joseph. Thus it appears that this Joseph of Egypt prophecy is nothing more than a literary device to add weight to what is being said. It is a known event that is retrospectively put into the mouth of a beloved prophet—a device sometimes also seen in other holy books. The reason this is significant is that Grotius does the same thing with Joseph of Egypt in his play Sophompaneas. He puts a prophecy of known events into the mouth of Joseph. Both Josephs even make similar prophecies. In Sophompaneas Joseph alludes to the future Moses and predicts the Hebrews and Egyptians will one day unite under a new religion, obviously referring to Christianity. This is similar to the Book of Mormon Moses prophecy and the prophecy in verse 12 relating to the joining of the two different peoples from the new and old worlds. 

See post above. I don't think we need to appeal to a 17th century Dutch author when the Smiths lived 5 miles away from the center of Hebrew scholarship and Arminianism in America. You'd have to show that all these ideas in your list weren't in a book in the library, or bookstore, run by John Smith, the cousin of Joseph Smith's grandfather.

It would seem more likely that the ideas found in the Book of Mormon came from the mind/imagination/stone of an 18th-19th century scholar familiar with the works of Grotius and EModE literature. Its not the hypothesis I prefer (or put my faith in) but its too hard to escape the proximity.

Edited March 20, 2018 by Rajah Manchou

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

The real problem of extinction is that the place to look is incredibly narrow and there aren't many artifacts for comparison. What we would need is Joseph's oral language (not printed texts from more educated areas) and particularly when Joseph was attempting to make something sound like biblical language (so even early letters might legitimately not have the features, but still have been part of the different literary effort.

As for extinction, comparing absences of evidence in linguistics to absences of evidence in archaeology may be comparing apples to oranges. I suspect linguistic evidence, with modern data bases, is better equipped to tell us about extinct or rare syntactic features among fairly literate 19th century American communities than archaeology is able to tell us about whether or not horses, for example, were extinct in the Pre-Classic period. The sample sizes seem to be on a very different scale. 

Also, why focus so heavily on Joseph's personal writings? We don't have very many of his pre-translation writings and anything afterword, whether revelatory or personal in nature, could very well have been influenced to some degree by the lengthy revealed (according to Carmack's theory) Book of Mormon text which Joseph spent day after day dictating. If Carmack's translation theory is right, we might assume that Joseph assimilated some of the early modern syntax because he not only read, but repeatedly spoke it over the course of three months and then likely read it somewhat frequently in the 1830 publication after that. So I don't think that Joseph's post-translation writings will provide conclusive evidence either way.

It seems much more fruitful to scour the personal documents of everyone in Joseph's communities where he grew up, as well as the 19th century pseudo-biblical texts that may have influenced him or that might show how other 19th century writers tried to sound biblical. Which is obviously what Carmack and Skousen have been doing (as well as looking at Joseph's personal writings and their possible relevance).

So, back to my original question. Is there a comparative example of so much obsolete Early Modern English coming from a single 19th century author? Not just a few phrases or idioms, but systematic, nuanced usage of a variety of extinct and mostly obsolete syntax and lexical items?  Where is the truly comparative example we can turn to and say, "yep Joseph's archaisms are really nothing special?"

Also, perhaps I'm wrong, but it seems your theory lacks any reason for why these particular types of archaisms would be preserved in Joseph's environment and no other. For instance, this isn't legal jargon being preserved in a relatively static Puritan community by Puritan lawyers. I presume Joseph's rural communities were a mix of frontier settlers, who like the Smith family, hailed from a variety of different backgrounds only one or two generations before. Why is it that Joseph's community members were the only ones using the particular archaic syntactic features that we find in the Book of Mormon? Why were these specific features being preserved in his communities. And if they weren't the only ones regularly using them--meaning if these syntactic habits were more widely spread--why don't they show up in the textual record?

Moreover, it seems that you assume Joseph used these syntactic features because he was trying to sound religious and biblical. But if the archaic syntax was formal religious jargon, then why don't we find it in formal writing contexts, such as published sermons and religiously themed letters or articles. It would hardly be the type of language that one would be ashamed of and consciously avoid in formal settings? 

I guess what I am getting at is that it would help your model out quite a bit if you could explain why and how the specific archaic features in the Book of Mormon were preserved in Joseph's environment. Perhaps you have already done so, and I am asking you to be redundant. If so, maybe send me to the publication. Also, I'm asking sincerely. I strongly lean toward Carmack's theory, but I'm definitely leaving the door open and think that all important aspects of this debate should be explored. If your theory can more specifically answer these types of questions then I think it would definitely have more merit.

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Next, we find that while some of the features examined couldn't be found, there are some unusual features that were found closer to Joseph's time--and which were not yet available in Early Modern English. What does that tell us? We have two choices. The text was written according to the most recent vocabulary and syntax, or it was modified sometime after the original was written--but without altering the earlier forms. The first possibility would suggest that the forms were not extinct. The second, which I believe Carmack has suggested, would require at least two different translators at different times. At the very least, it tells us that the methodology used to declare extinction and therefore the impossibility of Joseph using those forms is problematic. The data, if taken as a whole and not split into different translators, would suggest that there was a single possible translator who did use a mixture of the old forms and newer ones.

Finally, we have Carmack's information that the methodology not only suggests that there were extinct forms, but there were prescient forms. That is, there are syntactic forms and vocabulary that cannot be found until after the publication of the Book of Mormon. So we have a single methodology that is unreliable for dating the translation of the document.

The methodology of the divine translation theory assumes that whatever divine influence was responsible for systematically implementing extinct or mostly obsolete syntax in the English translation could also implement emerging or future linguistic patterns that best fit the translation's various goals (whatever they may have been). One translator, two translators, a team of translators--it doesn't really make any difference. No matter how much contemporary, emerging or future syntax or usage one finds in the 1829 English translation, the divine translation theory can accommodate it.

It may seem like a cop out argument because it can accommodate so much without having to fully explain how, but don't most theistic arguments play this card at various levels. Take miracles, for instance. Walking on water, changing water into wine, plagues that target only the first born, staffs that transform into serpents, and a divine being who can suffer for past, present, and future sins--so what if these things can't be verified or replicated in scientific experiments. A supremely intelligent, divine being, who can manipulate time and the elements can easily account for them all. When someone asks us how we know Christ performed the Atonement, we don't really worry too much about all of the hows or whys. We fall back on evidences that are more apparent and demonstrable.

I would suggest the rationale for the divine translation theory is similar. Carmack can't explain and apparently doesn't feel a need to explain how or why Early Modern syntax got into the Book of Mormon. All he needs to do is show that God was directly involved in the translation (which believing LDS scholars are already agreed upon) and that it is very unlikely that Joseph implemented these features himself. We can't fully explain why God commanded polygamy, or why He let the priesthood ban continue when He could have stopped it all along, or why women have never been given priesthood keys according to our scriptural record, or why dozens of other things are the way the are. Just because we can't currently explain why something is, it doesn't mean that it isn't the most likely or best explanation based on the available data.

Carmack's theory does have explanatory power--it is just of a different type. It explains what, in his opinion as trained linguist, seems otherwise to be highly unlikely and bordering on the impossible. When you find something that seems impossible and it happens to be part of a translation event that is already accomplishing the seemingly impossible, then it doesn't seem too awfully irrational to assume that the divine influence that is already defying the expectations and assumptions of the world might just defy the expectations and assumptions of believers as well. 

I think Carmack has the advantage in this area because, as a trained linguist, he is probably in a better position to determine whether or not the specific types of syntactic features present in the Book of Mormon would have been isolated and preserved in the way you are assuming they were preserved. He seems to be very familiar with the concepts you are talking about, and how archaisms can sometimes escape the textual record, and yet he vigorously disagrees with your conclusions about the likelihood of that happening in this particular case.

I wonder why this is. He has done much more searching through the databases and probably knows their constraints and limitations better than you. And, considering that he wasn't at all expecting to find all of this Early Modern English when he started his investigation, I hardly think that his conclusions are mere confirmation bias.

On the other hand, I don't at all think that you are being intentionally deceptive or dismissive of his theory. I think you simply disagree because you look at things differently. Its a complex issue, and I also don't for one second think that you are so wed to your published theory that you wouldn't change your opinion if you felt that is where the evidence led.

I happen to think this is a very important issue, and it is one that would help many other areas of Book of Mormon scholarship if the leading promulgators of different theories could very carefully refine their disagreements and further test their theories based on feedback about their own positions potential weaknesses. 

This is getting long, but thank you Brant for taking the time to previously respond. I find your contributions to LDS scholarship to be invaluable and I appreciate your patient tone in these discussions.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brant Gardner]

4 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As for extinction, comparing absences of evidence in linguistics to absences of evidence in archaeology may be comparing apples to oranges. I suspect linguistic evidence, with modern data bases, is better equipped to tell us about extinct or rare syntactic features among fairly literate 19th century American communities than archaeology is able to tell us about whether or not horses, for example, were extinct in the Pre-Classic period. The sample sizes seem to be on a very different scale. 

I suspect that there is not difference at all. The argument that there were no horses is not based on there being no horses, but on not having found any. Except--it is possible that some have been found. Right now the doctrine is that there were no horses. There are horse bones that have been dated to at least pre-Columbian times, but those haven't yet made an impact. Maybe they haven't been published in the right places. Maybe, since the absence was so well entrenched, it will take a while to change. The fact remains that any argument based on absence is felled by the discovery that it wasn't really absent.

Linguistic data work the same way. It was thought that writing was a later Maya development--and then the San Bartolo murals were found where there was a painted text in an earlier form that was sufficiently different that much could not be read. The problem with searching modern databases is two-fold. The first is that they tend to record the wrong data for this analysis. They record what was written down, typically in books. That is a not only a literate production, but books (before the advent of self-publishing) tended to come from more educated circles. That data wouldn't record a localized oral dialect. So we look at what data that are not assuredly comparable.

Second is the problem of dating. The dating of the syntax and vocabulary of the Book of Mormon ranges from early to at least near Joseph's time, to the future. With that range, saying that the text contains extinct grammar is misleading, because it has more than that. The only way to use the dating information to date the syntax is to split it up. One must ignore contrary data to suggest that the "extinct" grammar has any particular meaning. That, or suggest the committee that wrote at different times. That latter suggestion has been proposed recently as the discussion about dating issues has come up. It wasn't the original discussion, because the original discussions that presented Early Modern English as distinct strongly stated extinction. What we are seeing is not a data-driven conclusion, but an ideological conclusion where the data are adapted to the theory.

Quote

Also, why focus so heavily on Joseph's personal writings? We don't have very many of his pre-translation writings and anything afterword, whether revelatory or personal in nature, could very well have been influenced to some degree by the lengthy revealed (according to Carmack's theory) Book of Mormon text which Joseph spent day after day dictating. If Carmack's translation theory is right, we might assume that Joseph assimilated some of the early modern syntax because he not only read, but repeatedly spoke it over the course of three months and then likely read it somewhat frequently in the 1830 publication after that. So I don't think that Joseph's post-translation writings will provide conclusive evidence either way.

In order to be certain that we are comparing apples to apples, we need to look at Joseph. This is where Carmack has been talking about an idiolect--that is, the personal version of the regional dialect. We might be seeing something that is specific to Joseph, so that is the best place to look. As for Joseph assimilating this, Carmack has explicitly noted that these forms would be difficult to imitate consistently. The places where the similarities are seen are in the revelations that come during the time of the translation--or shortly after. 

Quote

It seems much more fruitful to scour the personal documents of everyone in Joseph's communities where he grew up, as well as the 19th century pseudo-biblical texts that may have influenced him or that might show how other 19th century writers tried to sound biblical. Which is obviously what Carmack and Skousen have been doing (as well as looking at Joseph's personal writings and their possible relevance).

There is no reason not to, but we would still have the question of Joseph. The problem, of course, is that when we find Joseph using the some of the same syntax outside of the translation of the Book of Mormon, we have to decide what that means. That is where Carmack and I will look at exactly the same evidence and come to a different conclusion. Since I think that the foundational argument about extinction is based on a flawed methodology, I see those revelations as confirming that the forms were not extinct, but had been retained in at least a specific language community (which follows known linguistic principles). Carmack sees the presence of those forms as indicating that there was the same pre-Joseph writer.

Quote

So, back to my original question. Is there a comparative example of so much obsolete Early Modern English coming from a single 19th century author? Not just a few phrases or idioms, but systematic, nuanced usage of a variety of extinct and mostly obsolete syntax and lexical items?  Where is the truly comparative example we can turn to and say, "yep Joseph's archaisms are really nothing special?"

Yes. Joseph Smith in the revelations. The data say so. The explanation for why this happens differs, but the data you are asking for are found in exactly the place and time that they should be to indicate that Joseph was able to produce those forms. If you have already decided that he couldn't, then you have to read the data a different way.

Quote

I guess what I am getting at is that it would help your model out quite a bit if you could explain why and how the specific archaic features in the Book of Mormon were preserved in Joseph's environment.

The explanation is in how language evolves. It does not do so cleanly, nor in specific times. Grammar develops over time as some forms become less popular. As they become less popular and the more the replacement/winner form is statistically prevalent, the older forms are ungrammatical. Older forms become extinct in some areas, but not others. Some persist longer than others. Any dating of change in language is a question of statistical prevalence, not a plateau of change from one to the other. For example, in some of the data Carmack has analyzed, the difference is not extinction, but the difference in the statistical presence of the form in different texts. That tells us that the forms exist in the texts, but that individual choices of the author influence the text. In many cases, the statistics indicate that the archaized forms occur in greater frequency that in authentic ancient texts--hence they are not used in the way the older speakers would have used them. 

Quote

The methodology of the divine translation theory assumes that whatever divine influence was responsible for systematically implementing extinct or mostly obsolete syntax in the English translation could also implement emerging or future linguistic patterns that best fit the translation's various goals (whatever they may have been). One translator, two translators, a team of translators--it doesn't really make any difference. No matter how much contemporary, emerging or future syntax or usage one finds in the 1829 English translation, the divine translation theory can accommodate it.

Correct. Once it is a miracle, it is inexplicable and unassailable.  Of course there is divine intervention in the translation of the Book of Mormon and in the revelations. That is a tenet of our faith. Of course we would love to find a way to prove that God did it, so finding the extinct forms really looked like a way to demonstrate that Joseph couldn't do it. As the discussion has evolved, the explanation has had to shift to accommodate new data, hence the committee that worked at different times. As for future syntax, we have the choice of suggesting the mystery again, or of suggesting a data collection issue. I think there are ample ways to demonstrate that Joseph couldn't have produced the Book of Mormon without insisting that he couldn't produce the English language of the translation and early revelations. 

Quote

Carmack's theory does have explanatory power--it is just of a different type. It explains what, in his opinion as trained linguist, seems otherwise to be highly unlikely and bordering on the impossible.

There are two things that Carmack has done. The first is to describe the syntax of the text. That requires linguistic training, and I think it has been well done. It was never my interest, so I can't say whether he made some small error or not. I am happy to assume that he is correct. 

The second thing he did was to attempt to interpret the data using time and the absence of vocabulary and syntax to indicate extinction. In that, he has moved away from the specifically linguistic analysis, and is now dealing with very different concepts. Those concepts I can understand and have seen them work in other disciplines. 

Quote

When you find something that seems impossible and it happens to be part of a translation event that is already accomplishing the seemingly impossible, then it doesn't seem too awfully irrational to assume that the divine influence that is already defying the expectations and assumptions of the world might just defy the expectations and assumptions of believers as well. 

The question is whether or not it is impossible. If you decide that it is impossible, then your conclusion follows. If the data you use to decide that it is impossible don't really require that conclusion, then the conclusion becomes more tenuous. When the data used to declare it impossible can equally show that it was possible, the only reason to declare it impossible is that you have come to a conclusion that you are imposing on the data.

Quote

On the other hand, I don't at all think that you are being intentionally deceptive or dismissive of his theory. I think you simply disagree because you look at things differently. Its a complex issue, and I also don't for one second think that you are so wed to your published theory that you wouldn't change your opinion if you felt that is where the evidence led.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I do think that I am willing to change my mind based on evidence. I have done it many times.

Perhaps I'll see something in the issue of the method for claiming extinction that will change my mind, but to date, all of the subsequent data about the dates for finding comparable features conform to exactly what I would expect if Joseph were the one producing these forms. We see them early, and as Joseph was involved with colleagues with more education and familiarity with the wider statistical norms of grammar, Joseph's grammar improved and we no longer see these archaic forms. When Joseph understood more of the acceptable grammar, he returned to the text of the Book of Mormon and made changes to update some of the grammar in the 1837 publication. The later revelations don't show the same grammatical issues. Who finally learned more correct English? 

 

 

[Exiled]

On 3/18/2018 at 9:36 AM, Glenn101 said:

The EmodE in the Book of Mormon pretty much discounts such a possibility.

Glenn

I have a hard time eliminating the world and saying that even if there is EmodE in the BofM that Joseph couldn't have inserted it to make his work sound more impressive.  It is certainly possible that he found EmodE structures in his environment (there was a library near him, certainly there were old books he could have consulted from the library or other places, Luman Walters, Joseph's treasure seeking mentor, used such books to make his presentations more magical).  It simply cannot be discounted completely if at all.  Also, combine all the other absence of evidence for historicity and insertion or stumbling onto the EmodE structures seems to be the more likely explanation.

[Glenn101]

34 minutes ago, Exiled said:

I have a hard time eliminating the world and saying that even if there is EmodE in the BofM that Joseph couldn't have inserted it to make his work sound more impressive.  It is certainly possible that he found EmodE structures in his environment (there was a library near him, certainly there were old books he could have consulted from the library or other places, Luman Walters, Joseph's treasure seeking mentor, used such books to make his presentations more magical).  It simply cannot be discounted completely if at all.  Also, combine all the other absence of evidence for historicity and insertion or stumbling onto the EmodE structures seems to be the more likely explanation.

I take it that you have not read Stanford Carmack's essays and public comments on the subject or maybe just ignoring them. Your are making broad assertions without any supporting evidence. Carmack is assembling his evidence, evidence that contradicts your assertions, and doing a massive amount of research to assemble that evidence.

Glenn

[Exiled]

3 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

I take it that you have not read Stanford Carmack's essays and public comments on the subject or maybe just ignoring them. Your are making broad assertions without any supporting evidence. Carmack is assembling his evidence, evidence that contradicts your assertions, and doing a massive amount of research to assemble that evidence.

Glenn

So, how can he be sure that Joseph Smith could not have obtained his EmodE from somewhere else?  It isn't possible that Joseph could have had access to an EmodE book or maybe he was trying to make the book of mormon sound impressive and the Mr. Carmack is trying to see something that isn't there or make more out of what is there, to save book of mormon historicity?  That isn't possible?  That is all I am saying, that it is possible that the EmodE comes from Joseph Smith, himself.  I think "possible" is something you should understand as resting on "possible" is the basis of apologetics.  I admit that the book of mormon historicity, despite dna, etc., is still possible.  It is just not that probable in my mind.  My point is that it is practically impossible to eliminate possibilities when discussing history.  Sure, Mr. Carmack may have found EmodE in the book of mormon but to say that it is impossible for Joseph Smith to have put it in or Oliver Cowdery or some other contemporary is simply a bridge too far.  We weren't there so eliminating possibilities is impossible.

[cdowis]

59 minutes ago, Exiled said:

So, how can he be sure that Joseph Smith could not have obtained his EmodE from somewhere else?  It isn't possible that Joseph could have had access to an EmodE book or maybe he was trying to make the book of mormon sound impressive 

Linguistics was a major topic of discussion among the farmers of upstate NY in 1820's, and he made a concentrated effort to impress them.  The library at Palmyra obviously had an international reputation to have all of those books that the critics claim that he had read.

When did he have time to do his treasure digging with reading all those books?

Edited March 20, 2018 by cdowis

[Exiled]

Just now, cdowis said:

Linguistics was a major topic of discussion among the farmers of upstate NY, and he made a concentrated effort to impress them.  The library at Palmyra obviously had an international reputation to have all of these books that the critics claim that he had read.

So, do you think it is impossible that Joseph Smith might have tried to make his book of mormon creation sound more impressive by making the english used sound like it came from the distant past?

[Rajah Manchou]

6 minutes ago, cdowis said:

Linguistics was a major topic of discussion among the farmers of upstate NY in 1820's, and he made a concentrated effort to impress them.  The library at Palmyra obviously had an international reputation to have all of those books that the critics claim that he had read.

For the umpteenth time. The Smiths lived 5 miles from Dartmouth for 6 years before Palmyra. At the time Dartmouth was the center of Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic studies in America, and had one of America's largest collections of Hebraica. The cousin of Asael Smith lived 5 miles from the Smiths and yet managed to publish the second Hebrew grammar book in America. He was also a Smith, but was still able to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin as a teenager. He was still able to go on to become the best linguist in New England.

The Palmyra Farmer Library defense isn't a strong one.

[smac97]

22 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

For the umpteenth time. The Smiths lived 5 miles from Dartmouth for 6 years before Palmyra. At the time Dartmouth was the center of Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic studies in America, and had one of America's largest collections of Hebraica. The cousin of Asael Smith lived 5 miles from the Smiths and yet managed to publish the second Hebrew grammar book in America. He was also a Smith, but was still able to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin as a teenager. He was still able to go on to become the best linguist in New England.

The Palmyra Farmer Library defense isn't a strong one.

Funny, I was thinking the "Expertise in Hebrew and Aramaic by Proximity to a Library" critique was likewise not a strong one.

I live a few miles from BYU, including its substantial Harold B. Lee Library.  But that proximity is not competent evidence that I use its resources.

Is there evidence that Joseph Smith was a regular (or even infrequent) patron of Dartmouth, particularly its library?

Meanwhile, here is a brief comment by S. Kent Brown regarding one argument focusig on this topic:

Quote

This is a discussion of the library materials available to Joseph Smith.  Recently a Book of Mormon critic declared that the Prophet Joseph Smith had access to several important documents on southern Arabia before he published the Book of Mormon.  Apparently, the critic recognizes that Book of Mormon describes places in southern Arabia, but wants to credit this to Joseph Smith’s knowledge of the literature available at the Dartmouth College library, not divine revelation.  We appreciate S. Kent Brown’s response to this ascertain, and for giving the Nephi Project permission to post his discussion on the documents in question.

S. Kent Brown
Chairman, Department of Ancient Studies, BYU
Niebuhr Response 

The claim that there are three copies of Robert Heron’s English translation of Carsten Niebuhr’s first two volumes of Reisebeschreibung nach Arabien in the Dartmouth College library, and the implication that this library acquired at least one them before late in the year of 1813, the time when seven-year-old Joseph Smith and his family departed Lebanon, New Hampshire, must rest on a misunderstanding. One of the three entries in the current electronic catalogue of the Dartmouth College library is that of the French translation of Niebuhr’s volumes. The Dartmouth library acquired this translation for its collection on September 17, 1985 (Thorkild Hansen, who wrote about Niebuhr, calls this translation a “botched job”). The other two current electonic entries for Heron’s two-volume English translation are duplicates of one another. Dartmouth library owns only one copy of the two English volumes and they were acquired in December 1937. 

A view that the Dartmouth College library had acquired any of the works produced by Jean Baptiste d’Anville by the year 1813, the year that Joseph Smith’s family moved from the area, fails. John Horsley’s 1814 two-volume translation of d’Anville’s geographical work was not acquired until 1823 when it came as a gift to the library from members of the class of 1823. By then, the Smith family had been living in western New York for seven years. The copy of d’Anville’s forty maps, which the Dartmouth library also owns, did not come to the library until December 1936. In addition, the first printing of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire in six volumes (1776-1788) was not acquired by the Dartmouth library until 1944. Furthermore, the 1804-1805 reprint of Gibbon’s work did not come to this library until 1930 and the 1820 reprint was acquired only in 1983. 

Any hypothesis that these kinds of works were widely available in private hands for consultation has to reckon with one of the few sources by which a researcher can trace their distribution. That source consists of library acquisition records. In the case of Heron’s 1792 English translation of Niebuhr’s two volumes, the Dartmouth library did not acquire its copy until 145 years after the publication. In the case of Horsley’s 1914 translation of d’Anville’s work, the time lag between publication and the acquisition by the Dartmouth library was nine years. While that length of time is much less than a century and one half, it is still a significant gap and does not support a hypothesis for a wide and almost immediate distribution of these kinds of works in private hands. In a related vein, one has to reckon with the fact that the copy of Horsley’s English translation of d’Anville’s Géographie owned by the Dartmouth library does not have d’Anville’s maps. Thus, it is evident that, even though Horsley’s translation came to this library nine years after publication, the maps — which were sold separately — did not accompany Horsley’s work. 

— S. Kent Brown

And here are some interesting thoughts by Jeff Lindsay, written in response to an anonymous author's ("RT") treatment of Nahom (which, the author asserts, Joseph may have learned about by perusing materials in the Dartmouth library).  Here is Part 1, and here is Part 2.  From Part 2:

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RT in Part 3 of his work addresses an issue that some Latter-day Saints have already raised: there is no evidence that Joseph had access to any of these maps. Libraries close to where he lived, like the Manchester Library, the Palmyra Library, and even Dartmouth College Library in Vermont, don’t seem to offer access to information about Nahom, as S. Kent Brown has shown. Brown found that the English translation of Niebuhr’s book, with its accompanying map, was not at the Dartmouth library until 1937 and was not in John Pratt’s library in Manchester. Only after Joseph’s family moved away from the vicinity of Dartmouth did its library acquire English translations of a work from Jean-Baptiste d’Anville that mentions the Nehem tribe and its location. After reviewing the details of relevant books and maps at these two libraries, Brown states:

Quote

In this light it is safe to conclude that Joseph Smith did not enjoy access to works on Arabia in either of the libraries that lay near his home at one point or another in his youth. In a similar vein, any hypothesis that Joseph Smith had access to a private library that contained works on ancient Arabia is impossible to sustain.

RT properly points out that the absence of Arabian maps in a couple of libraries does not mean that Joseph didn’t see these maps. That’s a fair point. On the other hand, for Latter-day Saint apologists who are often accused of hiding behind the argument that “an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” it’s refreshing to see that shoe on someone else’s foot.

...

Theories based on Joseph accessing advanced information sources via the Erie Canal don’t seem to fit his behavior and other facts. For the task of creating the Book of Mormon, Joseph, not known to be a bookworm at that time, retreated to a remote village where he was still a poor farmer, now probably poorer and away from whatever intellectual resources his impoverished parents might have had, such as a family Bible. Tellingly, on October 8, 1829, shortly after Joseph Smith had completed the translation the Book of Mormon and before he began working on his inspired “translation” of the Bible, Joseph took an important step that would help in that later scriptural project: he had Oliver Cowdery purchase a Bible for him. It suggests that while in Harmony, Joseph’s personal library was rather small if he didn’t even own the most basic book for anyone taking on projects related to scripture. Joseph’s collection must have offered little to work with. Local libraries in Palmyra, Manchester, and at Dartmouth University, all reasonably close to places he had previously lived, didn’t offer useful materials for crafting the Lehi Trail adventure. Where did Joseph get the map or maps he would need to give us 1 Nephi?

I find it interesting that, in the manifest failure by critics to articulate a naturalistic origin for Nahom, we are now seeing reliance on much broader and more vague and ethereal "Ah, Joseph Smith probably learned X during his visits to the Dartmouth library."  

Mighty speculative, that.  Again, are we aware of any evidence that Joseph Smith was a regular (or even infrequent) patron of Dartmouth, particularly its library?

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

Just now, smac97 said:

Mighty speculative, that.  Again, are we aware of any evidence that Joseph Smith was a regular (or even infrequent) patron of Dartmouth, particularly its library?

Thanks,

-Smac

IIRC, his brother attended school there. 

[Ryan Dahle]

3 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

9 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

As for extinction, comparing absences of evidence in linguistics to absences of evidence in archaeology may be comparing apples to oranges. I suspect linguistic evidence, with modern data bases, is better equipped to tell us about extinct or rare syntactic features among fairly literate 19th century American communities than archaeology is able to tell us about whether or not horses, for example, were extinct in the Pre-Classic period. The sample sizes seem to be on a very different scale. 

I suspect that there is not difference at all. The argument that there were no horses is not based on there being no horses, but on not having found any. Except--it is possible that some have been found. Right now the doctrine is that there were no horses. There are horse bones that have been dated to at least pre-Columbian times, but those haven't yet made an impact. Maybe they haven't been published in the right places. Maybe, since the absence was so well entrenched, it will take a while to change. The fact remains that any argument based on absence is felled by the discovery that it wasn't really absent.

I get that, and I am aware of Miller and Roper's recent work on horse bones. What I am saying is that there may very well be reasons to not equate these domains. Broad analogies can be misleading because even in archaeology, some types of features are much more likely to be detectable than others. For instance, an absence of evidence for state-level societies with temples, highways, fortifications, etc. would be much more significant than the absence of evidence for inscriptional data pertaining to Book of Mormon names. There are good reasons why we would expect that state-level societies should be detectable with modern archaeological sampling and why inscriptional verification of Book of Mormon proper names would currently not be expected. You would need to demonstrate more specifically why the variety of nuanced archaic usages that Carmack has found could easily elude the textual record. He seems to fully understand that languages evolve and that usages can sometimes escape the textual record, but for some reason he thinks his collection of syntactic evidences doesn't fit the type of things that could easily fly under the radar. We need to be more specific about why he, as a trained linguist, thinks these specific types of usages wouldn't go undetected and why you think they would. 

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

In order to be certain that we are comparing apples to apples, we need to look at Joseph. This is where Carmack has been talking about an idiolect--that is, the personal version of the regional dialect. We might be seeing something that is specific to Joseph, so that is the best place to look. As for Joseph assimilating this, Carmack has explicitly noted that these forms would be difficult to imitate consistently. The places where the similarities are seen are in the revelations that come during the time of the translation--or shortly after. 

Right, but the revelations that come during and after the translation don't imitate archaic Early Modern features consistently. Carmack has shown how, in a number of cases, Joseph opted not to use archaic features that were typical in the Book of Mormon translation. You could say that this is because Joseph consciously adopted a different voice for different types of revelation, but it could also be because he had picked up on a few but not all of the syntactic features that had just been divinely revealed during his translation of the Book of Mormon. In other words, as nice as it would be to use Joseph's post-translation writing as a control, it has limited probative value.

Imagine if we knew that months or just a few years prior to the translation Joseph had carefully read through (at least twice) a lengthy text that exhibits ALL of the Early Modern features found in the Book of Mormon. That would likely become the number one piece of evidence in your theory that it wasn't at all impossible for Joseph to exhibit the variety of archaic features found in the Book of Mormon. According to Carmack's theory, the Book of Mormon itself became such a text as soon as it was translated. I think he feels the archaisms were still a product of the mode of revelation, and I am inclined to agree, but it doesn't change the fact that Joseph would have just been intensely concentrated on a highly archaic text. So it seems a little strange to then use Carmack's opinion that Joseph couldn't have used these features consistently (after translating the Book of Mormon) to bolster your claim that they were Joseph's native syntax all along. That seems like a self-defeating line of reasoning.

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Quote

So, back to my original question. Is there a comparative example of so much obsolete Early Modern English coming from a single 19th century author? Not just a few phrases or idioms, but systematic, nuanced usage of a variety of extinct and mostly obsolete syntax and lexical items?  Where is the truly comparative example we can turn to and say, "yep Joseph's archaisms are really nothing special?"

Yes. Joseph Smith in the revelations. The data say so. The explanation for why this happens differs, but the data you are asking for are found in exactly the place and time that they should be to indicate that Joseph was able to produce those forms. If you have already decided that he couldn't, then you have to read the data a different way.

Like I said, I don't think, based on your own methodology, that Joseph's post-translation revelations--especially those close to the translation itself and those using a similar translation method (i.e. seer stone) have strongly conclusive value. It's not just that you and Carmack interpret the data differently. It's that the data can logically be accommodated by both theories without much of a problem. That means that this line of reasoning is inconclusive and that other avenues of research will have to be relied upon much more heavily. You say, "If you have already decided that he couldn't, then you have to read the data a different way." Likewise, if you have already decided that Joseph COULD have easily have produced the archaic syntax, then your view is not a problem. Obviously the post-translation revelations isn't really where the debate will be settled. This is why I am asking if there is some other example that you can turn to, besides Joseph's own post-translation writings, that show that it is not improbable for a single writer to use the variety of nuanced archaisms that we find in the Book of Mormon. In other words, instead of just hypothesizing, based on general principles of language evolution and extinction, that such a feat is within the realms of probable, can you show an example that is truly and not just superficially analogous, one which truly accounts for the full weight of Carmack's data--both syntactic (which is primary evidence) and lexical (which is secondary evidence)? 

 

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Correct. Once it is a miracle, it is inexplicable and unassailable.  Of course there is divine intervention in the translation of the Book of Mormon and in the revelations. That is a tenet of our faith. Of course we would love to find a way to prove that God did it, so finding the extinct forms really looked like a way to demonstrate that Joseph couldn't do it. As the discussion has evolved, the explanation has had to shift to accommodate new data, hence the committee that worked at different times. As for future syntax, we have the choice of suggesting the mystery again, or of suggesting a data collection issue. I think there are ample ways to demonstrate that Joseph couldn't have produced the Book of Mormon without insisting that he couldn't produce the English language of the translation and early revelations

But don't many of our beliefs about divine intervention often have to accommodate new sets of data. For instance, the theory of evolution has caused many Christian scientists to change the way that they believe God was involved in the Creation, even though they haven't given up on the idea that He did intervene in some important ways at some point. The problem is that even though we may be able to detect that a miracle may have happened, we are less able to determine how it happened or all the reasons for why it happened the way that it did. I would posit that finding future syntax is just as perplexing as finding past syntax. It's true that it could be a sign that our method of detecting obsolescence is flawed. But it could also be a perplexing aspect of a miracle, just like many other aspects of miracles are perplexing. Thus, just like Joseph's post-translation revelations, this domain of evidence is inconclusive. 

 

4 hours ago, Brant Gardner said:

Quote

Carmack's theory does have explanatory power--it is just of a different type. It explains what, in his opinion as trained linguist, seems otherwise to be highly unlikely and bordering on the impossible.

There are two things that Carmack has done. The first is to describe the syntax of the text. That requires linguistic training, and I think it has been well done. It was never my interest, so I can't say whether he made some small error or not. I am happy to assume that he is correct. 

The second thing he did was to attempt to interpret the data using time and the absence of vocabulary and syntax to indicate extinction. In that, he has moved away from the specifically linguistic analysis, and is now dealing with very different concepts. Those concepts I can understand and have seen them work in other disciplines. 

I think, though, that is unwarranted to assume that Carmack doesn't still have unusually qualified expertise in making judgments about how linguistic extinction and preservation occurs. It's not like all of a sudden he is out of his element when it comes to interpreting the conclusions of his data-driven thesis. You may be familiar with how the concepts of extinction and the absence of evidence apply in other disciplines, like archaeology, but it is never a perfect correlation. There are important nuances and distinctions when it comes to linguistics, and he is probably the most qualified LDS scholar able to identify and navigate those nuances in order to correctly apply the general principle of extinction and absence of evidence to a specific linguistic situation.  

I think when it comes right down to it, everything really depends on being able to find an independent example of someone producing archaisms to the extent that Joseph Smith did. I suspect that you don't currently have a sufficiently good example that is truly analogous to the Book of Mormon's situation. It helps a lot, for example, to have viable examples of loan-shifting when critics laugh at the idea that Lehi's group might have considered a tapir to be a horse. When you can show that hippopotamus is a really a Greek term which means "water horse" and if you can point to a number of other truly analogous examples, then that significantly bolsters loan shifting as a viable possibility.

In contrast, if all you can do is show that on occasion a few archaic features have been isolated and preserved independent of the textual record, and if none of these examples are nearly as extensive or syntactically significant as the archaic features in the Book of Mormon, then you don't have sufficient grounds to suppose that the general principles you are familiar with truly apply to Joseph Smith's specific set of archaisms. You may be right that these really were features of Joseph's native syntax, but your ability to defend your reliance on the absence of evidence significantly decreases when you can't point to specific analogous situations. Joseph's post-translation revelations and the presence of future syntax in the text are both clearly inconclusive lines of evidence because they can be easily accommodated by both theories. Thus, until a truly analogous example can be identified, it seems that (in my mind at least) the burden of proof weighs more heavily on you to demonstrate that what otherwise seems highly unusual in our textual record, is actually not that significant.  

[cdowis]

26 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

For the umpteenth time. The Smiths lived 5 miles from Dartmouth for 6 years before Palmyra. At the time Dartmouth was the center of Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic studies in America, and had one of America's largest collections of Hebraica. The cousin of Asael Smith lived 5 miles from the Smiths and yet managed to publish the second Hebrew grammar book in America. He was also a Smith, but was still able to learn Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Latin as a teenager. He was still able to go on to become the best linguist in New England.

The Palmyra Farmer Library defense isn't a strong one.

• How old was Joseph Smith when he left his many years of studies at Dartmouth and extensively exploring the library to move to Palmyra? 
• I assume you can document JS studies in these languages -- his acquaintances would  certainly mention his expertise in these languages.
• What was the profession and  financial status of the father of this Smith who learned these languages to allow him the time to gain fluency in multiple languages -- rather than selling refreshments and manual labour.
• When you say "teenager", how old was this Smith person when he was knowledgeable in multiple languages?  Did this also include EmodE? 
  The devil is in the details, as they say.

[smac97]

13 minutes ago, jkwilliams said:

IIRC, his brother attended school there. 

Still mighty thin.  I have a brother than attended law school in South Dakota.  And another brother who obtained his PhD from the University of Kansas.  Would anyone seriously suggest that this is competent, probative evidence of my familiarity with the contents of the libraries at these schools?

Thanks,

-Smac

[jkwilliams]

2 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Still mighty thin.  I have a brother than attended law school in South Dakota.  And another brother who obtained his PhD from the University of Kansas.  Would anyone seriously suggest that this is competent, probative evidence of my familiarity with the contents of the libraries at these schools?

Thanks,

-Smac

I wouldn't, but then it's no less fanciful a theory than one that relies on the supernatural.