The State of Mormon Apologetics

[Physics Guy]

Subanalogy 1: The note passed to Kenny has words in two radically different kinds of handwriting which perfectly match the consistent handwriting styles of Jimmy and Johnny respectively. 

Subanalogy 2: The whole text is uniformly printed but some sentences in the note are friendly remarks to Kenny while others are nasty taunts. The teacher attributes the nice parts of the note to Jimmy and the mean parts to Johnny because Jimmy is a good boy and Johnny is a little rat.

Sub-subanalogy 2a: Jimmy is an Eagle Scout and Johnny has a long rap sheet for bullying. 

Sub-analogy 2b: The teacher's main reason for thinking Jimmy is good and Johnny is mean is that Jimmy wrote such nice things in this note to Kenny, while Johnny's taunts were so cruel.

The problem with inferring different translation styles in different patches of the Book of Mormon is that it's more like Subanalogy 2b than like Subanalogy 1.

Edited August 16, 2018 by Physics Guy

[Physics Guy]

10 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

At best (IMO) we're at an early stage of hypothesis formulation where one is finding things that could be Hebraisms without taking the next (harder) step of analyzing each more carefully. I should note that this is a constant problem in Mormon apologetics. ... [F]ar too much of apologetics is finding first steps rather than doing the hard work of seeing if the path is valid.

I don't think the problem of optimistic surface-scratching is particularly Mormon. I think it's a problem with apologetics for any cause, first of all because apologetics is not about finding truth whatever it is, but about making people feel happy with certain ideas.

Raising a plausible and appealing hypothesis delivers a big hit of happiness easily. Testing the hypothesis properly requires a lot more work for what will even in the best case be only a little more happiness. The returns from testing hypotheses diminish fast in apologetics. Conversely the risk of disappointment is low as long as one does not look too closely at anything, but it rises steeply the closer one looks.

Risk of disappointment always rises with closer inspection, even for hypotheses that are actually right, because nothing is ever as simple as it is initially seems. Serious academic work is not only hard but also frustrating because what you constantly find is that you were stupidly wrong. And this brings up the second general problem with apologetics: it's largely an amateur enterprise. Even the few professional academics who pursue apologetics tend to do it by sallying far afield from their specializations and tackling unfamiliar subjects as amateurs. It's fun to dream up plausible arguments. Testing things carefully isn't so fun.

[jkwilliams]

13 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Can you please explain its circularity rather than just relabling it as circular. It sounds like you are saying it is circular because it is circular, which is well, rather circular itself, don't you think. 

I didn't see this last night, so apologies for the delay. It's not circular because it's circular, but because, as Clark noted, the premise and the conclusion are the same. The use of a specific name, for example, is used to support tight translation. Why? Because it's a specific name. An apparent anachronism, such as the presence of deutero-Isaiah (complete with the errors and omissions of italicized words from the 1769 KJV), is used to support loose translation. Why? Because it's an apparent anachronism. 

It really is textbook circular reasoning. 

[Ryan Dahle]

jkwilliams and clarkgoble

So, I think I've figured out the disjunction in our thinking. You probably think I've set up my argument something like:

• The reason stylometry works as evidence is because the text was a tight (literal) translation, and the reason we know this aspect of the text was a tight translation is because the stylometric evidence works.

The problem is, though, that my logical chain isn't isolated in this way. Therefore, the above is a  misrepresentation of the main premises/conclusions. My logic is more along these lines:

For whatever reason, stylometric evidences indicates that multiple, distinct voices (or styles) in the BofM match up with their purported authors. This may be due to the following causes:

A.      The text was written by multiple authors, as claimed, and the distinct voices match up to their original authors. 

B.      The authors of the stylometric studies were biases and manipulated the data so that it would match up in this way.

C.      The stylometric evidence is simply wrong and it is a fluke that the voices matched up in this way.

D.      Joseph Smith was especially good at creating voices and produced the text himself.

E.       Another individual or possibly a group of individuals in the 19th century, who were especially good at creating diverse voices, created the text. 

There are certainly other possible explanations, but I think that covers the most likely ones. I have lots of reasons, that I won't explain here, for strongly favoring option A over the others. I see it as the only likely explanation for the phenomenon. It is true that for option A to be valid, there would need to be a fairly literal (or at least consistent) translation of function words from the original text. Because I think a dynamic translation is a perfectly plausible possibility, I have no problem making that assumption. The reason I assumed this about the translation, however, isn’t merely because this is necessary to make the evidence work. My assumption comes from my judgment that among the competing explanations for the phenomenon, option A was the best. That type of reasoning is perfectly sound and not circular at all.

The problem with your thinking is that ALL of the competing explanations of the phenomenon are dependent upon additional assumptions, and therefore would be rendered circular (at least by your reasoning). For instance, if we take option D and assume it was Joseph Smith, we then have to make additional assumptions about how he, in particular, was able to accomplish the task. Was he secretly studying literature and developing his talent? Or was he just innately brilliant. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the only way we can see this as being possible, due to historical considerations, is if Joseph was innately brilliant at creating voices. By your (incorrect) thinking, the reliance on this assumption would produce a circular argument, probably something like the following:

• The reason the text has multiple, distinct literary voices is because Joseph Smith was a literary genius, and the reason we know he was a literary genius is because the text has multiple, distinct literary voices.

However, that is clearly not how the argument developed in the first place. The reason someone might believe Joseph Smith was the author, in the first place, is because they see all the other explanations for stylometry completely lacking. They may assume that anachronisms render option A out of the question, that it’s unlikely the statisticians in option B were overly biased, that its unlikely that multiple studies would incorrectly reach the same results in option C, and that there is no historical evidence to support option E. Their ruling out all the other possibilities is what justifies their acceptance of option D, as well as its reliance upon the assumption that Joseph was a literary genius (granting that assumption is necessary and believable, at least in their thinking).

Yet, by your rationale, ALL of the competing explanations could easily be rendered as circular simply by taking one of their necessary assumptions and misconstruing it as the primary reason for accepting the explanation in the first place. So there is something clearly wrong with your thinking.

Obviously, I disagree with option D and the reasons for rejecting option A. This whole exercise wasn’t to discuss the validity of stylometry or Joseph’s ability, but simply to show that my thinking is demonstrably not circular. The reason I accept option A and its attendant assumption about the tight (or at least consistent) translation of function words, is because I think this the best overall explanation among the competing options. The same holds true for my acceptance of Hebraisms (with their attendant assumption of  tight control), or for my belief that New Testament phrases were rendered through loose control. It’s because in the broader picture, I have lots of lines of reasoning that rule out competing explanations.    

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I don't think the problem of optimistic surface-scratching is particularly Mormon. I think it's a problem with apologetics for any cause, first of all because apologetics is not about finding truth whatever it is, but about making people feel happy with certain ideas.

I think it's typically a blurry boundary in most cases. For instance many works that are somewhat apologetic are much more people trying to understand theology or scripture given certain premises. As such it is a search for truth, whatever it be. There might be an apologetic angle to it but it's a more distant concern. Not all works are like that of course.

To draw an analogy (an imperfect one to be sure) consider your own background of string theory. It's fallen somewhat out of favor of late, however 10 - 15 years ago you had the rise of people calling for empirics for it. They often saw defenses of string theory as apologetic. Yet I have a very hard time thinking those working on string theory were doing anything other than seeking truth. 

6 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

Raising a plausible and appealing hypothesis delivers a big hit of happiness easily. Testing the hypothesis properly requires a lot more work for what will even in the best case be only a little more happiness. The returns from testing hypotheses diminish fast in apologetics. Conversely the risk of disappointment is low as long as one does not look too closely at anything, but it rises steeply the closer one looks.

I'm not sure that's true for all. But I think there's definitely some of that - mainly due to the role of amateurs in apologetics and the lack of respect for apologetics and even sometimes Mormon Studies in academia in the publish or perish scenario. While an historian can write on say Mormon issues, a specialist in the ANE or mesoamerica is not going to get funding or respect for working on it. Quite the opposite it may hurt their career. By and large though to do the harder research requires full time work and funding.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

42 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

For whatever reason, stylometric evidences indicates that multiple, distinct voices (or styles) in the BofM match up with their purported authors. This may be due to the following causes:

Are you here using stylometry as the statistical method or more broadly as recognizing puns, linguistic references and structures? I ask because as I mentioned fictional authors can have different voices within a single work discerned by statistical stylometry. Also where one divides the text matters a great deal with in work statistical analysis. So stylometry picks up on things like preferring passive voice to active voice and other such matter. That's obviously less of an issue when comparing separate books since there we have natural divides. 

For simplicity, I think you should stick to Hebraisms since there are other inherent problems applying stylometry to the Book of Mormon if you are claiming a combination of loose and tight content translation. It'd be extremely unlikely that the same style would be used in both. (Almost by definition if the loose translation parts largely adopt quotations or paraphrases from the KJV and a large number of 19th century phrases) 

In other words the premise you have here in a way still partakes of the conclusion. Now it's not quite as vicious as in the arguments you originally put for Hebraisms but I'm not sure it's presented as a kind of hermeneutic circle either. Part of that is because you're talking of long texts rather than the shorter ones that Hebraisms usually refer to. As you've presented it you've moved it more towards hermeneutics and the helpful circle rather than the vicious kind, but it's still not quite good enough. But that's in part due to the difference in argument between statistical author stylometry and Hebraisms. So far as I know, stylometry hasn't been applied to determine which passages are tight vs. loose in translation style and substance.

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Exiled]

18 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

One could still ask why God would allow such a flawed (from our perspective) translation.

This is my question.  God could certainly guaranty that his words are communicated correctly and without error simply by giving the finished product, in writing, to his prophet.  Also, God could periodically come back and make corrections should his people stray from the correct version of his word.  If these words are so important, why weren't they given to us in a more reliable fashion?  Bart Ehrman asks if Jesus' words were so important why weren't they preserved?  Why did God allow 50 years to pass prior to Mark, thereby allowing error to creep into the sacred word?

[Ryan Dahle]

10 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Are you here using stylometry as the statistical method or more broadly as recognizing puns, linguistic references and structures? I ask because as I mentioned fictional authors can have different voices within a single work discerned by statistical stylometry. Also where one divides the text matters a great deal with in work statistical analysis. So stylometry picks up on things like preferring passive voice to active voice and other such matter. That's obviously less of an issue when comparing separate books since there we have natural divides. 

I'm talking about statistical stylometry that relies primarily upon function words. I'm aware that fictional authors can produce different voices. I'm also aware that correctly identifying the words of separate authors in the text is preliminary to statistically testing their potential distinctness in style. 

11 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

For simplicity, I think you should stick to Hebraisms since there are other inherent problems applying stylometry to the Book of Mormon if you are claiming a combination of loose and tight content translation. It'd be extremely unlikely that the same style would be used in both. (Almost by definition if the loose translation parts largely adopt quotations or paraphrases from the KJV and a large number of 19th century phrases) 

I think we need to be more specific. There are lots of types of Hebraisms (grammatical, linguistic, structural, etc.). I think that parallelisms and some grammatical things (like if/and conditionals) suggest fairly tight control. But it gets more complicated than that. For instance, I think the syntax of a parallelism could be tight (or maybe loose in very consistent ways), and the ordering of ideas could be tight, while at the same time the context rich words (idioms, religious phrase, etc.) could be fairly loose. In other circumstances the context rich words and idioms could be fairly tight. There are all sorts of options that I have thought of when it gets down to the technical  word/phrase/sentence levels. So it would be perfectly fine, in my theory, to have a loosely translated New Testament phrase embedded in a tightly controlled parallel structure with somewhat loose, although, consistently translated syntax. I've spent time taking Old Testament passages from Jeremiah and implementing New Testament phrasing into them in ways that I think might have been done by whoever translated the Book of Mormon. (Jeremiah was chosen simply because he is a contemporary of Lehi and Nephi). This process was very enlightening. 

50 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

In other words the premise you have here in a way still partakes of the conclusion. Now it's not quite as vicious as in the arguments you originally put for Hebraisms but I'm not sure it's presented as a kind of hermeneutic circle either. As you've presented it you've moved it more towards hermeneutics and the helpful circle rather than the vicious kind, but it's still not quite good enough.

I think the issue is less about hermeneutic circularity and more about a host of logical fallacies that may or may not render my various supporting assumptions invalid. My point is that while my assumptions may be wrong, the core structure of my argument would be perfectly valid (non-circular) if my assumptions are correct. The argument cannot be discarded based upon a logical deficiency in its structure alone. Otherwise all competing arguments would suffer the same fate, and so would virtually all arguments for any position on any topic. The issues you are bringing up above are simply testing assumptions in a variety of ways. Even if an assumption proves to be invalid, it doesn't mean the argument's core structure was circular. 

[churchistrue]

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

jkwilliams and clarkgoble

So, I think I've figured out the disjunction in our thinking. You probably think I've set up my argument something like:

• The reason stylometry works as evidence is because the text was a tight (literal) translation, and the reason we know this aspect of the text was a tight translation is because the stylometric evidence works.

The problem is, though, that my logical chain isn't isolated in this way. Therefore, the above is a  misrepresentation of the main premises/conclusions. My logic is more along these lines:

For whatever reason, stylometric evidences indicates that multiple, distinct voices (or styles) in the BofM match up with their purported authors. This may be due to the following causes:

A.      The text was written by multiple authors, as claimed, and the distinct voices match up to their original authors. 

B.      The authors of the stylometric studies were biases and manipulated the data so that it would match up in this way.

C.      The stylometric evidence is simply wrong and it is a fluke that the voices matched up in this way.

D.      Joseph Smith was especially good at creating voices and produced the text himself.

E.       Another individual or possibly a group of individuals in the 19th century, who were especially good at creating diverse voices, created the text. 

There are certainly other possible explanations, but I think that covers the most likely ones. I have lots of reasons, that I won't explain here, for strongly favoring option A over the others. I see it as the only likely explanation for the phenomenon. It is true that for option A to be valid, there would need to be a fairly literal (or at least consistent) translation of function words from the original text. Because I think a dynamic translation is a perfectly plausible possibility, I have no problem making that assumption. The reason I assumed this about the translation, however, isn’t merely because this is necessary to make the evidence work. My assumption comes from my judgment that among the competing explanations for the phenomenon, option A was the best. That type of reasoning is perfectly sound and not circular at all.

The problem with your thinking is that ALL of the competing explanations of the phenomenon are dependent upon additional assumptions, and therefore would be rendered circular (at least by your reasoning). For instance, if we take option D and assume it was Joseph Smith, we then have to make additional assumptions about how he, in particular, was able to accomplish the task. Was he secretly studying literature and developing his talent? Or was he just innately brilliant. Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that the only way we can see this as being possible, due to historical considerations, is if Joseph was innately brilliant at creating voices. By your (incorrect) thinking, the reliance on this assumption would produce a circular argument, probably something like the following:

• The reason the text has multiple, distinct literary voices is because Joseph Smith was a literary genius, and the reason we know he was a literary genius is because the text has multiple, distinct literary voices.

However, that is clearly not how the argument developed in the first place. The reason someone might believe Joseph Smith was the author, in the first place, is because they see all the other explanations for stylometry completely lacking. They may assume that anachronisms render option A out of the question, that it’s unlikely the statisticians in option B were overly biased, that its unlikely that multiple studies would incorrectly reach the same results in option C, and that there is no historical evidence to support option E. Their ruling out all the other possibilities is what justifies their acceptance of option D, as well as its reliance upon the assumption that Joseph was a literary genius (granting that assumption is necessary and believable, at least in their thinking).

Yet, by your rationale, ALL of the competing explanations could easily be rendered as circular simply by taking one of their necessary assumptions and misconstruing it as the primary reason for accepting the explanation in the first place. So there is something clearly wrong with your thinking.

Obviously, I disagree with option D and the reasons for rejecting option A. This whole exercise wasn’t to discuss the validity of stylometry or Joseph’s ability, but simply to show that my thinking is demonstrably not circular. The reason I accept option A and its attendant assumption about the tight (or at least consistent) translation of function words, is because I think this the best overall explanation among the competing options. The same holds true for my acceptance of Hebraisms (with their attendant assumption of  tight control), or for my belief that New Testament phrases were rendered through loose control. It’s because in the broader picture, I have lots of lines of reasoning that rule out competing explanations.    

 

B

[Ryan Dahle]

Just now, churchistrue said:

B

Why do you think these particular researchers were each biased enough to manipulate the data?

[clarkgoble]

Ryan, leaving for the moment whether a particular argument as presented is viciously circular, let me turn to something you raise in the above. If you allow for loose and tight even within the same verse, then how do you distinguish a KJV paraphrase or emulation from a real example of the structure in question. It seems to me you're assuming it's always tight if they appear but don't have a method to make that distinction.

Remember the issue isn't just quotations from the KJV that are post-exilic but also borrowing or aping language/structures. 

It seems to me you're just giving the benefit of doubt to any passage that isn't from the NT. That doesn't appear to really be a terribly strong argument even if we bracket circularity issues. Put an other way it seems to me the null hypothesis is that these features are accidental from KJV emulation and you've not engaged at all with that null hypothesis.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

This is my question.  God could certainly guaranty that his words are communicated correctly and without error simply by giving the finished product, in writing, to his prophet.  Also, God could periodically come back and make corrections should his people stray from the correct version of his word.  If these words are so important, why weren't they given to us in a more reliable fashion?  Bart Ehrman asks if Jesus' words were so important why weren't they preserved?  Why did God allow 50 years to pass prior to Mark, thereby allowing error to creep into the sacred word?

Yup. In other words the assumption is that God should follow a more Koran like model where a text is dictated word for word by God. Instead most of the Bible (outside perhaps of supposed sayings of Jesus given orally) doesn't follow that model. And even Jesus, assuming he presented himself as God openly during his lifetime, didn't dictate an extended text. Indeed he appears to have a theology of hiding most elements of the divine. (See Mark 4 among many places)

The usual rejoinder of the "good enough" model is the theology of divine hiddenness. While that's hard to reconcile with traditional Christian or Jewish theology it works much better for LDS theology. We after all have the idea that creation is for man, not for God. That is God's purpose is in developing his children due to limits in his power over them. This becomes the only way of development. Yet that development requires God be hidden. Thus the veil of forgetfulness and so forth. Yet this hiddenness means that even when God speaks he can't speak so openly that it's not more rational to doubt.

Edited August 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Atheist Mormon]

On 8/8/2018 at 3:53 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Also Xander and the Backyard Professor.

Yeah, I remember Backyard Professor., his withering was interesting to watch..........

[churchistrue]

19 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Why do you think these particular researchers were each biased enough to manipulate the data?

Not sure. And I'm not sure if the issue is that really they're biased and manipulating the data or that you're completely misunderstanding them and using their study to make assertions they never would.

If you read my blog post I linked earlier, then you would understand what I mean. If you don't understand it, then you probably are not equipped to talk about stylometry studies and what they mean to BOM authenticity.

 

[Ryan Dahle]

6 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

If you allow for loose and tight even within the same verse, then how do you distinguish a KJV paraphrase or emulation from a real example of the structure in question. It seems to me you're assuming it's always tight if they appear but don't have a method to make that distinction.

Remember the issue isn't just quotations from the KJV that are post-exilic but also borrowing or aping language/structures. 

I'm guessing you are talking about a structural "paraphrase or emulation" such as chiasmus. 

First of all, I assume that Joseph Smith wasn't responsible for the English phrasing of the text and that it was divinely revealed to him because of (1) prevasive, systematic EModE combined with (2)  the historical evidence suggesting that the text came through Joseph Smith in the manner described by the witnesses, which are both reinforced by a number of other assumptions/arguments that are too broad for this particular discussion. So any "emulation," in my theory, would come from a divine translator or translators. I don't think there is any way to prove that whoever translated it didn't just insert Hebrew structures that weren't in the source texts. This just seems like an unnecessary option, though, when the text itself claims it was written by ancient prophets trained in the Hebrew literary tradition. 

So, with my starting assumptions in place, I can reasonably assume that any given structure in the text is likely one of the following:

A. A coincidence (non-evidence for translation)

B. A creation by a divine translator (logically necessitates loose translation)

C. A preserved structure from the source text (logically necessitates fairly tight/consistent translation, at least as far as structure goes)

Because we find so many parallelisms in the text that match up with Hebrew-style parallelisms, I typically don't see them as coincidences, even though I'm open that some of them certainly could be and probably are. It's just not my default assumption, especially for very elegant, sophisticated, lengthy structures. So most of the time, I discount option A. As explained above, I don't think option B is very likely. And so I assume option C most of the time, which logically requires some degree of tightness in the translation. 

Once again, I think it is obvious that my preference for option C is linked to a chain of assumptions that from the outset already ruled out other competing possibilities, such as the possibility that Joseph was responsible for these structures, or Sidney Rigdon, or some other 19th century author, or a 16th century author like JarMan thinks (even though I have't delineated my rationale for rejecting his theory). 

36 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

It seems to me you're just giving the benefit of doubt to any passage that isn't from the NT. That doesn't appear to really be a terribly strong argument even if we bracket circularity issues.

Well, if a translation strays too far, too often from what the original authors intended, then pretty soon the resulting text is nothing at all like the original. I assume that God wanted us to have a fairly accurate understanding of what the original authors intended to say, but that he frequently allowed for some loose adjustments so that we could understand it in our day and language, and also be able to connect it to the Bible. I think that (generally speaking) most translations are more tight than loose, and that looseness is preferred mostly for idiomatic expressions. In this case, we also have looseness as a possibility for the additional translation goal of connecting the text more intimately with the Bible. Is there some reason you can think of for why we should assume a fairly loose, rather than a fairly tight translation at the outset? I allow for lots of looseness, and in lots of situations I don't think there is evidence either way, so I would be open to both should any evidence arise. I'm not sure how following the evidence in each case is a weak argument. 

36 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Put an other way it seems to me the null hypothesis is that these features are accidental from KJV emulation and you've not engaged at all with that null hypothesis.

This isn't a purely statistical problem and so, in my understanding, the null hypothesis is simply the process of ruling out competing explanations as being likely or preferable. In that case, as I explained above, I have fairly developed reasons for rejecting competing explanations (at least those I am familiar with) that attempt to explain the presence of the structural phenomena in the text. I also have developed reasons for rejecting competing explanations about stylometry as well. 

 

 

 

 

[Ryan Dahle]

38 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

1 hour ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Why do you think these particular researchers were each biased enough to manipulate the data?

Not sure. And I'm not sure if the issue is that really they're biased and manipulating the data or that you're completely misunderstanding them and using their study to make assertions they never would.

If you read my blog post I linked earlier, then you would understand what I mean. If you don't understand it, then you probably are not equipped to talk about stylometry studies and what they mean to BOM authenticity.

 

Well, let's just say that I don't agree with your conclusions in your blog post. I have read extensively about stylometry and its role in BofM studies. And I'm not really representing the conclusion of the published stylometric studies (Larsen, Hilton, Fields, et al.). I'm reaching my own conclusions based on their data. My conclusions deal with the assumptions about the translation, which is essential to the significance of their research, but which they don't discuss in their papers. 

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

Yeah, I remember Backyard Professor., his withering was interesting to watch..........

He got in over his head.  Bit off more than he could chew.

[clarkgoble]

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I'm guessing you are talking about a structural "paraphrase or emulation" such as chiasmus. 

No shorter structures, although they can be longer. But other than very short chiasmus I don't think that'd fit.

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

First of all, I assume that Joseph Smith wasn't responsible for the English phrasing of the text and that it was divinely revealed to him because of (1) prevasive, systematic EModE combined with (2)  the historical evidence suggesting that the text came through Joseph Smith in the manner described by the witnesses, which are both reinforced by a number of other assumptions/arguments that are too broad for this particular discussion. So any "emulation," in my theory, would come from a divine translator or translators. I don't think there is any way to prove that whoever translated it didn't just insert Hebrew structures that weren't in the source texts. This just seems like an unnecessary option, though, when the text itself claims it was written by ancient prophets trained in the Hebrew literary tradition. 

The method is I think irrelevant for these discussions. I'm fine with either tight process or loose process. I'm a bit skeptical of the tight process but ultimately it doesn't matter nor would it necessarily impact whether Joseph was involved unconsciously. So let's put method aside and just keep focused on content.

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

A. A coincidence (non-evidence for translation)

B. A creation by a divine translator (logically necessitates loose translation)

C. A preserved structure from the source text (logically necessitates fairly tight/consistent translation, at least as far as structure goes)

I'm not sure that works. For one I think the distinction between (A) and (B) is blurry. I'd also just say translator rather than divine translator - to give a hypothetical say Mormon is using the U&T like a radio to communicate his translation. I'm not sure we'd want to call that divine - but that gets back to my point above that method is mostly irrelevant. But more to the point, this blurring of method and content isn't needed. 

Rather than blurring method/content let's keep it simple. Either a structure in the final text is in the source text or it isn't. Period.

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Because we find so many parallelisms in the text that match up with Hebrew-style parallelisms, I typically don't see them as coincidences, even though I'm open that some of them certainly could be and probably are. It's just not my default assumption, especially for very elegant, sophisticated, lengthy structures. So most of the time, I discount option A. As explained above, I don't think option B is very likely. And so I assume option C most of the time, which logically requires some degree of tightness in the translation. 

"Coincidences" isn't really that helpful a term here. Again let's keep it simple. Either it's in the underlying text or it isn't. The question then becomes do we have a method to detect that. Even if you say there are many of these structures, speaking broadly of the text itself, does that give us a method to determine when they are on the underlying text or not? Obviously not since such structures might be in places we know aren't on the underlying text. So we have a method to know when they aren't on the underlying text but that doesn't mean all other references must be on the underlying text.

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Well, if a translation strays too far, too often from what the original authors intended, then pretty soon the resulting text is nothing at all like the original. I assume that God wanted us to have a fairly accurate understanding of what the original authors intended to say, but that he frequently allowed for some loose adjustments so that we could understand it in our day and language, and also be able to connect it to the Bible. I think that (generally speaking) most translations are more tight than loose, and that looseness is preferred mostly for idiomatic expressions.

I think there are other reasons to emphasize elements that are loose. First off if the underlying text is highly compressed. In that case a tight correspondence is just conceptually impossible. This would be the case with writing that is primarily ideograms or a mnemonic based shorthand for instance. It's worth noting that while we shouldn't accept Joseph's views on Egyptian as indicative of much, he did think of them primarily as ideograms and thought that of the Book of Mormon text as well. At a minimum, given we have nothing terribly useful of the underlying text, we can't simply dismiss out of hand ideograms or related methods of encoding.

The second possible reason for a loose translation is to emphasize relationships between texts. While of course for us the way to do this is with a footnote, if one wanted to relate an idea in one text to an idea in an other text a loose quote or paraphrase does the job quite well. If one doesn't care about the details of the style of the underlying text then the distortions this does are fine.

In any case though, I'm not sure we have to decide why a loose translation was used. We just have to recognize that it's there. The question then becomes how (if at all) can we decide when the text is tight?

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

This isn't a purely statistical problem and so, in my understanding, the null hypothesis is simply the process of ruling out competing explanations as being likely or preferable. In that case, as I explained above, I have fairly developed reasons for rejecting competing explanations (at least those I am familiar with) that attempt to explain the presence of the structural phenomena in the text. I also have developed reasons for rejecting competing explanations about stylometry as well. 

The null hypothesis is mainly just the default interpretation you have to show can't explain the data as well as your hypothesis. It gets a little more formal in statistics, but that doesn't matter as much here. More or less think of two competing scientific explanations. Why pick one above the other? Here the issue are the theories of when something is or isn't tight.

In this case I don't think you've really given a developed reason. You've not shown that you can even determine what is or isn't on the underlying text. You've tried to do that by appeal to method and the assumption that it's tight except when it isn't. But that doesn't show us what is or isn't tight. Further it gets back into that problem of circularity.

There are reasons you pick one above the other, but that reason is just attempting to minimize loose translation. But you've not really explained why that should be the method. You raise that if it's too loose than it loses meaning you feel. First off I'm not sure that's true. (Look at say Ezra Pound's "translations" of Chinese poetry for instance) However beyond that it avoids the question of being able to tell when loose is too loose. After all we can just imagine a text slightly more loose than you'd pick and suddenly we can't determine what is or isn't on the underlying text again. It might not be ideal but it's still probably "good enough." That would seem to invalidate your method. Now of course one can accuse that of the slippery slope fallacy but I don't think it really is. The question is why we have to only accept as loose those we can't explain any other way.

Edited August 16, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It's worth noting that while we shouldn't accept Joseph's views on Egyptian as indicative of much, he did think of them primarily as ideograms and thought that of the Book of Mormon text as well. At a minimum, given we have nothing terribly useful of the underlying text, we can't simply dismiss out of hand ideograms or related methods of encoding.

Well, I don't think it is entirely clear what Joseph thought of the density of meaning in various Egyptian scripts/illustrations. Inferences can be drawn from the KEP and the ideas of those associated with the project, but it is all pretty speculative. 

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The second possible reason for a loose translation is to emphasize relationships between texts. While of course for us the way to do this is with a footnote, if one wanted to relate an idea in one text to an idea in an other text a loose quote or paraphrase does the job quite well. If one doesn't care about the details of the style of the underlying text then the distortions this does are fine.

In any case though, I'm not sure we have to decide why a loose translation was used. We just have to recognize that it's there. The question then becomes how (if at all) can we decide when the text is tight?

I'm fine if the text has lots of looseness in this way. I think I said as much. So far, though, we can't make a good case for looseness beyond intertextual relationships, which although extensive in one sense (probably well over a 1,000 instances have been discovered in OT and NT), still only make up a small part of the text. And OT quotations/paraphrases/allusions could be largely due to to the brass plates, so assuming looseness in those situations is more questionable. I think long quotations (like Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi) probably have both loose and tight aspects. I think the deutero-Isaiah debate is inconclusive. 

My idea that the text was fairly tight is just a baseline assumption, built on intuition and limited sets of data. I fully recognize that, and am willing to change it if more data comes along. I'm not sure how this matters, though. My theory can accommodate plenty of looseness. So I'm not sure what the problem is. 

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The null hypothesis is mainly just the default interpretation you have to show can't explain the data as well as your hypothesis. It gets a little more formal in statistics, but that doesn't matter as much here. More or less think of two competing scientific explanations. Why pick one above the other? Here the issue are the theories of when something is or isn't tight.

In this case I don't think you've really given a developed reason. You've not shown that you can even determine what is or isn't on the underlying text. You've tried to do that by appeal to method and the assumption that it's tight except when it isn't. But that doesn't show us what is or isn't tight. Further it gets back into that problem of circularity.

Other than NT phrases that are very likely to be loose, we don't know. It could be either loose or tight or some combination of both. Again, I'm not sure how this matters, though. I think there is a fundamental strain of logic you are missing. Let's go back to the opposing theory from a few posts ago.

Let's say someone chooses to think that Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon. They can't prove, using independent evidence (outside the BofM) that Joseph was a genius, nor can they prove that he was involved in clandestine scholarship. And let's say, again just for the sake of argument, that the sophisticated/ancient features in the text are too good to be the product of mere chance. So the individual is torn between these two options, not sure if Joseph's innate brilliance or clandestine scholarship is a better explanation for any given piece of textual data. (I know this is an unrealistically exclusive dichotomy, but just roll with it for the sake of analogous argument).

So, let's say that this hypothetical individual prefers to think that the impressive features of the text are mostly due to Joseph's innate genius and creativity. However, when the individual finds 19th century historical/literary sources that he thinks Joseph drew from, then he suspects that part of the text was likely derived from Joseph's clandestine scholarship. Both options are possible and he simply chooses the one that makes the best sense in any given situation. In a lot of cases, he simply can't decide. (Which is obviously like the tight vs. loose issue of translation, we are discussing.)

It seems by your logic, though, you would tell this individual that he has to determine, at the outset, that Joseph certainly had access to a specific source in order for him to see the historical source as evidence for derivation. (By analogy, you are assuming that apologetic arguments, like stylometric analysis or the proposals for Hebraisms, have to determine at the outset that the translation was literal enough for their analysis to work). If neither can prove, at the outset, that the founding assumption is correct, then you inappropriately make it look like a circular argument. You would say that the only reason the historical content seems to confirm the critic's theory about the BofM being derived from 19th texts is that he assumed at the outset that Joseph was researching such things. Likewise, you would say that the only reason Hebraisms seems to confirm the BofM's claims to Hebrew origins is that the apologists assume, from the outset, that these same structures were on the source text and were preserved in translation. Ad hoc, circular reasoning, conclusions tampering with premises, etc.

However, your concern doesn't at all seem to be valid in either case. Let's say that the individual discovered a 19th century text, written before the BofM, that blows Solomon Spaulding's manuscript, and View of the Hebrews, and every other proposal for derivation out of the water. It is somewhat different from the Book of Mormon, but has all of the main pieces--prophets with the same names, the Savior coming to America, almost the exact same stories, set in the same setting, etc. The parallels are so numerous and specific in so many ways that it is virtually impossible to discount a connection between the texts. However, by your reasoning, this type of evidence wouldn't count for much because we wouldn't know at the outset whether or not Joseph Smith even had access to this text. 

What should seem obvious, though, is that very good evidences can help us determine which of our starting assumptions about the text is most likely valid. In this case, the individual would most likely see the correlations between the BofM and this other hypothetical text as being derivative rather than the product of innate creativity. I think we all would have to admit that this would be a pretty decent argument, even if you couldn't find out how Joseph Smith had access to this text, and even if other historical evidence might seem to contradict the notion that he did have access to it. 

Obviously no such text exists and it is not a scenario that I think is remotely likely to transpire. But I think it shows the flaw in your insistence that the loose/tight nature of the translation needs to be determined before any other arguments can reliably build upon either option. Although not as compelling as the example cited above, I think the Book of Mormon's collective Hebraisms are evidence that it is authentically ancient and written by authors trained in the Hebrew literary tradition. I don't know how the text was translated, but I assume, in at least the case of some types of Hebraisms, the translation needed to be somewhat tight for these features to be preserved. I can't prove it, just like the other hypothetical individual wasn't able to prove that Joseph had access to the hypothetical text, but in each case the evidence is good enough that it actual helps confirm which of the two plausible starting premises is most likely to be true. 

Of course, you may not agree with me about the strength of the Hebraisms, but that is not the issue. I don't care about whether or not we can determine, at the outset, if the text was tight or loose in any given situation. All that matters is that these are both very plausible options. I don't think that Hebraisms or stylometry are undermined as evidences merely because of uncertainty about which of the two plausible assumptions about the translation is correct in relation to their relevant data sets. Would it make the arguments for Hebraisms and Stylometry stronger if we could prove, at the outset, that the translation was tight enough for each of their data sets to be on the source text? Sure it would, just like it would help out the hypothetical argument above if it could be proven that Joseph certainly had access to or used the hypothetical text. Yet not having these assumptions locked in with certainty doesn't by any means destroy any of these arguments. Nor does it render them circular. It only renders them somewhat less certain. And I'm ok with that. I understood that lack of certainty all along.

 

 

Edited August 16, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[Robert F. Smith]

Quote

Hope_for_things said:

Sure, here you go.  You can find links to the prior years lists at the top of this post.  Dr. Park has been doing this every year for the past 8 years apparently.  

https://juvenileinstructor.org/2017-in-retrospect/

Thank you so much for putting me onto Ben Park's annual summary of important books and articles.  I found a great many of interest, and got a lot of mileage from them for my own bibliographies.  A few I was familiar with, but not most of them.  Of course many deal with the minutiae of modern (19th-20th century) Mormon history.  MY specialty is the ancient world, although I sometimes have to deal with modern history as it impinges on publication and commentary on Scripture, and as it deals with theology.  As Ben himself points out (so as not to leave the impression that this is a wholly new phenomenon):

Quote

2016 was not without its losses.

Besides Ronald Walker, whom I highlighted above, we lost a number of other important practitioners of Mormon history: Milton Backman, William (Bert) Wilson, Marvin Hill, Melissa Proctor, and Edward Kimball. They certainly built the foundation upon which we now stand.

 

Edited August 20, 2018 by Robert F. Smith

[clarkgoble]

6 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

My idea that the text was fairly tight is just a baseline assumption, built on intuition and limited sets of data. I fully recognize that, and am willing to change it if more data comes along. I'm not sure how this matters, though. My theory can accommodate plenty of looseness. So I'm not sure what the problem is. 

If you can't tell what is or isn't loose and yet whether something is loose or not affects whether it's a Hebraism then you're stuck in a bit of a loop. You can handle the general case but not the particular case. That circularity is the problem. Your solution is to just assert that loose is rare or typically doesn't apply. That's fine but not terribly persuasive (IMO).  The problem is once you allow for a loose translation then pretty well this undermines a lot of arguments unless you can discern where they're loose or not. By simply saying it's only loose when I have no alternative explanation it ends up being ad hoc.

As for why this matters, if a passage is loose then structures in that text don't have evidentiary power regarding the original source text. 

Let's consider an extreme case to see why this is so. (I'm not advocating this as a real translation method - just using it to highlight the problem) Imagine the translation is very loose. The original text is mainly a mnemonic. However the translator is Nephi reading the shorthand of the plates. As he translates it he gives expansions and isn't too worried about a close fidelity. In the meantime he's read the 2cd century Masoric text and the KJV and wants to try and use the KJV, so he quotes deutero-Isaiah from the KJV even though it wasn't on the original plates as an expansion because it was pretty close to an early proto-text on the brass plates from early in the Isaiah text development. As he's giving expansions and paraphrases though he, as a Hebrew speaker, is introducing Hebrew structures into the text. Now those are really there in the Book of Mormon but they're not there in the original gold plates.

Again, that's just a thought experiment. I don't for a moment think that's the way it happened. But hopefully it illustrates the logical problem I'm pointing out.

Edited August 17, 2018 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I don't think the problem of optimistic surface-scratching is particularly Mormon. I think it's a problem with apologetics for any cause, first of all because apologetics is not about finding truth whatever it is, but about making people feel happy with certain ideas.

Raising a plausible and appealing hypothesis delivers a big hit of happiness easily. Testing the hypothesis properly requires a lot more work for what will even in the best case be only a little more happiness. The returns from testing hypotheses diminish fast in apologetics. Conversely the risk of disappointment is low as long as one does not look too closely at anything, but it rises steeply the closer one looks.

Risk of disappointment always rises with closer inspection, even for hypotheses that are actually right, because nothing is ever as simple as it is initially seems. Serious academic work is not only hard but also frustrating because what you constantly find is that you were stupidly wrong. And this brings up the second general problem with apologetics: it's largely an amateur enterprise. Even the few professional academics who pursue apologetics tend to do it by sallying far afield from their specializations and tackling unfamiliar subjects as amateurs. It's fun to dream up plausible arguments. Testing things carefully isn't so fun.

Of course this is only true if you think religion is about objective facts instead of people finding meaning in the universe.

So you are just a hundred eighty degrees off that's all.

It's like criticizing a violinist  for not proving string theory. After all doesn't  a violin have strings? So shouldn't the violinist be an expert on strings?

It's hard to imagine how one could be more wrong.

Edited August 17, 2018 by mfbukowski

[Ryan Dahle]

14 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

If you can't tell what is or isn't loose and yet whether something is loose or not affects whether it's a Hebraism then you're stuck in a bit of a loop. You can handle the general case but not the particular case. That circularity is the problem. Your solution is to just assert that loose is rare or typically doesn't apply. That's fine but not terribly persuasive (IMO).

The issue isn't really circularity it all. The problem is that you are still isolating the issue in a way that makes it look circular. All you are really saying is that uncertain assumptions in an argument lessen its persuasiveness. That's it. And I agree. However, essentially ALL arguments rely on uncertain but necessary assumptions, and therefore ALL arguments can be made to seem circular in the way you are thinking. 

For instance, let's say I come home from work today and find the fridge full of food. I would naturally assume my wife went shopping today because she does virtually all the shopping for our family (probably 99.9%). However I can't prove that she is the one who went shopping. Even though it is unlikely, it could have been someone else, like my mother, who very infrequently picks up groceries for us. Furthermore, let's say that I knew my wife had an all day appointment, but I couldn't remember whether the appointment was today or tomorrow. I know that if the appointment was today, she wouldn't have had time to shop, so I very reasonably assume that the appointment was tomorrow.

By your rationale, this type of reasoning is woefully circular, and therefore not very persuasive. It is true that the fridge full of food can only count as evidence that my wife went shopping, if indeed she didn't have the all day appointment today. And it is true that the only evidence that she didn't have an all day appointment today is that the fridge is full of food. You would say this is unpersuasive, circular, ad hoc reasoning. Hopefully you can see why this isn't so. The choice to assume that the appointment wasn't today is driven by the fact that my wife probably shops for our family 99.9% of the time. Thus there is a 99.9% chance that the food in the fridge is from her and only a 50% chance that the appointment was scheduled tomorrow instead of today. Naturally, I let the high likelihood of my wife being the shopper dictate what day I think the appointment was scheduled. 

This is almost exactly the same set up as the translation issue. I will try to state it as analogous as possible to the above example. When I open up the Book of Mormon (fridge) and find it is stocked full of Hebraisms (food), I assume this is a reflection of the literary features in the source text because I don't see Joseph Smith or anyone else in the 19th century being capable of collectively creating them (just like I don't find it likely that anyone, other than my wife, would be responsible for stocking our fridge with food). However, I can't prove that these Hebraisms were on the source text. They could be due to accident or imitation (just like the food in the fridge could have been placed there by my mother, who very infrequently shops for us). However, in order for the Hebraisms to be in the source text, their translation would have needed to be fairly tight, rather than loose, to preserve them. (Similarly, in order for my wife to have gone shopping today, the all-day appointment would have needed to be scheduled for tomorrow instead of today.) I assume that the translation is tight, because I think it is highly likely, in the first place, that the presence of the Hebraisms is due to their being on the source text. (Similarly, I assumed the all-day appointment was the next day, because I knew it was highly likely, in the first place, that the presence of the food in our fridge was due to my wife shopping today.) 

Now we can certainly debate what counts as a legitimate Hebraism and whether or not it is unlikely that Joseph or someone else could have produced the alleged Hebraisms in the text. I get that. And I have thought a lot about that. But once it is determined (as I have done) that the Hebraisms in the text are legitimate and that it is unlikely that Joseph or someone else in the 19th century could have imitated them, or that they were produced by chance, then this determination naturally guides the assumptions about whether this aspect of the text was a loose or tight translation (just as the high likelihood that my wife was responsible for putting food in the fridge guided the assumption about when my wife's all-day appointment was scheduled).

14 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

As for why this matters, if a passage is loose then structures in that text don't have evidentiary power regarding the original source text. 

That's like saying if my wife's appointment was scheduled for today, then the food in the fridge wouldn't have an evidentiary power regarding who placed it there. You have the reasoning backwards. It's the high likelihood that my wife was responsible for the food being in the fridge, in the first place, that is guiding my assumption about whether or not her appointment was scheduled for today or tomorrow. Likewise, it is the high likelihood that the Hebraisms are in the source text in the first place (based on evidence that is independent of the tight/loose issue), that is guiding my assumptions about whether this aspect of the text was tightly or loosely translated.

Having a tight translation may be a necessary assumption for the Hebraisms to have been derived from the source text, but it is not the assumption that is driving my belief that the Hebraisms are in the source text. Likewise, assuming that my wife's appointment was scheduled for tomorrow is a necessary assumption to accept that she went shopping today, but it is obviously not the assumption that is driving my belief that she went shopping today. The evidence comes from the fact that she shops for our family 99.9% of the time. Stated another way, my uncertainty about when my wife's all-day appointment was scheduled wasn't enough to deter me from believing she was responsible for the food in the fridge. Likewise, my uncertainty about the nature of the translation (loose or tight) in any given situation in the text, isn't enough to deter me from accepting the high likelihood that the Hebraisms were from the source text, based on the evidence that is at my disposal.

14 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

Let's consider an extreme case to see why this is so. (I'm not advocating this as a real translation method - just using it to highlight the problem) Imagine the translation is very loose. The original text is mainly a mnemonic. However the translator is Nephi reading the shorthand of the plates. As he translates it he gives expansions and isn't too worried about a close fidelity. In the meantime he's read the 2cd century Masoric text and the KJV and wants to try and use the KJV, so he quotes deutero-Isaiah from the KJV even though it wasn't on the original plates as an expansion because it was pretty close to an early proto-text on the brass plates from early in the Isaiah text development. As he's giving expansions and paraphrases though he, as a Hebrew speaker, is introducing Hebrew structures into the text. Now those are really there in the Book of Mormon but they're not there in the original gold plates.

Again, that's just a thought experiment. I don't for a moment think that's the way it happened. But hopefully it illustrates the logical problem I'm pointing out.

 I get that there are all sorts of possibilities like this. In this case, the Hebraism still isn't the product of Joseph Smith or some other 19th century individual. And, really, it is still a product of a Hebrew speaker in the source text. The Book of Mormon has many layers of text and so I assume that the Hebraisms are typically from one of those layers, even if it isn't the layer we might initially think.

Here is another possibility. Suppose that the source text was highly ideogrammatic and hardly at all phonetic. Then, let's say that during the translation process, the original intent of the authors, along with all the rhetorical and structural flourishes they would have used, was unpackaged as if they had been writing in a less compact script all along. In this case, the translation would be both loose and tight:  loose in regard to the relationship between the English and the ideograms, but tight in regard to the English and the original intent of the authors. I don't think this is likely, but it is not impossible. 

These uncertainties, hardly matter though, when it comes to the overall value of Hebraisms as apologetic evidence. My underlying rationale is that these Hebraisms, when viewed collectively, are highly unlikely to be due to any combination of chance, literary genius, or scholarship from any 19th century individual or group of individuals. This is partly due to the nature of the Hebraisms themselves and the evidences that I have that most people in the 19th century couldn't have produced them, and also because of the historical data about the method and circumstances of the translation. These beliefs lead me to assume that something about the source text (and perhaps I should amend all of my previous statements to include all the crazy possibilities of a divinely revealed translation) is responsible for these features. I assume they came through a tight translation from a short hand phonetic source text, because that seems most plausible to me. But I'm certainly open to other options. Either way, it doesn't really take away the reasons I have for discounting their presence being due to Joseph or some other 19th century author or authors. It is my ruling out of all other unlikely options that leads me to trust that the Hebraisms are most likely due to the text's claimed ancient authors, even though that also leads me to assume the translation (at least in relation to this textual data) was most likely tight--an assumption that although uncertain, is perfectly plausible and reasonable to make.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Ryan Dahle

[clarkgoble]

19 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

The issue isn't really circularity it all. The problem is that you are still isolating the issue in a way that makes it look circular. All you are really saying is that uncertain assumptions in an argument lessen its persuasiveness. That's it. And I agree. However, essentially ALL arguments rely on uncertain but necessary assumptions, and therefore ALL arguments can be made to seem circular in the way you are thinking. 

It's circular to the degree Hebraisms are evidence for tight or loose control. Certainly one can make a different argument for the claim and see it just as a very uncertain assumption. I'm was just dealing with the argument as presented. That's why I said in one of the comments when you posed a different argument that you were closer to a hermeneutic circle that wasn't vicious.

So just to be clear again, I'm talking about the arguments for a position and not necessarily the position itself. I think paying close attention to the formal arguments is pretty important and a place where I think apologetics has too often fallen down.

22 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

For instance, let's say I come home from work today and find the fridge full of food. I would naturally assume my wife went shopping today because she does virtually all the shopping for our family (probably 99.9%). However I can't prove that she is the one who went shopping. 

That's an inductive argument. Certainly we can make this. Again we have to distinguish between the conclusion and the stated reasons for the conclusions.

The issue ultimately isn't why you believe what you do, but rather the arguments we make for a particular position. 

23 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I get that there are all sorts of possibilities like this. In this case, the Hebraism still isn't the product of Joseph Smith or some other 19th century individual. And, really, it is still a product of a Hebrew speaker in the source text. The Book of Mormon has many layers of text and so I assume that the Hebraisms are typically from one of those layers, even if it isn't the layer we might initially think.

I think that's a much more defensible position. However it has rather big implications depending upon the nature of those layers. Ultimately that was the point I was originally raising. People are drawing inferences from these structures that aren't warranted by the arguments they're making for them.

25 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Here is another possibility. Suppose that the source text was highly ideogrammatic and hardly at all phonetic. Then, let's say that during the translation process, the original intent of the authors, along with all the rhetorical and structural flourishes they would have used, was unpackaged as if they had been writing in a less compact script all along. In this case, the translation would be both loose and tight:  loose in regard to the relationship between the English and the ideograms, but tight in regard to the English and the original intent of the authors. I don't think this is likely, but it is not impossible. 

Yes, I definitely think that as a possibility has to be entertained. The question then becomes how we can differentiate all these different possibilities rather that just picking the one we think most likely

26 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

These uncertainties, hardly matter though, when it comes to the overall value of Hebraisms as apologetic evidence.

That's where I think we part ways. Although again it depends upon the particular argument in question.

26 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

These beliefs lead me to assume that something about the source text 

But that's a problem. What appears like an argument for something is actually just an assumption most people won't share. Those who do share it likely didn't need the apologetic in the first place.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

2 hours ago, Ryan Dahle said:

I get that there are all sorts of possibilities like this. In this case, the Hebraism still isn't the product of Joseph Smith or some other 19th century individual. And, really, it is still a product of a Hebrew speaker in the source text. The Book of Mormon has many layers of text and so I assume that the Hebraisms are typically from one of those layers, even if it isn't the layer we might initially think.

I think that's a much more defensible position. However it has rather big implications depending upon the nature of those layers. Ultimately that was the point I was originally raising. People are drawing inferences from these structures that aren't warranted by the arguments they're making for them.

Your argument is just going in circles.

Again, all you are saying is that being wrong in the assumption about a tight translation could make it so that a Hebraism might not shown up in the translation. And in that case we would have to look to other explanations for its presence. And I'm saying that I have already looked at the other possible explanations for their presence, and these explanations' lack of believability is what is driving me to accept the tight translation in the first place, even though it is an uncertain assumption. 

And then you say that my my reasons for rejecting these other explanations would need to be fleshed out to be convincing to an audience who isn't disposed to agree with them. Which is fine, and has been a running (and stated) assumption of mine all along. The real debate lies elsewhere. If my fleshed out arguments are good enough, then I will be justified in relying upon the uncertain assumptions about the tightness of the translation. If they aren't good, then I wouldn't be logically justified in doing so. 

[Late edit: It should also be noted that all competing arguments about the alleged Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon rely on a number of uncertain necessary assumptions, as virtually all complex arguments do. And it is the nature of necessary assumptions that if they are wrong, then the conclusions that they support are wrong. The way I have constructed my argument is not circular, and so the assumption about the tightness of the translation is logically valid, even though unproven. This means that its relative likelihood of being true can only be decided once the broader competing arguments concerning the presence of Hebraisms in the text, with ALL of THEIR respective uncertain (yet necessary) attendant assumptions, have been compared and evaluated. Which is how I have understood the argument all along. You and jkw were trying to disqualify the evidence for Hebraisms, at the outset, because of its reliance upon a necessary (although unproven) assumption about the translation. My whole point is to show how this evidence can't be categorically disqualified in the way you initially thought. It is not a circular argument. If this is conceded, then by all means we can move on to other topics, such as possible methods of determining tightness and looseness that don't rely upon outside data, such as my argument does.] 

Edited August 17, 2018 by Ryan Dahle