Nature of the Original Language of the Bk of Mormon

[Glenn101]

1 hour ago, Exiled said:

To skeptics the Book of Mormon grammar has always seemed perfectly possible for an 1800's writer, even when we thought of it as an artificial hodgepodge dialect that had never previously been spoken naturally by anyone, because it was the accidental product of Smith's inexpert attempt to ape King James English. if in fact it was not such a unique grammatical specimen, but had once been a natural English grammar, that should logically only make it easier for an 1800's writer to produce—not harder.

Do you know of any skeptics of the Book of Mormon who are also linguists who hold those views?

[Physics Guy]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

The more structures you find the less likely it is.

This is what isn't clear to me. Just because something was common in the 1500's doesn't mean it was inaccessible in the 1800's. When I try to speak my own native dialect, I don't have to think about grammar. It's instinctive, and in that sense grammar is subconscious. Some of what I've read by fans of BoM EModE seems to misinterpret that important fact of linguistics to make it imply that humans have no conscious access to grammar, and therefore could not write archaic grammar if they tried. On the contrary, my neurons do not refuse to let my tongue or keyboard generate utterances with other grammar, if I put my mind to it to write differently.

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I think the hypothesis that this is just bad mimicking of the KJV language would seem more plausible if there were other examples like that. While Carmack hasn't done an exhaustive search he has examined several pseudo-KJV like texts and not found these grammatical structures.

But there are no other examples of an uneducated, inexperienced writer trying to imitate KJV English in a long text that was at least largely composed extemporaneously. This was my point about writers not wanting to write badly. The other pseudo-Biblical texts were written more carefully and by more educated authors. I don't think there is any data available about what happens when an uneducated person from rural New England in the early 1800's tries to imitate KJV English off the cuff. No surveys of published pseudo-Biblical works are relevant to this question; perhaps we might do some experiments with modern subjects, asking them to imitate the KJV Bible or Shakespeare and seeing what kinds of errors they make, just to try to get a handle on how amateur archaism tends to come off. Failing that, skeptics are left with their impression that an uneducated country boy in 1830's New England might well produce the Book of Mormon. Faithful Mormons may have a different impression. I don't see how Skousen and Carmack have changed this.

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I suspect that's only an appealing hypothesis because the alternative is less palatable. Were we talking about some text with no pretense of supernatural origin I suspect the assumption of it not being 19th century would be accepted far more readily.

I accept "palatable" as a translation of "plausible". The difference is subjective. I still don't think I agree with your statement, though. There are a lot of non-grammatical elements in the Book of Mormon that look very 19th century, and I really don't see that inept archaism is inconsistent with the grammatical data. The comparison with other pseudo-Biblical texts is misleading because they were more carefully composed by more educated writers. A non-Mormon could easily suppose that Smith based his Book of Mormon on an old EModE text that he somehow found; the angel is a separate issue from composition date. I still don't think the 16th century composition date would be a good bet, taking everything into account.

Edited September 21, 2018 by Physics Guy

[Physics Guy]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Do you know of any skeptics of the Book of Mormon who are also linguists who hold those views?

No. Do you know any who don't?

I know enough about linguistics to know that very little of it concerns deliberate fake archaism by uneducated improvising authors. I also know quite a few academic linguists, moreover, because my wife is a linguistics professor, although she works in fields that are remote from dating documents by their grammar. The Book of Mormon has never come up in our conversations, but the linguists I know have a sound scientific grasp of what their methods assume, and would be quick to dismiss conclusions based on applying standard methods to cases in which those assumptions don't hold.

So it's not a good sign that this radical thesis about Early Modern composition of the Book of Mormon hasn't been published in mainstream linguistics journals. The case would be quite interesting to linguists if it were at all plausible, and there's no religious commitment involved, because EModE composition points at least as much toward Smith making use of an older fake text that he somehow found as it points toward Mormon belief.

[Exiled]

5 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

Do you know of any skeptics of the Book of Mormon who are also linguists who hold those views?

I think you meant this for Physics Guy since his post is what you quoted.

[Gervin]

21 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I am basing that claim solely upon Joseph's strong effort to edit out that "bad grammar" in the 2nd and 3rd editions (1837 & 1840) in his own handwriting.  In his 2009 Yale edition of the BofM, R. Skousen comments that the second edition "shows major editing by Joseph Smith towards standard English." (page 739)  Skousen says that the third edition "shows minor editing by Joseph Smith (including a few restored phrases from the original manuscript);" (p. 740)  Some of these changes are indicated in the long list from pp. 745-789.  Also, at the beginning of that Yale edition, both Grant Hardy's Introduction and Skousen's Preface discuss that phenomenon.  My 3-volume Book of Mormon Critical Text (FARMS, 1984-1987) demonstrates in detail throughout that very phenomenon, even though I did not understand at that time that the apparent "bad grammar" was actually good grammar in Early Modern English (Joseph Smith was likewise ignorant of that fact).  Stan Carmack's detailed articles in the Interpreter in recent years provide the best analysis and specific examples.

Interesting that this backwoods semi-literate lad would take it upon himself to edit a book that wholly and only existed because every written word was shown to him.  

 

Edited September 21, 2018 by Gervin

[Gervin]

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Edited September 21, 2018 by Gervin

[Gervin]

On 9/20/2018 at 12:13 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

On the contrary, the data do not depend on a divine theory as their basis.  The data are not partisan or skewed.  They merely tell us that it is impossible for Joseph Smith to have had any hand in authoring the BofM.  He dictated a text to his scribes which he could not have created -- the language he used no longer existed in his time.  It had to have been authored a couple of centuries before Joseph.  I asked whether you had an explanation for the data, but you don't really seem to understand those basics.

I probably agree that the Book of Mormon contains words and phrases that were authored centuries before.  Names, too.  But I think it's a big leap from that to a conclusion that Joseph Smith could have no hand in the authorship.  see below.

On 9/20/2018 at 12:13 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

One way is to chart the actual usage of such words, phrases, etc., through time.  The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) does this quite nicely, providing examples and the dates of use.  It shows when they came into, and when they went out of use.  Some scholars go beyond that and systematically search the huge database of published works from very early periods on through the 19th century.  That is what Carmack and Skousen have done.  If their work is false, then it is a simple matter to show that fact through similar research.

To my way of thinking, a word that goes out of use (OED) is different than a word disappearing or no longer existing (your claim).  To make a convincing case you need to show that these "lost" words were contained in published books and materials that were unknown, unavailable, or otherwise uncatalogued for the time period you are claiming.  Our 4th Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, wrote a bio of George Washington in 1832 and freely admitted to using phrases and quotes from a number of books, including William Gordon's 1801 history of the Revolution and the British Annual Register.  You think William Gordon might have borrowed a phrase or two?  With limited source materials, this kind of borrowing was not uncommon.  Those who have mapped the Book of Mormon have found similar traits.  So, bring on the data!  But don't jump to conclusions

[Duncan]

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

Interesting that this backwoods semi-literate lad would take it upon himself to edit a book that wholly and only existed because every written word was shown to him.  

 

what kind of edits? grammer, spelling etc.? IIRC Joseph was hardy involved in the printing aspect of the Book and Gilbert put in punctuation

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Gervin said:

I probably agree that the Book of Mormon contains words and phrases that were authored centuries before.  Names, too.  But I think it's a big leap from that to a conclusion that Joseph Smith could have no hand in the authorship. .........

I used to think that Joseph could have had some sort of mental effect on the words as he rec'd them, as translators often do, but the systematic nature of EModEnglish in the BofM belies that notion.  Joseph's own idea that the grammar was bad indicates his own view.  I don't know how we get around that.

2 hours ago, Gervin said:

To my way of thinking, a word that goes out of use (OED) is different than a word disappearing or no longer existing (your claim).  To make a convincing case you need to show that these "lost" words were contained in published books and materials that were unknown, unavailable, or otherwise uncatalogued for the time period you are claiming.  Our 4th Supreme Court Justice, John Marshall, wrote a bio of George Washington in 1832 and freely admitted to using phrases and quotes from a number of books, including William Gordon's 1801 history of the Revolution and the British Annual Register.  You think William Gordon might have borrowed a phrase or two?  With limited source materials, this kind of borrowing was not uncommon.  Those who have mapped the Book of Mormon have found similar traits.  So, bring on the data!  But don't jump to conclusions

We're not talking about a word or phrase here or there, but rather a systematic presentation of full-fledged EModEnglish grammar, something no scholar could have done in Joseph's time -- not until much later did the nature of that language become clear to scholars.  When we read Walter Scott's Ivanhoe in high school, we had footnotes on all the archaic words and phrases he inserted into his story, but  his overall language was clearly 19th century in grammar. He engaged in deliberate archaizing, which is much different than an authentic book from say 1540 -- containing words and phrases  and grammar which are simply not used at a later date

Your example of Chief Justice John Marshall is a good one.  He used no EModEnglish grammar in his book, but only standard 19th century English well known to his contemporaries.  This was also true of his Supreme Court decisions, which are composed in brilliant 19th century prose (I used to brief his cases for a pre-law class).

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Duncan said:

what kind of edits? grammer, spelling etc.? IIRC Joseph was hardy involved in the printing aspect of the Book and Gilbert put in punctuation

Gervin was likely speaking to the edits in the 1837 and 1840 editions.  However, by then Joseph had acquired much more knowledge about English usage, and could see what he had no time to reflect upon while simply reading copy from his seerstone.  He had no time to reflect on it until much later.  Then he could clearly see the apparent "bad grammar."

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, Gervin said:

Interesting that this backwoods semi-literate lad would take it upon himself to edit a book that wholly and only existed because every written word was shown to him.  

You are speaking to the edits in the 1837 and 1840 editions.  However, by then Joseph had acquired much more knowledge about English usage, and could see what he had no time to reflect upon while simply reading copy from his seerstone.  He had no time to reflect on it until much later.  Then he could clearly see the apparent "bad grammar."  If he had been as ignorant as you make him out to be, there is no way that he could see the "bad grammar" in the BofM.

[Glenn101]

7 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

I know enough about linguistics to know that very little of it concerns deliberate fake archaism by uneducated improvising authors. I also know quite a few academic linguists, moreover, because my wife is a linguistics professor, although she works in fields that are remote from dating documents by their grammar. The Book of Mormon has never come up in our conversations, but the linguists I know have a sound scientific grasp of what their methods assume, and would be quick to dismiss conclusions based on applying standard methods to cases in which those assumptions don't hold.

But now we find that the archaisms are not fake. It is a easy matter to write facilely is one's native dialect. It is quite another to write facilely in one that you are not familiar with. I do not know how one can write aci;ey in a dialect they do not know. It does not really matter how many linguists you are acquainted with since they have not waded into the fray so to speak. As to your last sentence you seem to be implying that Stanford Carmack and Royal Skousen are applying non-standard methods to reach their conclusions, without stating just how they are doing so. Both Stanford and Royal are respected in their fields and have published in non-LDS  periodicals.

7 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

So it's not a good sign that this radical thesis about Early Modern composition of the Book of Mormon hasn't been published in mainstream linguistics journals. The case would be quite interesting to linguists if it were at all plausible, and there's no religious commitment involved, because EModE composition points at least as much toward Smith making use of an older fake text that he somehow found as it points toward Mormon belief.

Stanford has mentioned that he has tried to get his work peer reviewed. You will have to talk with him about that. However, the appearance of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon is hardly a radical thesis. Stanford and Royal have documented their work carefully. They point interested readers to sources like the Oxford English dictionary where even non-linguists can verify that such and such a phrase is Early Modern English. They inform interested readers of the methods they use and the corpus of texts they search.

Glenn

 

[Physics Guy]

4 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

But now we find that the archaisms are not fake. It is a easy matter to write facilely is one's native dialect. It is quite another to write facilely in one that you are not familiar with.

If Skousen and Carmack are right then the archaisms may have been a genuine archaic dialect, but this doesn't mean they were not produced as such accidentally in an attempt to fake the KJV dialect. Perhaps a 1550 writer could have produced some Book of Mormon sentences easily, but this still says nothing about how hard it would have been for Joseph Smith to write those sentences.

It may well be hard to imitate an unfamiliar dialect when the particular unfamiliar dialect to be imitated is chosen in advance by a challenger, and when the challenge consists of fluent conversation with a native speaker. That is not the case here, however. First of all the particular archaic dialect has been identified post facto as the best match to the text, and this lets in sharpshooter fallacies. And secondly it is not clear how stringent the identification really is, because this is a technical linguistic issue on which it would be easy to sound impressive to a lay person while being utterly wrong, and this work has not even passed linguistic peer review for a single publication in a mainstream journal, let alone become accepted by a consensus of qualified scholars.

Quote

[Both Stanford and Royal are respected in their fields and have published in non-LDS  periodicals. ... [T]he appearance of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon is hardly a radical thesis. Stanford and Royal have documented their work carefully. They point interested readers to sources like the Oxford English dictionary where even non-linguists can verify that such and such a phrase is Early Modern English. They inform interested readers of the methods they use and the corpus of texts they search.

I'm afraid it sounds as though you don't appreciate how difficult social science is. Carmack and Skousen both have real doctorates in relevant fields and have published respectably on other topics. On this topic they have done what can only look to a lay person like plenty of rigorous work. The sad truth is, however, that people with that level of qualification produce work that looks that substantial all the time, and yet it is worthless.

In this case, establishing that a book published in 1830 must have been composed in the 16th century is not a modest technical task which any competent linguist ought to be able to accomplish with a bit of statistics. It's a much bigger job than that. The work and skill of Carmack and Skousen, real as they are, may very easily have been insufficient for this big job. Their analyses may look impressive to you or me, but at this point there is still every possibility that a professional in the field would take one look at their best shot and cry, "What? You assume X? This is garbage!"

They haven't gotten it through mainstream linguistics peer review, even though it would be a coup in any linguistics career to publish this, and any journal that covered anything like this would be happy to publish it, if it were sound. Peer review isn't even that high a standard; things get published even though everyone agrees they are dubious, just for the sake of leaving no stone unturned.

[Gervin]

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I used to think that Joseph could have had some sort of mental effect on the words as he rec'd them, as translators often do, but the systematic nature of EModEnglish in the BofM belies that notion.  Joseph's own idea that the grammar was bad indicates his own view.  I don't know how we get around that.

My reference to editing, that you brought up, was more to Joseph Smith's conceit that a book received in such a divine manner, in an unrecognizable language, and wholly revealed - would need editing because it didn't sound right to his 19th c. ears.

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We're not talking about a word or phrase here or there, but rather a systematic presentation of full-fledged EModEnglish grammar, something no scholar could have done in Joseph's time -- not until much later did the nature of that language become clear to scholars.  When we read Walter Scott's Ivanhoe in high school, we had footnotes on all the archaic words and phrases he inserted into his story, but  his overall language was clearly 19th century in grammar. He engaged in deliberate archaizing, which is much different than an authentic book from say 1540 -- containing words and phrases  and grammar which are simply not used at a later date

Bob Dylan took some flack when folks began to find in his biography (Chronicles I), phrases and snippets of passages from other sources.  He probably was't being deliberate about this.  He's a bit of a savant - he used to say that he could learn a song by listening to it "once, maybe twice."  (Elvis was the same way).  People with a good ear can often absorb much and replant it with their own stamp.  Deliberate or not, the Book of Mormon contains phrases and snippets that can be found in other pre-dated literature.  This tells us, at least, that the entire book cannot be EModE; so many words and phrases were in use.   You've concluded a "systematic presentation" of full-fledged EModE grammar.  What is the longest passage you would cite as an example of this presentation? 

10 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Your example of Chief Justice John Marshall is a good one.  He used no EModEnglish grammar in his book, but only standard 19th century English well known to his contemporaries.  

Right.  He was smart and a good writer.  My point, however, was that it was not uncommon for writers - even good writers - to reach back to other writings for inspiration and, at times, use.  If you're writing, say, historical fiction, then the number of possible source materials is staggering.

[Glenn101]

5 hours ago, Physics Guy said:

It may well be hard to imitate an unfamiliar dialect when the particular unfamiliar dialect to be imitated is chosen in advance by a challenger, and when the challenge consists of fluent conversation with a native speaker. That is not the case here, however. First of all the particular archaic dialect has been identified post facto as the best match to the text, and this lets in sharpshooter fallacies. And secondly it is not clear how stringent the identification really is, because this is a technical linguistic issue on which it would be easy to sound impressive to a lay person while being utterly wrong, and this work has not even passed linguistic peer review for a single publication in a mainstream journal, let alone become accepted by a consensus of qualified scholars.

Actually the post facto discovery of of the Early Modern English is the opposite of the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. Royal Skousen was not looking for Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon. He, and just about every other person (including Joseph Smith) thought that those phrases were KJV types or bad grammar, as evidenced by Joseph's editing of some of the phrases as he became more knowledgeable of correct 19th century English Grammar. The discovery of the Early Modern English was a bit of serendipity, and quite the surprise.

If your linguist wife has not been following this saga as it has unfolded, maybe you could ask her a question without poisoning the well. Ask her if it is possible for a person to write facilely in an archaic English dialect if such person has not been exposed to it. That is Stanford's contention. He has been scouring every possible online corpus of texts looking for possible influences.

Whatever the case with peer review, the information is out there for anyone to observe and to take potshots. So far no skeptical linguist has stepped forward. There may be weaknesses to Stanford's methodology but the data and references are accessible to be checked by anyone who is interested in actually doing the leg work rather than peremptory dismissal.

Glenn

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

My reference to editing, that you brought up, was more to Joseph Smith's conceit that a book received in such a divine manner, in an unrecognizable language, and wholly revealed - would need editing because it didn't sound right to his 19th c. ears.

Good point, and one of the reasons why the appearance of EModE is so disconcerting.  Of course, Joseph never hesitated to edit the BofM or his revelations.  However, it is not some "unrecognizable language" that Joseph thought he was contending with, but rather with  bad grammar.  He likely thought the strange expressions he found in the BofM meant something other than they actually meant.  This happens when language evolves through time.  Old phrases take on new meanings, or go out of fashion completely.  Oliver even made errors, as did E. B. Grandin in editing the publication as they copied and printed it.  Only in retrospect can we now find the errors, and Skounsen's Yale edition shows that fact.

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

Bob Dylan took some flack when folks began to find in his biography (Chronicles I), phrases and snippets of passages from other sources.  He probably was't being deliberate about this.  He's a bit of a savant - he used to say that he could learn a song by listening to it "once, maybe twice."  (Elvis was the same way).  People with a good ear can often absorb much and replant it with their own stamp.

Another thing Dylan used to say (when asked how he managed to come up with his brilliant lyrics) is that he did not know where the lyrics came from, but thought that God gave them to him.  In biblical times, prophets used to sing their lyric prophesies.  In a number of his best songs, Dylan was clearly a Jewish prophet in the best biblical tradition.

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

  Deliberate or not, the Book of Mormon contains phrases and snippets that can be found in other pre-dated literature.  This tells us, at least, that the entire book cannot be EModE; so many words and phrases were in use.   You've concluded a "systematic presentation" of full-fledged EModE grammar.  What is the longest passage you would cite as an example of this presentation? 

You have missed the point that the English language constantly evolves, and carries with it a stream of tradition the same a river.  Some things (not all) change in that process.  EModE is a coherent body of language which has a standard vocabulary and grammar in its day.  A well-written book in 1540 will display that in a formal way which cannot be the case several centuries later.  There are a plenty of examples of archaic language in Shakespeare, the Bible, which you can examine to your heart's content.  When we check for instances of EModE, we have to disallow those true examples - because they continued as part of the modern tradition.  Simply copying them out or using them wholesale would not be the same as actually writing in natural EModE, and no one in the 19th century could do that.  If you want to examine specific examples of that, take a look at Stan Carmack's many articles in which he provides numerous examples. In Interpreter.

1 hour ago, Gervin said:

Right.  He was smart and a good writer.  My point, however, was that it was not uncommon for writers - even good writers - to reach back to other writings for inspiration and, at times, use.  If you're writing, say, historical fiction, then the number of possible source materials is staggering.

Actually truly old sources would not have been easily available to Marshall.  The sources he used were recent sources, perhaps in addition to Shakespeare, available Bibles (Geneva Bible, Great Bible, KJV), and the Book of Common Prayer, all of which were in a much earlier form of English.

[Gervin]

28 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Good point, and one of the reasons why the appearance of EModE is so disconcerting.  Of course, Joseph never hesitated to edit the BofM or his revelations.  However, it is not some "unrecognizable language" that Joseph thought he was contending with, but rather with  bad grammar.  He likely thought the strange expressions he found in the BofM meant something other than they actually meant.  This happens when language evolves through time.  Old phrases take on new meanings, or go out of fashion completely.  Oliver even made errors, as did E. B. Grandin in editing the publication as they copied and printed it.  Only in retrospect can we now find the errors, and Skounsen's Yale edition shows that fact.

I was referring to Reformed Egyptian as the unrecognizable language that Joseph Smith copied then deigned to correct.  You think God would have sent him to school if his job was to translate and edit.  

28 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You have missed the point that the English language constantly evolves, and carries with it a stream of tradition the same a river.  Some things (not all) change in that process.  EModE is a coherent body of language which has a standard vocabulary and grammar in its day.  A well-written book in 1540 will display that in a formal way which cannot be the case several centuries later.  There are a plenty of examples of archaic language in Shakespeare, the Bible, which you can examine to your heart's content.  When we check for instances of EModE, we have to disallow those true examples - because they continued as part of the modern tradition.  Simply copying them out or using them wholesale would not be the same as actually writing in natural EModE, and no one in the 19th century could do that.  If you want to examine specific examples of that, take a look at Stan Carmack's many articles in which he provides numerous examples. In Interpreter.

So, what is the longest passage in the Book of Mormon that exhibits what you call a systematic presentation of EModE?  

[TOmNossor]

On 9/21/2018 at 3:12 PM, Physics Guy said:

This radical thesis about Early Modern composition of the Book of Mormon hasn't been published in mainstream linguistics journals. The case would be quite interesting to linguists if it were at all plausible, and there's no religious commitment involved, because EModE composition points at least as much toward Smith making use of an older fake text that he somehow found as it points toward Mormon belief.

I was going to as Robert F. Smith for information on the evaluation of the BOM as EModE by non-LDS academics.

I tend to agree that there are two possibilities.

1. The BOM is clearly EModE.  An explanation for this is therefore warranted.

2. The tools used to assess the BOM as EModE are not universally accepted in the linguistic community so the BOM may be EModE and the likelihood of this is somewhat or quite a bit or ... BUT the academic community is unlikely to weigh in on this ESPECIALLY because it is an issue charged with great conflict (note: BYU seems to discourage academic papers demonstrating the likelihood of LDS religious claims being TRUE, in our increasingly politically correct world I suspect that making assertions like this would be problematic.  This means that a non-LDS linguist could say "using these methods the BOM is clearly EModE and Dr. Carmack's work is solid" or "using these methods the BOM is possibly or unlikely or ... EModE).

 

Anyway, I do not quite agree with you that there is no reason why an academic would not weigh in upon this work because it does nothing to prove or disprove the BOM, but I think it is more likely to receive a reading than the work of Sorenson.

Charity, TOm

 

 

Edited September 22, 2018 by TOmNossor

[mfbukowski]

On 9/21/2018 at 12:12 PM, Physics Guy said:

The case would be quite interesting to linguists if it were at all plausible, and there's no religious commitment involved, because EModE composition points at least as much toward Smith making use of an older fake text that he somehow found .....

Which he read off a stone in a hat.

Oh yeah, those pros in linguistics would love that.

No problems there.

 

[clarkgoble]

On 9/21/2018 at 1:12 PM, Physics Guy said:

So it's not a good sign that this radical thesis about Early Modern composition of the Book of Mormon hasn't been published in mainstream linguistics journals. 

The providence of the text would make that rather difficult as you know. There's politics involved making it extremely difficult if not impossible to do in a peer reviewed fashion even if the "science" were unassailable. 

That said, I'd love to hear more critical linguists weigh in. Thus far no one has really made substantial criticisms.

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Gervin said:

I was referring to Reformed Egyptian as the unrecognizable language that Joseph Smith copied then deigned to correct.  You think God would have sent him to school if his job was to translate and edit.  

Why would God train a translator to do traditional translation?  You misconceive the entire enterprise if you imagine that.  Instead, God uses the Holy Spirit, the power of revelation, and gift of tongues, as he did in Acts 2.  Joseph did copy some characters from the plates as an "Anthon Transcript," which we do not have today, but they could only be read with a type of device like our modern smart phones -- which do have translation programs, and those programs do not train anyone to translate:  They do the job of translating on their own, through preprogrammed methods built into the app.  Joseph merely read off the English words as his scribes copied them.  That is not traditional translation.  Joseph edited the result on his own.  We have no revelation telling him to do that.  Some people do believe in the infallible theory of prophets and prophecy, but LDS theology has always rejected that facile notion.

8 hours ago, Gervin said:

So, what is the longest passage in the Book of Mormon that exhibits what you call a systematic presentation of EModE?  

I have no idea which is the longest, but you can ferret out all the examples you like from Stan Carmack's many articles in Interpreter.  I'd be interested in which you find to be the longest.  Likewise, it might be nice (for comparison's sake) to see the longest archaic passage in the KJV as well.  You could start with the list of archaic words at https://www.lds.org/new-era/1977/04/a-short-glossary-of-obsolete-words-in-the-king-james-new-testament?lang=eng .

[Robert F. Smith]

Here is Dan Peterson's take on the Carmack-Skousen research and their latest scholarly volumes:    http://www.ldsliving.com/Scholars-Find-Evidence-That-Book-of-Mormon-Phrases-Mocked-by-Critics-Have-a-Surprising-and-Fascinating-History/s/89314 .

[Rajah Manchou]

7 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Here is Dan Peterson's take on the Carmack-Skousen research and their latest scholarly volumes:    http://www.ldsliving.com/Scholars-Find-Evidence-That-Book-of-Mormon-Phrases-Mocked-by-Critics-Have-a-Surprising-and-Fascinating-History/s/89314 .

"They’re certainly not arguing that the Book of Mormon was composed during the English Reformation"

If it was not composed during the Reformation, then why mention that the political themes of the Book of Mormon are "more reminiscent of issues that were hotly debated during the Protestant Reformation"?

[Robert F. Smith]

35 minutes ago, Rajah Manchou said:

"They’re certainly not arguing that the Book of Mormon was composed during the English Reformation"

If it was not composed during the Reformation, then why mention that the political themes of the Book of Mormon are "more reminiscent of issues that were hotly debated during the Protestant Reformation"?

Yeh, I noticed that too.  However, that merely points up the wrong emphasis being placed on the 19th century, when an earlier time is even more appropriate.  Just a comparison, not necessarily saying that it was actually composed in Tudor England, but just based on EModE alone, it could have been.  I don't know what Alexander Campbell might have said in response, but it might have made him sputter a bit.  ☺️

[JarMan]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yeh, I noticed that too.  However, that merely points up the wrong emphasis being placed on the 19th century, when an earlier time is even more appropriate.  Just a comparison, not necessarily saying that it was actually composed in Tudor England, but just based on EModE alone, it could have been.  I don't know what Alexander Campbell might have said in response, but it might have made him sputter a bit.  ☺️

Tudor England is too early. We don’t see Book of Mormon soteriology with its strong emphasis on free agency in Europe until about 1620.