The Book of Mormon is a conundrum.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Gray said:

Sure, but the Essenes themselves were wanton presentists in how they interpreted scripture.

Aren't we all?  Lehi and Nephi likewise:  1 Nephi 19:23, "I did liken all scriptures unto us."

[clarkgoble]

10 minutes ago, churchistrue said:

Main question is that there seems to be, according to this theory, a non-God, non-Joseph being translating the gold plates in the 17th century. Is this accurate description of the theory, and if so, what is the logical basis?

Can't speak for others, but I think that question is still very much open. I know a few people after Carmack's and Skousen's work was initially coming out came up with the idea that Moroni translated it after learning English in the 16th century. That seems more than a little dubious not to mention ridiculously speculative. My view is that there's not yet enough data to really narrow the possibilities down.

Things I think we need to establish first is how involved in the process Joseph was - either consciously or unconsciously. Skousen's model appears to have Joseph as rather passively involved. Others, pointing to Oliver Cowdery's attempts and D&C 9, say Joseph had to be more involved. It involved more than just reading text off a device as if it were an iPhone. My personal view, largely because of D&C 9, is that Joseph was intimately involved in the production although it's not clear how. 

The question then becomes how the other side works, and we haven't a clue. I've brought up the analogy to Google's old translation algorithm (they've since improved it) where sentence fragments that relate to an idea are used to translate it. Now I wouldn't argue that is what happened. Rather I raise it simply to suggest possibilities people tend to neglect in the rush to see God directly or an angel doing the translation in a more normal way.

Point being that the data we have really doesn't constrain the possibilities too much at this point.

[hope_for_things]

25 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

To be clear I don't think faith is evidence, rather I think personal revelation is evidence. One sense of faith is acting as if one had solid evidence. In that case faith functions in a similar fashion, but can't be the knowledge that I think evidence produces. Yet acting on faith often leads us to knowledge.

Thanks for clarifying Clark.  Just to clarify further, do you think that personal subjective revelation can be used in a scientific study or in the scholarly world?  That is the problem for me, the use of the personal and subjective to dismiss scholarly and objective evaluation.  Thats what I mean by a category error.  

Now to be completely honest I recognize that none of us humans are rational beings.  Jonathan Haight uses the analogy of an elephant and a rider to explain how our emotional irrational part of our brain (the elephant) decides where to go and how the logical part of our brain (the rider) is often just along for the ride and explaining what direction we went through a post hoc narrative.  Of course this is just a metaphor, but Daniel Kahneman also talks about similar ideas with the problems we humans have with memory and the way we explain the reasons for what we witness and how we act.   

So I'm acknowledging that we limited humans can't completely escape these errors in thinking.  But I do think it helps to be aware of our natural tendencies, and try to recognize the logical errors we make, and to do better.  To apply this directly back to the topic, as a human attempting to be rational, I need to recognize that carefully tested and demonstrated science is much more likely to be correct than my personal feelings that I have about something (personal feelings or revelation or answer to prayer, etc.)

36 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I should note I have not watched the presentation. So I'm hoping that's right. From other things I've read Skousen's argument is more from witness accounts we're all familiar with rather than textual clues. But I may be wrong.

I'm halfway through the presentation now and it hasn't talked anything about the verbal language that Joseph would have used when crafting a psuedo biblical sounding text during dictation.  That is specifically what I'm questioning Champatsch with respect to, the oral language Joseph used, which he said would be akin to speaking a foreign language, and I'm asking for evidence to support that specific claim.  He seems to be making leaps of logic that I don't think the evidence supports.  If I read Brant's much better critiques that he's posted, this question about Joseph's oral speaking not necessarily being the same as written texts, seems an important point.  

[Exiled]

On 3/18/2019 at 8:49 AM, Robert F. Smith said:

"Feigned"?  Why accuse me of dishonesty?  Point out anything which I have not correctly stated, frankly and directly.  I am not the one hiding behind a pseudonym.

If your claim that EmodE in the book of mormon proves it comes from god, then one would think it is a great thing for missionary work.  However, curiously, you do not and accuse me of confusing scholarship and missionary work as a way to deflect.  So, is EmodE a break-through or not?  If it is, wouldn't you want to tell everyone like you seem to be doing (missionary work)?  Wouldn't you want to get independent, scholarly opinion, like Martin Harris' mission to see Anton?  If you don't know what's going on with potentially publishing the EmodE work, certainly you could ask your colleagues?  It seems odd that you, a big proponent of EmodE/book of mormon/it must therefore be from god, wouldn't know if the findings are going to be published to the outside world in a secular journal or not.  Of course, I use an online pseudonym and so, supposedly, you don't have to engage with the questions.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, Exiled said:

If your claim that EmodE in the book of mormon proves it comes from god, then one would think it is a great thing for missionary work.  However, curiously, you do not and accuse me of confusing scholarship and missionary work as a way to deflect.  So, is EmodE a break-through or not?  If it is, wouldn't you want to tell everyone like you seem to be doing (missionary work)?  Wouldn't you want to get independent, scholarly opinion, like Martin Harris' mission to see Anton?  If you don't know what's going on with potentially publishing the EmodE work, certainly you could ask your colleagues?  It seems odd that you, a big proponent of EmodE/book of mormon/it must therefore be from god, wouldn't know if the findings are going to be published to the outside world in a secular journal or not.  Of course, I use an online pseudonym and so, supposedly, you don't have to engage with the questions.

It is not me who is claiming that EModE in the BofM indicates or proves that it is from God  Nor did I suggest its value for missionary work.  Those are your notions, although others may claim that God must be involved.  Moreover, I did not say that you suggested missionary work as a way to deflect.  That is your claim.  I have correctly observed that you are confusing faith and reason, not as a way to deflect, but simply because you are confused.  Your confusion (and maybe impatience) has apparently led you to make a number of false statements about me.  Please don't do that.

I see the research on EModE in the BofM as a secular endeavor, not a faith-based religious or apologetics exercise, and recommend that you do likewise

[churchistrue]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Can't speak for others, but I think that question is still very much open. I know a few people after Carmack's and Skousen's work was initially coming out came up with the idea that Moroni translated it after learning English in the 16th century. That seems more than a little dubious not to mention ridiculously speculative. My view is that there's not yet enough data to really narrow the possibilities down.

Things I think we need to establish first is how involved in the process Joseph was - either consciously or unconsciously. Skousen's model appears to have Joseph as rather passively involved. Others, pointing to Oliver Cowdery's attempts and D&C 9, say Joseph had to be more involved. It involved more than just reading text off a device as if it were an iPhone. My personal view, largely because of D&C 9, is that Joseph was intimately involved in the production although it's not clear how. 

The question then becomes how the other side works, and we haven't a clue. I've brought up the analogy to Google's old translation algorithm (they've since improved it) where sentence fragments that relate to an idea are used to translate it. Now I wouldn't argue that is what happened. Rather I raise it simply to suggest possibilities people tend to neglect in the rush to see God directly or an angel doing the translation in a more normal way.

Point being that the data we have really doesn't constrain the possibilities too much at this point.

It's fine if no one wants to be specific about the theory, ie Moroni, Tyndale, ghost committee, whatever. I understand that opens people up to criticism they don't want to deal with, and justifiably so.

I think there are two elements that are important to understand as assumptions to the model.

1. it's a loose translation of the ancient text

2. The translater is a non-God entity.

Is this correct?

I think this explains why the translation process can be both a) humanistic and including anachronisms and mistakes (because the 16c translation was like this) but also b) supernatural, miraculous, and from God (because God was the entity which produced the text in the seerstone for Joseph to dictate). 

Do I have it right?  

[champatsch]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Certainly your interpretation of the data you've found supports that.

 

Not trying to be difficult. If you're doing scholarship then I have to question why you would claim that your data can possibly prove something about what God did.

The reason is because we know about the 1829 dictation from witnesses of the dictation. As a non-member, the dictation witness Michael Morse corroborates the statements of the other member dictation witnesses, indicating that all the statements are generally reliable as to what they could see going on during the dictation (but not as to what they said that Joseph saw; they didn't see what he saw): Joseph Smith produced the dictation without external aids. So if we don't want to get fanciful with unlikely theories about external aids, it is either a case of Joseph authoring the text or of God transmitting the text to him. The hard linguistic evidence indicates Joseph wasn't the author: the wording would be substantially different; it would be pseudo-biblical, but it isn't. Joseph said God was the author. So the conclusion is that God sent him the text.

As mentioned, if God is presumptively excluded as a potential prime mover, then one can just default to a bare statement that the linguistic evidence indicates that Joseph wasn't the author. The details of the production of the text and their implications are overlooked as inconsequential or low priority.

[champatsch]

Here's an Ngram Viewer chart of the "the more part of X"

The Ngram Viewer shows persistent usage throughout the 18th century and into the 19th century.

ECCO’s popularity chart also shows a low level of use throughout the 18th century.

The reality, however, is that almost all of these documents contain examples of “the more part of X” only as part of passages with earlier, reprinted legal language, often from the 16th century and earlier. For example, all 14 documents published in 1725 (the highest data point above) contain instances of “the more part of X” from earlier legal language.

Here are the usage rates of the early modern period, showing that “the more part of X” was primarily a phrase of the middle of the 1500s (although it originated before, in Middle English).

Even in this chart there is some contamination in the late 1600s from reprinted language, but it nevertheless shows that usage of the phrase was close to zero in the 1690s.

[Gray]

8 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Aren't we all?  Lehi and Nephi likewise:  1 Nephi 19:23, "I did liken all scriptures unto us."

There's a good argument to be make that this (presentism, eisegesis, etc) is an appropriate way to keep the scriptures theologically vital, historical criticism aside.

Edited March 20, 2019 by Gray

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Joseph Smith produced the dictation without external aids. 

That's not true at all.  He used his rock sitting in a hat.  If Joseph saw words in the darkness of a hat, it could be that some outside force gave it to him, like God or Satan.  Or it could be that he somehow imagined the words.  or it could mean he somehow tricked any on-lookers and was reading it off from somwhere.  or it could mean he memorized the words previous to speakign them to a scribe.  All of those last ones would mean he authored the text.  It seems most reasonable to say he authored it.  I realize you are contending the linguistic analysis suggests he couldn't have come up with so much archaic wording, but seeing as he could understand the words, as could other readers, it's not a stretch in my mind to say it came to him--to his conception.

Quote

Joseph said God was the author. So the conclusion is that God sent him the text.

that only stands to reason if we assume each and every time someone claims God was the author of something, we conclude that God was the author.  But that's just silly, considering all the competing voices.  

Edited March 19, 2019 by stemelbow

[Exiled]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

It is not me who is claiming that EModE in the BofM indicates or proves that it is from God  Nor did I suggest its value for missionary work.  Those are your notions, although others may claim that God must be involved.  Moreover, I did not say that you suggested missionary work as a way to deflect.  That is your claim.  I have correctly observed that you are confusing faith and reason, not as a way to deflect, but simply because you are confused.  Your confusion (and maybe impatience) has apparently led you to make a number of false statements about me.  Please don't do that.

I see the research on EModE in the BofM as a secular endeavor, not a faith-based religious or apologetics exercise, and recommend that you do likewise

I think EmodE will turn out to be like looking at clouds and seeing whatever shapes one wants.  I might be wrong though.  That's always a possibility.  However, it seems god wouldn't want to make the transmission of his word even more complicated.  EmodE might be in the book of mormon, but what does that really mean?  It seems impossible to eliminate the universe of what was available to Joseph Smith and his manner of speech.  So, its presence might be from Joseph Smith, himself.  If he wanted to invent a work that was mysteriously from the past and created fictional plates and used a stone to divine his creation, certainly he might have deliberately used some archaic forms to make his work seem fantastical and from the past.  EmodE might have been his way of making his work seem like something a native american from the past might have written.  There were probably books from the elizabethian period in the local library and the 1611 bible probably was consulted.  His manner of speech might have been easily mistaken for something resembling EmodE.  These possibilities should be eliminated and other sets of eyes, not beholding to faithful conclusions, should be consulted.  That's what a reasonable person would do.  So, when will this work be published in a secular journal?  Is EmodE really in there?  If so, where did it come from?  What is the rational conclusion if it is there as opposed to attributing it to the gaps and therefore god? 

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Its interesting that you're arguing that the position of faith in God is relevant on this topic, at the same time I've had some back and forth with Clark on this same thread about how some members consider their faith in God to be evidence that is of the same or even greater veracity than scholarly evidence.  I told him this is a category error in my opinion, but he said that he doesn't see Mormons doing this.  

I have never said, or implied that my faith is relevant in any discussion except those based on faith. You are misreading what I am saying. When I was speaking about God not needing any intermediary, it is with the assumption that there is a God, etc. In essence, with God, there is no need for any other explanation as to how it came to pass. We may question why He did something one way or the other, but that is all. The truth claims for the Book of Mormon do rest upon that assumption, belief, faith, but it is not provable empirically.

As far as the Book of Mormon, the naturalistic theories lack explanatory power as well as empirical evidence. Stanford Carmack has produced empirical evidence for the EmodE in the Book of Mormon and has concluded that there is currently no naturalistic explanation for that phenomena.. He has presented his findings, his research corpus, his methods for anyone to verify. One does not have to be a linguist to check out his facts and figures. It does take some work. You may not agree, but if you do not agree, and if you wish to dispute his findings, you will need to do some work, to present some type of evidence that would rebut his conclusions.

As I have noted, there are LDS scholars that disagree with Stanford's conclusions, but not his data. Some of those critics have been swayed, at least partially, by the evidence that Stanford is compiling because, when faced with an objection, he investigates and researches the question. He is just following the evidence, which is why we are talking about it right now.

Glenn

 

[clarkgoble]

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

Just to clarify further, do you think that personal subjective revelation can be used in a scientific study or in the scholarly world?  That is the problem for me, the use of the personal and subjective to dismiss scholarly and objective evaluation.  Thats what I mean by a category error.  

I think the way you are using subjective is inherently problematic and likely is hiding various equivocations. I don't want to derail things into a discussion of subjectivity, but I think it a complex topic particularly relative to science. If you want to start a different thread I can comment on it there. I'd just ask you to think about when an individual scientist doing science is having subjective experiences and how that relates to their scientific work. There's a lot to unpack in the whole object/subject divide and what we mean by it when we discuss epistemology. To say there is a category error is to presuppose some answers to that divide that are likely themselves very controversial.

3 hours ago, hope_for_things said:

That is specifically what I'm questioning Champatsch with respect to, the oral language Joseph used, which he said would be akin to speaking a foreign language, and I'm asking for evidence to support that specific claim.  He seems to be making leaps of logic that I don't think the evidence supports.  If I read Brant's much better critiques that he's posted, this question about Joseph's oral speaking not necessarily being the same as written texts, seems an important point.  

My apologies if he doesn't address it there. As I said I avoid YouTube videos and just read papers. I don't recall a strong argument by him outside of witness accounts for how the translation proceeded. The usual rejoinder to that is that the method changed with time - particularly by the time he was using his seer stone instead of the spectacles that came with the plates.

3 hours ago, Exiled said:

If your claim that EmodE in the book of mormon proves it comes from god, then one would think it is a great thing for missionary work.

I don't think anyone is remotely arguing EmodE proves divine origin. I think Carmack's argument is that it's compelling evidence Joseph didn't write it. But of course a fraudulent model can entail his not writing it as well. Old Spaulding Manuscript arguments obviously took that route. We may now reject the Spaulding Manuscript or View of the Hebrews as lacking explanatory power. However a critic could always speculate that he made use of some obscure 16th century text he came to have. That wouldn't be an argument the text is identical to such a work more an argument akin to the Spaulding arguments where he lifts major sections and then modifies it into the current text. While I personally don't accept such a view, it's certainly compatible with the evidence.

 

 

[churchistrue]

Can I please get answer on my question? I'm being sincere and not asking for a lot. 

[churchistrue]

2 hours ago, churchistrue said:

It's fine if no one wants to be specific about the theory, ie Moroni, Tyndale, ghost committee, whatever. I understand that opens people up to criticism they don't want to deal with, and justifiably so.

I think there are two elements that are important to understand as assumptions to the model.

1. it's a loose translation of the ancient text

2. The translater is a non-God entity.

Is this correct?

I think this explains why the translation process can be both a) humanistic and including anachronisms and mistakes (because the 16c translation was like this) but also b) supernatural, miraculous, and from God (because God was the entity which produced the text in the seerstone for Joseph to dictate). 

Do I have it right?  

previous post for context:

 

Champatasch (or anyone else that wants to answer--because I'm sure there are different theories on this), can you please answer this. I'm not challenging you on this, I'm just trying to understand the position, so I can speak intelligently when I evaluate this and talk about it. I believe your research and all the EmodE stuff is important to include when talking about BOM origination theories and historicity, which I do a lot.

My understanding is that you believe the BOM was "loosely" translated into EModE from the original, ancient record. When I say loosely, I mean that because I have heard you and especially Royal talk about the various anachronisms in a way that suggests you believe the text of the BOM represents a significant expansion. By anachronisms, I don't mean the horse/steel variety, but the KJV inclusion, and some of the doctrinal exposition, and even some of the stories, ie Abinadi burned at the stake, representing a 17th century placement. Is that correct?  I mainly want to confirm that.

And then, secondarily, I want to hear the theory as to who/what/where/why regarding that loose translation. I'm not trying to mock you re: "ghost translation committee", I am just interested in some possible ideas, not so much they who/where but the why, which might suggest who. A question might be "if God is involving himself by making it so the text appears in the seerstone for Joseph, why not just translate it himself in real time with no need to expand." But my questions might not even make sense because I am misunderstanding the nature of the translation you are suggesting.

Main question is that there seems to be, according to this theory, a non-God, non-Joseph being translating the gold plates in the 17th century. Is this accurate description of the theory, and if so, what is the logical basis?

[Glenn101]

50 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

2 hours ago, champatsch said:

Joseph Smith produced the dictation without external aids. 

That's not true at all.  He used his rock sitting in a hat.  If Joseph saw words in the darkness of a hat, it could be that some outside force gave it to him, like God or Satan.  Or it could be that he somehow imagined the words.  or it could mean he somehow tricked any on-lookers and was reading it off from somwhere.  or it could mean he memorized the words previous to speakign them to a scribe.  All of those last ones would mean he authored the text.  It seems most reasonable to say he authored it.  I realize you are contending the linguistic analysis suggests he couldn't have come up with so much archaic wording, but seeing as he could understand the words, as could other readers, it's not a stretch in my mind to say it came to him--to his conception.

I really think that Stanford was talking about aids such as maps, a Bible, or a wad of papers from which he read the text. The use of the seer stone is pretty well understood.

Some of the descriptions of the translation process go against a theory that Joseph memorized the text beforehand and was dictating from memory. Specifically it was reported by scribes that after a break in the dictation Joseph would look into the hat and pick up where they had left off without having to consult with the scribe in "now where were we" moment. Another tidbit comes from the recollections of Emma Smith that Joseph would spell out words he could not pronounce as well as long words which would not be necessary if he had crammed beforehand.

 Of course Joseph really played it safe with his words, keeping them within a safe subset of Biblical and known personal stuff. He just was not one to go out on a limb there, was he?

 

Glenn

Edited March 19, 2019 by Glenn101
spelling

[Glenn101]

43 minutes ago, Exiled said:

I think EmodE will turn out to be like looking at clouds and seeing whatever shapes one wants.  I might be wrong though. 

Have you read up on how the EmodE was actually discovered? It was a case of serendipity, looking for one (recovering the original text of the Book of Mormon) and finding something else in the process, the 'bad grammar' that turned out to be mostly EmodE. Serendipity is pretty much the opposite of the Texas Sharp Shooter fallacy.

Glenn

[Exiled]

51 minutes ago, Glenn101 said:

Have you read up on how the EmodE was actually discovered? It was a case of serendipity, looking for one (recovering the original text of the Book of Mormon) and finding something else in the process, the 'bad grammar' that turned out to be mostly EmodE. Serendipity is pretty much the opposite of the Texas Sharp Shooter fallacy.

Glenn

Perhaps. I'd like to see a linguist confirm that it is even EmodE that was found when it is admitted that only parts contain EmodE. Why only parts? Clouds? Perhaps it is merely due to chance? Also, if it is EmodE, then what, if anything, is the significance? This is also where cloud shapes may appear to be something they are not.

Edited March 19, 2019 by Exiled

[hope_for_things]

2 hours ago, Glenn101 said:

As far as the Book of Mormon, the naturalistic theories lack explanatory power as well as empirical evidence. Stanford Carmack has produced empirical evidence for the EmodE in the Book of Mormon and has concluded that there is currently no naturalistic explanation for that phenomena.. He has presented his findings, his research corpus, his methods for anyone to verify. One does not have to be a linguist to check out his facts and figures. It does take some work. You may not agree, but if you do not agree, and if you wish to dispute his findings, you will need to do some work, to present some type of evidence that would rebut his conclusions.

As I have noted, there are LDS scholars that disagree with Stanford's conclusions, but not his data. Some of those critics have been swayed, at least partially, by the evidence that Stanford is compiling because, when faced with an objection, he investigates and researches the question. He is just following the evidence, which is why we are talking about it right now.

I would argue that he's not just following the data and the conclusions that he makes from observations of the data aren't always justified.  I also don't think that its my job personally to do all the heavy lifting in order to earn the right to be skeptical of his findings.  If one researcher has research they produce that overturns or significantly changes the operating paradigms generally accepted in any field of study, the burden of proof if squarely on the shoulders of those researchers who are offering the new explanations to prove their case.  Peer review, scholarly critique and time will determine how these new findings are viewed.  I'm somewhat conservative by nature and not one to jump on any new research bandwagons.  I stand by my statement earlier that the conclusions drawn about this research constitute a fringe (fridge  ) theory in Mormon studies today.   

[hope_for_things]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

I think the way you are using subjective is inherently problematic and likely is hiding various equivocations. I don't want to derail things into a discussion of subjectivity, but I think it a complex topic particularly relative to science. If you want to start a different thread I can comment on it there. I'd just ask you to think about when an individual scientist doing science is having subjective experiences and how that relates to their scientific work. There's a lot to unpack in the whole object/subject divide and what we mean by it when we discuss epistemology. To say there is a category error is to presuppose some answers to that divide that are likely themselves very controversial.

I agree, perhaps we can get into some future discussion on epistemology, recognizing that I'm not versed in the philosophical background that you are, but I do think these things are important and complicated.  

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

My apologies if he doesn't address it there. As I said I avoid YouTube videos and just read papers. I don't recall a strong argument by him outside of witness accounts for how the translation proceeded. The usual rejoinder to that is that the method changed with time - particularly by the time he was using his seer stone instead of the spectacles that came with the plates.

No worries, I did watch the rest of the video and learned some interesting new things that I hadn't heard before on this topic.  Nothing about Joseph's oral language however.  If we had the 116 pages, I imagine there was some difference in style by the time he started working with Oliver as the primary scribe.  There are even noted differences with the first part of their efforts in Mosiah and the last part of their efforts rounding out the 1Nephi - WoM sections, with respect to style and content.  Which I think is understandable in either a naturalistic view of translation like I have or an inspired view, that Joseph's proficiency would evolve throughout the process.  

 

[champatsch]

Of course examining the English linguistic evidence (syntax, grammar) is the furthest thing from looking at clouds that there is in Book of Mormon studies. Everything else is more subjective.

[JarMan]

4 hours ago, champatsch said:

The reason is because we know about the 1829 dictation from witnesses of the dictation. As a non-member, the dictation witness Michael Morse corroborates the statements of the other member dictation witnesses, indicating that all the statements are generally reliable as to what they could see going on during the dictation (but not as to what they said that Joseph saw; they didn't see what he saw): Joseph Smith produced the dictation without external aids. So if we don't want to get fanciful with unlikely theories about external aids, it is either a case of Joseph authoring the text or of God transmitting the text to him. The hard linguistic evidence indicates Joseph wasn't the author: the wording would be substantially different; it would be pseudo-biblical, but it isn't. Joseph said God was the author. So the conclusion is that God sent him the text.

As mentioned, if God is presumptively excluded as a potential prime mover, then one can just default to a bare statement that the linguistic evidence indicates that Joseph wasn't the author. The details of the production of the text and their implications are overlooked as inconsequential or low priority.

The problem with the witness statements to the translation process is that the witnesses could have been deceived. From the accounts I've read the witnesses were on the other side of a table while Joseph reportedly looked into a hat. The use of a table and hat for concealment was well known by performance artists in Joseph's day. If there are any reports of witnesses being on the same side of the table or seeing something on the seer stone I would be quite interested. I doubt there are any.

I really see only three possibilities. 1) Joseph read words off the seer stone. 2) Joseph recited the words from memory or made them up as he went along. 3) Joseph read from a manuscript that was hidden from observers.

The first requires supernatural abilities. The second is ludicrous. The third is possible. In fact, the third is repeatable. It's not fanciful or unlikely at all compared to the other two possibilities.

[JarMan]

2 hours ago, Exiled said:

Perhaps. I'd like to see a linguist confirm that it is even EmodE that was found when it is admitted that only parts contain EmodE. Why only parts? Clouds? Perhaps it is merely due to chance? Also, if it is EmodE, then what, if anything, is the significance? This is also where cloud shapes may appear to be something they are not.

There are only 13 words or phrases in the Book of Mormon Skousen has identified as not being part of Early Modern English. Two of these have recently been found in EModE. An additional one, "an eye singled to", can easily be explained as an error on the part of the scribe. This leaves just 10. Out of the ten, five seem to be unique in that they weren't part of the English of Joseph's day or any other day. Of the remaining five, Skousen believes two could have been EModE but just haven't been found yet. So out of nearly 274,000 words there are only three words or phrases that are problematic to the EModE hypothesis. So it's really not accurate to say that "only parts" of the Book of Mormon are in EModE. Virtually the entire thing is consistent with EModE.

Edited March 19, 2019 by JarMan

[Exiled]

16 minutes ago, JarMan said:

There are only 13 words or phrases in the Book of Mormon Skousen has identified as not being part of Early Modern English. Two of these have recently been found in EModE. An additional one, "an eye singled to", can easily be explained as an error on the part of the scribe. This leaves just 10. Out of the ten, five seem to be unique in that they weren't part of the English of Joseph's day or any other day. Of the remaining five, Skousen believes two could have been EModE but just haven't been found yet. So out of nearly 274,000 words there are only three words or phrases that are problematic to the EModE hypothesis. So it's really not accurate to say that "only parts" of the Book of Mormon are in EModE. Virtually the entire thing is consistent with EModE.

The entire thing is EmodE? So, when will an independent of the church linguist verify this?

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Exiled said:

I think EmodE will turn out to be like looking at clouds and seeing whatever shapes one wants.  I might be wrong though.  That's always a possibility.  However, it seems god wouldn't want to make the transmission of his word even more complicated.  EmodE might be in the book of mormon, but what does that really mean?  It seems impossible to eliminate the universe of what was available to Joseph Smith and his manner of speech.  So, its presence might be from Joseph Smith, himself.  If he wanted to invent a work that was mysteriously from the past and created fictional plates and used a stone to divine his creation, certainly he might have deliberately used some archaic forms to make his work seem fantastical and from the past.  EmodE might have been his way of making his work seem like something a native american from the past might have written.  There were probably books from the elizabethian period in the local library and the 1611 bible probably was consulted.  His manner of speech might have been easily mistaken for something resembling EmodE.  These possibilities should be eliminated and other sets of eyes, not beholding to faithful conclusions, should be consulted.  That's what a reasonable person would do.  So, when will this work be published in a secular journal?  Is EmodE really in there?  If so, where did it come from?  What is the rational conclusion if it is there as opposed to attributing it to the gaps and therefore god? 

The research has already been done and fully published.  I can list it for you if you wish.  The objections you list here have already been taken into account, and they simply don't work -- there is no evidence for them at all.  The appearance of EModE in the BofM is systematic.  It is not slapdash and slipshod, as it would have to be if a country bumpkin had cobbled it together from some odd books he had read.  The KJV did not have that systematic form of EModE.  If Joseph had copied the KJV archaisms, it would be evident that he had done so.  Since that is not the nature of the actual text, we have no choice but to reject that option.  Secular scholarship forces us to adopt a position on this which is inexplicable.  No one wants it, and no one can explain it.

You keep injecting God or god, but I cannot understand why.