church history The 1922 B.H. Robert's Meeting With General Authoriteis Re: Book of Mormon Problems and the Secret Meetings That Followed it

[JarMan]

2 hours ago, Nevo said:

Joseph Smith dictated the Book of Mormon to scribes in 1829. The Book of Mormon refers to Joseph Smith and Joseph Smith Sr. by name and alludes to Oliver Cowdery. It prominently references an event in 1828 (the loss of the 116 pages), which also affects the book's structure. Those facts alone will stop "good scientists" from accepting the Book of Mormon as a product of the sixteenth century.

Does it really allude to Oliver Cowdery and the lost 116 pages? Or are certain real events and people explained in a way as to make them seem like they are events foretold in the Book of Mormon?

[stemelbow]

On 7/24/2020 at 4:28 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Bear in mind that Joseph was not, and could not be the author of the BofM.  Someone in the EModE period produced that English text.  

If the Book of Mormon, or the result of Joseph's translation, has some syntax from the EModE period and syntax commensurate with Joseph's day, why must it have been produced at the earlier date?  One would assume if modern material was mixed with older material that clearly means it was composed at a later date rather than earlier.  It's much more reasonable for old stuff to be included in something rather than future stuff.  I think Nevo's point is clearly important to address if EModE is supposed to be taken seriously.  If God was involved why would anyone ever expect a result of broken bits of syntax from various eras?  It's perhaps the biggest reason why any believer should reject that EModE context was an impossibility for someone in Joseph's era to clunkily arrive at.  If JOseph attempted King James English and failed, then whose to say that failure didn't end up with some EMOdE syntax?  

Edited July 30, 2020 by stemelbow

[smac97]

On 7/21/2020 at 1:11 AM, mfbukowski said:

Yes, it's huge, with vast and rather mysterious repercussions. It changes everything.

Could you elaborate on this?  What are these massive repercussions that change everything about the Book of Mormon?

Thanks,

-Smac

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

If the Book of Mormon, or the result of Joseph's translation, has some syntax from the EModE period and syntax commensurate with Joseph's day, why must it have been produced at the earlier date?  One would assume if modern material was mixed with older material that clearly means it was composed at a later date rather than earlier.  It's much more reasonable for old stuff to be included in something rather than future stuff.  I think Nevo's point is clearly important to address if EModE is supposed to be taken seriously.  If God was involved why would anyone ever expect a result of broken bits of syntax from various eras?  It's perhaps the biggest reason why any believer should reject that EModE context was an impossibility for someone in Joseph's era to clunkily arrive at.  If JOseph attempted King James English and failed, then whose to say that failure didn't end up with some EMOdE syntax?  

You and Nevo might have a point, if and only if, the BofM were not a systematically EModE product.  You speak of "some syntax," and "broken bits of syntax from various eras."  You even suggest that there may have been a failed attempt by Joseph at styling the BofM in King James English.  The problem with all that is that the systematic use of EModE in the BofM so often departs from standard KJV English (systematically) and demonstrates a systematic kinship with learned writing from a much earlier era.  That's the kind of thing you can't fake.  EModE isn't hopscotch.

The statistical appearance of such EModE phenomena waxes and wanes over time, the language being a stream which continues to use some features, while dropping others over time -- and even adopting new ones. The earliest text itself makes this evident, while newer editions of the BofM have attempted to reduce that systematic EModE, without ever realizing what the problem was.  Why?  Because, although even Joseph Smith (unlearned as he was) recognized that something was wrong with the grammar and so made vast changes in the second edition, the presence of EModE is opaque to anyone except scholars.

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, Robert F. Smith said:

You and Nevo might have a point, if and only if, the BofM were not a systematically EModE product.  You speak of "some syntax," and "broken bits of syntax from various eras."  You even suggest that there may have been a failed attempt by Joseph at styling the BofM in King James English.  The problem with all that is that the systematic use of EModE in the BofM so often departs from standard KJV English (systematically) and demonstrates a systematic kinship with learned writing from a much earlier era.  That's the kind of thing you can't fake.  EModE isn't hopscotch.

The statistical appearance of such EModE phenomena waxes and wanes over time, the language being a stream which continues to use some features, while dropping others over time -- and even adopting new ones. The earliest text itself makes this evident, while newer editions of the BofM have attempted to reduce that systematic EModE, without ever realizing what the problem was.  Why?  Because, although even Joseph Smith (unlearned as he was) recognized that something was wrong with the grammar and so made vast changes in the second edition, the presence of EModE is opaque to anyone except scholars.

Why is it systematically an EModE product if it's not entirely EModE?  I think that it shows Joseph Smith era English, and declares events that already happened as prophecy, demonstrates nicely it's not systematically an EModE product.  

As per Joseph making changes--every author wants to change after a first go at it.  That he changes it makes the whole thing more suspect, since he thought, apparently, the phrases he was reading off were put in the darkness of a hat by God.  Why would he change God's chosen words?  Or should we expect Joseph to see the words that appeared before him as words put together by some human from an EModE era?  

It's just weird stuff anymore.  If the Book was written in English long before Joseph Smith why did Joseph think otherwise?  What again is the purpose of the plates?  Who exactly is making the English lines appear to Joseph?  

[JarMan]

58 minutes ago, stemelbow said:

Why is it systematically an EModE product if it's not entirely EModE?  I think that it shows Joseph Smith era English, and declares events that already happened as prophecy, demonstrates nicely it's not systematically an EModE product.  

Which events prophesied occur after the early modern era?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Why is it systematically an EModE product if it's not entirely EModE?  I think that it shows Joseph Smith era English, and declares events that already happened as prophecy, demonstrates nicely it's not systematically an EModE product.

Because language is a stream, and does not appear in discrete boxes, it can "seem" that the EModE features which carryover into modern times belie the claim that the BofM (or any other work) must have been written in another age.  However, that misses the point that actual changes occur over time, thus diminishing and even completely leaving behind many features.  These can be forensically measured and statistically graphed.  They cannot be faked.

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

As per Joseph making changes--every author wants to change after a first go at it.  That he changes it makes the whole thing more suspect, since he thought, apparently, the phrases he was reading off were put in the darkness of a hat by God.  Why would he change God's chosen words?  Or should we expect Joseph to see the words that appeared before him as words put together by some human from an EModE era?

Joseph was very poorly educated, and so could not suss out the why of the "bad grammar" which so obviously pervaded the BofM.  He merely responded to it as best he could, making vast changes based upon what he knew to be the common speech of his day.  Those same sorts of changes were made in future editions by much better educated people, like James Talmage (1920 edition).  They all sought to bring the language up to date.  Why would God have anything to do with it?  After all, Joseph and Talmage were not silly infallibilists or inerrantists.  Moreover, neither of them knew anything about the existence of Early Modern English, which was the real reason for the apparently "bad grammar."

Book of Mormon Central, “Does the Book of Mormon Really Have ‘Bad’ Grammar? (Ether 12:25),” KnoWhy #490, Dec 4, 2018, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/does-the-book-of-mormon-really-have-bad-grammar .

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

It's just weird stuff anymore.  If the Book was written in English long before Joseph Smith why did Joseph think otherwise?  What again is the purpose of the plates?  Who exactly is making the English lines appear to Joseph?  

It is weird, and in many ways inexplicable.  I can't think of any reason why the BofM text was rendered into EModE, unless it is supposed to be a divine practical joke.  Joseph was oblivious to the nature of the language, and could not have had time to give it much thought while he was dictating it to his scribes.  The scribes themselves, just doing their best to keep up, were not likely to have given it much thought -- until later.  The Plates may have been no more than a concrete realization of the claims made by Moroni and Joseph.  Since Joseph couldn't read the Egyptian on the Plates, his only recourse would have been to simply read the English text as it appeared before his eyes in that hat -- like reading a teleprompter or a text on a smartphone.  No more.  Joseph made it out to be no more nor less than a gift from God, which doesn't actually tell us much about the mechanics of it.

[Ryan Dahle]

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Why is it systematically an EModE product if it's not entirely EModE? 

Why? No one knows precisely why the text is the way it is. Or maybe you are specifically asking how the text can be systematically something without being completely something. I think you could probably think of all sorts of analogies where something has systematic tendencies of a certain feature, without being entirely that feature. Its not some sort of categorical error or anything. 

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

As per Joseph making changes--every author wants to change after a first go at it.  That he changes it makes the whole thing more suspect, since he thought, apparently, the phrases he was reading off were put in the darkness of a hat by God.  Why would he change God's chosen words?  Or should we expect Joseph to see the words that appeared before him as words put together by some human from an EModE era?  

The question could easily be flipped around. Why should we think Joseph held the assumption that he couldn't change God's words, especially when many of his comments about revelation shows that he saw God's word as being very adaptable and adjustable. Your question seems to reveal more about your own assumptions than it does about Joseph's.

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

It's just weird stuff anymore.  If the Book was written in English long before Joseph Smith why did Joseph think otherwise? 

What makes you think he knew for sure where the text came from or when/how it was translated?

Also, as a side note, the EModE can't actually date the text's translation, it only dates some of its language. As soon as you invoke the possibility that it was translated by a divine person or persons, then trying to pin down the translation act itself to a specific time becomes impossible (seeing that God knows the future, God knows all languages and can grant linguistic capacities to his servants, and spirits who lived in the EModE period would still be around in the Spirit world long after they died in mortality).

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

What again is the purpose of the plates? 

Several possible purposes:

https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-were-the-plates-present-during-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon

There is also the significance of the plates as an official and binding revelatory document:

https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/doubled-sealed-witnessed-documents-ancient-world-book-mormon

2 hours ago, stemelbow said:

Who exactly is making the English lines appear to Joseph?  

We don't know how the text got to be the way it is. Was someone in the EModE period responsible? Was God responsible? Was it translated by an individual or group of individuals in the Spirit world, who had some tie or connection to the EModE period? No one knows. I prefer something along the lines of the latter possibility, but remain open to other ideas. 

The other question is who are all the intended audiences? Just Joseph Smith's contemporaries? Modern readers from 1830 onward? What about English speakers and readers on the other side of the veil? I think all are possibilities, and the Spirit World offers a wider range of English readers that would need to be accounted for. 

What about the purpose of the EModE? Does it make the text inaccessible to a 19th century audience? Clearly not. Does it add rhetorical value to the text (giving it a feel of antiquity)? I think it does, especially in our day when we can better appreciate and identify the text's archaic features. Does it show that it's language isn't merely derivative of the Bible? Yes. But its intertextuality also shows it is heavily connected to the Bible. Which, in my opinion provides a nice blend and balance to things that accords well with the text's own view of its relationships with the Bible. In my mind, the infusion of EModE can serve multiple rhetorical functions at once. And, of course, it has possible apologetic value, but how much of an influence the text's EModE has in that context ultimately remains to be seen. Critics certainly aren't yet lining up to be baptized, now that the preliminary linguistic data is in. And even many Latter-day Saint scholars are skeptical and perplexed by the data. 

Do we have any solid answers for any of these types of speculations? No. That is the point that I raised before. But the fact that we don't yet have solid working theories for many aspects of the translation shouldn't lead us to reject the strong linguistic data telling us that the text most likely wasn't produced by Joseph.  

Edited July 30, 2020 by Ryan Dahle

[JamesBYoung]

The Book of Mormon was clearly not a systematically EModE product as the above rebuttals prove.

[OGHoosier]

4 hours ago, JamesBYoung said:

The Book of Mormon was clearly not a systematically EModE product as the above rebuttals prove.

To which rebuttals are you referring? 

[Scott Lloyd]

How to tighten up a thread title that’s too long:

B. H. Roberts’s problems with the Book of Mormon

Voila! I have taken a 20-word thread title and cut it down to eight words. 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Scott Lloyd

[champatsch]

16 hours ago, JamesBYoung said:

The Book of Mormon was clearly not a systematically EModE product as the above rebuttals prove.

That's not the issue. The issue is whether the Book of Mormon's constellation of non(pseudo)biblical archaic features mean that JS didn't author it.

[Robert J Anderson]

5 minutes ago, champatsch said:

That's not the issue. The issue is whether the Book of Mormon's constellation of non(pseudo)biblical archaic features mean that JS didn't author it.

Could you explain how the english of Joseph's day entered into the text when supposedly an EmodE speaker or speakers were the author(s)?  Shouldn't the entire thing be EmodE then?  What are the implications as to how the translation process went?  Was it tight or loose?  If thoughts loosely appeared on the stone and Joseph then put them into his language, doesn't that exclude EmodE?  If it was a word for word translation, then why the english of Joseph's day?

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

How to tighten up a thread title that’s too long:

B. H. Roberts’s problems with the Book of Mormon

Voila! I have taken a 20-word thread title and cut it down to eight words. 

But that takes out the chilling "secret meetings" bit. Everyone loves a coverup conspiracy.

[bdouglas]

Royal Skousen, in an interview that was published in a BYU magazine (I have looked for link but can’t find it) a few months ago, said the BOM was a “creative and cultural translation” from 1500-1600.

This made a lot of sense to me … so much so, in fact, that I have accepted this explanation.

It makes sense to me that JS was reading off an existing translation. He wasn’t working the translation out in his mind. The speed of transmission, the fact that he wasn’t referencing the plates——this, in addition to presence of EModE, suggests he was reading off an existing translation.

The interesting question is, who did this “cultural and creative translation” from 1500-1600?

I have heard some say “God did it.” But God works through human agents. I am of the opinion a mortal man, living in England circa 1600, did it.

The one big constant in my testimony of the Restoration has always been the BOM——for 30 odd years now. The BOM only get more interesting——and more credible——as time goes on.

[Robert J Anderson]

12 minutes ago, bdouglas said:

Royal Skousen, in an interview that was published in a BYU magazine (I have looked for link but can’t find it) a few months ago, said the BOM was a “creative and cultural translation” from 1500-1600.

This made a lot of sense to me … so much so, in fact, that I have accepted this explanation.

It makes sense to me that JS was reading off an existing translation. He wasn’t working the translation out in his mind. The speed of transmission, the fact that he wasn’t referencing the plates——this, in addition to presence of EModE, suggests he was reading off an existing translation.

The interesting question is, who did this “cultural and creative translation” from 1500-1600?

I have heard some say “God did it.” But God works through human agents. I am of the opinion a mortal man, living in England circa 1600, did it.

The one big constant in my testimony of the Restoration has always been the BOM——for 30 odd years now. The BOM only get more interesting——and more credible——as time goes on.

How do you explain how english from Joseph Smith's day appears in the book of mormon text if he was reading off an existing translation from 1500-1600?

[champatsch]

What are you referring to? Are you referring to simple phrases declared to be 19c phrases by secular academics?

[stemelbow]

39 minutes ago, champatsch said:

What are you referring to? Are you referring to simple phrases declared to be 19c phrases by secular academics?

Are there phrases in the first edition of the BoM that do not demonstrate EModE or contradict how it should be worded via EModE?  

If we are want to say Joseph didn't translate, then that really changes the original story.  If Joseph read off words that were previously written by someone else, either God or his emissary, then that shows the unimportance of the plates, if the notion that he didn't consult the plates during the work doesn't already show that.  If Joseph used Adam Clarke to create what we call the JST, then perhaps he used another unknown text to create the BoM.  Far more reasonable than God did it.  If anything from his era shows up in the text, then its simply explanation under such an hypothesis.  It can't be possible if it's supposedly a dictation from a 14-15 century text.

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

But that takes out the chilling "secret meetings" bit. Everyone loves a coverup conspiracy.

How about “Cloak and Dagger: B. H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon”?

[stemelbow]

23 hours ago, JarMan said:

Which events prophesied occur after the early modern era?

I believe Nevo raised the issue earlier.  Joseph being named, the story of the lost pages.  Those events all happened before they left Joseph's lips, but apparently were written in English hundreds of years before he lived.  

[The Nehor]

12 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

How about “Cloak and Dagger: B. H. Roberts and the Book of Mormon”?

The Secret Meetings of B.H. Roberts: What the Mormons DO NOT want you to know

[OGHoosier]

1 hour ago, stemelbow said:

Are there phrases in the first edition of the BoM that do not demonstrate EModE or contradict how it should be worded via EModE?  

If we are want to say Joseph didn't translate, then that really changes the original story.  If Joseph read off words that were previously written by someone else, either God or his emissary, then that shows the unimportance of the plates, if the notion that he didn't consult the plates during the work doesn't already show that.  If Joseph used Adam Clarke to create what we call the JST, then perhaps he used another unknown text to create the BoM.  Far more reasonable than God did it.  If anything from his era shows up in the text, then its simply explanation under such an hypothesis.  It can't be possible if it's supposedly a dictation from a 14-15 century text.

Language is relatively flexible and does not appear overnight. Instances of constructs labelled as 19th-century are not sufficient to invalidate systematic EModE presence, if such has in fact been demonstrated. 

Regarding the rest of the post, I again fail to see this "unimportance of the plates" which you attest. The plates still served an essential role as an artifact and subject of sacred trial. As Lucy Mack Smith would attest, the Smith family's period of custody of the plates was a refining experience for the first family of the Restoration. They also served as a linchpin of the experience of the Witnesses, as did the other artifacts of the ark of the New Covenant. 

As for "Joseph used Adam Clarke to create what we call the JST"...oh for the love of all things holy. Joseph's references to the Clarke commentary were distinct but selective. He was not dependent on it in the sense that dependent evokes general compliance. Mark Ashurst-McGee will be presenting on this at the FairMormon conference in a few days and I'm looking forward to his commentary. Both him and Wayment have had enough of the idea that the JST was generally dependent on the Clarke commentary. 

[Scott Lloyd]

56 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

The Secret Meetings of B.H. Roberts: What the Mormons DO NOT want you to know

Still too long. We’re going for brevity here. 

[The Nehor]

2 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Still too long. We’re going for brevity here. 

Fine.

B.H. Roberts: The One that Pushed Back!

[stemelbow]

On 7/30/2020 at 2:58 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Because language is a stream, and does not appear in discrete boxes, it can "seem" that the EModE features which carryover into modern times belie the claim that the BofM (or any other work) must have been written in another age.  However, that misses the point that actual changes occur over time, thus diminishing and even completely leaving behind many features.  These can be forensically measured and statistically graphed.  They cannot be faked.

Joseph was very poorly educated, and so could not suss out the why of the "bad grammar" which so obviously pervaded the BofM.  He merely responded to it as best he could, making vast changes based upon what he knew to be the common speech of his day.  Those same sorts of changes were made in future editions by much better educated people, like James Talmage (1920 edition).  They all sought to bring the language up to date.  Why would God have anything to do with it?  After all, Joseph and Talmage were not silly infallibilists or inerrantists.  Moreover, neither of them knew anything about the existence of Early Modern English, which was the real reason for the apparently "bad grammar."

Book of Mormon Central, “Does the Book of Mormon Really Have ‘Bad’ Grammar? (Ether 12:25),” KnoWhy #490, Dec 4, 2018, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/does-the-book-of-mormon-really-have-bad-grammar .

It is weird, and in many ways inexplicable.  I can't think of any reason why the BofM text was rendered into EModE, unless it is supposed to be a divine practical joke.  Joseph was oblivious to the nature of the language, and could not have had time to give it much thought while he was dictating it to his scribes.  The scribes themselves, just doing their best to keep up, were not likely to have given it much thought -- until later.  The Plates may have been no more than a concrete realization of the claims made by Moroni and Joseph.  Since Joseph couldn't read the Egyptian on the Plates, his only recourse would have been to simply read the English text as it appeared before his eyes in that hat -- like reading a teleprompter or a text on a smartphone.  No more.  Joseph made it out to be no more nor less than a gift from God, which doesn't actually tell us much about the mechanics of it.

Thanks for the explanation, Robert.  Not sure I have any thing to add.