Inspired Fiction - Did Joseph Smith Believe He Was Translating Real Records?

[CV75]

50 minutes ago, brownbear said:

Thank you for this question, I think it is at the core of the "inspired fiction" view. Personally, I have not ruled out historicity. However, when I look at the evidence, there are things that point to a 19th-century origin. The coming forth of the plates, the translation, and the content in the book all fit in too well with Joseph Smith's environment and milieu. I am not in expert in all things, @Kevin Christensen has given some amazing evidence in this thread alone. That being said, the coming forth of the plates, the translation, and the content in the book seem to go beyond Joseph Smith's environment and milieu (and I am not alluding to a Spaulding theory). Can we do an Ostler or Ash Expansion or Co-Participation model? Yes, but what constitutes a modern expansion and an ancient core? The book is a puzzle. As Richard Bushman said in his Faith Matters interview, (paraphrasing) "there is evidence for and against", you cannot decide if it is true by scientific methods.

For me, the question is not settled. However, I personally know Bishop's and other very faithful members who believe that the Book is non-historical, but nonetheless inspired of God. What does that mean? It could mean a few things. 1) It could mean that in God's own mysterious way, he influenced the content in the book. But does that make God a liar? 2) It could mean that any work that helps someone draw closer to God, is "inspired". These present issues. That gets to the core of my OP. 3) If Joseph Smith thought that the Nephites were real, that means that he is sincere (even if that means he had to exaggerate or "lie for the Lord" in certain instances". We see him clarify and strengthen his narrative of his early life as he gets older (i.e. first vision & priesthood restoration). It is possible that this was not viewed as "lying". If Joseph Smith was sincere, and thought that it was in fact a Nephite record, than it is possible that he was able to channel his knowledge of the Bible, his knowledge of myths that existed in the environment (mound builder and such), feeling the spirit as a "burning in the bosom", as well as a general magic worldview that makes it possible to believe in such a scenario. If we take this view, it means that Joseph was NOT a pious fraud, rather it means that he sincerely believed and was a "divine syncretist". If we take a broad view of Biblical Criticism, didn't many of the biblical writers take the myths of their day, combine it with their spiritual experiences, and produce text describing their experiences with God?

What are the conclusions of this view (that I am not 100% committed to). Here are a few examples:

• The church is a "good" place, even if not entirely "true". This could be for secular and/or spiritual reasons (i.e. family, community, tradition, spiritual experiences, etc)
• The church is "true", and God works in some mysterious way.
• The Book of Mormon is historical, even though it is ridiculed with anachronisms and others (but this could be alleviated with a modern expansion or a "prophets saw our day" approach).

Overall, this is a working theory. I have multiple "working hypotheses". I am committed to the gospel. I serve in my Branch Presidency. I hope the Book of Mormon is historical but can see a path forward if I can no longer hold that position. I love the church and think it is true.

• Another view could be seen in David Bokovoy's 2016 Sunstone presentation (see below)

 

Thank you. I think personal experience with God and His works is like the parable of pearl in the box (and I’ll add even things outside the box!). Appreciation of the pearl keeps everything else in perspective and sometimes even in check. President Holland once gave a speech about disciple-scholars which I think shows how that might be accomplished within scholarly and secular matters. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/be-faithful-disciple-scholars-even-in-difficulty-elder-holland-says-at-maxwell-institute?lang=eng

[CV75]

30 minutes ago, the narrator said:

For about a decade I participated as an agnostic after stepping away for a year or so as an atheist. A big influence on me were the writings of the philosopher DZ Phillips (who I had met a number of times and intended to study with art CGU before he passed away). This is all a bit too much and complex (requiring a whole lecture on Wittgenstein and Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion) to go into detail here, but in short, he helped me recognize that ultimately my religious faith and practice had always been and should be centered in community and self-reflection--that service to god was in service to my neighbors, and that prayer and study were to center my self in that service. LIkewise, it further established the biggest lesson I had learned on my mission--that the covenants we make with God are simultaneously and in practice covenants we make with our community and to others--and that the rituals of covenant are those that we always do with others; that is, covenants do not exist outside of community.

(A somewhat funny (to me) anecdote: about 6 months after my marriage in the Draper Temple, I told my wife that I did not believe in an afterlife, hadn't for a number of years, and was horrified at the idea of existing forever. "What?!? Why would you marry me in the temple for eternity of you didn't want to live for eternity with me?!?" "Babe, because I was committing myself to spend a life with you that I would want to last forever . . . if I was forced to live in that nightmarish hell of unending existence." It took maybe a day, but she decided she liked this perspective even more.)

On top of this, I also discovered liberation theology, which spoke to my soul more deeply than almost any GA talk and fanned a fire within to learn more about Jesus and his ministry and a renewed/increased interest in the BofM--an approach that I had already engendered after reading Nibley's Approaching Zion on my mission.

In the end, though, it became clear that my local church community did not want me around, and so it felt like a good time to part ways.

Thank you. I can see how some of the doctrine and wisdom in the Book or Mormon comport with these concepts without requiring formal participation in the Church. How often would you say you refer to it for self-reflection, serving and building relationships with others and your community, and engaging in liberation theology?

[champatsch]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

I'm sorry, but the Early Modern English is perhaps the worst apologetic "scholarly" argument for the BofM offered in the 21st century for these simple reasons:

1. It fails to take into account how EME was retained in local New England dialects well into the late 19th century, how poor English (such as mismatching plural/singular nouns and verbs) can resemble EME, and how earlier writings--especially theological--were being widely printed and disseminated in the 19th century, especially with the explosion of small printing presses and increased interest due to revivalism. (I find it rather funny how a quick google books search contradicts nearly every claim made about EME in the BofM).
2. It fails to explain why the vast majority of the BofM is modern English.
3. It fails to explain why there are so many phrases in the BofM found in late-18th and early-19th sermons and theological writings. 
4. And in light of these failures, it also fails to make any sort of rational/theologica explanation for why EME would appear in the BofM.

The silly EME apologetic exists purely to distance Joseph Smith from the text of the BofM, and it fails spectacularly at doing so. The wealth of late 18th and early 19th century theological phrases and ideas makes it absolutely and unequivocally certain that the English language of the BofM comes from someone steeped in the theological discourse of that time. Given that Joseph Smith's own religious narrative begins with him seeking to know which church he should join, then it is likely that in the years before dictating the BofM (as author or translator), he would have attended and paid attention to hundreds of sermons--most of which would have pulled language from the popular sermons of persons like John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, and others. 

It's not an apologetic argument. The initial hypothesis for every researcher has been that the Book of Mormon was a pseudo-biblical text in its English usage.

1. Joseph Smith's early writings [1829–1833] show that his dialect was early 19th-century not early modern. He wasn't trained to write differently from how he spoke. But you believe he spoke Elizabethan English in 1820s America. That's preposterous.

2. The vast majority of Book of Mormon syntax and vocabulary is early modern in character. You haven't even studied the syntax very much and so you're merely asserting. And you're ignoring the archaic lexis, as well.

3. The vast majority of these phrases were in English in the 1500s or 1600s (and some earlier, like "infinite goodness"). These come from the Protestant Reformation. See Skousen, The Nature of the Original Language (2018), 404–10 ("Excursus on Archaic Expressions"). See my paper on the Ngram Viewer: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/pitfalls-of-the-ngram-viewer/. In any event, any such phrases that have been stipulated to be late modern by critics since the 1830s cannot be used to argue that Joseph Smith authored them.

4. This is a subjective, nonrigorous 'why' point.

The syntax and vocabulary are much stronger evidence than anything you and others have brought up since they deal with what would have been nonconscious production in a lengthy dictation. When compared to the language of the King James Bible and pseudo-archaic texts, the Book of Mormon is very different in many ways, so this disproves your hypothesis as well, since you have Joseph Smith being a pseudo-biblical author. If he had been, then there wouldn't be dozens and dozens of instances nonbiblical archaic vocabulary and types of syntax.

Edited July 10, 2024 by champatsch

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

I'll be honest. I've lost track of what we are even discussing now. You earlier said that there was no evidence of a few possibilities that I proposed, for which there very much is, and now you are saying that is lots of evidence for something for which there was only one witness. 

Probably best to just agree to disagree at this point.

[Kevin Christensen]

16 hours ago, the narrator said:

There are also plenty who do both. I have probably read the text closely a couple dozen times at minimum.

 

I like Bob and consider him a friend, but he (and many others) are wrong to compare Joseph to other writers. The BofM was not a written book; it was an oral production that is filled with evidence of it being such. Writing and speaking extemporaneously use different parts of the brain and structure language differently--particularly due to writing leaving the text in place to review and remember and speaking requiring different ways for the brain to retrieve information. For this reason, while it was long thought that parallelisms and chiasmus were utilized to make memorization and recitation easier, there is new research arguing that those instead reflect the ways in which the brain retrieves information. This is based on how our brains are, for many reason, wired to see and experience the world through symmetry, and thus for millennia when humans told their stories, they would do so as the brain was prone to, by recollecting it in a symmetrical pattern that pulled the memory to its climax and then rescinded from it. Other parallel prose would be similar as well. Music and poetry generally reflects this cognitive symmetry. The reason, then, why chiasmus seemed to drop from most cultures is due to the way in which writing changes the way we recollect. Now, instead of our brains relying on what we just said to inform what we say next, we are able to look at what we have written and use that to determine what our brain should retrieve next, or what we ought to say next. I’m sure you have experienced this in your writing, as it can be very easy to talk about something, but then while writing you find yourself constantly looking back at what you had just written rather than just continuing to allow words to flow out of your mouth. (If you haven’t experience this, then I will tell you that I certainly have!)

Thus, if chiasmus is a natural result of cognitive symmetry in oral storytelling, then we ought to expect the BofM as a product of oral storytelling to contain chiasmus—especially in an account like Alma 36 that is literally recounting a narrative from memory. Of course, this would also be true if Alma Jr. were providing the narrative here. However, with Joseph Smith we have a clear and direct understanding of how this chiasmus exists in a written account. If Alma Jr. were the source, we are still left with the question of why the golden plates contained a chiasmus. Was a stenographer present? Did Alma Jr. repeat this to Helaman over and over again until he memorized it and passed it on? Did Alma Jr. later write it down—if so, how did this aspect of orality continue in the written form (as opposed to other recorded chiasmus that had previously been refined over generations of oral retellings?) Because of this the best explanation for Alma 36 is that the chiasmus present in it was Joseph's. And had that chapter been memorized and retold for generations, it would likely have also become more refined and pretty. 

No, but sure go ahead and have fun battling a straw man. As a former apologist, I am fully aware of all the supposed testable claims of the BofM, and there is not a single one that I now find satisfactory. (There really hasn't been much new since Nibley anyways, and the newer ones tend to just be attempts to modify or tighten his when they began to fail--like the constant goal post shifting of Nahom.) I don't think anything I have said here goes against the BofM possibly being a "translation" of the history of an ancient people--but at any bare minimum, I think such a belief must accept that "translation" be understood as "loosely based on real story."

I heard Bob Rees's first presentation live, and was, and remain, impressed.   I am an English major, so I had read all of the other authors he compared Joseph Smith to, and I still find it provocative and interesting.  It's not the only approach, but it remains valid.  Such exercises are part of defining the problem that Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon represent and should be part of any attempt to grasp the Big Picture.  Most secular approaches dismiss the notion of wasting time and effort by defining the problem in such detail.  In a secular paradigm, of course, Joseph Smith must have managed somehow.

As to the hypothesis that "The Book of Mormon is not a written book: it is an oral production..."   

If the best way to account for chiasmus in the Book of Mormon was Joseph Smith's brain and style, it should then be consistent in everything he did.   But that is not the the case.  It doesn't show up in the same way or the same quality and extent in his sermons or other revelations.  Welch has pointed out that different authors in the Book of Mormon use, or don't use, chiasmus, and use it in different ways.   Nephi and Jacob are more classical.  Alma is the most creative.  Moroni doesn't do it much.  And there is the complicating issue of ritual details, such as the Hebrew festivals and coronation rituals in Mosiah 1-5, as well as geographic details, and type scenes and allusion.  Specific details, especially complex festival patterns and type scene and allusion call for a different approach than style and patterns of brain function to account for them.

On the implications and significance of the notable differences between oral and literate cultures in the Book of Mormon, William Eggington and more recently Brant Gardner have looked closely.

https://scripturecentral.org/archive/presentations/report/our-weakness-writing-oral-and-literate-culture-book-mormon

https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/literacy-and-orality-book-mormon

As to the the notion of the Book of Mormon as oral performance, that sounds like the recent William Davis theory, Visions in a Seer Stone, which emphasized "laying down heads" as a technique used by 19th century preachers.  For those interested, Greg Smith provided a careful and thoughtful response.

https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/theories-and-assumptions-a-review-of-william-l-daviss-visions-in-a-seer-stone/

I also notice that the kinds of elaborate details that appeal to me, the kind that Nibley observes only show up if you look at the context that the Book of Mormon claims for itself. In naturalistic approaches, such as advocated by Taves and Davis, such details never show up, and are therefore, never explained.   Simple explanations of the Book of Mormon avoid its complexities as counterproductive.

For instance, you ask, "If Alma Jr. were the source, we are still left with the question of why the golden plates contained a chiasmus. Was a stenographer present? Did Alma Jr. repeat this to Helaman over and over again until he memorized it and passed it on? Did Alma Jr. later write it down—if so, how did this aspect of orality continue in the written form (as opposed to other recorded chiasmus that had previously been refined over generations of oral retellings?) Because of this the best explanation for Alma 36 is that the chiasmus present in it was Joseph's. And had that chapter been memorized and retold for generations, it would likely have also become more refined and pretty."

Alma the younger tells his story several times.  The first account, in Mosiah 27 is spontaneous and public.  The later accounts come many years after Alma has become the High Priest and Chief Judge in the Land of Zarahemla, replacing his father, and when he has his own children.  That means to me that Alma has been taught and trained.  He is literate in an oral society.  What is more, the occasion on which he retells his story, including Alma 36 are not random, spontaneous retellings, to be captured by a convenient lurking scribe, but were formally planned and prepared.   A particularly notable essay on that topic is by Gordon Thomasson and John W. Welch, "Sons of the Passover" in Re-exploring the Book of Mormon.  Also relevant is another essay in the same book, "Three Accounts of Alma's Conversion."   But to the Passover essay, it starts by quoting Alma 35:16.  "Alma 35:16 "He caused that his sons should be gathered together, that he might give unto them every one his charge, separately."  The essay then points out that 

Quote

What makes the link between Alma’s words to his three sons and this Passover tradition particularly striking is that, according to some Jewish customs, the sons asking questions often played out different roles and characters.3

The first was a wise son, who quoted from Deuteronomy, asking: “What mean the testimonies, and the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord our God hath commanded you?” (Deuteronomy 6:7). Alma’s eldest son, Helaman, clearly stands out as Alma’s favored or wise son,4 and it is notable that in addressing him, Alma “mentions ‘wisdom’ at least eight times in Alma 37.”5

The second was a wicked son, who quoted from Exodus, asking: “What mean ye by this service?” (Exodus 12:26).

This son is depicted in the Jewish literature as one guilty of social crimes, who had excluded himself from the community, and believed in false doctrines. According to Jewish practice, he is to be told, in a manner that will “set his teeth on edge,” that he will be punished for his own sins.6

Obviously, this description applies fittingly to Corianton, who struggled with moral transgressions and found several false doctrines attractive.7

Finally, a third son would ask, “What is this?” (Exodus 13:14). “Israelite tradition said that the uninformed son who asked this question needed to be taught the law and given preventative instruction to keep him well away from any risk of breaking the law.”8 Along these lines, Alma informatively warned Shiblon9 concerning the problems of pride, overbearance, unbridled passions, idleness, and the apostate practices of the Zoramites.

See https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/the-sonsofthepassover and https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/did-alma-counsel-his-sons-during-the-passover

For the diifferent circumstances of Alma's three accounts, see https://scripturecentral.org/archive/books/book-chapter/three-accountsofalmasconversion

As far as nothing new since Nibley, I have to disagree.  Nibley did very little on the Mesoamerican side of things, so Sorenson, Gardner, Wright, and others have offered much that is completely different from anything Nibley did.  Indeed, I can think of a great many significant contributions by hundreds of notable scholars that are distinctly original, compared to Nibley's contributions.  Indeed, the final semester of Nibley's Book of Mormon class had John Welch filling in to share Welch's temple setting for 3 Nephi.   I greatly admire Nibley, but one of the things he inspired in those who try to follow his example, is to learn and share something new.  He wrote that to be published, you should provide something "original, authentic, and significant."  I only got published in the first place because what I offered had those qualities.  As much as I learned from Nibley, my "Nigh unto Death" essay was an original contribution.  And I am just one pixel on a large screen of contributors, many of whom provide insights that left to myself I would have never imagined.  And collectively, none of us outshine what Joseph Smith managed to accomplish in dictating the Book of Mormon.

FWIW,

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

 

[the narrator]

34 minutes ago, champatsch said:

It's not an apologetic argument.

Oh it most certainly is, and it only is offered and presented in that context. It exists purely to distance the BofM text from Joseph Smith, and it fails spectacularly because it is only trying to find EME in the BofM without bothering to ask how or why it is in there, or how or why an EME text would be surrounded with modern english and a multitude of theological phrases from late-18th and early 19th sermons and publications.

37 minutes ago, champatsch said:

1. Joseph Smith's early writings [1829–1833] show that his dialect was early 19th-century not early modern.

Absolutely, and simultaneously examples of EME can be found in his "writings" (mostly dictated) and in the words of his colleagues and contemporaneous publications.

38 minutes ago, champatsch said:

He wasn't trained to write differently from how he spoke.

He wasn't trained to write at all. Like most children of his time, his limited education would have consisted primarily of listening, memorization, and recitation, with little to no writing. He would have also primarily learned to read at home with the KJV.

40 minutes ago, champatsch said:

So you believe he spoke Elizabethan English in 1820s America.

No. He spoke modern English with a New England dialect. The BofM, like many pseudo-biblical works of the time, added an Elizabethan flare to make it feel more like scripture.

41 minutes ago, champatsch said:

2. The vast majority of Book of Mormon syntax and vocabulary is early modern in character.

No it isn't. And even if it was, any explanation of the EME in the BofM would need to be explain why it is surrounded by modern English and filled with numerous phrases from late-18th and early 19th sermons and publications.

43 minutes ago, champatsch said:

3. The vast majority of these phrases were in English in the 1500s or 1600s (and some earlier, like "infinite goodness")

Lolz. You made this ignorant response without even looking at the phrases I linked to: "steadfastness in Christ," "natural man is an enemy to God," "should serve him who hath," and "deny yourselves of all ungodliness." There are certainly many, many more. These are just phrases I pulled from Tad Callister's unironically hilarious list of passages from the BofM that he thought proved its ancient historicity.

54 minutes ago, champatsch said:

4. This is a subjective, nonrigorous 'why' point.

No, it's a crucial point that highlights the problem of Carmack and Skousen's thesis, why it is such a poor apologetic argument, and why it has little to no value. It is also one of the reasons why Carmack's submission[s] to BYU Studies were rejected.

 

59 minutes ago, champatsch said:

When compared to the language of the King James Bible and pseudo-archaic texts, the Book of Mormon is very different in many ways

That's because (1) it was dictated centuries after the KJV and is instead mimicking the language of the KJV and not coming from it; and (2) because it was dictated by a different person and different context than other pseudo-biblical text of the time, which themselves are different from each other in many ways.

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

so this disproves your hypothesis as well, since you have Joseph Smith being a pseudo-biblical author. If he had been, then there wouldn't be dozens and dozens of instances nonbiblical archaic vocabulary and types of syntax.

I don't even know what a "pseudo-biblical author" is, nor have I called Joseph that. I simply said that Joseph added KJV-flare to the dictation (as "author" or translator"); this doesn't mean that the entirety of the text was perfectly emulating the KJV.

Anyways, as I have said before, the prevalence of theological phrases and concepts from late 18th and early 19th century sermons and publication make absolute and unequivocal that the text of the BofM was dictated by someone steeped in Christian theological musings of the time of its dictation, and that makes plenty of sense, given that the explicit author/translator had likely attended hundreds of sermons over the years as he sought to understand which church he should join.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, brownbear said:

didn't many of the biblical writers take the myths of their day, combine it with their spiritual experiences, and produce text describing their experiences with God?

Which would be very different from when modern writers (20th and 21st century) do the same due to likely very different views on what those myths were. (Just making an observation)

Edited July 10, 2024 by Calm

[the narrator]

58 minutes ago, Kevin Christensen said:

it should then be consistent in everything he did.

Nope. If it is a result of how the brain recollects information, particularly when there is a point to the narrative, then its occurrence would primarily be limited to such instances. Alma 36 is a great example, and there it makes the most sense for that construction to come from Joseph's brain (whether as author or loose translator) than from Alma Jr and subsequently retained in the BofM for the reasons I discussed. A big problem with chiasmus in BofM discourse, is that it almost always focuses on the apologist's favorite question, "How could Joseph have known?!?!?" and treating chiasmus as an intentional structuring rather than a natural result of a particular type of brain function in oral discourse. And thus debates about chiasmus in the BofM and Joseph's other writings argue over how clean or well-constructed a chiasmus is, comparing it to chiasms in the Bible and elsewhere that had mostly gone through generations of oral revision before being put to text. Hence, while some eager apologists and critics want to point to possible examples in his writings and revelations for opposing reasons, others find them lacking due to not living up to other stronger examples. A big problem with looking into Joseph's other writings is that few of them have the rigid dictation utilized during the BofM production, and the types of texts more likely to contain chiasmus as a result of the brain's method of recollecting the type of narrative likely to have a chiasmus--like Joseph's History--were largely ghost-authored by others.

As for the rest, I don't have time to respond to your barrage of lists of links to apologetic arguments as you are prone to do. (Spending way too much time here lately, as it is. ) If you care to pick the strongest and lay it out in your own words, maybe I could engage it.

[the narrator]

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

How often would you say you refer to it for self-reflection, serving and building relationships with others and your community, and engaging in liberation theology?

Quite often before, but rarely now that I no longer participate. I do enjoy working with other authors though and helping them put their insights into print though.

[SeekingUnderstanding]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

problem of Carmack

Just FYI, you are talking to Carmack IIRC. Champ is carmack. 

[the narrator]

2 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Just FYI, you are talking to Carmack IIRC. Champ is carmack. 

Lolz. Even better.

[champatsch]

1 hour ago, the narrator said:

Lolz. Even better.

If you don't know what a pseudo-archaic or pseudo-biblical author is, then you are underinformed and unprepared to address this subject in a competent way. That topic has been discussed for many years. Look at Eran Shalev's article on the subject: “ ‘Written in the Style of Antiquity’: Pseudo-Biblicism and the Early American Republic, 1770–1830,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 79.4 (2010): 800–26.

1562, EEBO A11245, page image 30
For suche was I say, their sted⸗fastnes in Christe Iesu,

1680, George Sikes, An Exposition of Ecclesiastes
This doing justly, in humbling our guilty natural man or spirit, the enemy of God, even to the death thereof.

1653, A40938, 5
All the workes of the Lord are strange to the carnall and earthly minded man, because he is an enemy to God, and the naturall man knowes not the things of God, because they are spiritually discerned:

"should serve him who hath" (non-constituent, random excerpt)
1532, A68080, image 71
O with what loue and dylygence shulde we serue hym / whiche hath gyuen syght vnto vs beynge blynde /
1622, A20762, 684
and not that wee should serue him, who hath right vnto vs by this great benefit of our creation.
1666, A35538, 709
Can the Son of Jess do these things for you? It is a wonder that any should serve him, that hath nothing to bestow upon them;

 

The KJV flare argument doesn't work (aka the pseudo-biblical argument), since the Book of Mormon is repeatedly anti- or non-biblical in its usage (independently archaic).

One example is "if it so be". The King James text has only "if so be", so do pseudo-archaic texts. These phrases come out of late Middle English. The Book of Mormon only has "if it so be", and much more than any other known text, 42×.

Seven times the Book of Mormon has "if it so be <object.clause>" with an analytical subjunctive marker shall or should in the object clause. See if you can find a few of those in a 19c text. Maybe you'll get lucky and find it. How about finding "it supposeth <obj.> <obj.clause>" in any other text?

 

From Titus 2:12
===========

1630, A02551, 78    denying the power of Godlinesse, resolue to denie your selues, to denie all vngodlinesse and worldly lusts, and to
1649, A49761, 127    and living so, because by it wee deny our selves in wordly lusts, as the words before are, denying ungodlinesse
1652, A57154, 7    Col. 3. 5. in which sense to Deny a mans self, is in the Apostles phrase, to Deny ungodliness
1653, A86053, 36²    ome things; the Law enables us to deny our selves but in some things, some ungodliness: and indeed it
1661, A45190, 303    denying the power of Godlinesse, resolve to deny your selves, to deny all ungodlinesse and worldly lusts, and to
1667, A70057, 189    believing in Christ alone? or will the denyal of our selves, and all ungodliness and worldly lusts (as Scripture
1668, A39932, 231    memory be, there wants nothing to thy denial of thy self, and all ungodliness, and worldly lusts, if thou

Edited July 10, 2024 by champatsch

[the narrator]

15 minutes ago, champatsch said:

If you don't know what a pseudo-archaic or pseudo-biblical author

I know what pseudo-biblical and pseudo-archaic writings are, I had just never heard the phrase "pseudo-biblical author" before, which makes sense, since a google search only resulted in a few results, one of which was you.

I'll give you "steadfastness in Christ" appearing before the 18th century, but that proves nothing about EME at all--especially given it's prevalence in 19th century literature. As far as your attempts at the rest, such as "natural man is an enemy to god," showing some of the words grouped together in a different order doesn't exactly do you much--especially when the BofM not only uses the exact phrase, word for word, that John Wesley seemed to have coined, but employs much of Wesley's theological ideas. (Years ago I was at a conference for the Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology, where Noel Reynolds was amazed by how Lehi had come up with prevenient grace two millennia before Wesley, and I remember thinking, Uh, aren't you making a case that the BofM was inspired by it?)

 

41 minutes ago, champatsch said:

The KJV flare argument doesn't work (aka the pseudo-biblical argument), since the Book of Mormon is repeatedly anti- or non-biblical in its usage (independently archaic).

One example is "if it so be". The King James text has only "if so be", so do pseudo-archaic texts. These phrases come out of late Middle English. The Book of Mormon only has "if it so be", and much more than any other known text, 42×.

Seven times the Book of Mormon has "if it so be <object.clause>" with an analytical subjunctive marker shall or should in the object clause. See if you can find a few of those in a 19c text. 

Huh? Is this a serious response? Let me see... Hmm. Let's start with D&C 18:15: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days..." and D&C 61:22: "if it so be that they fill their mission..." So the second one lacks the shall/should, but that wasn't part of the first half of your claim anyways.

BUT, BUT, BUT THAT'S JUST JOSEPH COPYING THE LANGUAGE FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON THAT WAS TRANSLATED BY TYNDALE!! (or whatever is claimed these days).

Okay, let's go with these examples of "if it so be <object.clause>" from the 19th century:

"If it so be that this commission has not risen"

"But if it so be that they are . . . under the influence..."

"If it so be that we must see..."

"If it so be that the court does not know..."

(A lot of books were also reprinting Chaucer, but I kept those out, even though those very much count as evidence that the phrase was in publication at the time.

Interestingly, this 1879 grammar book discuses "if it so be."

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

How about finding "it supposeth <obj.> <obj.clause>" in any other text?

Well, there is only one instance of that in the BofM, but let's see:

"it supposeth the people of God to have..."

a little easier if we change the subject though:

"He supposeth me . . . to deny all gracious..."

"he supposeth me to have, to lead..."

oh look, more "it supposeth.."

"it supposeth . . . that that model . . . stood at that time..." (this is just one of many in this book)

"it supposeth . . . this dead stock still remained safe..."(a lot of examples in this book, including 3 others on the same page)

and these are just from the first page of good book search results. I'll stop here though.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

From Titus 2:12

I'm talking about exact phrases used word-for-word with the same context. Try again.

I'm really thinking you ought to do more research and ask those questions I suggest to you. Doing so might prevent you from having to issue corrections for mistakes that should never have been made in the first place.

This all reminds me though, some years back I left a comment on an Interpreter post pointing out how the phrase "plan of salvation" was widely popular in sermons and theological writings of the late 19th and 20th centuries--and not just that but used in the same theological context as Jonathan Edwards and others. At the time your only response was that "plan of" could be found in EME texts. Since then I found one usage predating the 18th century in 1672, but it lacks the same theological usage found in later sermons and the BofM. Do you know of any others?

Finally, a lot of your work seems to imply that books and texts written in EME died and disappeared from the planet, never to be read or distributed again. You should give this book a read,

[champatsch]

The examples you provided for the Book of Mormon's supposeth syntax are not impersonal, simple datives. I've already looked at many examples like those, years ago. They're not on point. No need to suppose that I haven't considered the relevant data, since I have adequate training in linguistic analysis, I have made large, precisely searchable databases with billions of words, and I have searched for thousands of things relevant to the original Book of Mormon text, in many different databases. Look at my Ngram Viewer paper and all my other papers.

Impersonal, simple dative is the OED's classification of Gower's "him supposeth" and that is precisely the syntax of "it supposeth me that <clause>." I took the OED seriously, but verified the entry for myself. If you don't agree with this, then you're saying that you're a more reliable arbiter of English usage than the experienced, polyglot lexicographers of the crowd-sourced OED.

There are 4 instances in the Book of Mormon, not 1.

In effect, you've also said that you know more than the OED for at least 50 vocabulary items, that all the contextual, archaic meanings verifiably present in the original text were still current in 1820s American English, even though the OED says the contextual meanings were obsolete. That being the case, then why don't you submit all those nonbiblical archaic quotations to the OED so they can update their dictionary to reflect all the American English dialect data that they neglected to put in the dictionary since the 1880s.

Yes, you're right, you can't use Doctrine and Covenants data. You can't use text that is part of Joseph Smith's revelatory output. He might or might not have authored it.  See my paper on Doctrine and Covenants language.  (Why do you think others weren't able to meet the challenge posed in §67.  That was much more likely to be the case if Joseph didn't word the revelations.)

You need to find usage outside of those texts, elsewhere in the late 18c and early 19c – examples like these seven, with the subjunctive markers shall and should triggered by the emphatic hypothetical:

1 Nephi 17:13
And I will prepare the way before you
if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments.

1 Nephi 19:19
Wherefore I speak unto all the house of Israel,
if it so be that they should obtain these things.

2 Nephi 1:7
And if it so be that they shall serve him
according to the commandments which he hath given,

2 Nephi 1:9
And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments,
they shall be blessed upon the face of this land.

2 Nephi 3:2
for thy security forever,
if it so be that ye shall keep the commandments of the Holy One of Israel.

2 Nephi 6:12
For behold, if it so be that they shall repent and fight not against Zion

Jacob 5:64
And if it so be that these last grafts shall grow and bring forth the natural fruit,

 

And why did Joseph Smith only use "if it so be" 42×, against the Bible's categorical use of "if so be", if he was so saturated in biblical idiom, as you think?

So you think that exact phrases, word for word, are required to show matching with Book of Mormon usage? But not exact syntax? No, it's the other way around. The close examples I provided show that all that phrasal meaning was conceptually in the language in the early modern period. What has to be exact are various syntactic constructions (like "it supposeth <object.dative> <object.clause>"), although a variety of words can be used that fill out the syntactic structures.

I'm afraid you don't seem to understand that general syntactic evidence is much, much stronger for authorship than phrasal evidence with persistent, basic syntactic properties. The latter cannot determine that Joseph Smith authored the text, while the large amount of archaic syntax (and also vocabulary) that isn't biblical or pseudo-biblical is sufficient to disprove that he was the author.

You're using phrasal evidence that has been stipulated to be 19c, and you're also employing a double standard. If the language was around in the 1400s, but it looks like it was common in the late 18c and early 19c (mostly disregarding the explosion of published words, dwarfing earlier decades and centuries), then you say it's 19c language and evidence that Joseph Smith authored it. But you reject all the archaic vocabulary and syntax as an artifact of an unsubstantiated archaic dialect that Joseph Smith presumably spoke, or an artifact of an off-the-charts pseudo-archaic production, without ever seriously studying much of the data.

Yes, I recall a question you posed, made in early 2016. In your question you misrepresented our position as part of your question. You set up a strawman, that we said the Book of Mormon was a strictly early modern text. If you look at my first published paper on the topic of Book of Mormon English—“A Look at Some ‘Nonstandard’ Book of Mormon Grammar,” Interpreter 11 (2014): 239–40 (209–62)—I mentioned a syntactic pattern of the text that was late modern in character, which is auxiliary selection in the perfect tenses of unaccusative verbs. And of course Skousen had indicated the varied nature of the language through the years in many of his analyses, long before I began studying the text. It supposeth me that you knew this.

In NOL, he/we treated a small number of vocabulary items that arose in the 18c. Some phrases did as well. Most "plan of X" phrases first appear in that century. Those are written up in NOL. You probably haven't read that. That said, "plan of X" was conceptually in the language by the end of the 17c, since "plan of our redemption" occurs in 1697.

Here's another one to look for, object "they which" (personal, 23×), as in:

2 Nephi 29:7
Know ye not that I the Lord your God have created all men
and that I remember they which are upon the isles of the sea

This would have been Joseph Smith's ninth choice, since his earliest writings, agreeing with contemporaneous usage, indicate that he first would have used "those who" in this context. I've seen object "he which" in the 1600s, but not "they which", yet (just false positives). But there is object "they that" (personal) in the early modern period, which is synonymous. Conjoined object they is distinguishable, of course.

[JarMan]

8 hours ago, the narrator said:

Anyways, as I have said before, the prevalence of theological phrases and concepts from late 18th and early 19th century sermons and publication make absolute and unequivocal that the text of the BofM was dictated by someone steeped in Christian theological musings of the time of its dictation, and that makes plenty of sense, given that the explicit author/translator had likely attended hundreds of sermons over the years as he sought to understand which church he should join.

The theological and political discussions in the Book of Mormon are much more closely related to early modern, European discussions than they are to the things 19th Century Americans were worried about. How concerned were Joseph's contemporaries with issues like burning heretics at the stake, kingship, or Erastianism? You won't find anything, on the other hand, that doesn't neatly fit an early modern, European context.

Edited July 11, 2024 by JarMan

[the narrator]

57 minutes ago, champatsch said:

The examples you provided for the Book of Mormon's supposeth syntax are not impersonal, simple datives.

You probably should have asked for that then instead of changing the demand and whining that I didn't read your mind.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

I've already looked at many examples like those, years ago. They're not on point. No need to suppose that I haven't considered the relevant data

Well given your track record of claiming you've looked at examples when you didn't (just as you did in a reply to me above when you clearly didn't) and the need to release a substantive correction to many that you missed that were readily pointed out to you, it's a bit hard to believe you on that.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

I took the OED seriously, but verified the entry for myself. If you don't agree with this, then you're saying that you're a more reliable arbiter of English usage than the experienced, polyglot lexicographers of the crowd-sourced OED.

Nah, I'm not going to claim that, but I will claim that you assume a completeness of the OED that simply isn't the case.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

There are 4 instances in the Book of Mormon, not 1.

You specifically, asked: "How about finding "it supposeth <obj.> <obj.clause>" in any other text?"

See that "it" there, so there are two instances, not 4. I was doing a quick search and missed it.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

In effect, you've also said that you know more than the OED for at least 50 vocabulary items

Nope. I haven't, but I have heard other scholars discuss how you abuse the OED. But, I am no arbiter of who is right there, though I tend to trust those who have been published in academic journals more than those who got rejected by them.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

That being the case, then why don't you submit all those nonbiblical archaic quotations to the OED so they can update their dictionary to reflect all the American English dialect data that they neglected to put in the dictionary since the 1880s.

Dude, grow up some.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

You're using phrasal evidence that has been stipulated to be 19c, and you're also employing a double standard. If the language was around in the 1400s, but it looks like it was common in the late 18c and early 19c (mostly disregarding the explosion of published words, dwarfing earlier decades and centuries), then you say it's 19c language and evidence that Joseph Smith authored it.

No. What I am saying is that if those phrases and language clearly exist in 19c publications, then your apologetic goal of distancing Joseph from the BofM text by appealing to similar language as EME is nonsense. The fact of the matter is that aspects of EME were retained in New England dialects through the 19th century and that books with EME were still being widely published during that time, and so bits and pieces of EME scattered throughout the BofM is not some big deal at says nothing about whether Joseph had a role in the language of the text. I am not disputing that EME appears in the BofM, I'm disputing the value you place in it.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Yes, you're right, you can't use Doctrine and Covenants data.

Oh, I very well can. You are the one who doesn't want it used because you don't want Joseph to have a role in the BofM's English. I agree with Grant Underwood and virtually every historian with the JSPP that Joseph had an active role in the language of his revelations.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

You need to find usage outside of those texts, elsewhere in the late 18c and early 19c – examples like these seven, with the subjunctive markers shall and should triggered by the emphatic hypothetical:

I did. See my examples. If there is any real difference, it's due to different punctuation.

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

if he was so saturated in biblical idiom, as you think?

What are you talking about? Nobody is claiming that Joseph perfectly phrased the BofM text in KJV language. I certainly haven't. I only said that he was" mimicking the language of the KJV," and he didn't do a very good job at it and wasn't very thorough. It's such a bizarre strawman that you are fighting here.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

So you think that exact phrases, word for word, are required to show matching with Book of Mormon usage?

No, I'm saying that the appearance in the Book of Mormon of numerous exact phrases, word for word, from late 18th and 19th century religious sermons and publications make it absolute and unequivocal that the (English) language of the BofM text was given by someone from that timeframe. Given that Joseph Smith clearly had the ability to seamlessly weave in numerous scriptural phrases from all over the Bible, word for word, in his personal writings and revelations (which you'll inevitably complain about including) in the same way that they appear in the BofM, it seems very reasonable to assume that he was the one providing the English text of the BofM and weaving those theological phrases into it.

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

But you reject all the archaic vocabulary and syntax as an artifact of an unsubstantiated archaic dialect that Joseph Smith presumably spoke, or an artifact of an off-the-charts pseudo-archaic production, without ever seriously studying much of the data.

I do so simply by easily being able to point out that the exact language was appearing in publications of the time. I am no scholar of EME. I'm trained in philosophy. And I'm just employing critical though that is lacking in your work.

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

Yes, I recall a question you posed, made in early 2016. In your question you misrepresented our position as part of your question. You set up a strawman, that we said the Book of Mormon was a strictly early modern text.

If the whole point of your research has been to say, "Hey look, there are things in the BofM that look like EME, and we don't know why," then I suggest you actually start asking why instead of shrugging your shoulders and thinking "must be divine!" and using it to distance Joseph from the text. I am happy to know now that you believe the BofM text is filled with modern English and modern theological phrases and ideas and isn't some 16th century production.

 

1 hour ago, champatsch said:

In NOL, he/we treated a small number of vocabulary items that arose in the 18c. Some phrases did as well. Most "plan of X" phrases first appear in that century. Those are written up in NOL. You probably haven't read that. That said, "plan of X" was conceptually in the language by the end of the 17c, since "plan of our redemption" occurs in 1697.

Again, I'm not talking about mere syntax. I'm referring to a specific phrase and its associated theological concept. 

Honestly, this is going nowhere. Good luck, and please let me know when you get published on this in a scholarly venue outside of the Interpreter. As much as you like to tout your knowledge, superiority, and credentials (actually, maybe you don't have that, I dunno), surely you will find peer reviewers knowledgeable on in the field that will endorse your work for publication rather than reject it.

[Peacefully]

On 7/8/2024 at 4:21 PM, brownbear said:

Nuanced (and former) members of the church will have a wide variety of opinions about Joseph Smith and his translation projects. However, there seems to be a gap between “real translation” and “pious fraud”. This is addressing those who see the Book of Mormon as inspired scripture, but non-historical. 

The church has recognized that even though the Book of Abraham may have little to do with the papyri, Joseph Smith was able to use it as a springboard to get revelation (i.e. catalyst). It seems possible that he believed he was translating real records, even when he wasn’t. Edit: The church allows a Book of Abraham catalyst theory, but has not abandoned the missing scroll theory.

I am wondering if this same logic can be extended to the Book of Mormon. For those who see it as 19th century American scripture, do you believe Joseph Smith thought he was translating a genuine record of ancient Nephites? Obviously, this introduces the question of Moroni and the golden plates. The golden plates can take a few different approaches; a Ann Taves approach where Joseph Smith created the plates but they were “transformed” into an ancient record; a Sonia Hazard approach where he found printing plates; some other approach. 

I am curious where everyone falls? Do you believe Joseph Smith thought his translation projects were literal translations of real people?

It’s only recently I’ve even contemplated that the majority of the Bible may be figurative instead of literal. I can’t even wrap my head around the possibility of the BOM not being historical, and the thought of Joseph Smith not believing he was translating an actual account about real people has never crossed my mind…until now. 🤯 

However, I found out in my management training that I make decisions based on gut instinct or intuition more than facts, so I really don’t need the Bible or BOM or Joseph Smith to make logical sense to me because my gut, and the spirit, tells me there is a lot of truth and good in all of them, 

[champatsch]

7 hours ago, the narrator said:

8 hours ago, champatsch said:

The examples you provided for the Book of Mormon's supposeth syntax are not impersonal, simple datives.

You probably should have asked for that then instead of changing the demand and whining that I didn't read your mind.

Excuse me? I provided the OED entry and told you that the OED had determined that the language only occurred in that poem. And I provided an exact breakdown of the syntax (see the previous page), which aligns with the OED's position. So no, I didn't change the demand, and apparently you're lacking in linguistic acumen so you don't even know it.

*************************

So, here we have it, everyone. This scornful scholar hasn't even seriously considered the syntax of the text, which covers the core of the language, the verb phrase, and reveals its primary character. And he has exposed himself that he doesn't even know much about syntax in general, or the syntax of the Book of Mormon, pseudo-archaic texts, or the King James Bible. And he uses the term apologetic as a lame putdown. And he hasn't looked at the vocabulary, either. And he probably hasn't examined all the biblical passages, noting differences and types. He's somehow figured it all out without studying a large amount of the relevant data. That's academic arrogance for you.

There's a disconnect when someone who makes a good faith effort to consider the available data interacts with someone who doesn't do so, but behaves as though he does.

Edited July 11, 2024 by champatsch

[champatsch]

7 hours ago, the narrator said:

8 hours ago, champatsch said:

There are 4 instances in the Book of Mormon, not 1.

You specifically, asked: "How about finding "it supposeth <obj.> <obj.clause>" in any other text?"

See that "it" there, so there are two instances, not 4. I was doing a quick search and missed it.

Jacob 2:8
And it supposeth me that they have come up hither to hear the pleasing word of God,

The Words of Mormon 1:2
And it supposeth me that he will witness the entire destruction of my people.

Alma 54:11 (2×)
But behold, it supposeth me that I talk to you concerning these things in vain,
or it supposeth me that thou art a child of hell.

*************************

The latter is directly applicable to this case.

[champatsch]

For those who can appreciate Book of Mormon English usage.

The following archaic set is a combination of a past perfect subordinate clause headed by “after that” (which was primarily 16th-century usage and earlier) followed by a past-tense main clause with non-emphatic positive periphrastic did (early modern usage that strengthened after 1530 and faded in the 17th century). The strongest intersection of these time periods is the mid to late 1500s. That’s what the following usage is most characteristic of. There are 12 of these in the dictation language, but none in 25+ pseudo-archaic texts or the King James Bible. In fact, hardly any archaic/biblical "after that <clause>" occurs in pseudo-archaic texts (1 text), even though it's salient in the Bible. So for some reason, "after that" usage wasn't imitated very much. The original Book of Mormon text has more than 110 such instances, and 10 of these have analytical subjunctive marking with shall or should, while the Bible only has 1 such example.

For this particular combination, the most I found elsewhere was 7 in a 1550 translation of Thucydides.

1 Nephi 7:21
And after that they had done praying unto the Lord,
we did again travel on our journey toward the tent of our father.

1 Nephi 8:25
And after that they had partook of the fruit of the tree,
they did cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed.

1 Nephi 16:14
And after that we had slain food for our families,
we did return again to our families in the wilderness to the place of Shazer.

1 Nephi 16:17
And after that we had traveled for the space of many days,
we did pitch our tents for the space of a time,

1 Nephi 16:33
And after that we had traveled for the space of many days,
we did pitch our tents again,

1 Nephi 17:11
And after that I had made bellowses
that I might have wherewith to blow the fire,
I did smite two stones together

1 Nephi 18:21
and after that I had prayed,
the winds did cease and the storm did cease and there was a great calm.

2 Nephi 5:7
And after that we had journeyed for the space of many days,
we did pitch our tents.

Ether 6:21
And after that they had numbered them,
they did desire of them the things
which they would that they should do

Ether 10:10
And after that he had established himself king,
he did ease the burden of the people,

Ether 10:17
And after that he had seen many days, he did pass away,
even like unto the rest of the earth,

Moroni 9:10
and after that they had done this thing,
they did murder them in a most cruel manner,

The standard we're supposed to accept is that Joseph Smith absorbed scores of theological expressions from his time, perhaps even reading some of them. But the same standard isn't applied to the archaic syntax, although to be rigorous, it needs to be. In this syntactic case, there's at least one (Scottish English) poetic example in the 1790s, but the little that appears in ECCO in late 18c books is reprinted 17c language (the last 30 yrs of ECCO has 4.4b words; 1801–30 has more than 4.4b words; 225 years of EEBO has only 1.4b words – a very large word per year difference, leading to presentist analyses and conclusions).

So did Joseph hear this in poetry, or did he listen to preachers reading from the just the right 17c theological books that had an example of this, or did he somehow read Nicolls' 1550 translation of Thucydides? And how did he absorb an uncommon relative pronoun pattern of the year 1600, which pervades the text (heavy in personal which)? No pseudo-archaic author came close to that, and Joseph Smith didn't use that day to day, and American dialects didn't have that pattern. How about the text's heavy finite clausal complementation after the high-frequency verbs of influence cause, command, suffer. There's no pseudo-archaic text that functions that way, and the Bible doesn't either. One has to go back to Caxton's 1483 translation of Legenda aurea sanctorum to get it, and only then after the verb command. So, was Joseph Smith listening to someone reading from that? How about the conjunction save. There's no text that has a bunch of subordinate save-clauses with archaic subjunctive marking and the prevalent pro-clausal "save it «be»" usage. There's only a few texts that even have one or two of some of these. Time to get real about the syntax. It isn't 18c or 19c syntax, and it isn't pseudo-archaic syntax or biblical syntax.

[the narrator]

Posted this to the wrong thread last night:

Sorry. I may have allowed some frustrations to boil into ad hominems and just plain bullyishness.

Gonna part from this thread.

[champatsch]

On the OED, if one looks at NOL, which treats vocabulary, among many other things, we inserted examples that went beyond the last-dated quotations in the OED. For example, on page 113 there is a 1615 example of the intransitive verb depart meaning 'divide', which is 38 years after the OED's last-dated quotation. So of course we are well aware that the OED isn't fully accurate; we show that in our work. Over time, as databases improve, then latest dates for obsolescence will be pushed forward.

The non-scholarly approach is to summarily dismiss NOL write-ups and potentially relevant OED entries, and to wrongly say that we treat the OED as complete. Another non-scholarly approach is to treat Webster's 1828 as accurate and informative about obsolescence. It is known that obsolescence was often not noted in that dictionary, which is inferior to the OED and inadequate to cover some Book of Mormon meaning.

A more general point is that if the Book of Mormon does in fact have vocabulary whose meanings were obsolete in Joseph Smith's dialect, then he didn't come up with those word choices himself. This strong possibility is annoying to many scholars, for various reasons. What needs to be shown to overturn this position, in at least 50 instances, is persistent usage up to the 1800s. That will make the OED, as it currently stands, wrong on 50+ counts. The same thing needs to be done with various types of archaic syntax.

[Ryan Dahle]

17 hours ago, champatsch said:

Yes, I recall a question you posed, made in early 2016. In your question you misrepresented our position as part of your question. You set up a strawman, that we said the Book of Mormon was a strictly early modern text. If you look at my first published paper on the topic of Book of Mormon English—“A Look at Some ‘Nonstandard’ Book of Mormon Grammar,” Interpreter 11 (2014): 239–40 (209–62)—I mentioned a syntactic pattern of the text that was late modern in character, which is auxiliary selection in the perfect tenses of unaccusative verbs. And of course Skousen had indicated the varied nature of the language through the years in many of his analyses, long before I began studying the text. It supposeth me that you knew this.

As someone who has read most of volume 3 of Skousen's Critical Text project ("The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon") and also every single one of Carmack's publications on the Book of Mormon, I can vouch for this concern. Almost without fail, those who critique Skousen's and Carmack's research significantly misrepresent it. Or it's clear that they simply don't understand it. They certainly don't address it in its entirety. I get the feeling that they actually haven't carefully read most of it.

Moreover, the types of responses, as seen in the following descriptions from The Narrator, suggest what we are observing may be largely an emotive, rather than a rationale and informed, reaction: 

Quote

"I'm sorry, but the Early Modern English is perhaps the worst apologetic "scholarly" argument for the BofM offered in the 21st century"

"The silly EME apologetic exists purely to distance Joseph Smith from the text of the BofM, and it fails spectacularly at doing so."

"Lolz. You made this ignorant response without even looking at the phrases I linked to: "steadfastness in Christ," "natural man is an enemy to God," "should serve him who hath," and "deny yourselves of all ungodliness." There are certainly many, many more. These are just phrases I pulled from Tad Callister's unironically hilarious list of passages from the BofM that he thought proved its ancient historicity."

"Lolz. Even better."

"Huh? Is this a serious response? Let me see... Hmm. Let's start with D&C 18:15: "And if it so be that you should labor all your days..." and D&C 61:22: "if it so be that they fill their mission..." So the second one lacks the shall/should, but that wasn't part of the first half of your claim anyways. BUT, BUT, BUT THAT'S JUST JOSEPH COPYING THE LANGUAGE FROM THE BOOK OF MORMON THAT WAS TRANSLATED BY TYNDALE!! (or whatever is claimed these days)."

"You probably should have asked for that then instead of changing the demand and whining that I didn't read your mind."
 

"Dude, grow up some."

The apparent degree of scorn for the research of someone who is demonstrably more qualified than anyone else (in these conversations) to comment on these types of linguistic matters is somewhat telling. I have had numerous personal interactions with Stan, and I can say that basically every time I thought that I had seen something new or unusual or unaccounted for in the Book of Mormon's lexis, grammar, or syntax, Stan was already way ahead of me. Usually within a few hours, he replies with examples and data that he had already compiled on those topics but just hadn't yet published.

Carmack and Skousen have thought longer and harder about this than anyone else, and they have actively tried to disprove their own thesis over and over again. Hands down, they have studied the Book of Mormon's language more scrupulously and thoroughly than anyone on the planet. They better understand the actual language and linguistic principles. They better understand the strengths and limitations of the databases. And I assure you, they are fully aware of the oral vs. written language concerns. They typically understand the arguments of the detractors better than their detractors, and have already accounted for the concerns that have been raised. You actually have to read their research to know that, though.

In short, these types of dismissive and condescending responses are just baffling to me. 

Edited July 11, 2024 by Ryan Dahle

[SeekingUnderstanding]

32 minutes ago, Ryan Dahle said:

Carmack and Skousen have thought longer and harder about this than anyone else,

Hi Ryan and @champatsch. Not looking to get into the data with you, but I am interested in hearing what you both think the data means. Like was there a translator in the 16th century? In England? How and why did he or she get access to the text? Or is pre-kjv English the Lords preferred language? If so, why? Why make the scriptures more difficult for the lay-person to access? Or something else? How does that mesh with what the church teaches? For example here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng "The angel charged Joseph Smith to translate the book from the ancient language in which it was written." 

[ZealouslyStriving]

9 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Or is pre-kjv English the Lords preferred language? If so, why?

I'm actually interested in this myself

Why use a form of English already in disuse? I don't know how this argues for the Book of Mormon- and I am a strident believer.

Edited July 11, 2024 by ZealouslyStriving