New scholarly article on Rigdon-Book of Mormon connection

[Snow]

If you don’t want to read the evidence from that site then go read Michael Quinn’s book which is cited on that page. Michael Quinn still believes in Mormonism. He had access to the LDS Church history office and took copious notes for years. If you don’t want to read anti sites you’ll never learn anything. I read both anti-Mormon and pro-Mormon sites and then decide where the evidence lies. I do the same for Catholicism. Based on the information I’ve received I’ve rejected Mormonism and accepted Catholicism. I’m certainly not going to waste time typing out information which can be readily had at other places on the internet. If you label something “anti-Mormon” just because someone who has rejected Mormonism presents it then we are wasting time here.

To be honest, it was a rhetorical challenge. I knew that you would not and could not back up your claims. You kids are nothing if not completely unoriginal and predictable.

As for Quinn, I know him personally and have spoken with him about his views on a number of occassions - unlike you, I am sure, I’ve actually read his books. Frankly I doubt that there is a single think about The Church of Jesus Christ that you know that I don’t know. The difference however is that I don’t frequent lightweight anti-Mormon sites. I take my information from official sources and legitimate scholars.

… but as I say, I knew you couldn’t back up claims.

 

[Stephen168]

What on earth makes you think that I assert that the questions asked in my post have anything even remotely related to the age of BoM authorship?

My point is they have nothing to do with the age of the Book of Mormon, which is the subject of this thread.

You also seem to want to denigrate the New Testament as a way to bolster the Book of Mormon. Of course the whole basis of the Book of Mormon is found in the Biblical story so you can’t denigrate the Bible without denigrating the Book of Mormon. Denigrating the authority of the Bible is a common Mormon tactic, but it does nothing to help one believe in the Book of Mormon.

The difference between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon is that with the New Testament we can be sure the writers were contemporary with those who experienced the history written there. The writers had access to Mary and the other apostles or other people who might have known them. We have no such assurance with the Book of Mormon. Any first hand source in history is only as good as the writer who wrote it whether we are talking about the New Testament or some ancient Roman battle, but at least we can say the writers lived contemporary to the event. There is no such assurance with the Book of Mormon.** The evidence points to it not being an ancient source, but instead a 19th century creation from whole cloth. Now there is evidence (and again you can accept it or reject it, but it is evidence) that Sidney Rigdon and Solomon Spalding were among the writers of the Book of Mormon**.

 

[BartBurk]

To be honest, it was a rhetorical challenge. I knew that you would not and could not back up your claims. You kids are nothing if not completely unoriginal and predictable.

As for Quinn, I know him personally and have spoken with him about his views on a number of occassions - unlike you, I am sure, I’ve actually read his books. Frankly I doubt that there is a single think about The Church of Jesus Christ that you know that I don’t know. The difference however is that I don’t frequent lightweight anti-Mormon sites. I take my information from official sources and legitimate scholars.

… but as I say, I knew you couldn’t back up claims.

I’m a librarian at the University of Notre Dame. We have all of these books in our library. In fact I have donated several of them from my personal collection. B.H. Roberts, Quinn, you name it. The official sources are indeed enough to disprove Mormonism, and there is no reason to lay it all out here when a decent internet search will get you all of it. I’ve already backed up my claims, you just don’t agree with the conclusions or the sources.

 

[BartBurk]

To be honest, it was a rhetorical challenge. I knew that you would not and could not back up your claims. You kids are nothing if not completely unoriginal and predictable.

As for Quinn, I know him personally and have spoken with him about his views on a number of occassions - unlike you, I am sure, I’ve actually read his books. Frankly I doubt that there is a single think about The Church of Jesus Christ that you know that I don’t know. The difference however is that I don’t frequent lightweight anti-Mormon sites. I take my information from official sources and legitimate scholars.

… but as I say, I knew you couldn’t back up claims.

By the way if you are going to make these claims about Quinn you might want to use your real name as I have done in my posts. How can you verify that you’ve spoken to Quinn? At least you can check out that I’m really a librarian at the University of Notre Dame.

nd.edu/~bburk1/

 

[Snow]

I’m a librarian at the University of Notre Dame. We have all of these books in our library. In fact I have donated several of them from my personal collection. B.H. Roberts, Quinn, you name it. The official sources are indeed enough to disprove Mormonism, and there is no reason to lay it all out here when a decent internet search will get you all of it. I’ve already backed up my claims, you just don’t agree with the conclusions or the sources.

More can’t and won’t.

My prediction holds true.

 

[BartBurk]

More can’t and won’t.

My prediction holds true.

And who are you, Snow?

 

[mfbukowski]

And who are you, Snow?

Who cares and how is this relevant to anything, especially the discussion at hand?

Snow’s assertion that he knows Quinn is irrelevant really to the discussion. I don’t have a doubt that he knows him. Mormon academic circles are quite small and most who are involved in apologetics on any fairly serious level know eachother.

Bottom line: who cares? Your argument will not be resurrected by Snow’s personal identity. How could that possibly help? You are grasping at straws.

Maybe you have seen too many batman movies

 

[Stephen168]

Bart,
Did you ever make this claim?

… that JS did translated/author/whatever the BoM himself.

 

[BartBurk]

Bart,
Did you ever make this claim?

It’s hard to even understand what she is asking for with her mangled English.

 

[Stephen168]

It’s hard to even understand what she is asking for with her mangled English.

It seems to me the point of this thread is just the opposite of what she is asking to be proved. I thought one of your points was that Smith did NOT author the Book of Mormon

 

[BartBurk]

It seems to me the point of this thread is just the opposite of what she is asking to be proved. I thought one of your points was that Smith did NOT author the Book of Mormon

She’s just trying to start an argument with her denigration of the Bible. And of course the Spalding theory is that Joseph was only minimally involved in creating the text of the Book of Mormon. That’s not the story she wants to hear because it is not the story accepted by traditional historians who have closed their minds to the witness of 19th century people who actually lived in Joseph Smith’s neighborhood. It’s easy to claim that Joseph translated/authored it because it is the accepted history foisted on us by the Mormon Church. She is unwilling to consider the evidence put forth by Criddle because it would really damage her tradition.

 

[Stephen168]

She’s just trying to start an argument with her denigration of the Bible.

I’ve never understood the logic behind ‘denigrating the Bible proves the Book of Mormon,’ but Mormons go to it quick.

And of course the Spalding theory is that Joseph was only minimally involved in creating the text of the Book of Mormon. That’s not the story she wants to hear because it is not the story accepted by traditional historians who have closed their minds to the witness of 19th century people who actually lived in Joseph Smith’s neighborhood. It’s easy to claim that Joseph translated/authored it because it is the accepted history foisted on us by the Mormon Church. She is unwilling to consider the evidence put forth by Criddle because it would really damage her tradition.

It did seem like she wanted you to prove the traditional Mormon view, which seems odd. I’ll have to read Criddle’s paper, it sounds interesting.

 

[BartBurk]

I’ve never understood the logic behind ‘denigrating the Bible proves the Book of Mormon,’ but Mormons go to it quick.

It did seem like she wanted you to prove the traditional Mormon view, which seems odd. I’ll have to read Criddle’s paper, it sounds interesting.

And if Snow wants to state what the four good reasons are for the traditional view let her have at it. I’m not going to do her work for her beyond providing links and references. It’s very possible that Joseph wrote the whole Book of Mormon by himself without help from anyone else, but that is not the story told by contemporary witnesses who had access to Solomon Spalding’s writings and who witnessed Sidney Rigdon with Joseph Smith prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon. You can demean those witnesses, but just can’t ignore them. The Stanford study gives us a reason to at least revisit the Spalding story as a possibility without rejecting it out of hand as the Mormons have done. There have been numerous studies which have shown the Book of Mormon to be the work of multiple authors. The Mormons want us to assume those authors to have been ancient Nephite authors, but the Stanford study at least gives us a reason to consider the possibility the authors might have been contemporaries of Joseph Smith instead.

 

[James_McMichael]

Here are a few very preliminary Mormon responses to the Jockers/Witten/Criddle article:

“Lies, [Expletive Deleted] Lies, and Statistics” December 14, 2008 www.fairblog.org (this is by a professor of statistics and he seems as exercised by the statistical aspects as by the religious aspects, which may explain the colorful title)

“A New Book of Mormon Wordprint Analysis” December 8, 2008 www.lifeongoldplates.com (by a non-specialist and pretty accessible to a non-specialist like me)

Post by Benjamin McGuire December 10, 2008 09:49 AM at www.momonapologetics.org (tough reading if you are, like me, uneducated as to statistics)

Professor Criddle is an ex-Mormon and it looks to me as though he may be still in the process of convincing himself of atheism. A previous BOM-authorship effort by him, on www.mormonstudies.com, gives some explanation of why he feels driven to discredit the BOM and the “supernatural” in general. As a Stanford professor, he is presumptively elite in his field of Civil and Environmental Engineering, but, if you read his explanation for this venture outside his own academic expertise, his social science opining on Mormonism and religion in general is aggonizingly amateurish, at least bordering on crackpot. Furthermore, he is certainly more engineer than scientist, as his expressed views of scientific method are naive in the extreme. Also, most LDS take for granted the general correctness of the overall theory of evolution and the science of geology (I certainly do), but it seems that Prof. Criddle must not have until he rejected all of the “supernatural”, which suggest to me (armchair psychologist) that he must have some unusual habits of reasoning.

To me, trying to prove that Spalding (Spaulding), Rigdon, etc. wrote the BOM is akin to trying to prove that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. A really interesting idea, so interesting that cranks keep coming up with it. I am confident Shakespeare wrote the plays. I am confident that the BOM is an ancient document translated by Joseph Smith. I have no reason to doubt that Prof. Criddle is an intelligent and sincere man, and I feel sorry for him in light of the partial biography he has revealed. However, he really does read like a crank, and therefore I cannot help but suspect this new article as the work of a crank.

 

[BartBurk]

Here are a few very preliminary Mormon responses to the Jockers/Witten/Criddle article:

“Lies, [Expletive Deleted] Lies, and Statistics” December 14, 2008 www.fairblog.org (this is by a professor of statistics and he seems as exercised by the statistical aspects as by the religious aspects, which may explain the colorful title)

“A New Book of Mormon Wordprint Analysis” December 8, 2008 www.lifeongoldplates.com (by a non-specialist and pretty accessible to a non-specialist like me)

Post by Benjamin McGuire December 10, 2008 09:49 AM at www.momonapologetics.org (tough reading if you are, like me, uneducated as to statistics)

Professor Criddle is an ex-Mormon and it looks to me as though he may be still in the process of convincing himself of atheism. A previous BOM-authorship effort by him, on www.mormonstudies.com, gives some explanation of why he feels driven to discredit the BOM and the “supernatural” in general. As a Stanford professor, he is presumptively elite in his field of Civil and Environmental Engineering, but, if you read his explanation for this venture outside his own academic expertise, his social science opining on Mormonism and religion in general is aggonizingly amateurish, at least bordering on crackpot. Furthermore, he is certainly more engineer than scientist, as his expressed views of scientific method are naive in the extreme. Also, most LDS take for granted the general correctness of the overall theory of evolution and the science of geology (I certainly do), but it seems that Prof. Criddle must not have until he rejected all of the “supernatural”, which suggest to me (armchair psychologist) that he must have some unusual habits of reasoning.

To me, trying to prove that Spalding (Spaulding), Rigdon, etc. wrote the BOM is akin to trying to prove that Sir Francis Bacon wrote the Shakespearean plays. A really interesting idea, so interesting that cranks keep coming up with it. I am confident Shakespeare wrote the plays. I am confident that the BOM is an ancient document translated by Joseph Smith. I have no reason to doubt that Prof. Criddle is an intelligent and sincere man, and I feel sorry for him in light of the partial biography he has revealed. However, he really does read like a crank, and therefore I cannot help but suspect this new article as the work of a crank.

The research was mainly done by Jockers with help from Witten. I have posted Criddle’s statement on a couple of other threads in this forum. Jockers and Witten went into the study with no preconceived notion as to how it would turn out and Criddle was willing to let the chips fall where they might. Whether or not Criddle is an atheist is immaterial to this discussion. I’m a believing Catholic who thinks the Spalding-Rigdon connection has a lot going for it. Criddle does a good job of explaining the outlines of the theory, but most of the research into this has been done by Dale Broadhurst and some other researchers. I would be careful about calling Criddle a crank. Almost anyone dealing with a religious topic can be referred to as a crank if you decide you don’t like the position they take. Many people would refer to Mormon defenders as religious cranks though I would call that disrespectful.

The preponderance of the evidence indicates to me the Book of Mormon is a 19th century document. Whether Smith produced it on his own or with the help of others, the evidence of DNA, linguistics, archaeology and other sciences seems to confirm in my mind that it is not an ancient document. There is no credible evidence that it is.

 

[Stephen168]

The best research on the Rigdon connection to the Book of Mormon has already been done. See this article.

God bless us all,
Paul

I’ve only read half of it so far. It does explain to me something I had noticed before; Mormonism seems to be fascinated by the Jews and things uniquely old testament. Things like prophets, temples, and the lost tribes (Book of Mormon.)

 

[BartBurk]

I’ve only read half of it so far. It does explain to me something I had noticed before; Mormonism seems to be fascinated by the Jews and things uniquely old testament. Things like prophets, temples, and the lost tribes (Book of Mormon.)

I think that may have something to do with their belief they are in some way descendants of the lost tribe of Ephraim. Almost all of their patriarchal blessings declare what tribe they belong to and in almost every case they are told they are from the tribe of Ephraim.

 

[William_M]

The research was mainly done by Jockers with help from Witten. I have posted Criddle’s statement on a couple of other threads in this forum. Jockers and Witten went into the study with no preconceived notion as to how it would turn out and Criddle was willing to let the chips fall where they might. Whether or not Criddle is an atheist is immaterial to this discussion. I’m a believing Catholic who thinks the Spalding-Rigdon connection has a lot going for it. Criddle does a good job of explaining the outlines of the theory, but most of the research into this has been done by Dale Broadhurst and some other researchers.

BartBurk: There is a December 23, 2008 post on mormanity.blogspot.com titled “That New Book of Mormon Wordprint Study: The Criddle Riddle - or Rigged for Rigdon?” Despite the whimsical title, the post is respectful of Dr. Criddle and his colleagues at Stanford and focuses on the limitations of their article. Those limitations seem to be pretty substantial. So, you might be interested in this post.

Just as a matter of curiosity, and none of my business if you mind my asking, but why are you interested in the Book of Mormon anyway?

 

[BartBurk]

BartBurk;4552254:

The research was mainly done by Jockers with help from Witten. I have posted Criddle’s statement on a couple of other threads in this forum. Jockers and Witten went into the study with no preconceived notion as to how it would turn out and Criddle was willing to let the chips fall where they might. Whether or not Criddle is an atheist is immaterial to this discussion. I’m a believing Catholic who thinks the Spalding-Rigdon connection has a lot going for it. Criddle does a good job of explaining the outlines of the theory, but most of the research into this has been done by Dale Broadhurst and some other researchers.

BartBurk: There is a December 23, 2008 post on mormanity.blogspot.com titled “That New Book of Mormon Wordprint Study: The Criddle Riddle - or Rigged for Rigdon?” Despite the whimsical title, the post is respectful of Dr. Criddle and his colleagues at Stanford and focuses on the limitations of their article. Those limitations seem to be pretty substantial. So, you might be interested in this post.

Just as a matter of curiosity, and none of my business if you mind my asking, but why are you interested in the Book of Mormon anyway?

My wife and kids are Mormons. I converted to the Catholic Church from Mormonism three years ago.

 

[Jerusha]

Thanks, Bart. I requested it. Hopefully I have enough statistical background to understand it. Should answer some of my questions about the content of Spalding’s work.