Further Light and Knowledge

There is an interesting discussion going on at the Mormon apologetic board (where I have not shown my face in several years, btw – waste of time) re. Craig Criddle’s just published, peer reviewed research that indicates a 95% or so probability that Rigdon was the primary author of the Book of Mormon. You can find this at http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 39911&st=0. My post to the thread is below.





best,

bob


Here is a link to the paper.

http://llc.oxfordjournals.org/papbyrecent.dtl

As present, it is subscription access only. I have read it carefully, and while not a scientist, know enough about statistical and scientific methodology to feel that Criddle et al have significantly advanced the state of our understanding of what the BofM probably is. More will no doubt be learned as a result of the response this work will generate.

This paper deserves, and I am sure will receive, serious consideration from both Mormon and non-Mormon academics. The knee-jerk, dogmatic responses that have so far characterized this thread remind me of what can still be found where young earth creationists confront geological science regarding the age of the Earth.

I haven't bothered to participate much in Mormon apologetic (or other) discussions for some time, but this issue has my attention because similar to the DNA research, this has the potential for an immediate, significant impact on how Mormonism is viewed by well informed non-Mormons, and eventually Mormons. Over time, this is the kind of research that has caused a large part of Christianity to read the Bible metaphorically instead of literally. I have long predicted that within a generation or two that is how the BofM will probably be read by the majority of well informed Mormons. I predict that at minimum, history will probably judge Criddle et al. to have taken an important step in that direction.

Many of the responses above on this thread are predictable, and pathetic. Trot out the good old historical homilies and conclude, before reading a piece of excellent scientific research, that the conclusion it suggests on the basis of something like 95% probability (Rigdon/Spaulding BofM authorship) is “impossible”. Why bother to attempt to understand this painstaking work? We already “know” with certainty.

The key concept to remember is probably. We are dealing here with science. Imagine that the question instead is the authorship of Koran, or whether Lord Rama caused a bunch of monkeys to construct a land bridge off the coast of India (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/6994415.stm) In those cases, Mormon scholars as well as most reasonably well educated Mormons would resort to various scientific and historical disciplines to collect data and develop and test various hypotheses regarding what actually happened, and would instintively use probabilities in assessing these.

Science will not purport to tell us with 100% certainty that the Earth is more or less round (and not flat), let alone how a particular book was written or who was (or was not) responsible for the construction of the Indian land bridge. All it will do is help us to justify (or not) probability statements regarding phenomena of this sort. That is what Criddle et al have done re. the authorship of the BofM. Most literalist Mormons will not be swayed by this. The scientists might be wrong. The scientists themselves say that there is a 5% (or something like that) chance that Rigdon did not write the parts of the BofM they attribute to him. And even if the accepted probability within the scientific community was 99.99% that Rigdon was responsible for most of the BofM, God works in mysterious ways. Right?

Having understood all that, if you don’t want to come off sounding like the Hindus who deny (violently in some cases) any and all evidence that Lord Rama did not build the land bridge, I suggest that you meet Criddle and his colleagues on their ground, and analyze the legitimacy of the probability statements they make about the BofM authorship. This requires an evaluation of the reliability of the methods they have chosen to use (and these have been used in many other contexts), how their samples of BofM text were constructed (lots of interesting comparisons can be made there to prior word print studies), and finally the way in which they generated their probability statements based on those samples. This is detailed scientific work, and can only be legitimately addressed in a similar fashion. I am not qualified myself to make this assessment, but tried as hard as I could based on my limited understanding of the issues in question to find holes, and came up dry. I await with interest the responses and counter responses that are no doubt forthcoming (recall again how the DNA saga played out), and look forward to learning as this process unfolds.

I note that it was particularly interesting for me to learn a bit about how this came about. Apparently, the pattern finding technology at the root of this project has its origins (or perhaps has just been used a lot) in the biological sphere to identify subtle differences in cancer cells. This is a classic case of advancing techology making things visible that used to be invisible. Kind of like telescopes, or DNA research. Mormons had best get used to Galileo-like events that get lots of press at least outside of Mormonism, and will be available at a few mouse-clicks after those nice missionaries have told their simple, incredible story about the BofM.

A few analogies may help to bring what awaits us into focus. Again, the best recent analogy in the Mormon Studies area is the relatively recent DNA work re. the Book of Mormon, the outcome of which so far (after a lot of dust was kicked up by the Mormon apologetic community) was probability statements from most Mormon DNA experts that more or less support the non-Mormon conclusion. That is, is that based on the current theory and evidence, it is extremely unlikely that an Israelite population of material size ever existed in the Americas. This has changed, and will probably continue to change, the way the BofM is perceived.

Perhaps a better analogy for Mormons to consider is how DNA research has changed our understanding of human migrations patterns. This contradicts the Mormon belief that the Garden is Eden was in Missouri, but that is not as important a Mormon belief as the literal historicity of the BofM. Alternative theories of human migration were for generations debated in the scientific community on various mostly historical, linguistic and archaeological grounds. Conflicting opinions were strongly held by respect scientists. This is analogous to the current historical debate (alluded to in various ways in the thread above) re. the roles Rigdon, Cowdery and others played in Mormon history. Then, the DNA evidence started to come in, and this data eventually crushed all of the other theories. There is now as close to scientists come to a consensus regarding the broad strokes of human migration. And it all started in Africa.

I could trot out other examples, but that will do and I have already spent more time than I had planned on this. In any event, these are exciting times for Mormon Studies. As our ability to see current and prior events using new tools continues to expand, our perspective and beliefs should be expected to change. Think Galileo.

I predict that, as usual (see http://www.mccue.cc/bob/documents/rs.ap ... 20mind.pdf) the Mormon apologetic response to Criddle et al's work will at least initially be to maximize the uncertainty and technical difficulty related to understanding the relevant issues. A few "experts" will pronounce the research to be unreliable on technical grounds even if the non-Mormon academic community is onside. And, the more on point and reliable the research is shown to be, the less it will be talke about in Mormon circles. Then a generation or so from now, it will be accepted on an "of course" basis. Like, what do you mean polygamy is required for entrance into the Celestial Kingdom? Or, nobody takes the Book of Abraham seriously. Or, "man can become like God"? - we don't really teach that. Or, the Book of Mormon was probably played out in a tiny areas somewhere in Central America, and all of the prophet (including Joseph Smith) who though otherwise were simply mistaken.

Eternal truth doesn't change. And by definition, any Mormon beliefs that do change are not part of Eternal Truth. Among the many Godly mysteries at Mormonism's core is why God, with the most powerful intellect conceivable, relies so heavily on circular logic.

best,
bob

_________________
"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud became more painful than the risk it took to blossum." Anais Nin

Interesting. Thanks, Bob, for posting this. Yes, the moplogists' response can be written without my reading either the article or their responses. They will say "it's only a 95% certainty, which means there is a 5% chance that it is not true. That's way better than the DNA percentages we've been dealing with. The percentages don't matter. If there is a 1 in a billion chance, then it is possible, and since I know by the HG that it IS true, I can just have faith that the restoration is that 1 in a billion. Here, the odds are only 5 in a 100. I definitely have enough faith that it is not shaken by this."

Or, they will say: "the fact that their wordprint studies show multiple authors supports Joseph Smith's account. "Antis" have been saying for years that the BoM was invented by Joseph Smith. BYU wordprint studies show multiple authors. This study actually confirms what apologists have been saying--there were multiple authors."

Or, "that tired old Spaulding/Rigdon conspiracy thing again? Give it a rest. We answered those criticisms long ago. Even Brodie and Vogel didn't buy into those conspiracies."

Or, "what about NHM!?"

Most of them won't read it. And whether they read it or not will have little effect on the "arguments" they employ to discredit it. The one thing you can be sure of: they will reject any evidence that does not support their preconceived views.

Contrast that with yours truly. I have not been a fan of the multiple author theory or with wordprint studies. I have thought that the BoM was the product of Smith's mind, reflecting as it does, however, much from the 19th century milieu in which he operated. Any allusions to View of the Hebrews or anything by Spaulding or Rigdon I have just attributed to Smith's penchant for syncretizing things he heard and read. Nevertheless, I am not wedded to my opinions on the matter. If this new research is compelling, I will change my views. That's the difference between me and the mopologists--I am willing to look at the evidence, analyze it, consider it, and--if it is persuasive--change my mind to conform to the evidence. I don't try to make the evidence conform to my preconceived, immovable conclusions.

_________________
"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

Humility is to submit one's opinions to logic and evidence.

_________________
Love before loyalty, people before the organization, and principle before the tribe.
Main Street Plaza

Thanks for your thoughts about epistemology and faith, Bob. Excellent as always.

I am printing out the paper as I am typing. Please, permit me a preliminary background question.

What are probable motives for Sidney Rigdon? I don't know enough about his biography to make sense of that.

I can empathize with Joseph Smith's need to get into the religion business. Nobody would want to work on a marginal farm for an alcoholic father. Preaching was a great way for Smith to better his economic situation and to take care of his extended family.

Whatever one may say about Joseph as sociopath, he created revenue streams for both of his parents as patriarch and mummy displayer and provided for his brothers.

Why would Sidney Rigdon become involved in a con?

_________________
Love before loyalty, people before the organization, and principle before the tribe.
Main Street Plaza

Well, he was already involved in one con--he was a Christian minister.

_________________
"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com

Or more specifically, a Campbellite minister who could not get the Campbellites to buy into his ideas. Apparently, he found Joseph more amenable. I read somewhere around here (ibid) that one of the contemporary responses to mormonism was that it was just Campbellism with a few twists.

ETA: There is a 95% probability that it was MagicCicero who posted that bit about contemporary comparisons of mormonism to Campbellism, so I feel pretty safe in crediting him with the reference.

_________________
The apple cannot be stuck back on the Tree of Knowledge; once we begin to see, we are doomed and challenged to seek the strength to see more, not less. ~ Arthur Miller

Very interesting Bob. I haven't given much thought recently to who or how the BoM was written. I really brush that little problem under the rug with all the nonsense he pulled throughout his adult life. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

"Knowing" that the BoA is a crapfest, I just gave up on the BoM being anything other than that.

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God's wool be done ~ Colbert
Oh, and 1999!!!!

philo, thanks for your excellent summary. Does anyone know of a good paper that shows joe smith know rigdon during his dictating of the BOM? I am unaware of one. Methinks this connection would be necessary.

_________________
“I was never aware of any other option but to question everything.”
― Chomsky

I don't have to prove that it was JS or Rigdon, or Spaulding or even space aliens who wrote the BoM. All I know is that I'm pretty damn sure (I'm betting my "salvation" on it!) that it wasn't written by ancient Hebrews on real gold plates. Just like I don't have to prove who really made the crop circles to believe that they weren't made by bored space aliens.

I may mix it all up but I seem to remember that Oliver Cowdery knew Rigdon. Somebody who knows Insider's View well might be able to give a more reliable answer in a jiffy.

_________________
Love before loyalty, people before the organization, and principle before the tribe.
Main Street Plaza

May be, Slanted/Truth could transfer to Texas Christian University to compare if the Campbellite or Grantite educational model is superior.

_________________
Love before loyalty, people before the organization, and principle before the tribe.
Main Street Plaza

Very nice work. Classifier techniques like the one used in this study are actually becoming more hip in functional imaging as well. Standard functional MRI techniques look at each pixel in the brain and ask for a given task, is this pixel more active during the task than during a control period? Turns out you miss a lot of subtle effects by doing that, so some people have started looking at each pixel in the brain or in a large portion of the brain, and assigning a vector of values to each pixel. Then you use machine learning techniques to decide which regions in a high-dimensional vector space are associated with the task. It works amazingly well. Even though any one pixel may not be significant, there are "invisible" patterns with very high statistical significance that can be detected and used for accurately reading brain states.

Same idea here - rather than identifying a smoking gun (SR frequently uses this particular phrase that's also seen in the Book of Mormon), you take small subthreshold bits of data, any one of which is not convincing by itself, and aggregate them all up to get a soundly convincing conclusion.

I think I definitely buy the conclusion, which I suspected too, that the actual construction of the Book of Mormon probably has Sidney Rigdon's thumbprint on it more than anyone else. What I still wonder about is what Joseph Smith's creative input was. I don't know how much of what is attributed to Joseph Smith's sermons is really his, but I definitely get the impression that he was a charismatic speaker, with a fairly good grasp of the doctrinal concepts he preached. He seems an unusually creative person, and I suspect that although the prose of the Book of Mormon was probably beyond him, I wouldn't be surprised if he had some significant input in its creation. I remember that Joseph was talking about golden bible stories years before the BofM, as was his brother Alvin, and I suspect they probably influenced the story a fair amount in early conversations with SR.

One of the points that I thought was among the most striking was the point in passing in the discussion about how divergent literary styles tend to be over a thousand year period, any evidence of which is wholly absent in the BoM.

I'd also be very interested to see how much Ethan Smith was plagiarized in the 116 pages replacement material. Would be a great little followup if there's enough material for training.

All that being said, I can see the FARMS headlines next month:

A new study by embittered anti-Mormons shows that of all the possible authors for the Book of Mormon, Sidney Rigdon comes out most likely to have authored the Book of Mormon. Trouble is, the authors they didn't consider in the analysis are all the people who actually contributed to the book: Joseph Smith and ancient prophets.

Even without assessing JS's input, I think the data are pretty striking for supporting the SR/Spalding hypothesis. That is very cool.

I also think it would be interesting to see how much input New Testament sources had. The sermon on the mount is lifted right out of New Testament, and there are thousands of scriptural allusions from both Old and New Testament that were in the common parlance that got plunked down in the book. It might be possible to make the results more specific if some of these scriptural sources were accounted for. I also looked over the list of words they use in the analysis, and think a few of the words like "pass" or "therefore" are probably also scripturally contaminated.

It will be interesting to see what the Mormon rebuttal actually is. I hope it is simply not the knee-jerk "The Spalding-Book of Mormon connection was buried long ago." Hopefully, this will at least allow for a more serious discussion of the Spalding theory. Hasn't the Mormon Church been pretty much battered on all sides with regards to the Book of Mormon by now?

Dale Broadhurst's Sidney Rigdon site has quite a bit of information on SR's history/chronology

_________________
Stop not to think, ever. Society rightly abhors this solitary vice, and misery and perversity are its only rewards. Thinking leads to thought and thought leads to differentiation, and the different are properly shunned in all species. --Michael Kelly

Good point. It's like when they discovered a few years back that the Hitler Diaries were forgeries. It didn't matter who did the forgery; it just mattered that they weren't written by Hitler. Likewise, the Book of Mormon. Still, it is a matter of some interest whether Smith did it himself or had help. Kind of like "who killed JFK." I used to think there was a good chance that Oswald did not act alone. The best evidence now suggests with a very high degree of probability that Oswald was the lone gunman. So, I adjusted my previous belief on the matter to accord with the evidence. I'll do the same with the BoM question.

_________________
"Let go of what you know and honor what exists."--David Bazan

http://www.equalitysblog.typepad.com