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A. A possessive or descriptive relationship between two nouns:
"plates of brass" instead of brass plates (1 Nephi 3:24)Examples from the Spalding MS include:
"works of righteousness" instead of righteous works (Alma 5:16)
"words of plainness" instead of plain words (Jacob 4:14)
"chains of hell" instead of hell's chains (Alma 5:7)
"voice of the Spirit" instead of the Spirit's voice (1 Nephi 4:18)
"skin of blackness" instead of black skin (2 Nephi 5:21)
"night of darkness" instead of dark night (Alma 34:33)
"rod of iron" instead of iron rod (1 Nephi 8:19)
"men of brave hearts" instead of brave-hearted men (p. 37)B. Prepositional phrases used in place of adverbs:
"order of battle" instead of battle order (p. 38)
"ambush of the Sciotans" instead of Sciotan ambush (p. 38)
"complaints of his subjects" instead of his subjects' complaints (p. 45)
"standard of Hamboon" instead of Hamboon's standard (p. 97)
"shades of evening" instead of evening shades (p. 102)
"sword of Sambal" instead of Sambal's sword (p. 112)
"with patience" instead of patiently (Mosiah 24:15]Examples from the Spalding MS include:
"with much harshness" instead of very harshly (1 Nephi 18:11)
"with joy" instead of joyfully (Jacob 4:3)
"in spirit and in truth" instead of spiritually and truly (Alma 34:38)
"in righteousness" instead of righteously (1 Nephi 20:1)
"with gladness" instead of gladly (2 Nephi 28:28)
"with such dexterity and gracefulness" instead of dexterously and gracefully (p. 66)C. Related words which have the same root:
"with the greatest speed" instead of speedily (p. 66)
"with great vehemence" instead of vehemently (p. 80)
"with great joy" instead of joyfully (p. 81)
"with firmness and courage" instead of firmly and courageously (p. 90)
"with incredible fury" instead of furiously (p. 91)
"in abundance" instead of abundantly (p. 12)
"in proportion" instead of proportionately (p. 16)
"in safety" instead of safely (p. 19)
"in peace" instead of peacefully (p. 39)
"in tears" instead of tearfully (p. 47)
"in justice" instead of justly (p. 77)
"in triumph" instead of triumphantly (p. 110)
"work all manner of fine work" (Mosiah 11:10)Examples from the Spalding MS include:
"judge righteous judgments" (Mosiah 29:43)
"build buildings" (2 Nephi 5:15; Mosiah 23:5)
"the desire which I desired" (Enos 1:13)
"work a great and a marvelous work" (1 Nephi 14:7)
"taxed with a tax" (Mosiah 7:15)
"cursed with a sore cursing" (2 Nephi 1:22; Jacob 3:3)
"clothed themselves in cloth" (p. 21)D. Compound prepositions:
"colored with different colors" (p. 21)
"by the hand of your enemies" (Mosiah 17:18)The Spalding MS contains:
"by the hand of my industry" (Alma 10:4)
"by the hands of his brethren" (Alma 10:3)
"by the mouth of all the holy prophets" (1 Nephi 3:20)
"by the mouth of angels" (Alma 13:22)
"from before my presence" (1 Nephi 4:28; 1 Nephi 11:12)
"from before my face" (1 Nephi 11:29)
"by the hand of Lobaska" (p. 43)Would Tvedtnes regard the following compound prepositions as examples of Hebraisms?
"effaced by the ravages of time" (p.1)E. The repetition of conjunctions along with prepositions, articles, or possessive pronouns:
"united by the solemn covenant of marriage" (p. 58)
"blinded by the sordid advice of a menial junto of Councilors & priests" (p. 65)
"surprise occasioned by the story of the flight" (p. 65)
"Undaunted by the cruel demand & haughty menace of the Sciotan government" (p. 72)
"beloved by the subjects of the empire of Kentuck" (p. 92)
"exhausted by the fatigues of a most bloody contest" (p. 94)
"prevented by the arrival of Hamboon" (p. 101)
"encircled by the walls of a fort" (p. 102)
"destroyed by the cruel sword of Sambal" (p. 112)
"And he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness" (1 Nephi 2:4)Examples from the Spalding MS include:
"we went down to the land of our inheritance, and we did gather together our gold, and our silver, and our precious things" (1 Nephi 3:22)
"All mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state" (1 Nephi 13:36)
"My gospel . . . and my rock and my salvation" (1 Nephi 13:36)
"The city of Laman, and the city of Josh, and the city of Gad, and the city of Kishkumen" (3 Nephi 9:10)
"All their men and all their women and all their children" (Mosiah 24:22)
"our meat and our fish" (p. 12)Spalding frequently repeated articles and possessive pronouns:
"The King and his chiefs and many of his principal subjects" (p. 19)
"their armies routed & their warriors bleeding under our swords -- their helpless women and children expiring by thousands & their country in flames" (p. 77)
"a defence which will extend to our wives and our children . . . . We must either submit to behold our property torn from us, our houses in flames -- & our dearest friends expiring" (p. 86)
"My father . . . and my only brother . . . . my father and my brother . . . . my father and my brother (p. 88)
"finish with your spears and your swords" (p. 90)
"in their dress, in their cookery and in their houses" (p. 22)F. Using "and" with the meaning of "but":
"their countenance, their gesture, and the tone of their voices (p. 26)
"a just, a good and gracious prince" (p. 45)
"in their manner of living, their dress, their habits and manners (p. 53)
"the wisdom, the art, and the works of men -- what avails their valour, their strength and numbers" (p. 55)
"the ease, the gracefulness and modesty" (p. 56)
"his pride, his haughtiness, the pomposity of all his movements (p. 58)
"the amiable, the innocent Heliza" (p. 107)
"the brave, the amiable youth" (p. 109)
"Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall prosper in the land: and inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from my presence" (2 Nephi 4:4).Spalding uses "and" with the meaning of "than" or "when":
"And when I speak the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it" (Moroni 9:4).
"He commanded the multitude that they should cease to pray, and also his disciples. And he commanded them that they should not cease to pray in their hearts" (3 Nephi 20:1).
"Scarce however had they passed the last sentinel, and the alarm was given" (p. 99)He also sometimes uses "that" in a peculiar manner:
"Scarce had he spoken and Haboon plunged his sword" (p. 99)
"Lamesa was captivated with his person, and was impressed with those ideas and sentiments, that her happiness fled" (p. 57)Here are examples of a similar use of "that" in the Book of Mormon:
"conceived that opinion of you, that I hope you will not be displeased" (P. 57)
"And Shared wounded Coriantumr in his thigh, that he did not go to battle again" (Ether 13:31)G. Parenthetical introduction of a name.
"Shiz smote upon Coriantumr that he gave him many deep wounds" (Ether 14:30)
"Zoram did take courage at the words which I spake (now Zoram was the name of the servant) and he promised" (1 Nephi 4:35).Although this example does not strictly fit the pattern, the Spalding MS includes:
"They took him (and his name was Nehor) and they carried him" (Alma 1:15).
"Elseon, for this was the name of the young Prince, was, soon after" (p. 56)H. Use of "and also" to emphasize close links between two things:
"They . . . worshipped the Father in his name, and also we worship the Father in his name" (Jaocb 4:5).The Spalding MS contains:
"The Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma" (Mosiah 27:14).
"What the Lord had done for his son, and also for those that were with him" (Mosiah 27:21).
"Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them" (Mosiah 27:8).
"Their settlements extended the whole length of the great River Ohio . . . . And also along the great Lakes of Eri & Mishigan" (p. 54)I. Preposition plus "that":
"And because that they are redeemed from the fall" (2 Nephi 2:26)The Spalding MS does not contain examples of these uses, but Spalding's letter appended to the manuscript does contain this:
"because that my heart is broken" (2 Nephi 4:32)
"because that ye shall receive more of my word" (2 Nephi 29:8)
"and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross" (3 Nephi 27:14)
"after that I am gone to the Father" (3 Nephi 28:1)
"I do not believe certain facts and certain propositions to be true merely because that my ancestors believed them" (p. 115)J. A relative clause not immediately following the word it refers to:
"Our brother Nephi . . . has taken it upon him to be our ruler and our teacher, who are his elder brethren" (1 Nephi 16:37).Examples from the Spalding MS include:
"The Egyptians were drowned in the Red Sea, who were the armies of Pharaoh" (1 Nephi 17:27).
"Then shall they confess, who live without God in the world" (Mosiah 27:31).
"what would you have us do, who have had the woeful luck not to get mates" (p. 10)K. "Above" used in comparisons:
"Innumerable hordes of this description of people were scattered over an extensive country, who gained their living by hunting" (p. 11)
"That in each assembly a learned holy man shall preside, who shall lead your devotion" (p. 31)
"This Bombal was the most haughty & powerful prince, who reigned in this part of the western Continent" (p. 36)
"dispatched a messenger to Hadoram, who thus proclaimed" (p. 36)
"a land which is choice above all other lands" (1 Nephi 2:20)The Spalding MS contains:
"the tree which is precious above all" (1 Nephi 11:9)
"most abominable above all sins" (Alma 39:5)
"the fruit . . . which is sweet above all that is sweet, and which is white above all that is white, yea, and pure above all that is pure" (Alma 32:42)
"honoured above all the other princes" (p. 68)L. "Women" used to mean "wives"
"Our women did bear children" (1 Nephi 17:1)The Spalding MS contains:
"Our women have toiled, being big with child; and they have borne children" (1 Nephi 17:20)
"For behold, he hath blessed mine house, he hath blessed me, and my women, and my children" (Alma 10:11)
"for the accommodation of our women and children" (p. 19)Clearly the examples provided by Tvedtnes are not so uniquely characteristic of Hebrew that they cannot also be found in an English document. They do not constitute evidence that the Book of Mormon displays truly Hebraic patterns of word usage, which authenticate the ancient origin of the book.
"their helpless women and children expiring by thousands" (p. 77)
Rust begins with 2 Nephi 2:25, which he arranges in four lines:
Adam fellWe can find similar passages in the Spalding manuscript, which can also be arranged in poetic form:
that men might be;
and men are,
that they might have joy.
They may secure happinessRust cites 2 Nephi 4:15-35 as the Psalm of Nephi. Here are verses 19-22:
to themselves in this life,
and immortal happiness
beyond the grave (p. 44)
Blessings will attend you,
if ye fulfill,
but curses,
if ye transgress. (p. 50)
In friendship ye lived,
and in life and death you were joined. (p. 99)
And when I desire to rejoice,Here is what I will call the Psalm of Fabius from the Spalding MS:
my heart groaneth because of my sins;
nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted.
My God hath been my support;
he hath led me through mine afflictions in the wilderness;
and he hath preserved me upon the waters of the great deep.
He hath filled me with his love,
even unto the consuming of my flesh.
He hath confounded mine enemies,
unto the causing of them to quake before me.
O that my head were waters,Rust quotes 2 Nephi 4:23 as an example of contrast with intensification:
and my eyes a fountain of tears.
Then my intolerable burthen
should be poured forth in a torrent,
and my soul set at liberty.
But behold the light springs up
and beams upon my soul.
She brings in her train Hope,
that celestial goddess,
that sure and strong anchor,
that dispenser of comfort and pleasing anticipation,
and that dispeller of corroding grief and black despair. (p. 16)
Behold, he hath heard my cry by day,The Spalding MS contains:
and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime.
They found them lying in a profound sleep,Rust says that poetry is the language of prophecy, which is evident in Book of Mormon passages where there is a transition from prose to poetry, for example Helaman 10:3:
for the fatigues of the day
and the revels of the night
had brought weariness upon them. (p. 98)
As he was thus pondering . . . the wickedness of the people of the Nephites, . . . a voice came unto him saying: . . .A prophecy is similarly delivered in the Spalding MS:
Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God.
Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels,
that ye shall have power over this people,
and shall smite the earth with famine,
and with pestilence,
and destruction,
according to the wickedness of this people.
I hear a thundering voice proceeding from the great throne of him who rules the world, proclaiming thus:Rust cites 2 Nephi 4:28-30 as an example of inverted parallelism, where words are repeated in reverse order:
Corn shall not grow on Sciotan fields,
nor mammoth yield their milk,
nor fish be taken in the snare,
but pestilence shall roam,
unless Sciota shall avenge the crime of Elseon. (p. 75)
1 Awake, my soul!"Soul" and "heart" in lines 1 and 3 are repeated in reverse order in lines 7 and 9. "Sin" and "enemy of my soul" in lines 2 and 4 are contrasted with "Lord" and "God" in lines 8 and 10. We can find a similar example of reverse parallelism in the Spalding MS:
2 No longer droop in sin.
3 Rejoice, O my heart,
4 and give place no more for the enemy of my soul.
5 Do not anger again because of mine enemies.
6 Do not slacken my strength because of mine afflictions.
7 Rejoice, O my heart,
8 and cry unto the Lord, and say: O Lord, I will praise thee forever;
9 yea, my soul will rejoice in thee,
10 my God, and the rock of my salvation.
1 Not the tremendous roar of ten thousand thunders"Roar" in line 1 parallels "roaring" in line 12, while in line 3 "countenance" parallels "face" in line 9 and "paleness" contrasts with "blood." In addition, lines 4 through 7 repeat the same idea (intensification of thought, as Rust would say): "quivered," "smote together," "trembled," and "shaking." Lines 1, 7, and 12 also repeat the similar ideas of "thunders," "earthquake," and "volcano."
2 could have produced greater surprise.
3 His countenance was all amazement; it was for a moment covered with paleness.
4 His lips quivered,
5 his knees smote together
6 and his gigantic body trembled
7 like the shaking of a tower under the effects of an earthquake.
8 But soon his reflections and cogitations
9 caused the blood to return with a tenfold velocity into his face.
10 He assumed the attitude of terrific majesty
11 and poured forth his feelings
12 in a voice more terrible than the roaring of a volcano. (p. 68)
In "Antithetical Parallelism in the Book of Mormon" (Welch 1992), Donald Parry discusses another literary form found in the Book of Mormon, in which an idea in one line is contrasted with an opposite or antithetical idea in a second line. He cites the following examples:
Whatsoever is goodIn the Spalding MS we find similar contrasts, the first of which we have already noted:
cometh from God,
and whatsoever is evil
cometh from the devil. (Alma 5:40)
If they have been righteous
they shall reap the salvation of their souls,
according to the power and deliverance of Jesus Christ;
and if they have been evil
they shall reap the damnation of their souls,
according to the power and captivation of the devil. (Alma 9:28)
Blessings will attend you,For more examples of poetry in the Spalding MS, we can cite the following:
if ye fulfill,
but curses,
if ye transgress. (p. 50)
Now O man attend to thy duty
and thou shalt escape the portion of the wicked
and enjoy the delights of the righteous. (p. 29)
I have then transgressed no divine law,
but have obeyed the divine will. (p. 72)
We will then display our valour
by inflicting upon them a punishment
which their crimes deserve.
Yes our valiant warriors
shall gain immortal renown
by their heroic exploits. (p. 78)
Let your earnest prayers ascend for pardonAnd here is what I will call the Song of Elseon:
and your transgressions will flee away like shadows,
and your sins will be carried by the smoke
into the shadows of oblivion. (p. 12)
His mind was uncultivated by science,
and his passions were subject to no restraint.
His resentment was quick and fiery,
and his anger knew no bounds.
Nothing was concealed in his heart,
whether friendship or enmity,
but always exhibited by expressions
strong and extravagant.
He had a soul formed for war. (p. 81)
You shall be mine.Later Elseon also says:
This heart shall be taken from my bosom
and these limbs from my body,
nothing else shall prevent our union
and complete enjoyment of happiness.
Can the ancient scribbling of a great sage
or the decree of an emperor
prevent the streams from uniting with the ocean?
With the same ease and propriety
can they prevent the union of our hands,
since our hearts are united.
With your consent,
you shall be mine! (p. 61)
But if the Almighty,Obviously, Spalding had a strong inclination to use poetic forms of expression in his prose writing, and if he authored the Book of Mormon, he would have had the psalms of the Bible to hone his poetic proclivity. Again, poetry in the Book of Mormon does not provide evidence for the book's authenticity as an ancient document.
whose benevolence is infinite,
has designed the union of hands
where hearts are united,
I have then transgressed no divine law,
but have obeyed the divine will. (p. 72)
a Behold the conflagration of the city.Both a and a' contain "conflagration;" "flames . . . ascend" in b is paralleled in b' by "reddening light ascend;" and "illumination" in c' contrasts with "darkness" in c. We can also find a chiastic pattern in another passage from the Spalding MS:
b The flames in curls ascend towards heaven,
c and as the darkness of the night had now commenced,
this added to the horror of the scene.
c' The illumination spread far and wide,
b' and distant villages beheld the reddening light ascend,
a' as a certain pioneer of their own conflagration,
should the war continue to rage. (p. 102)
The emperor and the whole court still manifested toward him every token of high respect and sincere friendship. Without any hesitation the emperor cheerfully complied with his request . . . . The morning arrived. The sun shone with radiant splendor. Not a cloud intervened or was seen to float in the atmosphere. It was the fourth day after Lamesa had received the letter which doomed her to the embraces of Sambal. . . . The Emperor then . . . expressed his firm determination to maintain a sincere friendship . . . . Elseon . . . then thanked the emperor and whole assembly for the high respect they had shown him. (pp. 63-64)The structure can be shown thus:
a The emperor and the whole courtAgain both a and a' contain "the emperor and whole court/assembly;" both b and b' contain "sincere friendship;" "cheerfully" in c contrasts with "doomed" in c'; and "not a cloud" in d' parallels "sun shone" in d.
b sincere friendship
c cheerfully complied
d sun shone
d' not a cloud
c' doomed her
b' sincere friendship
a' the emperor and whole assembly
It appears then that Solomon Spalding was capable of producing "chiastic patterns" unconsciously in his writing, and if he consciously imitated biblical style, he could have produced even stronger chiasms.
Spalding used many of the same words: anxiety appears in his manuscript 10 times, anxious 10 times, grieve does not appear but grief is used 4 times, tender occurs 7 times, tenderhearted once, tenderness twice, shame once, delicate once, contempt twice, lonesome does not appear. Wound occurs once and in connection with emotions. Pierce, pierced, and piercing occur 8 times, and one use is in a spiritual sense.
In fact we should compare the Book of Mormon with some examples of Spalding's use of these words.
Anxiety
"this hath been the anxiety of my soul from the beginning" (2 Nephi 1:16)Tender
"For because of faith and great anxiety, it truly had been made manifest unto us concerning our people, what things should happen unto them." (Jacob 1:5)
"And this he did because of the great anxiety of his people; for they were desirous beyond measure to know concerning those people who had been destroyed." (Mosiah 28:12)
"to suppose that ye can stand against so many brave men who are at my command, who do now at this time stand in their arms, and do await with great anxiety for the word -- Go down upon the Nephites and destroy them." (3 Nephi 3:3)"As the sun . . . dispels the clouds of anxiety which rest upon my soul" (Spalding, p. 57)
"But when they arrived & found that the greatest part of the citizens were in the fort this afforded no small aleviation to their anxiety and grief" (Spalding, p. 102)
"And indeed their escape was owing to the great anxiety of Elseon & his warriors to visit their friends in the fort & to ascertain the extent of the massacre that Sambal & his army had made." (Spalding, p. 111)
"Such was their anxiety to precipitate their march that it was scarcely in the power of their commander to retard their steps" (Spalding, p. 102)
"But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen" (1Nephi 1:20)Shame
"I began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies" (1 Nephi 8:8)
"did shed tears of joy before the Lord, because of the multitude of his tender mercies over them." (Ether 6:12)
"your wives and your children, many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God" (Jacob 2:7)
"For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness" (Jacob 2:33)
"Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children" (Jacob 2:35)"they extoled the loving-kindness and tender mercies of their God" (Spalding, p. 5)
"they manifested a great regard for the rights of the other sex & always treated them with attention, civility & tenderness" (Spalding, p. 48)
"& when parents were treated by their children with great tenderness & respect" (Spalding, p. 52)
"the tender hearted maid" (Spalding, p. 15)
"will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God" (Jacob 6:9)Delicate"with respect to other Laws, they were calculated to wound the pride of & ambition of the transgressor, & produce shame & regret" (Spalding, p. 52)
"many of whose feelings are exceedingly tender and chaste and delicate before God" (Jacob 2:7)Pierce"But now a most singular & delicate subject presented itself for consideration" (Spalding, p. 8)
"instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound their delicate minds" (Jacob 2:9)
"many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds" (Jacob 2:3)
"Had the Lightning flashed from the clouds & pierced her heart" (Spalding, pp. 61-62)
"When such scenes present themselves to my view they pierce my soul like dagers" (Spalding, p. 88)
"They broke thro' their Ranks -- peircing with deadly wounds their indignant foes" (Spalding, p. 91)
"Many warriors say they lie there, pierced with mortal wounds" (Spalding, p. 94)
For more textual parallels like these, see the Spalding Authorship Page.
As Hilton states, the validity of the methodology rests upon the standard produced by the control studies. For the control tests Hilton used 26 noncontroversial 5000-word texts written by nine different authors, including: Mark Twain, William Dodd, Robert Heinlein, Samuel Johnson, English translations of works by Harry Steinhauer, Heinrich Von Kleist, and Christoph Wieland, and various writings of Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith. Hilton made paired comparisons between texts written by the same and different authors. The results of these control studies were then used to evaluate tests comparing texts from the Book of Mormon with each other and with the writings of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, and Solomon Spalding.
Several points should be noted here. Although Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were included in the control studies, Solomon Spalding was not, so his writings did not help shape the control standards for subsequent tests. Second, every person included in Hilton's control group is a modern author, although the Book of Mormon is supposed to be an ancient book. Therefore, Hilton really has not established that his techniques are valid for ancient authors. Third, although Hilton emphasizes the importance of the control studies, he seems to go out of his way to avoid telling us what writings of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery he used. In the case of Joseph Smith, Hilton says that he used two selections of autographic letters written between 1834 and 1838, and the Joseph Smith History included in the Pearl of Great Price (1:1-75), "dictated and carefully polished with the assistance of his clerks" (Reynolds 1997, 247-48). For Oliver Cowdery, Hilton used two selections of "written religious discourse and biographical essays from Messenger and Advocate (1830)" (Reynolds 1997, 247). (The date listed is incorrect, since the Messenger and Advocate was not published before October 1834.) It is apparent then that the 5000-word control texts used for Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery were not continuous blocks of text, but consisted of collections of letters and articles. And as Hilton acknowledges, the Joseph Smith History was carefully edited with the assistance of clerks.
More problems arise with regard to the texts which Hilton chose from the Book of Mormon. Again he does not tell us specifically what texts were selected, but says only that he used 5000-word texts from the "didactic" writings of Nephi and Alma. And again these texts apparently are not continuous blocks, but collections of various selections. Furthermore, since there are no noncontroversial, uncontested writings of Nephi and Alma, Hilton was not able to include such writings in his control studies. Therefore, Hilton is not comparing contested writings of Nephi and Alma with their known writings, but is comparing contested ancient writers Nephi and Alma with other known modern writers. We must rely on Hilton's assurance that his method provides a reliable way to determine authorship in such a comparison. Hilton also does not tell us what sections of Spalding's manuscript he used in his tests.
Hilton states that wordprint techniques yield "reliable answers when measuring singly authored documents of at least a few thousand free-flow, original words. (In the context of wordprinting, free-flow words are written without outside influence or superimposed structures that change an author's personal word selection)" (Reynolds 1997, 227). He also says: "However, if the author consciously imposes an external structure, the free flow of the author's wordprint pattern is modified, and accurate wordprint measurements become more difficult to obtain" (Reynolds 1997, 228). Studies of Nephi and Alma leave doubts about whether their writings provide the required free-flow texts. For example both Terrence Szink and Alan Goff (Sorenson 1991) propose that Nephi deliberately wrote the account of his family's departure from Jerusalem using words and ideas from Exodus and Numbers to parallel the flight of the Israelites from Egypt. But this is found not only in Nephi's narrative, but also in his didactic writings. Nephi's prophecy in 2 Nephi 26:15-16 incorporates words from Isaiah 29:3-4. John Welch has pointed out that Alma's instructions to Helaman in Alma 36:22 repeat "twenty-one words that are quoted verbatim from the vision of Lehi (see 1 Nephi 1:8)" (Welch 1992, 152). And Grant Hardy states that "distinguishing Mormon's paraphrases from the original words of authors like Mosiah or Alma is virtually impossible" (Sorenson 1991, 19). Can we be certain that we have obtained accurate wordprint measurements, if Book of Mormon authors borrow from the Bible and from other Book of Mormon authors, and if we cannot even be certain whether text is a direct quote or a paraphrase?
Hilton's tests not only measured the use of noncontextual words, but also patterns involving those words. Three of those patterns involve a word's position in a sentence: first word, last word, or second to last word. Word-pattern ratios were developed by A. Q. Morton, and Hilton apparently adopted Morton's definition of a sentence "as all groups of words ending in a logical full stop" (Reynolds 1997, 244). The number of occurrences of word patterns are sometimes divided by the number of sentences in the text to produce a ratio. Testing such patterns using the autographic letters of Joseph Smith and the Spalding manuscript poses particular problems. Joseph Smith frequently wrote without using end of sentence punctuation. For example Joseph's letter to his wife Emma, dated 18 May 1834, consists of twenty-three printed lines, but does not contain a single end of sentence marker. Solomon Spalding, on the other hand, frequently used dashes in his writing, and it is not always possible to determine whether what follows the dash is the beginning of a new sentence or a continuation of what precedes the dash. We must assume, therefore, that Hilton made his own determination of where sentences begin and end in the writings of Joseph Smith and Solomon Spalding. In other words the patterns which he tested depend, at least to some extent, on his editing of the texts.
One pattern tested was "and" as the first word in a sentence. But this pattern could easily be affected by someone consciously trying to write in a biblical-sounding style. For example, an author might normally write: "My son, you are still young, and I urge you to listen to me and learn from what I tell you." But adopting a biblical style, the same sentence might be written: "And now, O my son Helaman, behold, thou art in thy youth, and therefore, I beseech of thee that thou wilt hear my words and learn of me" (Alma 36:3). A sentence normally written as "He spoke to us like the voice of thunder," might be written as "And behold, he spake unto us, as it were the voice of thunder" (Alma 36:7). The phrases "And now" and "And now behold" at the beginning of sentences occur at least fifteen times in Alma 37 alone. (These phrases occur 650 times throughout the Book of Mormon, and with only a few exceptions, they appear at the beginning of sentences.) Another pattern tested was "of" as the second to last word in a sentence. But again this pattern could be altered by a biblical style. For example, Alma 36 has four sentences which end with the words "of God": "not of the carnal mind but of God" (verse 4); "seek no more to destroy the church of God" (verse 9); "that I had been born of God" (verse 23); "the knowledge which I have is of God" (verse 26). Hilton states in a note: "Further, deliberately writing to an externally imposed pattern which restricts the normal noncontextual word choices of the writer or repetitively using normally noncontextual words in textually important ways can also change the wordprint patterns" (Reynolds 1997, 249).
The Book of Mormon claims that it was written in reformed Egyptian. But what was reformed Egyptian? Did it use the same kinds of noncontextual words as English, or were the noncontextual words which appear in the Book of Mormon supplied by Joseph Smith's translation? Even our English translation of the Hebrew Bible interpolates words which are not a part of the Hebrew text. If even some of the noncontextual words in the Book of Mormon are not a part of the original author's style, then wordprint studies are measuring patterns of the translation, not the ancient text. Mormon states that "there are many things which, according to our language, we are not able to write" (3 Nephi 5:18). John Sorenson speculates that reformed Egyptian was a script which evolved from hieratic Egyptian writing (found on the brass plates of Laban), in which the characters were "logographs or ideographs, that is, representing whole concepts, yet it also allows for a phonetic element" (Reynolds 1997, 455). Sorenson believes that this would explain why Mormon and Moroni express frustration in trying to express themselves clearly. Royal Skousen, however, argues that the original manuscript of the dictated Book of Mormon provides evidence which supports the accounts given by witnesses of the translation process. Skousen accepts the fact that the interpreters used by Joseph Smith provided an English translation of the characters on the plates, and that "every word was distinctly visible even down to every letter" (Reynolds 1997, 66). It appears then that the interpreters were capable of giving a precise translation, even though the characters were logographs representing whole concepts, with all of the uncertainties of interpretation entailed in such a script. Given this scenario, it is difficult to understand how Joseph Smith's English translation could faithfully preserve the individual word patterns of the original authors.
Although Hilton rectified a number of the problems of the original Larsen-Rencher study, there are still many uncertainties connected with his techniques and the fundamental assumptions of the study. Hilton really does not take seriously either the Book of Mormon's claim of being an ancient document, or the Spalding theory. Instead of treating the Book of Mormon as a document written in an ancient, unknown language, he tests it with a standard based on word patterns in modern authors, and he totally ignores the issue of determining how the original document was translated. Nor does Hilton take into consideration the conditions imposed by the Spalding theory. It is claimed that Spalding consciously and deliberately adopted a biblical-sounding style, which, as Hilton acknowledges several times, can change an author's wordprint. The theory also claims that Spalding's manuscript passed through the hands of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, who altered the text, which again could skew wordprints. The Book of Mormon is potentially a mixture of the wordprints of Solomon Spalding, Joseph Smith, and Oliver Cowdery, with the added external pattern of attempting to write in a biblical style. Indeed, if the Spalding theory is correct, wordprint techniques are a wholly invalid method of determining authorship. There are simply too many problems to justify Hilton's assertion that it is "statistically indefensible" to propose Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, or Solomon Spalding as the author of the Book of Mormon.
All the circumstances connected with the work of translation clearly prove that it caused the Prophet the utmost exertion, mental and spiritual, of which he was capable, and while he obtained the facts and ideas from the Nephite characters, he was left to express those ideas in such language as he was master of. This, it is conceded, was faulty, hence here and there [are] verbal defects in the English translation of the Nephite record. Now when the Prophet perceived from the Nephite records that Isaiah was being quoted; or when the Savior was represented as giving instructions . . . Joseph Smith undoubtedly turned to those parts of the Bible where he found a translation, subsequently correct, of those things which were referred to in the Nephite records, and adopted so much of that translation as expressed the truths common to both records . . . . (Roberts 1985, 8)Roberts did not say whether ideas were communicated to Joseph pictorially or in vision, but it could not have been through words, since Joseph had to struggle to find the right words to express the ideas. This account would explain why it was necessary for Oliver to "study it out" in his mind, but it does not agree with those witnesses who said that the English words appeared when Joseph looked into the interpreters or seer stone. Several years later, Roberts reformulated his explanation to bring it more into line with these descriptions.
That is, the Prophet Joseph Smith looked into the Interpreters or Seer Stone, saw there by the power of God and the gift of God to him, the ancient Nephite characters, and by bending every power of his mind to know the meaning thereof, the interpretation wrought out in his mind by this effort -- "by studying it out in his mind," to use the phrase of the revelation above -- was reflected in the sacred instruments, there to remain until correctly written by the scribe. (Roberts 1957, 1:132-33)According to Roberts, the interpretation of the characters as it appeared on the stone was only the reflection of what Joseph thought the characters meant, but Joseph could be wrong. Roberts admits that on at least one occasion Joseph delivered a false revelation by means of the seer stone.
Other Mormon scholars formulated variations of Roberts' theory. Sidney Sperry argued that when a seer uses the interpreters, he is in a mental or spiritual state in which the unknown is "manifested or mirrored to his mind."
Stating the principle in another way: the celestial stones of the Urim and Thummim enabled the Seer, by concentrating all of his spiritual faculties, to pass into the realm of the unknown and have the truth made known to him. . . . When, for example, Joseph Smith was translating the Nephite record, the Urim and Thummim enabled him to receive what the Germans would call sprachgefuehl or linguistic feeling for the unknown language. For the time being the Prophet had an intuitive sense of, or natural feeling for, the Nephite language, which enabled him to understand the writing on the gold plates in his possession. He then proceeded to convey the thoughts expressed on the plates into the best English at his command. . . . The Lord is not to be blamed for the imperfections of language found in the Book of Mormon. (Sperry 1968, 29-30)Daniel Ludlow also explained the translation process by saying that Joseph Smith received "impressions" while translating, although he did not specify the nature of these impressions (Ludlow 1976, 141-42). By making Joseph, rather than the interpreters, responsible for the translation, Roberts, Sperry, and Ludlow could account for the grammatical mistakes and quotations from the KJV. But their explanations exact a great price by sacrificing the accuracy of the Book of Mormon. If the Book of Mormon is expressed in Joseph's own words, it obviously is not a literal translation. And if Joseph committed many mistakes in grammar, he might also have made many errors in expressing the meaning of the characters.
It is then perhaps not very surprising that Mormon scholars have for the most part abandoned these interpretations. But there are other reasons for this change. Much of the new evidence offered as authentication of the Book of Mormon as a genuinely ancient document -- Hebraisms, poetry, antithetical parallelism, chiasmus, wordprints -- can be valid only if the Book of Mormon is a literal translation which faithfully preserves the literary forms and word patterns of the original authors. If Joseph Smith merely received ideas, intuitive feelings, or impressions which he had to express in his own words, then the new studies only provide evidence about Joseph's own literary style. On the other hand, if the Book of Mormon is a literal translation by means of the interpreters, Mormon scholars must again explain the bad grammar and quotations from the KJV. Royal Skousen discusses ways in which scribal errors may have been committed during dictation, but he merely dismisses the grammatical mistakes by saying that the Lord "apparently does not share our insistence on 'proper English' (see D&C 1:24)" (Reynolds 1997, 90).
See also Evidence from the Book of Mormon Manuscript