By Jerald and Sandra Tanner
During the last two or three years the newspapers have carried some sensational stories concerning the Book of Mormon. On June 25, 1977, the Los Angeles Times reported that three handwriting experts had declared that portions of the Book of Mormon were written by Solomon Spalding. Now that the controversy over this issue has somewhat subsided, the Mormon Church has countered with the startling claim that a computer study has yielded evidence favorable to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. The Provo Herald for October 7, 1979, contained this information:
Statisticians, using modern computer techniques to digest and analyze the Book of Mormon word by word, are debunking the 150-year-old claims that the book is the work of just one man.
Utilizing a computer to identify “wordprints” or word use patterns that scientifically differentiate between individual writing styles, researchers have uncovered what they claim is conclusive evidence that the Book of Mormon is the work of many authors.
This is in direct contradiction to critics who claim the book is a fictional work written in the 1820s by Joseph Smith, the prophet-founder of the LDS Church, or by Solomon Spalding, . . .
The research was done by Dr. Alvin C. Rencher, a professor of statistics at Brigham Young University, and Dr. Wayne A. Larsen, a statistician for the Eyring Research Center, both located in Provo.
“The overwhelming evidence given here should permanently lay to rest the alternative theories that Joseph Smith or Solomon Spalding wrote the Book of Mormon,” a report on the study says. . . .
Wordprint comparisons between the Book of Mormon and the known 19th century writings of Joseph Smith and Mr. Spalding show conclusively that neither of these persons, authored the book, the scientists say.
In fact, their research indicates that the book was authored by at least 24 different writers, and possibly more, whose styles bear no resemblance to that of Joseph Smith, Mr. Spalding or other 19th century writers whom they examined . . .
One of the tests went so far as to indicate that “odds against a single author exceeded 100 billion to one,” the statisticians noted in the report.
Are the conclusions of the study final? “I don’t think the last word is in yet,” Dr. Rencher says. But he also says he is confident the research is valid and the statistical methods used in the study are sound. . . .
Wordprints are developed by feeding passages of 1,000 word minimum for each author into a computer and analyzing the frequency of what Dr. Rencher calls “non-contextual words” such as and, for, it, as, be and which.
Different authors develop different patterns in the frequency of use of such words—patterns not related to the context of the material but constant throughout the individual’s writing.
That makes the wordprint a useful tool for identification of authorship, much like a fingerprint or voiceprint can be used to identify an individual, Dr. Rencher said.
While we certainly do not profess to be computer experts, we can make a few preliminary comments about the study and wait for a response by non-Mormon authorities in the field.
To begin with, the list of “24 Major Book of Mormon Authors Used in the Study,” seems to be somewhat padded (see The New Era, November 1979, page 11). For instance, we find Isaiah listed as one of the authors. Since Isaiah is a book in the Bible and since the Book of Mormon itself acknowledges that it is quoting from Isaiah, we do not feel that it should be included in this study. If we are going to include Bible authors as part of the list of “Book of Mormon Authors,” we might as well add Moses, Matthew and Malachi (see Book of Mormon, pages 161, 423-429, 446-448).
The BYU researchers stretch the matter even further by including the “Lord” as “quoted by Isaiah” as part of the “24 Major Book of Mormon Authors.” Also included in this list are the “Lord,” “Jesus” and the “Father.” It would appear, then, that the BYU researchers have created four “Book of Mormon Authors” out of the Father and the Son! On page 11 of their study in The New Era, the researchers admit: “Since the term Lord can refer either to the Father or the Son, we separated the words attributed to the Lord from those attributed to the Father or to Christ.” From this it would appear that the list of “24 Major Book of Mormon Authors,” is a preconceived listing of authors rather than the results actually obtained from a computer.
Actually, we are very much in favor of computer studies with regard to the Book of Mormon. We would especially like to see a study showing the parallels between the King James Version and the Book of Mormon. We feel that such a study could provide some very important evidence regarding the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. As to the use of a computer in the analysis of different styles we are not certain that the results would be as conclusive. We feel that there are many factors that could affect such a study. Just as in the analysis of handwriting, we are concerned that the interpretation of the data can be affected by the person who studies it. We remember that many years ago a computer expert declared that all of the letters of Paul in the Bible were forgeries except for the book of Romans! Of course we were not willing to accept such a startling claim just on the basis of a computer study, and we doubt that a Mormon would receive it without additional evidence.
In 1972 Herbert Guerry began a computer study on the Book of Mormon to determine authorship. When information about the study was published in a tract by an individual belonging to the Reorganized Church, Dr. Guerry felt he had been “grossly” misrepresented. The tract had stated that “Authentic authorship of books and papers can apparently be established by computer comparisons of grammar and language usage peculiar to each individual.” Dr. Guerry’s reply to this statement was as follows: “False. Or, rather, we simply do not know enough yet to be able to make such claims. Moreover, it just might turn out that writers’ styles are not sufficiently unique to allow us to make positive identifications” (Saints’ Herald, August 1975, page 16).
The tract said that “Apparently one’s language is unique much like one’s fingerprints.” Dr. Guerry replied that “This is a paraphrase of a speculation I made often at Idaho State University: what I usually said was that I wanted to find out whether or not one’s prose style was as unique as one’s fingerprints.”
The tract alleged that “The government believes in the method and recently granted $200,000 for a computer analysis of the Federalist Papers to determine authorship.” Dr. Guerry protested: “False again . . . or at best misleading. The federal government funds much research, but to do so does not mean that the government ‘believes in’ a particular method. When the government funds a research project of this type it, in effect, is only saying that the project has sufficient merit to deserve support. . . . Many people have done authorship determination studies, and they use many different methods. My methods differ from those of the two recent studies of the Federalist Papers [these latter two studies, incidentally, reached differing conclusions].”
The tract stated that “There was no match between the Book of Mormon and any contemporary author of that period.” The reply to this was as follows: “False, since no clear results about the authorship of the Book of Mormon have yet emerged from the study except perhaps, that it was not written by Solomon Spaulding or Sidney Rigdon, but this is hardly an amazing result.” Dr. Guerry went on to state that “The study has shown nothing yet about Smith’s relationship to the Book of Mormon, . . .”
The Mormon scholar Elinore H. Partridge made these observations on the analysis of a person’s style of writing:
A stylistic analysis, even an objective, statistical analysis, is not as certain a means of establishing authorship as handwriting. . . .
Some of the linguists who have done stylistic studies have suggested that the style of a person is as unique as his fingerprints. If one could adequately describe a person’s style, he would then have a stylistic “register” unique to that person. Unfortunately, things are not quite that simple. A person’s fingerprints do not change, but his style often does. Furthermore, everyone adjusts his style to suit various occasions. The language we use in speaking to a colleague or a friend differs from the language we use in a formal speech or paper. However, a careful analysis of someone’s style can usually identify certain features which that person uses on a variety of occasions. Even when a person’s style changes, as it often does, during his lifetime, a trained observer can usually trace the changes and identify continuing characteristics. (“Characteristics of Joseph Smith’s Style and Notes on the Authorship of the Lectures on Faith,” Task Papers in LDS History, no. 14, December 1976, pages 1-2)
On page 23 of the same study we find the following:
Joseph Smith’s writing is characteristically marked by series of related ideas joined by simple conjunctions: and, but, for. In his handwritten manuscripts, he used neither punctuation nor capitalization as sentence markers. When his writing has been edited, or when someone else wrote words which he dictated, the result is an unusually large number of sentences beginning with for, and, or but [almost three out of five sentences].
After reading these statements by Elinore H. Partridge, we decided to see how Joseph Smith’s style with regard to these words compared to the Book of Mormon. We picked at random Alma, Chapter 2, and found that about 62 percent of the sentences begin with and, for or but. This compared well with the statement that “almost three out of five sentences” (about 60 percent) of Smith’s sentences begin with these three words. We applied the same test to Joseph Smith’s “strange” account of the First Vision, which we have photographically reproduced in the book Joseph Smith’s 1832-34 Diary. We found that 61 percent of the sentences tested began with these words. We also made a study of a portion of Solomon Spalding’s printed manuscript, but found that he only used these three words about 10 percent of the time. Elinore H. Partridge claims that Rigdon only used these words about 5 percent of the time in the material she studied.
In any case, we feel that there are some very serious problems with regard to the text of the Book of Mormon which will make it very difficult to examine with a computer. One thing that presents a real challenge is that the Book of Mormon is filled with material which has been plagiarized from the Bible and other sources. For instance, it is very obvious that 1 Nephi, Chapter 18, borrows from Mark, Chapter 4. The reader will notice the identical material in the two extracts which follows:
. . . there arose a great storm . . . the wind ceased, and there was a great calm. (Mark 4: 37,39)
. . . there arose a great storm . . . the winds did cease, . . . and there was a great calm. (1 Nephi 18:13,21)
The storm in the book of Nephi was supposed to have occurred about 600 years before the one recorded in Mark. The only logical conclusion for this similarity is that the author of the Book of Mormon lived in the 19th century and borrowed from the King James Version of the Bible. In Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? and The Changing World of Mormonism, we show a large number of passages that have been lifted from the King James Version without any indication. In another study which we made (The Case Against Mormonism, vol. 2), we listed 400 parallels between the New Testament and the Book of Mormon. H. Michael Marquardt has also made a good summary of the issue in his pamphlet The Use of the Bible in the Book of Mormon and Early Nineteenth Century Events Reflected in the Book of Mormon.
It seems that almost every time we carefully examine a portion of the Book of Mormon we find more parallels. We feel, however, that a computer would reveal many more. This would be in addition to the large amount of material which is acknowledged to have been included from the Old Testament.
We feel, therefore, that if a computer could actually be programmed to sort out writing styles, it would, no doubt, show more than 24 different authors. We would probably find Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Job, David, Solomon, Ezekiel, Daniel. Jonah, Micah, Malachi, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, James, Peter, Jude, etc. The Book of Mormon also seems to have parallels to the Apocrypha, the Westminster Confession, and other publications (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality?). We feel that it will be very difficult to make an accurate stylistic analysis of a book which plagiarizes from so many different sources.
Even if a researcher were able to struggle through this pitfall, there is another problem when it comes to comparing Joseph Smith’s style to that found in the Book of Mormon. This is that Joseph Smith (or his scribes) continued to borrow from other authors in his later writings. For instance, we find this statement attributed to Joseph Smith in his History of the Church 2:349-50:
I was then unknown to Mr. Chandler, neither did he know that such a book or work as the record of the Nephites, had been brought before the public. From New York, he took his collection on to Philadelphia, . . .
Research has revealed that these are really the words of Oliver Cowdery and are taken from a letter which was published in the Messenger and Advocate, December 1835, vol. 2, page 235:
Bro. Smith was then unknown to Mr. Chandler, neither did he know that such a book or work as the record of the Nephites had been brought before the public. From New York he took his collection to Philadelphia, . . .
This is just a brief example. Actually, hundreds of words have been taken from this letter by Cowdery and inserted into the History of the Church as if Joseph Smith was the author. We could cite many other examples of this process. What started out as harmless plagiarism turned into out-and-out falsification after Joseph Smith’s death. He had completed less than 40 percent of the History of the Church before passing away, but the Mormon leaders tried to make it appear that he had written all six volumes. They did use some original documents which Smith was responsible for, but they altered the words to suit their purposes. In many places they had nothing to follow and had to falsify material from sources such as other people’s diaries and newspapers to fill in the void. For example, on August 13, 1842, the local newspaper, The Wasp, reported:
. . . Joseph Smith was arrested upon a requisition of Gov. Carlin, . . . Mr. Rockwell was arrested at the same time as principal. . . . they left them in care of the Marshal, without the original writ by which they were arrested, and by which only they could be retained, and returned back to Gov. Carlin for further instruction,— and Messrs. Smith and Rockwell went about their business. . . .
As to Mr. Smith, we have yet to learn by what rule of right he was arrested to be transported to Missouri for a trial of the kind stated.
When this was republished in the History of the Church it was changed to the first person to make it appear that Joseph Smith had written it:
. . . I was arrested . . . on a warrant issued by Governor Carlin, . . . Brother Rockwell was arrested at the same time as principal. . . . they left us in the care of the marshal, without the original writ by which we were arrested, and by which only we could be retained, and returned to Governor Carlin for further instructions, and myself and Rockwell went about our business.
I have yet to learn by what rule of right I was arrested to be transported to Missouri for a trial of the kind stated. (History of the Church, vol. 5. pages 86-87)
Even Joseph Smith’s famous Rocky Mountain Prophecy was interpolated into the History of the Church as if he had written it (see Mormonism—Shadow or Reality? pages 133-34).
In 1965 we published a book entitled, Changes in Joseph Smith’s History, in which we charged that most of Joseph Smith’s History was not written until after his death. For some time the Mormon historians kept silent about this serious charge, but finally they had to admit that the History of the Church had been falsified. Dean C. Jessee, of the Church Historical Department, conceded that “At the time of Joseph Smith’s death, the narrative was written to August 5, 1838” (Brigham Young University Studies, Summer 1971, page 466). On page 472 of the same article, Dean Jessee admitted that “The Joseph Smith History was finished in August 1856, seventeen years after it was begun.” Since Joseph Smith died in 1844, this would mean that the History was not finished until 12 years after his death. The Church’s 1978 printing of the History of the Church still claims on the title page of each volume that it is the “History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, BY HIMSELF.”
The Mormon scholar Hugh Nibley says that “A forgery is defined by specialists in ancient documents as ‘any document which was not produced in the time, place, and manner claimed by it or its publishers’ ” (Since Cumorah, page 160). Under this definition the History of the Church must be classed as a forgery. While it does contain some very important information about Joseph Smith, most of it “was not produced in the time, place, and manner claimed by it or its publishers.”
Although the History of the Church contains hundreds of pages of material attributed to Joseph Smith, it is of little value to those who seek to find his style of writing. Even one of the Assistant Church Historians, Davis Bitton, has had to admit that “for researchers in early Mormon history Rule Number One is ‘Do not rely on the DHC; never use a quotation from it without comparing the earlier versions’ ” (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Winter 1968, page 32).
Mormon scholar Marvin S. Hill made this observation about the History of the Church:
One reason that Brodie concluded that Joseph had veiled his personality behind a “perpetual flow of words” in his history may be that she assumed he had dictated most of it. We now know that large portions of that history were not dictated but were written by scribes and later transferred into the first person to read as though the words were Joseph’s. That fact makes what few things Joseph Smith wrote himself of great significance. (Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, Winter 1972, page 76)
We would challenge the BYU researchers to make a computer study of Joseph Smith’s History of the Church. We feel that they would find far more than 24 authors involved in the production of that work.
We assume that the BYU computer experts used authentic specimens from Joseph Smith’s writings to compare with the Book of Mormon. We asked Dr. Alvin C. Rencher about this matter on the phone. He replied that he could not specifically remember just what sources they had used for Joseph Smith, but he claimed that they had been verified as authentic by historians in the Church. In any case, anyone who attempts this type of research in the future should be aware of the fact that Joseph Smith’s History of the Church is not a dependable source for the study of his style of writing.
Elinore H. Partridge felt that the Church’s published sources were not reliable for stylistic analysis. For this reason she used some of Joseph Smith’s own letters and early diaries for her study. She says that the manuscripts she “found most useful included ten letters and parts of a letterbook, and small sections of two diaries. . . . I studied the parts of the Letterbook, dated 1832-33, the 1832-34 Diary, and the 1835-36 Diary which were in Joseph Smith’s handwriting” (“Characteristics of Joseph Smith’s Style . . .” page 4).
The Mormon leaders suppressed Joseph Smith’s diaries for many years, but recently we obtained copies of and printed both the 1832-34 and the 1835-36 diaries. We feel that they are very valuable in showing that Joseph Smith had the ability to write the Book of Mormon and that they are very important when it comes to stylistic analysis. As we indicated before, we have also included a photographic copy of Joseph Smith’s 1832 account of the First Vision in the publication Joseph Smith’s 1832-34 Diary. We feel that the style of this writing agrees very well with that found in the Book of Mormon. For instance, the account begins, “I was born . . . of goodly parents . . .” This reminds us of 1 Nephi 1:1: “I Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, . . .” Joseph Smith’s “strange” account of the First Vision sounds very much like the conversion of Enos in the forest. In the “strange” account we read: “. . . I cried unto the Lord . . . and he spake unto me saying Joseph my Son thy Sins are forgiven thee.” The Book of Mormon account says: “. . . I cried unto him . . . And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, . . .” (Enos, verses 4-5).
When the Book of Mormon was first published, some people ridiculed it because it was filled with the expression, “And it came to pass.” Joseph Smith was bothered by this criticism and in later years tried to not use this expression. If we examine the 1832 account, however, we find that it was really a part of his early style. For instance, at one place in the manuscript he stated: “. . . and it came to pass when I was seventeen years of Age . . .”
If we had the time and space, we could cite a number of other things that tend to make us believe that the two works came from the same pen.
In trying to determine the value of the BYU computer study we have been hindered because of the unavailability of material. Alvin Rencher told us that a larger study would appear in a forthcoming book, but he said he had been “asked not to release copies until the editorial process is complete” (Letter dated November 14, 1979). In the same letter he said that “The New Era article is the only thing available so far.” He did enclose a copy of a letter written on November 6, 1979, and while it does not add much to our knowledge of the study, it does show that the first edition of the Book of Mormon was not used: “We are, of course, aware that there have been many changes since the first edition, (mostly minor). Someday we may repeat the study using the 1830 edition. Our experience with this present study would indicate that no new conclusions would be reached. Two different linguists have told us that the many minor changes from the 1830 edition really attest to the fact that the translation is from a Hebrew-like language. That is, the present edition is much better English. The 1830 edition is better Hebrew.”
While we do not really know how much difference it would make, we do feel that the use of a later edition would have a definite affect on stylistic analysis (see our study 3,913 Changes in the Book of Mormon). We would be especially interested in seeing a study comparing the “strange” account of the First Vision with the unchanged text of the 1830 Book of Mormon.
As to the claim that the grammatical errors in the Book of Mormon tend to prove it was translated from “a Hebrew-like language,” we feel that this is only wishful thinking. Joseph Smith’s other documents and letters have the same type of grammatical errors in them. We do not feel that anyone would argue that a letter to his wife Emma came from a Hebrew-like language just because it contains grammatical errors. We tend to agree with the Mormon historian B. H. Roberts when he wrote:
. . . such errors in grammar and diction as occur in the translation are just such errors as might reasonably be looked for in the work of one unlearned in the English language. . . . it cannot be claimed that the Nephite original is responsible for verbal inaccuracies and grammatical errors. . . . Are these flagrant errors in grammar chargeable to the Lord? To say so is to invite ridicule. The thoughts, the doctrines, are well enough; but the awkward, ungrammatical expression of the thoughts is, doubtless, the result of the translator’s imperfect knowledge of the English language, . . . (Defense of the Faith, pages 278-308)
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