toddv@tekmdp.UUCP (Todd Vierheller) (08/11/83)
Jon White spells his name J-O-N. (No "H"). Minor point, but it bothers
me because it makes me think I'm reading about someone else.
An interesting book on the market concerning the Book of Mormon is called
"Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?". It (the book) claims (and documents)
that Joseph Smith and accomplices acquired a manuscript from a man named Rev
Solomon Spaulding and turned it into [part of] the book of Mormon. Lots of
documentation is provided, including people who had read some of Spaulding's
early manuscripts, neighbors of both Smith and Spaulding, personal letters, etc.
After reading this you might agree with Russ that Joseph Smith and accomplices
didn't write the Book of Mormon. Then again, you might not. Decide for
yourself.
I understand that a similar [and better] book was published about 1914 --
"The True Origin of the Book of Mormon" by Charles Shook.
Russ, would you please address the problem of no archeological evidence of the
history of America as claimed by Joseph Smith. I have a book called
"Archeological Evidence for the Book of Mormon in America." Or something like
that. It's in St Louis. (My grandfather was a mormon. I have books
concerning things you wouldn't believe. But that's another story.)
Do you have this book Russ? I frankly haven't read mine.
What about the archeological evidence? Or the lack of it?
Send flames to the net or:
Todd Vierheller (Portland Oregon)
UUCP: ...!{ucbvax or decvax}!teklabs!tekmdp!toddv (ignore return address)
CSNET: tekmdp!toddv @ tektronix
ARPA: tekmdp!toddv.tektronix @ rand-relaycrm@duke.UUCP (11/10/83)
It would be interesting to compure writings by different personalities of multiple-personality schizophrenic neurotics -- I suspect that they would show similar differences. After all, if one personality can exclusively speak a language that none of the other personalities understand, this kind of partitioning would be no great step. Charlie Martin ...!duke!crm
tim@unc.UUCP (11/10/83)
Charlie Martin made a good point about the probable differences in the word frequencies of multiple-personality sufferers (although the term he used, "multiple personality schizophrenic neurotics", is incorrect -- multiple personality is not considered a type of schizophrenia, since the individual personalities do not tend to demonstrate schizophrenic symptoms). However, I might note that we do not have to go so far. It is likely that a person who consciously adopted different writing styles would be able to fake out the tests mentioned by Russ. I am willing, for instance, to wager that a complete analysis of the works of Aleister Crowley would demonstrate more than ten different authors. Further, a writing style that is in development would probably also show "different authors" when in fact they are simply different periods in the development. _____________________________________________________________________ Tim Maroney (not Moroni), University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill duke!unc!tim (USENET), tim.unc@csnet-relay (ARPA)