Spalding–Rigdon Theory of Book of Mormon Authorship - Computer Analysis

Computer Analysis

Computer analyses of authorship of The Book of Mormon have resulted in conflicting results and dueling assertions about which methodologies yield the most reliable analyses.

Early wordprint or computer studies demonstrated the Spalding-Rigdon theory to have little support from such analysis. A 1980 study done by John Hilton with non-LDS colleagues at Berkeley concluded that the probability of Spalding having been the (sole) author of book of Nephi was less than 7.29 x 10−28 and less than 3 x 10−11 for Alma.

A 2008 Stanford study (Jockers et al., 2008) of the text of the Book of Mormon compared to writings of possible authors of the text shows a high probability that the authors of the book were Spalding, Rigdon, and Oliver Cowdery; concluding that "our analysis supports the theory that the Book of Mormon was written by multiple, nineteenth-century authors, and more specifically, we find strong support for the Spalding-Rigdon theory of authorship. In all the data, we find Rigdon as a unifying force. His signal dominates the book, and where other candidates are more probable, Rigdon is often hiding in the shadows". This study did not include Joseph Smith as one of the possible authors, arguing that because of Smith's use of scribes and co-authors, no texts can be presently identified with a surety as having been written by Smith. Later scholars argue that this is a significant problem, demonstrating that a "naive application of NSC methodology" led to "misleading results" by Jockers et al because they had used a closed set of 7 authors for their study. Another study (Schaalje et al., 2009) showed that an open set of candidate authors "produced dramatically different results from a closed-set NSC analysis."

The Jockers study found a strong Spalding signal in Mosiah, Alma, the first part of Helaman, and Ether. The Spalding signal was weak in those parts of the Book of Mormon likely produced after the lost pages incident (1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, some of the middle part of 3 Nephi, Moroni). They found the Rigdon signal distributed throughout the Book of Mormon (except for the known Isaiah chapters), and a weak Pratt signal in 1 Nephi. They also found a strong Cowdery signal in mid-Alma and weaker Cowdery signals in locations that contain content similar to Ethan Smith's "View of the Hebrews".

The Stanford group, in the peer-reviewed publication in the Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing, reviewed the (non-peer reviewed) Hilton study and pointed out numerous flaws in it.

They (Jockers et al., 2008) found that the Book of Alma is a mixture of Rigdon, Cowdery, and Spalding. The Hilton study does not indicate what text they used for Alma. If one lumps all the signals for Rigdon, Cowdery, and Spalding together, one is left with a corrupt signal that does not match Spalding.

The Schaalje peer-reviewed study also published in the Journal of Literary and Linguistic Computing critiqued the methodology used by Jockers et al. in their 2008 study by noting numerous problems, including the closed set analysis that forced the choosing of a winner while excluding the possibility that an author outside the closed set could be selected. By using Jocker's methodology to analyze the (known) authorship of the Federalist Papers by including and excluding Alexander Hamilton as a candidate author, Jocker’s methodology picked Rigdon when Hamilton was excluded. Using Schaalje’s open set method, Schaalje's method picked "none of the above" when Hamilton was excluded. When Hamilton was included, both Jockers and Schaalje's method correctly picked Hamilton.

By using Joseph Smith's personal writings written in his own handwriting, the Schaalje rebuttal concluded that stylometric evidence supports neither Joseph Smith nor Spalding-Rigdon authorship.

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