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Book of Mormon "Wordprint" or "Word Pattern" Studies

Parent page: Book of Mormon/Translation


If Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, we should be able to see his "literary style" across the entire book. If he copied from someone, we should see that author's writing style likewise. If the Book of Mormon was written by ancient authors, we should be able to see distinct writing styles among each different author. This study of this is called analyzing "word patterns", "wordprinting" or "stylometry". It is the science of identifying authorship by measuring the words and phrases a person unconsciously uses.

John Hilton and the Berkeley Group

A scientific analysis was done by John Hilton and non-LDS colleagues at Berkeley.[1] The "Berkeley Group's" method relied on non-contextual word patterns, rather than just individual words. This method was designed from the ground up, and required works of at least 5,000 words.

The Berkeley Group first used a variety of control tests with non-disputed authors (e.g. works by Mark Twain, and translated works from German) in an effort to:

  • demonstrate the persistence of wordprints despite an author's effort to write as a different 'character'
  • demonstrate that wordprints were not obliterated by translation (e.g. two different authors rendered by the same translator would still have different wordprints).

The Berkeley Group's methods have since passed peer review, and were used to identify previously unknown writings written by Thomas Hobbes.[2]

The Berkeley Group compared Book of Mormon texts written by Nephi and Alma with themselves, with each other, and with work by Joseph, Oliver, and Solomon Spaulding. Each comparison is assessed based upon the number of "rejections" provided by the model. The greater the number of rejections, the greater the chance that the two texts were not written by the same author. Tests with non-disputed texts showed that two texts by the same author never scored more than 6 rejections; thus, one cannot be certain if scores between 1–6 were written by the same or different authors. Scores of 0 rejections makes it statistically likely the two texts were written by the same author.

However, seven or more rejections indicates that the texts were written by a different author with a high degree of probability:[3]

# of Rejections Certainty of being
different authors
7 99.5%
8 99.9%
9 99.99%
10 99.997%

The results are striking

The results are striking:[4]

Recall that any test over 6 indicates different authorship; 1–6 or less is indeterminate; 0 is same author. Each x represents one test.

Compare Total Number of
Tests Performed		 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
Nephi vs. Nephi 3 ---- ---- x ---- x x ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Alma vs. Alma 3 ---- x x x ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Smith vs. Smith 3 x ---- xx ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Cowdery vs. Cowdery 1 ---- x ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Spaulding vs. Spaulding 1 ---- ---- x ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Nephi vs. Alma 9 ---- ---- x ---- ---- xx xx x x x x ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Smith vs. Nephi 6 ---- ---- ---- ---- x ---- ---- ---- xx ---- x x x ---- ---- ----
Smith vs. Alma 6 ---- ---- ---- xx x x ---- xx ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Cowdery vs. Nephi 6 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- x x ---- ---- ---- xx ---- x x ----
Cowdery vs. Alma 6 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- xxxx x x ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ----
Spaulding vs. Nephi 6 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- x x x ---- x xx
Spaulding vs. Alma 6 ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- xxx ---- xx ---- ---- ---- x ---- ---- -

Furthermore, each "rejection" is statistically independent—this means that the chance of two different authors being the product the same person can be determined by multiplying the chance of each individual failure.[5]

The Berkeley Group found a 1 in 15 trillion chance that Nephi and Alma were written by the same author

Thus the chance of Nephi and Alma being the same author is found by:

chance of 7 rejections x 8 rejections x 9 rejections x 10 rejections
= 0.005 x 0.001 x 0.0001 x 0.00003
= 0.000000000000015
=1.5 x 10-14

This is a roughly 1 in 15 trillion chance of Nephi and Alma having the same author. Hilton rightly terms this "statistical overkill".

Authors Cumulative chance of being the same author
Nephi and Alma 1.5 x 10-14
Joseph Smith and Alma 2.5 x 10-5
Joseph Smith and Nephi less than 2.7 x 10-20
Oliver Cowdery and Alma 6.25 x 10-17
Oliver Cowdery and Nephi less than 8.1 x 10-19
Spaulding and Alma less than 3 x 10-11
Spaulding and Nephi less than 7.29 x 10-28

This analysis suggests that it is "statistically indefensible" to claim that Joseph, Oliver, or Solomon Spaulding wrote the 30,000 words in the Book of Mormon attributed to Nephi and Alma

As John Hilton put the matter, if wordprinting is a valid technique, then this analysis suggests that it is "statistically indefensible" to claim that Joseph, Oliver, or Solomon Spaulding wrote the 30,000 words in the Book of Mormon attributed to Nephi and Alma.[6] The Book of Mormon also contains work written by more than one author. Critics who wish to reject Joseph's account of the Book of Mormon's production must therefore identify multiple authors for the text, and then explain how Joseph acquired it and managed to pass it off as his own.


Notes

  1. ↑ Template:Echoes
  2. ↑ Thomas Hobbes, edited by Noel B. Reynolds and Arlene W. Saxonhouse, Three Discourses: A Critical Modern Edition of Newly Identified Works of the Young Hobbes (Urbana and Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
  3. ↑ Template:BYUS1 Template:Pdflink
  4. ↑ Hilton, BYU Studies, "On Verifying Word Print Studies," endnote 21.
  5. ↑ Hilton, BYU Studies, "On Verifying Word Print Studies," endnote #21.
  6. ↑ Hilton, BYU Studies, "On Verifying Word Print Studies," 101.
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