Correcting an Error in My Dialogue Article

The latest issue of Dialogue has just mailed, with my paper "Joseph Smith in Hermeneutical Crisis" included. Unfortunately, after signing off on the proofs for this paper I discovered a problem with footnote #60. In the published version it reads in part,

[The Book of Mormon] also tends to exaggerate the use of certain forms--for example, the emphatic construction “I did go up unto,” as opposed to “I went up unto.” My own computer study reveals that most biblical books use the word “did” very little--only Habakkuk uses it more than three times per thousand words. The Book of Mormon, by contrast, exhibits extraordinarily high rates of occurrence per thousand words in four books: 4 Nephi (23.64), Ether (12.26), Mormon (11.87), and Helaman (11.86). Only 2 Nephi (1.29), Jacob (2.08), and Moroni (2.61) use “did” fewer than five times per thousand words.

In order to generate these word frequencies I used a computer program I wrote years ago for that purpose. Upon revisiting the code for this program, however, I discovered that years ago I was a pretty crummy programmer! I fixed my code and got slightly different numbers. Fortunately the basic conclusion remains the same. The corrected footnote should read,

[The Book of Mormon] also tends to exaggerate the use of certain forms--for example, the emphatic construction “I did go up unto,” as opposed to “I went up unto.” My own computer study reveals that most biblical books use the word “did” very little--only 1 and 2 Kings use it more than three times per thousand words. The Book of Mormon, by contrast, exhibits extraordinarily high rates of occurrence per thousand words in four books: 4 Nephi (25.99), Ether (13.93), Mormon (12.63), and Helaman (13.01). Only 2 Nephi (1.55), Jacob (1.75), and Moroni (2.62) use “did” fewer than five times per thousand words. (Book of Mormon chapters copied verbatim or nearly-verbatim from the KJV are excluded from these ratios.)