Friday, June 25, 2010
Word Frequencies and Mosiah Priority
To generate the graph below, basically what I did was chopped the Book of Mormon up into sequential ten-chapter "chunks" (excluding chapters borrowed from the KJV Bible) according to Mosiah and 1 Nephi Priority, then measured (using Delta word frequency scores) the relative similarity of each "chunk" to the front and back ends of the Book of Mormon. Relative similarity to the front half was defined as "positive", and relative similarity to the back half was defined as negative. Given sequential authorship of the Book of Mormon by a single individual, we'd expect to see a negative linear trend over the course of the Book. As you can see in the attached graphs, this is precisely what we observe according to a Mosiah Priority sequence. In the 1 Nephi Priority sequence, though, we actually see a reversal of the trend in the middle of the book, with the latter portion becoming gradually more similar to the early chapters. This makes a strong argument for Mosiah priority.
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5 comments:
Wow, very interesting. A few embarrassing questions as I have never done this before.
1. What is delta work frequency and how is it measured?
2. Could you define what you mean by Mosiah and 1 Nephi Priority? Maybe you did and I missed it.
3. Why if a single author would we see a negative linear trend.
Hi Joseph!
1) My paper on the Urantia Book explains Delta and the methodology used in creating this chart in greater detail. Basically what we're doing is finding the frequencies of about 60 common words in two different sections of the Book of Mormon. The total difference between the frequencies in the two sections represents a sort of "stylistic distance" between them.
2) Sorry, I should have explained that. Mosiah Priority is the theory that after the loss of the 116 pages, Joseph Smith continued dictating from Mosiah to the end of the Book of Mormon before going back and dictating 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon.
3) Imagine walking along a seesaw with equally heavy fat kids sitting on either end. When you begin at the left end, the seesaw leans toward the left. But as you walk along the seesaw toward the right end, the balance shifts and the seesaw leans more and more to the right.
Writing a book is like walking along a seesaw. As the author's style gradually changes over the course of writing his book, it becomes gradually more distant from his style in the early chapters, and less distant from his style in the later chapters. Basically what we're doing is measuring the slope of the seesaw for each chapter in order to determine its "distance" from each end of the book.
I hope that explanation made things clearer rather than muddier for you! :)
Peace,
-Chris
Chris,
Thanks for the explanations and great work! Plots and data like this are just what needs to be done. This is very helpful stuff.
Thanks Chris, for the post. I wish I had a better idea of the significance. In addition to Joseph's questions could you elaborate a bit on the importance of such research?
Hi jmb,
One of the reasons the question of dictation order is significant is that it helps us know which parts of the Book of Mormon were dictated when. Don Bradley is doing some work right now on how the Book of Mormon addressed its "dictation context", which is one possible application of such knowledge.
Another significant aspect of the OP is that it may shed some light on Book of Mormon authorship. The pattern that emerges is at least consistent with what we would expect if the Book of Mormon had a single author. It doesn't exclude the possibility of multiple authorship, but it doesn't support multiple authorship, either.
One possible extension of this research would be to include, in sequence, the sections of the D&C. We could then determine whether they fall into the same linear stylistic trend as the BoM, or deviate from it. This could help us determine whether the BoM and D&C had the same author.
Peace,
-Chris
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