Instead of arguing about the antiquity of the Codex Sinaiticus, does anyone want to argue about the "antiquity" of the Book of Mormon??
They've cracked the book of Mormon using Nearest Shrunken Centroid (NSC) Classification. See
this research article.
"Based on this evidence we find the original claims of Howe (Howe, 1834,
1977) and the more recent assertions of Cowdrey and coworkers quite plausible;
it seems likely that the 1830 version of the Book of Mormon was the creation of
Sidney Rigdon, a Reformed Baptist Preacher, who had motives, means, and
opportunity to carry out the project (Cowdrey et al., 2005). We acknowledge that
because our samples of Rigdon prose all come after 1830, some could argue
that Rigdon's prose was influenced by the Book of Mormon and not vice versa.
"To raise such an objection, however, one would have to argue that Rigdon was
so influenced by the Book of Mormon that he consciously or unconsciously
adopted, even internalized, the most subtle and unremarkable linguistic patterns
found in certain portions of the text, but not in others.
"Prior exposure to the Book of Mormon most certainly did not influence
Solomon Spalding who died fourteen years before it was published. Yet our data
strongly support the historical claim that a lost Spalding manuscript served as a
source text for the backbone narrative of the Book of Mormon. The document
that we used for samples of Spalding’s writing ("Manuscript Story" also known as
"The Oberlin Manuscript") does not match the eyewitness descriptions of
"Manuscript Found," the draft novel that Spalding read to friends and family in
Conneaut, nor does it match the Book of Mormon.
"The Spalding-Rigdon theory rests heavily on the assumption that additional Spalding manuscripts once
exited, and that material from one of these manuscripts provided the narrative
framework for the Book of Mormon. This additional manuscript would be the one
that the Conneaut witnesses and others identified as being the “source” of the
Book of Mormon. While not that manuscript, the Oberlin Manuscript
nevertheless provides us with a reliable sample of Spalding's prose and the
linguistic signal detected in it appears with significant regularity throughout the
Book of Mormon.
"Of course, we have not considered every possible candidate-author who
may have influenced the composition of the Book of Mormon. We have, however
selected from among the most likely candidates, excepting perhaps Joseph
Smith. In the case of Joseph Smith, we had no reliable samples of prose to test.
When reliablyntified materials become available, their addition to this analysis
would be worth considering. An effort to compile such writings is currently
underway."