There is, however, another story with which many have become familiar in recent years. Modern portrayals of the translation process such as that shown in the popular animated television show South Park2 depict Joseph looking at a stone in the bottom of his hat and dictating to his scribe, without the use of a curtain. The popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia displays a “twenty-first century artistic representation of Joseph Smith translating the golden plates by examining a seer stone in his hat.”3 A Google search of “Book of Mormon translation” or “seer stone Joseph Smith” produces a large number of such images, many of them hosted by websites that are critical of the Church’s truth claims. This is a method which I did not learn about in Seminary, and there are anecdotal stories of Latter-day Saints who, upon being presented with this portrayal, simply deny that this method may have ever been employed, attributing such depictions to “anti-Mormon” sources.
Depictions of the translation process by artists have also contributed to the confusion. Latter-day Saints are quite familiar with a variety of artistic portrayals of Joseph and Oliver as they participated in the translation process. Some depict Joseph and his scribe sitting at a table with a curtain across the middle. Others show Joseph and Oliver sitting together at a table, with no curtain in view and the plates clearly visible, yet we know that Oliver was not allowed to view the plates prior to acting as one of the Three Witnesses. One thing that these scenes have in common is that they do not depict the Urim and Thummim, despite the fact that we know that a translation instrument was used during the process. We see no crystal stones mounted in a set of “spectacles,” nor do we see the breastplate.4 We certainly never see Joseph gazing into the bottom of his hat while dictating.
We have evidence that Martin Harris, both at the time that the translation occurred, and at the end of his life, perceived that Joseph used the Nephite interpreters, or “spectacles,” together with a hat in order to interpret the characters on the gold plates. The use of the hat as part of the translation process was clearly noted. Martin’s description would coincide with the period of time that he acted as scribe, which corresponded with the translation of the 116 lost pages of manuscript. The idea that the Urim and Thummim was placed in a hat sounds quite different from the mental picture that we might have of Joseph using the spectacles like a pair of glasses to view the plates. However, recall that Martin described the stones in the interpreters as “white, like polished marble, with a few gray streaks.” This does not necessarily imply that they were transparent.
These accounts present a case for considering the idea that Joseph placed the spectacles, which we know as the Urim and Thummim, into a hat during the translation process. We usually assume that Joseph had the plates on the table and looked at them through the spectacles.
The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints even made a point of noting that the term Urim and Thummim only came into use after 1833.
David Whitmer, who only observed the translation after the loss of the 116 pages, also distinguished the Urim and Thummim (the spectacles) from the seer stone.
However, Whitmer’s assertion that Joseph was presented with a stone is most likely not correct, since Joseph already possessed at least one seer stone prior to receiving the Nephite interpreters. One could speculate that the angel took Joseph’s stone away at the same time that he took the plates and the Nephite interpreters, and then returned it to him after consecrating it for the purpose of translation. There is, however, no evidence to confirm that this is the case other than the fact that Joseph was allowed to use the stone for this purpose.
Those who believed that Joseph Smith’s revelations contained the voice of the Lord speaking to them also accepted the miraculous ways in which the revelations were received. Some of the Prophet Joseph’s earliest revelations came through the same means by which he translated the Book of Mormon from the gold plates. In the stone box containing the gold plates, Joseph found what Book of Mormon prophets referred to as “interpreters,” or a “stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light” (Alma 37:23–24). He described the instrument as “spectacles” and referred to it using an Old Testament term, Urim and Thummim (see Exodus 28:30).
The idea that there could be more than one Urim and Thummim is not unusual, and we only need to look to the Bible. The Urim and Thummim referred to in the Bible is not the same instrument used by the Nephites or by Joseph Smith. However, the Biblical references to the Urim and Thummim do associate the instrument with a breastplate. Exodus 28:30 states, “And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in before the Lord. Leviticus 8:8, states, “And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the breastplate the Urim and the Thummim.” From the Church’s official website, lds.org, we learn that the Urim and Thummim was “an ancient instrument or tool prepared by God and used by Joseph Smith to aid in the translation of the Book of Mormon. God provided a Urim and Thummim to His prophets in ancient times (see Exodus 28:30; 1 Samuel 28:6; Ezra 2:63).
However, did Joseph use the term Urim and Thummim to refer to the translation instruments during the period that he was translating the Book of Mormon? Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith credits Joseph Smith as saying, “The angel was rejoiced when he gave me back the Urim and Thummim.”49 It initially appears from this statement that Joseph used the term Urim and Thummim to refer to the Nephite spectacles at the time he was translating. However, an examination of the endnote for this entry reveals that this text is from Lucy Mack Smith’s 1845 manuscript history of the Prophet’s life, which was written well after the term Urim and Thummim came into general use. Furthermore, upon examining the original text of Lucy’s 1845 manuscript, we note some interesting alterations. The text was originally written by Lucy partially in the third person.
Since Lucy is the one who originally wrote the text of Joseph’s statement, we have established this reference to the Urim and Thummim as a late second-hand statement. The use of the term to refer to the translation instruments is unsurprising, but its use as a replacement for references to the plates is unusual. By the time Lucy’s history was published in 1853, there was no indication that these “Urim and Thummim” references originally referred to the plates, and it now appeared that Joseph Smith himself had spoken these words.
I have sometimes had seasons of skepticism, in which I did seriously wonder whether the Prophet and I were men in our sober senses, when he would be translating from plates, through “the Urim and Thummim” and the plates not be in sight at all.
The lesson taught is a very powerful one, and defines for Latter-day Saints the manner in which we can receive personal revelation. Elder Richard G. Scott discussed this in the April 2007 General Conference.
Richard Lloyd Anderson, in an article in the September 1977 Ensign, noted this inconsistency regarding Oliver and the plates.
Did Oliver attempt to translate using Joseph’s seer stone? This is one possibility. Another possibility is that Oliver possessed his own revelatory instrument and attempted to use it to translate. There is such an inference in the original text to Doctrine and Covenants Section 8, which discusses Oliver’s “gift.”63 This is clarified on the Church’s official Church History website, history.lds.org. In the article “Oliver Cowdery’s Gift,” by Jeffrey G. Cannon, we learn that Oliver possessed a divining rod, which he used to receive revelation.
The Historical Introduction to this section in JSP states that “Revelation Book 2 contains the earliest extant copy of this revelation. Undated, it apparently was copied sometime after 25 November 1834 by scribe Frederick G. Williams. No earlier copy is extant. The 1835 Doctrine and Covenants and later accounts give the date as June 1829.” If the actual date upon which this revelation was committed to paper was in 1829, this would establish that the term Urim and Thummim was associated with the Nephite interpreters during the period that translation was in progress. Unfortunately, the written version of this revelation cannot be dated earlier than 1834.
The August 1987 Ensign relates how Brigham Young talked of Joseph obtaining his first seer stone “by digging ‘15 feet underground’ after seeing it first in another seer stone.”74 This occurred while Joseph was digging a well in the company of Willard Chase, who was himself a treasure seeker. Chase’s own account of the event noted that “after digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth, we discovered a singularly appearing stone, which excited my curiosity. I brought it to the top of the well, and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat, and then his face into the top of his hat.”75 Joseph ultimately ended up keeping the stone, and it is this stone that he may have used during translation. Chase’s statement, made several years after the publication of the Book of Mormon, asserted that he was the rightful owner of the stone, claiming to have only lent it to Joseph.
That having been said, there is ample evidence that a curtain or sheet of some kind was used during the early period of translation. Martin Harris is quoted as saying as much in an 1831 issue of the Palmyra Reflector. According to the Reflector, “Harris declares, that when he acted as amanuenses, and wrote the translation, as Smith dictated, such was his fear of the Divine displeasure, that a screen (sheet) was suspended between the prophet and himself.”79 This would correspond to the early period of the translation during which Harris acted as scribe, prior to the loss of the 116 pages of manuscript.
Clark’s mention of “transcripts” would make sense with the use of a curtain, since it is known that Joseph copied characters off the plates, and would have needed to shield them from view at that time.
What eventually happened to Joseph’s seer stone? According to David Whitmer, “After the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished early in the spring of 1830 before April 6th, Joseph gave the Stone to Oliver Cowdery and told me as well as the rest that he was through with it, and he did not use the stone anymore.”89 The stone ultimately made its way to Utah. At one point, the stone was present at the Manti Temple dedication. Wilford Woodruff wrote about this event in his journal: “Before leaving I Consecrated upon the Altar the seers Stone that Joseph Smith found by Revelation some 30 feet under the Earth Carried By him through life.”90 In 1956, Elder Joseph Fielding Smith commented that “the statement has been made that the Urim and Thummim was on the altar in the Manti Temple when that building was dedicated. The Urim and Thummim so spoken of, however, was the seer stone which was in the possession of the Prophet Joseph Smith in early days. This seer stone is currently in the possession of the Church.”91 This means that the instrument by means of which the Book of Mormon may have been all or partially translated is currently still in the possession of the Church, as opposed to the “original” Urim and Thummim (the Nephite interpreters), which were returned to the angel Moroni at some point during or after the translation.
Early Church members knew that Joseph received revelation through the Urim and Thummim, which could have been either the Nephite interpreters or the seer stone. Doctrine and Covenants28 states that “Hiram Page, a member of the Church, had a certain stone and professed to be receiving revelations by its aid concerning the upbuilding of Zion and the order of the Church. Several members had been deceived by these claims, and even Oliver Cowdery was wrongly influenced thereby.”97 The fact that Oliver “was wrongly influenced thereby” clearly indicates that Oliver was quite aware that the Urim and Thummim was not limited to a single instrument. The resolution of this situation involved the Lord clarifying that, “no one shall be appointed to receive commandments and revelations in this church excepting my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., for he receiveth them even as Moses” (D&C 28:2). Page’s stone was destroyed and any revelations that he received through it were disavowed. The problem was not the fact that Hiram Page was using a stone other than Joseph’s Urim and Thummim to receive revelation, but rather the fact that he was not authorized to receive revelation on behalf of the Church.
As we have seen, many of these news accounts refer to the use of the spectacles or stone together with a hat, consistent with the late statements of Martin Harris and David Whitmer. Kirkham, in the October 1939 Improvement Era, quoted the accounts of the stone and the hat given by Martin Harris and David Whitmer. Kirkham, however, did not accept the eyewitness accounts that Joseph actually used a seer stone in the translation of the Book of Mormon, concluding that “the statements of both of these men are to be explained by the eagerness of old age to call upon a fading and uncertain memory for the details of events which still remained real and objective to them.”101 In his 1951 book A New Witness For Christ in America, Kirkham believed that “it may not have been expedient for the Prophet to try and explain the method of translation for the reason his hearers would lack the capacity to understand. It seemed sufficient to them at that time to know that the translation had been made by the gift and power of God.”102 Kirkham goes on to say that, “After a lapse of forty years of time, both David Whitmer and Martin Harris attempted to give the method of the translation. Evidently the Prophet did not tell them the method.”103 Despite the fact that elements of Harris’s and Whitmer’s story were consistent with each other, Kirkham simply refused to accept the idea that the accounts might have basis in the truth.
At times, Joseph may have switched to using his own seer stone, placing it in the hat. On one such occasion, Martin swapped the stones, which he would never have dared to do had Joseph been using the Nephite instrument.
The term Urim and Thummim subsequently became understood as representing the Nephite interpreters exclusively, and the use of the seer stone and the hat became pushed back in history. The lack of a need to use a curtain to shield the translator from the scribe likewise became buried in history. The translation process became represented within Church literature and artwork by its earliest iteration: Nephite interpreters and plates shielded from the scribe by a curtain.
The average member now has access to an abundance of information regarding the Book of Mormon translation process. The Internet has allowed hundreds of documents to be made available to anyone interested in viewing them, rather than restricting them to just scholars who take the time to access the archives. The Joseph Smith Papers project is a significant boon to historians and researchers who wish to view and examine the original documents associated with the restoration. One significant new product of this effort is the Church History website history.lds.org, which hosts Revelations in Context.110 On this site, the Church provides unprecedented detail regarding the production and evolution of the revelations received by the Prophet Joseph Smith.
It is clear from the contemporary accounts that the object placed within the hat could either be the spectacles or the seer stone. Both were classified by the early Latter-day Saints as “Urim and Thummim.” It is therefore safe to say that, regardless of which actual instrument Joseph was using at any particular point in time, he did indeed translate the entire Book of Mormon using the Urim and Thummim.
Finally, what of the plates themselves? If Joseph was not actually required to look at them directly during translation, then what was their purpose? Recall that the Urim and Thummim was a revelatory instrument. This means that rather than “translating” the plates in the traditional sense, Joseph received revelation that inspired him with an understanding of what was written there. He then expressed these concepts during dictation using his own language.112 The Book of Mormon, therefore, constitutes Joseph’s greatest and longest revelation. The plates did serve an important purpose, however. The Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses confirmed that the Nephite record actually existed and testified of this to the world, even after some of them left the Church. The witnesses’ testimony has endured against all attempts to discredit them. The fact that the plates actually existed, and that Joseph had to exert great effort to recover and protect them, helped shape the Prophet’s character during these crucial early years. And, the existence of a set of literal plates made it crystal clear that Joseph’s account was a real history: a genuine ancient people had learned of Christ, and had actually seen the Risen Lord. Joseph’s revelation was no romantic novel, nor was it pious make-believe.