1 T w o exc ell ent disc ussi on s of p ri m ary sou rce s are Jam es E. Lancaster , “By the Gift and Power of

God--The Meth od of Tran slation of the Book of Mor mon ,” Saints’ Herald 109 (15 Nov.

1962):798-817, and Robert F. Smith , ‘Trans la t ion of Languages,” a 1980 unpubl ished account of

pr imary sources respect ing the Book of Mormon translat ion, pr ivate ly c irculated by the author.

2 M inu tes of general conference, 25 Oct. 1831, cited in Far W est Record, p. 13, H istorical Depar tment

Ar chives of the Chu rch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Salt Lake City , U T; h ereafter cited as

LD S C hu rch A rch iv es.

3 Joseph Smith, History of th e C hu rch of Je sus C hr ist of L att er-da y Sain ts, B . H . R ob ert s, ea. , 7 v ol s.

(Salt Lak e C ity : Deseret Bo ok C o., 1974 ), 1:315. H ereafter refer red to as Hi story of the C hur ch.

4 W arren Cow dery, Manuscr ipt History of the Church , Boo k A -l, p p. 1 21-2, LD S C hu rch A rch iv es.

Dialogue, Vol.15, No.2 (Summer 1982), pp.49-63

Jo seph Sm ith:“The Gift of Seein g”

Richard Van W agoner & Steve Walk er

R IC H A R D S . V A N W AG ON ER, a clinical au diologist in Salt L ake Ci ty , i s an e lders quorum president

in Leh i, U tah , w her e he liv es w ith hi s w ife M ary and th eir five dau ght ers.

ST EVEN C. W ALKER, associate professor of English at Br igham Y oung U niversity , serves in a stake

Sunday School pres idency. H e l ives in Provo with his wife Ardith and their three chi ldren. They are

coa ut ho rs o f A Bo o k o f Mo r m o n s, re cen tly pu bl ish ed b y Sign atu re B oo k s.

Analysis of ey ewi tness accounts of the Book of Mormon tran slation is long overdue.Studies of the statements of early wi tnesses1 have not attempted to clarify the methodof translation, even though testimony is occasionally contradictory , often tai nted withbias, alway s sketchy . We retrace history ’s footsteps to the scene of the translation inpursui t of better understandi ng of how the Book of Morm on w as translated.

The primary w itness to the translation of the Book of Mormon recor d is thetranslator himself. But Joseph Smith’s procedural descriptions are too brief and generalto be of much help. In an 1831 Church conference in Orange, Ohio, Joseph’s olderbrother Hy rum requested a firsthand account of the coming forth of the Book ofMormon. The Prophet vetoed the idea: “It was not intended to tell the world all theparticular s of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon; it was not expedient for himto relate these things.”2 Joseph maint ained this closemouthed attitude on the subject ofthe translation throughout hi s li feti me. H is fi rst recorded account of the process, in an1833 letter to N. E. Seaton, is typically terse: “The Book of Mormon is a record of theforefathers of ou r w estern tr ibes of Indians, having been found through theministrations of an holy angel, and translated into our own language by the gift andpower of God.”3

In 1835 he gave an even more abbreviated version to “Joshua the Jew ish Min ister”:“I obtained them [the plates] and tr anslated them in to the Engli sh l anguage by the gi ftand power of God and have been preaching it ever since.”4 Joseph’s 1838 account in theElder’ s Journal adds the additional detail of Urim and Thummim assistance: “Moroni,the person w ho deposi ted the plates ... told me where they w ere; and gave me directionshow to obtain them. I obtained them, and the Urim and Thummim w ith them, by the

5 Elder’s Journ al 1 (July 1838): 43.

6 Joseph Smi th, “C hurch H istory ,” Tim es and Seasons 3 (March 1842): 707.

7 Joseph Smi th, “H istory of Joseph Smith ,” Tim es and Seasons 3 (May 1842): 772.

8 Tim es and Seasons 4 (No v. 1843): 373.

9 H arr is, a family fr iend of the Smiths, was one of the few persons outside the fami ly to know of the

“plates of gold” prior t o their r etrieval from the H ill C um orah in 1827.

Joseph Knight , Sr . , c lose fr iend and neighbor of the Smith’s, a lso knew of the plates: “I went to

Ro chester on business and resumed by Pa lmyra to be there about the 22nt of September I w as there

several day s I w i l l say there was a man near By By the name of Samue l Lawrence he was a Sear and

he had Bin to the hill and k new about th e things in th e hill and h e was try ing to ob tain them he had

talk ed w i th m e and told me the C onversation he had with the personage which told him if he wou ld

Do r ight accord ing to the wi l l o f god he mi te obta in the 27nt Day of September next and i f not he

never w oul d hav e them . Now Joseph was some affra id of him that he mite be a t rouble to h im he

therefore sint h is father u p to Sam s as he called him near night to see if there was any signs of his

go ing away tha t n ight he told his father to stay ti l l near Dark and i f he saw any s igns of his gang you

til l him if I find him there I wil l thrash th e stumps w ith him ” Joseph Knight, Sr., u ntitled and

und ated man uscrip t in L DS C hur ch Ar chives written betw een the last date of entry mentioned in

the m anu script , 1833, and Kn ight ’s death in 184 7).

Brigham You ng in 1855 m entioned an add iti on al p erso n, “a for tu ne-te lle r .. . w ho k new w her e th ose

plates were hid. He went three t imes in one summ er to get them ... th e same sum mer in w hich

Joseph did get t hem .

. . . H e ha d n ot ret ur ned to hi s ho m e fro m th e last tr ip he made for them more than a week or ten

day s before Joseph got them . “ (The Journal of Discourses. Report of Addresses by Brigham Young

and others, 26 vols. (Liverp ool and L ondon : F. O . and S. W . Rich ards, 1853-86), 19 July 1857, 5:55.

H ere after cit ed as J ou rn al o f Di scou rses.

10 Dean C . Je ssee, “T he Or iginal Book of Mor mon Man uscript,” BYU Studies (Spring 1970): 259-78,

l ists the scribes as M a rt in H ar ri s, Em m a Smi th , Ol iver Cowdery , Reuben Hale , John Whi tmer , and

David Wh itmer. The Prophet’s brother, Samuel H . Smith, is a lso mentioned as a scr ibe in the

Kir tla nd Let ter bo ok , 18 29-35, pp . 1-6, LD S C hu rch A rch iv es.

means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.”5

p.49 - p.50The Prophet’s 1842 description of the translating procedure, in the Wentworth

Letter, is no more specific: “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim Itran slated the record, by the gift and power of God.”6 Publ ic in ter est in C hur ch history,stirred by th is l ett er, impelled the Times and Seasons to initiate an 1842 serialpublication of the Prophet ’s hi story of the C hur ch, w hich provides an ampli fiedstatement on Book of Mormon translation: “Immediately after my arrival there[Harmony, Pennsy lvan ia] I comm enced copy ing the char acters off the pl ates. l cop ieda considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thumm im I tr anslatedsome of them, which I did betw een the time I arrived at the house of my wi fe’s fatherin the month of December [1827], and the February following.”7

p.50The Proph et’s fina l statement about tr anslati on procedure, in a 13 November 1843

letter to James Arli ngton Bennett , adds l it tl e more to our understanding of the process:“By the power of God I translated the Book of Mormon from hieroglyphics; thekn owledge of wh ich was lost to the world: in which wonderful event I stood alone, anunl earned youth , to combat the w orldl y wi sdom, and mul tipl ied ignorance of eighteencenturies.”8

To find exactly w hat the Proph et meant in h is repeated insistences that th e plateswere translated through th e medium of Ur im and Thumm im by the gift and power ofGod, we must turn to other ey ewitness accounts. Martin Har ris9 served Joseph as thefirst of several scribes in the work of translation.10 His description of the method oftranslation is specific, though we have it only at second hand. Edward Stevenson, laterof the First Council of Seven ty , r ecorded the test imony of h is fr iend Harri s:

11 Edward Ste ven son , “O ne of t he T hr ee W it nesse s,” D eseret News, 30 Nov. 1881. Reprinted in

Mil lennial Star 44 (6 Feb. 1882): 86-87.

12 Saints’ H erald 26 (1 Oct. 1879): 289-90.

13 Jessee, “Origin al Man uscript,” pp. 276-77.

14 Messenger and A dvocate 1 (Oct. 1834):14.

15 O liver C ow dery , Defense in a R ehe arsa l of M y Grou nds for Separating M y self from the Latter D ay

Saints (Nor ton, O H , 1839); also Saints’ Herald, 54 (20 May 1907): 229-230.

16 Reub en M iller Diar y , 21 Oct. 1848, L DS C hurch Ar chives. Also D eseret New s, 13 April 1859.

The Prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as wellas from the Urim and Thumm im, and for convenience he used the seer stone.. . .By aid of the seer stone, sentences woul d appear and were read by the Prophet andwr itten by M artin, and when finished he would say, “written,” and if correctlywr itten that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if notwr itten correctly it remain ed until corrected, so that the translation was just as itwas engraver on the pla tes, precisely in th e language then used.11

Martin served as scribe on ly betw een 12 Apr il 1828 and 14 June 1828, when his part inthe loss of the first 116 pages of completed manuscript cost him the pr ivi lege of furthertranscription.

The second scribe to serve Joseph was his wi fe, Emma. In 1879 Emma, in tervi ewedby her son Joseph Smith III concerning import ant events in early C hurch history,explained, “In wr iting for your father I frequently wrote day after day , often sitting atthe table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, anddictating hour after hour with nothing between us.... Th e plates often lay on the tablewithout any attempt at con cealment, w rapped i n a smal l li nen table-cloth, which I hadgiven him to fold them in.”12 Emma’ s service as scribe, interru pted as it m ust have beenby the necessity of household chores, was at best brief. Her handw ritin g is not foundon any original manuscrip t materia l now available. 13

p.50 - p.51Full-time transcription did not become possible again until a young schoolteacher,

Ol iver Cowder y , arr ived 5 A pri l 1829. C owdery wr ote in 1834: “These w ere day s neverto be forgotten--to sit under the sound of a voi ce dictated by the inspiration of heaven....Day after day I continued uninterrupted to write from his mouth, as he translated withthe Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ thehistory or record, called ‘The Book of Mormon.’”14 Shor tly after leaving the C hur chin 1838, Oliver expanded his description of the tr anslati on process: “I have sometimeshad seasons of skeptici sm, in wh ich I did seri ously wonder whether the Prophet and Iwere men in our sober senses, when he would be translating from plates, through ‘theUrim and Thummim,’ and the plates not be in sight at all.”15 Wh en C owdery retu rnedto the Chur ch in 1848, Reuben Miller recorded in his diary that Oliver confirmed histestimony to the Council Bluffs, Iowa, Saints: “I wrote with my own pen, the entireBook of Mormon [save a few pages], as it fell from th e lips of the Prophet Joseph Smith,as he tran slated it by the gi ft and pow er of God, by means of the Urim and Thummim,or as it is called by that book, ‘holy interpreters’”16 (The bracketed material isCowdery’s).p.51

After approximately two months of translating at the Isaac Hale home inHarmony, Pennsy lvan ia, Joseph w as invi ted by a friend of Cowder y , David Whitmer,to continue the translation wor k at h is father’s farm on the north end of Seneca Lakenear Fayette, New York . Thu s the Whitm er family wi tnessed the Book of Mormontranslation process as the manuscr ipt gr ew day by day throughout June 1829. Elizabeth

17 In Boo k of M or m on edi tio ns fr om 1830 -1920, A lm a 37: 24 r ead “d ir ecto rs” in stead of t he p rese nt

“interpreters.” RLD S Book of Morm on editions have retained the original and pr in ter’s cop ies

reading of “directors.”

18 Original not avai lable; c ited in Wil l iam M cLell in letter to “M y Dear F riend s,” from Ind ependen ce,

Missouri , Februar y 1870, of the Reor ganized C hurch of Jesus Christ of Latt er Day Saints,

Indepen dence, MO ; hereafter cited as RLDS Church A rchives. Reference courtesy R obert F. Smith.

19 David W hitm er, An Addr ess to All Believers in C hrist (Rich mon d, MO : n.p., 1887), p. 13.

20 Kansas City Journ al, 5 June 1881.

21 Ibid.

Ann Whitmer, who marr ied Oli ver C owdery in 1832, recorded in 1870, w hen she wasfifty -five: “I cheerfully certify that I was familiar with the manner of Joseph Smith’stranslating the Book of Mormon. He tran slated the most of it at my Father ’s house.And I often sat by an d saw and h eard them translate and w rite for hours together.Joseph never had a curtai n drawn betw een him an d his scribe wh ile he w as tran slating.He woul d place the director17 in his hat, and then place his face in his hat, so as toexclude the light.”18

David Wh itmer, one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Morm on, served asscribe during th is brief period. He provides us wi th more specific information about thetranslation procedu re than any other person. In 1887 he published a booklet inRichmond, Missouri, ent itled A n Addr ess to All Believers in Christ which includes thisdetailed description:

I wi ll now give you a description of the manner in w hich the Book of Mormon wastranslated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in thehat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness thespiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment wouldappear, and on that appeared the w riting. One character at a tim e would appear,and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off theEnglish to Ol iver Cowdery , who w as his pri ncipal scribe, and when it was wr ittendown and repeated by Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it woulddisappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus theBook of Morm on w as translated by the gift and power of God, and not by anypower of man.19

p.51 - p.52Whitm er reiterated that account on many occasions, explaining the translation

process in a consistent fashion: “Joseph did not see the plates in translation, but wouldhold the int erpreters to hi s eyes and cover his face with a hat, excluding all light, andbefore him would appear what seemed to be parchment on which would appear thecharacters of the plates on a lin e at the top, and immediately below w ould appear thetranslation in English.”20 In an 1881 interview w ith the Kansas Ci ty Journal, DavidWh itmer even details characteristics of the seer stone (multiplied by an enthusiasticreporter into tw o stones):

I, as well as al l of my fath er’s fami ly , Smith’ s wife, Oliver Cowdery, and MartinHarris were present during the translation. The translation was by Smith, and themanner as follows: He had two small stones of a chocolate color, nearl y egg shapedand perfectly smooth, but not tr ansparent , call ed interpreters, w hich wer e givenhim with the plates. He did not use the plates in the translation, but would holdthe interpreters to his eyes and cover his face with a hat, excluding all light.21

p.52Wh itmer expl icit ly con fronted the general con fusion between the seer stone and

the Nephite “interpreters,” or Urim and Thummim, when he tried to set the record

22 Saints’ H erald 26 (15 Nov . 1879): 341.

23 Jo seph Kni ght , Sr ., a ccou nt , L DS C hu rch A rch iv es.

24 The Susquehanna Register, 1 Ma y 1834. C ited in Eber D. H ow e, M orm onism U nveil ed (Pain sville,

OH : Eber D. H ow e, 1834), p. 77.

25 Saints’ H erald 26 (15 June 1879):190-91.

straigh t thr ough a friend, Edwar d Traughber:

With the sanction of David Whitmer, and by his authority, I now state tha t he doesnot say that Joseph Smith ever translated in his presence by aid of Urim andThummim; but by means of one dark colored, opaque stone, called a ‘Seer Stone,’wh ich was placed in the crown of a hat, into which Joseph put his face, so as toexclude the external light. Then, a spiritual light would shine forth, and parchmentwould appear before Joseph, upon which was a l ine of characters fr om the pl ates,and under it, the tr anslation in English; at l east, so Joseph said.22

Oth er early w itnesses tend to corroborate Whitmer’s account. Joseph Knight, Sr.,a close friend of Joseph Smith, recorded an account of the translation process, possiblyas early as 1833: “Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim intohis hat and Dark ened his Eyes then he would take a sentence and it would appear inBrite Roman Letters then h e wou ld tell the wr iter and h e wou ld write i t then th atwould go away the next Sentence would Come and so on.”23

Emma Smi th ’s father, Isaac Hale, provides a valuably frank per spect ive of thetranslation process because of the hostility he came to harbor tow ard son-in-law JosephSmith during the few months the translation proceeded in the Hale home: “The mannerin which he [Joseph Smith ] pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when helook ed for money-diggers, with a stone in his hat, and his hat over his face, while theBook of Plates were at the same time hid in the woods.”24

p.52 - p.53Michael Morse, husband of Emma Smith’s sister, Trial Hale, described the

procedure as he witnessed it, a description remarkably consistent with previousaccounts. He is quoted in 1879 by W. W. Blair , of the R LDS Fir st Presidency :

When Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon, [M orse] had occasion mor ethan once to go into h is immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work oftranslation.The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph’s placing the Seer Stone in the crownof a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, restinghis elbows upon his knees, and then dictating word after word, while thescribes--Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other wrote it down.25

p.53These eyew itness accounts to the translation process must be vi ewed i n proper

per spective. Most were given in retrospect and may be clouded by the haze ofintervening y ear s. M any were reported second hand, subject to skewing bynonw itnesses. Yet there are persistent parallels among these scattered testimonies.Consensus holds that the “tran slation” process was accompl ished through a single seerstone from the time of the loss of the 116 pages until the completion of the book .Martin Harris’s description of interchangeable use of a seer stone with the in ter preters,or Ur im and T humm im, r efers only to the portion of translation he was witness to--theinit ial 116 pages. The second point of agreement is even m ore consistent: T he platescould not h ave been u sed directl y in the tr anslati on process. The Pr ophet , hi s face ina hat to exclude exter ior ligh t, w ould have been unab le to v iew the pl ates direct ly even

26 Phelps was Ch urch printer in Independence, Missouri, and editor of the Evening and Morning Star .

H e w as also pu bl ish er of the Book of Comm andments and whi le liv ing in Joseph Smi th ’ s Ki r tl and

hom e, assisted the 1835 First Presidency in com piling the f ir s t ed it ion of the Doctr ine and

C ov ena nt s.

27 W illiam Smith , the Prop het’s broth er, described the interpr eters as “too large for Joseph ’s ey es; they

mus t have been used by larger men (Wil l iam Smith in terv iew by J . W. Peterson and W. S. Pender ,

4 July 1891 , repor ted in The Rod of Iron 3 (Feb. 1924): 6-7; Saints’ H erald 79 (9 March 1932): 238.

Professor Char les Anthon, retrospect ively rec a ll i ng M art in H arr is’s d escri pt io n, agr eed: “Th ese

spectacles were so large that i f a person attempted to look through them, his two ey es would have

to be turned towards one of the glasses merel y , the spectacles in qu estion bein g altogeth er too l arge

for the breadth of the hum an face (Charles Anthon letter to E. D. Ho we, 17 Feb. 1834, in

Morm onism U nvailed, p. 17). Thou gh An tho n’s accou nt seem s exaggerat ed, M artin H arris r efutes

that the lenses were “about tw o inches in diam eter, perfectly r ound, and abou t five-eighths of an

inch th ick a t the cent re .. . . They w ere jo ined by a round bar of diver , abou t thr ee-eights of an in ch

in diameter , and about four inches long, w hi ch w ith th e tw o sto nes, w ou ld m ak e eig ht in che s”

Harr is read proofs of this art ic le before publ icat ion and ver ified the accuracy of the repo rtin g. (Joel

Tiffany, T iffany’ s Monthly , June 1859, pp. 165-66.)

28 C hicago Inter-Ocean, 17 O ct. 1886. Also Saint s’ Herald 33 (13 Nov . 1886): 706.

if they had been present during transcription.A mental picture of the young Joseph, face buried in a hat, gazing into a seer stone,

plates out of sight, has not been a generally held view since the early day s of theChur ch. The view rai ses some di fficult questions. Wh y , for example, was such great caretaken to preserve the plates for thousands of years if they wer e not to be used directlyin the translation process? Is it possible that they w ere to serve primarily as evidence tothe eleven witnesses of the Book of Mormon that the record did in fact exist?

The concept of a single seer stone is another problem area, for we have been taughtsince the Prophet’s day that the Uri m and Thummim w ere used. The term itself isproblematic. The Book of Mormon does not contain the words “Urim and Thummim.”Amm on describes the instrument as “the things ... ca lled i nterpreter s”--“two stoneswh ich were fastened into the two rims of a bow” which were “prepared from thebeginn ing” and “handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose ofinterpreting languages” (Mosiah 8:13, 28:13-14). Joseph Smith adds in the Pearl of GreatPrice that “God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book” JosephSmith--History 1:35). Fur thermore, the N ephit e interpreters were not referred to asUrim and Thummim unt il 1833, w hen W. W . Phelps fir st equated the tw o in the fir stedition of the Evening and Morning Star: “It was translated by the gift and power ofGod, by an unlearned man, through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, orspectacles--(known, perhaps in ancient day s as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim).”26

p.53 - p.54That the Prophet should have used a seer stone rather than the Nephite interpreters

is puzzling i n i tsel f. Martin Harris’s 1875 mention of convenience in using a seer stonemay refer to the fact that by all accounts the Nephite interpreters were lar ge.27 Anadditional reason for using the seer stone Harris conveniently omits, since it directlyinvolved him. David Whitmer explains that after Martin Harris lost the first 116 pagesof Book of Mormon manuscript,

… the Lord … took from the prophet the Ur im and Thumm im and other w iseexpressed his condemnation. By fervent prayer and by other wise humblinghimself, the pr ophet, however, again found favor , and was presented w ith astrange, oval-shaped, chocolate-colored stone, about the size of an egg only moreflat, wh ich, it w as promised, should serve th e same purpose as the missing Urimand Thummim .... W ith thi s stone all of the present Book of Mormon wastranslated.28

29 “Quest ions asked o f David W hitm er at his hom e in Ri chmo nd R ay C ount y Mo . Jan. 14 1885

re lat ing to book of Mormon, and the history of the Chu rch of Jesus Christ of LDS by Elder Z. H.

Gurley ,” ho lo ogr aph in LD S C hu rch A rch iv es. Ano ther supportive account is a W hitm er int erview

record ed in th e C hicago Tr ibu ne, 17 D ec. 1885: “T he pla tes wer e never restored to Joseph--nor the

spect acle s, but a di fferent Ur im & Thum mim--one oval or k idney-shaped--a seer ’ s s tone , which he

pieced in his hat, and, face in hat, he would see character and translation on the stone.”

Wh itmer’s accou nt i s also co rro bor ated b y W illi am E. McLe l lin , an early member of the Quorum

of the Twelve: “After the 116 pages were lost Joseph translated the rest of the Book of Mormon with

a stone,” Saints’ Herald 19 (1 Aug. 1872): 473.

30 The Histor ica l Record. Devoted Exclus ively to Histor ica l, Biographical , Chronolog ica l and

Sta tist ical M att ers. p.6 32, LD S C hu rch A rch ive s.

31 H o w e, “Mormonism,” pp. 241-42. The use of seer stones in upstate New York was not unusual . The

W ay n e Sentinel, 27 D ec. 1825, refutes: “A few day s s ince was discovered in this town, by the help

of a mineral stone (which becomes transparent when pieced in a hat and the l i ght excluded by the

face of hi m w ho loo k s into i t provided he is fortunes favorite) a monstrous potash kett le in the

bow els of old Moth er Earth, fil led with pur est bull ion.”

32 Tiffany ’s Mon thly , June 1859, p. 163.

p.54When Zenas H. Gurley , editor of the RLDS Saints’ H erald, in tervi ewed W hitmer

in 1855 and specifically asked if Joseph used his “‘Peep stone’ to finish up thetranslation,” David repli ed that

he used a stone cal led a “Seers stone,” the “Interpret ers” having been tak en awayfrom him because of transgression. The “Interpreters” were taken from Joseph afterhe allow ed Martin Harr is to carry away the 116 pages of Ms of the Book ofMorm on as a punishment, but he was al lowed to go on and transl ate by the use ofa “Seers stone” which he had, and which he placed in a hat i nto w hich he bur iedhis face, stating to m e and others that the original character appeared uponparchment and under it the translation in English.29

Whitmer’s accounts also find support in the Histor ical Record of the Church: “As achastisement for th is carelessness, the Urim and Thummim w as taken from Smith. Butby hum bling himself, he again found favor wi th th e Lord and w as presented a str angeoval-shaped, chocolate colored stone, about the size of an egg, but more flat which itwas prom ised should answer the same purpose. W ith th is stone all the present book w astranslated.”30

Joseph had apparent ly possessed thi s seer stone for several years before using it inthe translation process, despite the accounts of a divine “presentation.” W illar d Chase,a neighbor of the Smi ths in Palmy ra, N ew Y ork , rel ates how the stone was discoveredon his property.

In the y ear 1822, I was engaged in digging a well. I employ ed Alvin an d JosephSmith to assist me. ... A fter digging about twenty feet below the surface of the earth,we discovered a singul arly appear ing stone, which excited my curiosity. I broughtit to the top of the well , and as we were examining it, Joseph put it into his hat, andthen his face into the top of his hat.... The next morning he came to me, andwi shed to obtain the stone, alleging that he could see in it; but I told him I did notwish to part with it on account of its being a curiosity, but I would lend it.31

Confirmation of Chase’s account i s made by M artin Har ris in 1859: “Joseph hada stone w hich was dug from the w ell of Mason C hase tw enty -four feet from the surface.In this stone he could see many things to my certain knowledge.”32 Wil ford Woodruff,writing in 1888, recalled that Joseph Smith found the “sears stone ... by revelation some

33 W ilfo rd W oo dr uff J ou rn al, 18 M ay 1888 , h ol ogr aph in LD S C hu rch A rch iv es.

34 W . D. Purple’s account in The C henango U nion, 3 May 1877, cited in Fran cis W . Kirk ham , A N ew

W itn ess Fo r C hr ist i n A m eri ca, 2 vo ls. (In dep end enc e, M O : Zi on ’s P ri nt in g an d Pu bl ish ing

C omp any , 1951), 2:365.

35 Tiffany ’s Mon thly , June 1859, p. 164.

36 Lucy Mack Sm ith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Sm ith The Prophet , And His Progenitors for

Man y Generation s (Liverpool: P ublished for O rson Pratt b y S. W . Rich ards, 1853), pp. 91-92.

37 Fraser’s Magazin e, February 1873, pp. 229-30.

38 Martin H arr is ad ds th at S to al’ s “han ds” inclu ded “Mr . Bem an (A lva), also Samu el Law rence, George

Proper, Joseph Smith, jr . , and his father, and his bro ther H iram Smi th ,” T i f fany ’ s Month ly ( June

1859), p. 164.

30 feet under the earth.”33

p.54 - p.55Several accounts document that Joseph often carried the Chase seer stone on his

person between 1822 and 1830. In an 1826 trial, “on the request of the court heexhibited the stone. It was about the size of a smal l hen ’s egg, in the shape of ahigh -instepped shoe. It was composed of lay ers of different colors passing diagonallythrough it. It was very hard and smooth, perhaps by being carried in the pocket.”34

Martin H arri s in 1859 recal led an incident that occurr ed in the ear ly 1820s:

I was at the house of his father in Manchester, two mi les south of Palmy ra vi llage,and was picking my teeth with a pin w hi le sit ting on the bars. The pin caught inmy teeth and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw. I jumped from thebars and looked for it. Joseph and Northrop Sw eet also did the same. We could notfind it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him--I said, “Take your stone.”I had never seen it, and did not k now that he had it with him. He had it in hispocket. He took it and placed it in his hat--the old white hat--and placed his face inhis hat. I watched h im closel y to see that he did not look to one side; he reachedout his hand beyond me on the r ight, and moved a lit tle stick and there I saw thepin, whi ch he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not l ook ou t of the hatuntil after he had picked up the pin.35

p.55A third attestation of the Prophet’ s possession of a seer stone is the difficulty

betw een Joseph and the fami ly of his 1825 employ er, Josiah Stoal, a d ifficul ty wh ichapparently arose from Joseph’s reputation w ith such a stone. According to theProphet’s mother, Stoal “came for Joseph on account of havin g heard that he possessedcertain key s by which he cou ld discern things invisib le to the natural eye,”36 andengaged him to seek Spanish treasure near the Susquehanna River. Stoal, wh o laterbecame a member of the Church, related that the young Joseph, who was in hi s employfor some five months, “pretended to have skill of telling where hidden treasures in theearth were by means of looking through a certain stone.”37 Joseph explains the incidentin some detail in the Pear l of Great Pri ce:

In the month of October, 1825, I hired with an old gentleman by the name ofJosiah Stoal, wh o lived in Chenan go county , State of N ew York . He h ad heardsomething of a silver mine having been opened by the Spaniards in Harmony,Susquehanna county , State of Pennsylvania; and had, previous to my hiring to him,been digging, in order, if possible, to discover the mine. After I went to live withhim, he took m e, with the rest of hi s hands,38 to dig for the silver mine at which Icontinued to work for near ly a month, w ithout success in our undertaking, andfinally I prevailed w ith the old gentleman to cease digging after it. (JosephSmith--Hi story 1:56)

39 The trial , repo rted in Fraser’ s Magaz ine, February 1873 , and Chenango Union , 3 May 1877, has long

been d isputed: But in 1971 Judge Neely’s bil l of costs for the trial ($2.68) was discovered. This

document designates Joseph Smith as “the glass-looker” and charges him w ith a “misdemeanor”

(Marvin S. H ill, “Jo seph Sm ith an d the 182 6 Tr ial: N ew Evidence and New Difficulties,” BYU

Studies (Wi nter 1972): 222-33.

Joseph Sm ith ’s cou sin , C hu rch H isto ri an G eor ge A . Sm ith , w as ap par ent ly refer ri ng t o t hi s case

when he relat ed in 185 5 that Joseph Sm ith “w as never fou nd gu ilty but once .. . the m agistrate, after

hearing the w itnesses, decided that he w as guilty , but as the statu tes of N ew York did not prov ide

a pu nish men t for ca sting o ut d evils, he w as acqui tted” (Jo urn al of D iscou rses, 2:213 ).

40 Lucy Mack Smith , Sketches, p. 106.

41 Joseph Smi th Fu neral Serm on in W . W . Phelps Papers, LD S Ch urch A rchives. In a 10 Ap ril 1854

letter to Brigham You ng, Phelps, w ho served as Joseph Smith ’s scribe in Kirtland, O hio, states that

Gazelam refers to “The L ight of th e Lord, ” Brigham You ng Lett er C ollectio n, LD S Ch urch

A rch iv es.

42 An in teres t ing account re lated by Joseph Knight, Sr. , suggests that Emma Sm ith’s involvement in

the recovery of the pl ates on 22 Sep tem ber 1827 w as show n in vision thr ough the C hase Seer Sto ne:

“Joseph says when can I have i t [ the Nephite Record] the answer w as the 22nt Day of Septem ber

next ff you br ing the r ight person with y ou Joseph says who is the r ight person the answer is your

ol dest Brother But before Sep tem ber C am e hi s old est Brother D ied [Alv in died 19 N ovem ber 1823]

then he was disappointed and did not [k]now w hat to do but when the 22nt day of September cam e

he went to th e place and the personage appeared and told him he could not have i t now But the 22nt

Though Stoal professed “implici t faith” in Joseph’s psy chic abili ties, the Stoalfamily remained unconvinced. In 1826, Peter Bri dgeman, a nephew of Stoal’ s wife,preferr ed charges against Joseph Smith as a “disorderly person and an imposter”--chargesevidently referring to Joseph’s “glass looking” psychic abilities. Though the full courtrecord has not y et been di scovered and recorded accou nts of the t ria l fail to agree on allpoin ts, there is consensus that the Stoal family became convinced that Josiah Stoal w assquandering his resources and urged him to stop.39

p.55 - p.56Another account corroborati ng Joseph’s habit of carrying a stone on his person

comes from Lucy Smith, the Prophet’s mother: “That of which I spoke, which Josephtermed a key , was indeed, nothing more nor less than the Urim and Thummim, and itwas by thi s that th e angel showed h im m any things which he saw in vision ; by wh ichalso he cou ld ascertain, at any time, the approach of danger, either to himself or theRecord, and on account of which he always kept the Urim and Thummim about hisperson.”40 Since the Ur im and T humm im w as too large, by all account s, to be concealedon Joseph’s person, Mother Smi th must have been referring here not to the Nephiteinterpreters but to the Chase seer stone.p.56

That a seer stone w as divinely prepar ed for Joseph’ s use is suggested in the Bookof Mormon. Alma 37:23 reads: “I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem , a stone, wh ichshall shine forth in dark ness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serveme, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, y ea, their secret w orks,their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations.” “Gazelam,” with aslight difference in spelling, is identified, in three sections of the Doctrine andCovenants (78:9, 82:11, 104:26, 43), as Joseph Smith. W. W. Phelps, scribe and personalfriend to the Prophet, declared in Joseph Smith’s funeral sermon that the Prophet was“Gazelam” in the spiri t world. 41

The Proph et rel ated in hi s Pearl of Great Pr ice account that during Moroni’ s fir stconversation wi th h im 23 September 1823, “the vision w as opened to my mind that Icould see the place w here the plates were deposited, and that so clearly and distinctlythat I knew th e place again when I visited it” Joseph Smith--History 1:42). Joseph doesnot relate how the vi sion w as opened to h is min d, but paral lel accounts indicate that itmay have been through the C hase seer stone. 42 Marti n Har ris recalled in 1859: “Joseph

day of September next he might have the Book i f he brot wi th h im the r ight person Joseph says who

is the right person the answ er w as y ou w ill kn ow then he lo ok ed in his gl ass and fo un d it w as Emm a

H ale d au ght er o f old M r. H ale o f Pen nsy lv any ,” Kn igh t m anu scri pt , L DS C hu rch A rch iv es.

43 Tiffany ’s Mon thly , June 1859, p. 169.

44 C ited in H ow e, Mor mon ism U nveiled, pp. 246-47.

45 H enr y H arr is A ffida vi t ci ted in Kir k ham , N ew W itn ess, 1: 133 .

46 C henango U nion, 3 May 1877.

47 Juanita Broo ks, ea., On Th e Mo rm on F ron tier, T he Di ary of H osea Sto ut , 2 v ol s. (Salt Lake City :

U niversity of Ut ah Fress/Utah H istorical Society , 1964), 2:593.

48 Elder’s Journ al, (1 July 1838): 43.

had before th is described the manner of his finding the plates. He found them bylooking in the stone found in the w ell of Mason Chase. The family had likewise toldme the same thing.”43

Willard Chase, on whose property the stone was discovered, points out that i n 1827Joseph Smith, Sr ., exp lain ed to hi m “that some y ears ago, a spi rit had appeared toJoseph his son, in a vision, and in formed him that in a certain place there was a recordon plates of gold; and that he was the per son that must obtain them. He [Joseph Smith]then observed that if it had not been for that stone, he would not have obtained thebook.”44

p.56 - p.57Henry Harri s, an acquaint ance of the Smith fami ly , confirms these accounts: “H e

[Joseph Smith] said he had a revelation from God that told him they were hid in acertain hill and he looked in his stone and saw them in the piace of deposit.”45 Fur thercorroboration is provided by W . D. Purple, w ho had tak en not es for Judge A lber tNeely during Joseph Smith’s 1826 trial: “Smith, by the aid of his luminous stone, foundthe Golden Bible, or the book of Mormon.”46 And in 1856, after attending a meetingof the Board of Regents of the Un iversity of Deseret, Judge Hosea Stout recorded in hisjournal that “President Young exhibited the ‘ seer’s stone’ wi th w hich the ProphetJoseph discovered the plates of the Book of Mormon.”47

p.57The Prophet’s 1838 account of the manner in which he discovered the plates,

though it makes no mention of the Chase seer stone, does not pr eclude i ts use: “Moroni,the person who deposited the plates, from whence the Book of Morm on w as translated,in a hil l in Manchester, Ontari o County , New Y ork, being dead, and raised againtherefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directionshow to obtain them.”48 The seer stone could have been the medi um through w hichMoroni’s instructions were given. T he fact that the Smith brothers who shared Joseph’sbedroom were not disturbed by Moroni’s visitati on adds support to the possibility ofa seer stone vision.

Lest the Prophet’s omission of mention of such mat ters be taken as proof they didnot occur, it should be noted that his hesitation to divulge details of the coming forthof the Book of Morm on might be expected in ligh t of the vitrioli c public reception ofhis accounts of sacred matters. If the early response of a nonbel ieving Meth odi stmin ister as recorded in the Pearl of Great Price is typi cal, it is obvious why Josephwould hesitate to provide detailed disclosure: “I took occasion to give him an accountof the vision which I had had. I was greatly surpri sed at his behavior; he treated mycommuni cation not only lightly, but wi th great contempt, saying it was all of the devil,that there wer e no such things as visions or revelation s in these days; that all such th ingshad ceased with the apostles, and that there w ould never be any more of them” (JosephSmith--History 1:21). Given that sort of reaction, it is not surprising that Joseph seldomdiscussed the Chase seer stone, and show ed i t onl y to trusted associ ates.

49 W hit m er , B el ie ve rs in C hri st , p p. 31 -32 .

50 Cow dery, Defense, p . 229. A n im port ant distin ction h ere is that th ough C ow dery wr ites, “throu gh

‘U rim and Thum min, ’ exactly as came the Book of Mormon,” Dav id Whi tmer ’ s descr ipt ion of the

same medium refers to the seer stone. Eyewitness accounts corroborate Whitmer’s account.

51 W hi tm er, Beli ever s in C hr ist, p. 3 2.

52 David W hitm er intervi ew in Des Moin es Daily N ews, 16 O ct. 1886.

Historical evidence indicates that h e retained possession of thi s stone for a briefperiod after the completion of the Book of Mormon translation. In early 1830, MartinHarris, who h ad consented to finance publication of the book, was unable to come upwith the necessary funds quickly. H yrum Smith and others became impatient andsuggested that Joseph send some of the brethren to T oron to, O ntar io, to attem pt to sellthe copyright. David Whi tmer records the Prophet’s use of the seer stone in seekinginspiration on the matter:

Joseph looked into the hat i n w hich he placed the stone, and received a revelationthat some of the brethren should go to Toronto, Canada, and that they w ould sellthe copy-right of the Book of Mormon. Hiram Page and Oliver Cow dery went toToronto on this mission, but they failed entirely to sell the copy-right, returningwithout any money . Joseph w as at my father’ s house when they returned. I wasthere also, and am an ey e w itness to these facts. Jacob Wh itmer and John Wh itmerwere also present when Hir am Page and Oli ver C owdery returned from C anada.Well, we were all in great trouble; and we asked Joseph how it w as that he hadreceived a revelation from the Lord and th e breth ren had u tterly failed in theirundertak ing. Joseph did not know how i t was, so he enquired of the Lord aboutit, and behold the following revelation came th rough the stone: “Some r e v e l at ion sar e o f Go d: so m e r ev el ati on s are of m an ; an d so m e r ev el ati on s are of the de v il.”49

p.58Ol iver Cowder y , after he had been excommunicated from the Church, related his

own account of the 1830 revelation

that some among y ou w ill remem ber w hich sent Bro. Page and me, so unwisely,to Toron to, wi th a prediction from the Lord by “Urim and T hummim ,” that wewould there find a man anxiou s to buy the “First Elder’s copyright.” I wellremem ber we did not find him, and had to return surprised and disappointed. Butso great was my faith, that in going to T oronto, nothin g but calm ness pervaded mysoul, every doubt w as banished, and I as much expected that Bro. Page and I wouldfulfill the r evelati on as that w e should live. And y ou may believe, without askingme to relate the particulars that it would be no easy task to describe our desolationand grief. Bro. Page and I did not thin k that god would have deceived us through“Urim and Thummin [sic],” exactly as came the Book of Mormon.50

David Wh itmer indicated that the seer stone w as later given to Ol iver Cowdery :“After the translation of the Book of Mormon w as finished early in the spring of 1830before April 6th, Joseph gave the Stone to Oliver C owdery and told me as well as therest that he was through with it, and he did not use the Stone anymore.”51 Wh itm er,who was Cowdery ’s brother-in-law, stated that on Oliver ’s death in 1848, anotherbrother -in-law , “Phineas Youn g, a brother of Brigham Young, and an old-time and onceintimate friend of the Cowdery family came out from Salt Lake City, and during hisvisit he cont rived to get th e stone from its hiding p lace, through a l ittl e deceptivesophistry, extended upon the grief-stricken widow. When he returned to Utah hecarried it in triumph to the apostles of Brigham Young’s ‘lion house.’”52

Wh atever the exact circumstances of its acquisition, the C hase seer stone r emained

53 President Brigham Yo ung’s estate included two seer stones. Hi s daughter , Z ina Young Card , in a

letter to her cousin, Apost le F. D. Richards, re lated: “There is a matter th at I w i sh to l ay be fore you ,

that w e ig hs u p on m y mind, and seems very im portant to me. I refer to some very sacr ed ar tic les I

bought at the sale of my father’s personal effects,--articles that never shoul d hav e been given up to

the idle gaze; but being brought out, my m other and myself felt i t a wish of our heart s to get th em,

that their sacredness might n ot be sullied.

“They are: tw o sear-stones and an a r row point. They a re in the po ssessio n o f Pr esid ent W oo dr uff

now, and ver y prop erly too, but I feel dear cousin , that they shoul d ever b e the proper ty of the

President of the Church , and not of individuals ; that at his demise, they are not reta ined as they w ere

before among ‘person al effects,’ but consider ed ever the legit imate property of God’s mouth-piece,”

Zina Y oun g C ard to F. D. Ri chard s, 31 Jul y 1896, F. D . R ichar ds Letter C ollecti on, L DS C hur ch

A rch iv es.

In addit ion to the seer stones, President Youn g also possessed a “bloodston e” which h e wor e about

his neck on a chain “when going into unknown or dan ger ou s pie ces” (See display #1076, Brigham

Yo un g C ollec tion , Dau ghter s of U tah P ion eers M useum , Salt Lak e C ity , U tah).

54 Brook s, Hosea Stout , 2:593.

55 W ilford Woo druff Journal , 18 May 1888, LDS Chu rch Archives. Though the reason for the

consecrat ion is not gi ven, O rson P ratt r efuted in 1873 th at thr ough the m edium of U rim and

T h u m m im , “which the Lord God h as ordained to be used in the midst of his holy h ouse, in his

Temp le . . . books of genealogy, tracing individuals and nations among all people back to ancient

times w ill be revealed,” Journ al of Discourses, 16:260.

56 “The History of A Nephite Co in ,” a personal exper ience of Elder Richard M. Robinson of

Gr ant svil le, U tah , re cor ded 30 D ec. 1 934 , L DS C hu rch A rch iv es.

in Brigham Young’s possession until his death in 1877. 53 Hosea Stout described in detailthe stone President Young displayed to the University of Deseret Board of Regents on25 February 1856, “a silecious granite dark color almost black wi th l ight color ed stripessome what resembling petrified poplar or cotton wood bark. It was about the size butnot the shape of a hen’s egg.”54

p.58 - p.59This same seer stone w as carri ed by President Wi lford Woodru ff to the dedication

of the Manti T emple in 1888: “Before leaving I consecrated upon the A ltar th e searsstone that Joseph Smith found by R evelation some 30 feet under the earth carr ied byhim through life.”55 Another description of the stone w as given by Richard M .Robinson when he returned from a Southern States mission i n 1899 and presented astrange coin he felt might be of Nephite origin to Pr esident Lorenzo Snow. R obinsonrelates that President Snow

went and got the money purse or leather bag that President Young had brought tothe Rock y Mou ntains wi th h im, also the Seer Stone and said, “Th is is the SeerStone that the Prophet Joseph used. There are very few worthy to view this, butyou are.” H e handed the Seer Stone to me and I couldn’t express the joy that cameto me and took that stone in my hands. Words are not equal to the task ofexpressing such a sublime joy! H e then told me to hand the Seer Stone to my w ifeand I handed i t to her. H e then blessed us wi th th e greatest bl essing I have everheard fall from the mouth of man!The Seer Stone w as the shape of an egg though not quite so l arge, of a gray castsomething like granite but with w hite stripes running around it. It was transparentbut had no holes, neither in the end or in the sides. I looked into the stone, butcould see nothing, as I had not the gift and power of God that must accompanysuch a manifestation.56

p.59Though we seldom hear the Chase seer stone mentioned in the Church today, it

remains in the possession of the First Presidency. Joseph Fielding Smith, as an apostl e,made clear that “the Seer Stone which w as in the possession of the Prophet Joseph

57 Joseph F ie ld ing Sm ith , D oct ri nes o f Salv ati on , 3 v ol s. (Salt Lake C ity : Deseret Book, 1956), 2:225.

58 David C . Mar tin, R estoration R eporter, 1 (Jun e 1971):8.

59 H igh Pr iest s R ecor d, S pan ish Fo rk , U tah , Sep tem ber 1880 , p. 128, LD S C hu rch A rch iv es.

60 Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith to President John Tay lor and Counci l of the Twelve, 17 Sept.

1878, cited in M illennial Star 40 (9 Dec. 1879): 772.

61 W ilfo rd W oo dr uff J ou rn al, 27 D ec. 1 841 , L DS C hu rch A rch iv es.

Smith in early days ... i s now in the possession of the C hurch.”57 Elder JosephAnderson, Assistant to the Council of the Twelve and long-time secretary to the Fi rstPresidency , clar ified in 1971 that the “Seer Stone that Joseph Smith u sed in the earlydays of the Church i s in possession of the Church and is k ept in a safe in JosephFielding Smith’s office.... [The stone is] slightly smaller than a chicken egg, oval,chocolate in color.”58

The final word as to what happened to the Nephite interpreters or Urim andThummim is usuall y thought to be the Pear l of Great Price account in JosephSmith--Hi story 1:59-60:

At length the time arr ived for obtaining the plates, the Urim and Thummim, andthe breastplate.... By th e wisdom of God, th ey remained safe in my hands, until Ihad accomplished by them what w as required at my hand. W hen, according toarrangements, the messenger call ed for them I deli vered them up to h im: and he hasthem in hi s cha rg e u n to th is d ay, being the secon d day of May, on e thousand eighthun dred and thirty-eight [italics added].

Though “them” in this account could refer solel y to the plates, Patri arch ZebedeeColtrin, an early acquaintance of Joseph Smith, related in an 1880 high priests’ meetingin Spanish Fork , Utah, that he had once asked Joseph what he had done with the Urimand Thumm im and that “Joseph said he had no further need of it and he had given itto the angel Moroni. He had the Melch izedek Pr iesthood, and w ith th at Priesthood hehad the key to all knowledge and intelligence.”59 Joseph Smith apparently did not havethe Nephite interpreters after the completion of the Book of Mormon translation;Moron i had them in his possession when they were shown to the Three Witnesses inJune 1830. David Whitmer explained to Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Smith in 1878 thathe, Martin Harris, and Oliver Cowdery, in fulfillment of a promise made in Doctrineand Covenants 17:1, were shown “a table with many records or pla tes upon it, besidesthe plates of the Book of Mormon, also the Sword of Laban, the Directors--i.e., the ballwhich Lehi had--and the Interpreters.”60

p.59 - p.60If the Nephite interpreters were in fact returned to Moroni before June 1830, as the

evidence strongly suggests, then why are so many references made to “Urim andThummim” in C hurch history after this date? Wilford Woodruff’s journal entrydescribing a Quorum of the Tw elve meeting held 27 Decem ber 1841 in Nauvoo show sthe problem: “The Twelve, or part of them, spent the day with Joseph the Seer, and heconfided unto them many glorious things of the Kingdom of God. The privileges andblessings of the pr iesthood, etc. I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day ,the Urim and Thum m im [italics added].”61

p.60Yet Bri gham Y oung, a ttending the same meeting, r ecorded:

I met w ith the Twelve at brother Joseph’s. H e conversed with us in a famili armanner on a vari ety of subjects, and explai ned to us the Ur im and Thumm imwh ich he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. He

62 W iden J . Watson , ea . , Manuscr ip t History of Br igham Young 27 Dec. 1841. Also in “History of

Brigham You ng,” Mil lennial Star, 26 (20 Feb. 1864):118.

63 Jane Mannin g James Autobiography , p. 19, holograph in LDS C hu rch A rch iv es. R efere nce cou rt esy

of Linda King Newell .

64 Lu cy C lay to n B ul lo ck , Bi ogr aph ical ske tch , L DS C hu rch A rch iv es.

65 Mil lennial Star, 3 (Ju ly 1842): 47.

66 Journ al of Discourses, 25 Aug. 1878, 20:65.

67 W ilford W oodru ff Journal, 19 Feb. 1842.

68 Statement of 16 Feb . 18 74, cit ed i n B . H . R ob ert s, A C om pr ehe nsi ve H isto ry of T he Church of

said that every man who lived on the earth was entitled to a seer stone, and shouldhave one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, andmost of those who do find one make an evil use of it; he showed us his seer stone.62

Wh ich apostle was mistaken? Was there actual confusion of objects or simplyconfusion of terminology ? We suggest that the discrepancy results from the popularityof Urim and Thummim terminology. Jane Manning James, a black convert living inJoseph’s Nauvoo home, uses the “Urim and Thummim ” terminology in herautob iographical remin iscence:

One morni ng I met Brother Joseph coming out of his mothers room he said goodmorning and shook hands with me. I went in to his mothers room she said goodmorning bring me that bundle from my bureau and sit down here. I did as she toldme, she placed the bundle in my hands and said, handle this and after I had doneit she said si t dow n. Do you remember that I told you about the Unm andThummim when I told you about the book of Mormon, I answered yes mam. Shethen told me I had just handled it, y ou are not permitted to see it, but y ou havebeen permitted to handle it. You w ill l ive long after I am dead and gone and youcan tell the Latter-day Saints, that you was permitted to handle the Urim andThummim.63

Lucy Clayton Bullock, wife to Brigham Y oung’s clerk, Thomas Bul lock , also tel lsof “seeing the urim and thummim ” during the Nauvoo per iod. 64

The brother apostles Orson and Parley P. Pratt relate separate accounts of theUrim and Thum mim being used to “translate” the book of Abraham from the Egyptianpapyri. Parley was quoted in 1842 as having said: “The Pearl of Great Price is now incourse of translation by means of the Urim and Thummim and proves to be a recordwritten partly by the father of the faithful, Abraham, and finished by Joseph when inEgypt.”65 Orson added in 1878: “The Prophet tr anslated the part of these wr itingswhich, as I have said, is contained in the Pearl of Great Price, and know n as the Bookof Abraham. Th us you see one of the first gifts bestowed by th e Lord for the benefit ofHis people, w as that of revelation, the gift to translate by the aid of the Urim andThummim .”66 Wil ford Woodruff similarly associates the Urim and Thummim w ith thetranslation of the Egypti an papy ri: “The Lord is blessing with power to reveal themy steries of the kingdom of God; to translate by the Urim and Thummim ancientrecords and hierogly phics old as Abraham or Adam.”67

p.60 - p.61In short, the term “Urim and Thummim ” appears repeatedly . Joseph Smith’s

personal secretary, William C layton, records that in 1843 H yrum Smith “requestedJoseph to write the revelation [on celestial marriage] by means of the Urim andThummim [italics added], but Joseph in reply said he did not need to, for he knew therevelation perfectly from beginning to end.”68 President H eber C . Kimbal l testified in

J e sus C hr ist of Lat ter -day Sain ts, C ent ur y 1, 6 vo ls. (P ro vo , U tah : Br igh am Y ou ng U ni ver sity Pr ess,

1965), 2:106.

69 Journ al of Discourses, 13 Aug. 1853, 2:111.

70 “Report o f Elders Orson Pratt and Joseph F. Sm ith,” M illennial Star 40 (16 Dec. 1878): 787.

71 David W hitmer, A n Address to All Believers in the Book of M orm on (R ichm ond , M O : n.p ., 1887 ),

p. 3. A lso All Believ ers in C hrist, p. 30.

72 W hitm er, Believers in the Book of Mor mon , p. 3.

73 Robert W oodford, “H isto ri cal D evel op m ent of th e Do ctr in e an d C ov ena nt s” (Ph .D. d i sser ta t ion ,

Brigham You ng U niversity , 1974), presents strong evidence that section 10 w as given in May 1829

as or ig ina l l y recorded in the Book of Comm andments and not in the summer of 1828 as stated in

th e he adi ng o f cur ren t ed iti on s of th e Do ctr in e an d C ov ena nt s.

74 Kirtland L etterbook , 1829-35, pp. 106.

75 Smith , Doctrin es of Salvation, 2:225.

1853, after the Chase seer stone had been brought to Salt Lake C ity by Phin eas Youn g:“Has Brother Brigham got the Urim and Thummim? Yes, he has everything that isnecessary for him to receive the will and mind of God to this people.”69

p.61In addition to Joseph ’s u se of a seer stone in “translation” wor k w ith the Book of

Morm on and the book of Abraham, evidence suggests that several of the earlyrevelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants may have come through thismedium. Orson Pratt, wh o lived for a ti me in the Prophet ’s home, related in 1878 “thecircumstances under which revelations were received by Joseph . . . he [Elder Pratt]being present on several occasions of the k ind. ... A t such t imes Joseph used the ‘seerstone’ when inqu irin g of the Lord, and receiv ing revelations, but that he was sothoroughly endow ed wi th the inspiration of the Almighty and the spirit of revelationthat he often received them without any instrument or other means than the operationof the spirit upon his mind.”70 Headings to eight sections in the present LDS Doctrineand Covenants--3, 6, 7, 11, 14-17--describe revelations received from July 1828 throughJune 1829 by “Ur im and Thum mim .” David W hitmer, wh o stated he w as “presentwhen Brother Joseph gave nearly every r evelation that is in the Book ofCommandments,”71 records “Brother Joseph giving the revelations of 1829 through thesame stone through which the Book was translated.... He then gave up the stoneforever.”72

Revelations given through the seer stone at the W hitmer h ome in Fay ette, N ewYork, during 1829 include not only sections 14 through 17, but al so section 18.Headnote references, which were not added until the 1921 edition of the Doctrine andCovenants, list sections 14-17 as having been given through “Urim and Thummim,” butDavid Whitmer also mentions the 18th section (which direct s him and Oliver to selectthe fir st Quorum of the Tw elve) as havi ng come through the C hase seer stone.

Section 10:1 describes the “power given unto you to translate by the means of theUrim and Thummim.” But the r eference to Uri m and Thum mim is a retrospectiveaddition which does not appear in the original revelation in the Book ofComm andments (Chapter IX). 73 Th is change first appeared in the 1835 edition of theDoctrine and Covenants (section 36:1). The Prophet’s handwritten 1832 account of hisearly history says “the Lord had prepared spectacles for to read the Book,”74 and he didnot begin to use the ph rase “Ur im and Thummim ” to describe h is tran slation vehicleuntil after W. W. Phelps equated the interpreters with the “Urim and Thummim” inan 1833 Evening and Morn ing Star ar ticl e.p.61 - p.62

President Joseph Field ing Smith thought al l “statements of translations by the U rimand Thummim” after 1830 “evidently errors.”75 If by “Urim and T hummim” we meanexclusively the Nephite interpreters, President Smi th is correct. A more feasible

76 N. B. Lun dw all, M asterful Discourses of Orson Prat t (Salt Lake C ity : Book craft, 1962), p. 452.

77 Lucy Mack Smith , Sketches, p. 126.

78 Em m a Smith Bidamon to Emm a Pilgrim, 27 M arch 187 0, R LDS C hur ch A rchiv es. Joseph d escribed

the interpreters in his 1842 Wentw orth Letter as “two tr ansparent stones set in the rim of a bow.”

But Ma rtin H arris descri bed th em in an 1859 T iffany ’s M ont hly inter view as “whi te, lik e poli shed

marble, w ith a few grey streaks.”

A n inter view w ith D avid W hitm er (“Th e Gold en Fab les,” Th e C hicago Ti mes, 7 A ug. 187 5) clarifies

this confusio n by explai nin g the in terpr eters as “shaped lik e a pa i r of ordinary spectacles, though

much larger, and at least half an inch in thickness, and perfect ly opaque save to the prophet ic v ision

of Joseph Smith.”

79 W andle Ma ce Journal , p . 66, microfi lm in LDS Church A rchives. Pr iddy Meeks, a Nauvoo

acquaintan ce of Joseph Smith, r ecorded in his jour nal, U tah H istorical Q uarterly , 10 (Oc t. 184 2):

80: “It is not safe to depend on peepstones in any case where evi l spir i ts have the power to pu t false

appear ance before them whi le look ing in a peepstone. . . . That is my exper ience in the matter ; also

the Patr iarch Hy rum Smith . . . s tated that our fai th was not strong enough to overcom e the evil

influences.”

Imitat ive use of a seer stone in the ear ly days of the Church was demonstrated by Book of Morm on

w itn ess H iram Page w ho, in Sept emb er 1830, “had in h is possession a certa in ston e, by w hich he had

obtai ned cer ta in ‘ reve lat ions’ concern ing the upbui ld ing of Zion , the order of the Ch urch, etc. , . . .

many- - especia l ly the W hitm er fami ly and O liver C ow dery --w ere believ ing m uch i n th e thin gs set

forth by this ston e.” (Hi story of the C hur ch, 1 :110) . Doctr ine and Covenants 28:11 responded for

O l iv er C o w de ry : “T h o u sh al t t ak e thy broth er, H iram Page between him and thee alone, and tel l

him -that those things which he hath wri t ten from that stone are not of m e, and that Satan deceiveth

him.”

explanation, however, is advanced by A postle Orson Pratt: “The Urim and Thummimis a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the livi ng God,and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing.”76 Evidence suggests thatthe Proph et Joseph Smith used the term “Ur im and Thum mim ” in a much br oaderfashion than w e have becom e used to. A fter Marti n Harr is had lost the 116 pages ofcompl eted Book of Mormon manuscript, Lucy Smith said that Moroni appeared toJoseph and demanded the retu rn of the Nephi te interpreters. The Prophet responded:

I did as I was directed, and as I handed them to him , he r emarked, “If you are veryhumble and penitent, it may be you will receive them again; if so it will be on thetwenty-second of next Sept ember [1828].” After the angel left me I continued mysupplications to God, without cessation, and on the twenty -second of September,I had the joy and sati sfaction of again receiving the Urim and Thummi m, wi thwh ich I have again commenced tr anslati ng, and Emma w rit es for me.77

p.62Though Joseph’s account appears at first glance to refer to the return of the

Nephite interpreters, an 1870 statement by Emma Smith indicates that Joseph in alllik elihood meant the Chase seer stone: “Now the first that my husband tran slated wastran slated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that MartinHarris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a darkcolor.”78

Another Joseph Smith appl ication of the term “Ur im and Thummim” to mean“seer stone” is recorded in the journal of Wandle Mace, a Nauvoo acquaintance of theProphet. Mace explains that a group of Church members in England had been usingtwo seer stones in exploring “magic or astrology. ” These two stones, often referred toas the “Sameazer Stones,” were given to Joseph Smith’s cousin , George A. Smith, whobrought them to the Proph et in Nauvoo. M ace records that “Apostle Smith gave themto Joseph the pr ophet wh o pronounced them to be a Ur im and Thummim--as good asever was upon the earth--but he said, ‘They have been consecrated to devils.’”79

These stones could not have been the Nephite in terpreters, y et Joseph specificallycalls them “Urim and Thummim.” The most obvious explanation for such wording is

80 Jour nal of Di scourses, 24 June 1833, 24:262-63.

81 Frazier’s M agazine, Feb. 1873, pp. 229-230.

82 Mil lennial Star 11 (Jan. 1849):11-12.

83 Manuscr ipt H istory of the C hurch, 6 May 1849, Church A rchives. The Quorum of the Tw elve

Minutes of th i s da te record that the Brethren spent the “evening in conversation upon m any l itt le

incidents connected with f inding the Plates, preserving them from the hand of the wicked, &

return ing them aga in to C umorah, wh o did i t &c, a lso about the g ift of seeing & how Joseph

obtained his first seer stone. Treasures know n to exist in the earth of money & records.”

84 W illiam Clay ton Diary , 2 Ap r. 1843. Cit ed in An drew F. Ehat and L yn don W , Co ok, T he W ords

that he used the term generi cally to in clude an y device w ith the potential for“communicating light perfectl y , and intell igence perfectly , through a principl e that Godhas ordained for that purpose,” as John Tay lor would later put it. 80

Though a seer stone i s referred to many times in the early day s of the Chur ch as“Urim and Thummi m,” the reference is not alw ay s to the Chase seer stone. TheProph et used several seer stones during his lifetime. One of the accounts of his 1826 trialin New York records testimony that “Prisoner [Joseph Smith] laid a book up on a wh itecloth, and looking through another stone which w as white and transparent.. . . Pri sonerpretended to him that he could discover objects at a distance by holding this white stoneto the sun or candle; that pr isoner rath er declined look ing in to a hat at his dark color edstone, as he said that it hurt his eyes.”81

p.62 - p.63Philo Dibble, a friend of Joseph Smith who made early r eplicas of the Smith

brothers’ death masks, preserved a third stone used by the Prophet in Nauvoo: “At thetime of the marty rdom, [Dibbl e] rescued a small seer stone, at the Nauvoo MansionHouse, from falling into the hands of the apostates. He brought th is seer stone acrossthe plains. Later, as cur ator of church hi story , he show ed the death masks, the seerstone, and other items of historical value on his lecture tours throughout the territoryof Utah.”82 Though a description of this stone is not gi ven , i t i s defini tel y not the Chaseseer stone, which was still in the possession of Ol iver Cowdery . It may wel l be the samestone that the Prophet showed to the Quorum of Twel ve in 1841, which WilfordWoodruff referred to as the “Urim and Thummim ” and which Brigham Young calleda seer stone. Brigham Young documents that Joseph had m ore th an one seer stone: “Imet wi th Pr esident W. Richards and the Twelve on the 6th. We spent the time ininteresting conver sation upon old ti mes, Joseph, the plates, M ount C umorah, treasuresand records known to be hid in the earth , the g ift of seeing, and how Joseph obtainedhis f i r st seer stone [italics added].83

p.63Joseph Smith further expanded the meaning of “Urim an d Thum mim” on A pril

2, 1843, in response to a William C layton question:

God and the planet w here he dw ells i s li ke cry stal, and l ik e a sea of glass before thethrone. This is the great Urim & Thumm im wh ereon all things are manifest boththings past, present & futur e and are continual ly before the Lord. The Urim &Thummim is a small representation of this globe. The earth wh en it is pur ified willbe made like unto crystal and will be a Urim & Thummim w hereby all thingspertaining to an inferior kingdom or all ki ngdoms of a lower order wil l be manifestto those who dw ell on it. and this earth wil l be with Christ Then the white stonement ioned in R ev. c2 v17 is the Urim & T hummim whereby all things pertainingto an higher order of ki ngdoms even al l k ingdoms wil l be made known and a whitestone is given to each of those who come in to thi s celestial k ingdom, whereon isa new name written which no man knoweth save he that receiveth i t. The newname i s the key wor d.84

of Joseph Smith (Provo, U tah: BY U Press, 1980), p. 169.

85 Joseph Smi th, “H istory of the C hurch ,” Tim es and Seasons 3 (March 1842):707.

Though all events surrounding the coming forth of the Book of Mormon ar e noty et fully kn own, some things seem clear: Joseph Smith discovered a “singular-lookingseer stone” in 1822 which not only served as a medium through which, according tonumerous descriptions, all of the present Book of Mormon was translated but w hichalso played a vital role in the discovery of the Nephite record. “Urim and Thummim ,”the tradi tional nomenclature for the Neph ite interpreters w hich were used as themedium for translating the 116 Book of Mormon manuscript pages Martin Harris lost,has a broader meaning; any mechanism capable of eliciting the mind and wil l of Godcan correctly be referr ed to as “Ur im and Thummim .” Apparent histor ical d iscrepanciesbetw een references to the Nephite interpreters and the prophet Joseph Smith ’s seerstones evaporate once this gener ic use o f “Uri m and T hummim ” is understood.Wh atever the actual device used, the Prophet in 1842 provided the most importantinsight about his Book of Morm on translation: “Through the medium of the Urim andThummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God.”85