RLDS/CoC Church History records Joseph Smith, Jr. relating that the night of September 21, 1823, he had a vision where an angel named Moroni informed him that buried in a nearby hill were gold plates inscribed with the historical records of the ancestors of the American Indians. According to the angel, these gold plates also contained the fullness of the everlasting gospel.
Joseph was told that buried with the plates was the Urim and Thummin, which consisted of two stones in silver bows fastened to a breast plate. This device was to be used for translating the plates.
He claimed that he met with the angel on the same date for the next four years. It wasn’t until the fall of 1827 that he purportedly received the gold plates and began translating them into what would later become known as the Book of Mormon.
Initially Joseph allegedly used the Urim and Thummin to translate the contents of the gold plates into the English of his day. But in June 1828, Martin Harris, who wrote for Joseph from April 12, 1828 until June 14, 1828, asked for and received permission from Joseph to show the first 116 pages of manuscript to some of Harris’ family members. Harris allegedly took the liberty to show the pages to others which resulted in the manuscript being taken from him and never recovered.
Joseph claimed that the incident with Harris caused his ability to translate the plates to be taken from him along with the Urim and Thummin. Eventually they were allegedly restored and in April 1829 the work of translation restarted. (RLDS Church History, Volume 1, pp. 12-29)
At a church conference held in 1831, Joseph declared that “it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.” (The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal, Vol. 3, (l983), p.51, See also “Far West Record,” p. 13.) Joseph did however, give the following brief explanation in the Elder’s Journal of July 1838:
“I obtained them [gold plates] and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.”
In March 1842, in response to a letter from John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, Joseph stated,
“With the records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called ‘Urim and Thummim’ which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God.” (Times and Seasons Vol.3, #9, p. 707, March 1, 1842.)
There are also several recorded eyewitness accounts of the translation process. Below are the testimonies of individuals who acted as scribes for Joseph or were closely associated with him during this time. You will note that all but one of them described him using a seer stone in a hat, to “translate” the plates.
- Emma Smith, wife of Joseph Smith, Jr., related the following to her son:
“In writing for your father, I frequently wrote day after day…he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us…. He had neither manuscript nor book to read from…. The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment wrapped in a small linen tablecloth.” (Saints Herald, October 1, 1879, p. 289.)
Emma’s testimony differentiates between the stone and the Urim and Thummim as seen in the following statement:
“Now the first that my husband translated was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, [the 116 pages], after that he used a small stone…rather a dark color.” (Letter by Emma Bidamon, written from Nauvoo to Mrs. G. W. Pilgrim, March 27, 1879, p. 2.)
According to Emma’s testimony the manuscript for the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon was translated with a seer stone, not the Urim Thummim as Joseph Smith claimed.
- William Smith, brother of Joseph, recalls: “The manner in which this [translation] was done was by looking into the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light (the plates lying nearby covered up), and reading off the translation which appeared in the stone by the power of God.” (William Smith, William Smith On Mormonism, (1883), pp. 10-12.)
In contrast to Emma’s statements, William Smith referred to the seer stone as the Urim and Thummim.
- Isaac Hale, Emma Smith’s father wrote, “The manner in which he [Joseph] pretended to read and interpret, was the same as when he looked for the money diggers, with the stone in his hat and his hat over his face, while the book of plates were at the same time hid in the woods” (Saints Herald, “By the Gift and Power of God”, November 15, 1962, p. 17.)
- Michael Morse was married to Trial Hale, one of Isaac Hale’s daughters, and sister of Emma Smith. In an l879 interview with W. W. Blair of the Reorganized Church, Morse stated that when Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon, he [Morse],
“…had occasion more than once to go into his immediate presence, and saw him engaged at his work of translation. The mode of procedure consisted in Joseph’s placing the Seer Stone in the crown of a hat, then putting his face into the hat, so as to entirely cover his face, resting his elbows upon his knees, and then dictating, word after word, while the scribe–Emma, John Whitmer, O. Cowdery, or some other, wrote it down.” (Saints’ Herald, Vol. 26, No. 12, June 15, 1879, pp. 190, 191.)
- Martin Harris, one of the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon differentiated between the Urim and Thummim and the seer stone:
“The prophet possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate, as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone…. By aid of the seer stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say, ‘Written’ and if correctly written that sentence would disappear and another appear in its place, but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used. Harris said…that the seer stone differed in appearance entirely from the Urim and Thummim that was obtained with the plates, which were two clear stones set in two rims.” (Millennial Star, Feb. 6, 1882, Vol. 44, No. 6, pp. 86- 87; See also Saints Herald, Mar. 15, 1962, p. 17.)
Harris also said, “Joseph had a stone which was dug from the well of Mason Chase…. It was by means of this stone he first discovered these plates” (Saints Herald, “By the Gift and Power of God,” Nov. 15, 1962, p. 17.)
If Martin Harris’ statement above is true, then why was there a need for the angel Moroni to inform Joseph where to find the plates?
- Oliver Cowdery, another of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon, and scribe to Joseph Smith, stated, “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.” (Ibid.. p. 17.)
- David Whitmer, the third of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon stated:
“I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to see if it was correct, then it would disappear and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God.” (David Whitmer, Address, p. 12.)
In an interview granted to the Kansas City Journal, Whitmer stated that Joseph did not use the plates in the translation. (Kansas City Journal, June 5, 1881) He also stated, “after the translation of the Book of Mormon was finished, early in the spring of l830, before April sixth, 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.” (Whitmer, Address, p. 32.)
In another interview which appeared in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, October 17, 1886, David Whitmer explains that the Urim and Thummim was replaced by the seer stone:
“This unpardonable carelessness [Martin Harris losing the first 116 pages] evoked the stormiest kind of chastisement from the Lord, who took from the prophet the Urim and Thummim and otherwise expressed his condemnation. By fervent prayer and by otherwise humbling himself, the prophet, however, again found favor, and was presented with a strange, oval-shaped, chocolate-colored stone, about the size of an egg…which, it was promised, should serve the same purpose as the missing Urim and Thummim.”
Some logical questions arise from these testimonies:
- Eyewitnesses agree that the Book of Mormon was translated by a seer stone buried in a hat, not from gold plates. If the plates were not needed in the translation, why were they preserved for hundreds of years and given to Joseph Smith?
- Why did the Lord prepare special instruments, the Urim and Thummim, to be used in translating the Book of Mormon if Joseph was going to use a stone found in his neighbor’s well? (Mormon 4:100)
- According to Martin Harris’ and David Whitmer’s testimonies, there would be no room for error in the translation process. This being the case, why were there over 3,000 changes made in the Book of Mormon between the first and second editions, many of them substantive? (Richard Howard [former RLDS Church Historian], Restoration Scriptures, (Independence, Mo.: Herald Publishing House, 1969), p. 41.)
- Joseph Smith testified that he used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon. Why then did David Whitmer, Martin Harris and Emma Smith all testify that he only used the Urim and Thummim to translate the first 116 pages which were then lost? And, in turn, why did they all agree that he used a seer stone to create the manuscript for the first edition of the Book of Mormon published in 1830?
“Oh what a tangled web we weave
when we practice to deceive.”
Sir Walter Scott