Academic pride seems to be driving a lot of revisionist Church history as well. And the explanations given by LDS intellectuals are making the problem worse.
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| CES Letter compilation stone-in-a-hat theory |
People ask me all the time about the stone-in-the-hat theory of translation. This is the currently popular narrative that Joseph Smith read words off a stone-in-a-hat to dictate the Book of Mormon. It was featured in Saints, which I didn’t address in detail because of the other significant problems in that book (the censorship of Cumorah, the phony Mary Whitmer/Moroni story, etc.).
Many members have said they felt betrayed or misled when Church intellectuals and media embraced the stone-in-a-hat theory because they had been taught all their lives that Joseph translated the plates by using the Urim and Thummim that Moroni put in the stone box with the plates.
In my view, these members should have felt betrayed by the revisionist historians, not by the traditional teachings of the prophets, because the traditional teaching was correct.
It has been a serious mistake to reject the teachings of Joseph and Oliver in favor of the statements by others about the stone-in-a-hat. (I’ve pointed out elsewhere that the people who made the statements about the stone-in-a-hat were probably honest, but they were reporting demonstrations by Joseph Smith, not the actual translation of the Book of Mormon.*)
Although it is new to many Church members today, the stone-in-a-hat theory had its origins back in 1834 in a book titled Mormonism Unvailed. The authors published the book in Painesville, Ohio, just a few miles from Kirtland, and sought every way possible to discredit Joseph Smith, his associates, and the Book of Mormon. They articulated the stone-in-a-hat theory as an alternative to Joseph’s account that he translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that Moroni put in the stone box with the plates.
Certain modern scholars have revived the stone-in-a-hat theory as if it was recently discovered, but in reality it is 184 years old.
It’s old news to anyone who is familiar with Church history.
Here’s the key: Joseph and Oliver dealt with it right after it was first published in Mormonism Unvailed. Recently it has risen from the dead, a zombie of Church history. Sadly, it is our own Church historians who have given it life.
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We can understand the chronology of the alternative theories through a simple chiasmus:
Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by reading words off a stone-in-a-hat (critics) [1834]
Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim (alternative account) [1834]
Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim (taught for decades by LDS leaders) [1834-2015]
Joseph produced the Book of Mormon by reading words off a stone-in-a-hat (revisionist historians) [2015 to present]
IOW, our current intellectuals have now embraced what only the critics claimed back in 1834. As we’ll see below, Oliver and Joseph specifically repudiated the stone-in-a-hat theory. That’s why, for 180 years, the prophets taught that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to translate, and not the stone-in-a-hat.
Critics such as CES Letter made a big issue out of the stone-in-a-hat narrative. They claimed the Church was covering up its history. In response, what did our intellectuals do?
Did they reaffirm what Joseph and Oliver taught about the translation?
No.
Instead, they embraced the arguments of the critics, and now they are teaching the youth the stone-in-a-hat theory, including the idea that Joseph didn’t even use the plates.
You can see how this plays out right here on the CES Letter page: https://cesletter.org/debunking-fairmormon/book-of-mormon-translation.html.
In my view, the revisionist Church historians’ revival of the stone-in-a-hat zombie is an unmitigated disaster.
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At the end of this post, we’ll see how the stone-in-a-hat theory implicates M2C and why the M2C citation cartel, including Book of Mormon Central, promote the stone-in-the-hat theory.
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| Scene from Church film that teaches the stone-in-a-hat theory of translation |
First, we observe that the stone-in-a-hat theory has been set forth in the Gospel Topics Essay on Translation, in the pages of the Ensign, and in numerous books and articles by revisionist Church historians. It is portrayed in the recent Church film about Harmony. It is being taught in visitors centers. The Priesthood Restoration site in Pennsylvania even features a hat in the Joseph Smith cabin, but at least they hadn’t put a stone in it when I visited there.
An article in the Ensign, for example, makes this claim:
By 1833, Joseph Smith and his associates began using the biblical term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to any stones used to receive divine revelations, including both the Nephite interpreters and the single seer stone.17
That statement is purely revisionist history.
Look at note 17: Wilford Woodruff, for instance, called a seer stone he saw in Nauvoo a Urim and Thummim (Wilford Woodruff journal, Dec. 27, 1841, Church History Library).
If you read Woodruff’s journal, he never says he saw a seer stone. He simply says “I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the URIM & THUMMIM.”
You can read his journal entry yourself here:
https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets?id=28b53d73-2ba2-418b-8ef7-dafcc935bee3&crate=0&index=125
The historians simply infer that Woodruff saw a seer stone and then state their inference as a fact.
Those interested in more details about all of this can read my upcoming book. For example, Heber C. Kimball said Brigham Young had the Urim and Thummim.
I’m not saying that it’s impossible the term was used for things other than the Nephite interpreters prepared for the translation of the plates, but I am saying that in 1834 forward, during Joseph’s lifetime, there was a clear delineation between the Urim and Thummim and any seer stones. That’s why it is so important to recognize that Joseph and Oliver always said Joseph translated the plates using the Urim and Thummim.
As we see below, in 1834 even the critics recognized the distinct difference between (i) the “seer stone” that Joseph found while digging a well and (ii) the Urim and Thummim prepared anciently for the translation of the Book of Mormon.
The idea that Joseph and his associates used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to the seer stone Joseph reportedly found in a well is merely an effort by the revisionist historians to reconcile what Joseph and Oliver (and their contemporaries and successors) taught with what the critics claimed.
That’s an understandable approach. The revisionist historians sought an explanation that is both historically accurate and palatable to Church members. But instead of an explanation that makes sense and is consistent with the historical record–an explanation that would help people understand history and reaffirm the teachings of the prophets–these intellectuals simply adopted the claims of the critics and embraced the stone-in-a-hat theory.
They’re teaching that Joseph and Oliver misled the Church about the translation, the same way Joseph and Oliver supposedly misled the Church about the New York Cumorah.
The revisionist historians have inadvertently caused great confusion and ridicule, and they have given enemies of the Church plenty of ammunition to destroy faith.
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On page 18, which you can read here, Mormonism Unvailed acknowledges two alternative explanations of the translation. The first involved the seer stone (which the book calls a “peep stone”) that Joseph put in a hat to read off the words that appeared. Setting aside the sarcasm of this passage, we can see that the first paragraph below is what our revisionist Church historians are teaching today (although they claim Joseph saw a group of words instead of a single word at a time).
The translation finally commenced. They were found to contain a language not now known upon the earth, which they termed “reformed Egyptian characters.” The plates, therefore, which had been so much talked of, were found to be of no manner of use. After all, the Lord showed and communicated to him [Joseph] every word and letter of the Book. Instead of looking at the characters inscribed upon the plates, the prophet was obliged to resort to the old ”pecp stone,” which he formerly used in money-digging. This he placed in a hat, or box, into which he also thrust his face. Through the stone he could then discover a single word at a time, which he repeated aloud to his amanuensis, who committed it to paper, when another word would immediately appear, and thus the performance continued to the end of the book.
https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe/page/18
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| South Park depiction of the stone-in-a-hat theory |
This version of the translation was been infamously portrayed in an episode of South Park, as well as on many web pages critical of the Church.
Now, this stone-in-a-hat theory has been embraced in Church publications, as mentioned above.
Mormonism Unvailed acknowledged an alternative explanation of the translation. This is the explanation that Joseph and Oliver always gave, albeit not exactly the way it is explained in Mormonism Unvailed.
Another account they give of the transaction, is, that it was performed with the big spectacles before mentioned, and which were in fact, the identical Urim and Thumim mentioned in Exodus 28 — 30, and were brought away from Jerusalem by the heroes of the book, handed down from one generation to another, and finally buried up in Ontario county, some fifteen centuries since, to enable Smith to translate the plates without looking at them !
Mormonism Unvailed is not noted for accuracy in its presentation about the Book of Mormon. Here, the authors missed the points that (i) the Urim and Thummim that Joseph received was not brought from Jerusalem by Lehi but instead had been used by the Jaredites in America, and (ii) Joseph actually looked at the plates with the spectacles.
However, the passage quoted above makes a clear delineation between the stone-in-a-hat theory and the Urim and Thummim narrative. (Elsewhere in the book the authors distinguish between the peep stone and the spectacles.) Everyone who read the book understood these were two competing explanations of the translation of the Book of Mormon. There was no suggestion that Joseph, Oliver, or anyone else referred to the “seer stone” as the Urim and Thummim. All contemporary accounts referred to the interpreters Moroni put in the stone box as the Urim and Thummim.
Faced with the publication of Mormonism Unvailed, how did Joseph and Oliver respond?
We’ll cover this in part 2, tomorrow.
To be continued…
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* The stone-in-a-hat theory is based on accounts of demonstrations Joseph conducted to satisfy people’s curiosity, while he was under the constraint of never showing the plates or the Urim and Thummim to unauthorized persons. Not a single one of these witnesses ever recorded what Joseph actually dictated during these demonstrations. There is no account of Joseph or Oliver ever saying Joseph used a seer stone instead of the Urim and Thummim to translate the plates. People simply inferred that the demonstrations were actually the translations of the plates, but Joseph and Oliver consistently taught otherwise.
Source: About Central America
3 thoughts on “Peep stones vs. Urim and Thummim – part 1”
Gordon B. Hinckley became the prophet of the Church of Jesus Christ in 1995. In 1997, President Hinckley said “…we have a great body of revelation, the vast majority of which came from the prophet Joseph Smith. We don’t need much revelation. We need to pay more attention to the revelation we’ve already received. Now if a problem should arise on which we don’t have an answer, we pray about it, we may fast about it, and it comes…we don’t need a lot of continuing revelation. We have a great, basic reservoir of revelation.” [“Sunday Interview—Musings of the Main Mormon” interview by Don Lattin, SFGATE, April 13, 1997]
It is obvious from this quote that the Lord was beginning to reveal the need for the Joseph Smith Papers to His Mouthpiece on the earth! Because, under President Hinckley’s leadership and a mere four years later, the Joseph Smith Papers were sanctioned and published in 2001! The Joseph Smith Papers were given to the world to view and to make the Church transparent. Joseph, THE prophet of the Restoration, was allowed to speak again for the Lord.
Two years later, on December 7, 2003 in a First Presidency Christmas Devotional, President Hinckley said, “I look to [Joseph Smith]. I love him. I seek to follow him. I read his words, and they become the standards to be observed in guiding this great Church as it moves forward in fulfilling its eternal destiny.”
I have been pleading mightily with the Lord recently to straighten out all of this confusion and controversy over Nephite geography and Hill Cumorah location! In answer to my prayer, it came to me that He has already told us…HE TOLD JOSEPH!! Joseph’s words have never been rescinded! Maybe the Lord won’t reveal this to His prophets today because HE TOLD JOSEPH!! Again, President Hinckley said, “…we just just need to pay more attention to the revelation [from Joseph] we already have…” and “…I read his [Joseph’s] words, and they become the standards to be observed in guiding this great Church as it moves forward in fulfilling its eternal destiny.” Couple President Hinckley’s words with all of the nonsense coming to the forefront from BYU Academia today, and we have the answer to our dilemma: THE JOSEPH SMITH PAPERS! The Joseph Smith Papers were given to US, the prophets and the members of the Church alike, in OUR day… just 18 years ago…so WE could know what the Lord told Joseph!! We no longer have to rely on the philosophies of men!! We can once again sit at the feet of Joseph to know what the Lord would have us know concerning the perplexing issues the scholars are throwing at us! We no longer have to be tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. The Lord has promised light and knowledge for the Last Days! After a century of watching Academia dig in the wrong place and being mislead by their philosophies for so long, we can now find the truth for which we earnestly seek in the Joseph Smith Papers!
The Lord gave us a most precious gift in 2001 through His prophet, President Gordon B. Hinckley! Through the Joseph Smith Papers, the Lord gave us the light and knowledge we now seek concerning Nephite geography in North America, the definitive location of the Hill Cumorah in New York, the actual translation versus transmitting of the Book of Mormon, the Urim and Thummum as the tool used for translation versus the stone in the hat…etc. etc. etc. for anything else coming down the Academian pipeline in the future!!
I have been instructed to follow the prophet of the Lord and not heed the philosophies of men since I joined the Church 38 years ago!! That is precisely what I plan to do until I leave this earth…and on the other side of the veil, as well, if needed!
One more thing, our prophets say repeatedly that the Lord has not yet revealed the Nephite geography to them. Academia has been digging in Mesoamerica for over a century, and they are now equipped with their fantasy maps and hundreds of books and documents validating their findings! If the Nephites who wrote the Book of Mormon were in Mesoamerica, the prophets today would have ample reason to say they were in Mesoamerica! But our prophets have not “bought” the real estate down south—that is significant to me! Why have they not bought it? Because they know the LORD HAS NOT YET REVEALED IT TO THEM! Therefore, we are waiting on the Lord—not His prophets—to reveal it to us! Could it be that the Lord did just that in 2001? And, could it be that the Lord is waiting for the REAL Nephite geography to be discovered from” the evidences” He told Joseph and the Three Witnesses “He would cause to come from the earth to prove the Book of Mormon true”— BEFORE He confirms what He told Joseph to His prophets today?
I testify that is exactly what is happening today in North America—mostly in America’s Heartland—
i.e. the location of the Garden of Eden,
i.e. the location of Adam-ondi-Ahman,
i.e. the land which contains the New Jerusalem which is Independence, Missouri,
i.e. Joseph’s promised land–“the land choice above all other lands”– is the New Jerusalem
where remnants of Joseph’s seed, Ephraim and Manasseh, would dwell,
i.e. Joseph’s promised land where Manasseh and Ephraim wrote the “stick of Joseph,”
i.e. Joseph’s promised land where the Lord, through Ephraim, commenced the Restoration of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
i.e. one of the two promised lands on the earth given to the House of Israel—the OLD Jerusalem
in the East and the NEW Jerusalem in the West—from which Christ will rule and reign during
the Millennium!
When I first heard about the Heartland almost three years ago, I was electrified with excitement! I had finally found the promised land for Lehi that made perfect sense in every conceivable way imaginable! So the thought came to my mind, “Why would the Lord send Lehi to Mesoamerica when clearly America and America’s Heartland was His “choice land above all other lands” for every other major purpose in the Western Hemisphere?” And now, we have Joseph’s words in the Joseph Smith Papers, the Bible, the Book of Mormon, and the Doctrine and Covenants—all go together to confirm these things! The Book of Mormon, alone, does so in a mighty way!
I love the Lord! He will show us the way through the perilous times ahead with the aid of His prophets…those on the earth and those on the other side of the veil. We just have to find and heed the words of the prophets above the clatter and deafening voices of Academia! And once we know, we are obligated to share with our family and friends. We cannot hide under a bushel! We have to let the light and knowledge we are given shine brightly to help truth and the Kingdom of God roll forth on this earth.
Thank you, Jonathan, and all of your constituents in the Heartland Model for letting your light so shine in bringing truth to me!
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What do we learn from the Hiram Page story in D&C Section 28:11? “And again, thou shalt take thy brother, Hiram Page, abetween him and thee alone, and tell him that those things which he hath written from that bstone are not of me and that cSatan ddeceiveth him;” Did Hiram use a hat?
I can see how easy it is for uninformed folks who know little or nothing about what the scriptures actually say (especially the Book of Mormon) and what Joseph and Oliver actually taught to succumb to false narrative and doctrine. It’s easy to trust in words masquerading as truth that you do read if you can’t compare it to actual truth that you haven’t read.
As a young missionary, I was becoming sickened, saddened, and nauseated by the constant and unrelenting fulfillment of prophecy multiple times daily–ad infinitum. We have all heard it a million times as described in 2 Nephi 29:3, “And because my words shall hiss forth—many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.” One day while trying to share the Book of Mormon with a skeptic who even claimed to have read the book, said he knew all about it and he knew it was false. Testing to see if he really had read the book, I asked him what was his favorite part. He didn’t have an answer so I said, “did you like the part where Brigham Young shot all the Indians?” He said, “Oh that was the best part.” How can people know anything about the truth, if they have never read it or read it without a sincere heart and real intent? The D&C says people are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it. Some of these truths will not be found in Saints or the Ensign or BMC or Maxwell Institute or CES or Sunday School.
God provides an answer to the naysayers who don’t want any more scripture than the Bible. In 2 Nephi 29:14, it says, “And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of the ahouse of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the blands of their possessions; and my word also shall be gathered in cone. And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my dpeople, who are of the ehouse of Israel, that I am God, and that I fcovenanted with gAbraham that I would remember his hseed iforever.” Read all of Chapter 29 to understand why and how of more scripture. Can you imagine a 20-year cycle on Sunday School scripture study vice the current 4-year cycle? How will God show unto them that fight against my word and against my people…that I am God?
We all need to read and apply the gems in Section 123 of the D&C.
12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are ablinded by the subtle bcraftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to cdeceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they dknow not where to find it—
13 Therefore, that we should waste and awear out our lives in bringing to light all the bhidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—
14 These should then be attended to with great aearnestness.
15 Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.
16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is abenefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.
17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us acheerfully bdo all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the csalvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
Test post. I posted 3500 characters and now I can’t post 2000 characters including spaces. What is wrong?
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