My book Infinite Goodness includes a section on the Urim and Thummim. It's a useful overview of the narratives about the Urim and Thummim that I want to be able to refer to people, so I'm posting that section from the book here, with an additional link not in the book.
_____
Urim
and Thummim. Jonathan
Edwards’ observations about the “Urim and Thummim” may shed light on some unresolved
questions in Church history.
Throughout
this book, we’ve noted alternative faithful narratives for the Book of Mormon:
translation (U&T) vs. vision (SITH). Statements by both Joseph and Oliver
suggest it was Moroni who used the term “Urim and Thummim” when explaining the
existence of the plates and how Joseph would translate them. For example,
He also informed me that the Urim & Thummim was hid up with the
record, and that God would give me power to translate it with the assistance of
this instrument; he then gradually vanished out of my sight or the vision
closed.
However,
neither the text of the Book of Mormon nor any extant documentation prior to
1832 refers by name to the Urim and Thummim. The text refers to “interpreters”
while early documentation refers to “spectacles.” This leaves believers to
speculate about the origin of the term as applied to the Nephite interpreters/spectacles,
particularly Moroni’s use of a biblical term that involved a much different
relic.
The earliest known published account of
the translation is from August 11, 1829, six weeks after the translation was
completed in the Palmyra Freeman. The article titled “Golden Bible”
included this passage:
Its proselytes give the following account… By placing the spectacles
in a hat, and looking into it, Smith could (he said so, at least,) interpret
the characters.
This article was republished in the Niagara
Courier on August 27, 1829, the Rochester Daily Advertiser and Telegraph
on August 31, 1829, and the Painesville [Ohio] Telegraph on September
22, 1829.
A separate article published in Rochester
on September 5, 1829, directly attributes the account to Martin Harris.
A man by the name of Martin Harris was in this village a few days since
endeavoring to make a contract for printing a large quantity of a work called
the Golden Bible. He gave something like the following account of it.... By
placing the spectacles in a hat and looking into it, Smith interprets
the characters into the English language.
The reliability and precision of these early
accounts (“he gave something like”) is questionable. No one could have seen
Joseph put the Urim and Thummim into a hat because Joseph had been forbidden
from displaying the interpreters until the translation was complete. That’s why
Joseph used a stone during the demonstration.
Perhaps Martin said “stone” and the
reporter conflated it with prior accounts about the “spectacles.” Whether and
how much earlier events, rumors, and misunderstanding influenced these
newspaper articles is impossible to say.
In
his 1832 History, Joseph Smith wrote “the Lord had prepared spectacles for to
read the Book therefore.” His scribe Frederick G. Williams continued the
sentence: “I commenced translating the characters.”
Translating characters isn’t merely reading words off a stone in a hat.
That
Joseph did not use the term “Urim and Thummim” in the 1832 history does not
mean that the term was not in circulation at that point. “Spectacles” is a
shorter and more descriptive term, perhaps more appropriate in the brief 1832
history.
Joseph
had apparently used the term Urim and Thummim at least by the time he wrote his
1832 history. The earliest known documented historical reference connecting the
“Urim and Thummim” to the Book of Mormon dates to August 1832, roughly
concurrent with Joseph’s 1832 history. An article in the Boston Investigator
from August 5, 1832,
reported a question-and-answer sequence with Orson Hyde and Samuel Smith who
were serving as missionaries in Boston.
Q.-By whom was a fac simile of some part of the
language and characters taken, and on what material.
A.-It was taken by Joseph Smith on paper from the
original plates themselves….
Q.-In what manner was the interpretation, or translation
made known, and by whom was it written?
A.-It was made known by the spirit of the Lord
through the medium of the Urim and Thummim; and was written partly by
Oliver Cowdery, and partly by Martin Harris.
Q.-What do you mean by Urim and Thummim?
A.-The same as were used by the prophets of old,
which were two crystal stones, placed in bows something in the form of
spectacles, which were found with the plates.
Q.-What became of the plates after the translation
was made?
A.-They were delivered into the hands of the angel
of the Lord by whom they were afterwards shown to the three witnesses, who have
testified to that effect.
Q.-At what place was the translation made?
A.-Partly at Manchester, Ontario county, N.Y. where
the plates were found, and partly on the banks of the Susquehannah river in
Pennsylvania.
[Note: this error confuses Fayette with Manchester,
likely an error by the reporter.]
Q.-How many were present at the time and who?
A.-Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris-and
several others at least part of the time whose names were mentioned but not
taken down.
[Note: this is evidence that this exchange was not
recorded verbatim.]
Q.-When were the plates seen by the eight who saw
them, and who have testified to that fact; before they were translated, or
since?
A.-They were seen at different times while they were
in the hands of Joseph Smith and during the time of their translation.
[Note: This is another error or misunderstanding
because the witnesses did not see the plates until after the translation was
completed.]
Q.-Did they see the fac simile also, and if so, did
they compare the fac simile with the plates to see if they agreed?
A.-They saw the fac simile also, but did not compare
it with the plates to see whether it agreed or not.
The
missionaries’ response uses a phrase identical to the one Joseph used in the
1842 Wentworth letter. “Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I
translated the record by the gift, and power of God.”
That phrase could be coincidental, but it also suggests that that Joseph was
the common source; i.e., that his brother Samuel and/or Orson Hyde learned
about the Urim and Thummim from Joseph.
Some
scholars conclude that the phrase “Urim and Thummim” was adopted years after
Moroni’s first visit, but both Joseph and Oliver published accounts depicting
Moroni himself as having used the term.
He [Moroni] said there was a book deposited, written upon gold plates,
giving an account of the former inhabitants of this continent, and the source
from whence they sprang. He also said that the fulness of the everlasting
Gospel was contained in it, as delivered by the Savior to the ancient
inhabitants;
Also, that there were two stones in silver bows—and these stones,
fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—deposited
with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what
constituted “seers” in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them
for the purpose of translating the book.
(Joseph Smith—History 1:34–35)
In
1835, Oliver, who had kept a notebook of what Joseph told him starting in April
1829, related what Moroni told Joseph during their first encounter in 1823.
He [Moroni] said this history was written and deposited not far from
that place, and that it was our brother’s privilege, if obedient to the
commandments of the Lord, to obtain and translate the same by the means of the
Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with the record.
Nothing
in the historical record contradicts what Joseph and Oliver taught in these
examples. Moroni could have used the term whether Joseph published it or not.
Evidently, at least by summer of 1832 Orson and Samuel had heard about it from
someone.
On
top of the vague chronology of events, we wonder why Moroni would have called
the interpreters the “Urim and Thummim.”
Scholars
have long observed that the Urim and Thummim described by Joseph Smith differs
from the Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Bible. There are only a few
references in the Bible.
30 ¶ And thou shalt put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim
and the Thummim; and they shall be upon Aaron’s heart, when he goeth in
before the Lord: and Aaron shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel
upon his heart before the Lord continually. (Exodus 28:30)
8 And he put the breastplate upon him: also he put in the
breastplate the Urim and the Thummim. (Leviticus
8:8–9)
8 ¶ And of
Levi he said, Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one, whom
thou didst prove at Massah, and with whom thou didst strive at the waters of
Meribah; (Deuteronomy 33:8)
63 And the
Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy things,
till there stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim. (Ezra 2:63)
65
And the Tirshatha said unto them, that they should not eat of the most holy
things, till there stood up a priest with Urim and Thummim. (Nehemiah
7:65)
These
obscure passages don’t explain much. The biblical Urim and Thummim was “put in”
the breastplate and the priest could stand up with them. There is no suggestion
of “spectacles” such as those Joseph found with the plates or any connection to
a “seer” here.
A good summary of biblical interpretations is here: https://www.biblestudy.org/bible-study-by-topic/the-urim-and-thummim.html
Even
assuming Joseph was familiar with these biblical passages, it would have been confusing
for Moroni to use the term Urim and Thummim to refer to the Nephite
interpreters. However, Joseph’s understanding of the Urim and Thummim was not
necessarily limited to what he could read in the Bible. Jonathan Edwards
discussed the Urim and Thummim in several passages in the 1808 edition of his
work. He pointed out that:
(i) the ancient priests determined matters by Urim and Thummm,
(ii) that the Jews had lost the Urim and Thummim,
(iii) that it was something by which the high priest inquired of God
and receive immediate answers from him,
(iv) that God revealed himself by Urim and Thummim.
These
characteristics roughly fit the Nephite interpreters, or spectacles, which had
been prepared to enable Joseph to translate the plates. In a sense, the
translation process required Joseph to inquire of God and receive answers. If
Moroni referred to the spectacles as “Urim and Thummim,” Joseph could have
understood the term as explained by Edwards: a means for getting answers from
God and an object that had been lost to the Jews (although once he translated
the plates, he would learn that the interpreters originated with the brother of
Jared).
Other
Christian writers offered brief explanations of the Urim and Thummim, but Edwards
wrote enough about the topic to support Moroni’s use of the term (assuming
Joseph read Edwards’ writings). Edwards pointed out that there was no account
of the Urim and Thummim “being ever restored.” Moroni putting the interpreters
with the plates could be seen as restoring the Urim and Thummim.
Again another thing that was lost that the Jews had before was
the Urim and Thummim . This is evident
by Ezra 2:63, "And the Tirshatha [said unto them], that they should
not eat of the most holy things, till there should stand up a priest with Urim
and with Thummim." And we have no account of this being ever restored,
but the ancient writings of the Jews say the contrary. What this Urim and
Thummim was I shall not now inquire, but only shall observe that it was
something by which the high priest inquired of God and received immediate
answers from him, or by which God gave forth immediate oracles on particular
occasions. This was now withdrawn, the time approaching when Christ, the
great antitype of the Urim and Thummim, the great word and oracle of God,
was to come…
And it was of vast importance that we should have an inspired history
of these times of the Jewish church wherein there was kept up a more
extraordinary intercourse between God and them, and while he used to dwell
among them, as it were, visibly revealing himself to them by the Shekinah, by
Urim and Thummim, and by prophecy, and so more immediately to order their
affairs….
It was by the Urim and the
Thummim that the high priest was especially
furnished to make intercession for the people, and to reveal the mind and
will
of God to them. The Urim and Thummim had their principal importance, as
they were typical, and represented the perfection, and merit, the light, and
glory, there are in Christ.
Another
puzzle involving the Urim and Thummim is the expanded application of the term
around 1843 (D&C 130). In the early years of the Church, the term meant the
Nephite interpreters. The 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed distinguished
between the Urim and Thummim and the “peep stone” that some people claimed
Joseph put in a hat to see the words he dictated to his scribes. In response to
Mormonism Unvailed, Oliver Cowdery emphasizes that Joseph translated
with the Urim and Thummim. (JS-H 1:71, note 1). Subsequent teachings by Joseph
and Oliver reaffirmed this point.
On
April 2, 1843, however, Joseph taught that “the placed where God resides is a
great Urim and Thummim,” that the earth “will be a Urim and Thummim to the
inhabitants who dwell thereon,” and “the white stone mentioned in Revelation
2:17 will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one.” Although
not presented as revelation, these teachings have been canonized as such.
Perhaps Joseph was
influenced by comments Jonathan Edwards made in his notebooks of ideas and
insights that he drew upon for his sermons and treatises. Some, but not all, of
these Miscellanies
were published in the 1830 10-volume collection of The Works of President
Edwards, edited by his grandson Sereno Edwards Dwight.
Entry number 240
discusses the Urim and Thummim. I’m not aware that it was published in whole or
in part prior to 1843, or whether Joseph would have had access to it if it was
published, but Edwards’ here explains that in his view, the term referred not
to specific objects but to the spiritual power to prophesy and obtain divine
responses. This expanded concept of the term is congruent with what Joseph
taught, so it’s worth considering. I’ve highlighted relevant portions in bold.
240. URIM AND THUMMIM.
There has been great
inquiry,
what was that urim and thummim that was in the breastplate of the high priest,
whereas I think we have it plainly described in Exodus
28:17–21. …
Every jewel stood for a
tribe, and had the name of that tribe written on it that it stood for. God's
people are called his jewels. So Christ bears our judgment; that is, he is our
representative in judgment and, as to God's dealings with respect to his law,
he stands for us.
The name "urim and
thummim" signifies light and perfection; and it being 'tis the plural number, may
more properly be rendered "glisterings" (or "brightnesses")
and "beauties," because of the charming appearances that the jewels
made by their different kinds of glisterings, and the beautiful proportion of
their different colors. …
The use of it seems to be
much the same with the plate of gold on the miter mentioned in Exodus 28:36, whereon was engraved "holiness to
the Lord"; which the high priest was to have on his forehead, that he
might bear the iniquity of the children of Israel, and that he might be
accepted when he came in before the Lord (as Exodus
28:38). By the urim and thummim he was to bear the judgment
of the children of Israel on his heart; by this plate of gold he was to bear
the iniquity of the children of Israel on his head.
We find them both
mentioned after the same manner, where we have an account of Moses putting
the holy garments upon Aaron, as in Leviticus
8:8–9, …
But if the objection be
allowed, all that it can argue is that the urim and thummim was not any
material thing, but a power given to the breastplate of foretelling or of
obtaining divine responses.
For we can't imagine in
reason, that any material thing was expected to be sent down from heaven, to be
put into the breastplate; but Leviticus 8:8 proves
it was [a] material thing.
Therefore, if they had
those jewels in the breastplate at that time, the reason of their speaking in
this manner must be, because they did not think them worthy the name of urim
and thummim till they had such a power given them as the former urim and
thummim had.
Jewish traditions have
various understandings, ranging from the Urim and Thummim as lots or dice cast
for divination to their being illuminated words or jewels on the breastplate
that formed words. Whether Joseph was familiar with this speculation is unknown
but unlikely. See Trevan G. Hatch, “Magic, Biblical Law, and the Israelite Urim
and Thummim,” Studia
Antiqua
5, no. 2 (2007). https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/studiaantiqua/vol5/iss2/10
