David Noyce and Peggy Fletcher Stack usually do a good job being accurate and factual, but sometimes they accept narratives as accurate without asking obvious questions.
This is one of those times.
I'm posting their article here with interlinear comments.
FYI, SITH is the acronym for "stone-in-the-hat" narrative.
___
https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/08/14/lds-news-church-addresses-book/
Latest from Mormon Land: LDS Church tackles tricky topic — Book of Mormon translation
(Illustration by Christopher Cherrington | The Salt Lake Tribune)
David NoyceThe rock of revelation
Church founder Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon, the faith’s foundational scripture, “by the gift and power of God.”
This truncation of what Joseph (and Oliver) actually said has become a common way for modern historians and other SITH sayers to avoid educating readers about what Joseph and Oliver actually taught. As a result, new and young Latter-day Saints are ignorant about what Joseph and Oliver taught.
That simple statement spurs complex questions — and a recently released Q&A from the church attempts to answer some of them.
"That simple statement" may spur complex questions, but not because Joseph and Oliver were not clear. The questions arise because the SITH sayers omit the context.
Here are key takeaways from this new webpage:
• Unlike modern academics, Smith didn’t complete this task with the help of reference books. For starters, he said the writings on the gold plates he unearthed were in an unknown ancient language so there were no helpful texts.
This awkwardly written sentence is confusing because Joseph did not say there were no helpful texts. That's an inference by the author of the sentence.
“He could not translate the text by conventional means,” the webpage states. “...The text of the Book of Mormon came by revelation.”
This is loose language designed to accommodate SITH. Joseph explained that "I copied a considerable number of them [the characters on the plates], and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them." (Joseph Smith—History 1:62)
Joseph (and Oliver) repeatedly explained that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. While this use of the plates and the translation device could loosely be deemed "revelation," that term has been used to distract from what Joseph and Oliver actually said.
(Rick Egan | The Salt Lake Tribune) Characters that purport to show writings etched on gold plates, from which Joseph Smith said he translated the Book of Mormon.
• It appears Smith used spectacle-like “interpreters” he said he found with the plates, along with a small brown “seer stone” he had used in earlier searches for buried treasure.
"It appears" is a euphemism for Royal Skousen's declaration that Joseph and Oliver deliberately misled everyone about the translation when they claimed Joseph translated the plates with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. Neither of them stated or implied that Joseph ever used the "seer stone" to translate the Book of Mormon. To the contrary, they refuted that claim which was published in the 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed, which used the term "peep stone" as the alternative to the Urim and Thummim narrative.
“According to eyewitness sources, Joseph sometimes used the interpreters or spectacles to translate. Other firsthand sources suggest he sometimes translated with a single seer stone,” the page explains. “These objects could apparently be used interchangeably and worked in much the same way, and Joseph seems to have used them both at different times. … Eyewitness accounts show that in some instances Joseph Smith looked at a seer stone in a hat to translate, but in other cases he looked through the interpreters at the plates.”
This paragraph is problematic because the "eyewitness accounts" of the "peep stone" were promoted by Joseph's critics, as explained contemporaneously by Oliver Cowdery, and then decades later by David Whitmer, who also claimed Joseph was a fallen prophet and, purportedly, by Emma Smith in her "Last Testimony" that was so unreliable her own son, who conducted the interview, did not find it persuasive.
• Smith and his associates used the term “Urim and Thummim,” referred to in the Old Testament, to describe these translation tools.
“The early Saints,” the Q&A says, “sometimes referred to both the interpreters buried with the plates and Joseph’s seer stone as Urim and Thummim.”
This is another common rhetorical tactic used by certain modern historians. But Joseph Smith himself refuted that tactic when he specified that he used the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. No "early Saints" conflated the terms. Even Mormonism Unvailed made a stark distinction between the "peep stone" Joseph supposedly used for finding treasure and the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.
(Rick Bowmer | AP) A picture of the seer stone that Joseph Smith had. Eyewitness sources have said that he used this rock, at least partly, in the translation of the Book of Mormon.
• Thanks to deeper historical research, expect to see more Latter-day Saint artwork that depicts Smith translating via a seer stone.
There is no "deeper historical research" going on. Modern historians have not found any historical evidence that was not well known in the 1800s. In 1835 Oliver Cowdery specifically addressed the source of the "peep stone" narrative published in Mormonism Unvailed."
While employed here he became acquainted with the family of Isaac Hale, of whom you read in several of the productions of those who have sought to destroy the validity of the book of Mormon.
It may be necessary hereafter, to refer you more particularly to the conduct of this family, as their influence has been considerably exerted to destroy the reputation of our brother, probably because he married a daughter of the same, contrary to some of their wishes, and in connection with this, to certain statements of some others of the inhabitants of that section of country.
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/93
“Many early church members were familiar with Joseph’s use of seer stones. But for much of the 20th century, published accounts of the translation relied on sources that focused mainly on the interpreters buried with the plates.
In the 19th and 20th century "published accounts" focused on the Urim and Thummim because Joseph and Oliver repeatedly emphasized the Urim and Thummim as opposed to the "peep stone" narrative. Their formally published accounts are readily accessible even today.
The various SITH accounts were all well-known to Joseph, Oliver, their contemporaries and successors in Church leadership. But Church leaders wisely accepted what Joseph and Oliver taught instead of what their critics claimed.
Memory of the seer stones faded … and artists and narrators depicted the translation based on this partial understanding of early church history.
"Memory of the seer stones" did not fade; the peep stone narrative was soundly refuted by Joseph and Oliver. Artists accepted what Joseph and Oliver said not because of a "partial understanding" but because Joseph and Oliver were more credible than the critics.
In recent decades, the church has worked to provide carefully researched and more complete historical accounts of church history.
All the modern scholars have done is revive the narrative from 1834's Mormonism Unvailed, thereby ignoring how Joseph and Oliver responded to that narrative.
Here is the narrative from Mormonism Unvailed.
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 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/mode/2up?q=Urim
That is precisely the narrative that modern historians are trying to promote, thereby replacing what Joseph and Oliver repeatedly taught. Compare the Mormonism Unvailed/Church History Department narrative to what Joseph Smith and Oliver taught in response to Mormonism Unvailed:
1834: Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history or record called ‘The Book of Mormon.’ (Joseph Smith—History, Note, 1)
1838: Responding to ongoing confusion about the translation, Joseph Smith answered the question in the Elders Journal in 1838.
Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the Book of Mormon?
Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the Book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me and told me where they were and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon. (Elders’ Journal I.3:42 ¶20–43 ¶1)
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/11
1842: The question persisted so Joseph explained it again in the Wentworth letter, published as "Church History" in the Times and Seasons.
These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings, in Egyptian characters and bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving. 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 III.9:707 ¶5–6)
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/times-and-seasons-1-march-1842/5
For more references, see https://www.mobom.org/translation-references
This expanded understanding helps artists more accurately depict the miraculous story of the Book of Mormon’s translation, portraying the use of the seer stone as well as the interpreters.”
To repeat, this is not an "expanded understanding" but a rejection of what Joseph and Oliver taught in favor of what Mormonism Unvailed taught.
The church released photographs of this revelatory rock in 2015.
There are provenance problems with this rock, which doesn't even match the description given by Emma Smith.
No comments:
Post a Comment