![FairMormon Logo](https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/2021_fair_logo_primary.png)
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
< User:InProgress | SWDN | Swedish questions
A FAIR Analysis of:
Questions Asked at 2010 Swedish Fireside |
Response to questions about polygamy and polyandry |
1: BoM translation—2: Polygamy and Polyandry—3: Polygamy forced?—4: Book of Abraham—5: "Lying for Lord"—6: Mark Hofmann—7: Blood atonement—8: First Vision—9: Sanitized history—10: "Not all truth is useful"—11: Angelic affidavits—12: Blacks and priesthood—13: Temple concerns—14: Evidence of Vikings—15: Adam-God—16: Kinderhook
The plates were needed because the plates were real and they were preserved and they were passed down from generation to generation. Once Joseph Smith got them, then the method of translation was up to the Lord and the Lord chose to use a method of translation that was far more efficient, far better, and far more accurate than anything Joseph Smith could have done letter by letter. Because it would have taken him — he didn’t know the language. How else was he going to translate it if God didn’t help him?
—Brother Turley's response to this question at the Sweden fireside
The hat was apparently to block light out so that Joseph could see what he was doing with the record. If you have a computer sometimes the light, you know, affects the screen. We don’t know exactly how it works, Joseph Smith said he wasn’t meant to know how it works, but he did say this: in the early days of his translation, he was relying on revelatory tools of some sort or another— Urim and Thummim, seer stones, whatever the case may be.
—Brother Turley's response to this question at the Sweden fireside
To help him with the translation, Joseph found with the gold plates “a curious instrument which the ancients called Urim and Thummim, which consisted of two transparent stones set in a rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate.” Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone.
—“A Peaceful Heart,” Friend, September 1974, 7.
David Whitmer wrote: "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."
—Russell M. Nelson, “A Treasured Testament,” Ensign, July 1993, 61.
He described the instrument as “spectacles” and referred to it using an Old Testament term, Urim and Thummim (see Exodus 28:30). He also sometimes applied the term to other stones he possessed, called “seer stones” because they aided him in receiving revelations as a seer. The Prophet received some early revelations through the use of these seer stones.
—Gerrit Dirkmaat, "Great and Marvelous Are the Revelations of God," Ensign, January 2013.
The seer stone referred to here was a chocolate-colored, somewhat egg-shaped stone which the Prophet found while digging a well in company with his brother Hyrum. It possessed the qualities of Urim and Thummim, since by means of it-as described above-as well as by means of the “Interpreters” found with the Nephite record, Joseph was able to translate the characters engraven on the plates.
—B. H. Roberts, Defense of the Faith and the Saints (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1907), 1:257.
For a detailed answer, we recommend:
Roger Nicholson, "The Spectacles, the Stone, the Hat, and the Book: A Twenty-first Century Believer’s View of the Book of Mormon Translation," Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture —This essay seeks to examine the Book of Mormon translation method from the perspective of a regular, nonscholarly, believing member in the twenty-first century, by taking into account both what is learned in Church and what can be learned from historical records that are now easily available. (Click here for full article)
FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
We are a volunteer organization. We invite you to give back.
Donate Now