Urim and thummim

[Hagoth]

I always wondered as a kid how Oliver attempted to translate the plates, and then later saw them for the first time as a witness.

You know, that never occurred to me. Mind blown.

Deer in headlights look on my face right now....you're right Hagoth. Nice catch by Culper Jr. there.

April 1829: Doctrine & Covenants section 9 ("study it out in your mind")
June 1829: Witness of the 3 witnesses

[wtfluff]

I always wondered as a kid how Oliver attempted to translate the plates, and then later saw them for the first time as a witness.

You know, that never occurred to me. Mind blown.

Wow. The Tapir-Riding Chief's mind blown?

I'd never thought of it either, but thinking about it now: It just reinforces the fact that "the plates" were a completely useless prop. Joseph didn't need "the plates" because he had a magic rock. Oliver didn't need "the plates", because he had a magic rod (wand?).

As I repeat probably way too often: "The Witnesses" are "witnesses" of source material that was never used to produce the Book of Mormon.

[el-asherah]

You know, that never occurred to me. Mind blown.

Deer in headlights look on my face right now....you're right Hagoth. Nice catch by Culper Jr. there.

April 1829: Doctrine & Covenants section 9 ("study it out in your mind")
June 1829: Witness of the 3 witnesses

<apologist> .... ummm ... only a secular translation would require viewing the Gold plates, whereas with a spiritual translation you don't even need the plates, heck they can be buried out in the woods. With God anything is possible!! </apologist>

As I repeat probably way too often: "The Witnesses" are "witnesses" of source material that was never used to produce the Book of Mormon.

"Study it out in your mind" simply means create a story in your mind of what the BoM story could possibly be (no Gold Plates needed). Then ask God if the story is correct by your favorite method: magic rock, chicken guts, divining rods, urim and thummin, dice, lots, or a burning in your bosom.

[Palerider]

Neil A. Maxwell was such a wordsmith...

As he obliquely referred to the rock in the hat trick as "divine instrumentalities", I'm blown away by his intelligence...

He notes in a conference talk why the plates wouldn't have been necessary to the mammoth spirituality we encounter in Joseph.

"If by means of these divine instrumentalities the Prophet was seeing ancient words rendered in English and then dictating, he was not necessarily and constantly scrutinizing the characters on the plates—the usual translation process of going back and forth between pondering an ancient text and providing a modern rendering.

The revelatory process apparently did not require the Prophet to become expert in the ancient language. The constancy of revelation was more crucial than the constant presence of opened plates, which, by instruction, were to be kept from the view of unauthorized eyes anyway.

While the use of divine instrumentalities might also account for the rapid rate of translation, the Prophet sometimes may have used a less mechanical procedure. We simply do not know the details."

"We simply do not know the details"

I should think this to be an opportune time to relate the hat trick but Maxwell backed away from the edge at this point and hid behind the "we don't know" bush that gives so many apologists the impression they are covered and hidden from view.

https://www.lds.org/ensign/1997/01/by-t ... d?lang=eng

[1smartdodog]

Perhaps the leaders are just not that smart and they buy into the same narrative as everyone else. It was true because those before said it was so.

Then when it is evident they are wrong they are like political operatives who act like it’s no big deal. Move along, nothing to see here

[Palerider]

Perhaps the leaders are just not that smart and they buy into the same narrative as everyone else. It was true because those before said it was so.

Then when it is evident they are wrong they are like political operatives who act like it’s no big deal. Move along, nothing to see here

I actually think there's a lot of validity in this observation.

"My daddy believed in this stuff and he wouldn't lie so I'm sticking with it come hell or high water..."

The way the culture stresses loyalty, obedience above all and the us against them mentality , makes it nearly impossible to be the weak link in the fake chain.

[Rob4Hope]

I'm glad I pushed back a little on accountability of a Q15 member. I've been disturbed by the pictures of the translation process. About a year ago I went into the North Visitor's Center in Temple Square, down in the basement area where they have displays. A picture of the "translation process" hung on the wall, plates out and everything. It made me angry because CLEARLY pictures teach. So, this was intentional.

There is this massive accountability problem that is infuriating to me. The GAs would claim: "This is just an artist rendition". Now people here have made it more clear that correlation and control exist from the highest levels: these works of "art" don't just happen--they are crafted and approved just the way they are.

So, my comments above were probing. You see, the GAs use the line of "artist rendition" as their out, when in reality its double speak. Yes...it is an artist rendition, this is true, but the Q15 members are intentionally leaving the rest of the message out: "WE CRAFTED AND APPROVED THE WORK DONE".

Half lies through double-speak are still lies.

I knew the guy personally who once was the Ensign main editor. His name was Jay Todd. He had never been a 70. This was about 20 years ago. I don't know who does it now.

I remember seeing Jay once on a bus heading home--we were in the same ward. He had articles open in his lap he was reading, going through the approval process. He was a pretty smart guy.

I think the GAs who govern this stuff now (as some have said) are careful to allow for "plausible deniability". The whole thing is a scheme to avoid accountability. Hence my anger.

[Palerider]

I'm glad I pushed back a little on accountability of a Q15 member. I've been disturbed by the pictures of the translation process. About a year ago I went into the North Visitor's Center in Temple Square, down in the basement area where they have displays. A picture of the "translation process" hung on the wall, plates out and everything. It made me angry because CLEARLY pictures teach. So, this was intentional.

There is this massive accountability problem that is infuriating to me. The GAs would claim: "This is just an artist rendition". Now people here have made it more clear that correlation and control exist from the highest levels: these works of "art" don't just happen--they are crafted and approved just the way they are.

So, my comments above were probing. You see, the GAs use the line of "artist rendition" as their out, when in reality its double speak. Yes...it is an artist rendition, this is true, but the Q15 members are intentionally leaving the rest of the message out: "WE CRAFTED AND APPROVED THE WORK DONE".

Half lies through double-speak are still lies.

I knew the guy personally who once was the Ensign main editor. His name was Jay Todd. He had never been a 70. This was about 20 years ago. I don't know who does it now.

I remember seeing Jay once on a bus heading home--we were in the same ward. He had articles open in his lap he was reading, going through the approval process. He was a pretty smart guy.

I think the GAs who govern this stuff now (as some have said) are careful to allow for "plausible deniability". The whole thing is a scheme to avoid accountability. Hence my anger.

Getting back to the Swedish rescue previously mentioned, those church representatives addressing membership aren't stupid.

At that level they are well aware of how the church art and doctrine approval system works. So for them to give membership the impression that the artists are responsible for how the story is told and the GAs are just hapless victims who have no say in what they publish for the church...is just intentional deception.

But when you're lying for the Lord (and your over-lords) that makes it all o.k. The critical mission is maintaining the church's standing. Defend and protect at all costs, right or wrong. Everything must be sacrificed on the alter of maintaining leadership authority and the organization that supports it.

A small sin now for the greater good later, right?

[moksha]

Think of the Biblical Urim and Thummim as a breastplate worn by the High Priest with tassels attached that has a stone at each end. The stones themselves had a yes on one side and a no on the other side. Another priest would face the High Priest and ask a question. Through body movement the High Priest got the yes/no tassels spinning. A very limber High Priest could no doubt get the tassels spinning in different directions simultaneously. I imagine it was quite stimulating to see this sacred ceremony in action!

Once the spinning had stopped, a third priest would read whether a yes or a no was showing. They would then give thanks to the Lord for his answer.

Hope that helps.

[Palerider]

Think of the Biblical Urim and Thummim as a breastplate worn by the High Priest with tassels attached that has a stone at each end. The stones themselves had a yes on one side and a no on the other side. Another priest would face the High Priest and ask a question. Through body movement the High Priest got the yes/no tassels spinning. A very limber High Priest could no doubt get the tassels spinning in different directions simultaneously. I imagine it was quite stimulating to see this sacred ceremony in action!

Once the spinning had stopped, a third priest would read whether a yes or a no was showing. They would then give thanks to the Lord for his answer.

Hope that helps.

[Rob4Hope]

These GAs are totally nuts.

Lets get the old ouija board out and giver her a good go...

Oh wait, at this point there isn't new revelation. We are in a period of moratorium or something I guess.

[Emower]

You know, that never occurred to me. Mind blown.

Deer in headlights look on my face right now....you're right Hagoth. Nice catch by Culper Jr. there.

April 1829: Doctrine & Covenants section 9 ("study it out in your mind")
June 1829: Witness of the 3 witnesses

I am not near my scriptures, does it say in the witness statement that he saw them for the first time? I dont recall that.

[StarbucksMom]

I have really loved reading all the responses here, good stuff. I have learned alot from my intelligent NOM friends (as usual.)

I am still wondering, though about my question of the church OFFICIALLY SAYING that although there were several U &Ts, JS had the original, actual one from the brother of Jared, and THAT IS THE ONE HE USED TO TRANSLATE THE BOM. I fully understand that the ridiculous, false pictures approved by the top leaders are one way they lie about the translation process. But we have statements, in writing, in scripture, in lesson manuals, saying what the U & T was, where it came from, Moroni telling us what it was supposed to be used for, and that JS used it with the plates to translate. And it is a blatant, all out lie. Has this ever been addressed before? How would the church/a GA respond to that?

I did it all. I was converted and baptized with my mom and brother at age 10. I went to church every week, sat through countless hours of YW and Sunday School. I attended 4 years of seminary and got a scholarship for going every day my senior year. I graduated from BYU and took all the required religion classes. I served a mission in Guatemala. I have been a RS and YW president, as well as a RS teacher and Sunday School teacher. I have been though hours and hours and hours of lessons and classes, read and taught them, and learned all about the BOM and how it came to be.

The church likes to say "this info has always been there, we never hid it." And with polygamy/polyandry- I actually did learn a little about polygamy in seminary and BYU--not much, but I knew it existed. In the manuals, they just commit the sin of ommission, (which is still wrong) by leaving out the prophets multiple wives and making it look like they each had one wife. With the Book of Abraham, no-- I never knew about the problems, but those scriptures have always taken kind of a back seat/less important role than the BOM. The BOM was presented as the end all be all of our religion. They had all that time to teach me the truth, and didn't.

The church cannot say it didn't hide this issue. I really don't understand how they can even try to cover it up. I don't go to SS anymore and haven't read the new material. How is the BOM translation being taught to children/youth and adults now with the new "transparency" era of the church?

[Palerider]

I have really loved reading all the responses here, good stuff. I have learned alot from my intelligent NOM friends (as usual.)

I am still wondering, though about my question of the church OFFICIALLY SAYING that although there were several U &Ts, JS had the original, actual one from the brother of Jared, and THAT IS THE ONE HE USED TO TRANSLATE THE BOM.

So this probably isn't going to help as far as how blatant the misrepresentation is in the church. But I guess I didn't need the smoking gun that many are wondering about.

The church's story has changed SO MANY TIMES.....it gets kind of mind boggling to go down that rabbit hole. Somewhere along the line I just mentally said, "Shut up! I'm tired of your worthless explanations. I'm tired of you trying to pound that square peg into that round hole."

Once the organization has been found to be obfuscating numerous times the trust account goes bankrupt and the gig is up....we're done. I don't need every single piece of the puzzle to be in place in order to see what the picture has become.

The problem with finding the smoking gun is that we're dealing with multiple layers of deception.

The first layer is with Joseph Smith's family itself.
The second is with Joseph and his cohorts; Martin, Oliver etc., etc.
The third layer is with church leadership after Joseph's death. We know they have added to the deception and have become accomplices. Think Joseph Fielding Smith cutting out and hiding one of Joseph's first vision accounts.

So we really don't know what evidence the church has that they are hiding from us even now.

And frankly, I don't care anymore. Whether they do it deliberately, or unknowingly or out of utter incompetence doesn't matter because the result still comes up the same. As Hinkley said, it's one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on modern civilization.

[wtfluff]

Has this ever been addressed before? How would the church/a GA respond to that?

If you're asking if "the church" has addressed this, I imagine they would point you to the "Book of Mormon Translation" essay, and that would be the end of the discussion.

If there were further discussion, I imagine that there would be some attempts to minimize the actual facts about the translation process, and statements such as: "It doesn't matter how the book came about, all that matters is how that the book testifies of christ, and you should get some warm fuzzies when you read it".

[MoPag]

For those interested in a more scholarly description of what the Urim and Thummim actually was in a Biblical Old Testament context I recommend the following article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim.

Per the article the Urim and Thummin were unique wood or stone/jewel objects which when randomly selected would indicate guilt/innocence or yes/no. Sort of like rolling dice or casting lots to get an answer for simple binary yes/no questions. Presumably with God biasing or ensuring the correct outcome. There is no factual Jewish basis for the Urim and Thummin to be eye glasses one would look through and see things.

That article was way better than any Sunday school lesson I've ever had.

<snip>

How is the BOM translation being taught to children/youth and adults now with the new "transparency" era of the church?

If I was still teaching primary we would play Urim and Thummin. I would bring in painted rocks and we would have so much fun!! Damn I wish I'd know all this before. Oh well.

[moksha]

I am still wondering, though about my question of the church OFFICIALLY SAYING that although there were several U &Ts, JS had the original, actual one from the brother of Jared, and THAT IS THE ONE HE USED TO TRANSLATE THE BOM.

Here is some extra history of the Seer Stone used by Joseph when the U&T was subject to a factory recall.

The Seer Stone is but a fragment. It was originally crafted by Fëanor of the Noldor as attested to in the ancient Silmarillion. There were nine such stones called the Palantir. They were given as a gift to the Dúnedain of Númenor, during the Second Age. After the fall of Númenor, the remaining Dúnedain brought the stones to Middle Earth.

Joseph's fragment came from the Orthanc stone which came into the possession of Saruman the Pure and Delightsome. During the last war of the Third Age, Grima Wormtongue tossed the Orthanc stone out the window of Orthanc in anger. It was picked up by Peregrin Took who turned it over to Gandalf. Gandalf gave it to the rightful heir of the Dúnedain of Númenor, King Aragon of Gondor. It remained with the Kings of Gondor for quite some time. It reappears in history when Uther Pendragon placed the Sword of the Lady of the Lake in the Orthanc stone. Later on his son, Arthur, withdrew the sword shattering it into fragments.

One of the fragments turned up in the Chase well, where it was appropriated by Joseph Smith.

And now you know the rest of the history.

[StarbucksMom]

^^^^
Moksha, thank ypu for that enlightening explanation. It all makes sense now.

If you're asking if "the church" has addressed this, I imagine they would point you to the "Book of Mormon Translation" essay, and that would be the end of the discussion.

If there were further discussion, I imagine that there would be some attempts to minimize the actual facts about the translation process, and statements such as: "It doesn't matter how the book came about, all that matters is how that the book testifies of christ, and you should get some warm fuzzies when you read it".

WTFluff, you are right. They almost always avoid the real problems and try to change the subject to the warm fuzzy spirit you get from church/the BOM/you felt on your mission, etc. They did this a TON during the Swedish Rescue. It was kind of fascinating to hear though, because I had never seen/heard a GA getting asked so many direct scary history questions like that.

[quote=StarbucksMom post_id=27496 time=<a href="tel:1509214125">1509214125</a> user_id=178]

So this probably isn't going to help as far as how blatant the misrepresentation is in the church. But I guess I didn't need the smoking gun that many are wondering about.

The church's story has changed SO MANY TIMES.....it gets kind of mind boggling to go down that rabbit hole. Somewhere along the line I just mentally said, "Shut up! I'm tired of your worthless explanations. I'm tired of you trying to pound that square peg into that round hole."

Once the organization has been found to be obfuscating numerous times the trust account goes bankrupt and the gig is up....we're done. I don't need every single piece of the puzzle to be in place in order to see what the picture has become.

The problem with finding the smoking gun is that we're dealing with multiple layers of deception.

The first layer is with Joseph Smith's family itself.
The second is with Joseph and his cohorts; Martin, Oliver etc., etc.
The third layer is with church leadership after Joseph's death. We know they have added to the deception and have become accomplices. Think Joseph Fielding Smith cutting out and hiding one of Joseph's first vision accounts.

So we really don't know what evidence the church has that they are hiding from us even now.

And frankly, I don't care anymore. Whether they do it deliberately, or unknowingly or out of utter incompetence doesn't matter because the result still comes up the same. As Hinkley said, it's one of the biggest frauds perpetrated on modern civilization.

Thank you for this Palerider. You are right. The deception is so deep, and wide, that it's pretty useless trying to pin it down to one issue, or to make any sense of it. I have been on this disaffection journey for several years now, but for some reason listening to the Swede Rescue really set me off. I'm not sure why it struck such a nerve, but it did.

And Mopag, I wish we could co-teach a primary class!!! We could definitely start with your rock game!! The next week, we could bring a Ken doll and lots of Barbies for the JS lesson.

[blazerb]

Here is some extra history of the Seer Stone used by Joseph when the U&T was subject to a factory recall.

The Seer Stone is but a fragment. It was originally crafted by Fëanor of the Noldor as attested to in the ancient Silmarillion. There were nine such stones called the Palantir. They were given as a gift to the Dúnedain of Númenor, during the Second Age. After the fall of Númenor, the remaining Dúnedain brought the stones to Middle Earth.

Joseph's fragment came from the Orthanc stone which came into the possession of Saruman the Pure and Delightsome. During the last war of the Third Age, Grima Wormtongue tossed the Orthanc stone out the window of Orthanc in anger. It was picked up by Peregrin Took who turned it over to Gandalf. Gandalf gave it to the rightful heir of the Dúnedain of Númenor, King Aragon of Gondor. It remained with the Kings of Gondor for quite some time. It reappears in history when Uther Pendragon placed the Sword of the Lady of the Lake in the Orthanc stone. Later on his son, Arthur, withdrew the sword shattering it into fragments.

One of the fragments turned up in the Chase well, where it was appropriated by Joseph Smith.

And now you know the rest of the history.

Hiram Page's stone must have come from Minas Morgul.

[Just This Guy]

For those interested in a more scholarly description of what the Urim and Thummim actually was in a Biblical Old Testament context I recommend the following article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urim_and_Thummim.

Per the article the Urim and Thummin were unique wood or stone/jewel objects which when randomly selected would indicate guilt/innocence or yes/no. Sort of like rolling dice or casting lots to get an answer for simple binary yes/no questions. Presumably with God biasing or ensuring the correct outcome. There is no factual Jewish basis for the Urim and Thummin to be eye glasses one would look through and see things.

I suspect that in actual practice due to the folk magic mindset of the time period, Joseph's seer stones or Cowdery's divining rod were used to answer simple yes/no questions during the BoM translation and provide confirmation to what they thought the story of the BoM should say. This is the model in D&C 8 for the BoM translation, i.e. came up with a story in your mind, and then seek confirmation of yes/no through some mechanism (seer stones/ urim and thummim / divining rods / burning in your bosom) that will give you Gods approve/disapproval.

Maybe that's why OC had so much trouble translating. When you have to guess something and then get a yes or no response to it's correctness, then it would be very difficult to guess right.

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Prays, No. Okay.
"Two households, both alike in dignity." No Okay.
"In the beginning, god created the heaven and the earth." No Okay.
"Marley was dead." No ...
"It is a truth universally acknowledged" No Sigh!
"It was a bright cold day in April" No
"In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice"No
"Call me Ishmael." No Really?
"All children, except one, grow up." No
"Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins." No Common!
"All this happened, more or less." No
"In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit." No Your kidding me!
"In the week before their departure to Arrakis" No
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy" No &^%#&^!!
"It was a dark and stormy evening." No
"I, Bob, having been born of goodly parents." No That's it. I give up! You can do it from here Joseph.