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A FAIR Analysis of "Translation"

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
This image was in the Oct 2006 issue of The Ensign which shows both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery at the same table with the plates in full view of both of them, which is not what is generally taught in the Church, but perhaps is what is now being promoted.

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Joseph claimed to see in the darkened hat the words he dictated....When Joseph was asked how exactly he translated the Book of Mormon, he would never give any details. He would only say that he did it by the 'gift and power of God'.

FairMormon commentary

• More accurately, Joseph's associates claimed that he would see words in the darkened hat. Joseph never claimed that.
• One person to give this type of description was David Whitmer in 1887 in his pamphlet "An Address to All Believers in Christ." This was published 57 years after the Book of Mormon was translated and published.

Quotes to consider

• Lazy citation: The citation given by MormonThink points to an anti-Mormon website Mormons in Transition from which they simply copied the source text. FAIR has included a link to a copy of the actual primary source An Address to All Believers in Christ.
• David Whitmer said, ""I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. 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. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man." (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, 1887 Wikisource)
  

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Most LDS are somewhat aware that Joseph Smith did some treasure seeking in his younger days. A following statement is sometimes quoted in church. This comes from Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p.120: "Q: 'Was Joseph Smith not a money digger?' 'Yes, but it was not a very profitable job for him, as he only got fourteen dollars a month for it.'" This is usually the only thing said at church regarding his treasure-seeking past.

FairMormon commentary

• Did you know that this quote came from Joseph Smith himself? (he is talking about himself in the third-person.)
• Don't we hear in Church about Joseph helping Josiah Stowel search for a lost mine sometimes?

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
The following describes Joseph's treasure seeking for Josiah Stowel. It is from Joseph Smith's 1826 court transcript when he was brought up on charges as a disorderly person and imposter.

FairMormon commentary

Additional information

• 1826 trial for "glasslooking"—Joseph Smith was brought to trial in 1826 for "glasslooking." Didn't Hugh Nibley claim that if this trial record existed that it would be "the most damning evidence in existence against Joseph Smith?" (Link)

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Critic's Comment: Joseph never found any treasure for the men that hired him to find treasure using his seer stones. However, he was able to convince them he had the ability by describing things on Josiah Stowel's property such as his house, outhouses and a painted tree. Obviously he could have found out about these things without having special abilities. Also, it's very easy to plant a tail feather to prove he could 'see' distant things in his stone. When it came to treasure, he would always seem to have an excuse as to why they couldn't find the treasure even though he saw it in his stone. Often Smith would say that the treasure kept sinking further into the ground as they dug or that the spirits of dead Indians were guarding the treasure and wouldn't let anyone have it.

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Joseph Smith was arrested and brought up on charges as a "glass looker" by a justice of the peace in Bainbridge, New York, on March 20, 1826. Joseph was employed by Josiah Stowel to find hidden treasures in the ground by gazing into a stone. He led his employer to believe that he could find buried treasure by looking into a stone placed in a hat. Joseph was apparently found guilty and fined $2.68 for the offense. The judge may have let him go if he agreed to leave the state because of his age.

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
What is particularly disturbing about this incident is the timing of the charges. The court records that were found prove that Joseph was involved in treasure seeking with a seer stone for profit after he received the First Vision but before he translated the Book of Mormon. This puts Joseph in a new light. It would seem that his belief in magic and seer stones was motivated more by profit and superstition rather than a sincere desire to bring forth the restoration. It would be very unlikely that the chosen prophet of the restoration would engage in such activities after conversing with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ as well as the Angel Moroni. Would he really be doing such activities a year before he dug up the golden plates, after he had met with the angel Moroni for each of the prior three years?

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Joseph Smith claimed that when he was a teenager, in 1823, that an American Indian by the name of Moroni, who had died over 1000 years ago, visited him in his bedroom at night. The Indian told Joseph that there was a cache of items buried together in a hill near Joseph's house.

FairMormon commentary

• Joseph never claimed that Moroni was "an American Indian."

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Although Moroni is commonly believed to have instructed young Joseph on where the plates were in Hill Cumorah, there is evidence that he found the plates using a seer stone that he had previously used for treasure-seeking....Critic's comment: Even the apologists at FAIR confirm this account. Is it not troublesome that a common stone found some 24 feet beneath the ground on Mr. Chase's property had the exact same seering ability as the sacred Urim and Thummim that was preserved in a stone box for 1,600 years? Had the seer stone Joseph used been given to him by an angel or had been the same Urim and Thummim used by the prophets in the Bible, then this would be understandable. but there is nothing to indicate why the stone found on Mr. Chase's property had the same ability as the fabled Urim and Thummim.

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
(Critic's comments) We can imagine the conversation that transpired between Joseph and Oliver. Oliver looked into the hat and saw nothing. Joseph looks into the hat and says "yup, it is certainly working, I can see the words just fine." Oliver looks in to the hat and...still nothing...hmmm...Frustrated, Oliver Cowdery went back to writing what Joseph was dictating by looking at the rock in the hat some more.

FairMormon commentary

• Let's make sure we understand: an "objective" and "balanced" analysis of this incident includes an "imagined" conversation between Joseph and Oliver that has no basis in any evidence?

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
(Critics' comments) Regardless, the LDS church is lying about the date of the revelation of section 10 to reflect a time line that makes the story more believable. Regardless, if they have any integrity, they will change it back to the actual date to reflect reality. This is one of the biggest problems I have with the church, is that the date does not reflect the correct one. But then again, Joseph Smith might have been wrong about when he received his revelation and maybe he was just speaking as a man, after all, even prophets of God are not infallible. So what the LDS church is saying right now is that Joseph Smith didn't get the date right. If Joseph Smith couldn't even get the date right, how do we know he got the message straight? He made changes to the revelation years later, so how do we know we have the correct message now? [MormonThink's] comment: We're not entirely sure how significant this issue is. Some critics label this as additional evidence of Joseph's deception. B.H. Roberts acknowledges the date problem but defends it as an honest mistake as Joseph did seem to place the content of D&C 10 right after D&C 3 content, and also says that it was only a few days later that he received the command to continue translating. The problem then arises as to why he waited until April to continue through the translation. A response taken from LDS lessons is at www.ldsgospeldoctrine.net (see page # 8 under the heading "Excerpt from The Revelations of the Prophet Joseph Smith) In our opinion, we'll give B.H. Robert the benefit of the doubt here and state that this is perhaps the least significant issue regarding the translation issue of the Book of Mormon.

FairMormon commentary

• So, let's get this clear: if I misremember the date on which I got married, I can't be trusted to remember whether or not I actually got married? If you mistake the date, you must be lying about the whole experience? Really?
• Quick, what date were you baptized? What date were you ordained, say, a priest in the Aaronic priesthood? If you can't remember exactly, does that mean these things didn't happen? Or that they weren't important to you?
• The Church's current scriptures date D&C 10 to "summer of 1828". But, scholars now date it to "around" April 1829. Why the difference? Because the earliest source for this revelation that we now have is the "Revelation Book 1". This book contained copies of Joseph's revelations that were copied in from original documents that no longer exist, in the early 1830s. But, there's a problem:
  • The book goes from page 2 to page 11. Page 2 is the beginning of D&C 4; by page 11, we're already at D&C 20:7. (Pages 3-10, 15-22, and 25-26 are missing.) So, there's no date information on the earliest available copy of D&C 10.
  • It gets even more tricky: the original date on p. 2 was February 1828. An unknown hand later changed it to 1829. So, the dating is not clear from the original manuscript.
  • Remember too, Joseph Smith wasn't much of a scribe. He relied on others to write for him. So, this copying--and any errors or slips of the pen--were due to other writers working on his behalf.^[1]
• If this is all such a dastardly secret, why did the Church publish all the above in extreme detail in the Joseph Smith Papers project? (See footnote above.)
• If this is "one of the biggest problems [you] have with the church," then that's pretty sad: if the command for Joseph to return to translating comes later (April 1829 rather than summer 1828), then Joseph has even less' time to produce the 500+ page Book of Mormon.
• The error made Joseph look less capable, rather than more.

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Critic's Comment: It is no wonder that the church never talks about this stone in modern times. We're sure it is buried deep inside the church's vault. Can you imagine the embarrassment if this stone was actually shown to the world as the stone Joseph put in a hat and buried his face in the hat to bring forth the Book of Mormon? In 2006 the LDS Church had a special display at their Church Museum of different Joseph Smith artifacts. They even had a mockup of the gold plates. However, they chose not to display any of Joseph Smith's seer stones. Since one of these stones was used to translate all of the published Book of Mormon, one wonders why it wasn't included in the display? Could it be that the current prophet is embarrassed by the very instrument used to produce LDS scripture?

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Many LDS defenders say that the Urim and Thummim or seer stone was used just by Joseph Smith to primarily translate the Book of Mormon and for some revelations but that it was not needed any more. However, in 1843 Joseph Smith revealed section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants which mentions the eternal importance of seer stones for everyone: D&C 130: 10-11 10 Then the white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17, will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one, whereby things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known; 11 And a white stone is given to each of those who come into the celestial kingdom, whereon is a new name written, which no man knoweth save he that receiveth it. The new name is the key word. So apparently the seer stone wasn't just a one-time use device by Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon with, but rather something of eternal significance so important that everyone that gets to the Celestial Kingdom will receive one. Why is this never talked about at church when it's plainly in our modern-day scriptures?

FairMormon commentary

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
From the Doctrines of Salvation, the 10th president of the church, Joseph Fielding Smith said the following: "While the statement has been made by some writers that the Propher JS used a seerstone part of the time in his translating of the record, and information points to the fact that he did have in his possession such a stone, yet there is no authentic statement in the history of the church which states that the use of such a stone was made in that translation. The information is all hearsay, and personally, I do not believe that the stone was used for this purpose."....So apparently even the 10th president of the church thinks that using a stone to translate the Book of Mormon with "hardly seems reasonable". That's the same view any reasonable, intelligent person should have. President Joseph Fielding Smith makes a good point here when he says "It hardly seems reasonable to suppose that the prophet would substitute something evidently inferior [to the U&T] under these circumstances". This is further evidence showing that it doesn't appear reasonable for Joseph to translate the BOM using a common stone he found with his brother Hyrum on Willard Chase's property years before the gold plates were given to him when the stone box had an instrument referred to as the urim & thummim, which was kept and preserved with the plates for some 2,000 years, for the very purpose of translating the plates.

FairMormon commentary

• Did you know that the Nephite interpreter, the instrument found in the stone box with the plates, was not referred to as the "Urim and Thummin" until several years after the Book of Mormon was published?
• Is it easier to translate using a couple of stones mounted in a set of "spectacles," which require Joseph to prevent his scribe from seeing them by hanging up a curtain between them? Or is it easier to translate using a stone in a hat in plain view of everyone without requiring the curtain?
• Did you know that the historical sources indicate that a curtain was used in the early days of the translation, and that Joseph later switched to the stone and hat "for convenience?"
• So are we saying that anyone in the 19th-century who believed in seer stones was not "reasonable" or "intelligent?"
• Joseph Fielding Smith was entitled to his opinion, and he clearly stated that it was his opinion. However, statements made by Joseph Smith's contemporaries clearly indicate that the seer stone was used in the translation, and that the name "Urim and Thummim" was later applied to the seer stone in addition to the Nephite interpreters.

Additional information

• Chronology of translation methods—We have a number of accounts of the translation process from the perspective of various contemporary second-hand witnesses who viewed the Prophet as he dictated to his scribes. The only person other than Joseph who attempted to directly translate was Oliver Cowdery. Oliver, however, did not record any details regarding the exact physical process that he employed during his attempt—we only have the spiritual aspect of the process. (Link)

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Why doesn't the church be honest when teaching the method to investigators or even its own members? The short answer of course is that it would make the whole story sound unbelievable. No one would join the church if the missionaries plainly taught that Joseph put his face in a hat with a stone in it and translated the Book of Mormon when the plates were either covered so no one, including Joseph could see them or that the plates were hidden in the woods when he translated them. But that doesn't make it right to deceive innocent truthseekers, does it?

FairMormon commentary

• The whole story would "sound unbelievable?" You mean that the current story does? It sounds so much more "believable" to tell investigators a story that Joseph saw God and Jesus Christ, saw an angel, found an ancient relic and plates, and looked at that relic to dictate a document over 500 pages long in approximately 90 days.
• Everybody in the early days of the Church knew about the stone and the hat, and they still joined the Church.

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Critic's response If you really believe it makes no difference that Joseph Smith put his face in a hat with a common stone that he found 24 feet underground while digging a well and dictated the entire Book of Mormon without even using the Golden Plates, than why doesn't the Church plainly teach this? Even missionaries that are aware of the actual translation process will purposely tell investigators the incorrect, commonly-believed version of Joseph using the Urim & Thummim in conjunction with the plates, instead of mentioning the verified 'stone in the hat' method with the plates not even being in the room.

FairMormon commentary

• Did you realize that the term "Urim and Thummim" was applied to both the Nephite Interpreters and Joseph's seer stone. After all, as MormonThink points out earlier, Joseph noted that everyone would eventually have their own "stone."

On their old website, MormonThink claims...
Church Education teachers have actually been disciplined for teaching truths such as the plates were not used in the translation process. This shows to what lengths the church goes to in order to keep the common member from knowing how the translation of the Book of Mormon was actually done. If it's the truth, as admitted to by top church authorities

FairMormon commentary

• You mean Grant Palmer? Palmer was disciplined because he wrote a book that essentially claims that Joseph Smith fabricated all of the important elements of the restoration, and he wrote it while he was still working for the Church. He was not disciplined for stating the plates "were not used in the translation process." Many LDS scholars can confirm the observed details of the translation process—why are they still members then?

On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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On their old website, MormonThink claims...

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== Notes ==

1. [note]  Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, Steven C. Harper (editors), The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations: Manuscript Revelation Books (Facsimile Edition), Joseph Smith Papers: Revelations and Translations Series, (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church Historian's Press, 2009), 4,11-15.