Book of mormon translation (seerstone)
This was one topic that was very new to me. I was always taught in church and seminary that the way Joseph Smith translated the Gold Plates was by looking at the gold plates, studying them, and divine inspiration came to him so he could see them in English. He would verbally read them, while someone who dictated what he said, would sit on the other side of a sheet or veil, so they couldn’t cast their eyes upon the plates. This is how I was taught he translated the plates.
Turns out, this isn’t true at all. From what I’ve learned during my research, it sounds like Joseph first used the Urim and Thummim (the interpreters) fastened to some sort of breastplate to translate the first 116 pages of the BOM. It was later given to Oliver Cowdry after constant begging, and those pages were lost. After it was lost, the rest of the translation of the BOM was translated using a Seer Stone that he found while digging a well years before “out of convenience”.
Joseph would put his seer stone in his top hat, put the hat up to his face, and look at the stone. The stone would glow white, and reveal a sentence of translated reformed Egyptian. He would read these to a scribe. The gold plates would normally be sitting on the table close to where he was sitting, wrapped in a cloth. Joseph didn’t even need the gold plates present to translate them. He would just put his seer stone in his hat, put is face up to the hat so as to keep out the light, and then read from the stone what appeared.
Turns out, this isn’t true at all. From what I’ve learned during my research, it sounds like Joseph first used the Urim and Thummim (the interpreters) fastened to some sort of breastplate to translate the first 116 pages of the BOM. It was later given to Oliver Cowdry after constant begging, and those pages were lost. After it was lost, the rest of the translation of the BOM was translated using a Seer Stone that he found while digging a well years before “out of convenience”.
Joseph would put his seer stone in his top hat, put the hat up to his face, and look at the stone. The stone would glow white, and reveal a sentence of translated reformed Egyptian. He would read these to a scribe. The gold plates would normally be sitting on the table close to where he was sitting, wrapped in a cloth. Joseph didn’t even need the gold plates present to translate them. He would just put his seer stone in his hat, put is face up to the hat so as to keep out the light, and then read from the stone what appeared.
From LDS.org’s new essay on the translation process… “The scribes and others who observed the translation left numerous accounts that give insight into the process. Some accounts indicate that Joseph studied the characters on the plates. Most of the accounts speak of Joseph’s use of the Urim and Thummim (either the interpreters or the seer stone), and many accounts refer to his use of a single stone. According to these accounts, Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument. The process as described brings to mind a passage from the Book of Mormon that speaks of God preparing “a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light.
The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed that Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” According to Emma, the plates “often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” When asked if Joseph had dictated from the Bible or from a manuscript he had prepared earlier, Emma flatly denied those possibilities: “He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.” Emma told her son Joseph Smith III, “The Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me for hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.”
Another scribe, Martin Harris sat across the table from Joseph Smith and wrote down the words Joseph dictated. Harris later related that as Joseph used the seer stone to translate, sentences appeared. Joseph read those sentences aloud, and after penning the words, Harris would say, “Written.” An associate who interviewed Harris recorded him saying that Joseph “possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim and for convenience he then used the seer stone.”
MY FEELINGS: I don’t ever remember being taught this process. The church has always taught me that the translation process was more like Joseph Smith sitting at a table by himself looking at the plates, while some scribe was behind a curtain so he/she couldn’t see the plates. Joseph would read the plates as though they were in English and somehow received inspiration to translate these plates.
I was never taught that Joseph Smith looked at a magical rock placed in his hat, and looked inside the hat to reveal the translation of the BOM, without even having to look at the plates. Some suggest that the plates were even hidden away somewhere during the translation process. The plates weren’t even needed! So why were they given to him? Why did Joseph Smith allegedly have the gold plates when he didn’t even have to look at them to translate them? To me it almost seems as though the special magical rock was some sort of magic ball! This is difficult for me to believe in.
Here are more references for further reading on this subject...
The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed that Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” According to Emma, the plates “often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” When asked if Joseph had dictated from the Bible or from a manuscript he had prepared earlier, Emma flatly denied those possibilities: “He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.” Emma told her son Joseph Smith III, “The Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me for hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.”
Another scribe, Martin Harris sat across the table from Joseph Smith and wrote down the words Joseph dictated. Harris later related that as Joseph used the seer stone to translate, sentences appeared. Joseph read those sentences aloud, and after penning the words, Harris would say, “Written.” An associate who interviewed Harris recorded him saying that Joseph “possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim and for convenience he then used the seer stone.”
MY FEELINGS: I don’t ever remember being taught this process. The church has always taught me that the translation process was more like Joseph Smith sitting at a table by himself looking at the plates, while some scribe was behind a curtain so he/she couldn’t see the plates. Joseph would read the plates as though they were in English and somehow received inspiration to translate these plates.
I was never taught that Joseph Smith looked at a magical rock placed in his hat, and looked inside the hat to reveal the translation of the BOM, without even having to look at the plates. Some suggest that the plates were even hidden away somewhere during the translation process. The plates weren’t even needed! So why were they given to him? Why did Joseph Smith allegedly have the gold plates when he didn’t even have to look at them to translate them? To me it almost seems as though the special magical rock was some sort of magic ball! This is difficult for me to believe in.
Here are more references for further reading on this subject...
- Mormonthink's analysis of the translation process
- The Gold Plates and the translation of the Book of Mormon
- Wikipedia's article about the seer stone
- Book of Mormon Translation- CES letter
- A seer stone and a hat
- Fairmormon's article about the translation process
- How the Book of Mormon was found and translated
REFERENCES:
- https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng
- https://www.lds.org/ensign/2015/10/joseph-the-seer?lang=eng
- http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/site/the-gold-plates-and-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon
- http://www.mormonthink.com/transbomweb.htm
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seer_stone_(Latter_Day_Saints)
- http://cesletter.com/debunking-fairmormon/book-of-mormon-translation.html#summary
- http://www.mrm.org/translation
- http://en.fairmormon.org/Joseph_Smith/Seer_stones/%22Rock_in_hat%22_used_for_Book_of_Mormon_translation
- http://www.letusreason.org/LDS17.htm