Urim and Thummim (Latter Day Saints)

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An 1893 engraving of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates and the Urim and Thummim from the angel Moroni. The sword of Laban is shown at the bottom.
An 1893 engraving of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates and the Urim and Thummim from the angel Moroni. The sword of Laban is shown at the bottom.
For significance in Israelite culture, see Urim and Thummim.

In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Urim and Thummim (also called Interpreters) were a set of seer stones bound by silver bows into a set of spectacles, that founder Joseph Smith, Jr. said he found on the hill Cumorah with the golden plates.

In 1823, Smith said that an angel Moroni told him of the existence, with the plates, of "two stones in silver bows" fastened to a breastplate, which the angel called the Urim and Thummim and which he said God had prepared for translating the plates.[1] (His mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described them as crystal-like: "two smooth three-cornered diamonds.") [2] Smith and his early Mormon contemporaries seem to have used the terms "seer stone" and "Urim and Thummim" interchangeably. Although Smith always referred to the Book of Mormon "interpreters" as the Urim and Thummim, he may or may not have intended to make a distinction between that device and the seer stones that he used in scrying.[3]

In 1827, Smith was revisited by the angel who revealed the location of the Gold Plates, along with other items such as the Urim and Thummim, and that these objects were buried in a nearby hillside. After translating the Book of Mormon, Smith returned the plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel, whom he identified as the resurrected Moroni. Joseph Smith reportedly told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was an inexperienced translator but that as he grew in experience, he no longer needed such assistance.[4]

The LDS Bible Dictionary defines the Urim and Thummim as "an instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord and in translating languages." In the Book of Mormon, the prophets the Brother of Jared and Mosiah both used devices called "interpreters" to receive revelation for their people, and the Doctrine and Covenants declares that these "interpreters" were the Urim and Thummim.[5]

Mormons believe that the Urim and Thummim of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were the functional equivalent of the Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Old Testament, but there is no indication in the Old Testament that the Urim and Thummin were used to translate documents.[6] Some Mormons believe that there were three different Urim and Thummims: the one of the Old Testament and two mentioned in the Book of Mormon, one used by the Jaredites and the other by King Mosiah.[7] (LDS members believe that the one used by Smith is the one originally possessed by the Jaredites.)[8]

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[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Joseph Smith-History.
  2. ^ Smith, Lucy Mack (1853). Biographical sketches of Joseph Smith the prophet, and his progenitors for many generations. (PDF) 101. Brigham Young University Religious Education Archive. Retrieved on 2006-02-02. “It [Joseph's Urim and Thummim]; also at EMD, 1: 328-29.”
  3. ^ Richard Van Wagoner and Steven Walker, "Joseph Smith: 'The Gift of Seeing," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15:2 (Summer 1982): 59–63
  4. ^ "Two Days´ Meeting at Brigham City," Millennial Star 36 [1874]:498–99).
  5. ^ D&C 17.
  6. ^ There are seven references to the Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament: Exodus 28. 30; Lev. 8.8; Numbers 27. 21; Deut. 33. 8; I Samuel 28. 6; Ezra 2. 63; Nehemiah 7. 65.
  7. ^ Mosiah 8: 13, 15-17 + :13 Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters, and no man can look in them except he be commanded, lest he should look for that he ought not and he should perish. And whosoever is commanded to look in them, the same is called seer. + :15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet. + :16 And Ammon said that a seer is a revelator and a prophet also; and a gift which is greater can no man have, except he should possess the power of God, which no man can; yet a man may have great power given him from God. + :17 But a seer can know of things which are past, and also of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed, or, rather, shall secret things be made manifest, and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them, and also things shall be made known by them which otherwise could not be known.
  8. ^ D&C 10:1; see Bruce R. McConkie,Mormon Doctrine(Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1966), 818-819.

[edit] References

  1. Van Wagoner, Richard S. (Summer 1982), "Joseph Smith: The Gift of Seeing", Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15 (2): 48–68, <http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=16574&REC=16>.
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