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To Brant Gardner re comment dated 3/21 (I do not see a reply button specific to that comment)
There are many references to the Urim & Thummim (U&T) which very clearly use the term in connection with the translation of the Book of Mormon to refer only to the spectacle-like Jaredite/Nephite interpreters which came with the plates. See in Appendix B to our book quotations 1, 8, 13, 14, 15, 17, 18, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30, 31 and 32 (Joseph, Oliver and Lucy). Even persons who are cited in support of the stone-in-the-hat theory such as Emma Smith and David Whitmer used the term U&T only to refer to the interpreters, and referred to the seer stone as a separate object. (See quotations in Chapter 2(E)). Further, even when the term came to be used more broadly in the 1840s, such as in D&C Section 130, if it was applied to seer stones it was used to refer to other revelatory seer stones, not Joseph’s scrying stone. The concerted effort to try to include the scrying stone under the term U&T has arisen only in modern times as a dodge (contrary to the historical record) to try to get around the obvious use of the term only for the interpreters in all the earliest most reliable sources.
James, the problem with all the citations you list is that they postdate the publication of the Book of Mormon and provide ample time for Urim and Thummim not only be added to the vocabulary (which is unquestionably post printing), but also to be used generically. There is nothing that indicates that it necessarily, at any time, referred to the Nephite instruments exclusively. As an example, from one of the references you suggest in your Chapter 2 (E), you draw an inference that is not supported by the actual evidence. The document in questions is from Edward Stevenson, 1887, Typescript journals, volume 28, page 52. What it says is: “David Whitmer says that the Josephites was displeased with him because he mantained [sic] that the 116 pages which were translated and written by Martin Harris was translated by the Urim & Thumin [sic] or Interpreters as he preferred calling them, but after the loss of the 116 pages the remainder of the translation was done with the Seer stone, and that Martin wrote some & it was at this time when Martin when Martin put the wrong stone in the hat deceiveing [sic] the Prophet.” https://catalog.churchofjesuschrist.org/assets/bc546251-522d-430a-a259-964bd8bde02f/0/0. The right page is 202/330 in the longer document.
This is a quotation you assert shows that the Urim and Thummim were used to describe the Interpreters. That is true, as far as it goes, but note that we don’t have an exact quotation, but rather Stevenson’s recollection. Stevenson rather specifically separates the term Stevenson used, Urim and Thumin [sic]l from what Whitmer preferred to use, which was the Interpreters. Whitmer is clear on what Harris said, and while the Interpreters were used early, they were only used for the lost pages. You have made an inference from the source that is does not actually support your opinion, and rather affirms that the seer stone was used, and used for the translation we now have. The interview with Whitmer supports Harris, and testimony you attempt to discredit because it contradicts your hypothesis.
There is good historical evidence that the seer stone was used (the above has two witnesses, Whitmer and Harris, confirming it). The term Urim and Thummim is late, and not original. Suggesting that Urim and Thummim covered more than the Interpreters isn’t a modern dodge, it is consistent with the best testimony of those who were witness to, or part of the process.
Brant –
The primary issue is not when the term “Urim & Thummim” came into use by the early Saints. The real issue is that it did, and the important question is what those sources meant by it. As anyone can see from the sources referred to in my last post, when examined without the filter of preexisting biases, the sources closest to the translation used the term only to refer to the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates, which instruments were provided by God for the work of translation. And, as we have shown in two books, the stone-in-the-hat sources are not reliable, especially in contrast to the firsthand testimony of the two primary eyewitnesses, Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.
You have done some amazing work of the Book of Mormon. May put it to you that almost everything you have written would still stand if you acknowledged that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the Book of Mormon being translated from the plates using the Nephite interpreters. Otherwise you (and others) are in the odd position of proclaiming that the Book of Mormon comes from God, but that the two men who God entrusted to bring it forth repeatedly lied about how that happened.
James: You stated: “but that the two men who God entrusted to bring it forth repeatedly lied about how that happened.” You keep saying that. Frankly it is offensive because it is objectively untrue. That we differ in how we read history doesn’t mean that I think they lied.
Brant –
I’m sorry you are offended. I would like to believe that you disagree with Royal Skousen’s negative assessment of Joseph and Oliver’s accounts of the translation. However, as your written statements now stand, you appear to agree with the many other Book of Mormon supporters who reject, ignore or downplay the testimonies of the first and second elders of the Restored Church (see D&C 20) and primary eyewitnesses to the translation process. Rather than getting into a round of unproductive “I’m more offended than you” tit-for-tat, let’s just look at the record. Joseph’s last and most detailed account is the Wentworth Letter:
“With the records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called “Urim and Thummim,” which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate. Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift, and power of God.”
I do not see how Joseph could have been more clear and straight-forward. As Royal Skousen has acknowledged, the necessary and logical conclusion of the stone-in-the-hat narrative is that Joseph and Oliver’s accounts of the translation are misleading. The conflict has been obvious since E. B. Howe first unveiled the stone-in-the-hat narrative. (I do have to respect that Skousen did not resort to the historically untenable dodge that Joseph and Oliver meant the scrying stone when they used the term “Urim & Thummim,” a work-around clearly refuted by the quote above and numerous other sources.) Unlike Jeff Lindsay, who appears to accept all of Skousen’s views uncritically and without qualification, you have been willing to openly take exception to some of Skousen’s work, a point I noted in my response article. There are enough in addition to Skousen who question Joseph’s honesty. Please consider joining us in defending Joseph on this critical issue.
Once again, your statements about scholars questioning Joseph’s honesty are offensive–and very untrue. Repeating your argument is not the same as interacting with contrary evidence.
It is no accident that for most of the 20th century, depictions of the Book of Mormon translation showed Joseph looking at gold plates as he translated. That conception of the translation—a conception that Brothers Lucas and Neville support and flesh out—is more congenial to the modern mind than translation made with a stone in a hat. Brother Lucas and Neville’s allusion to modern technological analogs makes their account still more well adapted to the experience and beliefs of ordinary people thinking about Book of Mormon translation today. Given that all involved in this particular discussion believe and want others to believe that the Book of Mormon is a translation of tangible plates written by flesh and blood Nephites, the sensibilities of ordinary people are relevant to where the burden of proof should rest as we evaluate competing theories. At a minimum, it is helpful if at least one plausible translation theory can preserve and validate this more congenial conception of translation. The Lucas and Neville theory has the virtue of doing that. If it were valid in no other way—which is not true—it would be a pragmatically valid theory. It may help some people sustain something that is inestimably valuable: faith in the Book of Mormon.
To be sure, valid reasoning and compatibility with historical evidence matter. Brothers Lindsay and Gardner have posed some interesting objections. But none of the various faithful translation theories (or, for that matter, the faithless theories) can account for every feature of the remarkable text we indubitably have or for every fact discernible in the historical record. Some theories are better adapted to one aspect of the text, other theories to another aspect. Perhaps some hybrid of these competing theories can eventually give us an account that keeps the happy image of Joseph using the interpreters to look at the plates, the involvement on the other side of the veil of faithful 16th century English martyrs giving, in their own idiom, input into what Joseph sees as he looks at the plates through the interpreters, Joseph thinking about and adapting the text to the 19th century (and, thus, explaining the presence of Jonathan Edwards’ phrasing and explaining away anachronisms through loan shifts, etc.), and can account for the production of a translation sufficiently literal that it preserves, as the text clearly does, a great deal of impressive Hebrew and Nephite rhetoric.
I personally welcome the contribution of Brothers Lucas and Neville to our set of translation theories. It, more than any other I am acquainted with, sustains the views many have traditionally held about how the translation was done. And more than any other, it fits the modern weltanschauung. For this and all the theories, it is helpful to list, objectively, without partisan rancor, any facts about the text or its history that are not fully accounted for by the theory. And in every case, there things unexplained. But let’s presume good will all around. Let’s presume an all-around good faith effort to shore up faith in this book that has brought millions to better know and love Christ.
James Lucas and Jonathan Neville repeatedly and continually abuse their sources. Here’s just one example:
In their August 2023 interview with the Gospel Tangents podcast, Lucas made the following claim:
“In [Emma Smith’s] last testimony, which was published in 1879, she just says [Joseph] used the hat. She doesn’t talk about the Urim and Thummim. So, there’s two issues. One is with the 1870 letter. One, we really don’t know the context of what she was responding to there. And she says in that letter, she has this thing, like somebody stole all my copies of the Times and Seasons. So, I could give you a better answer, if I could go back and look at the Times and Seasons. So, you’re left with the impression that she wasn’t really remembering, or she was not certain about her memory.”
https://gospeltangents.com/2023/08/why-emma-smith-isnt-reliable/
That is a grievous distortion of what Emma Smith said in her March 1870 letter to Emma Pilgrim. Here is what she wrote:
“Now the first that my translated, [the book] was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly, black, but rather a dark color. I can not tell whether that account in the Times and Seasons is correct or not because some one stole my books and I have none to refer to at present, if I can find one that has the account I will tell you what is true and what is not.”
https://archive.org/details/volume-1_202010/page/532
Lucas claimed that Emma “was not certain about her memory” and that she wished she had her copies of the Times and Seasons so she could better recall how Joseph translated the Book of Mormon. But what Emma actually wrote is that Joseph translated using a small stone and that she can’t comment on what the Times and Seasons published about the translation because someone stole her copies of the newspaper.
Emma’s firsthand, eyewitness testimony of the translation process is absolutely clear. Lucas misrepresented her words and unjustifiably questioned her mental state in order to support his revisionist claims.
Sadly, this kind of abuse of the evidence has been part and parcel of the “Heartland” movement from its beginning.
1. Possible geographic settings of the Book of Mormon are irrelevant to the nature of the translation. Many who favor a Mesoamerican setting also believe that Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the translation using the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates. Therefore the remarks about “Heartlanders” are inapplicable and gratuitous.
2. The main focus of the “Last Testimony of Sister Emma” is its claims that Emma knew nothing of Joseph’s involvement with plural marriage, a claim now universally rejected by all reputable scholars. Unless the author of the comment has also joined the polygamy denier camp, he is being completely inconsistent in elevating the document’s translation claims while ignoring its polygamy denial. A better view of the document is Eliza R. Snow’s claim that it was actually written by Joseph Smith III. This view is supported by the fact that only a few years later Joseph III felt free to reject stone-in-the-hat claims and instead supported Joseph and Oliver’s plates-and-interpreters narrative.
3. Joseph III’s change of view followed his extensive research of the original sources, which included the Times and Seasons which his mother said in her letter to Emma Pilgrim that she (Emma) did not have access to. Her claim in that letter that the scrying stone was used after the lost pages incident is dubious hearsay since Emma’s service as scribe largely ended after the lost pages incident. Her replacement, Oliver Cowdery, consistently testified that the translation used the Nephite interpreters. Therefore, as with the “Last Testimony,” the letter to Emma Pilgrim is of very questionable reliability. I would note that is useful as one of the many sources showing that everyone involved with or adjacent to the translation used the term “Urim & Thummim” only to refer to the Nephite interpreters, and referred to the scrying stone as a separate object.
Mr. Lucas,
1. The “Heartland” movement, as I’m sure you’re aware, is rooted in more than just Book of Mormon geography; it encompasses many claims and beliefs. Your colleague, Jonathan Neville, is a notable personality in that movement. The allegation that Joseph Smith used only the Nephite interpreters and never used a seer stone (which his critics called a “scrying stone”) is an article of faith within the “Heartland” movement; virtually no one outside of it makes that contention.
2. Emma Smith’s claim in her “Last Testimony” that Joseph Smith did not practice plural marriage was false. Emma had strong incentives to be disingenuous about this because of her personal antipathy toward plural marriage and her desire that it not be practiced within the RLDS Church. On the other hand, she had no motive to lie about her firsthand eyewitness of the translation method of the Book of Mormon. There are also numerous firsthand witnesses who contradicted her plural marriage claims, and numerous firsthand witnesses who corroborated her testimony regarding the translation. I (along with most Book of Mormon scholars) side with the preponderance of the evidence: Her statement about plural marriage is easily disproven, while her statement about the translation is easily validated. Eliza R. Snow’s view about Emma’s “Last Testmony” was supposition, as is yours.
3. What Joseph Smith III believed is immaterial, since he wasn’t a witness to the Book of Mormon translation. Your statement “Emma’s service as scribe largely ended after the lost pages incident” is factually incorrect: The 116 pages were lost in July 1828, over two months before Joseph told his mother “Emma writes for me now.” Oliver Cowdery’s consistent references to the Nephite interpreters need to be understood in the context of what he was responding to in his 1834 letters (i.e., Eber Howe’s claims), and veracity demands that we incorporate Oliver’s statements into a holistic view that includes all the eyewitness accounts, rather than simply rejecting firsthand statements that don’t agree with your preferred, predetermined beliefs. Your claim that Emma Smith’s 1870 and 1879 statements are “of very questionable reliability” is based solely on the fact that you don’t like what she had to say.
Robert – The spectacle-like double-lens Jaredite/Nephite interpreter instrument was almost certainly different than the “Urim & Thummim” described in the Bible, and the use of the term for the interpreters has given rise to some confusion. However, the canonized account in the Pearl of Great Price ascribes the use of the term for the interpreters to Moroni (JS-H 1:35) and, even if one dismisses that scriptural account as dating from 1838 when the use of the term had become widespread, the use of the term for the interpreters began very early, The W. W. Phelps account you refer to is from 1832, not 1833, and we have even earlier report of its use in Boston by Orson Hyde and Samuel Smith. Most importantly, almost all contemporary accounts of the translation use the term only to refer to the interpreters, usually specifying that it was the instrument which came with the plates, which clearly distinguishes it from Joseph’s scrying stone. Even sources who are used to claim that Joseph used the scrying stone for the translation, such as Emma Smith and David Whitmer, used the term Urim & Thummim to refer only to the interpreters, and refer to the scrying stone as a separate object. See chapter 2(E) of “By Means of the Urim & Thummim.” Later broader uses of the term in the 1840s should not obscure the fact that sources relating to the translation of the Book of Mormon only use the term to refer to the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters which came with the plates. Thus, when Joseph and Oliver used the term, they meant the interpreters only, and efforts to slip the scrying stone into those sources distort and belie the testimonies of these primary eyewitnesses.
Thank you, James. Since you admit that “Urim & Thummim” are different than the Nephite Interpreters, then you should agree with me that only “Nephite Interpreters” should be used to refer to them. Introducing foreign terms into the discussion should be completely off limits. “Scrying stone,” for example, is never used by early Latter-day Saints, so why do you use it? Serious scholars never play that game. In order to avoid confusion, all claims need to be cited, with quotes. Instead, we find the discussion to be dominated by obfuscation. That gets us nowhere.
Why does James Lucas use the term “scrying stone”? That’s easy: He wants to discredit Joseph Smith’s seer stone. Using a loaded term (a form of begging the question) makes it easier to sway uninformed people to his beliefs.
It’s the same reason why, since February 2020, Jonathan Neville has used the acronym “SITH” (stone-in-the-hat). The term “Sith” is popularly known from the Star Wars franchise, where it refers to a group of people who use the dark side of the Force to overthrow the democratic government and spread fear. Jonathan Neville knows exactly what he’s doing when he uses that loaded term; although he professes that his intentions are innocent, no one believes him.
Robert and Mike –
Any discussion of “seer stones” in the early Restoration must deal with the fact that the term is used in several different ways in the historical record:
(1) the dual lenses in the interpreters created by God for the Jaredites and passed down to Joseph Smith to use for the translation are sometimes referred to as “seer stones.” Joseph and Oliver said this was the “Urim & Thummim” used to translate the Book of Mormon we have today.
(2) the brown striped rock Joseph found during his treasure digging employment which David Whitmer and Emma said was used to translate the Book of Mormon we have today.
(3) used generically to refer to stones through which some revelatory function is granted. For example, in1841 Brigham Young recorded a meeting with Joseph and other apostles where Joseph “explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. He said that every man who lived on the earth was entitled to a seer stone, and should have one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, and most of those who do find one make an evil use of it; he showed us his seer stone.” See reference in note 10 of my article. This “seer stone” was not stones (1) as the interpreters had been returned to the heavenly messenger, nor was it stone (2) as Joseph had given the stone he had in his early days to Oliver, who was out of the Church and no where near Nauvoo in 1841. (Note that this is also yet another place where all those involved in or close to the Book of Mormon translation used the term “Urim & Thummim” exclusively to refer to the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters.)
In order to have any coherent constructive discussion of “seer stones” we need to distinguish these three uses of the term in the historical record. Most scholars agree that Joseph used stone (2) in some way customary in his culture. For example, there are accounts of Martin Harris claiming Joseph used it to find a pin. The correct neutral term for such activities is “scrying,” and that seems to me to be a precise neutral term to use to distinguish stone (2) from uses (1) and (3) for the term “seer stone.” Otherwise, we are going to continue to have confusion and a lack of clarity in discussing this topic.
Thank you for recognizing that “seer stones” had multiple applications. Please expand that to the Urim and Thummim and you understand the problem. There are historical records where members of the 12 (including later prophets) specifically used “Urim and Thummim” when they were talking about the brown striped seer stone. There is no single exclusive definition of Urim and Thummim. Continuing to assert that there was goes against all evidence.
Brant –
When historical accounts differ we cannot just accept them all at face value as equally probative. We have to analyze further to assess their reliability. This is the case with the use of the term “Urim & Thummim,” which broadened over time from its original use to describe the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters.
When one does this analysis, one sees that any accounts which use the term in connection with the translation of the Book of Mormon to mean anything other than the interpreters are rare, late and remote from the relevant events, and often involve oral transmission at some point. All accounts relating to the translation of the Book of Mormon which use the term only to refer to the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates are numerous, early and come from sources directly involved with or immediately adjacent to the translation process.
Therefore, the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence is that, with respect to the translation of the Book of Mormon, the term “Urim & Thummim” was only used to refer to the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates.
James. You stated, “This is the case with the use of the term “Urim & Thummim,” which broadened over time from its original use to describe the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters.” This tells me two things. The first is that we agree that Urim & Thummim was a generic and covered multiple instruments. The second is that there is no a disagreement about the timing of when your posited exclusive meaning shifted to a generic meaning.
All references to the Urim & Thummim come after the end of the translation. Therefore, that term was never applied at the time period where we have the question of which instrument was used. You assert, “All accounts relating to the translation of the Book of Mormon which use the term only to refer to the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates are numerous.” Unfortunately, that is precisely the issue at hand. I disagree with that conclusion. The historians who have looked at the issue disagree with that conclusion.
The term Urim & Thummim was applied post-translation. It was a later term used to describe the process of translation. We don’t have Joseph using the term until later. Since it was applied after the fact, it applied whether the translation was done only with the interpreters, or with a combination of the interpreters and the seer stone. Since it is not contemporary, your declaration that the “evidence” supports the exclusive application is not actually evidence, but simply confirmation of the way you have chosen to read the data. What you must do to hold your position, is find evidence that it was exclusive. There is none. The later uses are generic, but there is nothing that allows you to point to a time when it was not generic.
Mr. Lucas,
You could have just as easily used the term “Joseph’s brown seer stone,” or simply “the brown seer stone.” Instead you chose the term “scrying stone,” which, despite your assertion above, does have a “neutral” connotation. Even a cursory internet search readily demonstrates that only critics of Joseph Smith called his seer stone by that term, on webpages like “Top 10 Wacky Things You Should Know About Mormonism,” “Caucasion Witchcraft & Magick,” and “My Mormon Deprogramming.”
I’m afraid that your explanation rings as hollow as Jonathan Neville’s protests that “SITH” was an innocent coincidence.
Yes, James, “the first use of the biblical term Urim & Thummim in connection with Book of Mormon translation wasn’t until August 1832, two years after its publication!” citing “Questions proposed to the Mormonite Preachers and their answers obtained before the whole assembly at Julien Hall,” Boston Investigator, Friday, 10 Aug. 1832, p. 2, col. 3, GenealogyBank.com . Thanks for the correction.
However, your claim that the “overwhelming preponderance of the evidence…the term ‘Urim & Thummim’ was only used to refer to the Nephite interpreters which came with the plates” is constrained by your “almost all.” That means not all, and you admit to the “confusion” which results.
In the 1830s, Joseph Knight Sr recalled: “Now the way he translated was he put the urim and thummim into his hat and Darkened his Eyes then he would take a sentance and it would apper in Brite Roman Letters. Then he would tell the writer and he would write it. Then that would go away the next sentance would Come and so on.”
The Nephite Interpreters were too large to fit into Joseph’s hat, and 14-year-old Elizabeth Ann Whitmer similarly observed that Joseph “translated the most of it at my Father’s house. And I often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating. He would place the director in his hat, and then place his face in his hat, so as to exclude the light, and then [lacuna] [remainder of letter has been lost]”
Emma Smith’s two separate descriptions mesh perfectly with this: “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us,” and “Now the first that my husband translated, was translated by the use of Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost. after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color,”
Emma’s father, Isaac Hale, provided yet another corroborative description of the seer-stone-in-the-hat method for a local newspaper in early 1834, while Presbyterian minister Robert Hullinger and several others have noted, the phrase “Urim and Thummim” could be and was used to refer to both the glasses and the single seer-stone.
Long after the Nephite Interpreters had been taken back by the angel, Heber C. Kimball reported that Brigham Young had possession of the Urim & Thummim, and Wilford Woodruff claimed that Joseph had shown him the Urim & Thummim at a meeting with the Twelve on December 27, 1841, in Nauvoo, while Brigham himself reports of that same meeting: “I met with the Twelve at Brother Joseph’s. He . . . explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. . . . he showed us his seer stone.”
John H. Gilbert, the typesetter for the first edition of the Book of Mormon, referred to the Nephite Interpreters as “spectacles.” Joseph Smith Jr also called them “spectacles” in an 1831-1832 account in his own hand.
In a letter ca. Dec 9, 1886, from Richmond, Missouri, David Whitmer says: “A few months after Joseph had finished translating, he gave the ‘stone’ to Oliver, and told me and all of us that he was through except to preach the gospel; and he did not use the stone any more.”
Martin Harris was explicit that Joseph replaced the Nephite Interpreters with his seerstone, and even played a trick on Joseph by replacing the seerstone with a common river stone. Martn also told of an occasion when Joseph used his seerstone in his hat to find a pin dropped by Martin. However, since Joseph had more than one seerstone, that does not end the matter. Full documentation on request.
The upshot is that none of us should be using the fake term “Urim & Thummim” when we have a perfectly fine, accurate term “Nephite Interpreters” available directly from the Book of Mormon itself, although LDS Alma 37:24, “interpreters,” is incorrect – the Original and Printer’s Manuscripts read “directors” (and at 37:21 in the P MS, which has always been correctly used in RLDS editions of the Book of Mormon, and in LDS editions until 1920). It is understandable that many of the country bumpkins in the early Restoration would use fake terminology with the best of intentions. That should not control or influence any of us. All of us should adhere to strict scholarly standards.
I miss Hugh Nibley! That said I found your response to the critics convincing, to the point that I want to read your book.
It is now and always has been a fundamental mistake to refer to the Nephite interpreters as “Urim & Thummim” – a term which is never used in the Book of Mormon, and which is specifically a biblical term referring to equipment used by the Israelite high priest, and much earlier by Abraham (Book of Abraham 3:1,4). In fact, the Nephite interpreters originated with the Jaredites in the time of the Brother of Jared.
Perhaps W. W. Phelps thought that using the term “Urim & Thummim” would lend some biblical cachet and respectability to discussions about translation of the Book of Mormon. So, in January 1833, he introduced that biblical term (Evening & Morning Star, 1st ed., I/8:58b = 2nd ed., 116b), which theretofore had not been used at all to refer to Nephite interpreters or seerstones.
The consequences of this unscholarly approach to Book of Mormon translation questions (and much else besides) is that one cannot even be sure what is being discussed. For example, we have two separate accounts of a meeting of Joseph Smith with the Twelve at Nauvoo on December 27, 1841. Wilford Woodruff states that Joseph showed them the Urim & Thummim (W. Woodruff Journal, Dec 27, 1841), while Brigham Young says that Joseph “explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. . . . he showed us his seer stone” (Millennial Star, 26:118). Later, Heber C. Kimball reported that Brigham Young had possession of the Urim & Thummim (Journal of Discourses, 2:111; cf. JD, 16:156) = Joseph’s seerstone, which Brigham had gotten from Oliver’s widow, Elizabeth Ann Whitmer Cowdery, and which is in the possession of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to this day – https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation?lang=eng (color photo of Joseph’s seerstone at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/imgs/df88ebdcf830ae6a22dbe94b5eb8b4f73500d955/full/%21640%2C/0/default ).