© 2025 The Interpreter Foundation. A 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
All content by The Interpreter Foundation, unless otherwise specified, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available here.
Interpreter Foundation is not owned, controlled by or affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. All research and opinions provided on this site are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.
Brant – While the spectacle-like double-lens Jaredite/Nephite interpreter instrument was almost certainly different than the “Urim & Thummim” described in the Bible, in the context of the translation of the Book of Mormon the term is only used to refer to the Jaredite/Nephite interpreters. To start, 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. Previously researchers pointed to an 1832 account from W. W. Phelps, but we have an 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 be used to 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.
I would also note the first footnote of the response article, which links to a more detailed rebuttal of your review.