Trust Us, We’re Lawyers: Lucas and Neville on the Translation of the Book of Mormon

Review of James W. Lucas and Jonathan E. Neville, By Means of the Urim & Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration (Cottonwood Heights, UT: Digital Legend Press & Publishing, 2023). 288 pages. $19.95.

Abstract: In their book, James Lucas and Jonathan Neville present two major theses relative to translation of the Book of Mormon. The first is that the translation was always done by means of the interpreters that were delivered with the plates. The second is that Joseph Smith was an active participant in the translation process. A theory is laid out for how that might happen. Although this reviewer can agree that Joseph was an active participant in the translation, neither the first thesis nor their explanation of the second thesis can be accepted by those familiar with the historical record.

This review requires a disclosure, right up front. James Lucas and Jonathan Neville wrote a book that introduces a theory on how the Book of Mormon was translated.[1] I also wrote a book on that topic.[2] [Page 136]They include my book in their book’s bibliography and in a couple of footnotes. They didn’t like my book. I return the favor: I don’t like theirs. Nevertheless, I hope to provide an analysis that can transcend my obvious personal involvement in the issues. Well, mostly avoid personal involvement.

Lucas and Neville didn’t really say “trust us, we’re lawyers.” I confess that is my translation[3] of what they said: “The authors are both attorneys, and the law has long and well-tested criteria for evaluating secondhand or hearsay testimony, which we apply to sources about the origins of the Book of Mormon” (p. 27). This statement is part of the introduction to the first part of the book which takes on historical testimonies to argue that Joseph Smith never used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. The assertion is important because they are also asking us to prefer their interpretation to that of trained Latter-day Saint historians.

Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat represent the opposition: “Recently, historians of the Joseph Smith Papers Project carefully analyzed all of the known accounts about the translation to document the use of the seer stone.”[4] Lucas and Neville are asking us to favor their reading of their selected set of sources over the interpretations of the trained historians who have “analyzed all of the known accounts about the translation to document the use of the seer stone.” Did those trained historians really miss what the lawyers found? That would be astonishing. Perhaps it could be true, but “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” in Carl Sagan’s aphorism.[5]

In this review I do not discuss specifics of how the historical accounts are interpreted. The arguments that the historical accounts do not actually point to the use of a seer stone were laid out in Neville’s previous book.[6] Spencer Kraus reviewed that book and went into the [Page 137]details sufficiently that I elect not to repeat that analysis; please see his review.[7] Kraus didn’t convince Neville, as evidenced in Neville’s response to Kraus and in the nearly wholesale repetition of his arguments and evidence in By Means of the Urim & Thummim.[8] I simply note that I agree with Kraus’s reviews.

What I propose in this review is not a detailed analysis of the evidence, but rather a more detailed examination of how Lucas and Neville use the evidence. I will use David Hackett Fischer’s descriptions of historians’ fallacies[9] as the measure against which I evaluate Lucas and Neville’s arguments. Although Lucas and Neville are lawyers, the law isn’t history. When they enter discussions of history, they act as historians. The question is how well they, as lawyers, do that.

By Means of the Urim & Thummim presents two major theses. The first is that the translation of the Book of Mormon was only accomplished using the interpreters delivered to Joseph Smith. The second thesis is a new explanation for how the translation was accomplished. Most of the comparisons to Fischer’s historians’ fallacies therefore concentrate in the discussion of the first thesis.

The Problem of Approach

Early in his book, Fischer notes: “Historians must, moreover, develop critical tests not merely for their interpretations, but also for their methods of arriving at them.”[10] Without those critical tests for their interpretations, historians are open to perhaps the most common error. Fischer calls it the “fallacy of declarative questions.” As he defines it:

If a historian goes to his sources with a simple affirmative [Page 138]proposition that “X was the case,” then he is predisposed to prove it. He will probably be able to find ‘evidence’ sufficient to illustrate his expectations, if not actually to sustain them.[11]

It is a well-known problem. G. J. Renier underlined it when he quoted the French historian Fustel de Coulanges as saying “if we approach a text with a preconceived idea we shall read in it only what we want to read.”[12] John Gee underscored it specifically in reference to research on the Book of Mormon:

As anyone who has studied geometry since Nikolas Lobatchewsky knows, the entire shape of your geometrical system depends on your assumptions. So, too, with Book of Mormon scholarship: the shape of the resultant system depends upon the assumptions brought to bear on the text.[13]

It is difficult for anyone but the authors to know their motivation for writing, but I feel safe asserting that Lucas and Neville have a preconceived assumption that they are attempting to demonstrate. Perhaps the best explanation of their perspective comes from Neville’s previous book. In the preface to that book he states:

Long-time members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints remember being taught that Joseph Smith translated the ancient plates by using the Nephite interpreters known as the Urim and Thummim. Artwork, lesson manuals, and teachings of Church leaders uniformly presented this narrative for many decades.

Younger members (and new converts) learn instead that Joseph used a seer stone that he placed into a hat. Joseph would read out loud the words that appeared on the stone. The plates sat nearby, covered with a cloth the entire time. Artwork created in the last decade, as well as lesson manuals and other media, depict this scenario.

The dichotomy between old and new approaches leaves people with a sense of ambiguity and confusion. The current [Page 139]version of the anonymous Gospel Topics Essay on Book of Mormon translation muddies rather than clarifies the issue, as we’ll see in this book.

For some faithful members, the question is unimportant. They believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God and it doesn’t matter how it was produced.

But other faithful members, as well as those who have lost their faith and those outside the Church who investigate the Church’s truth claims, think the translation of the Book of Mormon is a core issue.

This is not only a matter of historical interpretation. The nature of the translation implicates theological and historical issues related to the historicity and divine authenticity of the Book of Mormon itself.[14]

Neville lays out the problem he wants to solve: History was taught one way for a long time, and now it has changed. Some are upset about it. Neville wants to resolve that upset by returning to the former way of understanding history. Thus, in A Man That Can Translate, Neville argued that the current historians’ understanding that Joseph Smith used a seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon must be wrong because it isn’t the way history used to be taught. It is not readily apparent how much Lucas contributed to or shared that perspective, but as co-author of By Means of the Urim & Thummim he is at least complicit in the commission of this historians’ fallacy.

The First Thesis: SITH and Darkness unto Light

The first major thesis in By Means of the Urim & Thummim is a defense of Lucas and Neville’s position that Joseph Smith’s seer stone was never used in the translation of the Book of Mormon. They assert that the whole of the translation was accomplished by means of the instruments delivered to Joseph Smith along with the plates. That opinion contrasts with the conclusions found in a book from two LDS historians. Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerritt Dirkmaat published From Darkness unto Light in 2015 after working with all of the available evidence from multiple sources, including the Joseph Smith papers.

The problem of definitions

It is difficult to read anything Jonathan Neville has written about the [Page 140]translation of the Book of Mormon without noticing that he is fond of his creation of the acronym SITH. SITH stands for “stone in the hat” and refers to descriptions of how Joseph Smith used a seer stone in the translation process. As an acronym it has some humor, especially to those familiar with the fantasy universe in which the Star Wars sagas occur. Lucas and Neville use the acronym to characterize the opinions of the scholars that they want to contradict.

Their position, diametrically opposed to SITH, is: “In this book we will generally use the original Book of Mormon term ‘interpreters’ to avoid confusion due to recent obfuscation of the term ‘Urim and Thummim’” (p. 6). First, it is important that Lucas and Neville attempt to clarify terms. The claimed “obfuscation” is that LDS trained historians understand “Urim and Thummim” as a term created later in early Church history and applied retroactively to previous events:

Joseph Smith and members of the Church generally stopped differentiating between the seer stones and the spectacles by simply calling all of them the Urim and Thummim. By 1833, for example. W. W. Phelps published an article in the Church newspaper in Missouri, The Evening and the Morning Star, that declared that Joseph translated the plates “by the gift and power of God. . . through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles—(known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim).” By the time Joseph Smith’s later history was written in 1839, Joseph was using the term Urim and Thummim to reference any seer stone. Thus it is impossible to tell from his own later accounts precisely which device he was using to translate the Book of Mormon or to receive revelations.[15]

Lucas and Neville create a false dichotomous definition where Urim and Thummim is synonymous with interpreters. That allows them to ignore the complications of reading the texts and to insert their interpretation of meaning into them. Opposed to the position of the trained historians, Lucas and Neville use Urim and Thummim as though their assumption that it must refer to the interpreters means that any text referencing the Urim and Thummim therefore refers to the interpreters. Remember that the trained historians were much more cautious, indicating that it was “impossible” (their word) to know to what instrument(s) the later term Urim and Thummim referred. When Lucas [Page 141]and Neville insert the word interpreters where the source has Urim and Thummim, they are hiding the actual data from their readers. Lucas and Neville use that method to make the historical accounts they cite say something that they do not actually say.

The approach that Lucas and Neville utilize is one of the problems Fischer highlights:

The law of the excluded middle may demand instant obedience in formal logic, but in history it is as intricate in its applications as the internal revenue code. Dichotomy is used incorrectly when a question is constructed so that it demands a choice between two answers which are in fact not exclusive or not exhaustive.[16]

Lucas and Neville suggest that we have only two options: the seer stone or the Urim and Thummim (in their exclusive definition equating the Urim and Thummim with the interpreters). The historical record shows that Urim and Thummim is a later term and was applied more broadly than Lucas and Neville may appreciate. By restricting the meaning of Urim and Thummim to the definition that facilitates the conclusion they want their readers to reach, they create a much more critical obfuscation than the one they accuse the historians of committing.

To try to provide some clarity to the discussion, there are four terms that deal with the instrument(s) Joseph used: interpreters, spectacles, seer stones, and Urim and Thummim. Let’s look at each very briefly.

- Interpreters. Only interpreters and Urim and Thummim appear in a scriptural text. The word interpreters appears in the Book of Mormon; it does not appear in the King James Version of the Bible.[17] On the other hand, Urim and Thummim does appear in the Old Testament, but never appears in the Book of Mormon.

- Spectacles. The term spectacles is an early label given to the instruments received with the plates. Mosiah’s interpreters were “two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow” (Mosiah 28:13). That fits the description of the instrument delivered with the plates. Joseph Smith—History 1:35 confirms that accompanying the plates “were two stones in [Page 142]silver bows.” Joseph Smith’s brother, William noted that they were “much like a pair of spectacles.”[18] The term spectacles is only applied to the instruments delivered with the plates. It is not a scriptural term but a very human description rather than a technical device name. The use of spectacles exclusively refers to the interpreters as a descriptive term.

- Seer stones. Joseph Smith possessed at least two seer stones prior to Moroni’s visit.[19] Prior to Moroni’s visit, Joseph Smith used his seer stones in the same way that other local seers used theirs. They, and he, used them to find lost objects or to see what could not normally be seen.[20] In 2015, the Joseph Smith Papers Project published the photographs and transcription of the Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon. The introduction included, for the first time, photographs of Joseph’s brown seer stone, with the caption: “This stone matches some descriptions of the seer stone used by Joseph Smith during the translation of the Book of Mormon.”[21] That this stone (or the white seer stone) was used in translation, is where Lucas and Neville disagree with the historians.

- Urim and Thummim. Urim and Thummim is a biblical term. As Dirkmaat and MacKay explain: “it may surprise many Latter-say Saints to learn that the term ‘Urim and Thummim,’ though certainly known by early members because of its biblical origins, is not used in any of the earliest documents to describe any of the seer stones, including the two stones found with the plates.”[22]

The clarification of terms is important because Lucas and Neville [Page 143]consistently use later documents which explicitly said Urim and Thummim as though they said interpreters. This violates a principle they emphasized themselves: “Sources written close in time to the events are generally considered more reliable than those written down long after the events” (p. 27). Here is how it plays out:

Joseph Smith—History 1:35 implies that it was Moroni who first identified the interpreters as the “Urim and Thummim.” Similarly, our earliest and most detailed account of Moroni’s visit, written by Oliver Cowdery with Joseph’s assistance and published as Letter IV in the first history of the Church, also describes Moroni using the term. However, because the term does not appear in the historical record until 1832, historians have inferred instead that Joseph (or another contemporary such as W. W. Phelps) borrowed the term from the Bible and applied it to the spectacles. (p. 77)

Lucas and Neville even admit that what they propose as evidence was written years after the fact. Of course, they do not mention the absolute absence of the term Urim and Thummim prior to Phelps’s article. This is what Fischer called the fallacy of pseudo proof, which is “committed in a verification statement which seems at first sight to be a precise and specific representation of reality but which proves, on close inspection, to be literally meaningless.”[23] What they argue is that Joseph and Oliver first used the term “Urim and Thummim” because they used it when they later wrote about earlier events. Lucas and Neville invoke Joseph and Oliver because, of course, they should be the ones who know. Since they “knew,” they must have been the first to use the term “Urim and Thummim.” That appears to be a strong argument, but only on the surface.

Lucas and Neville simply assert that because it was Joseph and Oliver, their use of Urim and Thummim must carry the exclusive meaning Lucas and Neville give to the term. They then use that assertion as though it is an accepted fact. This is the “fallacy of the circular proof.” This is “a species of a question-begging, which consists in assuming what is to be proved.”[24]

Typically, the early descriptions called the interpreters spectacles. Martin Harris, Hyrum Smith, Lucy Smith, and even Oliver Cowdery [Page 144]used spectacles as a description of the instruments of translation.[25] Phelps’s suggestion was actually more of a possibility than a firm identification: “a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles—(known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim).”[26] Dirkmaat and MacKay describe the history of the application of Urim and Thummim to any reference of either the interpreters or seer stones:

Most of the histories of the early Church were written after 1838, including the History of Joseph Smith, which would eventually become the History of the Church. By the time that later history was written in 1839, Joseph was using the term “Urim and Thummim” to reference any seer stone, not just the ones that had originally been found in the stone box with the plates.

This changing terminology makes it very difficult to determine which stone or device is being referenced since all seer stones, even the separate stone showed to Wilford Woodruff in 1841, were called “Urim and Thummim” by Joseph Smith. That Joseph came to see this term as a generic descriptor of a seer stone, rather than a reference only to the stones found in the stone box, is evident in the way he would later describe the planet upon which God resides, what the earth would become after its destruction and rebirth, and what each believer entering into the celestial kingdom would receive (see Doctrine and Covenants 130:6–9). In each case Joseph described the very different things as “Urim and Thummim.”[27]

The position of Lucas and Neville that Urim and Thummim could only mean the interpreters (or spectacles) falls before the weight of the larger body of evidence Dirkmaat and MacKay consider and bring to the argument. Of course, Lucas and Neville do understand that they are proposing a hypothesis that is contrary to that presented by the trained LDS historians. To make sure I do not misrepresent them, here is their statement:

Some proponents of replacing the canonical narrative with [Page 145]the SITH narrative have argued that Joseph and Oliver used the term “Urim and Thummim” to apply to both the seer stone and the Nephite interpreters. These proponents argue that Joseph’s 1843 broader use of the term should apply retroactively so that references to the Urim and Thummim even in 1834 also include the seer stone. (p. 78)

As with much of their text, this needs some unpacking. First, the conclusion of what other LDS scholars suggest about the application of the term Urim and Thummim is correct. Second, however, notice how subtly the interpretation by Lucas and Neville has become “the canonical narrative” and the scholars are proposing this new SITH narrative. This is the fallacy of the insidious analogy: “an unintended analogical reference which is embedded in an author’s language, and implanted in a reader’s mind, by a subliminal process which is more powerfully experienced than perceived.”[28]

In this case I would argue that it is a completely intentional analogical reference. The implication of Lucas and Neville that their interpretation is canonical borrows the term from the process of sacralizing a text as scripture. Implicitly, their interpretation thus becomes “official” while that of the scholars is clearly inferior. This is a fascinating attempt to reverse reality. The Church’s essay on the translation of the Book of Mormon is as close to canonical as the official Church gets. The essay “Book of Mormon Translation” was commissioned by the Church and vetted before being published.[29] The introduction to the Gospel Topics essays explains the vetting process:

Recognizing that today so much information about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can be obtained from questionable and often inaccurate sources, officials of the Church began in 2013 to publish straightforward, in-depth essays on a number of topics. The purpose of these essays, which have been approved by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, has been to gather accurate information from many different sources and publications and place it in the Gospel Topics section of ChurchofJesusChrist.org, where the material can [Page 146]more easily be accessed and studied by Church members and other interested parties.[30]

The Church’s as-close-to-canonical-as-it-gets resource endorses the historians’ interpretation of the evidence:

Apparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters. These two instruments—the interpreters and the seer stone—were apparently interchangeable and worked in much the same way such that, in the course of time, Joseph Smith and his associates often used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to the single stone as well as the interpreters.[31]

To make it as clear as I can, Lucas and Neville use the term canonical to refer to their own interpretation, which is opposed to the Gospel Topics essay that was vetted by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. Of course, Lucas and Neville have something to say about this particular Gospel Topics essay:

Soon even more senior historians were rejecting Joseph and Oliver’s testimonies in favor of giving priority to the SITH narrative. In 2013 the LDS Church released a Gospel Topics essay promoting the SITH narrative and in 2015 the LDS Church released photos of a seer stone of Joseph’s which it held. Today, Latter-day Saints are told by LDS academics that they should make a “paradigm shift” to accept the SITH accounts instead of what Joseph and Oliver taught in the Pearl of Great Price and elsewhere. (pp. 18–19)

The first part of the statement is factual. Senior historians examined all the historical accounts and noted that Urim and Thummim was applied to the seer stone which was used at some point in the translation of the Book of Mormon. However, the semantics of the way they couch that factual statement is telling. The senior historians are “rejecting Joseph and Oliver’s testimonies in favor of giving priority to the SITH narrative.” Remember, however, that Joseph and Oliver’s statements specifically mention the Urim and Thummim. The scholars[Page 147] don’t reject Joseph and Oliver; they much more carefully attempt to understand them.

Are we really to trust the lawyers who self-anoint their theory as canonical when they know that it is directly opposed to a position vetted by the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve? I propose that believing Latter-day Saints are better off following the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve than these two lawyers.

The problem with stones

Neville, as evidenced in his two books, has a problem with stones—Urim and Thummim stones are good; interpreter stones are good; seer stones are bad. There is even the interesting possibility that seer stones in a hat are bad, but an interpreter in a hat might be good (p. 87). There is enough confusion that we really must understand what is going on with stones and seers.

For most Latter-day Saints, the interpreters have become linked to stones the Lord provided the brother of Jared:

And it came to pass that the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt not suffer these things which ye have seen and heard to go forth unto the world, until the time cometh that I shall glorify my name in the flesh; wherefore, ye shall treasure up the things which ye have seen and heard, and show it to no man.

And behold, when ye shall come unto me, ye shall write them and shall seal them up, that no one can interpret them; for ye shall write them in a language that they cannot be read.

And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write.

For behold, the language which ye shall write I have confounded; wherefore I will cause in my own due time that these stones shall magnify to the eyes of men these things which ye shall write. (Ether 3:21–24)

The two stones are not named interpreters, but verses 23 and 24 associate them with being able to understand an otherwise uninterpretable language. Moroni also declares, in the book of Ether, that:

Behold, I have written upon these plates the very things which the brother of Jared saw; and there never were [Page 148]greater things made manifest than those which were made manifest unto the brother of Jared.

Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. And he commanded me that I should seal them up; and he also hath commanded that I should seal up the interpretation thereof; wherefore I have sealed up the interpreters, according to the commandment of the Lord. (Ether 4:4–5)

Moroni clearly speaks of the interpreters, and the context of the book of Ether might imply that the interpreters are the very stones that Moroni sealed up.[32] Indeed, most scholars have also equated the Jaredite stones with those in Mosiah’s possession. The Book of Mormon problem is that the Jaredite stones could not have been in Mosiah’s possession until after the people of Limhi merged with those in Zarahemla. It was Limhi’s search party who looked for Zarahemla but found Jaredite ruins. That search party brought the plates of Ether to Limhi in the land of Nephi. There is no record of the Jaredite stones coming with the plates of Ether, nor do the Jaredite stones (identified specifically as the Jaredite stones) appear at all in the Book of Mormon until the mention in Ether that they were sealed up with the record of the brother of Jared (Ether 3:23).

Nevertheless, prior to the time that Mosiah could have possibly had the Jaredite stones, Ammon declared to king Limhi:

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. (Mosiah 8:13)

Mosiah, in Zarahemla, already had “the things . . . called interpreters” [Page 149]while king Limhi, who was not in Zarahemla, had the Jaredite record and artifacts. With Mosiah having interpreters and Moroni sealing up interpreters, did Moroni mean Mosiah’s interpreters or the stones originating with the brother of Jared?

It is clear that what Mosiah had was something different from those had by the brother of Jared. Mosiah’s interpreters were described as “two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow” (Mosiah 28:13). That is very much the description of the interpreters Joseph Smith received. When Mosiah gave over the symbols of the kingdom to Alma, the first Chief Judge, they included “the plates of brass . . . all the records, and also the interpreters” (Mosiah 28:20). It would seem to be a reasonable assumption that the Jaredite stones were included, but the text only mentions the interpreters, and the only stones receiving that label belonged to Mosiah. Based on the Book of Mormon evidence, the best interpretation is that Joseph Smith received Mosiah’s interpreters, not the stones had by the brother of Jared.

Stones and seers

Mosiah’s interpreters were stones (Mosiah 28:13). Mosiah was a seer (Mosiah 8:13). Mosiah’s interpreters were two stones joined in such a way that the modern witnesses called them spectacles. The point of calling them spectacles was to look through them. When Joseph’s brother, William, described the spectacles he said that: “they were much too large for Joseph and he could only see through one at a time using sometimes one and sometimes the other.”[33] William confirms that Joseph used the spectacles for looking, and indicates that although there were two of them, he could only use one at a time.

It was the possession of the instruments that allowed Mosiah to be called a seer:

And now he translated them by the means of those two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow. Now these things were prepared from the beginning, and were handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages; And they have been kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he should discover to every creature who should possess the land the iniquities and abominations of his people; And whosoever [Page 150]has these things is called seer, after the manner of old times. (Mosiah 28:13–16)

Mosiah had two stones. Because he could use them, Mosiah was a seer. It isn’t much of a semantic leap to say Mosiah had two seer stones. When Joseph received them, and was able to use them, he too was a seer; he too had Mosiah’s seer stones. Trying to make some kind of exclusive separation between the interpreters and the seer stone is avoiding the obvious—regardless of whether they were called interpreters, spectacles, or even the later Urim and Thummim, the sacred instruments were seer stones.

Seers using stones

The idea that one might find things with a seer stone was not unusual in Joseph’s Palmyra. The local Chase and Stafford families had seer stones that were used for hunting treasure or finding lost objects.[34] Martin Harris was familiar with the concept of using a seer stone to find lost objects. However, as a skeptic, he did not immediately accept that Joseph might be able to see what could otherwise not be seen. He spontaneously requested a demonstration:

I was at the house of his father in Manchester, two miles south of Palmyra village, and was picking my teeth with a pin while sitting on the bars. The pin caught in my teeth, and dropped from my fingers into shavings and straw. I jumped from the bars and looked for it. Joseph and Northrop Sweet also did the same. We could not find it. I then took Joseph on surprise, and said to him—I said, “Take your stone.” I had never seen it, and did not know that he had it with him. He had it in his pocket. He took it and placed it in his hat—the old white hat—and placed his face in his hat. I watched him closely to see that he did not look one side; he reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick, and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin.[35]

Martin recalled a scenario that was probably typical of the way a [Page 151]folk seer used a seer stone. What is important is the way the seer stone was used—Joseph Smith put it in a hat. William Smith described how Joseph used the spectacles. After noting that they were too large to look through both stones simultaneously, he added:

By putting his head in a hat or some dark object it was not necessary to close one eye while looking through the stone with the other. In that way sometimes when his eyes grew tires [tired] he releaved them of the strain.[36]

The explanations for how a seer stone and the interpreters were used is the same. Of course, the interpreters might not always have been used in that way. Nevertheless, the fact that they could be used that way continues to suggest a greater commonality with the seer stone than a qualitative difference.

Even Lucas and Neville suggest that the stones from the spectacles could be separated and used by placing one of the stones in a hat.

[There is] the possibility that the stones could be removed from the rims and used independently of the plates for purposes other than translation. In such cases, Joseph may have placed the stone from the Urim and Thummim interpreter instrument in a hat, both to exclude exterior light and to hide it from the view of unauthorized persons, as per Moroni’s instructions. (p. 88)

Neville has promoted his SITH acronym because it highlights what he considers an uncomfortable image of Joseph translating with his head in a hat as well as the pop-culture reference to the evil Sith in Star Wars. However, we now have Joseph also using the stones from the interpreters (which Lucas and Neville call the Urim and Thummim) in a hat![37]

It appears that Lucas and Neville are only arguing that in the very specific case of translating the Book of Mormon do the interpreters matter. Outside of that special-use case, the interpreter stones could be used in the very same manner as any other seer stone. Also, as William Smith suggested, they could be used in the same “in-the-hat” method as Joseph’s previous seer stones.

[Page 152]Mackay and Dirkmaat summarize:

Lucy Smith wrote that “Joseph kept the urim and thummim constantly about his person as he could by this means ascertain at any moment if the plates were in danger.” In one instance . . . Joseph also saw Emma in the spectacles. When he was in Macedon, soon after Moroni gave him the plates, Joseph “looked into them before Emma got there [and] perceived her coming and came up out of the well and met her.”[38]

They further explain:

Joseph’s use of seer stones before 1827 helps us understand why he only used the Nephite interpreters to protect the plates. He used the spectacles like a seer stone, to identify or find lost items, unlike his later use of them to translate ancient characters.[39]

For Joseph, a seer stone enabled someone to see. It was not restricted to translation, although that was a function that Mosiah’s seer stones performed in the Book of Mormon and for at least part of the translation of the Book of Mormon. Lucas and Neville even declare “Joseph made other inquiries through the interpreters, including those leading to a number of early revelations” (p. 88). Their argument against the use of a seer stone in translation is therefore limited to only translation, a limitation they do not explain or explicitly defend.

Lucas and Neville argue that there really was a fundamental qualitative difference between the interpreters and the seer stone. The instruments were “sacred holy instruments of heavenly design,” and they assume that the seer stone was not:

We have a seer stone with a chain of custody back to Joseph Smith. It is in the LDS Church’s archives. But anyone can see it is just a common, striated rock.

We do not have the Urim and Thummim interpreters, but we are informed by the scriptures that, unlike the rock, the interpreters were specifically prepared to assist with transaction. Sacred holy instruments of heavenly design, which have existed at least since they were given to the brother of [Page 153]Jared untold millennia ago (see Doctrine and Covenants 17:1), they have been returned to their angelic caretakers. (p. 152)[40]

According to the historical record, however, the seer stone had a similar divine sanction as did the interpreters:

Brigham Young and Wilford Woodruff told others about some of the details, but instead of implying that Jospeh simply happened upon the stones, they emphasized that the stones were discovered by revelation. They insisted that God delivered the stones to Joseph. Woodruff, who esteemed Smith’s seer stones throughout his life, recorded a similar story in his journal on 18 May 1888, stating that the stone was found thirty feet in the ground, “by Revelation.”[41]

Lucas and Neville highlight the divine circumstances of the interpreters but ignore the Church leaders who applied similar divine circumstances to the seer stones. Even with that divine sanction on the seer stones, it is quite evident that they are, as Lucas and Neville underscore, just common rocks.

To create a difference, they develop a fascinating hypothesis that the interpreters were not stones, but some kind of advanced technology. They state:

[Page 154]The eminent science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, in his Third Law, famously observed that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The interpreters represent an incredibly advanced technology—they are of the technology of the heavens. However, it is understandable that they may have seemed no different than magic to early 19th century rural Americans. (p. 156)

It is an incredibly advanced technology that was miraculous and divine. Apparently they were only an advanced technology when used in conjunction with the plates, because they functioned just as did a seer stone both prior to and after the translation. Ironically, this divinely advanced technology was not nearly as capable as Google Translate. This is discussed further in this review’s section on the translation theory of Lucas and Neville.

We don’t have the interpreters, so they cannot be examined for divine technologies that might transcend the fact that they were stones. That absence of evidence allows Lucas and Neville to create a hypothesis of how they worked that is only slightly less miraculous than the idea that Joseph had the full text to read (see the next section). This argument, which is built on an absence of the interpreters, is what Fischer calls the fallacy of the negative proof. It is “an attempt to sustain a factual proposition merely by negative evidence.”[42]

The Second Thesis: The Lawyers on Translation

As we begin to analyze the theory of translation proposed by Lucas and Neville, it is important to clarify their definition of SITH. The primary meaning for SITH is “stone in the hat,” and the primary reference is the suggestion that Joseph Smith used a seer stone placed in a hat as part of his process of translating the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately for readers, Lucas and Neville tack on a second definition that is not a reference to the mechanics but rather to the result. Conflated with the instrument is the resultant translation. In this aspect of their use of SITH, “some believing scholars interpret Joseph’s use of the term translate to mean a supernatural phenomenon whereby Joseph read words that appears on a seer stone at the bottom of his hat. Again, for convenience, we refer to this scenario as ‘SITH’ (stone-in-the-hat)” (p. 32).

Fischer declares: “The fallacy of ambiguity consists in the use of [Page 155]a word or an expression which has two or more possible meanings, without sufficient specification of which meaning is intended.”[43] Lucas and Neville have created a fallacy of ambiguity not by using an existing word with two meanings, but in conflating two different meanings into their acronym of choice. The unclear separation makes it more difficult for their readers to carefully analyze the data because anything that discusses a concept of translation that Joseph read is imputed to the mechanism.

The lawyers present a theory

The new and therefore more important part of their book is the presentation of a unique theory about how the translation of the Book of Mormon took place. Lucas and Neville offer an explanation of how the interpreters were used. The method required both the interpreters and the physical and unimpeded view of the plates.[44] The theory also posits that Joseph was an active participant in the creation of the English text dictated to scribes.

They lay out their task: “The unresolved question is, how did the Urim and Thummim work? Without the instrument available for examination, there can be no definitive answer” (p. 181). It is true that this is an important question. It is true that we do not have the interpreters. It is not true that we don’t have a Urim and Thummim as the early Church fathers understood it. We have at least one of Joseph’s seer stones and the one that is supposed to have been involved in the translation process. Nevertheless, it remains true that having the instrument doesn’t necessarily tell us anything about how it was used.[45]

Surprisingly, despite their objection to the idea that Joseph read a text that appeared on the seer stone, Lucas and Neville build an [Page 156]argument that Joseph did see an English text in the interpreter. They declare: “Nonetheless, they all do agree that Joseph was seeing English. . . . It would seem from all these witness statements that Joseph was seeing the exact text in English. . . . many today argue that that is exactly what happened” (p. 183).

The tension between proposing that Joseph saw an English text with their dismissal of Joseph reading the English text is resolved by creating a new definition of the nature of the English text that Joseph saw. To make certain that I do not misrepresent their ideas, here are two important explanatory paragraphs:

We propose a translation model which we believe resolves these apparently conflicting lines of evidence. We suggest that the interpreters did display English, as all the witnesses said, but that the text displayed on the two “stone” screens was not a complete, final interpretation of the engravings. Instead, the interpreters provided a literalistic English rendition of the Nephite characters. In some cases, it may have been transliterated phonetic spellings of proper names and foreign words untranslated in the Nephite text such as cureloms.

. . .

The important comparison is that the English read-out displayed on the interpreters’ double screens was not a final translation. It was left to Joseph to render the close-to-Nephite literal English presentation displayed on the interpreters into English which would be meaningful to modern readers, a deliberative process that involved myriad word and grammar choices he had to study out in his mind using his own learning and linguistic resources. (pp. 186–87)

The advantage of this theory is that it allows for the historical evidence to be correct and for the evidence that there are more modern elements in the text to reasonably be associated with the translator and not the Nephite writers. The desire is good. The result is not.

How well does their hypothesis explain the historical accounts? David Whitmer was present during some of the translation sessions and therefore able to give a firsthand account of what he could hear:

He [Joseph] put the stone in his hat and putting his face in his hat so as to exclude the light and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be parchment, on which would [Page 157]appear the characters of the plates in a line at the top and immediately below would appear the translation, in English, which Smith would read to his scribe, who wrote it down exactly as it fell from his lips. The scribe would then read the sentence written, and if any mistake had been made the characters would remain visible to Smith until corrected, when they faded from sight to be replaced by another line.[46]

Bypassing the stone-in-the-hat phrase, it is the rest of the description that is important at this point. As he described hearing it, Joseph would dictate to the scribe who wrote it down. No historical account ever hints at any time passing as Joseph worked out what to dictate. Instead, it seemed to be a flow of words.

It is at this point that a different type of evidence is important. In the historical record there is a finite amount of time during which the translation occurred. Thus, the longer Joseph would have delayed in order to work out the translation, the more it should have affected the overall time necessary for the dictation. John and Jeannie Welch experimented with reproducing the physical translation experience:

In order to test the feasibility of these calculations of how fast Joseph and Oliver actually could have worked, my wife, Jeannie, and I decided to try it out ourselves. We picked two pages in Royal Skousen’s Yale edition of the Book of Mormon, since that version breaks the text lines into thought clauses that would have been about the length of each translational unit. At first, I played the role of Joseph and read the first line slowly and distinctly, while she, playing the role of Oliver, began immediately writing those words down. When she reached the end of that line, she read it back to me, and I confirmed that it was correct or pointed out mistakes. Then I paused, gazed again at the page, uncovered the next line, and read it aloud, which Jeannie likewise recorded and read back. And so we proceeded to the end of the page. . . .

Altogether, our results showed empirically that a translation rate of right around 20 words per minute was quite possible. But we couldn’t imagine sustaining that rate hour after hour, day after day. Our hands got tired, and the one playing Joseph needed to catch his or her breath [Page 158]and clear his or her voice. We used ballpoint pens. We imagined Oliver dipping and using his quill pen.[47]

The Welchs’ experiment conforms to the time-based requirement for the speed of translation. They did not allow for any pondering or working out of the translation. Indeed, in addition to the absence of evidence for taking time to work out a translation, we have the evidence of the timing of the translation as a direct contradiction to the hypothesis offered by Lucas and Neville.

The next problem with the assertion that Joseph took a literal English translation and created the smoother translation we read is that it becomes difficult to impossible given the evidence for the number of words that Joseph appears to have dictated in a single dictation event. Royal Skousen suggests that the dictation blocks contained between twenty to thirty words at a time.[48] It doesn’t take long perusing sentences in the Book of Mormon as the compositor set them to see that twenty words rarely finishes a sentence. Thus, when Joseph was translating the literal English from the language on the plates, he dictated less than a sentence at a time.

When applied to a literal translation, it becomes a question of how much of the literal English Joseph would have been able to see in order to create a smoother English sentence. The problem with literal translations is that they are, well, literal—they attempt to translate word for word. But not all languages structure their sentences as English does, with the order of elements being subject/verb/object. If the source language differs in structure, such as object/subject/verb, then elements of the sentence might be provided in an order that made the end of the English sentence come first, and Joseph might not have seen the end of the sentence in the block of words he saw.

If the source language was a case-marking language, where an element attached to the word indicates its function as a subject, verb, or object, then translation can be more difficult. Ancient Greek is an example of such a language, where word order was based on art, not grammar. Theoretically, one could cut up a Greek sentence, toss the [Page 159]words in a hat,[49] and randomly pull them out to order the sentence. It would still make sense. It would lack any art, but one could make sense of it because the meaning isn’t carried in word order but rather in the cases. Here is a literal translation of the Greek text of Matthew 6:21:

Where for is, treasure your there will be also heart your[50]

Those familiar with the King James Version may still be able to understand the reference, and probably even provide the KJV rendering. If one didn’t have that reference of meaning, how easily could that be translated into English?

For another idea of the problem Joseph would have faced, I present two translations of the original Quiché of the Popol Vuh. First, Allen J. Christenson’s literal translation, which also attempts to preserve the parallelistic poetic form of the original:

Because there is not now
Means of seeing the Popol Vuh,
Means of seeing clearly
Come from across sea,
Its account our obscurity,
Means of seeing light life, as it is said.
There is original book anciently written also,
Merely hidden his face

Witness of it,
Ponderer of it.

Great its performance,
Its account as well

When will be completed
Germination,

All sky,
Earth.

Its four cornerings,
Its four sidings,

[Page 160]Its measurings,
Its four stakings,

Its doubling over cord measurement,
Its stretching cord measurement,

Its womb sky,
Its womb earth.[51]

The following is how Christenson translated that same text into smoother English. Because it is not a word for word translation, this would be what translators have come to call a functional translation:

We shall bring it forth because there is no longer the means whereby the Popol Vuh may be seen, the means of seeing clearly that had come from across the sea—the account of our obscurity, and the means of seeing life clearly, as it is said. The original book exists that was written anciently, but its witnesses and those who ponder it hide their faces.

Great is its performance and its account of the completion and germination of all the sky and earth—its four corners and its four sides. All then was measured and staked out into four divisions, doubling over and stretching the measuring cords of the womb of sky and the womb of earth.[52]

Just to make things easier to see, here is the literal Quiché in a sentence, followed by the smoother translation. I have removed the poetic formatting to make the comparison easier:

Literal: Because there is not now means of seeing the Popol Vuh, means of seeing clearly—come from across sea, its account our obscurity, means of seeing light life, as it is said.

Functional: We shall bring it forth because there is no longer the means whereby the Popol Vuh may be seen, the means of seeing clearly that had come from across the sea—the account of our obscurity, and the means of seeing life clearly, as it is said.

Notice how the beginning of the smoother translation required the [Page 161]translator to hold the meaning of the whole sentence in mind and then completely reorder the elements to provide a more intelligible English translation.

Why doesn’t the theory work that Lucas and Neville propose?

- There is no evidence that Joseph spent time working out the translation

- There is no time available to spend time working out a translation

- Joseph probably dictated in blocks of twenty words—which is smaller than most of the English sentences. The quick comparison between literal Quiché and more smoothly translated Quiché indicates how difficult to impossible that combination time and dictation would be.

Finally, Lucas and Neville’s explanation for why the interpreters only produced a deficient translation is unconvincing:

We assume that God was perfectly capable of providing a finished text in modern English. Theoretically, he could have had Mormon and Moroni engrave the text in English in the first place. Or, the interpreters could have supplied a finished English text, as contemplated by the transcription explanations.

But according to Doctrine and Covenants 9:8, the translator had to next study it out in his mind, and the NID[53] research shows that the Book of Mormon is in fact sourced from Joseph’s linguistic environment. (p. 187)

Their evidence for why the interpreters were deficient in translation depends upon a revelation that was directed to Oliver Cowdery and may not have reflected Joseph’s method of translation at all.[54] Essentially, their explanation requires that God miraculously provided a technology that wasn’t very good just so Joseph would have to work harder to create the translation. That is not a convincing opinion.

I must remind the reader that this negative review of their hypothesis [Page 162]comes from one who supports their basic position that Joseph was an active participant in the translation. I am sympathetic to what they are trying to do. They just don’t accomplish it.

The Worst of the Lawyers’ Approach

Creating a hypothesis that others don’t agree with is part of the scholarly world. Being wrong is unfortunate, but common enough that by itself isn’t an indictment. The problem with By Means of the Urim & Thummim is that it is not only incorrect in its hypothesis, it is incorrect in its processes.

Using invective as a substitute for academic argumentation

One of the threads running throughout the book is a semantic disdain for positions contrary to those held by authors. At times, language is used to diminish an argument contrary to their hypothesis. For example, historians take seriously Joseph’s use of a seer stone before, during, and after translation. Lucas and Neville suggest that “for Joseph the stone was a sort of “lucky charm” or, in more recent parlance, a “pet rock” (p. 14). That isn’t scholarship; they use ridicule rather than reason for their argument.

The most obvious example of semantically pejorative terminology is the abbreviation SITH that is used extensively throughout the book. As I already mentioned, there is some wit in the acronym. However, most of their readers will understand that the Sith were powerful bad guys in a science-fiction universe. The acronym subliminally invokes a very negative response, such as a fictional local political group branding their opponents as “neighbors against zoning initiatives,” or “NAZIs.” Whatever merits the stone-in-the-hat description might or might not have, the way it is referenced immediately diminishes it and simultaneously colors it with a dark brush.[55]

A similar pejorative labeling is their use of “shamanic” as a type of translation. Lucas and Neville refer to an article by Grant Hardy found in BYU Studies.[56] They say of the article:

[Page 163]In fairness we would consider “evidence suggesting that Joseph was reading from a pre-existing translation,” such as presented in a 2021 article in BYU Studies. Unfortunately, in that article the author simply assumes the SITH narrative without considering a scenario where Joseph actually translated the engravings on the plates. The author describes ‘translation” as the kind of mythical, free-form, free-wheeling “shamanist” exercise described above, which would render precision difficult, and cites instances where the Book of Mormon is precise and detailed. (p. 110)

I suggest further problems with this paragraph in the next section, but at present the issue is the pejorative vocabulary selected to describe what Hardy had to say. There is no generous allowance for another scholar’s opinion. Suffice it to say that the words mythical, free-form, free-wheeling, and shamanist do not appear in Hardy’s analysis. They are words applied to the unquoted text and are intended to dismiss Hardy without serious consideration of his arguments.

All historians and even lawyers acting as historians should do better with language. As Christians, Latter-day Saints should be at least charitable when assessing arguments with which we disagree. Calling an argument incorrect or insufficient is categorically different from creating semantic labels that immediately create a negative association in the mind of the reader.

Violation of the reader’s trust

Readers of books that are presented as scholarly arguments tend to have an implicit trust that they are being given correct information. When a reader lacks their own expertise in the field, they have virtually no choice but to trust the authors who present the book’s arguments. In the case of By Means of the Urim & Thummim, that trust has been violated. When the lawyers Lucas and Neville tell us we should trust them because they deal with evidence, we want to agree with them. Unfortunately, their initial selection bias is not clearly explained and therefore it can be easy for a reader to miss the selections that were made favoring the initial assumptions.

Fischer explains the “fallacy of declarative questions” by noting: “If a historian goes to his sources with a simple proposition that ‘X was the case,’ then he is predisposed to prove it. He will probably be able to find ‘evidence’ sufficient to illustrate his expectations, if not actually [Page 164]sustain them.”[57] Worse, however, is when the authors violate our trust by misrepresenting either the evidence or other scholars’ opinions.

Misrepresenting the evidence

More than once, Lucas and Neville misrepresent evidence. One type of misrepresentation occurs because they elect to be ambiguous in the use of terms. For example, they mention D. Michael’ Quinn’s work:

An example of Quinn’s questionable methodology can be seen in his treatment of the SITH accounts. Since they supported his overall theory, he accepted them whole cloth. Yet, at the same time he never cited Joseph and Oliver’s explicit statements that it was the Nephite interpreters which were used for translation. (p. 18)

They use this same argument in their discussion of the testimony of Joseph Smith III:

What does he look to as the authoritative word on how the Book of Mormon was translated? Joseph III quotes, at length, from Oliver Cowdery’s Letter I (now a note to Joseph Smith – History in the LDS Pearl of Great Price) and his father’s article for John Wentworth (best known as the source of the Articles of Faith), both of which emphatically state that the interpreters were the instrument used to translate the Book of Mormon. (p. 50)

Although there is no specific reference to Quinn’s examples, Lucas and Neville declare that Quinn ignored what were “explicit statements that it was the Nephite interpreters which were used for translation.” There are exactly zero explicit statements from either Joseph or Oliver that the interpreters were the exclusive instruments used in translation. There are, however, statements that the Urim and Thummim were used. By hiding the actual quotation and substituting their own exclusive declaration, they make the evidence say what it does not actually say.

At least in the case of their discussion of Joseph Smith III’s testimony, they tell us where to find their sources. Lucas and Neville provide the original accounts in an appendix. The footnote to the above quotation sends the reader to 15 and 20 in Appendix B. Quotation 15 does not mention the interpreters. Rather it says ”Urim and Thummim.” [Page 165]As with all other sources, this account was written after Urim and Thummim became the generally used generic term for the translation instruments. By misrepresenting the evidence, Lucas and Neville make the statements declare something that trained LDS historians tell us is impossible to know.

Honest scholarship would place the correct words in the accounts rather than replace them with an assigned meaning. This occurs again when they state:

Inexplicably, historians have also accepted this tale uncritically at face value without addressing the fact that it conflicts with these and dozens of other reliable accounts of Martin affirming the use of the interpreters for the translation. (p. 61)

The problem is that Martin Harris doesn’t affirm the use of the interpreters; he affirms use of the Urim and Thummim. Lucas and Neville continually hide crucial information from their readers. They misrepresent the intent of the accounts by imposing their own interpretation and declaring it to be the very meaning from the original accounts.

Notice how their assertion becomes incontrovertible fact: “If you believe Joseph and Oliver, you cannot believe the SITH narrative which David Whitmer propounded in the latter part of his life” (p. 102). In fact, it is possible to believe Joseph, Oliver, and David Witmer. One need only return to the actual accounts and note that Joseph and Oliver used the later term Urim and Thummim and retrojected it into earlier accounts. That reading of the evidence tells us why the term Urim and Thummim never appears before 1832. Lucas and Neville hide that fact. Their argument is entirely based on misrepresenting the evidence and turning that misrepresentation into a declaration of fact.

Misrepresenting other scholars’ opinions

Here I return to Lucas and Neville’s paragraph discussing the article Grant Hardy wrote about the range of arguments proposed for the translation of the Book of Mormon:[58]

In fairness we would consider “evidence suggesting that Joseph was reading from a pre-existing translation,” such as presented in a 2021 article in BYU Studies. Unfortunately, in that article the author simply assumes the SITH narrative without considering a scenario where Joseph [Page 166]actually translated the engravings on the plates. The author describes ‘translation” as the kind of mythical, free-form, free-wheeling “shamanist” exercise describe above, which would render precision difficult, and cites instances where the Book of Mormon is precise and detailed. (p. 110)

Previously, I used the paragraph as an example of the author’s choice to use semantically pejorative language. The problem with this paragraph is far greater. Frankly, it is difficult to believe that the authors actually read Hardy’s paper with an intent to understand what he wrote.

Hardy provided a description of the various positions taken with respect to the translation of the Book of Mormon. He did not specifically endorse any position, stating that “the two sides will probably remain in tension for some time.”[59] His conclusion is:

Without being able to compare the original reformed Egyptian with the English version, it is impossible to know just what sort of translation the Book of Mormon is. And without observing a seer stone in use, we cannot know for certain what Joseph experienced. Perhaps new evidence will someday be uncovered, or further studies may refine our understanding of the data currently available, but in the meantime, we might well agree with Emma Smith, who said that, even as an eyewitness to the process, “it is marvelous to me, ‘a marvel and a wonder,’ as much so as to anyone else.”[60]

Anyone reading Hardy’s article finds that the characterization by Lucas and Neville is not only a misrepresentation, but an egregious misrepresentation.

Finally, I take issue with another of their summaries of an opposing position. In this case, I am the author of the problem they describe:

Brant Gardner wrestles with distinguishing which parts of the Book of Mormon might be formally or functionally equivalent. However, because he accepts the SITH narrative, his interpretation is unnecessarily complicated because he must add a category for “conceptual equivalence” to [Page 167]accommodate what we call the “shamanist” ideas of translation which arise from the SITH narrative. (p. 192n395)

I propose that I am uniquely qualified to know what Brant Gardner struggled with and what he didn’t. In this case, I have it on good authority (mine) that he didn’t struggle at all. As is very clear from even the table of contents to The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon, Gardner discusses types of translation that are used for any text. The typology is not based on the Book of Mormon. When Gardner uses the term “conceptual equivalence,” it is to describe a translation that is further distant from the source text than a functional equivalence.[61] Lucas and Neville fundamentally misunderstand and misrepresent the argument surrounding “conceptual equivalence.”

They also do some amazing mind-reading to suppose that “conceptual equivalence” was somehow invented to deal with what they categorize as the shamanistic explanation for translation. Again, holding myself out as the preeminent authority on what Brant Gardner thought and thinks, that is pure fabrication.

Conclusions

Can we trust Lucas and Neville because they are lawyers? Not for that simplistic of a reason. We can’t trust them because they are untrustworthy in the way they approach and present history. While they are adamant that we should understand that the original interpreters were always used to translate the Book of Mormon rather than a seer stone, the way they use the historical texts distorts the evidence by fallaciously assuming that the later term, Urim and Thummim, must always mean the interpreters. This is the opposite of the way that trained historians see the evidence, which is that Urim and Thummim was a late invention and was then applied retroactively to stories that occurred before the term was introduced. Remember, as well, that the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve vetted the historians’ position in the Gospel Topics article, “The Translation of the Book of Mormon.”

Lucas and Neville provide a different approach to explaining the way Joseph translated. Unfortunately, the idea that Joseph translated from a literal English to a smoother English is an argument from silence. There is zero actual evidence to support the hypothesis. Nevertheless, it might be a reasonable explanation except for the fact that there is [Page 168]evidence contradicting it. It is simply implausible that Joseph was able to take the time to work out the translation and meet the translation timeframe evidenced in the historical record. The ability to translate also presumes a larger conceptual sentence reference than would be possible with the shorter length indicated by the evidence for the size of the translation blocks. As noted above in the comparison of the two Quiché sentences, creating the smoother translation required understanding the whole block of the literal translation, and then reversing elements to better fit expected English. Perhaps possible, but highly implausible in the case of Joseph’s translation.

Finally, we cannot trust the lawyers based on their misunderstanding or misrepresentation of sources. Any student paper exhibiting such errors would be rejected as soon as those errors were discovered. There is, perhaps, a reason that By Means of the Urim & Thummim is self-published.

In summary, I’ll take the historians over the lawyers, thank you.

1. James W. Lucas and Jonathan E. Neville, By Means of the Urim and Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration (Cottonwood Heights, UT: Digital Legend Press & Publishing, 2023). Technically my review is of the second edition of the book, though that is not explicitly stated in the copy I have in-hand. In the front matter, the authors state “Updated May 2023 and January and August 2024 from first edition.”

2. Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2011).

3. There is no good way to explain why using the word translation here is a pun on the Lucas and Neville theory of translation. Their idea will be discussed later. But trust me, I’m the reviewer.

4. Michael Hubbard MacKay and Gerrit J. Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light: Joseph Smith’s Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University [BYU]; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 67.

5. Carl Sagan, Broca’s Brain: Reflections on the Romance of Science (New York: Random House, 1979), 62.

6. Jonathan Neville, A Man that Can Translate: Joseph Smith and the Nephite Interpreters (Cottonwood Heights, UT: Digital Legend Press & Publishing, 2020).

7. Spencer Kraus, “An Unfortunate Approach to Joseph Smith’s Translation of Ancient Scripture,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 52 (2022): 1–64, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/an-unfortunate-approach-to-joseph-smiths-translation-of-ancient-scripture/.

8. Jonathan E. Neville, “A Man That Can Translate and Infinite Goodness: A Response to Recent Reviews,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 53 (2022): 171–84, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/a-man-that-can-translate-and-infinite-goodness-a-response-to-recent-reviews/. See also Spencer Kraus, “A Rejoinder to Jonathan Neville’s ‘Response to Recent Reviews,’” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 53 (2022): 185–98, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/a-rejoinder-to-jonathan-nevilles-response-to-recent-reviews/.

9. David Hackett Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought (New York: HarperCollins, 1970).

10. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, xix.

11. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 24.

12. G. J. Renier, History: Its Purpose and Method (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 219.

13. John Gee, “La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994): 54.

14. Neville, A Man That Can Translate, v-vi.

15. MacKay and Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light, 129.

16. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 10.

17. Interpreters in the plural is not in the KJV. The singular interpreter appears, but is not associated with an instrument of translation.

18. “William Smith Interview with J. W. Peterson and W. S. Pender, 1890,” in Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 508.

19. Michael Hubbard MacKay and Nicholas J. Frederick, Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, BYU; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2016), 29–44.

20. Gardner, Gift and Power, 69–78.

21. Partial caption. The photographs and caption cover a two-page spread in the printed volume. Revelations and Translations, Volume 3, Part 1: Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi 1–Alma 35, ed. Royal Skousen and Robin Scott Jensen (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2015), xx.

22. Gerrit J. Dirkmaat and Michael Hubbard Mackay, Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2023), 81.

23. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 43.

24. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 49.

25. Dirkmaat and MacKay, Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon, 82.

26. MacKay and Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light, 129.

27. Dirkmaat and MacKay, Let’s Talk About the Translation of the Book of Mormon, 83–84.

28. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 244.

29. “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics Essays, accessed 4 October 2024, churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation.

30. “Gospel Topics Essays,” Gospel Topics Essays, accessed 4 October 2024, churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/essays.

31. “Book of Mormon Translation.”

32. The conflation of the Jaredite stones and the Urim and Thummim is not unusual. We see it in Charles Swift, “Upon Mount Shelem: The Liminal Experience of the Brother of Jared,” in Illuminating the Jaredite Records, ed. Daniel L. Belnap (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, BYU; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 127n61: “The two stones hidden with the plates of Ether will be the Urim and Thummim, called “interpreters” (see Mosiah 8:11–12), and later buried with the gold plates.”

33. “William Smith Interview,” 508.

34. D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 41.

35. “Martin Harris Interview with Joel Tiffany, 1859,” in Early Mormon Documents, vol. 2, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 303.

36. “William Smith Interview,” 508.

37. Perhaps we now need to modify Neville’s SITH label. He must now include the interpreter-stone-in-the-hat, so it is a newer “iSITH” model, designed for greater accuracy.

38. MacKay and Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light, 69.

39. MacKay and Dirkmaat, From Darkness unto Light, 67.

40. Lucas and Neville cite Doctrine and Covenants 17:1, which clearly states that the Urim and Thummim was used. In the notes on that verse, the editors of The Joseph Smith Papers Project note:

In this version of the revelation, the use of “Urim and Thummim” (rather than the Book of Mormon term “interpreters” or the term “spectacles,” which JS used in 1829 and 1832) is probably a later redaction since “Urim and Thummim” does not appear in JS’s writings before 1833. The revisions in this section may in part be correcting errors made while copying from a source text that had itself been revised. (See Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 172–173, 546 [Mosiah 8:13; Ether 4:5]; JS History, ca. Summer1832; and “Joseph Smith Documents Dating through June1831.”) “Revelation, June 1829–E [D&C 17],” p. 119n5, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed 15 October 2024, josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-june-1829-e-dc-17/1.

Another possible issue is that the verse also specifies that the Urim and Thummim was what was given to the brother of Jared. That identification represents the common association already discussed in this review. Just as the term Urim and Thummim was later applied to the text, it is plausible that the association with the Jaredite stones was also a later cultural assumption rather than a divine declaration. As noted in this paper, the description of the interpreters Joseph received matched Mosiah’s stones rather than the Jaredite stones.

41. MacKay and Frederick, Joseph Smith’s Seer Stones, 39. Emphasis added.

42. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 47.

43. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 265.

44. I have not discussed the objections of Lucas and Neville to the historical evidence that the plates were often covered and not necessarily used for translation. The descriptions of Joseph using either the interpreter stone or the seer stone in a hat rather preclude any direct visual interaction with the plates. Lucas and Neville object to that description and insist that the plates had to have been used. I elect not to deal with that particular issue. Those interested are referred to Spencer Kraus’s review of A Man That Can Translate, cited earlier in this review.

45. Allowing that the interpreters were stones used by a seer and could be used in a hat strongly suggests that we actually do have some information on how they worked, as there are many records of seers from Joseph’s day and before as well as up to the present day. Critically, they allow the user to see. See Gardner, Gift and Power, 261–64.

46. Larry E. Morris, A Documentary History of the Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 346.

47. John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten,’” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018): 38–39. Emphasis added.

48. Royal Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997), 71–72.

49. It could be any container, but in the context of Joseph’s translation, hat seemed the best choice. Please read this with a mental smiley emoji.

50. LDS View: Resource Edition—English Parallel Bible—Advanced. Software program available at ldsview.wordcruncher.com/LDSDnWindows.html. Ancient Greek did not use punctuation; the comma was supplied by the software in the translation process.

51. Allen J. Christenson, Popol Vuh, Volume II: Literal Poetic Version, Translation and Transcription (Winchester, UK: O Books, 2004), 14–15.

52. Allen J. Christenson, Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Maya; The Great Classic of Central American Spirituality, Translated from the Original Maya Text (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 64–65.

53. NID stands for “non-biblical intertextuality database,” a database Neville compiled against which he compared phrases in the Book of Mormon to contemporary or slightly earlier texts. See By Means of the Urim & Thummim pages 26–27 for a more complete definition.

54. Gardner, Gift and Power, 210–15. Of course, my position is possibly a minority view, with most scholars accepting that the “work it out” concept applied to Joseph’s translation as well.

55. This could also fit into Fischer’s “moralistic fallacy.” He provides an example where: “the great Roman historian, Tacitus . . . [wrote a book] punctuated with sarcastic side comments.” Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 80.

56. Grant Hardy, “The Book of Mormon Translation Process,” BYU Studies Quarterly 60, no. 3 (2021), 203–11, website-files-bucket.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/articles/article_pdfs/The_Book_of_Mormon_Translation_Process.pdf.

57. Fischer, Historians’ Fallacies, 24.

58. Hardy, “Book of Mormon Translation Process,” 203–11.

59. Hardy, “Book of Mormon Translation Process,” 211.

60. Hardy, “Book of Mormon Translation Process,” 211.

61. Gardner, Gift and Power, 155–56.

Contents