Tuesday Apr 25, 2023

008 Translating the Book of Mormon with Stones in a Hat?

If we had video footage of the translation process of the Book of Mormon, what would we see? What would we actually watch Joseph Smith “do” during a translation session? Now of course we don’t have video footage, but we do have perhaps the next best thing—multiple eyewitness accounts of those who saw the process up close first hand. And what they said they saw was a  decidedly non-secular, non-academic, one-of-a-kind translation method involving a young 22 and 23 year old Joseph looking at seer stones in a hat—a process many of these witnesses described as truly miraculous. 

In today’s episode we take a closer look at what we can know from the historical record about Joseph Smith’s translation process. We’ll also briefly explore the New England subculture in Joseph’s day in which some believed that people with certain spiritual gifts could use special objects—like seer stones or divining rods—to channel divine power to do things like find lost objects or find underground water sources. 

We’ll also discuss the fascinating details of what we know about how and when Joseph came upon two seer stones in addition to those that came with the plates and were bound together in silver bows, and what we know about his using these during the Book of Mormon translation.

For show notes and more go to https://doctrineandcovenantscentral.org/church-history-matters-podcast/ 

Comments (2)

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You are correct. I looked high and low to find any statements by Joseph or Oliver that they used the seer stone and could not find any. I know the church website about the book of Mormon translation says a seer stone was also used. I think it does this for 3 reasons: 1) later statements made by others, 2) once the translation was done, Joseph gave the seer stone away saying that he didn’t need it anymore (as if he used it for translating), and 3) to help pacify detractors who attack translation.

Wednesday Sep 25, 2024

Awesome

Thursday Sep 28, 2023

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