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The Seer Stone Cover Up Finally Exposed and You Will Never Believe Who Did It


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They even threw the treasure hunting in there! Good for them! Not that that's a big deal, but it can be for some. Though it bums me out that they really didn't make much mention of Josephs Urim and Thummim/Breastplate, they didn't really make clear the difference between the stones and the spectacles. 

Edited by SettingDogStar
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Needs more dubstep.  

Kidding aside, I'm overall a fan of the church using YouTube to reach out with modern professional storyboard/infographic stuff like this.

Some places online, we still can't swing a dead cat without hitting a handful of critics telling us the church won't admit to rocks and hats and stuff.

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10 minutes ago, snowflake said:

Any idea where Joseph's seer stones are now, or the spectacles and breastplate?

One of the seerstones is in the First Presidency vault. I believe it was Joseph Fielding Smith who took it out and showed it to the apostles. In there with unpublished revelations and other neat stuff that nosy me would love to dig through.

The Urim and Thummim, along with the breastplate and spectacles, was returned to Moroni after the translation was finished.

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I thought this got buried when the church put up the 70 videos on pornography, according to some out there. Nehor, were you able to find it readily?

I've always been confused with the Urim & Thummim thing. Some say that it is the seer stone, what is it exactly? I know I could google a little bit, but there are many LDS that didn't separate the two, seer stones and it, before now. 

ETA: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/urim-and-thummim/

Found this, and now can see how the church was able to use these instead of the seer stones in talks for so long. In the description in the link it only mentions "gems". But can see how this can almost be twisted into being the seer stones. Too bad that for so long the church didn't differentiate them until now, IMO. 

Edited by Tacenda
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22 minutes ago, snowflake said:

So cool, Joseph had several stones I think? 

There were three mentioned a lot. There was a white one, a brown chocolate colored one, and a banded brown and black one though the records are not clear and there were more. The white one was reported as being used with the Book of Abraham but the source was sketchy if I remember right,

Brigham Young reported Joseph had five. Joseph gave a brown one to Oliver Cowdery. There is the one that Joseph Fielding Smith showed the apostles and is probably the one they released photographs of a few years back which may have been the one given to Oliver but maybe not. The white one is believed to be in possession of the church in the vault but not sure.

Fun Fact: Some early members became disaffected over Joseph not using them anymore.

Brigham Young reported that Joseph never lost interest in them though he used them less and less as time went on and reportedly said that everyone could have a seerstone though some see this more as an allusion to the Book of Revelation and not that everyone should have a seerstone in this life.

I asked God if I could have a seerstone and got a stupor of thought. :( 

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29 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I thought this got buried when the church put up the 70 videos on pornography, according to some out there. Nehor, were you able to find it readily?

I've always been confused with the Urim & Thummim thing. Some say that it is the seer stone, what is it exactly? I know I could google a little bit, but there are many LDS that didn't separate the two, seer stones and it, before now. 

ETA: https://www.biblestudytools.com/dictionary/urim-and-thummim/

Found this, and now can see how the church was able to use these instead of the seer stones in talks for so long. In the description in the link it only mentions "gems". But can see how this can almost be twisted into being the seer stones. Too bad that for so long the church didn't differentiate them until now, IMO. 

It showed up as a recommended video last night. I watch a lot of the church’s videos.

I still think my favorite is the bird cartoon about “songs you cannot sing” with Elder Holland’s talk.

 

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12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It showed up as a recommended video last night. I watch a lot of the church’s videos.

I still think my favorite is the bird cartoon about “songs you cannot sing” with Elder Holland’s talk.

 

Very well done video, almost as good as Disney, and perhaps the millennials will eat it up! The Jehovah's Witnesses have many videos on their website as well, not nearly as good. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/videos/#en/mediaitems/AllVideos/pub-pksjj_5_VIDEO When did the church start producing these videos? I remember the commercials in the 70's but not the videos that seem so prevalant. 

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16 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Very well done video, almost as good as Disney, and perhaps the millennials will eat it up! The Jehovah's Witnesses have many videos on their website as well, not nearly as good. https://www.jw.org/en/publications/videos/#en/mediaitems/AllVideos/pub-pksjj_5_VIDEO When did the church start producing these videos? I remember the commercials in the 70's but not the videos that seem so prevalant. 

A couple of years ago. They function great as “pick me ups”, help with serious issues, and have even caused some missionary success. People are more likely to watch a cartoon then the talking head of an apostle. The dramatizations also help teach children. I was at an FHE lately with my sibling and we used Elder Holland’s talk on the boys climbing the cliff and one getting to the top and the other stuck to teach about the Savior. The children get it in a way they are unlikely to have with just the words.

The videos are also (I suspect intentionally) smashing the fabricated image many have incorrectly formed of the church as a group of upper middle class white families with obedient photogenic children that have few problems. The caricature never really existed in reality but some even in the Church have held onto that image for too long. There are videos of true stories of addicts, repentant abusive parents, economic distress, mental illness, terminal illness, and the darker side of life and the Savior reaching out to heal.

I also like President Nelson’s recent call to the Youth to detach from the fake environment of social media and gather Israel.

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Here are the URLS for the Church's series of "Now You Know" infographic YouTube videos:

A few thoughts:

1. These videos are still (as in as recently as May 9, 2019) using the "Mormon" label, albeit as a introduction into the preferred references to the Church and its members.

2. These videos are pretty good.  Concise, informative, and visually engaging.

3. These videos are stylistically fairly similar to "Prager University" videos (see, e.g., here).

Thanks,

-Smac

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16 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

They even threw the treasure hunting in there! Good for them! Not that that's a big deal, but it can be for some. Though it bums me out that they really didn't make much mention of Josephs Urim and Thummim/Breastplate, they didn't really make clear the difference between the stones and the spectacles. 

The U&T was with Joseph and the Church in Nauvoo, in 1830, maybe 1844. I wonder if the Church still has it. 

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5 hours ago, The Nehor said:

The Urim and Thummim, along with the breastplate and spectacles, was returned to Moroni after the translation was finished.

Actually a bit more complicated. There's some evidence they were taken after the 116 pages were lost and never returned. However there's then some who think they were returned and used for an unknown period until he switched to using his other seer stone. From Darkness Unto Light goes through some of the various arguments. I don't think there's consensus as to when it happened, although I think most favor it not being returned when the translation restarts. 

 

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24 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Actually a bit more complicated. There's some evidence they were taken after the 116 pages were lost and never returned. However there's then some who think they were returned and used for an unknown period until he switched to using his other seer stone. From Darkness Unto Light goes through some of the various arguments. I don't think there's consensus as to when it happened, although I think most favor it not being returned when the translation restarts. 

 

Quite right, I forgot about that. I subscribed to the “given back afterwards theory” but I should have pointed out that it is not settled nor is it ever likely to be.

Edited by The Nehor
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12 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Quite right, I forgot about that. I subscribed to the “given back afterwards theory” but I should have pointed out that it is not settled nor is it ever likely to be.

Yup me too. But I think we're in the minority.

2 hours ago, Bill “Papa” Lee said:

The U&T was with Joseph and the Church in Nauvoo, in 1830, maybe 1844. I wonder if the Church still has it. 

Joseph's seer stones get called U&T later. So a lot of references to the U&T are actually to one of Joseph's two seer stones. (The white one and the more significant brown one which the Church printed the photos of) There remains debate if Joseph continued to use the stones with the Bible translation and the later Book of Abraham translation. I don't think he did, but one can definitely make a case they were in use.

Edited by clarkgoble
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2 hours ago, Bill “Papa” Lee said:

The U&T was with Joseph and the Church in Nauvoo, in 1830, maybe 1844. I wonder if the Church still has it. 

Most people assume the Urim and Thumim was returned to the angel with the plates, but I can't find a contemporary source for this fact. 

 

5 hours ago, snowflake said:
6 hours ago, LoudmouthMormon said:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/seer-stone

https://nypost.com/2015/08/04/mormons-publish-photos-of-seer-stone-used-by-joseph-smith/

Seer stone is sitting in a drawer somewhere.  Not sure about the spectacles/breastplate.

So cool, Joseph had several stones I think? 

The Brown seer stoned is talked about in the October 2015 Ensign with a photo. It's interesting that the only other mentioning of it for a long time was in a 1974 Children's Friend article.
Otherwise you have to dig into the Journals and Church history volumes to read about it. 
 

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1 hour ago, JAHS said:

The Brown seer stoned is talked about in the October 2015 Ensign with a photo. It's interesting that the only other mentioning of it for a long time was in a 1974 Children's Friend article.
Otherwise you have to dig into the Journals and Church history volumes to read about it. 

While the Children's Friend describes it the stone is actually mentioned in lots of other articles. Its color is just not usually mentioned. 

1 hour ago, JAHS said:

Most people assume the Urim and Thumim was returned to the angel with the plates, but I can't find a contemporary source for this fact. 

There's a fair bit of evidence that Joseph had trouble using the supplied spectacles because they were so large. The assumption was that the brown seer stone was easier. That's according to the late memory of Martin Harris (Deseret Evening News, Dec 13, 1881) 

For the spectacles being taken it's in Joseph Smith, History A1, 11. They were taken at least twice. Lucy Mack Smith said that after the initial taking that Joseph got them back. (Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches, 126) There's some disagreement on dating but it appears the initial return was around Sept 22, 1828. See From Darkness Unto Light for more discussion and sources.

 

Edited by clarkgoble
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29 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

For the spectacles being taken it's in Joseph Smith, History A1, 11. They were taken at least twice. Lucy Mack Smith said that after the initial taking that Joseph got them back. (Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches, 126) There's some disagreement on dating but it appears the initial return was around Sept 22, 1828. See From Darkness Unto Light for more discussion and sources.

So when Joseph returned the plates for the last time to the cave in the Hill Cumorah did he also return the Urim and Thumim at that time?

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1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

While the Children's Friend describes it the stone is actually mentioned in lots of other articles. Its color is just not usually mentioned. 

There's a fair bit of evidence that Joseph had trouble using the supplied spectacles because they were so large. The assumption was that the brown seer stone was easier. That's according to the late memory of Martin Harris (Deseret Evening News, Dec 13, 1881) 

For the spectacles being taken it's in Joseph Smith, History A1, 11. They were taken at least twice. Lucy Mack Smith said that after the initial taking that Joseph got them back. (Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches, 126) There's some disagreement on dating but it appears the initial return was around Sept 22, 1828. See From Darkness Unto Light for more discussion and sources.

 

The brown seerstone was used for all of the book of Mormon we have today.  Joseph found it by borrowing Sally's green glass. Through the green glass Joseph discovered in vision the location of the brown seer stone underground in an iron kettle near lake Erie.  White seer stone used for envisioning the location of the tumbaga plates

Edited by blueglass
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59 minutes ago, blueglass said:

The brown seerstone was used for all of the book of Mormon we have today.  Joseph found it by borrowing Sally's green glass. Through the green glass Joseph discovered in vision the location of the brown seer stone underground in an iron kettle near lake Erie.  White seer stone used for envisioning the location of the tumbaga plates

Wasn't the stripped stone found while digging a well?

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9 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I thought this got buried when the church put up the 70 videos on pornography, according to some out there.

Some out there are mad, and you may want to stop taking them seriously. Why on earth would the Church produce a video and then try to bury it? Seriously? 

Like The Nehor, I had this video show up in my 'recommended' list a couple of nights ago. Apparently the Church is not only devious, but it's also incompetent. It produces a video that it plans to 'bury' and then forgets to not promote it ...

Regarding Joseph's seer stones, I've shared on this forum before Kenneth Godfrey's experience in the First Presidency vault with Pres Harold B. Lee. When he asked Pres Lee what was in a paper shopping bag, Pres Lee said it was a seer stone; this was so that he could carry it to and from home easier. Bro Godfrey said he didn't know which possibility amused him more: 1) that Pres Lee transported a seer stone in a shopping bag or 2) that Pres Lee was willing to have him on in that way and without any indication of making a joke.

Edited by Hamba Tuhan
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3 hours ago, SettingDogStar said:

Wasn't the stripped stone found while digging a well?

No, the brown Jasper Genesis stone was the first stone discovered when Joseph borrowed Sallys glass when he was 13.  The white gazelem stone was the 2nd stone discovered while digging a well for Willard Chase using the brown as a scrying aid.  This is what culminates in the battle of the seers saga.

 

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5 minutes ago, blueglass said:

No, the brown Jasper Genesis stone was the first stone discovered when Joseph borrowed Sallys glass when he was 13.  The white gazelem stone was the 2nd stone discovered while digging a well for Willard Chase using the brown as a scrying aid.  This is what culminates in the battle of the seers saga.

 

Ah, I was confused about which color came from where. Man, with all the stones Joseph was just running across as a kid you'd think I could find one pretty easy haha

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