Use Of The Urim And Thummim In Translating The Book Of Mormon

[Uncle Dale]

The Urim and Thummim that was deposited with the gold plates by Moroni was used to translate the first part of the BoM, but when Martin Harris lost it, Moroni took away the Urim and Thummim and the Gold Plates. The Plates were eventually returned, but the Urim and Thummim were not. Joseph used various seer stones to translate the rest of the Book of Mormon

Where did Moroni get it from and who fabricated it?

Or, if not exactly fabricated it, who first made use of

it -- and what was its resemblance/relation to the

oracular thing reportedly employed by Samuel, et al?

UD

[omni]

Where did Moroni get it from and who fabricated it?

Or, if not exactly fabricated it, who first made use of

it -- and what was its resemblance/relation to the

oracular thing reportedly employed by Samuel, et al?

UD

I'm not sure how this whole story even makes sense. God punishes JS by taking away the UT and then gives him the seer stone in its place. Wouldn't the seer stone and its ability to display the text be an improvement over the UT which JS claimed was too big for him?

[Uncle Dale]

I'm not sure how this whole story even makes sense. God punishes JS by taking away the UT and then gives him the seer stone in its place. Wouldn't the seer stone and its ability to display the text be an improvement over the UT which JS claimed was too big for him?

 

Perhaps somebody more acquainted with LDS History can

inform us WHEN Joseph Smith, Jr. first made use of a

"seer-stone" (or, a "peep-stone," as they were often called).

 

Was it before or after he first used a divining rod?

Did he use a stone to locate water wells in New York State?

Did his use of such a stone (to tell fortunes, locate lost cattle,

find missing farm implements, tools, etc.) help prepare him

for proper use of the sacred U&T (when he finally got it)?

 

The sequence of events I keep reading in these postings

seems to me to be just a little out of joint.

 

But, perhaps I'm wrong, and the Smith family had nothing

to do with divining rods, peepstones, etc., prior to the

fall of 1827.

 

Inquiring minds wish to know...

 

UD

[Stargazer]

I PM'ed california boy in order to specially thank him for starting this thread because of the very interesting and informative discussion that it engendered. He responded and asked me a question, my answer to which he agreed should probably be posted in the thread. So here it is.

It has been an interesting discussion for me as well. It does bring up as many questions as it does answers. The biggest question for me is, why were the Golden Plates even made. Since according to Emma, Joseph used the seer stone in the hat to translate all of the Book of Mormon except the part that was lost by Martin Harris. Since God provided a backup record to the Book of Lehi, it seems to me the Gold Plates were a complete waste of time. Am I missing something? Or is that how you are also interpreting how things played out?

I don't see it as any waste of time at all, actually. We humans need something concrete that we can relate to when it comes to spiritual matters. I don't know if you ever saw Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, or not. I didn't, but Gibson made the physical suffering of Jesus the focus of the whole event. But in reality Jesus's physical suffering due to the torture before and during the crucifixion was nothing compared to the suffering he was enduring due to the Atonement itself, which occurred more or less in parallel with it. We could not "see" and relate to the Atoning sacrifice, because it had no outward component (except possibly for the bloody sweat). But we could definitely see and relate to the crucifixion, which had nothing to do with the Atonement (in my humble opinion).

By the same token, the gold plates could just have remained in heaven the entire time, and God could have dictated the text of the Book of Mormon to Joseph. Yet because we needed a physical item to focus on, they were provided in order to meet that need. The Three Witnesses needed to see the physical items, and so did the Eight Witnesses. And so did Joseph Smith. That Joseph could eventually not need the physical plates does not make them unnecessary or a waste of time.

I probably ought to post this in the thread.

There is certainly way more to undrestanding the role of the Urim and Thurmmim than I origially thought.

That much is certain.

[Robert F. Smith]

...........................................................  

As for biblical oracular stones, oracular stones

transported by refugees from Babel's tower,

oracular stones consulted by Lehites, Mulekites,

Zarahemlaites, or any other manner of ites,......................

.................................................................

Come on, Dale.  Get real!!  Of course the Book of Mormon never mentions "Babel's tower," even though you imagine that it relates to the Jaredites.

In fact the biblcial Tower of Babel is a post-exilic (post Lehite) glosse on the Hebrew and Greek texts of the Bible.

 

The Jaredites appropriately come from the aftermath of the building of a Great Tower (ziggurat) and Confusion of Languages, which is based on incidents taking place in the 4th millennium B.C.  In fact we have a Sumerian story of that confusion of tongues.

[Robert F. Smith]

..........................................

.......................let me ask you

a question on marginally related ark topic.

 

Supposing the Father Noah took off with an ark filled with

animals, embarking from a rain-drenched South Carolina

(or wherever Meridan Magazine writers are prone to say),

which eventually made it to the other side of a flood-subsiding

globe.... then did the animals disembark, and re-populate

planet earth?

 

Were ancestors of our modern horses guests aboard that craft?

........................................................

......................................................I simply

wish to know which breed of horses Mormons typically assume

were taken aboard the ark, and why their descendants never

made it back to Oregon, and elsewhere in the New World

(while racoons so successfully made the migration from the

plains of Shinar, so as not to have left a single bone behind)?

The equine ancestor of modern horses originated in the Americas, but that does not mean that any horses were taken aboard Noah's Ark, which may have braved a local flood and ended up in the ocean, finally docking on the other side of the planet during a brief letup in the great Pluvial rains at the end of the last Ice Age.  I won't go into the ups and downs of ocean levels during that extended period from the Ice Age to more recent times, but the fluctuations were considerable, and you may even have heard of Beringia, which allowed humans and animals to cross in both directions from American to Asia over a long period.  The horse is believed by most scholars to have crossed from America to Asia (and beyond) by that means.  If you are interested, you can study horse evolution at many online sites.

 

Things I never got around to asking, when I lived in "The Valley."

............................

You mean the Valley of Adam ondi Ahman?  Or "Happy Valley"?  

Edited February 8, 2015 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

And if I had a few million dollars I would go down there and look for it.

I know of one RLDS young man who spent a lot time in Mesoamerica looking for the cache of records left by Mormon, and he came back with all manner of hair raising stories of spiritual derring do, but he never found those records.

[omni]

Perhaps somebody more acquainted with LDS History can

inform us WHEN Joseph Smith, Jr. first made use of a

"seer-stone" (or, a "peep-stone," as they were often called).

Was it before or after he first used a divining rod?

Did he use a stone to locate water wells in New York State?

Did his use of such a stone (to tell fortunes, locate lost cattle,

find missing farm implements, tools, etc.) help prepare him

for proper use of the sacred U&T (when he finally got it)?

The sequence of events I keep reading in these postings

seems to me to be just a little out of joint.

But, perhaps I'm wrong, and the Smith family had nothing

to do with divining rods, peepstones, etc., prior to the

fall of 1827.

Inquiring minds wish to know...

UD

You're correct about JS using the seer stone for years before his translation of the BoM. Which is why the story doesn't make sense to me. Why punish him by making him use a device that was more familiar to him and seemingly easier to use?

[Uncle Dale]

You're correct about JS using the seer stone for years before his translation of the BoM. Which is why the story doesn't make sense to me. Why punish him by making him use a device that was more familiar to him and seemingly easier to use?

Back when I lived in Utah, I was talked into taking some Institute

classes in the LDS building adjacent to the Weber State campus.

I didn't always pay attention to the lessons, but I did take notes,

kept the assigned texts, and most of the handouts.

In all of that, there was one mention of a "seer stone," and that

was in a footnote -- the implication being that it was a sacred

gift provided to the translator of the Nephite Record AFTER

the urim and thummim had been removed from his keeping.

This matter was only mentioned in conjunction with the teaching

that Joseph Smith, Jr. hardly EVER sinned, and that his loss of

the U&T was a relatively minor punishment, for having trusted

a friend (Martin Harris) just a little too much. A minor punishment

for a minor transgression.

Is that what Mormons today are taught? That a sacred seer-stone

was given to Joseph Smith (for the very first time) as a sort of

compensation for his having lost stewardship of the U&T?

UD

Edited February 8, 2015 by Uncle Dale

[Uncle Dale]

....

 

You mean the Valley of Adam ondi Ahman?  Or "Happy Valley"?  

 

 

Letmeseenow... the Governor of that place provided an introduction

to its official published Atlas, commending a certain MD&D cartographer

who drew up that set of maps for the faithful Church School's press...

 

Ah yes, here it is...  "That valley unto which our first ancestors did

flee, when expelled from the paradise given unto them. For they did

grievously sin, seeking the fruits of forbidden knowledge, etc. etc."

 

Yep -- that can only be Deserert, July 24, 1847.

 

Next question?

 

UD

[Uncle Dale]

...that does not mean that any horses were taken aboard Noah's Ark...

 

Makes sense to me. The Oregon cave dwellers ate up the last of

those horses (whether before, during or after any great Israelite

migration back to Noah's homeland).

 

But, if the waters were sufficient to require loading up a boat full

of South Carolina critters (because the flood would kill them off)

why did the waters not reach up so high as the Oregon cave?

A local flood in and around the Fort Sumter site, perhaps? And

yet so huge that the waters of the deep and the storehouse of

the firmament thus unleashed floated Noah to Mesopotamia?

 

And, if a tower reaching to the sky was an addition to the Word of God,

inserted by the Great and Abominable Church (into both the Hebrew

text, examples of which were preserved at Qumran, and the LXX read

by St. Paul and associates), then why did Joseph Smith not correct

that corruption of plain and precious parts when he revamped the text?

 

Perhaps THAT is why the JST is not canonized -- it will remain "unfinished"

until that particular literary blunder can be removed from the Holy Writ.

 

Nice to know, however, that those horse-eating Oregon cave-dwellers

spoke the original Adamic language of Enoch, Noah and the Jaredites.

If any of them survived the flood, perhaps they retained enough of that

original lingo to fashion a welcome home banner for the barge migrants.

 

Oh well...

 

UD

[Stargazer]

I know of one RLDS young man who spent a lot time in Mesoamerica looking for the cache of records left by Mormon, and he came back with all manner of hair raising stories of spiritual derring do, but he never found those records.

I suppose he never wrote a book about it. Pity.

[Stargazer]

Is that what Mormons today are taught? That a sacred seer-stone

was given to Joseph Smith (for the very first time) as a sort of

compensation for his having lost stewardship of the U&T?

 

UD

Actually, I don't know that I was "taught" it, but what I remember is that he found this stone while digging a well, which I guess would have been before he was given the plates the first time. Did I read this in some Church manual? That's what I seem to remember, but it was so long ago that I really don't remember the circumstances.

I also remember the story of one his scribes having found a stone which was a dead-ringer for the seerstone, who then proceeded to switch them while they were taking a break. When Joseph went back to translating, suddenly he couldn't do it any longer and got very agitated. Until the scribe admitted what he had done and gave the seerstone back.

Which suggests to me that it wasn't just a trick, that that particular stone had been imbued with power.

Edited February 8, 2015 by Stargazer

[Uncle Dale]

...

Which suggests to me that it wasn't just a trick, that that particular stone had been imbued with power.

Having been originally taught these arcane mysteries in a totally

different church, I may have been given the wrong history, but in

was told this --

That after Oliver had returned from his first trip to Missouri, Joseph

gave him the seer-stone, saying that it would not be needed for

receiving future revelation (the vision of the three degrees of glory,

given at Hiram, Ohio, at about that time, JST translation, etc.)

That Oliver faithfully kept and guarded the holy object, until his

death, whereupon Phineas Young requested that the sacred rock

be returned to the Church -- and it was -- and that Brigham Young

displayed it in St. George, and later received revelation from it,

which aided in his selecting the exact site for the Salt Lake Temple.

Now, was THAT the same stone Joseph Smith consulted, in locating

Martin Harris' dropped toothpick? Or the stone which made all things

inside the white top hat "dark as Egypt?"

I dunno... Martin seems to have been the sort of guy who would

instantly turn and look, the moment somebody shouted "squirrel!"

I'd guess that he was fooled more than once, and not just by

Shaker holy books and J. J. Strang.

UD

[omni]

Back when I lived in Utah, I was talked into taking some Institute

classes

In all of that, there was one mention of a "seer stone," and that

Is that what Mormons today are taught? That a sacred seer-stone

was given to Joseph Smith (for the very first time) as a sort of

compensation for his having lost stewardship of the U&T?

UD

My understanding is that Joseph found the stone while digging a well and used it to aid him in his "money digging" ventures. He was then commanded by God to use the stone in translating the plates after the U&T was taken from him.

[Sevenbak]

Makes sense to me. The Oregon cave dwellers ate up the last of

those horses (whether before, during or after any great Israelite

migration back to Noah's homeland).

 

But, if the waters were sufficient to require loading up a boat full

of South Carolina critters (because the flood would kill them off)

why did the waters not reach up so high as the Oregon cave?

A local flood in and around the Fort Sumter site, perhaps? And

yet so huge that the waters of the deep and the storehouse of

the firmament thus unleashed floated Noah to Mesopotamia?

 

And, if a tower reaching to the sky was an addition to the Word of God,

inserted by the Great and Abominable Church (into both the Hebrew

text, examples of which were preserved at Qumran, and the LXX read

by St. Paul and associates), then why did Joseph Smith not correct

that corruption of plain and precious parts when he revamped the text?

 

Perhaps THAT is why the JST is not canonized -- it will remain "unfinished"

until that particular literary blunder can be removed from the Holy Writ.

 

Nice to know, however, that those horse-eating Oregon cave-dwellers

spoke the original Adamic language of Enoch, Noah and the Jaredites.

If any of them survived the flood, perhaps they retained enough of that

original lingo to fashion a welcome home banner for the barge migrants.

 

Oh well...

 

UD

(Ahem) That there is a whole lot of assuming going on... No matter what one's stance is on official doctrine, it must not be brushed aside the fact that this is published in several manuals, including Institute manuals and has been taught by several GA's, that the separation of the continents to their current location happened after the flood, in the days of Peleg.

[Uncle Dale]

(Ahem) That there is a whole lot of assuming going on... No matter what one's stance is on official doctrine, it must not be brushed aside the fact that this is published in several manuals, including Institute manuals and has been taught by several GA's, that the separation of the continents to their current location happened after the flood, in the days of Peleg.

 

 

A matter of great controversy -- when I took Geology classes

at Weber. Both profs Moyle and Buss were PhD geologists

and faithful, life-long Mormons. However, Dr. Buss was a

disciple of Talmadge, while Dr. Moyle viewed that Apostle

turned scientist, as a radical, wooly-headed liberal.

 

On Tuesday Buss would carefully explain to us how the very

similar strata found on the Brazilian and West African coasts

had been parted by eons of seafloor spreading, and that the

switches in polarity of radiating deposits on either side of the

Atlantic Ridge helped scientists in dating the velocity of spread.

 

Then, on Thursday, Moyle would stand at the same lecturn, in

the same classroom, and give equal time to Peleg, the Book of

Mormon, and explanations of how Noah's flood carved out the

Grand Canyon in the blinking of an eye.

 

Now, Moyle did not receive his doctorate by spouting such nonsense

to a Gentile dissertation review committee: so, I conclude that he was

simply "playing to the crowd" of almost exclusively LDS listeners.

And, perhaps knowing I was a listener to Josephite apostasy, felt

comfortable in temporarily including me with "the faithful" for such

extra-curricular counsel (paid for by taxing the non-LDS of Utah, as

well as the "Saints")...

 

Oh well,

 

UD

[Uncle Dale]

Come on, Dale.  Get real!!

...

 

 

One way to strive in that direction would be to share our

respective notions with some objective, disinterested scholars, 

noted scientists, and respected academicians. See what they say.

 

And no, Creation Scientists, Bob Jones University Scriptarians

and emeritus Cardston Temple Presidents would not qualify as

"objective," (even if they happen to be entirely disinterested)...

 

UD

[Uncle Dale]

My understanding is that Joseph found the stone while digging a well and used it to aid him in his "money digging" ventures. He was then commanded by God to use the stone in translating the plates after the U&T was taken from him.

 

 

I took the trouble to inquire of a member of the RLDS First Presidency

(when RLDS was still a valid term) whether or not our first president had

ever been employed as a treasure seeker -- I did not mention any "stones."

 

"No," he said (and here I paraphrase from memory) -- "he was hired to dig

for wells, and once he was hired to dig for a covered-up Spanish mine in

New York -- but his wages were too little to live on, and he concluded that

no silver was to be had -- so he talked his employer into giving up the work."

 

That sounded reasonable at the time -- and I did not pursue the matter again

for quite a while. Then somebody told me that there were no silver deposits

anywhere near the banks of the Susquehanna -- let alone a vein of the 

precious metal so extensive as to lure greedy miners all the way from Madrid,

(or from St. Augustine, Santa Fe, or wherever). Puzzling, eh?

 

Enough of a puzzlement to lead to my first purchase of Sister Brodie's book.

 

UD

Edited February 8, 2015 by Uncle Dale

[Sevenbak]

A matter of great controversy -- when I took Geology classes

at Weber. Both profs Moyle and Buss were PhD geologists

and faithful, life-long Mormons. However, Dr. Buss was a

disciple of Talmadge, while Dr. Moyle viewed that Apostle

turned scientist, as a radical, wooly-headed liberal.

 

On Tuesday Buss would carefully explain to us how the very

similar strata found on the Brazilian and West African coasts

had been parted by eons of seafloor spreading, and that the

switches in polarity of radiating deposits on either side of the

Atlantic Ridge helped scientists in dating the velocity of spread.

 

Then, on Thursday, Moyle would stand at the same lecturn, in

the same classroom, and give equal time to Peleg, the Book of

Mormon, and explanations of how Noah's flood carved out the

Grand Canyon in the blinking of an eye.

 

Now, Moyle did not receive his doctorate by spouting such nonsense

to a Gentile dissertation review committee: so, I conclude that he was

simply "playing to the crowd" of almost exclusively LDS listeners.

And, perhaps knowing I was a listener to Josephite apostasy, felt

comfortable in temporarily including me with "the faithful" for such

extra-curricular counsel (paid for by taxing the non-LDS of Utah, as

well as the "Saints")...

 

Oh well,

 

UD

 

The Salt Lake based LDS Church Correlation Committee does not agree with you.  In fact, such "nonsense" as you say, is systematically and routinely taught to the youth of the LDS Church.

 

I'm not sure what the RLDS factions teach, but here's what we do.

 

 

 

 

https://www.lds.org/manual/doctrine-and-covenants-student-manual/sections-132-138/section-133-the-lords-appendix-to-the-doctrine-and-covenants?lang=eng

 

  D&C 133:23–24. Will the Continents Be Rejoined?

Genesis indicates that in the early history of the world the land masses were united. Moses recorded that one of the great-great-grandsons of Shem was named Peleg (a Hebrew word meaning division) because “in his days was the earth divided” (Genesis 10:25). Many scholars have passed this reference off as meaning some sort of cultural or political division, but modern prophets have taught that this statement should be taken literally.

An article published early in the history of the Church under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith stated: “The Eternal God hath declared that the great deep shall roll back into the north countries and that the land of Zion and the land of Jerusalem shall be joined together, as they were before they were divided in the days of Peleg. No wonder the mind starts at the sound of the last days!” (“The Last Days,” Evening and Morning Star, Feb. 1833, p. 1.)

President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote: “If … the earth is to be restored as it was in the beginning, then all the land surface will again be in one place as it was before the days of Peleg, when this great division was accomplished. Europe, Africa, and the islands of the sea including Australia, New Zealand, and other places in the Pacific must be brought back and joined together as they were in the beginning.” (Answers to Gospel Questions, 5:74.)

In an introduction to a book on continental drift, a scientist writes:

“Formerly, most scientists regarded the earth as rigid and the continents as fixed, but now the surface of the earth is seen as slowly deformable and the continents as ‘rafts’ floating on a ‘sea’ of denser rock. The continents have repeatedly collided and joined, repeatedly broken and separated in different patterns, and, very likely, they have grown larger in the process.

“This scientific revolution, as others before it, was long in the making, but it was not until the late 1960s that it began to succeed. At a meeting of the world’s geophysicists in August of 1971, it was made clear that the notion of continental drift, which had been heresy only a few years before, had become the orthodoxy of the great majority.” (Continents Adrift, preface.)

 

Though the time of this division of the land is placed much earlier by scientists than by the biblical chronology, the idea of one land mass is widely accepted. This revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 133declares that sometime in the future that geographical unity will be restored.

[Uncle Dale]

...

...

the idea of one land mass is widely accepted.

...

 

Oh, I doubt that there was ever a lengthy period in geologic

history when ALL the surface rocks were merged into a single

pile. Even in the most consolidated of continental situations, 

there would have been a stray island land mass mere, and

a Greenlan-sized mini-continent there.

 

However, generalizing that situation to "nearly all the lands

were joined," or some such compromise language, that still

leaves the geological oddity that Walter Buss first pointed out

to my impressionable young mind -- namely, that the continents

have always been drifting around at about the same average

rate as they have been doing so in historic times...

 

... and that the topography of the seafloor on the east and west

sides of the mid-atlantic ridge is consistent with the fact of that

extremely slow continental movement -- the magnetic polarity of

the igneous rock "ridges" flanking the center-line of spreading

agreeing with astronomical calculations of how often the actual 

magnetic field of the earth reverses itself.

 

Let's say that such things once happened much more quickly

than during the past few millennia, and that the spacing between

the cooled lava lines happened in hundreds of years, rather

than millions. The notion is a ridiculous one, but if accepted,

even that calculation would have left the sundered coastlines

of South America and Brazil a veritable "stone's throw" apart

before, during and after Peleg's lengthy lifetime.

 

No -- Moyle was wrong to cite Genesis (and I suppose he knew

that), while Buss was correct in his estimation of how quickly

seafloor spreading occurs. So far as I know, no General Authority

ever took that learned teacher to task, for teaching any falsehoods.

 

UD

[Robert F. Smith]

Back when I lived in Utah, I was talked into taking some Institute

classes in the LDS building adjacent to the Weber State campus.

I didn't always pay attention to the lessons, but I did take notes,

kept the assigned texts, and most of the handouts.

In all of that, there was one mention of a "seer stone," and that

was in a footnote -- the implication being that it was a sacred

gift provided to the translator of the Nephite Record AFTER

the urim and thummim had been removed from his keeping.

Your teacher on that occasion, clearly a yokel, hadn't read much history, and so got the sequence wrong, as well as giving the wrong description of the Nephite interpreters.  They had no Urim & Thummim.

 

This matter was only mentioned in conjunction with the teaching

that Joseph Smith, Jr. hardly EVER sinned, and that his loss of

the U&T was a relatively minor punishment, for having trusted

a friend (Martin Harris) just a little too much. A minor punishment

for a minor transgression.

Joseph Smith himself did not share that lame assertion about himself, saying:

 

I fell into transgression and sinned in many things which brought a wound upon my soul and there were many things which transpired that cannot be written.  Joseph Smith Personal History (1832), [3-4], in D. Jessee, ed., The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith (1984), 6; cf. D&C 3:9.

 

. . . [A]s is common to most, or all youths, I fell into many vices and follies: . . . a light, and too often, vain mind, exhibiting a foolish and trifling conversation.

* * * * * *

. . . t is not without a deep feeling of regret that I am thus called upon in answer to my own conscience, . . in making this public confession of my former uncircumspect walk, and unchaste conversation: and more particularly, as I often acted in violation of those holy precepts which I knew came from God.  Letter of Joseph to Oliver Cowdery, ca. Dec 1834 (Jessee, Personal Writings, 336-337), and published in Latter Day Saints' Messenger & Advocate, I/3 (Dec 1834), 40.

 

. . . I was left to all kinds of temptations, and mingling with all kinds of society, I frequently fell into many foolish errors and displayed the weakness of youth and the corruption of human nature, which I am sorry to say led me into divers temptations, to the gratification of many appetites, offensive in the sight of God.  In consequence of these things I often felt condemned.  Times & Seasons, III:479.

Is that what Mormons today are taught? That a sacred seer-stone

was given to Joseph Smith (for the very first time) as a sort of

compensation for his having lost stewardship of the U&T?

UD

That may well be what yokels think and teach, Dale.  However, yokels is as yokels does.

Edited February 9, 2015 by Robert F. Smith

[Calm]

The EOM does not present it as a minor punishment for a minor sin from Joseph's POV.

 

Harris's failure to return to Harmony as promised caused Joseph great anxiety and necessitated a strenuous journey to Manchester. There, a reluctant Harris reported that someone had stolen the manuscript from his home after he had broken his covenant and indiscriminately showed it to persons outside his family. Grief-stricken, Joseph Smith readily shared responsibility for the loss. The most widespread rumor was that Harris' wife, irritated at having earlier been denied a glimpse of the ancient plates, had removed the manuscript translation from Martin's unlocked bureau and burned it. Not long afterward, she and Martin separated.

In consequence of this loss and of having wearied the Lord with the requests to let Harris take the pages, Joseph temporarily lost custody of the plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel Moroni (D&C 3). Lucy Mack Smith notes also that two-thirds of Harris's crop was oddly destroyed by a dense fog, which she interpreted as a sign of God's displeasure (Smith, p. 132). Following much humble and painful affliction of soul, Joseph Smith again received the plates as well as the Urim and Thummim and his gifts were restored….

The loss of the 116 pages taught Joseph Smith and his associates several lessons: that one should be satisfied with the first answers of the Lord, that keeping one's covenants is a serious matter, that God forgives the repentant in spite of human weakness, and that through his caring foresight and wisdom the Lord fulfills his purposes.

 

 

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Manuscript,_Lost_116_Pages

 

As a side note, they use the term UandT for the interpreters.

[Robert F. Smith]

Makes sense to me. The Oregon cave dwellers ate up the last of

those horses (whether before, during or after any great Israelite

migration back to Noah's homeland).

 

But, if the waters were sufficient to require loading up a boat full

of South Carolina critters (because the flood would kill them off)

why did the waters not reach up so high as the Oregon cave?

A local flood in and around the Fort Sumter site, perhaps? And

yet so huge that the waters of the deep and the storehouse of

the firmament thus unleashed floated Noah to Mesopotamia?

I can't help you much, Dale, if you insist on mixing metaphors, allegories, parables, folklore, and legends with science.  You have to decide which path you wish to tread.

 

And, if a tower reaching to the sky was an addition to the Word of God,

inserted by the Great and Abominable Church (into both the Hebrew

text, examples of which were preserved at Qumran, and the LXX read

by St. Paul and associates), then why did Joseph Smith not correct

that corruption of plain and precious parts when he revamped the text?

......................................................................

Temple towers (ziggurats) had been a feature of Mesopotamian culture for thousands of years before the Israelites even existed.

 

A few years after Lehi left Jerusalem, the Jews were exiled to Babylon, where they continued to languish for several thousand years, although some exiles did return from time to time.  The time after 586 B.C. is termed "Exilic," and the period after the return of Ezra & Nehemiah is spoken of as "Post-Exilic."  It was in the post-exilic period that the Hebrew text of the OT was normalized, and when the Hebrew text was translated into Greek by Jewish scholars in Alexandria, Egypt (3rd century B.C., LXX).  We do not have that ancient Hebrew text  of the Bible today.

 

What we have today is a Hebrew text called the Massoretic Text (the traditional text passed on by the Qaraite Massoretes), the earliest text of which is ca. 900-1000 A.D.  The Hebrew fragments found at Qumran show that the LXX Greek text has many readings which are superior to the Massoretic Hebrew Text.

 

It was in the post-exilic period (the time of Babylonian Exile) that the Jews put in the explanatory glosse "Babel" in referring to the great tower and confusion of tongues story.  The Book of Mormon does not include the glosse because it is not post-exilic.  This is one of numerous such textual evidences of the antiquity of the Book of Mormon, some of which I detail in my “The Preposterous Book of Mormon: A Singular Advantage,” lecture, August 8, 2014, at the annual FAIRMORMON Conference, Provo, Utah, online at http://www.fairmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/PREPOSTEROUS-BOOK-OF-MORMON.pdf .

Edited February 9, 2015 by Robert F. Smith

[Uncle Dale]

...

 

Joseph Smith himself did not share that lame assertion about himself, saying:

 

...

 

I trust that you are correct. Disregarding any part of his life prior

to the loss of the Book of Lehi, what did President Smith say his

greatest transgression from that point onward was?

 

The Institute teacher was one of the noted Yorgason brothers

(Blaine I think it was) and in no way an idiot. His focus was not

upon Smith's activities prior to resumption of the translation

of the Nephite Record, but thereafter.

 

According to the class hand-outs Smith then had the U&T taken

away from him. Handout #12 (xeroxed) is from page 43 of Allen

and Leonard's 1976 edition of "Story of the Latter-day Saints,"

and ends with the words "but also the plates and the urim and

thummim..."

 

I do not have their 1st edition, but in the 2nd edition a similar

paragraph goes on to say "the urim and thummim were restored

to him..."

 

Interesting that the CES granted me credit for completing an

authorized class, that taught false doctrine.

 

No doubt these errors have been corrected in the 21st century

classes, yes?

 

UD