Through a Glass Darkly: Restoring Translation to the Restoration?
Author: Jeff Lindsay
Date: 2024-11-22T04:10:12+00:00
Keywords: view;translation;Book of Mormon;Urim and Thummim;interpreters;Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints;LDS;Mormonism;Ether 9;Isaiah 34
Description: 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 By Means of the Urim & Thummim, James Lucas and Jonathan Neville valiantly seek to defend Joseph Smith’s role as the divinely inspired translator, a role that they argue is incompatible with using any tool other than the Nephite “intepreters,” later called the Urim and Thummim. They offer a unique theory to account for the statements of witnesses about Joseph using a seer sto
Publisher: The Interpreter Foundation

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Through a Glass Darkly: Restoring Translation to the Restoration?

Jeff Lindsay

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 By Means of the Urim & Thummim, James Lucas and Jonathan Neville valiantly seek to defend Joseph Smith’s role as the divinely inspired translator, a role that they argue is incompatible with using any tool other than the Nephite “intepreters,” later called the Urim and Thummim. They offer a unique theory to account for the statements of witnesses about Joseph using a seer stone in a hat, arguing that it was a fake demonstration using memorized passages to satisfy onlooker curiosity about the translation process. They propose a translation model in which Joseph did more than just get impressions, but saw an incomplete or literal translation in the Urim and Thummim that left plenty of room for heavy mental effort to turn what he saw into acceptable English. While the authors seek to defend Joseph from what they view as the questionable theories of modern Church scholars, their misunderstanding and misinterpretation of both the historical record and scripture result in some errant assumptions and logical gaps that undermine their well-intentioned work.

I appreciate what James Lucas and Jonathan Neville seek to do with their book,1 which is to defend the character of Joseph Smith and the divinity of the Book of Mormon. Through their lengthy efforts to refute what they feel are new apostate theories on the translation of the Book of Mormon, they offer a deeply apologetic book that strives to be scholarly with extensive documentation and analysis. At the same time, the authors somewhat ironically malign the work of Latter-day Saint “apologists” and scholars who disagree with them on the issues they tackle. They are unwilling to let the work of such “academic scribblers” (p. 19n48) subvert what they see as core Latter-day Saint doctrines on the details of the translation of the Book of Mormon. The book, in spite of lofty intentions, often collides with reality.

The opening pages will resonate with readers who were taken aback when the Church publicly recognized that two kinds of tools were used in the translation of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith’s history makes it clear that he received an ancient tool with the gold plates known as the “interpreters,” two transparent stones set in a frame somewhat like spectacles that were had among the ancient Nephites, likely related to the two stones received by the brother of Jared (Ether 3:22–28). The interpreters would eventually be called the Urim and Thummim by Latter-day Saints, and that term was then often used to describe how the Book of Mormon was translated. But the historical record adds a complex wrinkle that some Latter-day Saints did not know about. After the loss of the 116 manuscript pages,2 the plates and presumably the Urim and Thummim were taken away from Joseph. After the items were returned to Joseph, multiple witness accounts indicated that he translated with the aid of a different revelatory tool, a seer stone he had previously found. However it functioned, the seer stone also could be called a Urim and Thummim. This raises troubling questions in the minds of some, though, because of the association of seer stones with folk magic and occult practices.

We should not be surprised that folk magic and other pagan practices imitate sacred things. Such parallels are found in crystal balls and peep stones posing as revelatory tools akin to variants of the Urim and Thummim. The world of the occult also employs imitations of ancient divine temple themes, including altars, priests, sacrifices, anointings, oaths and covenants, sacred robes, new names, prayer circles, and even temples themselves. But the allegations of Joseph’s use of folk magic in producing the Book of Mormon had been such a painful “P.R. issue” in the early days of the Church that there has long been a natural incentive to emphasize the use of the definitely-not-a-peepstone Nephite interpreters with their dual stones as the tool Joseph used, rather than even mention what so many witnesses of the translation of the Book of Mormon also observed—a different, single-stone tool, the seer stone.

Even for readers already familiar with the controversy, I believe the following passage from the Church’s statement, “Book of Mormon Translation,” provides good background for the main problem that Lucas and Neville are trying to resolve:

Joseph Smith and his scribes wrote of two instruments used in translating the Book of Mormon. According to witnesses of the translation, when Joseph looked into the instruments, the words of scripture appeared in English. One instrument, called in the Book of Mormon the “interpreters,” is better known to Latter-day Saints today as the “Urim and Thummim.” Joseph found the interpreters buried in the hill with the plates. Those who saw the interpreters described them as a clear pair of stones bound together with a metal rim. The Book of Mormon referred to this instrument, together with its breastplate, as a device “kept and preserved by the hand of the Lord” and “handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages.”

The other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or “seer stone.” As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure. As Joseph grew to understand his prophetic calling, he learned that he could use this stone for the higher purpose of translating scripture.

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. In ancient times, Israelite priests used the Urim and Thummim to assist in receiving divine communications. Although commentators differ on the nature of the instrument, several ancient sources state that the instrument involved stones that lit up or were divinely illumined. Latter-day Saints later understood the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer exclusively to the interpreters. Joseph Smith and others, however, seem to have understood the term more as a descriptive category of instruments for obtaining divine revelations and less as the name of a specific instrument.3

The problem is that many Latter-day Saints in recent decades were only aware of the “main” Urim and Thummim as the apparently sole tool for translation of the Book of Mormon. For some, learning that there was another stone like the “ordinary” folk magic stones was troubling. Lucas and Neville feel a need to come to the rescue with a theory aimed at defending our prophets and apostles from the work of critics and questionable voices within the Church introducing dangerous new ideas. The authors insist that we need to believe the (early) prophets and accept that the translation was only done by the one true “Urim and Thummim”—the Nephite interpreters—and not some other seer stone.

The authors strive to pin nearly all the blame on David Whitmer for the concept of using a seer stone for translating the Book of Mormon. He certainly has the largest body of statements about what Lucas and Neville have dubbed the “stone-in-the-hat theory.” His views are often cited by others, but he is definitely not the only source testifying to Joseph using the seer stone. Royal Skousen’s work on the witnesses to the translation will be discussed shortly, but for now it’s useful to consider an explanation that he gave to a reader who seemed to be promoting the theories of Lucas and Neville regarding seer stones:

To be specific: it isn’t just the Whitmers (David and Elizabeth); there are six other independent accounts of Joseph Smith using the seer stone. Three of them were never Mormons. Why should they all be lying; what’s the motive here, especially from two teenagers (at the time)?

Does Joseph Smith have a motive (and Oliver Cowdery) for avoiding any mention of the seer stone? Yes, because Joseph used it for treasure hunting, and he wants to avoid that virulent discussion. All the anti-Mormon works at the time attacked him for using the seer stone for that purpose. They still do.4

Regardless of who claimed to see the seer stones in use, Lucas and Neville claim that 1) only Joseph and Oliver should be trusted as they were the ones directly involved with the translation (though other scribes such as Emma also made statements supporting Joseph’s use of a seer stone), and 2) the claims of using a seer stone are understandable for they arise from seeing Joseph deceptively “demonstrate” the translation process by using a seer stone in a hat to give people an idea (a rather false idea, unfortunately) of what using the Urim and Thummim to translate sort of looked like. The “Demonstration Hypothesis” described by Lucas and Neville (pp. 82–86) strikes me as far more troubling than claims about using a seer stone to receive actual revelation. But while it seems like an unfortunate detour, it is really a key path toward their objective of denouncing the theory to which they assign the ominous acronym of “SITH” (Stone In The Hat).

While the Demonstration Hypothesis seeks to guide readers into ignoring what they’ve read about the use of seer stones since they were just a prop used for a fake demonstration and not for real translation, the authors go on to explain how real translation was done. In light of evidence that Joseph was a seer and saw something in the translators, they conclude that he had to see something in English, but not enough to just easily dictate the text. What he saw was a crude, possibly literal translation—I prefer the term “fractional translation” to indicate that only a fraction of the heavy lifting was done by Urim and Thummim. This way he still had to exert great effort and “study it out” in his mind (Doctrine & Covenants 9:8) to obtain the complete translation expressed in his own dialect, grammar errors and all. Fractional translation raises another set of problems on its own.

But long before the authors get so far afield with questionable peripheral theories to try to explain away counterevidence and meet the constraints that they perceive, they do provide an initial argument for the use of only one translation device that seems simple and reasonable, and may be the main appeal of the book for some readers. They explain that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery both wrote letters indicating that the translation was done using the Urim and Thummim (pp. 5–10). The authors show statements and cite several sources arguing that the term Urim and Thummim was generally understood to be the Nephite interpreters (pp. 95–97). The authors then argue that only the Nephite interpreters were used based on these statements (pp. 77–80, 95–110). Since Joseph and Oliver knew best, we should reject other voices with other theories and accounts. Some readers will find this appealing and comforting—respect the prophets, reject the scholars and apologists (the two sets of bad actors frequently chastised in the book). What seems unresolved is how this approach squares with respect for today’s prophets and apostles who find the historical evidence compelling that a seer stone as well as the Nephite translators were involved in Joseph’s work.

Those statements from Joseph and Oliver do not explicitly say that Joseph only used the Nephite Urim and Thummim (the two stones set in a frame like spectacles) and do not rule out the possibility of also using another Urim and Thummim in the form of a seer stone.

As an aside, I agree with Lucas and Neville as they make the reasonable assumption that the Nephite interpreters held by king Mosiah2 and used to translate the Jaredites plates, described as “two stones which were fastened into the two rims of a bow” (Mosiah 28:13), were the Jaredite interpreters (or made therefrom) and the same ones that were delivered to Joseph Smith (pp. 87–88). However, Lucas and Neville do not address the problem that comes with this natural assumption: If Mosiah2’s interpreters are the same as the two stones the Lord gave to the brother of Jared and the “interpreters” mentioned in Alma 37:21–25, then how did Mosiah2 obtain them, given that they were mentioned by Ammon to king Limhi in Mosiah 8:13 before the plates of Ether were brought back to be translated by Mosiah2? They didn’t come to him with Ether’s plates. John Tvedtnes raised three possibilities: 1) the Lord could have simply given them to Mosiah2, 2) the Nephites found them, or 3) they came into possession of the Mulekites somehow, who gave them to Mosiah2.5 Brant Gardner also discusses the issue in his detailed six-volume commentary and finds Tvedtnes’s suggestions plausible.6

This problem may be best resolved by Don Bradley’s findings in The Lost 116 Pages, where he explores the provenance of the Nephite interpreters and points to a clue from the Fayette Lapham interview of Joseph Smith regarding an event that may have been described on the lost initial portion of the Book of Mormon translation (commonly called the “lost 116 pages”). That clue suggests that Mosiah1 may have found the Jaredite interpreters (possibly with the sealed record of the brother of Jared, distinct from the twenty-four plates of Ether) while leading his people from the land of Nephi to Zarahemla.7 This approach would fall under Tvedtnes’s proposal #2. I find Bradley’s proposal reasonable and seemingly capable of resolving several problems with its explanatory power, but it is still speculative. The important, thing, though, is that Joseph received the Nephite interpreters, whatever their source, though it seems likely that they were connected to the stones the brother of Jared received.

As Lucas and Neville observe, the statements mentioning the Urim and Thummim from Oliver and Joseph give no hint about the use of a single seer stone in a hat. The challenge comes when squaring those statements with many other statements, especially from witnesses of the translation process and people quoting what they said they heard from Joseph and Oliver. When Lucas and Neville seek to resolve those issues, the effort becomes problematic. When they then propose speculative details for how the translation was done, while chastising apologists and professors for proposing other possibilities, they get even further off track. To properly understand the project of Lucas and Neville, it is helpful to recall a related project over a century ago.

B.H. Roberts Revisited

The authors view the use of seer stones for translation as the modern mischief of unfaithful apologists and scholars seeking to embrace troubling secular teachings that can shatter delicate testimonies. They view the notion of Joseph reading a finished translation in seer stones or even the Nephite interpreters as a harmful doctrine that undercuts his role as a prophet. Over a hundred years ago, Latter-day Saint General Authority B.H. Roberts had similar concerns, not about new-fangled theories from apostate scholars, but about the widespread traditional views about the translation process—namely, the old notion, even the original notion, that Joseph’s use of translation tools allowed him to read the finished translation. Roberts is quoted several times by Lucas and Neville, but the historical context of Robert’s reformation campaign seems to be absent.

One source that provides the background story involving B.H. Roberts is cited by the authors, a chapter by John-Charles Duffy on the “Book of Mormon Translation” Gospel Topics Essays.8 However, Duffy is only cited as an example of another “critique” of the “Book of Mormon Translation” essay, when it might better be described as an article simply pointing out the conservative nature of the essay and its emphasis on seeing the translation rather than Joseph composing it himself. An especially valuable part of Duffy’s work is setting the historical stage for the controversy raised by the seer stones. Duffy reminds us that B.H. Roberts, one of the seven presidents of the Seventy at the time, managed to get permission from the First Presidency to publish his innovative but controversial theory on Book of Mormon translation in the 1903–1904 lesson manual for the Church’s young men’s organization.9 Due to its presence in a Church manual, this theory became known as the “Manual Theory.”

Much like the Gospel Topics essay, Roberts drew on nineteenth-century witnesses to affirm that Smith had translated the Book of Mormon with the aid of two different interpretive instruments: the Urim and Thummim and a seer stone. But that was not the innovative or controversial part of Roberts’s theory; in 1903, the seer stone was still familiar to LDS readers. What was innovative was that Roberts rejected what he called “the popular understanding among the Latter-day Saints” of how Smith had used the interpretive instruments. The popular understanding was that Smith looked into the Urim and Thummim or the seer stone and saw an English translation, which he then dictated word for word to his scribe. As Roberts described—pejoratively—this scenario: “the instruments did all, while he who used them did nothing but look and repeat mechanically what he saw there reflected.” Instead, Roberts argued for a scenario in which Smith looked at the ancient characters through the instruments, “bending every power of his mind to know the meaning thereof,” and then received mental impressions, which he had to render into “such language as [he] could command, in such phraseology as he was master of.”

In the popular scenario, Smith read an English translation that appeared to him in the interpreters; in Roberts’s new scenario, Smith composed the translation based on mental impressions he received from God. In Roberts’s scenario, the language of the English translation originated with Smith, not with the interpreters. That distinction was crucial for Roberts because it explained “the faulty English” that peppered the original edition of the Book of Mormon. It also accounted, Roberts argued, “for the sameness of phraseology and literary style which runs through the whole volume” even though the Book of Mormon supposedly contains writings by multiple ancient authors. In other words, Roberts’s aim was apologetic: he urged the LDS to abandon the idea of a read translation in favor of a composed translation in order to answer challenges to the Book of Mormon’s authenticity. Why would a revealed text contain faulty grammar? Why does the supposedly multi-authored book have only one authorial voice? Roberts’s answer: Because the language of the translation was Smith’s own, not a divine dictation.

Roberts’s composed-translation scenario “gave rise to considerable discussion within the Church,” as Roberts described the controversy later. Concerned readers of the manual wrote letters to the young men’s organization and to the church-run Deseret News. The Deseret News published an editorial supporting Roberts’s scenario, while Roberts himself responded to critics in a series of articles published in three issues of the church magazine Improvement Era in 1906.10

Roberts’s approach was not driven by data, but by an apologetic goal of defending Joseph from some misguided criticisms of his day. By understanding the errors in his assumptions and approach, we can better understand some fundamental flaws in the logic of Lucas and Neville, who in part are reinventing Roberts’s solution for similar reasons, with some similar errors, albeit with an important difference: Roberts was rejecting the traditional view of the translation of the Book of Mormon in saying that it would denigrate Joseph to have simply read the translation, while Lucas and Neville believe their similar approach is restoring the traditional view of the translation process.

Study what in your own mind? The problem with Roberts’s application of Doctrine & Covenants 9:7–9

What bothered Roberts was not the use of seer stones, but the traditional (relative to that time) understanding that Joseph saw the translation in English (or in intelligible English, unlike the crude relatively literal translation imagined by Lucas and Neville). Roberts felt that Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9 clearly showed how translation was done: it occurred in Joseph’s mind, the fruit of arduous study and inspired notions that required Joseph to compose the whole of the translation. This was needed to explain the presumed bad grammar of the dictated Book of Mormon and several elements he felt were anachronistic.

At least since the time of the Manual Theory proposed by Roberts, that passage has often been applied to suggest that Joseph needed to study the characters of the Book of Mormon—and later the Egyptian text of the Joseph Smith Papyri involved in the production of the Book of Abraham—in order to propose a translation aided somehow by impressions of the Spirit, as if many days of effort might be needed to even get a start in translating an unknown script. B.H. Roberts wrote the following in the Improvement Era in 1906 concerning Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9:

This is the Lord’s description of how Oliver Cowdery could have translated with the aid of Urim and Thummim . . . and it is undoubtedly the manner in which Joseph Smith did translate the Book of Mormon through the medium of Urim and Thummim. This description of the translation destroys the theory that the Urim and Thummim did everything, and the seer nothing; that the work of translating was merely a mechanical process of looking at a supplied interpretation, in English, and reading it off to an amanuensis. This description in the Doctrine and Covenants implies great mental effort; of working out the translation in the mind, and securing the witness of the Spirit that the translation is correct.11

But no such monumental effort appears to have been needed or noted. When Joseph Smith first got his hands on some of what came to be known as the Joseph Smith papyri, for example, the next morning he already had several pages of translation:

Arriving in Kirtland with his Egyptian artifacts, Chandler stayed at the Riggs hotel and requested an audience with Joseph Smith. According to a later recollection of John Riggs, he “was present when the Prophet first saw the papyrus from which is translated the Book of Abraham.” In examining the papyrus, the Mormon prophet was struck by what he perceived as a similarity between some of the Egyptian characters and characters of “Reformed Egyptian” that he had previously copied from the gold plates. Smith was given permission to take the papyrus home; and “the morning following Joseph came with the leaves he had translated.”12

Many indications suggest that Joseph’s translations—whether of the Bible, Egyptian papyri, other missing ancient texts, or of the Book of Mormon—did not require a lengthy period of study. True, Joseph and his peers did apply manual effort in an attempt to understand Egyptian in association with the translation of the Book of Abraham, but abundant evidence shows that this effort drew upon the already translated text rather than seeking to decipher Egyptian as a prelude to translation.13

Translation could happen quickly. The claim that he was slowly working everything out in his mind, seeking to decipher characters, and then using his own words to create the text does not fit the numerous statements of witnesses nor the meticulous analysis of the resulting texts and documents. Significant data bring together many convergent lines of analysis showing that there must have been a high level of control over the text that allows, for example, numerous traces of ancient word plays to be preserved,14 allusions to other texts within and outside the Book of Mormon to be made with precision, and influences from the brass plates to be dramatically preserved.15 Most of these would be obscured if the wording were all up to Joseph. Further, there is compelling data from Stanford Carmack and Royal Skousen that the words Joseph spoke in dictating the Book of Mormon were not his own dialect and, in fact, were not bad grammar, as B.H. Roberts mistakenly thought and as Lucas and Neville repeat.16 Just as the KJV has Early Modern English grammar and words that were already non-standard in Joseph’s day, the influences on Joseph’s dictation include Early Modern English that often predates the Bible. We don’t know why, but extensive data shows that he was not using his own dialect nor simplistically mimicking the KJV. Something else was going on that defies the model of Joseph as composer of the verbiage used in the text. Lucas and Neville dismiss the work of Carmack and Skousen, but have completely failed to engage with the extensive data. Lucas and Neville claim that the work of those who propose that Joseph read the translation instead of constantly composing the language himself are driven by a dangerous apologetic agenda (pp. 21–24; cf. p. 113), which is not true. It was the data that led Skousen and Carmack to their observations, not a previously conceived agenda. The reasons for the observed patterns are unclear, but the benefits of Early Modern English grammar for precision of meaning when translating complex sentences to other languages has been offered as a possible benefit for the large presence of Early Modern English in the Book of Mormon.17

Returning to Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9, the laborious process that would result if the passage really described how Joseph Smith translated has no support from the scribes or other witnesses of Joseph Smith’s translation. Here is another instance when Lucas and Neville would have done well to pay more attention to modern scholarship. In a 2016 paper at Interpreter, Stan Spencer provided detailed analysis of this commonly misinterpreted passage, yielding the following summary:

Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9 is conventionally interpreted as the Lord’s description of the method by which the Book of Mormon was translated. A close reading of the entire revelation, however, suggests that the Lord was not telling Oliver Cowdery how to translate but rather how to know whether it was right for him to translate and how to obtain the faith necessary to do so.18

Spencer begins by offering four reasons to question the traditional interpretation:

First, neither study nor spiritual confirmation is mentioned as a requirement for translating in the instructions to Oliver Cowdery in section 8 or anywhere else in scripture. Second, before his attempt to translate, Oliver Cowdery had been promised that he would be able to translate “according to [his] faith” (D&C 8:11). Based on this promise, his lack of success would have been due to lack of faith, not improper technique. Third, Doctrine and Covenants 9:5 observes that Oliver Cowdery “began to translate,” which suggests that he actually did translate and must have known how to do so. Fourth, Doctrine and Covenants 9:8 indicates the need to “study it out” and ask “if it be right,” but there is no obvious antecedent for the pronoun it in the revelation that is consistent with the conventional theory.19

Spencer then carefully explores the antecedents for “it” in these verses and determines that the most reasonable interpretation is that the issue is not how to translate, but whether it was the Lord’s will for Oliver to translate. Spencer concludes that “Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9 teaches us how to obtain a spiritual confirmation of a righteous desire.”20

This analysis undermines the basis of B.H. Roberts’s attack on the traditional and scriptural teaching that the work of Joseph in the role of a seer included seeing the translation. His effusive remonstrations about demeaning Joseph if the translation were simply provided to him are also misguided. Why complain about the Lord showing a vision to a seer, whether the vision is of the majesties of heaven, the needs of an individual, or a translated sentence of sacred scripture? Should we complain that the account of the crossing of the Red Sea demeans Moses if all he had to do was stretch out his staff to have the waters part without first exerting monumental strength to part the waters as much as he could on his own?

The improved understanding of Doctrine and Covenants 9:7–9 also weakens the work of Lucas and Neville, whose work of “restoring translation to the Restoration” involves denouncing a “modern” theory of Joseph reading what he saw—which turns out to be the early, traditional theory of Book of Mormon translation that offended Roberts. What they see as a restoration of tradition is actually a rejection of the traditional view before B.H. Roberts’s day, while also rejecting his Manual Theory’s model of composition without seeing text.

A critical question and Roberts’s critical response

A particularly important part of this historical background is that others in B.H. Roberts’s day already proposed the Lucas and Neville model of an imperfect, possibly literal translation being given to Joseph by sight. Roberts considered this and rejected it in light of reasonable concerns. One question that Roberts received was:

May it not have been that the Prophet did see, as related, through the Urim and Thummim the translation of each sentence from the plates into the English language, but in a so-called word for word or literal translation; and from this odd rendering, it became his task to put the sentence into readable English? Taking this view of it, we can account for how the language of the Book of Mormon is in part modern and in part decidedly ancient. The Prophet having used partly the words as they appeared, and, in order to put it into proper form, used or supplied words of his own. This will account for all errors, and place the responsibility for them where it must belong, with man and not with God. It would give due importance and credit to the sacred instruments, and would leave ample scope for the Prophet to exercise his own mental powers.21

In other words, the anonymous writer is proposing, in 1906, essentially the same translation model as Lucas and Neville, though without any express objection to a seer stone. Roberts’s response is noteworthy. After first emphasizing the absurdity of a material device having the power to translate—something that Roberts believed could only be possible with the mind—Roberts points out an obvious problem with the literal translation or “fractional translation” hypothesis:

If the Urim and Thummim possessed that intellectual power it must have been conferred upon it of God, and under that supposition, we are brought face to face again with all our old difficulties, chief of which is the question: If God created such an instrument, and conferred upon it the power to give a transliteration of the Nephite characters, how is it that he did not give it the power to translate the meaning into reasonable and readable, not to say perfect English, at first hand, and relieve us from the awkward supposition that the instrument possessed the mental power to make the literal translation from the Nephite language—which Joseph Smith was left to construct into bad English? What would be gained by the adoption of this cumbersome and, pardon me, untenable theory? And again, what occasion for it, when we have the more simple and reasonable theory of the Manual which is in accord with what God has revealed upon the subject, and not necessarily contradictory of what Messrs. Whitmer and Harris have said upon the subject? In order that this may appear, I restate the Manual theory: The Prophet saw the Nephite characters in the Urim and Thummim; through strenuous mental effort, the exercise of faith and the operation of the inspiration of God upon his mind, he obtained the thought represented by the Nephite characters, understood them in the Nephite language, and then expressed that understanding, the thought, in such language as he was master of; which language, as his mind by mental processes arranged it, was caught and held to his vision in Urim and Thummim until written by his amanuensis. That leaves all the factors involved in the work of translation in their true relation: The Urim and Thummim an aid to the Prophet in the work, yet not necessarily, and contrary to human experience and knowledge revealed of God, endowed with intellectual power; the mind of the Prophet, touched through his faith by the inspiration of God, the chief factor; the testimony of Messrs. Harris and Whitmer that both Nephite characters and the English translation appeared in the Urim and Thummim, undisturbed and unimpaired.22

Lucas and Neville are, in a sense, rekindling a debate already waged by B.H. Roberts. They rely on some of the same misunderstandings of scripture and alleged problems in the Book of Mormon, but with added concerns over seer stones that were apparently not taboo in Roberts’s day. Roberts resolved the concerns before him to achieve an apologetic goal by denying the gift of sight to the seer (no seeing of an English translation—too easy!) and requiring strenuous mental effort to translate characters in the strange way he extracted from Doctrine and Covenants 9. Lucas and Neville have similar goals and constraints, but have recognized the reality of sight in the translation. More generous than Roberts, they allow at least English text to appear as Joseph gazes into the glass, but he sees only darkly as muddled words from a literal or fractional translation of some kind are given. This still leaves us room to admire Joseph for the mighty mental struggle of piecing those clues together to make the literate, consistent, wordplay-rich text of the Book of Mormon—a text that abounds with evidence of different authors, different voices, and literary power far beyond anything Joseph could have accomplished using his language and knowledge.

Neither B.H. Roberts nor Lucas and Neville present a theory that makes sense of the scriptures, the witness statements, and the majesty of the Book of Mormon text, though they offer valuable concepts for discussion and debate.

Canonized Doctrine?

To Lucas and Neville, their beliefs about the details of the translation is a matter of canonized truth (pp. 2, 7, 13–15, 19, 21, 27, 29, 34, etc.). They state that those who spoke of using a hat were not witnesses to the actual translation and were apparently misled, albeit by Joseph and Oliver. We should rely on selected statements made about using the Urim and Thummim and believe that this can only be the Nephite interpreters. They see their views on how the translation was done as just the simple truth expressed by the canon.

Canonized doctrine? Yes, it is true that our canonized account in Joseph Smith—History refers to Joseph receiving the “Urim and Thummim” for the purpose of translating (v. 35, see also vv. 42, 52), which apparently would be later returned with the plates to Moroni (v. 59). But how those tools worked, how the translation was done, and whether or not other seer stones could be used is not a matter settled by the canon. When it comes to such details, the canon is largely silent except for the fact that it was through “the power of God” that the translation was done, for Joseph did not explain what he experienced or how he did the translation. The title page of the Book of Mormon simply says this:

To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof— . . . The interpretation thereof by the gift of God.

The first question we must ask here is what gift did Joseph receive? Was it the gift to figure out the grammar and vocabulary of a foreign script in his own mind, or the gift of being a seer—i.e., one who has the gift of visions, of seeing. In fact, the scriptures are not silent on this issue. The Book of Abraham gives us insight into the nature of the Urim and Thummim:

And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees;

And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it. (Abraham 3:1–2)

Apparently, words could also be conveyed through the Urim and Thummim, for Abraham writes of what “the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim” (v. 4), but sight is again unambiguously referenced when the Lord says, “Now, Abraham, these two facts exist, behold thine eyes see it” (v. 6).

While not explicitly a reference to a device such as the Urim and Thummim, Moses 6:35–36 describes how Enoch’s eyes were washed and anointed, enabling him to see “things which were not visible to the natural eye,” and thus he was called a “seer.”

Lucas and Neville argue that Joseph peered at the plates with the interpreters and did in fact see English text, but only a crude or literal translation that he then needed to express in his own words. A crude, literal translation, such as a word-for-word translation, is frequently unsuitable for preparing a meaningful translation. So many idiomatic and nuanced concepts are lost when crudely translated, especially when one word can have multiple meanings or when a string of words together has a meaning seemingly unrelated to the sum of the parts (e.g., common sayings such as “putting the cart before the horse”). Why would a divine translation not be at least as good as Google Translate or my preferred translation tool, ChatGPT-4o? If English text is going to be displayed, why not make it precise and accurate? This was exactly the question B.H. Roberts asked when a reader proposed that Joseph might have been given a literal translation of some kind that would get him started but still require mental effort, as discussed earlier.

While we don’t have clear statements from Joseph on what he experienced in translating, the Lord added the word “sight” in describing Joseph’s gift of translating: “God had given thee sight and power to translate” (Doctrine and Covenants 3:12). This is, of course, a canonized text indicating that the power to translate is associated with sight. This and other verses in Section 3 are quoted in Lucas and Neville’s Appendix B, but the implications of the word “sight” are not discussed by the authors.

Back to the question of what gift Joseph received, Doctrine and Covenants 5:4 addresses the issue of the gift given to Joseph: “you have a gift to translate the plates; and this is the first gift that I bestowed upon you.” Stan Spencer made an interesting observation of the implications of Joseph’s “first gift”:

According to this passage, Joseph Smith’s first and only spiritual gift up to that point was the “gift to translate.” Yet, even before he began translating, he was seeing visions (JS-H 1:21–58). It was his claim of seeing visions that provoked the persecution of ministers who believed divine visions had ceased with the apostles (JS-H 1:21–27, 58). If Joseph Smith’s “gift to translate the plates” was his “first gift,” it must have been the same as his gift for seeing visions.23

Another insight from Latter-day Saint scriptures comes from the 1843 revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 130:10, an important touchstone on what can be called a Urim and Thummim:

Then the white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17, will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one, whereby things pertaining to a higher order of kingdoms will be made known.

This undercuts the notion that all references to the Urim and Thummim in the translation process must refer to only one specific tool, the dual-stone Nephite device. Not only does this Urim and Thummim contain a single stone, but there are multiple such devices, delivered to multiple individuals.

Finally, there may be a clue in ancient scripture about the way the translation of the Book of Mormon would work. Stanford Carmack cites three verses from 2 Nephi 27 in the opening words of his 2016 article, “Joseph Smith Read the Words,” offering linguistic evidence drawing from Royal Skousen’s work suggesting that Joseph must have seen text rather than formulating it in his own words:

Wherefore thou shalt read the words which I shall give unto thee. . . . Wherefore when thou hast read the words which I have commanded thee . . . the Lord shall say unto him that shall read the words that shall be delivered him. (2 Nephi 27:20, 22, 24)24

The coming forth of the Book of Mormon as described in 2 Nephi 27 may indeed indicate that the seer would see the words of the translation, with no hint of seeing them “darkly” in the interpeters’ glass.

The Demonstration Hypothesis

A major challenge for the “no seer stone, no hat” position held by Lucas and Neville is found in the numerous accounts of Joseph translating using a hat to look at a seer stone. To cope with this, the authors have created a novel theory called the “Demonstration Hypothesis” in which Joseph and Oliver pretended to translate with a seer stone in a hat to satisfy the curiosity of those around them regarding the translation method. Since Joseph was forbidden from letting others see the interpreters, he and Oliver would occasionally engage in mock translation with a seer stone and a hat to give others a completely misleading feel for the miraculous translation process.

This novel but strange hypothesis was introduced in a prior book of Neville, A Man That Can Translate, and was rebutted in a book review by Spencer Kraus. The theory clashes with the historical record in several ways. Kraus summarizes:

Neville’s “Demonstration Hypothesis” is explored in A Man That Can Translate, arguing that Joseph recited a memorized text from Isaiah rather than translate Isaiah from the Book of Mormon record. This hypothesis, meant to redefine how Joseph Smith used a seer stone during the translation of the Book of Mormon, however, fails to deal with the historical record seriously or faithfully. Neville, in a purported effort to save Joseph Smith’s character, ironically describes Joseph as a liar, reinvigorating old anti-Latter-day Saint claims that Joseph simply recited a memorized text, even to the point that Neville defends hostile sources while targeting Church-published histories and publications. He further attacks the witnesses of the translation in an effort to discredit their testimonies regarding the seer stone, and repeatedly misrepresents these sources.25

There is no plausible basis for the far-fetched and deceptive mechanism. Indeed, the logic of it seems outlandish. Why not use ordinary spectacles with a book if Joseph translated the way the authors insist that he did? Why mislead others with a seer stone and a hat?

I appreciate the authors’ intent of defending the Restoration by respecting the words of prophets and apostles, but their approach seems to call for disrespecting modern leaders of the Church who have approved of publications openly discussing the use of a seer stone and a hat for some of the translation process.

The Church’s Gospel Topics Essay, “Book of Mormon Translation,” recognizes Joseph’s statement in the preface of the 1830 Book of Mormon: “I would inform you that I translated [the book], by the gift and power of God.”26 This essay must offend Lucas and Neville, however, in its teachings on a seer stone being used. A footnote is provided in the essay in support of the statement that Joseph and his peers used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to a seer stone as well as the Nephite interpreters:

For example, when Joseph Smith showed a seer stone to Wilford Woodruff in late 1841, Woodruff recorded in his journal: “I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the URIM & THUMMIM” (Wilford Woodruff journal, Dec. 27, 1841, Church History Library, Salt Lake City). See also Doctrine and Covenants 130:10.27

Wilford Woodruff was an apostle at the time that he bore witness to having seen the “Urim and Thummim” in the form of a singular seer stone. Thus, we have the words of an apostle as well as the words of scripture indicating that the Urim and Thummim can refer to a single stone, not just the Nephite interpreters.

Wilford Woodruff’s 1841 statement is important. To their credit, it is at least noted by Lucas and Neville, but only in a footnote, where it is largely dismissed and then misread. To set the stage for an apparent misuse of a reference, it is helpful to consider the context of the paragraph that ends with the problematic footnote:

Craig Ostler, a professor of religious education at Brigham Young University, has undertaken a comprehensive review of descriptions of the instruments used to translate the Book of Mormon. His research shows that until the 1843 revelation, no one used the term “Urim and Thummim“ to mean anything other than the interpreters and that, in fact, in the 1830s and 1840s, almost the only written references to the use of a lone seer stone are from Mormonism Unvailed.[159] Almost all of the seer stone claims do not appear until decades later, and none attempted to conflate the seer stone with the Urim and Thummim until modern scholars needed to confuse the two in order to account for this large time discrepancy between the early accounts of the interpreters and the much later appearance of the seer stone claims. (p. 79)

Footnote 159 refers to “Craig Ostler, ‘Book of Mormon Translation Instrument Descriptions: Interpreters, Urim & Thummim and Seer Stones.’” This is a presentation by Ostler at the April 2020 FIRM Foundation conference, available at https://www.bookofmormonevidence.org/streaming/videos/bom/dr-craig-j-ostler-book-of-mormon-translation-instrument-descriptions_-interpreters-urim-thummim-and-seer-stones/. This video is secured behind a paywall. Searching for written publications with this title has revealed nothing, nor is any seemingly related work listed on Ostler’s biography page at BYU. Such invisibility is not the typical end-product of a comprehensive investigation by a university professor. While whatever Ostler said remains unclear, Lucas and Neville infer that nobody except anti-Mormons referred to seer stones as the Urim and Thummim before 1843 when Doctrine and Covenants 130:10 was given. They try to couch their assertion in non-absolute terms (“. . . almost the only written references . . .”), without discussing those written references—such as Wilford Woodruff’s 1841 statement—that disprove the argument they attempt to make. In any case, Doctrine and Covenants 130:10 makes it clear that the term “Urim and Thummim” can refer to a seer stone.

In the course of trying to prove that early statements about the translation of the Book of Mormon rule out the possibility that Joseph used seer stones in some way in a significant part of his translation work, they require the faithful reader to believe that Joseph’s widely attested use of seer stones viewed in a hat was a matter of deception. They propose a mere hypothetical demonstration of the use of the divine interpreters, the Urim and Thummim. Lucas and Neville insist that when Joseph and Oliver talked about the Urim and Thummim, they only meant one thing—the Nephite interpreters.

Ironically, in their effort to take the words of the prophets and apostles seriously (more specifically, the words of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery), they run the risk of demeaning the words of modern prophets and apostles who have approved publication of information about the use of both the Nephite interpreters and a seer stone in the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Twisting and Turning

A frequent frustration for this reader is the way in which counterevidence is often turned about, especially in summary statements, as if it supported the various positions the authors take. These twistings and turnings can be frustrating, if not aggravating.

For example, we have a passage discussing what Oliver may have said about the translation method:

Although many speculated about the operation of the interpreters, only the actual translation team—Joseph and possibly Oliver—could speak from firsthand experience. Neither left a formal description of the operation of the interpreters.

However, an 1831 article claimed to relate Oliver’s testimony in a trial that Joseph “found with the plates, from which he translated his book, two transparent stones, resembling glass, set in silver bows. That by looking through these, he was able to read in English, the reformed Egyptian characters, which were engraved on the plates.”

And in 1848, as he was returning to the Church, Oliver discussed the subject with Samuel W. Richards. Years later Richards left an account of how he remembered Oliver describing the use of the Urim and Thummim. According to Richards, Oliver said the translation was “done by holding the translators over the words of the written record,” upon which “the translation appears distinctly in the instrument, which had been touched by the finger of God and dedicated and consecrated for the purpose of translating languages.”

In both of these cases, it is not clear whether Oliver spoke as an eyewitness, inferred what he thought Joseph saw, or was reporting what Joseph told him. Regardless, Oliver’s testimony is the closest we will come to an accurate account of what Joseph experienced. The key point is that Joseph was using the interpreters instrument to interact with the engravings on the plates. He was not merely reading words off a stone in a hat, unconnected with the plates. (pp. 181–82, emphasis added)

In this passage, Lucas and Neville cite Samuel Whitney Richards, who waited until 1907 to write of his 1848 conversation with Cowdery (p. 181n380), about six decades after the conversation and eight decades after the translation work. This is a second-hand account of what Oliver said and a third-hand account with respect to Joseph, if Joseph ever explained what he saw to Oliver. Further, this was recorded at an extraordinary length of time after the conversation and longer still after the translation. How can this count as meaningful evidence for what Joseph experienced? But there is an even bigger gap when the authors only see confirmation of their theory, even as it is being contradicted.

Two sources report Oliver explaining that a divine translation was seen (“was able to read in English” and “the translation appears distinctly in the instrument”). Then the authors summarize this work by restating their own opinion, as if it naturally followed from Oliver’s words: Joseph used the Urim and Thummim to “interact” with the engravings, followed with their assurance that Joseph “was not merely reading words off a stone in a hat.” No hat may have been needed with the Nephite instrument, but to say he was not reading words and not seeing the actual translation flies in the face of these two quotes. Evidence against their hypothesis is turned about and twisted violently. This would not pass academic scrutiny.

As another example, in arguing that Joseph’s mind did much of the heavy lifting in the translation, the authors discount the evidence that he was not a highly literate student. They consider his mother’s well-known statement about her family listening carefully to Joseph’s teachings, a boy “who had never read the Bible through in his life; for he was much less inclined to the perusals of books then any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study.”28 The meaning here should be clear: Joseph was not a bookworm and had not yet read the whole Bible. But Lucas and Neville still manage to see confirmation of their thesis in yet another statement that undermines it. They note that the original draft of Lucy’s history used the word “study,” and then offer a clever twist on a possible reason for the change:

Perhaps Lucy realized that the first draft conveyed a misunderstanding and she wanted to make the point that Joseph did not read/study/peruse as many books as the other children, but focused on meditation and deep study of the books he did access. (p. 167, emphasis added)

It seems more reasonable that the change, whoever made it, was to improve readability by not using “study” twice in the same sentence. Lucy does not talk about deep study of books at all, but merely of “meditation and deep study,” in contrast to the “perusals [or study] of books” by her other children. But then Lucas and Neville argue that Lucy meant that Joseph was indeed a very deep student of books, a nearly 180-degree turn in meaning achieved by adding a phrase not found in the text, “of the books he did access.” This, too, would not pass academic scrutiny.

Further, the authors turn to a current dictionary to show that “peruse” can mean to read something carefully or to read something casually. Thus, the authors argue that:

Lucy contrasted “the perusals of books” with “meditation and deep study.” This suggests she meant that the other children’s perusals were more relaxed and informal than Joseph’s “deep study.” This connotation is consistent with her observation that Joseph had not “read the Bible through,” because “meditation and deep study” requires more detailed examination of cross-references and commentaries than merely reading it through like a novel. (p. 168)

“Peruse” today can be used to refer to casual reading, just as the verb “read” can refer to casual skimming of the text. But the initial draft’s plural form, “perusals,” seems to echo the non-casual nature of the reading. Indeed, according to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the original meaning of “peruse” is “to go through searchingly or in detail, run over with careful scrutiny,” with a later meaning of “read casually” apparently first attested sometime in the nineteenth century.29 However, the Grammarist website notes that “Examples of peruse used in the newer sense (to browse or to skim) are easily found in sources from the middle 20th century, but they are rare or nonexistent before then.”30 As evidence, one can see that various forms of the word “peruse” occur four times in Lucy’s first draft, none of which require the meaning of casual reading. Further, the final version changes an instance of “reading” in the first draft to “perused” in a context that clearly involves serious effort. In the initial draft, the sentence “To accomplish this, I spent much of time my time in reading the Bible and praying”31 was changed in the final draft to: “In order to this I perused the Bible and prayed incessantly.”32 There is no hint of casual reading in her use of this word.

The point of Lucy’s passage about Joseph is how unusual it was that a son much less interested in books than her other children would suddenly have so many stories and religious teachings to share with her family. Lucas and Neville seem so bent on advancing their hypothesis that they fail to see how their novel reading does so much injustice to the text.

A Failure to Consider Related Scholarship

Lucas and Neville’s work claims to be comprehensive in considering original sources, but clearly is lacking. Several relevant and important sources are neglected, and skewed interpretations are given to accounts that don’t fit their narrative.

For example, in 2021, Royal Skousen released a 91-page pre-print of a chapter of his work on witness statements about the translation of the Book of Mormon.33 I wish that chapter had been carefully considered by the authors of By Means of Urim & Thummim. This is just a small fraction of the massive work of Royal Skousen on the translation of the Book of Mormon, a lifetime of work that has taught us much about the dictation of the Book of Mormon with implications on the translation process. Important conclusions have been elicited from the intricate details of the scribal work in the Original Manuscript which are highly consistent with Joseph reading text to a scribe, typically in chunks of about twenty words at a time, and sometimes spelling out names. A large body of evidence suggests that Joseph did indeed see text that was being revealed to him.

Skousen also carefully explores statements of witnesses and associates about the translation process, concluding that there were two methods used: a first process in which Joseph looked through the Nephite interpreters with the plates before him, and a second process in which he peered into a seer stone without the need for the plates to be exposed before him. In both processes, there is evidence that he saw something that he could read aloud. This account is by Nancy Towle, a non-member, who visited Kirtland in October 1831:

He accordingly went; and was directed by the angel to a certain spot of ground, where was deposited a ‘Box,’ and in that box contained ‘Plates,’ which resembled gold; also, a pair of ‘interpreters,’ (as he called them,) that resembled spectacles; by looking into which, he could read a writing engraven upon the plates, though to himself, in a tongue unknown.34

This statement suggests that reading was involved in the translation during the first stage (while using the interpreters).

Skousen also provides detailed documentation regarding the witnesses of the translation process during the second stage, with a stone and a hat. Here is a summary:

All eight primary witnesses of the translation independently refer to Joseph Smith using the seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon, from the beginning in the spring of 1828 in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, to the end in June 1829 at the Peter Whitmer home in Fayette, New York; that is, from some portion of the 116 pages containing the book of Lehi to the small plates of Nephi; and from the first scribes, Emma Smith, Reuben Hale, and Martin Harris, to the final scribes, Oliver Cowdery and two Whitmers, John and Christian. Nearly all mention obscuring the light or at least having the viewing occur in darkness; all explicitly state that the seer stone was placed in a hat. In these statements, there is some variety in how the seer stone is referred to: once as “the Urim and Thummim” (Joseph Knight), once as “the director” (Elizabeth Anne Whitmer), three times as simply “the stone” (Emma Smith, Elizabeth McKune, and Joseph McKune), and three times as “the seer stone” (Michael Morse, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris). By implication, there was no curtain or blanket separating Joseph Smith and his scribe. Nor did Joseph have any books, manuscripts, or notes that he was consulting.35

At the same time, we have statements from Joseph and Oliver (these are included and discussed in Skousen’s chapter, along with many other witness statements) that don’t mention the seer stone and only speak of the Urim and Thummim. Skousen proposes that both men felt a need to downplay the role of the seer stone given the trouble Joseph had already faced in that area. There’s no way to eliminate tension here: either many witness statements need to just be disregarded, or we must accept incomplete or inaccurate reporting on some details of the translation from Joseph and Oliver. Again, I appreciate the desire of Lucas and Neville to create a tidy scenario, but I feel they create more problems than they believe they have solved.

They also fail to consider the convincing arguments of other scholars. For example, one work that needs to be considered for their arguments to be taken seriously is that of Stan Spencer in his 2017 publication, “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer.” Spencer’s opening paragraphs clearly lay out the case for references to “Urim and Thummim” including seer stones:

Joseph Smith and some of his associates referred to the interpreter stones as well as other seer stones as urim and thummim, considering urim and thummim to be a class of revelatory instruments. The term Urim and Thummim was used in this sense by Joseph Smith in his comment on the white stone mentioned in the Book of Revelation: “The white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17 will become a Urim and Thummim to each individual who receives one” (D&C 130:10). The “Urim and Thummim” mentioned in the introductory headings of some of the early sections of the Doctrine and Covenants was, according to David Whitmer, the brown seer stone. In a meeting on December 27, 1841, Joseph Smith taught some of the apostles about urim and thummim. Regarding the meeting, Brigham Young wrote in his journal:

I met with the Twelve at brother Joseph’s. He conversed with us in a familiar manner on a variety of subjects, and explained to us the Urim and Thummim which he found with the plates, called in the Book of Mormon the Interpreters. He said that every man who lived on the earth was entitled to a seer stone, and should have one, but they are kept from them in consequence of their wickedness, and most of those who do find one make an evil use of it; he showed us his seer stone.

Since Joseph Smith had given his brown seer stone to Oliver Cowdery, the stone he showed the apostles was most likely his white one. Wilford Woodruff recorded the same experience in his journal, but used a different label for the seer stone: “The twelve or a part of them spent the day with Joseph the Seer. . . . I had the privilege of seeing for the first time in my day the Urim and Thummim.” Less than two months later, Woodruff again called Joseph Smith’s seer stone “the Urim and Thummim” in reference to its use in translating the Book of Abraham, and apostle Parley Pratt made a similar statement in a church newspaper a few months later. In 1959, apostle Joseph Fielding Smith also referred to Joseph Smith’s seer stone as a urim and thummim. According to a journal entry of Wandle Mace, Joseph Smith even applied the term urim and thummim to a pair of stones brought over from England that had been “consecrated to devils.” For Joseph Smith, a urim and thummim was an object used to obtain revelation, and “the Urim and Thummim” was whatever object he was currently using for that purpose.36

The term Urim and Thummim can obviously be used for two different kinds of instruments—the Nephite “spectacles” and a lone seer stone. There is no need to insist that all references to the Urim and Thummim must be dual stones in a frame from the Nephites.

Many other errors evident in By Means of the Urim & Thummim could have been avoided with peer review. For example, the authors draw upon the “discontinuity theory” that the small plates of Nephi were largely unknown for centuries among the Nephites until Mormon, at the end of his work, finds and attaches the brass plates. This misses important finds about the “continuity” of the influence of the small plates on later writers such as Alma. See, for example, Matthew Scott Stenson’s work on Alma and his thorough review of prior works in the continuing debate of discontinuity vs. continuity.37

Other errors could have been avoided by recognizing that Mormon did not find the small plates at the end of his editorial work with the large plates, but near the beginning of that work, as Clifford Jones has shown with multiple lines of evidence.38 Jones’s work is one of the more important scholarly advances in our understanding of the Book of Mormon and its influences, including the influence of the small plates on Mormon and Moroni, and greatly clarifies a number of relevant details.

Further, one of several important but neglected sources is Orson Pratt, a witness of Joseph’s translation of the Bible:

Elder Pratt said he was present when this revelation was given. No great noise or physical manifestation was made; Joseph was as calm as the morning sun. But he noticed a change in his countenance that he had never noticed before, when a revelation was given to him. Joseph’s face was exceedingly white, and seemed to shine. The speaker had been present many times when he was translating the New Testament, and wondered why he did not use the Urim and Thummim, as in translating the Book of Mormon. While this thought passed through the speaker’s mind, Joseph, as if he read his thoughts, looked up and explained that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was inexperienced in the Spirit of inspiration. But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operations of that Spirit, and did not need the assistance of that instrument.39

The translation of the Bible may have been much different than that of the Book of Mormon, but Pratt’s statement at least merits consideration when discussing the role of aids for interpretation.

Conclusion

Lucas and Neville wish to underscore the remarkable and divine work of Joseph Smith as the translator of the Book of Mormon. In so doing, they should be aligned with many faithful scholars, members, and leaders of the Church who affirm that the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God. How that translation occurred might seem of secondary import, but it is vitally important to the authors of By Means of the Urim & Thummim. Unfortunately, the authors’ zeal takes them past the bounds of the historical data and beyond the scope of scripture as they focus on the wrong enemies. The enemies of faith are not faithful scholars who observe the data and recognize evidence that Joseph read the words and dictated even complete chapters of Isaiah by revelation, without notes, without the use of a Bible, without prompting, and impossibly dictating (for most of the text we have) while looking at a seer stone in a hat. This translation process defies any theory of Joseph as the author or even the composer, especially when the details of the remarkably consistent text are examined.

The authors do not achieve their goal of restoring early theories of translation by joining B.H. Roberts in his disdain for theories in which Joseph read the translated text. Rather, they ironically reject the same traditional model Roberts attacked, offering instead a new version of Robert’s “Manual Theory” in which Joseph’s work as a composer gets a boost with the “through a glass darkly” model by presuming a view of a poor initial translation. Roberts seemed justified in rejecting that in 1906, as he did not have access to information disclosed through the work of later scholars. We do, however, have greater knowledge and should probably reject Roberts’s conclusions. We also seem justified in rejecting, as well, the conclusions of those like Lucas and Neville who want to return to the mistakes now evident in Roberts’s work. These mistakes, unfortunately, are only exacerbated by the painful “Demonstration Hypothesis” model that seeks to resolve the problems of witness accounts of a seer stone in a hat by saying that the stone and the hat were real, but the translation was deceptive.

By Means of the Urim & Thummim strikes me as a case of well-intentioned zeal that has gone too far.

[Author’s Note: I wish to thank Stan Spencer, Royal Skousen, and Godfrey Ellis.]

Jeffrey D. Lindsay has been providing online materials defending the Church for more than twenty years, primarily at JeffLindsay.com. His Mormanity blog on Church topics began in 2004 and was recently converted to ArisefromtheDust.com. He is currently on the Board of Directors for The Interpreter Foundation. Jeff has a PhD in chemical engineering from BYU and is a US patent agent. Jeff has been a Fellow of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers since 2014. Every year since 2015 he has been named as one of the world’s leading intellectual property strategists on the IAM 300 Strategy List by IAM Media Group in the UK. He is currently president of Planet Lindsay, LLC, assisting a variety of clients with intellectual property and innovation. From 2011 to 2019 he was the head of Intellectual Property for Asia Pulp and Paper in Shanghai, China, one of the world’s largest forest product companies. Formerly, he was associate professor at the Institute of Paper Science and Technology (now the Renewable Bioproducts Institute) at Georgia Tech, then went into R&D at Kimberly-Clark Corporation, eventually becoming corporate patent strategist and senior research fellow. Jeff served a mission in the German-speaking Switzerland Zurich Mission. He and his wife Kendra are the parents of four boys and have fourteen grandchildren. They are both serving as ministering specialists for African immigrants in their community and are learning Swahili. Jeff also serves as a board member for Hope and Help Together, a community organization in Appleton, Wisconsin, which works to assist refugees and immigrants in the Fox Cities region.

1 . 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). It seems there have been multiple editions of the book, as the front matter of the book reviewed here states “Updated May 2023 and January and August 2024 from first edition.” All quotes in this review are from this printed edition of the book.

2 . Don Bradley presents the possibility that even more than 116 pages was lost. Don Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2019), 91–96.

3 . “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics Essays, accessed 6 October 2024, churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of
-mormon-translation.

4 . Royal Skousen, email correspondence to author, 27 August 2024.

5 . John A. Tvedtnes, The Most Correct Book: Insights from a Book of Mormon Scholar (Salt Lake City; Cornerstone Publishing, 1999), 322.

6 . Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, vol. 3, Enos through Mosiah (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 220–21.

7 . Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 196–99, 253–58.

8 . John-Charles Duffy, “The ‘Book of Mormon Translation’ Essay in Historical Context,” in Matthew Harris and Newell G. Bringhurst, eds., The Latter-day Saint Gospel Topics Series: A Scholarly Engagement (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2020), 97–130.

9 . Young Men’s Mutual Improvement Associations Manual, 1903–1904, vol. 2, New Witnesses for God, part 1, The Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1903), archive.org/details/ymmia1903/page/66/mode/2up. See especially pp. 66–72.

10 . Duffy, “The ‘Book of Mormon Translation’ Essay in Historical Context,” 101–2.

11 . B.H. Roberts, “Translation of the Book of Mormon: Answers to Questions Respecting the Theory in the Senior Manual,” Improvement Era 9, no. 6 (April 1906): 429–30, archive.org/details/improvementera0906unse/page/428/mode/2up.

12 . Terryl Givens and Brian M. Hauglid, The Pearl of Greatest Price: Mormonism’s Most Controversial Scripture (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 120, citing Tullidge’s Quarterly Magazine 3, no. 3 (July 1884): 283. In the cited article from Tullidge’s, it indicates that when Joseph brought the leaves he had translated, they were read that morning by Oliver Cowdery, who was also present. “History of Provo City,” Tullidge’s Quarterly Magazine 3, no. 3 (July 1884): 283.

13 . See John Gee, “Fantasy and Reality in the Translation of the Book of Abraham,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 42 (2021): 127–70, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/fantasy-and-reality-in-the
-translation-of-the-book-of-abraham/; John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017 ); and Jeff Lindsay, “A Precious Resource with Some Gaps,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 33 (2019): 13–104, journal.interpreterfoundation.org
/a-precious-resource-with-some-gaps/.

14 . See, for example, Matthew L. Bowen, Name as Key-Word: Collected Essays on Onomastic Wordplay and the Temple in Mormon Scripture (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2018) and Matthew L. Bowen, Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon: Towards a Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ (Orem, UT: Interpreter Foundation; Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2023).

15 . Jeff Lindsay and Noel B. Reynolds, “‘Strong Like unto Moses’: The Case for Ancient Roots in the Book of Moses Based on Book of Mormon Usage of Related Content Apparently from the Brass Plates,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 44 (2021): 1–92, journal.interpreter
foundation.org/strong-like-unto-moses-the-case-for-ancient-roots-in-the
-book-of-moses-based-on-book-of-mormon-usage-of-related-content
-apparently-from-the-brass-plates/, and Jeff Lindsay, “Further Evidence from the Book of Mormon for a Book of Moses-Like Text on the Brass Plates,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 61 (2024): 415–94, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/further-evidence-from-the-book-of
-mormon-for-a-book-of-moses-like-text-on-the-brass-plates/.

16 . See, for example, Stanford Carmack, “A Look at Some ‘Nonstandard’ Book of Mormon Grammar,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 209–62, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/a-look-at-some-nonstandard-book-of
-mormon-grammar/; Stanford Carmack, “Joseph Smith Read the Words,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 41–64, journal
.interpreterfoundation.org/joseph-smith-read-the-words/; Stanford Carmack, “Personal Relative Pronoun Usage in the Book of Mormon: An Important Authorship Diagnostic,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 49 (2021): 5–36, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/personal
-relative-pronoun-usage-in-the-book-of-mormon-an-important-authorship
-diagnostic/; Stanford Carmack, “The Book of Mormon’s Complex Finite Cause Syntax,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 49 (2021): 113–36, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-book-of-mormons
-complex-finite-cause-syntax/; Stanford Carmack, “Bad Grammar in the Book of Mormon Found in Early English Bibles,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 36 (2020), 1–28, journal.interpreterfoundation
.org/bad-grammar-in-the-book-of-mormon-found-in-early-english-bibles/; Stanford Carmack, “The More Part of the Book of Mormon Is Early Modern English,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 33–40, journal
.interpreterfoundation.org/the-more-part-of-the-book-of-mormon-is-early
-modern-english/; Stanford Carmack, “What Command Syntax Tells Us About Book of Mormon Authorship,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 13 (2015): 175–217, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/what-command-syntax
-tells-us-about-book-of-mormon-authorship/; and Stanford Carmack, “Why the Oxford English Dictionary (and not Webster’s 1828),” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 15 (2015): 65–77, journal.interpreterfoundation.org
/why-the-oxford-english-dictionary-and-not-websters-1828/.

17 . For a summary of Stanford Carmack’s comments in a March 2015 presentation, see Kirk Magleby, “English in the Book of Mormon,” Book of Mormon Resources (blog), 23 March 2015, bookofmormonresources.blogspot
.com/2015/03/english-in-book-of-mormon.html. Also see Jeff Lindsay, “Possible Benefits of the Broad Early Modern English Elements in the Book of Mormon,” Arise from the Dust (blog), 26 September 2024, arisefromthedust
.com/possible-benefits-of-the-broad-early-modern-english-elements-in
-the-book-of-mormon.

18 . Stan Spencer, “The Faith to See: Burning in the Bosom and Translating the Book of Mormon in Doctrine and Covenants 9,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 18 (2016): 219, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-faith
-to-see-burning-in-the-bosom-and-translating-the-book-of-mormon-in
-doctrine-and-covenants-9/.

19 . Spencer, “The Faith to See,” 224–25.

20 . Spencer, “The Faith to See,” 232.

21 . “Book of Mormon Translation: Interesting Correspondence on the Subject of the Manual Theory,” Improvement Era 9, no. 9 (July 1906): 706–7, archive
.org/details/improvementera0909unse/page/706/mode/2up.

22 . “Book of Mormon Translation: Interesting Correspondence,” 709, emphasis (bold) added; italic in original.

23 . Stan Spencer, “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 24 (2017): 50, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/seers-and-stones
-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-as-divine-visions-of-an-old-time
-seer/.

24 . Carmack, “Joseph Smith Read the Words,” 41.

25 . 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, journal.interpreterfoundation.org/an-unfortunate-approach-to-joseph-smiths-translation-of-ancient-scripture/. See also Neville’s response to Kraus’s review in 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/. This response was, in turn, provided in 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/.

26 . “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics Essays.

27 . “Book of Mormon Translation,” Gospel Topics Essays, n21.

28 . Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, page 1, book 4, The Joseph Smith Papers, josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith
-history-1844-1845/43.

29 . Online Etymology Dictionary, s.v. “peruse,” updated 15 April 2020, etymonline
.com/word/peruse.

30 . Grammarist, s.v. “peruse,” 2024, grammarist.com/usage/peruse/.

31 . Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, chapter 4, p. 28, josephsmithpapers.org
/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/94#full-transcript.

32 . Smith, History, 1844–1845, p. 2, book 2, josephsmithpapers.org
/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/43#full-transcript.

33 . Royal Skousen, “The Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” in The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, vol. 3, part 7 (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 2024). A pre-print of this article has been available for over three years at “Update of the Pre-Print of a Discussion of the Book of Mormon Witnesses,” Interpreter Foundation Blog, 25 August 2021, interpreterfoundation.org/blog-update-of
-the-pre-print-of-a-discussion-of-the-book-of-mormon-witnesses-by-royal
-skousen/.

34 . Skousen, “Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” 11. Skousen cites the statement to “Joseph Smith Addendum,” in Early Mormon Documents, vol. 1, ed. Dan Vogel (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996), 204; and “Documents of the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, 2nd ed., ed. John W. Welch (Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 132. The original is Nancy Towle, Vicissitudes Illustrated in the Experience of Nancy Towle, in Europe and America (Charleston, SC: James L. Burges, 1832), 138–39, contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/BOMP/id/1341. The emphasized word is in all four sources cited.

35 . Skousen, “ Witnesses of the Book of Mormon,” 12. See the witness accounts for the second method on pp. 12–19.

36 . Spencer, “Seers and Stones,” 28–29.

37 . Matthew Scott Stenson “‘According to the Spirit of Revelation and Prophecy’: Alma2’s Prophetic Warning of Christ’s Coming to the Lehites (and Others),” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 55 (2023): 107–68, https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/according-to-the
-spirit-of-revelation-and-prophecy-alma2s-prophetic-warning-of-christs
-coming-to-the-lehites-and-others/.

38 . Clifford P. Jones, “That Which You Have Translated, Which You Have Retained,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 43 (2021): 1–64, journal.interpreterfoundation.org
/that-which-you-have-translated-which-you-have-retained/.

39 . Orson Pratt, “Two Days’ Meeting at Brigham City, June 27 and 28, 1874,” Millennial Star 36 (11 August 1874): 498–99, contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital
/collection/MStar/id/13925.