Why I Believe: Evidence Fifty-Six: Joseph Smith Claims a Completely New Use for the Urim and Thummim©

101 Reasons Why I Believe Joseph Smith Was a Prophet of God:

Evidence Fifty-Six:

Joseph Smith Claims a Completely New Use for the Urim and Thummim© 

The Old Testament speaks of an interesting tool associated with revelation–the Urim and Thummim.  Its history is shrouded in mystery. Though there are a number of verses in the Bible which speak of this instrument, biblical scholars have a difficult time sorting out the details of both its purpose and how it worked.(1) Some passages make it sound like it was used to cast lots and gain information to “yes” and “no” questions. It seems to be largely a tool used by the High Priest rather than the prophets.

Interestingly a tool by the same name also appears in the Book of Mormon, but there it is the tool of prophets, and Aaronic High Priests play no significant role in the Book of Mormon narrative. Moreover, the Book of Mormon associates these instruments with interpreting and/or translating ancient records. Ammon called them interpreters (Mos. 8:13) as did Alma (Al. 37:21) and Moroni (Eth. 4:5). In the Book of Mormon they were originally given to the brother of Jared who sealed them up with his record as a means of translating it in the future. (Eth. 3:22-24) King Mosiah possessed a Urim and Thummim but its origin was not given in the text.(Mosiah 28:11-13).  Mormon described them and said they were “prepared from the beginning, and were handed down from generation to generation, for the purpose of interpreting languages....”(Mos. 28:13-15) Ammon taught that the individuals allowed to use them were called “seers.” (Mos. 8:13)

For my purposes today, the focus is on a much later period–the time of the Restoration. The angel Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith on the night of September 21-22, 1823, (195 yesrs ago) and in the course of instructing him about the plates of the Book of Mormon he also told him of the Urim and Thummim and commanded him that these items should not be shown to others. (JS-H 1:42) Later the next day when he went to the hill Cumorah and found the box where the plates were hidden, he also saw the Urim and Thummim for the first time. (JS-H 1:52) He obtained the plates and the Urim and Thummim four years later and they were used for a time to translate the sacred record. According to Joseph’s mother, Joseph also used them to receive visions. A number of the revelations in the early D&C were given through the Urim and Thummim.

What interests me about all of this relative to Joseph Smith is a brief passage I recently re-read from LeGrand Richards. I have learned many times over, the benefit of going back to re-read earlier documents and sources. With the perspective of more time and experience, they often have a way of calling attention to certain things that one has overlooked when he first read them, not appreciating the insight contained therein. That was the case with the following from Elder Richards’ Marvelous Work and a Wonder which I read during my first year of college just prior to my mission.  He wrote:

Would it be unfair to ask what the spiritual leaders of Joseph Smith’s day knew about the Urim and Thummim? Would Joseph Smith, of himself, have thought of claiming that he translated the Book of Mormon with the assistance of the Urim and Thummim?(2)

The question of Elder Richards is even more challenging when we remind ourselves that there is nothing in the Bible which even hints at using the Urim and Thummim to translate ancient documents! This was a whole new purpose for them. So, his question merits repeating “Would Joseph Smith, [under those circumstances] of himself, have thought of claiming that he translated the Book of Mormon with the assistance of the Urim and Thummim?” I guess it is possible if you are willing to attribute to him another example of creative genius–among a very large constellation of such examples–if he were to have written the book out of his own mind. But, don’t you also have to ask, wouldn’t he anticipate that students of the Bible would challenge this heretofore unknown use of the Urim and Thummim and laugh him out of town? How would he defend that? 

As much as I am willing to grant him religious genius, there are other factors that convince me that he did not make up either the Book of Mormon or the story of the Restoration of the gospel and the Church of Jesus Christ to the earth. I am grateful for this small, but important question. It is easy for me to answer in the negative. It becomes one more small bit of evidence that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God, operating on a completely unexpected level and in a completely unexpected, but not illogical way.

Let’s think together again, soon

Notes:

1.  For a detailed overview of these issues up to that time, see James Hastings, A Dictionary of the Bible, 5 vols, Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988, 4:838-41.  Originally published between 1898 and 1902.

2. LeGrand Richards, A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, 72-73.