Urim and Thummim (Latter Day Saints)

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An 1893 engraving of Joseph Smith receiving the Golden Plates and the Urim and Thummim from the angel Moroni. The sword of Laban is shown at the bottom.

In the Latter Day Saint movement, the term Urim and Thummim (/ˈjʊərɪm ... ˈθʌmɪm/) refers to a descriptive category of instruments used for receiving revelation or translating languages.[1] According to Latter Day Saint theology, the two stones found in the breastplate of Aaron in the Old Testament, the white stone referenced in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the two stones bound by silver bows into a set of spectacles (interpreters) that movement founder Joseph Smith said he found buried in the hill Cumorah with the golden plates, and the seer stone found while digging a well used to translate the Book of Mormon are all examples of Urim and Thummim.[1] Latter Day Saint scripture states that the place where God resides is a Urim and Thummim, and the earth itself will one day become sanctified and a Urim and Thummim, and that all adherents who are saved in the highest heaven will receive their own Urim and Thummim.[2]

While the term is ubiquitous and well ingrained in modern Latter Day Saint theology, it was not initially applied to the spectacles or seer stone used in translating the Book of Mormon, and "Urim and Thummim" does not appear within the Book of Mormon or early versions of the Doctrine and Covenants.[3] It has been argued that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery adopted the term in the early 1830s as part of a larger effort to distance the church from early folk magic practices.[4][5][6]

  1. ^ a b Davis, W. L. (2020). Visions in a seer stone: Joseph Smith and the making of The book of mormon. The University of North Carolina Press.
  2. ^ Doctrine and Covenants 130:8–11
  3. ^ Skousen, R. (2010). The Book of Mormon: the earliest text. New Haven: Yale University Press. page xi
  4. ^ D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), pp. 43–44.
  5. ^ "Joseph Smith's Magic Spectacles - Dan Vogel" – via www.youtube.com.
  6. ^ Persuitte, D. (2000). Joseph Smith and the origins of The book of mormon. McFarland. e-book location 4251 of 6290