David Whitmer says Joseph used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. LDS Historians believe Joseph Smith used a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon, but authors Jim Lucas and Jonathan Neville are pushing back against that theory. The two lawyers argue that the traditional story that Joseph used the Urim & Thummim to translate is more accurate, and they have written a new book, “By Means of the Urim & Thummim” to lay out their arguments. Because David Whitmer left the Church, they argue David Whitmer is hostile witness and can’t be trusted. Check out our conversation…
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GT 00:40 Welcome to Gospel Tangents. I’m excited to have a return guest and a new guest here and we’re going to talk about the Book of Mormon. Jim, could you go ahead and tell us who you are? And you’re the co-author of what book?
Jim 00:54 Okay, I am Jim Lucas. I’m the co-author of a new book on the translation of the Book of Mormon: “By Means of the Urim and Thummim: Restoring Translation to the Restoration.” And I’m co-author with Jonathan Neville. My background, briefly, is I’m an attorney. I’ve lived in New York City all of my adult lifetime after graduating from Columbia Law School, and recently moved to Salt Lake City to pursue Mormon history and theology.
GT 01:29 Well, you’re a great fit here on Gospel Tangents. And Jonathan, this is your third time, but just remind people who may have missed your first two interviews. Okay, who you are.
Jonathan 01:39 Well, my name is Jonathan Neville. I currently live in Oregon, but I’m a lawyer by profession, and also an artist, and educator, and author, and so have written several books about issues related to church history. But this is the one that we’re going to talk about today that I co-authored with Jim Lucas, also known as James W. Lucas officially on the title.
GT 02:01 All right, well, perfect. So, it’s been interesting to me. It seems like we’re maybe civil wars a little bit too strong, but there seems to be strong difference of opinion. I’ll at least say it that way, on did Joseph use a seer stone? Or did he use a Urim and Thummim? What do you guys think he used? Jim.
Jim 02:26 Well, our view is that he used the Urim and Thummim. Basically, the issue comes down to this. Joseph and Oliver left numerous written accounts, written close in time to the time of the translation, these were during the 1830s and 1840s. Written accounts either written by themselves or directly under their supervision, in the case of Joseph, in which they repeatedly stated that the instrument that was used to translate the Book of Mormon was the Nephite interpreters, which came with the gold plates. So, we know that we’re talking here about just the instruments that were described as being two stones set in a metal rim. And people who saw them or heard them described/felt they resembled spectacles. So often they are referred to as the spectacles also.
GT 03:24 Well, you’ve got a hat to demonstrate what it looked like. Right? Both you and Jonathan.
Jim 03:28 That’s right. Okay. Yeah, use that.
Jonathan 03:31 I’ll show the blue one.
GT 03:33 There is a little bit more contrast there.
Jonathan 03:34 You can see the logos U and T. And then on the back, we have a little logo with a top hat with a line through it.
GT 03:45 No seer stone in a hat?
Jonathan 03:47 No seer stone in a hat. Let me mention just something on top of what he said. Joseph and Oliver didn’t write these accounts in a vacuum. But they, there was in 1830, the book “Mormonism Unveiled” set out this whole stone in the hat theory that Joseph Smith didn’t use plates. He just read words off what they call the peep stone. And so, when they were responding to that, that book, that narrative, is when they declare that he used the Nephite interpreters, not the seer stone. And so, and one of the issues for me as it’s not really so much a matter of contention. I’ve started this web page called nomorecontention.com. And what I’m trying to do is seek clarity, charity, and understanding, those three things. And I don’t think there’s contention so much as confusion. People don’t know what to think because they don’t see all the sources. And one of the things that I’ve talked about a lot is the Gospel Topics essay on Book of Mormon Translation doesn’t even quote Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. It quotes David Whitmer and other people. And so, what I’ve been advocating is, why don’t we put all the original references available for people to read for themselves? You can read them in the Joseph Smith Papers, but they’re not easily accessible. And so, one thing I’ve advocated is that they should all be spelled out right in the Gospel Topics essay where people can go and see it for themselves.
Jonathan 05:13 So partly what Jim said about the comments that they made, was, they were intentional. They were they were very specific. When Joseph said he used the ones that came with the plates. And we know the seer stone didn’t come with the plates. So that’s why I think we’re not so much as trying to enter into combative opinions and all that.
GT 05:34 That seems like it’s a combat though.
Jonathan 05:35 It does. It does. And I don’t know why it does. All we’re doing is seeking clarity. And, and charity also, for people have different points of view. We’re fine with that. All we’re asking is for people to consider all the sources. And so, the idea behind this book, I think, partly of it was to put all the sources together. And we outlined all the different theories in here. And we’re fine with people believing whatever they want, but we just think people should be able to make informed decisions. And in our view, the most authoritative sources are Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery.
GT 06:09 So we’ve got two lawyers here, given their side. Right?
Jim 06:12 Right.
GT 06:13 So I’ll have to get to historians, later on sometime.
Jonathan 06:15 Yeah, that’s right. Well, the historians have the exact same material. We rely on historians to bring the evidence forward. We’re all looking at the same evidence. But that’s the fallacy is that those who are advocating the stone and the hat, just pretend like Joseph and Oliver never talked about it. And it’s right in the Gospel [Topics essay.] Anybody can go to lds.org or churchofjesuschrist.org and read the Gospel Topics essay.
GT 06:40 LDS.org is a lot easier though. Right?
Jonathan 06:41 It is. That’s what I always type in.
Jim 06:43 It’s a lot easier to remember.
Jonathan 06:44 But anybody can go there and read the Gospel Topics essays and see they just omitted what Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery said. It’s incredible. And so, when we think that when people look at what Joseph and Oliver actually said, in the historical context, it kind of resolves the issue and provides the clarity that we’re seeking.
Jim 07:04 And just to give a quick summary. So basically, people often cite, in 1831, there’s an account of Hyrum asking Joseph to give an account of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. And Joseph declined at that time to really get into the details. However, and people often cite that and say, Oh! Therefore, Joseph never said anything about how the Book of Mormon is translated. But you have to go back and put the facts together and the timeline together. He said that in 1831, but in 1834, as Jonathan mentioned, “Mormonism Unveiled” was published, the first major anti-Mormon book, actually the first full length book about Mormonism that was ever published. We need to acknowledge it’s significance in the history there. And that put forth the stone in the hat, that seer stone/peep stone in the hat theory. And it was after that, as Jonathan noted, Oliver and Joseph repeatedly began to publish written accounts where they made it very clear that the translation occurred using these interpreters or spectacles that came with the plates that were in the box with the plates. And which came to be called the Urim and Thummim. So basically, you have through the 1830s, and 1840s, culminating with Oliver Cowdery’s speech that he gave on returning to the church in 1848. So, you have all of these references from Joseph and Oliver through the rest of their lifetimes repeatedly stating that the translation occurred by the gift and power of God, using the interpreters that came with the plates. They always made it clear that they were using these instruments that came with the plates. And basically, that was it.
Jim 09:18 Now, in sort of the non-Mormon world at this time, of course, the “Mormonism Unveiled” is significant, because that was also the first place that the Spaulding Theory was put forward, that the Book of Mormon was basically Joseph reading off of a manuscript of a novel that Solomon Spaulding had written and that Sidney Rigdon had doctored up to make it a little bit more religious and so forth. So that became the really the prevailing theory. And that also has its origins in “Mormonism Unveiled,” so it’s really a quite a significant work. So, if you just track the timeline, basically by the end of the 1840s, after Joseph and Oliver have both died, you just have a long series of accounts of them using the Nephite interpreters or the Urim and Thummim as it came to be called.
GT 10:13 When did Oliver Cowdery die?
Jim 10:15 1850.
GT 10:16 Okay.
Jim 10:17 And, of course, Joseph died in 1844. But we have an account of Oliver’s speech, when he returned to the Church. He too was a lawyer. So, he was quite eloquent. And he had this declaration: “Solomon Spaulding did not write the Book of Mormon. I wrote it as it was dictated by Joseph, as he received it through the Urim and Thummim.” So, he actually is recorded saying that for his homecoming speech, so to speak in 1848, I think it was. So, we have all these accounts. So then you don’t hear anything.
GT 11:03 Let me back up just one second. Are you saying Mormon, “Mormonism Unveiled” in 1834 was the first account of using a peep stone?
Jim 11:18 There are earlier accounts that talk about the hat. But other people have done research, and the newspaper accounts and stuff like that. They recite the use of the hat and stones. But it’s plural, or spectacles. So, in the earliest accounts, people are talking about either the two stones or the spectacles.
Jonathan 11:52 Well, let’s clarify that. The earliest accounts are all secondhand accounts.
GT 11:57 Let me ask you this, because I know because I just looked it up. Hiram Page September 1830 was using a seer stone.
Jonathan 12:07 Right.
GT 12:07 Now I know, that’s not Joseph Smith, but it seems like it was pretty prevalent, these use of seer stones. That’s D&C 28.
Jim 12:15 Right. So, I mean, Joseph had a seer stone. He had a seer stone. There’s no question about that. And they were common in their society. Other people like Hiram Page [had them.] But other people in this Palmyra vicinity, there was Sally Chase. I think she used a peep stone. And it was it was a fairly widespread cultural phenomena at the time. So yes, Joseph had a peep stone, which I’m not sure that everyone’s really decided when he got it. It was in the 1820s some time. And so yeah, he had his he had a peep stone and other people had peep stones. And we are not contending that Joseph wasn’t employed in money digging.
GT 13:07 But you’re saying that all he was using it for was money digging?
Jim 13:10 Right.
GT 13:12 I’ve got some questions about that, but finish.
Jim 13:15 Okay. But he our contention is that he used it in money digging, but he did not use it for religious purposes. What he used for religious purposes was the spectacles, the two stones that came with the plates. So, he had those. He got the plates in 1827. Right? After that he was also using the stones from the Urim and Thummim, both to translate the Book of Mormon, but also to receive revelations and so forth. So, this is where, I believe it’s reasonable to say this is where Hiram Page felt that he had permission to use his own peep stone, because by the time that incident occurred in 1830, Joseph had been using the stones from the Urim and Thummim to receive revelations. And he’d been telling people, he’d been using them to translate the Book of Mormon for a couple of years.
Is David Whitmer a Hostile Witness?
GT 14:18 Well, in my understanding, I know John Hamer has made kind of a joke, but a semi-serious statement too. Because I was just in the Sacred Grove last week. There was a plaque there. And I think there were five Whitmers and three Smiths of the eight witnesses. Do I have that right? Does that sound right to you guys?
Jonathan 14:42 The brother in law, yeah.
Jim 14:43 And Hiram Page was a brother-in-law.
GT 14:45 Hiram Page was one of them, but he was a brother-in-law to Whitmer. We count that. I think it was Mark Twain, or somebody. John always jokes: “Well, I would be even more convinced if the entire Whitmer family had done this.”
Jonathan 15:01 Yeah. But the daughters weren’t on the list.
GT 15:03 Yeah. And so, I know in your book, you guys really take a lot of aim at David Whitmer, specifically. I’m not a lawyer, but I’m going to try to use a little some lawyer terms as kind of a hostile witness, kind of a unreliable witness. We can’t trust what he says. I mean, I think there’s more than just him but how do I want to do this question? There are other people Hiram Page, although he’s kind of a Whitmer in a way. Why do you guys take such aim at David Whitmer? Because you guys have to talk down Emma Smith too, which I think is a very important witness. And I want to spend some time on Emma too. But why do you guys take so much aim at David Whitmer first of all?
Jim 16:00 So David Whitmer, we have to back up. David Whitmer was around, but we need to remember, almost three quarters of the Book of Mormon that we have today, so not counting the lost pages, was translated in Harmony. David Whitmer was nowhere around. He was never in Harmony.
GT 16:24 Now this does not include the lost 116 pages.
Jim 16:27 That’s right.
GT 16:28 So it doesn’t include that.
Jim 16:30 It does not. So it’s like 75% of the Book of Mormon we have today, without the lost pages was translated in Harmony. David Whitmer was nowhere around. That was where the lost pages incident occurred. This is where the angel took back the Urim and Thummim for a while and the plates, and then returned them to Joseph according to Joseph, and Oliver, and Lucy. All this occurred before David Whitmer ever showed up. Then, things started to get a little hot in Harmony. And they had finished the rest of the translation from the primary plates.
GT 17:17 And this is when Joseph and Emma were living with Isaac Hale. Is that right?
Jim 17:22 In the cabin on the Hale property, and Martin was with them, and then Oliver Cowdery came and stayed with them. And they’ve finished like I said, 74% I think it’s what it is, of the Book of Mormon we have today. This is Words of Mormon through Moroni and the title page. So, David was not anywhere near. He was still back and Fayette during all of this time, all of these incidents, he was nowhere around. Then things got a little bit hot in, in Harmony. And so Oliver of course knew David Whitmer. Joseph did not. So you know, Oliver…
Jonathan 18:07 Well, there’s an important point on this. Because Lucy said that one day as Joseph applied the Urim and Thummim to his eyes to look on the plates, he was instead received a commandment to contact David Whitmer. But he had never met David Whitmer. And Oliver said, “Well I know him.” Oliver had been writing him letters. So, Oliver wrote the letter to David Whitmer. You don’t read that in the Saints book and stuff, because the Urim and Thummim actually-
GT 18:32 Beause they’re seer stone people.
Jonathan 18:34 Yeah I know. They are. And so, they don’t mention that Lucy said, the Urim and Thummim was how Joseph’s got the commandment to contact David Whitmer. It’s right in her history. And so, he contacted David Whitmer, like Jim was saying. Let me back up on one other point. And that was at this conference when Hyrum asked Joseph about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. The coming forth of the Book of Mormon is far more than just the translation. But some scholars have assumed that, or even actually said that Joseph was asked about the translation of the Book of Mormon, and said, “It was not intended for the world to know about it.” And what I’ve pointed out is that the coming forth of the Book of Mormon involves much more than that. And the people who are present at that meeting, including David Whitmer, did talk about the translation of the Book of Mormon. So, they didn’t feel like they were bound by what Joseph Smith said, regarding the translation of the Book of Mormon.
Jonathan 19:29 But as you know, I’ve talked about the two different sets of plates, the abridged plates in Harmony and the original plates in Fayette. That’s all part of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, meeting the messenger on the road to Fayette. And that was a separate issue from the actual translation. So that’s just a point I wanted to re-emphasize because people glide over that like, “Well, Joseph Smith said never talk about the translation.” But in reality, he did. And the other thing I wanted to point out is this “Mormonism Unveiled” book, on subsequent occasions Joseph Smith strongly denounced that book. It wasn’t like he just said, “Okay, we’ll go with what’s in the book.” And that’s one of the reasons that he clarified that he used the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates. So those are just two points in there. But getting back to David Whitmer, I guess.
Jim 20:18 David Whitmer gets the letter from Oliver Cowdery, come in. We need to go find someplace else to finish this translation. Because Oliver had been writing to David Whitmer telling him about what was going on. And David was intrigued. And then there were some miracles. The three men came and plowed the fields at night, so that David’s father would let him leave. And he goes down to Harmony and picks up Joseph and Oliver. There are no plates. There’s no record of him having seen any plates, or they’re saying, we’re going to put these plates here. They had turned the plates back over to a messenger. So just the three of them, on their little buckboard, are riding back from Harmony up towards Fayette. And Joseph is able to tell David where he stopped on his trip to Harmony. I mean, there’s fun stories about inspiration there. Most critically, as Jonathan just mentioned, they encountered the messenger on their way. They offered him a ride. And the messenger said, “Where are you going?”
And they said, “We’re going to Fayette.
The messenger says, “Oh, well, okay, thank you. But I’m going to Cumorah.”
Jim 21:51 David Whitmer, in recounting the story later said, “I really remember that because it’s the first time I’d ever heard the name Cumorah before.” So, they have this encounter with the messenger, and then they get to Fayette. In our view, this is when the messenger has brought the small plates, which is now First Nephi through Omni, to Fayette for Joseph and Oliver to translate. But even in Fayette, where they’re upstairs at the Whitmer home, still, David is not involved. He’s around. He’s helpful. The messenger shows the plates to their mother, Mary Whitmer. It’s not Moroni who showed her the plates. It was Nephi. But that’s another side story. So, Joseph and Oliver—
GT 22:46 Do think that’s a vision or is that a physical plates?
Jim 22:48 I think it’s physical plates.
GT 22:50 To Mary Whitmer.
Jim 22:52 Right. Well, what she’s looking at is the small plates, the plates of Nephi is what he’s showing her.
GT 22:57 Because people say, why did Mary get to see them when friggin’ Emma didn’t? That doesn’t seem fair.
Jim 23:06 You can interpret that story in different ways. I mean, the thing is that Mary Whitmer, of course, has got a big family where it was like seven or eight, nine Whitmer kids. They’ve got a big farm operation going. And then Oliver and Joseph show up. Then, soon after that Emma’s shows up. She’s got all these extra people at her house that she’s taking care of. The Whitmer girls are still a little bit younger. They’re probably helpful around the house, but not as helpful as if they were older. And so, Mother Whitmer is handling everything herself with a dozen people in her household. So, the story is that she was getting very frustrated with this. And so that’s why she got to have the vision because she was supplying the support and all the domestic backup to make this all happen.
Jonathan 24:04 Though, we do have to acknowledge that the only witness of this event was Mary Whitmer. So I mean, she—
GT 24:10 Maybe she made it up?
Jonathan 24:12 Who knows? David said, he knew it was the same messenger, based on her description. He didn’t see him on the subsequent occasion. He only saw him along the road.
Jim 24:22 So but she apparently did recount the story to more than just David. She told other members of the family. So any event.
Jonathan 24:31 She definitely related the story.
Jim 24:34 It is what it is. You take the sources and—
GT 24:37 I still feel bad for Emma.
Jonathan 24:39 Emma didn’t seem curious about it. Just as an example, I went to the priesthood restoration site. The day before it opened, I was there because logistically, and so I went on this tour, the very first tour they took to the local branch. In the display in the Joseph Smith house they have the plates covered with a cloth. So naturally, I picked it up and looked at it to see how they did it. And later I’ve been back there, and the missionaries have told me they’ve never looked underneath that cloth. They were told never to look under the cloth. And I thought, “Wow, that’s bizarre.” But they’re not curious enough to do it or they’re not honest enough to admit it, I guess.
GT 25:18 They think they’ll get struck down.
Jim 25:19 Yeah. How can anybody not look into that cloth?
Jonathan 25:22 You know. And so, it’s actually a little hard for me to believe that Emma didn’t take a peek.
GT 25:28 Because I picked them up. I was just there for Mormon History Association. And I was like, wow, these are pretty heavy. I don’t know how Joseph was fighting them off in one hand and punching people with the other.
Jonathan 25:37 Yeah. Well, there’s that for sure.
Jim 25:41 Well, of course, you did you do an interview with Jerry Grover?
GT 25:45 Yeah.
Jim 25:46 And so he has a whole estimate, that’s an alloy and so forth.
GT 25:50 Because I interviewed Sandra Tanner, and she has a replica of [plates], made out of lead. And she said, lead is less heavy than gold. And they’re heavy. And, that was six or seven years ago, and I just went last week to the site. And that was like, it seemed comparable.
Jonathan 26:14 Well, there’s another interesting twist to this. Joseph’s father is reported to have said there was a compartment in there, in the plates. And when David Whitmer said part of it looks solid as wood, in my view, that was that compartment that held the Urim and Thummim. And so even though it was five inches thick, or six inches thick, doesn’t mean it was solid plates. That’s invisible.
GT 26:34 Well and Jerry says it was tumbaga, which would have been lighter anyway.
Jim 26:39 Account for-
GT 26:41 John Pratt. He was when the Brazil group said it was like 14 karat gold. So, it would have been lighter.
Jonathan 26:48 Yeah, it’s all speculation. But there is a plausible rationale that rather than Moroni just throwing the Urim and Thummim, down in there on top, he would have had a compartment for him. And that would have had a sealing around it that David Whitmer would have described as looking solid as wood. And so that to me, that makes sense. And that would have lightened up quite a bit if a portion of it was not solid plate. It was just a compartment for the Urim and Thummim.
Jim 27:15 So anyway, so back to David Whitmer. In Fayette where they’re translating just over a quarter of the Book of Mormon, basically, just what’s on the small plates, the Nephi through Omni. Again, Joseph and Oliver are upstairs. They’re in private, David’s around. But he’s not, he was never a scribe. And he never, except for one occasion, ever explicitly stated that he saw the translation happening. He was just around. So, he knew how long their workdays were. We believe that at one point Joseph actually put his a peep stone in his hat to make it a little demonstration for everybody to explain what the process was like.
Jonathan 28:20 “To satisfy their awful curiosity.”
Jim 28:22 That’s the phrase that Zenas Gurley uses. So he may have seen that, but he’s not upstairs.
GT 28:30 Is he quoted in “Mormonism Unveiled?” Or “Saints” or anything?
Jim 28:34 No. Well, he’s quoted in “Saints,” but he’s not in “Mormonism Unveiled.” At the time “Mormonism Unveiled” come out David is still a very strong member of the church and, and he would have been very opposed to that book.
Jonathan 28:49 Do you know what? That’s an interesting point, because the narrative in “Mormonism Unveiled” doesn’t attribute it to anybody. It’s just said, this is a story going around. And they distinguish between the stone and the hat. And the Urim and Thummim. It is two separate stories that they’ve heard. But again, they don’t attribute it to anybody. But it’s interesting, too, that they say in neither case did he use the plates, which is what the SITH. We call the Stone In The Hat theory. The SITH theory is that he never used to plates. They were under a cloth or outside or wherever.
{End of Part 1}
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