The Know

When the brother of Jared ascended Mount Shelem, he took with him sixteen small stones in hopes that the Lord would miraculously light them for his journey to the New World (Ether 3:1). While the Lord did touch these stones and cause them to shine, He also mentioned two stones that He gave to the brother of Jared. These additional two stones, separate from the sixteen stones the brother of Jared had made himself, “shall magnify to the eyes of men these things which ye shall write” so future generations could understand the Jaredite record (Ether 3:23–24).

Several scholars have noted deep Old and New World connections to this account. Kerry Hull, for instance, observes that parallels between Mesopotamian cultures (likely the Jaredites’ culture of origin) and those of the Book of Mormon are especially rich comparisons.1

According to Hull, “Perhaps the closest parallel to the stones of the Jaredite barges and possibly the Jaredite seer stones is the Akkadian elmēšu.” This stone is “associated with the heavens and celestial objects, in one case a heavenly lamp that the goddess Ištar of Arbela lights in the sky.” According to some later traditions, it also may have been one of the stones on the Israelite high priest’s breastplate. These stones were said to glow through an investiture of melammu, a divine radiance that reflected the nature of the gods themselves. This is not unlike the stones prepared by the brother of Jared; as Hull notes, “When the Lord touched each of the sixteen stones brought by the brother of Jared in order to make them luminous, in a Mesopotamian context, this may have been interpreted as an endowment of melammu.”2

Hugh Nibley has also noted that the glowing stones providing light in the Jaredite barges also reflects ancient traditions surrounding the ark of Noah. Genesis 6:16 notes that “a window” would be made in the ark, but the Hebrew word underlying this translation is ṣōhar, a word that may have referred to “some kind of luminous object by which Noah could tell night from day.” This would be necessary because some ancient traditions maintained the ark was “completely covered like a tightly shut box, and according to others, it was under the water a good deal of the time.”3 Nibley also noted that a similar stone appears in the legends of Greece and India, and John A. Tvedtnes has noted how similar stories appear throughout other ancient and medieval traditions.4

Furthermore, stones invested with divine power could be used for divination in ancient Mesopotamia, just as the two stones given to the brother of Jared were to be used. This practice was also reflected in other Near Eastern societies, including ancient Israel. It even led to the coining of a Latin proverb that “Jews put their trust in precious stones.”5 Throughout the ancient Near East, using stones to divine the will of the gods was often even compared to reading text written by the gods, which would then be more broadly conveyed to the people as a whole. As such, “divination should be considered a form of ‘translation,’ or reading and interpreting divine knowledge.”6

Similar revelatory stones were also used in the ancient Americas. Michael R. Ash observed, “One way ancient Mesoamerican cultures attempted to see spiritual things was by divining with shiny objects,” most typically polished stones or crystals.7 These stones were called a zaztun (plural, zaztuno’ob), which means “clear stone” or “stone of light.”8 They could be fashioned into small ritual mirrors, but some stones were transparent, allowing the user to look through them as well.9 These “crystals are often associated with divinatory scrying, that is, obtaining occult information through flashes of light or images on any of a variety of reflective surfaces,” according to John J. McGraw.10 Furthermore, Mesoamericanist Karl Taube notes that “ancient Mesoamerican mirrors were surely considered to be sources of information” comparable to “reading a sacred book.”11

Mark Alan Wright has also noted that “Maya shamans believe that true zaztuno’ob are gifts from the gods that have been intentionally placed along their paths for them to find.” Occasionally the shaman will even receive revelation about where the zaztun is located so they can search the stone out. “Zaztuno’ob are not only gifts from the divine realm,” Wright continues, “but they provide the means of communicating with the Otherworld and enable the ritual specialist to tap into divine powers.”12 This is also similar to the brother of Jared’s experience. As Wright summarized, “The brother of Jared went up the mount with sixteen stones, but he came down with eighteen; the two extra stones were the interpreters that were given to him by the Lord. Just as Maya ritual specialists believe their clear stones are gifts directly from their gods, the brother of Jared was given his zaztuno’ob by the Lord himself.”13

In some cases, the stones are triangular, and Ash has also noted that they could even be placed in circular frames made out of wood or metal.14 Furthermore, these sacred stones could be “attached to the chest and were sometimes worn solely as breastplates.”15 Ash has also observed that the size of the Interpreters as described by early members of the Church “closely match the size of smaller shiners [zaztuno’ob]” that were typically attached to Mesoamerican clothing.16

Similar practices existed in Peru, according to Van C. Evans. Among the Incas, a stone was given to temple worshippers after they received a ritual name. “The purpose of the stone,” Evans writes, “was to facilitate communication to the individual from the heavens.”17

Ritual specialists who can use these crystals are still found in some traditional Mayan settlements to this day. Michael D. Coe and Stephen Houston noted that these ritual specialists are “seemingly imbued with far greater spiritual and perhaps real power” than others. They are called “the hmeen, ‘he who does or understands things.’ . . . These specialists still play an important role in divination and prophecy, using their crystals to scry the future.”18 Taube also notes that the Huichol shaman apprentices use these devices “as a channel of communication with the deity” of the sacred location wherein they practice.19

The Why

Because it is true that some people in the nineteenth century, including Joseph Smith, also believed in the use of stones as a tool in accessing divine knowledge, some people might wonder whether Joseph Smith was simply utilizing his own worldview as he supposedly wrote the Book of Mormon.20 However, when examined more closely, the Book of Mormon’s description of stones shining with divine light for guidance or for translation fit much more closely to an ancient, not a modern, worldview.21 This is true when practices found in both the Old and New Worlds are considered.

Moreover, Joseph’s use of his seer stones and the Nephite Interpreters was not typical of how his contemporaries would generally use such stones. Hull summarized, “Joseph Smith engaged in a type of ritual divination to receive the text of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, and the JST [the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible] in a process closely associated with stones and seeing instruments in ancient times. … The resulting product was the focus; the conventionality of the methods to attain that goal was clearly not.”22

Additionally, the Nephite and Jaredite interpreters fit well into an ancient setting based on how they were preserved for future times. Mesoamerican zaztuno’ob would often be preserved in sacred bundles alongside a king’s weapon, sacred clothing, and sacred records.23 This is not unlike the Nephite interpreters, which were preserved alongside a sacred record, a breastplate, and the sword of Laban.24 These bundles are often depicted as being opened “during the onset of a new era,” during times of crisis, or to reestablish familial rights or a claim to legitimacy.25 Ash noted that this describes the Book of Mormon perfectly: “The Book of Mormon, like Mesoamerican bundles, was also opened in a time of crisis, and in a new era—a time of restoration of things that had been lost, when divine authority needed to be restored, and a time when a sacred lineage (in this case the gathering of Israel) needed to be reestablished.”26

These parallels would have likely been unknown to Joseph Smith since not much was known about ancient Mesoamerica during his lifetime.27 Moreover, Nibley has noted that Old World traditions of glowing stones (especially as used by Noah) were first brought to light in the twentieth century, well after the Book of Mormon had been published. As such, the stones given to Jared were “nothing to laugh at after all” and reflected actual ancient beliefs and practices.28 As Tvedtnes concluded, “The account of the stones used to provide light in the Jaredite barges fits rather well into a larger corpus of ancient and medieval literature.”29

Ultimately, even though Joseph Smith lived in a world in which various beliefs about seer stones were not uncommon, the Book of Mormon consistently reflects ancient conceptions of glowing stones as devices to receive revelation rather than folk practices that would have been more familiar to people in Joseph Smith’s neighborhoods. These ancient connections can further help strengthen faith in the Book of Mormon as an ancient record that came from an actual ancient American bundle at a time of crisis. Through the Book of Mormon, modern readers can grow closer to Jesus Christ and learn how to access the divine authority and spiritual knowledge that has been restored through a modern prophet of God.