Title

Translating the Book of Mormon with Stones in a Hat?

Publication Type

Podcast

Publication Date

April 25, 2023

Authors

Griffiths, Casey Paul (Primary), and Woodward, Scott (Primary)

URL

https://churchhistorymatters.podbean.com/e/translating-the-book-of-mormon-with-stones-in-a-hat/

Terms of use

Items in the BMC Archive are made publicly available for non-commercial, private use. Inclusion within the BMC Archive does not imply endorsement. Items do not represent the official views of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints or of Book of Mormon Central.

Bibliographic Citation

Abstract

If we had video footage of the translation process of The Book of Mormon, what would we see? What would we actually watch Joseph Smith do during a translation session? Now, of course, we don’t have such video footage, but we do have perhaps the next best thing: multiple eyewitness accounts of those who saw the process up close, firsthand. And what they said they saw was a decidedly nonsecular, nonacademic, one-of-a-kind translation method involving a young, 22- and 23-year-old Joseph Smith looking at seer stones in a hat, a process many of these witnesses described as, “truly miraculous.” In today’s episode we take a closer look at what we can know from the historical record about Joseph Smith’s translation process. We’ll also briefly explore the New England subculture in Joseph’s day in which some believed that people with certain spiritual gifts could use special objects, like seer stones or divining rods, to channel to divine power to do things like find lost objects or find underground water sources. We’ll also discuss the fascinating details of what we know about how and when Joseph came upon two seer stones in addition to those that came with the plates and were bound together in silver bows, and what we know about his using these during the Book of Mormon translation.

Translating the Book of Mormon with Stones in a Hat?​

Title