From ‘the Seer Stone a Fiction to Undermine the Validity of Church’ To ‘Such Aids Are Consistent With Accounts in Scripture’

In the year 2000, Deseret Book, the church-owned publishing company, published a joint-written book from two BYU professors, Joseph Fielding McConkie, a BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture, and Craig J. Ostler, a BYU Professor of Church History and Doctrine. The book is titled Revelations of the Restoration, A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and other Modern Revelation. Two history professors employed at the church-owned school, published a book at the church-owned book company stating disbelief in the seer stone narrative and posing valid questions just a few years before the church started shifting the narrative to be more historically accurate. This book which Deseret Book states as “insightful” and “inspired” that helps us better understand the meaning and context of revelations.

In Revelations of the Restoration, authors Joseph Fielding McConkie and Craig J. Ostler place modern revelation in its historical and doctrinal context. Their insightful commentary and detailed explanations help us better understand the meaning of the revelations and the circumstances in which they were given. The inspired insights of prophets and the keen thinking of scholars make this work vital to our study of the restored Church and the guidance it has received from the Lord.

Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine & Covenants & Other Modern Revelations, Deseret Book Website, Retrieved September 2003
https://web.archive.org/web/20030904114837/http://deseretbook.com/store/product?product_id=100010244

A particular section of the volume did not age well, as the church has worked hard to reframe the narrative of the Book of Mormon’s origins and translation. This book states the explanation that Joseph Smith used the seer stone is “simply fiction” and “created for the purpose of demeaning Joseph Smith” and undermining his work. What are we to think then, just 10 years later when the church published in the Gospel Topic Essay that Joseph did use the seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon. Unsurprisingly, the book is no longer available from Deseret Book but can be found at online book resellers and even amazon.

In their commentary chapter regarding the process by which the Book of Mormon was translated, the paid dismiss the currently accepted fact that Joseph Smith used a seer stone for translating the Book of Mormon. They clearly state that David Whitmer was the source of this bad information, and proceed to destroy his credibility. They claim that this idea is “simply fiction created for the purpose of demeaning Joseph Smith and to undermine the validity of the revelations he received.” Just over a decade later we have the church affirming that this is how Joseph translated the book. All their reasons about why this doesn’t make sense, still stand.

The testimony of David Whitmer, which is laid forth below, clearly contradicts the principles established by the Lord in this revelation. It is also at odds with the testimonies of both Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery. In our judgment, Mr. Whitmer is not a reliable source on this matter. We are entirely respectful of and grateful for the testimony to which he appended his name as one of the three witnesses of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and its divine origin. That, however, does not make him a competent witness to the process of translation. We too, like countless others, are competent witnesses of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Our knowledge of how it was translated, however, is limited to that which has come through the channels ordained by the Lord for that purpose. As to David Whitmer’s explanation, it should be remembered that he never looked into the Urim and Thummim nor translated anything. His testimony of how the Book of Mormon was transltated is hearsay.

Spanning a period of twenty years (1869-1888), some seventy recorded testimonies about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon claim David Whitmer as their source. Though there are a number of inconsistencies in these accounts, David Whitmer was repeatedly reported to have said that after the loss of the 116 pages, the Lord took both the plates and the Urim and Thummim from the Prophet, never to be returned. In their stead, David Whitmer maintained, the Prophet used an oval-shaped, chocolate-colored seer stone slightly larger than an egg. Thus, everything we have in the Book of Mormon, according to Mr. Whitmer, was translated by placing the chocolate-colored stone in a hat into which Joseph would bury his head so as to close out the light. While doing so he could see “an oblong piece of parchment, on which the hieroglyphics would appear,” and below the ancient writing, the translation would be given in English. Joseph would then read this to Oliver Cowdery, who in turn would write it. If he did so correctly, the characters and the interpretation would disappear and be replaced by other characters with their interpretation (Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, 115, 157-58).

Such an explanation is, in our judgment, simply fiction created for the purpose of demeaning Joseph Smith and to undermine the validity of the revelations he received after translating the Book of Mormon. …

The testimony of David Whitmer simply does not accord with the divine pattern. If Joseph Smith translated everything that is now in the Book of Mormon without using the gold plates, we are left to wonder why the plates were necessary in the first place. It will be remembered that possession of the plates placed the Smith family in considerable danger, causing them a host of difficulties. If the plates were not part of the translation process, this would not have been the case. It also leaves us wondering why the Lord directed the writers of the Book of Mormon to make a duplicate record of the plates of Lehi. This provision which compensated for the loss of the 116 pages would have served no purpose either. Further, we would be left to wonder why it was necessary for Moroni to instruct Joseph each year for four years before he was entrusted with the plates. We would also wonder why it was so important for Moroni to show the plates to the three witnesses, including David Whitmer. And why did the Lord have the Prophet show the plates to the eight witnesses? Why all this flap and fuss if the Prophet didn’t really have the plates and if they were not used in the process of translation? What David Whitmer is asking us to believe is that the Lord had Moroni seal up the plates and the means by which they were to be translated hundreds of years before they would come into Joseph Smith’s possession and then decided to have the Prophet use a seer stone found while digging a well so that none of these things would be necessary after all. Is this, we would ask, really a credible explanation of the way the heavens operate?

Joseph Fielding McConkie (BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture) & Craig J. Ostler (BYU Professor, Church History and Doctrine), Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and other Modern Revelation: The Process by Which the Book of Mormon Was Translated, Deseret Book, 2000. Page 95-96
https://archive.org/details/revelationsofres0000mcco/page/96/mode/2up
https://wasmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Process-of-Translating-the-BofM.pdf

A few years later, the church admitted the things these BYU professors denied are true. Were these professors part of the coverup or did they buy into the coverup the church propagated? Are they too victims of the whitewashed church history and absolute control over the narrative or are they part of the problem, perpetuating these falsehoods in the name of defending the faith? We know church educators have specifically been told that “some things that are true are not very useful”, and that their mission is more about faith than history, that “tell only that part of the truth that is inspiring and uplifting”.

Was it their duty as employers of the church to back up the church claims of the day with academic-sounding statements and publications? Does the church expect church-owned and church-funded university professors to place faith-promoting rhetoric above facts and historical evidence? Were these professors doing good by the church or their research to pose such challenging questions?

In December 2013, the church published an essay in the Gospel Topic Essay series about the Book of Mormon Translation.

Thus we see there was a lack of need for the gold plates and all the “flap and fuss” was not necessary. The essay even states that “some people have balked at this claim,” but that “such aids to facilitate the communication of God’s power and inspiration are consistent with accounts in scripture.” They don’t mention, however, that the church is foremost among those who have balked at this claim.

The other instrument, which Joseph Smith discovered in the ground years before he retrieved the gold plates, was a small oval stone, or “seer stone.” As a young man during the 1820s, Joseph Smith, like others in his day, used a seer stone to look for lost objects and buried treasure… Apparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters…

Some people have balked at this claim of physical instruments used in the divine translation process, but such aids to facilitate the communication of God’s power and inspiration are consistent with accounts in scripture…

Joseph placed either the interpreters or the seer stone in a hat, pressed his face into the hat to block out extraneous light, and read aloud the English words that appeared on the instrument. The process as described brings to mind a passage from the Book of Mormon that speaks of God preparing “a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light.”

The scribes who assisted with the translation unquestionably believed that Joseph translated by divine power. Joseph’s wife Emma explained that she “frequently wrote day after day” at a small table in their house in Harmony, Pennsylvania. She described Joseph “sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it, and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.” According to Emma, the plates “often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table cloth.” When asked if Joseph had dictated from the Bible or from a manuscript he had prepared earlier, Emma flatly denied those possibilities: “He had neither manuscript nor book to read from.” Emma told her son Joseph Smith III, “The Book of Mormon is of divine authenticity—I have not the slightest doubt of it. I am satisfied that no man could have dictated the writing of the manuscripts unless he was inspired; for, when acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me for hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he would at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him.”

Another scribe, Martin Harris sat across the table from Joseph Smith and wrote down the words Joseph dictated. Harris later related that as Joseph used the seer stone to translate, sentences appeared. Joseph read those sentences aloud, and after penning the words, Harris would say, “Written.” An associate who interviewed Harris recorded him saying that Joseph “possessed a seer stone, by which he was enabled to translate as well as from the Urim and Thummim, and for convenience he then used the seer stone.”

The Church acknowledges the contribution of scholars to the historical content presented in this article; their work is used with permission.

Book of Mormon Translation, Gospel Topic Essay, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2013
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation

The church published the same in the 2015 October Ensign in an article about Joseph the Seer, written by church historians. They rationalize that the seer stone was part of the culture of the day and even that Joseph used a seer stone previously to search for buried or lost objects. They don’t include that these lost objects were things like buried treasure or that he never found any. They do include that “seer stones can be unfamiliar” to those who are without understanding of 19th-century superstitions and folk magic but that there is precedent in the scriptures for the use of stones to perform God’s work.

The historical record clarifies how Joseph Smith fulfilled his role as a seer and translated the Book of Mormon…

“Seeing” and “seers” were part of the American and family culture in which Joseph Smith grew up. Steeped in the language of the Bible and a mixture of Anglo-European cultures brought over by immigrants to North America, some people in the early 19th century believed it was possible for gifted individuals to “see,” or receive spiritual manifestations, through material objects such as seer stones.

The young Joseph Smith accepted such familiar folk ways of his day, including the idea of using seer stones to view lost or hidden objects. Since the biblical narrative showed God using physical objects to focus people’s faith or communicate spiritually in ancient times, Joseph and others assumed the same for their day. Joseph’s parents, Joseph Smith Sr. and Lucy Mack Smith, affirmed the family’s immersion in this culture and their use of physical objects in this way, and the villagers of Palmyra and Manchester, New York, where the Smiths lived, sought out Joseph to find lost objects before he moved to Pennsylvania in late 1827.

For those without an understanding of how 19th-century people in Joseph’s region lived their religion, seer stones can be unfamiliar, and scholars have long debated this period of his life. Partly as a result of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason, a period that emphasized science and the observable world over spiritual matters, many in Joseph’s day came to feel that the use of physical objects such as stones or rods was superstitious or inappropriate for religious purposes.

In later years, as Joseph told his remarkable story, he emphasized his visions and other spiritual experiences. Some of his former associates focused on his early use of seer stones in an effort to destroy his reputation in a world that increasingly rejected such practices. In their proselyting efforts, Joseph and other early members chose not to focus on the influence of folk culture, as many prospective converts were experiencing a transformation in how they understood religion in the Age of Reason. In what became canonized revelations, however, Joseph continued to teach that seer stones and other seeric devices, as well as the ability to work with them, were important and sacred gifts from God…

Alma the Younger gives the interpreters to his son Helaman. “Preserve these interpreters,” Alma counsels him, referring to the two stones in silver bows. But Alma also quotes a prophecy that appears to refer to a single stone: “And the Lord said: I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light” (Alma 37:21, 23).

Notably, although given in the context of “interpreters” (plural), this prophecy speaks about giving a future servant “a stone” (singular), “which shall shine forth in darkness unto light.” Early Latter-day Saints believed this prophesied servant was Joseph Smith.

In fact, historical evidence shows that in addition to the two seer stones known as “interpreters,” Joseph Smith used at least one other seer stone in translating the Book of Mormon, often placing it into a hat in order to block out light. According to Joseph’s contemporaries, he did this in order to better view the words on the stone.

By 1833, Joseph Smith and his associates began using the biblical term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to any stones used to receive divine revelations, including both the Nephite interpreters and the single seer stone. This imprecise terminology has complicated attempts to reconstruct the exact method by which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. In addition to using the interpreters, according to Martin Harris, Joseph also used one of his seer stones for convenience during the Book of Mormon translation…

The most salient point Joseph Smith made about the translation of the Book of Mormon was that he did it “by the gift and power of God.”

What Happened to the Seer Stone?

The stone pictured here has long been associated with Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon translation. The stone Joseph Smith used in the Book of Mormon translation effort was often referred to as a chocolate-colored stone with an oval shape. This stone passed from Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery and then to the Church through Brigham Young and others… Since that time, subsequent Church leaders have acknowledged the Church’s ownership of the seer stone.

Richard E. Turley Jr., Assistant Church Historian and Recorder, and Robin S. Jensen and Mark Ashurst-McGee, Church History Department, Joseph the Seer, Ensign, October 2015
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/2015/10/joseph-the-seer?lang=eng

In 2020 the church added a page to its website focused on Seer Stones. It admits that some people in Joseph’s day claimed a gift to receive messages through seer stones. They rationalize that these beliefs are Biblical and cultural. Joseph’s family accepted these beliefs and Joseph gained practice using such seer stones by using them to search for buried treasure. These claims would have been grounds for excommunication a few decades ago, but today they are admitted by the church. They might not be delving into the details of these treasure digs or the other occult beliefs of Joseph Smith, but they are coming clean at some level, and sharing historical truths that might not be useful to the church, even though they are true.

In Joseph Smith’s day, some individuals claimed that they had a gift to “see,” or receive divine or supernatural messages, through seer stones. These beliefs came from the Bible and from European cultural traditions brought to early America by immigrants. Joseph Smith and his family accepted these beliefs, and Joseph occasionally used stones he located in the ground to help neighbors find missing objects or search for buried treasure.

Church History Topics: Seer Stones, 2020
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/seer-stones?lang=eng

Today, since the fact of the historical evidence is no longer denied, where does their line of questioning lead us? Are the questions still valid, if the facts they were mocking are indeed true?

What of the questions posed in 2000, about the seer stone translation method making the gold plates useless? What of all the preparation on the gold plates and the small plates in order to retell the story on the 116 pages that Joseph and Martin were destined to lose? Again, why all this flap and fuss over interpreters and gold plates when all Joseph needed was a chocolate-colored stone and a hat in order to produce the Book of Mormon.

If Joseph Smith translated everything that is now in the Book of Mormon without using the gold plates, we are left to wonder why the plates were necessary in the first place. It will be remembered that possession of the plates placed the Smith family in considerable danger, causing them a host of difficulties. If the plates were not part of the translation process, this would not have been the case. It also leaves us wondering why the Lord directed the writers of the Book of Mormon to make a duplicate record of the plates of Lehi. This provision which compensated for the loss of the 116 pages would have served no purpose either. Further, we would be left to wonder why it was necessary for Moroni to instruct Joseph each year for four years before he was entrusted with the plates. We would also wonder why it was so important for Moroni to show the plates to the three witnesses. And why did the Lord have the Prophet show the plates to the eight witnesses? Why all this flap and fuss if the Prophet didn’t really have the plates and if they were not used in the process of translation? What [this] is asking us to believe is that the Lord had Moroni seal up the plates and the means by which they were to be translated hundreds of years before they would come into Joseph Smith’s possession and then decided to have the Prophet use a seer stone found while digging a well so that none of these things would be necessary after all. Is this, we would ask, really a credible explanation of the way the heavens operate?

Joseph Fielding McConkie (BYU Professor of Ancient Scripture) & Craig J. Ostler (BYU Professor, Church History and Doctrine), Revelations of the Restoration: A Commentary on the Doctrine and Covenants and other Modern Revelation: The Process by Which the Book of Mormon Was Translated, Deseret Book, 2000. Page 95-96
https://archive.org/details/revelationsofres0000mcco/page/96/mode/2up
https://wasmormon.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/Process-of-Translating-the-BofM.pdf

We must now believe that the Lord had Mormoni and all the Nephite prophets write in the uncommon reformed Egyptian by etching on gold plates, they buried the plates and Moroni as an angel returned to show them to Joseph after 4 years of instruction. Joseph took the gold plates and was endangering himself and his family due to possessing the relics, and was forced to hide them and even run through the woods fighting off assailants. Joseph and Martin Harris would lose the first 116 pages of “translation,” but the Lord would foresee this and prepare another version of the story in the small plates of Nephi, but Joseph didn’t use the plates in translation anyway. Joseph, as instructed by the Lord, would show the plates to 3 and then to 8 witnesses, these witnesses would see the plates at least with their spiritual eyes that Joseph didn’t need or use to create the Book of Mormon. Joseph would receive a Urim and Thummim from the same buried stone box as the gold plates, but would have already found his own seer stone which he preferred to use for convenience when digging a well, or digging for buried treasure (depending on which story you believe).

It is interesting that the church has begun to come clean with the church history narrative. They have accepted and started to teach that Joseph Smith used his own seer stone to “translate” the Book of Mormon. What about the ramifications of these changes though? Historians have long seen the inevitable consequences of the narrative change, and have demanded pertinent questions. Are these the shelf items of historians? None of these relics or preparations from numerous prophets and the Lord were needed or necessary, is this how God operates? Does he make his prophets perform useless tasks? We could argue that he does, but for the sake of the church, they would say he does not. Why then was all this done in preparation for the Book of Mormon when none of it was necessary or even used in the process?

What about you? Do you believe the Book of Mormon is an ancient translation from the gold plates? Did you ever believe it? Does the seer stone make it harder to believe? Does the changing narrative and the “flap and fuss” make it harder to believe? No wonder leaders have resorted to pleading with us to simply “choose to believe.” Consider sharing your own journey of faith deconstruction in the church at wasmormon.org.

• https://bookofmormonevidence.org/david-whitmer-never-saw-josephs-translation-neither-did-martin-or-emma/
• https://archive.org/details/revelationsofres0000mcco/page/96/mode/2up?q=undermine
• https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/book-of-mormon-translation
• https://archiveviewer.org/viewer/pdf/https://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-october-2015/2015-10-00-ensign-eng.pdf
• https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/history/topics/seer-stones
• https://www.reddit.com/r/exmormon/comments/7xzlri/if_joseph_smith_translated_everything_that_is_now/
• Joseph Smith’s Rock in Hat Translation of the Book of Mormon
• When did you learn about Joseph Smith’s seer stones?
• Church Historians Attempt Normalizing Strange Seer Stone In Hat Translation Method
• The Problems with Joseph Smith and Peep Stone Translations
• Mormonites Footnote on Book of Mormon Translation Gospel Topic Essay
• Elder Uchtdorf Compares Peep Stone to His Smartphone
• Joseph Smith’s Peep Stone Translation Method Renders The Gold Plates Useless
• Joseph Smith Confirms His Seer Stone Is Nonsense
• Joseph Fielding Smith Taught The Seer Stone Was Not Used for Book of Mormon Translation
• Some things that are true are not very useful to the Mormon church
• https://missedinsunday.com/memes/other/simply-fiction/
• https://wheatandtares.org/2020/07/26/either-incompetent-or-dishonest/