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Smith said that he used seer stones (one set of which Smith later called the Urim and Thummim) translate the plates he said to possess. [1] Translation ceased, however, when Harris lost 116 manuscript pages of uncopied text. Translation resumed in earnest when Smith was joined in May 1829 by a Smith family associate named Oliver Cowdery.
The earliest source that expands the term "Urim and Thummim" outside the biblical context is a reverse association William W. Phelps made on Hosea 3:4 in July 1832, stating that the children of Israel "were even to do without the Teraphim, [Urim & Thummim, perhaps] or sacred spectacles or declarers."
Urim (אוּרִים ) traditionally has been taken to derive from a root meaning "lights"; these derivations are reflected in the Neqqudot of the Masoretic Text. [3] In consequence, Urim and Thummim has traditionally been translated as "lights and perfections" (by Theodotion, for example), or, by taking the phrase allegorically, as meaning "revelation and truth" or "doctrine and truth."
Sometime after 1828, Smith and his early contemporaries began to use the terms "seer stone" and "Urim and Thummim" interchangeably, referring to Smith's brown stone as a "Urim and Thummim." [38] [39] D. Michael Quinn argues Smith eventually began using "biblical terminology to mainstream an instrument and practice of folk magic...
In the biblical account, the breastplate is termed the breastplate of judgment (Hebrew: חֹשֶׁן מִשְׁפָּט ḥōšen mišpāṭ – Exodus 28:15), because the Urim and Thummim (Hebrew: הָאוּרִים וְהַתֻּמִּים hāʾūrīm wəhattummīm) were placed upon it (Exodus 28:30).
Witnesses said Smith placed the Urim and Thummim in his hat while he was translating. [ 105 ] After the loss of the first 116 manuscript pages, Smith translated with a single seer stone, which some sources say he had previously used in treasure-seeking. [ 106 ]
The Book of Mormon witnesses were a group of contemporaries of Joseph Smith who claimed to have seen the golden plates from which Smith translated the Book of Mormon.The most significant witnesses were the Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses, all of whom allowed their names to be used on two separate statements included with the Book of Mormon and church leaders contend that the witnesses ...
The "lost 116 pages" were the original manuscript pages of what Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, said was the translation of the Book of Lehi, [1] the first portion of the golden plates revealed to him by an angel in 1827.