Urim and Thummim (Latter Day Saints)

In the Latter Day Saint movement, the term Urim and Thummim (/ˈjʊərɪm ... ˈθʌmɪm/) refers to a descriptive category of instruments used for receiving revelation or translating languages.

[10][5][1][11] In January 1833 W. W. Phelps wrote about a possible connection: "It [Book of Mormon] was translated by the gift and power of God, by an unlearned man, through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles- (known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim)".

"[12] No mention of the term "Urim and Thummim" exists in the 1833 version of the Book of Commandments, or in early transcriptions of Joseph Smith's revelations.

Apostle Orson Pratt gave an expansive definition in 1851 stating: "The Urim and Thummim is a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing.

[18][19] This disassociation is typified by church leader Bruce R. McConkie who wrote: "the Prophet had a seer stone which was separate and distinct from the Urim and Thummim.

[22] Joseph Smith was put on trial in 1826, and twice in 1830 for practicing folk magic and being a disorderly person or "glass looker" (stone gazer).

[24] Apologetic site FAIR attributes the change to early Latter Day Saints noticing similarities between the biblical devices and the Nephite interpreters, the term naturally entered the vernacular over time, and that "use of the term Urim and Thummim has unfortunately obscured the fact that all such devices belong in the same class of consecrated revelatory aids and that more than one were used in the translation.

"[25] In 1827, Smith said that he had been visited again by the angel who had previously revealed the location of the golden plates, along with other items such as the Urim and Thummim, and that these objects were buried in a nearby hillside.

After Martin Harris lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon manuscript in June 1828, Smith said that the Angel Moroni took back the plates and interpreters.

Smith reportedly told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was an inexperienced translator but that as he grew in experience, he no longer needed such assistance.

"[32] The majority of the descriptions of the translation with the interpreters have Smith looking through transparent, glass-like stones at the text, and it being converted into English words.

[50] In 1841, apostles Wilford Woodruff and George A. Smith confiscated several seer stones and grimoires from convert William Mountford in Staffordshire, England.

[52] In 1843, William Clayton wrote in his journal a theologically significant discussion he had with Smith that later became canonized as Section 130 of the Doctrine and Covenants:[53] "The angels do not reside on a planet like this Earth; but they reside in the presence of God, on a globe like a sea of glass and fire, where all things for their glory are manifest, past, present, and future, and are continually before the Lord.