A response (~My Words~) to the article: By the Gift and Power of God by R. Scott Lloyd in the LDS Church News Published: Monday, 8 August 2011, SANDY, UTAH

Regarding the process by which he translated the Book of Mormon, the Prophet Joseph Smith would say only that the translation came forth by the gift and power of God.

~This certainly was not the only thing he said about the translation process, though he certainly was tight lipped about it, considering the curiosity the world had concerning it. Then again, why would he want to give any more information than was required about an easily dismissed and obviously “magical” process? It’s best to keep ‘em all guessing.~

It is well known from scripture and the historical record that the Prophet translated at least a portion of the book and received other divine revelation through sacred instruments, namely the seer stone and the Urim and Thummim, which comprised a set of seer stones. Eventually, Joseph was able to translate and receive revelation without the aid of such instruments.

~One might argue, why then, would he need them at all if he was able to translate them “without the aid of such instruments?”~

~The average Latter-day Saint would benefit from a bit more information about this subject, but is left to the vagueness which Mr. Lloyd is obligated to publish. I am under no such obligation.~

~Joseph Smith was using a magical rock (known by most as a ‘peep stone,’ or a ‘seer stone’ by others who want to give it a more regal feel) for years before the Urim and Thummim arrived.~

~On 20 March 1826, in a New York City courtroom, Joseph Smith was found guilty of deception by using this stone to lure people into believing he could find treasure beneath the earth. It is worth mentioning that Joseph Smith claimed to have had his first glimpse of the plates (with the angel Moroni) on 22 September 1823; two and a half years prior to his conviction. He says he ultimately received the plates from the angel on 22 September 1827; about 18 months after his conviction.~

~Purportedly, the Urim and Thummim was a device which was buried with the golden plates. Joseph claimed he received this device with the plates. Although there seems to be a debate about what this apparatus actually looked like, the most accepted LDS view of it is pictured here. Some have surmised it might simply be a pair of glasses, while others (like our Mr. Lloyd) claim it was basically a set of stones. It is commonly referred to as ‘spectacles’ which leads us to the conclusion that the basic reading device must have been something like eyeglasses. It was somehow ‘attached’ to a breastplate, which we’re told resembled the breastplate worn by Moses’ brother Aaron.~

~In an 1890 interview, William Smith, brother of Joseph Smith, described the Urim and Thummim: “Explaining the expression as to the stones in the Urim and Thummim being set in two rims of a bow he said: A silver bow ran over one stone, under the other, around over that one and under the first in the shape of a horizontal figure 8 much like a pair of spectacles. That they were much too large for Joseph and he could only see through one at a time using sometimes one and sometimes the other. By putting his head in a hat or some dark object it was not necessary to close one eye while looking through the stone with the other. In that way sometimes when his eyes grew tires [tired] he releaved [sic] them of the strain. He also said the Urim and Thummim was attached to the breastplate by a rod which was fastened at the outer shoulde(r) edge of the breastplate and to the end of the silver bow. This rod was just the right length so that when the Urim and Thummim was removed from before the eyes it woul(d) reac(h) to a pocked [pocket?] on the left side of the breastplate where the instrument was kept when not in use by the Seer. I was not informed whether it was de-tacha(bl)e from the breastplate or not. From the fact that Joseph often had it with him and sometimes when at work(,)(I) am of the opinion that it could be detached. He also informed us that the rod served to hold it before the eyes of the Seer." (William Smith interview with J.W. Peterson and W.S. Pender, 1890, from "Statement of J. W. Peterson Concerning William Smith," 1 May 1921, Miscellaneous Letters and Papers, RLDS Church Library-Archives, Independence, Missouri. Available in ‘Early Mormon Documents, Vol 1,’ by Dan Vogel)~

~This crazy concoction was to be ultimately underutilized. After the translation of the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon were ‘lost’ (most likely they were purposely destroyed by Lucy Harris) the Urim and Thummim was taken away from Joseph Smith as a punishment for trusting Martin Harris. Thus ends the short lived and useless introduction of a heavenly device which appeared only long enough to benefit writings which will never be seen.~

~So what is a prophet to do? He goes back to his dear peep/seer stone (the same one which he was found guilty in court of using) to start the translation process over again.~

~That’s right. Contrary to popular LDS belief, the Urim and Thummim was not used to translate a single word in what we now know of as the Book of Mormon. Joseph either used the peep/seer stone, or nothing at all. In fact, he evidently became so good at the translating process that he didn’t even require the PLATES in the room during some of the translations!~

In his talk at the FAIR Conference on Aug. 4, Brant Gardner proposed a theory regarding the means by which such instruments functioned. Brother Gardner has completed work toward a doctorate in Mesoamerican Ethnohistory and has authored a multi-volume commentary on the Book of Mormon and, very recently, a book on the translation of the Book of Mormon.

~Mr. Lloyd attempts to dazzle the reader by quoting Brant Gardner and mentioning some of his credentials.~

Brother Gardner suggested that the seer stone itself does not intrinsically provide the divine revelation.

“It's the seer that’s working,” he said, “and the stone becomes the trigger that allows the seer to do what a seer does.”

Referring to accounts in which the Prophet Joseph Smith reportedly would place a seer stone into the crown of his hat to exclude the light while looking at it, Brother Gardner said, “Seer stones are used in ways that make it so you should not be able to see a thing, and they create a contradiction in that the person explains what they are seeing at a time when they should not be able to see.”

Another way in which Joseph reportedly used the seer stone was to hold it up to a candle, Brother Gardner said. “Think of what happens when you hold a seer stone up to a candle. You have this black dot in the middle and the corona of the light on the outside and you’re obstructing your vision.”

It’s therefore a question of how the seer sees when he can’t see, Brother Gardner said.

He said some people have brains that can generate very vivid images.

“What I’m suggesting is that when Joseph used a seer stone, his vision was occluded, but he saw in his brain a picture that allowed him to describe it in detail that is much more vivid than what a typical person can,” he said.

Not understanding that mental ability, a person might conclude that it was the seer stone that made it happen, he said.

“Once we know that you can you reverse the process, and instead of having light coming into the eyes to generate vision, we can have something in the brain that will generate vision that we can see when we cannot see, we know that’s how seer stones work,” he said. “That mechanism is what starts the process for understanding how Joseph Smith is going to use a seer stone.”

~Mr. Gardner alludes to the notion that Joseph Smith saw the images in his hat with his ‘brain’ and not through his ‘eyes,’ as if this somehow makes this form of hocus pocus more valid than seeing the images the other way. His use of double-talk to provide an explanation is accurate to the gullible, and insulting to the critical thinker.~

~This theory does not hold water as Joseph testified to the fact that the use of the seer stone hurt his eyes (see William Smith quote above) and that he could not use it for extended periods of time, and in fact committed to giving it up entirely before he began what amounted to the use of it to translate about 4,000 words a day in the Book of Mormon. Evidently his eyes didn’t hurt as much when he saw REAL money signs in them.~

He spoke of the language of thought, denoted by some philosophers as “mentalese,” the ability of the mind to conceive meaning without expressing it in language.

Except for Mosiah, Joseph is the only known person to have ever translated by means of a seer stone, Brother Gardner observed. So how did he do it?

~This is either an outright deception, or an uneducated guess. The use of a variety of stones in order to gain inspiration is called “scrying” and has been invoked for as long as mankind has been fascinated by unusual looking stones. This practice is generally used in various forms of the occult. Mr. Lloyd presents the fictional Book of Mormon character named ‘Mosiah’ to lure the faithful into thinking “If it’s good enough for Mosiah and Joseph Smith then its good enough for me!” Quietly enticing the unlearned into a conviction that anything hereafter associated with a magical rock is reliable (that is, unless it’s done beyond the confines of a prophet of course)~

“The only explanation I can give you is that God gave it to him in pure understanding,” Brother Gardner said, “and that pure understanding goes into his brain in the way that we store pure understanding; it goes into the brain in mentalese.

“How is it then expressed in language? It is expressed in the same way that we express mentalese into our language: through the vocabulary, the sentence structures, the idioms to which we have access based on our education.”

Brother Gardner acknowledged that such historical theories as this cannot be proven, only tested to see if they are a productive means to answer questions regarding such subjects as the mechanism by which Joseph Smith translated.

“The only person who really could have told us how he did it was Joseph Smith, and I suspect that he did not understand fully how he did it either,” he said. “But he did know one very, very important thing: He knew that he did not do it alone. So that when he was asked how he did it, the only competent answer that he could give was that it was through the gift and power of God. That is what we really need to know.”

~How can giving an answer such as this be construed as ‘competent?’ Is it perhaps because the sea of historical and scientific incompetence in which Mormons grovel is so deep, that the only thing that makes real sense to them is delusion and fantasy? It seems so, but they instead prefer to label it ‘belief’ and ‘faith.’~

~I find the most truthful words spoken by Mr. Gardner are these: “some people have brains that can generate very vivid images.” There can be no doubt that Joseph Smith was blessed with such a vivid imagination. Too bad he didn’t do his homework before he invented the non-plagiarized portions of the Book of Mormon.~