Some people still haven't seen this, but it's a lot of fun. It explains why so many BYU students are so confused when they eventually learn what Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, and Martin Harris said.
Many LDS can't understand why these SITH sayers don't follow basic principles of historical analysis. Early statements by the principals are generally more reliable than late statements by people with agendas.
The SITH sayers, such as Royal Skousen and his followers at the Interpreter, prefer the SITH narrative from Mormonism Unvailed over what Joseph and Oliver said.
See https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe/page/18/mode/2up
These SITH sayers insist that Joseph and Oliver deliberately misled us all when they taught (repeatedly, and in print) that Joseph translated the plates by means of the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.
E.g., In his latest book, Brother Skousen makes plain this reality: everyone who teaches SITH is also teaching that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery deliberately misled everyone about the origin of the Book of Mormon.
"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
https://www.bookofmormoncentralamerica.com/2024/11/thank-you-royal-skousen.html
Instead, the SITH sayers insist that Joseph read words off of a stone from a dinosaur's gizzard (technically, a gastrolith).
(See my conversation with Grok about this here:
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/p/origin-of-seer-stone.html
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According to them, some dinosaur ate the stone in Wyoming and somehow crossed a couple of thousand miles to New York, where it died, leaving the gastrolith where Joseph Smith could find it while digging in a well.
Okay...
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Actual scientists explain the reality about dinosaurs in New York:
Can you find dinosaur bones in New York?
Finding actual dinosaur bones is quite rare in New York. Our state’s geology is primarily comprised of rock layers from the Paleozoic era, which predates the Mesozoic era when dinosaurs roamed the Earth.
While we’re rich in fossils from the Devonian and Ordovician periods, these are mainly marine fossils like trilobites and brachiopods, not dinosaurs. New York has a significant record of Ice Age mammals and other ancient creatures, though.
https://rockchasing.com/fossils-in-new-york/
Some graphics help explain Royal Skousen's theory:
There are awesome new websites about Church History locations. They have lots of valuable information about the sites and what transpired there, including some useful graphics.
This one focuses on Harmony and includes a graphic about the translation of the Book of Mormon.
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when I entered his house the first thing that attracted [p. 135] my attention was a red morocco trunk, that set on Emma’s bureau; which trunk Joseph shortly informed me, contained the Urim and Thummim and the plates.
In the evening he gave us the following relation of what had transpired since our separation… [quoting Joseph, p. 138] “on the 22d of September, I had the joy and satisfaction of again receiving the Urim and Thummim; and have commenced translating again, and Emma writes for me; but the angel said that the Lord would send me a scribe, and <I> trust his promise will be verified. He also seemed pleased with me, when he gave me back the Urim and Thummim; and he told me that the Lord loved me, for my faithfulness and humility.
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The idiocy shown in this video compares with the crazy SITH-promoting videos on YouTube. The question is are the politicians really this dumb, or do they just think the voters are?
https://x.com/BreitbartNews/status/1895102702377427276
This podcast does a great job showing why it matters whether people accept or reject what Oliver and Joseph said about the translation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w-_U4D3g6M
Hannah is awesome. I don't always agree with her interpretations, but she's an outstanding defender of the faith.
For example, her framing of "traditionalist vs progressive" unduly implicates political issues. SITH is not a new or progressive theory. It was articulated first in 1829 by Jonathan Hadley, and then in 1834 in Mormonism Unvailed as an alternative to the Urim and Thummim narrative.
That's why Oliver Cowdery wrote Letter I (JS-H note) and why Joseph and Oliver emphasized that Joseph used the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates.
In my view, SITH is a question of the reliability and credibility of Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery (the same as M2C). But Hannah makes good points as well.
Here's her Facebook post.
):Hank Smith, a great guy in every way, did a podcast about the Translation of the Book of Mormon with Gerrit Dirkmaat (who is also a great guy) recently.
https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2023/10/update-on-jonathan-hadley-and-sith.html
Brother Dirkmaat won't respond to questions about why he invented this history about Jonathan Hadley, or why he rejects what Joseph and Oliver said about the translation.
And yet, Hank is puzzled by the reaction to his podcast.
Here's his post on X.
https://x.com/hankrsmith/status/1886975384039907568
Hoping that Hank really does want to understand, let's discuss this further.
Hank posted a follow up about "about the emails I’ve been receiving from believing members who are upset that we’re discussing the seer stone on the podcast. They feel it makes Joseph & the Book of Mormon seem weird."
The comments on his video and posts are all over the place, of course, but the main problem with SITH is not that it "seems weird," but that SITH was articulated in Mormonism Unvailed in 1834 as an alternative to the Urim and Thummim narrative.
Immediately when Mormonism Unvailed was published, Oliver Cowdery wrote the statement that is now canonized in JS-History as a note at the end, explaining that "Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history or record called ‘The Book of Mormon.’"
(Joseph Smith—History, Note, 1)
Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the Book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me and told me where they were and gave me directions how to obtain them. I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.
Actually, Phelps used the term Urim and Thummim in 1833 in an article explaining the term in a biblical context. But in the summer of 1832, Orson Hyde and Samuel Smith explained the Urim and Thummim to audiences in Boston, as reported in local papers. See note 5 in the Joseph Smith Papers here:
https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/topic/urim-and-thummim
We would have to believe that it was Joseph's brother and the future Apostle who invented the term and misled everyone. Either that, or they heard it directly from Joseph Smith and/or Oliver Cowdery, which is far more likely.
There are few historical records from this period, so we can't say for sure. But we can say for sure that Phelps did not invent the term when he published it in 1833.
From MOBOM:
The earliest known reference to the Urim and Thummim was published in the Boston Investigator on August 10, 1832. The article, titled "Questions proposed to the Mormonite Preachers," related an interview with Orson Hyde and Samuel Smith that included these questions and answers:
Q. -- In what manner was the interpretation, or translation made known, and by whom was it written?
A. -- It was made known by the sporit of the Lord through the medium of the Urim and Thummim; and was written partly by Oliver Cowdery, and partly by Martin Harris.
Q. -- What do you mean by Urim and Thummim?
A. -- The same as were used by the prophets of old, which were two crystal stones, placed in bows, something in the form of spectacles, which were found with the plates.
https://www.mobom.org/translation-references
Some people still haven't seen this, but it's a lot of fun. It explains why so many BYU students are so confused when they eventuall...
