The party

“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” - George Orwell, 1984

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With the specific assistance of Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery wrote a detailed description of Moroni's visit in 1835.

He [Moroni] said this history was written and deposited not far from that place, and that it was our brother’s privilege, if obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain and translate the same by the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with the record.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1834-1836/68

Responding to ongoing confusion about the translation, Joseph Smith answered the question  in the Elders Journal in 1838.

Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the Book of Mormon?

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.

(Elders’ Journal I.3:42 ¶20–43 ¶1)

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/elders-journal-july-1838/11 

https://www.mobom.org/translation-references

Brad Wilcox explains SITH

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.

Translating with dinosaur gizzard stone (Gastrolith)

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:

Graphic on the translation

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.

https://history.churchofjesuschrist.org/exhibit/historic-sites/pennsylvania/priesthood-restoration-site/priesthood-restoration-revelations?lang=eng#mv2

In this post we offer suggestions for improvement.

(click to enlarge)

Here's where "fun with SITH" comes in.

It is amazing how determined some people are to erase the Urim and Thummim from the narrative so they can replace it with SITH instead (the stone-in-the-hat narrative).

The bottom section of the graphic shows a quotation from Joseph Smith as a complete sentence.

But in reality, they edited out the first part of the sentence from the Wentworth letter, which anyone can read here:

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/times-and-seasons-1-march-1842/5

(click to enlarge)

The first part of the sentence reads, "Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim."

Obviously, this is a significant omission.

Even better, they didn't even show the omission with ellipses. Crazy stuff.

We suggest that the graphic would be improved by including the entire sentence.

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The graphic also show the "working days" as 65, completely ignoring what Lucy Mack Smith and David Whitmer said. David said it took 8 months. Lucy explained that when she visited Joseph in the fall of 1828, Joseph told her he had received back the U&T and was translating again. That's what led me to conclude that Joseph translated all or most of the Book of Mosiah before Oliver came in April 1829.

Lucy related her experience when she came to visit Joseph in Harmony in the fall of 1828. 

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.

https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/142

This graphic shows the whole problem.

(click to enlarge)

Dumb politicians, or dumb voters?

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

Breitbart News

@BreitbartNews

JB Pritzker: "The prices at the grocery store are going up because democracy is being taken away." Impossible to parody this.

SITH vs U&T: Why does it matter?

This podcast does a great job showing why it matters whether people accept or reject what Oliver and Joseph said about the translation.

Seerstone in a hat translation ! Why does it matter Oliver Cowdery is key.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1w-_U4D3g6M

Hannah Stoddard's view

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.

Hannah Stoddard

SteonopsrdarF1au r6het3ca04t6f4u4f2f7 h3aPb:7i64lm1 fyfM4 0g  · 

Over the last week, I have seen heated debates over the translation of the Book of Mormon, and through those conversations, a few misunderstandings that are easy to clarify! Here are two simple reasons why traditionalist members often have a problem with the seer stone translation hypothesis (simplified ):

A) Promoters of the seer stone translation hypothesis almost always accuse Joseph Smith of being involved in folk magic or worse. It's not seer stones that are the problem, but stones used for occultic/magic/non-God ordained purposes. Traditionalists never deny seer stones exist (this is a straw man argument that progressives use to manipulate the traditionalist case), but traditionalists do draw a clear distinction between instruments God ordains through priesthood order and covenants, versus dark and evil counterfeits. Joseph Smith never dabbled or used power from the adversary. Period. No, Joseph Smith did not have a career in treasure digging, and no, he was not a "village seer" running around using occultic tools to prepare him for the priesthood.

B) Adopting the progressive narrative requires you to accept claims made by individuals who were either apostates or anti-mormons when they made their claims. Their own statements contradict Joseph Smith's personal and repeated testimony, and sometimes they even contradict themselves. If you lived in Jesus Christ's day, would you believe Herod's testimony over Peter's or John's? Would you really accept Caiaphases' narrative over Jesus Christ? Apparently many progressive members, who are historians and scholars, would.

No, Joseph Smith did not translate the Book of Mormon using a seer stone in a hat. He used the plates, the Urim & Thummim (a Jaredite-Nephite instrument prepared specifically for this purpose), and the breastplate.

And these, my friends, are two reasons why traditionalist members of the Church have a problem with the new progressive narrative. It's not because we don't have faith, we're limiting God, or are history and science deniers. We simply believe in God's ordained Priesthood order, and trust men and women with character and faith, over slanderers and enemies. And that position I am happy to meet the Lord with on the other side.

(I'm leaving some links in the comments to podcasts and other articles to back up the information above, for those interested.)