Hank Smith's translation video

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://t.co/HOdGVtI2gV

Brother Dirkmaat is one of the most outspoken proponents of SITH. He even published an imaginary version of early Church history to promote SITH (see the discussion of that here:

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

Hank Smith

@hankrsmith

Help me understand, you’re okay with Joseph Smith seeing God and Jesus, talking with an angel every year for four years, translating the plates, but using a seerstone goes too far? I’ve had a dozen emails over an episode which published yesterday.

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)

When read in context, in juxtaposition to Mormonism Unvailed, Oliver clearly repudiated SITH. Yet SITH persisted.

To refute SITH further, Joseph published a response in the Elders' Journal, in the form of a Q&A:

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.

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

There is no room in Joseph's unambiguous, clear statement for some stone he found in a well.

As if that wasn't enough, Joseph reiterated the point in the Wentworth letter.

Scholars who promote SITH, such as Brother Dirkmaat, reject the plain words of what Joseph and Oliver taught. 

But many Latter-day Saints still believe what Joseph and Oliver taught and reject the SITH narrative from Mormonism Unvailed, which Emma and David eventually adopted (probably thinking they were refuting the Spalding theory; i.e., as apologists).

That's why so many faithful Latter-day Saints object to SITH.

_____

Hank also showed that he's been misled by certain scholars.

Hank Smith

@hankrsmith

Hear me out. From what I understand, no one involved used the term “Urim and Thummim” until 1832, when W.W. Phelps introduced it, likely because it sounded more biblical than “spectacles,” “peep stone,” or “seer stone.” Joseph and Oliver seem to adopt the term afterward, using it to refer to any tool (seerstone and spectacles) used in the translation process. In fact, when Joseph later gave the seer stone to Wilford Woodruff, he referred to it as “Urim and Thummim.”

 

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