Wonderboywonderings,
Did you even read your own sources? I quote directly from Doctrines of Salvation Volume 3 — Joseph Fielding Smith, tenth president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (1970–1972),
“While the statement has been made by some writers that the Prophet Joseph Smith used a seer stone part of the time in his translating of the record, and information points to the fact that he did have in his possession such a stone, yet there is no authentic statement in the history of the Church which states that the use of such a stone was made in that translation. The information is all hearsay, and personally, I do not believe that this stone was used for this purpose. The reason I give for this conclusion is found in the statement of the Lord to the Brother of Jared as recorded in Ether 3:23–24.
These stones, the Urim and Thummim which were given to the Brother of Jared, were preserved for this very purpose of translating the record, both of the Jaredites and the Nephites. Then again the Prophet was impressed by Moroni with the fact that these stones were given for that very purpose. It hardly seems reasonable to suppose that the Prophet would substitute something evidently inferior under these circumstances. It may have been so, but it is so easy for a story of this kind to be circulated due to the fact that the Prophet did possess a seer stone, which he may have used for some other purposes.”
I’ll contrast that statement, written by a professed Prophet, Seer, and Revelator of God, with the most recent, unsigned essay found on LDS.org,
“Apparently for convenience, Joseph often translated with the single seer stone rather than the two stones bound together to form the interpreters. These two instruments — the interpreters and the seer stone — were apparently interchangeable and worked in much the same way such that, in the course of time, Joseph Smith and his associates often used the term “Urim and Thummim” to refer to the single stone as well as the interpreters.”
When exactly did the LDS church acknowledge that the seer stone was not only used but was the primary method of the translation of the Book of Mormon? Why wasn’t it talked about in General Conference by the Prophet? Why wouldn’t someone with authority set the record straight? The Book of Mormon is supposedly the keystone of the Mormon faith. Why not speak clearly, “Hey an earlier prophet actually made a mistake. Joseph Smith primarily used the seer stone.”
No. Instead there are small, obscure references. It wasn’t until very recently that they have tried to talk openly about it. Why does all church artwork and Sunday School manuals explain the translation process differently than the recent essay?
Your post is a great example of gaslighting, the act of trying to convince someone that their memory or perception of events must be incorrect. It’s exactly why so many ex members of the Mormon church identify with George Orwell’s 1984. There are so many things that have been thrown into the memory hole. You didn’t know this? How could you have not known this? We’ve always been at war with Eastasia.
My grandfather was an ordained Seventy. He served 4 missions. He was a bishop, an elder’s quorum president, a high priest, etc. He and my grandmother had nearly every book of doctrine ever published on Mormonism in their personal library. He never knew, until a few months ago when I told him, that Joseph Smith married Helen Mar Kimball, a 14 year old. How is that? How can an extremely well read lawyer, who has spent their entire life in the LDS church in leadership callings, be completely unaware of a wife of Joseph Smith, the founder of the religion. The man who in holy Mormon canon is described as, “Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”
You know what he told me when I first told him? He said some anti-Mormon must have hacked the website. He said he wouldn’t believe the essay until he saw “Tommy Monson’s signature at the bottom.”
I’ll tell you why he didn’t know about her or why I didn’t know about the seer stone. There has been whitewashed, watered down version of the LDS church’s beginnings, founder’s life, and doctrine that has been promulgated and taught at an incredibly superficial level for decades, if not immediately following the death of Joseph Smith. However, with the ability for primary source information to be catalogued, searched and presented to the masses, this whitewashed version of events can no longer be supported.
