Church News mentioned ?????stone in hat?????

[_LDS truthseeker]

In the August 13 Church News published by the LDS Church, they actually mention the ‘stone in the hat’ translation method used by Joseph Smith. http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/6 ... f-God.html

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.

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.

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.

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."

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?

"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."


MY RESPONSE
On one hand I am glad that the church decided to make one of its rare acknowledgements of the ‘stone in the hat’ even if it’s just an article in the Church News by a no-name church staffer Scott Lloyd and not officially commented by the General Authorities.

However, this sugar-coating of the translation process seems to be presented by the writer as a way to dismiss criticism of the seer stone without mentioning any of the associated problems this brings up.

He seems to imply that the stone was necessary for the seer to begin translation. He quotes FAIR apologist Brant Gardner “the stone becomes the trigger that allows the seer to do what a seer does”.

However, he also says that Brother Gardner suggested that the seer stone itself does not intrinsically provide the divine revelation. Not understanding that mental ability, a person might conclude that it was the seer stone that made it happen, he said.

I have one simple question for the apologists: DID THE SEER STONE HAVE ANY SPECIAL POWER OR WAS IT JUST A STONE?

Both answers are fraught with problems:

If they answer YES, the seer stone had special power then how can they account for the fact that Joseph found the stone some 24 feet underground while he and Hyrum were digging a well for Mr. Willard Chase? He had the stone years before the Book of Mormon translation commenced and was not given to him by the angel and it was not in the stone box with the gold plates. Also this is the very stone he used in his failed attempts to find treasure with. Plus since the Church still has this stone it could be examined for unique properties or even used by the current prophets as seering device but it apparently just sits in the vault like any ordinary stone would.


If they say NO, Joseph just used this stone to concentrate with and it had no special powers then how do you account for the fact that Joseph was unable to translate when Martin Harris swapped stones in order to test Joseph?

"Once Martin found a rock closely resembling the seer stone Joseph sometimes used in place of the interpreters and substituted it without the Prophet's knowledge. When the translation resumed, Joseph paused for a long time and then exclaimed, 'Martin, what is the matter, all is as dark as Egypt.' Martin then confessed that he wished to 'stop the mouths of fools' who told him that the Prophet memorized sentences and merely repeated them" (Kenneth Godfrey, "A New Prophet and a New Scripture," Ensign, Jan. 1988)


I’ll tell you what likely actually happened:

Joseph noticed that the stone was different and used this as an opportunity to prove to Martin that he was indeed a seer. Take in mind that Joseph was known to carry this stone with him and likely knew exactly what it looked like, so he would have very likely been able to immediately tell that Martin had switched the stone. How likely is it that Martin could quickly find a stone that was lying around that matched the same size, color and shape almost exactly of the one Joseph had? To Martin they would have looked similar enough but Joseph would have been able to tell the difference as he would stare at the stone for hours at a time when translating or obtaining revelation. Also, it's not like Joseph lived in a rock quarry with thousands of odd-shaped stones lying around. So Joseph seized the opportunity and convinced ole’ gullible Martin that he couldn’t seer using just an ordinary rock from a creek bed but instead he needed his special stone that was ‘preserved’ some 24 feet underground on Willard Chases’ property that Joseph and Hyrum just happened to find some years earlier when they were digging a well for Mr. Chase.


There is no faithful answer to this question that does not bring up serious problems in regard to the seer stone method of translating that Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon.

[_jon]

Let's see if they teach the stone in the hat method in seminary or primary...

[_bcspace]

It's been taught in Gospel Doctrine before...by me. I believe there was an Ensign article on it or something like that.

[_jon]

It's been taught in Gospel Doctrine before...by me. I believe there was an Ensign article on it or something like that.

I've never heard of it being actively taught - but then that probably only means I wasn't in your class.

There was an ensign article in 1994 - 17 years ago.

In that 17 years people have been baptised at 8, gone through Primary, gone through seminary and institute and served Missions. If you were today, to ask all the people who were 8 years old and being baptised in 1994, and all of the people baptised since, 'how was the Book of Mormon translated?'. What proportion would say 'Urim & Thummim' and what proportion would say 'Primarily by using a stone in a hat, amongst some other, rather seldomly used methods'?

Just your best guess?

[_GR33N]

There is no faithful answer to this question that does not bring up serious problems in regard to the seer stone method of translating that Joseph used to translate the Book of Mormon.

First, thank you for posting the link. Fascinating read.
Second, I don't see any serious problems here, Joseph either translated by the gift and power of God or he didn't. You decide for yourself.

"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."

[_Yoda]

When I was in Primary, the terms, Urim and Thumim, and seer stones were used interchangeably.

For years, I thought they meant the same thing.