In the Latter Day Saint movement, the term Urim and Thummim () refers to a category of instruments used for receiving revelation or translating languages. According to Latter Day Saint theology, the two stones found in the breastplate of Aaron in the Old Testament, the white stone referenced in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament, the two stones bound by silver bows into a set of spectacles (interpreters) that movement founder Joseph Smith said he found buried in the hill Cumorah with the golden plates, and the seer stone found while digging a well used to translate the Book of Mormon are all examples of Urim and Thummim. Latter Day Saint scripture states that the place where God resides is a Urim and Thummim, and the earth itself will one day become sanctified and a Urim and Thummim, and that all adherents who are saved in the highest heaven will receive their own Urim and Thummim. While the term is ubiquitous and well ingrained in modern Latter Day Saint theology, it was not initially applied to the spectacles or seer stone used in translating the Book of Mormon, and "Urim and Thummim" does not appear within the Book of Mormon or early versions of the Doctrine and Covenants. It has been argued that Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery adopted the term in the early 1830s as part of a larger effort to distance the church from early folk magic practices and retroactively provide a Biblical rationale for their earlier behavior.
History Joseph Smith said that in 1827 he was led by an angel to dig up golden plates containing a record of ancient inhabitants of the American continent, along with "spectacles", or interpreters, that the Lord had prepared to translate the record. Smith also had in his possession a brown seer stone. He used both devices to produce the record, which is called the Book of Mormon. The earliest source that expands the term "Urim and Thummim" outside the biblical context is a reverse association William W. Phelps made on Hosea 3:4 in July 1832, stating that the children of Israel "were even to do without the Teraphim, [Urim & Thummim, perhaps] or sacred spectacles or declarers." The first known explicit connection between the spectacles and the term "Urim and Thummim" occurred in 1832. Prior to this, and even frequently afterwards, they were always referred to as "spectacles" or "interpreters". By 1833, Joseph Smith and his associates began referring to the Smith's seer stone as well as the interpreters with the Biblical term "Urim and Thummim". In January 1833 W. W. Phelps wrote about a possible connection: "It [Book of Mormon] was translated by the gift and power of God, by an unlearned man, through the aid of a pair of Interpreters, or spectacles- (known, perhaps, in ancient days as Teraphim, or Urim and Thummim)". Similarly, Oliver Cowdery wrote in September 1834, "[Smith] translated, with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, 'Interpreters'". In 1838, Smith simply stated, "I obtained [the plates], and the Urim and Thummim with them; by the means of which, I translated the plates; and thus came the Book of Mormon." No mention of the term "Urim and Thummim" exists in the 1833 version of the Book of Commandments, or in early transcriptions of Joseph Smith's revelations. In the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, revelations were modified and the term was added.
Apostle Orson Pratt gave an expansive definition in 1851 stating: "The Urim and Thummim is a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing." Emma Smith, Joseph Smith's wife and scribe for part of the Book of Mormon, made a clear distinction between the two in an 1870 letter, "The first that my husband translated, was translated by the use of the Urim, and Thummim [i.e. spectacles or interpreters], and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly, black, but was rather a dark color."
By the beginning of the 20th century, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) grew to see the "Urim and Thummim" as completely dissociated from seer stones, a distinction that persists today among many members of the church. This disassociation is typified by church leader Bruce R. McConkie who wrote: "the Prophet had a seer stone which was separate and distinct from the Urim and Thummim."
Reasons for adoption of the term The motive for adopting the term 'Urim and Thummim' is the subject of continued debate and ongoing study. The general consensus is that it was part of a larger effort to de-emphasize early folk magic practices, and bring them into the mainstream. Joseph Smith was put on trial in 1826, and twice in 1830 for practicing folk magic and being a disorderly person or "glass looker" (stone gazer). Fear of further litigation and shifting cultural attitudes towards the acceptability of folk magic in 1830 American society led Smith to remove allusions to folk magic elements in his early life (such as magical treasure-seeking activities, divining rods, magic circles and seer stones) Some apologists within the LDS Church argue that Smith never used the seer stone in the translation, that the term 'Urim and Thummim' is not a later development, and accuse those who make a distinction of being revisionist historians. Recent publications by the LDS Church acknowledge the shift in terminology occurring in the early 1830s, but do not speculate on reasons for doing so. Apologetic site FAIR attributes the change to early Latter Day Saints noticing similarities between the biblical devices and the Nephite interpreters, the term naturally entered the vernacular over time, and that "use of the term Urim and Thummim has unfortunately obscured the fact that all such devices belong in the same class of consecrated revelatory aids and that more than one were used in the translation."
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