What did the Urim and Thummim look like?

It’s Friday!

Thus, as you’ve come to expect, or at least as you should have come to expect — it’s been a consistent pattern now for over seven years — a new article has been published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:

“What Did the Interpreters (Urim and Thummim) Look Like?” by Stan Spencer

ABSTRACT: The interpreters were a pair of seer stones used by Book of Mormon prophets and provided to Joseph Smith for translating the Nephite record. Martin Harris described them as two white, marble- like stones that could be looked into when placed in a hat. Joseph Smith described them as spectacles with which he could read the record and later as two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow. Others described them as smooth stones, diamonds, or glasses. Reconciling these various descriptions and determining the actual appearance of the interpreters requires an assessment of the credibility of each source and an understanding of how the interpreters were used in translating. It also requires an understanding of how words such as glasses, transparent, and diamonds were used in Joseph Smith’s day, particularly in reference to seer stones. An assessment of the various descriptions of the interpreters in light of these factors lends support to both Martin Harris’s and Joseph Smith’s accounts. By these accounts, the interpreters were smooth, mostly white, perhaps translucent stones set in a long metal frame. Although they superficially resembled eyeglasses, the stones were set much too far apart to be worn as such. They were not clear like eyeglasses but were transparent in the sense that they, like other seer stones, could be “looked into” by a person gifted as a seer of visions.

***

But this new article isn’t the only new item that’s up on the Interpreter Foundation’s websites:

In “Covet to Prophesy,” Dr. Hales Swift provides

A Video Supplement for Come, Follow Me Lesson 35: “God Is Not the Author of Confusion, but of Peace”

In addition, the 1 September 1 of the Interpreter Radio Show is now accessible, free of charge, on the Interpreter Foundation website.  Neal Rappleye, Jasmine Rappleye, and Spencer Marsh discussed a new book by Steven Harper and the new Interpreter article by Noel Reynolds, as well as the upcoming Come, Follow Me lesson #37 on 2 Corinthians 8-13:

Interpreter Radio Show — September 1, 2019

If you want only the Interpreter Radio (audio) Roundtable for Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 37, “God Loveth a Cheerful Giver,” covering 2 Corinthians 8-13, it has been extracted for your listening pleasure and edification from the 1 September 2019 broadcast of Interpreter Radio.  It features Neal Rappleye, Jasmine Rappleye, and Spencer Marsh:

Audio Roundtable: Come, Follow Me New Testament Lesson 37 “God Loveth a Cheerful Giver”

Finally, you might enjoy the podcast “A Church History Moment,” with J. B. Haws.