Refiner's Fire Ministries

Unlike the New York Times, which sticks its corrections on the last page, between an add for arugula (which isn’t even in my spell check) and the answers to last week’s crossword puzzle, let me be right up front with my correction. Or at least my I’m-still-trying-to-find-proof copout.

Here is the statement in question from the last post, "What's in a Word?":

“. . . misunderstood by Joseph Smith when he wrote his so-called inspired version of the Bible. You remember, the one he translated using the seer stone in his hat, right after he wrote the Book of Mormon utilizing essentially the same method. (Emphasis mine)

I was sure I had heard or read that this was the case. But Paul, who has about twenty more years of research than I, says no, it was something he and Sidney Rigdon cooked up. I have no doubt about that; it’s well documented. But I was certain I’d read about the Urim and Thummim/seer stone in the hat in the “translation” of the “Inspired Version” as well as the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine and Covenants. Not to be easily swayed, because I’m a good part rat terrier, I set out to find the truth.

After much web surfing and crawling through my own books, I got this far:

On a website entitled knowledgerush.com is this paragraph:

“ It is possible, but not certain, that Smith's process of receiving ‘revealed text’ is the same for this volume [Joseph Smith Translation] as it was for his earlier work, The Book of Mormon, and his later work, The Book of Abraham; however, these other works appear to have been dictated from beginning to end with little revision, and they purportedly based on an original ancient document. To translate, he may have used a seer stone in a hat, or a purported set of seer stones set in the form of spectacles which he called the Urim and Thummim. According to most accounts, however, most of the translation took place without any physical mediums, but by direct revelation through the Holy Spirit.”

The information doesn’t really reveal much, but I sent a question to them asking about the possibility. I haven’t received a reply yet.

In The Four Gospels of Joseph Smith we find that “In October of 1829 Oliver Cowdery, an associate and scribe for Joseph Smith, purchased a large leather bound edition of the King James Bible at Egbert B. Grandin’s Bookstore in Palmyra, New York. At the time Smith was residing in Pennsylvania. The Bible was published in Cooperstown, New York, by H. and E. Phinney Company in 1828. This printing included the Apocrypha. This KJV 1828 Bible (JS Bible) became the textual basis for the revision.”
H. Michael Marquardt, The Four Gospels of Joseph Smith (Xulon Press, 2007) 33.

This Bible now resides in the Community of Christ archives. It was also published in the town where I was born and grew up: Cooperstown, New York. Woo, woo, woo.

In 495 words I have managed, I hope, to make the correction. It is pretty clear that Joseph Smith did not use the Urim and Thummim, a stone or a hat in the “translation” of the “Inspired Version” of the Bible. Therefore, please disregard the following words: “so-called inspired version of the Bible. You remember, the one he translated using the seer stone in his hat,” in "What’s in a Word?"

I highly recommend that you read about Joseph Smith’s “Inspired Version” of the Bible, found on pages 103-112 in Part Way to Utah. Better yet, re-read the whole book. It’s on this website.

God bless

Jan