Urim and Thummim
What is the Urim and Thummim? Was it always known as the "urim and thummim" or was that a later change? What did they look like? Where are they now?
1830 Edition
of the Book of Mormon
The term "Urim and Thummim" does not appear anywhere in the Book of Mormon. The word "directors" was used in the 1830, 1837, 1840 and 1841 Editions. Then, at least by 1920, the word "directors" was changed to "interpreters." Joseph Smith seems to be referring in his earlier editions to seer stones, which also "directed" him to buried treasure. The terms for the spectacles went through quite an evolution: from directors, to interpreters, and then finally to the Urim and Thummim.
Lucy Mack Smith
1844-1845
"said he I have got the key I knew not what he meant but took the article in my hands and upon examining it that it consisted of 2 smooth stones conected with each other in the same way that old fashioned spectacles are made"
Wentworth Letter
1 March 1842
"These records were engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long and not quite so thick as common tin. They were filled with engravings, in Egyptian characters and bound together in a volume, as the leaves of a book with three rings running through the whole. The volume was something near six inches in thickness, a part of which was sealed. The characters on the unsealed part were small, and beautifully engraved. The whole book exhibited many marks of antiquity in its construction and much skill in the art of engraving. With the records was found a curious instrument which the ancients called "Urim and Thummim," which consisted of two transparent stones set in the rim of a bow fastened to a breastplate."
Rev. Henry Caswall
1842
"Accordingly he led the way to a small house, the residence of the prophet's mother. On entering the dwelling, I was introduced to this eminent personage as a traveller from England, desirous of seeing the wonders of Nauvoo. She welcomed me to the holy city, and told me that here I might see what great things the Lord had done for his people. "I am old," she said, "and I shall soon stand before the judgment-seat of Christ; but what I say to you now, I would say on my death-bed. My son Joseph has had revelations from God since he was a boy, and he is indeed a true prophet of Jehovah. The angel of the Lord appeared to him fifteen years since, and shewed him the cave where the original golden plates of the book of Mormon were deposited.
He shewed him also the Urim and Thummim, by which he might understand the meaning of the inscriptions on the plates, and he shewed him the golden breastplate of the high priesthood. My son received these precious gifts, he interpreted the holy record, and now the believers in that revelation are more than a hundred thousand in number. I have myself seen and handled the golden plates; they are about eight inches long, and six wide; some of them are sealed together and are not to be opened, and some of them are loose. They are all connected by a ring which passes through a hole at the end of each plate, and are covered with letters beautifully engraved. I have seen and felt also the Urim and Thummim. They resemble two large bright diamonds set in a bow like a pair of spectacles. My son puts these over his eyes when he reads unknown languages, and they enable him to interpret them in English. I have likewise carried in my hands the sacred breastplate. It is composed of pure gold, and is made to fit the breast very exactly."
[Henry Caswall, The City of the Mormons; or, Three Days at Nauvoo (1842), 27-28]
Martin Harris
(E. D. Howe)
1834
"When I asked the person, who brought it, how he obtained the writing, he gave me, as far as I can now recollect, the following account: A "gold book," consisting of a number of plates of gold, fastened together in the shape of a book by wires of the same metal, had been dug up in the northern part of the state of New York, and along with the book an enormous pair of "gold spectacles"! These spectacles were so large, that, if a person attempted to look through them, his two eyes would have to be turned towards one of the glasses merely, the spectacles in question being altogether too large for the breadth of the human face."
