12. WHY DID JOSEPH SMITH, THE PROPHET, NEED THE HELP OF THE URIM AND THUMMIM?

The Urim and Thummim are mentioned in the Bible in connection with priestly functions. They were to be used in making the will of the Lord clear and comprehensible to the priest. Aaron was instructed to wear the Urim and Thummim “upon his heart,” when he went to secure “judgment” from the Lord, and his successors were instructed to use the Urim and Thummim when they asked “counsel” from the Lord. Clearly, the Urim and Thummim were used in official communication with the Lord. Beyond that, little is known of them. (See Exodus 28:30; Leviticus 8:8; Numbers 27:21; Deuteronomy 33:8; I Samuel 28:6; Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:65.)

In modern times the Urim and Thummim reappear. The Prophet Joseph Smith records that the angel Moroni said that “there was a book deposited, written on gold plates… also, that there were two stones in silver bows… and these stones fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim… deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted ‘Seers’ in ancient or former times, and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 1:12).

When the actual work of translation began, the Urim and Thummim were found to be indispensable. In various places the statement is made that the translation was made “by means of the Urim and Thummim” (D. & C. 10:1). On one occasion, when the Prophet, through the defection of Martin Harris, lost a part of the manuscript translation, the Urim and Thummim were taken from him, and the power of translation ceased. Upon the return of the sacred instruments, the work was resumed (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 1:23). While the Prophet was undoubtedly required to place himself in the proper spirit and mental attitude before he could use the Urim and Thummim successfully, yet it must also be concluded that the stones were essential to the work of translation.

Most of the early revelations to Joseph Smith were obtained by the use of the Urim and Thummim. Speaking of those early days the Prophet usually says, “I enquired of the Lord through the Urim and Thummim, and obtained the following” (Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 1:33, 36, 45, 49, 53). The “stones in silver bows” seemed, therefore, to have possessed the general power of making spiritual manifestations understandable to Joseph Smith.

The Prophet did not always receive revelations by the aid of the Urim and Thummim. As he grew in spiritual power, he learned to bring his spirit into such harmony with divinity that it became, as it were, a Urim and Thummim to him, and God’s will was revealed without the intervention of external aids. This method is clearly, though briefly, expressed in one of the early revelations.

Behold, you have not understood; you have supposed that I would give it unto you, when you took no thought save it was to ask me.

But, behold, I say unto you, that you must study it out in your mind; then you must ask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your bosom shall burn within you; therefore, you shall feel that it is right.

But if it be not right you shall have no such feelings, but you shall have a stupor of thought that shall cause you to forget the thing which is wrong; therefore, you cannot write that which is sacred save it be given from me. (D. & C. 9:7-9)

Similarly, the Book of Mormon sets forth the conditions which enable a person to receive divine communications without special outside means.

And when you shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. (Book of Mormon, Moroni 10:4, 5)

That is, truth may become known when one places himself in harmony or in tune with the requirements of the subject in hand.

The possession of the Urim and Thummim, with their purpose and use, really becomes a strong evidence of the truth of Joseph Smith’s message. It is a commonplace of science that the senses of man are so poor as to make them inadequate to discover more than a small fraction of universal truth. Indeed, with unaided senses, man stands helpless before the many phenomena of nature. It is an equally elementary fact that aids of the senses of man, when found, open up large and new vistas of knowledge. Every aid to human sense becomes, in fact, a door to a new field of scientific exploration.

The history of science is largely the story of the accumulation of aids to man’s senses. By the use of a glass prism, ordinary sunlight is broken into the many prismatic colors; a sensitive thermometer reveals heat rays above the red end of the spectrum; a photographic plate reveals the existence of different rays at the violet end of the spectrum; uranium glass changes the invisible rays at the violet end of the spectrum into light rays; a magnetic needle makes known the presence of a low tension electric current in a wire; the magnetic currents over the earth are indicated by the compass; by X-rays the bones of the body are made visible; a great telescope is now being built which will enable the human eye to see light, of the intensity of a small candle, forty thousand miles away. Such examples might be greatly multiplied.

Joseph Smith was but a humble, inexperienced lad. He was assigned a tremendous task. His need of help such as the Urim and Thummim, until by mighty prayer and effort his body and spirit became spiritually “tuned,” seems both logical and scientific.

It should be noted also that the Prophet does not enter into any argument to prove the necessity of the use of the Urim and Thummim. His simple mention of them argues strongly for his veracity. An impostor would probably have attempted an explanation of the “seer stones.”

The Urim and Thummim were aids to Joseph’s spiritual senses. How they operated is not known. For that matter, the methods of operation of most of the aids to man’s physical senses are not understood. Joseph’s claim to the need of such aids becomes an evidence for the truth of his life’s labor.

I found the question on stakes across the United States interesting. Given that in 1948 the bulk of the Church still lived in the intermountain west it such a question might not seem so far-fetched. There were few organized stakes outside the Mormon corridor and none overseas. What is interesting is that within a few years there was a proliferation of stake creation throughout the US and abroad.