Seer Stone (Latter Day Saints) - Urim and Thummim

Urim and Thummim

In the Book of Mormon, prophets such as the Brother of Jared and Mosiah used devices called "interpreters" to receive revelation for their people, and the Doctrine and Covenants declares these interpreters to have been Urim and Thummim.

Mormons believe that the Urim and Thummim of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were the functional equivalent of the Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Old Testament, but there is no indication that the Old Testament Urim and Thummin were used to translate documents. Some Mormons believe that there were three different Urim and Thummim: the one of the Old Testament and two mentioned in the Book of Mormon, one used by the Jaredites and the other by King Mosiah. (LDS members believe that the one used by Smith is the one originally possessed by the Jaredites.)

Sometime after 1828 Smith and his early Mormon contemporaries began to use the terms "seer stone" and "Urim and Thummim" interchangeably, referring to Smith's brown stone as a "Urim and Thummim." D. Michael Quinn argues Smith eventually began using "biblical terminology to mainstream an instrument and practice of folk magic....There was no reference to the Urim and Thummim in the headings of the Book of Commandments (1833) or in the headings of the only editions of the Doctrine and Covenants prepared during Smith's life." Early Mormons often referred to Smith's seer stone as "the Urim and Thummim," and Quinn refers to the term "Urim and Thummim" as a "euphemism for Joseph Smith's seer stone."