Beliefs
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. Previously, it was thought that there was no evidence that the latter were ever used to translate unknown texts. However, Dr. Cornelis Van Dam of the Theological Colleges of the Canadian Reformed Churches recently published a book titled The Urim and Thummim: A Means of Revelation in Ancient Israel, in which he examines a new possible role of these ancient Israelite objects. Van Dam puts forth the idea that the Urim and Thummim were actually used in ancient Israel as a means of receiving revelation from God. Some Mormons believe that there were three different Urim and Thummims: the one of the Old Testament (Exodus 28:30) 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.
Read more about this topic: Urim And Thummim (Latter Day Saints)
Famous quotes containing the word beliefs:
“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)
“A man must not swallow more beliefs than he can digest.”
—Havelock Ellis (1859–1939)
“To begin to use cultural forces for the good of our daughters we must first shake ourselves awake from the cultural trance we all live in. This is no small matter, to untangle our true beliefs from what we have been taught to believe about who and what girls and women are.”
—Jeanne Elium (20th century)