How a seer stone helped in the Book of Mormon translation

Mormon Times ^ | Nov. 23, 2009 | Michael R. Ash

[delacoert]

I love this part:

Martin Harris recounted an incident when he literally lost a needle in hay (shavings and straw) and asked Joseph to find it with his seer stone. In a manner common to frontier diviners, Joseph put his seer stone into the bottom of a hat and then put his face into the hat -- obscuring all ambient light -- and somehow was able to see something in the stone. Martin watched Joseph closely to see that he did not peek from out of the hat. According to Martin, Joseph "reached out his hand beyond me on the right, and moved a little stick and there I saw the pin, which he picked up and gave to me. I know he did not look out of the hat until after he had picked up the pin" (Tiffany's Monthly [June 1859], 164).

[flowerplough]

Joseph — like any other prophet — was a fallible human with preconceived ideas, opinions, and assumptions?

Understatement of the week.

[Feline_AIDS]

Now where did I put those sacred golden plates!? Wait... it’ll come to me... wait a minute... it’s coming back... no, that’s not it...

[montag813]

Uh...this thread gonna git uglay

[doc1019]

I want me one of them there “seer” stones … might help me in the stock market.

[Steelfish]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2393756/posts

[GSP.FAN]

Want some popcorn?

[MHGinTN]

Mormon Haters!

[Last Dakotan]

You know, I like Mormans and all that, but there is no way I’m ever going to take this seriously.

[MHGinTN]

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.'

'The question is,' said Alice, 'whether you can make words mean so many different things.'

'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'

[athelass]

Admin, this is on the front page because...??

[montag813]

[Safrguns]

I think if I were a scam artist, I would want to live in Utah.

[LiteKeeper]

Home of descendants!

[Tigen]

I think your right musrooms can give real bad diarea too.

[Religion Moderator]

This thread is posted in the Religion Forum.

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[delacoert]

[Bidimus1]

Firstly the claim of j.smith translating anything is false, if any thing he claims that God tough smiths peep stone which smith had used to con people as a money digger or by a set of interpreters that some time later were called the urim and thummim (looked like glasses with stone lens) showed in the CORRECT and PROPER English from the “reformed Egyptian” on the plates.

The plates them selves need not even be in the room to do this, the few “witnesses” of the plates are all relatives by blood or law (save 1) and either never saw the plates except when covered or not with there physical eyes but with the “eyes of faith”.

His next attempt at claiming to be a translator is the book of Abraham which has been proved to be farcical attempt at best as the images he put in the book are quite common and NOT in any way related to what j.smtih claimed, but not to be deterred smith then makes his Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar text which the lds church thought had been lost but sadly for them was found again, it has no relationship to Egyptian or any other language just more con-artistry from a con man.

Lastly he was given some “brass plates” found in kinderhook, he translated some of them and planed on using them to make a second book on the scale of the book of mormon.... but two things prevented him from doing so 1 he used the Nauvoo Legion to destroy an opposition newspaper and was arrested taken to the cartridge jail and while awaiting trial for treason was killed. The second was that they were made up by some local farmers and were fake as a 3 dollar bill.

For more info on smith as “translator” read BY his own hand on papyrus by Larson
Complete Text of book
http://www.irr.org/MIT/bhoh-pt1.html
also http://www.biblequery.org/OtherBeliefs/Mormonism/BookOfAbraham.htm

Kinderhook plates
http://www.utlm.org/onlineresources/kinderhookplates.htm
http://mormonthink.com/kinderhookweb.htm

Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar
For $18 you can get a copy and compare it to realy Ancient Egyptian ! http://www.utlm.org/newsletters/no100.htm#Alphabet

[Falconspeed]

n Joseph's world, the ability to use a seer stone to "see" the location of lost objects was a gift from God.

Mormonism + Islam = a fake, made up religion.

Jesus is Lord and King of the universe. "Every knee shall bow..." But good ol' Joseph and crazy Muhammed want everyone to bow in another direction: toward the exploitation of women and the abuse of power.

[Elsie]

In a manner common to frontier diviners, Joseph put his seer stone into the bottom of a hat and then put his face into the hat -- obscuring all ambient light -- and somehow was able to see something in the stone.

I can see the marquee now:

Men Who Stare at Rocks

Starring George Clooney