Latter Day Saint Movement
Joseph Smith, Jr., founder of the Latter Day Saint movement, said that he used interpreters in order to translate the Book of Mormon from the Golden Plates. The interpreters he described as a pair of stones, fastened to a breastplate joined in a form similar to that of a large pair of spectacles. Smith later referred to this object as the Urim and Thummim. In 1823, Smith said that the angel Moroni, who had told him about the Golden Plates, also told him about the Urim and Thummim, "two stones in silver bows" fastened to a breastplate, and the angel intimated that they had been prepared by God to aid in the translation of the Golden Plates. Smith's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described these Urim and Thummim as being like "two smooth three-cornered diamonds."
Smith also said he used these devices to assist him in receiving other divine revelations, including some of the sections of the Doctrine and Covenants and portions of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Although many of Smith's associates said they saw him use the devices, only Oliver Cowdery seems to have attempted to use them to receive his own revelation. Latter Day Saints believe that Smith's Urim and Thummim were functionally identical to the biblical Urim and Thummim. There is no evidence that the latter were ever used to translate unknown texts, or as part of such a process.
Smith extends the use of the term "Urim and Thummim" to describe the dwelling place of God, the earth in a future state, and the white stone mentioned in the Book of Revelation.
Read more about this topic: Urim And Thummim
Famous quotes containing the words day, saint and/or movement:
“A black boxer’s career is the perfect metaphor for the career of a black male. Every day is like being in the gym, sparring with impersonal opponents as one faces the rudeness and hostility that a black male must confront in the United States, where he is the object of both fear and fascination.”
—Ishmael Reed (b. 1938)
“O Paddy dear, an’ did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?
The shamrock is by law forbid to grow on Irish ground!
No more Saint Patrick’s Day we’ll keep, his colour can’t be seen,
For there’s a cruel law agin the wearin’ o’ the Green!”
—Unknown. The Wearing of the Green (l. 37–40)
“An actor rides in a bus or railroad train; he sees a movement and applies it to a new role. A woman in agony of spirit might turn her head just so; a man in deep humiliation probably would wring his hands in such a way. From straws like these, drawn from completely different sources, the fabric of a character may be built. The whole garment in which the actor hides himself is made of small externals of observation fitted to his conception of a role.”
—Eleanor Robson Belmont (1878–1979)