A presentation given at Zone Conference. Follow along with accompanying notes: http://www.slideshare.net/iamse7en/translation-of-bom-notes

1. Translation of the Book of Mormon

2. According to the Prophet Joseph “ Through the medium of the Urim and Thummim I translated the record by the gift and power of God .” Is that it?

3. Concealed Truth Oct. 25, 1831 Conference “ The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us, is because we do not keep them but reveal them; we do not keep our own secrets, but reveal our difficulties to the world, even to our enemies, then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? I can keep a secret till Doomsday . ”

4. According to Oliver Cowdery “ I wrote with my own pen the entire Book of Mormon (save a few pages), as it fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph Smith, as he translated by the gift and power of God, by the means of the Urim and Thummim, or, as it is called by that book, ‘ Holy Interpreters. ’” “ These were days never to be forgotten—to sit under the sound of a voice dictated by the inspiration of heaven, awakened the utmost gratitude of this bosom! Day after day I continued, uninterrupted, to write from his mouth, as he translated with the Urim and Thummim, or, as the Nephites would have said, ‘Interpreters,’ the history or record called ‘The Book of Mormon.’ ”

6. According to David Whitmer “ I will now give you a description of the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light . In the darkness the Spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God and not by any power of man. ”

7. According to David Whitmer “ He did not see the plates in translation, but would hold the interpreters to his eyes and cover his face with a hat, excluding all light, and before his eyes would appear what seemed to be parchment on which would appear the characters of the plates in a line at the top, and immediately below would appear the translation in English, which Smith would read to his scribe, who wrote it down exactly as it fell from his lips. The scribe would then read the sentence written, and if any mistakes had been made, the characters would remain visible to Smith until corrected, when they would fade from sight to be replaced by another line. ”

8. According to Emma Smith “ In writing for your father I frequently wrote day after day, often sitting at the table close by him, he sitting with his face buried in his hat, with the stone in it , and dictating hour after hour with nothing between us.... The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment, wrapped in a small linen table-cloth, which I had given him to fold them in. ”

10. The World’s Perspective

12. Plates Present or Absent? “ I have sometimes had seasons of skepticism, in which I did seriously wonder whether the Prophet and I were men in our sober senses, when he would be translating from plates, through ‘th e Urim and Thummim,’ and the plates not be in sight at all.” – Oliver Cowdery “ The plates often lay on the table without any attempt at concealment …” – Emma Smith Purpose of the Plates?

13. Seer Stone or Nephite Interpreters? “ … the Lord … took from the prophet the Urim and Thummim and other wise expressed his condemnation. By fervent prayer and by other wise humbling himself, the prophet, however, again found favor, and was presented with a strange, oval-shaped, chocolate-colored stone, about the size of an egg only more flat, which, it was promised, should serve the same purpose as the missing Uri m and Thummim.... With this stone all of the present Book of Mormon was translated. ” – David Whitmer “ After the 116 pages were lost Joseph translated the rest of the Book of Mormon with a stone . ” – William E. McLellin “ Now the first that my husband translated was translated by the use of the Urim and Thummim, and that was the part that Martin Harris lost, after that he used a small stone, not exactly black, but was rather a dark color.” – Emma Smith

14. Urim & Thummim Defined “ The Urim and Thummim is a stone or other substance sanctified and illuminated by the Spirit of the living God, and presented to those who are blessed with the gift of seeing.” – Orson Pratt A generic term meaning any device with the potential for “commincating light perfectly, and intelligence perfectly, through a principle that God has ordained for that purpose.” – John Taylor

15. The Seer Stone

18. Counterfeit Seer Stone “ Apostle Smith gave them [‘ Sameazer Stones ’] to Joseph the P rophet who pronounced them to be a Urim and Thummim--as good as ever was upon the earth--but he said, ‘They have been consecrated to devils. ”

22. Revelation Doesn’t Limit Agency, it Requires it!

24. Demonstration And it came to pass that they ate and slept, and prepared for death on the morrow…

25. Demonstration And now, I would commend you to seek this Jesus of whom the prophets and apostles have written…

27. The Plates 6 inches wide 8 inches long 6 inches thick Roughly 123 pounds “ They appeared to be of gold, about six by nine inches in size, about as thick as parchment, a great many in number and bound together like the leaves of a book by massive rings passing through the edges. ” – David Whitmer