Response to LDS Discussions: The Seer Stone “Now You Know” Video

A scholarly examination of the claims raised in ldsdiscussions.com’s critique of the Church’s 2019 official seer stone video

Overview of the Critique

In June 2019, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a short video titled “Seer Stones: Now You Know,” acknowledging Joseph Smith’s use of a seer stone in translating the Book of Mormon. The website ldsdiscussions.com published a critique arguing that the video was misleading, incomplete, and that it concealed damaging historical facts about Joseph Smith’s treasure-seeking past, the nature of the 1826 trial, the actual translation method, and the problems introduced by a “tight translation” theory.

This response examines each major claim in sequence, drawing on primary historical sources, the Church’s own official Gospel Topics Essays, peer-reviewed Latter-day Saint scholarship, and the findings of textual scholar Royal Skousen. We demonstrate that the critique repeatedly overstates its case, misrepresents primary evidence, and draws unwarranted conclusions from legitimate historical ambiguity.

Claim 1: The Church Hid the Seer Stone Until “the Internet Forced Their Hand”

LDS Discussions asserts that “the appeal to authority at the end of ‘Now you know’ is jarring considering this is information the church has had the entire time and never told members until the internet forced their hand.” This claim does not survive scrutiny against the documentary record.

The Church’s own published record of seer stone disclosure spans nearly a century and a half of open publication:

“An oval-shaped, chocolate colored stone about the size of an egg… with which all the present book was translated.”

— Historical Record, Church publication, 19th century

In 1974 — decades before the Internet Age — the Church’s official children’s magazine, The Friend, stated plainly: “Joseph also used an egg-shaped, brown rock for translating called a seer stone” (September 1974, p. 7). Elder Russell M. Nelson, then a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, described the hat-and-stone process in detail in the Ensign in 1993. Elder Dallin H. Oaks addressed the topic in the Ensign in 1987. Church historians James B. Allen and Glen M. Leonard discussed the seer stone straightforwardly in The Story of the Latter-day Saints (1976).

In October 2015 — four years before the video in question — the Church published the actual photograph of the seer stone in the Ensign in an article titled “Joseph the Seer,” authored by Church historians Richard E. Turley Jr., Robin S. Jensen, and Mark Ashurst-McGee. That same year, the Gospel Topics Essay “Book of Mormon Translation,” available on ChurchofJesusChrist.org, gave a full and frank account of the seer stone’s use.

The charge of institutional concealment fails. The more accurate description is one of changing emphasis over time within a faith community — not suppression. No responsible scholar of Church history would describe these publications as concealment.

Claim 2: Joseph Smith “Never Found Anything” While Treasure Seeking — Therefore the Seer Stone Is Discredited

The critique spends considerable space arguing that because Joseph Smith did not successfully locate buried treasure during his pre-prophetic years, the seer stone is discredited as a translation instrument. This argument commits a basic logical fallacy: it assumes that the purpose for which an object is initially used determines the limits of its sacred application. The critique itself acknowledges the standard apologist response — that God used ordinary objects to accomplish extraordinary ends — but dismisses it by claiming Moses never misused his rod before parting the Red Sea. This dismissal ignores significant counter-evidence.

First, the premise that Joseph “never found anything” is contested by the primary witnesses. At the 1826 hearing before Justice Albert Neely, Josiah Stowell — the employer who contracted Joseph for the treasure dig — testified that he “positively” knew Joseph could discern subterranean objects and emphatically denied being deceived or defrauded. Stowell actively defended Joseph. This is not consistent with the portrait of a straightforward fraud. Joseph was not convicted; the legal record suggests acquittal or discharge.

Second, and more importantly, the logical structure of the critique proves too much. If the youthful, imperfect use of a gift disqualified its later sacred application, then nearly every biblical prophet would be disqualified. Moses killed a man before he received his prophetic commission. Paul participated in the death of Stephen. Peter denied Christ three times. The LDS theological framework explicitly treats the treasure-seeking period as preparatory, not disqualifying — a time when God worked through the cultural idioms Joseph understood to cultivate his seeric capacity.

As Elder Orson Pratt recorded: “The Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was inexperienced in the Spirit of inspiration. But now he had advanced so far that he understood the operations of that Spirit and did not need the assistance of that instrument.” The progression from folk-magic context to mature prophetic gift is theologically coherent, not contradictory.

Claim 3: The 1826 Trial Proves Joseph Smith Was a Criminal Fraud

LDS Discussions states that “Joseph Smith was actually put on trial in 1826 for ‘glass looking’” and implies this demonstrates illegal criminal fraud. The historical record is more nuanced. The Church’s own published history of the trial (available at ChurchofJesusChrist.org) clarifies that “glass looking” was likely a phrase of identification rather than a statement of a criminal charge, since there was no statutory or common-law crime of “glass looking” then on the books in New York State.

Four accounts of the hearing exist. All suggest Joseph suffered no serious legal consequences. BYU Studies has published detailed legal analyses of the trial context (Gordon A. Madsen, “Joseph Smith’s 1826 Trial: The Legal Setting,” BYU Studies). The charge was apparently brought not by Josiah Stowell but possibly by a member of Stowell’s extended family. Stowell himself, the alleged victim of any supposed fraud, provided the decisive testimony in Joseph’s defense and continued to employ and support him.

The 1826 proceeding is a real historical event that requires honest engagement — and the Church does not hide it. But the critique’s framing of the episode as proof of deliberate criminal fraud, when the alleged victim flatly denied he was defrauded and the outcome appears to have been an acquittal or discharge, goes well beyond what the evidence sustains.

Claim 4: The Biblical Urim and Thummim Was Only a “Yes/No Magic 8-Ball” — The Church Misuses the Term

LDS Discussions argues that the biblical Urim and Thummim “worked more like a magic 8-ball, only giving you answers of yes or no,” and therefore equating them with Joseph’s translation instruments is a deliberate misrepresentation. This is a selective reading of the scholarly literature on the subject.

The nature of the biblical Urim and Thummim is genuinely debated among Old Testament scholars. While some ancient uses do suggest binary outcomes, the Hebrew terms urim (lights) and thummim (perfections) resist simple reduction. Josephus, Philo, and rabbinic tradition ascribe more complex divinatory functions to them. The scholarly literature does not support the confident assertion that they were only binary devices.

More importantly, the critique acknowledges that the term “Urim and Thummim” was not applied to Joseph’s instruments until 1833 (by W.W. Phelps) and that early Latter-day Saints used terminology loosely across different instruments. The Church’s Gospel Topics Essay explicitly addresses this terminological fluidity rather than hiding it:

“Joseph Smith and his associates often used the biblical term ‘Urim and Thummim’ to refer to any stones used to receive divine revelations, including the two seer stones that came with the plates and the single seer stone Joseph had found earlier.”

— Gospel Topics Essay, “Book of Mormon Translation,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org

The Church is not “muddying the water” — it is accurately describing how 19th-century Latter-day Saints themselves used the terminology. This is precisely what the Gospel Topics Essay openly explains.

Claim 5: Witnesses Confirm the Plates Were Not Used — Making Them Irrelevant

The critique quotes David Whitmer’s famous statement that Joseph “did not use the plates in translation” and uses this to imply the plates were a superfluous prop, undermining the entire narrative. This argument, however, ignores the substantial scholarly discussion of witness diversity and the theological function of the plates.

David Whitmer’s account is genuinely important and the Church does not suppress it. But Whitmer’s testimony must be weighed alongside several complicating factors:

Witness diversity: Emma Smith’s 1879 interview and Martin Harris’s accounts describe a process in which the plates were present and uncovered on the table at times. Emma stated she felt the plates through a cloth covering and moved them as she worked around the table. The witnesses do not speak with one voice about every procedural detail.

The theological function of the plates: If the plates were entirely irrelevant, why did God instruct Moroni to spend decades preparing the abridgment? Why were Three Witnesses and Eight Witnesses shown the plates in separate, formally attested experiences? Why were duplicate records (the small plates of Nephi) preserved to replace the lost 116 pages? The elaborate providential structure surrounding the plates is theologically coherent only if the plates themselves carried evidentiary and revelatory significance — serving as the physical anchor for divine communication even when Joseph’s gaze was directed at the seer stone.

Stan Spencer’s peer-reviewed article “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer,” published in the Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship (vol. 24, 2024), argues compellingly that Joseph’s stones functioned as faith-enabling instruments for visionary perception rather than mechanical display devices — a framework that resolves the apparent tension between stone-in-hat and the presence of the plates.

Claim 6: Willard Chase’s Account Proves Joseph Stole the Seer Stone

LDS Discussions quotes Willard Chase’s 1833 affidavit claiming Joseph refused to return a brown stone found while digging Chase’s well. This affidavit deserves serious engagement, but several contextual factors significantly affect its weight as evidence.

The Chase affidavit was collected and published by E.D. Howe in Mormonism Unvailed (1834) — a polemical anti-Mormon publication compiled by Philastus Hurlbut, who had been excommunicated from the Church and bore acknowledged personal animus against Joseph Smith. Scholars across the ideological spectrum have noted that Howe’s affidavit collection must be read with that context in mind, even where the underlying facts may have some basis.

There is also a genuine historical dispute about which stone was used for translation. The “chocolate-colored” stone described in the Turley/Jensen/Ashurst-McGee Ensign article (the stone now in Church possession) has a documented chain of custody: Joseph → Oliver Cowdery → Phineas Young → Brigham Young → Church archives. Whether this is precisely the Chase well stone or a different stone is not established by the Chase account alone.

Even granting the substance of Chase’s account, the logical conclusion LDS Discussions draws — that this invalidates the translation — does not follow. The sacred use to which God directed a physical object does not depend on the object’s complete prior history being morally unblemished. This is consistent with the Bible’s pattern of God working through imperfect people and imperfect circumstances.

Claim 7: A Tight Translation Theory Introduces Irresolvable Problems with KJV Errors and Deutero-Isaiah

This is the most substantive scholarly challenge raised in the critique, and it deserves the most careful response. LDS Discussions argues that if the seer stone presented exact English words (a “tight translation”), then the presence of KJV translation errors, New Testament phrases, and post-Lehi Deutero-Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon becomes inexplicable on orthodox terms.

Royal Skousen of Brigham Young University, the most rigorous textual scholar of the Book of Mormon, has spent decades analyzing the Original Manuscript and Printer’s Manuscript. His findings, published through Yale University Press (The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, 2009) and through the Joseph Smith Papers project, support the “tight translation” model based on scribal error patterns. Skousen demonstrates that scribal errors in the Original Manuscript are consistent with mishearing dictated text — the kind of errors produced when a scribe hears a word and writes a similar-sounding word. This pattern supports the proposition that Joseph dictated a fully formed English text, approximately 20–35 words at a time, from a visually perceived source.

The KJV quotation issue is a genuine scholarly puzzle, but the critique presents only one interpretive option. Several alternative frameworks exist:

The Revelatory Adaptation Model: The divine translator provided Joseph with an English rendering calibrated for his 19th-century audience. When ancient scripture corresponded to passages his audience knew from the KJV Bible, the revealed English rendering matched the familiar KJV phrasing — not because the underlying plates had KJV errors, but because the divine translation accommodated the linguistic expectations of 19th-century readers. This is internally coherent.

On Deutero-Isaiah: The presence of Deutero-Isaiah (Isaiah 40–55) in the Book of Mormon is a challenge that faithful scholars take seriously. However, the scholarly consensus that Deutero-Isaiah was composed during the Babylonian exile (post-600 BC) is itself contested within biblical scholarship. John Goldingay, John Oswalt, and other evangelical Old Testament scholars have argued for Isaianic unity from a critical-but-faithful perspective. The prophetic unity argument remains defensible in serious academic biblical scholarship.

On “New Testament phrases”: The Book of Mormon’s theological vocabulary reflects the religious idiom it was produced in and for. A divine translation of ancient scripture into 19th-century English would naturally draw on the shared theological language of that era. This is not evidence of fraud — it is evidence of divine accommodation in translation, a concept with robust precedent in how the New Testament authors themselves cited and translated the Old Testament.

Claim 8: “Reformed Egyptian” Characters Resemble Ordinary English — Proving Fabrication

LDS Discussions presents a comparison of Joseph Smith’s “Caractors” document against 19th-century English symbols and concludes the characters were fabricated. This argument treats visual similarity as proof of derivation — a deeply problematic methodological move. Ancient scripts routinely share visual features with other scripts and with symbols in common use across cultures, because the range of simple geometric marks available to humans is finite. Visual resemblance alone proves nothing about origin.

No professional Egyptologist has demonstrated that the Caractors document is a copy or derivative of any specific English source. What Egyptologists have stated is that they cannot identify the characters as known Egyptian hieroglyphics or Demotic script — which is exactly what the Book of Mormon claims: that “reformed Egyptian” was a script modified over centuries by Nephite scribes until it differed from its source language (Mormon 9:32–33). Absence of identification in known Egyptian scripts is not proof of English derivation.

The critique also relies on Tanner-produced comparison images that have been challenged by LDS scholars for selective presentation. The full Caractors document contains features not well explained by simple derivation from English symbols, and the argument from visual similarity is the weakest possible form of paleographic analysis.

Claim 9: Hiram Page’s Seer Stone Proves These Men Were Easily Deceived by Folk Magic

LDS Discussions argues that Hiram Page’s use of his own seer stone (prior to D&C 28) — and the fact that Oliver Cowdery and the Whitmers initially believed Page’s revelations — demonstrates how easily these men were misled by folk-magic thinking. This is presented as discrediting their witness testimony about the Book of Mormon translation.

The logic fails in both directions. If temporary credulity about a later seer stone discredits earlier reliable testimony, then the same standard would discredit the disciples of Jesus, who repeatedly misunderstood his mission and yet gave reliable testimony of his resurrection. Witnesses are not required to be infallible across all matters to be reliable on specific events they directly witnessed. Oliver Cowdery remained an unwavering witness of the Book of Mormon translation until his death, even during the years he was outside the Church. He returned and publicly reaffirmed his testimony before his death.

Moreover, the Hiram Page episode is actually evidence that the early Church had a structured theological framework for evaluating competing truth claims. Joseph did not simply accept Page’s revelations; he received a specific revelatory response (D&C 28) establishing ecclesiastical order and denying Page’s stone any authority. This is the opposite of a community helplessly deceived by folk magic — it is a community actively discerning between authentic and inauthentic spiritual experience.

Claim 10: The Video’s Depiction of the Translation Is Still Misleading

The critique argues that the video’s simple graphic style conceals the strangeness of the actual translation process and that it does not use the actual Reformed Egyptian characters. These are valid aesthetic and pedagogical criticisms that any thoughtful observer might share. A short video produced for a general audience will necessarily simplify. However, the claim that the simplification was designed to deceive overstates the case.

The video explicitly states that Joseph placed a stone in a hat and read the translated words. It links to the Gospel Topics Essay, which contains the full scholarly and historical account including the Whitmer quotation. The video does not deny the method — it describes it in accessible terms and points viewers toward more detailed resources.

The critique compares the 2019 Church video unfavorably to a 2003 South Park episode as evidence that the Church was slower to disclose than a satirical television program. This comparison is not analytically useful. A cartoon designed to mock religious claims operates under entirely different obligations than an institution addressing its own sacred history. The Church’s Gospel Topics Essays — which preceded the video by six years — provide the full disclosure the critique demands.

What the Evidence Actually Supports

The seer stone translation process is multiply attested. Emma Smith, David Whitmer, Martin Harris, and others all independently affirm that Joseph placed a stone in a hat and read English words. This is not a recent cover story; it is the earliest and most consistent account in the historical record.

The Church has disclosed this history openly and repeatedly. The claim that the Internet “forced” disclosure is inconsistent with a publication record stretching from the 19th century through 1974, 1987, 1993, and culminating in the 2013 Gospel Topics Essay and 2015 Ensign article with the seer stone photograph.

The translation methodology does not undermine the divine claim. God’s use of ordinary objects as instruments of revelation is a consistent biblical pattern. The strangeness of the hat-and-stone method is not evidence against its authenticity — prophetic methodology has consistently confounded ordinary expectations across the entire biblical record.

Skousen’s manuscript analysis supports rather than undermines prophetic translation. The scribal error patterns in the Original Manuscript are consistent with rapid dictation from a perceived source text, not with creative composition or copying from existing documents. An individual with Joseph Smith’s limited formal education producing 531 pages of manuscript in approximately 60 working days, with no significant revision, remains a phenomenon that demands explanation.

The legitimate challenges deserve honest engagement — which the Church provides. The Gospel Topics Essays acknowledge the seer stone, the treasure-seeking context, the 1826 trial, the Nephite Interpreters vs. seer stone question, and the KJV passages in the Book of Mormon. These essays were produced by professional Church historians and represent precisely the kind of institutional transparency that LDS Discussions claims is absent.

Conclusion

The LDS Discussions critique of the “Now You Know” seer stone video raises several historically grounded concerns, but its central conclusions — that the Church concealed the seer stone history, that treasure seeking disqualifies Joseph’s prophethood, that the translation method undermines divine claims, and that the witnesses are unreliable — do not survive careful examination of the primary sources and scholarly literature.

Faithful Latter-day Saints have every reason to engage these questions openly and without fear. The history is not the threat. The Gospel Topics Essays, the Joseph Smith Papers, Royal Skousen’s decades of manuscript research, and a growing body of peer-reviewed LDS scholarship provide the tools for honest engagement with the most challenging aspects of the founding narrative.

The seer stone does not embarrass the Restoration — it illustrates its central claim: that God communicates with human beings through means calibrated to their own time, culture, and capacity, and that the divine accommodation to mortal understanding has always looked stranger than conventional religion expected.

Key Sources and Further Reading

• Gospel Topics Essay, “Book of Mormon Translation,” ChurchofJesusChrist.org (2013)

• Richard E. Turley Jr., Robin S. Jensen, and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph the Seer,” Ensign, October 2015

• Royal Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (Yale University Press, 2009)

• Stan Spencer, “Seers and Stones: The Translation of the Book of Mormon as Divine Visions of an Old-Time Seer,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, vol. 24 (2024)

• Gordon A. Madsen, “Joseph Smith’s 1826 Trial: The Legal Setting,” BYU Studies

• FAIR Latter-day Saints, “Joseph Smith / Seer Stones / Rock in Hat Used for Book of Mormon Translation,” FairLatterDaySaints.org

• Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, vol. 3 (Printer’s Manuscript of the Book of Mormon)

• Joseph Smith’s 1826 Trial, ChurchofJesusChrist.org/study/history/topics/joseph-smiths-1826-trial