Just_A_Guy

Excerpts of Clayton’s journals have been published in the past. In 2017 the JSPP was saying they’d publish the whole thing after the JSP were completed; though so far that hasn’t happened. From what I gather, the journals are highly unlikely to present Joseph as a monogamist or even as having been particularly ambivalent about the divine origin of polygamy. To the contrary, my understanding is that they likely contain some seamier details of polygamy generally and the drama between Joseph and Emma in particular—supposedly even including Emma declaring her intent that if Joseph could pursue additional wives, then she could and would pursue additional husbands.

OK, I'm back on a laptop so hopefully can express myself/respond a little more clearly via the "quote" function. I don't think I'd cited Joseph Sr. as a source for having witnessed the translation process, or even for using the seer stone. I merely cited him for the proposition that he had, in fact, seen the Nephite interpreters. Martin Harris also remarked on their inordinately large size, as did a couple of other non-LDS who were acquainted with the Smiths during the BOM printing process (see the Dirkmaat article I linked to in my prior post). As the conversation has progressed I've realized the distinction between the accounts saying JS used the seer stone, and the accounts saying JS put the instrument (whichever it was) into a hat. And yeah, William Smith (and Elizabeth Cowdery) only back the latter view. I'm referring to your earlier statement that: 3. On another line of thinking: If he used the U&T (whether exclusively or primarily) then it is a poor narrative/bad framing to simply "accept" the narrative of the stone in the hat and forget about the U&T. (Whether intended or not, that is exactly what the stone narrative is doing.) I don't think acknowledging that the seer stone was used, constitutes "accept[ing] the narrative of the stone in the hat and forget[ting] about the U&T." Are they actually in his handwriting? As I understand it, the HC was written by scribes in Joseph's voice; parts dictated by Joseph and others under his direction to a greater or lesser degree. As we parse out the statements in the HC, I think it's fair to point out that a) There are questions about how specific JS was willing to be (the 1826 Stowell trial docs suggest that the entire experience was mortifying for him; JS Sr. apparently testified and stated as much). And we know he was simplistic, if not outright evasive, in his explanation for why his name had been associated with money digging (see JS-Hist 1:56). b) Even if JS were inclined to be specific, it's an open question as to whether the scribes caught the nuances of what he was telling them; and c) Given that what scholars understand of the biblical U&T suggests that those particular stones worked significantly differently than either the seer stone or the Nephite interpreters did, "Urim and Thummim" may simply be a catch-all term for any sacred physical object (or at least, any stone) that serves as a conduit for revelation. Not necessarily; it just means that for whatever reason, he didn't want to talk about seer stones anymore. Martin Harris said that Joseph was specifically told by Moroni to get away from the money diggers. [Source] His activities with the seer stone, in hindsight, were not a point of pride for him. As noted above, I think it's "facts not in evidence" to assert that all of those revelations definitely came through the interpreters and not the seer stone. David Whitmer seems to have thought that they came through the latter; and IIRC attributed much of his falling-out with Joseph to Joseph's having abandoned its use. In fact, the earliest draft of the HC that exists dates to 1839 (though there was an earlier lost draft begun in 1838); whereas David Whitmer was excommunicated in April of 1838. If the seer stone was a wedge issue between Joseph and David, then that's another reason for Joseph to downplay its role in the restoration as he writes his official history. Fair enough. Vaguely; but with respect, I don't see its applicability to the current discussion. My point is that there is a purpose to what God does; and that we aren't really in a position to divine natural laws and then overlay them onto God to determine how He would or wouldn't act; or how an instrument He has created should or shouldn't work under a given set of circumstances. There's more at play here than simple mechanics. I don't see it that way. I think we overestimate the degree to which Joseph Smith knew, when he got the plates, precisely what he was doing; and/or the quality of his training up to that point in receiving revelation. The crowd who taught him to use seer stones, don't seem to be the most savory of characters. Even after he had the plates, it seems not to have initially occurred to Joseph that he already had instruments that could unlock a divine power of translation: he's reportedly approaching locals with copied characters from the plates to see if they recognize the language. He eventually takes a stab at translating and dispatches Martin Harris with the characters and translation to New York City to meet with the eminent scholars of the day and check his work--only to find out that they can't do it; and at that point it seems he finally understands that his job was more than that of a finder and caretaker. He already knows the Nephite interpreters are far superior to the seer stone--he tells his mother as much the day he gets them--and the interpreters thus serve as both a confidence-booster and a sort of set of "spiritual training wheels", affirming to him that God had prepared means especially for him to do the work and providing a crutch as Joseph hones his ability to recognize the Spirit (especially in those early days prior to his baptism [after which Oliver says they received a spiritual outpouring] and his ordination to the Melchizedek Priesthood [at which time he would have finally gotten the Gift of the Holy Ghost]). On what basis do we say that a [divinely approved] seer stone is functionally and/or theologically different than a Urim and Thummim? On what basis do we say that Joseph's brown seer stone was not a Urim and Thummim? Does Joseph ever say that that? Heck, per Wandle Mace's account, during the Nauvoo period Joseph even applies the term "Urim and Thummim" to a set of seer stones that he also condemns as having been consecrated to devils. It's been a couple of years and I don't remember the demonstration narrative, but . . . sure. But I would still come back to my questions above: Once Joseph starts using the term "Urim and Thummim", does he ever say that any of his other seer stones were not Urim and Thummim? Does he ever, after that, mention the brown stone at all? That's a really good point on the time frame generally. But I think Emma was in a position to do some of the translation work in the interim between when Joseph got the plates back, and when the family relocated. David and Elizabeth Whitmer were living at the Whitmer home. William, though not a witness to the process, is very well positioned to have heard accounts about it directly from the parties involved. Martin's narrative, of course, applies to the 116 pages; but if we know that the seer stone was used at least some of the time early in the process, then it seems remarkably cavalier to flat-out deny that it was used later in the process. Especially on the basis of statements by Joseph Smith that are not comprehensive and weren't intended to be.

I need to correct myself: Lucy felt them under a silk handkerchief the night Joseph got the plates, as related in her account as dictated to the Corays, the manuscript of which is on the JSP website. Going back to the other 2 accounts: remember JS Sr was eventually one of the 8 witnesses. Joseph Sr’s account comes via a late recollection from one Fayette Lapham, who in 1870 published a (highly skeptical) account of his interview with Joseph Sr from 1830, which is available online via Wikisource. William’s account comes from a book he published in 1831 called “On Mormonism” which is available online via archive.org. Apologies for the lengthy response time; I had missed this earlier. I’m posting on my phone and can’t do a well-cited comprehensive response now, but a couple of cursory responses: —On narrative of U&T vs SS: I don’t think Option 3 needs to unnecessarily downplay the role of the U&T/Nephite Interpreters. The fact is, we just don’t know exactly what the balance was; and the more we entrench into the position that one or the other was not used in the process, the more likely we are to be disproven at some point. —Beware of D&C sections headings as a source for describing the medium by which those headings were received. D&C 6 was originally published in the Book of Commandments as “Chapter V”—you can see it on the JSP website, and that header says nothing about how it was received. To suss all that out you have to go back to whoever wrote the headings—I think they mostly hark back to the “History of the Church”, which was written by JS well after 1833 (when he apparently started using the term “U&T” exclusively and, AFAIK, never explicitly referred to the seer stone again) and which was largely written as dictated to scribes. We know that for at least part of 1829 JS had the Nephite interpreters *and* the seer stone(s). —I’d be interested to hear your theory on the interpreters and how they were used; though I certainly understand your reticence here. —I think it’s important to differentiate Joseph’s seer stone (which was of God) from Sally Chase’s stone/glass (about which we know no such thing). If we hypothesize that seer stones work according to some sort of unknown-yet-natural phenomena, then asking why God let Sally’s stone work “a little, but not all the way” is like asking why God let my beater car go 300,000 miles, but not 300,050 miles, before conking out. At some point the discussion is less about natural/mechanical cause-and-effect; and more about why God does what He does and what He’s trying to teach us through the layers of protection He does or doesn’t offer. (For example, in the case of the Sally-inspired raid on the empty box, it reminds Joseph that there are unseen-but-real supernatural powers trying to take the plates from Joseph and that he needs to be utterly vigilant). Re the roadblocks you cite: —On seer stones/U&T showing “what is not”—again, you’re talking about Sally Chase’s stone here; and I think we get into trouble if we look at (divinely approved) seer stones as a mechanical object that is bound by law to always work in the same way and under a consistent set of conditions/ restrictions. (And even Sally’s stone was apparently able to accurately show what had previously been; just not—in that instant—what was the current situation.) —As to why JS would transition from the U&T to a “lesser” instrument: One might as well ask why he would quit using any physical revelatory medium at all (which, odor far as we know, he eventually did). It may well be that he didn’t initially realize that the seer stone could *also* function as an interpreter. There’s certainly a lot of unclarity here; but I think people who deny that the seer stone was ever used in translating need to explain why Whitmer, Harris, and Emma (who were actually there when it was happening) claimed to have seen it being used. If it was never used, then who was it who originated these rumors so powerful that they managed to taint the memories of 3/4 of the firsthand witnesses to the process; and what was the originator’s agenda? And, one thing that just occurred to me (as I perused this article)—what do we do with the witnesses who don’t necessarily specify which instrument was used, but are quite certain that they saw a hat being used in the process? Does that change the analysis? Should it?

—As much as it pains me to say it: Ukraine seems unlikely to retain its lost territories—period. —“Peace in our time” accompanied a virtually bloodless German occupation; it left Germany unsated but—more forebodingly—unharmed and ready to fight again. This time around the Russkies have already lost 150-200K troops and scads of equipment; their economy is in the crapper; and their illusions of invulnerability are largely shattered. The Daily Mail claims Russia is gearing up for all out war in Europe by 2030; but I frankly don’t believe they have the resources or the will to do it (not right now, at least). —Long-term, Russia still covets *all* of Ukraine. Ukraine should reject any peace that prevents it from preparing for the next invasion in 2040 or 2070 or whenever it happens. —Frankly, much of the NATO membership has become the sort of authoritarian collectivists (UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands) that NATO was formed to safeguard against. The US should probably withdraw, or at least retrench, from its NATO commitments; and clear the way for a new European alliance as a check against Russian expansionism. I have no problem with a peace that commits to Ukraine staying out of NATO so long as Ukraine has the leeway to join whatever local alliance takes its place. —Ukraine should be given nukes (or be allowed a period in which to develop their own nuclear program). We un-nuked them in the 1990s in exchange for territorial guarantees that we then abandoned. It seems unlikely that anything else will contain the Russians long-term; and restoring that post-cold-war status quo is the least we can do.

I’d have to look it up, but I believe Lucy Smith also said she’d seen them and left a fairly detailed description.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/revelations-in-context/oliver-cowderys-gift?lang=eng The entire “Revelations in Context” series is excellent.

Welcome aboard! As you likely know, glossolalia was practiced in the early LDS Church (the first known instance involved Brigham Young, and those with him were skeptical about it until Joseph Smith himself expressed approval). It occurred intermittently through the late territorial period, with Eliza Snow being a noted practitioner. JS taught that a true manifestation of the gift would always be accompanied by another person present being given the gift of interpretation. I think that as the world has tilted more towards rationalism, and in conjunction with D&C 50 (and the circumstances that underlay that revelation), European and American Saints have gotten more suspicious of those sorts of “charismatic” spiritual gifts—both because we are culturally groomed to find them unseemly, and because they are so easily counterfeited by the adversary. (And even if you think you’re experiencing the gift, it takes a lot to put yourself publicly “out there” and have faith that someone else will get the interpretation and that you won’t end up looking like a complete kook). We expect not to receive these sorts of manifestations—and so, we don’t.

There’s a lot there thought-provoking and attractive in the article, but let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. I confess I don’t know much about what Anglican clerics of Collins’s station actually did (then or now). It would be interesting to know what Austen thought of clerics generally (wasn’t her father one? And wasn’t there a sort of view through the period that the clergy was more or less a dumping ground for the mediocre younger sons of the gentry/ nobility?) You get the impression that at least some measure of self-discipline and sexual restraint was expected (cf Darcy’s observation that Wickham “must not” (IIRC) join the clergy). And you get the feeling that whatever was expected of clergymen, Sense and Sensibility’s Edward Farrars would probably do it in good faith and with good intentions, if nothing else. But it’s hard to imagine any of those characters (at least, as I recall them) crafting really effective sermons, or providing particularly solid life-advice to congregants seeking counseling, or offering material charity to the poor in a way that wasn’t at least a little bit cringeworthy. And - again, I don’t know what contemporary Anglican discourse really looked or sounded like; but it seems telling to me that (again, so far as I can remember) none of these priestly candidates ever says anything about Jesus Himself. The entire Church, for Austen, seems more an enforcer of convention than a repository of spiritual vivification; and we know from Collins’s final letter to Mr. Bennet that he himself is capable of (and advocates for) great cruelty which even Bennet (not a particularly kind man himself) recognizes. One could potentially respond to the author of the article of the OP that Collins is at heart a secular humanist in a collar—the sort of amiable bumbler intent primarily on cashing out his own legacy of life-happiness while giving perfunctory service to forms created by predecessors better than himself whose purpose he is incapable of comprehending; and the type of person who through ignorance and apathy permitted and enabled the spiritual (and then temporal) rot of the British Empire.

Elder Holland gave a talk at BYU 20-odd years ago (later printed in the Ensign in condensed form) that deals specifically with the interplay between this verse, revelation generally, and the experience(s) of Moses. I believe it was entitled “Cast not away your confidence”, or something similar.

Administratively, I don’t believe there’s a way to perpetually mark a record in a way that would make a posthumous sealing impossible. Theologically, I think such a sealing would likely be void.

I believe you can seal dead unmarried couples if they had a child together.

It’s a great result. FWIW, though, my my understanding is that Trump actually got quite a few appointments on the 9th Circuit during his first term and it has drifted towards the center in the past decade.

I believe your parents would need to be posthumously sealed to each other (deceased people can be sealed to all of their spouses) and then you would be sealed to your parents. See CHI 38.4.2.2.

Where do we get the idea that David never saw the translation process? A significant portion of the work was done (and the job was finished) at his family's farm, in the small cabin in which the Church would later be organized. Whitmer claimed, in his Address to All Believers (p. 11), that he saw the work being done. Joseph Smith himself said that David Whitmer was available to serve as a scribe for him (see here, p. 8). You've also forced () me to drag out my copy of Brandt Gardner's Translating the Book of Mormon, wherein he also cites an 1883 account by William Smith in which William claims JS used "the Urim and Thummim, which was placed in a hat to exclude the light" and an 1870 account by Elizabeth Whitmer Cowdery (who would grow up to marry Oliver Cowdery) who wrote that "[JS] translated the most of [the Book of Mormon] at my Father's house. And I often sat by and saw and heard them translate and write for hours together. Joseph never had a curtain drawn between him and his scribe while he was translating. He would place the director in his hat, and then place his <face in his> hat, so as to exclude the light, and then [read?] to his scribe the words (he said) as they appeared before him." Translating the Book of Mormon, 7 [editorial marks original to Gardner]. As I understand it, the interpreters recovered with the plates were attached to the breastplate but resembled eyeglasses or "spectacles" and could be detached. Even so, as Don Bradley writes in The Lost 116 Pages, Some nineteenth-century reporters say that the lenses of the interpreters were set too wide for Joseph's eyes, making it uncomfortable for him to use them simultaneously while they rested on the rod [that linked the two stones]. Joseph's father, a wearer of spectacles himself, reportedly said that the interpreters were set one and a half inches wider than the lenses of ordinary spectacles, indicating either that Joseph was not using it in the way intended by its inventor or that the device holding the interpreters was designed for a person of extraordinary size. The Lost 116 Pages, 49. Bradley goes on to bring in some really interesting descriptions of the interpreters to explain how they link to the symbols of the compass and square, and points out additional logistical issues that may have been presented by using the interpreters. Harris outright says it, IIRC. Emma heavily implies it, saying explicitly that after the loss of the 116 pages the brown stone, not the interpreters (which she labeled the "Urim and Thummim"), were used. Gardner cites to a couple of other historians (separate articles by Stephen Ricks and John Welch), but I'm not sure what additional primary sources they may have used in formulating their conclusions. See Translating the Bo0ok of Mormon, 290-291, note 25. Weellll . . . sort of. First off--as an aside, Gardner's Translating the Book of Mormon also addresses the linguistic evolution through which the interpreters/seer stone were Biblicized as the "Urim and Thummim". See pp. 127-129. As for the Elder's Journal article: The thing about it is that as you read the entire article it becomes pretty evident that in that particular forum Joseph is by turns being facetious, flippant, and/or evasive. On a variety of topics he obviously knows far more than he's telling: Question 1st. Do you believe the bible? Answer. If we do, we are the only people under heaven that does. For there are none of the religious sects of the day that do. [Is that doctrine, Brother Joseph? ] Question 3rd. Will every body be damned but Mormons? Answer. Yes, and a great portion of them,unless they repent and work righteousness. [Now, Brother Joseph; don't tease us. You received D&C 76 six years ago!] Question 5th. Do you believe Joseph Smith Jr. to be a prophet? Answer. Yes, and every other man who has the testimony of Jesus. “For the testimony of Jesus, is the spirit of prophecy.”—Rev. 19: 10. [Brother Joseph! I get that you're trying to make friends and elevate those around you, but don't sell yourself short here!] Question 6th. Do the Mormons believe in having all things common? Answer. No. [Brother Joseph, you were getting revelations on the United Order seven years ago. Are you sure there isn't more you'd like to say here?] Question 7th. Do the Mormons believe in having more wives than one. Answer. No, not at the same time. But they believe, that if their companion dies, they have a right to marry again. But we do disapprove of the custom which has gained in the world, and has been practised among us, to our great mortification, of marrying in five or six weeks, or even in two or three months after the death of their companion. We believe that due respect ought to behad, to the memory of the dead, and the feelings of both friends and children. [Brother Joseph, haven't you already received the fundamentals of what will later be canonized as D&C 132? Does the name Fanny Alger ring a bell?] And from there, the interview morphs on into playful banter as Smith addresses questions about whether he was a money digger, whether he stole his wife, etc; as well as more serious questions about, e.g., abolitionism (where he insists, contra earlier Church publications, that "we do not believe in setting the Negroes free"). The point I'm trying to make here is not that Joseph is being deliberately dishonest in this article. But he is being evasive; he is giving simplistic and glib answers and refusing to be publicly drawn out on topics that are by turn complicated, sacred, and/or deeply personal. Seven years ago, Joseph had publicly told Hyrum that "it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the book of Mormon, & also said that it was not expedient for him to relate these things &c." I don't think we should read the Elders' Journal article as an attempt to comprehensively and publicly expose what Joseph had already defined to be sacred and confidential.

David, not Oliver. And yeah, Harris’s narrative suggests the seer stone was also used, at least sometimes, before the loss of the 116 pages (because of the incident he records of swapping out the stone while serving as a scribe, and AFAIK he didn’t serve as a scribe after the loss of the 116 pages). But AFAIK Harris’s narrative doesn’t place the Jaredite interpreters back in Joseph’s possession after they’d been taken away from him. What primary source do we have that clearly, unequivocally distinguishes between the Jaredite interpreters and the seer stone and unequivocally says that JS used the former and not the latter *after* the loss of the 116 pages?

Because that’s what three of the people who saw him using it, said that he used; and they were more specific than JS tended to be.

Also beats mine from 2023 when I crossed back into the US from Canada after buying a boat there. We expected (and got) lots of customs paperwork; but apparently there’s another person out there with my name and birthdate who . . . lacks my sterling moral character and is on an international watchlist of some sort. It took them a couple hours to figure out I’m not him. Ultimately I was saved by the fact that I (unlike my evil doppelgänger) am not Latino and I (also unlike my evil doppelgänger, and in spite of @LDSGator’s relentless efforts) have not gotten a neck tattoo.

Also, if you’re in Utah and someone says there’s a warrant for your arrest, you can check that at https://warrants.utah.gov.

Well, hang on a second. If a teacher or a guidance counselor at my children’s school repeatedly told them that “to even ask if you are transgender means that you are indeed transgender”, and repeat that admonition even after my child protested that they thought they were mostly comfortable with their natal sex, and then continue to drag my child into a bunch of struggle sessions in which the child is badgered with questions such as “are you sure you’re not transgender? You seem transgender to me? Your bigoted parents are holding you back, aren’t they? Are you sure you aren’t transgender? You said you feel awkwardness about your body. That sounds trandgender. Don’t you see how great it is to be transgender? If you don’t come out and say transgender, you might hurt yourself in the long run. You might die! You’ll DIE!!! We don’t want you to die! Shouldn’t you just go ahead and tell everybody your transgender?” – not only would those school personnel not suffer consequences; but in many states, they would be hailed as providing “excellent mental healthcare“; and any efforts I as a parent made to learn anything about these conversations would be summarily shut down. And if my LGBTQ coworker made a habit of saying “JAG, you are so insistent on being ‘straight’ with your hetero marriage and your six kids and your conservative politics and your traditional religious values, that you simply must be a repressed gay man!” — I would be putting my job in real danger if I openly affirmed that “no, I’m actually quite sure I’m straight and that homosexuality is not for me.” And you and I both know that not one HR director out of ten, would subject my coworker to any kind of discipline for what they have been doing. It’s not about a truly universal right to “human dignity” by having your sexuality and your chosen gender expression be unquestioned. It’s about implementing a dizzying cat’s cradle of oft-incoherent rules (spoken and unspoken, and any one of which could result in your getting fired at the drop of a hat); tasking the enforcement of those rules to people who hate you and want to see you suffer; and then decreeing that a certain elite class of LGBTQ overlords is exempt from all those rules.

You should read Stapley’s “The Power of Godliness”. It’s heavy stuff—I really need to do a second reading of it to get a better handle on the material; he really digs into the way that our ideas on “priesthood” have developed over the history of the Church —but for purposes of this discussion it is maybe most relevant to note that Stapley claims that early LDS anointings for health did not include a “sealing” component until after Elijah’s return. He notes that modern confirming-of-anointings-for-health are the only modern approved use of the sealing power outside of temples.

In family scripture study this week (we are redoing the BoM), it was suggested that maybe the Liahona was coated in small writing; and maybe one would only notice it had “changed” if one made a habit of studying it closely on a routine basis. As to the pointers, I’ve entertained the notions that the second pointer may have pointed: —To “intermediate” objectives—not campsites, but hunting locations or water sources or to the current whereabouts of wandering livestock that had been left to forage; —To a cardinal direction (true north or true east); —The way back to Jerusalem.

I’ve always thought that about Church magazines; but then every so often you stumble on some nugget online and find it’s from the 2015 Ensign or something. I have a low tolerance for schmaltz, and I tend not to read Church magazines because they seem to tend to have a lot of it. But I admit, I seem to miss out on a lot of pearls as a result.

The context of Ether 3:23 had led me to believe that the Jaredite U&T was just two of the clear stones the Brother of Jared had previously created. But you're right, the text doesn't explicitly say that. The U&T that Joseph Smith recovered from the stone box as shown to him by Moroni, seems to have been the Jaredite U&T. See D&C 17:1. And yes, I don't think the Church has ever come out and said (or even hinted) that it still has that relic. So, this is Rough Stone Rolling, p. 70: Lucy Smith said that Joseph received the interpreters again on September 22, 1828, and that he and Emma did a little translating, but the need to prepare for winter intervened.46 [Footnote 46] [cites Lucy Mack Smith, Biological Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet and his Progenitors for Many Generations. Liverpool, Eng.: S.W Richards, 1853., 125-126. Although the assertion clashes with other accounts, David Whitmer said Moroni did not return the Urim and Thummim in September. Instead Joseph used a seerstone for the remaining translation. Kansas City Journal, June 19, 1881, Omaha Herald, Oct 17, 1886; Interview (1885), in Whitmer, Interviews, 72, 157, 200. Of the translation process, Emma said, "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 Bidamon to Emma Pilgrim, Mar 27, 1870 in EMD [Dan Vogel. ed. Early Mormon Documents, 5 vols. Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1996-2003], 1:532 I don't recall the BoM suggesting that the Liahona led Lehi or any Lehite to a pair of Nephite interpreters--am I missing something? It does seem like a pretty safe bet that the Nephite kings had some sort of interpreters, because Mosiah I is able to read the Jaredite stone (Omni 1:20) and Ammon later tells Limhi that Mosiah has one and is therefore a seer (Mosiah 8). Maybe that was the Liahona, maybe it was something else--I'm not aware of the text specifying. But Mosiah still chooses to use the Jaredite interpreters (which Limhi's people had found along with the 24 gold plates) to translate the Jaredite record (Mosiah 28). Joseph seems to have evolved to the point where considered any sort of physical media to be an inferior means of receiving revelation.

That was Sally Chase. IIRC her brother or uncle was a Methodist minister, and it was while digging a well on their property that Joseph had found one of his stones in the first place. IIRC, there's a quote out there from Brigham Young to the effect that Satan is a master of natural law (including that which appears supernatural) and is capable of generating whatever apparently-miraculous manifestation he wishes, unless a higher power intervenes. (If you compel me, I'll look it up; though I'm lazy at the moment). I'm not sure that it's as easy as saying "this means of revelation is always spurious"--that there's a discernible difference between a "Urim and Thummim" versus a "seer stone", and that the former is always godly and the latter is always satanic; or that the former is capable of doing things that the latter intrinsically cannot do. We know that God has given revelation through glass created by the Brother of Jared and touched by God's finger; we know He did it through the throwing of stones ("casting of lots"); we know He could give it through the Hebrew U&T (however they worked); we know He could do it do it through Oliver Cowdery's use of a divining rod; and the record seems pretty clear that (whether or not it was the source for some/all of the BoM text) Joseph Smith did receive true revelations through his seer stone. Further, he seemed willing to label other people's seer stones as "Urim and Thummim"--for example, per the autobiography of Wandle Mace, we have that instance where seer stones are brought to Nauvoo by some British saints; and Smith reviews them and "pronounced them to be a Urim and Thummim as good as ever was upon teh earth but he said, 'they have been consecrated to devils'". Ultimately I think it's the source of the power, not the means through which the power is manifested, that makes the difference. Another thing worth noting is that we have references to Joseph Smith having/using/showing people his "Urim and Thummim" well into the Nauvoo period (see generally, here). If that was the Jaredite interpreters, and Joseph never did return them to Moroni . . . then where are they now? And if the Church really does have them hidden away in the First Presidency vault, then why would they go along with this dog-and-pony show about some other seer stone being the instrument of translation? I've said it before and I'll say it again: Be really, really careful with the JSF. Their founder was not a good guy. Key personnel involved in the foundation today are not honest people. I'm sorry, I can't elaborate. I would almost never refer someone to the cesspool that is Reddit, but . . . there's a thread on the JSF's founder over there; and among the other nonsense that usually abounds in Reddit, someone has actually posted something that's pretty close to the truth. So, the true story about them *is* out there and can be discerned by a healthy combination of skepticism and revelation. Back to the primary sources, though: FWIW, both Emma Smith and David Whitmer supported the idea that the U&T (Jaredite interpreters/"spectacles") were used on the 116 pages; and the seer stone following the loss of those pages. But they are, of course, relatively late recollections. Still, the notion that the story of the seer stone's role in the production of the BoM was intended to discredit Joseph Smith strikes me as problematic for several reasons. First, David Whitmer didn't think seer stones were shameful. He, and his family, loved the idea of seer stones. Shortly after Joseph Smith gives his brown stone to Oliver Cowdery in spring of 1830 following completion of the Book of Mormon translation, Whitmer family son-in-law Hiram Page starts getting revelations through his own stone--and most of the Whitmer family is initially firmly in support of him, until D&C 28 reins them all back in. Whitmer's diminishing confidence in Joseph Smith's leadership coincided with Joseph Smith's resorting to the seer stone as a means of revelation less and less often. For his part, David Whitmer had his own seer stones; which he passed on to his descendants and which they used with some regularity. For David, citing the role of a seer stone in the origin story of the Book of Mormon does not diminish the book's credibility or miraculous nature; it enhances it. Second, I think it's assuming facts not in evidence to suggest that either Whitmer or Emma Smith "hated" Joseph to the point that they were willing to deliberately publicly lie about him. Yes, they disagreed with him--loudly and stridently, at times. But they were both fiercely devoted to Joseph Smith's early status as a prophet and the cause of Mormonism. Emma lionized him to the end of her days; and Whitmer--from what I see of his statements--tended to look back on his associations with Joseph with more regret and "pity" than actual animus. Third, both Whitmer and Emma were fierce proponents of the Book of Mormon to the end of their lives. I don't think there's anything in their histories suggesting that they would have deliberately tried to undermine or bring shame upon the authenticity of that book as an authentic, ancient, divinely-restored record. The fact that people disagree with Joseph Smith about various things, does not render them wholly dastardly. Fourth, the seer stone-as-translation-instrument account was confirmed by Martin Harris even when at times when he was quite friendly to the Utah church and would have no motive to tell an origin story that he thought would somehow debase the Book of Mormon or Joseph Smith's ministry. And, finally: A lot of this pooh-poohing of any source who didn't cross the plains with Brigham tiptoes around a rather uncomfortable truth: Most of the people who were involved with the Smith family when the Book of Mormon was being written, didn't come to Utah with President Young. The BoM witnesses didn't. (Harris, of course, came decades later). The Smith family, didn't. Those of the Hales who converted, didn't. The Whitmers didn't. The Stowells didn't. The majority of the Twelve (as originally constituted in 1835) didn't. If we dismiss the accounts of all the people who were there and saw the BoM being translated, on the grounds that they failed to stay faithful to the Utah Church and are therefore somehow suspect in their recollections; then on this topic we're forced to retrench into a sort of historical know-nothingism. Because Joseph Smith himself isn't telling: He flat-out said that "it was not intended to tell the world all the particulars of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon". Yep. There have have been a number of articles about this; and not all of the accounts perfectly reconcile. There are a *lot* of inconsistencies--how many stones were there, what did they look like, when and where was each one acquired or used or given away (see, e.g., here). But I think the all-too-common response to simply throw all of it out and say "It was the Jaredite interpreters, and nothing but the Jaredite interpreters, all the time" is just not correct.

I think I’m slightly upwards of the solid middle at this point, especially for public sector lawyers my state. But, spending most of your 20s and 30s earning $50K or less plays heck with your retirement planning. If I live long enough, I will probably retire around 69. 67, if we’re willing to economize.