Sign 19 – Golden Plates Received by Joseph Smith

Year:1827

Scriptures:

Mormon 8:14, 26

14 And I am the same who hideth up this record unto the Lord….

26 And no one need say they shall not come, for they surely shall, for the Lord hath spoken it; for out of the earth shall they come, by the hand of the Lord, and none can stay it; and it shall come in a day when it shall be said that miracles are done away; and it shall come even as if one should speak from the dead.

“Moroni was shown the last days-the days when the Book of Mormon would come forth among the Gentiles. After describing in some detail what was to transpire when the book came forth, Moroni acknowledged that the Lord had shown him great and marvelous things concerning that day and then spoke directly to the reader: ‘Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing.’ (Mormon 8:34-35) “(Monte S. Nyman, The Most Correct Book [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1991], 57)

Joseph Smith-History:54, 59

54 Accordingly, as I had been commanded, I went at the end of each year, and at each time I found the same messenger there, and received instruction and intelligence from him at each of our interviews, respecting what the Lord was going to do, and how and in what manner his kingdom was to be conducted in the last days.

59 At length the time arrived for obtaining the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate. On the twenty-second day of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-seven, having gone as usual at the end of another year to the place where they were deposited, the same heavenly messenger delivered them up to me with this charge: that I should be responsible for them; that if I should let them go carelessly, or through any neglect of mine, I should be cut off; but that if I would use all my endeavors to preserve them, until he, the messenger, should call for them, they should be protected.

Joseph Leaves New York

When Joseph received the plates he wanted to begin translating them, but because of the persecution and efforts of the adversary, he had to leave New York.

Joseph Smith-History:61-62

61 The excitement, however, still continued, and rumor with her thousand tongues was all the time employed in circulating falsehoods about my father's family, and about myself. If I were to relate a thousandth part of them, it would fill up volumes. The persecution, however, became so intolerable that I was under the necessity of leaving Manchester, and going with my wife to Susquehanna county, in the State of Pennsylvania. While preparing to start—being very poor, and the persecution so heavy upon us that there was no probability that we would ever be otherwise—in the midst of our afflictions we found a friend in a gentleman by the name of Martin Harris, who came to us and gave me fifty dollars to assist us on our journey. Mr. Harris was a resident of Palmyra township, Wayne county, in the State of New York, and a farmer of respectability.

62 By this timely aid was I enabled to reach the place of my destination in Pennsylvania; and immediately after my arrival there I commenced copying the characters off the plates. I copied a considerable number of them, and by means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some of them, which I did between the time I arrived at the house of my wife's father, in the month of December, and the February following.

Gold Plates

“Various descriptions provided by eyewitnesses suggest that the plates may have been made of a gold alloy, measured about 6 inches by 8 inches (15.2 cm by 20.3 cm), were 6 inches (15.2 cm) thick, and weighed about 50 pounds (22.7 kg).”(Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1-4 volumes, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992] 555)

1 Nephi 1:2

2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.

Mormon 9:32

32 And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.

“Nephi was merely saying that he used Egyptian signs to write his Jewish/Hebrew materials. His phrase ‘the language of the Egyptians’ surely uses the word language in the dictionary sense of ‘a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs.’ Nephi's statement tells us that the Book of Mormon, at least his portion of it, was phrased in the Hebrew tongue, connoted much of Jewish culture, and was written in a system of modified Egyptian characters. That assessment seems reasonable, although we can't yet be sure of all those statements.” (John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1985] 76)

Urim and Thummim

“The Urim and Thummim is mentioned in the Bible and, with added details about its use and significance, in latter-day scriptures. It is an instrument prepared by God through which revelation may be received. Abraham learned about the universe through the Urim and Thummim (Abraham 3:1-4). The Prophet Joseph Smith ‘through the medium of the Urim and Thummim…translated the [Book of Mormon] by the gift and power of God’ (HC 4:537; D&C 10:1; JS-H 1:62). Servants of God who are allowed to use the Urim and Thummim have been known as seers, (Mosiah 8:13) among whom were Abraham, Moses, the brother of Jared, Mosiah 2, Alma 1, Helaman 1, Moroni 2, and Joseph Smith.

“In Antiquity at least two different Urim and Thummim existed, and possibly three. Chronologically, the brother of Jared received the first known one (D&C 17:1). This same set came into the hands of Mosiah 2 and other Book of Mormon prophets, subsequently being deposited with the gold plates (JS-H 1:35). The fate of the second set, given to Abraham, (Abraham 3:1) remains unknown. Unless Abraham's Urim and Thummim had been passed down, Moses received a third set mentioned first in Exodus 28:30. The Urim noted in 1 Samuel 28:6, probably an abbreviated form of Urim and Thummim, was most likely the one possessed by Moses (Numbers 27:18-21). What happened to this one is also unknown, though certainly by postexilic times the Urim and Thummim were no longer extant (Ezra 2:63; Nehemiah 7:65).

“Joseph Smith described the Urim and Thummim as ‘two transparent stones set in the rim of a [silver] bow fastened to a breast plate’ (HC 4:537; JS-H 1:35). Biblical evidence allows no conclusive description, except that it was placed in a breastplate over the heart (Exodus 28:30; Lev. 8:8).

“Urim and Thummim is the transliteration of two Hebrew words meaning, respectively, ‘light(s)’ and ‘wholeness(es)’ or ‘perfection(s).’ While it is usually assumed that the -im ending on both words represents the Hebrew masculine plural suffix, other explanations are possible.

“The Urim and Thummim to be used during and after the Millennium will have a functional similarity to the Urim and Thummim mentioned above. God's dwelling place is called a Urim and Thummim; and the white stone of Revelation 2:17 is to become a Urim and Thummim for inheritors of the Celestial Kingdom (D&C 130:8-01). (Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1-4 volumes, edited by Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992] 1499)