The 1834 book Mormonism Unvailed articulated the SITH narrative as an alternative to the Urim and Thummim narrative.
The translation finally commenced. They
were found to contain a language not now known upon the earth, which they
termed “reformed Egyptian characters.” The plates, therefore, which had been so
much talked of, were found to be of no manner of use. After all, the Lord
showed and communicated to him [Joseph] every word and letter of the
Book. Instead of looking at the characters
inscribed upon the plates, the prophet was obliged to resort to the old “peep
stone,” which he formerly used in money-digging. This he placed in a
hat, or box, into which he also thrust his face. Through the stone he could
then discover a single word at a time, which he repeated aloud to his
amanuensis, who committed it to paper, when another word would immediately
appear, and thus the performance continued to the end of the book.[1]
This description of the stone-in-the-hat
theory is familiar to modern Latter-day Saints because it is now the prevailing
narrative among many LDS scholars.
Continuing on the same page 18, Mormonism Unvailed provided
readers a second, alternative description of the translation, based on the
explanation that Joseph and Oliver always gave, albeit embellished with
sarcasm.
Another
account they give of the transaction, is, that it was performed with the big
spectacles before mentioned, and which were in fact, the identical Urim and
Thumim mentioned in Exodus 28 — 30, and were
brought away from Jerusalem by the heroes of the book, handed down from one
generation to another, and finally buried up in Ontario county, some fifteen
centuries since, to enable Smith to translate the plates without looking
at them![2]
In a sense, this alternative
narrative is also a stone-in-the-hat theory; i.e., the spectacles-in-a-hat
theory. However, because Joseph had covenanted with the Lord (D&C 5:3) not to display the plates or the Urim and Thummim, accounts claiming that Joseph placed the "spectacles" in the hat could not be direct observations. They were necessarily hearsay, assumption, or inference. But as Mormonism Unvailed explained, the distinction is
insignificant if both scenarios ignored the plates:
Now, whether the two methods for
translating, one by a pair of stone spectacles “set in the rims of a bow,” and
the other by one stone, were provided against accident, we cannot
determine—perhaps they were limited in their appropriate uses—at all events the
plan meets our approbation.
We are informed that Smith used a stone in
a hat, for the purpose of translating the plates. The spectacles and plates
were found together, but were taken from him and hid up again before he had
translated one word, and he has never seen them since — this is Smith’s own
story.[3]
Let us ask, what use have the plates been or the spectacles, so long as they
have in no sense been used? or what does the testimony of Martin Harris,
Oliver Cowdery and David Whitmer amount to?
Joseph refuted SITH in the Elders' Journal and in the Wentworth letter (shown below). Joseph also expressly commented on Mormonism Unvailed by writing that “Hurlburt and the Howes are among the basest of mankind, and known to be such and yet the priests and their coadjutors hail them as their best friends and publish their lies, speaking of them in the highest terms.”
(Elders’ Journal I.4:59 ¶12–60 ¶3)
[2]
Intentionally or
not, the author missed the points that (i) the U&T that Joseph received was
not brought from Jerusalem by Lehi but instead had been used by the Jaredites
in America, and (ii) Joseph actually looked at the plates with the spectacles.
[3]
Joseph and Oliver
responded to this claim by emphasizing that Joseph translated the entire Book
of Mormon with the U&T. Separately, Joseph explained that the angel
returned the U&T to Joseph in September 1828 following the loss of the 116
pages.
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