Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: All right. Have you ever said the phrase turn it up? Have you ever said turn it up, Dawn? Maybe to the radio, television. What about the thermometer? Is anyone allowed to touch thermometer furnace in your house?
[00:00:10] Speaker B: I never get to touch it. I'm the one that I don't get to touch it.
[00:00:13] Speaker A: I love that. Turn it up. I'm always turn it down. It's way too hot in my house.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: That one my wife is totally in charge of.
[00:00:19] Speaker A: When you think about that idea of turning it up, did you know that there is a way to turn up words? So in Hebrew, there is a way to turn up a meaning or a way to turn up or amplify the way you say something in Hebrew. And today you are about a sacred object. And Dawn's going to teach about this object where you have probably said this word so many times within the context of the church and you don't even realize you're literally turning it up. Welcome to Jesus Christ in Scripture. Finding Christ on every page. I'm Tammy usalak Hall with Dr. Donald W. Perry. And today we are going to talk about turning it up. So grab your scriptures, something to mark them with, and let's turn to Abraham, chapter three. All right, Don. This is fun. Something we've said so many times and we already know we're turning it up.
[00:00:59] Speaker B: Urim and Thummim, Two Hebrew words.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Urim and Thummim. Why the Urim and Thummim and what are they? That's what we're going to look at.
[00:01:06] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: But there's so much information. We're going to do this in two parts. So let's begin by reading the book of Abraham, chapter three.
[00:01:15] Speaker A: And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me in Ur of Chaldees. And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God. And there were many great ones which were near unto it. And. And the Lord said unto me, these are the governing ones. And the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me. For I am the Lord thy God. I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest. And the Lord said unto me, buy the Urim and Thummim that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: Thank you. Notice all the things that Abraham had through the Urim and Thummim. I mean, and then God says to him through the Urim and Thummim. I love this. So let's explore the Urim and Thummim in more detail. But I want to. It's an object or two objects. Two stones. I'm going to show you it's two stones. Let's look in the context of other sacred items in the Bible, because a lot of people say, what? Why does anyone need an object? So Urim and Thummim, Elijah's mantle, which is powerful. Paul's handkerchiefs. The brazen serpent was an object.
A white stone with a new name. Anointing oil.
Jar of manna, sacrament, ark of the.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: Covenant, Sacrificial altar, incense, and the altar of incense. Seven branched menorah, shoe bread, sacrificial animals, priests, high priest, vestments or clothing, water for washings, and the rod of Aaron.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: So what does Urim and Thummim mean? They're Hebrew words, and they mean lights and perfections. Lights and perfections.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: So urim means lights.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:51] Speaker A: Thummim means perfection.
[00:02:52] Speaker B: Yes. Okay. Just so you know, the Urim and Thummim, that expression is found seven times in the Bible together. And they're also found in the Doctrine and Covenants. Interesting.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: Urim by itself is found two other times.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know that.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So why are they in the plural? Why not just say light and perfection? I'm going to quote Gesenius, a great Hebrew scholar. He wrote in German, the answer why plural? To heighten the idea, to amplify the idea of light and perfection. Lots of lights and lots of perfections. But we'll pursue this a little more. The scholar Gesenius calls it the plural of amplification. I want you to look at what President John Taylor said. He's talking about the urim and Thummim. And he says in other terms, communicating light perfectly and intelligence perfectly. And then the scholar says, perfect light or infallible revelation. Turning it up.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Yeah. This idea of plural amplification, I've loved learning this from you. In fact, I brought. I hope you don't mind, Dawn. This is the book that I love. I talked about it earlier. You preserved in translation, and I spent a whole summer reading it and going through all the different Hebraisms that are found in the Book of Mormon. And one of them you talk about is plural amplification, where you take a Hebrew word, make it plural, and it's how you turn it up. You give more emphasis to that word. So just with Urim and Thummim, if it was just the word light, what would it be in Hebrew or ur? Just the ur. And if it was perfection, it would.
[00:04:19] Speaker B: Be what, tam or tamam? Perfect, depending on the. The root. Yes.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: I like to know that when I'm looking at this word. So then we're going to turn it up. And I just think it's beautiful right here. By communicating light perfectly and intelligence perfectly is why we're turning it up with this idea, this plural amplification. So keep going and teaching us about the urim and thummim with. Now that we're pluralizing it.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is actually a Hebrew thing to do, to amplify something in the plural. And here are two examples out of dozens in the Bible. I really struggle to cut this down. The greatness of God's might. Isaiah 40 in the Hebrew is the greatness of God's mights, which in English doesn't make sense, but it amplifies God's unparalleled might.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: So you're telling me if I look this up in Hebrew and read it, it will say this in Hebrew, it'll actually say the word might?
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yes. Okay.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: This is so cool.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: And most English will not do that plural, I think, because they didn't understand why it's plural.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: It makes sense. They take the S off. Like they probably thought, that's a mistake. It's not supposed to be plural.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: Here's another example. Isaiah 27. People of no understanding. That's the English. The Hebrew says people of no understandings, but here again, it's to emphasize that their lack of understanding. Okay, I brought two from the Book of Mormon, since you mentioned it. If you'll take us through those.
[00:05:35] Speaker A: Oh, these are so fun.
[00:05:36] Speaker B: I said two. I meant four.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: You got four. Hey, we'll take four. This is awesome. And so I went into my Book of Mormon that summer, and I highlighted all these and wrote next to it, plural amplification. In one Nephi, it says, great slaughters with the sword. I wonder how many times we've read these and thought, did someone not do this correctly? Another one is mine. Afflictions were great above all. And another one, one Nephi 1525. All the energies of my soul. That's a good one. And this last one, the great condescensions unto the children of men. That is plural amplification. That is a Hebraism in the Book of Mormon.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: Yes. One way you can tell that urim and thummim are plural are the. I am at the end.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:06:10] Speaker B: There are some other words that we use in our church, like seraphim. Notice the I am, that means seraphs and cherubim. The I am and God's name, Elohim. And just so everyone will know, there are three ways to pronounce Elohim and they're all correct.
So if you don't like the way I'm pronouncing it, there are two other ways, too. I'm pronouncing it the way most scholars pronounce it. But all of those denote plurals. The I am, it's masculine plural.
No, I brought my. I want everyone to see. I brought my Dead Sea Scrolls tie.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: You totally did.
[00:06:44] Speaker B: It's a book of my.
[00:06:45] Speaker A: I thought it was crackers. I'm sorry. They were pieces of cheez its.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I got a mom read book of Mysteries. And no, they're not crackers.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: They are not now.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Did you not have lunch today?
[00:06:54] Speaker A: I don't think I'm hungry. I said I like food in the last episode. I can't believe I thought they were cheez its. Sorry. That is. It is, though now I'm looking closer. There's Hebrew.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: And just so I'm glad you pointed that out, because others might think it's cracking. They're crackers. They're not. It's a sacred text, but it's in fragments. And as we mentioned earlier, I'm on the international team of translators of the Dead sea scrolls since January 1994. So I do scrolls research a lot. And I found something really fascinating in the scrolls. I just wanted to point it out here it's found more than once, and there's a contraction right here. It says perhaps contraction of. Then it says urim and thummim. It looks like this in Hebrew, but that doesn't make sense. So I wrote it in English. So if you contracted ur and T U H M ur tum, that's what it looks like in the Hebrew. Okay. So instead of saying urim and thummim, it's Ur thum.
[00:07:49] Speaker A: Oh, wow, that's neat. I didn't know that.
[00:07:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:51] Speaker A: That's really cool.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: It's in the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[00:07:52] Speaker A: I'm going to write that down.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: So we all think it's a contraction in this particular text says, and the God of glory is wondrous and with the most perfect light. And the perfect light is this contraction. It's rare to find Hebrew contractions. This was interesting from the Dead Sea Scrolls. I thought I'd point it out now.
[00:08:11] Speaker A: I'm glad you did.
[00:08:12] Speaker B: That's cool. A description this is Moroni's description. It might be the best. There were two stones. So notice that two stones, the Urim and Thum, two stones in silver bows. And these stones fastened to a breastplate constituted what's called the Urim and Thummim and deposited with other things. And those who had them anciently were called seers. And the same with modern times.
[00:08:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
Now the thing that's interesting about this idea of a Urim and Thummim is Joseph Smith didn't make it up.
[00:08:41] Speaker B: No.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Like, this isn't something that he just came out of the blue and created. So tell us about. Give us a little bit of that history after. After these verses about the Urim and Thummim.
[00:08:48] Speaker B: First, they're called interpreters. In the, in the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith papers, a couple places are called spectacles. And then Mosiah says interpreters or two stones attached to the rims of a bow.
Joseph Smith had the Urim and Thummim. It's the same one that was had, that's found in the Book of Ether.
Here's another thing. They're transparent stones. Now, what's transparent? I've given three transparent stones. I'm not saying these are the colors of the Urim and Thummim. I'm not saying they're blue or green or yellow. I'm just giving you the idea of what's transparent, something you can kind of see through. And this was part of the Wentworth Letter. Okay, so that's Joseph Smith himself. Now, some people might say, whoa, this is hugely important. Why not give us a full page description? Why not tell us more about it? And in an 1831 church conference, Brother Hyrum Smith said, quote, he thought that the information of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and be related by Joseph Smith to the elders present so that they might know for themselves. Tell us more about it, Brother Joseph. And Joseph Smith said, it's not intended to tell the world all the particulars and the coming forth and said these things were not expedient for him to relate. So if we have a limited description of the Urim and Thummim, which are so important, it's a gift just to know what we have.
[00:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I love that. I'm kind of like Hiram, because I like. I want more information.
[00:10:18] Speaker B: I do too.
[00:10:18] Speaker A: That's good.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah. But I wanted everyone to know this in case they say, why not? Why didn't he give us more? Well, it's not expedient. Yeah. Line up on Mine.
Now, what are the purposes?
[00:10:31] Speaker A: First, reason is to reveal the mysteries.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Of God, to reveal celestial objects, the universe, stars, space, and so on. To translate ancient records, to receive revelations.
[00:10:42] Speaker A: To speak with the Lord, to know.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: Where to take the battle against one's.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: Enemies, to provide God's words to his.
[00:10:48] Speaker B: Prophets, like Joshua, and to interpret languages. Okay, so I love all of these. I love them all.
So, President Wilford Woodruff, as you know, I'm involved heavily in the Wilford Woodruff Papers with Sister Jennifer Mackley and with a huge team. And we're so thankful to everyone for all their work. So President Wilford Woodruff said this. The Lord is blessing Joseph with power to reveal the mysteries. Here's one thing. Mysteries of the Kingdom of God, to translate through the Urim and Thummim, ancient records and so on. I just love that. And I'm a translator. I've translated Dead Sea Scrolls and books, including Isaiah and others.
And I just love the. The theme of translating.
So Joseph Smith, again, notice he gives credit to the Urim and Thummim, right? He never says, I did it. I studied it. I went to school. I got a PhD. He doesn't say anything like that. He says, through the medium of the Urim and Thummim, I translated.
[00:11:48] Speaker A: Tell me what that means to you. Because as a scholar who has paid the price to get a PhD to study a language, when you read that, he's saying, I don't. I mean, we know that he was.
Didn't have a great education at all. What does that tell you about. Why is that significant to know?
[00:12:03] Speaker B: A huge difference, a mighty difference. I have a PhD in biblical Hebrew. Years of study. Years. But I'm studying something that we know what the words mean. We have lexicons and helps.
And so put me right way down here, a scholar, and then put a seer way up here above the stars. A see or a seer. And he's translating through the Urim and Thummim, a language that's not known to the world.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Indeed.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:32] Speaker A: Thank you, Don.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Let's look at three testimonies.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: The Lord now behold, I say unto you that because you delivered up those writings which you had power given unto you to translate by the means of the Urim and Thummim into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them.
[00:12:46] Speaker B: So here the Lord himself is giving credit. And Joseph Smith himself said, I commence copying the characters of the plates. I copied a considerable number of them. And by the means of the Urim and Thummim I translated some.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Oliver Cowdery said, 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 of record called the Book of Mormon.
[00:13:11] Speaker B: So those are three different witnesses about the existence of the Urim and Thummim. The Urim and Thummim even helps with practical things like where to take the battle or how to where to send the troops. And we have the witness of First Samuel, Chapter 30, King David. And he approaches the priest who has the right of the Urim and Thummim. And I wanted to just share another scroll with you. And this is the Temple scroll.
[00:13:36] Speaker A: Now, Don, is the Temple scroll the same thing as Dead Sea Scrolls? Are those used interchangeably?
[00:13:41] Speaker B: It's one of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: A Temple scroll is one of the template scroll. Oh, it's a separate.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Okay. It's 28ft long. Wow.
[00:13:48] Speaker A: What is the Temple scroll?
[00:13:50] Speaker B: It describes a temple that a lot of scholars think is the future temple of Jerusalem. We don't know that for sure or the ideal temple. I'm not sure what it is. The problem is it's 28ft long. That's not the problem, but we're missing the very first part, which often tells you who the author is and the intent. We're missing that.
[00:14:12] Speaker A: Well, that's neat.
[00:14:13] Speaker B: So anyway, I wanted to point this out because it says, the king of Israel, before he goes to battle against enemies, quote, shall not go out until he comes before the high priest, who shall inquire for him. The king, by the judgment of the Urim and Thummim, he, the king, shall not go out by the counsel of his heart. So through his own decision.
And he's just trying to use my experience. It's my experience I should do this and so on until he inquires of the judgment of the Urim and Thummim.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Okay, now, I like this so much because to me, this says Joseph Smith did not come up with the Urim and Thummim. It's always existed.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:14:52] Speaker A: We find this in old writings. It's in the Bible. And so this. Oh, I think this is so powerful that he is using what's always been used. He's doing what's always been done.
Dawn, thank you for sharing this with us. And one of the things that stood out to me that I'm going to write a note about that I want to remember is when you said, here Am I as a PhD scholar? And here is a seer and a prophet.
And you testified of the power of the revelation that Joseph received and the ability to translate. Because I read a talk in preparation for this discussion. It's by our former general authority, Neal A. Maxwell. And he gave a talk called by the Gift and Power of God. And you can read this in the January 1997 edition of the Ensign. And one of the things he said in there that really stood out to me, I just gained such a testimony of this when you said, as a seer and a revelator.
And he taught that Joseph Smith, it's estimated that he translated the plates about eight pages per day is what he was able to translate on some occasions, 10 pages per day. And I read that and thought, okay, well, that, all right, I don't even know what that means. And then he says probably 65 working days total is what it took him to translate the plates. Again, I don't know what that means. But then in the talk, he said this. He said that there, by comparison, there's one able LDS Japanese scholar who was surrounded by all these reference books and language dictionaries and translators, and that his job was to then translate Japanese from older Japanese into newer Japanese. And he considered it a very successful day. If he got one page done a day. That's it, just one page. And then Elder Maxwell went on to say that just even taking the King James version of The Bible took 50 translators and seven years to translate that Bible. And when I read that, it, it stood out to me because I, for me, I gained a testimony of Joseph's ability to be here. Yes, an unschooled, uneducated man. And truly, it goes back to that slide that you showed us. And I wrote this down where it says, he said, through the medium of the Urim and Thummim, I translated the record by the gift and power of God. And that's what this is right here. So thank you for that visual. That helped me a lot. And I have such a testimony of the Urim and Thummim and the gift and power of God and the ability for Joseph Smith to translate that is amazing.
So that is our whole idea of this, turning it up. You, every time you say Urim and Thummim, you are literally amplifying the word light and perfection to lights and perfections. And there's something so beautiful about that, and it's here. I think that's what that's trying to teach us. So thank you for joining us. This is part one of the Urim and Thummim. Our next video, dawn is going to dive into more symbolism behind the Urim and Thummim. So we're excited for you to join us. Have a fun time studying this and shalom. And goodbye, Sam.
