Rock in the Hat

Click to Read the Original CES Letter Claim

Unlike the story I've been taught in Sunday School, Priesthood, General Conferences, Seminary, EFY, Ensigns, Church history tour, Missionary Training Center, and BYU... Joseph Smith used a rock in a hat for translating the Book of Mormon.

In other words, Joseph used the same magic device or “Ouija Board” that he used during his treasure hunting days. He put a rock – called a “peep stone” – in his hat and put his face in the hat to tell his customers the location of buried treasure on their property. He also used this same method for translating the Book of Mormon, while the gold plates were covered, placed in another room, or even buried in the woods. The gold plates were not used for the Book of Mormon we have today.

UPDATE: These facts are now officially confirmed in the Church’s December 2013 Book of Mormon Translation essay. The Church later admitted these facts in its October 2015 Ensign, where they include a photograph of the actual rock that Joseph Smith used to place in his hat for the Book of Mormon translation. Additional photos of the rock can be viewed on lds.org. In June 2016, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf posted on his Facebook page comparing the seer stone in the hat Book of Mormon translation to his iPhone. FairMormon posted new Book of Mormon translation artwork showing Joseph Smith’s face in a hat.

The CES Letter mentions a “rock in a hat” many times, alleging a top-level deception by Church leaders because drawings do not portray the historical descriptions accurately.

While many drawings depict Joseph translating the gold plates without a seer stone or Urim and Thummim, some official Church drawings show him wearing the Urim and Thumim. (Click picture to access the LDS.org article displaying this picture.)

The question emerges whether a picture of Joseph wearing the Urim and Thumim is more problematic than one of him looking at a seers tone in a hat.

After an extended discussion on pages 20–21, the author of The CES Letter refers to the rock in the hat on seven additional pages (23, 44, 71, 76,78, 80, 81) apparently because he finds the artistic discrepancies to be such strong evidence that Joseph Smith was a fraud.

There is no evidence of a cover-up or that the drawings used in Church publications were deliberately trying to deceive. A drawing of a man looking at a seer stone in a hat used is not inherently sinister. The artists simply did not have access to the historical details.

A review of the accounts from those who recalled the translation process reveals that more mention spectacles or Urim and Thummim than a rock in a hat.

Despite the repeated references to these drawings in The CES Letter, it seems that this discussion is of lesser importance, if it has any historical or doctrinal importance at all.