Furthermore, the term 'Urim and Thummim' was not even used to describe the "seer stone" or any translation process of the Book of Mormon until WW Phelps used it in 1832 in reference to the Nephite interpreters and not Joseph's seer/peep stone.. Originally Joseph spoke of having Nephite Interpreters, but those were taken when Joseph Smith lost the initial 116 pages. Upon resuming translation, Joseph switched to the stone in a hat for the Book of Mormon as we have it today according to both Emma Smith and David Whitmer. This becomes even more clear when we get to D&C 17, which TITS brings up a bit later.

This is important because TITS wants to equate Joseph Smith's peep/seer stone with the biblical Urim and Thummim, but that term only arose years after the Book of Mormon was written as they looked for biblical parallels to the process. You have to remember that Joseph Smith and the witnesses all came from a very magical worldview where they believed in buried treasure, seer stones, and visions, but a lot of new members knew better and the church began trying to re-frame the magic into biblical terminology, and the conflation of objects was born.

Back to the video:
 

So why did Richard Bushman act as if there was no need for the plates? Well, he didn't. Jeremy Reynolds and his subreddit herd of flying monkeys are specifically not including a part of the interview where he talks about why the golden plates were necessary. They deliberately left this out to manipulate you. Oh, you don't say. I do say. Here's the quote. "People say that the Book of Mormon certainly isn't inspired and inspiring book. But the back story of the plates in the translation is irrelevant to it. What would we gain and lose [if we abandon the plates]? What we would lose would be a powerful form of the evidence that the Lord gave to Joseph Smith and tow us of the actuality of these experiences and therefore the actuality of the transcendent sphere... that would be gutting some of the most gritty and appealing parts of the Mormon story."

In this case, TITS is either being intentionally dishonest or lazy in their research. The quote from the CES Letter is the full answer to a question - TITS just does not inform the reader of the full, long quote used. I'll do that for them here, because that's what we're supposed to do to be honest, right? Here's the CES Letter's quote from church historian Richard Bushman:
 

"I will begin by saying that we still have pictures on our Ward bulletin boards of Joseph Smith with the Gold Plates in front of him. That has become an irksome point and I think it is something the church should pay attention to. Because anyone who studies the history knows that is not what happened. There is no church historian who says that is what happened and yet it is being propagated by the church and it feeds into the notion that the church is trying to cover up embarrassing episodes and is sort of prettifying its own history.

So, I think we ought to just stop that immediately. I am not sure we need a lot of pictures in our chapels of Joseph looking into his hat, but we certainly should tell our children that is how it worked... It’s weird. It’s a weird picture. It implies it’s like darkening a room when we show slides. It implies that there is an image appearing in that stone and the light would make it more difficult to see that image. So, that implies a translation that’s a reading and so gives us a little clue about the whole translation process. It also raises the strange question, ‘What in the world are the plates for? Why do we need them on the table if they are just wrapped up into a cloth while he looks into a seer stone?’" (FAIR Mormon Podcast, October 2010)

Now you can see why TITS did not want to mention the rest of the quote, because it highlights the problem that they are saying doesn't exist: That the church taught a narrative of the translation that is historically not true.

This interview is a FAIR Mormon podcast from October 2010 - you can listen to it here at the 47:25 mark.

The quote that TITS uses to imply that the CES Letter was somehow being dishonest with the quote in the CES Letter is from a completely separate presentation given a few weeks later where Bushman was responding to a question about taking the Book of Mormon as an inspired text rather than a literal one from gold plates. You can view that presentation here and I've even linked it to the exact moment of this quote.

Put another way, the quote from the CES Letter is 100% legitimate even if Richard Bushman gave a different opinion in the later presentation. The only people cutting off the quote here is TITS, which is because they don't want to admit that the church did teach an incorrect narrative. Bushman in the FAIR Mormon interview is talking about the questions that arise for many when they discover the true method of the Book of Mormon translation, which is absolutely fair game to post because it highlights that the church has hidden this history from its members, which Bushman outlines in the part of the quote that TITS conveniently left off.

I'm not sure what more to say here. It's dishonest to say that Runnells "deliberately left this out to manipulate you" when the quote TITS is using here is from a completely separate presentation in response to a different question. Either TITS knows this and just doesn't care, or they were lazy with their research and just looked up the response from other CES rebuttals and just didn't bother to actually look at the source of the two quotes.

Back to the video:

In the CES Letter, Runnells criticizes Joseph Smith for using a Ouija board to translate the Book of Mormon. The only problem is that the Ouija board wasn't created until 1894 and Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in 1829. Also know Joseph didn't use a Ouija board to translate the Book of Mormon. If you believe a bogus lie like that, you probably believe Jesse Smollett or that you're gonna win a cruise on an Instagram giveaway. You're not.

This is intentionally dishonest, and it's ironic that it comes in the very next section after TITS accused Runnells of lying about a quote from Bushman (even though they were wrong there as well). This is what the CES Letter says about Ouija boards:
 

"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."

Now you can understand why TITS left out the context - they don't want members to understand that Joseph Smith used the same rock to translate the Book of Mormon that he claimed to see bury treasure with, but in no way is Jeremy Runnells saying that Joseph Smith used a Ouija Bord. He is saying that Joseph Smith is using the same device that he claimed to find buried treasure with (although he never actually found any) that is similar to the power of a Ouija board to translate the Book of Mormon.

Again, that is beyond obvious by a simply reading of this paragraph, which TITS is hoping that members won't actually do because it's more helpful to their cause to take shots at the CES Letter rather than actually attempting to give an honest rebuttal.

Back to the video:

He did use seer stones to translate by the process of logic. It's bizarre that someone would use this as a weapon against the church. Joseph Smith's first divine claim was that God and Jesus appeared to him. If you don't believe in God or Jesus, then you don't believe Joseph's claim.

It's not "bizarre" that most people find it odd and problematic that the same stone that Joseph Smith used to make money as a treasure digger was used to translate the Book of Mormon when we were taught that God preserved ancient interpreters for the very purpose of translating the gold plates. To put simply, if Joseph Smith could never actually find lost treasure with this stone as he claimed he could see, then why in the world should anyone think it would later get divine/supernatural powers later to read text off gold plates that were never actually used? There's nothing logical about this beyond it pointing to the pattern of a fraud, which is why the church continued to teach a false history to converts such as myself.

Also, TITS here claims that Joseph Smith's first divine claim was that God and Jesus appeared to him, but what they don't note is that Joseph Smith's first divine claim was just one being appearing to him in his 1832 First Vision. That story would later to change to both God and Jesus as his theology changed, which we cover in the First Vision Overview page. If they want to claim the CES Letter is playing fast and loose with the facts, then they really need to get these basic facts correct themselves.

Back to the video:

The seer stone divinity is operating under the umbrella of God existing. The CES Letter is atheistic, and examining the seer stone under an umbrella in which there isn't a God is meaningless. If you do believe in God and Jesus that you've opened the door for angels, spirits and all sorts of supernatural things. It's not as if this is technically weirder than those things. If you don't believe in anything supernatural or divine, then obviously you wouldn't believe that God could use objects for divine purposes. So essentially, we're saying who cares?

This is an area that TITS likes to really knock the CES Letter with. It doesn't matter if someone is "atheistic" or from another religion when it comes to Mormon history. This is simply a way to distract from the problems that are outlined not just by the CES Letter, but this site and others as well - and we all come from different beliefs and backgrounds.

And, yes, this absolutely is "weirder" than other things in the Bible. Did anyone ever see Moses using his staff to con people out of their money looking for buried treasure before using it in the Bible to part the Red Sea? The use of Joseph Smith's stone in treasure digging is incredibly important to the Book of Mormon translation, which is why TITS left it completely out of the video.

Back to the video:

The CES Letter is making a claim that nobody knew about seer stones until recently and that the church didn't talk about it. For one, that's nonsense. Because whenever we teach about Joseph Smith, we discussed the Urim and Thummim. In fact, if you Google the words, the first thing you see are magic Jewish rocks from the Old Testament. It's also plainly spoken about in doctrine and covenants Section 17 and 10. It's been referenced throughout church history numerous times now.

Calling something "nonsense" doesn't make it so, and TITS is using a distraction here to make their claim. As we've already discussed above, the Urim and Thummim was always conflated by the church with the "spectacles" or "Nephite interpreters" along with Joseph sitting at the table with the gold plates.

If you "Google the words" what you will find out is that the Urim and Thummim in the Bible is nothing like what Joseph Smith claimed it was. It was effectively a biblical Magic 8 Ball, giving a yes or no answer to questions. The image above literally tells us that - this is not an issue where there is disagreement. In no way did the biblical Urim and Thummim have the ability to find buried treasure, see the gold plates sitting in a log, or translate ancient records, which is why this comparison is disingenuous at best.

Again, the church (and those who are putting this information together here) is well aware of all of these details, but they continue to muddy the water by using the term Urim and Thummim interchangeably, even though the original Urim and Thummim in the Bible has nothing to do with translating ancient text or receiving revelations - it was merely a way to determine a yes or no answer to a question.

As for it being "plainly spoken about in doctrine and covenants Section 17 and 10," I want to point out the following:
 

D&C 10, Original Manuscript (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-spring-1829-dc-10/1): "Now, behold, I say unto you, that because you delivered up so many writings, which you had power to translate, into the hands of a wicked man, you have lost them."

D&C 10 with 1835 changes:  "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."

Notice that the phrase "Urim and Thummim" was retroactively added to the revelation by Joseph Smith when he made many crucial changes to revelations directly from God. Again, that might seem like it is "plainly spoken about" when we look at it today, when you dig into the history the picture looks a lot different.

Now let's look at D&C 17:
 

D&C 17 with 1835 changes: "Behold, I say unto you, that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also of the breastplate, the sword of Laban, the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face, and the miraculous directors which were given to Lehi while in the wilderness, on the borders of the Red Sea."

This actually proves my point which is that the Urim and Thummim was never taught as Joseph Smith's stone that he used for treasure digging. To be clear, this revelation by Joseph Smith is explicit that the Urim and Thummim was given to the brother of Jared in the Book of Mormon which means that it is not the stone Joseph Smith used for either treasure digging or dictating the Book of Mormon.

Again, a simple reading of this revelation would show that, which makes me wonder why TITS decided to use D&C 17 as proof that the church has always taught that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with a rock in a hat. Again, if the Urim and Thummim was Joseph's stone, then why did the witnesses need to have a full purpose of heart to see it? We can all see it today in photos on the church website - this is not an item that can only be seen in a visionary state like the sword of Laban, Nephite interpreters, and gold plates.

Not only did the church not "plainly" speak of the Urim and Thummim, they actively taught an incorrect history. In the image below, we put the South Park depiction of the translation from 2003 against the official church depiction of the translation in the Joseph Smith movie shown at visitors centers released in 2005.