We know that the Lord provided two seer stones for the brother of Jared and told him to seal them up with his writings to be used for their interpretation at the proper time (Ether 3:22-28). We also know that King Mosiah had something that he could look into to translate ancient records. While the record doesn’t explicitly say these means were stones (Mosiah 8:13-14) I have always assumed they were. The other assumption I had made was that they were the same stones given to the brother of Jared.
The stones given to the brother of Jared were the Urim and Thummim that Joseph Smith received which Moroni sealed up with the gold plates. (Doctrine & Covenants 17:1) It makes perfect sense that the stones that Mosiah had (not challenging the assumption that his means were stones) would be handed down with the records until they fell into the care of Moroni and thus, since the stones buried with the plates originated with the brother of Jared, they were either the same means that Mosiah had or else there were two sets of means. That’s not impossible since the Jews also had a Urim and Thummim set in the breastplate of the high priest. (see Exodus 28:30) Such powerful tools must undoubtedly be limited in number and rare so it seems likely that there was only one set. If so, I wonder how the seer stones came into the possession of Mosiah separate from and prior to the record of the brother of Jared.
Mosiah already had his “means” before the people of Limhi brought the record which they discovered which were the plates of Ether containing the writings of the brother of Jared. I assume that these means had been used to translate the account found with Coriantumr by the people of Zerahemla. I also expect that the translation of that stone record was done by Mosiah the first but possibly accomplished by means discovered with that record which were then passed down to his son and grandson.
Could the seer stones and the record of the brother of Jared have been separated during the time of the Jaredites with the records going to Ether and the stones going to Coriantumr (who couldn’t use them)?
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