Joseph believed that he was able to find lost objects

[_dblagent007]

I'm a little embarrassed to admit this, but I once surmised that maybe Joseph was told where in the text to be completely literal in his translation, whereas most of the time he was doing a loose translation.

Embarrassing? That's the current apologetic theory. You only need to do one thing to know whether the translation was tight or loose. Ask yourself, which translation theory supports the apologetic argument you are making and then select that theory. That's it! Simple, I know. It's even okay for you to select both theories for the same passage if you are really in a tight spot.

[_Darth J]

The Mormon Apologetics Articles of Faith

10. We believe that The Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God. It was a word-for-word translation, and the "Hebraisms" in The Book of Mormon that Joseph Smith could not have known about are circumstantial evidence of its divine origin. It was a loose translation, and thus The Book of Mormon talking about things that did not not exist in the ancient Americas shows that Joseph Smith used lots of "loan words" (but see #2, supra), and the numerous grammatical and other mistakes in The Book of Mormon are also thus explained. We believe that Joseph Smith was an unlearned hillbilly who had only a rudimentary knowledge of the Bible and could not possibly have plagiarized much of The Book of Mormon from the Bible. We believe that Joseph Smith frequently recognized passages in The Book of Mormon that were similar to the Bible, and thus he used passages from the King James Bible to fill in those parts, which explains the parts of The Book of Mormon where errors in the King James Bible made their way in. And we believe all of these things at the same time.

[_DarkHelmet]

Did Joseph Even use his seer stones while playing hide the sausage?

[_thews]

How is it known that Joseph thought he could find lost objects and that the gift came from God?

Joseph Smith apparently had the reputation, but what Joseph himself thought is less clear. He apparently was confident enough in his abilities to accompany Josiah Stowell to Pennsylvania in 1826. His family certainly believed in him. Joseph Smith’s father is reported to have stated that his son’s ability to see treasure with a seer-stone was a “wonderful power which God had…miraculously given him.”

For those interested, I just posted about seer-stones on my blog and will make at least two more related posts over the coming week.

Joseph, in your blog you come close to admitting the truth, but fail to address the key issues. For example:

Simply put, historically a “seer-stone” — as the name implies — was a rock through which someone was able to “see” something.

What you fail to acknowledge here is what Joseph Smith claimed to "see" through his seer stone(s), which were evil treasure guardians. "Something" could imply a lost horse, which may seem harmless to one who didn't know the entire history, but to see evil in an attempt to appease evil to obtain treasure was what they (seer stones) were used for.

Most of the Book of Mormon seems to have been translated with Joseph’s single stone as well, although the lost 116 pages were likely done with the Nephite “interpreters.”

In the above, if you replace "Most" with "All" and remove "seems to have been"and replace it with "was" it would remove confusion, as not one word of the published Book of Mormon was done using the Nephite interpreters. The only thing I can read between the lines is the "confusion" regarding whether it was done using the white or brown seer stone.

In your blog, it would also be extremely honest of you to admit that the LDS church has both stones in their possession, and that Hyrum Smith used "Urim and Thummim" to describe Joseph Smith's seer stones in 1843.

[_The Mighty Builder]

Horny Holy Joe, Profit, Seer, Revelator, General, Mayor, Justice of the Peace, Linguist, Banker, Womanizer, Drinker and Manager of the Lost and Found Department at any local Mercantile.

[_Polygamy-Porter]