In 1826 a New York justice examined Joseph Smith as “the Glass Looker.” In 1830 two more courts heard the same charge and let him go. Here is what the surviving records prove, what they don’t, and what critics usually leave out.
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Joseph Smith, his scribe Oliver Cowdery, and the revelations of 1828–29 all name the same instrument: the Urim and Thummim found with the plates. Here is the Joseph Smith Foundation’s case, the sources behind it, and how to weigh the later stone-in-a-hat accounts.
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“Joseph Smith was a money digger.” He said so himself in 1838, for fourteen dollars a month. What critics leave out: treasure seeking was widespread among churchgoing Christians in 1820s New England and New York, the man who hired Joseph was a Presbyterian who later joined the Church, and the Bible has its own seer for lost property in 1 Samuel 9.
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From the voice in Eden to Sinai, the prophets, Christ, and the apostles, God always spoke through prophets, and every major change came with a prophet’s name, a date, God’s own words, and a reason. The closing of the canon has none. Here is the full story: the councils and the Reformation that drew the lists, the books the Bible cites but we don’t have, the prophets it promises for the last days, the “we are Moses’ disciples” pattern, and how God reopened the heavens.
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Critics mock Joseph Smith’s seer stone as “a rock in a hat.” The Bible tells a different story: Urim and Thummim in the high priest’s breastplate, Joseph of Egypt’s silver cup, Gideon’s fleece, apostles casting lots, Aaron’s rod, the brass serpent, and Jesus healing with clay. Here is the context critics leave out, plus what the witnesses in the room actually described.
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