What are the Urim and Thummin?

Question

Where are they found in the Bible?

Answer 1

Try Exodus 28. They were a means of casting lots where the action was not otherwise clear.
Mormons nicked the idea, thinking they were sort of magic spectacles to read a language that never existed!!!!

Answer 2

The Urim and Thummin were parchments kept inside the High Priest's breastplate during the times that the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem was standing. What was written on these parchments are not known, however they were used by the High Priest to communicate with God to answer questions brought to him.

Answer 3

My topical guide gave the following references for it in the Bible:

Ex. 28: 30 (Lev. 8: 8) put in the breastplate of judgment the Urim and the Thummim.
Num. 27: 21 ask counsel for him after the judgment of Urim.
Deut. 33: 8 Let thy Thummim and thy Urim be with thy holy one.
1 Sam. 28: 6 Lord answered him not, neither by . . . Urim, nor by prophets.
Ezra 2: 63 (Neh. 7: 65) stood up a priest with Urim and with Thummim.
Rev. 2: 17 white stone, and in the stone a new name.

Answer 4

They are the sacred lot by means of which the ancient Hebrews were wont to seek manifestations of the Divine will.

Relatively few mentions of Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament leave the precise nature and use of the lot a matter more or less plausible conjecture, nor is much light derived from the ancient versions in which the term is subject to uncertain and divergent renderings. In chapter 28 of Exodus where minute directions are given concerning the priestly vestments, and in particular concerning the "rational" (probably "pouch" or "breastplate") we read (v. 30): "And thou (Moses) shalt put in the rational of judgement doctrine and truth (Heb. the Urim and the Thummim), which shall be on Aaron's breast when he shall go in before the Lord; and he shall bear the judgment of the children of Israel on his breast in the sight of the Lord always." From this it appears that at least towards the close of the Exile, the Urim and Thummim were considered as something distinct from the ephod of the high priest and the gems with which it was adorned. It also shows that they were conceived of as material objects sufficiently small to be inserted in the "rational" or "pouch", the main purpose of which seems to have been to receive them. In Leviticus 8:7-8 we read: "He (Moses) vested the high priest with the strait linen garment, girding him with the girdle, and putting on him the violet tunick, and over it he put the ephod, and binding it with the girdle, he fitted it to the rational, on which was doctrine and truth" (Heb. the Urim and the Thummim). Again in Numbers 27:21: "If anything be to be done, Eleazar the priest shall consult the Lord for him" (Heb. "and he [Eleazar] shall invoke upon him the judgment of Urim before the Lord").

Answer 5

Little is known about them. Exodus 28:15-30, Deut. 33:8, Numbers 27:18-23, 1 samuel 14:41-45, and Ezra 2:63, Nehemiah 7:65.

They are special lots or stones in a bag where one can receive the answer from God by using them. Of course, God could refuse to answer them. Given to Aaron and kept by the High Priest in a "breastplate of judgment." Tribe of Levi has special responsibility for them.

Answer 6

Exodus 28:30 and Leviticus 8:8 for starters. Also check out the link for some history...

Answer 7

It is basically a Mormon belief - you can find info in The Book of Mormon.

Wikepedia says: In the Latter Day Saint movement, the Urim and Thummim (also called Interpreters) were a set of seer stones bound by silver bows into a set of spectacles, that founder Joseph Smith, Jr. said he found on the hill Cumorah with the golden plates.

In 1823, Smith said that an angel Moroni told him of the existence, with the plates, of "two stones in silver bows" fastened to a breastplate, which the angel called the Urim and Thummim and which he said God had prepared for translating the plates.(His mother, Lucy Mack Smith, described them as crystal-like: "two smooth three-cornered diamonds.") Smith and his early Mormon contemporaries seem to have used the terms "seer stone" and "Urim and Thummim" interchangeably. Although Smith always referred to the Book of Mormon "interpreters" as the Urim and Thummim, he may or may not have intended to make a distinction between that device and the seer stones that he used in scrying.

In 1827, Smith was revisited by the angel who revealed the location of the Gold Plates, along with other items such as the Urim and Thummim, and that these objects were buried in a nearby hillside. After translating the Book of Mormon, Smith returned the plates and the Urim and Thummim to the angel, whom he identified as the resurrected Moroni. Joseph Smith reportedly told Orson Pratt that the Lord gave him the Urim and Thummim when he was an inexperienced translator but that as he grew in experience, he no longer needed such assistance.

The LDS Bible Dictionary defines the Urim and Thummim as "an instrument prepared of God to assist man in obtaining revelation from the Lord and in translating languages." In the Book of Mormon, the prophets the Brother of Jared and Mosiah both used devices called "interpreters" to receive revelation for their people, and the Doctrine and Covenants declares that these "interpreters" were Urim and Thummim.

Mormons believe that the Urim and Thummim of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon were the functional equivalent of the Urim and Thummim mentioned in the Old Testament, but there is no indication in the Old Testament that the Urim and Thummin were used to translate documents.Some Mormons believe that there were three different Urim and Thummims: the one of the Old Testament and two mentioned in the Book of Mormon, one used by the Jaredites and the other by King Mosiah. (LDS members believe that the one used by Smith is the one originally possessed by the Jaredites.)



But,there are seven references to the Urim and Thummim in the Old Testament: Exodus 28. 30; Lev. 8.8; Numbers 27. 21; Deut. 33. 8; I Samuel 28. 6; Ezra 2. 63; Nehemiah 7. 65.

Answer 8

Here is a very informative article about them from The Jewish Encyclopedia:

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=52&letter=U

My understanding is that they were used to somehow answer yes or no questions, to get an answer from God.

Answer 9

They're not in the bible, they are the tools left by Moroni for Joseph to use while translating the gold plates into english(making it the Book of Mormon).

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Seeing other's answers made me go "hmmm" I didn't know they were also in the bible...YAY!

Answer 10

They aren't, they're only found in joseph smith's magic hat, i mean imagination.