The Urim and Thummim were two mysterious objects used to speak with God (YHWH) in the Old Testament, and modern scholars still don't know whether they were simple magical divination tools (cleromancy) or full-blown intergalactic communication devices.

and even China.

The Jewish Takeover of China – Library of Rickandria

Magic was central to ancient civilization and life.

Magic or Magick? – Library of Rickandria

issues.

And of all the ancient forms of magic, the most popular was divination.

By identifying and interpreting signs, divination was used to garner knowledge of the unknown, whether to predict the future or to reveal the cause of a problem.

But reading signs, even for the most knowledgeable seer, was not always easy.

While many technical compendia on divination and interpretation existed, the signs presented were rather ambiguous.

This could be a change in the behavior of birds, a practice known as ornithomancy, or they could come to the seer as a slut.

The most popular method of sign reading was astrology.

However, the Jewish priests of ancient times believed that they were exempt from the influence of the stars, and that astrology could only be applied to the Gentiles, those outside of the nation of Israel.

These Jewish mystics and priests supposedly had their own superior system of divination, an enigmatic relic brought down from heaven by angels that allowed man to communicate directly with the god of the ancient Israelites, Yahweh.

Access to this system allowed them to far exceed the capabilities of any other form of divination known to the ancients.

It did not just predict the future, nor did it summon a spirit.

It was a literal conduit for Yahweh.

Through this device, Yahweh gave certain messages that would come to form the Jewish faith as we know it.

Without it, we would have no Judaism, nor Christianity or Islam.

This relic and mysterious technology was called the Urim and Thummim and was thought to be linked with the extra human realm.

Moreover, it could only be operated by a divinely elected priest, and after all those who knew the secret of how to operate it had died, the device ceased to function and the artifact itself was either lost or stolen, a massive tragedy that was well documented by contemporary Jewish historians.

The mystical Jewish corpus references many different types of magic, though none would ever prove to be as effective as the Urim and Thummim, nor would anything as powerful as it ever again exist.

I 'm Mr. Mythos, and I welcome you to Truth or Lore.

The Old Testament's first reference to the Yurim and Thummim comes in Exodus, Chapter 28. 

According to these verses, Yahweh communicates with Moses and instructs him on how to put together his brother Aaron's liturgical garments, his priestly attire.

Over Aaron's robe, Moses places a breastplate on which sit two carved onyx stones engraved with the names of the children of Israel.

Yahweh then tells Moses,

In this passage, no explanation is offered for the Urim and Thummim.

Because of this, scholars believe that the Urim and Thummim were already well known to the ancient Israelites, which means that they were far older than the passages of Exodus.

Another biblical passage, this time from the book of Samuel, suggests that the Urim and Thummim were used to establish guilt in legal matters.

In these verses, King Saul issues an official order that his soldiers must fast for a day in gratitude for a successful battle.

Unfortunately, his son Jonathan, the battle's victor, was unaware of his father's decree and ate wild honey.

After his son returns to the kingdom, King Saul calls upon Yahweh to advise on whether they should continue their conquest against the Philistines, but he receives no answer.

Convinced that a man in his army had gone against Yahweh and angered him, Saul throws down the Urim and Thummim and establishes his son's guilt.

By throwing them down, this could hint that the Urim and Thummim were like dice and offered simple yes or no answers.

The popular Old Testament scholar, Dr. Michael Heiser, believes that if this were true, Thummim could come from the Hebrew word "tom," which can mean "to be innocent."

Urim, therefore, could come from the word "arim," or "to curse."

If Urim meant "curse" and Thummim meant "innocent," then by extension, they could mean "yes" or "no."

However, the biblical scholar, J. Milgram, points out that the Urim and Thummim would often give much more than simple yes or no answers.

He relates back to the Old Testament when, on many occasions, the people of Israel called upon Yahweh.

The answers they received could not be described as anything but complex.

On more than one occasion, full answers are given, including instructions for winning battles and overcoming fierce adversaries.

Another passage that supports Milgrom's theory is Numbers, chapter 27, verse 21, where Moses' prophetic successor is told that he must stand before the High Priest, Eliezer, to receive Yahweh's direction and guidance through the Urim and Thummim.

Perhaps this is a bit of a philosophical question, but how could complete divine revelation be found in questions with simple yes or no answers?

If that is the case, then with the words combined, we have lights and perfection, and potentially revelation and truth.

As light is often synonymous with divine revelation in the Old Testament, and perfection with the word of Yahweh, the truth.

Revelation and truth give credence to the idea that the Urim and Thummim were a two-way communication vessel through which Yahweh's divine revelation was sought.

Through Urim and Thummim came the revelatory truth of the one true God.

When King Saul threw down Urim and Thummim, scholars have suggested that he was actually casting lots, or in other words, a random pick, supposedly guided and influenced by a higher universal force.

To the ancients, the role of a dice was determined by the gods, and this superstition carries over to this day.

When you call upon Lady Luck while spinning a roulette wheel, you are actually reciting the name of Fortuna, the Roman god Jupiter's daughter.

In ancient China, mystics would shake a cup containing 100 bamboo sticks, each etched with Chinese characters, to get the answers to questions.

Similarly, in Viking Scandinavia, a seer would cast carved sticks onto the ground and pick them up three at a time, deciphering messages from the carvings.

This is casting lots, the magical term being "cleromancy".

The ancient Israelites also practiced cleromancy.

In fact, Yahweh encouraged them to.

In the Book of Leviticus, for example, Yahweh commands that lots be cast to decide which goat is sent to Azazel, a great demon, on the holiday of Yom Kippur.

Again, in the Book of Jonah, the sailors accompanying Jonah on his journey cast lots to decide who bears responsibility for causing a storm.

Ultimately, Jonah is thrown overboard when the lots identify him as the culprit.

Is this what King Saul was actually doing?

Evidence from Jewish texts says otherwise.

According to the Talmud, which is the primary source of rabbinic law in Judaism, Eliezer, the high priest who succeeded Aaron, wore the Urim and Thummim while casting lots.

The Talmud states that while all of Israel stood before him and while wearing the Urim and Thummim, Eliezer holds an urn and shakes it until the tribe of Zevalin comes up.

In this passage, Eliezer is resolving a land dispute, and Zevalin is a tribe that ultimately inherits the land.

This clearly shows that the Urim and Thummim have their own intended purpose and are not physically used in casting lots.

They are clearly used in conjunction with the actual cleromancy of Eliezer's urn.

Another translation of the same Talmudic text states that the Urim and Thummim are worn to "divide" the urn.

Some Jewish scholars have claimed that the reason for this is that the person who wears them possesses the spirit of Yahweh, or rather is possessed by it.

which was a practice common to the Israelites.

Through Urim and Thummim, however, King Saul was able to fully comprehend Yahweh's will.

If this is true and the Urim and Thummim were not used to cast lots, then we can confidently say that they were used to receive both full, complex answers as well as short yeses and no's, thus explaining the discrepancies between the answers yielded by them.

Another theory offered is that by the time of King Saul, the Urim and Thummim had become so debased that they were indeed used for casting lots because their intended purpose was forgotten.

In absence of Yahweh's spirit, they were used as a pseudo-oracle.

This would explain why King Saul's use is distinctly different from the more technical use that the Urim and Thummim had at the hands of earlier high priests like Eliezer and Aaron.

The Jewish high priest was elegantly dressed.

He would wear a linen tunic tied with a sash underneath a purple woolen robe with golden bells attached to it.

And between each bell was a pomegranate.

Over the priest 's robe he wore the ephod, a sacred Jewish artifact worn by many of the Old Testament prophets.

It was an ornate and rather mysterious ceremonial tool through which Yahweh supposedly communicated.

As for the robe's bells, rabbinic speculation is that they were worn so that when the priest stood before the ark of the covenant in the Holy of Holies, which only he could, the jingling bells would tell the other priests that he was still alive.

Around his ankle, a long rope was tied.

This was so that if the bells stopped jingling and the priest had died, they could pull him out without angering Yahweh by laying eyes upon the ark.

The ephod was made from twined linen and wool.

It had golden threads woven into its fabric, so much that it had a golden appearance.

Jewish scholars have put forward the theory that there was so much gold content within the ephod that it could stand upright on its own.

Around the priest's neck, golden chains were worn to support the ephod.

Adorning it was twelve gemstones set in gold.

These stones carried the names of the twelve tribes of Israel.

The Urim and Thummim were kept separate from these gemstones in a pouch that the high priest wore under his breastplate.

Recounting from Jewish sources, the belief is that the Urim was white and the Thummim was black.

They were small, smooth stones, and the priest could not tell the difference between the two when he reached into the pouch to touch them.

Jewish texts also claim that the stones were constructed from onyx, which is known for its piezoelectric properties, the ability for it to generate electricity in response to mechanical stress. 

Basically, an extreme force would need to be applied to it.

The authors of Mysteries of the Bible, Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe, speculate that the stones may have glowed to reveal messages, which might explain why one stone was described as white and the other black.

If the stones were made from onyx, then they would indeed glow a pale white if enough pressure was applied to them.

But this begs the question, how could such pressure have been applied to the stones without seriously harming or killing the priest?

and Jasper.

Interestingly, these gemstones all have the ability to glow or change color, similar to onyx.

Dr. Michael Heiser mentioned that there is scholarly discussion as to whether the Urim and Thummim were used to power the gemstones on the breastplate.

These gemstones each had the names of one of the twelve tribes of Israel carved into them.

According to this theory, when Yahweh sent revelation, the Urim and Thummim would generate energy and the gemstones would light up, allowing the priest to write down the consonants to decipher Yahweh's message.

Lionel and Patricia Fanthorpe present a rather interesting theory regarding the origins of the Urim and Thummim.

They believe that they originated in ancient Egypt because of their connection with Moses, who was adopted by Egyptians as an infant.

This is a logical conclusion to draw since the Urim and Thummim were clearly known to Moses prior to their first written mention in Exodus, and there is no elaboration on their construction in the Old Testament.

It appears that they always existed. It is academically accepted that the Pharaoh who drove Moses from Egypt was Pharaoh Ramses II.

Gerald Massey, a long-deceased Egyptologist, wrote that Pharaoh Ramses III made a breastplate inlaid with precious stones denoting the Egyptian eye, meaning "to speak" or "to give forth a voice."

Scholars have claimed that Ramses II could very well have been Ramses III's grandfather.

Ramses III was born during the final years of Ramses II, and after the death of Ramses II, Moses lived for another 40 years.

This means that Ramses III may have been Egypt's Pharaoh toward the end of Moses' life.

And therein lies the question, did Ramses III give Moses the blessed breastplate of the Egyptians and the stones of Urim and Thummim?

The founder of the esoteric religion Theosophy, Helena Blavatsky, also claimed that Egypt was the source of the Urim and Thummim.

She believed that they were symbolic representations of the two truths, Ra, the god of the sun, and Thumay, the goddess of the truth.

Blavatsky also stated that the Urim and Thummim were instruments of magical divination and oracular communication.

Essentially, she believed that they could be used to communicate with the same celestial deities that the ancient Egyptians had worshipped.

Finally, she also believed that the twelve stones adorning the breastplate were personating the signs of the zodiac, and that by channeling these, the Israelite high priest would be thrown into an ecstatic condition.

They would be hypnotized.

The world's most qualified expert on the Yurim and Thummim, the theologian Cornelis Van Dam, described them as

He further added that they provided

This leads us to a rather abstract theory, partly in line with Blavatsky's own claim that the Israelites channel ed celestial deities.

Authors Christian and Joy O'Brien made the extraordinary claim that Yurim and Thummim were used in a way similar to a radio, allowing the holder direct communication with Yahweh.

They explain that this is how Yahweh summoned Aaron into the tent of meeting and how Aaron communicated with Yahweh during his periods of absence.

They come to this conclusion by tracing the words Urim and Thummim back to Sumerian and their ancient syllabic equivalents.

In Sumerian, "yu" means height and "rim" means reduce or shorten, implying that there is a distance gap being closed.

Moving on, "thumm" means bring and "min" refers to Shamash, the ancient Mesopotamian sun god and god of truth and divine judgment, known to ride through the clouds in his sun chariot, suspiciously similar to descriptions of Yahweh.

From this, the Obrians claim that Yurim could mean distance shortener, and Thummin could mean Yahweh-bringer.

With all of this, they go on to say that the Urim and Thummim could have been small digital devices used to communicate with Yahweh from a distance, akin to a two-way radio.

The concept of Yahweh hovering above the clouds and operating a radio may not be as ludicrous as it may sound.

In the Book of Numbers, chapter 12, Aaron and Miriam are criticizing Moses behind his back.

Yahweh, who is hovering above in a pillar of cloud and fire, eavesdrops and immediately summons the three to the tent of meeting to discuss their backbiting.

Aaron is the carrier of Urim and Thummim.

So, instead of supposing that Yahweh heard them from above the clouds, perhaps it would be fair to say that he heard through the Urim and Thummim and that the microphone was inadvertently left on.

The origins of Chinese civilization are uncertain, according to many scholars in the field, and thus many theories have popped up over the centuries.

In 1892, French philologist Albert Terrien de Lacouperie proposed that Chinese civilization may have begun in ancient Babylon.

Alternatively, the modern Chinese professor of geochemistry, Sun Weidong, believes that the Chinese descended from the Hyksos, invaders from the Levant who eventually defied odds and came to rule Egypt's northern provinces.

If Chinese civilization did begin in Egypt or Babylon, then logically a lot would be shared in terms of mysticism and religion.

The theologian, Paul Karras, claimed that they did.

He wrote extensively on the subject of Urim and Thummim and its odd similarities with the Chinese esoteric belief of Yin and Yang.

The ephod bore twelve gemstones which some claimed were synchronized with the Urim and Thummim.

Yin and Yang are synchronized with the body's twelve meridians, meridians being the pathways through which a person's qi flows, the circulatory system of their life energy.

Like Urim and Thummim, Yin and Yang are depicted as being white and black, forming a direct and blatant contrast with one another.

Karras argued that, as Urim can be translated to "lights" or "Yang", then Thummim logically should represent darkness or Yin.

In their most primitive forms, it is not impossible that they were connected, especially when we consider the theory that Chinese civilization could have begun in Egypt or Babylon.

Before we move on, another particularly odd similarity is a tablet of Fu Xi.

According to ancient Chinese legend, at the very beginning of history, there sat a mysterious tablet inexplicably connected to the universe.

This was a tablet of Fu Xi. Note that Chinese and Mesopotamian tradition and folklore bear more than a handful of similarities that honestly deserve their own video.

If we can draw connections between them, then might we suggest that the tablet of Fu Xi could be one in the same as the Sumerian Tablet of Destinies, another legendary and lost artifact which seems to parallel the properties of the Urim and Thummim.

The Tablet of Destinies are an integral part of the Mesopotamian creation myth.

These tablets were reported to rest side by side on the breast of Mesopotamian kings, ultimately shaping the destiny of the king and his country.

In ancient Babylon, Assyria's job was to consult the gods through the Tablet of Destinies.

They would typically receive yes or no answers, much like King Sol supposedly did.

The Tablet of Destinies were first mentioned in the Etemenanki text, a sacred Sumerian document which is over 5,000 years old and was discovered in the archives of a Serbonipal.

The namesake of the text, Etemenanki, was a king said to have lived for over 43,000 years.

When translated, Etemenanki means "the bond of above and below," which resembles the famous fundamental Hermetic principle, "as above, so below," which itself implies a connection between the heavens and earth, an essential relationship.

Similarly, the tablets of destiny were divinely created and claimed to contain the mystery of heaven and earth.

Chinese occultists have their own understanding of the phrase

They associate heaven and earth with two opposing principles, yin and yang, and therein lies the secret of the universe.

Not only do the tablets of destiny bear resemblance to yin and yang, but they also bear remarkable similarity to the Urim and Thummim.

Besides the fact that they too were tools of divination, the tablet of destinies also rest on the wearer's breast.

Furthermore, Babylonian lore tells that only those considered prophets or divine messengers were lawfully allowed to wear the tablet of destinies.

And Jewish tradition states that only the high priests of Israel, divinely elected by Yahweh, could wear the Urim and Thummim.

According to the doctrines of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, the religion's founder, believed that he had gained access to the Urim and Thummim, and that, through divine insight, was able to use them once again for their intended purpose, to communicate with Yahweh.

Mormonism states that Smith's Urim and Thummim were identical to the ones originally mentioned in the Old Testament, both in function and appearance, though it is unclear whether they were the original device or a duplicate, as by that point the artifact hadn't been seen for 2,000 years.

Smith claimed to have used the Urim and Thummim to translate the Book of Mormon from the Golden Plates, a set of artifacts that Smith supposedly discovered in 1823, buried atop a hill near his home in New York.

He claimed to have been directed to dig at that exact spot by an angel later identified as the Archangel Gabriel.

During the early years of Mormonism while living in Ohio, Smith acquired four Egyptian mummies and several papyri scrolls from a traveling salesman.

He later discovered that the papyri contained the writings of Abraham and Joseph, who had both lived in Egypt.

After Smith died, the papyri were passed from person to person until they were partly destroyed in the Great Chicago Fire.

Their most important writings damaged beyond repair.

In the Book of Abraham, one of the core Mormon texts translated from the papyri, Abraham describes a vision channeled through the Urim and Thummim, in which he sees life before earth was formed, and the Council of Heaven discussing the prospect of creating earth.

It is notably odd that Smith would attribute the Urim and Thummim to Abraham, as there is no biblical evidence to support this.

In the Book of Abraham, Abraham supposedly sought the power of the priesthood through the stones.

There is a strange connection to be drawn here, however.

While we may have no biblical mention of Abraham's connection to the Urim and Thummim, as it's a concept unique to Mormonism, Abraham was, however, known to have access to a glowing stone.

There is a Talmudic legend that states that Abraham wore a glowing stone, known as the "sohar", around his neck.

This stone was supposedly given to Adam and Eve when they were first expelled from the Garden of Eden, and later came into the possession of Noah, who hung it from his ark.

With this glowing stone, Abraham was reportedly able to "study the stars". 

Earlier I mentioned that the Urim and Thummim are supposed to have been made from onyx, which under mechanical stress can glow.

Not only that, but the Urim and Thummim were thought to be used to contact celestial bodies, the stars themselves.

Jewish tradition teaches that the Urim and Thummim were no longer used after the destruction of the first temple and the passing of the older prophets.

They were among the five things lacking in the second temple.

The extremely important first century historian Josephus stated that this oracle, the Urim and Thummim, had been silent for 200 years before his time and since then had completely ceased function.

Josephus's writings detail how sacred they were to the Jewish people even after their exodus from Egypt.

By all accounts, the Urim and Thummim were incredibly important to the ancient Israelites and their loss was deeply felt by the entire Jewish population.

After the reconstruction of the temple, priests were unsure as to whether or not they could continue their service in the absence of the Urim and Thummim, as they were the primary vessel for Yahweh's revelation.

The foremost expert, Cornelis Van Dam, was able to trace the use of the Urim and Thummim from the time of Joshua, the successor to Moses, all the way to King David, who ruled around 1000 BC.

After David's death, there are no more instances mentioned of prophets consulting Yahweh through the Urim and Thummim or the Ephod.

Whatever the Urim and Thummim actually were, all accounts tell that they eventually stopped functioning and were ultimately lost.

But their divine magic was never forgotten.

Jewish scholars still teach that the power they carried to communicate with God was unrivaled, and unlike any that would come before or after.

We are mortal, while the Urim and Thummim, like he who created them, are infinite.

Do you believe that the Urim and Thummim were a lost technology, and what capabilities did they hold?

Is there a connection to the yin and yang, or the tablet of destinies?

And were Joseph Smith's Urim and Thummim an actual modern-day appearance of the same device?

Let me know your theories in the comments below.

I'm Mr. Mythos, and I'll see you in the next episode of Truth or Lore.

God's Electronic Communicator (non-fiction, discussing the electronic mechanism of the Urim and Thummim) ➤

Divination in the Bible: A Practical Guide to Talking to God ➤ 

From Eden to Exile: Unraveling Mysteries of the Bible ➤