The Urim and Thummim: A Means of Revelation in Ancient Israel

Cornelius Van Dam's The Urim and Thummim, A Means of Revelation in Ancient Israel, published by Eisenbrauns in 1997, is the standard monograph devoted specifically to the Urim and Thummim, the priestly objects used for divine consultation described in the Hebrew Bible, surveying every biblical reference to them and the full range of scholarly proposals for what they physically were and how they were used. Its strength is that concentrated focus, a single sustained study where most biblical scholarship treats the Urim and Thummim only in passing within a wider discussion of Israelite priesthood or divination. Its limit is one the book itself states plainly, that the biblical text never actually describes the objects' physical form or the mechanics of their use, so no study, however thorough, can settle that question beyond informed conjecture, and a claim asserting a specific physical description as established fact goes beyond what any source on this topic, including Van Dam's own, can support.