It's a small, brown rock that's roughly the size of an egg, but to Mormons it's also a sacred relic used by the church's founder, Joseph Smith, to translate the word of God.

The never-before-seen image of the "seer stone" was released Tuesday by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as part of a book containing photos of the first manuscript of the Book of Mormon, the text that is the basis for the religion.

"The picture brings a kind of tangibility to something that has been previously been talked about just in words," Richard Turley, a church historian, told the Salt Lake Tribune.

