For more information see https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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Professionals who are experienced in interviewing eye-witnesses will tell you that authentic eye-witnesses typically do not share all or even most of the facts surrounding what they have seen the first time they recount the experience. Nor do they tell the story exactly the same way each time. In fact, when eye-witnesses repeat a story in exactly the same way, it is usually because they have rehearsed it.  It frequently takes hours of interviewing before all the details come out.  When it comes to sharing spiritual experiences, the tendency to have additional details come out over time is even more pronounced.  There are many reasons for this, and each of them could apply to Joseph Smith’s differing accounts of the First Vision:

[1832 Account]

1)  Eye-witnesses will consider the audience and will usually provide only those details that are appropriate for the audience.  For example, Joseph Smith wrote his l832 account in his personal journal, suggesting that he was writing reflectively and did not have a larger audience in mind.

[1838 Account]

On the other hand, his 1838 account was intended for publication so that all seekers of truth “could be in possession of the facts.”  Think of how you would share your most personal spiritual experiences with your family members, for example, and compare that to how you would share the same experience with a larger audience.

2)  Eye-witnesses will consider the point(s) being made and will usually only provide information germane to that point.  If the witness wants to make another point using the same experience, different details frequently emerge.  Joseph initially processed his first vision as a personal experience in which he received a forgiveness of sins, and this is how he told the story.  Later versions were intended to make other doctrinal points and are told accordingly.

[First Vision Depiction]

3)  Eye-witnesses will generally process the experience according to their larger understanding of what happened.  As the understanding of the event evolves, details that seemed less important become more important, and information that was not explained earlier will come out to reflect the witness’ enlarged understanding.  This was particularly true for Joseph Smith, who understood considerably more about God, his nature and his purposes at the end of his life than he did in 1820 or even in 1838.

[Close-up on 2 Personages]

For example, as a youth, Joseph said he saw two personages, but does that mean he understood at that time that the personage of the Father was composed of flesh and bones? Probably not. That understanding did not come until many years later.  It would be surprising if Joseph had not shared new details and emphasized different aspects of the experience as his understanding expanded.

4) People who have spiritual experiences often feel constrained by the Spirit about what and how to share the knowledge they have gained, if at all.  Joseph Smith once said: “I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them.” (TPJS, p. 305).

In a revelation received in August 1831, Joseph Smith was instructed:

[D&C 63:64]

“Remember, that which cometh from above is sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constrait of the spirit” (D&C 63:64).  In the case of the First Vision, we do not know how much Joseph was allowed to share initially. One would normally expect Joseph to share more details after he was authorized to explain more to the Church.

5)  People frequently feel that they simply do not have the language or the ability to fully explain what they have experienced.  Late in his life, Joseph said: “It is my meditation all the day & more than my meat & drink to know how I shall make the saints of God to comprehend the visions that roll like an overflowing surge, before my mind” (WJS, p. 196).  Sometimes, words simply do not do justice to the experience and it takes time to try to capture the experience in language.

[1838 Account, pg 3, line 22]

In the case of the First Vision, even the 1838 version explains that the experience “defies all description.”

6) In recounting any experience, individuals have to rely on personal memory. When individuals share events from their past, what comes into their mind will generally be different each time the event is recounted, thus providing additional or various details with each rehearsal.

Joseph Smith’s first vision may be the best documented theophany in history. In the 1830s and 1840s Joseph wrote or cased scribes to write five known accounts declaring that the Lord opened the heavens upon him. Four of these five documents were later copied at least once, sometimes more, resulting in revisions each time. Five other known writers documented the event during Joseph’s lifetime. Scholars would be thrilled to have that much primary and secondary documentation of Moses’ encounter at the burning bush, Isaiah’s vision of the heavenly temple, or Paul’s experience on the road to Damascus.

Joseph Smith worked hard to document his experience in the grove, and scholars have worked hard to raise awareness of his several accounts. The Church and various scholars have published and publicized these documents repeatedly for half a century now. Images of the documents containing the primary accounts are in the Selected Collections from the Archives of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The accounts are being published again and put online as part of the Joseph Smith Papers Project (josephsmithpapers.org). Even so, they are little known by most Latter-day Saints and others. Some critics, meanwhile, assert that the documentary richness shows Joseph to be a fraud. But seekers thirst for all the evidence and examine it for themselves. They read, remember, and ponder Joseph’s descriptions. They seek understanding and verification.

The first vision accounts were created in specific historical settings that shape what they say and how they say it. Each of the accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision has its own history.

Each was created in circumstances that determined how it was remembered and communicated and thus how it was transmitted to us. Each account has gaps and omissions. Each adds detail and richness.

The Primary accounts of Joseph Smith’s first vision are these:

* 1832 – autobiography written on the first pages of a book used by Joseph Smith to record letters he sent and received

* 1835 (November 9) – entry in Joseph Smith’s journal by his scribe, reporting Joseph’s account of the vision to a visitor, reproduced in 1834-36 history

* 1838 – account scribed by George Robinson and copied into Joseph’s History by James Mulholland and later revised, presumably by Joseph, and copied again by Howard Coray about 1841; published in the Times and Seasons newspaper on March 15, 1842; redacted by Willard Richards later that year; later excerpted in the Pearl of Great Price.

* 1842 – Joseph Smith letter to John Wentworth, published in the Times and Seasons Newspaper on March 1, 1842; reproduced in 1843 for Israel Daniel Rupp’s An Original History of the Religious Denominations at Present Existing in the United States

See also http://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

The post Why Differing Accounts of Joseph Smith's First Vision? Differing Audiences. appeared first on Mormon Challenges.

In the 1832 account, which appears to never have been completed, two personages were not explicitly mentioned.  But Joseph did not say that he saw only one personage.

[1832 Account, pg 3, line 18]

Rather, Joseph simply explained that he saw “the Lord,.” with reference to Jesus Christ.  As discussed above, the primary point of this account was to communicate that Joseph had  obtained a forgiveness of his sins.  Such forgiveness would have occurred in a discussion between Joseph and “the Lord.”  In fact, it appears that the entire  communication that took place in the vision, other than the eight-word introduction by the Father, was between Joseph and Jesus Christ.  Of course, the presence of the Savior would not necessarily preclude the presence of the Father.  Joseph’s failure to explicitly mention the Father in the earliest version has caused some believers to ponder whether he felt that this portion of the experience was too sacred to share at that time, whether his understanding of the Godhead was still developing, whether he was constrained from mentioning the Father until later revelations came, or whether  he simply did not think that the Father’s presence was appropriate for the audience and/or his primary point.  One other point about the 1832 version: A careful reading implies that Joseph may have actually experienced the vision in two, distinct parts, and he may have only been describing one part of the vision.

When we sincerely and truthfully retell the story of any experience we have, it is very natural to emphasize different elements of that story and leave out other elements depending on the setting of the telling. We often draw upon a personal experience to express a certain lesson learned or to prove a particular argument. It would be strange to relate all that occurred in that experience when only certain parts pertained to the idea we wanted to express.

It is obvious that this is exactly what is happening with the different accounts of the first vision. It is important to notice that in all of the different accounts of Joseph telling this story there is nothing in any of the accounts that contradicts anything in the others.

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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(In one account, the people with Saul saw the light but did not hear the voice and in another account, these same people heard the voice but did not see the light.)

The Lord did not intervene to make sure Paul’s story was consistent.  And yet people don’t question Paul’s spiritual credentials because he told the story differently.   More fundamentally, Joseph Smith learned over and over that God wouldn’t take over and make sure everything came out exactly right.  It is commonly understood amongst Latter-day Saints that God pours His spirit upon his prophets, but he does not usually dictate every word.ears

Even considering these realities, the basic facts of Joseph’s different accounts of this experience do not contradict each other. The most difficult hurdle for critics to jump is the fact that the critics contemporary with Joseph Smith never brought up this argument against him. If Joseph made this up as he went over the years, it would have been much more obvious then than now, yet no critic ever used this. Why?

If Joseph had told his story exactly the same way every time, that would actually be more suspicious than the way it happened. If Joseph’s story was a con, he would have taken more care to tell it the same way each time. When you think about it, God himself would not tell the same story the same way to every audience in every condition. Different situations demand different emphasis on different elements of any story and no need to include others.

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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There are also two brief notes by a scribe stating that Joseph told someone on other occasions about a time he was visited by an angel.  We are not sure that Joseph was even talking about the First Vision on those occasions, or if he was, whether Joseph said that he was visited by a heavenly personage and the scribe recorded in his notes the word “angel,” or whether Joseph mentioned the angels that were also present and this is all the scribe heard or wrote down.  In short, the two-sentence accounts by a third person are not detailed enough to provide any real basis for saying that Joseph did not know that God was present in the vision.  Joseph recorded enough accounts himself, and these are where the focus rightly belongs.

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

The post Did First Vision story Evolve from Just Angels to Seeing God? Actually, No. appeared first on Mormon Challenges.

Those are historical facts. They are not disputed by well-informed individuals. It is the decision about what they mean–how the facts should be interpreted–that is continually being contested in books and articles, online, and in the hearts and minds of partisans and seekers. There are sound, intelligible reasons why we might expect Joseph’s accounts to vary. It is not good seeking to conclude based on nothing more than assumptions that the variations should be interpreted to mean that Joseph was not trustworthy. The limits of communication and the dynamics of memory contributed to the variety in the accounts. Seekers will at least want to be open to these and all other possibilities.

Those who trust Joseph tend to interpret faithfully the historical facts he left us, whereas those who distrust him interpret them skeptically. Skeptics who begin with certainty that the vision never happened as joseph said it did are unwilling to explore the variety of possibilities that the historical documents offer. Believers who are unwilling to examine all of the evidence prevent themselves from fuller understanding and appreciation of Joseph’s experience and are often unaware that they may have unfounded assumptions masquerading as testimony. Ironically, this unexamined sense of certainty makes their faith vulnerable. For some, the unfounded part of their testimony will crumble when eroded by the evidence, leaving them wondering whether any part of their formerly certain knowledge was true after all.

Seekers discern the difference between historical facts that others can verify and interpretations of those facts that are specific to subjective interpreters. And seekers discern the difference between what is assumed and what is known. Some assume that we have access to all Joseph said or wrote. We do not, but even if we did, it would not be sound to assume that it would represent that all he experienced. We have the equivalent of a few puzzle pieces and are not able yet to discern exactly how the completed puzzle will look. Seekers would rather acknowledge the missing pieces and actively, if patiently, search for them than pretend to know what they must look like.

Another LDS historian has said about this subject: “The question of the dating of the First Vision is an issue that lends credence to Joseph Smith’s claims, rather than undermining them. In the criticism of others, it has been pointed out that Joseph Smith was not consistent in the dates he assigned to this first experience: in the 1832 document it was in his “16th year,” in the 1835 recital he was “about 14 years old,” and the 1834 version was a mass of precision and ambiguity: “in the spring of Eighteen hundred and twenty . . . in my fifteenth year . . . between fourteen and fifteen years old or thereabouts . . . a little over fourteen years of age.” If Joseph Smith had been dictating a contrived “improvisation” to the dupes who were acting as his scribes, it would have been no problem for such a charlatan to select an arbitrary date for the First Vision and then stick to it. This would especially be no problem for a young man who (according to the Tanners) had been able to dictate the convoluted narrative of the fictionalized Book of Mormon. On the contrary, the variations in dating indicate that here was a man trying to reconstruct events from his early life that he originally regarded as of significance to himself alone, but now have become of interest to people who are his followers and curious inquisitors…

The post Did Joseph Smith Forget his Age when he Saw God? Evidently. appeared first on Mormon Challenges.

The different accounts of the First Vision are hardly a secret in the Church, and the Church has not attempted to hide the other versions,  or the fact that they are not all identical.

[Improvement Era 1970, 4-13]

For example, all the versions were extensively analyzed in the Improvement Era in 1970.

[Ensign January 1985: “Joseph Smith’s Recitals of the First Vision,” Milton V. Backman Jr.]
[Ensign April 1996: “Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision,” Richard L. Anderson]

The Church did this again in a 1985 Ensign article and again in a 1996 Ensign article.  Both Ensign articles summarized the different versions and addressed the arguments raised by the critics.

[Church News 2007, Chart]

In 2007, the Church News ran a similar article that again summarized all the different accounts in chart form, and further discussed the critics and the implications raised by those different accounts.

[Institute Manual (Cover)]

Moreover, the current institute study manual Church History in the Fulness of Times discusses elements from the 1832, 1835, 1838, and 1842 accounts.

When a critic of the church presents the fact of different accounts of the first vision to a member who is hearing this for the first time, the member will often wonder why they are hearing about this first from a critic rather than an official source within the church. Being aware of this, the critic plants the seed of doubt by accusing the church of deliberately hiding this from the general membership to cover up the fact that the different accounts conflict and are strong evidence that Joseph made the whole thing up.

There are three likely reasons why a member of the church is not aware of these other accounts. First, even the leaders of the church were not aware of these different accounts until just recently, so this is information that takes awhile to work its way into the curriculum. Second, there simply is not enough time in a Sunday School class to go into that much depth into the history of the church. Sunday School and seminary classes are designed to build and strengthen faith, not to explore every little tidbit of the history. The third reason is that this member has not been interested enough to do any study on their own, such as reading church magazines. The many examples listed in the video prove that the church has made no effort to hide this. The official web site of the church has an excellent page detailing this whole issue. Check it out by clicking this link.  http://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng  Listed below are some of the other publications that prove this point.

• 1965. Paul R. Cheesman, “An Analysis of the Accounts Relating to Joseph Smith’s Early Visions,” master’s thesis, Brigham Young University, 1965, especially pages 126-32.

• 1969. Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” BYU Studies 9:3 (1968): 275-94

• 1970. James B. Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision–What Do We Learn from Them,” Improvement Era 73 (April 1970): 4-13

• 1971, 1980. Milton V. Backman Jr., Joseph Smith’s First Vision (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft), 155-81.

• 1085. Milton V. Backman Jr., Joseph Smith’s Recitals of the First Vision,” Ensign, January 1985, 8-17.

• 1996. Richard L. Anderson, “Joseph Smith’s Testimony of the First Vision,” Ensign, April 1996, 10-21

* 2002. Dean C. Jessee, ed., Personal Writings of Joseph Smith, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, Utah: Brigham Young University Press, 2002) and Papers of Joseph Smith, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989-1992), 9-248.

•2008. Dean C. Jessee, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L Jensen, eds., Journals, Volume 1: 1832-1839, vol. 1 of the Journals series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2008).

• 2012. Karen Lynn Davidson, David J. Whittaker, Mark Ashurst-McGee and Richard L. Jensen, eds., Histories, 1832-1844, vol. 1 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers, edited by Dean Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City: Church Historian’s Press, 2012).

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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The historical record contains extensive evidence of religious revivals in Palmyra between 1817 and 1824, but nothing specifically documents a revival in the town of Palmyra in the spring of 1820.  But Joseph’s accounts do not claim that these revivals happened in Palmyra, nor that they were they limited to the year 1820.  Rather, Joseph’s accounts state that these revivals occurred in “the place where we lived” (Manchester township) and in the “whole district of country.”

Likewise, Joseph’s 1832 account states that he started his investigation into religion when he was twelve- years- old, the same year (1817) when there was a major revival in Palmyra.  There were also major revivals throughout western New York in 1819.  Many of these would have been advertised in Palmyra and in the Manchester township.  In fact, the historical record establishes that religious revivals were so commonplace at that time that Western New York was referred to as the “burnt over district.”  Thus, many meetings and revivals would not necessarily have been documented.  At a more fundamental level, Joseph was recording his youthful perception of the religious confusion and strife that he felt and how such confusion impacted his search for truth.  In light of the culture in which he was raised, it is a stretch indeed to argue that the historical record “disproves” Joseph’s story.

While pastor of the United Presbyterian Church in Marissa, Illinois in 1967, Wesley Walters published an innovative article that asserted there was no evidence of religious revival in Palmyra, New York in the spring of 1820, and therefore Joseph’s claim to have been influenced by such religious fervor must be false. He erred against the historical method by arguing that a lack of evidence for a Palmyra revival was proof that the vision did not occur.

Reverend Walters also erred in arguing an irrelevant proof. Joseph’s accounts do not claim that the revivalism centered in Palmyra itself, as Walters argues, or that the revivalism occurred in 1820. Rather, Joseph said that the excitement began in the second year after his family moved to Manchester, New York, meaning in 1819, and he located the “unusual excitement on the subject of religion” around Manchester, not Palmyra.

The Reverend Walters focused on the word reformation, used by Oliver Cowdery to describe the scope of the religious excitement, and on the Reverend George Lane, whom both Cowdery and William Smith, Joseph’s brother, credited with being “the key figure in the Methodist awakening.” Walters discovered “no evidence” for these claims and concluded that none existed, which was an unwise thing to do. Undiscovered evidence is not the same as nonexistent evidence, and when Walters made the bold claim that no evidence existed, researchers quickly set out to see for themselves.

Among the several evidences discovered since are Williams’s journals. They document much religious excitement in Joseph’s district and region of country in 1819 and 1820. They report that Reverend George Lane was indeed in that area in both of those years and that while there in July 1820 he “spoke on Gods method in bringing about Reffermations.” Indeed, the Williams diaries attest that not only Lane, but many Methodist preachers in Joseph’s time and place created unusual religious excitement, as Joseph described. Writers who have not studied this evidence themselves continue to parrot Walters and the irrelevant claim that “there was no significant revival in or around Palmyra in 1820,” but the historical evidence does not contradict Joseph’s description.

From Joseph Smith’s First Vision, A Guide to the Historical Accounts, by Steven C. Harper

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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So what can we conclude from these videos about Joseph Smith’s first vision? Do they prove that Joseph really saw the Father and the Son? Do they just present weak excuses to go on with our heads in the sand by pretending there are not serious problems with Joseph’s story? Hopefully, you will not come to either of these conclusions.

The purpose of these and other videos on this channel is to appeal to the true seeker in each of us. True seekers discern the difference between historical facts that others can verify and interpretations of those facts that are specific to subjective interpreters. And seekers discern the difference between what is assumed and what is known. Some assume that we have access to all Joseph said or wrote. We do not, but even if we did, it would not be sound to assume that it would represent that all he experienced. We have the equivalent of a few puzzle pieces and are not able yet to discern exactly how the completed puzzle will look. Seekers would rather acknowledge the missing pieces and actively, if patiently, search for them than pretend to know what they must look like.

Authentic seeking requires us not only to search the historical record thoroughly but to assess our own souls simultaneously. One way to seek introspectively is to identify and examine assumptions, to be just as vigilant in investigating why we are or are not willing to trust Joseph as we are assessing whether he is trustworthy. Investigating our assumptions helps us understand why we suppose or believe what we do.

There is an often-repeated assumption that if Joseph experienced the vision, he would have written it sooner. But there is no evidence or basis for this conclusion. Rather, Joseph and others left us evidence that he was not a skilled writer and quite reluctant to write. It was at about the same time he wrote his earliest vision account in 1832 that Joseph expressed how he felt imprisoned by what he called the “total darkness of paper, pen and ink.” When we think carefully about our assumptions, we become capable of asking better-informed questions. Clearer thinking in light of more evidence, for example, might cause us to wonder not just why Joseph waited so long to write about the vision but, given historical circumstances and evidence he left us, why he decided to write about it at all.

What ever questions we ask, seeking by the historical method of study requires that we discover the answers in the evidence created by those who experienced the past, not in a hypothetical history we imagine based on assumptions.

For more information see: https://www.lds.org/topics/first-vision-accounts?lang=eng

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