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Dating the First Vision | A FairMormon Analysis of Wikipedia: Mormonism and Wikipedia/First Vision A work by a collaboration of authors (Link to Wikipedia article here)
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Interpretations and responses to the vision |
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I'm certain that I hold the high ground here.
—Wikipedia editor John Foxe, quoting Edward Everett Hale, during an edit battle on the "First Vision" article (16 May 2007)
The importance of the First Vision within the Latter Day Saint movement evolved over time. There is little evidence that Smith discussed the First Vision publicly prior to 1830.Author's sources:
Mormon historian James B. Allen notes that:The fact that none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830s, none of the publications of the Church in that decade, and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story of the first vision is convincing evidence that at best it received only limited circulation in those early days.Author's sources:
"...none of the available contemporary writings about Joseph Smith in the 1830s, none of the Church publications in that decade and no contemporary journal or correspondence yet discovered mentions the story in convincing fashion." (emphasis added)
Smith said that he made an oblique reference to the vision in 1820 to his mother, telling her the day it happened that he had "learned for [him]self that Presbyterianism is not true."Author's sources:
Lucy did not mention this conversation in her memoirs.Author's sources:
"Joseph, after repenting of his sins and humbling himself before God, was visited by an holy angel whose countenance was as lightning and whose garments were white above all whiteness, who gave unto him commandments which inspired him from on high; and who gave unto him, by the means of which was before prepared, that he should translate this book." (Lucy Smith letter, found in Benjamin E. Rich, ed., Scrapbook of Mormon Literature (Chicago: Henry C. Etten and Co., 1913), 1:543–46.) (emphasis added)
In the oldest known full account of the First Vision, Joseph Smith, Jr., said he "could find none that would believe" his experience.Author's sources:
...but [I] could find none that would believe the hevnly vision nevertheless I pondered these things in my heart... off-site
He said that shortly after the experience, he told the story of his revelation to a Methodist ministerAuthor's sources:
The presence of some 110 ministers and their bishop, Bishop R. R. Roberts at the Genesee Conference meetings representing the New York, Pennsylvania and the Upper and Lower Canada districts must have created at least a moderate stir in the immediate neighborhood. [42] This places Reverend George Lane within a fifteen mile vicinity of Manchester attending the largest Methodist meeting of the year in Western New York among a great number of Methodist ministers at a time when Joseph Smith was aware of "an unusual excitement on the subject of religion" ("some time in the second year [1819] after our removal to Manchester").
Whether or not Joseph attended some of these meetings cannot be determined from any records presently available, but the opportunity cannot be denied—if only to sell confectioneries. [43] To think that the Smiths would not have heard of the gathering is hardly believable.
[42]Minutes of the Annual Conference, 1819, pp. 50-52.
[43]Pomery Tucker, Origin, Rise, and Progress of Mormonism (Palmyra, 1867), p. 12.
who responded "with great contempt, saying it was all of the devil, that there was no such thing as visions or revelations in these days; that all such things had ceased with the apostles, and that there never would be any more of them."Author's sources:
Mr. [Joseph] Smith then asked, "Must I join the Methodist Church?" "No, they are not my people. [They] have gone astray; there is none that doeth good, not one, but this is my Beloved Son, harken ye him." The fire drew nigher, rested upon the tree, enveloped him. Comforted, I endeavored to arise but felt uncommon feeble. [I] got into the house and told the Methodist priest [who] said this was not an age for God to reveal himself in vision. Revelation has ceased with the New Testament.
He also said that the telling of his vision story "excited a great deal of prejudice against me among professors of religion, and was the cause of great persecution, which continued to increase."Author's sources:
There is no extant evidence from the 1830s for this persecution beyond Smith's own testimony.Author's sources:
…no one seemed to consider it important enough to have recorded it at the time, and no one was criticizing him for it. Not even in his own history did Joseph Smith mention being criticized in this period for telling the story of the first vision. The interest, rather, was in the Book of Mormon and the various angelic visitations connected with its origin…the young prophet said that he had been severely rebuffed the first time he told the story in 1820; and since it represented one of his most profound spiritual experiences, he could well have decided to circulate it only privately until he could feel certain that in relating it he would not receive again the general ridicule of friends. (Allen, p. 30, 34)
Almost as soon as the father [Joseph Smith, Sr.] and mother [Lucy Smith] of the Prophet Joseph Smith set their feet upon the hospitable shore of Illinois, I became acquainted with them. I frequently visited them and listened with intense interest as they related the history of the rise of the Church in every detail.
With tears they could not withhold, they narrated the story of the persecution of their boy, Joseph, which commenced when he was about fourteen years old, or from the time the angel first visited him. Not only was the boy, Joseph, persecuted but the aged father was harassed and imprisoned on false charges. (emphasis added)
None of the earliest anti-Mormon literature mentioned the First Vision.Author's sources:
It should be noted that in one 1831 newspaper article about the activities of LDS missionaries (i.e., Oliver Cowdery and three others) there is a vague reference to Smith seeing God. The journalist wrote, "Smith (they affirmed) had seen God frequently and personally" ("God bible No. 4: Book of Mormon," Palmyra Reflector, Feb. 14, 1831). This remark indicates that as early as 1831 Smith might have been starting to privately tell select persons that he had at some point seen God. (emphasis in original)
Smith also said he told others about the vision during the 1820s, and some family members said that they had heard him mention it, but none prior to 1823, when Smith said he had his second vision.Author's sources:
The reminiscences of Smith's family and Palmyra neighbors offer another perspective. In the early 1820s, Smith was enrolled in a Methodist probationary class. An associate called him a "very passable exhorter,"Author's sources:
But Joseph had a little ambition, and some very laudable aspirations; the mother's intellect occasionally shone out in him feebly, especially when he used to help us to solve some portentous questions of moral or political ethics, in our juvenile debating club, which we moved down to the old red school-house on Durfee street, to get rid of the annoyance of critics that used to drop in upon us in the village; amid, subsequently, after catching a spark of Methodism in the camp-meeting, away down in the woods, on the Vienna road, he was a very passable exhorter in evening meetings.
although some people considered his interpretations of scripture "persistent blasphemies."Author's sources:
Can their mockeries of Christianity, their persistent blasphemies, be accounted for upon any other hypothesis?
Smith reportedly withdrew from the probationary class, announcing a belief that "all sectarianism was fallacious, and the churches on a false foundation."Author's sources:
The final conclusion announced by him [Joseph] was, that all sectarianism was fallacious, all the churches on a false foundation, and the Bible a fable.
According to one recollection, Smith "arose and announced that his mission was to restore the true priesthood. He appointed a number of meetings, but no one seemed inclined to follow him as the leader of a new religion."Author's sources:
Eventually, he refused to attend any religious services, telling his Mother, "I can take my Bible, and go into the woods, and learn more in two hours, than you can learn at meeting in two years, if you should go all the time."Author's sources:
During this time, Smith was also hired to use seer stones in attempts to divine hidden treasure. Although Smith encountered local opposition as a result of this "glass looking" and was brought to trial for it in 1826,Author's sources:
no one but Smith recorded opposition to his putative announcement of the First Vision.Author's sources:
In June 1830, Smith provided the first clear record of a significant personal religious experience prior to the visit of the angel Moroni.Author's sources:
At that time, Smith and his associate Oliver Cowdery were establishing the Church of Christ, the first Latter Day Saint church. In the Articles and Covenants of the Church of Christ, Smith recounted his early history, notingFor, after that it truly was manifested unto [Smith] that he had received remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world, but after truly repenting, God visited him by an holy angel...and gave unto him power, by the means which was before prepared that he should translate a book."Author's sources:
For, after that it truly was manifested unto the first elder that he had received remission of his sins, he was entangled again in the vanities of the world, but after truly repenting, God visited him by an holy angel, whose countenance was as lightning, and whose garments were pure and white above all whiteness, and gave unto him commandments which inspired him from on high, and gave unto him power, by the means which was before prepared that he should translate a book; (emphasis added)
No further explanation of this "manifestation" is provided. Although the reference was later linked to the First Vision,Author's sources:
its original hearers could have understood the manifestation as simply another of many revival experiences in which the subject testified that his sins had been forgiven.Author's sources:
However, when in October 1830 the author Peter Bauder interviewed Smith for a religious book he was writing, he said Smith was unable to recount a "Christian experience."Author's sources:
The earliest extant account of the First Vision was handwritten by Joseph Smith in 1832, but it was not published until 1965.Author's sources:
[T]he Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in <the> attitude of calling upon the Lord <in the 16th year of my age> a pillar of fire light above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the <Lord> opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph <my son> thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy <way> walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life <behold> the world lieth in sin and at this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned aside from the gospel and keep not <my> commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them according to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which <hath> been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud <clothed> in the glory of my Father . . . ."Author's sources:
the Lord heard my cry in the wilderness and while in the attitude of calling upon the Lord in the 16th year of my age a piller offirelight above the brightness of the sun at noon day come down from above and rested upon me and I was filled with the spirit of god and the Lord opened the heavens upon me and I saw the Lord and he spake unto me saying Joseph my son thy sins are forgiven thee. go thy way walk in my statutes and keep my commandments behold I am the Lord of glory I was crucifyed for the world that all those who believe on my name may have Eternal life behold the world lieth in Sinandat this time and none doeth good no not one they have turned asside from the gospel and keep not my commandments they draw near to me with their lips while their hearts are far from me and mine anger is kindling against the inhabitants of the earth to visit them acording to th[e]ir ungodliness and to bring to pass that which hath been spoken by the mouth of the prophets and Ap[o]stles behold and lo I come quickly as it [is] written of me in the cloud clothed in the glory of my Father...
Unlike Smith's later accounts of the vision, the 1832 account emphasizes personal forgiveness and mentions neither an appearance of God the Father nor the phrase "This is my beloved Son, hear him." In the 1832 account, Smith also stated that before he experienced the First Vision, his own searching of the Scriptures had led him to the conclusion that mankind had "apostatized from the true and living faith and there was no society or denomination that built upon the Gospel of Jesus Christ as recorded in the new testament."Author's sources:
In several issues of the LDS periodical Messenger and Advocate (1834–35),Author's sources:
Oliver Cowdery wrote an early biography of Joseph Smith, Jr. In one issue, Cowdery explained that Smith was confused by the different religions and local revivals during his "15th year" (1820), leading him to wonder which church was true. In the next issue of the biography, Cowdery explained that reference to Smith's "15th year" was a typographical error, and that actually the revivals and religious confusion took place in Smith's "17th year."Author's sources:
Therefore, according to Cowdery, the religious confusion led Smith to pray in his bedroom, late on the night of September 23, 1823, after the others had gone to sleep, to know which of the competing denominations was correct and whether "a Supreme being did exist." In response, an angel appeared and granted him forgiveness of his sins. The remainder of the story roughly parallels Smith's later description of a visit by an angel in 1823 who told him about the Golden Plates. Thus, Cowdery's account, containing a single vision, differs from Smith's 1832 account, which contains two separate visions, one in 1821 prompted by religious confusion (the First Vision) and a separate one regarding the plates on September 22, 1822. Cowdery's account also differs from Smith's 1842 account, which includes a First Vision in 1820 and a second vision on September 22, 1823.Author's sources:
On November 9, 1835, Smith dictated an account of the First Vision in his diary after telling it to a strangerAuthor's sources:
a personage appeard in the midst of this pillar of flame which was spread all around, and yet nothing consumed, another personage soon appeard like unto the first, he said unto me thy sins are forgiven thee, he testified unto me that Jesus Christ is the Son of God; and I saw many angels in this vision I was about 14 years old when I received this first communication;
—Diary of Joseph Smith, Jr. (1835-1836)
who had visited his home earlier that day.Author's sources:
Smith said that when perplexed about religions matters, he had gone to a grove to prayAuthor's sources:
but that his tongue seemed swollen in his mouth and that he had been interrupted twice by the sound of someone walking behind him.Author's sources:
Finally, as he prayed, he said his tongue was loosed, and he saw a pillar of fire in which an unidentified "personage" appeared.Author's sources:
Then another unidentified personage told Smith his sins were forgiven and "testified unto [Smith] that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."Author's sources:
An interlineation in the text notes, "and I saw many angels in this vision."Author's sources:
Smith said this vision occurred when he was 14 years old and that when he was 17, he "saw another vision of angels in the night season after I had retired to bed" (referring to the later visit of the angel Moroni who showed him the location of the golden plates).Author's sources:
*Smith identified none of these personages or angels with "the Lord" as he had in 1832.Author's sources:
A few days later, on 14 November 1835, Smith told the story to another visitor, Erastus Holmes.Author's sources:
In his journal, Smith said that he had recited his life story "up to the time I received the first visitation of angels, which was when I was about fourteen years old."Author's sources:
In 1838, Joseph Smith began dictating the early history of what later became known as the Latter Day Saint movement.Author's sources:
This history included a new account of the First Vision, later published in three issues of the Times and Seasons journal.Author's sources:
This version was later incorporated into the Pearl of Great Price, which was canonized by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1880. Thus, it is often called the "canonized version" of the first vision story.Author's sources:
This canonized version differs from the 1840 version because the canonized version includes the proclamation "This is my beloved son, hear him" from one of the personages, whereas the 1840 version does not. The canonized version says that in the spring of 1820, during a period of "confusion and strife among the different denominations" following an "unusual excitement on the subject of religion", he had debated which of the various Christian groups he should join. While in turmoil, he read from the Bible: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him."Author's sources:
- James 1: 5; Joseph Smith's History, an account of his First Vision.
One morning, deeply impressed by this scripture, the fourteen-year-old Smith went to a grove of trees behind the family farm, knelt, and began his first vocal prayer. Almost immediately he was confronted by an evil power that prevented speech. A darkness gathered around him, and Smith believed that he would be destroyed. He continued the prayer silently, asking for God's assistance though still resigned to destruction. At this moment a light brighter than the sun descended towards him, and he was delivered from the evil power.Author's sources:
In the light, Smith "saw two personages standing in the air", identified as God the Father and Jesus Christ. One pointed to the other and said "This is My Beloved Son, hear Him." Smith asked which religious sect he should join and was told to join none of them because all existing religions had corrupted the teachings of Jesus Christ.Author's sources:
I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved gSon. Hear Him!
In September 1840, Orson Pratt published a version of the First Vision in England.Author's sources:
This version states that after Smith saw the light, "his mind was caught away, from the natural objects with which he was surrounded; and he was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."Author's sources:
Pratt's account referred to "two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in their features or likeness",Author's sources:
but this account does not include the proclamation by one of the personages "This is my beloved son, hear him", which is found in the canonized version.Author's sources:
In 1842, two years before his assassination, Joseph Smith, Jr. wrote to John Wentworth, editor of the Chicago Democrat, outlining the basic beliefs of the Latter Day Saint movement and including an account of the First Vision.Author's sources:
Smith said that he had been "about fourteen years of age" when he had received the First VisionAuthor's sources:
Like the Orson Pratt account, Smith's Wentworth letter said that his "mind was taken away from the objects with which I was surrounded, and I was enwrapped in a heavenly vision."Author's sources:
and had seen "two glorious personages who exactly resembled each other in features, and likeness, surrounded with a brilliant light which eclipsed the sun at noon-day."Author's sources:
Smith said he was told that no religious denomination "was acknowledged of God as his church and kingdom" and that he was "expressly commanded to 'go not after them.'"Author's sources:
When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other—This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him!
Late in his life, Smith's brother, William, gave two accounts of the First Vision, dating it to 1823,Author's sources:
when William was twelve years old. William said the religious excitement in Palmyra had occurred in 1822-23 (rather than the actual date of 1824-25),Author's sources:
that it was stimulated by the preaching of a Methodist, the Rev. George Lane, a "great revival preacher," and that his mother and some of his siblings had then joined the Presbyterian church.Author's sources:
William Smith said he based his account on what Joseph had told William and the rest of his family the day after the First Vision:Author's sources:
[A] light appeared in the heavens, and descended until it rested upon the trees where he was. It appeared like fire. But to his great astonishment, did not burn the trees. An angel then appeared to him and conversed with him upon many things. He told him that none of the sects were right; but that if he was faithful in keeping the commandments he should receive, the true way should be made known to him; that his sins were forgiven, etc.Author's sources:
In an 1884 account, William also stated that when Joseph first saw the light above the trees in the grove, he fell unconscious for an undetermined amount of time, after which he awoke and heard "the personage whom he saw" speak to him.Author's sources:
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