Was Joseph Smith Persecuted For Sharing The First Vision

[Flyonthewall]

That was my first thought on reading his statement.

I think the persecution was probably more in the form of throwing rocks and slander at the young boy prophet. We need to remember that he was just a teen when he had his first visions and such action would have been very serious to him, especially when brought up in a loving and close family.

This is what I was thinking, and none of this type of "persecution" would be newspaper worthy.

[Ariarates]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

[ELF1024]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

I'm not sure it requires coordination and planning... Just a mutual "enemy" to hate...

[thesometimesaint]

Ariarates:

As my best friend says: Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean that they're not out to get you.

[Rob Bowman]

Mola,

You wrote:

This seems like trying to prove a negative. JS claims that X happens. We only have his word. You come in and try to say that X did not happen. Prove that something did not happen.

Well, if we can agree that we only have his word, that will be progress, at least.

Looking at the question historically, and assuming neither that it must have happened or that it could not possibly have happened, I find a number of considerations combine cumulatively to support the conclusion that it probably didn't happen. These include the following facts:

• We have only Joseph's word not only for the vision itself but for the alleged responses from the leaders of all the denominations to Joseph's supposedly telling others about the vision. This isn't a mere argument from silence; we have lots of statements from non-Mormons and Mormons alike about what people thought about Joseph in the 1820s and 1830s, and in all of those statements there is no reference to the vision or to Joseph being persecuted prior to his obtaining the gold plates.
• Joseph spoke often about the origins of his calling as a prophet after 1827 and delivered numerous revelations and sermons yet never said or wrote anything about the vision until 1832, despite its obvious importance (and even then he only wrote about it in a document that was promptly shelved). Instead, prior to 1832, he always started the story with the angel revealing the gold plates to him. (For example, Joseph produced over eighty revelations found in D&C before he wrote the 1832 account.)
• Once Joseph started telling a story about the vision, it changed in some fundamental ways (he had already concluded that all the churches were wrong vs. he had not concluded this before the vision; he saw the Lord Jesus vs. he saw two Personages, the Father and the Son). Since Joseph personally told both versions and these differences are fundamental, it is fallacious to compare these different versions to the Gospel accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances (which were to different persons and written by different authors) or the one minor and unimportant apparent discrepancy between two accounts of Paul's conversion in Acts.
• The change in Joseph's story concerning the divine appearance parallels a change in Joseph's theology. When he wrote the 1832 account, he was still a monotheist and held to the traditional Christian view that the Father did not manifest himself in visible form. When he wrote the 1838 account, his theology had changed to the idea that the Father and the Son were separate deities, either or both of whom might appear in visible form. The change in the story from seeing one divine being to seeing two divine beings therefore appears to be the result of a changing theology.
• Joseph's first vision story, especially in its original 1832 form, is not the unprecedented event that the LDS Church claims, but was a fairly typical vision story similar to many other stories being told by Methodists and members of some other Protestant denominations in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. It is therefore easily explicable as a story imitative of other such stories of the same genre from that period.

Notice that I have not even appealed to facts in dispute, such as whether there was a revival in Palmyra in 1819-1820 or whether Joseph Smith participated in Methodist activities in the 1820s.

I have theological reasons for rejecting the First Vision story, but even if I didn't, the historical case against it is rather strong.

[Deborah]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

But it is absolutely true the persecution got worse. The scholars on The Joseph Smith papers have pointed out how many times Joseph was in court on trumped up charges. Much of the persecution was in the form of lawsuit after lawsuit. Look at the times he was arrested or had to go into hiding. Persecution may have been in rock-throwing and taunts early on but it certainly escalated as the church grew.

[Flyonthewall]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

I believe it did get worse over time, and by the time he wrote that, all the sects were united against him, and continued to be so until his death.

The persecution resulting from the first vision was most likely small, consisting of name calling, heckling and picking him last for team sports.

But when the Golden plates entered the picture, that just added fuel to the fire and things escalated from there.

I'm not sure there is reason to beleive that Joseph means that the entirety of the persecutions happened as a result of the First Vision, but it all began from it.

[LeSellers]

• Joseph spoke often about the origins of his calling as a prophet after 1827 and delivered numerous revelations and sermons yet never said or wrote anything about the vision until 1832, despite its obvious importance (and even then he only wrote about it in a document that was promptly shelved). Instead, prior to 1832, he always started the story with the angel revealing the gold plates to him. (For example, Joseph produced over eighty revelations found in D&C before he wrote the 1832 account.)

Your “document that was promptly shelved” is a key to understanding this, a key many have simply ignored. This whole thing ties back to your earlier topic about what is sacred and how we should treat it.

First, however, I'll start by saying that we know very little about what happened in the grove that Easter morning in 1820. The infinitesimal amount of information in Joseph Smith—History regarding the communication delivered by Jesus Christ to His newly appointed prophet is almost as telling for what it does not say as for what it does. It is more than possible, and probably likely that Christ commanded Joseph not to reveal the majority (or even any) of that content at the time. Joseph may have slipped, or thought (like some who dwell on the specific covenants in the Temple) that he could divulge the fact of the Vision (without speaking of the contents) without breaking that commandment. The good reverend (Lane?) promptly illustrated why he would have received such a commandment.

Second, and this is even more to my point, this event was sacred. Just as we Saints do not routinely disclose the content and structure of many of our most sacred and personal experiences to the scorn and mockery of the world at large, it may well have been that (and especially following the reaction of Lane) Joseph decided that it was wholly inappropriate to disclose this most sacred event and expose it to that same mockery and ridicule. To have done so would have been to treat it with disrespect, something Joseph had no inclination to do until and unless the Lord revoked the original commandment or commanded him to do it in 1832..

Lehi

Edited June 3, 2011 by LeSellers

[Vance]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

Yup, they were all united in persecuting JS, but that doesn't require a coordinated effort. It only requires that they were all doing it.

[ELF1024]

Yup, they were all united in persecuting JS, but that doesn't require a coordinated effort. It only requires that they were all doing it.

Evil at large does enough coordinating behind the scenes at is it... After all, when was the last time an Anti-Mormon had an original thought when it comes to the Church?

[Vance]

• [*]We have only Joseph's word not only for the vision itself but for the alleged responses from the leaders of all the denominations to Joseph's supposedly telling others about the vision.

Neglecting of course the second witness of the persecution that has been pointed out to you.

With omissions like this, I don't understand why anyone would take you serious.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

@ Vance, Deborah & Flyonthewall: vs. 22 of JS-H says all the sects united against Joseph and persecution got worse over time. My reasoning was that such a persecution requires some planning and coordination. But maybe Joseph just felt that everybody was against him. My teen at home thinks the same thing...

Evil only has one master, and he is already organized. The persecution began within weeks of his telling his Pastor (or should I say “A Pastor”) and has not stopped since. The fact that no can ever acknowledge such a minor issue as this is in the scheme of things it just more evidence to the fact that his report is an accurate one.

[Bill “Papa” Lee]

Neglecting of course the second witness of the persecution that has been pointed out to you.

With omissions like this, I don't understand why anyone would take you serious.

Again they all go too far, until they render their thoughts on the topic as irreverent and irrelevant.

[Rivers]

There is the story that Lucy tells in which someone attempted to shoot Joseph.

[Ariarates]

I'm not sure there is reason to believe that Joseph means that the entirety of the persecutions happened as a result of the First Vision, but it all began from it.

That's how I read vs. 21-22. Within a few days, he told a Methodist preacher and then ("soon") found out that his "telling the story" of the first vision "was the cause of great persecution". Maybe I'm reading too much into this but that would support Rob's point that there is no independent evidence of "first vision persecution" in the 1820s and early 1830s.

Does that mean there wasn't any? I'm not convinced of that either. After all, Joseph Smith did get murdered.

Edited June 3, 2011 by Ariarates

[Ariarates]

Yup, they were all united in persecuting JS, but that doesn't require a coordinated effort. It only requires that they were all doing it.

OK, I didn't get that. I thought uniting implied some sort of active involvement (non-native English speaker here).

[ELF1024]

OK, I didn't get that. I thought uniting implied some sort of active involvement (non-native English speaker here).

You can have people on the board united in despising another person's posts, but that doesn't mean that we are coordinating our responses to him. Just that we all share the same feelings towards that person's posts.

[Rob Bowman]

Lehi,

You wrote:

Your “document that was promptly shelved” is a key to understanding this, a key many have simply ignored.

Oddly, in the rest of your post you offer no explanation for how the 1832 document is being ignored or what it has to do with your argument. I agree that it is a key to the issue, but not in the way that you think, I'm guessing!

You wrote:

First, however, I'll start by saying that we know very little about what happened in the grove that Easter morning in 1820. The infinitesimal amount of information in Joseph Smith—History regarding the communication delivered by Jesus Christ to His newly appointed prophet is almost as telling for what it does not say as for what it does.

Hardly. What is important is what it does say and how what it says is undermined both by the facts that we have and Joseph's own earlier account.

You wrote:

It is more than possible, and probably likely that Christ commanded Joseph not to reveal the majority (or even any) of that content at the time. Joseph may have slipped, or thought (like some who dwell on the specific covenants in the Temple) that he could divulge the fact of the Vision (without speaking of the contents) without breaking that commandment.... it may well have been that (and especially following the reaction of Lane) Joseph decided that it was wholly inappropriate to disclose this most sacred event and expose it to that same mockery and ridicule.

This is not only speculative, it is contradicted by Joseph Smith himself. Nowhere in anything Joseph ever wrote does he even suggest or imply that he had been commanded not to reveal the vision. He does say that "many other things did he [Christ] say unto me, which I cannot write at this time" (JS-H 1:20). In fact, Joseph explicitly contradicts your scenario that he had "slipped" by telling a minister about his experience, from which he learned to keep the vision secret afterward. Joseph claims later in the same work, "I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision" (JS-H 1:27), referring to the First Vision. So Joseph himself claimed in 1838 that he had continued to tell people after his First Vision after the initial criticism that he received. If you will read all of verse 27, you will see that Joseph claims that he was persecuted throughout the period of 1820-1823 because of his affirmation of that vision: "I continued to pursue my common vocations in life until the twenty-first of September, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-three, all the time suffering severe persecution at the hands of all classes of men, both religious and irreligious, because I continued to affirm that I had seen a vision."

You wrote:

This whole thing ties back to your earlier topic about what is sacred and how we should treat it.... Second, and this is even more to my point, this event was sacred. Just as we Saints do not routinely disclose the content and structure of many of our most sacred and personal experiences to the scorn and mockery of the world at large, it may well have been that (and especially following the reaction of Lane) Joseph decided that it was wholly inappropriate to disclose this most sacred event and expose it to that same mockery and ridicule. To have done so would have been to treat it with disrespect, something Joseph had no inclination to do until and unless the Lord revoked the original commandment or commanded him to do it in 1832.

We have no evidence that the Lord had given him such a commandment in the first place, let alone that he had revoked that alleged commandment. This is all speculation. Furthermore, as shown above, Joseph flatly contradicts your theory in JS-H 1:27.

Your speculation confirms what I argued in that other thread, that Mormons often over-use the claim that something was kept secret because it was "sacred." The resurrection of Jesus Christ was a far more sacred event than the First Vision, even assuming the latter happened, but the apostles did not keep it a secret.

[Rob Bowman]

Ariarates,

You wrote:

OK, I didn't get that. I thought uniting implied some sort of active involvement (non-native English speaker here).

Your mastery of the English language is impressive, then. I would never have guessed.

[Rob Bowman]

Rivers,

You wrote:

There is the story that Lucy tells in which someone attempted to shoot Joseph.

I looked in Lucy's history but didn't find this in the same section that deals with the First Vision. Can you tell me where Lucy said this? Thanks.

[stemelbow]

The trial of 1826 was something I had instinctively thought was a result of persecution. I don't know why but it seems like such a shallow affair to me.

JS went to help search for treasure at the behest of Mr. Stowell. In 1825 a month or so after working for him, it was recorded that Joseph "prevailed" as I recall, upon Stowell to stop looking for the treasure. Somehow in 1826 JS was taken before a judge at the request of Stowell's relatives, suggesting that Joseph was some sort of fraud who tricked Mr. Stowell. But it appears Stowell spoke on JS' behalf. JS at 19 and then 20, what? was paid by Stowell for, in stowell and Joseph's mind it seems, working for him, but in the mind of others, it appears was paid for his aid in bringing in divine or magical help.

I don't know, the story doesn't seem to wash real well as told from the critic's side (that JS was trying to trick Stowell for his moneys or something). It makes it appear to be some form of persecution...I don't know if it bears a whole lot of credibility to the first Vision account on that basis, but it does appear persecution took place.

[stemelbow]

I meant to add, this was not far from the time that JS met Emma and their courtship and marriage took place. I seem to vaguely remember accounts of Emma's father disapproving of it all because of JS' claims (not necessarily the first vision part). Any ideas/comments there?

[Deborah]

I don't know how many of you have dealt with head lice, but nit picking after the lice are dead is very tedious. Of course that is where the term nit-picking comes from and this subject is a perfect example of that.

[Vance]

The trial of 1826 was something I had instinctively thought was a result of persecution. I don't know why but it seems like such a shallow affair to me.

JS went to help search for treasure at the behest of Mr. Stowell. In 1825 a month or so after working for him, it was recorded that Joseph "prevailed" as I recall, upon Stowell to stop looking for the treasure. Somehow in 1826 JS was taken before a judge at the request of Stowell's relatives, suggesting that Joseph was some sort of fraud who tricked Mr. Stowell. But it appears Stowell spoke on JS' behalf. JS at 19 and then 20, what? was paid by Stowell for, in stowell and Joseph's mind it seems, working for him, but in the mind of others, it appears was paid for his aid in bringing in divine or magical help.

I don't know, the story doesn't seem to wash real well as told from the critic's side (that JS was trying to trick Stowell for his moneys or something). It makes it appear to be some form of persecution...I don't know if it bears a whole lot of credibility to the first Vision account on that basis, but it does appear persecution took place.

Oh, this couldn't have been the result of persecution, because nobody "cared" that JS was a visionary man. And if they did care, they wouldn't have persecuted him for it, being good Christians and all. So nobody would have thought to claim that JS was a fraud visionary, right? Nah, nothing to see here. Move along.

[Commander]

If JS didn't tell many people about the vision then he wouldn't have been persecuted.