First Of A Series Of Tough Issues Tackled By Lds.org

[Scott Lloyd]

I wouldn't expect it to be an problem for you (or many of the other believing members on this board), you are well aware of the issues and still ratain a strong testimony.  For many others this is a very real problem, one in which they are never able to fully reconcile.

It's not a matter of my retaining a strong testimony in spite of this issue. It's that I don't see this as posing much of a challenge, if any, to a belief in the Restoration.

 

To put it another way, there may be issues regarding Mormonism for which I don't currently have fully satisfactory answers and that I have elected to "put on the shelf," trusting that the understanding will come one day. This, for me, is not one of those issues. I am fully satisfied by answers such as that given lately on lds.org.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[thesometimesaint]

I wouldn't expect it to be an problem for you (or many of the other believing members on this board), you are well aware of the issues and still ratain a strong testimony.  For many others this is a very real problem, one in which they are never able to fully reconcile.

 

Once a reasonable explanation is given you can either accept or reject that explanation. The explanation was still given.

[Scott Lloyd]

I think it's weird that it's a problem that 'they are never able to fully reconcile'.

 

1-In real world situations (like interrogations), having a story change slightly (rather than be exactly the same at every telling) is a sign that someone is telling the truth.  As long as the stories don't contradict each other, of course. 

 

Some will claim -- falsely -- that Joseph's accounts of the First Vision contradict each other. They don't, of course.

 

When someone makes this claim, it's a possible indication to me that he/she hasn't really considered or studied the matter very carefully.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[Calm]

 We never hear about such people, because, once their doubts are assuaged, they don't ever bring the matter up again. By and large, the only ones we ever hear from are the malcontents for whom it seems no explanation, no matter how reasonable, is satisfactory.

You are right that those for whom it is no longer a problem, it is not generally mentioned...as it should be since there is no need, but then if one does a internet study, it looks like it is a big issue due to there being many more sites with "First Vision Problems" than "First Vision No Problem".  

 

It is very nice when we get thank yous for our work on FairMormon, so much so that we collect many of them so that people can see that such explanations can be helpful and it is worth it to many to do that additional study in order to resolve the issue rather than just assuming there is no solution because where one found it didn't give one:

 

http://www.fairmormon.org/about-fairmormon/testimonials

 

the malcontents for whom it seems no explanation, no matter how reasonable, is satisfactory

 

It doesn't help when people are out there intentionally misrepresenting what was said.

[jkwilliams]

My biggest issue with the First Vision isn't the discrepancies (which are difficult to reconcile, IMO) but rather that no one seems to remember it. Joseph says he told his family and a minister about it, after which he (Joseph) was persecuted. But everyone in the family and the surrounding community has the visit of Moroni as the first vision; no one mentions the visit of the Father and Son or any persecution 3 years earlier. I don't know how to reconcile that, either.

[Scott Lloyd]

You are right that those for whom it is no longer a problem, it is not generally mentioned...as it should be since there is no need, but then if one does a internet study, it looks like it is a big issue due to there being many more sites with "First Vision Problems" than "First Vision No Problem".  

 

It is very nice when we get thank yous for our work on FairMormon, so much so that we collect many of them so that people can see that such explanations can be helpful and it is worth it to many to do that additional study in order to resolve the issue rather than just assuming there is no solution because where one found it didn't give one:

 

http://www.fairmormon.org/about-fairmormon/testimonials

 

It doesn't help when people are out there intentionally misrepresenting what was said.

I'm glad that FairMormon  has this testimonials page. I would like to see it made more prominent, as there are critics, such as Dehlin, who are constantly claiming that apologists for the Church do more  harm than good and that they "drive people away."

[Blah]

My biggest issue with the First Vision isn't the discrepancies (which are difficult to reconcile, IMO) but rather that no one seems to remember it. Joseph says he told his family and a minister about it, after which he (Joseph) was persecuted. But everyone in the family and the surrounding community has the visit of Moroni as the first vision; no one mentions the visit of the Father and Son or any persecution 3 years earlier. I don't know how to reconcile that, either.

 

CFR that Joseph stated that he told his family about the 1820 vision any time before the 1823 visitation.

[Scott Lloyd]

My biggest issue with the First Vision isn't the discrepancies (which are difficult to reconcile, IMO) but rather that no one seems to remember it. Joseph says he told his family and a minister about it, after which he (Joseph) was persecuted. But everyone in the family and the surrounding community has the visit of Moroni as the first vision; no one mentions the visit of the Father and Son or any persecution 3 years earlier. I don't know how to reconcile that, either.

I commend to you Ronald O. Barney's presentation at the most recent FairMormon Conference held in August.

 

Barney makes the argument that Joseph was, by nature, very guarded about discussing sacred matters in public and, especially after being rebuffed by the minister and insulted and persecuted by the public, would not be apt to make very frequent public declarations about something so sublime as a sacred theophany.

 

Here is my Church News report of Barney's presentation, but I'm guessing you can find a full transcript of it on the FairMormon site.

 

Edited to add:

 

Here is the transcript on the FairMormon site.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[jkwilliams]

CFR that Joseph stated that he told his family about the 1820 vision any time before the 1823 visitation.

 

You're right, there's nothing that says he directly told his family. That said, are you suggesting that he told a minister about it, resulting in persecution from professors of religion, and yet his family somehow never heard why he was being persecuted? I may have misspoken, but I don't see that it changes my concern.

Edited November 21, 2013 by jkwilliams

[jkwilliams]

I commend to you Ronald O. Barney's presentation at the most recent FairMormon Conference held in August.

 

Barney makes the argument that Joseph was, by nature, very guarded about discussing sacred matters in public and, especially after being rebuffed by the minister and insulted and persecuted by the public, would not be apt to make very frequent public declarations about something so sublime as a sacred theophany.

 

Here is my Church News report of Barney's presentation, but I'm guessing you can find a full transcript of it on the FairMormon site.

 

Again, it doesn't make sense that something that caused public persecution was somehow unknown to his family.

[JustaSeeker]

I love that the church is discussing these issues on their website now.  But I don't know that differing accounts of the First Vision would equal a 'tough' issue.  It's a popular issue with critics for sure, but overall this issue seems fairly tame.

 

Most bible adherents don't even bat an eye when this problem occurs in the bible, showing just how much of a non-issue most of Christianity really believes it to be.

 

Bluebell, 

 

I am not LDS but have been studying with missionaries for quite some time. In my opinion, the specific topic of multiple first vision accounts is far overdue and is a tough topic. I have tried to discuss this issue (which is tough for me, at least) with two different sets of missionaries, and not one of the four had any idea what I was talking about. In fact, it was suggested several times that my misinformation likely came from hostile / anti sources. From my perspective as an investigator, this was highly problematic and raised a considerable number of red flags. It was not a positive experience to have both sets of missionaries be skeptical of my assertion that multiple accounts exist - namely, they viewed me with suspicion, and I viewed them as being ignorant; then I wondered whether this was a meat issue rather than milk, or a lying for the Lord issue, and it simply became a stumbling block rather than a discussion. I welcome your church's decision to address the topic, because while it may not be a tough issue for in-church individuals, perhaps they recognize reasons why it may be one for those looking in from the outside. 

[Tacenda]

Bluebell, 

 

I am not LDS but have been studying with missionaries for quite some time. In my opinion, the specific topic of multiple first vision accounts is far overdue and is a tough topic. I have tried to discuss this issue (which is tough for me, at least) with two different sets of missionaries, and not one of the four had any idea what I was talking about. In fact, it was suggested several times that my misinformation likely came from hostile / anti sources. From my perspective as an investigator, this was highly problematic and raised a considerable number of red flags. It was not a positive experience to have both sets of missionaries be skeptical of my assertion that multiple accounts exist - namely, they viewed me with suspicion, and I viewed them as being ignorant; then I wondered whether this was a meat issue rather than milk, or a lying for the Lord issue, and it simply became a stumbling block rather than a discussion. I welcome your church's decision to address the topic, because while it may not be a tough issue for in-church individuals, perhaps they recognize reasons why it may be one for those looking in from the outside. 

Missionary training is sorely lacking.

[Scott Lloyd]

Again, it doesn't make sense that something that caused public persecution was somehow unknown to his family.

If Joseph had what Barney called this "sacred sensibility" about divine matters, It is perfectly reasonable to believe that he might elect to be very guarded about disclosing it -- even to family members -- while at the same time, choosing to discuss it with a minister, one whom he regarded as a man of God and one whom Joseph, in his teenage naivete, had reason to believe would be, at the very least, respectful.

 

Did Joseph tell others in addition to the minister, or was the news spread because of the minister's own rumor-mongering?

 

By the way, I have added a link in my post above to the transcript of Barney's presentation. I invite you to read and consider it.

Edited November 21, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[jkwilliams]

If Joseph had what Barney called this "sacred sensibility" about divine matters, It is perfectly reasonable to believe that he might elect to be very guarded about disclosing it -- even to family members -- while at the same time, choosing to discuss it with a minister, one whom he regarded as a man of God and one whom Joseph, in his teenage naivete, had reason to believe would be, at the very least, respectful.

 

Did Joseph tell others in addition to the minister, or was the news spread because of the minister's own rumor-mongering?

 

Either way, news spread enough to incite persecution. I can't figure out how something that went that public was not known to the family. At the very least, they too were members of the public. Even if, somehow, they had not heard anything about the vision, surely they would have known about the persecution. And yet there's nothing from the family, nothing from the neighbors, and nothing from the persecutors about either the vision or any persecution. I just find that very strange.

[David T]

Do you have information that this is the "first of a series", or just wishful thinking?

 

Many of the sensitive issues previously listed on the Gospel Topics have been removed, likely to have new versions like this up. "First Vision Accounts" was missing in action for a little while on the list, even though it previously had a shorter and less indepth article. Other Missing in Action topics that used to be there include, significantly,  "Priesthood Ordination (before 1978)"

[Scott Lloyd]

Either way, news spread enough to incite persecution. I can't figure out how something that went that public was not known to the family. At the very least, they too were members of the public. Even if, somehow, they had not heard anything about the vision, surely they would have known about the persecution. And yet there's nothing from the family, nothing from the neighbors, and nothing from the persecutors about either the vision or any persecution. I just find that very strange.

If Joseph chose not to disclose much about it beyond what he said to the minister, it's possible that what the public got was a very garbled version, one that perhaps included angelic visitation but did not mention the actual visit from God and Christ.

 

Then too, after the family learned about it, from whatever source, they might have been enjoined by Joseph to be very circumspect about discussing or writing about it. This would fit with Joseph's "sacred sensibility" that Barney identified.

 

This sensibility would also help to explain why Joseph would be reluctant to go into explicit or thorough detail on the occasions when he did talk about the vision.

 

Have you read Barney's talk yet?

Edited November 21, 2013 by Scott Lloyd

[BCSpace]

But everyone in the family and the surrounding community has the visit of Moroni as the first vision; no one mentions the visit of the Father and Son or any persecution 3 years earlier. I don't know how to reconcile that, either.

 

Joseph's mother recalled:

 

From this time [the First Vision] until the twenty-first of September, 1823 [when he saw the angel Moroni] Joseph continued, as usual, to labour with his father, and nothing during this interval occurred of very great importance—though he suffered, as one would naturally suppose, every kind of opposition and persecution from the different orders of religionists.  Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, S.W. Richards, 1853), 78

[jkwilliams]

Joseph's mother recalled:

 

From this time [the First Vision] until the twenty-first of September, 1823 [when he saw the angel Moroni] Joseph continued, as usual, to labour with his father, and nothing during this interval occurred of very great importance—though he suffered, as one would naturally suppose, every kind of opposition and persecution from the different orders of religionists.  Lucy Mack Smith, Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations (Liverpool, S.W. Richards, 1853), 78

 

That was not in the original version of Lucy's history but in the Coray/Pratt version later.

[bluebell]

Bluebell, 

 

I am not LDS but have been studying with missionaries for quite some time. In my opinion, the specific topic of multiple first vision accounts is far overdue and is a tough topic. I have tried to discuss this issue (which is tough for me, at least) with two different sets of missionaries, and not one of the four had any idea what I was talking about. In fact, it was suggested several times that my misinformation likely came from hostile / anti sources. From my perspective as an investigator, this was highly problematic and raised a considerable number of red flags. It was not a positive experience to have both sets of missionaries be skeptical of my assertion that multiple accounts exist - namely, they viewed me with suspicion, and I viewed them as being ignorant; then I wondered whether this was a meat issue rather than milk, or a lying for the Lord issue, and it simply became a stumbling block rather than a discussion. I welcome your church's decision to address the topic, because while it may not be a tough issue for in-church individuals, perhaps they recognize reasons why it may be one for those looking in from the outside. 

 

As I said on the first page of this thread, I welcome it as well.  Very much so.

 

I served a mission myself, and I can certainly understand your frustration.  Missionaries are not trained in apologetics and many have not studied enough to know that these issues exist (as has been mentioned, the church's own magazine has covered this long before now, and lds.org also mentioned more than one version of the first vision existing long before now as well).  And missionaries really do get hit with all sorts of anti-Mormon stuff and accusations.  Kind of makes for a perfect storm of the type that you experienced sometimes.

 

And when I say that I don't see it as a tough issue, I am speaking more to the fact that explanations for it exist and are reasonable (even if someone doesn't agree with them, which can certainly happen, they are still reasonable).  I didn't mean to imply that it shouldn't or wouldn't logically cause questions and concerns for those first learning about it. 

 

Also, I meant that I don't understand why it should be a tough issue for people who already believe the bible and don't find it tough in that source.

 

[Buckeye]

Some will claim -- falsely -- that Joseph's accounts of the First Vision contradict each other. They don't, of course.

 

When someone makes this claim, it's a possible indication to me that he/she hasn't really considered or studied the matter very carefully.

 

Scott, are you sure there are absolutely no contradictions between the accounts, even small ones?  The 1832 account says that the vision happened "in the 16th year of my age."  The 1838 (official) account says it happened "in my fifteenth year."  Now, for me, being off by one year doesn't matter a bit.  My memory certainly isn't perfect.  I would not hold Joseph to a higher standard.  Moreover, historians believe that the age specified in the 1832 account was added by Fredrick G. Williams.  So it is quite possible that Joseph did not misremember.  But it is not correct to say there are no contradictions between the accounts.  There is at least one small contradiction between the 1832 and 1838 accounts as to Joseph's age, however immaterial that contradiction may be.

 

Instead of (unnecessarily) creating a standard of perfect alignment between the accounts, I think it best to acknowledge that there may be some contradictions and deal with them.  To that end, I think the statement in the official LDS article in the OP is a better way to phrase it - namely, "The various accounts of the First Vision tell a consistent story, though naturally they differ in emphasis and detail," though even that statement can be read to wrongly imply that there are no contradictions. 

[omni]

My biggest issue with the First Vision isn't the discrepancies (which are difficult to reconcile, IMO) but rather that no one seems to remember it. Joseph says he told his family and a minister about it, after which he (Joseph) was persecuted. But everyone in the family and the surrounding community has the visit of Moroni as the first vision; no one mentions the visit of the Father and Son or any persecution 3 years earlier. I don't know how to reconcile that, either.

 

Not only that, but it wasn't even mentioned in the 1833 edition of the Book of Commandments, the 1835 edition of D&C, nor in the 1835 history of the church.  Most members were completely unaware of it until years later when it was published in The Times and Seasons.

 

 

Our entire case as members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints rests on the validity of this glorious First Vision. It was the parting of the curtain to open this, the dispensation of the fullness of times. Nothing on which we base our doctrine, nothing we teach, nothing we live by is of greater importance than this initial declaration. I submit that if Joseph Smith talked with God the Father and His Beloved Son, then all else of which he spoke is true. This is the hinge on which turns the gate that leads to the path of salvation and eternal life.

-President Gordarn B Hinckley

 

 

Yet it wasn't important enough for the general membership to know or to include in some of our most sacred writings.

Edited November 21, 2013 by omni

[Calm]

I'm glad that FairMormon  has this testimonials page. I would like to see it made more prominent, as there are critics, such as Dehlin, who are constantly claiming that apologists for the Church do more  harm than good and that they "drive people away."

It unfortunately would be difficult to make it more prominent as the tab limit is 4 and it is already maxed out so it needs to be a subcategory and not a category by itself.

[Rivers]

The article's explanation for only one personage in the 1832 account is one that I have never heard before. Joseph uses the term "The Lord" to refer to both the Father and the Son? Does anyone find that interpretation plausible?

[Calm]

I have tried to discuss this issue (which is tough for me, at least) with two different sets of missionaries, and not one of the four had any idea what I was talking about. In fact, it was suggested several times that my misinformation likely came from hostile / anti sources. From my perspective as an investigator, this was highly problematic and raised a considerable number of red flags.

Where did you find out about the different versions out of curiosity?  I am thinking probably not lds.org even though it has articles about them because you could have just pointed the missionaries to them, which would have reassured them.

Edited November 21, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

Missionary training is sorely lacking.

Depends on what they are being trained for...apologetics, yes, that is lacking.